Not to mention that she had Elder Griffin there. He didn’t have a bag full of supplies like she did, but he was an Elder, and a powerful one.
She met him just inside the living room. He stood in front of her while she dropped the papers and started yanking things from her bag. Iron filings, ajenjible, asafetida of course—not that it would be all that useful here, without a ghost, but still—goat’s blood, cobwebs, dragon’s blood, coffin nails, sapodilla seeds … damn it, what else, she could have sworn she’d just stocked up on some anti-hexing supplies at Edsel’s. Okay, she had some arrowroot and vervain as well. Not much to work with.
Elder Griffin glanced down, approval in his eyes. At least she thought that’s what it was. It was hard to tell, getting hard to see. Hard to breathe. The hex, the curse, whatever it was, had started draining her energy, draining her power, and with every passing second she grew weaker and it grew stronger.
Elder Griffin stumbled; it was affecting him, too. He reached out to brace himself on the desk. To her horror, Chess saw blood seeping from beneath his fingernails.
First things first. The walls wavered, the papers on them flapping and moving in the magic-stirred air. Chess grabbed a handful of iron filings, tossed them at Elder Griffin, tossed them into the air over her head. Her voice didn’t want to project, but she managed to croak out a few words of power anyway.
That felt a bit better, but not enough. Aros had booby-trapped that place good.
Elder Griffin knelt beside her, started going through the items she’d laid out. His voice was barely audible over the roaring in her ears. “I touched the wall, and it—it began.”
She nodded, intrigued despite her fear and anger. Not a threshold spell, then, an actual interior spell. Very difficult to do, and the sort of thing that verged on—well, that tipped over the verge of—paranoia. And spoke of a very solitary life, because the odds of a random visitor setting it off was too great, it was too hard to turn off if someone did come over.
She and Elder Griffin gathered up her supplies and walked back into the living room. With every slow careful step she felt her heart beat faster, harder. With every step she felt her legs grow weaker, until she rocked sideways and brushed her hand against the wall. Magic screamed up her arm, furious and violent; thin red lines like paper cuts appeared on her fingertips, and she braced herself for the pain.
And pain it was. The second her blood hit the air, the spell throbbed; she felt it suck at her like a vacuum cleaner.
But they were almost at the door. Chess worked the cap on the goat’s blood, filled her palm with sapodilla seeds. Elder Griffin had the ajenjible and spiderwebs. Another few steps and they could do something about it, surely they could—
Smoke. The smell of smoke hit her nose at the same time that she saw the orange glow start dancing on the wall before her, saw their shadows against it. Oh, fuck, the files. Couldn’t something just go fucking right? For once?
No. The hex ward had exploded into fire, burning the curtains in Aros’s room, the drawings and pictures on the walls. So tired, she was so fucking tired …
It seemed to take hours to move a foot, back toward where she’d left the papers, and with every second the flames shot higher. Dimly over their hissing voice she heard Elder Griffin yelling; his power hit her skin, a weak echo of what it should have been but still something. She needed to be there to help, shit; she turned around and pushed through the energy again, every step an effort.
The fire spread. She put her hand on his shoulder, caught his glance and started speaking with him. “Arkharam arkharam, parfakan parfakan, hectarosh …”
The hex-rune practically glowed there on the door, especially as the fire brightened behind her. That fucking cabin was going up like a cord of dried wood in the middle of summer. But then, why wouldn’t it; magical fires always spread faster, especially magical fires fed by the power of two trapped witches.
Chess set the point of the coffin nail in the center of the rune, glanced at Elder Griffin. He nodded and chanted louder.
Weapons weren’t technically permitted on Church grounds, at least not when carried by Church employees who weren’t supposed to be armed, like her. Whatever. She tugged her knife—her old knife—from her pocket, used it to hammer the nail into the wood, shouting the last anti-hex words along with Elder Griffin.
