Unholy Magic (11 page)

But this one worked, at least to some extent. Chess figured that had she not been who and what she was, Hat Trick would have looked like the young, handsome man whose shadow she caught glimpses of. Certainly she imagined that’s what Lex saw; he had about as much sensitivity to magic as a lump of cement.

“Lex,” he said, in a surprisingly normal and light voice. “And yon witch. Come closer, girl, let we focus on ye.”

Forcing her face into a calm, untroubled expression, she approached, getting close enough to smell the powerful reek of herbs and unwashed body. Shit, he was
ripe
under those layers of fur. Did he ever leave this rooftop?

His gaze scanned her from head to foot. It felt like being X-rayed. Finally he nodded and looked away, digging around in the sacks by his side until he pulled something out and held it in one outstretched hand. Even in the dim light spilling from the window she saw the deep grime under his nails and around his cuticles, saw the crusty skin of his fingertips.

She took the bag without touching those fingers and opened it. Some sort of herb, it looked like, some … oh.

Hat Trick caught her look. “You see what you holding, then, got it true.”

She nodded.

“Girl brung it me yestereen. Found it, said she. We hears, even down this way, of what happens. Such an odd, figure best to tell Slobag.” He dipped his head in Lex’s direction. “We are not involved, got it true. Where this found all empty now, and no seeing them there before. But we knows what it could mean, so we call.”

Lex nodded. “Ain’t no trouble, Hat Trick. Got no problems here, aye?”

Hat Trick shook his head. “Ye has problems, got it true. Ye just not aware until yon witch tells you.”

Lex glanced at her, his brows raised in his smooth, sharp face. “What’s the tale, Tulip?”

“It’s althea.” Tyson’s place, Tyson and whatever spirit he’d bonded with. Terrible’s comment that the metal box in the alley smelled like Tyson had smelled. Not just ricantha, that wasn’t all of it. Althea too. Ghosts and owls, psychopomps and sex and eyes. It still didn’t all make sense. But this was a piece, a big one, and her head spun.

“Aye, and …?”

“It’s a bonding herb. It traps ghosts, holds them.”

“Ain’t you use them all the time?”

“No. This is a trap. It closes the door between here and the City—I mean, it prevents the soul from attaching to its psychopomp. So it can’t leave.”

“Creates a ghost?”

She nodded. “Creates it and keeps it there. Here. Somewhere, wherever it is they’re doing this.”

For a minute she considered the possibility that this might not be connected to her case. Considered, and discarded it. She had smelled this in the alley.

So what the hell were they doing, the ghost and its Bindmate? And where did they get the stuff, anyway? Althea was highly illegal. The punishment for possession was death. Not that that mattered to the ghost.

They thanked Hat Trick and headed back down the stairs, passing weapons and jewelry dealers, passing a booth where snakes were sold by the foot. She didn’t want to leave. This was a place to explore, a place to spend hours getting lost in. And she didn’t feel like going home yet anyway. In fact, if she was thinking of going anywhere, it was back to Lex’s place with him, where they could dive under the blankets and not come up for air until at least a week had passed.

Wait a minute. Whose thought was that? A week in bed with Lex? Why in the world would she want to do that? She’d be ready to strangle him after two days.

But damned if bed didn’t sound like a fantastic idea just then, while her skin felt extra sensitive and her blood thicker than normal, while her heart thudded and something dark and needy crawled up her spine like a scorpion—

Chess froze, suddenly aware as she hadn’t been before of the crowds around them, strangers all, sinister. Suddenly aware that the arousal she felt wasn’t her own, that it was horribly familiar, and that her heart wasn’t racing along because she was turned on but because she was terrified.

They were here.

A fortune teller was busily setting up a folding table and a murky glass ball nearby. Chess stared at it without really seeing, aware that Lex was talking to her but unable to hear him. Where were they? They were here, she knew it. She felt them, the energy getting stronger by the minute.

For a moment a face appeared in the glass ball’s smudgy surface, long and mournful. Its mouth stretched open in a silent, agonized wail before the image faded.

“What’s troubling, Tulip?”

