by Stacia Kane
“Friend? Or some other quick fuck?”
If she’d had time to think, she would have stopped herself before it happened. If she hadn’t been out of her mind with fear and misery about what happened with Terrible, and barely rational from narcotics she would have sat on her hands to make sure she didn’t do what she did. But she was all of those things, and furious and desperate to get away, and her hand swung out and slapped him soundly across one ruddy cheek.
Pain shot up her arm. She’d used her right hand, and the wound on her palm had hit his jawbone with a resounding smack.
There was a second of gasping, horrible silence, and then he hit her back.
She saw his lips twisting in rage, his hand moving in slow motion, and ducked, but he still got her right in the nose, and her entire head burst into agony. Her vision blurred, her breath caught in her chest. Something trickled down the back of her throat and she had a horrible suspicion it was her own blood.
“Chess,” she heard him gasp. “Oh, shit, Chess, I’m sorry, I haven’t slept, I didn’t mean to—”
He reached for her, but she shoved her door open before he could touch her again. The pitted asphalt of the road stung her hands and water seeped through her jeans when she hit the ground, but it didn’t matter. Without turning back she ran, with his voice calling her name, echoing on the barren street behind her. But he did not follow.
Her nose hurt. Her entire face hurt, as if someone had slammed a shovel into it. Her eyes felt heavy and somehow full, like they would explode if she prodded them. Oh, shit.
“Morning, tulip,” Lex drawled from across the room. “How you feel?”
She groaned and rolled over, turning away. Images from the night before pounded their way into her poor bludgeoned head. Doyle, Doyle’s fist. Her certainty that he was involved. Terrible … oh fuck, Terrible. What had she done? How the hell was she ever going to be able to face him again, after that?
At least she’d slept, she thought. It may have been more of a drug-induced coma than restful sleep, but her thoughts were clearer than they’d been in a few days and she didn’t feel too bad physically, aside from the heavy profundo thumping of her nose.
“Aye. Figured on that. That boy gave you quite a slam, didn’t he. What’d you do, insult his mama?”
It took her a minute to rasp the words out through her dry-as-dust throat. “Slapped him. Didn’t I tell you last night?”
“You ain’t said hardly a word making sense last night. Something about a guy named Boil, and a bar, and a quick fuck. I thought maybe you was hinting, but you weren’t in any shape with all the blood and all. Looked like something death threw back.”
“Thanks.” She forced one eye open and saw him standing by the bed, his weight shifted on one leg, holding a tall glass of water.
He shrugged. “Weren’t your best moment, is all. Can’t say as I blame you.”
The soft sheets slid across her bare skin—where were her jeans?—as she pushed herself up to a close approximation of a sit and held out her hand. He put two pills into her palm, then nodded for her other hand to take the water.
It was cool and crisp, and the first sip started to bring her slowly back to life. She shoved the Cepts into her mouth and washed them down with the rest of it, gasping after every swallow like a child. Her nose was too blocked to breathe through.
“Not Boil,” she said. “Doyle. A guy I work with. He’s … I think he’s one of them. One of the guys who did the ritual at Chester, who made the amulet. And I found out what it’s for, too. It’s … they’ve summoned a Dreamthief. A really powerful ghost—he’s like a ghost made of parts of other ghosts, if you know what I mean. Not a basic entity, a complex one. Very strong. Very unpleasant.”
“He the reason you in my tunnels last night?”
Her mouth fell open. “I …”
“Ain’t no fears, just askin. Big Shog tell me he saw you, trying to get out. So how you get in, if you ain’t know how to find the out?”
Shit. He didn’t look mad, but then how the hell would she know how he looked when he was mad? She couldn’t trust the bland curiosity on his face any more than she could trust anything else about him, which—although his behavior so far had at least eased her fears—wasn’t much. “What happened to my clothes?”
