Unholy Ghosts (25 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

“You cannot defeat the dead. Only the Church can do so, and through training, Church employees.”

—
The Book of Truth
, Veraxis, Article 5

The amulet had fallen to the floor in the struggle. Chess knelt and ran her fingers over the carpet. Her back felt like someone had painted a target on it. Where was Ereshdiran? In front of her, those long stained-ivory teeth exposed? Behind her, about to summon enough power to slip a noose around her neck, to slit her throat?
The darkness was so complete, not a hint of light anywhere. Too dark. Dark like the mouth of a predator.
Randy’s sobs echoed in the room. “He’s here, he’s here, please find the amulet, Chessie hurry…”
It was hard to focus on anything, even with adrenaline coursing through her body. Suddenly she was sleepy, so relaxed and sleepy, and it was so dark and the carpet was soft and thick. She could lie down here, curl up into a warm cozy ball and take a nap, she could…
“Stay awake!” she yelled, but her voice was drowned out by shattering glass. Behind her? The mirror, the dresser mirror. Ereshdiran must have smashed it. He’d gained so much strength since she saw him before, he could kill Randy, he could kill Terrible—would he kill her now? Did he still need her, with all the power he drew from the sleepers downstairs? The sleepers in the whole neighborhood?
Fear helped her eyes stay open as she fumbled into her bag, her movements clumsy and painful. The speed was in there, the Baggie Lex gave her.
“Chess?”
“Stay awake, Terrible, stay awake, just stay where you were, don’t move!”
Randy screamed. Something warm and wet splattered over Chess’s face, in her hair. Blood. She didn’t dare try to wipe it away, not when she needed both her hands to hunt for the two items that might keep her alive.
“Chess!”
The screaming continued, turning into sobs. She heard them moving, heard the bed creak as they ran into it. Something brushed against her hair but she had no idea if it was human or not. And all the while her eyelids got heavier, the fuzzy comfort of sleep slid into her head.
Ereshdiran appeared in front of her, his luminous face only inches from hers, his mouth open in a crooked, shrieking grin. Chess screamed and lost the Baggie just as her fingers touched it. It disappeared again into the depths of her bag.
Terrible grunted. Randy screamed. Cold wind blew across the back of her neck. The Dreamthief was playing with them, playing with her. Something sliced at the back of her left hand, just a kiss from the blade, a portent of what would come. She gasped and tried to ignore the feel of her own blood dribbling from the wound.
She found the Baggie, yanked it out, slid her fingernail into the seal with shaking hands. She had to stay awake, had to stay awake long enough…
The floor shook. The whole house shook. Ereshdiran’s power, strong the last time she’d seen him here, now sparked off him. He could bring this place down on them, would do it if she wasn’t fast enough—and the bastard would use some of her own power to do it. She could feel him pulling at her.
Terrible roared her name but she didn’t answer, focusing on the powder against her hand. No hairpin, no key, there wasn’t time. She scooped up as much as she could under her fingernail—not much, she kept her nails fairly short—and brought it to her face, hoping she wouldn’t miss.
She did. Something smashed across the room—a lamp crashing, she thought—and she ended up poking herself in the eye with a nailful of speed. A gasp escaped her throat, her eye felt like a bee had stung it, but it woke her up enough to try again while tears streamed down her face. All the while the room got colder and colder, so cold her toes were numb. Had she escaped after all? Was she asleep, in a dream, deep in the bowels of the thief?
Another crash, a thud. Randy screaming her name, sounding very far away. He’d been right beside her, where was he now? She ignored it, falling to her knees, her neck retreating between her shoulders as she tried again.
This time she made it. It wasn’t a big bump but it was enough. Her heart rate increased, her eyes snapped open.
“Terrible? Terrible, here.” She waved her hand in the air, trying to find him, and finally closed her fingers around one thick calf. It moved. His hand found hers, and she pressed the Baggie into it. “We have to stay awake.”
She heard the plastic rustle, heard him inhale once, twice. Then his hand squeezed her arm and he lifted her to her feet, pulling her against him as she lost her balance and they both hit the wall. His shirt was wet, with sweat or blood she didn’t know.
“No! Noooo!” Randy’s scream turned into a gurgle, a horrible choking sound, then stopped dead. Chess’s skin crawled. She found her flashlight, knowing it wouldn’t work, and switched it on.
