Street Magic

tell me 'It was too easy, Jack,' because there's nothing about five sorcerers busting into my flat and working me over that's bloody easy," Jack said.
    Pete's stomach flip-flopped like she'd gone over the edge of the world. "Bollocks. Five of them."
    The fifth sorcerer unfolded from a dark corner of the sitting room in a swirl of black, freezing smoke. He aimed a revolver at Pete and Jack. "You're a fucking wonder with the magic, Winter, but I'm willing to bet even you can't stop a bullet."
    Jack looked at Pete. "He's right."
    "I
told
them," the sorcerer said. "Told them that we should have found you and plugged your junkie arm with an overdose when we had the chance, but no. You weren't a
threat
. I can't tell you how happy I am that you finally managed to become one."
    Jack heaved a sigh. "Sonny boy, do I
know
you?"
    "No," the sorcerer said, a grin spreading under his mask. "But soon everyone in the Black will know me—they will turn when I go by and whisper, 'There goes the killer of Jack Winter, the murderer who stood on the body of the crow-mage and claimed his magic for his own.' You've held your talent and your gift long enough, Winter. Time to give up the ghost."
    He started for Jack and Pete, thumb pulling back the hammer of the revolver.
    "Wait—" Jack started as the sorcerer's foot displaced the copper wire of the circle. Faster than Pete could see, Talshebeth fell upon the sorcerer, blunt teeth pulling and tearing at the skin, consuming the sorcerer's flesh while his magic was absorbed into the folds and crannies of Talshebeth's form.
    "—mind the circle," Jack finished.
    "Oh, yes," Talshebeth breathed. "So much rage. So much shadow inside him." The copper wire at his feet glowed molten and the circle broke, running into the cracks in the floor.
    "Ah, tits." Jack reached out and shoved Pete behind him without taking his eyes off Talshebeth, with more strength than she would suspect a man twice his size of.
    "Oi!" she protested.
    "Shut it," Jack said in a low voice, his eyes on Talshebeth. The demon took one step over the liquid copper, then another, placing his mismatched human and cloven feet right together with a sigh of happiness.
    "It appears our bargain is void, crow-mage," he said, tongue darting out to taste the air.
    "If you know what's good for you, you'll take the hand and leave," Jack said. Talshebeth laughed, gutturally now, pure pleasure in pain.
    "Why would I take your offering, crow-mage, when I can have
you
?"
    Jack grabbed Pete's wrist. "Run," he said. "Fast and far as you can, and don't look back, don't
come
back no matter what you hear or feel."
    "I'm not going anywhere," Pete muttered. "You're no good to me dead."
    "Good woman," said Talshebeth. "Loyal, brave, and shining to a fault. Stay, little one. Watch what becomes of the crow-mage when he faces a truer evil."
    Jack backed up, almost stumbling over her, and Pete went with him. "You should have run for it," said Jack. "Demons aren't like Fae or like us—they're of another world and there's not a bloody thing I can do to stop him once he's free."
    Talshebeth raised his hands as though he were trying to stop a lorry and a greenish aura of magic blossomed around him. He was no longer awkwardly ugly and misshapen. Freed, he was inhuman and terrible to behold.
    Jack threw up a hand in turn and Pete felt the crackle of air around him, the energy that was achingly familiar. Jack turned his head and met her eyes. "I'll protect you," he said in an almost earnest tone.
    Talshebeth showed his teeth and sent a wave of the sickly green forward, blotting out all the light in Pete's field of vision.
    She heard Jack yell and felt the energy around him shudder under the blast. Twisting in his grip on her wrist, Pete grabbed his hand, blind. She wanted to tell Jack so many things and they would all sound trite now. She didn't want to die. She didn't want to be helpless, letting a junkie mage be her human shield when
she
should be shielding
him
. She was the bright one, the protector… and she was helpless to stop Talshebeth's fury of toothsome, shrieking magic.
    This is the Black. People die here…
    I don't want to die
, Pete thought, bell clear and solid in the face of the ethereal hurricane. Jack's shoulder shuddered under her cheek where she pressed her face low to keep her eyes off the demon, and like a stinking river rushes through a broken dam she felt his magic give, cracking under the demon's.
I don't want to die I don't want to die