“My sister take them off, put you in bed. What you doing in the tunnels, when you say you ain’t like the underground?” He still looked curious, nothing more than that, but he would have been stupid not to be concerned and Chess knew it. She was working for Bump. As far as Lex knew, she was planning to double-cross him over the airport. She wasn’t stupid enough to try it—he could obviously reach her just about anywhere, although not while people were out and about—but he’d be an idiot if he hadn’t considered the possibility.
That he hadn’t shown any interest at all in the thief didn’t surprise her. That was her problem, not his. The tunnels … those were his problem, and she needed to be careful.
“I got chased,” she admitted finally. “I was at the Church doing research and somebody came after me. Do you know who the Lamaru are?”
“Heard of em, aye. They in this?”
“Yeah. I think they’re behind it all. I mean, I don’t think, I know. They chased me down to the platform—the train to the City—and I escaped through a tunnel there.”
He nodded, his gaze appraising. Did he know those bodies were down there? Did he know she’d walked past them to get into “his” tunnels?
“Mighty resourceful, aye.” His weight barely shifted the mattress. “You know, some of them tunnels ain’t been explored in years. You could have gotten yourself mighty lost. Lost enough to never be found.”
She swallowed. Her throat still felt gummy.
“Fact is, they say some folks have. Got lost, meaning. Saying they go down for some explorations, finally end up killing theyselves rather than starve. Maybe them bodies still down there, what you say?”
“I didn’t see any.” It came out as a creaky whisper. She licked her lips and tried again. “Just rats and mold.”
“Aye? Benefit. Seeing something like dead bodies down there be mighty freaked, I imagine.” He reached out and brushed her hair back from her face with warm fingers. “Whyn’t you shower up, tulip, get feeling better.”
The hot water stung her face and her palm, but it felt great. Too bad it couldn’t do anything to help the turmoil in her head.
Terrible. Oh, shit. She was going to have to face him today, to go see Bump and Old-timer Ed—or was it Old-timer Earl?—with him. For a minute she entertained the glorious notion that he might not want anything more to do with her, but she couldn’t be so lucky. Bump wanted this done, no matter how much of an ass she’d made of herself the night before, and Terrible worked for Bump.
Should she apologize to him? But how? Did she even want to?
Apologizing would mean having to explain to him that it had been the drugs talking when she said she wanted to go home with him, wanted to share his bed. Just a side effect, and that was all. In the cold light of morning the inferno that had raged in her blood the night before seemed … precipitous. She squirmed uncomfortably under the heavy spray.
He was Terrible, for fuck’s sake. Scary and ugly and cold. She couldn’t want him. She couldn’t even think about wanting him, it was crazy.
Maybe it would be better just to let it go. It had happened, it had not gone further. What was the point of going further? He didn’t really want her, either. His reaction to her, the stony expression on his face, told her that.
There was a reason she preferred one-night stands, and this illustrated it perfectly.
But how could she apologize without admitting any of that? No. Best to pretend she didn’t remember it, any of it. Spare them both an embarrassing scene.
And as for Lex … were his questions about what she’d seen in the tunnels a threat? Or was it genuine concern, or even a way of removing himself from responsibility for the dead men she’d seen. A subtle message that she
shouldn’t think he was a murderer, which was rather amusing because of course he was, and she’d have known that even if she hadn’t watched him stab a man through the throat in her kitchen. So was Terrible, so was Bump, so was Lex’s boss Slobag—although come to think of it, she still didn’t know exactly what Lex did for Slobag. Given that Slobag was reputedly at least as bloodthirsty as Bump, if not more, though …
In the entire Downside she’d probably have a hard time finding more than a handful of people who’d never sent another soul to the City before its time. It was certainly a group to which she no longer belonged, not after the break-in and the syringe full of lubricant.
She switched off the water and dried herself. The only clothes she had were her panties and the Dead Kennedys shirt she’d been put to bed in, which she assumed belonged to Lex and slipped back over her head now with the feeling that she was acquiescing to something by doing so.
