Unholy Magic

Chapter Eighteen

Twenty minutes later she stood in the hall outside his place, her stomach bouncing with cheerful butterflies and a twelve-pack of beer weighing down her left hand. The thick steel door gave a flat thud under her knuckles.

No answer. Okay. Well, where was he? It had never occurred to her he might not be home.

She knocked again, shifting her weight from foot to foot. What if … what if he was inside, and knew it was her, but wasn’t answering? Didn’t want to see her?

No. She wouldn’t believe that. She had to talk to him, she had to tell him, and he had to be home to listen because she was right and it was important.

She had to be right. It was the only answer that fit, but … damn it was a fucked-up theory, wasn’t it? Who the hell would pay to fuck a ghost?

The twelve-pack in her left hand grew heavy. One more knock, one more minute waiting while she switched the twelve-pack from her left hand to her right.

Terrible opened the door midswitch. His face gave her nothing. Shit.

“Hey, Chess.” Pause. “You right?”

“Yeah, right up, um—here, I brought you—” What was she doing? She held the beer out to him, stopped. She’d brought him beer, was she an idiot? She’d come to tell him something horrible and she’d—Oh, screw it.

“I figured it out,” she said. “What the ghosts are doing, the killers. I know what they’re doing with the hookers.”

Well, at least now he looked interested. “Aye?”

“Yeah, they—they’re fucking them, Terrible. They’re—they’re killing the girls, and they’re trapping them and fucking them. A whorehouse of ghosts. I can’t believe I missed it, that I didn’t figure it out before. But that’s what they’re doing, I know it. I know it.”

He was silent for so long she thought maybe he wasn’t going to reply at all, maybe he was just going to turn around and shut the door in her face. “Terrible?”

“Aye. Just … you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah. I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it? And the sigil—there was one at the Church, an older one not quite the same, it keeps the soul from leaving the body. Not like before, with the thief, it’s not a dark rune, it doesn’t power or feed anything. It … Fuck, just trust me. I’m right. I know I’m right.”

“Ain’t doubtin, dig, just … what about Little Tag? The men, meanin? Figure them … them bein used too?”

Ha, she was ready for this. “Sacrifices. Blood and energy sacrifices to start the spell, most likely. Sex magic like what I felt … Ghosts can’t cast it. It needs the kind of power you get by stealing someone’s life to start. They probably used their—did, um, were the men missing their—any parts?”

“Aye. Missin all sorts, dig. And … aye, them too. Ain’t had the thought before, them so cut up elsewhere. Lots missing, feet an insides an—lots missin, dig.”

“It had to be to start the spell.” Sexual organs, organs of regeneration, carried so much energy even after death. And that would help explain the darkness in that magic, the horrible itchy tickle of insanity beneath it. Men had died for that spell, tainting the magic irreparably just as it tainted the spell’s creators.

Terrible shifted on his feet. “Why? Human workin with the ghost too, aye? Why’s he into it?”

Ooh, motive, right. She’d been focused so hard on the girls, and right now her brain seemed to be floating a good three or four feet above her skull. “If they’re Bindmates …”

“Doin whatever keeps the ghost happy, aye. Maybe makin lashers too, you think?”

That cardboard was really starting to dig into her hand now. Much as she hated to interrupt their thought process there, and especially as much as she hated to remind him why she’d bought the beer, her fingers were numb.

“I wanted to give you this.” She thrust the beer at him.

He looked puzzled. Oh, shit, he was going to make her say it, wasn’t he?

“For helping me, you know. The other night. I mean, I know it was really cold and late and … I just wanted to say thanks. A lot. Thanks a lot.”

He’d invite her in now, and they’d keep talking. Maybe they’d have a beer or something, or he’d get them some food—ooh, food would be good—and she could tell him what she’d figured out and prove she wasn’t useless.

Then she noticed he was dressed to go out, with his jacket on and his keys in his hand.

“You ain’t need to buy me nothin,” he said. “No problem, aye?”

“But I want to. I—Just take it, okay?”

Was he still mad at her? She’d apologized that night, but even she wasn’t sure what she’d been apologizing for in that state of mind. And he looked so surprised to see her, like he didn’t even know what to do with her. Sure, she’d only been to his place a few times, and never without calling first or having him invite her back there, but it wasn’t like him to leave her standing in his doorway. Especially not when they had things to discuss, important things.

“Terrible? Can you please take this? It’s kind of heavy.”

“Oh. Oh, aye.” He took the pack from her hand. Chess clenched her fist and released it, trying to get her circulation back. Deep ridges cut into the insides of her fingers. “Thanks.”

