Home Improvement: Undead Edition

Rick the Brave STACIA KANE

His wallet was empty, so Rick took the job.

It wasn’t a job anybody else wanted—well, hell, if it had been, somebody else would have taken it already, specifically his sister’s husband, who’d told him about it. Apprentice electricians didn’t often get handed five grand off the books for what would amount to only a couple of days’ worth of work. So much for Shelley telling him he’d never make any decent money. And calling him a wimp. And dumping him for that sleazy car salesman.

Would a wimp take a job in Downside? Ha, no. No way. Like anybody else in Triumph City with half a brain and without a particular death wish, Rick had never gotten closer to the area than the stretch of Highway 300 that ran past it—over it—and he’d never wanted to. It was the kind of place where even the police didn’t go, the kind of place where you could find yourself a hooker or find yourself in mortal danger any hour of the day or night.

But here he was, with his tool bag slung over his shoulder in what he hoped was a nonchalant fashion, standing with two other guys in the dusty, empty main room of a ramshackle house, while outside the streets rang with laughter and screams and loud music.

A sort of grunting noise—it took him a second to realize it was someone speaking on the next floor—and they trooped up the creaky stairs toward it, past shreds of old wallpaper that fluttered like ghostly fingers as they passed.

Now that was something he didn’t even want to think about.

Looked like the other guys didn’t feel the same.

“Any spooks up here, I throwing you at ’em,” the guy in front—he called himself Delman, of all things—told the one behind him, who was apparently known as “Barreltop.”

Barreltop laughed. Rick did, too, the sort of too-hearty laughter that always made him feel like an ass.

The others didn’t seem to notice, though, or maybe they already thought he was an ass so they didn’t care. It was quickly becoming obvious that he didn’t belong here. The others seemed to know each other and probably lived in the area, although why they’d live in Downside if they were making this kind of money often, he had no idea.

It couldn’t be because they liked the ambience. The house stood only a few blocks away from the slaughterhouse, and while the breeze was luckily going in the other direction, the smell was still there when it stopped. It tingled his sinuses like a sneeze he couldn’t get out.

A few oil lamps sat on the floor of the room at the left of the stairs, casting wide U-shaped shadows against the dingy walls with their broken plaster and loose wires. Before Haunted Week and the utter destruction caused by the rampaging ghosts, before the Church of Real Truth had taken power and banished them below the earth, this had been a grand home. Now it was a corpse waiting for cremation. Or renovation, which was why they were here: wiring it for power, reinforcing the floors with steel.

Thick sheets of that steel rested against the far wall, between two high empty windows. A few shreds of fabric danced in front of one of them, the remains of curtains still trying to do their job.

Which was what he should be doing. He looked away from them, back at the other two, and found them staring at him, arms crossed, eyebrows lifted.

That pose was mirrored by the hulking man leaning against one of the walls in black jeans and a black bowling shirt. Shit, he was big. Rick took an involuntary step back, then regretted it when the big guy smirked. Mean-looking, too; the expression wasn’t pleasant on his scarred, broken face, shadowed by the black fifties-style greaser haircut. For the first time Rick began to seriously doubt he would make it out of the building alive, or at least with all his limbs intact. He could see that guy ripping out an arm and snacking on it, just for fun.

“You ready now?” the big guy said, and Rick realized they were still all looking at him, that he’d been openly staring.

He nodded. “Yeah. Um, sorry.”

The guy’s chin dipped. “You got the knowledge what needs doin’, aye? Choose you a room, get them floorboards up. Half the floor, dig, then we get the steel in.”

He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, snapped open a black steel lighter. The room brightened for a second with the six-inch flame of the lighter, dimmed again when he snapped it shut and refolded his tattooed arms. Barreltop and Delman walked past the stairs, into the room opposite, leaving Rick alone with the big guy. Why were they both leaving? Weren’t they going to take up the floorboards?

“Gotta problem?”

“I’m just wondering what you want me to do. Where you want me to start.”

The big guy stared at him. “Over yon corner be good. Crowbar’s there.”

“But I’m an electrician, I don’t—”

“You wanting payment, aye?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Crowbar’s there.”

Five thousand dollars, he reminded himself, crossing the floor and picking up the crowbar; he felt the big guy’s eyes on him but didn’t turn around to look. Instead he put the flat end of the bar under the edge of a floorboard and pushed down.

For five minutes or so the only sound in the house was the tearing and clattering of floorboards as they were wrenched from their places, and the chatter of the guys in the next room as they worked. Even this late—it was close to eleven—Rick’s shirt was damp with sweat, his throat dry from rotten dust. Dead mice and insect skeletons littered the layer of wood beneath the floor.

He needed the money. He needed the money. His car payments were killing him—that fucking car Shelley wanted him to buy—and five grand would pay it off and give him a bit left over. Left over to buy presents for another girl, once he found one. A girl who would appreciate a more . . . cerebral man.

There were girls like that out there, right?

Of course. So a few nights of misery were worth it, because he could picture that the boards were Shelley’s new boyfriend’s face as he tore them to hell. And once the boards were up he’d get to do some wiring.

But good as the image of what’s-his-name’s terrified expression made him feel, he wasn’t going to kill himself for imaginary revenge, either, so he headed for the cooler by the doorway and grabbed a bottle of water. Vicious brutes like himself got thirsty some—

A scream from the other room. A horrible scream, a terrified one, made even worse by the fact that it was a deep voice, a man’s voice.

The big guy knocked Rick down as he ran past, sending him spinning to the floor. What the hell was going on?

Dust filled his nose and throat, stung his eyes and made it impossible to see. For one confused minute as he struggled to his feet he was only aware of thundering footsteps and the big guy cursing.

Then the others yelled, more yelling. Panic. Rick finally used his head and dumped water over his face, and saw them all backing into the hall, away from the ghost as it crossed the floor.

