Unholy Ghosts (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

“From the cemeteries they came, from the battlefields long overgrown, from the forests and the lakes…the forgotten dead walked again and sought vengeance.”

—
The Book of Truth
, Origins, Article 18

Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest and her legs felt like someone had tied lead weights to them by the time they stopped running. It was impossible. Brain had disappeared into the twisted warren of alleys and buildings, and as darkness set in Chess almost started not to care. It was late, she hadn’t slept, the line of Nip had long since worn off, and she was starving and cold. Surely Brain would be safe for one more day.
Terrible shook his head when his breathing slowed. “We keep looking, you want.”
“I don’t know how we’d find him.”
“Neither me, but we keep looking if you want.”
“Shit, if you don’t know where to find him, how would I?”
He smiled. “Ain’t you got them witchy skills?”
“Oh, of course. Let me just send some magic dust into the air to find him.”
His laugh didn’t sound as creaky as it had before. “Aye, you do that one. Like to see it myself.”
They stood for another minute, letting their blood cool. Chess had no idea where they actually were. None of the buildings looked familiar and there were no street signs anywhere.
“Do with some eats, Chess? We ain’t as away from my car as it seem.”
Dinner with Terrible? Well, why not. They’d probably get faster service than she could get on her own, and she didn’t feel like being alone again quite yet.
“Okay, sure.”
He turned to his left and took a couple of steps, but Chess froze in place. Her skin crawled.
Only one thing could make her feel that way.
“Stop,” she murmured, reaching into her bag. After the other night with Lex she’d thrown some spare asafetida into her bag, along with generic graveyard dirt. It wouldn’t be as effective as the personalized stuff, but it would do. Where were all these ghosts coming from? Aside from Mr. Dunlop this was her second in three days, and that did not feel right at all.
What was stirring up the ghosts of Downside?
At first she couldn’t see it, only feel it, but as she strained her eyes into the shadows at the end of the alley it started to take shape. A hat first, perched jauntily on top of the head. Then features, indistinct but all present and accounted for, and finally shoulders, a torso, and legs.
The ghost wore what looked like a double-breasted jacket, but the cut was tighter than Chess had seen before and flared slightly over the hips. A tiny patch of lighter, more iridescent space sat just above the chest on the left side, and as she watched a belt formed at the waist.
Lips parted in a grimace and the ghost started toward her, moving slowly and precisely. Another followed him, dressed similarly and with the same solemn expression. Not anger, necessarily, but…need. It—they—wanted something, and she had no doubt that that something would be her head on a plate if she didn’t act fast.
Beside her Terrible moved. She flung her hand out toward him. “Don’t!”
But he moved again, and Chess couldn’t spare a moment to glance at him because her fingers fumbled with the bag of graveyard dirt as she tried to gather a handful. It slipped over her skin, cool and full of power, but even as she pulled her hand out of the bag the ghosts stopped moving, stopped looking at her.
They looked at Terrible. Their right hands raised in unison. And they disappeared.
“What the fuck—how did you do that?” Terrible cleared his throat, and lowered his own hand. He’d been saluting.
He opened his menu and shrugged, but the color on his cheeks hadn’t faded. “Just a guess,” he said again. “Thought maybe if they seen we was holding respect they’d back off.”
“I don’t even know how you guessed.”
“They was wearing uniforms.”
“Was that what they were—” She paused. The ghost she and Lex had encountered in the tunnel was dressed similarly. “I didn’t know.”
“Ain’t you guys supposed to learn that stuff?”
“Not military. Armed forces are a special branch, they have their own Debunkers.”
“It matter? I mean, can you Banish soldier ghosts?”
She lit a cigarette. “Oh, I imagine I could. It’s the same thing, I just wouldn’t be allowed to try it. Once they’d identified the ghost as military the case would be taken away. Because of the POW problems during Haunted Week, they figured…well, they wanted people with special training.”
