Unholy Magic

Chapter Ten

She couldn’t see him anymore, didn’t know for sure if the figure she’d glimpsed in the mirror was gone or was even now creeping up behind her again. Her throat closed, rebelling against the stench. She ground her teeth to hold in the coughing fit. It was no longer a matter of wanting to open the window. She needed to if she hoped to remain conscious.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up while her weak, numb fingers groped at the latch, finally lifting it.

Icy air plunged into the room, fresh and clean and the best fucking thing she’d ever tasted in her life. She sucked it into her lungs like it was Dream and she had only a minute at the pipe. Risking a ghost attack, she leaned out as far as she dared, letting the moonlight bathe her skin, letting the wind chill it.

The second the nausea started to abate she turned around to check the room. Nothing. For the next several minutes she sat there on the cold windowsill, breathing and looking around, breathing and looking around. She still had her bag with her; now that her fingers had returned to her control she grabbed a handful of dirt. It grounded her, made her feel stronger.

Strong enough, finally, to get up and tiptoe back to the bedroom door.

Gone. The ghost was gone. Moonlight entered the room again. The bed was still neatly made, the walls free of blood. It looked as though nothing at all had happened.

Maybe nothing had. Highly unusual for a ghost to appear and take no notice of a living human, especially not the ghost of a murderer reliving its crime.

Of course, it was also highly unusual for her to feel so awful for no reason. The throbbing in her head wouldn’t let up, hammering behind her eyes. Her throat was like sandpaper. She took a drink from her water bottle, but it tasted off, bitter and metallic, like old dirty pennies.

Her legs shook beneath her, but she managed to retrieve her penlight from where it had rolled beneath the countertop. The room was still cold, but it was a natural cold. She did not want to take the chance of closing that window again. Even now that the visitation had apparently ended she could still smell that horrible rotten odor, faint but present, like the lingering stain of a bad memory.

She was just about to straighten up when something under the sink caught her eye. A shinier spot on the silver pipe, where the metal had been scraped … as if the plumbing had recently been worked on. Or tampered with.

This time she shone the light down the drain, steeling herself for roaches or blood or who knew what else that might decide to crawl out of it. Perhaps there was a smaller, inner pipe in there, or—

“Check that window.”

Fuck! She spun around. The open window taunted her, a blank hole in the pale wall. She’d forgotten about the security staff. They’d be making their regular rounds, of course—she’d watched them do it from the woods.

Cursing silently, she snatched up her bag and raced out of the bathroom. The unit on her belt buzzed again—were they already in the hall? She pressed herself against the bedroom wall by the door but heard nothing.

Three long, quick steps carried her across the corridor—no time to retrieve the alarm from beneath the carpet—and back into Arden’s room.

She hadn’t removed the ward from the top of the stairs, either. Confused male voices floated toward her, anxious chatter from women farther away. The party guests weren’t pleased by the interruption, she assumed. Not that she could blame them.

Two choices. Stretch the ladder and risk getting busted at the bottom, or hide in Arden’s closet. Neither appealed. Especially if they did a search of Arden’s room and found either the missing wire or—well, her.

It would have to be the window. She yanked the ladder from her bag with her right hand while sliding the window frame up with her left.

On second thought. The voices grew louder. They’d be at the door any second. Thirteen feet … seven and a half feet taller than she was.

Busted, or injured? Injured won. In one motion she gripped the freezing sill and slid over it.

A second to hang there, like a target painted on the side of the house. Another to fall.

Pain shot up her legs, but she didn’t think anything was broken. She stumbled to her feet and ran, glancing back once she’d reached the safety of the trees to see the guards coming around the corner of the house.

They left Lex’s car on Fifteenth and walked the rest of the way; there were places below Thirtieth where even Slobag’s men felt the need for caution, and the two of them were heading for one of those. Just what she needed. Not that she didn’t trust him to keep her safe; she did, as much as he was able. It was just that she could think of better ways to spend a freezing night than wandering the streets. Especially when all he’d told her when he called was that he might have some information, and she should hop on over to his place.