She shook her head. Her mouth was too dry to speak, not enough air existed in her lungs to force sound from her throat. Crowds, all these people around, all those sweaty, stinking bodies crushed together, touching one another, touching her, all those germs floating in the air, being sucked into unwashed mouths and breathed back out.

She couldn’t seem to hear them. She could barely hear the Avengers song now playing as if from a great distance. “They’re here,” she managed, but the words felt like sandpaper against her dry throat. She swallowed and tried again. “They’re here, Lex, they’re here, they’re right nearby.”

Even here … even here, on the farthest, darkest edge of Downside, where not even Slobag held full sway, they were following her, watching her.

Around her the riotous colors and scents of the Nightsedge Market became a sickening, protean whirlpool, like a bad Sizzle trip. Lex’s hand held hers so tight it hurt, or maybe it was the other way around; probably it was. And all the while that energy pumped into her, through her, so luscious and awful she could barely stand up.

Stand she did, though; she stayed on her feet, forced them to move. They were here somewhere, and she would find them. She had no idea if they knew she was aware of them or not, had no intention of warning them, but if she could find them now, catch them now …

Without thinking she moved through the aisles, backtracking when the energy lessened, turning when it felt stronger. Shit, it was so strong, almost as strong as the pure earth energy she’d channeled back at Chester Airport, stronger than anything she’d ever felt a human conjure. And she followed it because she had to, despite the pure terror growing in her heart with every step, despite the way every step made it harder to breathe through the soupy miasma of sick desire.

Closer now, and closer. Lex stayed at her side, the feel of his body next to hers almost enough to distract her. Almost, but not quite, because she was so close now, so close, they were right nearby, and maybe it was a trap but she had no choice because if it wasn’t, if she found them before they knew she was there—There!

Lex uttered a strangled gasp when she practically yanked his arm out of the socket in her haste.

He was in the doorway. She didn’t know how she knew, she just knew. Knew that the tag end of fabric disappearing around the edge of the rough rectangle cut in the wall belonged to the killer.

She could catch him. She and Lex could catch him. Lex barreled out the doorway, not even pausing to speak. Chess didn’t either.

Their feet slapped on the cobblestones, the only sound on the empty winter-barren street aside from the thumping music of the Market fading behind them. Chess’s breath was loud in her ears, her fingers so tight on the handle of her knife they ached. She ignored it.

Up ahead the killer kept running, glancing back once. He ducked to the right. His coat flapped behind him like a goodbye wave.

Closer. They were gaining on him, chasing him through streets she’d never seen before. They could end this now if they caught him, end all of it.

Her bag slapped and jolted against her thigh. She twisted her left hand around the strap and let it fall from her shoulder, circling her wrist to wrap the strap around it. That could be handy as a weapon too.

Candles in windows cast the occasional patch of pale light on the damp cobbles. Inside those rooms people lived their lives, told stories or did drugs or fucked or whatever they were doing indoors on a freezing night, totally unaware that fifty feet away death raced past their doors.

They followed him left again. The street was empty.

Gone.

But the magic remained, and Chess followed it, trusting it.

The killer hit a trash can as he slipped around a corner; it rolled toward them, the sound of metal against stone like the slow death-grind of worn gears.

Another street. Another. Chess had some idea they were headed northwest—her sense of direction held steady—but she didn’t understand why. Nothing was out here. The buildings grew farther apart, even more dilapidated than the ones on the border of Bump’s and Slobag’s territories. Most weren’t buildings at all, just broken half-walls with empty eyes and gaping mouths where doors used to be, open in silent screams. Defeated giants of buildings, half-buried in the unforgiving cement.

She stumbled on a broken cobble. It was getting too hard to run, her legs didn’t want to move, her chest screamed for air, she could barely see. But she had no choice. She couldn’t have Lex go ahead without her. Even with her knife the thought of being alone on this street … knowing what might hide behind those charred and decaying walls …

Another left, a short block. He was back in sight now, their killer, a moving shadow in the darkness. No streetlights here and the moon was only a sliver above. How far had they come? She didn’t know, but seeing him, knowing they were so close, gave her the strength she needed. She pushed herself, harder than she’d ever pushed herself before, breaking through the pain and finding hatred, burning black in her soul. Hatred was clean. Hatred was strong.

