Black 01 - Street Magic

by Caitlin Kittredge

  "Stop!" The male sorcerer appeared in the door, a fan of blood and spittle on his chin and down the front of his shirt. He pressed his hands together and muttered a stream of guttural Latin, and black smoke boiled from around his feet to form two small lithe shadows, that in turn gave birth to a twin pair of their own.

  "Bollocks," Jack hissed, taking the stairs two at a time.

  "Are they ghosts?" Pete shouted as she pounded after him.

  "Worse!" Jack shouted. "Thought-forms! Shadowy bloodhounds!"

  They crossed the attic, tumbling over trunks and bundles, and Jack used his elbow to smash a window that had been painted shut. "You first," he panted. "Out."

  Pete looked at the street fifteen meters below, back at Jack. "Are you quite mad?"

  The smoke-shadows flowed under the door, through the cracks in the floor. They had grown steel claws and teeth, and darker hollows for eyes.

  Jack opened his mouth to cajole, or yell, but Pete held up a hand. "Never mind. I'm going." She hoisted herself through the broken window and onto the slippery roof, but instead of letting go and plummeting for the street she gripped the gutter so hard she thought the skin on her knuckles would split and climbed toward the ridgeline.

  She watched the shadows swipe at Jack, catching the leg he still had inside the window and leaving lines of crimson. "Bugger!" Jack yelped. He spread his ringers wide and exhaled, and a flock of smoke-crows blossomed from his palm. The crows cawed and swooped, catching the sorcerer's hounds with their talons and bills.

  The shadows screamed and vanished, the crows with them. Jack grinned. "Couldn't sustain his will when someone co-opted his trick. Probably has a small cock, too."

  "Come on," Pete yelled, nearly losing her grip. She pulled herself up onto the flat square top of Mad Chen's turret roof and helped Jack, who flopped over with a wheeze.

  His coughing turned to chuckles, then to laughter. "Bloody hell. I'd forgotten how much fun this is."

  Pete cocked her head. "Fun? You've got a fucking strange idea of fun."

  The wood next to Jack's head exploded, driving splinters into Pete's arm. Another sorcerer appeared out of the shadows, the yellow clouds oozing corrosive fumes from his hands. "How many of these wankers are there?" Pete shouted. The sorcerer stopped just short of her feet and smiled in the manner of a small boy who likes to burn ants.

  "Looks like I get your skin and your talent, Winter, and the chance to get over." He grinned.

  Jack rolled on his side and stood, ducking the sorcerer's reach. He grabbed the shorter man by the back of the neck. "You'll get over something, that's sure." He rotated his grip and tossed the sorcerer off the edge of the roof. The man screamed until a sound like a breaking tree trunk cut off the cry.

  Pete peered over the edge, saw the broken doll shape and a dark stain spreading. "Think he's dead?"

  Jack lit a Parliament, drew once, and flicked the rest after the sorcerer. "About to wish he was."

  The man was conscious, groaning, when Pete and Jack climbed down to the street. "If more are coming after us," said Pete, "we're a bit exposed."

  Jack gripped the sorcerer under the arms, struggling against the stocky weight. " 'S why we're getting the fuck out of here." He attempted to pull the moaning sorcerer along the pavement. The man's leg was twisted, a lump of displaced bone under his skin, and he yelled. Jack wheezed and dropped him. "You need to get on a diet, boyo."

  Pete rolled her eyes and banded her arm across the sorcerer's chest, a lifesaving carry on dry land. The door of Mad Chen's banged open and the male sorcerer appeared, trailed by his renewed thought-forms, which seemed to have grown a few dozen more steel teeth since Pete saw them last.

  "Bollocks," she said, dragging the sorcerer along the pavement. "What the hell happens now, Jack? I don't think your little trick with the birds will be quite as scary out in the open."

  "Never fear, Pete. Our chariot awaits." Jack stepped into the street and let out a piercing whistle. "Taxi!"

  One moment the street was empty and the next a gleaming black cab, smooth lines and lantern headlights, something from the black-and-white era, sat idling at the curb, stopped in a swirl of leaves and winter wind. The rear door swung open of its own accord.

  Jack grabbed the sorcerer's legs. "Get him in."

  Pete folded the quietly sobbing man into the back of the cab and scrambled inside, sliding on butter-colored leather seats. Jack knocked on the partition and told the shadowed driver, "Sodding floor it!"

