Читать книгу: «Sacrificial Magic»
STACIA KANE
SACRIFICIAL MAGIC
Book Four of the Downside Ghosts
To the real
Chelsea Mueller,
with thanks
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
About the Author
Also by Stacia Kane
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
Only the bravest fight the dead.
—Grand Elder Thomas, speech to graduating students, 2007
Had the roof over her head not been a broken mess, shredded insulation and pieces of tile dangling like the rotting innards of the living thing it had once been, she wouldn’t be getting hit on the head with cold droplets of water at odd, annoying intervals.
That would have made her happier. Or at least not quite as unhappy. Nothing could have made her happy at that moment, when she was about to wander down a dark hall where a ghost lurked and hopefully manage to freeze it before it sliced off her head or stabbed her or whatever the hell else it planned to do. The odds of a ghost in this corpse of a building not having a weapon were—well, hell, there were no odds at all. Only the dumbest ghost on the planet wouldn’t have found some sort of weapon in this ramshackle palace of destruction, where her boots sloshed through a good two inches of foul water, broken glass, metal shards, pulped books, and who the fuck knew what else.
“Think it’s in there, Chess?” Riley Martin, a brand-new Debunker, pointed toward the mouth of the hallway ahead. In there the ceiling had apparently maintained its integrity; the hall was only shadows, a dark tunnel straight to the grave. Or rather the Crematorium, and the City of Eternity. None of which really sounded like a fun way to end her evening.
But neither did leaving the ghost here to kill other people, or telling the Church she’d decided to fuck off to the bar instead of doing her job. “Probably. No, don’t turn your light on yet. Try not to if you can help it. Let’s go stand right inside until our eyes adjust, okay?”
Riley nodded. Chess followed him, neither of them bothering to keep their movements quiet. If they could somehow attract the spirit, draw it out, that would be easier and safer. The last thing either of them wanted to do was to walk into some kind of ambush.
Fucking Lamaru. Fucking Arthur Maguinness-Beldarel shithead. If they hadn’t played their stupid power games and set a bunch of ghosts free the month before, she wouldn’t be out here doing something that technically wasn’t her job but that every Church employee capable of doing it had to do at least one night a week when they weren’t otherwise engaged or on a case.
Which Chess wasn’t. Damn it.
They stopped in the shadows; the almost imperceptible breeze hadn’t penetrated there at all, so the horrible ammoniac stench, full of mold and worse, assaulted her nose the second they entered the hall. Her eyes stung.
But more than that, a warm tingling sensation began crawling up her arms and across her chest as her magical tattoos reacted to the presence of a spirit. A ghost was definitely nearby. She looked at Riley. “Are you feeling it?”
“I—I don’t know. My skin feels kind of funny.” What little of his face she could make out didn’t look happy.
“You get used to it.”
A flash of light down the hall, so fast she only saw it out of the corner of her eye. But it had definitely been light, and it had definitely been the bluish light of a ghost.
Riley’s breath caught. This was the time that, if she was a normal sort of person, she’d be able to say something reassuring and at the same time cool, the kind of thing that would make Riley feel brave but not patronized. And then they’d both sort of smile and head off down the hall to Banish that ghost.
But she was not that kind of person, and the last thing she had any idea how to do was reassure Riley and make him feel good about himself. Cliché was probably about the best she could do.
“You’ll be fine,” was the one she gave him, and to her surprise it seemed to work. “Come on.”
Every step they took, every slow step through the soup of bacteria and rot sucking at her boots brought them closer to that faint death-glow. She’d mixed some graveyard dirt and asafetida earlier, stuck it in a bag in her pocket; now she reached inside and grabbed a small handful. Ready.
They moved a few steps in silence broken only by the occasional plonk of water dripping from the ceiling behind them. Something rattled. Chess spun around to look but saw nothing.
Ghosts weren’t the only things that might hang out in abandoned buildings at night. They weren’t in Downside, no, but they weren’t exactly in the nicest area, either. This building, which had once housed offices of some kind and a warehouse, stood just a few streets into Cross Town, a whole city block of condemned cement with a ten-foot chain-link fence around it.
A chain-link fence with holes in it. She wondered how many neighborhood kids had made this their weekend hangout until two nights before, when one of them met a gruesome death just inside the front doors.
Another tiny glimpse of light.
“It is a ghost, right?” Riley whispered. “I mean, I feel like there’s a ghost here, but could that be something else?”
“It could be anything else. But it’s probably a ghost, yeah.”
The comforting weight of her knife sat in her pocket. Debunkers weren’t supposed to be armed. Fuck that. She’d rather take her chances with Church discipline than with anyone or anything she might come across in a place like this.
She probably wouldn’t need the knife anyway. Damn it, the kid’s nervousness was making her twitch, and as much as she sympathized with him she really didn’t need that at the moment. It had been a good two hours since she’d taken her pills, and while she still had time—she wasn’t worried—places like this didn’t help her keep calm. All that filth, all those germs, soaking into the bottoms of her jeans, brushing against her skin, her hair, invading her lungs. People caught diseases from places like this, especially after a rain.
Or they got their throats sliced open by ghosts armed with rusted shards of metal or whatever the fuck else. She edged her way down the hall, her back pressed against that gross excuse for a wall just because she couldn’t really see well enough to walk down the center. The glow got stronger with every step. Her fist clenched around the dirt.
Another plonk. Another rattle. Something like a whisper, that could have been a voice or the sound of a makeshift blade leaving its sheath of soaked pulp or crumbled cement. The glow from a doorway another ten feet or so down the hall.
In its reflection, Riley’s face looked even paler. The only thing keeping hers from looking the same—assuming it didn’t, which she was just going to go ahead and assume—was the fact that she was still just high enough to be not quite as scared as she should be. And the fact that she was an absolute fucking expert at lying to herself.
But with every step closer to that glowing doorway, that ability drew just a tiny bit farther away from her.
Whatever. Wasn’t like she could just turn around and run. So she took one last deep breath and spun around the doorframe with her arm ready to throw the dirt at the first dead thing that moved.
