by Stacia Kane
They weren’t waiting at the foot of the building where they’d all been earlier; several of Bump’s men were, which made her heart skip with hope for a second, until she asked if Terrible was there and they shook their heads.
Bump was, though, still standing on the roof where she’d left him. He glanced back when he heard her shuffling footsteps.
“Ay, Ladybird, lookin like you had you a fuckin time, yay. Broken them fuckin magic all up, though, guessing.”
She nodded. “Where’s Terrible? Have you—”
He took a step back from the edge of the roof, sweeping his arm sideways in invitation. “Have you a fuckin look-see. Found heself a fuckin match, he done.”
She’d started to move before he finished the sentence. Shit, she’d forgotten. She’d actually managed to forget Devil for a few minutes there.
If only that meant he’d disappeared, instead of doing what he was doing, which was fighting with Terrible on the street below.
“Fighting” was a mild word for it. Her stomach jumped into her throat and stayed there, choking her, as she watched the two figures on the pavement. The crowd had parted for them; they moved alone in a circle empty of everything but the blood she imagined she could see even from a distance.
Of course she couldn’t. She stood four or five stories up and the only streetlight was far outside the circle. But still she thought she could, that she could see it spattered on the ground, could see it obscuring their faces and soaking into their clothes.
Devil must have found him—or vice versa—not long after Terrible had left the roof; they’d clearly been at it for a while. Both of them stumbled. Both of them moved as if their arms were too heavy, their bodies thick and slow.
But both of them still moved, and she knew they wouldn’t stop until one of them was dead.
And there was nothing she could do about it. The sigils on his skin, bound with her blood or her energy, weren’t enough, didn’t make a connection strong enough for her to feed any power into. Especially not from a distance.
So she just watched as Lex’s man swung again, connected again, snapping Terrible’s head back and then doubling him over with a fist to the stomach. Terrible’s knees hit the street; he fell forward, clutching at Devil’s legs, knocking him down.
Devil kicked Terrible. Terrible grabbed Devil’s leg and twisted, pushing down as he did—at least that’s what it looked like he was doing—but whether or not he broke the bone, she didn’t know.
“Here.” Bump held something out to her. Her phone. Some of the tension in her shoulders left; not a lot, because it felt as if every muscle in her body was spasming in sympathy with Terrible—in fear for him—but some of it. Lex was alive, then. He’d made it.
“Lex fuckin bring it me, only he left a minute past. Guessin he wanting to find he a fuckin place to get him watch on, also.” Bump snorted. “Like he man got he a chance on Terrible.”
But something in his voice … She gave him a sharp look. He didn’t sound as confident as he should have, and for some reason hearing that note of worry in his voice worried her more than anything else. She remembered then what Terrible had told her, about how Bump found him as a child, took him off the streets and gave him a home, and she wondered if their relationship was as businesslike as she’d always assumed. Wondered, for the first time ever, how Bump actually felt about Terrible.
She would never ask. Even if she did, he wouldn’t tell her, at least she couldn’t imagine he would. But the thought was there just the same, an unwilling sense of … of kinship, an uneasy sense of unity as they watched and worried.
“Do you think—”
He cut her off. “Nay, have a look. All wrapping the fuck up now.”
Devil lay on his back, with Terrible over him, grabbing his ears and slamming his head into the pavement. Again, and again. Devil’s fist shot up to hit Terrible’s shoulder; she didn’t see the blade in it but knew it was there from the way Terrible’s body jerked. Terrible fell back, and Chess couldn’t watch anymore.
She’d never believed, really believed deep down, that Terrible could lose. It was impossible; it would be like discovering the Church had no power over ghosts at all but the ghosts were instead just deciding to go away, and the whole psychopomp-and-magic thing was a complex trick done with lights. A Terrible who lost a fight would be— She couldn’t imagine what he would be, if he wasn’t dead.
