by Stacia Kane
Footsteps thundered behind her and shook the floor. Hands tangled in her hair, yanked her up onto her hands and knees. A heavy-booted foot caught her just below her throat. It felt like he’d kicked through her chest, through to her soul, they picked her up and she struggled against them, fighting their hard hands, fighting the horrible pain and the helpless dread creeping into her mind. They had her, five or six of them, big men, their skin crawling with filthy power as they dropped her on the couch.
She scrambled back off it, only to be surrounded by legs; they towered over her like a human cage. Without thinking she crawled backward and pressed herself against the wall, wedged herself into the dusty space next to the TV cabinet. She couldn’t get out, she was stuck. She couldn’t get out. For a second she contemplated flipping the cabinet onto them but discarded that idea almost instantly. She wasn’t strong enough to move it.
But there had to be something she could do. Even six Lamaru men and Lauren … well, fuck, no, six Lamaru men and Lauren could turn her into a grease spot in less than a minute. But they might make a mistake. They’d already made one, involving Baldarel. And she just bet they were pissed about that.
But did they know they’d made it? Did they know that the man they were apparently taking orders from, letting mastermind their plan and informing of their every move, was the same man trying to kill them? That they were little more than puppets, servants to whatever plan he had?
She didn’t think so, judging by how Lauren had referred to Maguinness. She just couldn’t be sure, and she couldn’t get it straight in her head, couldn’t get the words and thoughts to focus properly.
“Cesaria.” Lauren’s voice cut through the panicky haze. She didn’t want to panic. If she was going down, she wanted to do it with dignity; if she was going down, she’d do her damnedest to take them with her. The thought calmed her.
She couldn’t get out. Whatever she faced now had to be faced; she had no choice.
“I’m sorry, I really am. It was … interesting, meeting you. Working with you. We’ve all wondered about you, you know.”
“I can help you—”
“Oh, come on. You’re not going to help us, and we all know it. No. Everything is in place, and we worked too long on this—but you can take comfort in something. You’ll certainly be remembered.”
“What—” Chess started, but she didn’t get to finish.
“We need you to tell us now who you told. What you know.”
Okay. Take a deep breath. Try to sound confident. “I’m not telling you shit.”
“I don’t think you have a choice.”
She pressed her back against the cool wall, tried to look casual. Torture. She could handle that. She’d gotten good with it, hadn’t she? A childhood like hers demanded it. She could leave her body if she had to, leave the pain behind, ignore it all. Once that trick was mastered it never left. “Pretty sure I do.”
Lauren smiled and lifted her hands. The sleeves of her robe fell to her elbows, exposing her pale, unmarked inner forearms and wrists. “I think the First Elders would disagree with you.”
Chapter Thirty-four
Above all they demand loyalty, as the Church demands loyalty; and loyalty will be given no matter the cost, for this world is but a bridge to the next. And that is Truth.
—The Book of Truth, Rules, Article 426
Chess didn’t know how much time had passed. Twenty minutes? Or several hours? It was nothing more than a blur. Her stomach roiled and twisted. The First Elders would kill her. With pain. Consign her to a spirit prison; she’d be tortured for hundreds of years, roasted in fires, run through with iron … Who knew what other surprises they had planned for one who broke a Binding Oath?
They hadn’t shown up yet. She knew they would. Sooner or later—probably sooner—she’d stop finding questions she could safely answer.
“You’re being ridiculous, Cesaria.” Lauren waved the syringe in front of her. “You don’t have to die like this. And you don’t have to go to spirit prison. Just tell us what we want to know and it can end so much more pleasantly.”
“I didn’t tell anyone,” Chess said, and bit her lip hard enough to cut it when more pain shot up her arms. Her clothes and the carpet around her were soaked with her blood; the TV cabinet she’d huddled next to was spattered with it. She tried to remember that a little blood spilled looked like a lot, but it wasn’t easy when the spilled blood in question was hers. “I don’t know anything.”
“But I think you do. You said you found Erik dead. You saw him. What happened to him?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I think I do. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise, right?”
What information could they get from that? They knew Vanhelm was dead. Would knowing about his posthumous—so she assumed—organ donation really make a difference?
It might. No way to tell. They’d asked her so many things, it was all starting to run together. She couldn’t seem to keep straight what she’d told them and what she hadn’t, what she should and what she shouldn’t.
