Finding Magic (downside ghosts) (10 page)

Right. Because sneaking shots was so much better and stronger. For fuck’s sake, who was she kidding?

Mark shook the bag at her. “Take one. Go ahead.”

So much for her clever trap, for trying to gain his confidence. She hadn’t done anything except show him she had a weakness, give him an intro so he could drug her. Make her more pliable, just like all those other shitheads had done.

“Go on.” He shook the bag again. His voice hardened.
“Take one.”

She pretended she hadn’t noticed his tone, didn’t know what he was trying to do. “Hey, thanks. Um, can I give Jillian one? I bet she could use it.” She forced a mean snicker.

He echoed it. “Go ahead. There’s plenty.”

What if she didn’t actually swallow it? She could probably fake it. Palm it and tuck it into her pocket, drop it onto the floor between the door and the seat where he might not look.

Yeah, he might check, he might look for it. That didn’t mean she couldn’t try. She
should
try.

But she didn’t. She didn’t. Instead she popped that pill into her mouth and dry-swallowed it. Instead she let her eyes close for a second in anticipation, because even though it had been a few years, she still remembered, still knew what was coming, and found herself waiting for it, eager for it, her entire body tense like she was on the brink of an orgasm. The best orgasm, because it would last. It wouldn’t disappear in thirty seconds and leave her alone and stuck inside her own head again.

She didn’t give Jillian the choice, though. She shoved the pill into Jillian’s mouth, ignoring the look in her eyes, and turned away as soon as Jillian swallowed. Maybe Jillian was faking it. Chess hoped not. She didn’t really want Jillian paying attention to what she was saying, what she was doing.

Mark chuckled, an oily, disgusting sound. “Just wait until that kicks in, Princess.”

“I’m not a princess.”

“Oh?” He glanced at her, his face pale in the dashboard’s glow. “Seems to me like you are. Training with the Church, sticking your nose in the air. I bet you think you’re better than me, don’t you? I bet you have a mommy and daddy who worship the ground your precious little feet walk on.”

Not only was he gross and a murderer, he was a fucking lousy judge of character. Was it better to tell him that or to let him go on thinking he’d figured her out?

She only had a second to decide. No. Tell him the truth. Try to form some kind of bond with him. Get him to let his guard down. “I don’t have any family. They—well, my mother, I guess—abandoned me when I was born, before Haunted Week. I was a baby. They found me outside a hospital.”

He steered the van onto the exit ramp at Carter Avenue. They’d passed the Downside exits; where was he—? Oh shit. The Church. He was heading for Church headquarters, and as he did he glared at her so hard it felt like a slap. “Don’t lie to me, like you think it’s going to gain my trust. They don’t let people without families work for the Church. They don’t let trash work for them.”

“I’m not lying, I—”

Stupid. She shouldn’t have tried to argue. “You
are
lying. I know you’re lying. I passed their fucking tests, and they didn’t let me in. They didn’t let me in because my parents died, because I lived at the Mission. So I know.”

That wasn’t why they hadn’t let him in, or at least she guessed it wasn’t. Something told her that what had kept him out of Church training was the fact that he’d almost certainly murdered his parents and that he was basically a psycho.

But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he believed it. So she’d have to play along, even though the words felt like vomit in her mouth—because they were lies, and because they weren’t. “That doesn’t surprise me. I mean, you should see some of the games that go on there, the way people backstab and everything, pretending they like you and then ripping you up in front of the Elders … they really just don’t care, you know.”

Maybe he’d have to stop at a red light, maybe she could jump—no. No, he’d probably just run them all, and even if he was dumb enough to stop, and even if she could get out without being shot, she couldn’t leave Jillian and with Jillian dragging her down she wouldn’t get far.

“But you still do it,” Mark said. “You’re still playing their game. That makes you just as bad.”

Another decision to make, and no time to make it. She took the plunge; she needed to divert the conversation away from herself and back onto him, and she needed to try to win him over, make him see her as different from the others at the Church. As someone harmless.

“I didn’t think I had a choice.” Deep breath. “And then I felt—I found the sex spell you made for the Warings and I, I was curious about you, and I looked you up. Well, Jillian didn’t want me to, but I convinced her it was for the case. But really it was because I—you felt like me, like how I feel. And your spell was so strong. You’re so … powerful.”

Would he buy that? It sounded like the biggest pile of bullshit on the planet—probably because it was—and it made her skin crawl just to say it, but he was a man. And she was a passably pretty young girl; not as busty and curvy as some, not as pretty as some, but pretty enough. She’d never had any trouble finding men willing to spend a few hours with her, at least, and those were men her age. Mark was abut forty, and had a hell of an ego, judging by his comments to Tracy Ross and the fact that he thought he was pulling some clever plan over on the Church.

