City of Ghosts

Chapter Thirty

Every muscle in her body screamed run. They had to get out of there, away from Vanhelm’s destroyed body, away from the lungs and the fetish, out of the tunnels.

But Lex’s hand squeezed her arm tight, like he knew what she was thinking. She heard the sound of his gun cocked slow in his other hand as his lips pressed to her ear. “Ain’t just go off now, Tulip. On the minute, aye? Let’s us have a thought first.”

Water splashed; how far away was it? Was that a foot? Something else? She pictured things dropped into the little stream, curse bags and gris-gris and fetishes, things the water would carry to them and drag against their feet. Her heart pounded so hard that she thought it might literally leap into her mouth.

“Ain’t get that flash you got neither,” he continued. “No draggin them eyes our way. Gimme a hold-on, aye?”

She nodded, knew he could feel her move.

“Know my way right, I do. Door ain’t far, dig, back where we come. Stay on me, aye?”

She nodded again. Not enough air, there wasn’t enough air in the tunnel, not enough in the world. Fresh air, clean air, air that didn’t thrum with magic, lie thick and heavy in her lungs with it. Choking her. She clutched his arm, wiry and hard under her hand.

Gentle pressure forced her to step back, to turn slightly. Even her sense of direction started to fail her; had she turned all the way around, or just partway? Which way was she facing? The darkness around them was a solid thing, completely impenetrable.

Lex led her forward. Chess tried to keep her feet on the curve at the bottom of the wall, out of the water. Lex tucked her hand around his waist so her chest pressed against his back. It made walking difficult, but it wasn’t as though they were just taking a stroll, and she had to admit it reassured her.

Which kind of pissed her off, but this wasn’t the time to start wondering when she’d suddenly gone soft. People, she was discovering, were like cockroaches: If you allowed one in, more were sure to follow.

Another giggle, low and smooth. Her head whipped around, eyes straining to see something, anything, in the pitch-black air. Was that closer? Where were they?

Lex didn’t stop. They took another step, another. Chess’s foot hit something heavy, something solid and unyielding and yet somehow … somehow dull against her toes. Vanhelm’s body. She swallowed hard, kept moving.

Something ran past them. She felt it stir the air against her skin and bit back a scream. Sweat trickled down her face, into her eyes; she wiped them against Lex’s shirt without moving her hand. Without stopping. They had to get out, get out, get—

A sharp tug on her hair. A scream; not hers, not her voice. Hot foul-smelling breath on her cheek; Lex yanked her to the side and the gun went off in a flash of white light. Hot blood spattered on her skin.

And they ran.

No more secrecy now. No more hiding. Still they didn’t use the light—all she saw were huge red spots before her eyes from the gun flash—but their feet splashed through the water, pounded the cement beneath them while voices screamed in rage and pain behind them. More than one voice, many voices, echoing around her, reaching into her and yanking out her soul.

Lex ran faster, pulling her along through the darkness. He was the only real thing in the world; this wasn’t real, none of it was real, it was a nightmare she had to wake up from.

They were being chased. The screams turned to howls, catcalls. And then, horribly, to barks.

Dogs. Vicious ones. Baying in the tunnels, their low deep barks scratching her, hurting her, and it wasn’t until her frantic mind realized they hurt that she realized why.

It wasn’t real dogs following them. Not living dogs. It was psychopomps.

A dozen maybe, or a hundred. She had no idea, no way to tell. Didn’t have the breath to tell Lex, and no point anyway; psychopomps couldn’t be shot, couldn’t be stabbed, couldn’t be killed. Couldn’t be stopped without magic, and even if she had time to get her supplies she somehow doubted these particular hounds would respond.

They hurtled around a corner with the baying getting closer, the unearthly howls of the psychopomps, sounds she’d never heard a psychopomp make before.

Her head turned to the left as they entered another tunnel, and she almost fell. Their eyes. She could see their eyes, their glowing purple eyes. Hundreds of them. Hundreds of eyes, oh shit oh fuck they were going to die, have their souls torn from their living bodies and devoured or savaged, those were not normal psychopomps holy fuck what were they she was going to die—

No! She ran harder. Pushed herself with everything she had, keeping up with Lex. She couldn’t look back, didn’t want to look back, couldn’t stand to see them ready to bite.