She nodded. “So where you going?”

“Gotta do somethin.”

Shit, he really was mad at her. Something was wrong, and she couldn’t imagine what else it could be. Either something about her theory bugged him, or he was mad at her.

There was a third possibility, too, of course. He’d seen her the night before covered in puke, with her bare legs scratched raw while she huddled on the floor in an agonized withdrawal haze. Could be he was simply disgusted by her. Could she blame him?

No, she couldn’t. But that didn’t make her feel any better.

“Um, can I come? I just … I thought we could talk about some stuff. About this, you know. And where they might be, since we know what’s going on we can plan …”

He hesitated. “Ain’t really like that, meanin, just somethin I gotta get done, dig?”

“I could just come along for the ride, or whatever.” Her face burned. No point in pushing it. He obviously didn’t want her to go. He’d heard what she had to say, and didn’t seem to want to discuss it further, so she guessed he just didn’t want anything to do with her.

Her shoulders sagged. Maybe she’d call Lex, tell him about the ghost hookers. He’d want to see her, anyway, even if it was just to try and get her naked. Which was fine, really. Why not? “Okay, well … um, call me—”

“Chess, hey. Whyn’t you come along, then, aye? Be … be cool to have some company.”

Sitting in his car listening to Nine Pound Hammer and smoking a cigarette, it felt as though the events of the night before hadn’t really happened. Hell, it felt like none of the events of the past week had happened, especially since her body felt wrapped in warm cotton and her mind was calm.

Terrible took a deep breath, his gaze fixed on the road. “I ain’t … Shit. Ain’t should have took you to see Bump, an not give you the knowledge what he wanted, Chess. I mean, he ain’t tell me sure, but … thought maybe he had the idea. Some idea. Should’ve said, but I had the thinkin maybe you ain’t come if I tell you, an Bump wanted you, aye? Got mad, but not on you, dig. Weren’t you.”

Surprise made her breath stick in her throat. It took her a few seconds to even register the words, seconds when she felt him glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, waiting for her response. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to say some of that stuff. I mean, I said it, but I didn’t mean it. I didn’t.”

His shoulders relaxed; she hadn’t realized how tense he looked before. She probably would have been tense, too, if it had been physically possible. The rush was over, sure, but she still felt relaxed, calmer than she’d been in days. “Aye, no worryin then.”

They sat in silence for a minute, but a comfortable one. An easier one.

“Terrible?”

“Aye.”

“Do you think we’ll find them fast? The house?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t can say. Hopin so. Leastaways now we got the knowledge what we lookin for, aye? How’d you catch it?”

“Oh.” Okay, this was awkward. “I was reviewing some evidence for work. I thought it was evidence, anyway, but it was, ah, some homemade videos, and they’d made the woman up to look like a ghost …”

He grinned. “Ain’t what you was expectin, aye? For evidence.”

“No, No, it definitely wasn’t what I expected.”

“Guessin Church work more fun than I thought.”

She laughed.

“Maybe I oughta sign me up, what you say? Think I fit in right, aye? Ain’t even notice me in the crowd. Like invisible.”

“I don’t think you could be invisible anywhere,” she said, and heat rushed to her face. She hadn’t meant it like that, hadn’t meant anything at all.

He switched lanes, sliding the big car to the left. Cleared his throat. “So you straight on wantin to do it? Hit the street, I mean? Maybe it ain’t worth it, with what you figured up …”

A change of subject was a good idea, but it would have been nice if he’d picked a different one. “No, it’s not a bad idea, really. I don’t think it will work, but I guess it’s worth a try.”

It won’t work because they’re following me everywhere, she thought, but couldn’t tell him. She’d have to lie about where they’d seen her—where she’d seen them—and she didn’t want to. Didn’t want him pressing her about a place to stay, either, not when she could use Lex’s place. Didn’t even want to think about any of it, just for a few minutes.

“Naw, neither me. You seen em again? Got any more eyes in yon car?”

“No. But that doesn’t mean they’re not out there, that they won’t recognize me, you know? Think if I tell Bump that, he’ll listen?”

“Ain’t everybody listen to you?”

Her surprised bark of laughter embarrassed her, too loud in the enclosed space. Her high was definitely fading, but the cheeriness wasn’t. She felt pretty good, in fact, for the first time in a while.

They were out of Downside now, heading along the highway toward Cross Town. She didn’t ask where they were going. She just looked out the window at the white sky spread over the city like a shifting ocean of clouds. “So it’s been a couple of days since any girls were attacked. You think having them at Red Berta’s house is working? Are they still at Red Berta’s?”

