Unholy Magic

Chapter Twenty

She woke up the next morning at Lex’s place, with her head fuzzy from an Oozer dream and no clear idea of how she got there.

She sat up, pushing off the heavy blankets, then fell back when memory thumped her in the head. And the chest. And the stomach.

Terrible. His hands on her hips, his mouth on hers. His voice rolling over her skin.

And she’d run. Stood on that roof until she couldn’t feel her hands and feet anymore, then gone straight to her car, straight over here, and used Lex like any other drug. And when that hadn’t worked, she’d found one that would.

Too bad she wouldn’t be able to do that forever. She had to work today. The Pyle case was almost wrapped up, or it would be once she found the proof, which shouldn’t be hard now that she knew exactly what to look for.

Lex rolled over on the bed next to her, the white sheets sliding down his bare chest. He did have a nice chest. “Hey, Tulip,” he mumbled. “Figured you ain’t be waking for hours, aye? Tired yourself pretty well out last night, you did.”

“Apparently not,” she said, blushing.

“Nay? Tired me out. C’mon back here, help me wake up.” His hand ran up her bare back, over her shoulder, and down her arm. She shivered when he took her hand, moved it so she could feel him hard beneath the sheet.

She took it back, though. “Looks to me like you’re already awake.”

“Then help me get back to sleep. Seems to me it’s all your fault, dig? I was tucked up here like a good boy, aye, till you come raging in and practically tore my clothes off with them teeth of yours. Ain’t complaining, me, but seems you’d help a guy out, seein as how I recall at least five times you—”

“I have to get to work.”

“Guarantee you a couple more …”

She smiled over her shoulder at him. His spiky hair was flattened on one side; it gave him an endearingly drunken look. “I can’t. I need to take a shower.”

“I come along, me.”

“Nope.” She pushed the covers off all the way, reached for her bag, and dug out her pillbox. “But if you’re nice maybe I’ll come back tonight.”

“At least twice, aye? Only I may be too tired out for more. Still trying to recover and all.”

Chess rolled her eyes, tossed a couple of Cepts into her mouth, and grabbed the water bottle.

“Meaning to ask, where’d all them scratches come from? Lookin like you had yourself a knife fight with a dwarf, aye?”

She glanced down, swallowing the pills. Her legs did look awful. She hadn’t really looked at them—had avoided looking at them—until now, aside from smearing them with antibiotic cream twice a day. Even then she hadn’t looked, just rubbed the cream on and checked them quickly for excessive redness.

In the cool light from the window they looked angry, as if her soul had tried to claw its way out of her body and failed. Or perhaps it hadn’t failed. She felt particularly empty this morning. Maybe that’s what was missing.

She almost hoped it was.

“Oh. I just … caught a rash at the Pyle house. No big deal.” Her jeans were across the room where she’d thrown them the night before. She felt Lex’s eyes on her while she went to get them and yanked them on.

“Some rash.”

His phone rang, and he answered it in Cantonese while Chess found her shirt between the cushions of the little couch, slipped it over her head, and started hunting for her bra and panties.

The panties were behind the TV. The bra was still missing when Lex hung up the phone.

“Well, well,” he said. “Looks like I see you later afterevery, aye? Tonight be the night.”

“For what?” She fished the bra out from under the bed, separating it from Lex’s boxers and tossing it onto the couch with the panties.

“Meeting Bump. Hear you gonna be there, too. Cozy little group we make, aye?”

She’d known this was coming, so why was she surprised? Maybe because she’d been hoping it was just a bad dream. The mere thought of sitting in a room with both Terrible and Lex sent cold shivers all the way down to her toes.

“Lex … you can’t know me, you know? I mean it. You can’t even—Does your father know? About me?”

His eyes narrowed. “My father?”

“What? Oh—” Right. She hadn’t mentioned it, had she? “Bump told me. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It matter?”

“No, not really. I just don’t know why you never mentioned it.”

“Never come up, aye? Man’s gotta have secrets, Tulip. You want me knowing all about you?”

Ugh. She didn’t even want to think about that. Opening up to Lex? “No.”

“Aye, ain’t figured you would. Come on back here to bed now. Getting cold.”

“Bump called you a cunthound.”

He snorted, his mouth stretching into a grin. “Bump gots him a way with words, he do. Ain’t sure ‘hound’ quite the right one, but ain’t matter, guessing.”

Chess was fairly certain “hound” was exactly the right word, but there wasn’t much point in discussing it. Wasn’t much time, either. She wanted to get moving. “So does he know about me? Slobag, I mean. Your father. Does he?”

“Coursen he do.”

“Fuck! Why?”

“Hey now, ain’t be like that. He knows, is all. He’s the one had me come to you back in the start, recall? Knows where his pills is going. Ain’t no fear. He ain’t a chatterer, him. Knows we want to keep you helping us, we gots to keep it all on the silent.”

“But does he know, I mean …”

“His house, ain’t it? You thinkin anybody come in here he ain’t know about?”

Her Cepts were kicking in, spreading pleasant warmth through her body, but it didn’t stop the headache’s threat. She washed down another one, glaring at Lex over the top of her water bottle. “I don’t know why you can’t get your own place, like a normal person your age.”

“You ain’t never cared afore. Little late now, aye?”

“Terrible doesn’t live with Bump.”

“Maybe you oughta start fucking Terrible, then, you so bothered. Shit, Tulip, what’s the junters for? I live here. Always have. Why you gotta be so serious all the time?”