It did work. The beam fell on Randy’s face, on his wide, staring eyes and the blood still trickling from the gaping hole where his throat should have been. She barely had time to take it in when the Dreamthief shoved the piece of mirror he’d used to kill Randy into the flashlight’s beam, throwing the light back at her, blinding her.
The light fell from her hand as Terrible grabbed her, his fingers painfully tight around her arm, ripping her out of her stupor and shoving her toward where the door had been. She couldn’t see a thing, the white spots in front of her eyes worse than the darkness.
“The amulet, we have to have—”
“I got it, just go!” Still holding her, he flung himself forward. She heard something thunk into the plaster where they’d just been as they fell through the door and onto the landing.
Pictures flew from the walls as Chess and Terrible tore down the stairs, in what could have been a run but was more like a tumble. She twisted her ankle at the bottom but did not let herself stop, feeling the Dreamthief behind them, knowing there was no escape.
They burst out into the shadowy night and started running across the lawn, heading for Terrible’s car on the next block. Probably not the safest place to be, but all Chess could think to do was try and get away. Get away, get to the airport, get the ritual done. She had no choice. Even the spells and wards at the Church might not be strong enough to protect her, not with the thief connected to her through blood.
Her chest felt ready to explode by the time they were halfway up the street. She didn’t dare look back. There was no point in looking back. He was after them, of course he was after them, they had the amulet. The one thing that might be able to control him, and the one thing that would draw him to her.
“Give me the amulet,” she managed to gasp.
He didn’t ask questions, but pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers around it.
Ereshdiran darted past them, a black streak in the orange streetlight glow. Chess sucked as much air as she could into her aching lungs and said the generic Banishing words she’d learned five years before, the first words of power any Church employee learned.
“Arcranda beliam dishager!”
They didn’t stop to see if it worked. It probably hadn’t, and it certainly hadn’t worked permanently. But if it bought them a few minutes, enough time to get in the car and get moving, enough time to keep Banishing him until she could start the ritual, it would be worth it.
They reached the car, finally, yanking the doors open and throwing themselves inside. Terrible had the keys in the ignition and the engine started before she’d managed to sit up straight, and they peeled away in a cloud of heavy exhaust, the rear end of the car fishtailing as it leapt away from the curb.
The Chevelle ate up the highway, sliding in and out of traffic with a low, contented purr. Chess stared out the window, watching other cars disappear behind them, until her hands stopped shaking.
The first thing she did was another bump, a proper one this time. The second was to drink half her water and hand it to Terrible to finish.
“You right, Chess? You get hurt?”
“No, I’m okay. You?”
He shrugged. Light from the dash caught on the shard of mirror protruding from his left arm.
“You’re not, you got stabbed—”
“Ain’t so bad. I been got worse.”
“Oh? Like what?” She just wanted him to talk, about anything. Just wanted to hear his calm, low voice like gravel poured over the rough ground of her terror.
“Aye. Dame I know bit me once.”
She laughed in spite of herself, a surprised laugh like a hiccup. “You mean you let a girl hurt you?”
“Some dames I let do whatany they want.”
She had no idea how to reply to that; her face heated. He was joking, had to be. She would never forget the look on his face at Trickster’s, how pissed off he’d been, how he’d just given up on her.
Even though she wasn’t supposed to remember it at all. So what did he mean? If he thought she didn’t remember—Oh, fuck it. Best to ignore the whole thing.
After a minute he cleared his throat and said, “So Randy. He brung the ghost to get money, aye?”
“Yeah.” She spoke a little too loudly, a little too grateful for the change of subject. “Well, basically. First he was going to fake a haunting, to get a payout from the Church. But then I got the case instead of him—he was next in the queue, but Elder Griffin gave it to me—so they had to get a real ghost, because I would have caught them faking it. I guess they didn’t realize that I’d found the amulet, and my—my blood had touched it. Um, had fed the thief and given him power. But they were already raising him and I guess they figured it would be easy enough to send him to the Mortons’ house before they used him against the Church, so…Yeah. He did it.”
“Not that Goody.”
“No.” She wished he hadn’t mentioned that. It was embarrassing enough having been so stupid and wrong, without being reminded that he knew she’d been stupid and wrong. “Randy and the Mortons went to the Spa, and that’s where he met whoever recruited him into the Lamaru. He just…gave her the key ring. I mean, I assume.”
