Unholy Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  Then he fell. Blood poured from the wound and spread across her floor as Lex withdrew the knife.

  “Damn, tulip,” he said, wiping the blade clean on the dead man’s robe. “You sure know how to make a man feel welcome, aye?”

  The air left her chest in a long, harsh gasp. “What are you doing here?”

  “Ain’t you get my note? Coming by to get my update, but this better. Ain’t every day I gets to kill people for a good reason.”

  “I’m so glad I could help.” There were two dead bodies on her floor. In her apartment. Two men had broken in and tried to kill her—or if not kill her, to steal from her, to scare her, to do whatever it was they planned to do.

  Two dead men. In her home. She’d killed one of them. Her knees went weak.

  “Whoa, hey now. Thought you was a tough dame. Sure looked tough I walked in. Remind me never get you mad.”

  Chess lifted a shaking hand to her head and pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, well, lucky for you I’m in a good mood.”

  He smiled in acknowledgment and dipped his head toward the corpse on the floor. “What they want, anyroad? Just robbing, or trying to hurt you?”

  “Robbing. They … they wanted something. They asked me where it was …”

  “What? They find it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. Lex’s victim had shouted something, hadn’t he? She glanced into her living room. Her Blackwood box lay open, its contents spilling out onto the floor.

  The box where she’d put the amulet.

  Grabbing a tattered dish towel to guard her bare hands, she crossed the floor and knelt beside the body while Lex did the same, slicing the nylon over the men’s faces to reveal their features. Unfamiliar, both of them. Too bad, but not a surprise. Why should something go right?

  The voluminous robe was soaked in blood, but the symbol on the front was still visible. A crooked line like a lightning bolt rose above a more traditional-looking set of entwined runes, she couldn’t tell which ones. It looked vaguely familiar, but then, most magical sigils and symbols did, didn’t they?

  She found the pockets after a minute of searching. The amulet hid in one of them, tucked in the bottom, as shiny and bright as ever.

  “They wanted this,” she said.

  Across the room her phone buzzed like a hornet caught in a jar, audible even over the Pagans album playing in the background. It had been going off for an hour or so, while she sat on the couch at Lex’s place trying to summon the strength to move.

  “Oughta pick it up,” he said, chopping out some fat lines on a mirrored tray. No sleep, again, and her eyes burned. “Ain’t you got no people be worried?”

  “No. I don’t have any people.”

  “Sounds like maybe you wrong.” He finished his work and slid the tray a few inches toward her, holding out a silver straw.

  She took it, leaned over, vacuumed up the line. Blessed numbness hit her nose, worked its way into the back of her throat along with that bitter battery-acid flavor that always made her teeth tingle. She dipped her index finger in the glass of water he’d set out and snorted a few drops to chase the powder back. Damn. Every time was as good as the first time, wasn’t it?

  Or at least close.

  She sniffed again, sucking air through her sinuses to drag more powder into her throat and lungs, and reached for the phone. She didn’t want to talk to anyone but Lex, didn’t want to be anywhere but here. Drugged inertia set in, and would last until she suddenly started itching to be elsewhere, but at the moment there was no place on earth cozier than this bedroom where she’d spent a chaste and sleepless night alone in the bed while he took the couch. Quite a surprise, that, but then she’d been so tanked on the Oozers he’d given her she probably wouldn’t have felt a thing if he had tried it on.

  The phone buzzed again in her hand. Might as well get it over with. “Hello?”

  “Chess? Damn, baby, where you at? Terrible ripping this town apart looking for you, said something about your door open and your place all scraped? You alive?”

  Shit! “Um … I answered the phone, so … Yes?”

  Edsel gave a short laugh. “Right. Coursen you are. What happened your place?”

  “I had a break-in. I’m fine. Tell Terrible I’m fine and I’ll call him in a few minutes, okay?”

  “Got it. Hey, saw someone you need last couple hours ago. Recall I tell you my customer Tyson? Came by here, left his directions. Say he think he can help if you still need, come by his place later.”