And found herself staring at three teenagers, who were obviously very alive, and who obviously thought they’d done something very clever, and who should have been thanking the gods who didn’t exist that Riley was there too because if he hadn’t been she would have been very tempted to beat the shit out of them with the nearest heavy object.
“What are you doing here?” Riley asked, but it was obvious from the stunned looks on their faces. Whoever they’d been expecting to walk through that door, it wasn’t two Church employees.
One of them glanced at the other two, and cleared his throat when they didn’t speak up. Fucking cowards. “We, uh, we thought you were some friends of ours.”
Damn it, why were her tattoos still tingling, if a ghost wasn’t in this room? This didn’t feel right, not at all. She needed to get those little bastards out of there as quickly as possible. “You need to leave, okay? Time to go.”
“We’ve been in here for like an hour,” the kid replied. The flashlight he’d hidden under his dark-blue jacket still glowed, made him glow. That’s where that bluish light had come from, she guessed, but nothing about these kids should have been setting off the alarms in her tattoos. Something else was around, waiting. “We haven’t seen anything.”
“Oh, right. That must mean nothing is here. This is such a small building.” She stepped sideways from the door; Riley, she was pleased to see, had already taken a step back into the hall. “Go on, get out of here.”
“But we can help you,” the first guy started.
Started, but didn’t get to finish. Because before the last word hit the air, the ghosts—who’d clearly been waiting for just this sort of noisy fun—slipped through the walls. Four of them.
And thanks to the debris and shit on the floor, including what appeared to be a damned cigarette lighter sitting on top of a backpack tucked against one of the drier sections of wall, they were ghosts with weapons.
Chess started to throw her dirt, put as much power behind it as she could, but missed as the teenagers freaked out and started running. One of them knocked her against the wall; another bounced off her and tumbled back. The third … the third had a face half obscured by blood, presumably from the chunk of concrete the ghost beside it was readying for another swing.
The kids screamed. Riley yelled something. Chess fought the rising tides of fear and irritation and grabbed another handful of dirt.
Go for the concrete-wielding ghost first, because if it smacked that kid again there’d be a nice layer of brains added to the general slime and mess on the floor. She managed to freeze that one, glanced around to see Riley doing the same with another.
That left two. Two ghosts and three teenagers who really should have fucking known better crowded into that small space. There was barely room to move in there, much less do anything else, and two of the ghosts were still mobile.
Flames erupted in the corner of her vision. That backpack had apparently been filled with papers—of course it was, they were high school kids—and one of the ghosts had set the whole thing alight. It threw the flaming sack at her.
She ducked, and slipped in the vile sludge covering the floor. Eeew. Cold water—and who knew what else, probably blood and urine and vomit—soaked her jeans.
Worse, while she’d been distracted, the other moving ghost had found a length of pipe and used it to try to pop off one of the teenagers’ heads like a ball off a tee.
At least that’s what she assumed had happened. The flashlight in the one guy’s jacket had gone out, or been smashed. The unearthly, hideous glow of the four spirits provided the room’s only illumination, giving everything the unreal look of a nightmare.
Another garbled yell from Riley. She barely heard him over the sound of her breath in her ears and the shouts of the teens. One of them slipped just as she had. The ghost raised its pipe.
Graveyard dirt still in her fist. She threw it, threw her power, too. The ghost froze and dropped the pipe; it clattered on the kid’s back, knocked him down into the floor sewage.
Riley had managed to freeze the fourth ghost. Not that it mattered that much. They wouldn’t stay frozen forever; ten minutes tops. Riley and Chess needed to get passports on the things, and they needed to get a salt circle down as fast as possible—that would be fun, in the wet sludge.
And they needed to get those motherfucking kids out of there before the scent of their blood, the taste of their terror in the air, attracted more dead. Who knew how many there might be in the area? She and Riley had been told to expect two at the most, and here there were four. Like a deadly double-score bonus on the world’s worst game show.
Well, hey, at least she got to win something, right?
“Riley, get them out of here.” She managed to stand, cringing at the feel of her nasty wet jeans touching her skin, and started digging through her bag for her salt. “I’ll try to get a circle down.”
“I don’t think I can,” Riley said.
“What?” Had some of the salt spilled when she fell? She’d thought she packed more.
“I don’t think I can.”
How could he not shoo a couple of injured kids out of the building? They were probably desperate to leave anyway. She looked up at him, annoyed, but what she saw changed the annoyance to the sort of oh-fuck-no feeling she was all too familiar with.
He stood against the wall, his face pale, his body still, staring at the ghosts with fear-wide eyes. “I don’t think I can, Chess. I’m sorry, but I—look at what they did, look at those kids.”
“Yeah, but Riley, they’re frozen now, right? They can’t move. Let’s just—I’ll lay the circle and you start the ritual, okay? Or you lay the salt. The sooner we start, the sooner we can get out of here, right?”
He shook his head. “I can’t get close to them.”
“You got close to them in training.” In another minute or two the first ghost was going to shake off the power holding it—him—and start moving again. She needed to at least get him marked, and now. “Remember training? You can do this, you can.”
“That was different. That was in class, with the Elders and everybody. I can’t … I can’t …”
Choice time. Keep trying to coddle Riley and hope to get him to de-stun, or ignore him and Banish four ghosts by herself, with her lone psychopomp, which would probably require two separate callings.
The teenagers—aside from the one with the broken nose, who huddled against the wall moaning—watched with interest. That, at least, wasn’t a tough decision. “Get your friends and get the hell out of here. Now!”
“But, we want to watch you—”
Her sigh passed through every inch of her body before it finally came out. “Get. The hell. Out of here. Or I will make sure you all get a nice long afternoon in the stocks next Holy Day.”
Finally, something she said produced some kind of result. They left, brushing past her as they walked out the door. They’d probably stand just outside listening, and the knowledge pissed her off, but it would take too much time to lecture them any more.
“Riley. Are you going to help me?”
He shook his head. Great.
Another bone-sucking sigh, and she popped the cap off her Ectoplasmarker. At least her psychopomp could be counted on to behave the way it was supposed to.