Lex took her hand and led her into an alley. If it hadn’t been so cold, she might have been suspicious, but as it was she doubted he had anything of interest in mind.

Of course, she’d been wrong before. His lips were cold, but they warmed up fast. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for his hands. The second they slipped up under her shirt she yelped.

His laugh puffed against her throat. “Cold hands, aye?”

“Like ice.”

“Sorry.” He teased her earlobe lightly with his teeth. “Maybe you got somewheres warm I can put em?”

“In this weather? No way.”

“Aw, never mind that. Just pretend we back in my bed.”

“But we’re not in your bed. We’re in an alley. Someone could walk by and see, even if it wasn’t freezing outside.”

“Part of the fun, ain’t you think so?” His teeth moved down to her neck. “C’mon, Tulip, let’s us heat up.”

She gave a small, choked half-giggle. “Is this why you brought me here?”

“Nay, but you looking awful cute in that Churchy coat, aye? Like them big buttons down front.”

He kissed her, up against the dirty brick wall. She moved her own numb hands to his thighs, slid them up beneath his leather jacket and the hem of his ragged sweater until she found bare skin. He gasped and jumped back.

“Cold, huh?”

“You ain’t hadda do that, now. Coulda made your point some other ways. See? Mean.” But he was smiling, and so was she. “Maybe I oughta hold them hands out the way, what you say? Like this …”

Her wrists hit the bricks, rough and cold against her skin. Her heart rate sped up.

“Look like I got you all held up now, me.”

“Looks like it,” she agreed. His lips were inches from hers. “But if we’re supposed to meet someone, isn’t it a good idea to actually go and meet them?”

“Aw, damn. You always worryin about stuff like bein where we say we gonna be.” He let go, stepped back. “But whyn’t you come here anyway, share you some body heat for a minute, then we get moving on.”

She pressed her back against his chest, let him wrap his arms around her. It was warmer this way, she had to admit, even if it did feel strange to be this close to him and not actually doing anything but standing. Strange, but not totally uncomfortable; it was nice to have someone there after the horror of the Pyle bathroom earlier. She hadn’t wanted to come out, hadn’t wanted to do anything but sit at home under her tattered blanket, but … people could die. Women could die. She figured a little physical inconvenience was a worthwhile price.

“So who is this guy again?”

“Huh. Name of Hat Trick, but best you ain’t recall it, aye? Not a safe place we headed, Tulip. Keep that knife you got handy.”

“And I get to go along because …?”

“Who else? Hear he maybe got some knowledge, figure best you come along. Maybe he know something bout what the ghost for, aye? Only I ain’t knowing if he speak true or not. You know it. So you here.”

“That’s true.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes. They were, as best she could tell, by one of the abandoned warehouse blocks growing like toadstools around Fifteenth. Deep in Slobag’s territory now, where tin wind chimes hung in broken windows to amuse the squatters within. Their off-key jangles rode the wind toward her, discordant and disconcerting.

“You brought all them stuff you use, aye?”

“No, Lex, I left it all at home because it’s such a nice night for a walk. Of course I brought it.”

“Just checking, is all. No need to get fratchy.”

“I’m not, I’m just—it was just a joke.”

“Aye. Sorry.”

She rolled her eyes without letting him see and kept walking. He always seemed to have in his head that she was much touchier than she actually was.

Then again, maybe she was actually touchier with him than with anyone else—and not in the physical sense. Much as she liked him, the knowledge that there was an undercurrent of business relationship in their sexual relationship … She folded her arms over her chest. That was not a topic she wanted to start on, oh no.

Halfway down the block now, and she felt more eyes glued to her with every step. The windows were empty on both sides of the street, but that didn’t mean people weren’t watching.

“Hey.” He touched her arm to stop her, leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Ain’t mean to get the junters with you, I ain’t. Just on the edgy side this night. You ain’t deserve it.”

She shrugged. What was she supposed to do? Tell him to fuck off and make her way home by herself? Wasn’t like there was any point in fighting with him about it anyway. “No problem.”

It felt like miles, but it was only another few blocks before they made a left and Chess heard the music. Barely audible at first, then louder as they drew closer to it, a bizarre combination of pounding techno and the Pixies.