  “Oh, awesome. Thanks, Ed, thank you so much.” She mimed writing at Lex, who stared at her for a moment as if she’d gone insane, then twigged and handed her a pen and a slip of paper. Chinese characters covered one side of it, so she used the other.

  “Just you watch your back, Chess. Tyson okay far as I know, but I ain’t know, dig me?”

  “Got it. Thanks again.”

  This was the best news she’d had in days, despite Edsel’s warning; the prospect of meeting someone he obviously mistrusted didn’t please her, but she needed the information more than she worried about the source. If she could decipher that fucking amulet she could figure out what the soul-powered spell was doing, and if she knew what it was doing she could figure out the best way to stop it and set Slipknot’s soul free. Not to mention hopefully ending the possibility of more hooded thugs showing up at her place.

  Next were her messages. Terrible. Edsel. Doyle, then Terrible twice, then Elder Griffin wanting to know if she’d made any progress on the Morton case yet, then Terrible again. She’d have to stop by the Church at some point today and drop off the photos of Albert Morton’s books for Goody Tremmell to add to the file. She also needed to interview the Mortons. Maybe she could do that later, if there was time after going to see Edsel’s acquaintance.

  Finally she called Terrible. “Hey, it’s Chess.”

  “Chess?” Pause. “Shit, where you at? You cool? Somebody got you?”

  “No, no, I’m fine, I—I had a break-in, and I got scared and—”

  “You ain’t called me, let me know. Went your place on the morn, dig, got blood on your floor and you not there. Whose blood? They get away?”

  She blinked. Lex had called some people to take care of the bodies. Apparently they hadn’t bothered to tidy up, which she guessed was only to be expected. “Yeah, they got away. Ran away. It wasn’t my blood, though. I managed to get one of them with my knife.”

  “Good job, aye. You see who was it? Thinking got something about Chester?”

  “Yeah. They were wearing robes, they … I think they wanted the amulet. So yeah, I think it was. What time is it?” Let it go, let it go … She did not want to talk about the implications of the break-in and how exactly the invaders had gotten away. Didn’t trust herself to talk about it, not just yet.

  “Just past midday.”

  Damn, midday already? The windows in Lex’s place were covered by such thick blinds it was impossible to know how bright it was outside, like being in a secret cave somewhere. A safe, secret cave. Just the thought of the noonday sun made her eyes hurt. “I’m fine, Terrible. I came to stay with—um, with a friend on Church grounds.”

  “Aye, safe there. Good idea.” She could hear his breath through the line. “You heading back now? Only Edsel said he might have someplace I ought to take you.”

  “Yeah. Look, I’ll meet you at Edsel’s booth in an hour or so, okay?”

  Lex laid another line for her while she called Elder Griffin and let him know she’d be by, then bagged up some powder for her before walking her to the door.

  “You coming back here this night?” His index finger lifted her chin, a brief touch that sent an unwelcome shiver through her body.

  “I don’t know. I’ll call you if I need to, okay?”

  “You do that.”

  She expected the kiss, even felt confident it wouldn’t affect her the way it had before. But it did. Her knees went weak as his fingers twined in her
hair, as he pulled her close to him with a strong hand on her hip. “You do that, tulip. I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Do not attempt to form a connection with one of the dead, no matter how it may seem profitable. It is not.”

  —The Book of Truth, Rules, Article 35

  She’d never been this far out of the city. Had the day been as bright and sunny as she’d pictured, it would have been a pretty drive. As it was she could barely see. The Chevelle’s wipers slapped a quick beat across the windshield and fog obscured any view there might have been. It felt as though they were hurtling through space, she and Terrible, talking occasionally while Chuck Berry came softly from the speakers and she made notes for her interviews with the Mortons later. Elder Griffin hadn’t been upset by her lack of progress, but she was, and seeing Randy Duncan hovering around again hadn’t made her feel better. He’d lost his edge, what little edge he’d had. She didn’t want to do the same.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “How many times you gonna ask that?”