The power disappeared. The fire did not. Her blood still dripped to the floor but she didn’t care; the cottage would probably burn to the ground and she sure as fuck did care about that, but there wasn’t much she could do.
Shouts from outside made their way through the walls. Of course—they were on Church grounds. It wasn’t Downside, where a fire engine would only come if the building was something like the Slaughterhouse or the Crematorium, or maybe if it was the middle of the day. Any second, the hoses would be set up and water would start pouring on the cottage.
That would destroy pretty much everything in the place, wouldn’t it?
Fuck.
As if on cue it started, thick streams of water hitting the windows, the walls, drumming against the roof. In another couple of seconds someone would bust down the door.
The fire edged so close to those files. Even as she started running, she saw she’d be too late. The sick, heavy feeling of power still sat in the air, clogging it, making her feel she was running through a cold lake. Bright flames ate the floor, ate almost a third of the files.
“Cesaria!”
She ignored him. Those files were important, Aros was a murderer and there might be something valuable in there, an address for Chelsea, something else. She threw herself forward, crashed painfully to the floor.
Her bleeding fingers gripped the burning paper, raised it to slam it against the dull carpet.
Too late.
The door of the cottage burst open; Chess glanced up in time to see a hard plume of water shooting right at her.
It hit her in the chest, pushed her back a few feet. Worse, it ripped the files from her already-slick fingers. Damn it!
The stream moved away from her. She dragged herself to her feet, took a few staggering steps in the direction the files had floated, but she knew it would be pointless. The bedroom already looked like a pool; bits of half-burned paper clung to the bed and the walls, the ink running in mottled streams.
“Cesaria!” Elder Griffin’s voice again. The water stopped. Agnew Doyle burst into the cottage, followed by Dana Wright, a few other employees, Elders Ramos and Jones. With them came a blast of fresh air. She hadn’t realized how smoky the cottage had gotten. Dana grabbed her, hustled her out of the building, with Doyle and Elder Griffin right behind.
She’d lost. She’d lost, she’d lost, the files were gone. Any evidence she might possibly have found was gone, destroyed by fire or water.
Yes, she knew Aros was her killer, and that was a good thing. But for some reason it didn’t feel that great as she stood there staring at the wreckage of the cottage. Just … Damn.
Her phone had rung, hadn’t it? Just before Elder Griffin set off the spell? She pulled it from her bag, took a look at the screen.
Yes. It had rung. Terrible had called her.
Her breath froze in her lungs; she couldn’t seem to do anything but stare at the phone, not moving, not blinking. Somehow she managed to check her texts, found that he had indeed sent her one. “Another body. Call when.”
Not exactly “I love you, I miss you, I’m sorry,” but she had no right to expect anything like that, did she? No. All things considered, she was lucky she got anything at all, even though she knew the only reason she did was because Bump wanted her there.
If anyone should be sending the apologies it was her, anyway.
She glanced at Elder Griffin beside her, panting and examining his bleeding fingertips. He’d advised her to apologize, to talk to Terrible. Looked like she was going to get a chance to follow that advice after all.
Vanity. Taking the time to shower, dry her hair, and put on some makeup was pur
e vanity, but she couldn’t help it. What was she supposed to do—go see Terrible for the first time since that horrible night looking all rumpled and sweaty? No fucking way. Bad enough that her left eye was smudged with darkness from Jia’s fist two days before, that her cheek was still scratched from the catwalk and Lucy’s pipe had turned her arm purple-yellow. Bad enough that the magical wounds on her fingers looked red and raw, that the fire had caught the side of her palm and turned it red as well.
So she didn’t. Instead, she pulled up outside the destroyed warehouse at Sixty-fifth and Foster wearing the red top she knew was his favorite, with matching lipstick, figuring she looked about as good as possible. Wasn’t saying much, but it was all she could do.
All she could do as far as her looks went, anyway. She lifted five Cepts from her pillbox, gave them a quick nose-wrinkling crunch, and washed them down with Coke. Maybe they’d slow her frantic heartbeat; maybe they’d ease the panic threatening to choke her where she sat.
