Street Magic

Street Magic The Black London series, book 1 Caitlin Kittredge

For my dad, Jim Van Fleet 1948–1994

Acknowledgments

Street Magic is a labor of love, and the book would never have come into being without the assistance, support, and occasional arse-kicking from a great many people.

Rachel Vater, my amazing agent, deserves credit for taking that initial draft and making it into a Real Book. Rose Hilliard, my esteemed editor, gave Pete, Jack, and Black London a home and took them to a new level with her enthusiasm and deft editorial hand.

Richelle Mead, owner of a sofa on which a large portion of the first draft was written and fellow Vampire Justice su-perfan, ensured with her encouragement that I would write the hardest and simultaneously most fun novel of my career to date.

Stacia Kane read an early draft and got every single one of my punk rock references, thus proving that she has both excellent taste in music and a slightly twisted imagination. I couldn't ask for a better crit partner and I'm thrilled this was the book that brought us together.

Cherie Priest and Kat Richardson gave me cover quotes and encouragement, and along with all of Team Seattle, gave me drinks, dinner, and dance-offs during the marathon revision process. Jim Butcher also gave me a lovely cover quote while trapped with me in a small car in Seattle traffic, and did so with grace and aplomb. Jim, I promise never to do that again.

Karen Mahoney showed me London and conspired to make me sound English.

Liz Bourke translated the Irish flawlessly and didn't think it was strange that I was asking for exorcism spells and curse words.

Sara McDonald has seen every iteration of Pete and Jack since the beginning, and has been a tireless cheerleader.

Chris McGrath, for the gorgeous cover and Adam Auer-bach for stellar design.

Mom and Hal, my number-one fans.

And finally, the bands who made the music that is the lifeblood of Black London: the Clash, the Sex Pistols, the Anti-Nowhere League, Nick Cave, Concrete Blonde, the Pogues, Generation X, the Supersuckers, and many more.

Rock on.

PART ONE London

Animate London, with smarting eyes and irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither.

— Charles Dickens

Chapter One

Michaelmas daisies bloomed around Pete Caldecott's feet the day she met Jack Winter, just as they had twelve years ago on the day he died.

That day, the unassuming tomb in a back corner of Highgate Cemetery was overrun with the small purple flowers. Jack crushed them under his boots as he levered the mausoleum door open.

Fear had stirred in Pete's stomach as the tomb breathed out bitter-smelling air. 'Jack, I don't know about all this.'

He flashed a smile. 'Afraid, luv? Don't be. I'm here, after all.'

Biting her lip, Pete put one foot over the threshold of the tomb, then the other. A wind whispered out from the shadowed depths and ruffled her school skirt around her knees. She backed out of the doorway immediately. 'We shouldn't be here, Jack.'

He sighed, pushing a hand through his bleached crop of hair. It stood out in wild spikes, gleaming in the low light. His hair was the first thing Pete had seen of Jack in Fiver's club three months ago, molten under the stage lights as he gripped his microphone like a dying man and screamed.

'Don't be a ninny, Pete. Nothing in here is going to bite you. Not yet, anyway.' The devil-grin appeared on his face again. Jack held out his hand to her. 'Come into my parlor.'

Pete grasped his hand, felt where the ridges of his fingers were callused from playing guitar, and used the warm shiver it sent through her to propel herself into the tomb. The stone structure was bigger than it appeared from the outside and her hard-soled shoes rang on the stone when she planted her stride firmly. She hugged herself to ward off the chill.

'I'm not a ninny.'

Jack laughed and tossed the green canvas satchel he'd brought into a corner. 'Sorry. Must have been thinking of your sister.'

Pete punched him in the shoulder. 'That's your girl-friend you're slagging off. You're wicked.'

Jack caught her hand again and folded it into his, eyes darkening when Pete didn't pull away. 'You don't know the half of it.'

Pete met his stare, listening to them both breathe for a moment before she disengaged her hand. 'Thought you said we were here to do some magic, Jack.'

