Unholy Magic

Chapter Seven

“He could have made the brand, yeah,” she said, as Terrible slid the car up on the curb. The Johnny Cash CD cut off with the ignition, leaving too-loud silence in its wake. “It’s not something ghosts normally do, but it’s possible. Or he could have found it, or—I don’t know. It had to have happened right before she died, but I have no idea why.”

“He brand them dames before?”

“No. At least it wasn’t in the file, and there were—there were pictures.” More dead faces to add to the gallery that already followed her: Randy Duncan, Brain—the teenager she’d failed to protect a few months back … Brain’s pale little face refused to leave her. She’d had to put her new bed in a different location, against the opposite wall. Every time she walked into her bedroom she’d seen the shade of that still, wide-eyed figure, silent and cold on her old bed.

“So he pick up new tricks, aye, in the City?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He accepted this without comment and left the car, the removal of his weight lifting his side by several inches. Chess waited in the still-warm interior until he came around and opened her door for her, a habit of his she’d gotten used to.

Without the dead body on the ground, the street somehow managed to feel even more threatening than it had the night before. More empty. Daisy was gone, and already forgotten, as if by dying she’d erased herself from memory as well as the world itself.

Chess looked away from the spot where the girl had lain and nodded at the alley. “In there first, I guess. While there’s still a little light.”

Beneath her clothes her skin felt raw from the vigorous shower she’d practically thrown herself into when she got home. Raw, and a little tingly. The energy wasn’t anywhere near as strong as it had been the night before, but it lingered.

“Brought one along,” Terrible replied, pulling a long steel flashlight from the trunk of his car. When he leaned over, the butt of his gun and the thin round handle of some other weapon poked at the fabric of his shirt. The sight reassured her—not that she’d doubted. Terrible didn’t take chances.

Neither did she. In her bag was everything she thought she might need if the ghost of Charles Remington showed up again, and a few things she thought she might not but grabbed anyway.

“After, you wanna see Red Berta? Maybe she got more for you. Them dead ones, they ain’t forgotten, if you dig.”

“What, you mean the hookers still remember them?”

“Aye. Ain’t somethin they allow me into, but they got—they got secrets, aye? Knowledge they don’t share, least not with me or Bump. Not with men.”

“Yeah, okay. Is she going to be free tonight?”

“I give her a ring up, you want. After.”

“Okay.” A glance around told her the street was empty, but trusting your eyes was folly here, where shadows multiplied with every passing second. She squared her shoulders and stepped into the mouth of the alley. Another rush of sex magic swirled around her, then settled. “Think we’re going to be alone this time?”

“Slobag always tryin to make a grab,” Terrible said. Not really an answer, but an answer just the same. “Back round Festival time he tried makin some deal up on Fifty-first, get his hands on a buildin. Figured he planned to set up there, Bump and me did.”

“What’d you do? Burn it down?”

“Aye.”

Chess’s fingers brushed Terrible’s as she took the flashlight from him. Normally she would start looking up the walls, at the ceiling had there been one, but that was going to be difficult in this instance, so the ground would be first. She scanned back and forth, slowly, studying every inch revealed by the circle of light.

She didn’t bother asking him if anyone had been inside the building when the fire was started, figuring the odds on it were probably about fifty-fifty. Not her business, anyway.

“He knows it was you?”

She didn’t see him shrug, but knew he did. “Guessin he do. No matter though.”

“Because you’re safe here?”

“Because he always after us. Reason ain’t important.”

A spark of light shot off the flashlight’s beam, but when Chess bent down she saw it was only a bit of broken glass. She shone the light on the base of the wall to her left, listening as the creatures who’d eavesdropped on her phone conversation the night before once again skittered out of her way. Skittered, like roaches … ugh.

“Some things are—” She stopped. “Hey, come look at this.”

He crouched beside her, his arm bumping against her shoulder. “Aye?”

“There. The feather.” Inside her bag was a small box of surgical gloves. She handed the flashlight back and slipped one on, then picked up the feather between her thumb and index finger. Even with the gloves on, a slight tingle ran up her arm. Definitely connected.

