Sacrificial Magic (40 page)

But it only happened the first few times. After that … after that it was expected. Then it was anticipated. And after that … it was what she deserved.

Beulah didn’t know any of that, hadn’t dealt with that. Chess saw that surprise, that almost childlike hurt, lurking behind the physical pain, hiding so thoroughly she doubted Beulah even realized it was there.

Just the thought of it made her hand shake as she dug her pillbox from her bag and grabbed four of them. Shit, she’d forgotten to ask Lex if he could bring her more. Maybe she should just take two, hang on to the others … she had a dozen left, maybe she should ration them.

Fuck that. She didn’t need them in a few hours, she needed them now, and she could get more before she went home anyway. Four it was.

Time to move, too. She started gathering things up, her hip still aching, her left hand stinging. The blood flow was slowing but not— Fuck. Fuck fuck shit. The blood.

She pulled her sleeve down and folded her pinky over it, wrapped it up. Yes, it meant she lost the use of the hand completely for cleanup, but her blood already soaked the area like urine in a Downside alley and she couldn’t let any more fall. Not when all anyone—all Aros—needed was to get some of that. Not just witch’s blood,
her
blood, and all the uses it had as a weapon against her: Binding her power down, Binding herself to
him, shielding against her, some horrific curses—almost every bit of nasty magic she knew required blood, and the victim’s blood was always preferred.

Fuck again.

In her bag were tissues, bandages, and gauze. Should she ask Lex to help her? He seemed focused on Beulah—which she couldn’t blame him for, but which made her feel guilty for pulling him away.

Then again, maybe she’d feel less guilty if she actually behaved the way a normal human being would. “Beulah, are you okay?”

Beulah’s voice drifted out of her mouth, thin and reedy like it had been poured through a sieve. “I’m okay. She just, she got me in the eye, and it … it just really hurts.”

Pause. “Do you want to take something for that?”

A silent nod.

Chess dug out her pillbox, started talking to cover her discomfort. “So, Aros summoned Lucy. Aros is the one who’s committing the murders, the sacrifices. It’s him, and his magic is connected to the ghost, too.”

“How’d you get that?”

“Long story. Just trust me, it’s him, and he’s committing the murders to bring her back, because her cousin wants him to. I think she’s been drugging him. And that was the wrong dirt, Aros must have switched it in the Grave Supplies building, so it didn’t catch, it blew back at me.”

Lex nodded. “Had the wonder on that one, me. You got the right dirt, then? Get her sent on back the City, aye, we get the fuck outta here. Ain’t likin the feel of this, I ain’t. Not at all.”

“I’m not either,” she said, handing Beulah two Cepts and her water bottle. Six left. As soon as they walked out of the building she was going to ask Lex for more. “But … no, I don’t have the right dirt. I can’t Banish her. I mean, any other time I could Banish her with
generic dirt, but it wouldn’t be as strong and there would be a greater chance she could come back. The dirt isn’t to Banish so much as it is to seal the Banishing, you know?”

“Nay, I ain’t, but ’slong as you do I ain’t bothered neither.”

“Right. Anyway, the real problem is that when Aros summoned her he— Remember the ghost house? Kemp and Vanita and all that, how the building was turned into a safe house and the ghosts couldn’t be Banished from it?”

Lex looked around. “Shit, we gotta find us some dead cat or whatany? Why you witchy shit always so nasty, Tulip, dead hands and maggots and all like that?”

Her smile felt strange, there in the middle of the wreckage of her ritual, with an angry ghost pacing her circle and her blood drying all over the floor. “It isn’t always. It’s just you seem to get stuck dealing with black magic, and a lot of that is pretty intense. But this isn’t quite like that, no. That was the house holding them, making a spirit home. This is a totem Binding, at least I think so.”

He just looked at her, his eyes expectant. Right.

