by Stacia Kane
“I just—I know you guys do some work for the Church, and I’ve always wondered about the vans you have for that work. If you have to keep them somewhere special or anything.”
It was so lame she almost cringed. But Mr. Ross didn’t seem to think there was a problem with her asking; maybe being only eighteen had some advantages.
“Those are more attractive to thieves, yes,” he said. “It’s a problem. And of course we rent them out on occasion—it’s part of our business.”
Chess wanted to ask what sorts of things people rented iron-lined vans for. Really, what possible legitimate reason could there be? Iron usually related specifically to ghost magic, and ghost magic was illegal for anyone outside the Church to perform.
But she didn’t get to ask. Instead she got yanked to the side, almost falling, Jillian’s fingers wrapped around her arm and Jillian’s shout hurting her ears. “Get out! We all have to get out, hurry up, let’s—”
Too late.
The ghosts slid through the walls, silent and awful. Against the mundane surrounding of the room—beige sofa, brown carpet, ivory walls—their luminescent forms seemed even more terrifying, just from the sheer oddity of them, the sheer sense of—of not belonging, of strangeness. Like a clown at a formal dinner party.
Chess didn’t have time to think of anything else before she hit the floor. Jillian, to her credit, was moving, pushing the Rosses behind her to protect them, but Chess could see it wasn’t going to help. One ghost blocked the door; the other two had already grabbed weapons, were throwing lamps and knickknacks. Chess watched as one of them threw a framed photograph—it smashed against the wall where Eric Ross had been standing only a second before—and picked up a poker from the fireplace. Shit, wasn’t it iron? How could—Oh. A wooden handle.
Jillian threw something at the ghost by the door, shouted the words of power Chess had memorized the year before. “Arkrandia bellarum dishager!”
The ghost froze. Good. Except it was still blocking the doorway, and if anyone human touched it as they tried to get to the door, it would probably manage to unfreeze.
Jillian swiveled around, readying another fistful of what Chess knew was graveyard dirt and asafetida. Chess turned to Mr. and Mrs. Ross, standing stupefied a few feet away. “Where’s the back door?”
They didn’t respond.
Mrs. Ross was closer, close enough for Chess to see the horrible shade of white her face had gone, the fear-wide eyes and the way her nostrils flared as she breathed. “Mrs. Ross, where’s the back door? Where’s the other exit?”
Jillian froze the other two ghosts; Chess wished she had more of a chance to watch her in action, because she really was impressive. She paused and glanced at Chess. “Get them outside, and come back in to help me.”
Chess nodded. The Rosses still stood frozen with terror, but there had to be a back door, and back doors were by definition usually in the back, so she’d find the damn thing. She grabbed each of them by the arm and started pulling them away from the ghosts, through the Old West–style doors into the kitchen. The freeze Jillian had put the ghosts under wouldn’t last forever; the one by the front door would probably shake it off within a minute or two, so they didn’t have much time. And yes, there it was, the back door with its frosted glass panels and ivory curtains.
Even in the middle of all of it, in the middle of the heart-pounding scary reality of it all, she had a second to be proud of herself. She was handling it okay. She was doing what needed to be done, acting on instincts that seemed sound. She was scared, yes, but she wasn’t paralyzed, she wasn’t panicking. That was something to be proud of, it was, and she wasn’t going to feel bad about that or like it was the wrong time to feel that way.
All that pride evaporated when Mark Pollert opened the back door and walked into the kitchen with his gun drawn.
Chapter Eleven
Fuck. She should have known. Fuck fuck fuck, why hadn’t she known, why hadn’t she guessed?
Of course Mark was there; of course he’d come. Gloria had called the Rosses. She’d called Mark as well, and he’d known. Known they were on to him, known where she and Jillian were going. Known, too, that Trent and Vaughn were on their way to his place.
If he hadn’t killed them already. That time of night, the trip from his address on the outskirts of Downside to this place would only take fifteen minutes or so if he went the speed limit, and somehow she didn’t think he was the type to worry too much about traffic laws. She didn’t think he was the type to worry much about anything but his own shitty plans.