“Trying to get what he want from her, aye? Figure he play her on the good side, she give him the push-up.”
“And she probably would have, if—”
Ereshdiran’s face appeared in the center of the windshield, leering at them, his black cloak flying around him like tentacles whipping the air. Chess screamed, cringing against the back of her seat, then hitting the door when Terrible swerved to the left.
Ereshdiran disappeared. Something heavy hit the roof of the car, bowing it down. Terrible sped up, so fast the lines on the road blurred, skipping onto the shoulder and opening the powerful engine all the way. The cars they passed disappeared but the weight stayed on the roof.
“It’s not him,” she said, as the thing slammed onto the car again. “He doesn’t have weight, he’s holding something—”
Terrible’s right arm shot out and hit her chest, knocking the wind out of her. He slammed on the brakes. The heavy nose of the car angled down, the rear rising. Rubber howled against cement. Ereshdiran flew forward, dropping the stone he’d been beating the car with. It rolled off to the side. Terrible threw the car back into first and slammed the gas so hard the engine shrieked.
“No, you can’t—”
They hit Ereshdiran, drove right through him. For a second, ice filled her body, filled her mind, making her scream again. The sensation ended before the sound had a chance to hit the air.
The Dreamthief came back, pouring himself into the car, his chilling fingers slithering over her skin. Terrible gasped; she looked over to see the shard of mirror in his arm twisting, disappearing into his flesh. His fingers convulsed on the wheel but the car did not slow down, did not waver.
She lifted the amulet, shouted the Banishing words. The thief winced but did not disappear. She shouted again, louder, using every bit of breath and power she had in her body. He wavered, the mirror slipping from his fingers as they grew transparent again.
One more time.
“Arcranda beliam dishager!”
It worked. Ereshdiran disappeared as the Chevelle swooped down the exit ramp, heading for the airport. The airport, and the end of it all. One way or another.

Chapter Thirty-five

“The Church is ever vigilant on your behalf, and this is fact.”

—
The Book of Truth
, Veraxis, Article 2

A crowd waited for them in the muddy parking lot. Bump in full regalia, complete with ragged cape. Some of his men, smoking cigarettes, standing tough in little groups like mine clusters. They all turned, hands automatically dropping to knife holsters at their waists when the headlights hit them, then relaxing again when they recognized the car.
“Ay, lookie be my ladybird.” Bump oozed toward the car as Chess got out, his shiny boots gleaming. “Ready do your witchy thing?”
She nodded, figuring if she pretended she was ready she eventually would be. Probably when it was all over.
“Benefit. Slipknot set up on yon fuckin field, yay? Terrible chatter me what you needing, on the earlier. All ready your fuckin thing, get done, we straight.”
“Right.” She guessed Terrible had called when she was in the Church; she hadn’t even thought to ask him if he’d arranged to have everything set up for her. Everything except what was in her bag, and in the trunk of his car. All of her equipment.
“So why the stand here? We fuckin move, yay?”
Again, she nodded. Her throat felt too constricted to push words through.
The walk through the fence, across the scattered chunks of runway, felt like a funeral pro cession. Which in a way she guessed it was. Slipknot, at least, would be set free—or at least, sent into a more comfortable prison. The rest of them…
Her phone buzzed at her hip. Lex again. He’d called a dozen times, left messages she hadn’t bothered to listen to. The men were walking ahead of her, their backs swaying gently as they picked their way through the rubble. She answered the phone.
“Tulip! Damn, thought maybe you was dead. Why you didn’t wait for me before?”
“I told you why. I couldn’t hear you very well, and—”
“Aye, check it. Need to talk to you, like now. Come meet me.”
“I can’t, I’m—”
“I know where you at, and I know what you up to. Gotta get some words in first. I’m at the far end of the runway, dig? Over the fence. By them houses. Get over here, we gotta get straight ere you do all you might think again on later.”
“I can’t,” she repeated. Terrible glanced back at her, and she lowered her voice. “This isn’t about—it’s not about what we talked about.”
“This about that thief, aye? Gotta talk to you, tulip. Don’t care how you fix it. You get here. I got some knowledge you need right.”
“Why can’t you just tell—” she started, but he’d already hung up. Shit.
