Unholy Magic

Chapter Twenty-seven

Having Oliver Fletcher in her apartment wasn’t her idea of fun, but they had to go somewhere, and she had a decent enough first-aid kit in her little bathroom.

No point trying to call Terrible. He wouldn’t answer when he saw it was her. So she texted instead, a terse message to say she knew where the ghost house was and he should call her or come to her place.

Five minutes later she got a one-word response: “Fine.”

Okay, so was he coming over or what? Shit, and she probably looked like she’d just crawled out of bed.

Fletcher was sitting on her toilet, cleaning the ragged flesh wound on his shoulder. Chess ignored him while she splashed cold water on her face and slapped on a little makeup. She felt like an idiot and it wouldn’t matter one bit, but she did it anyway.

“Don’t bother helping me, I can handle it,” Fletcher snapped.

She glanced at him on her way out the door. “Good.”

Should she call Lex? Probably. Well, definitely. But the thought of having him come over when Terrible was there … She’d call him when they knew where they were going.

A couple of Nips and a couple of Cepts, to calm her down and wake her up, and she was ready. Sort of.

“Miss Putnam? Seriously, will you help me here?”

Fletcher was still sitting on the toilet, bloody tissues scattered over the tile floor like flower petals. He was going to clean those up.

“I can’t reach very well. And I’m in a lot of pain.”

She sighed. “Turn around.”

Dried blood surrounded the deep graze; the bullet had caught him at an odd angle. Chess grabbed a can of antibiotic spray and used it, ignoring his hiss of pain.

“I know you have painkillers, Miss Putnam. I think the least you can do is offer me some. I have just been shot, you know, and I’m still here to help you.”

“Don’t you have access to your own?” She dabbed his skin dry and grabbed a gauze pad.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Haven’t you been drugging Roger Pyle?”

It was just a guess, but she didn’t expect the answer she got.

“That wasn’t me. That was Kym.”

“Kym?”

He nodded. “You don’t think I’m the only one who didn’t want the Pyles living here, do you? She was hoping he’d—Hell, I don’t really know what she thought. That he’d feel jumpy and sick and it would make him vulnerable, I suppose. As I said, she’s not really the most intelligent woman in the world.”

“Yes, you did say, didn’t you.”

“Excuse me?”

That was it. That was what bothered her before. “In fact, you went out of your way to point the finger at yourself, Fletcher. Right from the beginning. Why is that?”

“I don’t know what you—”

“It was Arden, wasn’t it. She started the fake haunting. She’s the one who scratched Kym in the bedroom that night, she set up, what, some kind of projector or something—like the one you screened your movie on, right? The night I was there?”

She didn’t wait for him to reply. “And when she told you what she’d done, when you found out Roger and Kym were going to get the Church involved, you rushed to help her, because you knew that whatever she’d done might fool her parents, but it wouldn’t fool the Church. You knew what a real ghost feels like. You knew the kind of investigating that’s done for a haunting, and you knew there was no way she’d get away with it once the Church stepped in. Awfully altruistic of you, helping your friend’s daughter like that. Just out of the kindness of your heart?”

He sighed. “Not really. She’s mine, you see.”

“She’s—What?”

“Arden is my daughter, not Roger’s. He’s sterile. Kym found out, she came to me … I helped her. Arden doesn’t know—Well, neither does Roger, for that matter. But when she needed help, she came to me, too. She’d already started this stupid haunting thing, rigged up one of Roger’s old projectors. He’s got a few of them lying around. I had no choice, really, but to try and help her.”

“Yes, you did. They would have been lenient with her, and you know it. You were with the Church long enough to know that. She would have done a year in a Church program for underage offenders, at the most. And you wouldn’t have been—oh. Right.”

She caught his eye, knew he followed her thoughts. He nodded. “The DNA match. When they arrested her they would have put the family’s DNA on file, and they would have found out she isn’t Roger’s. It would have killed him to know that. Would have destroyed Arden.”

“And you, when the press got wind of it.”

“That too, yes.”

Shit. Arden all along. Some investigator she was, shit.

“Who’s the father of her baby?”

“I don’t know. Some guy back in L.A. That’s why she wanted to leave so bad. Not just to get away from her parents, but to get back to him. What can I say, she’s fourteen years old. Can I have one of those pills now, please?”

She rolled her eyes, but let him follow her back into the living room and gave him a couple of Cepts and some water.

And sat, while the Nips sped her heart rate and set her toes tapping on the threadbare carpet.

She didn’t have to wait long, at least. She’d only managed to play one Queers song in her head before the heavy knock made her leap to her feet.

The distance between the couch and the door had never seemed so far. What should she say? Should she even bother to say anything? Would he talk to her?