Her face in the mirror almost made her scream. Her nose and left eye looked mottled and swollen, like someone else’s features superimposed on her face. The pain had lessened some with the pills and the shower, but it was still there, a constant reminder of her confrontation with Doyle. As if she needed one.
She brushed her teeth, applied deodorant and moisturizer, and opened the bathroom door. “Hey, Lex, where are my clothes, anyway?”
He was sitting on the end of the bed, leaning back on his hands so his long, wiry torso curved beneath his shirt. “Having them washed. Might be ready soon.”
“So … what, I’m stuck here until they’re ready?”
“Methinks my jeans may be some big on you, aye?”
“How long?”
“Half an hour, hour maybe. How you think we fill that time?” His eyebrows raised, his gaze focused on her bare thighs beneath the hem of his T-shirt. Chess looked back at him, her expression just as frank.
He wasn’t really a nice person, but again, neither was anyone else she knew. He’d kidnapped and taunted her. But he’d also helped, the night he killed that Lamaru in her apartment and, somehow more important, the night he’d driven out to the Morton house to retrieve her Hand for her.
She didn’t care much about him, but she liked him well enough and he was certainly sexy and appealing. He wasn’t—well, he wasn’t anyone she imagined she could ever be serious about, and that was a good thing. If she’d felt anything real for him, any real trust or affection, if she’d had any sense they could have an actual future together, she wouldn’t even be able to consider letting him have what he so obviously wanted. But what connection there was between them was based on nothing more than mutual attraction and mutual semitrust, and she wouldn’t have any regrets if she never saw him again after everything was finished. Which made him pretty close to perfect for the time being.
And in the last couple of days she’d almost been killed too many times to count, and there was a very good chance she would actually die in the days to come. So why not?
“I don’t know,” she said. “Got anything in mind?”
“Aye.” He sat up and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Whyn’t you show me that ink?”
Chapter Twenty-five
“Once a person has begun to break the laws, they will continue unless punishment is received so their souls may be cleansed. For this reason it is important to watch your neighbors and your friends as well as your family, in order to protect them from damning themselves …”
—Families and Truth, a Church pamphlet by Elder Barrett
Her breath caught in her chest as she stepped forward, her feet cool on the smooth floor. About a foot away she stopped and lifted the edge of the shirt to her waist.
“Aw, I ain’t see it that well. Awful small, aye? Come closer.”
She took another step.
“Closer.”
Now she was close enough that his face was hidden. All she could see were the thick black spikes of his hair.
His fingers slipped under the top edge of her panties and pulled them down far enough to reveal the whole tattoo, the black-and-red tulip she’d gotten when she turned eighteen and entered the Debunker training program.
“Mighty pretty, tulip,” he said. His breath caressed her skin. “Why’s it for?”
She shrugged. “Just for fun.”
She’d had a foster mother once—one of the few who were nice to her—who’d grown tulips, dozens of them, before she died unexpectedly and Chess was sent somewhere else. She’d been only a little girl then, but she’d never forgotten those bright, steady flowers in a place that had almost been her home.
Goose bumps rose on her skin when he pressed his lips to it, his fingers curling and dragging her panties farther out of the way. He followed them with his mouth, scraping his teeth along her hip bone. His other hand slid around her waist, dipping down to caress her bottom, then back up to grab her opposite hip. One quick movement of his hands spun her around. Another pulled her back so she landed on the bed beside him. She lost track after that.
Somehow she was on her back, and he kissed and nibbled a line from her hip up over her ribs to her breasts, pushing the shirt out of his way then impatiently tugging it off her altogether. Somehow his lips were on hers, gentle so she could still breathe but sending shivers through her entire body just the same. Somehow her hands were fumbling with the button fly of his jeans, tugging them apart, hooking into the waist of his boxers and pushing them down so his erection bobbed against her thigh.
