“What?”
“Do you believe in hell?” Stephen said abruptly.
“No, not really. Should I?”
Stephen shrugged. “I don’t believe in demons and pitchforks. But I think, if you had to define hell, you could take a good man and deny him the rites he believed in, and condemn his soul to a slow process of madness and vengeance and corruption until it was nothing but a mass of rage and hate and seething evil that his true self would have loathed. I think that would be hell.” He took a few more steps, accompanied by Crane’s appalled silence. “I don’t know, of course. Never met the man. Maybe he went so bad because he was flawed. Or, maybe what we encountered had no consciousness left from what he used to be. I hope it didn’t.”
Crane swallowed. “Do you think—there are prayers, rituals. If they were done, even without a body, would that help him now?”
“I’ve no idea,” Stephen said. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“No. I’ll see them done. For Xan Ji-yin, and Arabella Cryer, and poor bloody Monk. And Town, too. Do you think he meant to do it all, or was he made to?”
Stephen sighed. “Everyone can do evil. Some people can be forced to it, and some fight against it, and some don’t even need an invitation. I imagine Mr. Cryer made a choice initially; I don’t suppose he understood the consequences of that choice any more than Pa and Lo and Rackham did.”
They walked on through the hot streets, Crane felt better with each step, as his muscles moved and worked and loosened and the summer sun warmed his skin. He was also ravenously hungry, he realised, and had no doubt that Stephen was the same, but there was no point suggesting they stop to eat. His pockets were bare, and he was well aware of the glances of amazed revulsion they were garnering, as people veered away from the stench, then realised just how well dressed one of the stinking men was.
“Good God, I want to wash.”
“Wash. Eat.” Stephen glanced up at him. “And so on.”
That forced Crane to ask the question. “Stephen. The truth, please. Is that thing—could it be still in me?”
“What? No, of course not. If I thought it was, we wouldn’t be strolling home now.”
“Yes, but how can you be sure? What if it left something in me, and we fucked and it got at you—”
“First,” Stephen said firmly, “if it had got a grip on you, we’d all be dead. That thing, with your potential? It would have been a bloodbath. Second, I know it’s not in you because I was in you too. For which thank God, because if I hadn’t had your blood in my veins today, I wouldn’t have known what it was doing in time, or stood a chance of beating it. But I did, and I won, and it’s gone. Trust me.”
Crane nodded, assimilating that, feeling the fear fade. “So you fought it, fought over me, in my blood?”
“More or less. Lit the power up, called the magpies.”
“I know, I felt it, but…didn’t that make you vulnerable to it? If it had won, and you were in my blood—”
“Oh, well, that makes no difference,” Stephen said hastily. “If something of that malevolence had got hold of the Magpie Lord’s power it would have been a disaster of epic proportions, so preventing that was the important thing.”
“I beg to differ. Christ, Stephen. Come home with me, and this time, don’t leave.”
Crane’s mansion flat on the Strand had, among its other luxuries, a tiled bathroom, with water piped in. It was cold, since the boiler wasn’t on, but Stephen sat by the basin with a hand dangling in the water, which bubbled gently against his fingers till the steam rose.
Crane watched him. “God, you’re useful. Useful, beautiful, remarkable.”
“Washable,” Stephen said. “I want to throw this suit away, I think.”
“I’ve wanted you to do that for months.”
They stripped off their bloody, rat-stinking clothes, and Stephen grabbed the heap and dropped them outside the back kitchen door. Crane took the opportunity to start washing, soaping and sluicing himself, scrubbing his contaminated skin with a rough sponge.
“I’ll do your back,” said Stephen softly, behind him.
Crane hooked over a stool with his foot and sat. Stephen’s hands prickled and feathered over his back, slick with soap, sliding down his flanks, working round to caress his chest. His fingertips closed on Crane’s nipples, rolling and working them, and Crane moaned and leaned back against him. Stephen slid down, so his breath was hot on Crane’s back and a warm tongue flickered against the top of Crane’s arse and down between his buttocks, as Stephen’s hands roamed over his thighs, then very deliberately brushed the tip of his straining cock.
Crane groaned. “Dirty little witch.”