She ran her fingers up over his shoulder, up the back of his neck. Her voice came out huskier than she’d expected. “Hey. I’m glad you came with me.”
“Aye?”
“Yeah.” She urged his head down with her fingers, strained on tiptoe to kiss him. “I— And we’ll figure this out, who the spy is. I know we will.”
Mentioning it—the elephant in the room, the scarlet letter on her chest—might not have been the smartest thing, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to talk to him about it. She wanted to reassure him. Wanted to make him feel safe, the way his arms around her waist made her feel, the way her chest pressed against his made her feel.
So she kissed him again, this time feeling him relax a bit against her, then more, playing off her enthusiastic response until her head started to swim. His hands slid up under the hem of her shirt to the small of her back and stayed there, warm and solid, and her own hands found places under his collar, in his hair. The booth had a little ledge in it … A week was way too long.
Terrible must have thought the same thing. Without breaking the kiss he lifted her, propped her on the ledge.
She started to smile, then stopped because she needed her mouth for something else. His belt buckle made a faint clank when she pulled it open, barely audible over the sound of her breath loud in her ears as she tugged open the button fly of his jeans, felt him do the same to hers.
For a second she thought of saying something, thanking him for believing her—if he did, which she guessed he was at least willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and wasn’t that way the fuck more than she deserved—telling him how much she’d missed him all day, how more than being glad he was there, she was grateful he was there. The words formed in her mind, on her tongue.
She shoved them back. No. She couldn’t bring those fears into it, couldn’t start talking and thinking and, especially, making him think, not then.
This was the one time she didn’t worry about how long she had, how he really felt, what she was going to do to fuck it all up.
This was the one time she felt totally safe, totally comfortable, when his body pressed against hers like she could melt into him. When she could run her hands over his chest, up and down his back, farther down to pull him even closer so they both gasped.
But the words in her head were a reminder, one she didn’t need. A reminder that she was failing, that she was fucking up, that it wasn’t a question of when she would spoil everything but of how long he would put up with the way she was spoiling everything. They made her feel as if she was standing on a railing above the city, balancing there with nothing to hold on to, and if she lost her balance she’d fall off.
And she’d never stop falling.
It was pitiful and wrong to feel that way, but then, when had she ever not been pitiful and wrong?
She didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to ruin a moment she’d been waiting for—craving—for the last seven days. Instead, she slipped her fingertips under the waistband of his boxers, brushing against his skin. The sound he made, a small quiet kind of sigh, sent a roar of happiness, of something oddly like triumph, through her.
Behind his back she started toeing off her shoes. Or her shoe; the right one flipped off, the left one didn’t. Fuck it. That was enough. More than enough, especially when his lips caressed her collarbone, his hands slid up her shirt, and his thumbs passed over her nipples so sparks shot from them through the rest of her body. Particularly all points south. She tingled everywhere, all up and down her arms and across her shoulders and chest, her skin too warm and begging to be stroked, almost crawling in its eagerness to reach his hands—
Shit.
She pulled back so fast she banged the back of her head against the window of the booth. “Fuck!”
“Aye, just—”
“No.” She twisted away from him with her heart still pounding, and clumped a few one-shoe-off-one-shoe-on steps to peer out the door of the booth. “Fucking magic. Someone’s doing magic in here.”
“Aw, shit. You must joke.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see him bracing himself on his fists on the counter, glaring at her with his jeans hanging open and his belt buckle dangling. Well, no, not glaring at her, glaring at the empty space just beyond her. “I wish.”
Fury. Absolute fury. Not just at the interrupted moment—could she get a fucking break already?—but because someone else was there when no one was supposed to be. Because the thickness of what she felt, the particular itchy darkness of it, made her sure that whatever that someone was doing wasn’t pleasant. At the very least they were probably summoning a ghost, and wouldn’t that fucking suck.
“Got all yon herbs an all?” The heat from his skin caressed her when he walked up behind her; she had to fight herself not to turn around and get right back to where they’d been. Only the tons of sharp steel all over the floor of the theater kept her from it. That wreckage was like a one-stop shop for weapons, and the last thing she wanted was to be sneaked up on and killed in the middle of that.
A flash of pale light caught her eye, to the left. Another. The theater doors hung open; when the hell had that happened? Was it while they were in the booth, or were they open before? Shit, she hadn’t even looked, not that she could remember. Those doors were supposed to be closed—and locked.
Of course, ghosts were perfectly capable of turning locks and opening doors. So were witches. So was anyone, for that matter, but she wasn’t feeling the way she felt because a couple of kids had sneaked into the building to graffiti the Master Elder’s office or booby-trap a friend’s locker. Nothing but magic, nothing but ghosts, did that to her.
Her tattoos itched and stung like sunburn, and that glimpse of bluish-white hadn’t been a flashlight. She ducked back into the booth, tugged on her other shoe while trying to slow her breath. Damn it damn it damn it damn it.
And her water bottle was empty, and there was no fucking way she was going to get anything done with all that frustrated heat coursing through her. She had a couple of Pandas in her pillbox. They didn’t always help much but maybe they would this time. Something better help this time, or she’d explode.
