by Stacia Kane
Chess sat, ignoring the desire to lay down a cloth of some kind first, and waited for him to speak.
“Whyn’t you take yon fuckin coat off, yay? Ain’t cold in here. Stay awhile with Bump. Bump gots some things to fuckin chatter on, if you dig.”
Fine. If he expected her to stick around, he could help her out. She shrugged the coat off and gave him a deliberate yawn.
“Always a fuckin deal with you, yay?” He stood up—the pajamas were even worse viewed full length—and oozed his way to the shiny black bar in the corner, returning with a little black lacquered box. “My private stash there, Ladybird. Hope you ’preciate it.”
She certainly did. The box was ingeniously made, opening to reveal a mirrored bottom and slots to hold whatever accoutrements were necessary. Chess busied herself cutting a couple of lines while Bump talked.
“So what you got on for me? You got a find yet?”
“Not really. It’s a ghost, but not the Cryin Man like everyone thinks. It’s—he’s still in a spirit prison. I saw him today. Other than that … Didn’t Terrible tell you?”
Bump’s eyebrows practically disappeared into his hairline. “Yay, he give me what you see, ain’t give me what you fuckin know. You dig me?”
“Show him them eyes, Chess.”
Oh, right. For a half a second she’d actually managed to forget about them. She reached into her bag with tingling fingers while Terrible kept talking.
“Ain’t caught up with Two-Eye Lou, Bump. Nobody seen him or heard aught, aye? Checked his place, ain’t look like he been around.”
Bump made a face. “Sneakin off, yay. Knows he wanted.”
Terrible nodded. “Caught Nestor out there. Took this offen him.” She glanced up to see Terrible slap the limp bills into Bump’s outstretched hand. “He tryin to make a deal, dig, say he hear somethin about some warehouse up Ninetieth, but he ain’t sure. Ask if he get the knowledge, maybe you deal. Could be somethin, aye?”
Bump shrugged, inspected both the bills and the eyeballs with equal lack of interest. “Somebody gave these you, Ladybird?”
She nodded. A long silence followed, broken only by the sound of the little gold straw clicking against the mirror and Chess’s long, deep inhalation.
Oh … damn. Bump’s private stash was something to be appreciated indeed. Her nose went numb, her sinuses went numb, the entire right side of her face went numb, while her heart gave a cheery leap and started pattering away in her chest. Instantly the atmosphere in the room changed. The red walls were cozy, Bump’s furry jammies adorable, the vulgar picture on the wall—well, that was still vulgar, but it didn’t bother her as much as it had.
The little smile that crossed Bump’s face bothered her a lot more. He was planning something, oh yes, and she was already steeling herself. Not that she’d have much choice in the matter, but it made her feel a little better to pretend she would. To pretend she’d tell him to fuck off instead of agreeing to almost anything he wanted because she needed her drugs. And fuck, she didn’t just need those now. She needed protection. Needed this sleazy drug-dealing pimp with his pornographic décor and his appalling pajamas. If she’d thought she was worth a shit, she’d really hate herself right about then. As it was … just another day in the fucking sewer.
“Fuckin eyes from Bump’s girls?” He picked the bag up, inspecting it, poking at the eyeballs through the plastic. “What say? You think so?”
“I don’t know. But they were in my car, so …”
“So guessin we fuckin need to get movin up, yay? You the expert here, Ladybird. So you fuckin run it down for Bump. What this ghost want? Why the killin?”
She caught Terrible’s glance. No expression on his face gave her a clue, no hint to what he was thinking, but she wouldn’t have bothered telling Bump about their talk anyway, even if it had mattered. “Ghosts kill, Bump. It’s what they do.”
“And you stop em, yay? Ain’t that what you fuckin do? So why you ain’t done it yet.”
“It’s been three days.” Shit, now she was getting defensive. What a dickhead he was.
“Yay. Three days an awful long fuckin time. ’Specially now you got somebody tailin you, Ladybird. What them eyeballs mean, yay? They fuckin watchin you?”
She shrugged. Obviously that’s what they meant; he wasn’t asking for an answer, just acknowledgment.