Chapter Two
Teach your children from a young age to be careful in their choice of friendships. Unwise acquaintances can have unforeseen consequences.
—Families and Truth, a Church pamphlet by Elder Barrett
And it had, thankfully, but the whole thing—including driving that pussy Riley back to the Church, filing her report, and giving Elder Griffin a quick rundown of Riley’s freakout—took way longer than she’d thought, which pissed her off again. One of the benefits of taking a newbie along was supposed to be sticking them with the paperwork. Just her luck to get the one who couldn’t handle it.
That wasn’t fair of her, but she wasn’t in the mood to be fair. Especially not when the effects of her pills were starting to wear off, leaving her ragged around the edges and even antsier than she would ordinarily be. She grabbed her pillbox from her bag, shook four Cepts into her palm, and downed them with a slug of water before heading for the shower. Rushing through her shower, really, and everything that came after.
That quick, tickly, lifting sensation in her stomach—that feeling that never got old, that feeling she would give her soul for and pretty much had—intensified when she finally got to Trickster’s bar about an hour and a half after leaving the Church. Later than she wanted, but still she had made it, and given the whole quadruple-ghost fun, the result could have been a lot different.
Red assaulted her eyes when she stepped into the building, like walking into a bordello in hell—if hell existed, which it didn’t. Or rather, no one else thought it did. For them the City of Eternity, where everyone’s souls lived on after death, was a peaceful loving place, a quiet rest several hundred feet below the surface of the earth. Only Chess thought of it as hell, as punishment, cold and unrelenting and miserable. Life sucked, yes, but the City was worse.
Then again, sometimes life could be okay. Terrible stood in his usual spot against the back wall, talking to a couple of guys whose names she didn’t remember. They all looked the same to her, to be honest, or maybe it was simply that she never really bothered to look at them. Their faces didn’t interest her. Nothing they said interested her, not when she could be talking to Terrible instead.
Seeing him was like being hit in the chest. Like something exploding inside her, a quick ravenous fire that made her shiver. So bright and so hot it still amazed her that no one else seemed to notice it, that every eye in the place didn’t turn to her while she went incandescent.
But they didn’t—which was a good thing, since spontaneous human combustion would probably raise an eyebrow even there. No one seemed to notice at all. They were all too busy drinking dollar beers, listening to X’s “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene,” and talking or arguing or trying to pick each other up. Spiky heads, heads bald or slick with pomade, like bizarre flowers strewn in a humid half-dead meadow, swaying in a stale-beer breeze. None of them turned to her.
Excellent. She didn’t want to be noticed. She never did, but especially not just then.
She shoved a couple of bucks at the bartender for her own beer and a tip and pushed her way through the field of oblivion-hunters until she reached him, stopping about a foot away, careful to not quite meet his eyes.
He did the same. “Hey, Chess. You right?”
She shrugged. Sipped her beer. “Right up. What time do they go on?”
“Ain’t for certain. Ten minutes maybe, fifteen? Thought you was comin earlier.”
“I was. My trainee lost it, I had to handle it all myself.”
“Handle what?”
She gave him a quick rundown, her mind only half on her words. The rest was examining him, his black hair slicked back with pomade, the width of his shoulders, his height. His face, the face she’d once thought ugly with its crooked, repeatedly broken nose, its scars, its heavy brow and thick muttonchop sideburns. The kind of face people ran away from because the only place it looked like it belonged was behind a loaded weapon. Hell, it made his body look like a loaded weapon. Which it was. And that’s all people saw.
People were shitbags, with their easy smiles and their cold eyes and brutal hearts. She knew that better than anyone. Knew, too, that the face she looked at wasn’t ugly, that it was strong and it was Terrible’s. That meant it was hers to look at as much as she wanted, and that made something she thought might be genuine happiness ride higher in her chest.
“Telling on getting shit done,” he said, “Bump got an ask for you. Whyn’t you come on out back, lemme give you the knowledge.”
She shifted on her feet, glanced at the other guys still standing there, waiting to be included in the conversation. “Can’t it wait?”
“Could, aye, but might as well give it you now.”
The song ended; she nodded in the second or two of silence before the next one started. “Yeah, okay then. But let’s make it fast. I don’t want to miss the band.”
He shrugged. “Neither me. Longer you stand here, longer us take gettin back in, aye?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him, still careful not to look him in the eye, and headed down the hall that led to the bathrooms and the back door. Technically it wasn’t a back door. Technically it was an emergency exit. But the alarm wires had been ripped from the wall years before, and even if they hadn’t been it wouldn’t have mattered. Fire trucks didn’t respond to calls from Downside in general; one too many false alarms that ended in muggings and murders had stopped that particular service, and there was little worth saving there anyway.
Terrible pushed it open for her. She ducked under his arm and stepped into the alley, the soft squelch of still-wet dead leaves and garbage under her shoes reminding her for one unpleasant second of the earlier fun in the construction swamp. She couldn’t decide which one smelled better, but neither was pleasant.
But while the building had been full of people and ghosts, the alley was empty. Not even any light from the tenement windows behind occupied the space; only the dull glow of the gibbous moon overhead showed her that no living beings—no human ones, at least—waited there.
Terrible obviously noticed that, too. The sound of the exit door slamming back into its frame hit her ears at the same time his body slammed her against the back wall, farther into the shadows where no one could see him kiss her long and hard.
Had she thought seeing him made her insides explode? She’d been wrong. This was an explosion. This was better than anything else; sometimes she thought it was even better than her pills. At his touch something inside her that had been tense and twisted and black finally relaxed. At his touch something inside her that was constantly terrified found a little security.
Security Chess hoped and hoped would last, despite the nagging voice in the back of her mind that insisted it couldn’t, it wouldn’t, she didn’t deserve it, and she should just give up on the very idea.
Fuck that stupid voice. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed her hands down the collar of his shirt to feel his bare skin warm against hers. He was always warm. His palms left shivering trails of heat from her face to her throat, blazed up her thighs and ribcage, over her breasts.
Finally he pulled away enough to meet her eyes. That jolt of electricity, the one she’d been so careful not to feel inside the bar, hit her. Her cheeks tightened, her mouth curved into a grin she couldn’t stop. “I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it at all.”
