Finding Magic

by Stacia Kane

Downside Ghosts - 0.5

Chapter One

Chess was sitting in the Church library, studying Psychopomps: Their Uses and History, when Elder Marks appeared on the other side of the table. As usual, his blue suit looked dusty and the cuffs were frayed; as usual, the black Church makeup ringing his eyes had smudged halfway down his cheeks, making him look less like a ghost and more like a drunken clown.

“Thou are wanted in Elder Griffin’s office, Miss Putnam,” he said, and left almost before he’d finished the sentence, like giving her the message had been only a stop before the many important errands he had to run.

Chess already knew that was bullshit. Three years of Church training had taught her a lot; a lifetime of shit had arguably taught her more, and she knew—along with everyone else, to be fair—that Elder Marks did little more than fill space at that point, that he was just waiting for the retirement shoe to drop.

Not that she blamed him. How could she? He’d been with the Church all his life, had started back when it was nothing more than an underground magical group, before the ghosts rose from their graves during Haunted Week in 1997 and changed the world forever. Before the Church sent those ghosts into the City of Eternity under the surface of the earth and took control of the world above it.

Elder Griffin … the name conjured up a flash of blond hair and a friendly smile, but not much else. She’d never really spoken to him before; hell, she didn’t think he even knew her name. And why would he? He wasn’t a teaching Elder. He oversaw the Department of Spectral Fraud: the Debunkers, the Church employees who investigated reports of hauntings to determine their truth.

Those reports were usually fake. Not hard to believe, considering how much money the Church paid as reparations if a house was really haunted. Not hard to believe, considering what greedy sacks of shit most people were.

She closed the book and stood up, brushing her hair off her shoulders. Just seeing the stupid dirty blondish color of it annoyed her. As soon as she graduated from training she was going to start dyeing it again. Maybe not dark blue like it had been when she’d arrived at Church to start classes there, but something.

The book went into the big army-green bag she’d found at a thrift store a few weeks before, along with her notebook and pen. Or … maybe she should keep those out? So she looked serious, so he could see she was prepared. After all, he wasn’t a teaching Elder. He was administrative, he reported directly to the Elder Triumvirate, to the Grand Elder himself.

So what did he want with her?

No way to ask Elder Marks; he’d already drifted out of the library. No time to think about it, either. The last thing she wanted to do was delay, make herself look irresponsible or like she didn’t care.

The Church headquarters were always busy, but especially on Thursdays, when the Liaisings took place. People crowded the low dark-wood bench against the wall opposite Elder Griffin’s office, waiting their turn to visit with the spirits of their dead family members. Above them a frieze of ghosts and magic symbols lined the wall near the ceiling. Still hard to believe she was a student here, that if she passed her training she would actually work here. She could live the rest of her life here, safe under the Church’s watchful eye. It could be her home … her real home.

Shit, she was lucky.

Elder Griffin’s door opened under her careful tap. He’d been waiting for her, she guessed, since he stood only a few feet back, smiling that smile she’d remembered. Friendly. Open. “Welcome, Miss Putnam. Are thee well?”

She dropped into her well-practiced curtsy, trying to smile while her insides froze. Elder Griffin wasn’t alone in his office. Elder Hancock and Elder Charles sat in rounded wooden chairs in front of a desk—Elder Griffin’s desk—and Goody Evers stood by the tall built-in bookcases near them. At her side were two people Chess couldn’t identify.

All those people. Six of them. Her breath froze in her chest. They were kicking her out. Oh shit, they were going to kick her out, she knew it, she’d been waiting for it … she’d known it was too good to be true.

“Miss Putnam? Are thee well?” Elder Griffin took a step toward her, his gentle brow furrowed beneath his wide-brimmed hat.

Right. They were watching her, they could see her. If they wanted to kick her out, fine. They could kick her out. She couldn’t do anything about that. But she sure as hell could do something about her reaction to it. She could make sure they didn’t know they’d hurt her.

She was good at that.

Her bright smile hurt. Too bad. “I’m fine, sir, very well, thank you. And you?”

“I am well indeed. Come in, please. Here, we’ve saved you a chair.…”

They’d saved her a chair. Because they knew she’d need to sit down after what they had to say. Her legs were numb.

She made it to the chair—thankfully—and sank into it, hearing the leather hiss beneath her. Hearing her breath rasp in her lungs, hearing her muscles move. Like it was all happening to someone else, like she was watching a slow-moving close-up in a movie while her brain jammed at triple speed. They were going to kick her out. She’d fucked up somewhere. They’d figured out she didn’t belong there, that she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, that she didn’t deserve it.

Where would she go? Where the hell was she going to go?

Elder Charles cleared his throat. “Thou are probably curious about why thy presence was requested.”

In his lap sat a pale blue file: her school records. He opened it, his face tilted down to look at the pages. “Your results from the latest aptitude test round have come in.”

She’d flunked. She’d flunked, and that was it. She just—How was that possible when she’d studied so hard, practiced those spells into the wee hours, long after lights-out in the dorm?

They were all looking at her like they expected some response, but she couldn’t bring herself to make one. Her throat was too tight, so tight it hurt. The best she could muster was to raise her eyebrows a bit, tip her head in what she hoped looked like a curious nod toward the paper he held.

“Very impressive,” he said finally. “We were especially interested in your counterhex results, and the number of spells you improvised from the ingredients you were given.”

Elder Hancock smiled. “The power-raising sigil was an especially nice touch.”

They weren’t kicking her out. They were—they were saying nice things to her, they were smiling, they thought she’d done well. Relief flooded her system, so strong her vision wavered; for a second she was afraid she was going to pass out. “Thank you, sir.”

He nodded. “As you know, students in their last year of classes are given the opportunity to work with employees in various positions around the Church, to help them choose their future career. You have not yet made a decision?”

“No, sir.”

He turned from her then, gesturing at the two people standing behind him. “This is Special Inquisitor Scott Freemont and Inquisitor Second Jillian Morrow. We’d like you to work with Jillian for the next week.”

Whoa. Okay, that was not something she’d ever considered doing. “The … the Black Squad? I’m not—”

“We think your talents may be a fit,” Elder Charles interrupted. “We’d like you to work with Jillian for a week.”

Shit.

She wanted to work for the Black Squad about as much as she wanted to cut off her toes and eat them for dinner. No, she hadn’t put down a preference yet, but that was because … well, because she didn’t want them pigeonholing her. She didn’t want them thinking they knew her.

Besides, rumor had it that the Church viewed actually listing a preference as a sign of stubbornness and pride, and would go out of their way to disregard those preferences.

She was lucky to be there at all, she reminded herself, and forced another smile. Her lips were starting to hurt. “Sure, I mean, of course, sir. If you think that’s the best thing for me to do.”

Elder Charles looked pleased; well, they all looked pleased. “Excellent. Jillian, will you take Miss Putnam with you now to get her things, and you can head out.”

Wait, what? Right that minute? She didn’t want to seem difficult, but … “Um, sir? Elder Charles? I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a sigil analysis test in the morning, and I don’t want to—”

He chuckled. “Do not worry thyself. You are of course excused from classwork for the next week; thou can make up the test on your return.” He leaned forward with the smirking sort of air of someone pretending to care about breaking confidences or embarrassing people. The air of someone who honestly thought he did care, to be fair, but didn’t really, not deep down. “Don’t worry. It won’t affect your scholarship.”

Once again, years of experience in keeping her face calm, in pretending she didn’t feel it, didn’t hear it, held her in good stead. Her lips curved into what she knew was a natural-looking smile. No one seeing that smile would know that she wanted to spit at the Elder and run, that she wanted to cry. Like she hadn’t heard enough over the years about her going to classes on “charity,” like she hadn’t dealt with enough of her fellow students looking at her, whispering about her, knowing she was nobody and had no ancestry, that even her last name had come from the Church and not from a family. “Thank you, sir. I was concerned.”

Elder Griffin cleared his throat behind her; she turned around to see his expression clear, like he’d been making a face. He smiled at her. He was smiling, she was smiling, the others were smiling … they looked like they’d all been dosed with some sort of hallucinogen. “I’m sure Miss Putnam is simply surprised. Perhaps we can give her ten minutes or so to get her things together and drop off her books.”

Chess looked at him, unable for a second to hide her surprise. Was he …? He was—he was giving her a few minutes to adjust. A few minutes alone. And he was doing it on purpose, because when he glanced down at her—just a glance—their eyes met and she saw in his that he knew exactly what he was doing.

So what did he want from her?

Maybe greeting his kindness with suspicion was wrong; he was Church, after all, and she’d been trying to accept that some people—most people, it seemed—in the Church weren’t playing some kind of angle; hell, most of them weren’t even aware of her. But someone overtly helpful to her like that … what did he want? What was he going to want her to do, to repay it?

She’d worry about that later. For the moment she focused on Jillian Morrow’s ready smile as the Inquisitor looked down at Chess and said, “Sure. I’ll meet you out front in fifteen, okay?”

Chess was ready in ten.

She’d run to the student dorms, tucked behind the main Church building, back past the building housing the elevator to the spirit prisons, behind and to the left of the Church employee cottages. Maybe someday she’d have one of those, although she had to admit the thought didn’t appeal as much as it should have. Life in the dorms made her itch, all those people on top of her; life in the cottages would be just as bad, she imagined.

But some employees lived off-grounds. Some of them got permission. Maybe one day … maybe one day she could, too. If she worked hard enough, was smart enough. Which she would be. The others didn’t know how lucky they were to be there; the others had families to fall back on. All Chess had to fall back on was the knowledge that she could turn tricks for food money if she had to, and she refused to allow that to happen. Not now. Not when she’d almost had something different.

The early afternoon sun blazed right into her eyes, like a finger pointing straight at her, as she crossed the square of bare earth where the Reckonings were held every Holy Day morning. That day, Monday, the stocks stood empty, the dirt around them freshly combed after the mess Saturdays always brought, the piles of rotten vegetables and tears that always ended up there after sinners gained their redemption, after crowds got off on giving it to them.

She crossed the space and waited right outside the enormous double doors of the main entrance until a dull black sedan pulled up to the curb fifteen feet or so away and Jillian Morrow beckoned her through the open window. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Chess forced her reluctant feet to move. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to work for the Squad. Working for the Squad meant having a partner, someone to cozy up with and have over for dinner or whatever else, and she did not want that.

But she didn’t have a choice, at least not at the moment. So she popped the door handle of the sedan and sank into the pine- and Armor All–scented interior, clutching her bag on her lap and fastening her seat belt with the feeling that she was on a roller-coaster ride she didn’t want to be on.

“Guess you didn’t think you’d end up working with the Squad,” Jillian said, pulling carefully away from the curb. “Don’t worry. Nothing big on the schedule for today, just going for a drive.”

“Great,” Chess said, because it seemed like an answer was required.

“Mostly we just—”

Static on her radio broke into her sentence, made her brows draw together in annoyance at first, before anger and a little fear replaced them. “Damn it.”

Chess didn’t reply. She was too busy listening to the radio, the announcer’s voice saying something about bodies found and an address.

Jillian glanced at her as the announcer—not an announcer, Chess realized, a dispatcher—went quiet. “Well,” she said, lunging the car into traffic and speeding down the road, cutting off another car behind them, “looks like you’re going to get a taste of real Squad work after all.”

Chapter Two

The sedan pulled up in front of a bland-looking ranch house in Cross Town, a semi-suburb struggling to leave the working class behind. The house, a slab of dull tan and brown, hid behind a couple of trees and about half a dozen sedans and Squad cars. Holy shit, this was a real crime scene.

Well, duh, people were dead, right? Of course it was a crime scene, or at least a dead-body scene. But still … Chess was aware of her feet crossing the tidy green lawn, the sound of her boots sliding against the grass and the sound of her bag shifting on her shoulder. The lawn looked extra green, the sky extra blue, like the nights back in the Corey Youth Home when she and a few of the others would score some Sizzle and spend the night giggling and watching the colors dance in the air. But that had been fake. This looked too real. It looked like something she didn’t want to see.

Jillian approached two men standing just outside the wide-open front door. “Vaughn, Trent.”

The men nodded. One of them spoke. “Morrow.”

Their gazes fell on Chess, who forced herself not to fidget under their weight. They wanted to look at her and wonder? Let them. She didn’t need to offer them any information.

Jillian gave her up. “This is Cesaria Putnam. She’s a student, out with me for her last-year shadowing.”

The men’s eyes thawed a little. One of them—Trent?—gave her an appraising kind of smile. “Thinking of joining us?”

Chess shrugged.

Trent’s face hardened; clearly he’d expected her to blush and giggle under his manly attention or something. “Well,” he said, stepping back and sweeping his arm out in a you-first kind of gesture, “this is as good a start as any, right? Go ahead.”

She should have hesitated. She should have looked at Jillian, waited for a nod.

But she didn’t. Not with Vaughn smirking and Trent still standing there waiting for her to move.

She started walking.

“Let’s see how tough she is now,” she heard one of the men murmur. Her back stiffened. They had no idea what tough was.

Tough was walking through that wide-open doorway and entering an entirely different world, a world full of blood and body parts thrown around, a world of overturned furniture and broken glass and death. A world where the walls themselves seemed to vibrate with horror, still in shock at what they’d been forced to witness.

Holy shit. Bile rose in her throat; stars exploded before her eyes. What she was seeing? How many people had been killed there, how many bodies made up the clutter of lost mortality strewn across the oat-colored carpet?

A chuckle from behind her managed to penetrate the roaring in her ears. Right. Right, they were watching her, waiting for her to break down. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Jillian’s hand on her arm. Something in her eyes, something not quite sympathy but not quite pleasure, either. More like … curiosity, maybe? Annoyance. “You okay?”

Chess nodded, forcing herself not to pull away from Jillian’s presumptuous touch no matter how much it made her skin crawl. She was trying, she was getting better with that, better every day, but … it still sent discomfort skittering along her skin, down her spine. “I’m fine.”

Jillian paled as she looked at the mess. “Damn. They weren’t kidding when they said it was awful.”

“What happened? I mean, what do—”

“These people were murdered, that’s what happened.” Trent stood in the doorway; as he spoke he started walking, essentially shoving Chess and Jillian further into the death-chamber. Sunlight made his hair a brownish halo around the shadowed oval of his face, so she couldn’t read his expression. She bet she knew what it was, though. “See, when people get all torn apart like that, they usually can’t live anymore.”

Chess stared at him. A long, even stare, one that told him exactly what she thought of him and his patronizing little games.

Vaughn cleared his throat. “Neighbor called this morning, screaming, saying she’d come over to pick up the woman—Mrs. Waring, Shannon Waring—to go shopping, found them all like this. She said she didn’t enter the house.”

“Any confirmation on that?” Jillian asked.

“Still working on it.” Vaughn flipped a page in the little notebook he carried. “Nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything, everyone’s horrified, the Warings were such nice people, you know, the usual shi—stuff neighbors say. Doors weren’t locked, garage door was open. There’s a tire track off the driveway, but we have no idea when it might have been made.”

“I guess we should—” Jillian started, but Trent cut her off.

“I think we should ask our new recruit what she thinks we should do.” Amusement glinted in his eyes as he looked at Chess. “She can learn by doing, right?”

Was he always this much of an asshole, or was it something personal?

Not that it mattered. Fine. He wanted to be a dick, he could go right ahead. One benefit of an upbringing like hers: nobody could make her feel worse about herself than she already did. His attitude, his dislike, was just another raindrop hitting floodwaters.

There was a pause; in it she felt them all waiting for her reaction, Jillian and Vaughn torn between wanting to stand up to Trent and wanting to see what she’d do.

So she looked around the room, thought for a second. “What about the weapon? Do you know what kind of weapon was used?”

“A knife.” Trent had moved, so she could see his face, the glint in his eyes. What did it feel like to be so smug all the time? Not that she cared, really; it was just idle curiosity.

But wait. He did look smug, didn’t he? And he wouldn’t be looking so smug if she wasn’t missing something, if there wasn’t something big she should have figured out but hadn’t.

She stopped and inspected the scene again, trying to separate the bloody limbs and lumps of flesh from what they meant. It was so … grisly. What did that—why was that? Why had the bodies been chopped up and left lying around like that? Usually when killers chopped up bodies it was to make them easier to dispose of, right?

Well, she didn’t know that for a fact, but she’d known a few people in her life who would have. And it just—it just seemed like if a killer was going to go through all the trouble of slicing and dicing a corpse, there ought to be some purpose to it aside from making the biggest possible mess.

But. There was one type of killer who might very well chop people up just for fun and discard the individual parts like peanut shells tossed on a barroom floor. There was one type of killer who had the kind of rage that would drive a person to destroy another like that; one type of killer who felt nothing but hate.

Chess lifted her chin, looked right into Trent’s oh-so-clever eyes. “Ghosts did this, right? You found ectoplasm?”

His face fell. She managed not to smile.

Vaughn shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “We did, yes. And this isn’t the—” He stopped himself. The three Squad members exchanged looks.

“There’ve been others?” Chess asked.

Pause. Long pause, while the others had some sort of silent conversation. Chess didn’t watch them. Now that her initial shock had passed she was more interested in the room, in the house itself.

It was nice, in a dull sort of way. Like someone with not much flair but a decent amount of cash had decorated it, and like the people who lived in it—who had lived in it—either didn’t spend a lot of time there or were a bit on the neat-freaky side. Of course, given the horrendous mess in there at the moment, it was hard to tell, but she noticed dust-free picture frames, glass cabinet doors devoid of fingerprints. They had one of those entertainment-center units with drawers and boxes built in, presumably for pictures or knitting or who the hell knew what; Chess had lived with one family once who had one of those, too, but they’d used the drawers to stash porn and drugs. Maybe these people did the same? They didn’t necessarily look like the type, but there really was no “type,” was there? There were just people, and they were all sick beasts with shit to hide.

Jillian’s voice cut into her thoughts; apparently the three of them had reached some kind of decision. “We have had a few ghost murders recently, yes. We believe there may be a small band of ghosts that escaped from the City, and we’re working to find them.”

“How would they escape?”

Vaughn shrugged. “It happens sometimes. Nothing for you to worry about. We’ll catch them quickly, we always do.”

“The current ghost-caused death rate in the District is one in every half million,” Jillian added. “That’s very low, as you’ve probably been told. And it’s low because we’re very good at handling just this sort of problem.”

The fact that this was at least the third murder of this type—Chess figured it had to be at least three, because if there had only been one before, Jillian would have said “another” instead of “a few”—seemed to indicate that they weren’t as good as they thought, but Chess sure as hell knew not to say that.

And really, it was about all she knew, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even graduated yet, much less started training. Yes, she’d read ahead; all those late nights in the library, sneaking books from the Restricted Room and the Archives to study, all those long silent hours of peace meant she probably knew more than the average last-year student.

But there was so much more to know, so much more to learn. No, she didn’t want to join the Squad, but she might as well try to get something out of her time there, right? The more knowledge she gathered and the harder she worked, the better chance she had of graduating, of passing training, of getting to be somebody. “So what do you do next, then? How will you catch them?”

“We’ll talk to a Liaiser, maybe,” Jillian said, glancing at the men. “See if they’ve picked up anything about unrest among the dead, or if perhaps they know who’s gone missing.”

Vaughn nodded. “We’ve upped the street patrols, of course. The others have been in neighborhoods like this one, so we’re making sure the streets are well covered at night.”

“Do you warn people, or anything? Maybe have someone go around laying out salt or putting blood on—”

Trent started laughing. “Are you crazy? And terrify half the city? Hell, no, we haven’t made an announcement. And you won’t tell anyone, either, none of your little friends back at Church, understand?”

Okay, now she was pissed. To imply that she—of all people—couldn’t keep a secret? She’d kept secrets that would turn his Haircolor for Men No. 8 hair white.

And she was still keeping them. She always would. “I know how to keep a secret.”

“Well, if you don’t, we’ll certainly find out soon enough, won’t we?”

“Give her a break, Trent,” Vaughn muttered.

“I’m just teasing.”

Ah, yes. Just Teasing: the defense of the cowardly asshole. Whatever.

Jillian touched Chess’s arm—what was the deal with that?—and glanced toward the hallway. “You want to come check out the other rooms with me, Cesaria? I’ll show you how we run a search.”

“Don’t know why you’re bothering,” Trent said. “You know ghosts are opportunity killers. Searching the last few houses didn’t—”

“Because it’s a good way for her to learn,” Jillian said. “Because I’m supposed to be teaching her.”

The scream from outside interrupted whatever response Trent was about to make, and sent a chill up Chess’s spine for good measure. It was a horrible scream, the high, long shriek of pain and loss. “Nooooo! Mom—Mommy! Daddy! What—”

Vaughn was moving before the words really gelled in Chess’s mind; to Trent’s credit—look at that, she could find one nice thing about even him—he was right behind, with Jillian following. Chess hesitated for a minute; was she supposed to go, too? It really wasn’t her business. It definitely wasn’t something she wanted to see.

Not that staying there with a couple of dismembered corpses appealed more, but … Oh, shit. The door was open, and from the doorway those corpses were clearly visible, and if that scream came from the dead couple’s daughter she really, really wouldn’t need to see that.

