Unholy Magic

Chapter Sixteen

She had to admit it was interesting. Interesting in the way a man might find his last few hours before facing the firing squad interesting, sure, but still interesting.

She’d never had a chance to spend this much time with her investigation subjects before. She’d certainly never spent a night in one of their homes.

Damn shame, then, that in another couple of hours she wasn’t going to be good for anything but hugging the toilet bowl and wishing she were dead. And trying desperately to figure out how she was going to leave in the morning without anyone noticing she could barely stand.

She wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand and tried to focus on the plate in front of her. Outside the tall dining room windows, snow swirled in the empty sky. Inside, voices chattered around her, discussing empty things. Shopping. Mutual friends. If she’d cared about their world at all, it would have been fascinating. As it was, the only thing she cared about was keeping herself from scratching her arms raw.

The itch burned like fire on her palms, on her calves and the sensitive skin of her wrists. Her stomach hadn’t joined the party yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Servants cleared the table silently, removing Chess’s barely-touched chicken and replacing it with some sort of chocolate confection. Chess grabbed her fork. Sugar. Sugar would help a little. It might help enough for her to get back upstairs without anyone noticing something was wrong.

“So, Miss Putnam, you’re staying here tonight?” Oliver smiled at her from around a forkful of food.

She nodded.

He turned to Roger. “Why haven’t you given her my room?”

“Well … because you’re in it?”

“But my room is the nicest. Please, I insist.”

“Thanks, Mr. Fletcher, but it’s fine.”

“No, you must have mine.”

“I’m really happy with the one I have.”

“You can’t be.” His brows drew together as if he was an infant and she’d stolen his pacifier. “Mine is the nicest, you must have mine.”

“Oliver, I think you’re making her uncomfortable,” Roger said quietly.

Chess seized on it. “Yes, please, Mr. Fletcher, don’t make me feel guiltier than I already do. I like my room and I wouldn’t feel right about taking yours. Please.”

Fletcher opened his mouth, his face red. Chess stared back as coolly as possible. It was nice of him to offer, but really, why the insistence? It wasn’t like she cared. She wouldn’t be sleeping in there. She could be about to spend the night in a dungeon for all it mattered.

“Arden,” Kym said, dipping her fork into the puddle of chocolate sauce around the edge of her plate and slipping it into her mouth, “don’t eat too much of this. You’ve gained enough weight as it is.”

Arden scooped up a huge mouthful and shoveled it in.

“Arden! What did I just say?”

“I don’t care!”

“If you don’t care, I certainly do.”

“Let her enjoy her dessert,” Oliver said. He leaned back and put an arm over his chair, the pose obviously calculated to show off the muscular chest beneath his casual white shirt. He winked at Arden, who smiled back.

“See? Oliver likes me the way I am.”

“Oliver isn’t your mother.”

“I wish he was.”

Their voices scraped across her skin like claws. Why wouldn’t they just shut up?

The discussion deepened, turning into a fight. Every muscle in Chess’s body cringed. She shouldn’t be here for this, it was like they’d forgotten she was even in the room. Was she in the room? Why was she here?

Her hand trembled on her fork as she scooped up more dessert. Some kind of pie, covered with whipped cream. The sort of thing she never ate, cloyingly sweet, coating her tongue with stickiness. It was like swallowing lard.

Almost exactly like it, in fact.

That was a memory she didn’t want to revisit. None of her memories were ones she wanted to revisit. Too bad. They were all coming, she knew that, hovering like the ghosts that might or might not be haunting the Pyle house, waiting until she was at her most vulnerable before attacking.

Arden’s screams turned incoherent; every one was like fingernails scraping Chess’s brain. Her footsteps as she ran out of the room vibrated up from the floor and made Chess’s legs tremble.

Blessed silence fell. Blessed to Chess at least. The others looked embarrassed. “I’ll go talk to her,” Oliver said, dropping his napkin with careful negligence onto the snow-white tablecloth.

“No,” Kym said. “Nobody can talk to that girl. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with her. There’s a Church-run school I read about, outside Arcadia. They’ll straighten her out. Miss Putnam, don’t you think a Church education is best?”

“What? Oh, um, yes.”

“Do you think they’ll be able to help Arden?” Her steely gaze trapped Chess in her chair like a bug under glass.

“Nothing’s wrong with Arden but typical teenage growing pains,” Oliver said. “The offer to let her come stay with me is still open, you know.”