The scent of cigarettes and spice made their way through her clogged nose as he kissed her neck and shoulders, as he palmed her small breasts and took them into his mouth, and she lost herself in it. She didn’t have to think about anything, her embarrassment about the night before, her fear about facing Terrible again later, her worries about what lay in store when she tried to free Slipknot’s soul. All she had to do was feel his bare chest against hers when he took off his shirt, so warm and solid and male save the cool metal of the chain he wore around his neck. All she had to do was arch her back eagerly when he slipped his fingers between her legs to toy with the wet, swollen flesh there. All she had to do was gasp and bite back a scream when her body clenched and released so hard she even forgot her own name, which was the best part of all.
Somewhere in the hazy fog she felt him pull away from her and heard the sound of tearing foil, then he was back, kissing her, tugging her panties all the way off. She waited for that awkward moment she was used to, when it seemed most men forgot basic anatomical fact and attempted to insert themselves into her thigh, but it didn’t come. Instead he slid into her, straight and smooth, while she dug her fingers into his back and wrapped her legs around his.
He was bigger than she’d expected, but not painfully so. Just enough, filling her without making her uncomfortable, and he rolled his pelvis against hers, slowly exploring every inch of her until she thought she might explode. She raised her hips to meet his steady thrusts, begging him to go faster, harder.
“Aye, tulip,” he whispered. “Sweet … damn sweet …”
Chess mumbled some sort of assent and forced his lips back to hers. Breathing didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, because he was speeding up, slamming into her with a single-minded force she understood and shared. His left hand shifted; he slipped his thumb down to caress her most sensitive spot, and she rocked toward him, matching his rhythm, driving herself and letting herself be driven to another mind-shattering climax.
This time he followed her, their voices mingling in the still air of the room, until he finally collapsed on top of her.
“Tulip,” he said, kissing her neck, “You is one dangerous girl.”
“Only if you cross me. I am a witch, you know.”
“Thought y’all weren’t allowed to put the hurt on nobody.” He slipped away, reaching down and pulling the cool sheet over their bodies, then taking two cigarettes from the pack by the bed and lighting them. The movement emphasized the sinewy muscles of his chest and back. Not bad at all, she thought,
reaching up to take the smoke.
“I’m just making a point.”
“Aye? I gotta point to make with one of your witches too, dig. You tell me how to find him.”
“What? Who?”
“Mr. Friendly Fist, there. Boil or Doyle or whatever the fuck. Got a few things to say to him.”
“Forget it. He’s in enough trouble. I’m going to have to tell the Elders what he did. The ritual, I mean, not the … other thing.”
“Ain’t no such thing as enough trouble for a guy like that.”
“I did hit him first.”
“Fuck that, tulip. No excuse. Tonight you gonna take me over there, show me him, aye?”
“Lex, really, I appreciate it but it’s not necessary.”
“Is for me. C’mon, tulip. I got me a sister, aye?” He looked up as the doorknob rattled, then leaned in to kiss her throat. “Look like your clothes here now. You want em, or you want me tell her come back in an hour?”
Almost two hours later she trudged up the stairs of her building, her clothes and body clean again but the pleasant sense of relaxation fading with every step.
There would probably be a note. Worse, he might actually be waiting for her. And she had a huge black eye and a swollen—but apparently not broken, thankfully—nose. How in the world was she going to pretend she didn’t remember anything that happened at Trickster’s, but that she did remember who hit her? Because saying she didn’t remember being beaten … that was too much.
Would he believe that she’d fallen down? Probably. That’s what she’d say, then, when she saw him. Meanwhile … she had to call Elder Griffin, tell him she needed to see him and the Grand Elder and find out if anyone had been trapped in the elevator. She needed to figure out how this related to the Mortons. Her initial thought was that Ereshdiran had followed her there, but that didn’t make sense. The first time she’d seen him had been there, and he’d appeared there most strongly. So he had to be somehow connected to the place. Maybe she should stop by there first, or ask Elder Griffin to meet her there. Especially now, with the Lamaru involved. Someone should know about it, someone higher up than herself.