That it came from their destination she did not doubt. The building rose before them, a hulking shape guarding the street’s termination point. Dozens of windows filled with flickering orange light stared at them, daring them to come closer. More fire rose from the rooftop, glowing columns of it slicing through the black sky. The Nightsedge Market.

“You ready?” Lex muttered.

She nodded, tightening her grip on the knife in her pocket.

What looked from the outside like one huge fire was in fact dozens, overflowing from fire cans or set in the center of stone circles.

Sweat formed on her brow. Her heart pounded in rhythm, “Wave of Mutilation” thundering through her head, making her high. Along the graffiti-covered walls, bodies covered sprung couches, lolling figures with half-closed eyes or couples with half-closed clothing. It stank of smoke and charring meat and sweat, of sour milk and sex, and, beneath those other scents like hot bodies beneath sheets, of Dream and burning keshes and huffer glue.

A clandestine thrill ran up her spine. In the corner a small group of bruised, skinny teenagers huddled around a one-piece hookah, spinning a knife on the floor to see who got the next hit. At the far end of the room a dice game was being played; the prize seemed to be a string of betel nuts and shrunken heads. Beside it was a display of jewelry made from syringes and bones, and farther along was a rack of Dream pipes, ornately carved and gleaming in the firelight.

There was Downside, and then there was this place. It stripped her raw, made her want to sink to the floor and burrow in. It was her own Market plus ten.

Lex tapped her arm, bringing her back to him. “Quit starin, Tulip. Get you noticed, aye?”

“I wasn’t staring.”

“Nay, but you was almost. Follow me.”

Through the crowd they wound their way, passing a naked woman with blue swirls all over her body and a purple-haired guy doing tattoos. Chess stopped when she saw the short man at the end of the row, just past a steaming cauldron of dime-a-mouthful greenish soup. A box at his side towered over him, made of clear glass with iron bars at the corners. Inside the box was a ghost.

At least it looked like a ghost. She couldn’t tell for sure. Her senses were so cranked from the energy around her, from the desire to immolate herself on the pyre of drugs, sex, and violence the entire building represented, she would have had a hard time feeling a real ghost if it had sneaked up behind her and slipped a noose around her neck.

But the thing in the box had the blank, angry stare of a ghost, the unseeing, impersonal hatred the dead took on when out of the City.

Seeing her interest, the man bared his teeth in a greasy smile and pressed a button on the side of the box. The ghost inside leapt, thrashed around for a moment, then subsided. Electric current, forcing the ghost into solidity. Ghost torture on the highest level.

“A gift for the lady,” the man said as the song changed, leering at her and Lex both. “Surely the lady deserves a gift?”

Lex ignored him, kept walking. Chess followed with her head straight but her gaze darting from side to side, taking in everything, wanting to store up as much of the sweet, dangerous sleaze as she could.

Together they started up a narrow, rusty iron staircase bolted to the wall. It rattled with every step and rained flakes of corrosion onto the heads of those beneath them. She didn’t ask him where they were going. It didn’t matter.

The stairs led to a window, and outside the window, back in the freezing air, was the flat roof of the building next door. A man holding two pock-edged hatchets nodded to Lex, waved them both on, and before them sat Hat Trick.

Surprisingly small and dumpy, he seemed to squat on a stool too low for even the tiniest man. Chess couldn’t tell his age; one minute he had the wrinkled visage of the very elderly, the next he appeared smooth and unlined as a young man. Magic of some sort, she figured, but like nothing she’d ever seen before. Everyone bought or tried to make various beauty charms, but most of them were useless—a fact the Church generally didn’t bother to reveal to anyone, knowing as they did that most of the power of that type of magic lay in the belief of the practitioner anyway.

But this one worked, at least to some extent. Chess figured that had she not been who and what she was, Hat Trick would have looked like the young, handsome man whose shadow she caught glimpses of. Certainly she imagined that’s what Lex saw; he had about as much sensitivity to magic as a lump of cement.

“Lex,” he said, in a surprisingly normal and light voice. “And yon witch. Come closer, girl, let we focus on ye.”

