Sacrificial Magic (20 page)

Terrible pushed her down, ducked again. Her hair stirred; whatever it was, it had passed not far from her bowed head. It was aiming for her again.

Aiming, but not approaching. It must have known what she carried, that if it got too close she could end the miserable game it was playing.

Enough of this shit. She jumped out from behind Terrible, flung the handful of herbs and dirt at the ghost.

And missed.

Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. The ghost’s smile grew even more triumphant. Terrible’s dagger brushed against its head, creating a smudge. It stepped back, threw a piece of grate—and disappeared.

They stood there, watching the air where it had been. Its weapons had fallen; Terrible ducked forward to grab them up, crossed the doorway to stand in the corner where the stockpile was. Or rather, where it had been. Hardly anything littered the floor there. No wonder the ghost had finally run.

Chess’s arms and chest under her ink still felt as if someone had given them a sandpaper massage, but less than they had just a minute before. No longer screaming, as though her skin was trying to jump off her body and hide. The magic was gone; whatever spell had been working was finished. The energy faded like the sound of a passing train receding in the distance.

“She still here?” His voice quiet again, calming her.

“I don’t think so. It’s fading. The spell, I mean, the magic. And if someone summoned her, then yeah, she might disappear when the spell ends. It depends on how strong the witch is, you know?”

They started walking back to the stairway. “Summoning ghosts … that’s not easy to do, and it requires a lot of energy.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.”

They rounded the final corner, back into the wide expanse of the cafeteria. “So now what? You gotta know who summoned it, or just its name? The ghost name, meaning.”

“I already know.” She didn’t even bother trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Damn it. “Her name is Lucy McShane. She was a student here when the school first opened. She killed herself in the theater.”

They started toward the stairwell, picking up pipes and scraps of twisted catwalk as they went to return it to the theater. The last thing Chess wanted to do was leave evidence that someone had been in the school that night.

“How’d she do it?”

“Threw herself off this,” she said, waving a piece of steel. “The catwalk in the theater.”

He shook his head. “Fuckin drop, aye?”

“Far enough, yeah.” She thought about it, that vertiginous second looking down at the floor so far below. “Far enough.”

He plucked off most of her metal pile as they hit the stairs, added it to his own. She was glad, too, even though his hand brushed against her breast when he did and sent another sharp stab of desire through her, so hard it almost hurt.

They started up the stairs in silence.

“Good thing you ain’t done it,” he said. Casually, like it didn’t matter. “Glad you ain’t, meaning.” His gaze focused on the landing, looking straight ahead. Not at her. Giving her privacy.

She hesitated. No point in asking how he knew she’d thought of it when she was younger, before she’d joined the Church. There had been days when suicide was all she could think about, when it was a secret dream she’d clutched to herself, the ultimate escape. And the only reason she’d never done it was that if she failed, she’d be in even bigger trouble.

It didn’t surprise her that he knew that, either. He would. She kept her voice just as casual. “Did you ever think about it?”

“Naw.” Now he did glance at her, fast but enough that she saw it, felt it. “Weren’t me I wanted dead. Only all them others, aye?”

“Do you still?”

He shrugged. “Don’t give a fuck neitherway, most of em.”

A window at the landing showed her a glimpse of the empty field outside as they rounded it and started up the next level. It looked dead out there, cold and still under
the mottled sky. She wanted to point it out to him, to say something about it. She wished their arms weren’t full so she could touch him.

He cleared his throat. “We get this dropped off, get us home, aye? Ain’t likin the thought some other witch in here. Feels like bein watched.”

Relief. “We probably should, yeah, and come back tomorrow night.”

“This give you the help? The knowledge somebody doin magic there, callin the ghost. Make a difference?”

“Yeah, but—shit. It just sucks, is all. I won’t get a full bonus on this one. When ghosts are summoned the Church doesn’t have to pay a settlement, but it’s not an actual Debunking, either.”

His eyes fastened on her, waiting for her to continue. When she didn’t, he said, “Ain’t needing the lashers, aye? Causen I got—”

“No, no, I’m fine, I have money, I just … it’s depressing to lose, you know? I don’t like it.”

He smiled, and even in the middle of her misery, in the furious tangle of her mind, she was able to see it, feel it all the way down to her toes. “Oh, aye? Never would guess that one.”

Her smile couldn’t compete with his, but hey, at least she was able to make the attempt. “Yeah, I guess that’s not really a secret, is it?”

“Ain’t to me.”

Her arms ached. “Let’s drop this stuff off now, huh?”

They passed into the theater, headed across the back to the booth and then down the stairs toward the stage. Damn it. What a fucking night, what a fucking waste. She’d managed to set up one camera, discover she wouldn’t earn her full bonus, and get injured. Whoopee. She could have spent the last two hours in bed with Terrible, bursting into flame again and again. Feeling secure for the first time in days.

“Got any thought why she? That ghost, meaning. Still around causen she kill herself, or aught else?”

She thought about it for a second, setting her metal down—finally—by the catwalk’s wreckage. Oh, that felt good. She flexed her hands, turned her wrists to try to wake her skin back up. “It could be any reason, really. The spell felt like two people, but I think one of them was her. Lucy. So it was a man doing the summoning, at least I think so. And whoever he is, I guess he wanted her.”

A clatter of metal as he dropped his pile. “That why the ghost ain’t come after us at the start? Like we wasn’t even there, aye?”

“Probably. That implies a really close relationship between the summoner and the ghost, you know? Like a Binding or something. Communication.”

He nodded.

The stage rose a few short steps above the theater floor. She switched on her flashlight as she climbed up them, turned to give the light to him. As she did, the beam caught his face. “Hey!”

“What?”

Across the base of his neck on his left side a dark red line marked his skin, just above the tattoo there. She reached out and touched it.

