Street Magic Part 16

Pete thought of the dark rooms in Grinchley's house, how everything was arranged to frighten, to misdirect.

Someone with an ego the size of Grinchley's wouldn't hide his treasures, except in plain sight.

Her eyes drawn back to the largest shelf, the one with the skulls, Pete discerned a sheen of silver behind the smallest skull's eyes. She picked up the thing, half expecting it to bite her, and saw a flat black box bound in silver bands lying on the shelf.

Covered in dust and una.s.suming though it was, Pete knew this was what she was looking for. It shone in the Black, magic raw as a nuclear spill. She reached out carefully with a finger and flicked the latch, laying the box open.

The Trifold Focus lay wrapped in a black silk cloth, smaller and plainer than Jack had made it out to be, just a silver circlet with three interconnected spirals at the center, flat and more like a drink coaster than anything.

Pete touched it and a jolt of static raced up her arm. The Focus's metal strands s.h.i.+fted and curled beneath her hand, recoiling, and Pete quickly pulled it away. They settled immediately. "Thank b.l.o.o.d.y G.o.d," Pete muttered. Searching the rest of the vault room would be on her list of preferred activities straight after walking into traffic on the M-25 wearing nothing but her knickers.

She put the box with the Focus into the pocket of her coat and saw a door with a gleam of light around it at the far end of the room. Anything to not have to walk back through Grinchley's torture chambers.

The doorway led to a real bas.e.m.e.nt, with a furnace and a collection of musty cricket equipment. Pete paused and turned the dial on the ancient oil furnace to maximum. It began to shudder and clank as she cleared the street.

Pete pulled out her mobile and dialed 999. "This is Detective Inspector Caldecott reporting a fire at the Grinch-ley residence, 14 Mornington Crescent."

She heard the wail of sirens as she walked to the cross street and hailed a taxi. The fire brigade would go where no warrantless police officer could. Considering what Grinch-ley had put her through, Pete thought she was being extraordinarily kind.

Chapter Twenty-nine

"Jack!" Pete shouted as she opened the door to the flat. "Jack, you need to keep your door locked. This isn't a good neighborhood."

"Pete!" Jack came rus.h.i.+ng from the kitchen, Parliament dangling from the corner of his mouth. Smoke trailed behind him like a cl.u.s.ter of familiars. "f.u.c.k all, Pete, where the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l have you been?"

"Are you all right?" Pete said, taking him by the chin and examining his eyes. Jack's pupils were large and wide, glimmering like gla.s.s.

"Maybe. Yes. I don't know." Jack rumpled his hair and then slumped. "I thought you'd gone off."

"I just went to run an errand," said Pete. She grabbed Jack's right forearm, examining the tracks for fresh bruises. He jerked it away.

"I didn't b.l.o.o.d.y use. I took some uppers. Couldn't focus."

"Oh, for the love of sweet infant Christ," Pete shouted. "Jack, first you despise me and then you pop pills the minute I'm gone from sight! What is is it?" She formed her hands into fists, released them, because hitting Jack wouldn't make him tell her. it?" She formed her hands into fists, released them, because hitting Jack wouldn't make him tell her.

"Jack," she said softly. "I'm not moving from this spot until you answer what it is I did to you to make you this way."

He pinched the spot between his eyes, creasing a furrow in the skin. "You left me, Pete," he said. "You just f.u.c.king left me, that day. The only person I let in a little bit and she leaves me on the floor of a f.u.c.king grave and never shows her face again. Felt b.l.o.o.d.y marvelous when I woke and realized that, thanks."

Pete looked at her feet. A splash of blood from Grinch-ley's operating bay sat like a teardrop on the toe of her shoe. "I thought you were dead, Jack. You were just lying lying there& you were there& you were gone gone."

"And you never bothered to find out differently, did you?"

"I never did anything anything," Pete said desperately. "I ran out of the cemetery and all the way home and I locked myself in my room for two days and cried until I couldn't breathe. But I never told a soul, because there was never a soul I could tell. Da eventually figured out we'd been seeing each otherdidn't tell MG, thank all that's holyand he lit into me right proper.

"Da told me&" Pete chewed on her lip for a moment. She'd long since forgiven Connor for the lie, but she couldn't be sure Jack would. "Da told me you died, Jack. And that it would be best to forget you."

"c.u.n.t," Jack muttered.

"Well, he never did like you," Pete said. "You s.h.a.gged his oldest and put his youngest into a blind fit."