No. She didn’t have to imagine. She knew. A Terrible who lost a fight and lived would be a Terrible who lost everything, because practically all of Downside stood watching, and he would never recover from having them see him beaten. He would never— He would never go on if that happened, would he? Their earlier conversation took on a different tone, a different meaning. She honestly didn’t know if he would be willing to stay in a world where he’d been defeated. Even for her.
It wasn’t until her feet hit the stairs that she realized what she was doing. It might make a difference if he saw her. It might not. But no matter what happened, she wasn’t going to leave him down there alone. If he won she’d be with him, and if he lost … she’d be with him for that, too.
Shouts and yells assaulted her when she hit the street, much louder than they’d seemed from the roof. The crowd was so deep; she fought her way through it, her heart leaping every time the crowd reacted to whatever was happening. She couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything but backs and faces alight with the observation of violence. The energy of the crowd, gleeful and excited, bloodthirsty and cruel, beat against her skin, made it harder to breathe. Touching them all made it even worse, but she had no choice. She pushed them aside, shoved them, kicked them, ducked down and thrust herself into spaces way too small for her. With her every step the crowd grew louder. Something was happening; what was happening?
It looked worse up close. All the blood she’d imagined she could see from the roof was there, covering Terrible, covering Devil. They both appeared on the edge of death, sluggish and sick, staggering around each other.
Terrible wouldn’t be able to see her; hell, she doubted if he could see anything, but even if he could, he wouldn’t take his eyes off Devil. Even knowing that, though, standing at the edge of the crowd made her feel better. She sidled along, weaving in and out between the onlookers, until she found a place to stand behind Devil. A place where Terrible might be able to catch a glimpse of her.
Devil swung. They both went down again, their bodies hitting the pavement with a horrible splat. Chess gasped; so did some of the people standing around her.
The two men moved on the street like dying crabs, their movements slow and jerky, leaving trails of blood behind them. Chess got a look at Terrible’s face, swollen and broken, barely recognizable, and could hardly breathe. How could he survive that, how could anyone survive that?
Pain blossomed in her lip; she realized she’d bitten it hard enough to bleed. Her hands ached from twisting them together; well, her whole body ached, but she didn’t care. Didn’t have time to think about it or worry about it. She didn’t take her eyes off the fight before her.
Devil’s hand on the back of Terrible’s neck, driving his face into the cement. Terrible caught Devil’s arm, pushed it up, pushed himself up far enough to land another punch to Devil’s face.
Then he saw her. She thought— No, she knew he saw her. She felt it. Just a flash of his eyes, a fraction of a second, but it was there, she knew it was there, and it made it so much worse when Devil took advantage of that distraction to slam his fist into Terrible’s nose and knock him back down.
Terrible didn’t move. He didn’t move for what felt like forever—she couldn’t tell how long it was—while the shouts of the crowd became nothing but a humming irritation beneath the thundering of her heart, the screaming in her head. He wasn’t moving, holy fuck he wasn’t— She couldn’t breathe. It felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer and slammed it into her chest. Yes, he had the sigil on him, and it would hold his soul, but what if his body was too damage
d to recover, what if his brain was damaged, what if he— Shit. A bird.
A bird screeched overhead, and she couldn’t help but look up at it, couldn’t help but see it. A bird. A psychopomp here to collect a soul. Oh fuck …
Devil drew his fist back, ready to hit Terrible one final time while he lay defenseless. Hot bright hatred raged through Chess’s body. She still had her knife; if he hit Terrible again, if he killed Terrible, she was going to slice that motherfucker’s throat all by herself and dance in his blood. Her fingers closed around the handle.
Devil’s fist started to fall. Terrible’s hand snapped up, caught it; his head rose, his chest rose, and before Chess realized what was happening, Devil was on his back and Terrible’s elbow landed on his throat with an ugly crack.
Silence. Silence broken by a thin, rattly gasping sound, a reedy dry whistle like someone blowing through an empty straw, one long exhale before it disappeared.
The psychopomp told her what had happened. It swooped down, almost grazing the heads of the now-roaring crowd. Devil was dead, his windpipe crushed. Terrible had won.