Chess leaped for the door, intending to slam it shut, but she was too late. The green lawn and black cop cars she saw through the doorway disappeared, replaced by a woman’s body, little more than a shadow against the sunshine outside. She was a shadow, blotting out the light, her misery and pain more than enough to cast darkness all around her.

She stared at the room, stared at the carnage, her jaw working soundlessly, her eyes wild in her round face. Chess saw those eyes start to roll back and made a move, but it was Trent who caught the woman when she fell.

Chapter Three

Beyond the closed door Chess could hear the voices of the Evidence Team cleaning up the mess in the living room, but in that room—apparently Gloria Waring’s childhood bedroom—silence reigned.

Chess hadn’t volunteered to babysit the victims’ adult daughter. Something told her an eighteen-year-old girl was maybe not the most qualified to do the job, either—especially not when the eighteen-year-old girl in question was herself, who had almost as much experience with loving families as she did with mechanical engineering. Which was none. But there she was, sort of standing around, trying not to look at Gloria huddled on the bed staring swollen-eyed into space. Her sadness filled the room, made Chess’s skin feel raw.

Pictures in glass frames sat on the dresser, covered the walls. Gloria and her parents in front of a lake. Gloria and her parents at Gloria’s second-school graduation. Gloria and some people Chess assumed were Gloria’s friends on a beach. A picture of a group of adults, the image tinted with the sort of orangey color given by age; closer inspection showed Chess two people she thought were Gloria’s parents, standing in the back.

Interesting. Well, not really—Chess didn’t give much of a shit about the late Warings—but interesting that Gloria kept the picture in her room.

But then … it looked more like a guest room now, didn’t it? A few souvenirs of the type of childhood normal people had were visible, a couple of yearbooks on the lone shelf and kindergarten art projects on the walls. But the furniture, the curtains and bedcoverings, were new and generic. So maybe the Warings had just stuck things in there they no longer wanted to display elsewhere. In fact … yes, the lake picture had been in the living room as well, only larger. Chess picked it up to get a closer look.

“Deep Creek Lake,” Gloria said. “I was sixteen.”

Shit. What was she doing? Chess set the picture back down, hoping her face hadn’t gone as red as it felt. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Gloria sniffled and sat up, clutching the cheap floral comforter around her as she did. “What are you supposed to do, just watch me lay here?”

Okay, then. “Um. I’m sorry. For your loss, I mean.”

Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say; Gloria’s face crumpled again. Shit. Chess took a step toward her without any real sort of plan—was this a touch-her situation, should she pat the woman on the back or something?—but was saved from the necessity of doing anything by a tap on the door, the turn of the knob. “Gloria?”

A man. Gloria’s boyfriend, or—no, her husband. Relief probably wasn’t the right thing for Chess to feel upon realizing she no longer had to touch Gloria, but she felt it anyway. And really, when had she ever felt the right thing?

“Matt!”

They hugged. They blocked the door. Damn. That would have been the perfect moment to slip out of the way, too. All that naked emotion … it made Chess feel like her hands and feet were too big, her arms and legs too long. Awkward and uncomfortable, like she was being forced to observe things that were none of her business. Which she supposed technically she was.

Thankfully, Jillian poked her head around the door a minute later. “There you are. Come on, I want to show you something.”

Chess angled herself past the weeping Warings—or whatever their last name was; maybe Gloria wasn’t a Waring anymore, since she was married—and followed Jillian down the short hall to the master bedroom. A decent-sized room, heavy on ruffles, taupe, and rose, with bowls of potpourri all over the dressers and the desk and the shelves of the TV cabinet. It smelled like a cinnamon stick had thrown up in there; how had they slept in that air? It made Chess’s nose and throat itch.

Jillian opened a window, giving Chess a half smile as she did. “Pretty awful, huh?”

Chess nodded.

“We probably won’t find much up here—well, actually, we’re pretty sure we won’t. Like Trent said, ghosts are opportunity killers, and we’ve got a couple on the loose here. But we generally have a look around, just to rule out the idea that the victims were Summoning on their own, or whatever. Even good investigators can miss things, so we try to be really careful. You want to start in the closet there?”

“Yeah, sure, but … what am I looking for?”

“Anything unusual. Anything magical—they’ll probably have stuff like sleep-safes or luck charms or whatever, maybe some sex magic. Just bring those out here so we can have a look. And of course if anything seems really strange, let me know before you touch it.”

Jillian pulled a white wad from her bag, which when she held it out proved to be a pair of latex gloves, cloudy with powder. “Here, put these on. And you should pick up a box at the Church store and always keep a pair or two with you. You’d be amazed how often they come in handy.”

Chess snapped on the gloves, hating the medicinal smell and texture and the way they made her hands feel trapped. It was a good idea, though, she had to admit. Or it would be, if she ended up doing some kind of work where she might come in contact with magical items.

Weird to be thinking of her future as something she chose, and not something that she was either forced into or did because she had no other options. Three years since the Church had found her, three years since they’d approved her scholarship and she’d left the Corey Home, and the idea still hit her sometimes, hard and fast like a pissed-off foster father’s blow to her head and leaving her almost as stunned: She might have an actual future. She would have an actual future, if she managed not to fuck it up.

Jillian pulled a little velvet bag out from under the Warings’ bed. “See? It’s a—oh, no, just some rings. Huh. Anyway, go ahead and start in the closet, and let me know if you see anything weird or interesting or whatever.”

Chess nodded and crossed the dull tan carpet to the walk-in closet. The Warings’ clothing was about as adventurous as their bedroom. Lots of earth tones and pastels, the colors nervous people wore so they could hide. Everything cut rather loose, so it seemed, but then Chess hadn’t really seen how big the Warings were, considering that they’d been chopped into pieces.

Ugh, and she was going through their things. Like some kind of ghoul. Those people were dead, they’d been taken to the City of Eternity below the earth to live forever and they’d never be back, and there she was judging their clothing choices. It would have made her sick if she didn’t already know—had known for years—that she was a bad person, a twisted one with filth and darkness in her soul.

She shut her eyes for a second, squeezing the thought from her head, and got back to work. Lots of pictures, boxes and boxes of them. Jewelry boxes, shoes, bags of fabric and craft stuff, a low white box … Oh, shit. “Jillian.”

“Yeah?”

“Come look at this.”

Jillian appeared in the doorway, her hair shining beneath the overhead light. “Yeah, what’s—oh. Wow. Is there a license in there for that stuff?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t touched it. Should I?”

Jillian nodded. Chess reached into the box and lifted the Bible sealed in heavy plastic, the framed sampler embroidered with a quote from same under a large cross, a couple of pictures of Jesus. She’d never seen anything like it before—well, of course she had, the Church had plenty of artifacts of the old religions in the Archives, in the Restricted Room and the museums and—she’d seen that sort of thing before, was the point. But never like that, never in someone’s actual home. Certainly the kinds of houses where she’d grown up—the kinds of people she’d grown up with—weren’t really the type who would have cared about religion even if it wasn’t illegal.

But the Warings’ items were in fact legal; Chess found the license at the bottom of the box. She’d definitely never seen one of those before. “It’s made out to the Warings and the New Hope Mission.”

“Huh.” Jillian scanned the document, set it back in the box. “Well, I guess they were religious. I bet Gloria’s too young to remember it, though. She was born in ninety-two, so she would have been five for Haunted Week. That’s pretty young to really remember stuff like that.”

“Should we ask her?”

Jillian shrugged. “Maybe later. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people were religious before and wanted to keep a few things from it. We see it fairly often. As long as it’s licensed it’s okay.”

“So should I set it aside, make a note or something?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Keep looking.”

About half an hour later Chess had found two small luck charms—ones she was pleased to note that she identified right away, even though they hadn’t covered all the permutations in class yet, ha!—some house-dedication supplies, and four protection spells, which seemed excessive, but what did she know. Behind them sat another bag, a small red velvet one. Shit. She knew what that probably was.

She glanced toward the bedroom, where Jillian was going through drawers. Jillian would come pick the thing up for her if she asked. And she could ask. She was only eighteen, only a student; she could ask.

Except that asking would make her look like a pussy. Asking would be the kind of thing Jillian might report back, with a sorrowful “I don’t think Cesaria is ready” sort of comment thrown in.

Asking would be like admitting that something was wrong with her. That she was terrified; that she had reason to be terrified. That she wasn’t normal.

So she didn’t ask. She gritted her teeth and reached for the thing. Maybe the gloves would help protect her, maybe they’d form some kind of barrier against—

Or maybe the gloves wouldn’t do a damn thing, or at least not enough. Energy crawled up her arm, greedy sex energy eager to find a home. Someone else’s sex energy, forcing itself upon her, insinuating itself across her skin and down into her belly, lower down, dancing a slow cruel path through her body and making her heart kick in her chest.

That wasn’t just the sex, either. That was panic, the bright painful cry of it in her soul, making her eyes sting. Shit, she couldn’t—couldn’t handle that, couldn’t do it, not in that strange claustrophobic room with its cloying too-warm air. It was too much, too much for her, hard hands on her skin, holding her down, her lungs fighting for oxygen, she had to—

She had to drop the fucking bag, was what she had to do. Her stiff fingers didn’t want to let go for a second; as always, her body betrayed her, wanting more even though it was wrong, wanting more even though it was bad. But finally they obeyed; the bag fell to the carpet with a soft thud, and Chess knelt there for a minute trying to catch her breath, swiping furiously at her damp, stinging eyes with the backs of her wrists. She’d have to touch the thing again to take it into the room and show Jillian, and the last thing she needed was for Jillian to see that anything was bothering her.

It was just a damn sex spell. Lots of people had them, big deal, right? She pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to flatten the furrows she knew were there, rubbing to ease the beginnings of what promised to be a killer headache. Just a stupid fucking sex spell. Nothing more. She was older now, she was a student at Church, in training to be a witch. She could handle a little magic. She could, and she would.

One long deep breath, then another, until they came smooth without catching in her throat. Okay. Fine. She clenched her jaw, got to her feet, and grabbed the bags.

From the closet doorway to the foot of the bed where Jillian had placed a few other items was only maybe fifteen feet. It felt like forever while Chess struggled to keep her expression calm, her chest from heaving. Jillian didn’t look up until Chess reached the pile and dropped the bags just beside it. She’d done it.

Yeah, she’d done it then. Once. What happened next time? Or the time after that? What kind of job was she going to find in the Church where she never had to deal with sex magic, ever?

She couldn’t really think of one unless she wanted to be a Liaiser, and the idea of letting spirits have control over her body, communing with them … the thought made her shudder.

Almost as much as that horrible spell bag had. She was going to have to distract herself somehow, because her heart still pounded and she still heard those distant voices telling her how bad she was, how dirty, how it was her fault, and she didn’t want to hear them. Didn’t want to see those faces in her mind.

Jillian peered at her. “You okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Sure. Of course.” Chess twisted her lips into what she hoped looked like a wry smile. “Sex magic. Kinda gross, is all.”

“Ooh, let’s see.” Jillian dropped to the floor and started digging in the bag. “Wow, they weren’t kidding with this, were they? I wonder who they hired to make it. This doesn’t feel like the normal homemade type of spell.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it’s too strong. Here, take off your glove.” Jillian picked up one of the luck charms and held it up, waiting until Chess had stripped off the thin latex to set it in her palm. “See how it feels kind of weak? Close your eyes and really feel it.”

Chess did, her face warming. Of course. Duh. They’d just started this in class a few weeks ago, energy identification. She should have realized … shit, what else might she be missing? She’d read about this, she’d even practiced it, so why hadn’t she tested herself on it as soon as she saw the charm bags? Why hadn’t she thought to check if the energy was the same, if she could identify it?

Because she was chickenshit, that’s why. Because she’d been so worried about that sex spell that she hadn’t even thought of it. Too selfish, too concerned about her little feelings or whatever.

She was never going to get anywhere if she didn’t think more, focus better.

The energy in the luck charm was like the energy lingering in the room, only a little stronger. And … “Is this female? It feels like a woman made it, maybe?”

To her relief, Jillian nodded. “Very good. Probably Mrs. Waring. They had a couple of books on basic spells in the living room, don’t know if you saw them.”

Chess nodded—she had—but again she hadn’t paid attention. Shit. She’d been training for what, three hours, and she was already missing stuff, already fucking up. She couldn’t even blame that on the sex spell, because she hadn’t known it was there or touched it yet when they first arrived. She just hadn’t noted the books, hadn’t thought to feel the energy of the luck charms to see if she could identify it, hadn’t thought of anything worthwhile.

Typical. Did she want to end up giving thirty-dollar blow jobs off the street corner? No. So she needed to get her shit together.

She set the luck charm down. Time for the—for the other one. While Jillian watched. Fuck.

Her hand shook as she picked the sex magic bag up again. Ugh. Yes, she was ready for it this time, braced for it. But she was also gloveless this time. She was opening herself up to it, flexing those energy muscles the Church had been teaching her about, training her to use.

The spell washed over her again, stronger now without the barrier, faster. It roared through her blood thick and dark, gloating as it invaded her body, found her weak spots—so many of them—and prodded them; it found her empty spots—even more of those—and filled them.

Someone else’s sexual energy forced on her, someone else’s arousal slithering over her skin like hands on her body, in her body, pinning her down, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t cry. Laughing at her fear. Laughing as she struggled and tried to make it stop—and she couldn’t, she couldn’t struggle or stop it, because Jillian was watching and Chess was supposed to be getting information from this, learning something. She needed to do it. Needed to show Jillian she could.

Sweat broke out on her forehead, under her arms, and where she wasn’t specifically sweaty she was still damp. Uncomfortable. And uncomfortably aware that Jillian was watching her, that no matter how she might struggle to hide it Jillian knew what was happening to her, what she was feeling.

Ignore it. Ignore Jillian, ignore all of it. Whose magic was this, who—a man, was it a man? It felt male, it felt rough and demanding. Angry, almost. It felt, deep down, frustrated.

Which was a weird thing for sex magic to feel like, wasn’t it, since the point was to end frustration, to satisfy?

Her palm burned where it touched the velvet bag; the rest of her body burned where it didn’t, wanting to be touched itself. It had been a while, so much studying … so much following the rules.

Shit, she did not want to be thinking of that, of any of it. Later she could do something about it, if she still wanted to. Now … She gritted her teeth against the dark whispers in her blood, the intrusive lure of what the bag promised, and focused harder. A man. It felt like a man. A man’s energy, a man’s magic. Strong, too. Not strong like one of the Elders, but stronger than the luck charm, certainly.

Her hand shook. She was shaking everywhere, she realized, and she opened her eyes and saw Jillian still watching her, watching her with something in her eyes that Chess didn’t like. The bag fell to the floor.

Instantly cool air swept over her. Well, no, the air wasn’t cooler, her body was cooler. The spell’s created lust—created heat—vanished, leaving her standing there trembling with her hair stuck to the back of her neck and her skin tingling. She swallowed hard against the bile threatening to rise; it felt like her heart had been hooked up to a fucking jumper cable. Her legs were too weak, threatening to give out beneath her. She needed to sit down. No, what she needed was to be alone. She needed cold water on her face, she needed to get out of that room because her breath wasn’t slowing the way it should and red spots exploded in her eyes and she was freaking out, she was losing it, she needed to—

“Having fun, ladies?”

Trent stood in the doorway, grinning like a gambler holding a full house while his gaze raked her up and down. Funny to be almost grateful to see him there, but she was; at least she could focus on how much she hated him even though they’d just met, and hold off the fucking full-scale panic attack threatening to take control of her body any second.

Hatred was better than panic. Hatred was strength, hatred was something she could use. She grabbed it like a drowning woman grabbing a life jacket, and let it burn in her eyes while she glared at him. Yeah, he could maybe report back to an Elder that she hadn’t been very nice to him, and later she’d probably think of that and worry, but at the moment she didn’t give a shit. Let him do it. Better he reported that than tell them she’d gone hysterical.

“Are you all done down there?” Jillian stood up. “I’m sure Gloria wants to go home.”

Trent gave Chess one last knowing look—how she itched to slap that right off his face—and nodded. “We tore up the carpet but the blood’s soaked through. We can’t clean that up, either. But that’s all there is for her to see.”

“Guess that’s the best we can do.” Jillian pulled a camera from her bag and handed it to Chess. “I’m going to go ask Gloria a couple more questions, see if she knows anything about her parents being involved in magic they shouldn’t be. You get some pictures of all this stuff, okay? The bags intact, and then take the ingredients out of each, photograph them, and put them back. Got it?”

Chess nodded.

“Good. Back in a few.”

Trent gave Chess one last smirk—oh, he’d definitely seen what had been happening to her, knew what kind of spell she’d been holding, the bastard—and swept out of the doorway, following Jillian, leaving her finally alone.

Chapter Four

The second Trent’s back disappeared from view Chess got up, stumbling over her own feet in her rush to get to the bathroom. Whether it was okay to use the toilet or anything in there she didn’t know, but it didn’t matter; she didn’t need it.

What she needed was a door she could close and lock behind her. What she needed was a corner to press herself into, a place to make herself small, where she could see into every space and under every counter, and know no one would come in. Shit, she hadn’t had to deal with anything like that since she’d entered the Church, she hadn’t expected it to be so bad.…

She huddled next to the cold porcelain bathtub with her arms wrapped around her knees, curling herself into the tightest ball she could. It was okay, she was okay. It was just magic. It was unpleasant but no one had actually touched her. It hadn’t hurt. She was safe; she was with the Squad and the Squad was Church and they were safe. She was okay. She was, she was okay, and she kept repeating it in her head, reminding herself with every shuddering breath she managed to take until finally the pain in her chest started to ease.

And a new one to take over. Fuck, what was wrong with her? She was okay, it was just some dumb magic, why the hell couldn’t she just deal with it? How was she going to get anywhere if she couldn’t handle a little sex magic?

Her bag sat right next to her, pressed up against her side. Her left hand rested on it, right near the zipper. She could … It wasn’t a good thing to do, no. It wasn’t the right thing to do. She was working, she was supposed to be working, and she’d already messed up by not testing the energy from those bags and comparing them. The Church had given her an opportunity and she was already wasting it.

But … her head hurt and her chest hurt and her mind raced, all those memories she didn’t want swirling around in a kaleidoscope of shit. If she could just make them go away—she needed to make them go away, and she needed to do it fast because Jillian could be back any second and no way was Chess going to let her see that anything was wrong. Not only could it mess things up as far as her work—her future—was concerned, but it was none of Jillian’s damn business, anyway. It was nobody’s business.

But she was working …

Right. Okay, then. She was fine, and she’d be fine on her own, she didn’t need—

Her hands were moving. Without her telling them to, they’d unzipped her bag. While she thought about how fine she was, they were digging around in it; while she thought how she didn’t need it, they’d found the flask she’d bought at a secondhand store on her eighteenth birthday and started unscrewing the top.

Before she could stop them, they raised the flask to her lips and tilted it up. And before she could stop it vodka poured down her throat.

Not a lot. No, definitely not a lot; she did manage to do that, to stop it after she’d swallowed half a mouthful or so. Not even a real shot. It hardly mattered because it wasn’t even a full shot, it was barely more than a sip. Right?

She told herself that was right. She knew it wasn’t.

Fuck! What was the—what was wrong with her, damn it? Even as warmth spread in her stomach and drifted out through her bloodstream, even as her eyes half closed in relief and her head sank back to rest against the wall behind her, she felt it, the shame, the sickness festering deep inside her, the fear of what it meant. Her first day outside of class, her first real work for the Church, and she couldn’t even make it four hours before she was at the flask.

Never again. Okay, she’d done it, but she’d never do it again. Yeah, it was her first day, but it was a grisly ghost murder, and really, most people would be freaked out by that, right? Most people were freaked out just hearing about such things; sure, it had been seventeen years, but people still remembered. They’d always remember. And even if they tried to forget, the Festival still happened every year, the dead still walked the surface for six nights, reminding humanity that they were still there and the Church was still in charge.

So it was perfectly natural that, being faced with two corpses chopped to bits by ghosts, she’d need something to calm her down a bit. Doctors even prescribed a little nip to people who’d had a shock, right?

Right. It was totally understandable. It was totally natural. She’d just never do it again, was all.

Never again. She promised.

With her head somewhat cleared, her body calmed, she glanced around the bathroom. She couldn’t stay in there—she had to get pictures of those spells for Jillian—but she could sit just a few more seconds. And grab some cinnamon candies from her bag, too, because she’d need them. Vodka might not have a specific smell but it certainly smelled of alcohol, and she couldn’t have that.

As she stood up and popped the candy into her mouth her gaze fell on something beside the sink. Another spell, it looked like; well, sure, lots of people kept magic somewhere they’d be likely to see it often and come in contact with it, since most spells relied on physical closeness to work. People kept sleep-safes under their bed or behind the headboard, that sort of thing, which—Actually, yeah. Why had the luck charms been in the closet? Why had the sex spell been in the closet?