The waitress interrupted them to take their orders—burgers and fries for both—and left them again. Outside the diner the street came to life, hookers cruising up and down in their teetery shoes and spandex, Bump’s minions hovering on corners with their pockets bulging, gangs of teenagers wandering around looking for trouble. Downside woke up around nine every night and kept going until the horizon turned pale again, even though most stores closed by eleven.
“How long you been doing the job?”
“Three years, almost four. Well, I started training nine years ago—they start at fifteen—and then when you turn twenty-one you’re hired. Or not. One kid from my class didn’t make it.”
“What the training like?”
“Um…” Was he really interested? He certainly looked interested, and it was easier to talk to him than she’d ever imagined it would be, but something still held her back. “Like regular school, I guess, but with more magic studies and lore. You know, which herbs serve which purpose, how to direct energy and control it, Banishing rituals, summoning—although we’re not supposed to do that. They do refresher courses, too, and regular energy raisings and cleansings on grounds.”
“You ain’t live there why? I thought all you had to live in them cottages there.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Just like that?”
“Yeah, just like that.” She blew out a stream of smoke, and relented. “I…I had some problems living on grounds and applied for leave. I’m not good with living in a group situation, is all.”
“You lose family in Haunted Week?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Dunno. Guessing I’d remember if I had, but…don’t recall no family.”
“How old are you, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Older’n you, but ain’t sure the number. I recall Haunted Week, aye, maybe a year or two before. So twenty-seven, twenty-eight? Somewhere there.”
Chess was glad the waitress came back with their food. It gave her something else to look at. She’d never guessed he was so young, although she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though he looked old and grizzled, he was just…so big. It made her uncomfortable to know he wasn’t so far off her in age, as if he was somehow more real. She cleared her throat and picked up her burger.
“So how’s Amy? Where’s she tonight?”
“She right. Off doing whatever she do, guessing.”
“You don’t know?”
“Ain’t tied to her.”
Ouch. She had to swallow the enormous bite she’d taken—it was delicious—before she could answer, which kind of took the edge of her reply. “I was just asking.”
“She ain’t mine, dig. Just a dame I know.”
“Well, sorry I assumed, okay?”
He looked for a minute like he wanted to say something else, but started eating instead. So much for that conversation. She ate, too, shifting her gaze upward, looking around the room. She’d never been to this place before, even though it wasn’t far from her apartment. They didn’t do much of a take-out business here, and she rarely had the urge to eat by herself in public—rarely meaning never—so it wasn’t on her personal radar. She’d definitely come again, though, if the burger was an indication of their regular food and not part of a separate stock they brought out for Terrible.
It was even clean, which was saying something. No wonder it had filled so rapidly. She didn’t recognize a lot of the faces, but some she did, people who ran stalls in the Market, a guy who lived in the building across the street from her, a shadowy face with coals instead of eyes half-covered by a black hood…
Her hamburger fell from her hand.
“Chess? You cool? Chess?”
She barely heard him over the roaring in her ears. Her legs wobbled as she tried to stand, her stiff fingers fumbling for her bag even though she knew it would be no use. Whatever he—it—was, it would take more than a few herbs and some dirt to send him away. She’d have to go in with Doyle and the others, take their case to the Grand Elder…
But just as Terrible had appeased the alley ghosts earlier, so she hoped she could make him disappear, just for now, just until…
“Chess! What you seeing?”
She thrust herself out of the booth, smacking right into a waitress carrying a heavy tray. The edge of it caught her in the ribs; the waitress fell sideways with a squeal that seemed to go on forever.
The man was gone.
Chess scanned the restaurant, her heart pounding, unable to believe it. He’d shown up and then just…disappeared again? Was he following her? Hovering invisible over her while she wandered the city all day?
No, he couldn’t have, right? She’d have felt him.
You didn’t feel him just now, did you?
Her legs gave; she gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling. Only then did she realize Terrible and the waitress were talking, that she’d knocked the woman over, and that a vanilla milkshake had flown from the tray and poured all over Terrible’s shirt.