Terrible, now kneeling on the cement with his head bowed, his back rising and lifting with his heavy, deep breaths. His hands rested on his thighs; she watched droplets of blood fall onto them, not realizing until she was halfway across the clearing that she was moving.
So many reasons for keeping their relationship secret, and all of them good ones. Hell, for all she knew he’d be pissed off at her for going to him, and she couldn’t really argue with him about it.
But fuck it. They hung out in public all the time, anyway. The fact that they never touched, never kissed, never looked into each other’s eyes, didn’t mean most of Downside wasn’t probably convinced they were together.
And she didn’t give a damn either way. She dropped to her knees at his side. His face was slick with blood and hot under her hands; she turned it toward hers, and kissed him.
He tasted of blood and anger and fear, and something else that blossomed there when his clumsy hands found her hair, her back, when he squeezed her tighter to him. Something that was just him, and he was hers.
The crowd around them was probably watching with great interest. Let them fucking watch. This was her time, and she was alive and so was he, and she was taking it.
His palms held her cheeks as he pulled back, his voice barely audible. “Chessie … fuck, glad to see you …”
She kissed him again, trying to find some spot on his face where it looked like it might not hurt. A sob broke free from her throat as she shifted position. “Me, too.”
He sighed and rested his head on her collarbone, his body warm against hers. Warm and wet: Blood seeped through her damp clothes as his hands fell heavily to rest on her thighs. She ignored it and tilted her head so she could whisper, “I love you.”
They stayed like that for—well, she didn’t know how long, until murmurs and the sound of shuffling feet grabbed her attention. She glanced away to see the crowd dispersing. Or, rather, some of the crowd was dispersing. Some of it stayed right where it was, apparently fascinated. Right. Having people know was one thing. Providing free entertainment was another.
“Can you walk? I mean, can you—”
“Ain’t … ain’t sure. Ain’t thinkin so, just yet. Maybe … gimme a few, aye? Just a few.”
Something in his voice cracked her heart—his voice, and the words themselves. Another weakness he was having to admit; she knew it wasn’t weakness, but she knew he’d sure as fuck think it was.
But she didn’t care. She didn’t think one bit less of him for it. She never had, not for any of the tiny insecurities or whatever he’d revealed to her. She loved him, and she could sit there with him and take care of him, and it felt right. Like something she could do, like something she wanted to do. Something she was good at.
Something she didn’t need to worry about, because when the time came, she was doing okay, wasn’t she? And when she wasn’t … well, when she wasn’t she figured it out pretty quickly, and when she wasn’t he let her know, the same as when he wasn’t she let him know. And together they seemed to be figuring it all out pretty well.
But something she already knew was that she loved him and that she wanted to make him happy. So she wrapped her arms carefully around him and said, “Yeah. Take all the time you need, okay? We have all the time you need.”
Four days later she was sitting in the Church library, using the computer—look at that, she was even using the Internet more than once on this case, not that it was officially a case or that it was anything at all anymore—to read up on the tragic death of Kyle Victor Blake, who’d for some reason snorted a massive overdose of speed alone in his office the night before.
At least, the papers reported that he was alone. Chess had her doubts. She didn’t want to ask; she never would. But she doubted it all the same. Especially after she’d stopped in the hospital that morning to see the now-awake Edsel and was told that, miraculously, someone had left ten thousand dollars in an envelope at his bedside. And that happened to be the same amount of money Kyle Blake’s wife thought was missing from their safe—the same amount they estimated the pile of speed on his desk might be worth.
Chess knew that was bullshit, and she had a pretty good idea where that speed had come from. Hadn’t at least a hundred or so infected packets of that shit ended up in Bump’s possession, through being confiscated from the victims?
But again, not something she’d ask about. She didn’t want to know.
