Free Soul Trade by Caitlin Kittredge Page B

to see him. And I want you to take off the magic blindfold—I’m through with cloak-and-dagger shite.”
    “I told you,” said the woman. “Patience. You’ll see Jack soon enough, and we’ll be inside momentarily.”
    “If you’ve done anything to hurt Jack…,” Pete started, but the woman cut her off with laughter.
    “ Hurt ? That’s the absolute last thing on my mind, trust me.” She leaned close enough so that Pete could feel her breath, smell the cloying orchid reek of her perfume. “Even if he is a degenerate demon follower with a black mark on his soul.” She drew back, and the perky false note was back in her voice. “That’s not my concern.”
    Pete felt the air change, dry and recycled against her face, and shewas marched down a long hall—approximately fifty-seven steps—before going through a door and being sat on a bed.
    “And here we are,” the woman said. “You’re free to come and go in the club, but know your geas is still active. It’ll lay you flat if you try and cross the threshold to the outside.” Her heels clacked, and Pete heard the moan of ancient hinges. “I am sorry about that,” the woman said,after a moment. “But it’s necessary. You must understand that we can’t fully trust you.”
    The door slammed, shaking the floor under Pete’s feet, and as she heard a latch click the hex cleared from her eyes. Pete screwed up her face in the wash of bright light from the chandelier above her head, before she fumbled at the switch to dim it.
    “Of course,” she grumbled as she checked out the room.“You toss me in the back of a car, threaten me, and on top of it force me to come to Manchester, and it’s me who has the problem with trusthworthiness.”
    The room wasn’t new or nearly as posh as she would have expected from the fancy motor and the woman’s outfit. Plaster cracked at all the edges of the windows and doors, and the floor was nearly black with old varnish and wear. The windows, leadedand wavy so she couldn’t see out, were painted shut. Pete heard an echo of a car horn from far below—too far to drop, even if she could have gotten the casement to open.
    Escape options rapidly dwindling, she forced herself to keep examining everything. Even if she wasn’t going to bolt straightaway, she might as well figure out as much as she could about the Prometheus Club. It always paid toknow exactly what sort of wankers you were dealing with, especially in the Black.
    She touched the door and didn’t sense any protection hexes. The door itself was hewn from heavy oak and iron, banded three times to keep out Fae. The door wasn’t locked, and the hinges screeched again as Pete pulled it open, using small and cautious movements as she stepped into the hall. She checked for cameras,and found nothing obvious, but she figured a group like the Prometheans wouldn’t need to nip out for a microphone and recorder if they wanted to listen in on her.
    Still painfully aware of the geas, Pete moved slowly down the hall, trying to act as if she were just going for a stroll. No hexes snatched at her, no curses bit into her flesh.
    The Prometheus Club wasn’t just devoid of spells, itwas devoid of magic, full stop. She’d rarely sensed a place that was such a dead space in the invisible tides of the Black. It felt like there was a tiny empty spot in her skull, setting up an echo and throb.
    This would all be right in the end, she told herself. Lied, was more like it, but she needed to stop herself from doing anything rash while the Prometheans could still hurt her or, worse,hurt Jack. This wasn’t the first time she’d been on the wrong side of magic, with just her wits and whatever she happened to have in her pockets.
    She kept going, walking through hallway after hallway done in the same monastic dark wood and plaster. The Prometheus Club was kitted out with flourescent lights and ugly, dank carpeting, but otherwise was very much as it must have been when the magestook up