They probably wouldn’t. But at the very least they’d keep her from throwing herself at his feet and bursting into tears, so that was a good thing.
A little crowd stood around the body, or what she assumed was the body. Why else would a little crowd be there, right?
Right. A man, again. Burned black, carefully placed within the scorched lines of the symbol. Her skin tingled at the energy still in the air, stronger than it had been with Eddie’s body, or maybe it was simply that she was attuned to it now.
Or maybe it was Terrible. She was aware of him from the second she stepped through the hole that had once been a doorway into the remains of the building. Afraid to look at him, yes, but aware of him. She smelled him, saw him out of the corner of her eye, felt him; every cell in her body cried out for him.
And she couldn’t have him, and probably never would again.
She cleared her throat. Terrible’s gaze sat on her; she felt it on her head, her shoulders, heavy and searing hot like molten steel. She gritted her teeth against it, against the pull toward him in her chest, and focused on the corpse. “Do we know who this is?”
“Naw. Ain’t this part of town, dig.” Terrible shifted on his feet, his eyes focused on the top of her head. “Gave Bernam here the tell to have a look-out when the fire stopped, figured might be another, dig. This what he found. Gave you the call-up right after.”
“I was stuck at work.” He didn’t sound angry, or cold. Was that good? Or did he just honestly not care anymore? And how shitty a person was she, that at that moment she didn’t give a fuck about the dead man or how he’d died or anything else, she just wanted his corpse and everyone else to disappear so she could talk to Terrible? Pretty shitty, right?
But she couldn’t help it. Standing across from him, not knowing what he was thinking or feeling … every bit of energy she could spare went into not running to his side and wrapping herself around him.
The others watched her, too, not that she gave a fuck. “I know who’s behind it now. But finding him—them—isn’t going to be easy, and— Wait!”
They all blinked.
“Aye?”
“You said he’s not from here. He’s from Slo— He’s from the other side?”
Nod.
Did the dead man have something to do with Aros, or Chelsea, or both? She imagined he did.
“What is this—what was this building used for, I mean?”
Pause. “Ain’t much, just now. Storin stuff, dig, when we got the need.”
“So why this place?” She looked around. Of course if anything had been in there it was gone now, probably destroyed—a stab of pain almost as bad as the pain of seeing Terrible, at the thought of all the drugs that might have been eaten by fire—or moved out. “I mean, why a building you’re not really using? Why here?”
One of the onlookers—she’d almost forgotten there were other people there—took a half step forward, like he was expecting to be told to tuck in his shirt and fix his hair. Chess couldn’t have cared less what he looked like, a slight form with brownish hair dyed green at the ends and a baggy long-sleeved black shirt over loose black vinyl pants. “Simple, ain’t it? Had theyself some access to it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Aye, gettin yon meaning.” Terrible still didn’t look at her, not in the eyes, but her heart kicked anyway. “Maybe them got other reasons pickin this one. Weren’t even much in here, it started burning.”
Excitement—well, not excitement, but a sort of eagerness, the sense of finding another Truth in her case—kicked in her head. “Like, the other night. Why take that risk to do it there, when they could do it anywhere?”
He saw where she was going, and thankfully seemed to know she meant the school, too, not the pipe room. She’d known he would; he always did. “Got me a map in the car. You thinkin maybe they got some pattern happening, aught like that?”
“It’s worth a look, right?”
He nodded. If he would just look at her, even just for a second, so she could meet his gaze and show him how sorry she was … “You needin him for aught else, or we can get on the clearing up?”
Shit. She hadn’t thought of that. Someone needed to get that body out of there, and she really didn’t want it to be her.
He must have had the same thought; she caught the glance he sent her way—still not meeting her eyes—the measuring tone of it.
“No,” she said. “I don’t need him for anything else.”