“Aye. Still there, an she pissed up right on it too. ’Nother reason be good get this all solved. She loud, Red Berta, aye?”

She pulled out her cigarettes, lit one up. “At least it’s keeping them safe.”

“Aye, she know. She ain’t a bad one, Red Berta. Just like things the way she like, dig. Ain’t guess havin them girls in she house easy, screechin an fightin the way them do. Like birds, the way them screech.”

“Like psychopomps do,” she said without thinking, “when they claim a soul.”

The words hung in the air between them for a few minutes while he pulled off the highway and started navigating the wide streets of Cross Town.

It wasn’t a wealthy suburb, but it had aspirations. The newer homes being built were larger, with bigger yards. More space. As the memories of the horror of Haunted Week started fading from the collective consciousness, people were more willing to spread out; it was becoming irritating rather than comforting to have your neighbors close enough to hear your shower run.

What did Terrible have to do out here? She opened her mouth to ask, but he cut her off.

“We ain’t stayin long,” he told her, sliding the car up in front of a nondescript pale blue house, bigger than some on the street but not the biggest.

“Where are we?”

“Friend of mine,” he said. “Gotta drop off somethin.”

That was a surprise. He had friends? And friends outside Downside. She wanted to ask about it, but something in the set of his wide shoulders, the oddly subdued quality of his silence, made her hold her tongue. Instead she just followed him to the door, her coat tight around her, waited while he knocked and footsteps sounded from within.

The door flew open. A young girl leapt out of the warmth and light behind it. Startled, Chess stepped back, but Terrible was ready. He picked the child up, let her wrap her thin arms around his neck.

“Uncle Terry! What did you bring me?”

Uncle Terry? What? He didn’t have any family, didn’t even know for sure how old he was, when his birthday was. So not only did he now have friends in Cross Town, he had friends so close their daughter called him “Uncle”?

What else did she not know about him? Her stomach gave a funny little twist.

“Maybe I got something for you, little cat. But I ain’t stayin long, just gettin a quick chatter with your mom, aye?”

Chess followed the little girl’s pouting face deeper into the house, feeling with every step that she was moving away from the familiar. It had been so long since she’d been in a house like this as a guest—had she ever been in a house like this as a guest?—and not a Church representative, starting an investigation.

A petite woman with dark wavy hair like the girl’s examined Chess from her feet to the top of her head before giving her an unwilling smile.

“I’m Felice,” she said.

“Chess.”

“Uncle Terry brought her with him,” the girl said as Terrible lowered her to the floor. She looked about seven, that awkward period when a child has left babyhood behind but the blossoming of puberty is still years away. Tall for her age, with long skinny arms and coltish legs, and a grin that seemed to fill her entire face. The effect was charming, as if her happiness was too big to be confined.

“Yes, Katie, I see that.”

“Are you Uncle Terry’s friend? Do you work with him?”

What should she say? Why was Terrible here? Was this woman a steady customer? A local dealer? What?

No. He’d said they were friends, and it looked like that was all it was. He wouldn’t have felt the need to hide it from her if there was a business connection. Chess decided to be honest.

“No, I work for the Church. I’m a Debunker.”

Felice’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair. The little girl’s mouth fell open. “You catch ghosts?”

“Sometimes. Mostly people don’t have ghosts, though. They’re just pretending.”

“Daddy says that’s lying,” Katie told her. “He says it’s very bad to lie.”

“He’s right,” Felice said. “Katie, honey, why don’t you go and watch TV or something? Mommy needs to talk to Uncle Terry for a minute in private, okay?”

“I want to stay.”

“Well, I want you to go watch TV, and I’m the mommy. So go on, now.”

“Aye, go ’head, little cat. Here, you take that, aye? An tell me what it’s for.” Terrible slipped the girl a twenty.

Her grin grew even wider as she recited, “A dollar is for me. The rest is for my kitty bank to hold until I’m a grown-up.”

“Good girl.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek, shot a glare at her mother, and started walking away slowly, like she hoped they’d forget about her and she could stay.

The atmosphere in the room changed, subtly, but enough for Chess to feel it. Tension crept over her skin. Should she leave, too?

Terrible raised his eyebrows, lifted his shoulders almost imperceptibly. Up to her; she could stay if she wanted, she could go in the other room if she wanted.

Somehow staying didn’t feel like a great idea, though. “Katie, can I come with you?”

Katie nodded, the eager expression on her face warning Chess to prepare for interrogation. Once a year or so the Church sent Debunkers and Enforcers to local schools to discuss their work, a way of reminding the children the Church was always there. She had a feeling this was going to be like one of those endless question-and-answer sessions.