The killer turned right again, maybe thirty feet in front of them. They reached the corner, spun it, raising their knives in unison. So close, they were so close, and the way she felt at that moment she could have torn the fucker apart with her bare hands….

Nothing. Empty street. Blank wall. And ahead of them, the still-swinging door of Triumph City’s principal crematorium.

Chapter Eleven

The body is a vessel for the soul, and nothing more. Once the soul has departed, the body is merely a cast-off shell, and we destroy it as all useless items are destroyed. With fire.

—
The Book of Truth
, Laws, Article 801

She didn’t want to go in there. Did not want to, did
not
want to.

Too bad she didn’t have a choice. He was in there, he was a murderer and he was in there, it didn’t matter that she wasn’t prepared for this or that her heart was speeding along out of fear now instead of exertion. The bastard was following her, would keep doing it, and she had a chance to end this now. She’d be a cowardly fuck if she didn’t take it.

Without discussing it, she and Lex pressed their bodies together, leaving their knife hands free after she slipped her bag back over her shoulder and affording some kind of protection. If he leapt on them when they opened the door—which she was convinced he would—at least they would be as ready as it was possible to be.

The door should have been locked. During the day this place was, if not a hive of activity—nobody wanted to work here, it was too dangerous—busy enough. A lot of people died in Triumph City, and their bodies were by law disposed of in the ovens as soon as possible after death. There’d been some … issues, during Haunted Week and immediately after, as the dead tried in vain to return to their moldering corpses. As long as the body remained in existence, it was that much easier for the soul to return.

Lex glanced at her. She nodded. Together they shouldered the door open, swinging it hard enough to fly back and hit the cement wall with a hollow boom.

Nothing happened. Good thing, too, because the small high windows were barely discernible, so covered in soot were they. No light showed in the cold ovens. Chess couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, or Lex beside her. But she felt him, oh yes. Sex beat against her skin, probed her, pulsed against her; she gritted her teeth and forced herself to ignore it. To fight it.

The air was warm and close, oily in her nostrils and against her lips. She was afraid to lick them, because the heaviness she smelled was death. Rendered human fat, pulverized human bones.

She tried not to breathe, ignoring her body’s need for oxygen. She was choking, dying, fighting the scream of pure terror that wanted to escape from her throat. Something tickled her cheek and she realized it was a tear.

Her speed-blown pupils dilated. What little light entered found the edges of the long steel ovens, resting now after a long day of immolating the city’s dead. Seven of them in this building, she knew. She’d been here once for school. She’d been threatened with another visit all her life, from one person or another.

Worse than the ovens, worse than the cloying sex-thick air, were the pale white-shrouded corpses lined along the far wall. They shimmered in the darkness, seeming to shrink and expand, shrink and expand. Were they moving? It was so hard to tell, it could be an optical illusion or it could be that the spirits of these dead had not settled yet, they were waiting …

Get a fucking hold of yourself!

She caught her breath, held it until her heart rate started to slow, then blew it out. This was bullshit.

Lex nudged her. She could barely make out his features, but his free hand on her wrist was familiar. He lifted it, motioning with both their arms toward the far wall. Right. The light switches were there, and the office. The other exit. Why the hell were they standing here? He’d probably escaped already, damn it.

They picked their way across the gritty floor, trying to move fast but hindered by the need for silence. Every step they took sounded like gunshots in her ears.

Or
was
that their steps? She swung her head to the right, back toward the stacks of bodies. There
was
movement there. Not the bodies themselves. Rats. Little more than dark spots against the white, and only a few of them, but her empty stomach clenched. Were they on the floor, crawling toward her, ready to climb up her legs …?

She gritted her teeth and looked away. Took another step. Her hand holding the knife swung in careful swoops through the air; she could feel Lex’s shoulder and upper body move as he did the same.

Then a shattering groan rent the air, a demon’s death rattle. The building shook.

The ovens roared into life. Their doors were open.

From utter darkness and silence to blazing red light in a matter of seconds. She’d felt exposed before. Now she literally stood blind in the center of a corpse warehouse, blinking furiously to try and get her pupils to shrink. White flames flashed before her eyes when she closed them, red-orange ones seared her retinas when she opened them.