The sketch on the folded piece of paper made her heart give a funny leap in her chest. No words, but the artful rendering of a tulip in black ink could only have been left by one person.
Terrible was apparently too discreet to ask—she imagined he had a lot of practice at ignoring things, working for Bump—but his heavy eyebrows rose. She folded the note and tucked it into her back pocket.
“Right. Get that shirt off and give it to me.”
“I just wash it home, Chess, no worries on it.”
“I don’t want it to stain. Come on, it’s the least I can do.”
He stared at her for a minute. She stared back. The white patch on his black shirt taunted her, reminded her how she’d lost her cool, how she’d been losing it ever since she saw that thing in Albert Morton’s bedroom. She couldn’t erase the memories or the shame of them—although she’d be able to blot them out awfully well when she opened her pillbox again—but she could erase that stain from Terrible’s shirt.
Finally he shrugged and lifted his hands to the buttons. “You so determined, you have yourself a time, then.”
The wet fabric slid across her fingers as she carried it into the bathroom, followed by Terrible in his white T-shirt. The room seemed to shrink around him, and when he sat on the edge of the tub his feet almost touched the opposite wall. Splotches of white stood out on his jeans like he’d been playing with bleach.
“Maybe you should give me your…um.”
He glanced down. “Keep em on all the same, aye?”
“Sure. Of course.” She busied herself at the sink with the liquid laundry soap she used on the few good items of clothing she owned. Her right palm stung; she’d almost forgotten about the wound, it had been healing so nicely.
“You not bad at that washing,” Terrible said. “Maybe I start bringing all my clothes here, aye?”
Surprise tore the smart reply right out of her mouth. Terrible made a
joke
?
“You do mending? I tore on the fence the other day, you recall.”
“Ha ha.” The white stain had come out. She rinsed it and started soaping again just to be sure. “Don’t think I’d be too good at that. It’s not really my thing, you know?”
“Not dangerous enough?”
“I’m not into danger, either.”
“Aw, Chess. You so into it you ain’t climb out with a rope. Why else you do your job, live down here, buy from Bump?”
“It’s just—I mean—I just do, is all.” Her cheeks burned. She shouldn’t have let him come in here. She should have just sent him home and let him wash his stupid shirt himself.
“No shame in it. Some of us needs an edge on things make us feel right, else we ain’t like feeling at all, aye?”
“Your shirt’s done.” She handed him the sopping bundle, suddenly eager for him to leave. “You can wring it out, if you don’t mind. My hand’s still a little stiff.”
He accepted the change of subject and turned around. Water splattered into the tub, again and again, until the shirt was almost dry and looked as though it had been pushed through the eye of a needle.
“Thanks again for your help earlier,” she said, hoping he would take the hint and go. She had a kesh all rolled and ready to smoke, and she had a pillow calling her name. “With those army ghosts.”
“Ain’t army.”
“What?”
Terrible strode back into the kitchen and put his hand on the doorknob to leave. “Ain’t army, them ghosts,” he said. “Air force. Them pilots we saw.”

Chapter Eighteen

“Those who seek to undermine the Church’s authority through their own communion shall be punished; and their sentence shall be death.”

—
The Book of Truth
, Laws, Article 40

The image of the man in the hood—whom Doyle had called “the nightmare man”—hovered in front of her as she tried to sleep. He wasn’t present, physically, in her apartment, but all the same he was there. Haunting her. Taunting her. Every time she started to drift off he appeared, chasing her into her dream, startling her awake. Refusing to go away and give her peace, even with the soft light and sounds of the TV on low.
Bed hadn’t seemed very inviting. Not with the small pale walls of her bedroom closing in on her. The living room felt safer, as if the colored light from the stained-glass window somehow sanctified it, even though she knew there was no such thing.