“Maybe you next, what you think? Maybe use you as bait, yay? Put you in a ass-grazer, on the fuckin street?”
He couldn’t possibly be serious. Trouble was, with Bump there was no way of knowing for sure.
“Naw. Ain’t work.” Terrible moved in his seat, his eyes shadowed. “They know she is, they know she ain’t a whore.”
“Put a fuckin wig on she, yay? Cover that ink she got. Bet they ain’t know she then. What you say, Ladybird? Maybe you bring in a few lash—”
“She ain’t do it, Bump.”
Bump wrinkled his nose like some fucking prissy schoolgirl. “Just askin, yay? Havin me a fuckin thought. Ain’t like puttin she in fuckin danger. You heard she just then. Beatin ghosts she fuckin job, dig. So why ain’t we put she out, let she do it?”
“Ain’t work,” Terrible said. Something in the way he leaned forward on the couch made him look bigger, like an animal with its back up.
“Terrible thinkin it ain’t,” Bump corrected without looking at him. “But Bump got a more … friendly image of you, dig. Seem to me you the kinda ladybird like to get herself a choice, make she own decision, yay? See what kind of things she could do for herself, if she only willin, an listen with an open fuckin mind.”
“Things I could do for myself?” She wasn’t considering it, not really … but he did have a point. It was her job. Save the cold, and the disgusting suggestion that she might actually turn a trick or two, it wasn’t a half-bad idea.
That was the problem with Bump. Despite the fact that he was practically a textbook melodrama villain—she expected him to grow a mustache to twirl any day—his ideas made sense.
Not to mention that if they did come after her, Vanita and her human … then Chess would be able to identify her. They would all be able to identify her. No more hiding knowledge because she couldn’t think of a good reason to have it, because it was knowledge she picked up on the wrong side of town.
Identify, hell. Maybe she could catch her.
“Yay, you know. Keepin Bump’s fuckin friendship. You know you my Churchwitch now, yay? Seems all everyone got that knowledge. Make life fuckin easier, yay? You ain’t wanna lose that, dig. Ain’t wanna be not Bump’s fuckin friend. And maybe you get ahead in line, you visit the pipes. Maybe get your needs held out the pile for you, supplies get low. Aught like that, yay? So you never run out. If you dig me.”
Oh, she dug all right. The threat couldn’t have been more clear if he’d sculpted it from ice.
Not that it was necessary. They both knew all it took was one phone call to the Church and she’d be busted. No job. No home. Nothing. Nothing, or a long stint in some dryout prison and a lifetime of suspicion and misery. A lifetime without her pills, without the pipes, without … without everything.
Bump’s eyes gleamed like a cheap gold watch hanging inside a fence’s jacket. “Now she see,” he said. “And long as we havin a chatter, we fuckin friends … Gotta meet set up, Bump do, with Slobag. You be there, yay? Maybe bring some fuckin magic with you on the night, yay, an help Bump out. Maybe get what you need, make Bump some fuckin magic. Hear a good witch even can make a man dead, got strong enough magic. That true, Ladybird?”
Terrible jerked in his seat. “Bump, she ain’t—”
“No.”
“What’s that?”
Chess shoved her arms back into the sleeves of her coat. “I said no. No. I’m not building a death curse for you, I’m not—”
“Who say make a death curse? That ain’t what Bump say, is it? Nay. Bump just ask a fuckin question, seem to me you might be fuckin polite and answer, ’specially now Bump gave you somethin, yay?
Just wantin some knowledge. Maybe what goes in them fuckin curse bags, yay? Maybe wheres Bump can find out. Iffen you think you ain’t fuckin good enough do the job you own self.”
