Street Magic

corroborate it, and it will be over."
    A silence stretched, and Pete opened one eye. Jack was staring out the window, past the telephone wires and the chimney pots on the opposite block of flats, watching as slivers of mist collected and filtered the sun to a tarnished sheen that turned his hair molten and his skin paper.
    "It's not," he said finally. "It's not finished."
    Pete swung her legs over the side of the mattress and sat up, even though dizziness rocked her like a ship in high wind. "What do you mean, Jack?"
    He stood up, knocking the chair over, and paced away. "Come on, Pete!" he snarled. "Don't play the sweet school-girl with me. You
know
what that thing was in the graveyard! You saw it."
    "I don't," said Pete, shaking her head once. "I was focused on Margaret. And you. It was from my dream. That's all."
    "From your dream because you've
bloody seen it before
." Jack slumped. He looked like a doll with cut strings, disjointed and laid aside. Pete got up and made her unsteady way to him.
    "Whatever it is, Jack—just tell me."
    "It's worse," he said. "It's about to get
much
worse. That ghost… I swear I sent him back, Pete. I
did
." Jack's voice threaded with frustration, as if he'd reached into his top hat to produce a dove and found a dead cat instead. "He can't have existed in the thin spaces for a dozen years on his own."
    "Well, obviously he
did
," Pete murmured. "I have a notion feeding on children helped with that."
    "
No
," said Jack firmly. "No, it doesn't work that way, Pete. He should have been called back into the land of the dead. For him to linger, to get so strong… he's had assistance, of the most grievous kind."
    "Don't like the sound of that," Pete said.
    "And you shouldn't," said Jack. "Whoever would keep
him
close to this world… there's a nutter with black plans, mark my words."
    "Got a theory?" she asked, and Jack rubbed at the point between his eyes as if he were trying to erase something.
    "Haven't a bloody clue. I swear, Pete," he said again, more to himself than to anyone present. "I sent him back."
    "Who is he?" Pete asked, rising and stepping around Jack to face him. Jack closed his eyes, rubbing his hands over his face. In the direct foggy sunlight, all of his scars and premature lines were stark. Jack looked old, hollowed out and collapsing.
    "His name is Algernon Treadwell," Jack said finally, from behind his hands. "And he's what I summoned out of the tomb twelve years ago."
    "Pete." Ollie stuck his head into the bedroom. "We're clearing out—you'll need a lift back to your flat, yeah?"
    "No," Pete said faintly, not taking her eyes from Jack. He looked resigned, dragging the toe of one boot back and forth across the dust on the floorboards.
    "No," Pete said louder. "I need to stay here for a bit."
    "Well… ring me when you're in," said Ollie. "I'll be at the Yard doing up the reports."
    Pete nodded, and Ollie backed away. A few seconds later the front door banged shut.
    Sighing, Pete went to the window and leaned her forehead against the glass.
    "Jasper Gorson," said Jack. Pete didn't move. She felt like a column of ice, frangible and nerveless.
    "Don't tell me this is the one time you're not going to ask 'Who's that.'" Jack sighed. "You want to know what happened, I can see it."
    "I want to know?" Pete murmured. She saw that limestone door scaled with moss roll back, and felt the cool dry breath of the tomb on her face. She had made a circuit and come back to stand in front of it, a dozen years hence. There was nothing to do but face up.
    "I suppose I do," she said. "I would like to know the hours of my life that I've spent in nightmares since you did this, Jack. I would know how long I waited for you to come back, and tell me it was all a terrible mistake. I would like to know, because then I could quantify exactly how much of my suffering
whatever
you were hoping to accomplish was worth to you."
    Jack's jaw knotted. "I was a stupid kid, Pete, the same as you. I didn't know what would happen."
    "
The hell you didn't
," Pete hissed, stepping in and jabbing a finger into his chest. Jack took a hasty step back.
    "When things went wrong you bolted without a glance backward. All that rot… 'Oh, Pete, I waited for you for so very long…' Pure rubbish. You didn't bloody care what happened to me! I should bash your bloody face in, you fucking bastard!" The high ceiling rattled echoes back and Pete realized she was shouting.
    "Fine. I didn't, when I started," Jack said. "And