“Kemp and Vanita turned the house into, like, a safe house. The psychopomps couldn’t get into it. So it didn’t Bind the individual ghosts to something on earth, it just kept them safe as long as they were in the house, you know what I mean? If one of them had gone outside they could have been taken. But this is specific, this locks that specific ghost here, and I can’t break that without having whatever totem it is that Binds her.”

“Damn. Ain’t stupid, that witch ain’t.”

“No. Especially since I don’t think the totem is here. She’d be stronger if it was.”

He glanced at Beulah, who still looked dazed. Her tears had dried, though. Chess hoped that meant she
was feeling better. “Seems to me she plenty strong on the already.”

The skull beneath Lucy’s skin grinned its unfeeling smile as Lucy glared at them and paced around inside the salt circle.

“So you just gotta find them totem, get she sent all back, aye? And then we finished up.”

Just like Lex. Was there anything that didn’t seem perfectly simple to him? “Sure, except it could be anywhere in the city and we have no idea what it is.”

He shrugged. “So we get a look-on for Mr. Witch, make him give us the tell. Easy. You always seein the hard side, ain’t you? Sad, that is. Oughta be more along with the optimism.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that, Lex, I’ll work on it.” She rolled her eyes. But she smiled, too.

“Come on. I need to get this stuff packed up and get my blood off the floor, and we need to figure out what to do next. I need to make—” Right. “I need to make a couple of calls. But why don’t I have a little talk with Beulah first.”

Funny how eyes wet with tears almost always looked innocent, how people were hardwired somehow to feel sympathy at the sight of them. Funny too how that look of surprise Chess had noticed earlier, that wounded-soul look, wouldn’t quite leave her memory, even though she knew it shouldn’t make a difference.

At least she thought she did, and that was the problem. Her initial certainty that Beulah had been trying to kill her, that Beulah had been somehow involved with Aros, had faded. Not completely, but enough to make her question a little less … blunt than she’d originally intended.

“Beulah, is there something you want to tell me?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. She sounded like she suspected Beulah of having a crush on her or of borrowing her pen and forgetting to give it back. Worse, it alerted Beulah that something funny was happening.

“What? Like what? Oh. No, you know already. You were right.”

“What?” Shit, she hadn’t expected it to be that easy.

“Bernam. That’s his name. But I don’t think my father knows yet, about—Terrible, and the magic thing. I don’t think—”

She cut Beulah off. Shit again. She’d actually managed to forget that for half a minute, which was incredibly stupid and pretty much just proved that she shouldn’t be taking care of anyone, anywhere, ever. “No, not that. About— Fuck. What did you have for lunch today?”

“Huh?”

This was completely not working. “You brought me lunch today. Why didn’t you have the same thing I did? Where did you get the food?”

Beulah’s brow wrinkled. “I, um, I didn’t have the same thing because I just didn’t, that’s all. There wasn’t a lot left. And I got it from the table in the lounge where the rest of the food was, I got yours and then decided I was hungry so I got myself something. Why? Isn’t this kind of a weird time to ask about food? I don’t know the recipe or anything.”

“I do.” Chess reached into her bag, keeping one eye on Beulah while she dug around for the report Elder Lyle had given her. “I don’t know about anything else, but the main ingredient in my lunch was Vapezine. Enough to kill me. Enough to kill just about anyone.”

Beulah’s mouth fell open. Surprised, or surprised she got caught?

“Blue?” Confusion spread all over Lex’s face, and Chess was more relieved than she thought she’d be. She’d never honestly thought he would know about an attempt to kill her, much less approve, but it was still nice to see his genuine shock at the idea.

It was even nicer—way, way nicer—to feel her pills start to hit, like light spreading lazily through her entire body, like time slowing just a little. She managed not to smile, but only just.

Beulah looked as shocked as her brother. Too bad Chess couldn’t quite believe her, not even as she climbed higher every minute. Nor could she believe the surprise, the near-panic, in Beulah’s voice, no matter how much
she wanted to, and she kind of did. “I didn’t. I didn’t do any of that. Lex, I didn’t, I wouldn’t, you know I wouldn’t— Chess, I was trying to, I thought maybe— Fuck, I swear I didn’t do that.”