  The cab lit out with a squeal of tires, taking the corner with a lurch that threw Pete against the door, the handle thudding into her gut.

  "One thing about the Black," Jack said as they roared through empty nighttime streets. "You can always find a cab when you really need one."

  The driver turned his head slightly. "What destination, please?" His voice was smooth and bell-like, more suited to an angelic choir than a slightly threadbare cab. It gave Pete a warm feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  A gas streetlamp caught the driver's eyes, and they shone silver.

  Jack grunted softly and held his forehead. "Fae," he said through clenched teeth.

  "Driving a cab?" Pete raised an eyebrow.

  "Fae love human devices," Jack muttered. "Plays hell on the sight, let me tell you." To the driver he said, "Whitechapel, Mile End Road, number forty-six."

  "Right away, sir," purred the Fae. His teeth, silver like his eyes, were a row of needles.

  The sorcerer moaned, his eyes flicking weakly between Pete and Jack. "Where are you taking me?"

  Jack thumped him on the crown of his head. "Shut it. No questions from you."

  "What are we going to do with him?" Pete whispered. "Can't very well leave him on the street to be picked over."

  "Who says I can't?" Jack muttered. "Tosser tried to kill me. But no, I've got something in mind."

  After a time the cab glided to a stop in front of Jack's flat and he jumped out quickly, leaving Pete to drag the sorcerer onto the curb. She banged the man's broken leg against the running board and he screamed.

  "Sorry, mate," Pete apologized. "But you did rather bring it on yourself." She leaned back into the cab. "How much do I owe you?"

  Jack grabbed her by the collar and yanked her back out. Pete struggled furiously, and reared back to slap him. He caught her hand, fingers squeezing her wrist bones together. "Don't you know better than to make deals with the Fae?"

  "He's a bloody cab driver!" Pete protested as the taxi disappeared at the end of the street, taillights winking when it rounded the corner.

  "Never offer to repay a Fae," Jack said tightly. "And never allow them to strike a bargain with you. The cab is on my account. I'll pay up when they decide my debt is due and not a moment before."

  "I'm truly sorry. I didn't know," Pete said. "Now let go of me before I fetch you a smack."

  Jack heaved a sigh and pushed his hair every which way with his fingers. "You wanted to learn the Black, and how to survive in it… consider that lesson the first." He dropped her wrist. "Sorry if I hurt you."

  " 'S all right," Pete muttered. Her skin was slightly pink where Jack had touched her.

  The sorcerer managed to haul himself onto his elbows, attempting to crawl away down the street. "Will you look at this git," Jack exclaimed. He pointed a finger at the sorcerer and muttered, "Sioctha" The sorcerer jerked, all of his limbs going rigid. Pete put her face in her hands.

  "Did you explode this one's heart, too?"

  "Nope," Jack said triumphantly. "Just stiff. A little magic rigor mortis until he tells me what I want to know. Get his other arm."

  Together they dragged the sorcerer up the creaking fire escape to the flat, and once inside Jack rolled the man onto his back and put a boot in the center of his chest.

  "Get the frying pan, or a phone directory—something heavy to bash him in the good kneecap if he gets smart," he said to Pete. "Right," he addressed the sorcerer. "You know who I am, and what I can do, and I'm going to let you g
o now with the provision that if you try any tricks, what's left of you will fit inside a syringe. Got it?"

  The sorcerer tried to speak, huffed breath through his nose and his immobile lips, eyes going wide.

  "Good," Jack said conversationally. "Bi scaoilte." The sorcerer shuddered and relaxed. Jack pressed down harder with his boot. "Who are you bloody working for?"

  "Roast in hell, Winter, you doped-up has-been!" the sorcerer shouted.

  "Oi," Pete said. She picked up a heavy bookend from Jack's shelf. "What's your name?"

  "Roddy," the sorcerer spat. "Roddy Post."

  "Well, Roddy Post," said Pete. "Are you going to answer my friend's questions?"

  "Go bugger yourself!" Roddy moaned. His face was pale, twin stains of crimson in the hollows of his cheeks.

  Pete knelt, lifted the bookend, and brought it down on Roddy's right hand. He howled. Jack raised his eyebrows.

  "You've got issues, luv."