Was he daring her? She forced herself to focus through the dizzy Cept-and-speed haze in her brain, through the tiny part of her that wanted to take that dare. Not good enough? She was fucking good enough, she was damn good. If she wanted to she could—
No. She was not falling for that. “Death curses are unreliable, they can backfire, you don’t want—”
“Aw, now, ain’t down yourself so hard, Ladybird. Bettin shit backfire, it causen them what made it ain’t know what they doin, yay? Ain’t got the fuckin skills like you got. Ain’t sayin you gotta do aught, dig. Just askin. Say maybe Bump gets, what, some hair offen Slobag head. Maybe it like insurance for Bump. For Bump and Terrible, yay. And all. Bump keep everyone fuckin safe, yay? What happen here iffen Bump ain’t around? What if aught happen to Terrible? You ain’t like that, Bump ain’t think. So ain’t so much of an ask, when you give it some fuckin thinkin. See? Open your mind, an see if Bump ain’t right in he thinks.”
She shot a glance at Terrible, still sitting on the couch staring at his feet. His hands were clasped together, dangling between his knees, so tight his damaged, oversized knuckles were white. Had he known about this? He might be mad, but he wasn’t exactly pounding Bump into silence. He did owe Bump a lot more loyalty than he owed her. All she was to him was a friend, maybe. Bump was his boss. Bump had taken him off the streets when he was a child, given him a home, a job.
He could have warned her, though. She would have thought he’d at least do that. He should have at least done that. She’d just stood outside with him and felt like the world’s biggest jerk for telling him a little nothing lie, and here he was letting Bump suggest she turn tricks and do murder, and he hadn’t even let her in on what to expect. Didn’t he even—whatever. Fine.
He wanted her to do this. He’d brought her here, and he was keeping his mouth shut. Obviously he’d made his choice about what was more important here. He’d argue about her wearing a short skirt on the street corner, but thought she’d be just fine to whip up a death curse. Did he even know her at all?
She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror at the bottom of the box; the remaining line broke her image like a pure white scar down the side of her face. Fuck that. She leaned down, sucked it up. The movement felt written in blood. “Yeah, okay.”
Bump grinned, and in the tigerlike tooth display she saw he’d known all along she would do it. Known he had her.
“There’s lots of spells you can do with someone’s hair or nails or whatever,” she said, in the probably vain hope of setting some sort of boundaries. “Minor stuff. If it’s even any good, I mean. Some people don’t really imprint themselves, if you know what I mean, and their hair isn’t really useful. So I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Well that’s real good, yay, real fuckin good indeed. Got belief in you, Ladybird, know you try an help your friend Bump. Give you payment, too. Whyn’t you take the rest of that fuckin bag, for starts. And then Bump see what he can fix up for you. You come back on the morrow, maybe Bump have somethin for you. In the means, you start fuckin workin up what you can do, yay? We gonna get aught from both of em, so you do the thinkin.”
“Both?”
“Yay, dig me. Slobag an that fuckin cunthound son he got, what he name?”
“Lex,” Terrible said.
Chapter Fourteen
The wild psychopomp is dangerous and unpredictable. What they do is given to them by instinct, by energy and magic itself; their wisdom surpasses ours and is cruel and unfeeling when manipulated.
—Psychopomps: The Key to Church Ritual and Mystery, by Elder Brisson
Terrible swung on her the minute he closed his car door behind him, his heavy brow beetling over his deep-set eyes. “You ain’t—”
“Did you know what he wanted?” Frost completely covered the windows of the Chevelle. It was like being in a spaceship hurtling through emptiness. She dug around in her bag to avoid looking at him, then focused on unscrewing the lid of her water bottle with slow deliberation.
He should have warned her. How could he do that to her, how could he put her in that position?
He wasn’t answering. Damn him. “Terrible, did you know what he wanted?”
“Naw, it weren’t—Shit, I ain’t know he plan on that. He say it earlier, aye, but I had the thinkin he dropped it. He tole me weren’t on, the bait, meaning. I tole him no way.”
“But the other thing? The part where I use magic to kill people? You knew about that? You—you knew? And you didn’t tell me?”
“He ain’t said that, not ever. Not before. Chess—”
“Guess he just came up with that on the spur of the moment, huh. What a clever, original thinker he is.”
“You ain’t doin it real though, aye?”
“Why?”
He blinked. Frigid air blasted from the dashboard. Chess pulled her coat more tightly around her neck.
“Just … I ain’t think you’d do it. This is killin, Chess. Bump ain’t jokin, dig. He say maybe some other magic work, but he ain’t … he ain’t gonna ask you it, when it gets time. He ask for death. You know, aye?”