Terrible shone the light directly on it, and she could see the buff tinge on the hairs, the stripes and mottling. “Shit.”

“What?”

“It’s an owl feather,” she said.

“Aye?”

“Yeah.” She turned it in the light. “I’m not sure what kind. I think it’s a Great Horned Owl, but I didn’t do as well in ornithology as I should have.”

“Ain’t know the Church teach you birds.”

“Birds are psychopomps. Especially birds of prey. Especially owls.”

“Takin souls to the City, meanin? They what you use?”

“No. I mean, yes, they do in normal circumstances, but no, we use specially trained dogs. Birds are too unpredictable, they can be hard to work with in ritual.”

“Why a ghost use a—a bird? Ain’t need it get up here, aye?”

“I’m not sure. No, he wouldn’t necessarily use it to get up here, but—” With her free hand she found some plastic pouches in her bag and dug them out. “Open one of those, will you?”

He did, holding it out for her to slip the feather into. She felt better once it was sealed away, but not much. “Ghosts don’t use psychopomps, no,” she said slowly, trying to force her recalcitrant brain into thought. “They’re not capable of magic—I mean, they can only feed off energy, not create it.”

“The psychopomp give them it?”

“No. They have energy of a sort, but it’s not the kind a ghost can use.”

Terrible caught the implication, as she knew he would. “So somebody working alongside yon ghost, aye?”

She nodded. The walls of the alley loomed over her, stretching into the dim sky like broad hands trying to cup over her and squash her. She hadn’t mentioned the energy from the night before, but she couldn’t put it off any longer. “Last night …,” she said, then cleared her throat and tried again. “Last night I noticed, I felt the energy from the magic they’d been doing. Sex magic. They were doing sex magic.”

Pause. “Them who killed her?”

“Yeah, I think so. I’m pretty sure. It was really strong, on her body and everything.”

“Lots of whores use magic. Makes them work go faster, if you dig. Maybe were them other dames you felt?”

“No. I wondered that too but this was … blacker, if you know what I mean. It didn’t feel right. And it didn’t feel like any of those girls could have made it. Too powerful, for one thing. And it felt male.”

Funny, she hadn’t really thought of that the night before, but it was true. It had felt male; too strident and aggressive to be a woman’s magic, even a woman like Red Berta.

“Ain’t know you could tell.”

“Yeah. Everyone’s magic feels a little different, it’s kind of like fingerprints. Or how everyone smells like themselves, it’s all chemical, you know what I mean? The energy from one of my spells wouldn’t feel like the energy from yours, or anyone else’s. It’s unique.”

“So you can say who done it from the feel?”

She nodded. “Usually, if I have something to compare it with. Like with the Lamaru, since it was a lot of people doing the spell, the energy was mixed and I couldn’t identify it. But if it’s a single practitioner, yeah, I could.”

“Damn. ’Sfucking cool, Chess. You like—cool, is all.”

To hide her blush she focused on tucking the plastic-encased feather into one of the pockets in her bag. “Thanks.”

“Ain’t think birds lose feathers in winter,” he said, standing up. She did the same, the movement making her legs ache.

“Some do, it all depends on—no. No, you’re right. Great Horned Owls don’t molt in winter. It’s their mating season.”

“Ain’t just fall out, aye? Got pulled out.”

“Well … I guess it could have caught on something, but yeah, chances are it got pulled out.”

She took the light back and shone it around, looking for something the bird could have landed on. The alley was full of sharp edges, but nothing looked like it could have snagged a feather.

“That’s some serious, aye? Takin a feather? You figure maybe it’s part of it?”

“I don’t know, really. It’s not as serious a crime to hurt a psychopomp as it is to kill one, but it was probably an accident anyway. You can use the feathers in ritual, but I can’t think of any where you leave it behind after, or where the ritual doesn’t destroy it. You know, like burning it or something.”

“Hey, look here.” Terrible shuffled a few boxes, bent down. The light sparked off the piece of mirror he held. His hand engulfed it, but she could see the leather wrapped around its lower half, turning it into a crude knife. “Were Daisy’s.”