A ghost. A ghost. Holy shit.

He knew hauntings happened, of course. Ten years ago a family on his street had had one, and the resulting payout from the Church had moved them into a newer, bigger house somewhere else. Like any child growing up after Haunted Week he’d heard the half-serious laments of his parents, wishing they had a ghost themselves, just a small harmless one but one that would earn them a settlement, too, to pay for college for Rick and his sister.

But they’d never really wanted that—who in their right mind would?—and Rick had never seen one.

And now he had, and he was in an unfamiliar part of town where he doubted he’d survive ten minutes on the streets by himself, and he was about to get up close and personal with that ghost because he’d bought a too-expensive car to get into some gold digger’s pants.

Life sucked.

But he still wanted to hold on to it.

Barreltop and Delman didn’t seem to think this was the moment to get philosophical. They raced down the stairs so fast Rick wouldn’t have thought their feet touched the wood if he hadn’t heard the noise of it.

The big guy backed away from the ghost, his hands raised, and Rick jumped to his feet, realizing even as he did that it was too late. The ghost had almost reached the stairs. It would be blocking his way in another second, and he didn’t particularly rate his chances on getting past it. It would attack him, kill him, try to steal his life for itself . . . Every hair on his body stood on end. It was like he could feel each individual air molecule hitting them.

“Ain’t can hurt you less’n it gots a weapon,” the big guy muttered as he kept backing up.

The ghost’s hands were thankfully empty, but the chances of them staying that way were pretty impossible. Shards of wood littered the floor, and the ghost would probably spot them—and lunge for them—in about two seconds.

Funny how something so ephemeral, something that looked like nothing more than a person-shaped blob of light, could be so full of hate. So terrifying. Especially when it was so clearly female, tall and slender in a long gown, hair piled high upon its head. It had been a lovely woman once, he thought—he guessed, because the expression on her translucent face was so angry and contemptuous it made him shiver.

She stood there, looking back and forth between Rick and the big guy. Probably trying to decide which of them to kill first. And with Rick’s luck, it would probably be him.

Sure enough, she lunged for him. Rick stumbled in his haste to jump back, fell to the floor with a teeth-rattling thud.

She advanced toward him; he crawled back, an awkward crablike movement over the slippery pile of rotted floorboards. He didn’t want to die like this, didn’t want this dilapidated husk of a house to be the last place he saw—

Something black swung through the ghost. She shrieked—she didn’t shriek, no sound came out, but her mouth opened and her entire form wavered and expanded.

The big guy stood with a bar in his hands like a baseball bat. Not just a bar. It was the curtain rod from the window, and it must have been made of iron, because when he swung it again the ghost stepped back.

He glanced at Rick again. “Get up. Take this. Gotta make me a call.” A call? Like on the phone? Was he crazy? “Shouldn’t we just get out of here, I mean—”

“Think it ain’t gonna chase us? Take this. Now.”

The sweat on his skin didn’t help him grip the thing. Nor did the growing idea that if he slipped up the ghost wasn’t the only one in the room who might kill him.

“Don’t quit on the swingin’, dig? You quit swingin’, we both of us die.”

“No pressure,” Rick muttered, but he did as he was told, ignoring the frantic pounding of his heart.

Behind him the big guy started talking. “Hey. Naw, gots us a problem. Naw, naw, I’m right, but us got a ghost here. Guessing—aye. Aye, no worryin’. Got an iron bar, keeping it back. Aye.”

Rick’s shoulders had already started to ache by the time he heard the phone click shut. The ghost, infuriated now, grew bigger and looser, in some horrible way that he couldn’t let himself think about, every time the bar sliced through it. The bar itself started to burn his hands, heating further with each pass through the ghost.

“Got somebody comin’ help us out, dig. You need a rest-up?”

“What?” Swing. Swing. “No. I’m fine.”

“You sure? Them arms lookin’ shaky.”

“I’m sure.”

If he were honest, his shoulders were killing him, and the burning iron bar threatened to slip out of his grasp entirely. But nothing in the world could have induced him to admit it. Not yet, at least.

He didn’t know how long he kept at it. Ten minutes, fifteen? Long enough for the loud, clattery music from the street outside to change a few times. He found a rhythm; swipe at the ghost, wait until it almost re-formed, swipe again. But he couldn’t deny that his arms felt as if they were about to fall off, and finally when the big guy asked again if he wanted a break, he nodded.

Of course, the girl arrived about thirty seconds after that, just as Rick was letting cold water splash over his face and down the front of his shirt to rinse off the dust and sweat. Great. Who didn’t want to look like a drool-covered baby in front of women?

She was slim—almost too slim, as if she didn’t eat much—and pale, with thick black hair cut like a pinup model and thick black eyeliner to match. Despite the heat she wore skinny black jeans over a pair of battered Chucks, and the red of her T-shirt peeked through little holes in the gray cardigan covering her arms. A canvas bag, faded green like an antique army bag, hung off her shoulder. In her hand was a canister of some kind.

What was a girl doing here?

He stumbled to his feet. “Hey, um, miss, you shouldn’t be—there’s a ghost here, you should—”

She cocked an eyebrow. What was it with people looking at him like that? “I can see that.”

“That’s Chess,” the big guy said. “She get rid of the ghost, aye?”

“How hot’s that bar?” She walked toward the ghost, inspecting it; her thumb flipped open the top of the canister.

“Ain’t cold.”

She smiled. “No, I guess it wouldn’t be.”

“Is that normal, for the bar to get hot?” Yes, it was dorky. But so? He, Rick, had done most of the ghost-swatting, and now Mr. Greaser was getting all the credit. In front of a girl who, okay, maybe she wasn’t the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, but she was pretty.

