Seeing him was like being hit in the chest. Like something exploding inside her, a quick ravenous fire that made her shiver. So bright and so hot it still amazed her that no one else seemed to notice it, that every eye in the place didn’t turn to her while she went incandescent.
But they didn’t—which was a good thing, since spontaneous human combustion would probably raise an eyebrow even there. No one seemed to notice at all. They were all too busy drinking dollar beers, listening to X’s “Johnny Hit and Run Paulene,” and talking or arguing or trying to pick each other up. Spiky heads, heads bald or slick with pomade, like bizarre flowers strewn in a humid half-dead meadow, swaying in a stale-beer breeze. None of them turned to her.
Excellent. She didn’t want to be noticed. She never did, but especially not just then.
She shoved a couple of bucks at the bartender for her own beer and a tip and pushed her way through the field of oblivion-hunters until she reached him, stopping about a foot away, careful to not quite meet his eyes.
He did the same. “Hey, Chess. You right?”
She shrugged. Sipped her beer. “Right up. What time do they go on?”
“Ain’t for certain. Ten minutes maybe, fifteen? Thought you was comin earlier.”
“I was. My trainee lost it, I had to handle it all myself.”
“Handle what?”
She gave him a quick rundown, her mind only half on her words. The rest was examining him, his black hair slicked back with pomade, the width of his shoulders, his height. His face, the face she’d once thought ugly with its crooked, repeatedly broken nose, its scars, its heavy brow and thick muttonchop sideburns. The kind of face people ran away from because the only place it looked like it belonged was behind a loaded weapon. Hell, it made his body look like a loaded weapon. Which it was. And that’s all people saw.
People were shitbags, with their easy smiles and their cold eyes and brutal hearts. She knew that better than anyone. Knew, too, that the face she looked at wasn’t ugly, that it was strong and it was Terrible’s. That meant it was hers to look at as much as she wanted, and that made something she thought might be genuine happiness ride higher in her chest.
“Telling on getting shit done,” he said, “Bump got an ask for you. Whyn’t you come on out back, lemme give you the knowledge.”
She shifted on her feet, glanced at the other guys still standing there, waiting to be included in the conversation. “Can’t it wait?”
“Could, aye, but might as well give it you now.”
The song ended; she nodded in the second or two of silence before the next one started. “Yeah, okay then. But let’s make it fast. I don’t want to miss the band.”
He shrugged. “Neither me. Longer you stand here, longer us take gettin back in, aye?”
She cocked an eyebrow at him, still careful not to look him in the eye, and headed down the hall that led to the bathrooms and the back door. Technically it wasn’t a back door. Technically it was an emergency exit. But the alarm wires had been ripped from the wall years before, and even if they hadn’t been it wouldn’t have mattered. Fire trucks didn’t respond to calls from Downside in general; one too many false alarms that ended in muggings and murders had stopped that particular service, and there was little worth saving there anyway.
Terrible pushed it open for her. She ducked under his arm and stepped into the alley, the soft squelch of still-wet dead leaves and garbage under her shoes reminding her for one unpleasant second of the earlier fun in the construction swamp. She couldn’t decide which one smelled better, but neither was pleasant.
But while the building had been full of people and ghosts, the alley was empty. Not even any light from the tenement windows behind occupied the space; only the dull glow of the gibbous moon overhead showed her that no living beings—no human ones, at least—waited there.
Terrible obviously noticed that, too. The sound of the exit door slamming back into its frame hit her ears at the same time his body slammed her against the back wall, farther into the shadows where no one could see him kiss her long and hard.
Had she thought seeing him made her insides explode? She’d been wrong. This was an explosion. This was better than anything else; sometimes she thought it was even better than her pills. At his touch something inside her that had been tense and twisted and black finally relaxed. At his touch something inside her that was constantly terrified found a little security.
