City of Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  “Anywhere in Downside—”

  “Anywhere in Downside one of that creepy bastard’s horde could find you. They see everything. We’ve been over this again and again. Besides, it’s not up to me. Or you.”

  Fuck! How the hell was she going to get out of this one? She could take the stairs in a leap and run for it. But the front door was double-locked, and flipping the bolts would cost her a few precious seconds. The kitchen wasn’t that big. They’d be on her before she managed to hit the street.

  “I don’t know why we can’t just kill him. After what he did to—”

  “You can find him, you can kill him.”

  “He’s easy to find. He puts on those silly shows to sell his stupid potions that don’t even work. It’s—”

  The woman interrupted him again, but Chess wasn’t listening. Maguinness. They were talking about Maguinness.

  What the hell? Who were these people, that man with his fucking familiar voice and the woman? Had Maguinness known the executioner?

  Damn. She’d missed something. They’d stopped discussing Maguinness, at least so she assumed.

  “Just trust him. He knows what he’s doing,” the woman said. “Hasn’t he already proven that? We just do what he says, and keep him informed, and we’ll—”

  “I don’t want to be here long.”

  “And you won’t be. One night, Erik. Maybe two.”

  Erik? Erik Vanhelm? Chess hesitated, then took a chance and peeked down the stairs into the kitchen.

  Yes. Erik Vanhelm, talking to a woman whose back was to Chess. Long hair fell to just past her shoulders; where the moonlight caught it, it gleamed silvery. Dark blond, maybe, or light brown? Whatever. Figuring it out didn’t feel worth getting caught for, so Chess slipped back into the darkness.

  “Why don’t you stay here with me?”

  “You know why. I have to go, and you need to get some sleep.”

  Vanhelm sighed. “I know, I know. But tomorrow—”

  “I’ll see you there, yes. And after you can spend the night.”

  Fabric rubbed against fabric; a faint change in the atmosphere told Chess the pair’s mouths were busy with other things for the moment.

  She could duck down the staircase, hide in the living room until Vanhelm went upstairs. If he went upstairs, and didn’t decide to watch TV or crash on the couch. TV was probably out; they wouldn’t want to chance a neighbor noticing the telltale light, but who knew for sure with the Lamaru?

  Or she could make her way back upstairs, assuming Vanhelm would take the master bedroom. Once he fell asleep she could sneak out. She had her Hand of Glory with her.

  She needed to make a decision, and she needed to make it immediately. Up or down? Up or down? Fuck!

  Up. Probably the wrong choice, but a choice at least. Better to be stuck there until Vanhelm slept and have a shot at escaping than to try to duck into the living room and be discovered by both of them.

  The smaller front bedroom was probably the better place to hide. Its closet had some room available, at least. Or …

  Not just a closet. A side window, dingy curtains hanging limp over it. The executioner’s house wasn’t new, so it didn’t have the soaring ceilings and lofty heights of newer buildings, and the window sat low in the wall; she figured from the sill to the ground below couldn’t be more then ten feet or so. She’d dropped larger distances than that before.

  No sounds rose from the kitchen below. Either they were still kissing, or they’d started disrobing and just weren’t making any noise. Wow. Exciting.

  Either way, they probably wouldn’t notice if she slid the window open and dropped out of it. Assuming the window opened, and that it didn’t squeak as it did so.

  But it wouldn’t open. She pushed as long as she dared, until their voices rose in farewell and the back door opened. No escape, then. Not for a while, assuming it was possible at all. She tucked herself into the closet and listened to Vanhelm’s heavy footsteps on the stairs.

  Her legs ached from crouching when she made it back to her car an hour later. Vanhelm had finally fallen into the deep sleep of the wicked after about half an hour, and she’d waited another fifteen minutes or so just to be sure. It was after midnight, and she was more lost than ever.

  Maguinness and Lupita had known each other. Maguinness and the Lamaru were involved in something, some kind of war. But Maguinness obviously made them nervous. She’d never heard of anyone making the Lamaru nervous, so her feeling about his power was correct.

