Street Magic bl-1

by Caitlin Kittredge

  Street Magic

  ( Black London - 1 )

  Caitlin Kittredge

  Her name is Pete Caldecott. She was just sixteen when she met Jack Winter, a gorgeous, larger-than-life mage who thrilled her with his witchcraft. Then a spirit Jack summoned killed him before Pete's eyes — or so she thought.

  Now a detective, Pete is investigating the case of a young girl kidnapped from the streets of London. A tipster's chilling prediction has led police directly to the child.but when Pete meets the informant, she's shocked to learn he is none other than Jack. Strung out on heroin, Jack a shadow of his former self. But he's able to tell Pete exactly where Bridget's kidnappers are hiding: in the supernatural shadow-world of the fey.

  Even though she's spent years disavowing the supernatural, Pete follows Jack into the invisible fey underworld, where she hopes to discover the truth about what happened to Bridget — and what happened to Jack on that dark day so long ago.

  Street Magic

  The Black London series, book 1

  Caitlin Kittredge

  For my dad, Jim Van Fleet 1948–1994

  Acknowledgments

  Street Magic is a labor of love, and the book would never have come into being without the assistance, support, and occasional arse-kicking from a great many people.

  Rachel Vater, my amazing agent, deserves credit for taking that initial draft and making it into a Real Book. Rose Hilliard, my esteemed editor, gave Pete, Jack, and Black London a home and took them to a new level with her enthusiasm and deft editorial hand.

  Richelle Mead, owner of a sofa on which a large portion of the first draft was written and fellow Vampire Justice su-perfan, ensured with her encouragement that I would write the hardest and simultaneously most fun novel of my career to date.

  Stacia Kane read an early draft and got every single one of my punk rock references, thus proving that she has both excellent taste in music and a slightly twisted imagination. I couldn't ask for a better crit partner and I'm thrilled this was the book that brought us together.

  Cherie Priest and Kat Richardson gave me cover quotes and encouragement, and along with all of Team Seattle, gave me drinks, dinner, and dance-offs during the marathon revision process. Jim Butcher also gave me a lovely cover quote while trapped with me in a small car in Seattle traffic, and did so with grace and aplomb. Jim, I promise never to do that again.

  Karen Mahoney showed me London and conspired to make me sound English.

  Liz Bourke translated the Irish flawlessly and didn't think it was strange that I was asking for exorcism spells and curse words.

  Sara McDonald has seen every iteration of Pete and Jack since the beginning, and has been a tireless cheerleader.

  Chris McGrath, for the gorgeous cover and Adam Auer-bach for stellar design.

  Mom and Hal, my number-one fans.

  And finally, the bands who made the music that is the lifeblood of Black London: the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Anti-Nowhere League, Nick Cave, Concrete Blonde, the Pogues, Generation X, the Supersuckers, and many more.

  Rock on.

  PART ONE

  London

  Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.

  — Charles Dickens

  Chapter One

  Michaelmas daisies bloomed around Pete Caldecott's feet the day she met Jack Winter, just as they had twelve years ago on the day he died.

  That day, the unassuming tomb in a back corner of Highgate Cemetery was overrun with the small purple flowers. Jack crushed them under his boots as he levered the mausoleum door open.

  Fear had stirred in Pete's stomach as the tomb breathed out bitter-smelling air. "Jack, I don't know about all this."

  He flashed a smile. "Afraid, luv? Don't be. I'm here, after all."

  Biting her lip, Pete put one foot over the threshold of the tomb, then the other. A wind whispered out from the shadowed depths and ruffled her school skirt around her knees. She backed out of the doorway immediately. "We shouldn't be here, Jack."

  He sighed, pushing a hand through his bleached crop of hair. It stood out in wild spikes, gleaming in the low light. His hair was the first thing Pete had seen of Jack in Fiver's club three months ago, molten under the stage lights as he gripped his microphone like a dying man and screamed.

  "Don't be a ninny, Pete. Nothing in here is going to bite you. Not yet, anyway." The devil-grin appeared on his face again. Jack held out his hand to her. "Come into my parlor."

