Unholy Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  He nodded. “No worryin.”

  She sighed. “Okay, then. Thanks. Let’s see what I find.”

  She crouched down at the lip of the well and let her legs slip down inside it. If praying were permitted, she’d certainly be doing it now.

  Chapter Twelve

  “That of all magics which can be done, the use of the human soul in magic is the most serious, and is thus forbidden save to those of the Church.”

  —The Book of Truth, Laws, Article 79

  The ground swallowed her, leaving her dangling in the coppery-scented dimness until she grabbed her flashlight and tilted it so it illuminated the stones. The meter in her pocket remained still, no vibrations. No obvious holes jumped out at her, no hiding places seemed immediately apparent. She hadn’t really expected there would be, but she had to look. Even if she would pretend she didn’t see any equipment she found—at least, any equipment that wouldn’t be easily visible. For all she knew, Bump had someone else checking her work. Not a pleasant thought.

  “Lower,” she said, and Terrible obliged, letting out more rope.

  The well smelled of water, but when she turned the light down nothing reflected back up at her. It was dry … but very, very deep. There was no way she’d be able to investigate all the way down.

  Her right hand slid over the stones, looking for loose ones, while her left aimed the light. The rope hurt and made it hard to breathe, adding to her growing sense of discomfort.

  She stayed down for about twenty minutes, dropping as far as the rope allowed, before asking Terrible to bring her back up.

  “Nothing,” she said, untying the rope and resisting the urge to massage her aching chest. “Is that the only well here?”

  “Naw, got another over there.” He pointed to the far corner. Shit. She should have left the rope on.

  They trudged across the empty brownish expanse of weeds and pavement, two figures in black like smears on a painting. Chess started to feel sticky and damp from the unseasonable heat, and vulnerable in the middle of the field.

  “You do this many?”

  “What?” She almost stumbled on a loose chunk of cement.

  “This things. Down the wells, up in the attics …?”

  “Sometimes. Not usually underground, no.”

  “Right. Churchwitches ain’t like the downs.”

  “Right.”

  “So best place for hiding, aye? Where nobody wanna go.”

  “Most people are nervous about going underground. Nobody likes to be too close to the City.”

  His head tilted. “They scared. Not you, though.”

  Nobody had ever called her brave before. Her face grew warmer than it was already. “I don’t like doing it. It’s disrespectful.”

  “Why do it?”

  “I have to search everywhere.”

  “Naw, I mean, why do the job? You dig the ghosts?”

  She shrugged. “Pays the bills.”

  “Lots of things pays the bills.”

  “So why do you work for Bump?”

  She’d expected a flip answer like the one she’d given him. Instead he said, “Only thing I’m ever good at.”

  “What, beating people up?”

  He nodded. “I got no school, you know. No family. Bump took me in, I just a kid. Getting in street fights for food, sleeping any flat wheres I could find. Now I don’t have to fight. Nobody wanna dance with me.” Faint pride colored his voice as he spoke the last sentence.

  Most of this she knew, or at least suspected. It certainly wasn’t an unusual story in Downside, where as many stray children roamed the streets as dogs and cats. There but for the grace of a god who never existed and a talent she never asked for …

  “What happened to your family?”

  “Don’t know. Never knew them.”

  She nodded. She’d never known hers either.

  “But why you do what you do? Work for the Church? Creepy in there, all them blue pilgrims with black eyes and buckle shoes.”

  “Same as you. I’m good at it.”

  “Sure hope so.”

  “Hey!”

  They’d almost reached the far end by now. Terrible stopped. “Naw, don’t mean no insult.” His head moved back and forth as he scanned the field. “Hopin this gets solved, we fly them planes in. Make use out this place, aye? Watch em take off, come in low to land. Be cool.”

  “You like planes?”

  But Terrible had apparently decided sharing time was over. He turned and crossed the last fifteen feet or so until he reached the lip of the well, sunken into the barren earth, and looked at her.

  Chess couldn’t figure out why they’d had the conversation to begin with, unless Bump had ordered it. He was almost garrulous for a few minutes there. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve and caught up with him.

  “You tie back on,” he said, bending down. A heavy disc of rust-crusted iron covered the mouth of the well. Terrible pulled a crowbar from his bag and fit the flat end into the barely visible gap between metal and cement. “Best clear out the way.”

  Chess took a few obedient steps back before he tilted the crowbar and grabbed the edge of the disc with his hand. One quick heave and the disc lay in the scorched grass.

  “Oh, shit.” He took a few steps back, covering his face with his palm, then grabbing the bottom of his shirt and using it instead. It only took a second for the smell to reach Chess, too. Her stomach heaved as she jumped to the side, trying to get upwind.

  Decay and rot and putrefaction. She knew what the smell was without having to be told, without ever having smelled it before. Something had died down there, maybe animals or …

  The well had been covered, though. How could an animal get down there? How could anything get down there, unless someone had deliberately put it there?

  “Hand me over the light.” Terrible held his hand out, palm up. His other hand still clutched the fabric over his nose and mouth. In the otherwise unrelieved black of his outfit the strip of white undershirt it exposed looked like a flag of surrender.