Middle-aged egotists had a special weakness for flattery from pretty girls just over the jailbait line. And Chess definitely qualified there. Any normal guy probably wouldn’t have bought it, but Mark did. Thank fuck. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but if she could get him into a physically compromising position, get him vulnerable … she could hurt him. And she could escape.

She’d done it before.

“You found that, huh?”

“I didn’t know why you weren’t in the Church. I mean, you’re certainly strong enough.” She started to add
And smart enough
, then thought better of it. Wouldn’t do to lay it on too thick. “But then I realized it was because they didn’t deserve you. They just use people. Like they tried to use me, throwing me into the Rosses’ house tonight when I’m not even marked. I mean, I’m like cannon fodder for someone who can control ghosts like you can, and Jillian didn’t even try to protect me.”

If he believed that shit, he was an enormous idiot. But he would believe it. Because he wanted to.

Then—
oh, shit
—he turned into the Church parking lot, and her stomach started to tingle. That old familiar tingle, that sweet slow slide of pleasure deep in her belly, of something warm and delightful building there. It was happening, the Cept was hitting; she wasn’t quite smiling yet, but she would be soon.

She glanced at Jillian; was she even awake? Didn’t look like it. Good.

Mark nosed the van into a spot right outside the huge double doors. The lot was empty: not even any Squad vans parked off to the side, not even any Squad sedans sitting in their spaces. No one there.

Of course. Of course they weren’t there. There’d been an explosion, hadn’t there? A house with two Church employees inside. Everyone would be there.

Maybe Mark wasn’t quite so stupid.

J
illian was even harder to drag when Chess’s muscles felt soft and liquidy in her body, but she managed it. Just like she could manage anything else, everything else, because false cheer spread itself through her system like cool water rinsing her clean, and it felt so fucking good. Like how the booze made her feel, but more awake. More capable, more ready. Like she was in control.

And she would be. She was going to be.

They made their way across the patio where the 1997 Haunted Week Memorial stood, past the empty patch of dirt and the stocks waiting to be filled with penitents, and stopped just before the doors.

Mark nodded toward Jillian, still slumping bonelessly over Chess’s shoulder, her weight dragging Chess’s right side down.

“Wake her up.”

Easier said than done. Jillian looked half dead, her barely-open eyes glazed. How much blood had she lost? Or was the Cept kicking in and she was just a lightweight? Or both? Chess didn’t think a gunshot in the shin was enough to kill someone, but how would she know, really? Mercifully, being shot was one of the few things that had never happened to her, and all of the shooting victims she’d seen … well, their assailants hadn’t been fucking around. They’d shot to kill, and they’d succeeded.

Even those images didn’t bother her much at the moment, not when with every second her blood pumped a little slower, a little thicker, and a pleasant kind of light blossomed in her mind. Not a fog; not like what the shots did. Her thoughts didn’t seem any slower or really less sharp. Her head felt clearer. Like she could focus, because she was managing to tunnel-vision away all the shit.

That probably wasn’t a good thing, either, and if she shouldn’t be drinking while working she sure as fuck shouldn’t be dosing. But she didn’t care about that very much at the moment, either. She felt good, really good, and she couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Jillian moaned when Chess jiggled her, poked her to try to wake her up. “Wh—what … leave me ’lone.”

“The key,” Mark said. “Give me the key.”

Jillian stared at him.

“The key.” He still had the gun; he lifted it and aimed it down, presumably at Jillian’s other shin. “Give me the key.”

It took a few minutes of fumbling, but Jillian found it. The jingling of her key ring seemed so loud, like anyone would be able to hear it for miles.

Mark opened the doors, ushered them both inside and toward the stairs. “No lights. Come on.”

She followed him, struggling under Jillian’s weight up the stairs. Why was he heading up there, anyway? The only thing of use there that Jillian’s key could access was the library, really; the Grand Elder’s office was up there, too, but she doubted they gave even Black Squad members free entry to that particular room. Or the Triumvirate’s offices, or any of the other administrative rooms.

For that matter, why had he made them come along if all he needed was the key? He could have just taken that from her. So … oh, duh. Of course. The computers. He wanted to access the files.

Sure enough, he sat down at one of the computers and started clicking keys. “Give me the login.”

“I don’t know it,” Chess said. Maybe it was another chance. “They wouldn’t tell me. She wouldn’t even let me watch as she typed it in.”