  But why hide that power? Especially when doing a job like his. He could have forced the residents of Downside to empty their pockets for him with a few well-chosen spells; why not do so?

  The idea that honesty prevented him from doing it never even entered her mind. Honesty was for those who could afford it, like heating or electricity or a conscience. To be honest in Downside was to be a victim in Downside.

  At least having overheard what she’d overheard gave her something else to do, some other place to go, although her welcome wouldn’t be remotely welcoming. She circled Trickster’s, then headed for Chuck’s, looking for the Chevelle. If he wasn’t at one of those places she’d try the Market, or his apartment. No point in calling. He wouldn’t answer if he saw it was her, as she well knew. Even working this together at Bump’s behest probably wouldn’t change that, and she didn’t want to give him any warning she was looking for him.

  The Chevelle sat in its usual place across the street from Chuck’s; she slid into a spot another block down and headed for the bar, shivering in the chilly air. At least, that’s why she told herself she was shivering.

  Muggy heat blasted her face when she passed through the dingy entrance—heat, and Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation.” It took her tired eyes a second to adjust; when they did she saw him at the back of the room, caught his scowl as he turned and headed for the rear exit. Shit.

  Luckily for her, midnight in Downside counted as early so the place hadn’t filled up yet, but she still had to practically shove a gang of drunken teenagers out of her way in order to catch up with him. Her hand brushed his arm; he yanked it away.

  “I need to talk to you. About work.”

  His cold stare turned her into a smudge on the floor, something filthy and worthless. Which she pretty much was. “What?”

  Several interested people watched them. Chess glanced at them, looked back at Terrible. “Outside, okay?”

  For a second she thought he would say no, and then she’d really be fucked. Going to Bump to tell him Terrible was refusing to help wasn’t even close to an option; even if she didn’t know that snitching on him would infuriate him further, she wouldn’t consider it. If he said no she’d have to figure out some way to get the information. Maybe she could go talk to Maguinness himself, but something told her he wouldn’t be any more pleased to find her on his doorstep than Terrible was, and he had no reason at all to talk to her even if she could tell him why she was there.

  But Terrible nodded and pushed his way out the exit. Chess managed to catch the door before it hit her and followed him into the narrow alley. Someone had left a lamp burning on the second floor of the building behind; it cast a square of pale light across broken crates and rolls of chicken wire leaning against the rusty fence. Rotted leaves mixed with dirty bits of paper and garbage on the cracked cement. The bottoms of her boots made faint sucking noises when she lifted them.

  “What,” he said again.

  Right. Obviously he didn’t plan to make this any easier on her. She couldn’t really blame him. “That guy, Maguinness. The potion guy we saw today. Did—”

  “Ain’t—”

  “No, just listen. Did he get permission from Bump to set up in the Market? Did he talk to him, I mean?”

  His head tilted; his gaze didn’t leave her as he lifted the beer in his hand and took a long swallow, emptying it. The scrapes decorating his knuckles hadn’t been there when she’d left him that afternoon.

  She waited. Waited,
and forced herself not to think. Not to speak.

  “Why you askin?”

  “I think he’s connected. To them. I heard—ow!—I just need to know what you know about him. If he’s doing any other business besides the potions, or if he said anything to you or Bump about—”

  “Oh, aye. I dig. Figure we got knowledge we ain’t sharin with you. Figure we got whoever-the-fuck workin for us, and ain’t gave you the tell.”

  “No! I don’t mean it that way. I just need to know what you know about him, that’s all. Maybe he said something and you didn’t think anything about it at the time, or whatever.”

  “Too stupid to know what to pass on, what not to?”

  “Damn it, will you stop? I don’t think you’re too stupid to know what to pass on, and I don’t think you’re hiding anything—”

  “Good, causen I ain’t the one who lies, aye?”