Security Chess hoped and hoped would last, despite the nagging voice in the back of her mind that insisted it couldn’t, it wouldn’t, she didn’t deserve it, and she should just give up on the very idea.
Fuck that stupid voice. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed her hands down the collar of his shirt to feel his bare skin warm against hers. He was always warm. His palms left shivering trails of heat from her face to her throat, blazed up her thighs and ribcage, over her breasts.
Finally he pulled away enough to meet her eyes. That jolt of electricity, the one she’d been so careful not to feel inside the bar, hit her. Her cheeks tightened, her mouth curved into a grin she couldn’t stop. “I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it at all.”
“Aye, me too. Glad you did. Feelin like I ain’t seen you in weeks.”
“It’s been three days.”
“Feels longer. We all clear now?”
She nodded. The past week had been the first time in her life she wished she wasn’t what she was, wasn’t a witch, didn’t have extra power in her blood that meant anyone coming in intimate contact with it would be affected by it; wished the Binding effect of that contact wasn’t part of the marriage ceremony and so meant a commitment she didn’t think either of them was ready to make.
If she wasn’t a witch it wouldn’t matter. Marriages were bound by blood and magic combined, not one or the other, so they required the Church’s assistance. But magic was in her blood, and that meant spending six days burning with frustration.
His eyebrows rose; his hands wandered with more purpose. “You ain’t really wanna stay here, aye? Whyn’t we head on out now instead?”
“I thought you wanted to see the band,” she teased.
“Changed my thought. Let’s us go. Back my place, aye?” He was smiling, that smile she’d always loved, while his hands distracted her and his body warmed her through her clothes. Summer drew closer every day, and the temperatures reflected that, but it seemed like she was always cold when he wasn’t around. “C’mon.”
“My place is closer.”
“Aye.” He leaned in to bite her neck; she shivered. “But mine’s got thicker walls, dig, an I plan on makin you scream a few times afore we get to sleeping.”
It took her a minute to draw enough breath to speak, through a throat suddenly too tight for anything but a gasp. “I thought we decided we wanted to actually get out tonight, though.”
“And done it. Now us can go back in.”
“I don’t know,” she managed to say. It was becoming more difficult to talk, especially since he’d started sucking gently on her neck, making her dizzy.
“Think on this one, then, Chessiebomb. Nobody seein us right here, aye?” His nimble fingers popped the top button of her jeans. “Then we still out.”
“No way.” She giggled and swatted at his hands. “Last time I got a splinter—”
The sound of his phone ringing, a loud jangly sort of ring, cut her off.
“Ignore it,” she suggested, but she knew he couldn’t. They both knew he couldn’t. Midnight was practically the start of a working day in Downside, yes, but she doubted anyone who’d be calling him at that hour would have good news.
She was right. Within seconds of answering the phone his face darkened; darkened and took on that look she’d only seen a few times before, that lowered-brow-narrowed-eyes look of absolute rage. The kind of look that would be the last thing the person who caused it would ever see. His fingers tightened on her waist.
“Aye,” he said. “Get em—aye. On my way.”
>
Her heart sank. Looked like they weren’t going back to anybody’s place, to anybody’s bed. At least not for a long time.
His phone snapped shut. “Pipe room’s burnin.”
“What?”
He was already walking up the alley, back toward the street, holding her hand in an almost painful grip. “Fuckin Slobag, ‘swhat. Pipe room up Sixtieth, green one. On fire.”
She didn’t want to say “What?” again, but she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t seem to get any other words into her head. A pipe room burning? All those people, even on a weeknight. All that Dream, waiting to be smoked, waiting to send those people into a soft golden fog. Gone. “What?”
He didn’t answer. She had to trot to keep up as he pulled her along, dropping her hand just before they emerged from the alley. She almost wished he wouldn’t, wished they hadn’t decided to keep everything secret. Certainly she could have used more physical contact at that moment. With every step the awful picture in her mind grew clearer: burning bodies in a pit of flames, exploding glass, storerooms full of Dream knobs, their smoke wasted. She wrapped her arms around herself to still the shakes.