The temperature in the room soared. Those doors were not supposed to open while the flames were on, it was too dangerous. Had he broken the mechanism? How the fuck—?

Sweat poured down her face. Her coat was too heavy, her bangs stuck to her forehead. She adjusted her grip on her knife with fingers already slick.

She grabbed Lex’s hand. His too was wet, as was his face. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, not now. They stood in the center of the inferno and waited for the inevitable attack.

Over the hiss of the flames she heard pipes rattle and clang. The rats, attracted to the heat, climbed onto the conveyor belts. By the time they realized they were being drawn to the fire it was too late. She watched one burst into flame like a tiny firework.

Lex urged her forward. There was still a chance they could catch him, or at least get out. They’d made it more than halfway through the room. The killer might have ducked into the office, might be up on the metal catwalk circling the room….

He was right in front of them.
They
were right in front—the bastard had a ghost with him.

She leapt to the side. Lex was already moving, driving his blade forward. Chess spun around swinging her knife, her left hand finding the zipper of her bag. Fast. Not fast enough. Cold hands closed around her throat.

Oh, fuck … Sex roared over her skin, immolating her like a corpse in a crematory oven, reducing her to nothing in a second. She barely existed; her body jerked in a painful, hideous, hateful orgasm she didn’t want, couldn’t control. And she was back in bed, fourteen years old, hating what they were doing to her, hating herself because she couldn’t help liking it, too, and shame washed through her like a red ocean full of dirty needles and broken glass tearing her skin from her bones. Her throat went raw but she kept screaming. Her tattoos seared like fresh brands. She was sinking, falling…. They were winning. They were beating her. Realization hit like a sledgehammer, and in it was iron determination. She wasn’t fourteen anymore. She wasn’t that child anymore, and she was not going to lie there and die. Not after everything she’d been through.

Nothing to kick at, nothing to fight. The hands squeezed, cutting off her breath, and worse than that cutting off her circulation. She found the slide with fingers made of rubber and yanked it back. The whole bag moved, but the zipper opened … just enough. She needed air. Even the searing hot air of the room, she had to have it, her vision was growing black…. She brought her right hand up, slashing at the ghost’s hand. It was solid on her, and she could damage a ghost’s solid parts. Its face … oh fuck oh shit, its eyes, those eyeballs suspended in the blank ether of its face—of
her
face—oh fuck no that wasn’t possible—

Thankfully her arm continued to move, dragging the knife down. The hand on her fluttered enough to let her take one desperate gasp of air and dig all the way into her bag. The dirt, the graveyard dirt, there was some in there, there had to be, holy shit …

Lex shouted. The killer shouted. Through the ghost she saw them struggling in the center of the floor, moving ever closer to the hungry mouth of the nearest oven. The flames inside leapt, anticipating their next meal.

She swung with her knife again, missed. Caught her own cheek with the tip and opened a long stinging cut. Good. The pain grounded her, made her mad.

She scrabbled in the bottom of the bag but could not find the dirt, could not find anything. Her head swam. She pulled out her hand and swiped it through the ghost, hoping even a few specks of dirt were on it, enough to sap at least some of the spirit’s strength.

It worked. Only for a second or two, but it worked, and a second or two was all she needed. She brought both hands up between the ghost’s arms, shoving out as she ducked down, catching it just at the wrists where it started to solidify.

She hit the ground spinning, rolled herself back to a stand. There had to be something here, something she could use. No point hunting for more dirt, there wasn’t time. The baggie must have spilled while she ran. Electricity? Her electric meter was still in her bag, she could reverse the leads, use the ghost’s own power against her, but then what? It wouldn’t be enough to short her out, and simply solidifying her meant nothing. She could make the ghost feel pain that way but couldn’t really
hurt
her, couldn’t trap her. Flames? Pure heat energy. Maybe it would work. At least it would destroy those horrible naked eyeballs, and even that would be a huge relief.