  "Fine…" Roddy sobbed. "Fine, I'll sodding tell you whatever you want."

  "Like a cheap notebook, you are," Jack said. "Folding when she only tapped you with that thing."

  "Don't be too hard on him," Pete said, giving Roddy a thin smile. "You'd be amazed at what a couple of broken knuckles will do for a bloke's outlook."

  Jack's expression went from amused to something darker, deeper, as if he were taking Pete's measure. "All for the sake of the child, eh?" he asked her.

  Pete looked at Roddy, his pale drawn face. "Of course," she murmured, and set the bookend down because it was suddenly very heavy.

  "Now, then," said Jack. He went into the kitchen and brought back a chair. "Pete, help the bloke to sit up."

  Pete heaved Roddy into the seat and Jack stood in front of him. "Talk. Who's trying to kill me and why?"

  Roddy's ragged breathing smoothed. "I can't tell you."

  "Bloody hell…" Jack muttered, raising his palm and opening his mouth to speak another word of magic.

  "I can show you," Roddy said sullenly. Jack cocked his head, as if weighing Roddy's sins to decide if he lived or died.

  "Well, all right then," he finally said with his old grin. "Pete, let's bear up poor Roddy's leg and let him lead the way."

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  They drove through stone canyons, the old parts of the city, strongholds of visiting royalty, reclaimed as hotels and bars, neon hidden in crevices between the hand-hewn rock walls.

  "Here," Roddy muttered. "Pull over here."

  Pete eased the Mini to the curb on Ironmonger Lane and looked up at the stone edifice. "What's here?"

  Roddy looked at his feet. "The Arkanum."

  Jack choked. "You're not serious." He craned out the window to look up at the building. "Incredible."

  "What's the Arkanum?" Pete asked Roddy.

  "The Arkanum is the collective of darkness, the society of secret and shadow. We see and do what you only dream of, and we pull the strings of the bright, living world." Roddy muttered all of this, his voice blurry with pain and resignation.

  Jack rolled his eyes and popped the door open. "A eighteenth-century collective of sorcerers wiped out by witchfinders and who never got the bloody hint." He leaned back in. "How many in there, Roddy?"

  "None," Roddy said miserably. "There's not many of us these days and you've killed near half. The rest are out looking for you."

  Jack checked the street and then motioned Pete out. "We take him with us."

  In the lift, Roddy's pungent sweat made Pete's nose crinkle. "So you people just hang around thinking of ways to kill Jack? Seems silly. Completely."

  "Thought he was dead," Roddy muttered. "Only in the last couple of weeks, the Black started to talk about seeing him again."

  "But why?" said Pete. "He didn't do anything to you."

  "Right here," said Jack as the digital numbers ticked by. "Not bloody deaf, either."

  "Do you have any idea what it would mean to be the sorcerer who killed the crow-mage?" Roddy demanded, and his face sparked back to life. "You would be legend in your own time, with more power than any before. Feared, hated, and respected—the tenets of the Arkanum."

  "Why do you people call him 'crow-mage'?" Pete asked. The lift came to a stop.

  "Don't answer that, Roddy, 'less you want it to be the last coherent thing you ever say," Jack said, throwing a glare over his shoulder as he stepped into a narrow hallway, lit with brass sconces. One door stood at the far end.

  Roddy limped after him at Pete's prodding. "Just through there," he said, slouching against the wall opposite the lift. "Everything you want is in there."

  "Good man," said Jack. He shoved Roddy aside and put his hand on the door, jiggling it. "It's locked."

  "I haven't a key," said Roddy with a thrust of his chin, before Jack could turn on him. "The High Sorcerers control the access."

  "No matter," said Jack. "Pete, you got a hairpin or a bra wire or something?"

  "Do I look like I have a hairpin, Jack?"

  "Never mind," he said, digging a skeleton key out of his pocket and working it into the lock. He leaned against the keyhole and breathed, "Go n-iompai an iarann agus go ligfeadh lean ar aghaidh," in a whisper meant for a lover. Pete heard ancient tumblers groaning.

  "Racking up felonies by the minute, I see," she said. Jack gave her a wide grin.

  "Not breaking in if you have a key."

  "You think you can enter our sanctum with such a crude tool?" Roddy muttered.