“Then who did? And why were you really here the night Jia was killed? Your father is working with Aros, and you could be, too. You were here that night, you could have set that up, come inside to keep me from going out to see what he was doing.”

Beulah didn’t argue. That more than anything made Chess think she might actually be innocent. People who had something to hide almost always denied it. “Someone thought they saw something and called me.”

So much for not lying or denying. “That night you said they
heard
something, not
saw
something.”

“What’s the difference?”

Chess stared at her.

Big sigh. “Fine. No, you’re right, nobody called me. Not about that, anyway. I was here because … Shit.”

Her gaze flicked to Lex, back at Chess. Why did she look so guilty? “I was supposed to meet someone here and he didn’t come, okay? He couldn’t make it at the last minute.”

“This is kind of a weird place for a date, isn’t it?”

Another glance at Lex, who hadn’t moved, watching the discussion with great interest. The color on Beulah’s other cheek began to match that of her injured one. “It wasn’t exactly a date. It was … we were just meeting here, that’s all.”

“Why would you meet here?” Chess thought she had some idea already, a small suspicion, but one growing every minute. Why would two people meet in an empty building at night for a not-date? Why would at least one of those people blush and apparently feel somewhat guilty for having that meeting?

Well, why had she usually met Lex at his place, and why had she felt guilty about it?

Sure enough, Beulah looked away from her, down at her hands folded in her lap. “He’s married.”

“Aw, Blue. Ain’t that fucking smell-smock again, that Theo, aye? After what he done on the last time? Shit.”

“That won’t happen again, it’s—it’s a different—”

Lex rolled his eyes. “Aye, got a certain it is. Just like on the last time, him keeping you backbenched near two fuckin years, an you cryin all over everywhere. And you ain’t even gave me the tell you was seeing him again, you ain’t, tryin to gimme the sneak.”

“For some stupid reason I thought you might not be pleased,” Beulah snapped. “I can’t imagine why I might have been worried about that.”

“Maybe you oughta get youself some worry on Theo, dig, quit letting him put he feet all over—”

“Guys!” Fascinating as the discussion was—who would have guessed gorgeous Beulah would have trouble with men?—her sense of urgency hadn’t gone away; clocks ticked in her head. “I’m sorry, but we really need to get going here, you know? This kind of isn’t— You can talk about this later, right?”

They shrugged. Neither of them looked at the other. Great, just what she needed: to work with two people not speaking to each other.

And she would need to work with them. At least, if she decided she could trust Beulah after all.

Another beep from her phone. Terrible?

No. Elder Griffin. The tech guys had retrieved Chelsea Mueller’s file.

Looked like it was time to make that Beulah decision. “Beulah. Can I use your computer for a minute?”

   It seemed to take forever to connect to the Church mainframe. Chess hadn’t expected anything else. The
Church’s system may have been faster than the general Internet—and of course it wasn’t as strictly censored—but that wasn’t really saying much.

Should she tell Lex and Beulah about the pentacle, and where the next sacrifice would probably be?

Lex would get a message about it anyway, when the storeroom caught fire or whatever. Telling them would be a betrayal. Yes, Lex was her friend. Yes, she wanted to help him out. But Terrible … he wasn’t her friend, he was her life.

If she could let him be, anyway.

The cheerful lightness from her pills helped her think about better things. Or at least about other things. She scanned the bookshelves. “Are all these yours?”

Beulah—who hadn’t spoken until then, apparently preferring to glare at Lex—shook her head. “They’re the school’s. I’ve never even really looked at them.”

The mainframe still hadn’t booted. Should she disconnect and try again, or …?

Her fingertips drummed on the desk as she checked the titles. A few Church-based books for students:
Teen Truth, You Are Special, Facts and You
. Some classic novels: Dickens and Austen, Steinbeck and Hemingway. An entire shelf of yearbooks. A bunch of college guides, and another shelf of career— Wait.