And despite the holes in the sweater and the ratty shoes and makeup, he didn’t think she—no. She didn’t talk like them, that weird patois, so she must not live in Downside. So who knew, right? Why not talk to her? “Because it wasn’t when I started using it, but by the time I handed it over to him, it was.”

“Yeah, that’s normal. It’s the energies mixing.” Her bag sank to the floor with a sort of crunchy thud.

“Your name is Chess?”

She nodded.

“I’m Rick.” He started to get up and extend his hand, but she was already moving away. She whispered something under her breath and upended the canister, dumping something white onto the floor. Salt, he realized, when she started creating a circle around the ghost.

“Little faster, Terrible,” she murmured. “I don’t want it to notice.”

Oh, wait. The guy’s name was Terrible? Really? Didn’t anyone in Downside have a normal name? An adjective and a board game. Sure. Why not?

Terrible kept swinging at slightly shorter intervals, checking his backswing while Chess walked around behind him. Her head was down, watching the line as it poured into place; when she was finished, Terrible and the ghost stood within a circle five feet or so around.

She whispered something else, then looked up. “Okay, get out whenever you’re ready. Just don’t—well, you know.”

Terrible nodded, glanced down, and started backing up. Oh, right. The salt line would—wait. Normal people couldn’t do that, right?

Sure, just about every house had a jar of Church-salt in the cabinets; like a copy of the Book of Truth, it was practically given to people at birth. Well, no practically about it, really. Copies of the Book of Truth and jars of Church-salt were standard gifts for baby Naming ceremonies. Rick had one of each himself. And supposedly if you ever saw a ghost coming for you, you could throw the stuff at it and it would give you a few seconds to make a getaway if you could.

But normal people could not create binding circles like the one Terrible was now stepping carefully out of.

Who the hell was that girl?

“Okay.” She knelt and started marking the floor with what looked like a piece of black crayon or something, scrawling an intricate little symbol just outside the salt circle. The ghost re-formed inside it, its outlines clearing and defining again. When the girl leaned over and started drawing the same symbol inside the circle, the ghost swiped at her head with one long-nailed hand.

Rick gasped, then immediately regretted it when she just kept working. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Not really. It doesn’t have the energy to make itself solid, and nothing like a weapon or anything to solidify around, so it’s just cold.”

Okay, something was definitely weird here. How did she know so much? And this kind of magic, the kind of magic she was apparently doing, wasn’t legal. Not for regular people.

“Hey,” he said, aware that his voice sounded a little too loud, his joking tone a little too forced. “You don’t work for the Church, do you?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Terrible looked at him. The iron rod still dangled from his fist. Shit.

But Chess replied, glaring at the ghost as it renewed its efforts to hit her. “Why? Does it matter?”

“No, no, I just . . . You seem to be really good at this, is all.”

“Do I?” She finished the marking and started sorting through her bag. “What do you think, Terrible? Think I’m good at this?”

“Seen better. Knew a dame once controlled a whole flock of birds, just with she magic.”

Chess grinned, a quick flash before she pulled a lump of fabric out of her bag. “That must have been seriously impressive.”

“Weren’t bad.”

She laughed, for reasons Rick could not fathom, and nodded at the ghost. “Where did she come from, do you know?”

“Barreltop find her, lookin’ like. Pulling up floorboards.”

“I thought you were going to let me check over these places before you start tearing them up.”

He shrugged. “You was workin’. Bump only choose the place couple hours past.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself before starting again. “Okay, this should only take a couple of minutes, no big deal.” She glanced at Rick. “You guys want to wait downstairs?”

“Actually, I’d—”

“Aye.” Terrible’s fist closed around Rick’s arm, lifting him from the floor. Damn, could the guy be any more insulting?

But to say anything would only make things worse, so he followed Terrible across the room and down the stairs, taking one last glance back to see Chess unfolding a long black stick and setting it into some sort of base on the floor.

TEN MINUTES LATER she came stomping down the stairs. “It’s not working.”

“What?” They both spoke at once.

“I can’t get a portal to open, and the only reason I wouldn’t be able to do that is if there’s already one here.”

Terrible rubbed his chin. “Like where?”

“I don’t know. Show me where she came from, we’ll see if maybe it’s there. The ghost is masking anything else I might feel, so I’d have to get closer to whatever it is to find it.”

“What do you mean, feel?”

Chess started to answer him—at least he thought she would, she opened her mouth—but Terrible spoke first. His thick brows drew together. “Why you askin’?”

“Just curious.”

“Aye? Don’t be.”

Chess’s voice cut into the silence. “Show me where the ghost came from, okay? I’d like to get out of here.”

“But—” Rick snapped his mouth shut. “Never mind.”

“No, what is it?”

“I just—you have the ghost locked in that circle up there, right? So why can’t we just leave? And maybe call the Church and have them come take care of it.”

Terrible folded his arms over his massive chest and glared, but Chess shook her head. “The wind could blow the salt away any second. And if there’s an open portal in here, that means more ghosts, and they’ll find their way into the streets. We can’t let that happen, right?”

That still didn’t really explain why he had to stick around, but neither was he going to try to leave. His tool kit was still upstairs, and he had the distinct feeling that if he tried to grab it and run he’d end up facedown on the floor.

So the three of them headed back up the stairs and into the other section of the house.

No windows at all back there, at least not ones people could see through. Boards crisscrossed the empty eyes in the wall. For some reason Rick felt almost as if they’d suddenly stepped underwater, or into some kind of jail cell. Probably the jail cell was more accurate.

But as much as he hated this—and he did hate it—he had to admit he was kind of having fun, too, now that the situation seemed under control. It wasn’t every night that he got to fend off a ghost with a curtain rod and hang out with a girl who might not be a Church witch but was definitely a witch of some kind. How many of his friends were having this kind of night? They were probably all sitting around Alex’s living room watching bootlegged porn.

