Demon Bound

Pete said. “Are we transmogrifying it into tea and biscuits? Please say we are.”
    “You don’t need a key to open a lock,” Jack said. He put his fingers against the small metal opening and whispered a word of power. The music box sprang open and a snatch of “Greensleeves” drifted out of the musty interior before Jack snapped the lid shut again.
    “Magic isn’t all circles and chants, Pete,” he said. “Magicis the ability to bend the world to your will. That’s why it’s frightening and that’s why it’s powerful. Magic means the rules of the human race don’t apply.”
    Pete shied away from the music box. “I don’t like the rules any more than the next human, but the way you put it makes you sound like a bloody sociopath.”
    “Oh, no, luv,” Jack said softly, opening and closing the box again. There was a tiny ballerina figure in a satin dress that danced when her gears spun. “Magic isn’t freedom. There’s another set of rules entirely, and they’re swift and immutable as a guillotine blade.”
    “So why do it?” Pete said. “Why not just live a normal, human life?”
    Jack shrugged. “It’s my blood. Yours, too. You can’t ignore the Black once it’s chosen you, Pete. You can just try to exist.”
    He turned the box to face her. “Try it. Open the lock.”
    Pete’s brow crinkled. “Thought you said that was black magic.”
    Jack drummed his fingers on the edge of the table. “You wanted to learn, and I shouldn’t have put you off. Open the lock.”
    Her jaw set, Pete admitted tightly, “It doesn’t work that way for me.”
    Jack folded his arms. “You open doorways to the Land of the Dead. You pull power through you when I do me spells. How is this any different?”
    “It just bloody
is
!” Pete snapped. She shoved the box back at him. “I can’t do fancy tricks. I just have this awful, deep, dark hole inside of me and sometimes the monster inside it wakes up. I can’t
control
it, Jack. I’m not touched with magic like you. I’m stained with it and it doesn’t wash off.”
    “Pete . . .” Jack wanted to reach for her and stop the encroaching tears he saw in her too-bright gaze, but he held himself in. “Pete, you need to listen to me now. You have tolearn a few things. Enough so the Black doesn’t swallow you alive.” He took one of her hands, put it on the lid of the music box. “You’re not a monster, Pete. You’re something rare, and there’s them that will come for you and try to abuse your talent.”
    “Look.” Pete sighed, pulling her hand back into her lap. “I know that I can’t hide behind Jack Winter. My whole sodding life has been self-reliance, ever since my mum walked out and left me in charge of my sister and our da.” She gave a shrug. “But this isn’t me.”
    Jack felt his jaw begin to twitch. How did you explain to the only person who mattered that you wouldn’t be there, wouldn’t be able to help her, so she had to help herself?
    “Just try it?” he said finally, softening his frown and giving Pete one of his smiles. “For my humor, luv?”
    When Jack had nothing else, he still had his snake’s charm, even if it made him feel like a low-down hustler to use it on Pete. He reverted back to the clever animal he’d been on the streets, fixing, with the false face and the predator’s smile.
    And Pete finally nodded, and touched the music box again. “I feel stupid as anything.”
    “Don’t think about that. Don’t trouble yourself over anything,” Jack said. “Just feel. Bend the lock to your will, and say the words. Tell it
oscail
.”
    Pete’s lips pursed and she shut her eyes. In the curious void that the necromancer’s magic left around the house, her power sent out waves like a stone in a pool, like a bell in misty dawn air. It played across his skin like the light drag of fingers and Jack shivered.
    After a moment, Pete blew out a breath. “It’s no good. I feel it but every time it gets away from me. Like trying to grab a greased cat.”
    Jack set his hand next to hers. But not touching. Not when her magic was up. He didn’t fancy sending either of them into a coma. “Try it again. It takes doing but if youcan open a lock, you can call flame and if you can call a flame you can . . . well . . . do practically anything.”
    “Make someone spit toads?” Pete’s lips parted in a smile but her eyes stayed shut.
    “I suppose, if that’s what gets you off,” Jack said.
    “I’ve a few old schoolmates who