  Chess fumbled for the flashlight and gave it to him, her face averted. If it was an animal down there … no matter what it was down there, she couldn’t enter that well. Who knew what sorts of germs had multiplied in the cool, damp air? It was a perfect breeding ground. She pictured bacteria dancing on the breeze and tried again to move so it didn’t hit her.

  Terrible bent over, shining the light straight down the well. For a second only his hand moved, examining the bottom. Then he jerked back, coughing, and turned away from her, resting his hands on his bent knees and hanging his head as if he was about to throw up.

  “Terrible, you okay?”

  He waved his hand, whether to signal he was or that he wasn’t she didn’t know. Either way the safest thing to do was to stay away, so she did.

  After a minute or so he got himself under control and turned to her. “Bad news, Chess. Bad news.”

  “Is it … is it an animal?” She knew it wasn’t, knew what he was about to say before his mouth opened.

  “Naw, no animal. Person. Dead body in there, all cut up.”

  The words hovered in their air between them, covered in their own sort of filth that had very little to do with whatever bacteria came from the well. Chess thought of the circle on the field, of the coin and the worms, and held out her left hand. “Give me the light.”

  “You ain’t wanna see it, Chess.”

  “No, I don’t, but I probably should. If it’s related to all of this …”

  He nodded and placed the light in her hand. The metal was warm from his skin.

  Most of the well hid in shadow as the sun’s angle sharpened. It was almost four o’clock, late enough that the homes on the other side of the fence started to come to life. Shift workers started returning home. Chess and Terrible themselves wouldn’t attract much attention—everyone knew Terrible, knew who he was with—but if they tried to drag a dead body out of there? It wasn’t even possible for them to do it, j
ust the two of them. She certainly didn’t want to go tie a rope around a dead body in the dark depths of the well, and she wasn’t strong enough to lift Terrible if he did it. The man was at least six foot four or five and solid as the black ’69 Chevelle he drove.

  Standing as close to the edge as she dared, Chess tilted the light so it shone straight down. For a moment she thought Terrible must have made a mistake, that it was an animal after all. Then the beam slid across a pair of dead, whitish eyes, and she saw the open mouth, the pasty unreality of the face. The entire image came to focus just that fast, like a slide snapping into place.

  Cut up, yes. But not the way she’d pictured. This wasn’t a dismembered body. It was a disemboweled one, the flesh on the abdomen and chest stripped away to reveal stained bones horribly naked in the light. As she watched, a rat skipped over the mess of dull dark red where the internal organs should have been.

  Chess wasn’t as strong as Terrible. She barely managed to stumble away from the gaping mouth in the ground before she collapsed, her almost-empty stomach twisting on itself and forcing out the remains of the noodles and Coke she’d had at the Market. Tears stung her eyes and her nose ran, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything about it until the world stopped spinning beneath her.

  Debunkers weren’t investigators of murder. But they did investigate witchcraft-related crimes often, since so many times such things went hand in hand with ghosts. The sight of that body rang bells in the back of her head, bells that had nothing to do with her physical discomfort or her embarrassment at looking like a pussy. She was going to have to get a closer look at it, repugnant as the idea was.

  Terrible nudged her shoulder, waving a semiclean rag by her face. She took it and a deep breath at the same time and wiped her heated skin. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged and bent down to hand her something else, a small black bottle. Funny, she’d never imagined him as someone who followed health trends.

  “Bitter cardesca?”

  He nodded.

  “No thanks.”

  “Just take it, Chess. True thing.”

  She steeled herself for the taste and found it wasn’t so bad, even if her eyes did start tearing up again. More to the point, he was right. Her stomach settled almost immediately and her head cleared. A lot of guys had taken to carrying cardesca when they went out drinking or drugging, the theory being it would prevent hangovers the next day. The fact that it cost over a hundred dollars for one tiny bottle didn’t hurt when it came to showing flash, either, but maybe it wasn’t just an affectation.

  “Thanks,” she said again, handing the bottle back.

  He tucked it into his pack and pulled out his cell phone. Chess didn’t ask. He was going to call Bump, and at some point tonight she was going to have to tell Bump the airport he wanted to take over was either truly haunted, or some seriously dark shit was going down there.

  Sadly, she had to hope for the former. Battling black witches wasn’t part of the deal.

  The horizon glowed pink and orange before the grisly relic finally emerged from the well. Chess stood, smoking cigarette after cigarette, watching Bump’s men milling around, trying to act like they were too tough to be bothered by the condition of the body, and debating the best way to remove it, none of which had a chance of working. Finally two unlucky souls had to be lowered in after it. It would have been funny if she hadn’t been so chilled.

  It—he, actually; a scraggly beard still clung to his weak chin—looked even worse once they laid him out on the ground. He was naked, his genitals gone, his midsection only visible ribs and a spine. Bare, fish-belly white arms and legs splayed out over the grass, almost glowing in the gathering darkness.

  Chess swallowed hard and headed over, trying to keep her gaze focused on his skin and not the places where skin should be and wasn’t.

  “What you see, ladybird?” Bump somehow managed to lean even when there was nothing to lean against. “You think witchy?”