Lex jerked her away, yanked her arm up. She stumbled on the steps, her right hand hit gritty cement. The dogs were right behind them, so loud she couldn’t even hear herself scream.

He grabbed her, pulled her close and pushed them both out onto the street in one motion. Fresh air poured over her, moonlight blinded her. They had to keep running, she didn’t know where they were or where to go, but they had to get away from those teeth gnashing behind them, those vicious jaws ready to snap shut on her legs—

Lex shoved her to the side; a staircase waited there, tucked off the sidewalk beside the tunnel door. She raced up it, her legs aching and heavy, Lex’s hand on her back, the dogs howling in the madness of the—Wait. What?

No dogs.

All she heard was heavy panting, hers and Lex’s, as they leaned over the splintery wooden railing of the stairs and peered down.

The tunnel door below slammed shut. Chess leaned over farther, trying to see—well, she didn’t know what she thought she was going to see, but she felt the need to look anyway—but it was closed tight.

A few seconds later it flew back open. Vanhelm’s body flew out, landing with a horrible squelchy thump on the curb.

The door closed again. This time it stayed closed.

Chuck’s wasn’t normally so crowded, but the Runouts were playing, so Downside’s disaffected—which was pretty much all of Downside, at least all of the area around Fifty-fifth and Ace—turned out in droves.

Usually Chess would stand around outside to see if any familiar faces showed up to share a smoke and a few minutes of empty conversation. Tonight she didn’t dare. She was wired to the gills and she was terrified, and a nice loud bar seemed like the best possible place to spend the next several hours.

Or most of the night. Chuck’s stayed open until five, and she planned to be there at closing time and hopefully drunk enough that she wasn’t scared anymore. A night home alone, jumping at shadows and staring at the front door, waiting for the knob to turn, did not appeal, and she had enough speed to get her through the Dedication ceremony at dawn and the day ahead.

“Safety in numbers” was one of those tropes she knew from experience to be utter bullshit. But she still felt better, pushing past the bouncer into the sultry, sweaty bar. She didn’t stop to pay; she never did. Nobody charged Bump’s Churchwitch, not if they didn’t want trouble. Chess wasn’t the type to cause any, but they didn’t know that, and she had no compunction about using her job—such as it was—to get in free. Besides, she spent enough at the bar to make up for it.

The crowd shifted and flowed beneath the red-gel-covered blue lights, a small land mass in constant state of earthquake. Chess fought her way to the bar, pushing past girls in miniskirts and fishnets and guys with high spiked hair. Silver flashed at her from cheeks and eyebrows and lips, silver from chains connecting ears to noses and locked around skinny necks. All of them familiar, maybe not the individual faces but as a whole. The Lazy Cowgirls blasted through the speakers, and she relaxed inside for the first time in days, tapping her foot.

One finger to the bartender got her a beer. A few minutes of searching got her a seat in a booth against the opposite wall. The vinyl beneath her was sticky and torn, the tabletop covered with graffiti and grime. She lit a cigarette and slouched against the wall, scanning the crowd, picking out a few people she knew from around. Yes. This was a good idea. None of Baldarel’s people would be able to get in here, and even if they did—well, shit. If they did, they’d probably bring their dogs with them, and everyone would die. The thought was like swallowing a rock.

No. No, this wasn’t a good idea. No matter how comfortable she was, she shouldn’t be there. She was putting them all in danger by being there.

Except … Why had the dogs disappeared when they reached the street? Psychopomps didn’t do that. They didn’t just disappear; they were summoned, they retrieved whatever soul they were supposed to retrieve, and they took that soul back to the City. No Banishing needed, no nothing.

And nobody summoned a psychopomp for fun; it simply didn’t happen. You couldn’t play with a psychopomp. It wasn’t like they chased sticks or shook hands or anything. Even in training no one had ever summoned a psychopomp without having a ghost for it to collect. The instructing Elders always had a few ghosts for them to practice on, in a special room devoid of anything that could be used as a weapon.