Being on the couch didn’t help her sleep. But it did mean when the picks scratched faintly in the front door dead-bolt she heard them immediately.
Her knife was—Shit! Where was her knife? Had she set it down in the bathroom when she washed Terrible’s shirt?
The lock clicked. Oh, fuck.
She slipped forward off the couch and scrambled across the floor, pushing herself to her feet as she went. She had razor blades in the bathroom, at least, if her knife wasn’t there. She had—
They burst into the room, throwing the door open so hard she heard plaster crack as the knob hit the wall. Only a muddled impression of shapes, big black shapes in hoods, made its way through her mind before they were on her, arms like steel around her waist, a hand painfully tight over her mouth and jaw while another hooded figure knelt and hugged her legs so she could not kick. She tried to anyway.
“Where is it?” The voice in her ear was an accentless hiss. “Where is it?”
Her head was pressed back against the figure’s shoulder. She could not move, could not bring her face forward, could not elbow him. Her skin burned from the friction of struggling against them both, her muscles ached from the hard pressure of their hands.
She had no idea what they wanted from her.
“Where is it?” he said again, loosening the pressure of his hand enough for her to open her mouth.
Chess didn’t hesitate. She threw her head forward and back again. Pain exploded in the back of her skull as it connected with her attacker’s teeth.
He grunted and stumbled back, letting go of her. Unfortunately the man kneeling in front of her pushed her legs back, so she fell with him. They hit the ground hard, shaking the floor.
She brought her right leg up and kicked out with it, catching the kneeling man in the throat with a glancing blow. His head tipped back, but she hadn’t hit him hard enough to really hurt, and there wasn’t time to try again. She didn’t need to escape, she just needed to get her weapon, to give herself some advantage. They didn’t seem to be armed; if they were she would have known it by now.
He reached for her again as she slammed her elbow back into the other man’s gut and threw herself to the side. The kitchen. She’d left her knife in the kitchen.
The edge of the counter scraped painfully on her side through her thin T-shirt as she launched herself past it, bouncing off like a pinball but managing to keep her footing. They were right behind her, their hands brushing the ends of her hair.
They caught her in front of the sink. Her fingertips brushed the handle of her knife but couldn’t grasp it. She stretched her arm, scratching at the countertop, but just as she thought she had it the first attacker caught her by the throat, pushing her back so her head hit the faucet.
She slapped at him, tried to kick, but he positioned his hips between her legs and pressed forward, immobilizing her lower body. Her hand flailed out to the side and knocked the knife back into the shadows by the microwave. She didn’t think he’d seen it.
“Just tell us where it is,” he whispered. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other start lifting couch cushions, pulling books off the shelves. “Just tell us and we’ll go.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She couldn’t see his eyes well enough to know what color they were; beneath the hood he wore a black stocking pulled over his face, which turned him into a featureless ghoul, a lump of flesh like a human earthworm.
His fingers tightened around her throat. “Don’t lie to me!”
Her left hand slipped along the edge of the sink, and farther outward, looking for something she could use as a weapon. Something cold and hard hit her fingers, something slim and round.
Her syringe. Filled with lubricant. Thick, oily lubricant.
Two choices. She could ask him what he wanted, try and figure out what was going on here, but that might only make him angrier and wouldn’t distract him. Or she could lie and hope he might loosen his grip long enough for her to hurt him.
The man in her living room gave a shout, a wordless cry of triumph. Her captor turned his head to look, and Chess made her move. One second to gird herself, to tense her body ready to attack…her fingers closed around the steel tube.
He turned his face back to her just as she brought her hand up, but he was too late. She slammed the needle into his neck, angling it back, hoping if she didn’t hit a vein she could at least hurt him badly enough to immobilize him. Her fingers did not shake as she pushed the plunger in, giving him the full load. At the same time she used the heel of her right hand to smack him in the nose, barely noticing the pain the action caused. His head jerked back and he stumbled, his face turning back to her.