“Aye, me too. Glad you did. Feelin like I ain’t seen you in weeks.”
“It’s been three days.”
“Feels longer. We all clear now?”
She nodded. The past week had been the first time in her life she wished she wasn’t what she was, wasn’t a witch, didn’t have extra power in her blood that meant anyone coming in intimate contact with it would be affected by it; wished the Binding effect of that contact wasn’t part of the marriage ceremony and so meant a commitment she didn’t think either of them was ready to make.
If she wasn’t a witch it wouldn’t matter. Marriages were bound by blood and magic combined, not one or the other, so they required the Church’s assistance. But magic was in her blood, and that meant spending six days burning with frustration.
His eyebrows rose; his hands wandered with more purpose. “You ain’t really wanna stay here, aye? Whyn’t we head on out now instead?”
“I thought you wanted to see the band,” she teased.
“Changed my thought. Let’s us go. Back my place, aye?” He was smiling, that smile she’d always loved, while his hands distracted her and his body warmed her through her clothes. Summer drew closer every day, and the temperatures reflected that, but it seemed like she was always cold when he wasn’t around. “C’mon.”
“My place is closer.”
“Aye.” He leaned in to bite her neck; she shivered. “But mine’s got thicker walls, dig, an I plan on makin you scream a few times afore we get to sleeping.”
It took her a minute to draw enough breath to speak, through a throat suddenly too tight for anything but a gasp. “I thought we decided we wanted to actually get out tonight, though.”
“And done it. Now us can go back in.”
“I don’t know,” she managed to say. It was becoming more difficult to talk, especially since he’d started sucking gently on her neck, making her dizzy.
“Think on this one, then, Chessiebomb. Nobody seein us right here, aye?” His nimble fingers popped the top button of her jeans. “Then we still out.”
“No way.” She giggled and swatted at his hands. “Last time I got a splinter—”
The sound of his phone ringing, a loud jangly sort of ring, cut her off.
“Ignore it,” she suggested, but she knew he couldn’t. They both knew he couldn’t. Midnight was practically the start of a working day in Downside, yes, but she doubted anyone who’d be calling him at that hour would have good news.
She was right. Within seconds of answering the phone his face darkened; darkened and took on that look she’d only seen a few times before, that lowered-brow-narrowed-eyes look of absolute rage. The kind of look that would be the last thing the person who caused it would ever see. His fingers tightened on her waist.
“Aye,” he said. “Get em—aye. On my way.”
Her heart sank. Looked like they weren’t going back to anybody’s place, to anybody’s bed. At least not for a long time.
His phone snapped shut. “Pipe room’s burnin.”
“What?”
He was already walking up the alley, back toward the street, holding her hand in an almost painful grip. “Fuckin Slobag, ’swhat. Pipe room up Sixtieth, green one. On fire.”
She didn’t want to say “What?” again, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t seem to get any other words into her head. A pipe room burning? All those people, even on a weeknight. All that Dream, waiting to be smoked, waiting to send those people into a soft golden fog. Gone. “What?”
He didn’t answer. She had to trot to keep up as he pulled her along, dropping her hand just before they emerged from the alley. She almost wished he wouldn’t, wished they hadn’t decided to keep everything secret. Certainly she could have used more physical contact at that moment. With every step the awful picture in her mind grew clearer: burning bodies in a pit of flames, exploding glass, storerooms full of Dream knobs, their smoke wasted. She wrapped her arms around herself to still the shakes.
Terrible’s car, a black 1969 BT Chevelle, waited for them in the circle of pale yellow cast by one of the few working streetlights. “Waited” being the operative word. To Chess, the car always seemed ready to leap from its resting place, ready to start mowing down pedestrians just because it could.
But it didn’t. It stayed silent and still while Terrible opened the door for her, closed it behind her, and got in on the driver’s side.
On their way to the fire, to the—Wait. “The one on Sixtieth? Didn’t you say nobody’s in that one, Bump’s doing something else with it?”
“Aye.” The car plowed away from the curb in a squeal of rubber. “Were thinkin on makin it storing rooms, dig, gettin other shit done there too. Figured on setting a new room a block up.”
“So no one died.” The tightness in her chest eased a bit.
“Naw. Least not what Bernam say. Maybe one or two in there, ain’t can say certain. But nobody ought, leastaways.”
“Good.”
He glanced at her, swinging the heavy car right, north on Sixtieth. “Aye, cepting, how Slobag knew nobody in there?”
“If the room’s closed—”
“Ain’t hardly nobody got that knowledge, though. Nobody been told. Just let em know tonight, first night it shut down.”
“Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t care who he killed.”
Terrible snorted. “Still a fuck of a chance.”
She sat for a few seconds watching his profile before finally resting a hesitant hand on his thigh, not sure it was welcome. Not sure if she should say anything. Anger still hovered around him, filled the car and tried to find a way into her body. She felt it like icy fingers sliding over her skin.
Not much she could do when he was in that kind of mood, at least not in the car on the way to check the wreckage.
Not to mention … he hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know if he was thinking it, if he’d thought of it. But he probably had.
If Slobag had some sort of inside information about Bump’s operations, he had to be getting that information from somewhere. And there she was, the one person Terrible knew for a fact had been in Slobag’s pocket; or to put it more bluntly, Terrible knew she’d been in Slobag’s son’s bed, for months. Knew she still talked to him.
How long before she became a suspect?
Chapter Three
Because they had no unified rule, they had no peace. Peace in the world can only be found through the Church, just as peace of the soul can only be found through the Church.
—A History of the Old Government, 1620–1800, from the Introduction by the Grand Elder
The last vestiges of the cheer she’d managed to find at Trickster’s evaporated. It wouldn’t be long. He’d think of it. He’d wonder.
And she couldn’t blame him. What was she supposed to do, get all pissed and indignant because he didn’t trust her? Why the hell should he trust her? He’d trusted her before and she’d paid him back by fucking his enemy. He’d be stupid not to wonder about her now.
That sucked. But it was true.
