Street Magic

breath-taking hug. "Don't scream," he hissed. "Time enough for that later."
    "Let her go," said Mosswood. He stood well clear of the sorcerer's reach, but he looked stern and not like someone Pete would trifle with, were she in a position to.
    "Bugger off, Knight." The second sorcerer sneered. "Matters of the Arkanum don't concern you."
    "Matters in my pub do," said Mosswood. "And if you sorry lot are the best of the Arkanum I will eat my tobacco pouch with salt."
    "We
just
want the crow-mage," the one holding Pete snarled. "But if you'd like to become incentive, feel free to step between us and him."
    Jack appeared from the archway painted with gents, wiping his hands on his shirt. He stopped when he saw the tableau. "What's the matter—couldn't Treadwell come out and play? Or did a spare wind get him stuck in a chimney pot somewhere?"
    "If you want her back, come to Highgate and don't try any of your mage's cleverness," said the sorcerer holding Pete.
    "You honestly think I couldn't drop you dead where you stand?" Jack asked, pleasant and soft.
    The sorcerer began to laugh. "Anything you do would put the chit at risk, and I don't think you want that."
    "Maybe I don't care," Jack said. His eyes flamed to life.
    "Maybe you should do as you're told," the sorcerer snapped, "and maybe you'll be in time to keep your girlfriend from the touch of him."
    Jack looked at Pete, and sighed. "They've got me bent over properly. I'm sorry, luv."
    Pete tried to say, "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing letting me become a hostage," but she was too muffled by the sorcerer's fingers. She kicked at him instead and caused a groan but no loosening of his grip on her.
    "Pete.
Pete
." Jack held up his hands. "I'll be right behind you, luv. I promise. Believe me. No harm will come to you. Believe me, please."
    He was coming as close to begging as Jack would ever come, Pete knew. And fuck, she wasn't going to die on the floor of a pub, at the hand of a reject from the Cure reunion tour.
    She worked her head free of the sorcerer's grip. "I believe you." Before she heard Jack's reply, if there was one, the walls of the Lament blurred and fell away to rushing black, and everything fell away, leaving Pete dangling before she slammed back to earth.
    "You like that?" The sorcerer's face was in the light now, the electric lamps of the regular world's Highgate Cemetery. "Shadow-stepping. Mages can't translocate like that. Only sorcerers."
    "My knees are positively weak," Pete said. Treadwell's sorcerer jerked her arm, black petals of smoke blossoming on his other palm.
    "Don't be smart. I could take your face off."
    "Will it save me from having to listen to you rattle on?" Pete gave the sorcerer her worst glare as he marched her through leaning rows of headstones.
    "Winter doesn't like his women mouthy. Wonder he let you stick around as long as you did."
    "There's a lot you don't know about Jack Winter," Pete said.
    The sorcerer barked a laugh. "As much as you did when you got tangled up with him in the first place, you silly chit?"
    Pete looked at her feet for a few steps. "No," she said finally. "I knew far, far less. But that doesn't change the fact that I'm here now, stolen and harmed by you, and that because you stole me you're fucked when Jack finds us."
    "Petrifying," said the sorcerer. "Move your little damsel act right along." He shoved her and she tripped over a low tombstone.
    "Let
go
of me!" Pete cried, jerking against the man's grasp. He stopped her, grabbing her by the upper arms, squeezing until Pete knew most women would let tears slide down their cheeks. She stayed silent, still. She would never cry.
    "You listen," growled the sorcerer. "Winter doesn't
care
about you, you understand that? He
let
us steal you away. Now, you keep your mouth shut and your head down and our master might see his way to letting you go… or keeping you as an amusement. That's a better future than what Winter can offer you on his best day." He pulled her along the path again, Pete's feet digging furrows in the earth as she resisted him.
    They walked, or rather the sorcerer walked, dragging Pete, for a long while, clear across the old part of the cemetery. Pete smirked. "Looks like your teleporter is off prime. You should have Scotty in to calibrate that."
    The sorcerer paused when they were in the oldest part of the cemetery, amid the weeds and the forgotten sunken graves. "You're not afraid of what we're going to do to you," the sorcerer