“Yeah, so?” His concern grated on her, like sandpaper rubbing her soul raw. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t warned her. Couldn’t believe he’d let her walk into that blind. He could say all he wanted that he hadn’t known, but he knew Bump. He had to know this kind of shit went on in Bump’s fuzzy head. And he’d sat there with his hands tight and not said a fucking word.
It didn’t matter that the more she thought about it the more she thought acting as bait was probably the best plan possible—which wasn’t saying much. It didn’t matter that he’d tried to stand up for her over that. What mattered was how he’d let her down. How he’d kept something from her.
And speaking of keeping things from her … Lex was Slobag’s son? All this time and she’d assumed—hell, she’d assumed he didn’t have parents, just like her. He’d never mentioned them, never said anything about any family except his sister, Blue, whom Chess hadn’t met.
He wasn’t just a soldier in Slobag’s gang. Wasn’t even just a higher-up soldier. He was heir to it. One day it would be his.
And he’d never told her. For almost four months now he’d kept it hidden.
Did Slobag know who she was? Did they all know who she was? If Terrible was getting rumors about Slobag’s hookers being murdered … would he one day hear that Slobag’s son was spending the occasional night with a Churchwitch? It wouldn’t be hard to make the connection there.
Slobag could shop her, too, if he knew about it. Why not? Why not take away the one asset Bump had that he himself didn’t? At least she assumed he didn’t, or Lex wouldn’t have asked for her help with the murders.
And sometime soon—shit, she hadn’t even asked when—she’d be standing around with all of them. Bump and Slobag, Terrible and Lex. Every one of whom thought she owed them something.
Not to mention her mysterious friend, the one who’d left human body parts in her car outside her work and followed her through the dark streets.
How the fuck had she gotten herself into this one. Did she want to be killed?
The fact that she didn’t have an immediate answer to that one chilled her even more effectively than the wind outside had done.
“I just … Look, Bump get ideas on the sometime, ain’t mean they gotta be done, if you dig. Lemme talk to him.”
She set the cap back on the bottle with a decisive snap, not bothering to screw it on, and turned to him. “What the fuck, Terrible?”
The wipers groaned across the glass, pushing slushy chunks of frost out of the way. Splotchy shadows swept across his face before clearing, leaving him pale in the streetlight’s glow. “Ain’t like it. Told him so.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me, right? Just to let me know
what to expect, to give me a—Fuck. Whatever.”
“Ain’t expected him to say. Ain’t expected you to give him the aye iffen he did.”
“So you’re blaming me now?”
“Naw, I just—killin people, aye, it ain’t—”
“You kill people all the time.”
He clicked something on the dash. Hot air hit Chess’s frozen skin as he shoved the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.
“Aye,” he said finally. His hands clenched the steering wheel like it was a neck he could break. “Aye, I do. But you ain’t me.”
“What, you don’t think I can handle it?”
“Ain’t say that.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Nothin. Ain’t sayin nothin, dig? You make you a choice. Cool by me. Whatany you want.”
“You’re the one who took me there. Without even warning me. I don’t know why you’re so fucking upset about it now.”
“Ain’t upset. Like I just say, you do what you like, aye?”
“So why ask me if I’m really doing it to begin with?”
His eye twitched, but he didn’t answer.
“Terrible?”
He switched the radio on, Motorhead so loud her seat vibrated. She snapped it back off. “Terrible.”
He reached for the stereo knob. She caught his arm before he could reach it, and he slammed on the brakes.
The tires squealed on the street, the heavy front end of the car tipped down and sent her flying toward the dash.
His arm caught her before she hit. “What the fuck you want, Chess? Wanna have a little chatter? Fine by me, you chatter away, then.”
His anger crawled over her skin, enough energy to make her tattoos tingle. She should have been scared, especially after watching him snap Nestor’s leg on the street earlier. Maybe if she wasn’t so high, she would have been. She didn’t imagine most people saw him the way he looked now—his big body looming over her, his eyes narrow and dark with rage—and lived to tell about it.