Forcing her face into a calm, untroubled expression, she approached, getting close enough to smell the powerful reek of herbs and unwashed body. Shit, he was ripe under those layers of fur. Did he ever leave this rooftop?

His gaze scanned her from head to foot. It felt like being X-rayed. Finally he nodded and looked away, digging around in the sacks by his side until he pulled something out and held it in one outstretched hand. Even in the dim light spilling from the window she saw the deep grime under his nails and around his cuticles, saw the crusty skin of his fingertips.

She took the bag without touching those fingers and opened it. Some sort of herb, it looked like, some … oh.

Hat Trick caught her look. “You see what you holding, then, got it true.”

She nodded.

“Girl brung it me yestereen. Found it, said she. We hears, even down this way, of what happens. Such an odd, figure best to tell Slobag.” He dipped his head in Lex’s direction. “We are not involved, got it true. Where this found all empty now, and no seeing them there before. But we knows what it could mean, so we call.”

Lex nodded. “Ain’t no trouble, Hat Trick. Got no problems here, aye?”

Hat Trick shook his head. “Ye has problems, got it true. Ye just not aware until yon witch tells you.”

Lex glanced at her, his brows raised in his smooth, sharp face. “What’s the tale, Tulip?”

“It’s althea.” Tyson’s place, Tyson and whatever spirit he’d bonded with. Terrible’s comment that the metal box in the alley smelled like Tyson had smelled. Not just ricantha, that wasn’t all of it. Althea too. Ghosts and owls, psychopomps and sex and eyes. It still didn’t all make sense. But this was a piece, a big one, and her head spun.

“Aye, and …?”

“It’s a bonding herb. It traps ghosts, holds them.”

“Ain’t you use them all the time?”

“No. This is a trap. It closes the door between here and the City—I mean, it prevents the soul from attaching to its psychopomp. So it can’t leave.”

“Creates a ghost?”

She nodded. “Creates it and keeps it there. Here. Somewhere, wherever it is they’re doing this.”

For a minute she considered the possibility that this might not be connected to her case. Considered, and discarded it. She had smelled this in the alley.

So what the hell were they doing, the ghost and its Bindmate? And where did they get the stuff, anyway? Althea was highly illegal. The punishment for possession was death. Not that that mattered to the ghost.

They thanked Hat Trick and headed back down the stairs, passing weapons and jewelry dealers, passing a booth where snakes were sold by the foot. She didn’t want to leave. This was a place to explore, a place to spend hours getting lost in. And she didn’t feel like going home yet anyway. In fact, if she was thinking of going anywhere, it was back to Lex’s place with him, where they could dive under the blankets and not come up for air until at least a week had passed.

Wait a minute. Whose thought was that? A week in bed with Lex? Why in the world would she want to do that? She’d be ready to strangle him after two days.

But damned if bed didn’t sound like a fantastic idea just then, while her skin felt extra sensitive and her blood thicker than normal, while her heart thudded and something dark and needy crawled up her spine like a scorpion—

Chess froze, suddenly aware as she hadn’t been before of the crowds around them, strangers all, sinister. Suddenly aware that the arousal she felt wasn’t her own, that it was horribly familiar, and that her heart wasn’t racing along because she was turned on but because she was terrified.

They were here.

A fortune teller was busily setting up a folding table and a murky glass ball nearby. Chess stared at it without really seeing, aware that Lex was talking to her but unable to hear him. Where were they? They were here, she knew it. She felt them, the energy getting stronger by the minute.

For a moment a face appeared in the glass ball’s smudgy surface, long and mournful. Its mouth stretched open in a silent, agonized wail before the image faded.

“What’s troubling, Tulip?”

She shook her head. Her mouth was too dry to speak, not enough air existed in her lungs to force sound from her throat. Crowds, all these people around, all those sweaty, stinking bodies crushed together, touching one another, touching her, all those germs floating in the air, being sucked into unwashed mouths and breathed back out.

She couldn’t seem to hear them. She could barely hear the Avengers song now playing as if from a great distance. “They’re here,” she managed, but the words felt like sandpaper against her dry throat. She swallowed and tried again. “They’re here, Lex, they’re here, they’re right nearby.”