Barreltop hadn’t gotten very far with his crowbar. One board was splintered at the end and split down the center, but that was all. Probably fortunate, really. The thought had no sooner entered his mind than Chess gave it voice.

“Good thing he was lazy. If the ghost came out of here with loose boards and shit lying around, you guys could have had a serious problem. A more serious problem, I mean.”

Terrible didn’t reply.

Chess sighed. “Can one of you pull this board up all the way so I can look underneath?”

She said “one of you.” But she looked at Rick, and he, sensing an opportunity to actually not look like a total wimp in front of her, seized it and headed back to the other room.

The ghost still stood in the circle, her fists clenched at her sides and her long gown moving as if in a faint breeze. She bared her teeth. Her furious gaze followed him as he grabbed the crowbar from where he’d dropped it.

He ignored her. Or at least tried to. It wasn’t very easy, ignoring the presence a few feet away of something that had—maybe not personally, but still—killed three of his grandparents and several aunts and uncles. Not to mention millions and millions of other people during Haunted Week, leading to the rise of the Church and the fall of all other governments and religions. The urge to spit at the thing, to hurt her somehow, rose in his chest, but he fought it down. He couldn’t hurt her. She was a ghost; they didn’t feel pain. And she wouldn’t care if he spit at her.

Better to pry up that board and let Chess destroy the portal or whatever, and send the ghost to the City of Eternity where it belonged.

Assuming Chess could. If she was Church, she could, but she couldn’t be Church, not if she was hanging around Downside in the middle of the night. But if she wasn’t Church—whatever. No point in wondering, he guessed. They wouldn’t tell him.

They were both kind of smiling when he walked back into the room, watching him. Maybe she’d told Terrible to get off his back? That would be nice.

Terrible reached for the crowbar, but Rick pretended he didn’t see. He’d just fitted the flat end under the edge of the board when Chess spoke.

“Hold on. If that came out when he’d only lifted the edge of the board, I have no idea what lifting the rest of it might do. So . . . be careful, okay?”

He forced a grin. It felt more like a grimace, but he had to at least try. Chess didn’t look scared. Terrible certainly didn’t look scared. Rick was damned if he was going to be the only one who did. “I held off a ghost with an iron bar for like fifteen minutes before you got here. I think I’ll be fine.”

The board came up with a satisfying crack. He reached down and tossed it aside.

Chess produced a flashlight from somewhere—had she had that before?—and handed it to Terrible, who shined it into the space beneath the boards while she knelt beside it and peered in.

“See anything?”

“No.”

“Feel anything?”

“Not really. I mean, yes, the whole house feels off, but it doesn’t seem particularly strong here.” She straightened up. “There’s no portal or anything under—shit. Get back. Both of you.”

“Huh?” Rick looked toward the doorway, where her gaze was pinned as she stood up. From her hand dangled one of those cloth bags Rick saw earlier.

Terrible grabbed him and shoved him against the wall. He thought he heard his bones creak; he certainly felt them. “Hey, what—”

Oh.

Another ghost wavered in the doorway. It held a crowbar in its spectral hand.

Pure terror shot up Rick’s spine, the kind of terror he hadn’t felt since he was seven and his older brother dangled him off a bridge for touching his stuff. That was his life, that crowbar, swinging like a metronome in front of the ghost’s wicked smile.

Terrible picked up the iron bar, while Chess stepped forward, her right hand hidden by the cloth bag. An odd collection of syllables poured from her mouth and she flung something at the ghost, something that made dark speckles against its pale glow.

The ghost froze. Almost before Rick had time to register that, to wonder at it, she’d upended her salt canister and started pouring another line, stretching it across the length of the room.

Okay. That made sense, he guessed. But it also blocked their escape. What were they supposed to do, sit there all night? All day? Ghosts hated the sun, but not much sun would come in with the windows boarded up like they were.

As if in reply, Terrible turned and smashed his heavy foot into the boards. Rick joined him, feeling the boards give under his boot, until finally they split and fell into the yard below.

It was a cloudy night, a dark one, but Rick’s eyes adjusted well enough to see a patch of overgrown weeds and some rusted lawn furniture. A rotted awning hung in tatters off a frame protruding from the side of the house.

So much for jumping. If the fall didn’t break their legs they’d impale themselves, and he had a feeling it would be both rather than either/or.

Chess’s gaze darted between them and the ghost. “Can you guys get down?”

“Naw. All broken metal down there.”

“Shit! I—what the hell?”

Ghostly feet had appeared just below the ceiling. As they all watched, the feet sank to the floor, another ghost revealing itself inch by inch from the bottom up.

And another.

Holy shit. Rick’s heart pounded so hard in his chest he thought it might literally explode. He almost wished it would, because at least that would be a quicker death. In that other room lay a pile of broken boards, some studded with nails. Probably enough debris filled the other rooms to turn himself, Terrible, and Chess into nothing more than bloodstains and piles of goo, even if the ghosts couldn’t cross the salt line. Ghosts could throw things, after all.

Chess spun around, tugging that black crayon or whatever out of her pocket. “Boost me up. I need to mark the ceiling.”

Rick started to bend down to cup his hands, but Terrible got there first. In one smooth movement he had Chess lifted high enough that she could scrawl another of those little symbols on the ceiling.

“That should hold,” she said, as she slid back down. “But I need to get up there.”

On what planet was that a good idea?

He must have said that out loud, or made some kind of sound, because she looked at him. “The portal is up there. They’re not coming up out of the floorboards, they’re coming down through the ceiling. I need to close it.”

Terrible frowned. “Lemme come along, aye?”

“How are you going to get up there? Rick can’t lift you.”

“Ain’t want you on your alones up there, Chess. Ain’t just one or two, aye, an’ we ain’t got any knowledge what weapons might be up there.”