It was possible to summon a psychopomp without a ghost being present, and there were a few cases on the books of psychopomps being used as murder weapons, but it was rare, and the chances of getting away with it were virtually nil. A person killed by having their soul ripped from their body carried certain marks; it was easy to detect. And once detected, the energy signature of the one doing the summoning was tracked, and the murderer caught.

Either way, she’d never heard of a psychopomp simply disappearing without claiming a soul. Never.

So why the hell had Baldarel’s done it? How had they done it? She hadn’t heard any words of power spoken, smelled any herbs, or felt any sort of extra energy blast of the type that would come from magic like that. Of course, considering that she’d been terrified and frantic and overloaded with the power already in the tunnels, that wasn’t saying much, even if you discounted the speed in her system.

At least it answered one question. She knew why they were underground. Ghosts were stronger there. If she were creating ghost bound spells she’d probably go there, too, for the extra power; it made sense that Baldarel would live there.

She stubbed out her smoke, drank her beer. Inspected for several minutes a flyer for a Poor Dead Bastards show. The idea of staying there still made her nervous; being the catalyst for mass murder by psychopomp wasn’t something she particularly wanted. But the life around her, hot bodies crowded into the small blaring space, beer and sweat and smoke, smiling faces, dazed drugged-out faces, even the slightly queasy look of one or two people who would probably be puking in the alley soon—it made her feel part of something, just as much as working for the Church made her feel part of something.

So, yeah, she’d stay for a while. Think about things. Try to—

Terrible walked in.

Her stomach leapt into her chest. Should she—What should she do? Leave? Leave was probably the best idea, yeah, but to leave she’d have to walk right past the booth he’d just emptied with a jerk of his head and taken over.

With his … date. She guessed.

Amy was the only one of the girls he saw to whom she’d been introduced, and that had been a fluke. The girl now sitting beside him, her face bright with the slightly desperate chatter of the ignored, was new—new and, Chess thought a little meanly, looked as though she’d never had a serious thought in her dyed-red head.

Pretty enough, though. Especially if one’s tastes ran to heavy makeup and voluptuous breasts. Which Terrible’s apparently did—well, what man’s didn’t, really. She must have been a real disappointment for him in that department. He must have—

No. No, and no. She was not going to do that to herself, not anymore. Whatever. He was on a date, fine. Out with some other girl—now draped over his chest like one of Dali’s melting clocks—who didn’t even have the grace to look a damn bit like Chess so she could comfort herself with the idea that he was hunting out some kind of replacement for her.

Not that that actually would comfort her, but at least she could think shitty thoughts about it. As it was, she just felt shitty, and that was infinitely worse.

She managed to make it to the bar for another bottle of cheap self-esteem without being seen, but as the bartender handed it to her, she felt it. Him. Felt his gaze on her. How she felt it she didn’t know, but she felt it just the same, knew the second she turned around she’d catch him looking at her.

Sometimes she hated being right.

His face didn’t move while he watched her walk back to her seat; not so much as a blink or a twitch of the lips to indicate he even knew who she was, that they’d ever shared a conversation, much less bodily fluids. Fine. She could do that, too.

And she didn’t have to do it alone. She sat back down, threw a glassy smile at the guy sitting in her booth.

“Saved your seat,” he said.

Terrible was still watching. She smiled wider. “Really? From a fate worse than death?”

It took him a second, but he got it. “Yeah, you could say that. Or maybe I saved me. You should have seen the guy who wanted it.”

“Not your type?”

He shook his head, his expression solemn. He had a nice face; any other time she would have studied it, would have wondered how he looked from the neck down. Would have considered finding out, if she had nothing else going on.

As it was he was nothing, just a face at which she could smile and pretend to be having the time of her life. She didn’t think that if she blinked she’d recognize him again when her eyes opened. “I like them smaller,” he said. “Makes me feel like a man.”

“Do you not usually?” Terrible had looked away; now he glanced at her again, shifted in his seat. She leaned forward a little, keeping tabs on him out of the corner of her eye.

“Am I supposed to?” He didn’t appear to notice her sneaky eye-corner spying.