She dry-swallowed them while she shouldered her bag. Terrible had closed his jeans, refastened his belt. His hair still tufted a bit in the back, and a couple more buttons of his shirt were undone than had been before—she didn’t even remember doing that.
“Sorry,” she said.
He shrugged. “Better us catch em up afore them get the sneak-up, aye?”
“Yeah, but it still sucks.”
“Aye.”
She slid out of the booth and headed for the atrium beyond the theater. Handling a witch wouldn’t be too difficult, not with Terrible there. Unless the witch also carried a gun or something, chances were the two of them would be able to take him or her—both male and female energies seemed to be in there, but that could be to do with the gender of the summoned ghost—down. Banishing a ghost would be pretty easy, too. She had her psychopomp in her bag, had everything else she’d need.
Finding it to Banish? Finding its summoner? That was the hard part. And hooray for her, she got to do that next.
They headed through the atrium without touching, down the hall to the left where Chess had seen the flash of white. Her tattoos still tingled. She glanced at Terrible; he looked fine in the half-light seeping in through the windows, but she asked anyway: “You okay?”
“Aye.”
“You sure? Because—”
“I’m right, Chess, no worryin, aye?”
Sure. She wouldn’t worry. After all, he was only more vulnerable to possession because of the sigil she’d carved into his chest two months or so before, right? So there was absolutely no reason to worry about him when in the presence of ghosts or magic.
Somehow she doubted he’d appreciate it if she expressed her concerns, though, so she didn’t. In silence they hit the landing and descended the stairway. No light entered there at
all, not even the faint moonlight. She had to clutch the railing and feel her way.
About halfway down, right after they’d turned and started on the next flight, she saw it. The open doorway at the foot, and the faint glow emanating from it.
She fisted some asafetida and graveyard dirt, ready to throw. Beside her a faint sliding noise, metal against metal; Terrible pulling out the iron knife she’d given him, she imagined, since iron was the only metal that had any effect on a ghost.
They separated, hugging opposite walls and creeping down with their eyes pinned on the doorway. The glow didn’t change, didn’t fade or increase, almost as if the ghost was standing still just beyond the door. As if it waited for them. Which it very well might be, and wasn’t that a happy thought.
With every step down more of the room grew visible; more of the ghost grew visible, until she could see that it stood not moving, watching the stairwell. Pipes or some kind of bludgeons hung from its hands. Shit.
Nothing else to do, really, right? She started to run, leaping down the final four stairs and speeding toward the ghost—a female, she thought—as fast as she could, her bag bouncing and clinking.
Terrible was faster. He was just about to slice at the ghost when it disappeared.
Fuck! They didn’t usually do that, crazy as it sounded; their arrogance and anger distracted them, and they never expected anyone to have iron, much less the asafetida she held.
Luckily the weapons the now-hidden ghost had carried couldn’t disappear with it. They lay there on the floor. As she tried to focus on the ghost’s energy she saw Terrible pick them up, a couple of random silvery strips of metal.
Focusing was easier said than done. Energy filled the room, but worse, it still filled her. Her pulse raced from running and fear, but it had never fully stopped after the interrupted scene in the booth.
It got worse when Terrible pressed his back to hers. Her tattoos still burned and itched, uncomfortable and prickly, but where the ghost was she had no idea. All she knew was that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she had goosebumps, and at any second the ghost might appear, snatch up a weapon, and kill her, kill either or both of them, before she had a chance to react.
Around them, the room—an enormous room, she thought it was the cafeteria—waited, hushed in the darkness. She felt eyes out there, hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Bugs and rats and who knew what else. People, of course; the magic felt too strong to be old. Anyone could be hiding in those shadows.
Did the magic feel familiar, too? The energy? Now that she stood there, despite her nerves and everything else, she thought maybe it did. But why? Where had she felt it before, and when?
Not the time to focus on that, not when the ghost or the witch or both could be only a step away with sharp weapons at the ready. Chess took a deep breath. The air carried the sharp, stale smell of institution food: plastic cheese and reheated leftovers damp under red heatlamps. It reminded her of the Corey Youth Home where she’d spent a few months before the Church took her, turned her stomach like the tea Beulah had given her earlier, that afternoon that felt like it had taken place years before.
The ghost appeared. At the far end of the room, too far away for them to reach it.
“It sposed to do that? Hide, ‘stead of fightin?” The words, barely more than a whisper, slid over her skin; his back moved against hers with the rhythm of his breath.
“No. I’ve never seen one—”
The ghost blinked into existence, closer this time. Shit! Still too far away for them to have a chance in hell of reaching it before it disappeared again, but close enough to worry her just that tiny bit more. She cocked her arm, ready to throw the dirt and asafetida at the next thing that moved.
Unless, of course, that thing was thirty feet away. What the fuck? It wasn’t heading for them. Barely even looked at them. It headed to its left, still flickering in and out like a dying lightbulb.
Terrible and Chess started creeping along together, following it. If she could get close enough while it wasn’t paying attention, she could freeze it. Then she could Banish it and be done.