His mouth opened, but before the scream could materialize, his body collapsed, crashing like a bag of loose rocks to the tile floor.
The rattling thud interrupted the other one as he ransacked her living room and brought him running across the floor. Chess spun sideways, her legs steady now, a curious elation replacing her fear. The handle of her knife in her palm felt almost better than anything ever had. She braced herself with her legs slightly bent, holding the blade in front of her, and waited for him.
Lex got there first.
How or why he’d come to see her she didn’t know, but he certainly moved as if he knew exactly what was going on, drawing a long, thin knife from an inner pocket of his jacket with his right hand while his left reached out and tangled in her attacker’s hair.
The man started to turn, drew his fist back, but stopped short when the blade penetrated his throat. His mouth opened, his fingers scrabbled madly at his neck for a moment as though to scratch an itch.
Then he fell. Blood poured from the wound and spread across her floor as Lex withdrew the knife.
“Damn, tulip,” he said, wiping the blade clean on the dead man’s robe. “You sure know how to make a man feel welcome, aye?”
The air left her chest in a long, harsh gasp. “What are you doing here?”
“Ain’t you get my note? Coming by to get my update, but this better. Ain’t every day I gets to kill people for a good reason.”
“I’m so glad I could help.” There were two dead bodies on her floor. In her apartment. Two men had broken in and tried to kill her—or if not kill her, to steal from her, to scare her, to do whatever it was they planned to do.
Two dead men. In her home. She’d killed one of them. Her knees went weak.
“Whoa, hey now. Thought you was a tough dame. Sure looked tough I walked in. Remind me never get you mad.”
Chess lifted a shaking hand to her head and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, well, lucky for you I’m in a good mood.”
He smiled in acknowledgment and dipped his head toward the corpse on the floor. “What they want, anyroad? Just robbing, or trying to hurt you?”
“Robbing. They…they wanted something. They asked me where it was…”
“What? They find it?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. Lex’s victim had shouted something, hadn’t he? She glanced into her living room. Her Blackwood box lay open, its contents spilling out onto the floor.
The box where she’d put the amulet.
Grabbing a tattered dish towel to guard her bare hands, she crossed the floor and knelt beside the body while Lex did the same, slicing the nylon over the men’s faces to reveal their features. Unfamiliar, both of them. Too bad, but not a surprise. Why should something go right?
The voluminous robe was soaked in blood, but the symbol on the front was still visible. A crooked line like a lightning bolt rose above a more traditional-looking set of entwined runes, she couldn’t tell which ones. It looked vaguely familiar, but then, most magical sigils and symbols did, didn’t they?
She found the pockets after a minute of searching. The amulet hid in one of them, tucked in the bottom, as shiny and bright as ever.
“They wanted this,” she said.
Across the room her phone buzzed like a hornet caught in a jar, audible even over the Pagans album playing in the background. It had been going off for an hour or so, while she sat on the couch at Lex’s place trying to summon the strength to move.
“Oughta pick it up,” he said, chopping out some fat lines on a mirrored tray. No sleep, again, and her eyes burned. “Ain’t you got no people be worried?”
“No. I don’t have any people.”
“Sounds like maybe you wrong.” He finished his work and slid the tray a few inches toward her, holding out a silver straw.
She took it, leaned over, vacuumed up the line. Blessed numbness hit her nose, worked its way into the back of her throat along with that bitter battery-acid flavor that always made her teeth tingle. She dipped her index finger in the glass of water he’d set out and snorted a few drops to chase the powder back. Damn. Every time was as good as the first time, wasn’t it?
Or at least close.
She sniffed again, sucking air through her sinuses to drag more powder into her throat and lungs, and reached for the phone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone but Lex, didn’t want to be anywhere but here. Drugged inertia set in, and would last until she suddenly started itching to be elsewhere, but at the moment there was no place on earth cozier than this bedroom where she’d spent a chaste and sleepless night alone in the bed while he took the couch. Quite a surprise, that, but then she’d been so tanked on the Oozers he’d given her she probably wouldn’t have felt a thing if he had tried it on.