Chess cut around Lex and the killer, locked in grim battle, closer still to the oven. Not that one. The thought flashed in her mind to catch the killer with her knife, help Lex out, but the ghost made a swipe for her. She managed to duck, banging her knee on the cement floor, and the opportunity was gone.

This was going to hurt.

She sprinted back toward the front door, drawing the ghost away from Lex and the killer. If she failed, he didn’t need to be distracted, needed at least a second or two to try and get away.

The conveyor belt wasn’t what she’d expected. It was made of a dull flexible metal, clanking softly as it rounded the bumpers and wheels. The edges of the belt were thin iron rods. Excellent. She took a deep breath and leapt onto it.

Heat blasted her, worse even than before, worse than in the spirit prison earlier. She felt her lips crack almost immediately. Her vision blurred again. Shit, the last thing she needed was not to be able to see, this had to be timed perfectly.

The ghost lunged for Chess, manipulating her body unconsciously to land on her stomach on the belt—ghosts weren’t good at jumping, for whatever reason. Good.

Her thighs burned. She wanted to scream. It felt like she was about to burst into flames … and she was …

The ghost came toward her now, her murky lips parting into what looked like a grin as she anticipated Chess’s death, probably imagining sucking Chess’s energy away like a milkshake through a straw. And Chess wasn’t at all sure she wouldn’t get the chance.

The steel frame of the oven seared her skin when she reached back and braced her palms on it. She stepped forward on the belt, forward again, to keep from stumbling. If she fell, all was lost. She could not get away—

The ghost leapt. Chess inhaled, held it. Her thighs tensed. She bent her arms and launched herself up and back while the ghost slid into the oven.

The smell of burning fabric hit her nose. Her jeans were smoking, about to catch fire. She leapt up, not waiting to see if the fire had actually overloaded the ghost. If it had, she was safe. If it hadn’t, she was dead. No point in spending her last seconds worrying about it.

Instead she ran the length of the oven, her boots thundering on the steel, and leapt off the other end.

Lex’s knife clanged against the cement. The killer screamed. She reached them just in time to stop Lex from bringing the knife down again in a killing blow.

Lex fought for a second, but stopped when he realized it was her. She didn’t waste any time.

“What are you doing?” her voice croaked from her throat, unrecognizable. She thought of getting her water bottle but decided against it. It would look weak. “What are you doing to them?”

The killer laughed. In the red glow of the fires he looked like a demon of the old legends. Sigils and markings covered his skin so completely he appeared to be made of them, featureless, his eyes black, his teeth stained with blood. “You,” he said in a steam-hiss voice. “I know you. You’re very nosy, aren’t you?”

Her heart rate tripled. He knew her? The eyes … the eyes in the car. He must have seen her with Terrible the day before, seen her in the alley … followed them to the diner? Followed her home? She felt Lex glance at her, willed her features to stay calm. Her palms stung; she was clenching her fist so hard her nails broke the tender, tight skin.

“Give her the answer,” Lex said. “Give her the answer fore I—”

The killer almost smiled, those reddish teeth gruesome in his decorated face. “You think you can threaten me?”

Fuck this, she was thirsty, and she couldn’t think straight. The first drink made tears spring to her eyes. She felt it seep through her body; it was better than sex. Too bad she couldn’t enjoy it.

He knew her, knew her car, knew where she worked….

The killer laughed again. Lex glanced up at her; Chess saw the danger then, saw what the killer planned, what he wanted, but it was too late.

The killer screamed something. Chess didn’t recognize the words but felt their power blast over her skin. The killer’s eyes rolled back in his head, pure white; his ghost, returned in his body, sprang from it fully formed. He’d summoned her, let her take form again through him. He shoved Lex off him as easily as if Lex were a child, leapt to his feet, and ran. Straight for the stairs, dragging the blind ghost behind him.

Chess lunged, tried to stop them, but missed. Killer and ghost tore up the stairs and along the walkway and had flung themselves out the window at the top before she could get up; when she and Lex ran outside to look, they were gone.

Their energy remained, thick and heavy but fading fast. Chess didn’t care. Every bone and muscle in her body screamed for rest; she felt like she’d snorted a full ashtray. And the sex magic wouldn’t be fading so fast if they were nearby. Maybe they had a car?