She couldn’t come up with a reply at first, focused on keeping her face immobile. His words called up a whole album’s worth of mental pictures, and that was the last thing she needed right then. Finally she said, “Just promise me, please. You’ve never seen me before. You don’t know me, okay? No winking or flirting or anything?”

“Aw, now what kinda cunthound I be, I ignore one as sweet as yours right there across from me?”

In spite of herself, she laughed. “Okay, yeah. I guess you’ve got a point there. Just promise you won’t go too crazy. Please?”

“What I get iffen I do?”

“My eternal gratitude?”

“Gonna have to do better than that.”

“Um … knowing I won’t get killed for seeing you?”

“Was thinking something more in the physical way, dig.” He sat up, letting the sheet fall still farther down his body. “You ain’t really think Terrible kill you?”

She shrugged. No, he probably wouldn’t. But she didn’t want to find out. “Don’t know.”

“Nay, Tulip, ain’t gonna happen. You on the worried side way too much for health. Now you gonna come over here, wish me a proper good morning, or what?”

The clock read 12:47. She was late. Not that anyone was expecting her, but it was a later start than she’d wanted to get.

What the hell. Another fifteen minutes wouldn’t make much difference, right? And she could try and make him promise some more that he wouldn’t do anything to fuck with her at that meeting, or drop some of those little hints he thought were so clever and impossible to catch but which were neither.

So she sighed and pulled her shirt back over her head. “Good morning,” she said.

She hated the gas mask.

It wasn’t so bad as gas masks went, really. Once at Terrible’s place she’d thumbed through one of his books, a history of the Second World War. The masked men in those photos had resembled insects, with their round blunt mandibles rising from the mist of gas around them. Just thinking of wearing something like that was enough to speed her heart rate.

The small Church mask was different, more like a surgical mask, fairly light and comfortable. Claustrophobic tingles still ran up her spine when she slipped it on, then bent down to shove a towel into the crack under the Pyles’ bedroom door.

Telling the Pyles she was about to do dangerous magic had convinced them to brave the brittle cold, at least for a few hours. Hopefully she wouldn’t need that long, especially as what she had planned had very little to do with actual magic.

Plastic rustled as she opened the bag of green wood chips she’d picked up at the Church earlier. Another bag held her largest firedish, which she set on the floor just outside the bathroom before dumping in the chips. They took a minute to catch, but when they did, white smoke rose in a thick column. Excellent. In a few minutes the room would start to fill, and she could head into the bathroom.

Time to test her theory.

She switched on her electric meter, let the leads dangle from her belt, and headed for the bathroom.

The meter gave a gentle beep when she crossed the threshold. Good. Whatever the device was—the device she assumed had triggered the receiver on her belt the other night while the Pyles were having their little party—it was on. Nothing to do now but wait.

Too bad the smoldering wood and the smoke gave off too much heat to use the infrared lens. As it was, all she could do was sit, her eyes darting around the room, waiting for the telltale disturbance in the white haze.

It came. Without a sound, without any indication at all save the sudden movement in the corner. From the cupboard where the cleaning supplies were kept.

Chess moved carefully in that direction, shining her flashlight into the wavering smoke. Easy enough to track it once she knew where it came from. Easy enough to find the tiny hole in the ceiling of the cabinet, to place her fingers over it and feel the cold stream of gas dampening her fingers.

She grabbed a wrench with her free hand and crossed to the sinks, waiting. She might not hear the click, especially not over the faint snap of the woodfire, but she’d see the results. Her camera bumped gently against her chest as she moved.

Without the dizzying, sickening influence of the gas, she saw the ghost for what it was. An image superimposed on clouds of smoke, the light from the hologram projector clearly visible as a widening beam descending from the ceiling. She tilted her head back, found the tiny hole before the image disappeared, and marked it with her eyes.

In the little cupboard a stepstool rested against the back wall. She grabbed it, unfolded it, stood on it to inspect the hole further and take some pictures. Once she’d proved who the guilty party was, she’d open the ceiling to get at the projector. That would be fun.

Was this the daytime show or the nighttime one? She glanced toward the bedroom, curious to see how the trickster managed to darken the room, but was disappointed. Instead, the sink started burbling, and drugged roaches lumbered out of the drain. She yanked on a pair of gloves and grabbed the wrench.

Some parts of her job she loved. Some she did not. This was definitely a case of “did not.” Thick red liquid oozed out of the pipe when she loosened the bolt. Again, she’d need to rip off the tiles and open the wall to know for sure, but it seemed elementary once she thought about it. A simple toggle switch or sensor set in the floor. A pump behind the wall. Anyone with basic electrical and plumbing knowledge could have set it all up.

Probably a timer somewhere, too, to vary the effects. The image of the man, for example. Chess hadn’t seen that the first day. Of course that could have been because of the light streaming in through the window. It didn’t really matter.

She tightened the bolt back up, opened the window to clear the smoke, and started cleaning up the crimson mess on the tiles, scooping some of it into an inert plastic jar to be analyzed. Being thankful for an allergy never crossed her mind before, but she was certainly glad now. Who knew how long it might have taken her to solve this one if it hadn’t been for her reaction to the gas?

It was clever. But even clever only got so far, especially without luck, and sooner or later everyone’s luck ran out.

She shivered as she wrung out the paper towels and tossed them onto the smoldering wood. Everyone’s luck ran out, indeed. She just hoped hers wasn’t about to.