But apparently—obviously—she was the only one. Both Rosses were finally shaken from their semi-catatonia, surprise replacing the fear on their faces.
Mr. Ross spoke first. “Mark, what—guns won’t work against ghosts, you know that, you—”
“Shut up, Eric.” Mark waved the gun. “Go stand over there. Where’s the other bitch from the Church?”
“Mark, I don’t—”
Mrs. Ross cut him off. “This is what you were doing? Why you needed the van? This is—you used me? You were using me to kill our friends?”
What?
But as Chess glanced from Mark to Mrs. Ross and back again, the pieces fell into place. Of course, that might have been helped by the fact that Mark replied. Cheerfully. Just like the fucking psycho he was.
“Of course I did, Tracy. What did you think, that a woman your age could really interest a man like me? Did you really believe that?”
Eric Ross still looked like he couldn’t understand what was happening; Chess guessed she couldn’t blame him. Finding out his wife had been cheating on him with a trusted friend and that said trusted friend also wanted to kill him probably was a lot to take in. Not to mention finding out that the trusted friend was an egotistical shitbrain. “Tracy, I don’t—Mark, what are you—”
The gun went off. Tracy screamed, Chess threw herself to the side, and Eric fell dead to the floor. Blood spattered the wall behind him, a physical embodiment of the life that had escaped.
Eric’s ghost rose from his body, a glowing column of death. It looked at his corpse on the floor. Looked at Mark, at Tracy, at Chess.
And snarled.
Shit. Why wasn’t it disappearing? Why wasn’t a psychopomp coming for it, taking it to the City?
Jillian appeared in the kitchen doorway, her gun drawn. “What the hell is—”
The gunshot cut her off, and she fell. Her gun clattered across the floor; Chess lunged but was too late. Mark already had it.
Tracy whimpered and sobbed. Jillian moaned. Not dead, then, at least not yet, though that could change at any second. Just like it could change for Chess, because Eric Ross was gliding toward the row of knives stuck to a magnetic strip on the wall, and the ghosts in the other room would be there any second, and Jillian was down.
The barroom-type doors weren’t the only entrance to the kitchen. There was a hallway, too. From her position on the floor Chess couldn’t see where it went, and she doubted it ended in any kind of exit, but she was sure there was at least one room off it that would have a door she could lock, a window she could climb out of. Anything to buy her even a second or two, not just to try to call the Squad but because the memory of the City loomed in front of her, throbbed in her mind, and her entire body went cold at the thought of being there again as a permanent resident.
Eric’s ghost grabbed a knife and turned toward Mark. Maybe he’d—no. No, because Mark set Jillian’s gun down on the counter and grabbed something from his pocket. Chess figured it was graveyard dirt and asafetida, just like Jillian had used—just like all Church employees, or anyone who could do any kind of ghost magic, used—and she was right. Mark flung it at Eric’s ghost almost lazily, and Eric froze.
Chess took her chance. She scrambled along the floor, trying to cross the distance to the mouth of the hallway as quickly as possible, trying to cross it before Mark saw her—
And failing. Pain erupted in the back of her head as Mark gra
bbed her hair and pulled it hard, lifting her hands off the floor, yanking her to an upright kneel.
“Oh, no,” Mark said. The gun waved just before Chess’s eyes, its nozzle a dark tunnel straight to the City. “You’re not going anywhere. I need you.”
Needed her?
Before she had a chance to figure out what that meant—she certainly wasn’t about to ask—the living room ghosts appeared, hovering in the doorway, their faces twisted with rage. Shit. Yeah, Mark could apparently freeze them, but again, it wouldn’t last. What was he doing? What was he planning to do?
Tracy Ross launched herself at Mark. He let go of Chess’s hair, giving her a second or two of blessed relief before another gunshot broke the air, made Chess’s ears ring. Another dead body, another ghost. What the fuck was he doing? Did he plan to fill the fucking house with ghosts?