Even here … even here, on the farthest, darkest edge of Downside, where not even Slobag held full sway, they were following her, watching her.

Around her the riotous colors and scents of the Nightsedge Market became a sickening, protean whirlpool, like a bad Sizzle trip. Lex’s hand held hers so tight it hurt, or maybe it was the other way around; probably it was. And all the while that energy pumped into her, through her, so luscious and awful she could barely stand up.

Stand she did, though; she stayed on her feet, forced them to move. They were here somewhere, and she would find them. She had no idea if they knew she was aware of them or not, had no intention of warning them, but if she could find them now, catch them now …

Without thinking she moved through the aisles, backtracking when the energy lessened, turning when it felt stronger. Shit, it was so strong, almost as strong as the pure earth energy she’d channeled back at Chester Airport, stronger than anything she’d ever felt a human conjure. And she followed it because she had to, despite the pure terror growing in her heart with every step, despite the way every step made it harder to breathe through the soupy miasma of sick desire.

Closer now, and closer. Lex stayed at her side, the feel of his body next to hers almost enough to distract her. Almost, but not quite, because she was so close now, so close, they were right nearby, and maybe it was a trap but she had no choice because if it wasn’t, if she found them before they knew she was there—There!

Lex uttered a strangled gasp when she practically yanked his arm out of the socket in her haste.

He was in the doorway. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew. Knew that the tag end of fabric disappearing around the edge of the rough rectangle cut in the wall belonged to the killer.

She could catch him. She and Lex could catch him. Lex barreled out the doorway, not even pausing to speak. Chess didn’t either.

Their feet slapped on the cobblestones, the only sound on the empty winter-barren street aside from the thumping music of the Market fading behind them. Chess’s breath was loud in her ears, her fingers so tight on the handle of her knife they ached. She ignored it.

Up ahead the killer kept running, glancing back once. He ducked to the right. His coat flapped behind him like a goodbye wave.

Closer. They were gaining on him, chasing him through streets she’d never seen before. They could end this now if they caught him, end all of it.

Her bag slapped and jolted against her thigh. She twisted her left hand around the strap and let it fall from her shoulder, circling her wrist to wrap the strap around it. That could be handy as a weapon too.

Candles in windows cast the occasional patch of pale light on the damp cobbles. Inside those rooms people lived their lives, told stories or did drugs or fucked or whatever they were doing indoors on a freezing night, totally unaware that fifty feet away death raced past their doors.

They followed him left again. The street was empty.

Gone.

But the magic remained, and Chess followed it, trusting it.

The killer hit a trash can as he slipped around a corner; it rolled toward them, the sound of metal against stone like the slow death-grind of worn gears.

Another street. Another. Chess had some idea they were headed northwest—her sense of direction held steady—but she didn’t understand why. Nothing was out here. The buildings grew farther apart, even more dilapidated than the ones on the border of Bump’s and Slobag’s territories. Most weren’t buildings at all, just broken half-walls with empty eyes and gaping mouths where doors used to be, open in silent screams. Defeated giants of buildings, half-buried in the unforgiving cement.

She stumbled on a broken cobble. It was getting too hard to run, her legs didn’t want to move, her chest screamed for air, she could barely see. But she had no choice. She couldn’t have Lex go ahead without her. Even with her knife the thought of being alone on this street … knowing what might hide behind those charred and decaying walls …

Another left, a short block. He was back in sight now, their killer, a moving shadow in the darkness. No streetlights here and the moon was only a sliver above. How far had they come? She didn’t know, but seeing him, knowing they were so close, gave her the strength she needed. She pushed herself, harder than she’d ever pushed herself before, breaking through the pain and finding hatred, burning black in her soul. Hatred was clean. Hatred was strong.

The killer turned right again, maybe thirty feet in front of them. They reached the corner, spun it, raising their knives in unison. So close, they were so close, and the way she felt at that moment she could have torn the fucker apart with her bare hands….

Nothing. Empty street. Blank wall. And ahead of them, the still-swinging door of Triumph City’s principal crematorium.