  Pete grasped his hand, felt where the ridges of his fingers were callused from playing guitar, and used the warm shiver it sent through her to propel herself into the tomb. The stone structure was bigger than it appeared from the outside and her hard-soled shoes rang on the stone when she planted her stride firmly. She hugged herself to ward off the chill.

  "I'm not a ninny."

  Jack laughed and tossed the green canvas satchel he'd brought into a corner. "Sorry. Must have been thinking of your sister."

  Pete punched him in the shoulder. "That's your girl-friend you're slagging off. You're wicked."

  Jack caught her hand again and folded it into his, eyes darkening when Pete didn't pull away. "You don't know the half of it."

  Pete met his stare, listening to them both breathe for a moment before she disengaged her hand. "Thought you said we were here to do some magic, Jack."

  Jack cleared his throat and moved away from her. "So I did." He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and began drawing a crooked circle on the flags, one that quickly grew lines and squiggles radiating toward the center. "And we will, luv. Just got to set up some preparations to ensure everything stays nice and nonthreatening for your first time."

  The way he said it could have made any of Pete's classmates at Our Lady of Penitence blush. "Jack, why'd you bring me?" she asked abruptly. "This pagan demon-worshipper crap is MG's thing, not mine. I shouldn't even be alone with you. You're far too old."

  "I'm twenty-six," Jack protested. He finished the circle, which had grown into something that resembled a cage, giving Pete the sense of flat, cold iron. Jack took two fat can-dles, black and white, from his satchel. "You act like I've got one foot in the sodding grave, you do."

  And I'm sixteen, Pete had whispered to herself. And if MG ever found out the two of us have been alone—if Da ever found out…

  "I asked you to come along because I need you," Jack said, sitting back on his heels. His serious tone pulled Pete back from imagining what if MG witnessed the scene. Her sister could throw a fit akin to a nuclear explosion. And Da—he'd send Pete to a convent, or a tower, or wherever angry fathers sent recalcitrant daughters in fairy tales.

  Pete blinked. "Why on earth would you need me?"

  Jack brushed the chalk dust off his hands and stood, patting the pockets of his battered black jeans. "Let's see—you're sensible, cool in crisis, rather adorable. What bloke wouldn't want you about?"

  "Shut your gob," Pete muttered. "What'd MG say, she heard you talking like that?"

  "MG," said Jack. "MG knows what I'm about. She wouldn't say a bloody thing, because she won't ask and I won't tell her." He searched his studded jacket next, without fruition. "Bloody fucking hell. You got a light?"

  Pete dug in her school bag and found her Silk Cut and disposable lighter, hidden inside a tampon box. MG might treat Pete indifferently at best, but she did teach her a few good tricks.

  "Cheers," Jack said when she tossed it to him, lighting the candles and placing them at the head and foot of the circle. The longer Pete looked at it, the more her eyes hurt and her head rang, so she looked away, at the bar of ligh
t that was the door back to the world.

  "Almost there…" Jack muttered. He pulled his flick-knife from a hidden pocket—or maybe it just appeared, in the dim light Pete couldn't be sure—and pricked his finger, squeezing three precise droplets over the chalk.

  Pete had watched Jack work magic before, simple street tricks like disappearing cards, the queen of spades slipping between his thin fingers, or small conjurations like a cigarette that came from the packet already lit.

  But here, in the tomb, Pete remembered thinking, it was different. It was real magic. Silly, of course, that, through and through. She was the daughter of a police inspector, and the Caldecott family—less MG—didn't put stock in that sort of thing. But Jack… Jack made you believe, with his very existing. He crackled the air around him like a changeling among men. People looked into his eyes and believed, because you could see a devil dancing in the bright flame of his soul.

  Jack Winter was magic.

  "Ready?" Jack asked from the head of the circle. Pete felt something wild and electric settle around them, like a phantom storm brushing her face with rain.

  "What should I do?" Pete asked. Jack beckoned to her and hissed when she almost scuffed over some of the markings.

