Street Magic

Drained.
    Pete pressed her palms to her face. "Fuck it," she said quietly enough that no one except her and the angel and demon on her shoulders would hear. She had found the children, but their monotone whimpers told the same tale as Bridget Killigan—the fracturing of a mind and the ruination of a life.
    "Anyone alive down there?" Jack called. "I'm going to feel awfully silly having topped this git if it was for nothing. 'Course, he did deserve exactly what he got…"
    "I'm going to throw you my mobile," Pete said. She swallowed her defeat in a hard ball that scraped down her throat, and made sure she was in control. She was
Inspector Caldecott
. Finder of lost children. Logical. Unemotional.
    And again, too late…
    "Call the number in the memory for DI Heath and tell him you're with me. Give him the address."
    "You're not going to bring the kids up?" Jack said, snatching her mobile out of the air when she threw it. He poked suspiciously at the keypad.
    Pete bit her own lip hard enough to bleed it, steeled herself for the sight and turned back to the blinded children. "No. Not until someone brings the bolt cutters."

----
Chapter Seventeen

    "Bloody hell," said Ollie Heath. He passed a hand protectively over his thinning crop of hair and regarded Pete with pity. "We're not having much luck with this, are we, Caldecott?"
    The ambulance carrying Patrick and Diana to A&E had long since pulled away, leaving police and forensics to go about their grim business. Pete patted herself down for a fag. The packet was empty. She cursed.
    "Er, don't take this wrong," said Ollie, lowering his voice, "but who's the dodgy bloke you were with when you called in?" He inclined his head toward Jack. Jack was slouched against the outside of the graveyard gate, under the arch with the last of Pete's Parliaments in his mouth, eyes closed. Smoke drifted up and wreathed his face. He might have been a ghost himself.
    "He's the tip," said Pete. Ollie's eyebrows crinkled his expansive forehead.
    "Thought you said that was nothing."
    "It turned into something."
    "Not like you to hang about with an informant, Caldecott," said Ollie with concern.
    "I know him," Pete admitted. "He's an all-right bloke." A lie, one that came without thinking. Nobody had asked probing questions about the dead sorcerer yet, and Pete intended to be the one to have the first attempt at Jack on that score. For all of Jack's hostility, she'd thought him harmless, and now the sorcerer's blood was on her.
    "Listen, I'll finish up here if you'd like," said Ollie, laying a hand on her shoulder. Jack's eyes, hooded and black under the sodium light, focused on Ollie and Pete felt a distinct vibration, like a spirit had just breathed on the back of her neck.
    "Thanks, Ollie," she said, ducking out from under his hand. Ollie Heath was truly harmless, slow and dedicated to the job. Pete wouldn't be unleashing Jack on him. "Ring me as soon as the hospital will let us talk to the kids, yeah?"
    "Right," Ollie agreed. "Go get some sleep, Caldecott—you're chalky."
    I just saw a ghost
, Pete thought. She smiled at Ollie for appearances, and went to collect Jack.
    "No one's yet asked about the dead man," she told him. He shrugged.
    "I'll just tell 'em you did it. You're allowed to do stuff like that. Line of duty and all that shit, yeah?"
    Pete pressed her lips into a line. "You won't be telling anyone anything, because we're going home." For once, Jack was silent and he slouched obediently back to the Mini. Pete couldn't decide if it was providence or bad luck that Jack was staying with her a time longer.
    They drove through Chelsea's midnight streets in silence. The Mini's lights barely sliced the fog, and more than once Pete saw black shapes move among the swirling gloom. Her spine danced as the Mini bounced over cobbles in the old, walled part of the city, the cold heart hushed and damp as a shallow grave.
    "There's something out there," she said aloud, not really knowing why the words came, but knowing she was right.
    "Yeah," said Jack, leaning his forehead against the glass. "There is."
    "You killed someone tonight," said Pete. "We should get it clear now—don't you dare do a thing like that again while you're on my watch. Do you want to land us both in jail?"
    Jack sighed and managed to look mightily annoyed with his eyes closed and his head tilted back. "Anyone ever mention you're a terrible nag? You're going to put a husband straight into an early grave."
    "I bloody well