Street Magic

your face."
    "Whatever the case, we should use caution," said Pete. "In the interest of not getting our bloody heads blown off."
    "Whoever has the kids isn't going to give us a written invite," said Jack. "Sorcerers understand force, Pete, so I'm going to give it to them."
    "But we don't know how many of them there are!" Pete whispered as Jack jerked free and strode across the brown grass crackled with early frost, crushing it under his soles.
    "Damned stupid impulsive arrogant sod," Pete hissed, running after him.
    Jack met the door with a planted foot, black wood shattering under his kick. Dry rot and dust swirled around Jack, turning his skinny dark-clad frame to a ghost in its own right.
    Pete fetched up at his shoulder, shouting "Police!" belatedly, praying that in addition to whatever occult trappings the kidnappers carried, they hadn't gotten their hands on guns.
    The two men at the center of the crypt were young—Pete noticed that first. One still had a rash of pimples up his right cheek, and their faces weren't hard or cold enough to hide the rush of guilty fear in their eyes. In a restaurant or club, they'd be any two university students trying too hard, in expensive black jackets and black denim, silver charms dangling around their necks, identical spinning-wheel shapes that looked like poisonous spiders.
    One found his voice, anger twisting it. "Who the fuck are you lot?"
    Jack smirked. "I'm Jack Winter, and I'm here to make your worst bloody nightmares come true."
    The two black-clad boys looked at Jack in askance, then each other, questioning. The bepimpled one shrugged ignorance. Then they both laughed in Jack's face.
    Pete placed a hand on Jack's shoulder. He shook under her, a leaf raging in the face of a gale. "What have you done with Patrick Dumbershall and Diana Leroy?" she asked evenly. "I warn you, lying at this juncture is only going to make me angry enough to hurt you. Both of you. Badly."
    Looks traded again, a nervous shuffling of feet on the stone floor of the crypt. The sound unpleasantly evoked Pete's dream.
Take what is yours, Pete Caldecott
.
    "Go bugger yourself," the second spoke up. "We ain't doing anything wrong."
    "I'm an inspector with the Metropolitan Police and my associate has identified you as the kidnappers of two children," said Pete, stepping forward. "Those two facts plus you lot hanging about this tomb add up to me arresting you. Hands on heads, and face the wall."
    Before she could move, Pete felt electricity roil upward from her gut, through her spine, exploding against her brain like a hit to the temple.
Power
. Like she'd felt only once when she faced Jack across the clumsily chalked circle twelve years before. In her second of hesitation, the sorcerer's magic slammed into her.
    Wind, like a wall, like seeing the closed lid of the empty coffin at Jack's funeral, snatched Pete and sent her tumbling backward to land in the dirt at Jack's feet.
    The sorcerer smiled, folding his hands together like a gun and drawing in a breath to say words of power.
    He never got the chance.
    Jack held out his right hand with fingers splayed, like he was framing a photograph. Then he twisted his hand, and the sorcerer on the right dropped to his knees, face twisted in supplication.
    "I… what…" His words degenerated into breathless gurgling.
    Jack took a step toward the fallen boy, and Pete felt the second sorcerer draw on the black well of magic that swirled just beyond sight and sound. She closed the distance between herself and the sorcerer and put a right cross into his half-shaven jaw. A twinge of separation stabbed her between her first and second knuckle. The sorcerer sat down hard, eyes swimming. Pete flexed her hand and said, "Stay put unless you want to take your means through a plastic straw for the foreseeable future."
    The victim of Jack's attention clawed at his throat, whimpering. Pete perceived a darkness hovering over Jack and the sorcerer, like the thing in the scrying mirror, a hooded and robed figure who stared impassively with obsidian bird's eyes.
    Jack spoke and shattered the vision. "I've stopped your heart, you little cunt-rag. Would you like me to make your blood come out of your eyes next? Your coffin will be closed and padlocked when I'm done." Jack clenched his fingers again and the man screamed, trails of blood oozing from his nose, his mouth, red tears forming and sliding down his face.
    "Still laughing at me now, you boss-eyed wanker?" Jack