“Aw, got me with a pipe, ’sall. Don’t even hurt.”

Sure it didn’t. He could lie all he wanted but that had to fucking hurt; being hit in the neck wasn’t fun, as she knew from experience.

The top few buttons of his bowling shirt were still undone, so she could pull the collar away, hook her finger into the neck of the white T-shirt he wore under it, and pull that aside, too.

“Ain’t worry on it. No problem, aye?”

She’d never done this before. Never really seen it done outside of a movie or something. Certainly no one had
ever done it for her, not seriously. Lex didn’t count; he didn’t tend to be area-specific enough.

Terrible was probably going to think she was an idiot for doing it, too, but she wanted to try it anyway. That skin looked so raw, so insulted, and it was soft and defenseless. It was her fault he’d been hurt, and he’d been hurt trying to protect her. And it seemed like … well, it seemed like something people did, right?

“C’mon, let’s get us—”

“Us” almost echoed in the warm still air around them as she pressed her lips to the beginning of what she knew would soon be an ugly bruise. She loved his neck, especially that part, loved the way he reacted when she sucked on it. No sucking this time, of course, but the smell of his skin, that soapy-smoky-bay-rum-pomade smell, still made her tingle.

His hands warmed her even more, fingers curled tight at her waist. He swallowed. “What you doin?”

He’d probably laugh, or think she was a total dork, but she said it anyway. “I’m kissing it better.”

She kept going, moving slowly from one end of the bruise-to-be toward the other, making sure she got every bit of it. Wouldn’t do to miss a spot. Just the feel of him under her lips, the taste of him, made her dizzy. Overwhelmed. She could keep going, she could kiss his earlobe, down his chest—

“Chess.”

“Yeah?”

His left hand curled into her hair, gathered it, and twisted it. Tugged it to pull her away. “Think it’s all better now.”

The words were a handful of dirt tossed onto the burgeoning fire inside her. Shit, she knew it. What a dorky fucking thing to do. “Oh. Right. Um, sorry, I just—”

His mouth on hers, the kind of insistent kiss she knew well. The kind that made her blood race through her
veins until it found a good place to stop, the kind that made her clutch at him harder than she meant to.

The kind she felt sometimes when he wasn’t even there, because she’d thought of him, his hands touching her head, her face, sliding over every inch of her body, and no matter where she was her stomach leapt and her muscles tightened.

Just like they were doing at that moment. He kissed her deeper, harder, as he took her hand in his and turned it, guiding it down past his belt so she could feel how hard he was. How the hell was she supposed to breathe when he did that?

The theater floor was cement. Probably not very comfortable.

“My car,” she managed. Harder to talk when his fingers caressed the back of her neck. Harder to talk when his right hand slid over her bottom, yanked her tight against him, heat seeping through her shirt.

Both hands at her hips now, down to her thighs so he could pick her up and climb the remaining stairs, stopping to kiss her again when he reached the stage. The car seemed too far away, they’d never reach it, the top of her head was going to blow the hell off if—

“Well, well, well. So it
is
true.”

Chess pulled away from him, fast. Lucky his reflexes were fast, too, or she would have fallen on her ass on the stage.

Right in front of Beulah, who stood next to the booth at the top of the rows of seats. Chess couldn’t make out her expression, but she’d have bet money the woman was grinning.

Terrible set Chess down on her unsteady feet; they both turned to face Beulah. Out of the corner of her eye Chess saw him reach around to grab the handle of his knife under his shirts. Just in case.

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him not to worry, but that was bullshit, wasn’t it? Obviously they needed to worry. What the hell was Beulah doing there in the middle of the night?

And what the hell was “So it
is
true” supposed to mean?

Beulah hadn’t spoken again, and Chess was not about to speak first. Not when she was already pretty much as powerless as she could be in this situation. She couldn’t even tell Beulah to get out because her presence interfered with some made-up magic thing Chess could pretend to be doing; however much Beulah had seen, she sure as hell knew it wasn’t related to the school or the investigation.

“Cat got your tongue? Or I guess it wouldn’t be the cat, huh.” Beulah started down the steps toward the stage, slowly, then stumbled when Chess lifted the flashlight so the beam caught her full in the face. “Ow, shit! Turn that thing off. What the hell are you trying to do, kill me?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Beulah had reached the foot of the stairs. Terrible’s arm tightened against Chess, ready to pull the knife; Chess slid her own hand into her pocket, curled her fingers around hers. She wouldn’t really be able to use it but it made her feel better, like a talisman.

Beulah sighed. Damn, she was good at that. She managed to convey irritation, exhaustion, condescension, pity—all in one exhale. That took skill. “Cut it out. I’m not going to attack you.”

“Why are you here?”

“Why shouldn’t I be here? I work here.”

“A couple of days a week.”

“Sometimes more.” Beulah lowered herself into one of the chairs in the first row, her legs crossed tidily at the ankle. She wore snug black jeans and a pair of shiny black ballet flats, a black V-neck sweater with just the right amount of drape. How the hell could she afford that wardrobe? Even Chess could see that shit was expensive, and the nicest item of clothing she’d ever owned was the Church ceremony dress that had cost her forty bucks.

More to the point, there was the fact that it was all black. Just the right color to blend into shadows, especially in vast dark rooms, in unfamiliar places. “What are you doing here?”

“Not what you were doing, obviously, but—”

“Come on.”

“Oh, lighten up. Someone heard noises outside. They called me, and I found the side doors unlocked. You really shouldn’t leave those open like that, you know.”

Chess glanced at Terrible. He was still staring at Beulah—glaring at her—with the kind of intensity with which hawks tracked mice. Dislike sat in the faint downward twist of his mouth, subtle but there.