The phone buzzed again in her hand. Might as well get it over with. “Hello?”
“Chess? Damn, baby, where you at? Terrible ripping this town
apart
looking for you, said something about your door open and your place all scraped? You alive?”
Shit! “Um…I answered the phone, so…Yes?”
Edsel gave a short laugh. “Right. Coursen you are. What happened your place?”
“I had a break-in. I’m fine. Tell Terrible I’m fine and I’ll call him in a few minutes, okay?”
“Got it. Hey, saw someone you need last couple hours ago. Recall I tell you my customer Tyson? Came by here, left his directions. Say he think he can help if you still need, come by his place later.”
“Oh, awesome. Thanks, Ed, thank you so much.” She mimed writing at Lex, who stared at her for a moment as if she’d gone insane, then twigged and handed her a pen and a slip of paper. Chinese characters covered one side of it, so she used the other.
“Just you watch your back, Chess. Tyson okay far as I know, but I ain’t
know
, dig me?”
“Got it. Thanks again.”
This was the best news she’d had in days, despite Edsel’s warning; the prospect of meeting someone he obviously mistrusted didn’t please her, but she needed the information more than she worried about the source. If she could decipher that fucking amulet she could figure out what the soul-powered spell was doing, and if she knew what it was doing she could figure out the best way to stop it and set Slipknot’s soul free. Not to mention hopefully ending the possibility of more hooded thugs showing up at her place.
Next were her messages. Terrible. Edsel. Doyle, then Terrible twice, then Elder Griffin wanting to know if she’d made any progress on the Morton case yet, then Terrible again. She’d have to stop by the Church at some point today and drop off the photos of Albert Morton’s books for Goody Tremmell to add to the file. She also needed to interview the Mortons. Maybe she could do that later, if there was time after going to see Edsel’s acquaintance.
Finally she called Terrible. “Hey, it’s Chess.”
“Chess?” Pause. “Shit, where you at? You cool? Somebody got you?”
“No, no, I’m fine, I—I had a break-in, and I got scared and—”
“You ain’t called me, let me know. Went your place on the morn, dig, got blood on your floor and you not there. Whose blood? They get away?”
She blinked. Lex had called some people to take care of the bodies. Apparently they hadn’t bothered to tidy up, which she guessed was only to be expected. “Yeah, they got away. Ran away. It wasn’t my blood, though. I managed to get one of them with my knife.”
“Good job, aye. You see who was it? Thinking got something about Chester?”
“Yeah. They were wearing robes, they…I think they wanted the amulet. So yeah, I think it was. What time is it?”
Let it go, let it go…
She did not want to talk about the implications of the break-in and how exactly the invaders had gotten away. Didn’t trust herself to talk about it, not just yet.
“Just past midday.”
Damn, midday already? The windows in Lex’s place were covered by such thick blinds it was impossible to know how bright it was outside, like being in a secret cave somewhere. A safe, secret cave. Just the thought of the noonday sun made her eyes hurt. “I’m fine, Terrible. I came to stay with—um, with a friend on Church grounds.”
“Aye, safe there. Good idea.” She could hear his breath through the line. “You heading back now? Only Edsel said he might have someplace I ought to take you.”
“Yeah. Look, I’ll meet you at Edsel’s booth in an hour or so, okay?”
Lex laid another line for her while she called Elder Griffin and let him know she’d be by, then bagged up some powder for her before walking her to the door.
“You coming back here this night?” His index finger lifted her chin, a brief touch that sent an unwelcome shiver through her body.
“I don’t know. I’ll call you if I need to, okay?”
“You do that.”
She expected the kiss, even felt confident it wouldn’t affect her the way it had before. But it did. Her knees went weak as his fingers twined in her hair, as he pulled her close to him with a strong hand on her hip. “You do that, tulip. I’ll be waiting.”