Street Magic

Pete, I'm already dead." As Pete watched, unable to force herself to move, Jack's eyes flamed, and then the flame spread and became a helm, a raven's beak and a raven's sleek wings, engulfing his body, burning him away. Jack didn't scream, just looked at her, arms spread, the fire rushing across the carpet and up the walls until it was all around her.
    "No," Pete muttered. "No, no, no." She ran, keeping her body low, throwing her jacket over her head to protect it from a fiery snowfall of paint flakes and ash. The front door of the flat was locked and she beat her shoulder against it until it burst open, tumbling her into bright fluorescent light and the smell of ammonia.
    There was no disorientation this time. Pete would know the hospital room with her ears swaddled and both eyes put out. The slow hiss of oxygen and the almost imperceptible
plip-plip
of the IVs resounded in a space that was too small and too stale, holding a hovering, waiting Death for too long.
    Connor Caldecott slept, moving fitfully as the morphine coursed through his dreams. His chest was sunken and Pete's throat parched to realize that this was the end. The red gardenias on the nightstand were the last flowers she'd ever brought to him in the hospital.
    Outside the city was lit, sparkling like broken glass under full night. Visiting hours, Pete remembered, would be long over. Still, the door swished open and someone let in a brief burst of chatter from the hallway.
    "See you on third shift, Shirley luv," a nurse called, and then silence fell again as the door shut.
    Jack came to Connor's bedrail, his jackboots creaking on the linoleum, hair shaved into a Mohawk and blue smudges trailing under his eyes. His skinny frame exuded weariness, and he was wrapped in stiff clothes at least three days old. "Look at you, you old sod," he muttered, coming to Connor's bedrail. "Heard you were dying. Thought you were too mean for it, meself." He tossed aside a bouquet of wilted daisies and leaned on the rail. His hands shook and he glanced over his shoulder every few seconds as conversation rang in the hall, as if his nerve endings had gone on holiday and left his limbs to their own devices.
    "Can't say much, really," Jack muttered. "You never liked me. Right to. Had nothing but bad intentions for your MG." He laughed once. "Least she slipped me enough details for me to be your fake son. Did you know family can come by after visiting's closed? Bet you didn't. Doesn't look like your girls fancy hanging about too much. Can't say I blame them."
    "You bastard…" Pete hissed.
    Jack methodically searched the bedside table and pocketed the dose of Percocet the nurse had left should Connor wake up, then reached down and disconnected the IV feed to Connor's morphine bag, tying off the tube and shoving the whole thing into a shopping sack. Connor groaned in his sleep, and Jack paused. "We do what we have to. Pain's transient, old man. What's eating up your lungs—that's permanence." He patted the bag. "I need this. You're on the way out."
    Connor wheezed in his sleep, a kicked sound, pathetic. Pete's heart clutched.
    Jack sighed, his mouth thinning. He spoke as if he were convincing himself of a lie. "Your daughters will see you again," he whispered, bending close to Connor. "Not soon, but they will."
    "Stop!" Pete cried. "For God's sake, that's my da!"
    Jack turned to her. He scratched his jaw under the stubble and shrugged one shoulder. He was never quite still.
    "What am I supposed to do, Pete?" Jack spread his hands. "I'm not really here. You're just walking the halls, admiring the paintings."
    "You dream about this," Pete stated, motioning around the hospital room. "Stealing his painkillers. Talking to him."
    "Only lately," said Jack. He began to shiver. "I only nicked from the terminal cases, me, but I suppose it don't matter. Lot that I did that'll become fuel for nightmares, I'm sure. Thanks to you."
    "I don't have much time," Pete said desperately. "I wounded myself pretty badly just to get here. Where are you, Jack?"
    "I'm where he keeps me," Jack whispered, voice a husk. "At the center of it all. Stay away, Pete. Wake up. Just wake up…"
    Jack reached for her and Pete ducked him, hitting the wheelchair release for the door and backing out as Jack doubled over in a fit of shivers and coughs.
    "Bloody hell, what now?" she muttered. Her voice came out hollow and she felt as if her blood had turned to stone, cold and disconnected from her body. "Damn it,"