Street Magic

Jack laughed, not a pleasant sound, knife-edged with desperation. "Going to chain me up in your cellar and take my demons out, Pete?"

"No," Pete said. "You and I are going to do what you should have done at the start of all this, and find a way to hold back your sight without sticking death up your arm twice a day."

"Can't be done," said Jack. He shook his head, speaking more, but Pete's train pulled into the station and drowned him out. She inserted herself into the line of boarding passengers, looking back at Jack as he walked away.

"Use a clean sharp!" she shouted after him, drawing any number of odd looks.

"Can't be done, Petunia!" he yelled again, without looking at her. "You can't ride in on the white steed and pull me back from the dragon's jaws!"

Pete glared at the back of Jack's head as the train moved out of the station. "Just watch me."

Chapter Forty-seven

It was nearly eight by the time Pete arrived at Jack's flat, long dark. Her wound was pleasantly numb after the shot of painkillers Dr. Abouhd had given her, clucking over the recent inflammation.

She tried the door and found it unlocked, as usual. The flat was dark and still except for the rotten ice-cold spittle of rain brushing against the high windows.

"Jack?" Pete said softly, fearing the worst. He grunted and turned on a low lamp with a red shade, a new addition since the last time she'd been. He had a new, marginally less tatty sofa with lion's feet, and a matching chair as well. "Been shopping?" It was the most inoffensive thing Pete could think to say.

Jack grunted again. "Downstairs neighbor died. Mrs. Ramamurthy. Nicked them before her ruddy son and his ruddy MP3 player blaring ruddy techno music could sell it off." His eyes were hooded and dreamy, and his voice had that underwater quality of deep sleep.

"How long ago did you take the hit?" Pete asked.

"Not long…" Jack murmured. "Forgot how bloody sweet it tastes."

"Then you'll have a good memory to tide you through yet another long and painful withdrawal," Pete said pleasantly. Jack moaned.

"Sodding sadist."

"And enjoying every minute of it, make no mistake," Pete said. She patted his leg. "I'll put the kettle on and get started."

"With what?" Jack demanded, throwing an arm dramatically over his eyes as Pete switched on the wall sconces.

"Jack, you have eight billion bloody books in this place—one of them has got to have something to help hold back the sight."

"You think I haven't checked?" Jack demanded. His petulance was a relief, much closer to normal.

"I think that I am going to check to satisfy myself," Pete said. "And that you are going to help me."

Jack moaned and sank back on the sofa again.

Pete put the kettle on and went to the wall of books. They were in no discernable order she could see, the volumes in languages she could read few and far between. Wasn't this a brilliant bloody idea?

"Have you thought about tattooing?" she said a good time later, after Jack was sitting upright and had poured three mugs of hot tea and a glass of whisky into himself.

Jack shrugged. "Got a few. Tattoos protect you from the physical, though, hexes and the like. The sight is a doorway between this land and the land of the dead."

"What if you, I don't know, forced your will into them or something?" Pete asked. "To hold back the sight?"

"I can't hold it back to begin with," Jack said. "Magic tattoos—can't believe I'm bloody considering this, by the way. I sound like a New Age git. Bespelled tattoos aren't unheard of, but it takes an enormous charge to make the magic stick, here in this world, under the skin." He downed the dregs of his tea. "Much as it pains me to admit it, more power than I have."

"Not more power than I have," Pete said, but Jack was already shaking his head.

"No, Pete. You don't know how to control yourself, even if it did work. You could melt the flesh off me bones."

"I don't see any difference between that chance and the chance you take that your sodding smack dealer slipped you a bad hit because he was ru

"Forget it! Not going to happen, Pete."

She sank down, holding the old dusty book that outlined symbols of protection, where she'd gotten the idea for the tattoos. "Do you want to keep on this way, Jack? Do you like being an addict, or a madman?" She took a deep breath. "Tell me now. Please. Before I break my heart against you again."

" 'Course I don't," Jack muttered after a long moment. "But there is no other way, Pete. I can either wander the streets not knowing what's real and what the sight is showing me, or I can poison myself and keep a grip on what little life I have left. I choose that. So hate me if you want. It'd be better if you left now, I think."

He lit a cigarette and moved to go into his bedroom.

"If the tattoos don't work," Pete said, "you haven't lost anything. And it's not like you have a needle phobia."

Jack's eyebrows went up. "There you go, morbid again."

"You're a bad influence on me," said Pete. "Jack," she said impulsively, when his back was turned. "We were interrupted this afternoon, but there's really something I need to ask you about the cemetery, about what happened…"

He sighed. "Don't tell me that sodding Inspector Heath has been after you with more questions about 'What really happened.'" He made finger quotes around the phrase.

"No, it's not that," said Pete. "Ollie's taken care of it. It's about… it's something I saw, when I was in-between with you. When you were standing in front of that headstone, you were… well… sort of glowing and the glow was… unpleasant."

"Aural echo," said Jack. "My spirit and magic outside my body. Not unusual for mages caught in-between."

"I know what an aura is," said Pete impatiently. "MG was always on about auras. This was different." Thinking about the inky flames that covered Jack's spirit being, the raven shape so similar to the woman who had watched Pete receive the heart, made her skin crawl, the way the animal mind backs away from something utterly alien.

"What did you see, Pete? All of it. You're hiding something."

"The woman… the one who took Treadwell back to the land of the dead. She spoke to him like she knew him."

Jack got up, paced a few steps, came back to the sofa. "The raven woman, you called her when you woke up."

Pete nodded. "She was. Black feathers for hair. Cruel bird's eyes, staring right through me." She waited for Jack's scoffing, but it didn't come. "What is it?"

"Nothing," Jack muttered finally. "Probably nothing. But Treadwell did have help to stay for so long and her being there, so close… it just crawls my skin is all."

Pete came and sat next to him. "Who was she?"

"She was exactly who you said she was," Jack murmured. "The raven woman. The Goddess of the Morrigan. Death's walker in the Black."

"Does me seeing her mean some horrible omen?" Pete guessed. Jack shook his head.

"She won't be bothering you again, Pete. She came for Treadwell because you called her. You spoke to her with the magic of a Weir, and she took back a spirit that had more than outstayed his welcome. More than that… I don't know. She's a treacherous companion, the raven woman."

"Let's work it out, then," said Pete. "Let's summon, or read books, or ask Mosswood…"

Jack held up a hand. "Pete. One lesson you learn quickly if you live any length of time with magic is that you leave the old gods to their old ways, and don't meddle." He worried the fringe on the arm of the sofa. "The Morrigan is the patron of the Fiach Dubh, the sort of magic I learned to work in. I'm not afraid of you seeing her, but I sure as bloody fuck-all wouldn't go looking for her to have a spot of tea. Unless you've got some reason to be concerned you've offended her, Pete… we're letting go of it."