Street Magic

numb. "Thought the electric was off."
    Jack snorted. "Think I need electric for a simple fry-up?"
    Pete conceded he had a point. The kitchen's pink-sprigged wallpaper and clean white countertops reminded Pete of summer visits to her grandmother Caldecott's trim house in Galway. A kettle on the old-fashioned enamel stove radiated heat, steam roiling out of the spout. A frying pan sizzled with eggs and sausages.
    "You're awfully chipper," Pete noticed as Jack fussed with mugs and tea that came from a plastic convenience-mart bag. "Your sight quiet? I find it hard to believe nobody died in a building this decrepit."
    "Not that," said Jack. "It's this place. Whitechapel." He set a mug with a cartoon purple cow in front of Pete, and shoveled some eggs onto a plate for himself. Jack looked her over, like she was keeping a secret. "Can you feel it?"
    Pete didn't like the way Jack was looking at her. It was that cold look, the one that calculated exactly how much your flesh and spirit were worth in his currency. "Feel what?" she said neutrally, sipping at her tea. It burned over her tongue.
    "Whitechapel has a dark heartbeat," said Jack. "It breathes out malevolence and draws in them that need blackness to survive. Dampens the sight, like living under a bridge."
    "But there are shadows under a bridge," Pete said.
    Jack grinned, without humor. "Just so."

----
Chapter Twenty-six

    "I'll still need to call an imp for the task at hand," said Jack later, his back turned as he did the washing-up. Pete was smoking a slow Parliament, mostly watching it burn in a saucer, taking a puff every few minutes as a token effort.
    "You found out which one, then," Pete stated.
    "Managed before the bloody bansidhe interrupted me," Jack said. "The
Dictionary
is shredded, though. Lawrence will kick my teeth in for that. Man treats his books like ruddy babies." He shut off the water and dropped the mugs and plastic plates into the rack to dry. Pete saw him shake once, and grip the counter edge, but the heroin tremors were barely visible any longer, like moth's wings fluttering.
    "Look," Jack said. "Go get a
Times
and find a little cafe to read it in. I'll be done by the time you get back. I know how you feel about it, all that—"
    "I want to watch," said Pete. The bansidhe's cuts stung her skin as she squirmed at the thought.
    Jack blinked. "Pardon me?"
    "I'm staying," Pete repeated. "Do what you have to do, Jack. I'll be here."
    He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I'll be in the sitting room."
    Pete followed after a moment. Jack was on his knees scratching an uneven chalk circle into the wood floor. In the daytime the flat was shabby in the way of an old woman on pension—faded and stained but not without a grace. The ceilings were twice as high as her own flat, the windows arched like a church with sills a fat cat could curl on. Crown molding, rotted away in places, marched around the ceiling and the lamps were Moorish iron, glass globes sooty from their previous life as gaslights. The building might have been even older than the Blitz, judging by the cracks in the plaster and the leaded panes.
    "Bugger!" Jack shouted as his chalk snapped in half. He spat on the marking and erased it with his thumb. The circle encased a five-pointed star and scribbles that looked like chickens had run through a bakery. The whole affair was hopelessly lopsided and scrawled, and Pete put a hand to her mouth to hide a small smile. Jack snarled at her before he went back to drawing.
    "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just… I imagined the whole thing would be much more sinister."
    "It's been a long time since I've done this, so you can bugger yourself," said Jack. "I could go find some black cats and chicken's blood, if that would improve your experience, milady."
    Pete sat on the sill, pressing her back up against the glass and letting the sunlight warm it. "Quit being childish and get the bloody imp up here. We're wasting time we could be using to help Margaret. Three days, Jack."
    "All right, all right," Jack muttered. "Hold your bloody horses." He got up, dusting off his hands, and went to root around in the kitchen. He returned with a few white packets in his fist and emptied them into a red puddle at the center of the circle.
    "What… ?" Pete started.
    "Catsup," said Jack. "They're mad for it. I think it's the acidity. Imps eat sulfur, in the pit. Wager this tastes a deal better."
    "And now I know more than I ever wanted about the preferred snack food for denizens of