Jack cleared his throat and moved away from her. 'So I did.' He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket and began drawing a crooked circle on the flags, one that quickly grew lines and squiggles radiating toward the center. 'And we will, luv. Just got to set up some preparations to ensure everything stays nice and nonthreatening for your first time.'

The way he said it could have made any of Pete's classmates at Our Lady of Penitence blush. 'Jack, why'd you bring me?' she asked abruptly. 'This pagan demon-worshipper crap is MG's thing, not mine. I shouldn't even be alone with you. You're far too old.'

'I'm twenty-six,' Jack protested. He finished the circle, which had grown into something that resembled a cage, giving Pete the sense of flat, cold iron. Jack took two fat can-dles, black and white, from his satchel. 'You act like I've got one foot in the sodding grave, you do.'

And I'm sixteen, Pete had whispered to herself. And if MG ever found out the two of us have been alone—if Da ever found out…

'I asked you to come along because I need you,' Jack said, sitting back on his heels. His serious tone pulled Pete back from imagining what if MG witnessed the scene. Her sister could throw a fit akin to a nuclear explosion. And Da—he'd send Pete to a convent, or a tower, or wherever angry fathers sent recalcitrant daughters in fairy tales.

Pete blinked. 'Why on earth would you need me?'

Jack brushed the chalk dust off his hands and stood, patting the pockets of his battered black jeans. 'Let's see—you're sensible, cool in crisis, rather adorable. What bloke wouldn't want you about?'

'Shut your gob,' Pete muttered. 'What'd MG say, she heard you talking like that?'

'MG,' said Jack. 'MG knows what I'm about. She wouldn't say a bloody thing, because she won't ask and I won't tell her.' He searched his studded jacket next, without fruition. 'Bloody fucking hell. You got a light?'

Pete dug in her school bag and found her Silk Cut and disposable lighter, hidden inside a tampon box. MG might treat Pete indifferently at best, but she did teach her a few good tricks.

'Cheers,' Jack said when she tossed it to him, lighting the candles and placing them at the head and foot of the circle. The longer Pete looked at it, the more her eyes hurt and her head rang, so she looked away, at the bar of light that was the door back to the world.

'Almost there…' Jack muttered. He pulled his flick-knife from a hidden pocket—or maybe it just appeared, in the dim light Pete couldn't be sure—and pricked his finger, squeezing three precise droplets over the chalk.

Pete had watched Jack work magic before, simple street tricks like disappearing cards, the queen of spades slipping between his thin fingers, or small conjurations like a cigarette that came from the packet already lit.

But here, in the tomb, Pete remembered thinking, it was different. It was real magic. Silly, of course, that, through and through. She was the daughter of a police inspector, and the Caldecott family—less MG—didn't put stock in that sort of thing. But Jack… Jack made you believe, with his very existing. He crackled the air around him like a changeling among men. People looked into his eyes and believed, because you could see a devil dancing in the bright flame of his soul.

Jack Winter was magic.

'Ready?' Jack asked from the head of the circle. Pete felt something wild and electric settle around them, like a phantom storm brushing her face with rain.

'What should I do?' Pete asked. Jack beckoned to her and hissed when she almost scuffed over some of the markings.

'Mind the edge, luv. Wouldn't want you lopped off at the knees.'

'Bloody hell, really?' Pete asked, eyeing the circle circumspectly. She wasn't her sister, nattering on about 'the energy,' but she knew, in a way that was deep and brooked no logical argument, that she had stepped into something otherworldly when she came to this place with Jack. He radiated a power she could taste on her tongue.

'The circle won't hurt you,' Jack admitted, stroking the darker stubble at his jaw. 'But don't disturb the sigils. You don't want what'll be inside on the outside. Trust me.' He took Pete's hand as she got close and raised the flick-knife. Pete jerked, but he was too quick, scoring a neat crosscut on her palm.

'Ow!' Pete said in irritation. All of the questions she should have asked raced to mind in a sick sensation of falling and the excitement of a moment ago washed away on a red tide of fear.

She hadn't asked why they'd come here, sneaked past the admissions booth at the cemetery gates and broken into this tomb, hadn't pressed Jack on purpose, because then she'd get scared,