Chess braced herself and reached out to touch the bag, feeling brave because her mind was still calm enough from the—well, the thing she shouldn’t have done.

A protection charm. Right, because people shaved in bathrooms, maybe? Either way, she felt the difference. If that was Mr. Waring’s energy, which she thought it was, it was definitely not the same as the energy of the person—the man—who’d made the sex spell. No aggression colored this magic, no anger. And hardly any power, either; the man who’d made this might as well have just thrown some cotton balls into the bag, for all the strength it had.

Well, Jillian had said someone else must have been hired to make the sex spell, so no big surprise there, right?

That still didn’t explain why they’d kept the sex spell so far away, though, or why it had felt so angry.

Whatever. Maybe the spell had been too strong for them. Maybe they’d felt the anger somehow, too, and just hadn’t gotten around to tossing the thing. Maybe they liked to fuck in the closet. Probably didn’t matter as far as the case went; probably none of her business.

She rinsed her hands and popped another candy into her mouth, giving herself one last glance in the mirror. Did she look okay? Sober, calm, collected? Yeah, basically, at least she thought she did, so good.

Time to take her pictures and get the hell out of there. The place was starting to make her itch.

J. F. Sebastian’s was one of those chain restaurants that tried to pretend it was fun and high-end, rather than just a yuppie meat market with overpriced drinks and mediocre food. The walls were covered with fifties-style posters and ads; those were actually fun to look at, but aside from them the place basically sucked.

A gang of men in ties stood together near the bar, their eyes following Jillian and Chess as the two women sat down in a booth outside the bar area. The men looked loathsome, like the kind of people Chess would want to slap after ten minutes of hearing about their cars or their expensive belongings or who designed their fucking suits. But they also looked like men, and she wanted to get some stuff out of her head, and the best way to do that—aside from the booze—was to let a man distract her. Maybe … no, she was with Jillian, and Jillian was reporting on her behavior, so it wasn’t the time.

A few minutes of silence while they skimmed over the lame-ass menu full of fried things and trademark symbols. A few minutes of chatter while the gaudily dressed waiter pretended he liked them and took their orders. Not that Chess was interested in food. Work was done and it was dark; she wanted a drink, and she wanted it alone in her room with the door locked and a good book in her hand. Or she wanted a man, someone who’d do what she wanted him to do and then shut up so she could go home.

What she did not want was a Grande Burger and a Coke, but it was what she asked for, because Jillian hadn’t ordered a drink—a real drink—so Chess figured she shouldn’t, either, despite the pounding in her head, the voices coming back.

“Gloria said her parents didn’t mess with magic they shouldn’t be messing with,” Jillian said, her eyes scanning the restaurant aimlessly as she talked. “She said they were kind of scared of the whole thing, really, and never got over the loss of their religion.”

“A lot of people feel that way.” Chess resisted the urge to add “Right?” to the end of the sentence. They’d been taught this; even before she entered Church education she’d been taught this, about the suicides and the small hidden cults and everything else.

Jillian nodded. “It’s not unusual. Might be why the Warings hired someone else to do their sex spell, too, if they weren’t comfortable doing their own magic.”

“They did the luck charms. And the protection charms. At least it felt like them.” Did that sound bitchy?

Apparently not, because Jillian didn’t remark on it. “They did feel like them, yeah. So why would she get someone else to do her sex magic?”

“Maybe she needed something a little stronger,” Chess said before she thought. Her face warmed. “I mean, that’s the only thing I can think of.”

Not that she wanted to think of it at all. That sex spell refused to leave her memory, refused to leave her alone.

Jillian shrugged. “I don’t think it matters, really. The sex spell didn’t feel like ghost magic, and we didn’t find anything that would indicate they were doing ghost magic.”

“Why’d they keep the sex spell in the closet, though?”

“Hmm?” Jillian wasn’t looking at Chess; she was looking at the guys by the bar, and they were looking back. Hmm indeed.

The last thing Chess was going to do was look interested in the men, though. And she wanted an answer to her question. “Why was the sex spell in the closet? Don’t most people keep them under their beds? And—and that spell felt kind of dark to me, kind of, like, frustrated.”

“Maybe that’s why they kept it in the closet. It just didn’t work and they were planning to get rid of it.”

“I wonder who made it for them.”

Jillian flashed a smile at the men across the room. “Look, Cesaria, I get that this is your first case and it’s exciting and everything, but I think you’re reading way too much into this.” The smile softened a little. “If you’re just curious, fine, but this was a crime of opportunity. It’s the third ghost murder like this in the last two weeks. It’s bad, and I’m interested in what you have to say, but we should be focusing on identifying the ghosts and trying to catch them, instead of worrying about where our victims bought their magic.”

Fuck this. Yeah, fine, Jillian was trying to be nice. At least it looked like she was. And yeah, fine, Chess was new at this, and she was curious, and she was anxious to make a good impression, but she wasn’t an idiot and she wasn’t a child, and fuck Jillian and her condescension.

Chess stood up. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Walk by those guys, see if they say anything to you.”

“Sure.” Ugh.

But she did, and they did, and by the time she came back from the bathroom sucking another candy and feeling much calmer—the voices quieted, the world softened just a little bit; hey, she wasn’t technically working anymore, right?—the men were firmly ensconced at their table, with Jillian holding court over their newly arrived food.

Looked like work time was over. Fine. Chess sat down and turned toward the least objectionable-looking of the men, plastering a smile on her face as she did. There was more than one way to forget.

Chapter Five

Jillian picked her up at eleven the next morning, late enough that Chess had just about managed to shake her hangover, but still early enough that Jillian’s enthusiastic discussion about the men the night before, and which one she liked, and how he’d asked for her phone number, and blah blah blah whatever, still felt like fingernails on Chess’s mental chalkboard.

“Thanks for letting that other one give you a ride home, anyway,” Jillian said, taking a swig of coffee. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure.” That wasn’t all he’d given her, but she wasn’t about to mention that. He’d chased away some memories, distracted her for a few minutes, and that was all she cared about.

“What was his name, again?”

“Um … Mike, I think.”

“Did he ask for your number?”

“I didn’t give it to him.” Chess pulled out her notepad and started flipping pages in an effort to get Jillian to quit the girl talk. “So where are we going today?”

“Back to the Waring house. Gloria Waring is meeting us there. Why didn’t you give him your number?”

“I just didn’t, is all.” Lie. That was a lie and she was a liar. She hadn’t given it to him because she never wanted to see him again, because she never wanted to see any of them again afterward. Because she was weak enough to want them so the least she could do was keep them from hurting her; because if she let them into her life they would hurt her. How could they not? They were people. That was what people did to each other.

Jillian opened her mouth; Chess spoke before she could. “So Gloria Waring will be there again? What are we going to ask her about? I thought you said it was just a crime of opportunity.”

“It is. At least we’re ninety-nine percent sure it is. But we want to be a hundred percent sure—we are the Black Squad, after all—so we just want to give the place another go-over. It won’t take long.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll see.” Jillian shrugged as she turned the car onto the Warings’ street. “Maybe we’ll head down to the City and talk to the Liaisers, see if they’ve turned up anything on these ghosts, if they’re missing from the City or—”

“The City?” It came out as a sort of raspy squeak; embarrassing. Chess cleared her throat and tried again. “The City of Eternity? We’ll go down there?”

“Today or tomorrow, yeah. Oh—you haven’t been down there yet, have you?”

Chess shook her head. Shit. The City … that was a big deal. An exciting deal, and a scary deal, and she wasn’t entirely sure which emotion she felt more.

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine.” Jillian parked the car on the curb outside the Waring house and turned it off. “It’s kind of weird the first time you go, but really, once you see how peaceful it is … it’s really nice, this whole other world, and you get to go there when you die. So it’s like not even really dying. It’s, well, it’s nice, you know?”

Chess forced a smile. At least she knew exactly what reaction was expected from her on this subject. “I’m just amazed I might get to see it.”

Jillian’s smile widened. Double shit; Chess knew what Jillian was going to say before she said it, and it wasn’t really what Chess wanted to hear. “Tell you what,” Jillian said, “we’ll go down there either way, okay? After we leave here, we’ll just go.”

“Oh, hey, don’t put—”

“Don’t be silly.” Jillian’s hand rested on Chess’s arm for a minute; Chess managed not to react. “I’m here to teach you stuff, right? Just think, you get to go before anybody else in your year. They’ll be so jealous.”

Like she gave a shit what they thought. “Wow, yeah, that’s … thanks, that’s really great.”

“No problem.” Jillian grinned at her for another few seconds, like she’d just handed Chess a couple thousand dollars for no reason, then opened the car door. “Come on, let’s hurry up here so we can go.”

Yeah, that really gave Chess incentive to hurry. The thought made her feel even shittier. What was the matter with her? Jillian was being nice to her, she genuinely was. Chess had little doubt that yes, her classmates would be jealous if she got to visit the City before they did. What Jillian was offering was a Big Deal. And here she was, being a fucking bitch about it just because … well, who the hell knew why. Because she was a fucking bitch, really.

Vaughn and Trent—oh, goody—stood outside, smoking cigarettes and squinting at the sun. They nodded when Chess and Jillian crossed the yard. “Hey.”

Jillian glanced around. “Anything?”

“Not really. Just what we saw yesterday.”

“Gloria Waring is on her way—” Trent started, but stopped when another car, a dark green sedan of some kind, pulled up behind Jillian’s. “Ah. Gloria Waring is here.”

Not just Gloria, either. At first Chess thought the man with her was her husband, but no. This was a different man, older. Maybe not as old as the Warings—definitely not, she saw as he drew closer—but he had a good ten years or so on Gloria.

What was he doing there? Who was he?

Uncle Mark was who he was, at least according to Gloria. “Well, he’s not really my uncle, he’s just—he’s been friends with Mom and Dad for … my whole life.” Her lip trembled; Uncle Mark put his arm around her.

“Why did this happen?” He looked at all of them, even Chess, like she had any answers. “How did this happen?”

Jillian spoke. “Sir, the rate of ghost-related deaths in the District is one of the lowest in the world—”

“But it still happened,” he snapped, and real malice flashed in his eyes, solidifying Chess’s initial instinct. Something about him bothered her; something about him set her on edge. She didn’t like him one bit.

“Yes, it happened.” Trent stepped forward. “And we’re sorry for your loss. But that’s no reason to get nasty with Inquisitor Morrow. Is it.”

A moment of stare-down. A moment of something flashing in Uncle Mark’s eyes. How could Gloria stand there and let him touch her, how could she not see—

Maybe there was nothing to see. Maybe she stood there and let him touch her because there was no reason not to, right? She knew the guy. Chess didn’t. And just because something about him made Chess uncomfortable—well, shit, a lot of people did, didn’t they?

And she needed to pay attention to what was happening, because Trent had clearly won the little mental battle and the conversation was moving on.

“Shannon and Joe would never do that sort of thing,” Uncle Mark was saying. The sun hovered just over his head like a halo. How appropriate. Or not. “They were kind of afraid of magic, really. You know, they had very strong beliefs before Haunted Week and never really—”

He stopped, apparently realizing to whom he was speaking. “I’m not saying they kept believing after Haunted Week or anything. They didn’t, of course they didn’t. Just that they were kind of set in their ways.”

Chess started to ask how he knew that, how long he’d known the Warings, when Jillian asked for her. Which was good, because Chess didn’t figure she should really be asking any questions.

“They worked at a mission,” Uncle Mark said. “A religious charity. I was—well, I lived there. I was an orphan, and they took me in, gave me a job.”

“When was this?” Jillian asked.

“Oh, um … I was thirteen, so that would have been in 1993. They helped a lot of people. Too bad it was all a lie, really.”

A lie? Chess looked at him more closely. Yeah, a lot of people who’d believed in the old religions had felt betrayed after Haunted Week; well, of course they had. That was one reason hardly any of their churches or whatevers still stood: angry hordes of ex-believers vented their rage on anything and everything they could, and the fires had burned all over the world for weeks after.

When the—what was it, the New Hope Mission?—had burned, had Uncle Mark poured the gasoline? Had he stood and watched? Cried? Smiled?

Jillian didn’t ask, damn it. “And what happened to the mission after Haunted Week?”

A shadow passed over Uncle Mark’s face. “It closed. Well, of course it closed. They all did, didn’t they?”

“Uncle Mark stayed with us for a while,” Gloria said. “Before he got a job and got his own place and everything.”

“I just can’t believe they’re gone.” Mark wiped his eyes, took a few deep breaths. “They—they taught me everything, they made me feel like a real person. They told me anything was possible, and I believed them.”

The others nodded and made sympathetic noises. Chess didn’t. He sounded … bitter, didn’t he? Again she inspected him; again she saw something in his eyes that she didn’t like, something that made her uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until the conversation had ended that she realized what it might be—what it probably was. He held out his hand to her; her first instinct was to ignore it, to pull away, even, but with everyone watching she really couldn’t. So she took it. She let his skin touch hers, and his energy shocked her, made her breath catch in her chest and her heart give an unhappy leap.

He was the one who’d made the sex spell.

“Maybe he did,” Jillian said. She glanced at Chess. “Sorry. He probably did, if it felt like the same energy to you. And that’s cool, you know? Actually, it’s doubly cool, because it means you made an energy identification, and we learned something more about his relationship with the Warings. About him.”

Yeah, something gross. Chess hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to ask; maybe she was being weird wondering. But she couldn’t help it. “Isn’t that kind of … strange, though? To have a friend you’ve known since he was a kid make a sex spell for you?”

“Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe he’s good at it. I mean, they were married and they had a kid, it’s not like it’s a secret that they had sex.”

“I know, it just seems—”

“Takes all kinds, you know?”

“Sure.” Chess nodded. It was still fucking weird, but whatever. “The spell was strong. Why isn’t he working for the Church?”

Jillian tilted her head. “You seem really interested in him and that sex spell.”

“What? No, I just—”

“Oh, come on.” Jillian patted Chess’s thigh, patronizing and creepy all at once. “I understand. We’re both girls here, right? I can … I can help you, you know. Like, to meet men. I know the Church doesn’t cover that stuff, so … you know, if you want to talk to someone …”

Why would Chess want to—? Oh. Oh, ick. And oh, like she needed help in that department. The only thing she ever wanted from men was easy to get. “Um, thanks, but, I’m really just wondering about the case. It’s not—it’s not about that.”

“Well, just the same … you know, your mom probably talks to you about all of this, but—”

“I don’t have a mother.” They were on the highway again, heading back toward Church—back toward the City of Eternity, shit—and cars zipped past them, flowed around them. What were those people thinking of, talking about?

If only she was with them instead of trapped with Jillian and her concern.

Again, not fair. Jillian was being cool. She was a nice person. It wasn’t her fault that Chess felt like Jillian was trying to crack open her soul and poke around inside.

“Oh. Well, of course, lots of people—did she die during Haunted Week?”

“I don’t know.” Chess kept her gaze pinned out the window. “Um, I don’t know who she was or anything, I never knew her name. They found me when I was a newborn, outside a hospital. Before Haunted Week.”

“Oh.” So much hid in that “oh.” Surprise. Maybe a bit of contempt? Because Chess had no ancestry, no family she could trace, like everyone else did. No names of the dead to put on her list, to visit through a Liaiser the way normal people did.

Jillian must have realized she’d let the silence sit a little too long. “Well, my offer still stands. I haven’t had a trainee before, so this is … it’s kind of cool for me, to be honest. I don’t have a little sister or anything, either.”

Chess nodded. And changed the subject as fast as she could, because unbidden the image of the flask in her bag appeared in her mind. She couldn’t pull out the flask, and she couldn’t continue having this discussion, either. Her throat felt oddly tight as she said, “So, Mark. How did he make such a strong spell when he’s not Church? Wasn’t everyone tested?”

Pause. “He could have volunteered to be tested, yeah, since he was too old for the mandatory testing. Maybe he did. But lots of people still have some ability even though they aren’t strong enough to work with us. You know that.”

“Can we check that?”

Jillian slid the car into the exit lane. Her brows drew together, not like she was worried but like she was trying to think of a way to say something. Uh-oh. Chess had pushed it too far, hadn’t she? Damn it. Jillian was the Inquisitor, not Chess; Jillian had the experience, had dealt with this stuff before. So why hadn’t she just kept her damn mouth shut?

But Jillian’s reply wasn’t what she expected. “You know … it does kind of stink that we’re not getting a case we can really investigate. I am supposed to be training you. You haven’t said if you actually want to join the Squad after you graduate, but …”

“Um, I don’t really know what I want to do yet.” Not entirely true, but Chess was pretty sure she didn’t want to join the Squad, and equally sure that Jillian wouldn’t appreciate hearing that.

“How’s this, then? Let’s go ahead and pretend this is an actual investigation, and Mark is an actual suspect. You investigate him, okay? And I’ll oversee it. You report to me, and we’ll see if we can build some kind of case. I mean, we can’t, because it’s a ghost murder, but you know what I mean.”

This time Chess didn’t need to fake her excitement. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun, huh? And you’ll learn a lot, I bet.”

“Wow, that’s … thanks. Thanks, Jillian.”

Jillian laughed; her smile held a hint of smugness unrecognized, the self-deprecation of someone who knew self-deprecation was expected but didn’t really feel it. But then, Chess wouldn’t have expected anything else. For all of her I’m-your-cool-pal crap, Jillian was someone who did things in order to be admired and acclaimed. And not for any other reason.

Did it matter? Chess was going to actually investigate someone, and she was going to do it because of Jillian, so she needed to shut up and be grateful. This was a big deal; this was something that would go in Chess’s file. If she did a good job it could affect her placing after she graduated, could put her higher on the list for whatever job she ultimately decided she did want to do.

Goody Byers had encouraged her to go into Liaising after Chess scored pretty well on her Channeling and Reversion exams, but … well, she guessed she’d find out whether or not that was going to work now, because Jillian parked the car in the Church lot, and Chess was about to visit the City of Eternity for the first time.

Chapter Six

Jillian twisted a key in the lock of one of the half-size lockers lining the wall by the elevators. “Ordinarily I’d change into a robe, since I’d just be going to talk to the Liaisers. But I want to show you the City, so …”

Chess grasped at that slick, useless straw, even though she knew it was pointless. “Hey, I know how busy you are, so there’s really no need—”

“Will you stop?” Jillian’s smile was broad, but Chess saw the flash of irritation in her eyes. Right. Turning down Jillian’s gifts was probably not a great idea. “It’s not a waste of time and I’m happy to take you. But you do need to get those clothes off.”

Jillian had already started undressing herself, slipping off the navy blazer she wore and lifting her tailored white T-shirt over her head to reveal a lacy skin-tone bra Chess tried not to look at. She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to see Jillian’s naked body. She especially didn’t want Jillian to see her own naked body, much less the two-dollar panties she’d tried to mend herself and the bra held together with a rubber band. Her scholarship covered living expenses, yeah, but there were expenses and then there were expenses. She needed to eat, she needed music and vodka. Who cared about nice underwear? She didn’t have anyone to impress.

But just the same, she wished the right bra cup’s seam hadn’t started to split so the thin layer of padding was visible, wished there wasn’t a string of elastic dangling from the plain cotton waistband of the panties.

“There aren’t any cameras here.” Jillian pulled off her shoes, pushed her navy trousers down to her ankles.

Chess glanced up. Yeah, she knew the cameras had been taken out, but still … shit. “I just …”

Oh, damn, where was she supposed to look now, because Jillian stood in front of her stark naked, and Chess’s skin felt too warm, her heart pounded too fast, and she tasted fear and pain bitter on her tongue.

As quickly as she could she shucked her clothing, keeping her gaze focused on the floor.

“You get used to it.” Jillian’s hand rested on Chess’s shoulder for a minute. A brief touch, almost not a touch at all, but somehow more invasive and creepy because there was no cloth covering Chess’s skin. It was just Jillian’s flesh against her flesh, bare skin touching hers when she didn’t want it, and there she stood naked and vulnerable in front of another person. Panic swam up from her stomach into her throat to choke her.

She stuffed her clothes into one of the lockers without really seeing what she was doing. Some part of her had left her body the second she’d unfastened her jeans; some part of her was used to leaving when her clothes came off, and the rest of her was resigned to just take whatever happened next and get it over with.

Yes, this was different. This was her choice. And yes, Jillian may have weirded her out a little, but Jillian wasn’t going to touch her anywhere else, wasn’t going to force her to do things she didn’t want to do. Chess knew all that.

Too bad knowing it didn’t help.

The elevator doors slid open behind them, revealing the enormous interior. The car was designed for forty people or something like that, because ceremonies were sometimes held down there that required all the employees to attend. Another touch, this time an elbow grab, and Jillian smiled at her with her eyes fixed firmly on Chess’s own. Nice of her, but not really reassuring. “You ready?”

“I guess so.”

The elevator ride took six minutes. Six minutes of being naked next to a naked Jillian. Chess crossed her arms over her chest. Did that look like she was trying to cover up, like she was worried Jillian might be checking her out? Maybe she shouldn’t do that. Maybe she should drop her hands to her sides.

