Street Magic

driver!" Pete protested as the taxi disappeared at the end of the street, taillights winking when it rounded the corner.
    "Never
offer to repay a Fae," Jack said tightly. "And
never
allow them to strike a bargain with you. The cab is on my account. I'll pay up when they decide my debt is due and not a moment before."
    "I'm truly sorry. I didn't know," Pete said. "Now let go of me before I fetch you a smack."
    Jack heaved a sigh and pushed his hair every which way with his fingers. "You wanted to learn the Black, and how to survive in it… consider that lesson the first." He dropped her wrist. "Sorry if I hurt you."
    " 'S all right," Pete muttered. Her skin was slightly pink where Jack had touched her.
    The sorcerer managed to haul himself onto his elbows, attempting to crawl away down the street. "Will you look at this git," Jack exclaimed. He pointed a finger at the sorcerer and muttered, "
Sioctha"
The sorcerer jerked, all of his limbs going rigid. Pete put her face in her hands.
    "Did you explode this one's heart, too?"
    "Nope," Jack said triumphantly. "Just stiff. A little magic rigor mortis until he tells me what I want to know. Get his other arm."
    Together they dragged the sorcerer up the creaking fire escape to the flat, and once inside Jack rolled the man onto his back and put a boot in the center of his chest.
    "Get the frying pan, or a phone directory—something heavy to bash him in the good kneecap if he gets smart," he said to Pete. "Right," he addressed the sorcerer. "You know who I am, and what I can do, and I'm going to let you go now with the provision that if you try any tricks, what's left of you will fit inside a syringe. Got it?"
    The sorcerer tried to speak, huffed breath through his nose and his immobile lips, eyes going wide.
    "Good," Jack said conversationally. "
Bi scaoilte
." The sorcerer shuddered and relaxed. Jack pressed down harder with his boot. "Who are you bloody working for?"
    "Roast in hell, Winter, you doped-up has-been!" the sorcerer shouted.
    "Oi," Pete said. She picked up a heavy bookend from Jack's shelf. "What's your name?"
    "Roddy," the sorcerer spat. "Roddy Post."
    "Well, Roddy Post," said Pete. "Are you going to answer my friend's questions?"
    "Go bugger yourself!" Roddy moaned. His face was pale, twin stains of crimson in the hollows of his cheeks.
    Pete knelt, lifted the bookend, and brought it down on Roddy's right hand. He howled. Jack raised his eyebrows.
    "You've got issues, luv."
    "Fine…" Roddy sobbed. "Fine, I'll sodding tell you whatever you want."
    "Like a cheap notebook, you are," Jack said. "Folding when she only tapped you with that thing."
    "Don't be too hard on him," Pete said, giving Roddy a thin smile. "You'd be amazed at what a couple of broken knuckles will do for a bloke's outlook."
    Jack's expression went from amused to something darker, deeper, as if he were taking Pete's measure. "All for the sake of the child, eh?" he asked her.
    Pete looked at Roddy, his pale drawn face. "Of course," she murmured, and set the bookend down because it was suddenly very heavy.
    "Now, then," said Jack. He went into the kitchen and brought back a chair. "Pete, help the bloke to sit up."
    Pete heaved Roddy into the seat and Jack stood in front of him. "Talk. Who's trying to kill me and why?"
    Roddy's ragged breathing smoothed. "I can't tell you."
    "Bloody hell…" Jack muttered, raising his palm and opening his mouth to speak another word of magic.
    "I can show you," Roddy said sullenly. Jack cocked his head, as if weighing Roddy's sins to decide if he lived or died.
    "Well, all right then," he finally said with his old grin. "Pete, let's bear up poor Roddy's leg and let him lead the way."

----
Chapter Thirty-eight

    They drove through stone canyons, the old parts of the city, strongholds of visiting royalty, reclaimed as hotels and bars, neon hidden in crevices between the hand-hewn rock walls.
    "Here," Roddy muttered. "Pull over here."
    Pete eased the Mini to the curb on Ironmonger Lane and looked up at the stone edifice. "What's here?"
    Roddy looked at his feet. "The Arkanum."
    Jack choked. "You're not
serious
." He craned out the window to look up at the building. "Incredible."
    "What's the Arkanum?" Pete asked Roddy.
    "The Arkanum is the collective of darkness, the society of secret and shadow. We see and do what you only dream of, and we pull the strings of the bright, living world." Roddy muttered all of this, his voice blurry with pain and resignation.
    Jack