A pause, while Rick’s heart sank into his shoes. Then, as if in slow motion, they both turned to look at him.

“Sure.” Was that a squeak in his voice? He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sure, I’ll go with you. Just tell me what to do.”

She smiled at him. Terrible made some kind of growling noise.

“I’m going to salt off a section up there,” she said. “Just like this one, as soon as I get up. I don’t know if there’s any debris or anything in that attic, but I assume there is, so you’re going to need to grab whatever you can—if you can—and put it in that area, where they can’t get it. Okay?”

She slid past them and marked off another section of the floor behind her line, forming a square with the line already existing. “Try to get through here.”

He didn’t look happy about it, but Terrible nodded and stepped into the square, ramming the iron rod at the ceiling. Plaster fell around him. For a moment it looked bizarrely like snow, until the plaster stopped and chunks of wood began.

In less than a minute, or so he thought—time seemed to be going by awfully fast, and every passing second moved Rick that much closer to what he was certain was his date with death by ghost—the hole in the ceiling was big enough for them to get through.

“Okay.” Chess looked at Terrible. “As soon as you get us up there, step back, okay? Don’t stay under here, at least not until I get it marked off on the floor.”

If Terrible nodded or said anything, Rick didn’t hear it, not over the rasping of his own breath in his throat. He closed his eyes for a second or two; when he opened them, Chess’s feet were disappearing into the ceiling.

His turn. His turn. Terror numbed him so effectively that he barely felt his feet hit the dusty floor.

But Terrible didn’t bend down to cup his hands, not immediately. Instead he grabbed Rick’s arm and squeezed, hard. Hard enough that Rick wondered if biceps could liquefy. Terrible’s eyes were black holes in his brutish face, and he said, “Aught happens to her, I kill you, dig?”

It didn’t seem like the kind of question that was really a question, and Rick was glad, because he didn’t think he could have replied if he wanted to. So he just nodded mutely, and Terrible bent down for his foot.

Something hit the wall above them, and the noise reverberated through the room. Rick barely had time to register it before Terrible practically threw him through the hole in the ceiling.

He’d thought maybe he’d need a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, but he didn’t. Not just because the small, round windows in the attic room weren’t boarded, but because it was so full of ghosts it glowed.

For a second he just knelt there, his mouth open. He’d never seen anything like it before. Yes, before this night he’d never seen a real ghost, so by definition any ghost was something he’d never seen before, but this . . . this was amazing, and frightening, and beautiful in a terrifying and awful way.

Through the mass of their bodies, the tigerish pattern of light and darkness, he saw other shapes, the thick outlines of furniture. Not too much, thankfully, but enough to make his heart sink further. Across the attic space were more porthole-like windows; through one of them a streetlight shined like a single star in a clouded sky.

Chess crouched not far from the hole. She’d already marked off a large square around it with salt, and apparently the ghosts realized it, because Rick had barely seen the line when glass shattered above his head, raining chips on him that stung his shoulder and arm.

“Chess! You right up there?” Terrible shouted from below.

“I’m fine,” she called back, digging around in her bag.

She glanced at Rick. “It’s definitely here, the portal. I have no idea how it got here or what the deal is or why, but it’s here.”

“Is that going to be hard to fix?” A chunk of wood came flying at them. They jumped back and it clattered against the wall.

“Don’t know.”

“What? What do you mean?”

Bluish light moved across her face like a reflection of water, making her features seem to shift and change shape a little as he looked at her. “I mean I don’t know. Until I know how it happened, I won’t know how to close it. Or even if I can close it.”

Great. Just great. He’d come up to help “clear debris” or whatever, and now he was on the front line of some sort of portal that this girl who may or may not be a witch may or may not know how to fix. Oh, and don’t forget the huge, very scary guy below them who looked like he ate babies and had just promised to kill Rick if anything happened to the aforesaid maybe-witch.

This night just kept getting better and better. And he had no—“Ow! Fuck!”

A shard of glass had embedded itself in his arm, thrown by an angry ghost.

Chess’s eyes narrowed. “Did you just get cut?”

He lifted his arm to show her.

“Damn it! They’re going to sense that, it’s going to make them mad.”

Witch or no witch, she was starting to piss him off. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to let myself get injured after risking my life to come up here and help you. How careless of me.”

To his surprise, she smiled. “You would have risked your life more if you hadn’t come up to help, and I kind of think you know that. But yeah, I guess you’re right. Sorry.” She lifted her hand, the black crayon in it. “Come here. I want to mark you.”

He wanted to ask what the hell that meant, but he was tired of saying “What?” over and over like some sort of idiotic parrot.

So he scooted over, closing the few feet between them. “Would Terrible actually have killed me if I hadn’t agreed to come up?”

“It’s entirely possible, yeah.” She said it like it was no big deal. Like it was normal or something, rather than psychotic. Who the hell were these people?

Her fingers touched his jaw, cool and light. “Close your eyes.”

She smelled faintly of shampoo and a sort of herbal scent, with a little cigarette smoke mixed in. The crayon wasn’t a crayon at all, he realized, but some sort of woodless grease pencil, and it moved across his forehead in a tingly line. Circles, maybe, some kind of swirl with an angle? He wasn’t sure. It made his head buzz, though, enough that he opened his eyes a crack to try to shake the dizziness.

The pencil moved down to his cheek; another little symbol there, and then she lifted his hand and drew on the back of it. It looked almost like a crab, but he couldn’t seem to really trace the pattern.

Instead he looked up at her. He’d thought before that her eyes were dark, but they weren’t. Inside the thick black eyeliner and mascara they were lighter than that: hazel, almost blue but not quite. Pretty.

He opened his mouth to tell her so, driven by some sort of imminentdeath impulse, but she dropped his hand and pulled back before he could speak.