Not to mention that their presence made Chess feel queasy. Something made her feel queasy, anyway, and she was pretty sure that was it. Without any markings on her skin, either the tattoos all Church employees were given as protection and power enhancers or the sigils and runes Jillian had scrawled on her earlier on the train, the ghosts’ energy beat against hers. Of course. That was why she’d been uncomfortable earlier, just before the ghosts had appeared. She’d never been around a ghost without being marked; the Church instructors were very careful about that. So it was good—or at least worthwhile—to know.
But knowing that didn’t help. She turned in a vain attempt to head down the hallway again, but Mark caught her just as quickly as he had before. This time he dragged her—again by the hair, ouch—over to crouch near Jillian, who still moaned softly as she clutched her bleeding shin. “Stay right there. If you move, I’ll shoot you. Understand?”
She managed to nod. He grabbed something out of another pocket: a small canister. Church salt. Of course. Chess watched as he dumped it in a thick line, blocking the ghosts from entering the kitchen, and then in another line that separated himself from Chess, Jillian, and the ghosts of Eric and Tracy. Eric was still frozen, but Chess could already see signs that the freeze was lifting, and Tracy’s blank eyes had focused on Jillian. Shit.
Mark opened the kitchen door—the back door. Beyond it Chess made out the dark shape of a black van. The van, idling on the grass, with ROSS TRANSPORTS painted in white on the side. A typical van no one would notice as it made its way through quiet suburban streets.
“Come on.” Mark waved the gun at her, at Jillian. “Get her up. Let’s go.”
Tracy swiped at Chess’s head; it was like having someone drive an icicle into her brain. Not fatal—Tracy couldn’t kill her by touching her—but fuck it was cold, and fuck that made it painful.
And that was nothing compared to what Tracy could do—would do—when she figured out that touching wasn’t going to work, and picked up a weapon.
Jillian spoke up from her fetal position on the floor, the words broken and punctuated by gasps. “The other Squad members know we’re here, Mark. You won’t get away with this.”
He snorted. “I certainly hope they do. An idiot would figure it out.”
Chess spoke before she thought of it. “You wanted them to know. You want them to come here.”
“I want them to know everything.” His lips curled into a snarl. “I want them to know I’m on to them. I want them to know what I think of them. And you bitches are going to help me. Now get up and get in the van.”
Chess glanced at Jillian. Jillian hadn’t moved. So … did that mean Chess shouldn’t, either, or was Jillian just trying to gather her strength, or what? If it were up to Chess she would get up, try to act compliant, look for an opening to attack, but for all she knew Jillian was planning some kind of attack already, or she’d managed to actually call someone while Mark was trying to rip Chess’s hair out at the roots, or whatever.
Mark sighed and checked his watch in an exaggerated fashion. “In about eighty-nine seconds, the dynamite I’ve placed around the foundation of this house is going to explode. So you have your choice. You can get in the van, or you can try to run for it. Personally, I don’t think you can run that fast.”
He hadn’t finished the sentence before Chess was up, hauling Jillian to her feet and pulling her over the salt line. Yes, she could try to run, to a neighbor’s house or into the middle of the street or something, but this was Northside. One of the more expensive neighborhoods in Northside, which meant the nearest neighbor was a good fifty yards or so away at least, and Chess somehow didn’t think she could drag an injured Jillian that far in a minute.
Hell, she didn’t even think they could get that far by van, but it looked like her only chance, didn’t it?
So she threw herself forward, hauled Jillian along with her, and leaped into the van’s open door. Before she had a chance to even consider closing it behind her Mark was there, his body repugnant against hers as he pushed her further in and put the van in gear.
The van’s engine roared, and it lurched forward. Jillian yelped in pain; Chess gritted her teeth. How much time did they have left, how far away did they have to get, how powerful would the explosion be?
Really fucking powerful, was the answer. The air around them went white and orange; the van jerked sideways as it turned onto the street at the end of the long driveway. The van didn’t have back windows, but Chess saw it through Mark’s window, saw his profile outlined by fire, saw wood and stone and chunks of unidentifiable materials fly into the night sky. The noise was deafening, horrible; the light seared her retinas so when she blinked all she saw was bright, fierce green.