“We can’t impose on you like that,” Kym said. Chess glanced at Roger, who was still sitting in his chair, hardly moving. Stoned again? Where did he keep his drugs? Maybe she could sneak into the office and find them. She’d pulled her transmitter out from under the carpet already, she could lay it out by the office door, maybe there would be something in there.

And if she got caught? Fuck it. She didn’t care, not now. She needed her pills. She needed something, anything. Even some decent cold medicine might help. Just … just anything. She wiped her forehead again and stood up, her fork clattering against her plate.

“I’m sorry. The meal was lovely, thank you, but I’m—I’m going to leave you to your evening, if that’s okay.”

“That’s not necessary.” Roger spoke for the first time. “Really. We were going to watch a movie, Oliver’s newest. It hasn’t been released yet. There should be some perk for having to spend the night in a haunted house, right?”

Her smile felt more like a grimace. “Oh, no, I couldn’t intrude. I’ll just … I’ll just go ahead now. Thank you so much, though.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. If he didn’t stop talking in the next minute, she was going to turn and run for it.

“Just ring the buzzer if you need anything,” Kym said. “And the blue button will put you through to security.”

“And if you see a ghost,” Oliver said, “well, I guess you know what to do, don’t you?”

His lips parted; Chess thought it should have been a smile. It looked more like he was getting ready to eat her.

She fled.

The office door was locked. With trembling hands she picked it, her mouth flooded with saliva. He had to keep them in there. Had to. Where else would they be?

The lock gave and she slipped through the door into the darkness. True darkness; the window shades were pulled tight, blocking what little light might have come through with the storm raging outside. Wind howled around the corners of the house. It hadn’t been audible in the dining room, but here it was, the wild anger of the skies making its presence known. Chess shivered beneath her sweaty skin and headed for the desk.

Nothing. Papers, sure, lots of papers. Ordinarily they would have interested her, but as it was she barely spared them a glance. What difference did they make? What difference did the outcome of this fucking case make? She needed her pills. That was what mattered.

A sob escaped her throat when she got to the last drawer. Still nothing. No little baggies filled with multicolored promises, no envelopes, no coin purses, no … fuck, no pills, no drugs.

Behind her was a liquor cabinet, stocked with shining bottles and crystal glasses. On top of it sat a small TV and disk player. Chess made her way toward it on legs just starting to feel rubbery.

Her panic wasn’t helping. Physically she wasn’t that bad yet. Itchy, sweaty, a little shaky. Her head hurt. Nothing she couldn’t handle in itself. It was knowing it was going to get worse, waiting for it to get worse …

She opened the cabinet, started shifting bottles. Maybe Pyle hid his stash behind them. A bar was a reasonable place, right?

Some part of her watched herself, sickened at the very idea that she was on her knees hunting for drugs to steal from a subject’s house. The rest of her didn’t give a shit. None of her was surprised. This was what she was, after all. A junkie Churchwitch. Nothing. Nobody.

A filing cabinet yielded nothing. Some financial records she barely glanced at, and a few photographs of Kym dressed up in some sort of naughty Goody outfit.

Bookshelves held only books. No secret panels hidden in the walls, no safes sheltered behind tacky paintings. The room was clean.

So where the fuck did he keep them? Not in the bedroom. Not in his office. Where? For fuck’s sake, where? She knew he had them. He had to have them, she’d seen it in his eyes. So where did he keep his fucking drugs?

Tears poured down her face. Nothing here, nothing anywhere. Her pills were at home. The snow piled up outside. She was trapped. And there wasn’t even an arm or leg she could chew off to get herself free.

When the smell started she wasn’t quite sure. She didn’t notice it until it was the only thing to notice, so strong it was almost a solid thing she could touch. With a sinking feeling that had nothing to do with her pills, she stood up and saw the ghost.

His back was to her—both of their backs were to her. The same tableau Taylor had described earlier in the security office. The man with the axe, holding something in his left hand that could have been a clump of dirt if not for the ragged skin at the bottom. The neck, where he’d severed it.

Behind him the other figure stood, gnarled hands reaching out. The flowing gown blew against its body, identified it as female.

They stood between her and the door. Normally she might have tried to run for it, but she didn’t think her legs would carry her fast enough, steady enough.