“Those should help keep you safe.” She tucked the pencil back into her pocket. “They won’t be able to drain power from you, and you won’t feel the cold as much when they touch you. Okay?”

He would have nodded, but ducked instead when a large chair flew at them.

She grabbed his arm with her left hand, grabbed his eyes with her own. “But listen. They like fear. They can sense it, it excites them. You need to try to sublimate that. You cannot show them you’re scared. You cannot let them see when they hurt you. Now take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Take off your shirt. Give it to me. We need to bind that wound of yours to try to mask”—a crash broke through her voice, as what looked like a table leg hit the wall—“the smell of your blood.”

He tried to smile. “You know, if you wanted to see my bare chest, all you had to do was ask.”

Terrible’s voice cut into her reply. “Chess! What’s on up there?”

Damn it! He’d finally managed to say something funny, too.

“We’re fine,” she called.

Rick peeled off his shirt and handed it to her. The attic was so damn hot it barely made a difference.

She wiped his cut with it, ducked as glass smashed behind her, and wound the fabric into a bandage, which she tied around his arm with the air of someone used to dealing with such things. “I need to get out there and look around. So you need to start grabbing stuff, okay?”

He glanced out again at the sea of ghosts, at the way the light they cast reflected off the naked ceiling boards and patchy walls and somehow thickened the air.

“They can’t hurt you unless they have a weapon,” she said, in a softer tone. “Without magic powering them they can’t solidify themselves without an object to solidify around, remember? And those sigils will help protect you. So just keep your eyes open, and get everything you can behind that line. And for Truth’s sake, do not break the line, okay?”

The sound of wood scraping wood drew his attention; a team of ghosts, four or five of them, were pushing what looked like an enormous wardrobe.

Chess saw it, too. “We’ll worry about that when we have to. Just go, and go as fast as you can.”

She stepped over the salt line and into the mass of ghosts, who whirled around her, grabbing for her with impossible white hands that failed to take hold.

Rick’s breath rattled in his chest. Ghosts out there. Terrible downstairs, probably with all sorts of weapons and eager to kill someone. He could move, or he could die, and while neither of them really appealed, he figured moving seemed like a better idea.

They were so cold. So damn cold. He’d never really thought about it. He’d been brought up to think of death as something peaceful, something that meant you got to go live in the City below the earth forever, that it was simply another stage of existence.

And he did believe it. Hell, he didn’t have to believe it, because it was Fact and that was Truth, and he’d spent hundreds of Saturday Holy Days at Church and didn’t even have to think to know that Fact and Truth were what really mattered, and it was comforting and right.

But apparently it was Fact and Truth that ghosts were cold, too, and that made him wonder if the City was cold, and if the dead spent their time there milling around in angry silence the way they were in that attic.

A lamp flew past his head and hit the wall beside him with a heavy thud. He scooped it up and ran with it, dropping it on the “safe” side of the line. Same with a large book bound in moldy leather, and a rusty frying pan. There wasn’t as much small stuff in the attic as he’d originally feared, but he kept circling the floor, scanning it, almost getting used to the sensation of being dipped in ice over and over again.

Something heavy slammed into his shoulder. He spun around to see a ghost raising another chair leg high over its head, preparing to bring it down again.

He reacted without thinking, grabbing hold of the leg and pulling, turning so he could put his back into it. Damn, that ghost was strong. The edges of the wood dug into his fingers, into his ribs when he tucked it under his arm to get a better grip and leaned forward.

The ghost still didn’t let go. This was fucking ridiculous. What was he supposed to do, spend the entire time up here playing tug-of-war with a dead guy for a chair leg? While more of them wandered around, faster and faster, probably grabbing more weapons to beat him into a bloody pulp?

The thought energized him a bit. He pulled harder, pushing his entire body forward, and ended up taking five or six steps before he realized what was happening.

Maybe he could . . . ? Yeah, that would work, right? The ghost couldn’t cross that salt line, but he could, and the chair leg could.

It made him feel a bit like a sled dog, for some bizarre reason, but he did it, towing the ghost toward the line, pushing through the mass of them. The cold almost started to feel good, it was so hot up there.

He stepped over the salt line. Crossed the few feet between it and the wall, and gave the leg one last tug. The second the ghost’s hands touched the air over the salt line it let go.

Yes!

He ducked out of the way of a flying picture frame and headed back out. Through the translucent forms filling the attic he saw Chess, bending over slightly with her hand out. Trying to find the portal, he guessed. Or hoped.

Not for the first time the idea that he had only her word that she actually knew what she was doing crossed his mind, but he shoved it away just as quickly. If she didn’t, it really didn’t matter. He was in that attic and he wasn’t getting out until either she managed to fix the problem or they both died, so no point in worrying about it.

Terrible shouted from below, and Chess shouted back again that they were fine.

A few simpering china babies sat on the floor by the wall. A ghost picked one up, started advancing toward him. Rick ducked away, realizing as he did so that he had an advantage Chess hadn’t explained. He could walk through them. They couldn’t walk through each other.

He twisted his body, sliding through a ghost raising a shard of glass—that could not be a good thing, was there more broken glass around?—and around a heavy desk. More stuff, that was what he needed, stuff to get on the other side of that—

The china baby smashing into the side of his head stunned him, knocked him on his ass. Literally. For a second his vision blurred and shook; when the world snapped back into focus he saw light hit the shard of glass as it started to descend.

Without thinking he grabbed at the spectral hand that held it. It was solid. Solid and cold and damp, with a sort of horrible give to it, the kind of give all living flesh possessed but just felt wrong when the flesh in question glowed bluish-white and froze his own.

The ghost’s face leered above him, its lips stretching into a hideous grimace. His arms shook from trying to hold it off. The point of the glass came closer, a little closer, aiming straight for his heart.