That didn’t stop her from reading the stories, from taking a long, long look at the picture that went along with them, the same smirking one as on the cover of Bump’s magazine. Blake was smirking in the City of Eternity now, and he’d keep doing it, and maybe as he did he’d think about the people he’d killed and the people he’d tried to kill. Maybe he’d think about what a mistake he’d made fucking with Downside.
Or maybe not. Probably not. Didn’t matter, anyway; he was there, and there he’d stay. And she couldn’t bring herself to feel one bit sorry for him. Maybe that was wrong of her, but he’d tried to kill so many people. He’d hurt so many people.
Of course, if hurting people meant deserving the City, she deserved it more than anyone. But she already knew that.
And she was trying to get better, to be better. She’d talked to Lex briefly, the day after the fight, just a few minutes to thank him for helping her, and no promises made of anything else. She didn’t know how to handle that yet, didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
She’d promised Terrible no more. And she wanted to keep that promise—intended to keep it, even if it meant giving up Blue, too.
But it hurt more than she’d expected to talk to Lex, to hear his voice on the phone. Yeah, he was a cocky bastard, and he seemed to love causing trouble for her, and he seemed to think it was a fun sort of game to try to coax her back into his bed. She didn’t appreciate any of that. She sure as fuck didn’t appreciate him hiring Devil; the thought of it filled her with rage.
But … he was also her friend. With that one glaring, humiliating exception—that one exception she knew he saw as purely business and not personal at all—he’d never refused her a favor, never hesitated to help her if and when she’d needed it, even if his way of helping wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind. He’d saved her life more than once. Honestly, she could almost say he’d saved her relationship with Terrible, because Terrible had told her that it was when he saw her with Lex the night of the battle in the City, saw how unromantic—or whatever—Lex was with her, that he’d realized she was telling the truth about Lex never being more than a bed partner and a friend.
And last, of course, he gave her free drugs, plenty of them whenever she asked and sometimes when she didn’t, and that made him a friend indeed. Funny. It hadn’t occurred to her until the other night that maybe that was part of Terrible’s objection to him.
It didn’t matter. Terrible did object, period. So unless she cou
ld change his mind somehow … yeah, she wouldn’t be seeing much of Lex anymore.
But she’d thought that before, hadn’t she? He kept popping up in her life, and when it wasn’t him it was Blue, and none of it felt like something she wanted to think of just then. Not when Terrible was finally up and out of bed and he was picking her up in a few minutes, and not when she was hoping to get him back into bed the second they got home.
And not when Elder Griffin was walking across the library. She didn’t want to watch him but couldn’t help herself, couldn’t help the wave of sadness that washed over her when she did. If only he could forgive her; if only she’d never told him. If only he was a different sort of person, not one so … so fucking ethical, or honorable, or whatever.
But then if he was, he never would have thought she was a good person to begin with, would he?
His gaze fell on her; he stiffened and gave her a curt nod. “Good morrow, Cesaria.”
“Good morrow, sir. I— How are you?”
“Well, thank you.” He hesitated. “Very busy, I’m afraid. I must get to work.”
And he was gone, crossing the room at a speed just over his usual gait, not looking back at her as he went.
She guessed he didn’t need to. He’d seen her; he saw her clearly enough now.
That—that kind of seeing, that kind of clarity—was something that would never go away, she knew. Like with Terrible. She’d seen him one way for so long, and then slowly she’d seen him as he really was. Only in her case Elder Griffin wasn’t realizing that beneath the surface she was perfect. He was realizing she was worthless. And he’d never be able to see anything else, at least so she figured. How could he ever forgive her?
How could anyone, though, really.
The walls of the Church library, usually so comforting, seemed to close in around her. Time to go, anyway. She cleared the browsing history on the computer and shut it down, grabbed her bag, and headed for the front doors. Headed past Elder Griffin’s office. The door was closed. Yeah.
But the Chevelle waited for her in the parking lot, Terrible in the driver’s seat and a couple of boxes in the backseat. The last few boxes of her stuff. Well, not the last of her stuff, because some of it was staying in her apartment, but the last few boxes of stuff she wanted to have with her and handy all the time.