  I think pukey. She put her hand over her nose and mouth and crouched down to get a closer look.

  Finding cause of death wasn’t part of a Debunker’s job. But a single glance was all she needed to know what had killed this man.

  “Ritual sacrifice,” she said. The words felt like lead in her mouth, heavy and hard to form, and crawled across her skin like insects. “They took his …” She flicked her gaze over his empty groin, saw the men’s faces pale as if on cue. “Burned, probably. Seat of power, you know? And see the, ah, slashes on the wrists, the shapes? Those are runes.”

  “What say?”

  She shook her head. “Black ones, I mean black magic. They’re forbidden to us. But he couldn’t have carved them himself, and—ah!”

  They all jumped back, like the chorus line of an old Busby Berkeley musical, as the dead man’s heart gave a slow, squelchy beat.

  “Ain’t dead! He ain’t—” Bump started to shout, but Chess cut him off, waving a hand that felt stiff and clumsy with cold fear. Not just from what she was about to say, but from what she saw, the rune sliced into the dead man’s heart, the rune that matched the amulet in her Blackwood box at home.

  “He’s dead. It—they—they’re feeding off his soul. His soul is still trapped in there.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “There is no proof, of course, that a clean, well-run home automatically equals a safe, ghost-free one, but why take chances?”

  —Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies, by Mrs. Increase

  “Don’t get how the soul and the heart got anything to do with each other.” Terrible slid into the exit lane, heading off the highway to take her home. She couldn’t wait to get there. The thought of that man—Bump had identified him as Slipknot, a cutpurse who worked the financial district—and the horror his last hours must have been, of the indignities his spirit was suffering even now and how she could do nothing to help him … She rubbed her forehead with her palm like she was trying to erase the unwanted vision.

  “Technically they don’t. But as long as there’s life in the body, the soul can’t leave.”

  “So he’s not dead.”

  “No, he is dead. His soul is trapped. His body isn’t sustaining life. The spell is sustaining his physical life so it can feed off his soul.”

  Terrible thought about this for a moment. “So they do the spell, use his blood and innards to power it. Then they trap his soul, aye, so’s it can keep feeding the magic. And the magic keeping the body alive? Like a cycle?”

  “Right,” she said, surprised he’d caught on so quickly.

  “And you can’t help him? Ain’t that what you do?”

  “Normally we’d do a ritual to release the soul. Like a Banishing.”

  “Send him to the City, aye?”

  “Right.” She shifted uneasily in her seat. “But we can’t in this case, because we don’t know what the spell is.”

  “Don’t it end the spell, you Banish the soul?”

  “Don’t know.” She’d smoked so much that day the tip of her tongue burned, but that didn’t stop her from lighting another. “If I can decode that amulet, find out what the spell is for, I should know how to end it. Probably. But as it is … detaching the soul might end the spell, or it might backfire. Somebody else could get sucked into it.”

  “Somebody like you.”

  “Yeah.”

  It almost had sucked her in. She’d never felt darkness like that, and greed. What was happening at Chester was far worse than a simple haunting. And thanks to her own stupid curiosity, she’d managed to get herself tangled further in the mess. The amulet hiding in her bag had tasted her blood. She’d fed it, in her small way, and she had no idea what that meant for her except chances were that if the spell needed another soul, hers would be the first one it came to. Whoever cast it hadn’t been stupid or amateurish, that was for sure.

  Fuck.

  “We find the spell, we set Slipknot free?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  He nodded. “Sli
p not a low one. He don’t deserve it, being trapped.”

  “I don’t think anybody deserves it.”

  “Aye?” he glanced at her, the dashboard lights coloring his face greenish as he turned onto her street. “Then you ain’t had such a bad life at that, Chess.”

  * * *

  Five hours later, after a restless nap that felt more like swimming through sleep than actually sleeping, she arrived at the Mortons’ house. The street was soulless and blank, dark houses lined up like empty tombs while cars slept on their driveways. Only the trees spoke, whispering back to the breeze.

  Chess set her bag on the stone walkway leading to the Morton’s front door and unzipped it. The Hand’s fingers tried to grip hers as she pulled it out and placed it next to the bag.

  Lockpicks came out next, in their leather case, followed by a short, fat candle. The Hand twitched, then shriveled slightly as its muscles tightened around the candle’s base. Her camera had fallen to the bottom, but she found it after a minute of searching and slipped the strap around her neck. Last was the steel syringe full of thick, oily lubricant for the lock.

  This she squirted in, sliding the needle as far into the mechanism as she could get it. Some Debunkers used a spray can with a tube, but Chess found that too messy, especially after one of her books had managed to wedge against the nozzle of her old one and soak everything inside her bag. The syringe worked better, was quieter and more accurate.

  After that sat for a minute she went to work with the picks as silently and quickly as she could, listening for the minute click that would tell her the catch had given.

  It came. She grabbed her things, swung the door open, and stepped inside the house.

  The Mortons did not believe in leaving a light on, it seemed, and they did believe in running the heater even on a night like this one, when autumn’s chill barely touched the air. The heat didn’t bother her but the lack of light did. People who were genuinely frightened of ghosts in their home tended to leave them on, often even sleeping under their glare.