The sinking feeling in her stomach told her the answer even before she opened the door and found him there, hands in pockets, his harsh face set in stony, dead lines and his gaze focused so far past her she felt like a speck of dirt on a window screen.

“Hi.” She stepped back, inviting him in. “We, um, that’s Oliver Fletcher, he knows where we’re going, so if you want to come in …”

Terrible shrugged and entered, subtly twisting his torso so as not to touch her when he walked past.

He hadn’t looked at her at all.

Well, what the fuck did she expect, that he’d give her a big hug and tell her she was forgiven? They never even hugged normally. This probably wasn’t the time he’d pick to start.

Fletcher stood up, wavering a little on his feet. Great. Just what she needed—a tipsy amateur witch. How much scotch had the man had back at the house? Had he eaten anything at all? His wound couldn’t have caused that much blood loss.

“I’m Oliver,” he said. “Have you ever done any security work? I’m always looking for—”

“Just gimme the knowledge so we get this done.”

Fletcher looked blankly at Chess for a minute, then said, “You want to know where Kemp is?”

“Kemp the one?”

“Yeah.” She glanced at Terrible, waited for him to look at her. He didn’t. “He’s working with a murdered hooker named Vanita. Her spirit, I mean. Remember how Tyson had a host? I don’t think it’s the same exact arrangement, but … yeah, he’s working with her.”

Terrible’s chin lifted and lowered, his only indication of surprise.

“Oliver knows Kemp, he studied at the Church too so he can help …”

“You coming then?” Terrible eyed Oliver up and down. “You come handle all, dig, you got the juice.”

She bit her lip. “No, we’re both going, he’s going to help me.” Look at me, talk to me, something.

He didn’t. Just stood for a minute, absorbing what she’d told him, then shrugged. “Where?”

Chess looked at Fletcher, still standing with his feet planted a little too widely apart like he was having trouble balancing. What a lightweight. “Fletcher? Where?”

“What? Oh. You’re assuming he’s set up in one of our buildings? There’s four in this part of town. One on … Second, I think, by the cemetery—What?”

Chess stiffened but just managed not to cringe. “Where are the others?”

“Let’s see. Eightieth, that’s a warehouse. I think the houses are on Mercer and Wharf. I understand the one on Mercer burned down or something recently, though.”

“Wharf? By the docks?”

Fletcher nodded. “I assume so. Landrum handles the purchasing. I only remember the addresses because I looked them up the other day, I was filling out some tithing tax forms.”

Terrible looked at her for the first time, but his eyes still focused above her head. Like she wasn’t really there, like she was invisible. “You got what all you need?”

“I’ll get it. Can you, um, will you come help me? Some stuff is up on the shelf in my closet.”

It wasn’t fair, she knew. But if he wouldn’t talk to her any other way—

“Fletcher here ain’t little, aye? Figure he willin to give you the help.”

Fletcher looked uncertainly from Chess to Terrible, and back again. “Yeah, sure. I’ll help you.”

Her bedroom was a total mess; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cleaned it. Just what she wanted, Fletcher seeing her dirty clothes strewn all over the floor, her unmade bed.

He ignored all of it, though, to give him credit, and handed her various boxes and bags from the top shelf as obediently as a child. “So what’s the deal with the big guy, anyway?”

“What do you mean?” She’d need ricantha and althea, since they were already being used. Some hellebore would be good, too, and melidia and ajenjible. In fact … She grabbed the box where she stored her herbs and ingredients and upended it over her bag. Her psychopomp, the skull kept in its silk wrapping. Candles. Extra black chalk for sigils of protection. She had the dirt from Vanita’s grave. She had her knife, but it might be a good idea to take a spare just in case, and she’d need to grab her portable first-aid kit, too.

What she did not need was to discuss the ins and outs of her relationship with Terrible—such as it was—with her blackmailer.

“Looked like you guys were friends, looks like now you’re not. Does it have something to do with the Asian guy?”

“How do—” Oh, right. The pictures. “None of your business.”

“Just trying to make conversation.” Shit, was he high? Yes, of course he was. High and chatty. This just kept getting better.

“Well, don’t.” She finished packing and zipped the bag. “Let’s go.”

It was so cold outside she expected ice to form on her eyelashes, but she left her coat in Terrible’s car just the same. Not that it mattered. Nothing could warm her up after the frigid silence of that ride, with Assuck—a band he knew she disliked—playing so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. Not that she really wanted to hear her thoughts at the moment.

Terrible watched her while she shouldered her bag, grabbed her stang from the floor where she’d set it. Fletcher stayed in the car, apparently waiting until the last minute before he left the warm interior.