  The venom in his voice almost made her jump, and not just because it hurt her feelings or scared her. It didn’t sound like him. How many beers had he emptied before she got there? She’d never seen him drunk, not really, and fear settled cold in her stomach. He had a target on his back most of the time; sure, in general people were too scared to go after him, but all it took was one pissed-off speedfreak with a gun. And he knew it. She’d seen his caution, his awareness of his surroundings; they’d even talked about it once at his place—the only place he said he really relaxed—before she passed out on his couch.

  No point in asking, and no point worrying about it. That road didn’t lead anywhere good, and she had more than enough to worry about already. Instead she lit a cigarette to give herself something to do and tried again. “I need to know what you know about him, for the case. I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me.”

  His own lighter clicked; the alley glowed for a second before he snapped it off, shutting down the six-inch flame. “Aye,” he said finally. “Came and talked to Bump. Bout three, maybe four weeks past, I were still in the hospital. Been here longer’n that, though. Said he’d been.”

  “Did he say what he was doing? Any businesses aside from the potions?”

  “Ain’t talked to him myself, dig. Only know what Bump gave me.”

  “But if he was doing something else, you’d know, right? You would have heard.”

  His eyebrows rose a fraction, like he was trying to figure out if she was using cheap flattery or not. “Ain’t heard shit on him. Got a family, he say. Guessin a big one. Sells whatany he sells to feed em. But nobody say me aught else.”

  Damn. That didn’t give her much of anything, did it?

  “His potions. He might be selling them to—Did Bump try them? Did Maguinness give him any of them, like, as a sample or something before Bump said okay?”

  “Aye. Bump said ain’t done shit for him. Say tasted some nasty, too.”

  “That might not have been one of his real potions, though. Not one of the ones …” Shit. She couldn’t finish that sentence, even if she thought she was right, which she didn’t. The Lamaru had had some involvement with Maguinness. Maybe it was about his potions, maybe it wasn’t.

  Terrible shifted position, his face a deeper shadow. “Got other asks, or can I get gone?”

  She wanted to ask him more questions. She wanted to let him go. Figuring out if it hurt more to have him run away or to stay and talk to her like she barely existed didn’t really appeal. Of course, she’d spent most of her life feeling like she barely existed, but never around him. Not before, anyway.

  “Got shit to do. We done here?” He gripped the door handle to head back into the bar.

  “I guess—No, wait. Can you talk to Maguinness? Or ask Bump to talk to him? Ask him about this, you know? And if I could be there when you do, that would really help.”

  A pause, a curt nod. The door opened, and he was gone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Church has a hand in every aspect of your daily life, from food production to education to transportation. It watches you, so you can relax and live a safe and happy life.

  —The Church Guides You, a pamphlet by Elder Warren

  Her choices after that conversation were easy. Break into the slaughterhouse in the middle of the night, hunt for Maguinness, or go home, take everything she could manage to shove down her throat, and pass out. Not a hard decision, but she regretted it a bit as she walked across the slaughterhouse parking lot the next afternoon with the stench making her stomach dance and Lauren’s voice pounding into her skull like a screeching, whiny jackhammer. Three Cepts helped; when they got inside she’d duck into the bathroom and take another one.

  “I don’t appreciate getting such a late start, Cesaria. You said yesterday you’d be ready by noon, and here it is almost two—”

  “Sorry.” Another sunny day, too. The day before it had thrilled her; today she would have given her left hand for some fucking cloud cover. Or some speed. Or both.

  “I don’t mean to be a bitch, I really don’t, but I’ve been waiting here—”

  “I said I was sorry.” Damn it, the bitch actually had a point there. Chess had agreed to meet Lauren at noon, and she couldn’t really blame her for being pissed; hey, she could get in fucking line, right? The long, long line of People Chess Let Down or Fucked Over or whatever.

  She just wished Lauren would shut the hell up about it.

  “My father says the Elders speak very highly of you, and that’s why I think you should know that behavior like this—”

  “I know, Lauren. I am sorry. Okay? Can we stop talking about it now?”

  Lauren did stop, to Chess’s surprise. The sun glinted off her hair so bright and sharp that it was painful even through the dark lenses of Chess’s sunglasses; two days in a row she’d remembered them, which had to be some sort of record.