She wasn’t far wrong. Katie asked about work, asked her to tell a scary story, asked if Chess knew any liars in her neighborhood, asked if she’d been to the City, asked how many ghosts she’d seen, asked to see her tattoos. All the while the low rumble of Terrible’s voice came from the kitchen, sometimes louder, sometimes quieter.

“I’d be afraid to get a tattoo,” Katie said. “Mommy says they hurt. Uncle Terry has a lot of them, but he’s a man.”

“They don’t really hurt. It’s just a little sting, it’s not bad.” Not entirely true, but she wasn’t permitted to talk about the ritual anyway, the chanting in the pale room while the tattoo gun buzzed and herbs burned in the corners and energy beat against her skin.

“That’s what Mommy said about the dentist. But it did hurt. Even after they gave me that gas that’s supposed to make it not hurt. Do you know that gas? It made me feel funny, like my head was too light.”

Chess nodded. “I can’t have the gas. I’m allergic to it.”

“Really? Like it makes you sneeze?”

“No, it makes me feel sick, and my head hurts really bad….” She stopped. She’d forgotten all about that, her first visit to the dentist, shortly after starting her training. She’d felt like she couldn’t breathe, like she was going to die….

Like she’d felt at the Pyle house when that horrible smell came.

Shit, was it really that simple?

Of course it was. The gas disoriented people, made them a little high. Just high enough that they wouldn’t notice the beam of a projector, or the clicking as it was turned on. Just high enough that their heart would be beating faster and their fear response elevated. High enough that their reaction might be taken as fear, would be fear, when their consciousness suddenly altered itself.

Dental gas had a vague but distinctive odor, sort of sickly sweet, she remembered. The kind of smell that would need to be masked with something else, something strong enough to hide it completely. Like the stench of rotting flesh.

“Chess? Are you okay?”

Chess looked back at the girl. Katie’s big dark eyes were wide with concern, and a bit of fear.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just thinking about something. But could I use your bathroom?”

Once there she grabbed her Cepts, stuck a couple in her mouth, and washed them down. So it was a fake haunting at the Pyle house, it had to be. That made sense. That’s why the ghosts hadn’t attacked her two nights before, why they hadn’t come through the door. That’s why she’d felt so sick, so much worse than she ever had, even when she’d faced the Dreamthief.

But unless the gas had been set up specifically for her benefit, its presence also exonerated at least one of the Pyles. Had Kym arranged the whole thing to terrify Roger—to get him to sell the house and move them all back to L.A., maybe? Or some other reason? Or had Roger done it, to scare his wife and daughter? Arden could have done it, she supposed, despite Oliver Fletcher’s denigration of her, but the idea that a fourteen-year-old girl would be able to get hold of a large quantity of gas was a bit far-fetched. Far-fetched, but not impossible.

And she’d almost missed it. She planned to go back to the Pyles’ the next day anyway—another rule of Debunking, never go on a set schedule, always throw them off if you can—but the visit took on new significance now. She needed to check the plumbing, check the utility room. Was there some kind of timer? The memory of blood rising in the sink came back to her; the gas could be pumped up from the pipes, spreading into the bedroom from there. The office had a bathroom, too, didn’t it?

And speaking of bathrooms, they were going to wonder what happened to her if she didn’t leave this one. She rinsed her hands and left, so deep in thought she didn’t realize someone else was in the living room until she sat down.

Katie’s father, she guessed, and her younger brother. Two more dark heads bent over a book next to Katie’s.

The boy looked up and smiled. Chess expected to see the same wide-open grin as the one on Katie’s face, but this was different; he must have inherited it from his father. Yes, he had. They were almost identical.

So Katie looked like her mother … no. No, she didn’t. Chess knew that smile, knew whose it was. She’d seen it before, dozens of times.

She felt like she was interrupting, intruding on something she didn’t understand. She felt awful. Too many revelations, too much in her head for such a short time. She should have taken more pills.

So it was a relief when Terrible came out of the kitchen, despite the glower on his face. He barely said a word on the long drive back to her place. And Chess had no idea what to say to him, so she watched the snow fall, flakes diving into the windshield like tiny kamikaze ghosts.

It wasn’t until he parked near her building that she came up with something to say. Whether it was the right thing or not she didn’t know, but she had to try. Couldn’t let it go, even though she knew she should.

Feeling a little like she was jumping off a cliff, she turned to him. “Terrible, why don’t you come up for a beer? And you can tell me about your daughter.”