Terrible’s car, a black 1969 BT Chevelle, waited for them in the circle of pale yellow cast by one of the few working streetlights. “Waited” being the operative word. To Chess, the car always seemed ready to leap from its resting place, ready to start mowing down pedestrians just because it could.
But it didn’t. It stayed silent and still while Terrible opened the door for her, closed it behind her, and got in on the driver’s side.
On their way to the fire, to the— Wait. “The one on Sixtieth? Didn’t you say nobody’s in that one, Bump’s doing something else with it?”
“Aye.” The car plowed away from the curb in a squeal of rubber. “Were thinkin on makin it storing rooms, dig, gettin other shit done there too. Figured on setting a new room a block up.”
“So no one died.” The tightness in her chest eased a bit.
“Naw. Least not what Bernam say. Maybe one or two in there, ain’t can say certain. But nobody ought, leastaways.”
“Good.”
He glanced at her, swinging the heavy car right, north on Sixtieth. “Aye, cepting, how Slobag knew nobody in there?”
“If the room’s closed—”
“Ain’t hardly nobody got that knowledge, though. Nobody been told. Just let em know tonight, first night it shut down.”
“Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t care who he killed.”
Terrible snorted. “Still a fuck of a chance.”
She sat for a few seconds watching his profile before finally resting a hesitant hand on his thigh, not sure it was welcome. Not sure if she should say anything. Anger still hovered around him, filled the car and tried to find a way into her body. She felt it like icy fingers sliding over her skin.
Not much she could do when he was in that kind of mood, at least not in the car on the way to check the wreckage.
Not to mention … he hadn’t said anything. She didn’t know if he was thinking it, if he’d thought of it. But he probably had.
If Slobag had some sort of inside information about Bump’s operations, he had to be getting that information from somewhere. And there she was, the one person Terrible knew for a fact had been in Slobag’s pocket; or to put it more bluntly, Terrible knew she’d been in Slobag’s son’s bed, for months. Knew she still talked to him.
How long before she became a suspect?
The last vestiges of the cheer she’d managed to find at Trickster’s evaporated. It wouldn’t be long. He’d think of it. He’d wonder.
And she couldn’t blame him. What was she supposed to do, get all pissed and indignant because he didn’t trust her? Why the hell should he trust her? He’d trusted her before and she’d paid him back by fucking his enemy. He’d be stupid not to wonder about her now.
That sucked. But it was true.
Their destination wasn’t difficult to spot. The Chevelle growled up Sixtieth, chasing the orange glow of the flames ahead. A fire indeed. The building had simply disappeared. In its place a set of half walls created a bowl of fire, surrounded by curious onlookers standing too close even though it was spring. A few of them held out sticks with various animal parts on the ends; free fire shouldn’t be wasted.
Chunks of cement littered the pavement, more and more of them as the Chevelle approached the scene, until finally Terrible had to park because there were too many of them to avoid. Broken glass sparkled under their feet.
Against the angry flames, Bump’s profile stood like a pimp-shaped inkspot, his hat brim ostentatiously wide, his cape moving in the breeze. Even at a distance she could see how pissed he was, just from the way he held his shoulders.
The closer they got the more obvious his anger got. He glowered at the fire, glowered at Terrible, glowered at her. “You finding they, Terrible, yay? Fuckin make they dead.”
It wasn’t much of a greeting, but she supposed it could be excused under the circumstances. Hell, even if they weren’t standing in front of what was probably half a million dollars or so on fire, it could be excused; it would have to be excused. No matter who she slept with, no matter who she still couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to sleep with, the fact was that at its base her relationship—such as it was—with Bump entailed the biggest power imbalance possible. She was a junkie. He was her dealer.