She didn’t blame him. This close to the docks the constant breeze stank of sewage and gasoline and the sour brine tinge of stagnant seawater. Nothing like the actual ocean, which she’d seen once … with Terrible.

She closed the door on that memory before it had a chance to open and looked around at the quiet street. Odd, that. She’d never been in this area before—Downsiders tended to stay in their own neighborhoods—but it certainly looked like the type of place that would be busy. Dive bars studded the rows of buildings, neon beer signs flickering in their darkened windows, but no crowds stood outside them. No kids wandered up and down the alleys looking for scraps of food, a place to fight or a place to fuck. Even the music drifting along the street seemed subdued.

And more than that … they were in the right place. She felt it, her tattoos tingling, ghost energy creeping along her skin like tiny secret fingers. Powerful. Powerful enough to send a shiver through her body that had nothing to do with the crystal-cold air.

“Is anyone else coming?”

Terrible shrugged. “Ain’t you gave your boyfriend a ring up?”

Shit. She’d left herself wide open for that one, hadn’t she? “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Trick, then.”

Ouch. “I haven’t called him.”

“Aye? Figured you’d give him the knowledge soon as you got any. Ain’t that how it work?”

“No, it’s—it doesn’t ‘work’ any way. Terrible, if you’d just let me explain, if you’d just listen to me—”

“Maybe I need time.”

“Yeah?” Damn him. She needed to focus, needed to concentrate, and he wasn’t helping. “Well, take it somewhere else. We have work to do, don’t we?”

That was good. She thought it even sounded like she actually meant it, like her throat didn’t ache and her eyes didn’t sting and her belly didn’t feel shriveled and dead.

And of course, he was right. She had been giving Lex information, of a sort. Nothing important. Nothing she didn’t think it would help everyone for him to have. But how they’d met … how she’d agreed to sabotage Chester Airport … In the end she hadn’t had a choice. But she doubted Terrible would see it that way.

She’d tell him, though. She’d tell him the whole thing if he would let her, and hope it made a difference.

“Aye. An let’s get it done. Ain’t exactly wantin to chatter with you, dig?”

“That makes two of us.”

He stared at her for a minute, his face inscrutable, then knocked on the window of the car, telling Fletcher to come out.

That he did, weaving slightly. Chess frowned.

“Are you going to be okay, Fletcher? Maybe you should stay in the car.”

“Nonsense. Horatio is my friend. I should be there.”

“Yeah, but—” Movement to her right caught her eye. A man, skinny and dirty as a stray dog, made his way out of an alley toward them. Normal enough, really; the odds of standing on a Downside street and not being approached by a panhandler or mugger or worse were pretty slim, and they shrank the longer one remained a stationary target.

She wasn’t worried about muggers or worse, not with Terrible there. The way things were between them, he wouldn’t save her because he wanted to, but they were here to do a job and she knew he took that seriously. Hell, her very presence here was proof of that, wasn’t it, since he looked at her as though he’d be happy to see her dead?

But something about their visitor bothered her, whether it was the odd fixed stare or the way he seemed unaware of what his body was doing. He ignored them, ignored the Chevelle tilted up on the curb. Like they weren’t even there.

“Hey!” Terrible said, but the man didn’t even blink. His half-closed eyes stayed focused straight ahead, on a point somewhere beyond their vision, something that softened his face and made his mouth hang open despite the cold.

He looked like a man about to fall into bed with a woman.

Terrible and Oliver both must have thought the same thing. The three of them looked at one another, realization dawning on their faces.

“The prostitutes,” Chess said. “The tri—the men. They’re killing them.”

“What a way to go.” Oliver’s smile faded when Chess and Terrible glared at him. He shrugged. “Well, it is, right? When you’re my age you tend to think of such—”

Chess grabbed her phone. “We need more people. If there’s going to be men there, even if it’s only a few, and they’re that fixated and probably armed, they could be dangerous.”

“Aw, right. Ain’t wanna make a move without Lex here, aye? Let him get his eyes in?”

None of the responses she thought of were sufficient, so she just glared at him and dialed. “I suggest you call Bump and let him know.”

“Ain’t give a fuck what you suggest.”

Lex answered, his usually smooth, rapid speech muffled and slow. “What’s up, Tulip?”

She explained the situation as fast as she could, glancing over her shoulder. Terrible was on his own phone, his black steel gaze following her as she paced. Stripping her.

“Aye, okay,” Lex said. “Guessing I’ll get over there, me. Hang on, aye?”

“Yeah.”

She stuck the phone back in her bag, pulled out her black chalk. “Come here, both of you. We’re going to need some protection.”