Her stomach lurched. She had no idea if it was the smell or the withdrawal or the ghosts themselves. Her head pounded, as if her brain was swollen too big for her skull and was going to break free at any second.

The ghosts moved. The man lifted the axe, swung it over his shoulder. He turned his head. Toward the desk.

Toward Chess.

The edge of the liquor cabinet hit the backs of her thighs hard. She barely felt it. Not daring to take her eyes off him she dug in her bag, finding the graveyard dirt and clenching it in her fist. It might work. Would work if she could get any power behind it, if she had any to use. She felt like a shorted electrical cord; sparks sputtered beneath her skin but nothing could conduct.

The man lifted his hand, displaying the severed head. Showing her. He saw her. Not like the night in the bathroom. He saw her. He knew she was there. His axe might not be able to hurt her, but a letter opener sat on the desk, sharp edge gleaming in the horrid greenish light the ghosts projected. If she saw it, he would.

She pictured it, like a real-life horror film. Saw him pick up the letter opener, his body gliding through the desk like it wasn’t even there, and bring it up to strike, saw herself try to raise her arms. Saw the opener plunged into her chest, blood spurting from the wound, changing color as it passed through his translucent form.

Finally the image galvanized her. The ghost started to move, the woman following like some bizarre heeling dog. She had to act now, now, now—

The dirt flew from her hand, dusting itself over the figures.

“Arcranda beliam dishager!”

The generic banishing words, forced out through her constricted throat, felt like nothing but syllables. No power, nothing behind them. The ghost didn’t falter. He took another slow step in her direction.

She tried again, struggling to focus, to find that well of power deep inside herself. She knew this, she could do it, she’d done it hundreds of times, it was her fucking job—

“Arcranda beliam dishager!”

Still nothing. She didn’t feel weak, it felt like it should have worked, but what the fuck did she know? She could barely feel anything at all except her stomach twisting in her belly.

No choice, then. She ran, the floor spongy and uneven beneath her feet. Her hands slipped on the doorknob; she glanced back and saw the ghost’s head turning, watching her. From this angle she could clearly see the head he held in his hand, the face she’d seen behind her in the bathroom mirror.

A scream tried to fight from her throat. She held it back, gritting her teeth so hard they hurt. The doorknob gave.

She flung herself forward, falling on the floor. The ghosts were still in the office, moving again, as though they were coming for her …

Kym’s voice filtered from the living room. Chess managed to get up, giving the ghosts one last look before she closed the door on them. Her hands, her entire body, felt like a wrung-out washcloth.

The door wouldn’t stop them. She had to move. Had to get up those stairs as fast as she could, had to get to the room they’d given her and lock the door so she could fall apart in private. Fuck the Pyles, they could fend for themselves, they hadn’t had any problems in the living room yet, right?

But they weren’t coming through the door. Why weren’t they coming through the door? That wasn’t right, not at all.

Chess waited, hidden in the corner, staring at the door until it became nothing but a black outline against the pale walls, until her eyes burned and the door swelled in her vision. An optical illusion. No ghosts. Somewhere deep down she knew that was important, knew it meant something, but she couldn’t remember what. All she could do was dread the coming night.

She slipped around the corner, chanced a peek into the living room. One of the servants was setting up a projector; a neat little thing, sleek and stylish and obviously very expensive. Nothing but the best for the Pyles. At least it would keep them busy; hopefully they wouldn’t decide to check on her.

Every step felt like a mountain she had to climb, but thankfully no one saw her. The walls tilted, the floor spun. She couldn’t breathe. Her shirt stuck to her chest by the time she got to the top.

Which room had they given her? There were so many doors, so many, and she couldn’t remember if hers was the second on the right or the third. Did it matter? How many doors were there?

She stumbled on numb feet across the hall and opened the first one she saw. If she was wrong, she’d be wrong. So what.

Arden Pyle knelt before the gleaming white toilet of a small bathroom, one hand holding her pale, sweaty hair off her face. Throwing up. A nice preview of what Chess’s night would be. She was tempted for one confused, bizarre moment to ask the girl to move over.

Arden’s mouth fell open. She turned her guilty face down, then back up, meeting Chess’s eyes. A small purplish bruise peeked out from the open neckline of her bathrobe, like a hickey. “Don’t tell,” she said. “I just … Don’t tell my mom, okay?”