  The lock clicked and the door popped open. Jack rolled his eyes. "Apparently I can, sonny boy. What about it?"

  "Don't be waiting, then," Roddy said sullenly. "Burst in and save the day, Winter."

  "All right, keep your shorts on," said Jack. He put his hand on the knob, but before it turned, pain like she'd just smacked into a ledge hit Pete. The Black rushed up at her, magic that was barren and unforgiving, nothing like the dancing fire of Jack's talent or the icy slickness of her dream. She gasped as she touched it, and Jack stopped and turned to look at her.

  "What's wrong, luv?"

  "I…" The pain intensified, the magic crouching, leaping, digging teeth into her brain. "I…" She couldn't speak, just felt the magic pressing down on her. Her Black-fueled intution rocketed through the pain and she grabbed for Jack's hand on the door, trying to make him stop, turn back, before he became broken and bloody and still again.

  "Sweet Lilith…" Roddy cursed. "They know! They—" He was cut off as Jack spun around and grabbed him by the neck.

  "What have you done, you slimy little cunt?"

  Roddy began to smile, and then to laugh. "It was so easy," he said. "I'd heard so many stories about how good you were, Winter, how quicksilver and clever. And look, a broken leg and a sob story was all it took for you to swallow it."

  "Jack," Pete ground out. She tried pushing against the feedback from the Black, and the pain lessened, though not by much.

  Roddy grinned at both of them unpleasantly. "You came in here obedient as dogs."

  Demonstrating far more strength than Pete would have guessed a man of Jack's size to have, Jack lifted Roddy onto his tiptoes. "What did you and your shit-sucking Arkanum mates do? Tell me before I break you in half and jam you together backward."

  Roddy laughed, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter now, Winter. I did my job. I'll be seeing you on the other side… and her… and all the rest." And Roddy fell forward against Jack, and shoved them back together, through the door into the Arkanum's sanctum.

  The spell hovering over the flat snapped into place and Pete could move again without the feeling of ice picks being driven through her eye sockets. She was up and moving for Jack and Roddy before her mind caught up. She could see the spell, a thicket of thorns and prehensile vines that wrapped themselves around both men with blood-hungry quickness.

  "Jack!" she screamed, as a shadow lashed his face and caused a line of blood droplets to erupt. "Jack, tell me how to stop it!"

  "Get this fucking fat tosser off of me, to start!" J
ack bellowed, shoving at Roddy, who fought just as wildly to hold him in place. The shadows, thick as they lay on Jack, fell twice as heavy on him, wrapping Roddy up in a hungry cascade of magic and malice. The sorcerer's clothes began to disintegrate, and the skin beneath, flaking off like ash from a dead fire. Roddy's face went stone, grim—he would die to keep Jack from escaping the spell's embrace.

  Pete reached for Jack, between the twisting vines of magic, and felt a lash like a thousand thorns on her skin.

  Blood erupted everywhere the shadows touched, and she drew back, cursing.

  Jack punched Roddy in the face, ineffectually. "Get… off… me… cunt!"

  From an archway deeper in the flat two more sorcerers appeared, and two more—four figures all burning the poisoned purple witchfire in their palms.

  "Hold him, Roddy!" one shouted. "We'll take care of the bitch."

  Jack's clothing began to flake away, like Roddy's skin—a patch of his jacket, a chunk of his pantleg, the sole of his jackboot. "Pete, watch it!" he yelled as one of the sorcerers came for her, a telescoping police baton upraised.

  "You think I'm not worth your magic?" Pete cocked her head.

  "Mage groupie? I know you aren't worthy," said the sorcerer. Pete sighed.

  "You're wrong. So very wrong." Before the sorcerer could puzzle that, she kicked out and drove her heel into the man's knee.

  The sorcerer crumpled over, dropping the baton, and the other three hurled clusters of the foul-smelling offensive magic at her, giving distance in the face of their cursing, crying compatriot. Pete took a dive, landed elbows first on the parquet floor, and slid out of range, ignoring the pain that returned all through her when she hit.

  She could barely see Jack any longer, obscured as he and Roddy were by the writhing mass of the spell. "Jack," she moaned, for just a moment not able to contemplate anything but the sight of his newly dead body. Toerag that he was, as much as he'd made her life a pit of misery over the week he'd come back, Jack being dead again was something that Pete knew would send her straight around the bend.