But doing that made her feel like she was sticking out her chest or something. Maybe she should—Shit, she had no idea what she should be doing. All she knew was that she shouldn’t be looking at Jillian. So she didn’t.

The elevator stopped; the doors opened onto a wide cement platform, like a regular train platform. And there was the train, low and sleek, pale blue lights glimmering faintly inside it. This was her last chance to escape, her last chance to tell Jillian that she didn’t really feel like doing this, pleading a hangover or whatever and escaping.

Except she couldn’t do any of that. Not unless she wanted to basically throw away any chance at actually being something one day.

Jillian spoke again once they’d gotten on the train. “It’s pretty cool, huh? That they built all of this so fast?”

Damn. If she’d had her bag with her, she could have had a drink. Of water. Of water, because her throat was dry. She only needed a drink of water, not anything else. “I thought the City was already here.”

“Well, yeah, the cavern was. But the train and everything, they had to ship all of that down specially. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

Chess opened her mouth to reply, but Jillian cut her off. “Shit! I need to mark you. Why didn’t you say something?”

“What? I—oh.”

“Oh” was right, because Jillian got up and reached for the bin full of black chalk molded into one of the train’s walls. The tattoos across her bare shoulders and down her arms shifted with the movement, so runes and sigils, hafurans and hex signs, planetary symbols and protective letters in ancient alphabets seemed to slide over her skin. Those symbols awarded her extra protection, extra power to keep her safe from the City’s ravenous dead.

But Chess didn’t have her tattoos yet; she wouldn’t until she’d graduated and was officially hired. Until then she was reliant on an employee to mark her, and Jillian was right. Entering the City was dangerous enough; entering it unmarked was not a good idea.

“Here. Look up.” Jillian leaned over; for an uncomfortable second or two her full breasts hung right before Chess’s eyes, before Chess obeyed with an inner squirm. Not comfortable. She was not comfortable and she was not happy, no no no.

The chalk slid over Chess’s forehead, a prickly tingly sort of feeling like a bug crawling across her face. Energy radiated from it, spreading from Chess’s head to her throat and down. Like a rash. Like sweat breaking out on her skin.

“Sorry I didn’t think of this sooner,” Jillian said. Her fingertips urged Chess’s head to the side, brushed Chess’s hair off her shoulder so her throat was visible. “Guess getting marked by a naked woman isn’t what you thought you’d be doing today.”

“It’s okay.” She tried to sound like it was okay. She was pretty sure she failed. The rocking of the train beneath her and the energy slithering along her body, her own discomfort, made her queasy; she swallowed hard, swallowed again in an attempt not to be sick. Jillian wasn’t threatening her, wasn’t coming on to her, wasn’t trying to ask her to do anything or make her do anything … Swallow, swallow, swallow. Swallow the saliva, swallow the fear, swallow the memories.

And get it the fuck together. Chess cleared her throat—she barely heard the sound of it over the pounding of her heart, the blood rushing in her ears—and straightened her spine.

It didn’t help much. By the time Jillian finished a few minutes later Chess felt like she’d spent several hours jogging in a sauna, and all she wanted to do was get the hell out of there. Screw the Church, screw her potential job—she wanted out. Or at the very least she wanted a drink. Maybe even a cigarette. Something to help her calm down, help her move on. Why couldn’t she just move on?

The train stopped. Jillian stood up and stepped back, admiring her handiwork. Her hand brushed Chess’s cheek. “Okay. You should be good now.”

“Thanks.”

Jillian acknowledged her with a nod and put the chalk back. “You know the rules?”

“Don’t look them in the eye. Don’t talk to them. Don’t make any moves toward them, they’ll see it as a challenge. Don’t try to touch them. Don’t raise your arms above your shoulders, they’ll think it’s an attack. Don’t run. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t show any emotion, but especially not fear.”

Jillian’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve been studying.”

Chess shrugged. Of course she’d been studying. Did she ever do anything else?

Jillian bent over slightly in front of the lock to look at it as she did whatever she was doing to it. Chess turned away, examining the ceiling and the blank walls around her like the unwilling witness she was, ostentatiously not looking at Jillian. The procedure to enter the City was privileged to full Church employees only, and Chess wasn’t one of those yet.

Maybe Jillian would forget the procedure, maybe it wouldn’t work … maybe they could just turn around and leave. Those silent dark walls, musty and cold, looming over her to the ceiling she could barely see … Chess felt the weight of the earth above, all six hundred feet or whatever it was that could fall at any second, felt that heaviness like a block of ice sitting on her heart. So far underground, they were, so far that help couldn’t possibly reach them in time if something went wrong. So far that no one would hear them scream.

She heard, though, when the lock gave. Felt it, too, like a snap inside her, a click as the energy shifted. Jillian glanced back at her, smiling, and opened the door to the City of Eternity. The city of the dead.

It wasn’t a city. Not at all. No buildings, no roads, no trees or—well, no anything. Nothing but blank space as far as Chess could see. Nothing but the pale blue glow of the magic sigils covering every inch of the craggy ceiling, every inch of the rough-hewn stone-and-dirt walls, shiny-bright lines of magic through solid rock like veins of silver in a mine.

Pale blue light, too, from the ghosts.

Iron chains hung over the doorway as added protection to keep the ghosts in the City; iron hurt them, burned them, made them lose their shape, and iron was essential to controlling them. The last of the chains slipped from Chess’s shoulder as she pushed herself through them to stand, barefoot and naked, inside the only world the dead were allowed to inhabit.

She thought she was going to be sick.

To her left were a few iron cages, leaking dim yellow light through iron-gridded windows. The Liaisers’ booths, where they sat all day allowing the dead to possess their bodies for the benefit of paying citizens. Through the tiny crisscrosses over the bulletproof glass Chess managed to see Bruce Wickman, one of the Liaisers, his face blank and expressionless as he spoke in the direction of the caged camera and monitor mounted high on the ceiling, while a female Liaiser Chess didn’t know stood ready with herbs and iron should anything go wrong.

How did they do it? How did they visit this place every day, spend all day on Thursdays in this horrible, cold cave of misery and death?

She could see them. The dead. The ghosts, their forms glowy and smeared, as if she was viewing them through a Vaseline-covered lens. They appeared like a strip of shifting light on the horizon, an aurora borealis of death. She saw them, and they saw her; their hate radiated across the empty space—she guessed they were at least a couple of hundred yards away at that point—to scrape at her bare skin.

Jillian touched her; she jumped.

“Sorry.” Jillian appeared to be smiling, but it was hard to tell in the shifting semi-darkness. “You okay? I know it’s a bit intimidating the first time. But listen, hear how quiet it is? How calm? And all that space, and the magic—it’s just so soothing, isn’t it? When you really think about it.”

Chess managed to nod. Soothing? Was Jillian fucking kidding?

No. No, of course she wasn’t, because everyone thought the City was peaceful. Chess had been raised to believe it was peaceful. Every Saturday of her life she’d been taken to Church—no matter that it was simply a ploy, that whatever foster family she was forced to serve at any given time only took her so they could get credit for going—and told how she would live forever under the earth, in the quiet happy peace there. She’d been told how the ghosts that aboveground were driven to kill were in the City full of joy.

And she’d believed it. Because it was Truth. Everyone knew that.

Now she stood in the middle of the terrifying cavern of the City and felt the hatred emanating from the dead, felt the cold against her skin, saw that the gentle future she’d been promised was really like the worst hell the old religions could come up with, and something deep inside her broke.

The Church wasn’t wrong. Couldn’t be wrong. They told the Truth, and they’d proved that over and over again. They’d found her in the Corey Home and given her … given her this, this new life she was living, this chance to be someone for real. They’d saved her, just like they promised they would.

Which meant it wasn’t the Church lying to her. It was her … not getting it, not seeing it. Her fault.

Everyone in the world saw the joy of the City. Except her.

Another way she was broken, another way she was wrong. Shit, what was she even doing there if she couldn’t see something as basic as the beauty of the City? She didn’t deserve to be there if she couldn’t see it. She’d failed. This was a test, and she’d failed. And if they found out, they’d expel her. They’d see they’d made a mistake letting her come train there, and she’d be on her own again.

She could never, ever let anyone know.

So she swallowed the bile and tears threatening to clog her throat and forced her lips to stretch into the closest approximation of a smile she could muster. “It’s just—overwhelming, I mean, they said it was peaceful, but this is so much more.”

Her eyes had adjusted to the dim underwater-like light enough to see Jillian’s answering smile, wide and genuine. “I thought you’d like it. Aren’t you glad you came now?”

“Yeah.” Liar liar liar. “This is great.”

Jillian looked like she was about to hug her; Chess braced herself, already clenching her jaw hard enough for her teeth to squeak against each other. Hugging was bad enough normally, but in her current state Chess thought she might scream if Jillian tried to embrace her without any clothes on.

“How big is it?” she asked, taking a quick step away that she hoped looked like she was just wanting to explore.

“They haven’t told you yet?”

“Wha—oh, um, right, of course. Duh. I’m just—this part, this anteroom part, is like two hundred and fifty yards, right? And then it goes on for miles and miles beyond it.”

Jillian nodded. “It’s almost as big as—oh, there’s Anna and Bruce.”

Anna? Oh, right, the female Liaiser who’d been in the booth with Bruce. Yes. There was all of Anna and Bruce, smiling as they crossed the hard-packed dirt. But why wouldn’t they be? They did this every day. They liked it there. Chess was the one who didn’t belong.

“We think we might have something for you,” Bruce said when they got close enough. He was a decent-looking guy, kind of a hippie type but not bad just the same. Not that it mattered, because Chess wasn’t interested in anyone she’d have to see again after she finished, but still.

And he might have information, which was awesome, because that would mean she could leave.

“We got a few names,” Anna said. “It took some work, but we identified a few missing. And they were here at the beginning of the month, and we haven’t had any leaks—not that we can identify, and we’re very certain that means there weren’t any.”

“Which means they were Summoned.” Jillian glanced at Chess as she spoke.

“Right.” Anna also looked at Chess. “Someone performed a Summoning ritual and pulled these specific spirits from the City.”

Chess smiled, hoping she’d managed to keep the no-shit-really? off her face. She wasn’t a fucking child; she knew what a fucking Summoning was and what it meant.

She also knew that this could be a major break in the case. Which was awesome. But which also kind of sucked, because if the case ended, so would her chance to actually investigate Uncle Mark.

“So who were they? Did you write them down for us?”

Anna and Bruce exchanged looks, the quick conspiratorial glances of people who were doing something besides working together. Uh-huh. Oh well. Not her business. She shifted her weight and looked away, back toward the dead inching ever closer. Coming for her.

Never had she been more grateful that her fear of failure—and the resulting punishment she’d get—had kept her from actually using that razor blade on her wrists, from jumping off the Old Home Bridge, from overdosing on anything and everything she could get her hands on. The day she’d moved into her little room in the Church dorms she’d been grateful, the day she’d really realized what a chance this was for her she’d been grateful, but this … this was gratitude unlike any other, so strong and pure it stung her eyes. Because to kill herself would have been to send herself here, and instead of the peace and beauty she’d always been led to expect, she’d have been trapped in that—

Shit. She would be trapped anyway, one day. She was going to die one day. And when she did she’d end up there. For eternity.

Anna, Jillian, and Bruce were still talking, but Chess couldn’t wait. No foreign objects or substances were allowed in the City and she was pretty sure vomit counted, and she couldn’t hold it down anymore.

Those bespelled walls, those lines of pale blue light mocking her. Those glowing shapes of the dead coming for her, ready to grab her and hold her there and never let her leave. The pounding of her heart and the knowledge that she was wrong, she was broken so badly she couldn’t even see the beauty everyone else did … She didn’t belong there, she was ruined, she was dirty and abnormal, she didn’t feel the way everyone else felt because something was just fucked up inside her. She stumbled toward the door as fast as she could with sweat stinging her eyes and her chest aching as she fought her tight throat for air, and she flung herself through the iron-chain curtain and her knees hit the train platform with a bone-jarring smack as she threw up all over the concrete.

Chapter Seven

Shit. Chess took the little plastic cup Jillian offered her and downed its contents in one horrible pink-minty swallow. She didn’t want it; a real drink was what she wanted, but fat chance of that. At least Jillian had brought her a Sprite, so she had something to wash down the medicine with. Because she didn’t have a choice on the medicine.

She could either admit that she’d thrown up because she’d realized that instead of her soul living forever in peace and comfort, it would be trapped forever in a world even colder and emptier than the one she now inhabited, or she could lie and say something she ate must not have agreed with her. She chose the latter.

Couldn’t even blame it on her hangover, because really, it wasn’t like that looked much more professional, was it? “Oh, yeah, I knew we had a lot of work to do today so I decided to get hammered alone in my room last night” was probably not a great thing to say.

Not that she cared. She couldn’t bring herself to care about much of anything at that point; it was like someone had reached into her mouth and scraped out her insides through her aching throat. She’d failed. Three years of studying her ass off, spending hour after hour reading and taking notes and working to try to get somewhere, and she’d failed in the biggest and most important task of all: she’d failed to see what everyone else saw, didn’t have inside her whatever it was that she was supposed to have that would make her see the City the way it truly was.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jillian rinsed the little cup and tucked it back into the medicine cabinet. They were in her cottage on Church grounds, a basic one-bed-one-bath just like all of the other employee cottages. Or most of them; the Elders who chose to live on-grounds had bigger houses, especially the higher-ranking ones. And married Church employees got bigger houses, too.

But Jillian was neither, so her place was approximately the size of a blanket. And about as difficult to navigate, because all of the cottages were laid out the same, with a door opening into a living room, a kitchen area in the back to the right, the bedroom in the back to the left, and a bathroom in between.

That made Chess shudder, too, for reasons she didn’t understand. Being like all the others … there was nothing wrong with that, right? Wasn’t that what she wanted, to be like the rest of them, not like herself? Didn’t she lie awake at night wishing she was like them, that she’d grown up clean?

Yeah, she did. That didn’t mean she deserved it. Maybe that was the problem.

Something to worry about later, though, because Jillian had been talking and Chess should have been listening. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted to lie down for a while or something, or if you want to get to the library. It’s okay with me if you want to stay here or go back to your room—”

“No, the library is fine. I want to get to work.”

Jillian looked doubtful.

“Really, Jillian, I’m feeling better. And—well, you’re going to have this solved soon, right? So I want to make sure I get as much done as I can, you know?”

That worked. Awesome. “Yeah, I know. Come on.”

Chess followed her through the living room—ugh, lots of pink and bright blue, lots of little pillows everywhere and pictures of ballerinas; Jillian was girlier than she appeared—but stopped at the door. The open door … “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t Trent say—at the Warings’ house—didn’t he say the front door was unlocked? And the garage door was open?”

“Right, yeah.”

“So why would the Warings have left their door unlocked like that, their house open, at night?”

Jillian shrugged and, as if to illustrate her words, closed her front door behind them and turned to walk away without locking it. “Lots of people don’t lock their doors until they go to bed. They’re home, they’re in their living room … why would they need to be locked in?”

“But the Warings were paranoid. Remember all those spells I found? They had a bunch of protection and ownership charms, and they’d bought some of them, at least I think they had.”

“Maybe some were given to them as gifts. Maybe they just liked them. Owning them didn’t mean they were using them.”

“Yeah, but—”

“It was ghosts, remember? It’s not like you can lock them out.”

They’d reached one of the main footpaths leading back to the tall double doors at the front of the Church; they’d be inside in a minute, and once they got inside they wouldn’t be able to discuss the case so openly anymore. Chess twisted her hair into a knot to keep it from blowing into her face—damn breeze—and tucked it into her shirt collar. “But the ghosts were Summoned, right? So there’s a person behind it.”

Jillian considered it. “You’re thinking whoever Summoned the ghosts did it at the Warings’ house?”

“Well—”

“We didn’t find any signs of that kind of witchcraft.”

“Yeah, but—wait.” They stopped at the front doors; Chess grabbed Jillian’s arm. “This is the third murder, right? The third ghost murder? What if it’s not just random, what if someone’s deliberately targeting these people?”

“I don’t know.” Jillian shook her head. “I’d think if that was a possibility, Trent and Vaughn would have figured it out by now.”

“Maybe they weren’t thinking about it.”

Jillian glanced at the front doors, at the parking lot, at the doors again.

So Chess made another push. “We can ask them, right? I mean, you can ask them. Maybe they’ve thought of it and already know it’s not what happened or whatever, but maybe they didn’t.”

“They’re good investigators, Cesaria.”

“But even good investigators miss stuff. Isn’t that what you told me before?”

She wasn’t sure why she was pushing so hard, especially when it didn’t really matter. She was only in training. She wouldn’t get any kind of bonus—did Inquisitors get bonuses? She’d heard Debunkers did, and Liaisers got annual payouts based on how many ghosts they’d channeled, but she had no idea about any of the other employees—and she wouldn’t get anything in her file or anything, no class credit, but … she didn’t know.

She only knew that somehow, suddenly, it was important to her. Somewhere along the line, between the day before when she’d seen the Warings’ living room transformed into a bloody abattoir and that moment when she stood looking at Jillian, it had started to matter to her. She wanted to figure it out, because she wanted to be right. To win.

She wanted to prove that she wasn’t wrong about everything.

“I’ll ask them,” Jillian said finally. “I’ll see what they think. And if there’s time and you want to look for a connection between the victims, I guess you can—after you look up Mark.”

“Thanks.”

A nod. “Well, come on, let’s check out the ghosts, anyway. But remember, we don’t have proof that the ghosts Anna and Bruce found missing have anything to do with the murders, much less that they were Summoned to pick people off some list or something. You can’t assume things in this job.”

“Sure.” Whatever. Well, no, not whatever; Jillian was right. But still. The more Chess thought about it the more she thought it made sense, the more she could see how it could be done, even. How someone could use ghosts as murder weapons. All they needed to do was Summon some ghosts—

No, they hadn’t found any evidence of Summoning. So how would they …?

Maybe they could Host? No, a person could only share his or her body with one ghost at a time. Of course, there could be more than one killer involved, and hence more than one ghost. And it wouldn’t be at all unusual for people to let their ghosts go free to kill someone, or even for the ghosts to—No, that couldn’t be it in this case, though, because Trent and Vaughn hadn’t found any real evidence of other people in the house. Only ghosts.

So how would someone move ghosts from place to place? How could ghosts be kept contained, kept in line, during that travel?

A van. They could transport ghosts in a van, one of those windowless ones lined with iron like the Church used to transport corpses or those who committed magical crimes—or both.

So someone could be at that very moment driving around Triumph City with a van full of ghosts, just waiting for their next opportunity. And if Chess wanted to get anywhere in the Church, she needed to convince Jillian that was a distinct possibility. She needed to prove it.

As usual, the wide, bright hallway just inside the front doors made something rise in her chest, something she thought might be real happiness, real pride. She belonged there—well, sort of. They thought she belonged there, and she was going to make damn sure they never had reason to doubt it.

They walked past the long low bench where people waited for Liaising appointments or to meet with other Church employees, up the staircase, and across to the library, where Jillian led her to the filing cabinets along the back wall. “The green labels are place files, where it’s recorded if a building or something is confirmed to be haunted. Mostly Debunkers use those, though we sometimes check them. Red labels are ghosts themselves, pre–Haunted Week deaths. If you want to check people who died after that, or living people, you have to check the computers, although how much information you can get depends on your position. Only Elders have access to full files, but we have almost as much, and then other employees usually have less. But to get everything you’re always going to have to ask an Elder or a Chief Inquisitor.”

Chess nodded.

“Here.” Jillian headed for the computers, typed something into one of them. “That’s the Inquisitor training login. It won’t let you alter any files, but that shouldn’t be a problem, right? So you can check out whoever you want there. You have a notebook or something?”

Chess pulled hers out of her bag. It was tucked in right next to her flask; the sight of the flask made her mouth water at the same time as it sent a hot flood of shame and nausea through her body and into her stomach, where it sat and festered.

But Jillian didn’t see it—well, of course she didn’t, she wasn’t peering into Chess’s bag like some kind of purse busybody. She just kept talking. “The best way to start is to just type in the name you’re looking for. It’ll bring up whatever files exist. You can narrow it down by birth date or whatever, and then when you open the files there are usually pictures, and … well, that’s it.”

Jillian sat down at the next computer. Damn, couldn’t she have at least moved one more down, so Chess had a little privacy? Having someone sit so close to her … it was like being breathed on. Kind of gross and uncomfortable, but there was no decent way to request that they stop. What was she supposed to say to Jillian, Don’t watch what I’m doing in the Church’s private restricted files?

No. Somehow she thought that wouldn’t work very well. She glanced around, hoping she could use other people in the library as an excuse to move, but no; a one-way mirror separated the computers from the rest of the library, so no one could see over her shoulder.

Okay. Put it out of her mind and focus. This was her shot, right? Yes. She typed “Mark Pollert” in and waited, and when the results came up she had to admit that was pretty cool. Her first official act as a Church employee. That she technically wasn’t a Church employee yet and was doing a side errand that probably had no bearing on the actual case didn’t matter; it was still a big deal.