Chess nodded dumbly and turned away, pulling the door closed. Bulimia. Not a surprise, really. Also none of her business. And not something she was even remotely capable of lecturing about. What was she supposed to say? Try downers instead, they suppress the appetite? Life advice was definitely not her forte.

Her room was the next one to the left. She flung herself on the bed and waited to die.

Not dead yet. The numbers on the clock were fuzzy, glowing red in the darkness. She couldn’t read them. Couldn’t focus on them. Too bright. Hurt her eyes.

A weight sat on her; she sweated beneath it. The blankets. She vaguely remembered pulling them over her during the last bout of shivering. Her jaw ached. Her arms and legs ached. Her stomach had disappeared, leaving behind a fiery pit.

A fiery pit that demanded attention. She threw the covers off. Or rather she tried to throw the covers off. Her arms refused to throw. Instead all she managed to do was push feebly at the blanket, like a newborn.

The next cramp came. She fell off the bed in a sweaty, painful heap. The bathroom? Where was the bathroom? It was so dark. The room wouldn’t stop moving, she couldn’t make it stop, a roller-coaster ride she couldn’t get off of. Helpless. Hopeless. Beneath her hands and knees the carpet rubbed like straw, cutting her, tearing into her. She’d be slick with blood by the time she made it to the bathroom. If she made it.

Her mouth filled with saliva, acrid and bitter. She couldn’t swallow it. Couldn’t spit it out on the carpet. So she held it there, warm and disgusting as a mouthful of urine, and tried to crawl to the bathroom.

Too weak. She fell, her skin shrieking when it rubbed against the carpet. It was so cold in there, so fucking cold, she couldn’t take it, she needed her pills, oh fuck …

Try again. Pain shot through her body, bending her double. Her stomach again. Itchy. Scratch the itch, make the itch stop. Push the wet, ropy strands of hair off her face and scratch her neck, her legs, her arms. Everywhere itchy. Wouldn’t stop.

She couldn’t hold back the sobs anymore. Her mouth opened and they came out, dribbling onto the rug along with her spit. Things crawled beneath her skin. She wasn’t Chess anymore. Couldn’t think of herself by name, couldn’t think of herself as a person. There was only pain and cold and shaking, only the burning need she couldn’t get away from, looming over her like a dark entity in the room.

She’d eaten that dessert, that fatty, greasy dessert. She saw it again, the plate full of whipped cream and chocolate, and she couldn’t hold it any longer.

The bathroom door was closed. She fumbled at the knob while the contents of her stomach forced their way up, threw herself at the toilet and missed. She puked on the floor, on her hands. Her knees hit the tile. One more note of pain to add to the symphony.

The toilet glowed white beside her. She climbed her hands up it, rested her head against the cold porcelain. Too hot now, her whole body, hot and swollen like she would burst open in a stiff breeze.

Her hands traveled down her legs, scratching, tearing at her skin. Her pills. She needed her pills, oh fuck, oh fuck, she needed them so bad, she couldn’t do this.

Razors? Were there razors? She should have taken Arden’s from her closet. Should have taken it, and she could have slit her throat. The City didn’t scare her, not now. Not when this was life, this pain, this need, this desperate horrible shaking and cramping and spit pouring from her mouth and tears from her eyes and she needed to use the toilet for something else now, something unpleasant …

It lasted forever, acid falling from her. All the while she scratched. Her hands clenched into talons, she couldn’t unbend her fingers, they hurt, every muscle in her body cramped, and she was going to fall off the toilet, and wetness under her nails told the tiny rational part of her that she’d broken her skin with the scratching and she was bleeding.

Blood. Her blood was so empty. She needed her pills. Why hadn’t she brought more pills? She could have hidden them. It was gross but she could have done it. Why not, why pretend she had any fucking self-respect at all? Was self-respect worth this pain?

Vomit splattered the floor in front of the toilet. Good thing she’d taken her jeans off when they started hurting her skin. What difference did it make? They’d find her in the morning, they’d come and find her and call an ambulance and maybe it would get there, maybe they would take her somewhere, and everyone would know. Everyone would know how filthy she was, how weak and desperate, because she thought she was too good to use a woman’s best hiding place.

That was what one of her foster mothers had called it. Chess saw the woman again, her thin body bare as she showed Chess exactly how many things she could hide there, how little Chessie could hide things for her too and then take the bus across town and let the nice men take the things out, and they would give her some candy, and some money for Mrs. Foster Mother. Saw her, saw the endless parade of them all, leering at her, yelling at her, telling her how worthless she was and how she was only good for one thing, calling her names, felt their punches and their invading fingers like they were there in the room with her. And all the while she screamed in her head and saw the mess she’d made, and shame and despair overwhelmed her.

