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"Here we are," the maître d' said, pulling out Pete's chair. She sank down, still shivering. Jack took her hand, a pretense of a romantic gesture, but in reality he squeezed her fingers and mouthed, "All right?"
"Donovan will be your waiter," said the maître d', and withdrew with another rotted-out smile.
"I'm fine," Pete said, low toned. "Just cold."
"I feel it too," Jack assured her. "It's wild out there. The hunting moon is whipping everything into frenzy. Just eat something and have a drink and a laugh. It'll settle once midnight passes."
Pete nodded to placate Jack, sipping her water. It wasn't just the impending moonrise, pushing against her skin as the ambient magic of the world gathered and sparked wild hunts and bonfire dancing. It was the slithering sensation, the closed-in mist that penetrated everything in Blackpool, closed off the famous neon lights and Spire, and wrapped the hotel in silence. She felt like something was stirring, just behind her eyes, ancient and terrible. Was this what she looked forward to if she left the Metropolitan Police and went with Jack to learn what he had to teach about magic? This horrible birthing, that struggled to surface?
"Drinks?"
Pete gasped and stared up—and up—into the face of possibly the most grotesque man she'd ever seen. The waiter had a brow that jutted like a Cornish cliff, ginger eyebrows parading across the bone ridge. Birdlike black eyes burned from sunken sockets and his jaw was knotty and misshapen, like he'd taken a bad hit during a rugby match. A scar ran from the left side of his mouth, disappearing in a serrated line down his neck. "Drinks?" he said again.
Jack shook his head once and put on his congenial, one-of-the-blokes face. Jack was good at instant masks of true feeling. "Whiskey here, mate. Straight with no nonsense, if you please."
The waiter, who had shoulders that a yeoman could have yoked a wagon to under his starched red shirt, grunted and wrote on a pad. His name tag read DONOVAN in the same overwrought, near-unreadable print repeated throughout the resort.
"And you, miss?" Donovan had a Geordie accent, and it came out more like "Anyewmess?"
"Red…" Pete swallowed, tracing the terrible scar down his neck and into his collar with her eyes. How had he survived such a slash? Maybe because he was built like a mountain troll… "Red wine," she managed.
"It were a gaff," Donovan said. He touched the scar with hands that could have turned Pete's head into a cracked egg. "Used to work the fishin' boats out on the North Sea. Me mate turned and caught me with the gaff one day, in the fog. Didn't see me comin'. I were real quiet-like, back then. Made no more noise than smoke." He gri
Pete, and Jack, who was making a valiant effort not to burst into laughter, if his snorts were any indication, were saved from a reply by a keening, gull-like shriek from the front of the restaurant. There was a commotion of linen and dropped silver, and a woman stumbled through the tables and launched herself at Donovan. "You stole my husband!"
Donovan batted the slim, sandy-haired girl away with the brutal grace of a big bloke who fights dirty. The woman rocked backward into an empty table, shattering wine goblets. "Bastard!" she screamed and grabbed Donovan again, beating at the waiter's oak-barrel chest with bloodied fists. The chatter of the restaurant stilled and even the couple snogging at the next table stopped for a moment to watch.
Donovan grabbed the woman by her torn sweater, soaked in mud and bog water like the rest of her, and held her at arm's length. "Gerroff, you!"
"You stole him!" the woman sobbed. "You sons of bitches stole my Sheldon…"
"Here," said Pete, standing up and inserting herself between Donovan and the woman. "What's happening?"
"She's mad as a hatter, is what's happening," Donovan growled. "Was ejected from hotel grounds just this morning for causing a fuss."
"They crawled up," moaned the woman. "Across the tow-path. They wrapped him in rot… oh God… they were writhing …" Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused and sweat stood in a line of beads across her cheeks. Pete sniffed. No alcohol on the woman's breath, and Pete felt the instinctive flinch that occurs when in the presence of someone quite mad.
"What's your name?" Pete asked her quietly. "Do you know it? Do you know where you live?"
"Henrietta," the woman shuddered. "Henrietta Phillips. From London."
"Oi," said Donovan. "Who're you to be askin' all these questions?"
"Pete Caldecott," said Pete. "Detective Inspector. Also of London."
"Here, now," said Donovan. "No police needed. This bird's just had a falling out with 'er medications."
"I saw it," Henrietta hissed, and there was terror in her creaking tones, the kind brought on by witnessing something a human was never meant to endure. A touch of cold prickled the back of Pete's neck. She listened when Henrietta said, "I saw it, coming out of the mud and the salt… I heard it speaking… and the smell—oh God, the smell… death and rotted fish and Shel let out this scream—"
Donovan pulled Henrietta close and slapped her cheek, leaving a handprint. "Shut yer gob! Gerry!" he yelled to the maître d'. "Call up security!"
"Oi!" Pete shouted in turn. She shoved Donovan back from Henrietta, laying a hand flat on his chest and holding him away. "I think you've done quite enough to help the situation."
"Touch me again and I'll lay a smack on you that'll have teeth out of yer head," Donovan growled.
In less time than it took to blow out a candle, Jack was on his feet. "Lay one hand on her, and you'll be fit for a closed coffin," he said. Jack didn't snarl, or posture, he just stood at Pete's shoulder, over her left side. The hairs on her neck crackled from the power gathering around him, dark blood-fueled magic that clung to Jack when he was angry.
Donovan's eyes flared; then he dropped his chin and backed up a step. Jack smiled in a ma
"Sheldon…" Henrietta moaned. "My Shel… we were just on our honeymoon, no time at all… he's gone into the mud now…"
"Is anyone not on their honeymoon in this place?" Pete muttered. Gerry the maître d' and two sufficiently burly members of the hotel staff, clad in satin vests and breeches, rushed up.
"I think maybe this does merit the local constabulary being called…" Pete started, but Gerry pointed a furious finger at her, palm raised. A small tri-pointed tattoo flared from his palm.
"Set down and eat your supper, miss. We are handling the matter and it is none of your concern!"
Pete was set to inform the maître d' that it was more her business than his when Jack yanked her back into her seat. "Don't," he said. "Just sit and eat, like the man said."
"The smell…" Henrietta moaned as they dragged her out, heels wrinkling the carpet. "Brackish oil… the police laughed, and you can as well, but you'll see, you'll all see it soon enough…" Her sobs and screams faded as the arched doors of the restaurant whispered shut. After a moment, the ca
"We better get a complimentary lunch or something for all of this ruckus," Jack said. "Puts off my digestion."
Pete tore a roll into tiny crumbs and watched the breathing dark mist beyond the terrace doors. "Jack, something's going on," she said, finally giving in to the whispers and the pressure on her mind.
"No bloody kidding," he muttered. "That shambling Gerry's been branded with the Tridach mark."