She surveyed the small gang of men: four of them including Terrible and Green Hair. One of them—one or two—would have to get the body out of the symbol, and she’d be damned if it was Terrible.
So of course it was. Before she could open her mouth to stop him, he stepped right into it.
But that sigil on his chest … sure e-fucking-nough, the magic in it hit him. Hit him hard, and she knew it because she felt it reverberate like he’d struck a gong with his head, because she saw his face go white and watched him stumble, watched him fall to the cement in a heap.
She moved before she thought about it—not that she would have done anything different if she had thought about it. His skin was warm against hers; fuck, it felt so good just to touch him again, even with the horrible energy of the spell around them both. It had only been a couple of days, not even, but it felt like years. It felt like she’d been spinning in the darkness alone, and now she’d finally hit the ground again.
She didn’t look at him, though, afraid that if she did she’d start to cry. And with the other men there … not a good idea. They just stood watching with their mouths open. Fuck. “Help me with him. Help me get him out of the circle.”
They obeyed; it took all three of them to lift him. Chess watched them, watched their faces, to see if any of them appeared more or less affected by the symbol. Green Hair didn’t seem too bothered by it. Neither did his friend in sandals and a T-shirt with smiley faces drawn all over it in marker. Good.
Terrible’s eyes opened when they got him to the other side of the lines, and he tried to stand up. She pressed him back down. Standing wasn’t a good idea yet. She stayed on her knees at his side, with her left hand on his cheek, hoping he’d stay put. Hoping, because she didn’t have the guts to look down at him. Her entire body shook, and that wasn’t from magic.
“Get the body out of there, okay?” she managed. Her voice sounded strained and awkward to her ears. Nothing she could do about it, though. “Just put him over there, I guess. In the corner.”
They obeyed. With three of them, the job took only a couple of minutes; watching them gave her the first real taste of what it might be like for someone else—for Lex or Terrible—to watch her dealing with some sort of magic. Again with the exception of Green Hair, they looked more nervous and unsettled with every passing second. Sweat formed on their brows, trickled down their necks; their mouths set in firmer and firmer lines, unhappy lines.
Guilt swarmed into her mind like locusts. That should be her. She was the witch, she was the one trained to handl
e that stuff, to diffuse and dispel it. She was the one who should be protecting them, helping them.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, could induce her to leave Terrible’s side at that moment. Protecting people or no, she may well never have another chance to touch him, and she wasn’t about to waste that one.
Even if she was still afraid to look at him, doubly so because she knew his eyes were open and he was looking at her.
They set the corpse down with a horrible splat. After an expectant pause Green Hair opened his mouth. “Aught else? What we doin next, you want?”
Shit. She couldn’t put it off anymore, could she? She glanced down, followed the line of buttons up the front of Terrible’s bowling shirt to the triangle of white T-shirt underneath it, then up his throat, over his mouth and nose until she hit his eyes and every muscle in her body tightened.
Sure, the second their eyes met he looked away. What else did she expect?
“I can’t think of anything else I need them to do,” she managed. “If you’re wondering, I mean.”
He shifted, rolled away from her and sat up, breaking the physical connection between them. Bereft of his skin her palm felt cold.
“Bernam, put him in they bag there, aye? Take he to the burnhouse.”
Green Hair—Bernam, she guessed—nodded, crossed to the far corner, presumably to get a bag.
“Gettin the map,” Terrible said to her. “Give me a hold-on, iffen you ain’t mind.”
“I don’t mind. Are you okay? I know that symbol isn’t very strong after it burns, but it’s still pretty awful.”
He shook his head. “Ain’t know. Just one second were walkin to it, next were here.”
Thunder rolled through the air; shit. While they’d been standing there the sky had grown even darker, the clouds almost black viewed through holes in the half-burned roof. The air around them waited for rain, that heavy expectant feeling that told her it was going to be one fuck of a storm. She thought the pressure might crush her.
The men must have felt the same way, because they bagged up the corpse in record time. “Aught else?”