Street Magic

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."
    "Have you always had that shadow over you, the crow?" Pete said. "Because of her?"
    Jack nodded. "Yes. It's what I am—the crow-mage. Can't change that. Not something you volunteer for."
    "If you're sure it's all right…" Pete murmured, pushing down half-formed suspicions that croaked underneath her thoughts, about Treadwell and his screams and the Morrigan and her multitude of black shadow-crows. She stood, collected more books to give her hands something to do. She wouldn't tell Jack about her dreams. The shrouded man. The bird's heart, and the merciless gaze of the Morrigan. How Pete still saw it against the backs of her eyes when she shut them, inhuman and indescribably ancient. Because Jack would worry more than he already was, and she was trying to protect him, wasn't she?
    "What about you, Jack? What I saw in your nightmare, the black around your spirit-form? Don't tell me that was right and natural as well, because it wasn't. I