  “Until we get there. We’ve been driving forever.”

  “Not even an hour. You always this impatient?”

  “I’m bored. I feel cooped up. It’s too foggy outside, I can’t see anything.”

  “Ain’t much to see.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You the only one in this car never been out the city.”

  “I’ve been out of it. Just … not in a long time.”

  “Not much purpose in it. Not much out here, not anymore.”

  As if to illustrate this, he slowed down to make a turn. Through the mist loomed a blackened, craggy shape; the remnants of what had once been a church, one of the many destroyed by furious citizens when Haunted Week finally ended. The country was littered with these brick and granite corpses, silent testaments to a system of belief that had served mankind for centuries but ultimately proved as worthless and obsolete as a black-and-white television.

  “Roll down yon window some,” he said.

  “But it’s raining.”

  He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her. “Ain’t say open it wide.”

  They seemed to be rolling through a neighborhood now. She could barely make out the shadows of buildings at regular intervals, and he’d slowed to about forty. Maybe he wanted to throw things out of the car? Whatever. She grabbed the crank and gave it a half turn.

  “What is that smell?”

  “The ocean.”

  “Doesn’t smell like the ocean.”

  “Naw, don’t smell like the bay, what you used to. That’s the for real ocean, Chess. Ain’t it sweet?”

  It was. She’d never smelled anything like it. Tangy and salty, with an undercurrent of sour fish that should have been nauseating but somehow made her feel clean instead.

  “Are we going to see it?”

  “Guessing, aye. Look like your friend live down on it.”

  “He’s not my friend.”

  “Let’s hope he ain’t an enemy. This don’t have the right feel to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just we don’t know the man. You don’t know him, and I don’t know him, and he maybe knows too much himself about some shit nobody want to be involved in if they got their sanity working right.” He made another turn, then swung left onto a road Chess imagined would have been almost invisible even on a clear day. It couldn’t even be properly called a road, really, more like a track, two shallow ditches winding through tall brown grass. The Chevelle rattled and bumped over it like a lumbering insect, finally coming to a halt by the edge of a cliff.

  “We here,” Terrible said, and he did not sound happy about it. She knew he was right. She wasn’t really sure why she was in such a good mood, unless it was Lex’s excellent speed. Certainly there wasn’t much for her to be so cheery about. Edsel’s warning that he didn’t know much about Tyson came back to her, a warning she should heed. Edsel was her friend; if he said she should be careful, she should.

  Just the same, she was cheery. Or at least she wasn’t depressed, which was a victory in itself. Drugs or not, she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Which meant it was time to make sure she didn’t come down unexpectedly.

  “Hold on a minute.” She closed her window and brought out Lex’s Baggie and her hairpin. “You want some?”

  “Naw, thanks. Jerky enough out here. Ain’t the city, feels empty.”

  She shrugged and bumped up, then tucked everything back in her purse as he came around to open her door. The fresh-smelling wind caught her full in the face, and she sniffed it and her drugs down in one long deep inhalation that sent sparkles all the way to her toes.

  And there was the ocean, in front of her, stretching out into the fog like a piece of napped gray velvet. Her hair whipped around her face and stole the view. She pushed it back with an impatient hand and closed her eyes, lifting her chin, letting the wind wash her clean.

  “Can we touch the water when we’re done? Before we go, I mean?” Smiling, she turned to him, but he looked down before she could catch his eye and started digging in his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

  “Aye, if you’re wanting,” he mumbled, turning away from her to light up. “C’mon, let’s get this done.”

  The cliffs hunched over Tyson’s little house, sheltering it from some of the rain and giving it the appearance of a troll crouching under a heath. Chess almost expected it to leap out at her, and her mood went from unusually good to cautious and tense in the space of an eyeblink. Edsel’s warning reverberated through her head, and this time it caught her. She wondered what exactly Tyson purchased from him. She decided she was very, very glad she had Terrible with her.

