Street Magic

"I cared for you so much it nearly drove me mad," Pete whispered. "So, you see, you can't leave. You simply can't."

Jack sighed. "Sometimes the thing you want won't be yours, no matter how hard you grasp onto it, Pete. This is the end. You'd do well to walk away before any hope of saving you has passed. Leave me to Treadwell, and go get on with your life."

You should heed the young man. Treadwell formed out of the crackling power in the air, a sure form of a man here, simply silver and ephemeral. He wore a frock coat and his long hair was combed back from a broad forehead. His eyes lit hungrily as he gazed upon Jack.

"I don't understand," Pete whispered. "You came to fight, Jack, and now you're giving up."

Mr. Winter is both a product and a victim of his fears, as we all are, Treadwell said, folding his hands and looking pleased. In the end he has nothing—not faith, not hope, not love. Just fear, and fear is the most powerful agent of all.

He stepped forward, passing through Jack's headstone. Time has come, Mr. Winter, for you to step aside and for me to step in.

Jack nodded numbly, opening his arms. "I'm yours."

Pete cast desperately, but the graveyard was totally empty except for Jack's headstone, lone and neglected.

"Jack," Pete said. Treadwell paused in front of him, raising one palm to brush his fingers over Jack's face. Jack didn't flinch even as ice crystals grew on his brow, but he did when Pete gripped his hand. "You're not alone," Pete said, all resolve to keep calm gone. She heard her voice through a tu

Keep out of this, Treadwell hissed. He raised his hands heavenward and began to chant, the incantation rising around Pete and Jack like a black mist, a swarm of dark magic.

Pete squeezed Jack's hand, hard as she could. "You're not alone," she told him. "If you've made up your mind to die, then I'll be with you here, until the end. I'd follow you into death if that's what you asked, Jack. Heaven, Hell. Anywhere at all."

Silence! Treadwell screamed. The smoke rose and formed, an exact replica of Jack, featureless and incorporeal. I will gain a form. Do not test me.

Pete held Jack's hand, barely felt herself trembling as she made her peace, let the strands already slipping through her fingers float away. So be it. "Anywhere at all," she repeated.

Jack shuddered and sighed, drawing in a ragged breath. "Oh, Pete," he murmured. "Why didn't you just give up on me?"

Pete smiled at him; saw a tiny lift in his shoulders. "You told me we'd see it through together. I believed you."

Fire flamed to life in Jack's eyes and he turned on Treadwell. "Thought you'd trap me in the thin space and take my body? Lovely plan, if a bit flawed in the fact that I am not going to bloody let you anywhere near me."

Treadwell smiled, the expression on him truly terrifying. Too late for theatrics, Winter. Too late, too late, always too late. He muttered, Victus. The smoke flowed into Jack, through his nose and mouth, through his eyes. Jack went to his knees, choking, gagging, and Pete saw the aura of magic around him flare and begin to change to ice-bred silver, the raven overtaken by a ravening wolf, starved and trailing spittle from its maw.

Submit to me, crow-mage, Treadwell said. And your soul's passage to the land of the dead will be swift.

"Leave him alone!" Pete screamed. The smoke engulfed Jack wholly, and he stopped fighting as Treadwell watched grimly, with the kind of terrible satisfaction vengeance brings over a person.

You are too late, Treadwell whispered, already begi

The cemetery scene washed out, the ink of nightmares ru

"I'm sorry…" Pete called. "I'm sorry…"

And she woke. The pain from the knife wound was incendiary, blade still lodged in her stomach. She pressed down on the cut and pulled the knife out, wincing as a dribble of dark red-black blood came with it. Pain was good, Pete reminded herself. Pain means you are not in shock, that you have a chance to stand up and walk away. Still, she retched from dizziness as she tried to sit up, and fell again, body shrieking alarm.

Beside her, Jack stirred and then opened his eyes, sucking in air as if he'd forgotten how. His eyes were gray and ringed, shined like two-pound coins, and the smile that split his face was cruel as a straight razor.

"Treadwell," Pete said, her voice thickened with shock.

"My stars," said Treadwell softly, through Jack's lips. The voice was Jack's, but also not Jack's, the accent lilting into something musical and antiquated instead of a Manchester drawl, timbre scaling downward into menace. "If someone had told me what abominable condition the crow-mage had left himself in, I would have attempted this with another candidate entirely."

He blinked and looked all around, eyes widening. "I say, who are these people?"

Pete saw no one except the few sorcerers who had remained, al! watching anxiously just out of arm's easy reach. "Master… ?" one said hesitantly. "Master Treadwell, is there anything you need?"

Treadwell groaned and pressed a hand against Jack's wound, slicking his palm with blood. "A surgeon, you fool. Fetch me a surgeon before I pass through the bleak gates a second time!" He shook his head, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of Jack's hand. "Who are these silent, staring imbeciles? Why are they permitted to bear witness?"

Pete pushed harder against her wound and spoke. "You didn't know? About Jack's sight, I mean."

Treadwell turned on her with a hiss, his eyes flaring silver. "What do you speak of…" And then he cried out and threw his hands over his eyes, stumbling away from Pete. "Treachery! What are you, woman?"

"You see me," Pete repeated the words of the child in Jack's nightmare, of Bridget and Patrick and Diana. "You know what I am, Treadwell."