Their destination wasn’t difficult to spot. The Chevelle growled up Sixtieth, chasing the orange glow of the flames ahead. A fire indeed. The building had simply disappeared. In its place a set of half walls created a bowl of fire, surrounded by curious onlookers standing too close even though it was spring. A few of them held out sticks with various animal parts on the ends; free fire shouldn’t be wasted.
Chunks of cement littered the pavement, more and more of them as the Chevelle approached the scene, until finally Terrible had to park because there were too many of them to avoid. Broken glass sparkled under their feet.
Against the angry flames, Bump’s profile stood like a pimp-shaped inkspot, his hat brim ostentatiously wide, his cape moving in the breeze. Even at a distance she could see how pissed he was, just from the way he held his shoulders.
The closer they got the more obvious his anger got. He glowered at the fire, glowered at Terrible, glowered at her. “You finding they, Terrible, yay? Fuckin make they dead.”
It wasn’t much of a greeting, but she supposed it could be excused under the circumstances. Hell, even if they weren’t standing in front of what was probably half a million dollars or so on fire, it could be excused; it would have to be excused. No matter who she slept with, no matter who she still couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to sleep with, the fact was that at its base her relationship—such as it was—with Bump entailed the biggest power imbalance possible. She was a junkie. He was her dealer.
In other words, he got to say whatever he wanted to her, do whatever he wanted to her, treat her like less than nothing, and she got to take it without resistance if she wanted to keep getting her pills. Which she did.
He glanced at her now. “Ay, Ladybird. Ain’t fuckin supposing you witchy skills fuckin find they done it.”
She shook her head. “Sorry” sat on the tip of her tongue; she swallowed it. “Not the sort of thing I can do, no.”
“But you got them fuckin snooping skills, yay? Do you findin out things, on you fuckin cases or what-the-fuck them is you doin.”
Shit. Usually the problem she had with people knowing her job was that they thought she could wave her hand and make things disappear or whatever; now she had Bump obviously thinking she was some sort of Sherlock Holmes or something and could just pop in and find out who—of the hundreds, even thousands, of possible suspects—had spied, had set this up.
If she had a choice … well, she’d probably still say yes, because this affected Terrible’s life, and that made it something she needed to do. But she didn’t have a choice anyway.
“I’ll try.” She shifted her weight, hoped she didn’t look as uncomfortable as she felt. “But really, I don’t know any of the people involved, so I don’t really see what I can do.”
“Aw, nay, ain’t you fuckin count youself short. Got them fuckin brains hidin in you head, yay? You use em for Bump. Use em for Terrible, yay? Got the thinkin you catch this one straightup fast, yay, fuckin straightup. What fuckin happening if them get Terrible afore you fuckin get the finding? Thinkin you ain’t fuckin liking that.”
No, she certainly wasn’t fucking liking that. Did he not realize that was why she’d agreed to help out?
She’d known it was a mistake to tell Bump what was happening between them, what had happened. Being right usually felt a lot better than it did at that moment. This night was just going from shitty to shittier, wasn’t it?
“I’ll do whatever I can.”
Bump gave her a slow, fluid sort of nod, the kind that told her he’d known all along that she would do it, and how he’d get her to do it. Damn him. He wasn’t stupid; no one got to be lord of the streets west of Forty-third—almost all of Downside—without being smart, tough, and fast, and of course utterly ruthless. Bump was all of those, with a greasy layer of sleaze smoothed on top like rancid frosting covering a moldy cake.
He leaned back on his gold-tipped cane, crossed one ankle in its furry boot over the other. Somehow even standing on the street across from a burning building he managed to look as if he was lounging around his horrendous living room, perfectly relaxed, lord of his tacky pornography empire.
“Nobody in, aye?” Terrible asked. He stepped closer to her; just half a step, really, nothing anyone would notice, but she did, and it helped.
“Nay, ain’t none people in there, when it fuckin go. Only our fuckin supplies, yay? Fuckin only half got out, fore it blowin the fuck up.” He leered at her. “Too fuckin bad, yay? Got less smoke now, price goin up, Bump gots the guessing on. ’Course, could be you ain’t gotta get the fuckin raise, you helping Bump out, get what we needing done up, yay?”
She didn’t answer him. Would not. He didn’t deserve an answer.
Instead, she watched the fire, watched Terrible’s profile silhouetted by it and the way it cast changing golden light on everything. Downside looked almost wholesome with the flames dancing in their enormous makeshift firecan; the delicate changing light softened the sharp edges, bleached out the blood and needles and filth, the passed-out bodies and pockmarked walls and broken streets. The fire smoothed it all over, made it look almost normal.
Funny, she’d never noticed that before. But then she’d never paid this much attention to a fire before, at least not one she wasn’t inside. Burning buildings were as common an occurrence in Downside as muggings and beatings; they no longer attracted much attention, save from scavengers looking for something to snatch from the wreckage.
After the fire finally died they’d swarm, looking for every scrap of metal, every piece of furniture, every smoke-damaged pipe. And of course, any lumps of Dream that might have survived. The thought pinched her heart. She could use a visit to the pipes just then. It would be nice to forget Bump’s beady eyes, his dismissal of her, the confidence with which he used her.
But that was the price she paid, and she knew that. So she squared her shoulders. “You don’t have any idea who could have told? Who knew the place would be empty?”
“Terrible an meself, coursen. An a some they others. They needed for fuckin clearin up, dig, movin fuckin furniture. Movin them fuckin Dream out, yay. They Bump gots fuckin trust for.”
“So who could they have told?”
Bump shrugged. “Ain’t shoulda given none the fuckin tell, yay? Bump’s business Bump’s own fuckin business. Ain’t for nobody givin out.”
“Well, clearly someone you trust isn’t really someone you should be trusting,” she said without thinking, and regretted it when Terrible glanced at her. He did it fast, just a quick cut of his eyes in her direction and then away again, but she saw it. She felt it.
It was starting already. She wished she could say she was surprised, wished she hadn’t been waiting for it, expecting it the way she expected rain from black clouds overhead. Nothing in the world was permanent, especially not happiness.