Jack dragged on his Parliament and refused to look at her. "I waited around London for a fair time after I got out of the hospital. I guess I was hoping you'd show up looking for me."

"I did," said Pete. "Every face on the street. Every day. For all the time until I went away to university. Eventually, though, I listened to Da. I tried to believe what I saw wasn't what happened, and that you were were dead and I should put you out of mind, and I am dead and I should put you out of mind, and I am sorry sorry for that, Jack, but it was what I had to do to go on." for that, Jack, but it was what I had to do to go on."

"And then you were able to sweep me neatly into the 'Mistakes of My Youth' category with Terry Terry's help," Jack snarled.

"Terry has nothing to do with this," Pete snapped. "So leave it out." She took a breath. Imagining saying these things, speaking them to Jack's dream-ghost was easy. Thisthis was like scaling the White Tower barefoot. has nothing to do with this," Pete snapped. "So leave it out." She took a breath. Imagining saying these things, speaking them to Jack's dream-ghost was easy. Thisthis was like scaling the White Tower barefoot.

"I got it, finally," Jack muttered. "When you didn't come. You were a sweet kid but you were slumming. No future. Nothing with me."

"Jack," Pete said. She took his hands in hers, trying not to flinch at how close to skeletal they still were. "I was a child, and I made a child's choice. I dreamed about you, up until the day I saw you again in that terrible hotel. Knowing that you were alive was probably the best day of my life." She took out the box from her pocket and opened it and folded the Trifold Focus into Jack's palm. "I went to get this for you. I'm back now. I don't leave anymore, and I won't try and forget any longer."

She stepped past Jack and went into the loo, locking the door and sitting on the tub's edge, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. Only a few tears came, because she was too battered to really cry.

After a long while, as Pete sat and watched the shadows move across the floor from the wavy-gla.s.s window, Jack knocked on the door. "Pete. I went to the Costa."

He pushed open the door, cradling a cardboard cup and a fresh f.a.g in his free hand. Pete's nose crinkled. "Jack, you hate coffee. You told me so the night we met."

"Need to sober up," he muttered, taking a sip and wincing as if he were having his toenails pulled off. "We've got work to do."

"The summoning," said Pete.

"The summoning," Jack agreed. "But first, you're going to tell me how you got the Focus out of Grinchley's house. He's not going to burst in here and bash me kneecaps in, is he?"

Pete stood, wiping away the last hints of moisture from her face. "I went, I tangled with his pet reanimator and I got the Focus and got the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l out of his freaky bas.e.m.e.nt."

Jack frowned. "Reanimator?"

"You wouldn't sodding believe the scene in that place, Jack." Pete thought about the cages, the hands, the golem on the surgery table and s.h.i.+vered again. "I still feel as if I need a hot shower."

"Don't let me stop you, luv."

Pete reached out to slap at him, but her heart wasn't in it and Jack sidestepped. "In all seriousness, nowGrinchley is animating corpses?"

"His butler is," said Pete.

Jack blew out a breath. "A necromancer? Really? Haven't run across one of them since the Stone Age."

"Perkins looked as if he were from from the Stone Age," Pete said. the Stone Age," Pete said.

"That's odd, to be certain," said Jack. "Necromancy and flesh-crafting are dying arts. No one apprentices to them any longer. No need, with infernal servants being as easy to compel as they are in this day and age."

"Grinchley set this on me, as well," Pete said, drawing out the desiccated Dead Man's Snare from her hip. "Thought maybe you'd have some use for it."

Jack whistled. "Nicely done, Pete. Powerful little bit of conjuring on this one." He pushed it back at her. "But you keep it."

"I really don't think I'll ever have need of this. I hope hope I won't, at the very least," Pete said. "Maybe you could use it to break the ice at parties or something." I won't, at the very least," Pete said. "Maybe you could use it to break the ice at parties or something."

Jack sipped his coffee and grinned. "You won it fair and square in sorcerous combat, Pete. Keep it. It's yours. And when I did parties, I usually called up a few poltergeists or minor demons. Bit more flash. Speaking of which, I could use some help with this bit if you're not too knackered."

"Show me what to do," said Pete, shutting the bathroom door behind her.

"Come into the kitchen and have one of these overpriced pastries and I'll explain things," Jack said.

After Pete had stirred a cup of espresso for herself, Jack slid into the seat across from her and held out a black velvet sack. "Got this for you, too."

Pete slid out a small crescent charm on a plain silver chain. It was cool to the touch and when she held it the constant undertone of magic that hissed to the hidden part of her mind quieted.