Only a few Mark Pollerts existed, which was nice because it meant it was easy to find the one she wanted. Born January 20, 1980, orphaned at age ten, moved from house to house—yeah, she sure as fuck knew that drill—until ending up at the New Hope Mission. With the Warings.

“Hey, Jillian, can I keep this file open and do another search?”

“What else do you need to search?”

Shit. Somehow she didn’t think Jillian was going to approve, but … “I wanted to see if there’s anything on the Mission. The one the Warings worked for, where Mark lived for a while? I thought …” Double shit, because Jillian’s eyebrows were rising and Chess was pretty sure that didn’t mean Jillian loved her fantastic idea.

She plowed on, though. “If I can get some information on the Mission and the people who ran it, maybe I can get a more complete picture of Mark’s life. Maybe some people I can talk to about him, or would be talking to about him if I was actually doing that.”

Jillian didn’t reply; Chess dug her fingernails into her palms to keep herself from saying more, to keep her face calm. Jillian was considering it, Chess knew it, and if she started gibbering justifications and arguing her case, she’d only convince Jillian to say no. The only way to get what she wanted was to act like she didn’t really care.

Sure enough, it worked. “Just hit the plus sign there.”

A couple of clicks, a few seconds of typing, and Chess had the records of the New Hope Mission in front of her and her heart beat much, much faster with every line she read, every name she read, from the list of employees and volunteers at the Mission between 1990 and 1997.

They all looked familiar. “Where’s the list of victims?”

“Why, what—oh. Oh, wow. How did Trent and Vaughn not see this?”

Maybe because Trent’s tunnel vision led only into his own colon. Chess didn’t say that, though. Instead she said, “Maybe the others didn’t have souvenirs of the place in their house, and nobody knew they’d worked there.”

“That’s true.” Jillian typed something on her own computer. “Yeah. The first victim, Harry Stark, there’s nothing in his file.”

“Would stuff they found searching his house be in his file?”

Jillian stood up, already clicking keys on the computer with one hand and pulling out her phone with the other. “No, it wouldn’t. Come on. We need to go see Trent and Vaughn. Right away.”

Chapter Eight

The Warings’ house seemed like the logical place to meet; it was where Chess thought they were going, but Jillian drove past the exit they should have taken off Highway 300. “Where—”

“Downside.” Jillian paused, obviously waiting for Chess to reply, but Chess didn’t really have a reply to make.

Downside. Of course she’d been there. She’d lived there a couple of times; well, not in Downside—she didn’t think that even the branch of Church government that handed out foster children like cheap Festival trinkets would place kids in Downside—but close enough, on the border streets between Downside and Cross Town, Downside and Northside at the far edge. Streets where the distance to Downside seemed to shrink after dark so it felt like living under a looming shadow, like worms of danger crawling out of the earth after the sun went down.

But as with anything dangerous, Downside had its pleasures. Chess knew those, too. She knew Downside. Knew all kinds of things could be found there. Her heartbeat quickened.

Only to drop again when Jillian switched lanes. Yeah, for someone interested in drowning out some memories Downside was like a fucking amusement park made of broken glass and sin. But Chess was going there in the company of a fully tattooed member of the Black Squad. Nobody would even talk to her, much less sell her anything.

And even if they would, she wasn’t doing that shit anymore. It had been fine when she was in the Corey Home passing the time any way she could. Not now. Not when she had a future.

She refused to think about the flask in her bag and what it meant. Refused to think about how fucking tired she was, so damn tired of fighting, of putting all her energy into not remembering, not thinking; tired from the nightmares and memories that crowded into her bed with her every night and made sure it would be hours before she slept, if she slept at all.

Tired of being herself, and of feeling like herself, and of knowing what that meant.

“There’s no need to be scared,” Jillian said, interrupting Chess’s thoughts. A welcome interruption.

And one Chess had to stifle the urge to laugh at. “I’m not scared.”

“Hey, it’s kind of a scary place. I mean, even I get nervous going there. I won’t go by myself.”

Chess looked at Jillian. Really looked at her, in a way she hadn’t before. Yeah, Downside would scare Jillian, for all that she was on the Black Squad. Downside would scare Jillian because Jillian didn’t understand that no place was safe and that some of the biggest, most expensive houses in town were more full of hatred and sadism, had worse odds of someone escaping alive and intact, than the worst slum. Jillian didn’t know that money and nice things and clean, shiny hair that fell to her shoulders in perfect waves wouldn’t do shit to protect her if she happened to stumble into the wrong person’s path one day.

Downside was no more dangerous than anywhere else when it came down to it. It was just a hell of a lot more honest.

“I’m not scared,” she repeated, and felt rather than saw Jillian’s raised eyebrows and little smirk of condescending amusement.

“Well, just the same. Be careful, okay? Stay with me, which means stay with Trent and Vaughn. And—well, Downsiders are like ghosts. The rules are the same, you know what I mean?”

Chess smiled; in that, at least, Jillian had the right idea. “Don’t look at them, no eye contact, don’t talk to them, no sudden movements, don’t approach.”

“Right.” Jillian slid the car off the highway, onto the exit at Cross Street. “Because I have to be honest with you. If something happens, if real trouble starts and we’re attacked or something … there’s really not much we can do about it. Even with Trent and Vaughn. There’s just too many of them.”

Also like in the City, Chess thought, but she didn’t reply. Instead she just nodded and watched the buildings go by, the stately red brick and stone, the shiny steel, of Triumph City’s good side replaced by crumbling walls and glassless windows; wide tree-lined streets and sidewalks had given way to broken pavement jutting from the earth like it was trying to get up and flee. Graffiti everywhere; litter everywhere; bodies slumped against walls or sprawled on splintery porches or automotive skeletons, smoking and drinking cheap booze out of paper bags.

Something about it made her feel … well, better. Like all that vibrant life, downtrodden and cheap as it was, reached through the car to caress her skin. People just living their lives, just being who they were, and that was okay.

She couldn’t imagine how that would feel.

Jillian turned left, then right, passing bars full of people even in the middle of the day. With every foot the car advanced Chess felt more … “comfortable” was the only way she could describe it. Or, less comfortable in the car and more eager to get out, to join the crowds and just disappear into them. No one would care what she did there. No one would judge. No one would expect anything from her, be it grades or anything else.

She didn’t realize her hand was moving until the cold metal door handle touched her skin. Damn, had Jillian seen—? No. Okay, good. Jillian’s eyes focused directly on the road, her mouth twisted in a little frown. Concentrating, or trying to look tough? Chess didn’t know. All she knew was that the same way the Church’s tidy cottages made her feel antsy and awkward, just being in Downside made her feel like she fit in.

“So, have you always lived in the cottages? On-grounds? I thought Squad members didn’t always.”

“We don’t. I wanted to, though. I mean … it’s cheap, they take all the bills out of our checks so we don’t have to worry about rent and utilities, and, you know, all the single Elders and stuff live on grounds, so … Everybody hangs out, it’s fun. You’ll love it.”

Ugh. No, she would not. “Everybody hangs out” sounded like slow torture. “But how do you—do they ask you where you want to live, or …?”

“They assume you will. For the Squad it’s different. We get to choose. But for everyone else, I think they have to get permission if they want to live somewhere else.”

Chess filed that one away to think about later, because Jillian was pulling the car up to the curb outside what had once been a stately home and was now a fairly typical Downside apartment building with a lawn full of weeds and broken glass and a couple of holey sheets tacked up inside the windows to keep out prying eyes.

Trent and Vaughn stood outside; they couldn’t have looked more out of place if they’d worn clown suits and written COPS on their faces in black marker. Something in the way they stood, the way they watched the street … Chess didn’t know what it was, exactly. She just knew they didn’t look like they belonged. They didn’t look like victims, no, but they didn’t look like they belonged.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“This is where the last murder happened.” Jillian turned off the car and reached for her door. “Last week. Tom Imry. He’d been dead for a couple of days when he was found.”

“Wait.” Chess grabbed Jillian’s arm; she didn’t want to, but she had to ask the question and she didn’t want the men to hear, because if they heard it they’d know she was basically implying they were stupid.

Or they were actually smart, which would mean the answer made her look stupid. “So … a random ghost murder and only one person in a building full of them died?”

“We don’t know if the building was full. We don’t know exactly when he died—it was Sunday, it seems, but it could have been anytime after about ten Saturday night and before daylight, since of course ghosts wouldn’t be wandering around during the day. Although they could have waited in there with him until Sunday night and left after it got dark. He wasn’t found until Tuesday.”

Trent opened Chess’s door before she could reply. “Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t the teenager. Come to dazzle us all with your theories?” To Jillian he said, “What’s so important?”

“Cesaria found something.”

“Her pacifier?” Trent gave a satisfied bark of mean laughter. Yeah, ha-ha, shithead.

“No.” Jillian closed her own door behind her and walked around the car to stand at Chess’s side. Nice of her. Unnecessary, but nice. “She found a connection between your victims.”

Trent’s mouth fell open. Double ha-ha. “What—what connection? There’s no … We looked.”

“Not hard enough. Have you heard of the New Hope Mission?”

Trent and Vaughn looked at each other, confusion all over their faces. Dumbfounded wasn’t the most attractive look for Trent, Chess noticed with some satisfaction.

But Vaughn spoke, and he’d been decent to her, so she felt a little bad. “The Warings were part of that, right? You found those souvenirs in their closet.”

“They were all part of it,” Jillian said. “All of the victims were affiliated with the Mission—as employees or volunteers—when Haunted Week happened.”

“That was not in their files,” Trent said. The indignation on his face would have made her laugh if she hadn’t hated him too much to feel anything but anger.

Vaughn looked at Chess. Really looked at her, so her face warmed. “You found this?”

She nodded. And waited for someone else to speak, which no one did. So she said, “I was—Jillian let me look into Mark, so I could get some experience investigating. So I wanted to check on the Mission itself, and, well, there was the list.”

“Pure luck,” Trent said. What the hell had happened to him in his life to make him such an asshole? Or had he just been born that way?

Stupid question, really. All people were born that way. Trent just hadn’t had it socialized out of him.

Jillian glared at him. “It wasn’t luck.” Well, that was nice of her. “Cesaria raised questions about the Warings and the Mission from the beginning, and about Mark Pollert’s involvement in it.”

“Did you find anything else on him?” Vaughn asked her. Asked her, Chess. Damn, that was pretty cool.

“Orphan. His parents died in a fire when he was ten. Lived at the Mission from 1993 onward—he was thirteen when he moved in. Then he lived with the Warings for a couple of years after Haunted Week until he started working at the slaughterhouse.”

The slaughterhouse wasn’t too far away from where they stood, if the smell in the air was any indication. Chess knew it was, actually; she’d been past the slaughterhouse a few times, and if she had the cross streets right, they were maybe eight or nine blocks downwind.

At least it wasn’t summer yet. Just thinking of the stench of the slaughterhouse combined with the others—smoke, dirt, sweat, rotting garbage, human waste—turning the Downside air into a foul chowder, unpleasant and somehow thick against her skin, made her stomach turn. That was a smell she’d never forget. Just like so many other things. But she forced those thoughts from her mind and focused on what Vaughn said next.

“How many others were there?”

“Six. Mark, two other couples, and then one other man.”

“You have their names?”

Chess held up her notebook, pleased that she’d thought to scribble the information down before she and Jillian left the Church.

Vaughn took it from her with a quick nod of thanks. “So … we need to get in touch with these people right away.”

Trent glanced at the list. “I don’t suppose you checked to see how many of those who worked at the Mission are now deceased. Or how the ghosts escaped from the City.”

“They were Summoned,” Jillian said. “But as far as we could tell they had nothing to do with the Mission.”

“Any other connection to any of the victims?”

“Not that I saw, but I’d only just opened the first file when Cesaria showed me what she’d found.”

“How many others who worked at the Mission are dead now?”

“We didn’t look. I wanted to get this to you guys as soon as possible. But Cesaria wrote down the names. If you have your computer, you can access the files from here.”

Vaughn considered that for a minute while Chess became aware that they weren’t alone. Well, she’d known that already, but as they stood there she felt eyes on her; on them. More and more every second. The street seemed quieter than it had. The Squad presence had been noticed; hell, they’d been spotted the second the car came down the street. But now they were standing around outside, and that made everyone nervous. Nervous people were dangerous.

The others noticed it, too. Vaughn handed her back her notebook, glancing around as he did so with his eyes squinted against the afternoon sun. “Maybe we should go inside.”

“Good idea.” Trent turned to Chess. “Maybe you can stumble blindly into some information in there, too.”

Chapter Nine

Whatever Tom Imry had done after the Mission closed, it hadn’t paid very well. Yeah, she knew that already; people who made money didn’t live in Downside. But—“Wait a minute.”

“What?” Jillian looked up from Tom’s bookshelves, where she’d been scanning the titles while Trent and Vaughn accessed their laptop, mumbling to each other and—in Trent’s case—shooting Chess the occasional baleful glare.

“Mark,” Chess said. “He didn’t mention it.”

“What do you mean?” Vaughn asked. He sat perched on the edge of the cushion on the book-propped couch, in front of a window covered with a tattered, bloodstained blanket. Chess didn’t like to look at the bloodstains; some of them, she knew, would be from Tom’s untimely demise, but some … They were faded and watery—more like rust stains—and they reminded her of fireworks or flowers, with dark splatty heads and long trailing stems. She recognized those bloodblossoms. Someone had been cleaning needles in that room, filling them with water and emptying them again so they’d be ready when the time came for another fix. She’d seen it done. She’d been made to do it.

Damn, not even any of the sacks of shit who’d put a roof over her head had cleaned their spikes against the walls. That was hopelessness. That was truly not giving a shit anymore, about anything.

But then, that was where the needle led. Always had, always would.

“Mark didn’t say anything about the others.” Chess pulled her attention off the blanket and back onto Jillian and Vaughn. “Four people he knows—or at least used to know—including the Warings, have been killed in the last couple of weeks, and he didn’t say anything?”

“He probably didn’t know,” Trent said.

“Their deaths weren’t in the papers? They had no contact with each other, really?”

“Their deaths weren’t news.” Trent glared at her. “We’re not telling the public, remember? So maybe they had obituaries, maybe they didn’t, but even if they did, the details of their actual deaths wouldn’t be made public. And who the hell knows if they stayed in touch with each other? We didn’t find any evidence of a connection between them, remember?”

Fuck it. She cocked her right eyebrow, let her gaze rest on him just a beat longer than necessary. “Yeah. I know you didn’t.”

Vaughn stood up, fast, like the couch had an ejector seat, and reached for her. She started to flinch away but he had her; his grip on her arm was surprisingly gentle as he led her toward the open doorway off the kitchen area. “Since you did find the connection, why don’t you come with me and see if we can find something else relating to it? Maybe there’s something in the bedroom.”

There were a lot of things in the bedroom. Especially junk. Long twisted ropes of dirty sheets across the floor, wires and bits of paper and needle caps and spent matches, clothing so full of holes it looked like only the copious stains held the fabric together. Evidence of a life nobody cared about, not even the person living it. Evidence of lost hope.

“I know Trent can be a pain in the ass,” Vaughn said quietly, surprising her. “I know he can be a jerk. He’s just trying to toughen you up—he was trained by one of the meanest sons of bitches I’ve ever known, and he thinks that’s the way it’s supposed to go.”

Chess didn’t respond. What was she supposed to say to that, anyway—That’s okay? Because it wasn’t, not really, and Trent wasn’t some kind of loving but tough grandpa, he was a dickhead who hated her for no good reason.

Vaughn seemed to want her to say something, though. She decided on “Sure.” That seemed noncommittal enough.

And apparently it was, because Vaughn’s face cleared. “Okay. Good. Thanks.”

Another few seconds passed while they both stood there like people on a blind date, not knowing what to say or do or if they’d even find something to say or do. Stupid, really. Chess clasped her hands together in a brisk let’s-get-to-it gesture, the sort of thing she associated with Church Goodys or matrons or whatever. Not the sort of thing she would ever do unless she felt totally uncomfortable, which she did. “So, you wanted to search around in here?”

He blinked. “Yeah. Let’s do that.”

He took one side of the room and Chess took the other, though she thought it was probably going to be a waste of time and she suspected Vaughn did as well.

They were wrong. The first thing she found, after searching only a couple of semi-empty drawers, was a copy of the picture. The one in the Warings’ spare room, the one with the graininess of a pre-digital photograph. If Tom Imry had had a copy of it, was he in it? Who else was in it? Were all of the people in the picture dead? If not, were the still-living ones in danger?

She asked Vaughn.

“I don’t know,” he said, taking the picture from her to give it a closer look. “We’ll have to look at the files of the people still alive, see if we can match the faces. I don’t know how easy it’ll be—maybe Gloria Waring will have some idea who they are.”

Duh. She’d actually forgotten about Gloria for a minute there; she’d gotten so excited about investigating on her own she’d forgotten that part of investigating meant questioning witnesses. “Maybe Gloria has a lot more information than she thinks she does, huh?”

He nodded. “You and Jillian should talk to her soon. If you get to her place in an hour or two, you can probably catch her right around dinnertime, so she’ll be sure to be home.”

Wow, that was kind of a scummy thing to do. But then, Chess figured scummy was sometimes the only way to get things done, at least for the Squad or anyone else doing any investigating. Or, well, anyone who needed anything else done, really; everything was scummy to somebody, right?

Whatever. The point was, she needed to go interrupt Gloria Waring’s dinner, and she needed Jillian to go with her, so it was time to leave the Trent-free peace of the bedroom and go do it.

Or so Chess thought. Jillian had another task for them first; well, not for them, for herself. Apparently she wanted to check in at the Church, so they headed back over there. Chess was starting to feel like a ping-pong ball from all the back-and-forth driving they’d done that day, not to mention just plain tired and wondering if the day was ever going to end.

“Besides,” Jillian said as she opened one of the wide double doors at the Church’s entryway, “this way we’ll be sure to catch Gloria at dinner or right after, right? It’s only four-thirty now, and I didn’t think keeping you hanging around there with Trent was such a good idea. Although, you know, Vaughn—”

“Should I wait here for you?” Chess interrupted, waving her hand at one of the benches lining the hall. Yeah, she knew. Knew that she was already sick of the cloying hints about how he really seemed to like her—where Jillian got that from she had no idea; sure, he was nice enough, but he wasn’t flirting or asking her out—and how she could do a lot worse than him, and that was after only twenty minutes in the car.

Jillian sighed and looked at her watch. “Why don’t you head on back to your room, and I’ll call you when we’re done? I don’t know how long it’ll take. We don’t want to be at Gloria’s until at least six, so you might as well go relax or something.”

Relax? Relax, when they were so close to maybe finding something? Relax when that closeness might be due to her own work, to the clue that she’d actually found all by herself?

Relax, when that stuffy blood-covered apartment had stirred so many memories and they were starting to clang and rattle in her head louder and louder, when the only way she could possibly hope to drown them out—the only responsible way, the only way she should do it—was by working?

But Jillian’s expression didn’t brook argument; she clearly wanted Chess gone, so Chess would have to make herself gone. “Great,” she managed. “Okay, sure. Just call me when you’re ready.”

“I will.”

As soon as Jillian’s back disappeared into the open doorway of Elder Griffin’s office, though, Chess turned away and headed for the stairs. Yeah, she could go back to her room … or she could visit the library and see if she could learn anything more. No, she didn’t know the Church login Jillian had used—and wasn’t quite daring enough to use it unauthorized even if she had—but she could access the Internet if she wanted to, and she could check the shelves and the Restricted Room for any books about transporting ghosts.

Or … wait. Three ghosts had been Summoned from the City, and no, the Liaisers hadn’t noticed any specific connection between them, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still something that could be learned about them.

Not to mention that Mark’s parents had died in a fire when he was ten. Chess was very interested in learning more about that. The files on him she’d managed to look at earlier hadn’t contained details, and details were what she wanted, some indication of what had actually happened.

What had Jillian said about the file cabinets? Green was for buildings that had confirmed hauntings, red for people who’d died before Haunted Week, right?

Yes. There were several files under “Pollert,” but it wasn’t hard to find the ones she wanted. Not only because the dates were on them, but because when she flipped them open she saw pictures of charred rubble, charred bodies.

And a big stamp that said ARSON.

Holy shit. Not just a tragic house fire. A deliberate house fire. What exactly had—Okay. Hmm. According to the reports from the BT—pre-Church—police force and some laminated newspaper clippings, Mark’s father had been involved in some kind of shady business. Organized crime. Everyone had suspected the arson was revenge, and that was that.

She set the file on top of the cabinets so she could start flipping over the pages. There. A picture of Mark, looking … well, shit, looking like a smug little psycho. Tears had cut whitish tracks through the soot on his face, and the skin around his eyes looked shadowed, his brow furrowed. But something in the eyes themselves, something about the set of his jaw … Chess looked at that picture and didn’t see what she thought she should have seen, didn’t see someone horrified and upset over losing his parents.

She saw emptiness. The kind of emptiness she’d seen so many times in her life that she couldn’t help but recognize it, the kind that still made her wake up sweating in the middle of the night.