She’d always known that. She just wished life would stop proving her right.
Chapter Four
Duty to the self can only be served after duty to the Church. It is right and proper that the Church come first.
—The Book of Truth, Laws, Article 217
That thought, and the feeling of doom it created in the pit of her stomach, burning a hole into her soul, stayed with her as she walked into Elder Griffin’s office the next morning. Most cases were given out on Wednesdays, and she could use a new case. Sure, she’d made a good chunk of cash on her last one—and almost been killed a few times to earn it—but after a new car, couch, and some clothes, a weekend at the pipes and another in a hotel in Northside with Terrible, her bank account still looked good, but not as good as she would have liked.
Besides, seeing Elder Griffin made her feel better, as much as she could. And she could use it. She’d ended up home in her own bed, alone, because Terrible and Bump had things to talk about, things to do, people to beat down—so she assumed—and he didn’t know how long it would be. She’d left her kitchen light on hoping he’d come over when he was done, but he hadn’t. He’d texted around six to say he was just going back to his place because it was closer. She really, really wanted to believe that.
It grew so exhausting waiting for the other shoe to drop that she wondered if she wasn’t trying to make it fall already. Sometimes, even, she almost wanted to tell him to just end it and get it over with. But she couldn’t. Just the thought of it … No. She couldn’t.
Elder Griffin stood up to answer her quiet knock, to greet her as she pushed the already unlatched door open and slipped inside. “Good morrow, Cesaria. How fare thee?”
She dipped into a quick, automatic curtsy. “Very well, sir. How are you?”
He smiled, his blue eyes kind. And happy. He looked … yeah, happy. Not happy like he usually looked. Extra happy. “Excellent, my dear. Come, sit down.”
She followed him back to his broad, shiny wood desk, situated right in front of the window covered with sheers. Through that gauzy, barely-there fabric the side lawn of the building glowed with the green of early spring while the trees showed off their new leaves. Everything new. Everything except her. She hated spring.
She sat in the leather chair opposite, some of her tension—the tension even four Cepts hadn’t managed to chase completely away—fading. It would never totally disappear, no matter what she did or what she took. But it faded a little. Just the sight of the room, the skulls on the shelves, the jars full of herbs and potions, the television mounted high on the wall behind her with the sound muted, felt safe. The way the building felt safe. The first place that had ever been a home to her, the place where her entire life changed.
“I’m pleased you’ve come,” he said, folding his hands on the desk. “I have a few things to discuss with thee, if I may. My trust in you and your discretion is absolute, my dear, which is why I chose you.”
Uh-oh. “Chose me for what?”
“A sensitive case. And … a sensitive issue I’d like to discuss with you.”
Double uh-oh. “Elder Griffin, I really appreciate it, but I don’t think I’m ready to be Bound again. It’s—”
“Oh, no, no. I apologize. I surely did not mean to make you think ’twould be so strict. No, I merely wanted to discuss something with you of a more—a more personal nature.”
Her brow furrowed. What personal issues could he possibly have to discuss with her? Sure, he liked her. She knew that. Knew she was probably his favorite out of all the Debunkers he worked with. Certainly he’d always been her staunchest supporter.
But they never talked about personal things. Not like that. “Is everything okay, sir?”
“Oh, of course, of course. All is perfectly well.” He gave her a quick smile, then looked down at his hands, the smile fading. “I am certain you know the Grand Elder has decided to step down.”
“Yes. I’m sorry to hear it.” Actually she couldn’t give a fuck. She’d never particularly liked the Grand Elder, always found him far too hale-n-hearty and far too little actual thinking-n-caring. But even she had to admit that his reasons for leaving were sad: the Lamaru—an anti-Church terrorist organization—had murdered his daughter and sent one of their own people in with the strongest glamour anyone had ever seen. Strong enough to make the girl look just like his child.
And she’d fooled him. Chess suspected that was what did it—not just that his daughter was dead, but that he’d spent a week with her killer, taking her to dinner, chatting with her in his office, touching her, hugging her. And he hadn’t known.
Hell, if he hadn’t stepped down, Chess would have put decent odds on him being asked to. Not that she knew for sure he hadn’t been. But she kept that thought to herself.
“As am I. But his resignation leaves a spot open, which in turn leaves more spots open. There might be one for me, methinks.”
“You want a promotion?” A trickle of cold she hadn’t expected slid down her back, into her heart.
She’d lose him. On top of everything else she felt slipping away, everything pouring through her fingers no matter how tightly she tried to grasp them, Elder Griffin wanted to leave her.
Intellectually she knew it wasn’t about her. Intellect didn’t slow her panicky pulse.
“I am considering it, yes. I do enjoy my position. I enjoy working with you—all of you.” His eyes lingered on her face just long enough to make her feel the emphasis on “you.” Just long enough to make her feel special. And just long enough for her to start mourning the loss of that feeling.
“But I would also enjoy moving up. Perhaps to a position with a larger responsibility. And a higher income.”
She gave him the best smile she could; her face felt like plastic. “Sure, of course. That makes sense.”
He sighed. “I hoped you would think so, I very much hoped. I do not know how much support there would be for me in that endeavor. Many Elders are interested, of course. But I do not think of putting my name in to be the Grand Elder. I would never presume. I simply thought, perhaps a Resident Elder, or a High Elder … perhaps a Master in the schools.”
“I think you’d be great at any of those,” she managed. He would be, too.
“Thank you. You see, Cesaria, part of the process is to give the Elder Triumvirate the name of at least one departmental employee over whom I have direct authority, so they can question you and make sure I am effective in my position, that I uphold the Truth and the laws—I am sure thou knowst the sort of thing of which I speak.
“Certainly of all the Debunkers your record is the most impressive, but I would also hope … I believe that—I have always believed in your skills, Cesaria, and I believe you have always trusted me, and mine. Your recommendation would be … meaningful to me.”
He cleared his throat. Before she could respond—before she could even think of a response—he continued. “You see, I have another person to concern myself with these days. I have … met someone, and we plan to be married.”