It had almost reached the wall; she didn’t know what lay on the other side, if it was more building or if it was patchy vacant lot, but she did know there wasn’t another exit along that wall, at least not one she could see.
They sped up. The closer they got, the more the ghost came into focus. Long dark hair—it wasn’t really dark, of course, but it had that particular way of absorbing light that indicated dark hair, they’d been taught that early in Church training—and a tight top that ended above the curve of her waist. Below her waist a hint of jeans, fading at her thighs until all she had at the bottom were pale columns like stilts. Fuck. Chess had an awfully good idea what she would see when that ghost turned around.
It knew they were there. It had to know they were coming for it. They’d already tried once. So why wasn’t it fighting them? She’d never seen a ghost back down from a fight, much less try to escape. Sure, not all of them were killers, just about ninety-nine percent of them; hell, some of them were still violent but liked to fuck with people first, passing through them and rattling chains and moving things, like disembodied stereotypes.
Somehow, though, she didn’t think this ghost was one of those, either. It just … didn’t care about them.
Or it didn’t until she got closer to it. Then it spun around to face her. She caught a glimpse of its face, lips twisting in sudden rage, eyes black holes stretching in its face, before it produced a metal bar and slammed her arm with it.
Ow, fuck! It felt like the veins under her skin had exploded, like they’d somehow popped. Hot pain like rings of reddish flame radiated from it, racing up her arm to invade her entire body.
Of course it hit her right arm. The dirt and herbs fell from her hand.
Terrible had started moving the second the ghost did. The iron dagger slashed through it like a toothpick through custard, leaving a smeary trail across its mid-section.
The ghost raised the pipe again—it was a plumbing pipe of some kind, a joint hooked down at the end—and brought it around sidearm. The rage on her face turned to fury and her eyes started stretching down her cheeks, her teeth gritted, so the image of the skeleton her body would have been could be seen superimposed on top of it; Chess could make out the details, the flaky bits of skin and sinew hanging from the moldy bones. What the hell? Why was that happening?
The pipe whistled down, fast enough for her eyes to lose it. She knew where it landed, though. The same spot on her arm. “Ow! What the fuck—”
Terrible slashed at the ghost again, leaving another trail. It was starting to lose its form, to widen and soften at the edges. Its energy brushed against her, ice cold, the air around her stronger and more malicious.
The ghost swung at her again, missed, and finally noticed Terrible when he brought the dagger down into its arm. It dropped the pipe but caught it with its other hand; it slammed the pipe against his left thigh and started to run, a horrible jerky run.
Where that thing got the power to run she didn’t know, but it did, heading straight for the staircase. Chess and Terrible followed. Chess managed to fill her hand with more asafetida and dirt, hoping she wouldn’t have to do it again. She was almost out.
Terrible ducked behind her, grabbed her and started pulling her along. He ran much faster than she did. They started gaining on the ghost.
It turned and flung the pipe. At Chess. She managed to duck out of the way, but as she did she caught sight of a pile of metal there in the stairwell. Fuck, how long had that ghost been gathering weapons? Was that why it had been in—in the theater, damn it. It had been in the theater, with all that metal.
Sure enough, bits of the catwalk started flying at her. Terrible stood in front of her—she tried to push him out of the way but it was like trying to push a fucking mountain—and blocked the ones he could, shoving her head down with his hand when he had to duck.
Grisly trium
ph spread across the ghost’s face when Chess peered out from behind him. Both of the ghost’s hands were bristling with weapons. Both of them kept moving, throwing things. Metal thudded to the floor, clanged against the railings, echoed in the empty darkness.
Terrible pushed her down, ducked again. Her hair stirred; whatever it was, it had passed not far from her bowed head. It was aiming for her again.
Aiming, but not approaching. It must have known what she carried, that if it got too close she could end the miserable game it was playing.
Enough of this shit. She jumped out from behind Terrible, flung the handful of herbs and dirt at the ghost.
And missed.
Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck. The ghost’s smile grew even more triumphant. Terrible’s dagger brushed against its head, creating a smudge. It stepped back, threw a piece of grate—and disappeared.
They stood there, watching the air where it had been. Its weapons had fallen; Terrible ducked forward to grab them up, crossed the doorway to stand in the corner where the stockpile was. Or rather, where it had been. Hardly anything littered the floor there. No wonder the ghost had finally run.
Chess’s arms and chest under her ink still felt as if someone had given them a sandpaper massage, but less than they had just a minute before. No longer screaming, as though her skin was trying to jump off her body and hide. The magic was gone; whatever spell had been working was finished. The energy faded like the sound of a passing train receding in the distance.
“She still here?” His voice quiet again, calming her.
“I don’t think so. It’s fading. The spell, I mean, the magic. And if someone summoned her, then yeah, she might disappear when the spell ends. It depends on how strong the witch is, you know?”
They started walking back to the stairway. “Summoning ghosts … that’s not easy to do, and it requires a lot of energy.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
They rounded the final corner, back into the wide expanse of the cafeteria. “So now what? You gotta know who summoned it, or just its name? The ghost name, meaning.”