She wasn’t the only one who’d seen it, either. The original detective had made a few notes about Mark’s attitude, his lack of affect, his coldness.

But they hadn’t been able to prove anything, or at least so she assumed, given that he’d gone into foster care and not a hospital or mental facility or whatever it was they’d had back then.

Okay, then. Next she’d have to—

“Hi, Chessie. What are you doing?”

She spun around, her hands already scrambling to shut the file before anyone saw. It wasn’t necessary, really, since any Church employee or student was allowed access to those files—they weren’t confidential—but still. It was none of anybody’s business.

It was none of Agnew Doyle’s business.

He stood a little too close, the way he always did. And just the way it always did, her body reacted; not a lot, but enough that she noticed it. Enough that she knew he probably noticed it, because she noticed the way his did, too, the way his blue eyes widened when he looked at her.

Not that it mattered. They were in the same year, in the same classes; they’d work together after they graduated, and that meant he was off-limits. The last thing she wanted was to be forced to see one of her—Well, she didn’t want to see them again after, so she definitely didn’t want to have to work with one of them and deal with him on a regular basis.

She reminded herself of that as she pressed herself against the filing cabinet in a mostly vain attempt to put a little more space between Doyle and herself. “Oh, hey. Um, I’m doing some research—”

“Elder Martin said you’re on your training week. I didn’t know you wanted to work with the Squad.”

No one seemed to be paying any attention to them, but she lowered her voice anyway. “It’s just a training week. To see what it’s like.”

“And how is it?”

She shrugged.

He reached past her to lift the file and read the tab. “What are you investigating? That’s kind of an old file, isn’t it?”

“Quit being nosy. You know I can’t tell you.” She tugged the file away and tucked it under her arm.

“Oh, come on. Murders? Conspiracies? What? I haven’t done my week yet, I want to know what they have us do. How involved we get to be.”

“Are you doing yours with the Squad?”

“Nope.” He grinned at her and leaned against the cabinet, tucking his shaggy black hair behind his ear as he did so. “Debunking. I’ve already talked to Elder Griffin, you know, about how that’s what I want to do. He said he’d get me scheduled.”

“How—” No. No, she wasn’t going to ask how he’d managed to do that, because it would make her look stupid. Naive. She changed it to “How do you like Elder Griffin? He seems okay.”

“Yeah, he is. He’s pretty straitlaced, but they all are, huh? And you know he started with the Church before Haunted Week and everything, he fought during it. They put him into Elder training right after that, apparently, so I guess he did some serious shit.”

Chess thought about that for a second. “He doesn’t really seem like the type.”

“You never know.” He leaned closer, lowered his voice so it felt like a caress on her skin. “Some of us have hidden depths.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Some of us are full of shit.”

“Now, was that really necessary? You wound me.”

“Oh, did I hurt your widdle feelings?”

“You can make it up to me.” He was closer now, not close enough to be entirely inappropriate but close enough that she started both panicking and wishing he’d get closer; close enough that she wanted him to touch her and was afraid he would. “How about having dinner with me on Friday? And Randy’s having a party in his room, we can—”

“I can’t.” She slid away. “Too much studying to catch up on.”

“Come on, Chessie, everyone will be there. One night won’t—”

“Sorry.”

His head tilted. “Another time?”

“Maybe.” She shifted the file in her arms. Ordinarily she wouldn’t mind talking to Doyle, but Jillian could call her any minute and she wanted to try to at least learn something before that happened. So it wouldn’t look like she’d been wasting her time. So it wouldn’t look like she didn’t deserve to be there.

“Well.” He raised his hand like he was about to touch her, but stopped. “If you change your mind …”

“Sure.”

“Have fun with your week, anyway.”

She watched his back as he strolled down the row of cabinets and turned, disappearing past the next aisle of books. How much of that interest was in her, and how much was just curiosity about her training?

They were probably about equal, really. Yeah, he’d asked her out before, but yeah, he was also ambitious and arrogant, which meant he’d do anything to get some kind of inside or advance information.

Whatever. She had far more important things to focus on just then. Like Mark pollert. Like the names of the ghosts Summoned from the City, and who they might be to him. All but one of them had also died before Haunted Week, so she grabbed their files and carried them and the pollerts’ to a table by the wall, where no one could come up behind her.

Jason McBride’s was the first file she opened. Jason had been forty-three when he died, a sudden heart attack while at his job as … oh. Oh. Well, damn. Jason McBride had been a social worker for Child Protective Services, the BT version of the Church’s Department of Minor Care. Chess could only imagine how lousy things must have been for kids BT, given that they had to have improved under the Church and they hadn’t exactly been great for her.

But then, as she kept reminding herself, she must be an anomaly or something. Because contrary to what she’d grown up believing, the Church actually did care about her; they’d found her, they’d rescued her, and look at her now. Actually working for them, working with the Black Squad, getting ready to have an actual life beyond anything she’d ever dreamed of. They deserved her loyalty for that, her gratitude, and she’d give it to them.

But whoever had done the job of “protecting” children before the Church … they deserved nothing, and she scanned the photo of Jason McBride with little curiosity. He had that wispy, ineffectual look she’d seen so many times, the kind of guy born to be stepped all over.

Not that it mattered what he’d been in life. In death he was a killing machine like 99.9 percent of all ghosts, an ethereal shark endlessly searching for human chum.

Just like Marie and Ryan Wagner, the other two ghosts. Aw, a married couple, how sweet. Ryan had been a salesman, Marie a teacher—and Chess could just bet she knew who one of Marie’s students had been.

Too bad she couldn’t confirm it. If the name of Mark’s school had been in his file—and Chess imagined it had been, because everything like that would be—it either hadn’t been in the part she could access or she just hadn’t written it down, which was more likely.

But Jillian could access the files. So could Elder Griffin, couldn’t he? And since Doyle had actually talked to him and requested his training week be in Debunking—and why had no one told her she could do that? Or maybe Doyle had just created his own opportunity, which seemed more likely—and since Elder Griffin had actually seemed pretty decent to her when she’d met him, maybe she could ask him about it. Let him know she was taking the assignment seriously, that she was using her head.

Files weren’t supposed to leave the library, at least that’s what she thought she remembered being told. But taking them to Elder Griffin’s office wasn’t—No, they weren’t supposed to leave, and she didn’t want to take a chance. So instead she quickly scribbled down the names and their places of employment, shoved the files back into their approximate places in the cabinets, and headed for the wide staircase and Elder Griffin’s office.

The hall was empty. Well, sure—it was getting close to six, and the offices technically closed at five-thirty. Most employees stayed later than that, but no regular people sat on the benches waiting for appointments. A Goody Chess wasn’t familiar with passed her on the steps, but that was it.

Which was why she was able to hear the voices inside Elder Griffin’s office so clearly when she raised her hand to knock.

Actually, that was a lie. She heard murmurs beyond the door, and one of those murmurs sounded exactly like Elder Griffin saying her name. Her hand froze just before hitting the wood—good thing, too, because it turned out the door hadn’t latched, and that’s why she could hear.

Shit. What should she do?

Listening wasn’t the right thing. She knew that.

But doing the right thing wasn’t exactly her strong suit. Not really possible for her, even; she was a walking wrong thing, wasn’t she?

So she listened. She inched her head forward, careful to keep from view and very careful to keep from accidentally touching the door and opening it, and heard Jillian say, “She’s very standoffish, actually. She’s already made an enemy of Trent.”

“Oh?”

“Trent’s not the easiest guy to get along with, but it’s like she’s gone out of her way to be disrespectful to him.”

Pause. A pause, while Chess’s stomach twisted and her eyes started to burn. She’d gone out of her way to be disrespectful to Trent? When she’d taken every bit of shit he’d flung at her until just a few hours ago and finally made one single comment in response?

What the fuck, Jillian? She’d thought … well, she hadn’t thought she and Jillian were becoming friends, because she didn’t want friends, and she especially didn’t want friends who seemed to be only interested in simpering and obsessing over men. But she’d thought there was some kind of respect there, that Jillian had at least liked her okay, had valued what she’d contributed so far.

Apparently not. Good to know. She felt sick.

Elder Griffin spoke; Chess put Jillian’s betrayal aside—for the moment—to listen. “But you’ve had no problems, aside from her … standoffishness?”

“I don’t know. I kind of think she resents me, resents having to clear her actions with me. She keeps wanting to go off on her own.”

“She does not follow directions?”

“She follows them, she’s just really caught up in her own ideas. I don’t think she sees this as a team effort.”

“Does not work well with others,” Elder Griffin said.

“I don’t think so, no. She’s just kind of cold. I tried to engage her, let her know she could talk to me, but she didn’t.”

“And you feel the connection she discovered between your victims was merely luck.”

“Well …” Jillian hesitated. “Not entirely. She wanted to look into the New Hope Mission from the beginning, and of course I gave her permission to investigate Mark Pollert. I thought it would placate her, get her to open up a little. So she had some okay instincts there, except I think maybe her fixation on Pollert came from feeling the energy of a sex spell he’d made. She seemed really, well, fixated on that. But—”

Elder Griffin must have made a sound, or a face, or something. Or maybe the roaring in Chess’s ears simply overwhelmed anything she would have heard, the noise like waves of rage and pain washing over her and drowning out everything else.

That was it, then. All the hope she’d had, all the hope she’d been building, collapsed into a sodden pile of wasted dreams at her feet. She wasn’t going to create a life for herself, wasn’t going to make something of herself. She couldn’t escape, would never escape. Everyone knew who she really was, what she really was, that she was sick and shriveled and twisted inside, and they could all see it. Even when she thought she was hiding it, they could see it.

And Jillian actually thought she’d liked that sex spell. That she’d liked feeling what it made her feel, liked having it forced on her.

Just like the rest of them had. She would never escape.

Jillian went on, too, digging Chess’s grave deeper with every word. “But Trent and Vaughn would have found the connection once they started really processing the evidence. She saved them some time, yes, but it isn’t like she cracked the case or anything. She’s not stupid, she’s not a terrible investigator, but working with her just isn’t, well, enjoyable. Like I said, she’s not a team player.”

Elder Griffin’s voice was sharp. “You doubt her loyalty to the Church? To the Truth?”

“Oh, no. No, I can’t say that.” Well, that was something, at least. Jillian would throw her to the wolves but not to the angry crowds at the stocks on Holy Day, or to the executioner. Wow, that was something to be grateful for. Actually it was, but at the moment Chess felt too ill to have room for much gratitude. “She seems very loyal. I just doubt her ability to handle working with other people, or to work effectively under a regular chain of command. There’s no room for disobedience in the Squad, sir, as I’m sure you know.”

“I do.” Paper shuffled. “Well, thank you, Jillian. I appreciate your coming to answer my questions.”

“No problem, sir. I’m happy to help. I was wondering if, while I’m here, we could …”

But Chess wasn’t listening anymore. She was walking away as silently as she could, heading for the bathroom at the end of the hall. No, she shouldn’t do it, and it was yet another sign of how fucking weak she was, how little she deserved the chance she’d just lost, but her eyes stung and her chest hurt and their voices echoed in her head, all of those voices, and now Jillian’s and Elder Griffin’s, too, beating into her mind, and if she didn’t manage to dull them somehow she was going to scream. It was too much, and that embarrassed her and made shame pound through her body just as hard and fast as her blood in her veins.

Into the bathroom, into the stall, her hand already in her bag, finding the cool steel of her flask and yanking it out at the same time as she slid the door bolt home. Her fingers shook as she unscrewed the cap; her arm did not shake as she raised it to her lips and drank, one long swallow, then another, the burning heat of the vodka chasing away the icy lump that had formed in her gut. It was wrong but it didn’t matter, it was wrong but who cared, because her career at the Church was over, anyway.

She’d never worked before, not a real job, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d already realized how big a part politics could play in success at the Church; hell, she’d been trying so hard to be—to be friendly, to not let on that she couldn’t stand to have anyone touch her, that they freaked her out when they wanted to talk to her or ask questions about her life, that sometimes when she was in a group of her classmates she had to clench her fists to keep from panicking because there were so many of them and she felt so exposed.

And she’d thought she was doing a good job. Apparently not.

Warmth spread through her body, warmth and that familiar dull muscle ache she sometimes got from alcohol. Not that it mattered. It was better than the pain of her feelings; it was better than nothing, and she’d take it. Willingly. Gratefully. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to want it or need it, but what the fuck ever. She might as well.

For a few seconds, maybe a minute, she just stood there, leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. So much better. Jillian’s voice, all of the voices, retreated enough for her to breathe, enough to let her focus again.

The cinnamon candies tingled in her mouth, elevating her mood a little further. Was it possible to build up some sort of Pavlovian conditioning with those? And eventually they’d do for her what the shots did?

She shouldn’t need either, she reminded herself as she flushed the toilet and headed for the sinks. She shouldn’t need something to get her through the day. She shouldn’t need any help.

But she was quickly coming to realize that “shouldn’t” might as well be “fat chance.” A second or two of honesty—all she could bear—reminded her that she hadn’t managed to go a day without the flask for over a month, and that wasn’t good. That was, in fact, Bad, capital “B” and all. The kind of Bad that would get her caught; booze wasn’t that easy to hide, and sooner or later the candies would stop working or they’d catch on some other way.

But wasn’t it ironic that she couldn’t make herself feel too guilty about it, couldn’t make herself worry too much about it just then, because her body was warm and the sharp edges in her brain were softened ever so slightly, and Jillian’s disregard had faded in her mind just enough for her to handle it?

The next day. She’d make it through the next day without a drink, she would. She could do it. It wouldn’t even be that hard.

She didn’t meet her own eyes in the mirror as she rubbed on a little lip gloss and gave her clothes a cursory glance to make sure she hadn’t spilled any vodka on them. Nope. Good. Time to go pretend she hadn’t heard anything, to pretend Jillian was her respected mentor, to pretend she had a future.

Good thing life had taught her a lot about pretending, or she’d have been in real trouble just about then.

Chapter Ten

Gloria Waring’s Cross Town two-story looked peaceful in front of the preparing-for-sunset sky. A long porch, a tidy lawn, sleepy-eyed windows watching the world go by. Calm.

A direct contrast to how Chess felt, which was like someone had wired her up to an outlet of electricity and misery. She hadn’t asked Jillian and Elder Griffin about the names she’d written down, the ghosts who were Summoned. Not after that whole She goes off on tangents and isn’t a team player and is sexually frustrated bit. The last thing she wanted to do after hearing that was walk in with another special request, another “tangent.” It wouldn’t make her look on the ball and ready, it would make her look disobedient and like a fucking creepy nymphomaniac or something.

So she’d kept her mouth shut and responded to Jillian’s chitchat in the car with what she hoped were normal-sounding responses. Jillian accepted them, but then, she would, wouldn’t she? Rather than just tell Chess flat out that she was a failure?

Of course. And really, Chess was grateful, because now she knew Jillian wasn’t to be trusted, either. Just like everyone else.

Gloria Waring answered the door, her eyes red and tired, her face pale. Only to be expected, really. She stood back to grant them entry. “You have news?”

“We have more questions,” Jillian said. “Just some background stuff. We hope this is a good time?”

Gloria shrugged and waved them into a yellow-and-blue living room littered with toddler toys. And a toddler, a little boy in overalls putting a Barbie doll into a tow truck. Cute.

“Can I get you a drink or anything?”

Chess and Jillian both refused, and sat on the couch Gloria indicated.

Jillian pulled out a notebook and pen. Oh, right. Probably a good idea to take some notes. “Mrs. Waring—”

“It’s Paulson, actually. My married name. My husband’s just run to the store.”

“Sorry. Mrs. Paulson. We were hoping you could give us some more background on the New Hope Mission.”

Pause. “Why? It was all legal. My parents had licenses for the souvenirs, they didn’t—”

“No, no, of course. We know that. We were actually wondering if you could tell us anything about the other people there. Did your parents keep in touch with them?”

Gloria didn’t look like she necessarily believed Jillian, but she answered. “Not really, no. I guess they did with some of them—Uncle Mark, of course, and Tracy and Eric—”

“Tracy and Eric?”

“Ross, Tracy and Eric Ross. They live in Northside now. He runs some sort of delivery company. Ross Transports, I think.”

Ross Transports. Chess knew that name. She knew it because she was usually still awake at one or two in the morning when supplies were delivered and corpses were taken from the burial grounds behind one of the Church buildings to the Crematorium—the main one was in Downside, but there were a couple more on the outskirts of Triumph City, too.

Most of the vans that made those deliveries and pickups were Church-owned and driven by Church employees. But they occasionally needed extra help. And when they did, they called Ross Transports.

At least some of the time; they used another company, too, Oaktree Van Lines, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Ross Transports had specially made vans, iron-lined vans to carry magic supplies and corpses. And what mattered was that Mark Pollert had access to those vans—at least, she fucking bet he did.

Jillian didn’t pick up on it, just wrote down the name. “Any others that you’re aware of?”

“I don’t think so. Why are you asking this? Didn’t you say it was ghosts who killed my parents? You don’t think any of their friends could have somehow, what, set ghosts on them or something? I didn’t even think that was possible.”

“No, no, of course not,” Jillian replied, shifting in her seat. “We’re trying to get some loose ends tied up, is all.”

“And those loose ends involve my parents’ friends? No. You tell me, please. Am I in danger?”

“We have no reason to believe—”

“But you believe something, you think something is going on. What is it, please?” Gloria’s face grew pinker by the second; she perched on the end of the chair on which she’d been sitting completely a minute before. Shit. This was going nowhere fast, and they needed to come up with something, because Chess knew exactly what was going to happen when they left. Gloria was going to call Uncle Mark, and Uncle Mark was going to know they were on to him.

Of course, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it was what Jillian wanted. How the hell was Chess supposed to know?

She certainly couldn’t tell from Jillian’s actions; she would have been impressed if she hadn’t already learned firsthand what a good liar Jillian was. Jillian didn’t answer Gloria’s question, instead pulling the picture out of the file she carried and handing it over. “Do you recognize these people?”

“Yes. These are the Mission employees. Will you please tell me what’s going on?” She looked at Chess. Panic rose in her eyes and in her voice. “You. Will you tell me what’s happening? Please? You—you talked to me in my bedroom, you—Please, just tell me what’s happening?”

Jillian kept silent. Great. How was Chess supposed to handle this without knowing what Jillian wanted her to do, what she had planned? And with knowing that Jillian thought she was some kind of sex-obsessed ditz?

Okay, focus. This was another test, and Chess was not going to give Jillian another reason to tell Elder Griffin—or any of the others—what a useless twit Chess was. So what would she do if it was her case?

If it was her case, she’d want to flush him out. If it was her case, she’d sort of hint to Gloria what they knew, and wait for her to pass it on. Hell, if it was her case, she wouldn’t be bothering with Gloria; she’d have gone to check out Mark’s place.

But it wasn’t her case, and it was only the first case she’d ever been on, and Jillian hated her and she was only eighteen, for fuck’s sake. She didn’t even know what the regulations were for the Black Squad. So—because both Gloria and Jillian were watching her and making her feel like some kind of fucking game-show contestant or something—she said, “The ghosts are former members of the Mission. We know where they are and can catch them, but we just wondered if you had some additional background to help us.”

She waited. If Jillian had a problem with her lie, she’d say something, she’d say it right there and then, and yeah, it would make Chess feel worse than she already did, but at least it wouldn’t fuck up the case.

But Jillian didn’t speak. Did that mean Chess had done right, or was Jillian just too pissed to find words? She didn’t look pissed, no, but neither did she look cheerful and approving.

Damn it. She’d fucked up again. She’d thought telling the lie, giving Gloria a hint but making sure the information she’d pass on to Uncle Mark was false, would be the right thing to do, and it hadn’t been, and she’d just totally blown it.

More lousy shit for her file. What would it say now, in addition to comments about how unpleasant she was to work with? Maybe Cesaria is unsuited for working in any capacity that requires independent thought. Or Cesaria cannot keep secrets. Well, no, they certainly couldn’t claim that one. Chess had so many secrets they threatened to make her explode, so many she had to try to hold them down with vodka and work, but they never really quieted.

Not that it would matter when the only job the Church would allow her to have was as a Liaiser. The thought of working in the City all day hadn’t appealed before. Now? After having been there, seen it for herself? No fucking way. She wanted to be something, wanted to work for the Church, to be clean, to be part of something, so bad it hurt. No matter how much it terrified her, she wanted it. But she couldn’t do that, couldn’t work in the City. Not even to keep herself off the game.

If it came down to letting ghosts use her body in that cold hellish darkness or letting men use her body on the streets, she’d take the latter. A shitty choice, but life was all about that, wasn’t it?

Jillian’s voice cut into her thoughts. Shit, she’d let herself get distracted, lost track of the conversation. “That’s very helpful, Mrs. Paulson, thank you. And meanwhile, like we said, we don’t think you’re in any specific danger. We do ask you, of course, to keep the information we’ve given you to yourself. I assure you, we’ll be visiting the others, so please don’t call and alarm them. We’ll handle it.”