"It's a talisman for dreamers," said Jack. "It will keep you safe from sundown to dawn."

Pete admired the way the half-circle caught the light. "Will it."

"That's the theory, anyway," said Jack. "Really, it depends on you."

"How do you mean?" Pete said. She put the charm around her neck and felt the silver kiss her clavicle. It felt like dipping a hand into cool water, with cool stones beneath and the moon reflected above.

"Do you want want to stop dreaming?" Jack asked. to stop dreaming?" Jack asked.

"This particular dream, yes," Pete said emphatically. "And I could do without being haunted, as well."

Jack's mouth quirked. "I'm afraid while you hang around me there's always a bit of ghost-light about," he said. "But the b.u.g.g.e.r shouldn't be able to get to your mind so easily with that."

"Ta," Pete said, smiling a bit herself. Jack looked pleased, like he'd picked out a birthday gift in the proper size.

"Kid stuff. Don't mention it." He extinguished his Parliament in the remains of his coffee. His hands shook but a little, and he collected a pen and started drawing on sc.r.a.ps. "Now, this is what calling the demon should entail, and what I need from you&"

Chapter Thirty

A few hours later, Pete followed Jack through the aisles of a DIY shop, collecting supplies from the hardware department. "You're joking, right?" she said. "This is where we get the supplies for a demonic ritual?"

"Some of it, yeah," said Jack. "Magic isn't all eye of newt or skinning black cats."

Pete jerked her trolley to a stop. "I am not killing a cat."

"Dagon in a rowboat, Pete, relax. The demon we want doesn't accept animal sacrifices. It would be terribly offensive."

"Facts I'm sure will come in handy in my day-to-day life," she muttered, following Jack as he picked out a roll of copper wire.

"Will if you keep on with me," Jack said with a shadow of a grin. He picked up a box of roofing nails and tucked them into his jacket pocket. Pete cleared her throat vigorously. Jack gave her an exasperated look, one dark eyebrow c.o.c.ked.

Pete pointed to the trolley basket. "In."

"They're fifteen quid!" Jack protested. "For a box of ruddy nails!"

"I'm sure all the girls at Fiver's would swoon over your criminal behavior," said Pete. "But if we get pinched we're never going to track down this ghostie or beastie or whatever in time, so put the b.l.o.o.d.y nails in the trolley and grow the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l up."

Jack glared at her, but he dropped the box in the basket and stalked off, leaving Pete to pay for everything.

"Where are we going now?" Pete demanded. She was trailing Jack through the Kings Road, pa.s.sing between tourists with cameras and pimply children in tight black jeans and Mohawks trying to grasp on to the heyday of punk outside what used to be s.e.x.

"Picking up a few last odds and ends," said Jack, turning down a narrow flight of steps to a nameless shop with a black door.

Pete stopped just short of the entrance. "Jack, this is a dodgy p.o.r.n shop."

"Among other things," he agreed, opening the door, causing an obscenely pleasant bell to jingle.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," Pete muttered, following him inside.

"I got what I needed from the spellcrafter's supply when I bought your talisman," said Jack. "Just need to see a friend about one last thing."

The shop was graygray carpet, walls that had once been white but lay coated with a decade's worth of grime, grim fluorescent tubes overhead like a morgue. Even the covers of the magazines and videos looked deflated and drained of color, posters on the walls curling up at the edges and exposing mildew.

Jack went straight to the counter and slapped his hand on it, waking the snoring clerk so abruptly he slid off his stool. "Oi!"

"Mmph?" said the clerk. "Wotcha want?" He had a ponytail, sad and greasy like a rat's and, if it were possible, was even skinnier than Jack.

"Where's Mr. Towne?" Jack said. "I know he still owns the place so don't bother to lie."

"T-Towne?" said the clerk nervously.

"Towne, Melvin," Jack snapped. "Manky Mel, the sultan of snuff, wizard of w.a.n.king, whatever b.l.o.o.d.y silly thing he calls himself."

"L-look," said the clerk. "I don't want any trouble with the coppers&"

Jack grabbed the clerk by the ponytail and jerked him down to eye level. "I'm not a copper."

"She is," the clerk squeaked, pointing at Pete. "And is," the clerk squeaked, pointing at Pete. "And you're you're probably just here for the money Mr. Towne owes to Left-handed d.i.c.k." probably just here for the money Mr. Towne owes to Left-handed d.i.c.k."

Pete c.o.c.ked her head at Jack. "This friend of yours got in with a gangster who calls himself Left-handed d.i.c.k?"