“Chess! Chess!”

She didn’t reply, but he heard her footsteps, heard her voice as she yelled more of those makeshift syllables and flung something at the ghost.

Dirt. It landed on him and he realized it was dirt, dirt with a particular pungent smell. He also realized the ghost had frozen in place and he took advantage of it, snatching the glass from its hand and tossing it at the wall.

That was a mistake. Another ghost caught it. Fuck.

Chess glanced over. “I’ve found it. Get that glass to the other side of the line and come over to the corner. I might need your help.”

Okay, this he could do. He thought. The ghost grinned, holding the glass up, but it was still close to the salt line and wasn’t moving quickly.

And his mother had told him playing basketball after school wouldn’t actually teach him any real skills.

He looked at the glass, at the hand holding it. Focused on it. And ran, his hands outstretched. Another china baby smashed against the floor where he’d been; an old book glanced off his back. He ignored them.

His hands closed around the ghost’s, shoving it forward. The ghost immediately went transparent. The glass fell to the floor, and unfortunately Rick fell with it, and it drove itself into his thigh.

It took every bit of strength he could muster not to cry out in pain, but he managed it, remembering Chess’s warning about showing emotions. Instead he forced himself to get back up. They’d smell his blood, yes, and that was a bad thing, but he couldn’t really do anything about that. Instead he limped over to where Chess stood, shouting back down to Terrible that they were okay and had found whatever it was.

She turned to him when he drew up beside her. “Look.”

It was a wreath. What?

As he watched, another ghost slid out of it. It was horrible to see, like witnessing the birth of a grotesque baby. It swung at him, at Chess, several times, its expression growing angrier and angrier, until finally it passed through them, no doubt to hunt for a weapon of some kind.

When it had gone he realized that the center of the wreath wasn’t there, or rather, that he couldn’t see the floor through it. Instead the air appeared wavery, shiny almost, and tiny lights glowed in that space, lights and more shapes that could have been people.

“It leads directly to the City,” she said, ducking as a candlestick flew past. “Look. It’s mistletoe.”

“I thought that was illegal.” The second the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. Duh, asshole.

She must have seen his thoughts reflected on his face, because she didn’t point out his stupidity. “It opens the gate between here and the City, see? That’s why. Especially in a mistletoe wreath. The Church destroyed every one they could find right after Haunted Week.”

“Right.” Another ghost was forming in the center of the wreath. “So what do we do? I mean, what do you do?”

“I think I can try banishing them all, just sending them right back through without a psychopomp. Then we burn the wreath.”

He nodded, just as if he understood what she’d said, which he didn’t. He knew the words, knew that a psychopomp was an animal that carried spirits from this world to the City and that banishing was the act of summoning a psychopomp to do that job. But he had no idea what it actually entailed. It wasn’t exactly something people got to watch. “Just tell me what to do.”

“Keep collecting debris,” she said. “And tell Terrible to watch out. When I send them all back it will probably create a vacuum in here. So, um, when I give the word, grab on to something, okay?”

His stomach lurched. Was she serious?

Stupid question; he should stop asking it. Yes, she was serious, and yes, Terrible might kill him if the ghosts didn’t manage it first, and yes, this whole thing was a big mistake, and yes, if he made it out of there alive he was going to punch his brother-in-law in the mouth.

She touched his arm, gave him a sort of soft quiet smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”

He nodded.

Over the sound of his own footsteps as he half-ran, half-limped around the attic collecting more potential weapons, he heard her voice, low and smooth like music playing in another room. The blood leaking from his thigh excited the ghosts, just as Chess had said it would. They swarmed him, followed him, spun around him in a dizzying pattern of light. The cold wouldn’t go away, even for a second. The feeling of them passing through him, as if he were one of them, or as though he didn’t really even exist, wasn’t really there, grew more and more unpleasant.

But not as unpleasant as the sound of the wardrobe scraping across the floor again.

He looked in that direction. Not just a few ghosts behind it now. At least a dozen or so of them, pushing the heavy piece of furniture. Pushing it right toward Chess. They must have figured out what she was doing.

As they picked up speed, more ghosts joined them. Within seconds, it seemed, he stood almost alone, watching the wardrobe slide across the floor.

“Chess! Chess, look out!”

Instantly he heard Terrible roaring her name from below. No time to try to shout back, and Rick supposed it didn’t matter anyway. With a feeling rather like jumping in front of a loaded gun, he ran to the corner where she was, trying to catch the wardrobe before it hit her.

He’d just reached her side when her voice rose. Not in fear; it wasn’t a scream. It was simply her saying those words, those itchy-sounding, tumbly words.

Light flashed from the center of the wreath, a second of bright bluewhite light, and then—the space grew. He didn’t understand how it could happen, but the wreath widened until the doorway or portal or whatever stretched from floor to ceiling.

That was when his feet started sliding across the floor.

Grabbing the wardrobe was instinct. So was grabbing Chess’s hand.

Ghosts flew back through the portal, slowly at first, then faster as the vacuum increased. They, too, tried to catch the wardrobe, to hold on to him and Chess, but they couldn’t seem to solidify enough to do so.

Chess started walking toward him, going hand-over-hand up his arm, until she, too, could clutch the wardrobe. The vacuum sucked at him, sucked in some odd way he didn’t really understand. It wasn’t a physical pull—well, it was physical, obviously, but the sensation seemed to come from inside him rather than outside.

“It feels weird,” he managed. Holding the wardrobe with both hands necessitated pressing Chess between himself and the wood, almost spooning against her. She didn’t seem to mind, which was nice.

“It’s your soul.”

“What?” Damn it, there it was again.

“It’s your soul. The portal is trying to pull spirits back into itself, and it can’t differentiate very well between disembodied ones and living people. Just hang on. Do you see any more ghosts in here?”