Gloria sniffled, nodded. “Sure, of course.”

Chess didn’t believe that for a second, especially not when Gloria’s gaze cut to the phone on her left. Twice, quick sneaky little glances, like her eyes were doing what her hands wanted to, like she was reassuring herself that she could do it any second.

It wasn’t the most pleasant thing in the world to realize that she herself had glanced at the flask in her bag that way.

Luckily, it wasn’t the time to think about that realization, either, because Jillian was standing up and holding out her hand and all that so-professional-and-brisk goodbye shit, and Chess did the same even though touching Gloria felt like opening a vein because the woman’s grief and anger and fear were so strong. The last thing Chess needed was someone else’s misery on top of her own.

The second she pulled the car door shut behind her and reached for her seat belt, Jillian turned to her. “That wasn’t a bad lie, you did well. Now what do you think will happen? What do you think we should do?”

Chess hesitated. Was that a serious question? What shit would Jillian report back if she disagreed with Chess’s suggestions?

“Oh, come on, surely you have some sort of ideas. Right?”

Amazing how Jillian’s eyes could still look friendly, her smile could still look genuine. But then, Chess could do the same thing, couldn’t she? Pretending everything was fine, pretending she actually liked the people around her, pretending—well, pretending all sorts of things, because when the penalty for not pretending was being beaten, pretending became second nature. “I think we should try going to the Rosses’ house and see if Gloria calls them. And ask someone to check on Mark and see if he’s home, because if Gloria calls him, he’ll know we’re on to him and he’ll probably make a move. To finish what he’s started.”

“You’re still convinced he’s behind this? You don’t think there may be some other explanation?”

Bitch. “There might be, sure. I just thought maybe you wanted to have every possibility covered, you know?” She widened her eyes just a touch, hoping she looked innocent and enthusiastic and not like she hated Jillian at that moment. “I mean, if nothing else, he could be in danger, couldn’t he?”

Jillian shrugged. “I’ll give Trent a call and see what he thinks. Unless you want to ask Vaughn about it.”

“It’s probably better coming from you, don’t you think?”

“If you say so.” Jillian made a three-point turn and headed back the way they’d come, back toward 300, or so Chess assumed. “You know, I didn’t have much chance to look at the identities of the ghosts, the ones missing from the City. But they didn’t really live near each other or anything.”

Should she say something? Would it be better or worse? Did it matter? Jillian was obviously going to think whatever she wanted to think. “Um, I had a look at them, too, while you were talking to Elder Griffin. I think they’re connected to Mark Pollert as well. The—”

“Do you really think that if Mark Pollert was involved in some kind of plot against the former members of the Mission—people who are supposed to be his good friends, remember?—he’d be drawing such an obvious arrow at himself? Don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

Yeah, it was a little obvious, wasn’t it? Chess hadn’t really thought of it that way before.

But then, she’d also been taught that the most obvious answer was usually the right one. And every day of her life had taught her that not only would people do all kinds of shit for the most specious or insignificant reasons, but people always, always thought they were smarter than they actually were. Certainly they always thought they were smarter than whoever was after them. And they were usually wrong.

She didn’t want to argue with Jillian. But neither did she want to just give up. “Maybe he wants us to know it’s him.”

“Why? Because he wants to get busted? Cesaria, I understand, and I appreciate, that you have a different viewpoint on this. I think it’s great you’re forming your own opinions. But really, I have a little more experience here than you do, and Trent and Vaughn have a lot more, and they don’t seem to think we need to keep a special eye on Pollert.”

Jillian was right. Well, no, she wasn’t right, because Chess couldn’t believe it was all a big coincidence. But she was right that there could be another explanation—someone out to get Mark Pollert, for example—and she was right that if three experienced investigators didn’t see what the big deal was, Chess should really just chill out a bit.

“So maybe someone should check on him. For his own protection,” Chess said.

Jillian sighed and picked up her phone. “Let me ask the guys.”

Chess waited, watching the tidy streets go from light to shadow, shadow to light, as they passed the streetlamps. Every street in Triumph City—every street in the world, pretty much—had extra lights, after Haunted Week.

“No, well, she gave us another name, another couple,” Jillian said into the phone. “We’re going to head over there now. But Cesaria says”—she shot Chess a glance—“that she thinks the Summoned ghosts might be connected to Pollert as well. Yeah, I know. But I kind of agree with her that at the very least it’s worth checking on him, isn’t it? Just making sure he isn’t in danger, too. We’re heading over to this other couple’s house now. Yeah, call me then.”

She clicked the phone shut. “Trent agrees that it’s a long shot, but he and Vaughn are going to head to Pollert’s anyway. Just for a minute. Okay?”

“Thanks.” Having to say it made Chess’s skin crawl. But she didn’t have a choice. “Hey, um, something else, too. The Rosses? Gloria said they own Ross Transports.”

“Yeah?”

“They do work for the Church. They move bodies and stuff sometimes. I guess when the Church vans are full, or when it’s a holiday or something.”

Jillian didn’t respond. Chess pressed on. “So they have special vans, you know, iron-lined ones safe for transporting ghosts and bodies. And if Mark Pollert is friends with them, he might have access to those. Right?”

Still silence. This time Chess let it ride.

“I guess he might,” Jillian said finally. They were at the entrance ramp to 300, about to head up to Northside. “We can ask the Rosses about it. But I don’t know why they would loan those vans to someone.”

“Maybe they didn’t. Maybe he stole it.”

Shit, she shouldn’t have said that, at least not so quickly. Jillian frowned and passed another car, almost cutting it off. “I guess we’ll find out.”

The Rosses weren’t as forthcoming as Gloria had been. And unless they normally stood around holding files relating to the Mission, clearly they’d been warned.

“We don’t know anything about anything,” Eric Ross said after he’d invited Jillian and Chess inside—just barely. He didn’t even offer them a seat.

“Did Gloria Paulson call you?” Jillian asked.

“Gloria? No. No one’s called. But we’re not stupid. We know what happened to Shannon and Joe. We’ve been expecting someone to come talk to us.”

“About what?”

Mr. Ross looked surprised. “About their murders. Don’t you usually talk to family and friends of the victims? You’ve questioned Gloria, obviously, since you just asked if she called us. And you’ve talked to Mark because he mentioned it before. So it only makes sense we’d be next.”

“You were close friends, then.”

Mrs. Ross dabbed at her eyes. She seemed sincere enough, too. “Of course. For years. We met … well, we weren’t even married yet, it was so long ago.”

“Were you close to any of the others from the New Hope Mission?”

“A few of us stayed in touch.” Mrs. Ross’s expression hardened. “We didn’t do anything illegal, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Jillian smiled, a fake kind of smile. Then again, did she have any other kind? “No, of course not. I wasn’t implying that.”

Was she going to ask about the vans and Mark Pollert? Chess tried to catch her eye but failed.

Okay, fine. She shouldn’t do it, and she knew that, but she was going to anyway. What the hell. Wasn’t like it could make things any worse for her, could it?

Besides, she was feeling kind of weird, kind of edgy. Like something was wrong but she didn’t know what.

“You own a van company, right? A trucking company?”

Mr. Ross looked surprised. “Yes. We’ve been in business almost twenty years now. We started just after Haunted Week.”

“Do you ever have any problems with people stealing your vans or anything? I mean, I just wonder how you keep track of all of them.” Chess pretended the question didn’t matter; pretended, too, that she didn’t see Jillian glaring at her.

Jillian wasn’t just glaring, either. She was fidgeting. Rubbing her arms, shifting from foot to foot.

“Theft is a problem in any industry,” Mr. Ross said. “Why?”

“I just—I know you guys do some work for the Church, and I’ve always wondered about the vans you have for that work. If you have to keep them somewhere special or anything.”

It was so lame she almost cringed. But Mr. Ross didn’t seem to think there was a problem with her asking; maybe being only eighteen had some advantages.

“Those are more attractive to thieves, yes,” he said. “It’s a problem. And of course we rent them out on occasion—it’s part of our business.”

Chess wanted to ask what sorts of things people rented iron-lined vans for. Really, what possible legitimate reason could there be? Iron usually related specifically to ghost magic, and ghost magic was illegal for anyone outside the Church to perform.

But she didn’t get to ask. Instead she got yanked to the side, almost falling, Jillian’s fingers wrapped around her arm and Jillian’s shout hurting her ears. “Get out! We all have to get out, hurry up, let’s—”

Too late.

The ghosts slid through the walls, silent and awful. Against the mundane surrounding of the room—beige sofa, brown carpet, ivory walls—their luminescent forms seemed even more terrifying, just from the sheer oddity of them, the sheer sense of—of not belonging, of strangeness. Like a clown at a formal dinner party.

Chess didn’t have time to think of anything else before she hit the floor. Jillian, to her credit, was moving, pushing the Rosses behind her to protect them, but Chess could see it wasn’t going to help. One ghost blocked the door; the other two had already grabbed weapons, were throwing lamps and knickknacks. Chess watched as one of them threw a framed photograph—it smashed against the wall where Eric Ross had been standing only a second before—and picked up a poker from the fireplace. Shit, wasn’t it iron? How could—Oh. A wooden handle.

Jillian threw something at the ghost by the door, shouted the words of power Chess had memorized the year before. “Arkrandia bellarum dishager!”

The ghost froze. Good. Except it was still blocking the doorway, and if anyone human touched it as they tried to get to the door, it would probably manage to unfreeze.

Jillian swiveled around, readying another fistful of what Chess knew was graveyard dirt and asafetida. Chess turned to Mr. and Mrs. Ross, standing stupefied a few feet away. “Where’s the back door?”

They didn’t respond.

Mrs. Ross was closer, close enough for Chess to see the horrible shade of white her face had gone, the fear-wide eyes and the way her nostrils flared as she breathed. “Mrs. Ross, where’s the back door? Where’s the other exit?”

Jillian froze the other two ghosts; Chess wished she had more of a chance to watch her in action, because she really was impressive. She paused and glanced at Chess. “Get them outside, and come back in to help me.”

Chess nodded. The Rosses still stood frozen with terror, but there had to be a back door, and back doors were by definition usually in the back, so she’d find the damn thing. She grabbed each of them by the arm and started pulling them away from the ghosts, through the Old West–style doors into the kitchen. The freeze Jillian had put the ghosts under wouldn’t last forever; the one by the front door would probably shake it off within a minute or two, so they didn’t have much time. And yes, there it was, the back door with its frosted glass panels and ivory curtains.

Even in the middle of all of it, in the middle of the heart-pounding scary reality of it all, she had a second to be proud of herself. She was handling it okay. She was doing what needed to be done, acting on instincts that seemed sound. She was scared, yes, but she wasn’t paralyzed, she wasn’t panicking. That was something to be proud of, it was, and she wasn’t going to feel bad about that or like it was the wrong time to feel that way.

All that pride evaporated when Mark Pollert opened the back door and walked into the kitchen with his gun drawn.

Chapter Eleven

Fuck. She should have known. Fuck fuck fuck, why hadn’t she known, why hadn’t she guessed?

Of course Mark was there; of course he’d come. Gloria had called the Rosses. She’d called Mark as well, and he’d known. Known they were on to him, known where she and Jillian were going. Known, too, that Trent and Vaughn were on their way to his place.

If he hadn’t killed them already. That time of night, the trip from his address on the outskirts of Downside to this place would only take fifteen minutes or so if he went the speed limit, and somehow she didn’t think he was the type to worry too much about traffic laws. She didn’t think he was the type to worry much about anything but his own shitty plans.

But apparently—obviously—she was the only one. Both Rosses were finally shaken from their semi-catatonia, surprise replacing the fear on their faces.

Mr. Ross spoke first. “Mark, what—guns won’t work against ghosts, you know that, you—”

“Shut up, Eric.” Mark waved the gun. “Go stand over there. Where’s the other bitch from the Church?”

“Mark, I don’t—”

Mrs. Ross cut him off. “This is what you were doing? Why you needed the van? This is—you used me? You were using me to kill our friends?”

What?

But as Chess glanced from Mark to Mrs. Ross and back again, the pieces fell into place. Of course, that might have been helped by the fact that Mark replied. Cheerfully. Just like the fucking psycho he was.

“Of course I did, Tracy. What did you think, that a woman your age could really interest a man like me? Did you really believe that?”

Eric Ross still looked like he couldn’t understand what was happening; Chess guessed she couldn’t blame him. Finding out his wife had been cheating on him with a trusted friend and that said trusted friend also wanted to kill him probably was a lot to take in. Not to mention finding out that the trusted friend was an egotistical shitbrain. “Tracy, I don’t—Mark, what are you—”

The gun went off. Tracy screamed, Chess threw herself to the side, and Eric fell dead to the floor. Blood spattered the wall behind him, a physical embodiment of the life that had escaped.

Eric’s ghost rose from his body, a glowing column of death. It looked at his corpse on the floor. Looked at Mark, at Tracy, at Chess.

And snarled.

Shit. Why wasn’t it disappearing? Why wasn’t a psychopomp coming for it, taking it to the City?

Jillian appeared in the kitchen doorway, her gun drawn. “What the hell is—”

The gunshot cut her off, and she fell. Her gun clattered across the floor; Chess lunged but was too late. Mark already had it.

Tracy whimpered and sobbed. Jillian moaned. Not dead, then, at least not yet, though that could change at any second. Just like it could change for Chess, because Eric Ross was gliding toward the row of knives stuck to a magnetic strip on the wall, and the ghosts in the other room would be there any second, and Jillian was down.

The barroom-type doors weren’t the only entrance to the kitchen. There was a hallway, too. From her position on the floor Chess couldn’t see where it went, and she doubted it ended in any kind of exit, but she was sure there was at least one room off it that would have a door she could lock, a window she could climb out of. Anything to buy her even a second or two, not just to try to call the Squad but because the memory of the City loomed in front of her, throbbed in her mind, and her entire body went cold at the thought of being there again as a permanent resident.

Eric’s ghost grabbed a knife and turned toward Mark. Maybe he’d—no. No, because Mark set Jillian’s gun down on the counter and grabbed something from his pocket. Chess figured it was graveyard dirt and asafetida, just like Jillian had used—just like all Church employees, or anyone who could do any kind of ghost magic, used—and she was right. Mark flung it at Eric’s ghost almost lazily, and Eric froze.

Chess took her chance. She scrambled along the floor, trying to cross the distance to the mouth of the hallway as quickly as possible, trying to cross it before Mark saw her—

And failing. Pain erupted in the back of her head as Mark grabbed her hair and pulled it hard, lifting her hands off the floor, yanking her to an upright kneel.

“Oh, no,” Mark said. The gun waved just before Chess’s eyes, its nozzle a dark tunnel straight to the City. “You’re not going anywhere. I need you.”

Needed her?

Before she had a chance to figure out what that meant—she certainly wasn’t about to ask—the living room ghosts appeared, hovering in the doorway, their faces twisted with rage. Shit. Yeah, Mark could apparently freeze them, but again, it wouldn’t last. What was he doing? What was he planning to do?

Tracy Ross launched herself at Mark. He let go of Chess’s hair, giving her a second or two of blessed relief before another gunshot broke the air, made Chess’s ears ring. Another dead body, another ghost. What the fuck was he doing? Did he plan to fill the fucking house with ghosts?

Not to mention that their presence made Chess feel queasy. Something made her feel queasy, anyway, and she was pretty sure that was it. Without any markings on her skin, either the tattoos all Church employees were given as protection and power enhancers or the sigils and runes Jillian had scrawled on her earlier on the train, the ghosts’ energy beat against hers. Of course. That was why she’d been uncomfortable earlier, just before the ghosts had appeared. She’d never been around a ghost without being marked; the Church instructors were very careful about that. So it was good—or at least worthwhile—to know.

But knowing that didn’t help. She turned in a vain attempt to head down the hallway again, but Mark caught her just as quickly as he had before. This time he dragged her—again by the hair, ouch—over to crouch near Jillian, who still moaned softly as she clutched her bleeding shin. “Stay right there. If you move, I’ll shoot you. Understand?”

She managed to nod. He grabbed something out of another pocket: a small canister. Church salt. Of course. Chess watched as he dumped it in a thick line, blocking the ghosts from entering the kitchen, and then in another line that separated himself from Chess, Jillian, and the ghosts of Eric and Tracy. Eric was still frozen, but Chess could already see signs that the freeze was lifting, and Tracy’s blank eyes had focused on Jillian. Shit.

Mark opened the kitchen door—the back door. Beyond it Chess made out the dark shape of a black van. The van, idling on the grass, with ROSS TRANSPORTS painted in white on the side. A typical van no one would notice as it made its way through quiet suburban streets.

“Come on.” Mark waved the gun at her, at Jillian. “Get her up. Let’s go.”

Tracy swiped at Chess’s head; it was like having someone drive an icicle into her brain. Not fatal—Tracy couldn’t kill her by touching her—but fuck it was cold, and fuck that made it painful.

And that was nothing compared to what Tracy could do—would do—when she figured out that touching wasn’t going to work, and picked up a weapon.

Jillian spoke up from her fetal position on the floor, the words broken and punctuated by gasps. “The other Squad members know we’re here, Mark. You won’t get away with this.”

He snorted. “I certainly hope they do. An idiot would figure it out.”

Chess spoke before she thought of it. “You wanted them to know. You want them to come here.”

“I want them to know everything.” His lips curled into a snarl. “I want them to know I’m on to them. I want them to know what I think of them. And you bitches are going to help me. Now get up and get in the van.”

Chess glanced at Jillian. Jillian hadn’t moved. So … did that mean Chess shouldn’t, either, or was Jillian just trying to gather her strength, or what? If it were up to Chess she would get up, try to act compliant, look for an opening to attack, but for all she knew Jillian was planning some kind of attack already, or she’d managed to actually call someone while Mark was trying to rip Chess’s hair out at the roots, or whatever.

Mark sighed and checked his watch in an exaggerated fashion. “In about eighty-nine seconds, the dynamite I’ve placed around the foundation of this house is going to explode. So you have your choice. You can get in the van, or you can try to run for it. Personally, I don’t think you can run that fast.”

He hadn’t finished the sentence before Chess was up, hauling Jillian to her feet and pulling her over the salt line. Yes, she could try to run, to a neighbor’s house or into the middle of the street or something, but this was Northside. One of the more expensive neighborhoods in Northside, which meant the nearest neighbor was a good fifty yards or so away at least, and Chess somehow didn’t think she could drag an injured Jillian that far in a minute.

Hell, she didn’t even think they could get that far by van, but it looked like her only chance, didn’t it?

So she threw herself forward, hauled Jillian along with her, and leaped into the van’s open door. Before she had a chance to even consider closing it behind her Mark was there, his body repugnant against hers as he pushed her further in and put the van in gear.

The van’s engine roared, and it lurched forward. Jillian yelped in pain; Chess gritted her teeth. How much time did they have left, how far away did they have to get, how powerful would the explosion be?

Really fucking powerful, was the answer. The air around them went white and orange; the van jerked sideways as it turned onto the street at the end of the long driveway. The van didn’t have back windows, but Chess saw it through Mark’s window, saw his profile outlined by fire, saw wood and stone and chunks of unidentifiable materials fly into the night sky. The noise was deafening, horrible; the light seared her retinas so when she blinked all she saw was bright, fierce green.

But Mark had already reached another bend in the road. The last image Chess saw was the plume of vicious fire against the darkness before it really hit her where she was, who she was with, and she closed her eyes in despair because she had no idea how she was going to escape this one. No answer presented itself as they drove along the highway, back toward Downside—so she assumed—and Mark’s home. No bright ideas sprang fully formed into her head, no clever plans appeared. Instead she just felt miserable, and she fought back the terror threatening to overwhelm her. She was trapped. Trapped in a moving vehicle by a man holding both a gun and a grudge, and she was apparently part of some plan of his, and she didn’t want to know what it was.

Jillian’s quiet sobs grated on her. Why wasn’t Jillian thinking, why wasn’t Jillian coming up with a plan? Why wasn’t Jillian holding her hand, trying to reassure her, instead of just clutching at her leg and huddling against the van’s door? Jillian was the fucking Squad member, the fucking adult. Chess was eighteen. In training.

But then, when had any adult, ever, in Chess’s entire life, bothered to take any responsibility when it came to her, bothered to act like an adult at all instead of like a selfish bag of shit? So why should Jillian be any different.

Maybe that wasn’t fair. But Chess didn’t feel like being fair. She was scared and trapped, and being trapped reminded her of all those other times, of her entire lifetime of being trapped, and her fingers itched to grab the flask out of her bag. In another second she was going to do it, Jillian and Church and everything else be damned.

Cars zipped by on the highway; Chess briefly considered trying to signal one of them, then discarded the idea. Even if Mark didn’t kill her before she could attract anyone’s attention, and even if she could manage to attract someone’s attention, no one would do anything. No one ever did. The only place helpful onlookers appeared, the only place people went out of their way for strangers, was in movies. In real life people just focused their eyes on the horizon and pretended they hadn’t seen a thing. They lied to themselves, told themselves they were still good people even as they left others to be abused and die.