Toilet paper. Find the toilet paper. Wipe her mouth … wipe her legs. Wipe away the memories. Wipe the floor. She couldn’t do it well, but she could do something, couldn’t she? To prove she wasn’t as bad as they said, she wasn’t worthless, she was … Tears ran down her face, spattered her hands. She was worthless, they were right.

Hot again, burning hot. Delirious. She thought she saw something pale in the room, something moving past the open bathroom doorway …

Her shoulder crashed into the floor as another cramp, worse than the others, seized her, drove her out of her body, out of consciousness. She wanted to scream. Wanted to keep screaming until she passed out again and stayed out.

The cabinet was next to her face. It took her four tries to grasp the handle and pull the door open. Its rough edge hit her thigh, scraping her bare skin. Felt good. Scratching the itch. She did it again, until her arm hurt and she dropped the handle while her hand cramped up again.

Too dark to see in there. Razor blades? Drain cleaner? Anything. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t feel this anymore. The worst spirit hell, the darkest prison pit in the city, couldn’t feel like this. Even what she’d seen in Prison Ten wasn’t this bad. There was respite there.

This was punishment for all her trespasses, wasn’t she paying for them now? Surely when the psychopomp—her psychopomp, the one coming to get her—picked her soul up on its feathered back and flew her underground, it would know that, feel that?

“I’ve paid,” she moaned, and the sound of her own voice scared her. “I’ve paid enough.”

She brushed her hand over the cabinet floor. Nothing under there. Not even a fucking washcloth she could shove down her throat. Suffocation wouldn’t be that bad, right? It wouldn’t be so terrible.

Her legs kicked at nothing. They wouldn’t stop moving. She threw up again, barely able to lift her head to move it out of the way. Her head hurt. Hurt so bad. Like someone slamming a hammer into it, over and over, beating her with it, everywhere. Her vision was red with the blood in her brain.

Another flash of white passed the doorway. A shape, vaguely human, looming there. So big. Almost as big as …

The shape turned into nothing but a blur. Had to stop crying. Should stop crying. What difference did it make? Good that a ghost was there. It would kill her. It would put an end to this, oh fuck, she couldn’t wait, end this now …

Her arms shook under her weight. She crawled out of the bathroom. Find the ghost. She’d find it, and she’d—there were heavy things, right? It could crack her skull open. That would be quick. End the pain.

She collapsed and crawled on her belly to the bed. The ghost stood in the corner, not moving. Did it see her? Was she even there?

She didn’t have her knife. Hadn’t brought it. Hadn’t brought anything, hadn’t brought her pills, oh shit, her pills, she needed them so bad, she couldn’t live without them, she couldn’t take this anymore …

It took hours to open her bag. The ghost stayed by the window. Through the window only blackness. The snow had stopped. Fucking lot of good it did her, she couldn’t drive like this, couldn’t get out of this room, walk down the stairs, much less steer a car. She wouldn’t even be able to get her feet into her shoes, her toes were cramped, bunched up at the ends of her feet like dead mice.

Something small and cool fitted itself into the palm of her hand. Her phone. The outside world. Someone she could call.

Someone she wanted … needed. The thought cleared her head, as much as it could be cleared, and she clutched the phone as if it was a full pillbox.

The ghost didn’t move. Didn’t even look at her. Why? Why wasn’t it moving?

Her fingers hurt. She dropped the phone. She couldn’t hold it, not in her claw of a hand.

Crying again, crying and putting her fingers in her mouth, her disgusting fingers, but she didn’t have a choice. She gagged, gagged again. Bit down on her fingers and forced her wrist up and away. Had to unbend her fingers. Had to use them.

The ghost disappeared. Good. She’d need to open the window. If he answered. If he came. Oh please …

The phone didn’t want to open. She worked it with her bleeding, slimy fingers, poked at it with her teeth. Got it. Dropped it when another cramp turned her body into a crooked plank on the floor. Picked it up again. Pressed the button.

Please … please … please …

He answered. Asked questions. She tried to reply, tried to make sense. Tried to tell him how to get in.

And waited, unmoving, on the floor by the bed.