Ahead of her, off to the left in the center of the field, Slipknot’s corpse made a pale splotch on a platform fashioned from rough wooden crates. Best to have him off the ground, make sure nothing interfered…They were almost there.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” It wasn’t a great excuse, but it was the only one she could think of that would be irrefutably believed and would give her some privacy. Being caught here with Lex would not be healthy at all.
“Ain’t it wait?” Bump looked her up and down, as if trying to assess how badly she needed to go. And of course, she realized she kind of did need to go, which worked out wonderfully. Now she’d have to talk to Lex and not go, which meant she would still have to when she got back, unless she wanted to take the time to both talk to Lex
and
go, in which case they would wonder just what exactly she was doing.
“No. It can’t wait.”
He nodded. “Terrible, go with she ladybird, keep your eyes on right.”
Terrible shook his head. “Give her some private, Bump. C’mon. She ain’t gonna run, not with that thing after her, aye?”
Guilt worked its way into her bones, so deep it almost hurt. “I’ll be right back.”
“I gots men all over that fuckin edge, yay? Tell they I say let you be.”
She nodded and headed for the far edge, trying to move quickly enough that it looked like she needed to get there but not so quickly that it looked as if she was about to wet her pants. Her face burned.
Pitted metal cut into her hands, especially her wounded right one. An added bonus, rust working into her burn. She grabbed her water bottle when she got over the fence and poured some onto her palm, but it was too dark to know if it really helped. Nothing to do but forget it and get on with the job.
For a minute she stood, looking uncertainly around, aware that in removing herself from the sight of Terrible and Bump she’d also made herself vulnerable. If Lex’s plan to keep the airport from reopening included kidnapping her—again—she’d just handed herself to him on a shiny tray of deceit.
No sound but the dry wind hit her ears. The houses were dark, abandoned-looking in the pale washed-out glow of the moon. Their inhabitants were probably asleep. A trickle of sweat ran down her spine. They were asleep, all of them. She could almost feel them sleeping, turning fitfully in their rumpled, damp beds, their dreams being converted to energy for the thing she was about to fight. Alone.
Lex grabbed her hand. She jumped and swung automatically, but he ducked. His soft laugh caressed her skin. “Jumpy, tulip?”
“What do you want, Lex? This isn’t really a good time.”
“Oh?” His hands settled on her waist, fingers curving to draw her close. In spite of herself she shivered, closing her eyes at the feel of his teeth scraping the base of her throat. “Feels like a good time to me.”
With effort she pulled away. “No, it’s not. I had to tell them I needed to go to the bathroom, they’ll be waiting for me. So talk fast.”
“Aye, right. You ain’t forget our agreement, I hope.”
“No, I didn’t forget. This isn’t about the ghosts. It’s about the thief, and he could show up again any minute, so—”
“Bump gonna be expecting you finish the job. What you gonna tell him, he ask?”
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“Maybe I do. A little.”
“You said you had some information for me.”
He watched her for a minute, his expression blank. “Aye, got some right. Been doing some looking on my own, tulip. Keeping my ear down, aye? Had people here today, my people, seen them Lamarus. And they
know
, dig? What’s on the happening.”
“They’ve known all along, those guys who broke in and—”
“Nay, nay. Ain’t what I mean. They know you, where you live, aye. But they know what’s going down here. They know you charging it off tonight. Gonna be some shit here, so get it done, get out clean. Head for the tunnel, I catch you there.”
“Why?”
“Huh?”
“Why? What if I do end up Banishing those ghosts tonight, what then? Will you still be waiting for me, or what? What are you going to do to me?”
Even in the dim moonlight she could see his smile. “Aw, tulip. Seems to me you oughta know by now what I do. Thought you got pretty familiar with it.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Only willpower kept her voice from getting shaky.
He kissed her, still holding her hips close enough that she had to lean back. Her already shaky nerves went into overload, speed and adrenaline and lust combining to make her knees weak, and she clung to him in a way that would have embarrassed her if she hadn’t been so desperate to pretend none of this was happening.
“I got belief in you,” he said finally. “You ain’t stupid. You figure something out.”
“That’s a big help.”
“You forgetting, I ain’t a helpful guy.”