“Wow, that’s—Congratulations.” This just kept getting better, didn’t it. Well, no, that wasn’t fair. She was happy for him, she honestly was. How the hell could she not be? She wasn’t that selfish.
She’d just never thought of him as being a man with a personal life. A romance life. She couldn’t picture him out on the town, having a few drinks and meeting people, or home with street clothes on instead of his Church suit and stockings, with sneakers or something instead of his formal buckle shoes. Elder Griffin Casual was just not an image she could conjure, no matter how hard she tried. She might as well try to picture him in a clown suit.
His blush showed faintly through the light everyday white powder he wore. “Perhaps you’ll meet him? Methinks he would very much like that. Of course I would.”
“Yeah. Um, of course, I’d love to.”
“Excellent.” His eyes caught hers again, held them. “I am glad you feel that way, Cesaria. I admit the thought of working in a different department, of not seeing all of you, is rather painful to me.”
So don’t go, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. Not when he looked so happy, so excited about what his future might hold. That was the way normal people felt when they were trying to move up, when they’d found someone to love who loved them back. Not the way Chess felt, like she was trying to stem an arterial bleed with her fingertip.
But then, normal people didn’t start their relationships by fucking people over, and normal people weren’t convinced that at any moment the person they were with was going to realize how completely worthless they were and run away as fast as they could. Normal people didn’t deserve to have the person they were with run away as fast as they could. So that might make a difference.
“My hope is that you will still feel free to visit me. Assuming I am promoted, which of course is not guaranteed.”
“Of course you will be. And, um, yes, I’d love to visit you.”
“Excellent,” he said again. He cleared his throat, sat up straighter in his chair. Chess could practically see an imaginary dial on his back turning from personal to business.
“I have a case for you.” He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a slim manila folder. Yes! Awesome, she could totally use a case. A real one, not chasing air for Bump.
A case would leave her less time for that, but she’d still have enough. Wasn’t like she was the only one looking for the rat, either. Bump and Terrible would probably suss him out within a day or so, and they could all move on. She hoped.
“The decision was made this morning to give the case to you, and I concur with that decision. You know I have always had the deepest belief in your abilities, and your discretion.”
“I know.” Yeah, he had. And now she’d get some different Elder, who didn’t know her, didn’t care. He’d probably hate her; he’d see through her to the filth inside, and he’d know everything, and he’d hate her for it.
“Good. This case was previously given to Aros Burnett.” He looked up at her gasp, the tiny sound she tried not to utter but which slipped out before she could stop it. “Yes. Aros found it … particularly difficult, and he gave it up. Gave up his post in Triumph City as well, as I see you remember.”
Her neck practically creaked as she nodded. Of course she remembered. The halls had barely stopped buzzing about it; it had only been eight or nine days.
“Aros was unable to give us a satisfactory solution. You’ll see his notes in the file. They become rather—jumbled, near the end, I’m afraid. But we feel strongly that you will be able to bring us an answer. We have seen the Fact and Truth of your skill many times. I look forward to seeing your resolution.”
“Thanks.” The file hovered in his hand, just over his desk; she took it and started to open it. “Where is it?”
“Well. That is another reason you were chosen, in truth. ’Tis not too far from your residence. You are familiar with Mercy Lewis Second School? In Downside, on—”
“Twenty-second,” she finished for him, barely noticing her own rudeness as she cut him off. Barely noticing anything except that address, staring at her from the original report in the file. Twenty-second and Foster.
Right in the middle of Slobag’s territory.
Chapter Five
The dead invaded the schools, hiding in the shadows inside to turn the students into soldiers of death themselves.
—The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 57
The parking lot outside Mercy Lewis Second School hardly looked like a parking lot at all. If not for the four or five battered cars parked at odd angles among the gravel and weeds, Chess would have thought it was just a vacant lot like any other.
Four or five battered cars, and one sleek shiny coupe, gunmetal gray, the same color as Chess’s new car, although hers wasn’t as stylish. Or as expensive. As unobtrusively as possible she wandered over to where the car sat, pretending to be interested in the view on the other side of the rusty, torn chain-link fence, and committed the license plate number to her temporary memory. She’d write it down as soon as she got inside.
Despite everything else—and really, given its location and the fire the night before, this case couldn’t have been worse for her—her spirits lifted as she headed up the cracked concrete path to the large front doors. Working again. Something else to focus on, something she could actually do something about, something with actual procedures to follow and clues she was trained to understand. That felt good.
Mercy Lewis Second School—formerly an embassy for some South Pacific country, she thought—was clearly a product of that phase of architecture that had believed bland was better. It just … sat there, dull and brown, staring out at the dirty streets and crumbling buildings with an air of resignation. Whatever had happened to it, whatever changed in the world, it would remain, glowering at them all, suffering the crowds of teenagers abusing it every day.
It could join the damn club. She made her way to the graffiti-covered entrance, pulled open a heavy door that gave a loud shriek of protest. Great. Well, good to know, anyway. When and if she came back at night with her Hand, this was not the entrance to use. She made a note—writing down the license number of the too-expensive car in the lot while she was at it so she could let it drop from her memory—and followed the faded signs to the office down the hall.
The itching started when she’d made it about halfway down. Not withdrawals—not even possible, she’d dosed up right before she got out of the car—but something worse, something that told her three Cepts wasn’t going to be enough and made her wish she’d washed them down with a couple of shots, too.
Second school. Any school. She couldn’t say the worst memories of her life came from schools—far, far from it—but the ones she did have weren’t fucking good, that was for sure. The memories she had of when she’d gone; when she’d been forced to go. All of her foster parents made her, because if her attendance dropped they wouldn’t get paid anymore, but none of them gave a shit if she actually learned anything, and her teachers hadn’t either.
Those voices still echoed with every step she took. Just the air in the building, that particular chalkboard-antiseptic-dust-and-despair smell of school, reminded her where she was, made her remember how it felt and how much she’d hated it. The cold metal lockers lining the walls watched her, considered her, as her boots clicked on the polished concrete floors. She didn’t care what they thought, or what anyone she was about to meet thought, but she still felt that invisible cloud of judgment that seemed to hover near the ceiling of every school, ready to descend on anyone unlucky enough to walk beneath it.