“Well, it’s usually—” Oh. Oh, no. The music changed. Chess recognized that song, heavy with bass, those sonorous opening notes …

The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” The song that played the night she and Terrible first—that night at Trickster’s, the night she’d fucked everything up for the first time. The most serious time. The night before she’d gone ahead and slept with Lex, sending all of them down the slippery road to hell.

“Usually?” The guy prompted, but Chess barely noticed. She wasn’t looking at him. Couldn’t look at anything or anyone but Terrible, because he turned to look at her and she knew by the way his brows drew together and his mouth turned down that he remembered, too.

His date took the opportunity to slide her hand over his chest, stroking her fingernails over his throat. His gaze faltered; he turned back toward the girl and her ample bosom, and Chess couldn’t sit there for another second.

She mumbled something, she didn’t know what, and got up, still clutching her beer. The music filled her head, swelling inside it, and the pressure was going to kill her in another minute, it hurt so fucking bad.

To get out of the bar she’d have to walk right in front of him. No way. Let him see her hasty and embarrassing retreat? Fuck that.

Her seatmate tried to stand up, reaching for her, but she ducked away and headed for the bathroom, using the sheer force of her embarrassed rage to propel herself through the crowd. They were in her way. They deserved to get shoved or elbowed.

It was early enough that nobody was waiting for the bathroom. Or hell, maybe she just didn’t see the line. All she saw was the door and the promise of a few minutes of privacy. That was all she needed. Just a couple of minutes, just to get her head together, just until that fucking song ended and she could pretend it never came on in the first place.

It was also early enough that the bathroom itself—a cramped room only slightly bigger than a closet—was fairly clean, or again, maybe she just didn’t see it. She couldn’t see much, not with the tears blurring her vision.

The wall was cold, hard white tile. She pressed her forehead against it, wrapped her arms around herself. Shit … just … shit. Why had he come there, of all places? Why couldn’t she grow a fucking pair and stop being such a baby? What was the matter with her that she couldn’t just get over this—over him? She’d never done this before. Never had any regrets when something didn’t work out. For that matter, she’d never had anything to regret, never had someone she wanted to keep around for any length of time.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t done this to herself. She had. Every step along the bastard trail had been made by her alone. She’d gone back to Lex’s place that night instead of crashing at a friend’s place like Terrible wanted her to—had tried to get her to do, he’d had his phone in his hand. She’d stood in Lex’s bedroom and thought he looked like a good time, so why not have one? She’d lied to Terrible the next day, convinced herself that was the right thing to do.

And all of that she could maybe excuse herself for. Maybe.

Chess lied to herself every day; it was just something she did, like taking her pills or making sure she had a pen in her bag. Little lies, mostly. Insignificant. Of course there were big ones there, too, like telling herself that she was more than just a junkie who got lucky enough to possess a talent not everyone had. That she was alone by choice and that she was not terrified of other people because they couldn’t be trusted, because they carried filth in their minds and pain in their hands and they would smear both all over her given half the chance.

But the biggest lie she’d ever told herself, the one she’d told herself for months after that night at Trickster’s, was that she wasn’t falling in love with Terrible, hadn’t already fallen. That all those nights spent sleeping on the couch, shutting her eyes against the lamps because sometimes if Terrible saw her lights on he’d stop by, meant nothing; that he’d call and offer to buy her dinner and she always said yes even though she wasn’t hungry at all; that their friendship was casual when, in fact, they saw each other almost every night.

Hell, wasn’t that why she’d slept with Lex to begin with? To escape those feelings? So it was useless to pretend that continuing to sleep with Lex as time went on, that spending the evening getting itchy with Terrible and using Lex to scratch with afterward wasn’t … twisted.

And now she was paying for it as the music pounded into the bathroom and she huddled against the icy tile and cried the tears she knew she deserved to cry.

Someone knocked on the door. Shit, couldn’t they even give her two minutes? The fucking lyrics had just started, she’d barely been in there for thirty seconds.

“I’ll be right out.”

They knocked again.

She swiped at her eyes with her hands, but the tears wouldn’t stop. They’d been building up for so long, turning into a lake behind a dam, and now the wall had been breached and there was no plugging the holes. “Just a min—”

The door swung open, and Terrible slipped into the room.