  That thankful feeling grew as they walked across the flat stones laid in a path to the front door. Each one was carved with runes, most of which she knew but a few she didn’t. One in particular sent a shivery tingle up her leg when she stepped on it, like someone had rung a bell in her veins.

  In the doorframe were more runes and symbols carved deep into the wood. Totem images and swirls, letters in some of the ancient alphabets, pentacles … too many for her to take in before the door swung open and Tyson stood framed before them.

  Something slithered behind his eyes, clouding them smoky gray like an overcast sky for a second before they normalized again. But Chess had seen it, and the hair on her nape stood on end. Tyson was not human, not entirely. Whether he’d been born that way or whether he’d made himself what he was through dealing with the Underworld she did not know, and she hoped she wouldn’t find out.

  He rubbed the palm of one surprisingly large hand over his short white hair. Now that she’d had a second to adjust she realized he wasn’t old, as she’d first imagined. He might have ten years on her, possibly twenty, but not more. His small, stooped frame had been bent by something other than age.

  “Thou must be Cesaria,” he said, his voice pouring over her like whiskey. “And thou has brought an escort. A guard?”

  “Just a friend,” she said.

  “Awfully big friend, is he not?” Tyson looked Terrible up and down, a shifty half-smile playing on his lips, then shrugged. “Aye, welcome in. Edsel sayest thou needs information? About some runes?”

  “Yes.”

  He bowed and stepped back, sweeping his right arm wide to usher them in. “I have information, indeed.”

  For a moment the size of the place made her dizzy. Had he somehow subverted the rules of physics, made his little hut bigger on the inside? Then she realized why the room smelled of dusty rock, dry and powdery in her nose. With the exception of the weathered wood front wall, the rest of the house was made of stone. He’d tunneled back into the cliffs. She made a mental note not to walk farther back if she could help it. The thought of all that heavy rock—and one BT muscle car—with absolutely nothing to keep it from falling …

  Focusing on the house itself did nothing to put her at ease. Shelves lined every wall, stuffed full with j
ars and bottles, with bones and feathers and fur. Why did this man shop at Edsel’s, when he had virtually everything a spellcaster could ever want right here? Skulls from at least fifteen different animals on one wall, rows of various other parts on another. Jars of herbs stacked one on top of the other, three deep, intruded into the room from the back, framing a small black door that she imagined led to Tyson’s bedroom.

  She turned around to see Terrible brushing cautiously at the objects hanging from the ceiling as he entered. Amulets and charms, all tied to colored ribbons and strings. They would have hit him in the face if he didn’t push them aside, but she could feel his reluctance to touch them and couldn’t blame him for it.

  “I have made refreshments,” Tyson said. “Would thou care for some? A drink? A cookie?”

  It should have been amusing, the offer of a cookie from a man whose eyes kept sliding into and out of gray and lived in a museum of sorcery. But his smile was a little too wide, a little too full of teeth. She couldn’t help but wonder what sort of cookie he might have made.

  According to Church law, world-bound souls were not permitted to exist. The human host could be sent to prison, one of the special prisons where souls were tortured and escape was impossible. Chess wondered why Tyson did not seem afraid she might report him. Most tried to hide their binding. He did not.

  “No, thank you,” she said, realizing he and Terrible were both watching her. “Can we just get down to business? I’m afraid I’m in kind of a hurry today.”

  “Of course. The formalities are only that—formalities. Having dispensed with them we may conclude our transaction at any pace thou desires.”

  “Um. Great.” She pulled out the amulet, wrapped in its tea towel. “I was hoping you would be able to decipher some of the runes on this, they—what?”

  Tyson collected himself with some effort. His eyes smoothed back to gray as he forced the smile to leave his face, but Chess could still feel his amusement, could still hear his light laugh in the air. “I am sorry, Cesaria. Tell me, where did thou find this thing?”