She snorted and turned back toward the fence. In another minute they would send someone to look for her, if they hadn’t already. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Okay.” She dropped her bag on the ground next to Slipknot’s foul remains and planted her hands on her hips. Her head grew lighter, but she forced herself to ignore it. She could not mess this up. It was her life on the line now, in more ways than one. “It’s extremely important that no one goes to sleep. What we’re dealing with…he feeds on sleep, or he can. He can make you tired. So whatever you need to do to stay awake, do it.”
They nodded, good little soldiers one and all, with the exception of Bump and Terrible. Bump stood apart from it all, the diamonds on his fingers throwing off moonlight sparks. And Terrible…He just watched, waiting, the tension in his body evident.
“Also, I think the people who did this to start with may be here tonight. Might show up, I mean. Nothing can break my circle. If that circle breaks once I’ve gotten started we’ve got a problem, and I mean a real problem. So you guys have to keep everyone away from it, okay? Come over here, please, I want to mark you all first. It might help.”
It only took a few minutes to finish scrawling sigils on their foreheads with the new piece of black chalk she’d bought that afternoon. When she was done they looked like members of a bizarre chorus line. She half expected them to start dancing.
“Spread you out, keep watch,” Bump said. “Let ladybird do she fuckin work. You sleep, you die, yay? No fuckin sleeping.”
Grass rustled under their feet as they moved, but Chess didn’t watch. Feeling like a floor show, she checked her compass, knelt and set up her stang holder, put her other odds and ends at its base while she marked off a septagram with her feet and placed a candle at each point. The septagram would provide extra energy, extra protection; she’d only used one once before, but it was part of the established Church curriculum. A few Debunkers used them every time.
Wind lifted her hair from her shoulders as she finished and looked around, half expecting to see Ereshdiran’s pink teeth bared at her. Instead she saw only blank ground, only the backs of Bump’s men as they kept watch like they’d been told.
And Terrible. She threw him a quick smile, and he nodded back. Working now, no time for such frivolities as being pleasant. Or he was simply nervous. Having faced the Dreamthief, having seen Randy’s body and felt the house shake, he knew far better than the others what they were up against. And that didn’t even take into account the unknown number of Lamaru who might show up at any moment, ready for battle.
Not her concern. At least not if she was lucky. Only a dozen or so men stood between her and whoever might show up, but they were certainly tough enough.
With the chalk she drew more sigils on her forehead and cheeks, coloring the final lines on some of her tattoos to activate them. She’d never marked up this much before.
Her new skull came out next, then the cauldron and charcoal, which she lit with a wooden match. It would burn, then smoke out so she could add the herbs.
A few more minutes and she was ready, the herbs and various other accoutrements lined up in their pouches next to the cauldron, the amulet in her pocket ready to be pulled out when needed. If not for the extra candles and the iron firedish, it would have looked almost like she was setting up a regular ritual. Thank the Church for training her so thoroughly, and thank magic itself for having rules. Once you knew the rules thoroughly enough you could manipulate them and get whatever results you needed.
One more step. She washed a couple of Cepts down with water and, bending over deep in a semi fruitful attempt to block the wind, did two more bumps.
“Terrible? Could you come here?”
He did, silent across the grass. She handed him the speed. “You might want more of this. Just to be safe.”
“He ain’t shown up yet. Think he off putting people to sleep?”
“Yeah, I think maybe he is.”
His eyes flickered over her little altar setup. “Everything ready?”
“Looks like it. I’m going to cast the circle now, light the candles, and then hopefully we’ll get this over with.”
“Not hopeful, aye? It will get over.”
She bit her lip. “If…if something goes wrong and I don’t make it, you need to go to Doyle. He might be an egotistical shitbag as a human being but he’s good at his job. He knows some other guys who’ve seen the thief, maybe they can get the Church to act, but either way they’ll finish it. Only do me a favor. Don’t—don’t tell him how I got involved. About Bump, I mean.”
He didn’t try to talk her out of her fears, or discount them. Just gave her his eyes, nodded. “He don’t need to have knowledge about you. Ain’t his business.”
“And my apartment. There’s…there’s some stuff there, the Church would take possession of everything.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks.”
“Listen, Chess.” He shifted on his feet, shoved his hands in his pockets. “I been thinking—”
Shouts from the far corner cut him off, Bump’s men. Chess leapt to her feet, craning her neck to see as Terrible spun away from her to take back his place. Guarding her, the last line of defense. If he…if he fell, so would she.
The Lamaru had arrived. Time to get started.