Street Magic

It will gain energy like there's no next minute. It will infuse itself with pure magic until it's bright as a dwarf star and then I won't be able to do fuck-all with an exorcism, and we're all buggered."
    "Mosswood told you how to find this thing," said Pete. She raised her index finger when Jack opened his mouth to object. "I
know
that you can find it, so why aren't we looking right
now
? Before Margaret ends up blind and spiritless?"
    "It's not that simple," Jack grumbled.
    "Oh, no," said Pete, jerking the whisky bottle away as Jack went for it again. "What happened to 'Poor me, the Robert Smith Fan Club doesn't respect me, now I've to prove what a big strong mage I am?'"
    Jack glared at her, pursing his lips when she set the whisky bottle out of reach. Finally he said, "Anyone ever tell you you're a stubborn little bit?"
    "You," said Pete. "And I knew it already. Come on, then." She took Jack by the elbow and helped him out of his chair. He stumbled against her and Pete snaked an arm under his. "Don't you dare try to get a feel."
    "I don't even like you, remember?" said Jack. Pete grumbled under her breath as they came out of the tavern into dim silver sunlight.
    "Let's walk for a bit," said Jack when she pointed them toward the Mini. "Clear me head."
    Pete nodded. Jack turned them to the river, the salty, laden air seeming to soothe him. He still leaned heavily on Pete and she let the silence stretch, allowing herself to think for a few footsteps rung on brick that there were no missing children, no ghosts. Just her, and Jack, together in a day full of mist.
    "This isn't going to be easy, you know," Jack said. His hand on Pete's shoulder tightened for a pulse beat, and she looked up at him. Jack caught her eye and curled his mouth in a not-quite smile. He looked to Pete as if he were smiling at a story of a grimly ironic death.
    "Mosswood said all we needed was the Trifold Focus thing," said Pete. She didn't like the smile. It shot straight to the same black place where the daylight echoes of her nightmares resided. Her skin chilled where it touched Jack, like she'd brushed the hide of something swampy and old.
    "Mosswood says a lot of things, but in all the years I've known him, I've never heard the whole truth," said Jack. "The Trifold Focus is a scrying tool, not a magic wand."
    "You use magic wands?"
    "Don't be a smartarse," Jack said. "The fastest way to find a ghost is to ask something that traffics in them."
    "
Something
?" Pete demanded.
    "A mage on his own could spend years sorting through all the pathetic bits of spirit left behind from suicide and traffic accidents and bugger knows what else," said Jack. He stopped at the rust-bubbled iron railing at the edge of the Thames, the slimy bricks breathing sea smell over the boiling brown water. "Mosswood's given me a direct line."
    "Will you stop being cryptic?" said Pete. She put her hands on Jack's shoulders and said, "Tell me what I have to do to save Margaret Smythe. Whatever it is. I'll do it."
    Jack shook his head, staring at the water. "You call in a favor, Pete. You ask what's already on the other side, the things that crawl in the tunnels between the veils. You call up a demon and cut a deal."
    Pete's carefully practiced expressionlessness, the mask she wore just like Jack wore his devilish smiles, slipped then. She felt her lips part and knew the disbelief had started in her eyes. "You did say demon. We're talking
Faust
. 'The Devil and Daniel Webster,' Dorian bloody Gray…"
    "The Devil," said Jack. "The Devil doesn't exist, Pete. He's the fear in our reptile brains.
Demons
exist. The Trifold Focus is used to call them and compel them into your will."
    Pete pressed a hand to her forehead and turned her back on Jack. The Thames stirred gently, black ripples shivering like raven feathers.
    "I can't let you do this," she said finally. "There's got to be another way."
    "No," said Jack. "And if you really believed there was, you'd be able to look me in the eye." He walked over to her, swaying just a little. The air around Pete crackled. "Was a time I did this sort of thing often," said Jack quietly.
    "Was there a time when you asked me to help you?" Pete whispered. Jack sucked in a breath, then sighed and sat down on the curb. Pete watched him light a Parliament and draw deep. Blue smoke drifted out of his nose to mingle with the haze above the river.
    "Not that time," said Jack. "Or any other. Not demons. Never you."
    Pete watched him sit, hunched,