In other words, he got to say whatever he wanted to her, do whatever he wanted to her, treat her like less than nothing, and she got to take it without resistance if she wanted to keep getting her pills. Which she did.
He glanced at her now. “Ay, Ladybird. Ain’t fuckin supposing you witchy skills fuckin find they done it.”
She shook her head. “Sorry” sat on the tip of her tongue; she swallowed it. “Not the sort of thing I can do, no.”
“But you got them fuckin snooping skills, yay? Do you findin out things, on you fuckin cases or what-the-fuck them is you doin.”
Shit. Usually the problem she had with people knowing her job was that they thought she could wave her hand and make things disappear or whatever; now she had Bump obviously thinking she was some sort of Sherlock Holmes or something and could just pop in and find out who—of the hundreds, even thousands, of possible suspects—had spied, had set this up.
If she had a choice … well, she’d probably still say yes, because this affected Terrible’s life, and that made it something she needed to do. But she didn’t have a choice anyway.
“I’ll try.” She shifted her weight, hoped she didn’t look as uncomfortable as she felt. “But really, I don’t know any of the people involved, so I don’t really see what I can do.”
“Aw, nay, ain’t you fuckin count youself short. Got them fuckin brains hidin in you head, yay? You use em for Bump. Use em for Terrible, yay? Got the thinkin you catch this one straightup fast, yay, fuckin straightup. What fuckin happening if them get Terrible afore you fuckin get the finding? Thinkin you ain’t fuckin liking that.”
No, she certainly wasn’t fucking liking that. Did he not realize that was why she’d agreed to help out?
She’d known it was a mistake to tell Bump what was happening between them, what had happened. Being right usually felt a lot better than it did at that moment. This night was just going from shitty to shittier, wasn’t it?
“I’ll do whatever I can.”
Bump gave her a slow, fluid sort of nod, the kind that told her he’d known all along that she would do it, and how he’d get her to do it. Damn him. He wasn’t stupid; no one got to be lord of the streets west of Forty-third—almost all of Downside—without being smart, tough, and fast, and of course utterly ruthless. Bump was all of those, with a greasy layer of sleaze smoothed on top like rancid frosting covering a moldy cake.
He leaned back on his gold-tipped cane, crossed one ankle in its furry boot over the other. Somehow even standing on the street across from a burning building he managed to look as if he was lounging
around his horrendous living room, perfectly relaxed, lord of his tacky pornography empire.
“Nobody in, aye?” Terrible asked. He stepped closer to her; just half a step, really, nothing anyone would notice, but she did, and it helped.
“Nay, ain’t none people in there, when it fuckin go. Only our fuckin supplies, yay? Fuckin only half got out, fore it blowin the fuck up.” He leered at her. “Too fuckin bad, yay? Got less smoke now, price goin up, Bump gots the guessing on. ‘Course, could be you ain’t gotta get the fuckin raise, you helping Bump out, get what we needing done up, yay?”
She didn’t answer him. Would not. He didn’t deserve an answer.
Instead, she watched the fire, watched Terrible’s profile silhouetted by it and the way it cast changing golden light on everything. Downside looked almost wholesome with the flames dancing in their enormous makeshift firecan; the delicate changing light softened the sharp edges, bleached out the blood and needles and filth, the passed-out bodies and pockmarked walls and broken streets. The fire smoothed it all over, made it look almost normal.
Funny, she’d never noticed that before. But then she’d never paid this much attention to a fire before, at least not one she wasn’t inside. Burning buildings were as common an occurrence in Downside as muggings and beatings; they no longer attracted much attention, save from scavengers looking for something to snatch from the wreckage.
After the fire finally died they’d swarm, looking for every scrap of metal, every piece of furniture, every smoke-damaged pipe. And of course, any lumps of Dream that might have survived. The thought pinched her heart. She could use a visit to the pipes just then. It would be nice to forget Bump’s beady eyes, his dismissal of her, the confidence with which he used her.