“How do you—oh. You knew her, I keep forgetting.”

“Know em all.” He turned the makeshift blade in his hand, studying it with perhaps more intensity than was necessary. “She not a bad one, Daisy. Pretty little thing.”

“I’m … I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”

He shrugged; getting too attached to people in Downside was foolishness. “Ain’t know her close. But she ain’t stupid, Daisy. Looks like somebody here with the ghost right up, aye? Don’t grab no weapon against somethin ain’t there.”

Chess took the little mirror knife from him. “Unless it just fell out of her purse.”

He snorted. “Nothin just fall out a whore’s purse, Chess.”

“Oh. Right. But—where was her purse? I didn’t see it, did you? Did one of the other girls have it?”

“Ain’t think so. One of em would say, she had it.” His brow furrowed. “They keep all sorts in there, dig. Like everythin they got.”

“Money?”

“Aye, what they ain’t pay off to Red Berta for Bump, but … whore’s real catchy about her purse. Don’t like nobody touch it up, don’t let nobody look in. Keep she magic in too, if she use it. Like superstition, dig? Bad luck touchin another whore’s purse, lettin any else touch yours.” He shrugged. “Them bodies ain’t just theirs, dig? So they keep the purse private. Ain’t for nobody but them.”

She cleared her throat. “Makes sense. Come on, let’s keep looking.”

The sun had sunk almost completely below the horizon, too far to cast shadows; when she looked at the empty buildings across the street they were black shapes against a blazing red-orange background. She shoved her hands into her pockets for a second to warm them, then headed farther into the alley.

Terrible’s phone rang, startling her. She didn’t stick around to hear his half of the conversation. Somewhere near the back was the metal box she’d sat on the night before, and she wanted to find it.

Her feet scuffed through old newspaper that disintegrated when her shoes hit it, through layers of dust and grime. The flashlight’s beam bounced off the walls, off the piles of garbage and furniture so broken and filthy even Downside residents found no more use for it. Two red orbs glowed at her briefly. A rat, watching her invade its territory.

The box was still there. That alone made her think it was probably unrelated. The killers might have missed the owl feather and Daisy’s weapon hidden beneath the rubbish, but they wouldn’t have left this and not come back for it. Still, she might as well search everything.

“Aye. Aye, when I can.” Terrible snapped the phone shut behind her. She glanced around.

“Everything okay?”

“Dame I know. I forgot callin her.”

“Amy?”

“Ain’t seen Amy in weeks.”

She knelt in front of the box and slid her gloved hand along the edge, looking for the catch. “Oh? Why, what happened?”

“Nothin happen. Just ain’t seen her.”

“And now you’re seeing someone else and you’re not even calling her when you say you will. Shame on you.”

She flipped up the hook and pulled the lid back faster than she should have. Her hands didn’t seem quite under her control. Made sense, with that damned magic still hovering around her like cloying perfume, making her ache a little bit right where she did not need to be aching.

It was empty. Too empty, its spotless, shiny-clean interior a stark contrast to the thick layer of grunge on the outside.

“She get over it,” he said. She felt him lean over, inspecting the inside of the box. “Look awful clean in there for some box sittin in an alley, aye?”

“That’s what I thought.” She tipped the box toward her so she could shine the light into all the corners. A faint fragrance hit her nose. Familiar, musty. Not at all like the odor from the Pyles’ place earlier. This smell made her think of Church, of bluish light and warm afternoons in wortcunning classes. The smell of ritual.

All she could do was make a note, inhale deeply, and try to memorize it. Whatever it was, they hadn’t used it often or she would have recognized it more quickly, so she could rule out the major banishing herbs. She hadn’t smelled it in a while, either, so it wasn’t one of the conjuring herbs Madame Lupita had used the night before.

Terrible sniffed. “Smells like that dude Tyson,” he said. “He skin were kinda like that.”

“Really? I don’t remember.”

“You ain’t got as close as me.”