  "Mind the edge, luv. Wouldn't want you lopped off at the knees."

  "Bloody hell, really?" Pete asked, eyeing the circle circumspectly. She wasn't her sister, nattering on about "the energy," but she knew, in a way that was deep and brooked no logical argument, that she had stepped into something otherworldly when she came to this place with Jack. He radiated a power she could taste on her tongue.

  "The circle won't hurt you," Jack admitted, stroking the darker stubble at his jaw. "But don't disturb the sigils. You don't want what'll be inside on the outside. Trust me." He took Pete's hand as she got close and raised the flick-knife. Pete jerked, but he was too quick, scoring a neat crosscut on her palm.

  "Ow!" Pete said in irritation. All of the questions she should have asked raced to mind in a sick sensation of falling and the excitement of a moment ago washed away on a red tide of fear.

  She hadn't asked why they'd come here, sneaked past the admissions booth at the cemetery gates and broken into this tomb, hadn't pressed Jack on purpose, because then she'd get scared, and Jack was never scared. Not when a pack of skinheads made trouble in Fiver's. Not of Da, DI Caldecott himself, who had chased off every one of MG's previous deadbeat boyfriends. Jack just extended a hand and a smile and people would throw themselves off Tower Bridge to stand next to him, to reap a little of the danger that seemed to permeate everything he touched.

  As the chalk soaked up her blood, the sigils fading to red like a blushing cheek, Pete knew she didn't want to pull back. Questions be damned. Jack wanted—needed—her here, and she was here.

  "You all right, luv?" Jack said, pressing a tattered handkerchief over her cut and closing her fist around it.

  "I'm fine. I'm ready," Pete said. She wouldn't think about what might crawl out of a tomb under Jack's deft hands, nor about how mad her believing that Jack had power was in the first place. She'd just know that he picked her, Pete Caldecott, who never had friends or friends who were boys, and bollocks to a boyfriend—if she had one of those, she'd go buy a lotto ticket. Jack Winter, magician and singer for the Poor Dead Bastards, needed Pete with him in this old dark place.

  Jack guided Pete to the black candle at the foot of the circle, and she made sure to stand ramrod straight so he'd know she wasn't scared, not a bit, wasn't thinking this was a bit dodgy and odd. Not Pete.

  "Now you hold on to me," Jack said, lacing their fingers together in a blood-smeared lattice across the markings on the floor. "And whatever happens, you keep holding on—all right?"

  "What might happen that'd make me let go?" Pete's stomach churned into overdrive.

  Standing at his spot by the white candle, Jack flashed her the devil-grin one more time. "That's what we're going to find out."

  He started to speak Irish, long passages, rhythmic. It sounded like it should be solemn, intoned by robed priests over a stone altar, but Jack half slurred through the stanzas as though he were reciting lyrics to one of his songs and had a few pints in him while he did it.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Pete looked at Jack through her lashes, half feeling pity because he seemed so set on something odd or spooky taking place.

  And then something did.

  Pete felt the pull, the separation of things that were comfortable and real from the dark place behind her eyes. Something was swirling up, through the layers of the veil between Pete and Jack and what lay beyond, and she could almost see it, a welter of black smoke growing in the center of the circle as Jack raised his voice, chanting rhythmically now that the fruits of his spell were visible. The chalk lines clung like bone fingers, holding the smoke-shape in place.

  Jack's eyes flamed blue as the spell snapped into place, and the fire traveled over the planes of his cheeks and his arms and hands and blossomed all around him as Pete gasped, and the thing in the circle grew more and more solid.

  The shape was human, a wicker man of smoke. The chalk lines did not hold it for more than a moment, and it fixated on Pete, eyeless but staring through her all the same. And then it was moving, in a straight and inexorable line, right for her. The primitive cold in her gut told Pete something was horribly wrong.

  "Jack?" Her voice was high and unrecognizable to her own ears. The wicker man had a face now, and hints of silver in its eye sockets, and hands with impossibly long fingers that reached out, clawed at her. Whispers crowded Pete's brain, and a pressure fell on her skull so unbearable that she screamed, loudly.