He made a little “hmph” sort of sound, but no other reply, and grabbed Jillian to shove her into the chair. “Log me in. Use your login, not some bullshit training one.”

While Jillian’s clumsy fingers stabbed at the keys, Chess looked around. There was a second entrance to the library, one that led to the back stairs by the elevator banks. She might be able to run for it, to—No. No, because getting out of the building wouldn’t help much, and because she didn’t want to leave him there alone to do whatever it was he wanted to do without even anyone keeping track.

So what else? Yes, the room was full of heavy books, but most of those wouldn’t be very effective as weapons, really.

The Restricted Room had some stuff she might be able to use—she pictured herself smashing Mark over the head with the smiling golden Buddha in the corner—but to get in there required a key, and Mark had the keys.

Shit.

She edged over to see what Mark was doing in the system. Of course. Checking his own file. Checking the notes on his file. Hey, that was a lot more information than Chess had been able to see—which made sense, didn’t it, because Jillian was an actual Inquisitor and Chess had only been under the training login.

She managed to catch a few glimpses over his shoulder, mentions of attitude and paranoia. Maybe someone had sat down and discussed Mark the way Jillian had discussed her with Elder Griffin. Maybe they’d talked about how he wasn’t a team player and he was standoffish and made enemies easily.

Whether they had or not, Mark didn’t seem very pleased by what he read. “Assholes. Snobs.”

He pulled something out of his pocket—it looked like a flash drive—and turned to Jillian. “How do I change things? How do I change the system?”

“What?” Jillian had been dozing off; at his questions she jerked upright and blinked. “What—what do you want to do?”

“You gave me the file password. I want the system password, to get in and change things. And I want to log in to your email.”

Chess waited for Jillian to object. Jillian didn’t. She just clicked more keys with that dumbass spacy smile plastered across her face. Chess really, really wanted to believe that Jillian was faking it, that while Chess worked the
Hey, man, I’m just like you and we can be cool pals together united against the Man
angle, Jillian was working on some sort of sneak attack. But every second that went by convinced her more and more that that wasn’t the case, and it made her sick. She really was going to have to figure this out on her own.

Fast, because she knew without a doubt that he’d kill her when he was done, kill Jillian, too. Why leave them alive when he hadn’t done so for the Rosses—or the Warings, or, hell, his own parents? No, the way he looked at her, the way he waved that gun around and the cold fire in his eyes, told her exactly what he was planning. She had about five more minutes to live.

And she had no usable weapons, no way to escape. No way to beat him; he had the gun, he had the power. All the power.

Fuck, she was sick of it. Sick of people thinking they could just control her, use her. Sick of being the weak one, the powerless one, the one who just had to take whatever shit was handed to her, whatever shit was done to her, because she had nothing of her own to beat them with. Sick of being who she was, and even though the pill meant she didn’t feel that as much—was able to block it, hide it—she was still fucking sick of it, and weariness and rage rose in her chest. She’d thought … she’d thought working for the Church would give her something, some kind of power of her own, and here she was still at the mercy of some sick fuck with a weapon.

Her chest hurt. Her throat hurt. It was happening again—she was nothing. She was no one. Even the Church couldn’t change that, and every bit of work she’d done over the last three years, every bit of work she’d done on this case, only put her right at the front of the use-me line. And she couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t help herself. The Church couldn’t help her. Even the magic she’d been learning to use couldn’t help her, the knowledge she’d gained in training—

Or could it?

No, she couldn’t beat Mark. Jillian couldn’t do it, not in her condition. And no one was showing up who could help her.

But there was something that could help her. Something—some
things—
that could beat Mark easily, overwhelm him.

Of course, they could do the same for her. Probably would. But that didn’t matter so much, not just then. What mattered was that whatever Mark was trying to do, it wasn’t something she should allow. No, she was still who she was, still a failure and a weakling and someone who didn’t deserve to be happy. But the Church had tried. It had tried to do something for her, to make her something, and if she’d fucked up the opportunity it wasn’t their fault. It was hers. Just like everything else.

The thought of the City terrified her. But the thought of a world where no living people survived was even worse. And the thought of standing there and letting the people who’d tried to help her, who’d given her a chance, be beaten and destroyed?

No. No way.

So
fuck
Mark. Fuck him and his plan, fuck him and his idea that she was nothing, just a tool for him to use.

Besides, he was going to kill her anyway. She might as well try to make that death mean something, accomplish something. Maybe if she did it would prove that somewhere inside her there really was something good.

Maybe.

She licked her lips; her mouth was so dry. “Why are you bothering with the computers?”