That was certainly true, and she was glad, too. Tyson was a Host, someone who’d made a deal with a spirit to share his body in exchange for power—as opposed to a Bindmate, where the energy was shared but the body kept separate. Not an ordinary spirit in Tyson’s case, she didn’t think, but she hadn’t wanted to stick around to find out, especially not after Terrible attacked him and his guest decided to make an appearance. It felt like it had happened years before. It had only been months.

“Thinkin maybe they use the box, then leave it here? Ain’t straight, aye?”

“No, it isn’t.” She closed the box. “But who knows why people do things. Maybe it just didn’t work as well for them as they’d hoped, or maybe it was already here and they used it and didn’t take it with them.”

“It feel off to you?”

“Vibes like everything else. The same energy, I mean.”

He nodded. “What else need a checkout back here?”

“Shit. As much of it as we can, really. There’s probably not much point using the Spectrometer, not if it isn’t an active haunting—the ghost involved is a traveler, you know?—but we should see if there’s anything more about the human Bindmate or witch who summoned the ghost, in case that’s what the psychopomp was for.”

Together they moved around the walls as best they could, Terrible behind her with the light. The bricks hummed with energy when she ran her bare palm over them. Something had definitely happened in here. She just had no way of knowing when.

“Can you move that chair? I want to get behind it.”

He was only a deeper shadow in the now dark alley, picking up the broken skeleton of the chair and hauling it out of the way.

Her foot landed on something squishy. A rat. It squeaked at her, shrill in the night, and she gasped and leapt back. Terrible caught her shoulders, but she didn’t need it. She had her balance.

Still, she stood for a few seconds longer and let him touch her, fighting the rising tide of desire caused by that damn spell but unable to fight the simple need to be touched, in the cold darkness where a girl had been murdered. How his hands stayed so warm, even in the winter cold, she didn’t know, but the heat seeping through her sweater and coat felt fantastic.

It probably would have felt even better if she weren’t afraid the ghost would reappear at any moment—the ghost or, worse, Slobag’s men again. With just Terrible and herself here there was no way she could call Lex and put a stop to it. The thought made her shudder. At least that’s what she thought it was.

“You right, Chess?”

She cleared her throat, pulled away from the weight of his hands. “Yeah. Yeah, right up. I just want to get this done with. It makes me nervous.”

“Naw, no need. Nothin show up we ain’t handle, aye? You an me.” The light started moving again.

She turned away, not sure how to respond but pleased anyway. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

“You want me ring up Red Berta, see if she free for a chatter? Be good to get the knowledge sooner.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Where was her speed? This day was taking much longer to end than she’d hoped. The image of her couch, her semi-warm apartment, the cold beer in the fridge, hovered before her. She sighed.

Normally she didn’t take speed when she was trying to work; experience had taught her it interfered with her body’s reactions to ghosts, masked them. But she wasn’t trying to detect a ghost at the moment. That a ghost existed was Fact and Truth; she didn’t need her abilities to tell her that. All she needed at the moment was whatever clues she could see or find, and she was fucking tired, too, running on less than five hours’ sleep and an empty stomach in the wintry air.

Terrible handed the light back to her, picked up his phone. She wondered how many numbers he had programmed in his. More than three, she guessed, choking down a couple of Nips.

The light picked up a few smears of ectoplasm on the bricks while Terrible’s voice rumbled behind her. No surprise there, but further confirmation. A ghost and its Bindmate. Just your average cozy, unholy, psychotic couple.

“Berta ain’t free.”

She glanced back and saw him standing there, a rueful look on his face. “Say she house too full to think. Got all the girls there, dig, keepin off the street. Try again on the later.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Hungry?”

Not with that much speed in her system, she wasn’t, or rather she wouldn’t be once it kicked in. But she could have a Coke, nibble at a few fries or something. “You buying?”

“Aye.”

“Then yeah, I guess so.” What the hell. At least the restaurant would be warm—she knew where he’d take her, where he always took her, the diner a few blocks from her place. He liked their shakes, and the burgers they gave him—and by extension her, when she was with him—had a much higher beef content than what everyone else got, so they were actually decent. She also knew it would be loud and crowded and bright, and at that particular moment nothing sounded better.

She could use some life around her just then.