Street Magic

breath, letting the pot-smoke smell wash over her, and then said, very softly, "Jack, I need to speak with you."
    He stood, and Hattie made an unsteady move to follow. "
Alone
." Pete pinned Hattie with a glare, and the spindly girl sank back down into her seat.
    "What's wrong, luv?" Jack said when Pete pulled him into the hallway and slammed the flat's door.
    "How long have you known?" Pete said. Jack blinked once. His eyes were clear—he wasn't stoned, had just been playing at it. Pete found herself startled again at how quickly Jack could shuck and don different skins.
    "Known what, Pete?" he asked in a credible display of innocence, but Pete knew better.
    "I've been trying to figure it out, the whole walk home—did you know before that day in the tomb, or did you only figure it out when that
thing
came out at us and went straight for my heart instead of doing what you wanted?"
    Jack's eyes iced over, the deep glacial blue stealing around the iris, but Pete pressed on. "And that convenient tip to the police, and you sticking around me right up until now. For your
reputation
." She lowered her voice. "Did you really think I wouldn't realize what you're doing, Jack?"
    Jack spread his hands, and smiled at her. It was a warm smile, charming and guileless. "I don't know what you're talking about, luv—"
    Pete slapped him, hard enough to leave a crack at the corner of his mouth that dribbled blood. "
Don't
lie to me again, Jack Winter," she hissed. "And
don't
call me 'luv' any longer. You lost that right the day you decided to use me like a fucking telly antenna, a dozen bloody years ago."
    His fists curled and Pete braced herself to be hit. He probably wouldn't rattle her teeth, he was so skinny.
    "You put me in danger. You knew exactly what would happen and you
used
me," she kept on. "And when you found me again, you used me again. And now that little girl is probably dead and I've spent the last twelve years trying to outrun nightmares of something that wasn't even my fault in the first place. Do you know how many nights I've wished I could make up for hurting you, for letting that thing loose? Too
bloody
many, Jack!" Shaking, she clenched her teeth to keep her voice steady and said, "I'm going home. You can't help me, or Margaret Smythe. You can't help anyone."
    He let her get almost to the lift before he said, "You thought it was entirely your fault?"
    "Isn't it?" Pete said. "When a Weir and a mage meet, terrible things happen. Mosswood said it."
    "Mosswood doesn't know bloody everything." She heard a rustle and a sizzle as Jack conjured a fag, and then his breath drawing on it. "Listen, Caldecott, whatever happened between us before, right now all that matters is we've come to the attention of the wrong sort of people."
    He lifted away from the wall and walked over to Pete, placing the tips of his fingers on her right shoulder. Pete shuddered as his presence crackled around her. "Don't touch me," she whispered.
    Jack slid his grip to her arm and turned her to face him. The magic that rolled over Pete sucked her air away, just as it had the first time she'd stood close enough to touch him. "We're in danger, Pete," he said. "And if you don't stay with me, you're going to die. Later on, we can scream and throw crockery and shed tears over what I knew and how I used your talent and when, but right now, if you want
any
chance of saving Margaret Smythe from the clutches of certain death, then luv—you're with me."
    Pete glared at his hand until he removed it from her arm. "Is the Hattie trollop
strictly
necessary?"
    "Hattie's an old friend," Jack said. "She's not bad."
    "She's a fucking junkie," Pete pointed out. Jack smiled, lips thin.
    "So am I, Pete." He stamped out his cigarette and walked back down the dim hallway to the flat. "Hattie's got someone for us to meet, might have a line on those demon-wanking sorcerers who are after me."
    "And then we find Margaret," Pete told him. She let him know, with the thrust of her chin, that she'd break Jack's shins and drag him with her if it came to that.
    He flashed her the devil-grin, not worried in the least. "Yes. If we find them—then we find Margaret. Can't do fuck-all for the kid if we're dead, can we?"
    Pete conceded that he had a point. Whatever Jack was, wrong wasn't usually it. She gestured for him to lead the way back into the flat. "Don't make the mistake of thinking this is good and settled between us."
    "Wouldn't dream," Jack said, turning the knob. "You'd