Whatever. She’d never gone to this school, and it wasn’t her prison now. She was an adult, she was a fucking Churchwitch, and someone in this school was trying to scare people and scam some money out of the Church. So she would catch them. It was as simple as that, and she knew it and believed it as strongly and purely as she knew Facts were Truth.
Although … who would get the money, if the Church ended up paying a settlement? The Church owned the school, of course, and ran it, at least ostensibly. The Church wouldn’t pay a settlement to itself. So … another note in her pad. Who profits?
The classroom doors she passed were closed. Through the narrow windows in each of them she caught glimpses of chalkboards and teaching Goodys standing before them, the occasional slice of backs bent over desks. Boredom and sadness seeped through the walls.
Finally she reached the end of the hall, another closed door. administration was written on it in peeling black letters, with “Fuck the” scratched into the glass above it. Heh. Without knocking she pushed it open, got a good visual snapshot of three women standing around chatting before they stopped to look at her.
The one behind the desk, an enormous woman—she had to be close to six feet tall, and solidly built—with thin, frizzy brownish hair hanging limp from the top of her head, gave her the sort of disapproving smile Chess thought people with minor authority must practice in front of mirrors. Inexpertly applied red lipstick made her mouth look like a wound. “Can I help you, Miss?”
The other two stepped away from the desk, almost in a flanking motion. Had they been Downside kids and not school ladies Chess would have thought they were getting ready to jump her. Then again, maybe they were. Just not physically.
“I’m Cesaria Putnam.” She didn’t offer her hand. “From the Church. I’ve come about your haunting.”
A moment of silence, as if none of them knew what to say. What the hell? They had to be aware of the procedure, they’d had another Debunker out there already. Then one of the women outside the desk, petite with red hair and a horrible baggy plaid dress, gave her a tentative smile. “Of course, yes. Please come in and sit down. Can we get you anything? Coffee, tea?”
“No thanks.” Like she’d ever drink anything a subject gave her, at least in a situation like this. She did sit down, though, on the dingy couch that sank too far beneath her, so her ass hung lower than her knees. Getting out of that would be fun.
The third woman just looked at her, an odd sort of smile on her face. As if she knew something Chess didn’t and was waiting for Chess to figure it out, or she was waiting for Chess to speak so she could belittle her. A smug look. Chess didn’t like it, and she didn’t think she liked the woman, although something in the way she stood, the tilt of her head and that smirk, reminded Chess for some absurd reason of Lex.
Yes, the woman was Asian, but that certainly wasn’t it. She didn’t know what it was. She’d seen other men who had some sort of Lex-like quality about them, but never a woman. Oh well. There was a first time for everything. Women could be smug bastards, too.
Then the woman shifted, and the resemblance disappeared, leaving just an attractive woman with straight, shiny dark hair in a casual knot at the base of her neck. Compared to the other two she looked especially gorgeous, in her black pencil skirt and loose white Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“We weren’t sure we would get someone else,” she said, one graceful elbow propped on the counter. “Aros left so abruptly, and we haven’t heard anything since.”
Chess grabbed her notepad. “He told you he wouldn’t be back?”
The women smiled at each other, as though Chess had just said something adorably naïve. Bitches.
“We got that impression,” Horrible Plaid said, “when he screamed at us all that he was never stepping foot in this place again, broke a window, and ran off in the middle of the day.”
Damn. What exactly had he encountered?
She didn’t know Aros; he’d been a recent transfer. So she had no idea how tough he was, or what kinds of cases he’d handled wherever it was he’d come from. She made a quick note to ask Elder Griffin about it, and pushed the tiny flash of sadness out of her head.
“He never seemed comfortable here,” Big Frizzy—the name plate on the edge of the desk read laurie barr—said. Or rather, deigned to say. She still looked at Chess as if Chess was something rotten that had melded with the refrigerator shelf. Whatever.
“Do you have any idea why that might be?”
“Working with youth isn’t for everyone.”
“Yes, but, did he seem to have any particular troubles?” It really wasn’t her business; it really wasn’t part of the case. But she couldn’t help being curious, and who knew. Maybe there was something there. If someone had been harassing him, that might be a good lead.
Or it might not. Anti-Church sentiment wasn’t too widespread in Downside—most people there didn’t give a fuck about the Church, either pro or con, save being suspicious or getting the hell out of her way when they saw her ink—but on this side of town, that changed. That could very well account for the Asian woman’s smirks, too. People whose religion had centered on ancestor worship didn’t tend to appreciate the government that told them they weren’t allowed to do that anymore, not without paying a hefty fee and going through the Church itself.
This just kept getting better and better. As if it wasn’t shitty enough working a case that would put her in more contact with the wrong side of town, and how that would look—she was not looking forward to Terrible’s reaction when he found out where she’d be spending large chunks of her time—it was in an area where she’d be even more unwelcome than usual.
“He just seemed nervous,” the Asian woman replied. None of them had volunteered their names yet. How polite of them. “He seemed to particularly dislike Vernal Sze and his friends. I believe he was afraid of them.”
“Did he have reason to be?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think so. They like to look tough, but they’re really not. They just haven’t been shown enough examples of proper behavior.”
Laurie gave an eye-roll so elaborate Chess almost expected her head to topple off. Horrible Plaid noticed—or rather, noticed Chess noticing—and said, “Beulah is our Community Liaison. She’s not a teacher.”
Chess waited, but none of them explained what that meant or why it mattered. Okay. “And what does that entail?”
The Asian woman—Beulah—smiled that smug smile again, her eyes focused tight on Chess’s face. What the fuck? Those Significant Looks were starting to creep her out. “I’m actually here on a volunteer basis several days a week, working with students and helping to foster a better relationship between the school administration and the community.”
Chess had never heard of such a thing. She supposed it made sense, given that most school administrators were Church employees—most of them were Elders, actually—and that might be tense in this area. She couldn’t see it being such a huge deal that they needed community outreach, but what the fuck did she know? Her pretty much sole experience with anyone on this side of town was Lex, and he didn’t care about anything enough to get angry about it.
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