  And Jack, where was Jack? He stood watching the smoke with a measured eye, as if Pete were the mouse and he were the python enthusiast.

  "Jack," she said again, summoning every steady nerve in her body to speak. "What is it?"

  He bent to one knee and quickly chalked a symbol on the floor. "Binasctha," he breathed.

  The wicker man stumbled, like a drunk or a man who just had a heavy load thrown on him. But he walked still, one foot straight in front of the other.

  "Ah, tits," hissed Jack. He rechalked the symbol, and still the wicker man walked.

  "Jack." She said it loudly, echoingly so, the first fissures of real panic opening in her gut.

  "Shut it, will you!" he demanded. Pete saw from his expression that he was finally catching on to what she knew—never mind how; it had fallen into her head when that terrible pressure had eased, like waking up and suddenly knowing the answer to last night's math homework. She just knew, as if she'd experienced this ritual a thousand times before, that Jack's magic was awry and now the smoke man was awake and walking the world.

  "Is that all you can say?" she cried. "Jack, do something!"

  He tried. Pete would always say that, when she had to talk about the day, even though her memories of the whole event were thin and unreliable by choice. He tried. And when Jack tried to keep the wicker man from her, all that he got for his efforts was screaming, and blackness, and blood.

  Chapter Two

  The sign on the building, half off its hinges, optimistically proclaimed hotel. Underneath, in smaller gold script that had faded, "Grand Montresor."

  The tiny purple asters grew all around the crumbling concrete steps, forcing their way out of the cracks in a great spray of example for nature versus man.

  Pete stepped over them, careful to avoid crushing any blossoms, and pushed her way into bleach-scented gloom. The Montresor, like the whole of the block around it, had seen better days and couldn't remember exactly when they were. It stood out like a dark pock on the face of Blooms-bury, and Pete wondered why information always had to be garnered in the filthiest, most shadowy places of her city.

  A clerk straight out of The Vampyre ruffled his Hello! magazine in annoyance when Pete came to reception. "Yeah?"

  "Could you tell me about the person staying in room twenty-six?" Pete said, trying to sound bright
and official. It took more than a forced smile and a chipper tone to garner a reaction from the clerk, for he just grunted.

  Pete unfolded the note Oliver Heath, her desk mate at the Metropolitan Police, had handed her. "Grand Montresor, Bloomsbury by King's Cross. Room 26 @ 3 p.m."

  "Said he had information on the Killigan child-snatching." Ollie had shrugged, the gesture expansive as his Midlands drawl, when she'd questioned him. "Said that the lead inspector were to come alone, and not be late."

  Bridget Killigan. Six years old. Disappeared from her primary-school playground when her father was late fetching her. In normal cases Pete advised the parents to be hopeful, that children were usually found, that nothing would happen to their family. Because in normal cases, the child was snatched by a parent in a custody case or an older schoolmate as a prank, or simply said Bugger this and ran off on their own, only to be confounded by the tube system and get stranded in Brixton. Strangers took children in folktales, not Pete Caldecott's London.

  Even so, when the Killigan case came to Pete, she got that sink in her chest that always heralded an unsolvable crime. Bridget had no divorced parents, no creepy uncles. The girl had been taken by a figment with no ties to the world Pete could discover, and she knew, in the leaden and otherworldly way she just knew some things, that the only way they'd find Bridget Killigan would be dead.

  The clerk was giving her the eye, so Pete showed her warrant card. "Does the lift work?" she asked.

  The clerk snorted. "What d'you think, Inspector?"

  Pete sighed resignedly and mounted the stairs. She'd been meaning to get more time at the gym, hadn't she? One didn't become a twenty-eight-year-old detective inspector without spending every waking moment plastered to a case. At least, one didn't if one didn't want to endure the whispers about DI Caldecott the elder and how he'd worked for his position, he had, wasn't right how some young slip just waltzed right in…