She’d have to figure out something on her own. Fuck.

Okay. The Church hadn’t covered anything like this in her training, but life had taught her one or two things about trying to mitigate whatever abuse she was in for, trying to placate sick fucks. It didn’t always work—well, it almost never stopped whatever was going to happen—but every once in a while it helped. Made it a little easier, a little not so bad.

Of course, every once in a while it made it worse, too. She’d have to take a chance.

She cleared her throat. “Hey, um, Mr. Pollert? Mark? I have a flask in my bag. Vodka. Do you want some? A drink? Seems like maybe we can relax a little now that we’re not at the Rosses’ house anymore.”

He didn’t answer for so long she thought he hadn’t heard her. Then he snorted. “Of course you need to drink, working with those people.”

Please, please, let her relief not show. Don’t let him see that he’d just said exactly what she was hoping he’d say, that he’d just given her an opening. “It’s a lot of pressure. Trying to be what they want me to be. They expect so much.”

“But not from themselves, do they? Only of other people. Only of you.” He jerked his head in her direction—in Jillian’s direction. “Look at her. Black Squad. Supposed to be the elite. And yet she sits there whining.”

Chess didn’t know quite how to respond to that. He was right, after all.

Which was what bothered her. That what she’d been thinking was so closely mirrored, that she could have anything in common with Mark Pollert … the thought made her squirm. So she lifted her hand to the zipper of her bag. “I’m going to get my flask, okay?”

“You don’t need that thing.” The words weren’t spoken in a harsh tone, but they were definite enough to stop her. Shit. It wasn’t just that she thought if she could get a little booze into his system, get him to loosen up, she could maybe earn a bit more of his trust and it might be easier to escape. It was that she seriously could use a fucking drink.

But then he pulled something out of the van’s center console. A little plastic bag full of pills, round white pills Chess thought she recognized. Lonticepts, or at least that’s what they looked like. Cepts. Opiates, strong ones. Good ones. The kind some of her foster parents used to give her to shut her up or to make her feel better after they’d finished with her. The kind she paid five bucks a pop for in the Corey Home but hadn’t touched since, because she wasn’t doing that stuff anymore now that she had a future.

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.

Chapter Twelve

Jillian 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.”

“I bet you can’t.”

Man, he was an asshole. But then she already knew that.

More hauling Jillian around when the train finally stopped. Chess’s heart beat in her throat and everything seemed so … so clear, so sharp, like everything she was seeing might be the last thing.

Which it might be. If her plan—which was admittedly shaky—failed, it would be. She’d never see this side of the City door again, never leave it again, never see the sun or the stars or buildings, never eat a hamburger or a chocolate bar, never have sex or dream. Ever.

She held Jillian up while Jillian fumbled with the lock. This time she watched what Jillian was doing, not because she needed to but because she was right there anyway. Watched Jillian turn the key a few times, felt energy push through her—through both of them—and back into the door.

It opened. And for the second time in a day, Chess walked into the City of Eternity.

Chapter Thirteen

It hadn’t changed. Well, of course it hadn’t. But this time she was at least prepared; it still looked horrible, ugly and cold, and it still made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and made her throat and chest tight, but at least her stomach was okay.

Maybe that was the pills, too.

Mark’s faced paled; even in the awful blue light she saw it. “This is—this is it? This is what it looks like?”

Chess smiled; it felt like an unpleasant smile, and she imagined it looked that way, too. “Yeah. Isn’t it peaceful?”

That he apparently had the same reaction she did didn’t surprise her; hadn’t she already realized she was just as sick as he was, or vice versa? So it was only to be expected. It still made her feel worse, though, down deep where the pill hadn’t quite reached. See, that was how bad her reaction was; it was the kind of feeling only a sick fuck would get. Normal people saw something completely different.

And here they came, the dead. Their glowing forms advanced, fast, even faster as they saw what Chess knew they would see: their clothing. Their weapons. Mark’s gun still in his hand.

Mark started to turn back to the door, but Chess was ready. She leaped at him, tackled him.

The gun went off. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

Didn’t matter. She hadn’t been shot, that was what mattered. Mark bucked beneath her, knocked her to the side; cold hard dirt beneath her as she swung at him. And missed.

He knelt beside her. The gun in his hand, pointed at her, his finger ready to pull the trigger.

She kicked at him, managed to hit him in the side. Dirt flew beside her head as his next shot landed there; he’d just missed her. Shit!

And her kick hadn’t done much to him, hadn’t knocked him over or even—apparently—hurt him very badly.

She rolled away, tensed for the bullet she wouldn’t hear, the short shock of pain before this life ended and the next one began. Dimly she was aware that the light around her had changed, had brightened; dimly she knew the ghosts were coming, they were almost there, and any second one of them would pick up her bag and start braining her with it. It was heavy enough, with a book and her flask and her pens and all of the other shit she carried, that she still wasn’t trustful enough to leave in her room.

She grabbed the strap, intending just to protect it from being taken, but even as she moved she decided to use it as a weapon, too. A hard jerk of her arm shot the bag itself into the air; it hit Mark in the side of the face. Thank fuck, that was lucky.

And the ghosts had arrived. Icy hands slipped through her head, her body; icy hands wrestled with her for the strap of her bag. Another gunshot, and another, as Mark did what any idiot would do and tried to shoot at the ghosts.

Good. If he was focusing on them, he wouldn’t focus on her. She managed to get up, clutching her bag, fighting as hard as she could but knowing that if another ghost or two found her—found it—she wouldn’t be able to hold on anymore.

Jillian was still on the ground, out cold. Mark was flailing a few feet away. The door was still open, the ghosts trying to get through the iron-chain curtain and jerking back in pain. Shit, when—if—she managed to get through it, some of them might follow. Unless she could slam the door fast enough behind her.

Mark’s screams echoed so loud in the space, drilled into her brain and hurt. The gun went off again, and again, and his screams ended in an abrupt gurgle; she glanced over and saw him clutching at his throat, saw a ghost readying the gun to swing again. Obviously the ghosts found the noise just as irritating as she did, or maybe that one just liked to hit people in the throat.

No matter. She grabbed Jillian and hauled her to her feet. More glowing hands grabbing at her and failing, more glowing hands solidifying around her bag and pulling. Something hard hit her in the back of the head; she stumbled and almost fell, but managed somehow to stay on her feet. The door was only a few feet away, just a couple of feet.

Another hand grabbed her jeans. A real hand. Mark’s hand. Blood streamed from his head; his eyes begged her for help as his mouth worked soundlessly. Shit, that face, those eyes, the plea in them—

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t because he’d killed so many people. He’d shot Jillian. He’d planned to kill her. And the penalty for what he did would be death anyway; he’d be tried before the end of the month and dead within another month or two after that.

She couldn’t because she only had time to get herself and Jillian through that door, and if she stopped to help him, too, all three of them would probably die.

So she didn’t. Instead she flung herself through the iron chains, through the doorway, and slammed the door behind her. Hard. Hard enough that the sound of it slamming seemed to go on forever, the sound so final as Chess left Mark there with the ghosts he’d thought he’d be able to control.

The ghosts who would kill him.

Elder Griffin was waiting for her the next morning; he responded to her tentative knock almost the second her knuckles hit the wood, and opened the door wide with a welcoming smile on his face. “Cesaria. Good morrow. Thank you for coming.”

She curtsied in response. “Good morrow, sir.”

He led her into the office proper, gestured to a chair. The same chair she’d sat in several days before. Well, duh, of course it was; there was nothing sinister or coincidental about the fact that he kept certain pieces of furniture in his office. What did she expect, that he’d switch them every day?

For fuck’s sake, was she still that jumpy? She hadn’t slept at all, really; she’d pounded enough Coke and even some coffee that she felt okay, but still. Every time she lay down to close her eyes she saw it again: the City, Mark’s face, the terror in his eyes. Every time, she remembered how she’d managed to get to him, that she’d done it by understanding him and what he was thinking, and what that must say about her.

And every time, she remembered that she’d run out to his van before the Squad came back and taken Mark’s little bag of pills, and that it was in her own bag right at that moment. Close to her. Waiting for Friday night, when she could relax; waiting for a special occasion. She’d be careful with them; she wouldn’t let herself take them too often or when she was working, but she could have them every once in a while, couldn’t she? Just to celebrate.

Yes, she could.

“Cesaria,” Elder Griffin said, tugging her back from her thoughts, “I imagine you’re curious as to why I’m speaking to you, rather than Jillian or one of the Inquisitors.”

She shrugged. “Jillian’s still in the hospital, right?”

“No, she was released this morning. Trent and Vaughn are also home, thankfully. No permanent damage done.”

Mark had set a trap for them; they’d spent the night in a twelve-foot-deep pit he’d dug just inside his front door.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Chess said, because it seemed like what she should say.

He nodded. “Well. We have a few things to discuss. But first, I trust you are … well? Recovered from what happened?”

No. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. The Inquisitors were most impressed with your solution, and your manipulation of Mark. They wish to ask if you would like to begin formal training with them once this year is complete, and make the Squad your future home here.”

She bit her lip. Shit. No, she didn’t want to, not really. Didn’t want to work with someone else, didn’t want to have to follow some stupid fucking chain of command that seemed counterintuitive and rewarded plodding brainlessness.

But she had to admit … solving the case had been kind of cool. Knowing that because of her a murderer was no longer out there murdering was more than kind of cool.

Elder Griffin shuffled some papers on his desk. “Are thee unsure as to whether you’d like to join them?”

“I—I’m just surprised, sir.”

“Did you think you’d not be welcome, after the work you did?”

“I just—I don’t know.”

“Mm-hmm.” He tilted his head; his blue eyes pierced her, like he was considering something. “May I speak freely?”

“Of course.”

“Jillian came in to speak with me yesterday regarding you—well, I asked her to. She informed me that you seemed to be having some difficulty working with her, and with Trent. That perhaps working with a team was not the best situation for you.”

Her face burned. Why was he telling her this? Why would he want to—to hurt her like that?

She forced her face to stay still. She wouldn’t show him he’d upset her. Wouldn’t let him see that she even cared.

But after a second he continued. “I say this not to upset you. I say it because … well, let me be frank. I was pleased to hear it. I was hoping to—expecting to—hear something along those lines.”

Was he a lunatic or what? Why would he want her to be difficult to work with?

“You see, I’ve felt for some time, from speaking with your instructors, that I would very much like it if you would come join my department. I think it would be a good use of your particular skills.”

“A Debunker?”

He nodded. “You’d be working alone, of course. In charge of your own investigations—after your training period, but I feel confident you’ll have no trouble with that. Debunkers earn a salary which is admittedly one of the lowest in the Church, but the bonus structure can make it very lucrative indeed.”

A Debunker. She hadn’t really considered that one before; most of them were men. And the job involved dealing with people, having to interview them, spend time in their houses, study them. Not really her thing.

Elder Griffin seemed to see her hesitation. “Of course, it would mean working with me. And you do not know me, so I understand you’re hesitant, especially as I know the Squad provides better benefits, better perks. But Cesaria … I believe Debunking is just as important. I am trying to build our team, and get more women on it. And I believe … I believe we would work well together. I would like to work with you. I think you’d be good at the job, and would enjoy it.”

She’d work alone. She’d work with someone who actually wanted to work with her. Someone who’d heard everything Jillian said about her and still seemed to want her around.

And she wouldn’t have to see Jillian again, or Trent or Vaughn. Wouldn’t have to work for the Squad and wouldn’t have to work in the City.

“I understand if you want time to think about it. Please take all the time you require, or at least until the end of the semester. I can arrange to have you train with a different department first, if you’d like—”

“No,” she said, before she even realized she was saying it. “I mean, yes. No, I don’t need to train somewhere else, and yes, I will come work with you. Um, I’d like to. Yes.”

He smiled. He actually even looked relieved. Had he seriously thought she might not accept, had that seriously bothered him? “Excellent. I shall inform your training Elders.”

She stood up when he did, took his hand when he offered it. “Thank you, sir.”

“Thank you.” He led her to the door and opened it. “I look forward to working with you, Cesaria. Facts are Truth.”

“Facts are Truth, sir,” she replied, and walked through the open doorway into the wide, pale hallway.

What a contrast that hallway made to the street corner in Downside on which she stood two weeks later. She didn’t need to be there, no. It wasn’t like it was necessary or anything.

But she had forty bucks in her pocket that she’d managed to set aside from her living expenses, and she’d managed to borrow a car, so there she was. Standing, just waiting, eyeing the guys standing on the corner who were eyeing her right back.

In a few more minutes one of them would come up and ask her. And she’d answer. Not because she had to. She wasn’t starting anything, wasn’t going to get herself hung up. She just … she hadn’t even bothered with the flask, didn’t need it, when she knew she had something else waiting for her. And that was a good thing. Especially now when she’d be officially entering Debunker training soon and there was so much to learn.

So that was something to celebrate. She was allowed to celebrate, right?

A bit of movement in the shadows; someone came toward her. She opened the pack of cigarettes she’d brought along, held it out.

He took one. Just a guy: average face, average height, dark hair, black jeans. Just like any other guy. “Thanks,” he said. “You need a ride?”

She swallowed. In the alcove he’d come from she caught a glimpse of another guy, a bigger one. Very big. Wearing a bowling shirt with black hair swept up in a DA, an angry look on his scarred face. He looked like he chewed rocks for fun or something, like he wasn’t smart enough to know any better; not pleasant. Must be the muscle, then. He was the kind of person she’d be getting herself involved with if she answered the question in the affirmative; he was the kind of life she’d be setting herself up for, and that should make her feel a lot worse than it did.

But then, nobody said she had to do this again. Maybe she wouldn’t. She could do whatever she wanted, because she was an adult, and she was going to have a real career. Right?

So she nodded, turning her gaze away from the scary thug and back to the guy in front of her. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I was hoping to find one.”

Read on for a sneak peek inside the next novel in Stacia Kane’s dark and sexy series

CHASING MAGIC

Coming soon from Del Rey

All of the documents were in place: The Affidavit of Spectral Fraud, the Statement of Truth, two Orders of Imprisonment and two Orders of Relinquishment, and, of course, the list of Church-approved attorneys. The Darnells would want that—well, they’d need it, because they were about to be arrested for faking a haunting.

At least, they would be when the Black Squad got there to back Chess up. She didn’t always want the Squad to come along; police presence tipped people off, made things more difficult, and most people came pretty quietly once they realized they were busted, anyway. The Darnells didn’t seem like the come-quietly type, though. Something told Chess they weren’t going to take this well.

But she’d told them she’d be there at six, and it was five past already and their curtains kept twitching. They knew she was there.

Right. She’d taken a couple of Cepts before leaving her apartment in Downside, so they were just starting to hit—smooth, thick, narcotic warmth spreading from her stomach out through the rest of her body, a pleasant softness settling over her mind.

That was the best thing about the drugs, really; she could still think, still be coherent, still use her brain. She just didn’t have to if she didn’t want to, and it was so much easier to keep that brain from wandering into all those places she didn’t want it to go.

And she had so fucking many of those places.

She grabbed the Darnell file from her bag, locked her car, and started walking along the cobblestone path to the front door, weaving around the flowers and plants scattered like islands across the impossibly green sea of grass. Bees made their way from bloom to bloom, doing whatever the hell it was bees did. Oh, sure, she knew it was something to do with pollen or whatever. She just didn’t give a shit.

By the time she reached the porch, sweat beaded along her forehead and her body felt damp. Summer sucked. Only the middle of June and already it was scorching.

Brandon Darnell opened the door before she’d finished raising her hand to knock. “Miss Putnam. You’re late.”

Asshole. She faked a smile. “Sorry. Traffic.”

At least they had air-conditioning.

The entire Darnell family sat in the pretentious high-ceilinged living room, slouching on the ridiculously overpriced suede couch and chairs that were partly responsible for the enormous debt they were in. Debt they’d planned to clear by faking a haunting and getting a nice fat settlement from the Church of Real Truth.

Too bad for them, the Church wasn’t stupid—being in charge of everyone and everything on earth for twenty-four years proved that—and had contingency plans for such things. Chess was one of them.

Brandon Darnell indicated an empty chair along the back wall. “Have a seat.”

Alarms started ringing in Chess’s head. He seemed a little too calm, a little too … cheerful.

But all the other chairs were full, so she sat, shooting another glance out the window to see if the Squad had arrived yet. Nope. Damn it!

The Darnells sat there, unmoving. Just watching her. Because that wasn’t creepy at all.

Mrs. Darnell—frowsy, bad perm, blue eyeshadow up to her brows—showed her perfect white teeth in what passed for a smile. “Do you have any news for us? When will you Banish the ghost?”

Chess’s phone beeped—a text. A text from the Black Squad, thank fuck; they were almost there. Good. She didn’t have to sit around wasting time with these people.

“I do have news.” She pulled the forms from the file. “This is my Statement of Truth, copies of which I’ve already filed with the Church. This one is for you to sign. It’s the Affidavit of Spectral Fraud, which is basically your confession, and this one—”

“What the hell are you talking about? We haven’t committed any fraud, there’s no—”

“Mr. Darnell.” Normally she’d stand up for this part, but what the hell. The chair was pretty comfortable. “I found, and photographed, the projectors set up in the attic. I won’t bother to point out to you where the holes in the ceiling are, since you already know. The ‘ectoplasm’ on your walls has been analyzed—twice, for confirmation—as a mixture of cornstarch, gelatin, iridescent paint, and water.”

She waited for a response, and didn’t get one. Good. “I also have pictures of the portable air conditioner you set up beneath the house—that’s another crime, by the way, putting anything underground, but I imagine you know that—to fake sudden changes in temperature. One of my hidden cameras caught you breaking the mirrors yourself, and another one caught very clearly you and Mrs. Darnell discussing your crimes.”

Mr. and Mrs. Darnell looked guilty. Their children—Cassie and Curtis, how cute—looked confused. Chess directed her next comments to them.

“I have two Orders of Relinquishment here. You two are going to be taken to the Church with your parents, but when they go into prison, you’ll be moving in with another family member or, failing that, a home will be found for you. You’ll be safe there.”

She could only hope that last line was true. It hadn’t been for her. None of those “homes” she’d been sent to had been safe—or at least no more than a couple of them.

But that had been a long time ago. That had been before the Church was really settled. That had been a mistake; she was an anomaly—or something—and it only mattered in her memories.

Because the Church had saved her. They’d taken her out of that life and given her a new one. The Church had found her and made her into something real.

The two children looked at each other, looked at Chess, looked at their parents. What was the expression on their faces? Shocked, curious? Chess couldn’t quite seem to read it.

She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. Shit, she didn’t usually have problems like this from her pills. And no way had she gotten a bad batch; Lex had given her those, and Lex might be in charge of the Downside gang in direct opposition to the one Chess’s … Chess’s everything worked for, but Lex wouldn’t try to do her any harm. She knew that. Lex was her friend.

So what the fuck?

Her eyes itched, too; she raised her hand to rub at them. Struggled to raise it, actually. In fact, she’d been sitting still for a few minutes, hadn’t she? Without moving.

The room started to rock around her, as if she and the Darnells sat on the deck of a ship in stormy waters. Nausea slithered through her stomach, up her throat.

Her skin tingled. Not her skin, actually. Her tattoos—runes and sigils inscribed into her skin with magic-imbued ink by the Church—tingled. The way they always did in the presence of ghosts … or in the presence of magic.

It took forever to turn her head to the left, on a neck that felt like it was being squeezed by strong, hard hands she couldn’t see. Who was … fuck, someone was casting some kind of spell on her; who was it, what was it?

She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see well enough to tell—just a shape, a spot of darker shadow in the long hallway. But whatever it was—it felt like a man, she had enough presence of mind to know that—it was powerful, it was strong, and it was about to beat her.

Something inside her struggled. The noise of the Darnells shouting faded, faded like a stiff wind had come up and was blowing them all away. The adult Darnells yelling, cackling; the young Darnells panicked and confused.

And over it all the words of power were beginning to seep into her consciousness, spoken in a deep smooth voice like smoked glass. Smoked glass with jagged edges; she’d cut herself on them, they’d slice into her skin and her blood would spill out onto the floor, staining the carpet the Darnells couldn’t pay for. Staining everything except her soul; that was filthy enough already, covered with grime and pain that would never go away no matter how many pills she took or lines she snorted.

But she didn’t want to go. Not just because she was afraid of the City of Eternity, either. Everyone else thought the enormous cavern below the earth where the spirits of the dead lived on forever was peaceful, beautiful. Only Chess knew what it really was: cold and horrible and terrifying.

That wasn’t the point, though. As her breath came shorter and shallower, as the black edge around her vision thickened until she could see only tiny spots of the room around her, all she could really think about was Terrible. The only man in the world who made her feel … like she was okay, like she could be happy. The only one who understood her. The only one who loved her.

The only one, period.

She would not leave him. She refused to leave him.

Content

Finding Magic
by Stacia Kane
Downside Ghosts - 0.5

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Read on for a sneak peek inside the next novel in Stacia Kane’s dark and sexy series CHASING MAGIC Coming soon from Del Rey