Armando gazed at him, expression full of hope. “He’s safe?”
“I promise,” Oliver told him. He turned back to Jack, pressing the coin into his chest. “You will pay for everything you’ve done.” Oliver followed as Jack took several steps back. “Take the coin.”
Jack tried to push Oliver’s hand away from his chest. “Why?”
“It’s your last chance at redemption,” said Oliver, rubbing a thumb over the coin resting in his palm. “It contains one final wish. Confess your sins. Toss them into the puddle and pray for forgiveness. It is the only way to avoid the hell that awaits you.”
Jack fell to his knees beside the puddle, whispering into the coin. Nobody else could hear, but Oliver could. “I wish to bring my brother back to rule by my side and banish these nuisances to the depths of Hell.”
He dropped the coin into the puddle, which shimmered silver. Oliver grinned to himself; Jack thought he had won, but soon he would learn just how much he had lost.
Barrow disappeared into the puddle, which began rippling immediately as he re-emerged. He was not alone this time. The God-Wolf rose with him.
Jack ran for his portal, and Oliver let him. As he already said, Jack wasn’t going anywhere. The man hit the window with a smack, falling backwards to land on his backside. The God-Wolf laughed. Everyone laughed, the sound echoing around the vast cave of Underhill, which lay directly beneath the Tower of London.
“Where ya going, Jack?” Barrow asked. “You made a wish, didn’t ya?”
“How did you do it?” Jack screamed. “It is supposed to answer to me.”
“The same way we opened it,” said Uriel who was staring longingly into a cabinet full of shoes. “You know, it is a shame for your brother’s sake that a fine shoe collection doesn’t make up for a complete lack of morals.” He let out a disappointed sigh. “Alas, his feet were considerably larger than mine.”
“Who are you people?” Jack asked.
“Angels,” Uriel replied. “Demons. And that there is, uh…” Uriel frowned at the wolf.
“The God-Wolf,” Barrow finished for him.
“That thing killed my brother,” Jack whispered, eyeing the wolf, which towered over Jack and his silly hat as it stood on its hind legs. “That was you, wolf. You’re the reason I’m here at all.”
The God-Wolf laughed. “Your brother died of fright, and who can blame him?”
“He climbed a tree to avoid his fate,” Barrow said. “We didn’t find him until the next morning, clinging to the branch like a baby clings to its mother’s leg.”
“Why was he taken?” Jack asked. “Those women…those ladies he was supposed to have kidnapped…It was a set up. They were killed by Margeurite and Delilah Solomon.”
“He killed many women, among them a lovely woman called Ada Vine,” said the God-Wolf. “She had already suffered an attack—”
“I begged her not to leave,” Armando muttered, drawing the attention of the wolf. “She wouldn’t listen to me. I tended to her wounds, but she left because… because she couldn’t make any money out of me.”
A look passed between Armando and the wolf, who nodded before turning back to Jack.
“You have a thing for prostitutes, is that it?” Jack sneered at the wolf.
“You are on shaky ground, Wish,” said the wolf.
“I have never laid a finger on a woman,” said Jack.
“And you have certainly lasted longer than your brother before pissing yourself,” said the wolf.
“I have heard all about you,” Jack went on. “Your motivation is murdered women. Why bother with me?”
“You think my motivation is women?”
“Is that not so?”
“What defence have you?”
“I tell you, I have never preyed upon a woman in my life.”
“Just boys, is that it?”
“Boys who were so inclined,” Jack said. “Boys who wanted—”
“To be murdered, Wish?” The God-Wolf growled. “Boys who wanted your filthy hands upon their necks until the light left their eyes? I should think not, Jack. I should think not.”
“They were just—”
“They were alive. Their lives were not yours to take.”
“My life is not yours to take,” Jack countered.
The wolf eyed him disdainfully. “Your defence lacks reason, integrity, and intellectual rigour.”
“I have money,” Jack muttered desperately.
“So do I,” said the wolf.
“And power.”
