Street Magic

familiar.

    Jack Winter
    Born 15 June
    Died

    But the date was scratched out. Pete faced Jack, reaching for his wrist. "You're not dead."
    "Might as well be," he muttered. "What a life I've led. Every breath, every kick and scream against the pricks, all down to nothing, just a funeral no one will ever see for a man nobody cares about."
    "Oh, buggering
fuck
," Pete shouted. "You
cannot
expect me to believe that you're actually feeling
sorry
for yourself, you stupid sod! Look at me! I've fucking killed myself over you, and all that time I thought you'd already gone I carried that wound close, never let you fade all the way to memory because you were all I had to convince myself that
maybe
there was something out there beyond living and dying with just gray in between!" She grabbed Jack, shook him, fighting against fingers numb from encroaching passage to the land of the dead.
    "I cared for you so much it nearly drove me mad," Pete whispered. "So, you see, you can't leave. You simply can't."
    Jack sighed. "Sometimes the thing you want won't be yours, no matter how hard you grasp onto it, Pete. This is the end. You'd do well to walk away before any hope of saving you has passed. Leave me to Treadwell, and go get on with your life."
    You should heed the young man
. Treadwell formed out of the crackling power in the air, a sure form of a man here, simply silver and ephemeral. He wore a frock coat and his long hair was combed back from a broad forehead. His eyes lit hungrily as he gazed upon Jack.
    "I don't understand," Pete whispered. "You came to fight, Jack, and now you're giving up."
    Mr. Winter is both a product and a victim of his fears, as we all are
, Treadwell said, folding his hands and looking pleased.
In the end he has nothing-
—
not faith, not hope, not love. Just fear, and fear is the most powerful agent of all
.
    He stepped forward, passing through Jack's headstone.
lime has come, Mr. Winter, for you to step aside and for me to step in
.
    Jack nodded numbly, opening his arms. "I'm yours."
    Pete cast desperately, but the graveyard was totally empty except for Jack's headstone, lone and neglected.
    "Jack," Pete said. Treadwell paused in front of him, raising one palm to brush his fingers over Jack's face. Jack didn't flinch even as ice crystals grew on his brow, but he did when Pete gripped his hand. "You're not alone," Pete said, all resolve to keep calm gone. She heard her voice through a tunnel, knew she was slipping away. "That's it, isn't it—dying and more than dying, dying alone."
    Keep out of this
, Treadwell hissed. He raised his hands heavenward and began to chant, the incantation rising around Pete and Jack like a black mist, a swarm of dark magic.
    Pete squeezed Jack's hand, hard as she could. "You're
not
alone," she told him. "If you've made up your mind to die, then I'll be with you here, until the end. I'd follow you into death if that's what you asked, Jack. Heaven, Hell. Anywhere at all."
    Silence
! Treadwell screamed. The smoke rose and formed, an exact replica of Jack, featureless and incorporeal.
I
will
gain a form. Do not test me
.
    Pete held Jack's hand, barely felt herself trembling as she made her peace, let the strands already slipping through her fingers float away.
So be it
. "Anywhere at all," she repeated.
    Jack shuddered and sighed, drawing in a ragged breath. "Oh, Pete," he murmured. "Why didn't you just give up on me?"
    Pete smiled at him; saw a tiny lift in his shoulders. "You told me we'd see it through together. I believed you."
    Fire flamed to life in Jack's eyes and he turned on Treadwell. "Thought you'd trap me in the thin space and take my body? Lovely plan, if a bit flawed in the fact that I am not going to bloody let you anywhere near me."
    Treadwell smiled, the expression on him truly terrifying.
Too late for theatrics, Winter. Too late, too late, always too late
. He muttered,
Victus
. The smoke flowed into Jack, through his nose and mouth, through his eyes. Jack went to his knees, choking, gagging, and Pete saw the aura of magic around him flare and begin to change to ice-bred silver, the raven overtaken by a ravening wolf, starved and trailing spittle from its maw.
    Submit to me, crow-mage
, Treadwell said.
And your soul's passage to the land of the dead will be swift
.
    "Leave him alone!" Pete screamed. The smoke engulfed Jack wholly, and he stopped fighting as Treadwell watched grimly, with the kind of terrible satisfaction vengeance brings over a person.
    You