“What?” He glanced up at her, annoyance all over his face, like how dare she interrupt the genius at work. “What the fuck do you know?”

“I was just wondering. Messing with the computers isn’t going to do anything, it’s not going to hurt the Church. Everything is backed up in a different system. They’ll just restore everything tomorrow.”

“They won’t be able to. This is going to fry all the hard drives.”

“But only of those computers. Or of people who open the email. That’s only here in Triumph City, I mean, none of the other offices in other cities will be affected, right?”

“It’s a multiplying virus.” He still looked annoyed, yes, but he was beginning to look doubtful. Good. Better than good.

She pushed harder. “But still, that’s only going to affect them here, in-house. Nobody’s ever going to find out about it, I mean, it’s not going to really hurt them. Trust me, I’ve learned a few things about them since I got here. There’s really only one place where they’re vulnerable.”

“Where?”

Okay. Throw it out there. “The City.”

His brow furrowed. “How is that going to—”

“Open it up. Let them out.”

“And be killed? No thanks.”

“Why would you be killed?” She widened her eyes, tried to look stunned at the very idea. “You can control them. Church employees go down there safely every day, and you’re stronger than most of us are. Look how you controlled the ghosts you summoned. They didn’t attack you.”

“That was only three of them.”

She shrugged. “Hey, if you don’t think you’re good enough, that’s fine. I just thought you really wanted to get back at them. At all of them—not just the Church but everyone.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think I just want to hurt people.”

“No! No, not at all. But come on. You know how mean people can be. How disrespectful. Isn’t it about time they all see how strong you really are? That while they’ve been discounting you, you’ve been more powerful and smarter than any of them?”

It hurt to say it. It hurt to realize how shitty that sounded, how much she knew he was thinking exactly that because she’d thought it. Because she’d thought, when she started training, that this would be her chance to show every person who’d ever hurt her that she could survive, that she could make something of herself far beyond anything they’d ever managed.

If she’d believed that, and if Mark believed it … just how fucking different was she from him? And he was scum. So what did that say about her?

“I
am
more powerful than they are. I am. I don’t need to prove it.”

“But if you don’t, how will they know?”

He hesitated. Time to turn the screw.

She shrugged again, looked away. Indifferent. “Hey, if you don’t think you can do it, that’s fine. Just put in your computer virus and be done with it. I just think it’d be better to really make them pay, really show them what a mistake they made, is all.”

He stood up. Had the gun’s barrel widened, because it sure as hell looked bigger than it had before. Or maybe it was just the anger on his face making it so much more threatening. “I can do it. Don’t tell me I can’t do it. You have no idea what I can do, you little bitch.”

She met his gaze with her own, willing her muscles not to twitch, her voice not to shake. “I know you can. So why not do it? Instead of just talking.”

Mark got up. He grabbed Jillian, shoved her at Chess, and started hustling them both across the room. Toward the other exit. She’d done it.

What else she could do, what else she might be able to accomplish … that was another story.

Down the metal staircase, across the empty floor. Past the lockers where Church employees put their clothing and stuff; did he know about that? Did he know about the rules about taking foreign objects to the City, how dangerous it was?

She hoped not.

Jillian lifted her head. “Hey, can’t—s’posed to be naked, can’t—”

Chess dropped her. Jillian hit the floor in an ungainly heap; her yelp echoed around them.

Mark turned back. “What the hell?”

“Sorry, she’s just so heavy.”

He shook his head and pushed the button for the elevator. It was waiting for them; the doors opened instantly. Chess got in, trailing Jillian like a spaced-out afterthought. This was it, then. Going to the City again, and this time alone. Or, not alone, but she might as well be. Alone with a psycho and a sleepwalker. And she had no idea if her vague plan was going to work, and even if it did, that was no guarantee she’d survive.

She wanted to talk during the six-minute ride down. She couldn’t think of a thing to say.

They hit the train platform; the cold fear in Chess’s throat intensified. She didn’t want to go back there, didn’t want to even step inside the City again. Didn’t want to die, and especially didn’t want to die there, where she’d have to stand looking at her own corpse until one of the Liaisers finally came down and discovered it. Didn’t want to be one of them, one of the mindless dead.

The train doors opened. They stepped inside. The cold iron, the pale blue light, the slow movement beneath them. Her heart pounded even through the syrupy happiness still weaving its way through her system; she didn’t think she could possibly be more grateful for that, either, because without it she’d probably be frozen in terror at the moment, probably wouldn’t be able to give Mark a conspiratorial smirk and say, “This is awesome. I can’t wait to see you at work.”