Free Street Magic by Caitlin Kittredge Page A

was rubbing out the blue of his irises, stealing out from the center of his eyes like frost.
    "Jack?" Pete said hesitantly. She felt as if the air were pushing in on her, something inexplicable
rising
in the room as Jack's head tilted back and his hands rattled like he was seizing.
    "Jack!" Pete cried as he stiffened and then with a spasmodic gasp flung the bones down onto the mirror and the pictures of the children.
    The bones stayed where they fell, as if they were magnets. Pete thought she caught a glimpse of a dark reflection in the mirror before Jack sighed and rotated his head from side to side. "Fucking trances. Always give me neck a cramp."
    The reflection flapped its wings and disappeared. It would have been less than a single frame of film. Pete allowed herself to be sure she'd imagined it. Jack's witchfire and his visions were his things. She did not see them, and she did not want to.
    "That's it, then?" she said. Her voice came out weak and soft and she swallowed to make it hard again. "That seemed awfully simple."
    Jack gave her a skewering glance before he hunched to examine the bones. He'd started to shiver again. "Well, it wasn't, so sod off."
    "You can use that blanket on the back of the sofa if you like," said Pete. Jack sneezed, and used a corner of the blanket to blow his nose.
    "Cheers." He passed his hand over the bones, fingers splayed, once, twice, three times. "Ah," he said at last, the syllable acres from pleased.
    "No good?" Pete deflated inwardly, space containing the wild hope that Jack could repeat his magic with Bridget on the new missing children, that his pithy pronouncement would roll forth and everything would be real and simple again, collapsing.
    "It's bloody good," said Jack. "But you're not going to like it. Got a city map?"
    Pete fetched the battered one from her desk, marked in several places with notes from old cases. Jack tried to unfold it with his shivery fingers, managed it on the second try, and jabbed his finger at a spot near the heart of the city. "The kids are there."
    Pete squinted to read "Brompton Cemetery."
    "I know the area," she said. "Not too far from where I grew up, that." She looked at Jack. "You're sure?"
    " 'Course I'm bloody sure," Jack muttered. He sniffled and rubbed the back of his hand against his nose. His eyes were red-rimmed and every few seconds he shivered as though a winter wind were cutting his flesh, but his cheeks weren't as yellow and sick as they'd been half a day before, and his movements had more life—less a listless marionette, more of the Jack she remembered. "All right," said Pete. She dug in her bag for her mobile and started to dial Ollie Heath. "What's the part I'm not going to like?"
    Jack made another finger-pass over the bones, and another breath of cold trailed up Pete's spine. "There's black magic around the children," said Jack. "More specifically, them that make use of black magic. Sorcerers."
    Pete kept her expression composed. "I think I can handle a few gits in black capes drawing pentagrams, Jack."
    "You don't understand." He sighed, as if she'd just told him London was the capital of France. "If sorcerers took the children, something is moving. You said Bridget Killigan was blinded?"
    "She's got a kind of amnesia, too," said Pete.
    We went to see the old Cold Man. He lives on the murky path, just around the bend.
    "Ah, tits," Jack muttered. "Be prepared, Pete—the people that snatched the brats are dangerous and probably won't be in the best humor when we find them. Something's up, mark my words. I can feel it shifting in the lines—there's a darkness clustering around these kids, and the first one, too. Only scried for her because the ghost voices were cutting into the fix and I was trying to make 'em shut it." He rubbed his arms, up and down, rhythmic unconscious strokes. "Any idea how strong a shade has to be to break through an opiate high, Pete? Strong enough to light up the O2. Whole land of the dead is buzzing, and