But Mark had already reached another bend in the road. The last image Chess saw was the plume of vicious fire against the darkness before it really hit her where she was, who she was with, and she closed her eyes in despair because she had no idea how she was going to escape this one. No answer presented itself as they drove along the highway, back toward Downside—so she assumed—and Mark’s home. No bright ideas sprang fully formed into her head, no clever plans appeared. Instead she just felt miserable, and she fought back the terror threatening to overwhelm her. She was trapped. Trapped in a moving vehicle by a man holding both a gun and a grudge, and she was apparently part of some plan of his, and she didn’t want to know what it was.
Jillian’s quiet sobs grated on her. Why wasn’t Jillian thinking, why wasn’t Jillian coming up with a plan? Why wasn’t Jillian holding her hand, trying to reassure her, instead of just clutching at her leg and huddling against the van’s door? Jillian was the fucking Squad member, the fucking adult. Chess was eighteen. In training.
But then, when had any adult, ever, in Chess’s entire life, bothered to take any responsibility when it came to her, bothered to act like an adult at all instead of like a selfish bag of shit? So why should Jillian be any different.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. But Chess didn’t feel like being fair. She was scared and trapped, and being trapped reminded her of all those other times, of her entire lifetime of being trapped, and her fingers itched to grab the flask out of her bag. In another second she was going to do it, Jillian and Church and everything else be damned.
Cars zipped by on the highway; Chess briefly considered trying to signal one of them, then discarded the idea. Even if Mark didn’t kill her before she could attract anyone’s attention, and even if she could manage to attract someone’s attention, no one would do anything. No one ever did. The only place helpful onlookers appeared, the only place people went out of their way for strangers, was in movies. In real life people just focused their eyes on the horizon and pretended they hadn’t seen a thing. They lied to themselves, told themselves they were still good people even as they left others to be abused and die.
She’d have to figure out something on her own. Fuck.
Okay. The Church hadn’t covered anything like this in her training, but life had taught her one or two things about trying to mitigate whatever abuse she was in for, trying to placate sick fucks. It didn’t always work—well, it almo
st never stopped whatever was going to happen—but every once in a while it helped. Made it a little easier, a little not so bad.
Of course, every once in a while it made it worse, too. She’d have to take a chance.
She cleared her throat. “Hey, um, Mr. Pollert? Mark? I have a flask in my bag. Vodka. Do you want some? A drink? Seems like maybe we can relax a little now that we’re not at the Rosses’ house anymore.”
He didn’t answer for so long she thought he hadn’t heard her. Then he snorted. “Of course you need to drink, working with those people.”
Please, please, let her relief not show. Don’t let him see that he’d just said exactly what she was hoping he’d say, that he’d just given her an opening. “It’s a lot of pressure. Trying to be what they want me to be. They expect so much.”
“But not from themselves, do they? Only of other people. Only of you.” He jerked his head in her direction—in Jillian’s direction. “Look at her. Black Squad. Supposed to be the elite. And yet she sits there whining.”
Chess didn’t know quite how to respond to that. He was right, after all.
Which was what bothered her. That what she’d been thinking was so closely mirrored, that she could have anything in common with Mark Pollert … the thought made her squirm. So she lifted her hand to the zipper of her bag. “I’m going to get my flask, okay?”
“You don’t need that thing.” The words weren’t spoken in a harsh tone, but they were definite enough to stop her. Shit. It wasn’t just that she thought if she could get a little booze into his system, get him to loosen up, she could maybe earn a bit more of his trust and it might be easier to escape. It was that she seriously could use a fucking drink.
But then he pulled something out of the van’s center console. A little plastic bag full of pills, round white pills Chess thought she recognized. Lonticepts, or at least that’s what they looked like. Cepts. Opiates, strong ones. Good ones. The kind some of her foster parents used to give her to shut her up or to make her feel better after they’d finished with her. The kind she paid five bucks a pop for in the Corey Home but hadn’t touched since, because she wasn’t doing that stuff anymore now that she had a future.