He craned his neck to the left. Was that glow a ghost or—

He lost his grip on the wardrobe.

As if in slow motion he felt himself falling backward, his head hitting the floor with a painful thud. Felt the rough wood floor beneath him scraping his back as he slid across it.

Chess grabbed his feet. He managed to force his head off the ground long enough to see her feet hooked on the edge of the wardrobe.

And long enough to turn around and see the portal only inches from his face, to see the cold darkness within, the black silhouettes and torch flames. Faces appeared in it and then disappeared, greedy eyes focusing on him, bony fingers trying to reach out and grab him.

He could practically see saliva dripping from their dead lips as they waited for him, ready to steal his life, to try to feed on that power. He had no idea what exactly they would do to him, but he bet it would be painful.

Chess shifted her grip, crooking her elbow around his feet and reaching into her bag. A second or two later she threw something at the portal, shouted something that sounded like “Belium dishwasher!”

The portal closed.

HE DIDN’T THINK he’d ever been so grateful for a beer in his life. Beneath all of the bottles of water in the cooler were a dozen or so of them, chilled to perfection, and he wished he could suck every one back at once.

Not only did he think he deserved a damn drink, he thought it would help a bit with the pain as Chess dug the glass shard out of his thigh.

He was wrong about that one. He just barely managed to stay silent. But at least it didn’t take long, and when her hands touched his skin as she applied butterfly closures and some kind of ointment, covering it all with a bandage . . . well, that was nice, even though he felt shaky and weak from the loss of adrenaline.

Terrible stood in the corner, watching the wreath reduce to ash. Rick looked at him for a second, then turned back to Chess.

“So, um . . . maybe you’d like to go out to dinner with me or something, sometime?”

Terrible snorted.

Chess smiled, the kind of smile Rick knew meant no even before she opened her mouth, and started cleaning his scraped fingers with a baby wipe. “Sorry. I’m with someone.”

“Oh. Oh, um . . . is it serious?”

She squeezed more ointment onto the place where the splinters had been, slowly like she was trying to gather her thoughts. She glanced at Terrible, a quick little eye-dart before looking down again; Rick figured she didn’t want him to overhear. “He’s my family,” she said finally. Quietly. “He’s everything.”

“Oh,” he said again, rummaging in his tired mind for a new topic of conversation. “So that thing I saw through the portal, was that the City of Eternity? Like, for real?”

Chess smoothed a Band-Aid over his finger. “Not really. Well, it is, but it’s actually more like a tunnel into the City.”

He took his hand back, took another swallow of his beer.

“All burned out here,” Terrible said.

Chess looked over at him. “Good. Can you scoop up the ashes? We’ll dump them down the sink later.”

“You can’t just leave them here?” Rick asked.

She shrugged. “Probably. But I’d rather be safe. You never know what can happen with stuff like that. Mistletoe is very powerful—as you saw—and there are a couple of spells that use mistletoe ash, so . . . better to just dump them.”

“Because whoever set that thing up might come back and try again?”

“What? No, nobody set that up. That was your fault.”

He jerked upright. “My fault? How did I—”

A heavy hand slammed down on his shoulder. How the hell had Terrible gotten there so fast? Rick hadn’t even heard his footsteps.

“Oh, calm down. Both of you. Nobody deliberately set that thing off. It was you being here that attracted them.”

Rick must have looked confused, because she sighed. “Think of it this way. All these years that wreath has been up there, but the house was empty. There was no energy inside it, you know? No life. But then you guys came in here tonight, and your energy activated the mistletoe and made a portal.”

Terrible let go of Rick, shifted his weight. “Shit.”

“Yes, shit. This is why you’re supposed to let me look through these places first, right? Please? Next time?”

Terrible nodded.

“Good.” She slapped her palms down onto her thighs and stood up. “Okay, are we all ready to go now?”

“Aye, guessing so.”

Rick stood up, too. “Hey, do you need me back tomorrow night? Or . . .’

Terrible’s eyebrows rose. “You wanna come back?”

“Well . . .” Did he? No, not really. But he still needed the money, and he didn’t think he’d actually earned anything yet.

Terrible reached into the heavy pack against the wall and pulled out a wad of cash. “Here. You take this, aye? An’ you ain’t needing to come back. Thinkin’ you done enough.”

He held out his hand. Or rather, he held out a bunch of money, what had to be at least three or four grand.

“Oh, hey, no, I mean, I hardly did anything, the floorboards aren’t even up at all.”

Terrible glanced at Chess, then back. “Take it.”

“But I—”

“Take it.”

So he did, shoving it into his pocket without counting it. At least he knew not to do that.

He slung his backpack over his still-sore shoulder, and the three of them clattered back down the stairs and out the front door.

Down the street a gang of kids were giggling and playing with firecrackers. On the corner a couple of hookers leaned against the lamppost, their skin glistening with sweat. The sound of breaking glass echoed over the other noises, the car engines and shouts and music.

“Well, okay, I guess,” Rick said. He held out his hand to Chess, who shook it, then he did the same with Terrible. “It was nice meeting you guys and everything.”

“You, too,” Chess replied. “Take care.”

Terrible grunted.

“Oh, and thanks,” she said. “You were a big help . . . you were really brave.”

Brave. Was he? He didn’t feel like he was, hadn’t felt it at the time, but when he looked back at what he’d done . . . yeah, maybe he was. His chest inflated.

But he didn’t let on how that made him feel. Instead he just said, “Bye,” and walked to his car, aware of their eyes on him, aware of the dark sky above and the city of ghosts beneath the earth. He’d seen it. He’d actually seen the City, he’d actually seen ghosts, been injured by them and watched them be defeated.

He was Rick the Brave, Rick the ghost killer. Rick the guy any girl would want to be with, and he was four grand or so richer, and life was pretty damn good, after all.