  Lauren gave a half-shrug. “Fine. Just don’t be late again, please. This is a horrible place to wait. It stinks and it’s dirty and noisy. How can you live here? How do you sleep?”

  With lots of chemical aid, was generally how Chess slept, but she wasn’t about to say it. Nor was she about to point out that she didn’t actually live that close to the slaughterhouse, so the smell and the noise weren’t as bad, or that she’d happily deal with both as long as it meant she had easy access to the afore-unmentioned chemicals. Instead she just shrugged. “You get used to it.”

  “Ugh.” Lauren adjusted her jacket and started walking toward the building. “I feel like I need a shower just being here.”

  “Wait till we get inside,” Chess muttered, but Lauren didn’t hear her. Chess assumed she didn’t, anyway, since she didn’t turn around or make a snotty reply.

  The slaughterhouse waited for them, a dark gray stone hulk with tiny windows and spiky smokestacks like weapons raised toward the sky. Death hovered over it; now Lauren had finally gone quiet the sounds of animals drifted across the parking lot, growing louder with every step. Chess pictured them, long lines of them trapped in curving mazes, each step taking them closer to their messy end.

  A security guard, visible through the glass double doors of the entrance, buzzed them in, and called the plant manager when they explained why they were there.

  “Mr. Carlyle be here in a minute,” he said, settling himself back down in his chair. “Usually Mr. Hunt deals with you guys, but he ain’t showed up in weeks.”

  “Mr. Hunt?”

  The guard nodded. “Assistant manager.”

  Chess glanced at Lauren, already dangling Vanhelm’s picture from her manicured fingers. “Is this Mr. Hunt?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. Why? He do something?”

  “We’re just establishing his employment,” Lauren lied. “How well did you know him?”

  “Didn’t. Not much. He didn’t talk to me ’cept hi in the morning and ’bye at night. Mr. Carlyle be the one to ask.”

  “Was there anyone he did talk to?” Chess asked.

  “Wouldn’t know. I just sits here at the desk.”

  A door opened off to the left; the anim
al sounds that had been muffled by it blared through the open frame before quieting again when the door snapped into place.

  Chess didn’t know what she’d expected the manager of a slaughterhouse to look like; she supposed if she thought about it she’d have imagined some sort of burly lumberjack with dried blood under his fingernails. But Mr. Carlyle—“Call me Ben, please”—stood barely taller than she did, with wispy brownish hair, watery blue eyes, and so many nervous tics she almost wanted to offer him a Panda to calm him down.

  “Erik Hunt?” he said, after leading them back into his office. The nervous tics made more sense after that walk; if Chess had to hear all that noise, feel that fear and death and panic slamming against her skin for hours on end every day, she’d be a wreck too. Not that she wasn’t already, but damn, that place was awful.

  “He’d been with us for six months or so. Nice guy. Good manager. I mean, the employees liked him, and I liked him. I can’t imagine why he would just stop coming to work, he was so dedicated. Always coming in early, staying late, all of that.”

  The words were accompanied by various cuff tuggings, nose rubbings, and hand wringings.

  “And he showed you photo ID when you hired him?” Lauren asked.

  “Of course! Of course he did.” Carlyle turned to the row of filing cabinets behind him, the same industrial tan as the files kept in the Church library. “We conform to all Church rules here, in hiring and in practices. Here.”

  Chess reached for the file folder he set on top of his paper-strewn desk, but Lauren beat her to it and began flipping through the papers inside.

  Okay. Chess had some questions anyway. “What Church practices? Aside from hiring, I mean.”

  Carlyle shrugged and played with his earlobe. “We follow Church rules in our slaughtering practices, of course, and maintain a Ritual Room for Haunted Week meats and dogs, and—”

  “Dogs? What do you mean?”

  Lauren glanced at her; Chess caught the frown but ignored it.

  “Well, Miss—Putnam?—all slaughterhouses are required to keep our own psychopomps as well as providing hallowed space for their creation should it be necessary. We only handle a few a year, but of course for Haunted Week—”