But she hadn’t mentioned Lex or Terrible. And she hadn’t mentioned Baldarel. She had no idea if she should.
Part of her thought it didn’t matter, that she should tell them. Drop that bomb in their laps, let them fight it out. Maybe they’d kill one another and forget about whatever it was they planned to do at the Church.
But it didn’t feel right. She kept thinking that if they didn’t know what he was up to, who they were really dealing with, there was power in that. Power for her, for the Church. There had to be some way to use their ignorance against them, to lead them astray. To give herself enough time to escape—yeah, like that was going to happen—or for … for something. Anything.
In the end she could only go with what she felt was right. And something told her not to give them Baldarel. At least not at the moment. When the First Elders showed up she might change her tune.
“Was anyone with you?”
“No.” Oh, shit … that was worse, it was so much worse, like being shot up with acid, searing up her arms. Blood spattered from the wounds, thicker, faster now. Some vague part of her mind thought it might be because that was a double lie; she’d betrayed the Oath by taking people with her into the tunnels, and now she was betraying it again by lying about it.
The rest of her mind didn’t care because that was agony, tearing into her with relentless sharp teeth and ripping her apart like a lion with a raw steak. She threw up on the carpet, she was dizzy, she couldn’t think …
“Who was with you, Cesaria? Who knows about us?”
“Nobody.” She was going to die. Right there. Right then. She was going to die, because the insistent tone of Lauren’s voice and the way she leaned forward made it very clear that Lauren knew she was on to something, that the question of who else knew was more important than Chess had originally thought.
Why did she care so much? If the Lamaru were engaged in yet another plan to destroy the Church and take over, why did they care if someone knew about it? Why not just kill her and start doing whatever it was they were going to do before anyone had a chance to warn them?
The answer came from somewhere outside her; the part of her still capable of rational thought, the part that had escaped her body. They needed to know because they couldn’t start yet. For whatever reason, things weren’t quite ready; they had to wait for something, and they were afraid someone would stop them before—
“Elder Murray’s Dedication,” she gasped, fighting the fresh pain in her arms and the hot gush of more blood from her wrists. Oh, it was so awful, she was filthy and disgusting and she didn’t want to die like that. But the Lamaru men were in the room, they were not authorized to hear what she had to say, and it didn’t matter that they knew already because she was talking to them and that was enough for the Binding to activate. “It’s Elder Murray’s Dedication, isn’t it? What you’re waiting for? Why you can’t—”
Lauren’s slap barely hu
rt; what was one more source of pain? “Who did you tell?”
“You planted that ghost at the execution. And the psychopomp, right? A test or something.” Yes. It probably was Lauren—Lauren, who’d been in town earlier than she’d originally claimed and wouldn’t have had to sign in to see—No, no, that didn’t make sense, because Lauren’s father hadn’t known she was in town. Maybe it was someone else, someone whose name she didn’t recognize, and Maguinness had been there simply to mislead.
Something flickered in the air to her right. Fresh energy flicked over her skin, tasting it. Ghost energy, making her tattoos itch and tingle.
The First Elders were coming. Yes.
Lauren saw it, too. “Who did you tell? If you tell us, you don’t have to go to spirit prison—we’ll let you live if you tell us. Just tell us. Who knows?”
“You planted the ghost so it would—would kill one of us.” The last word turned into a scream. The pain was worsening. She had to finish. The First Elders would appear any second and they would take her. She didn’t want to go, shit she didn’t want to go and she was so scared. So fucking scared and alone but she didn’t have a choice. She had to force an end to this.
Had to end it now before they got her to admit that Lex and Terrible both knew what was happening, or at least had some idea. That either one of them might go to the Church. They both knew Doyle; she’d told Terrible to go to him before. She knew he would if he realized something had happened to her. Knew that despite the awkwardness he still cared enough to do that for her.
Keeping the Lamaru from attacking the Church was one thing, an important thing. Keeping the Lamaru from finding Terrible or Lex—that was something else entirely.
That was something she had to do, and would die to do. Was going to die to do.
She clenched her fists, putting all the strength she had left into her hands to try to fight the pain so she could speak. “You had to kill one of us. Any one of us. You needed—you needed a Dedication, you needed that much power. Right? That was your plan, right?”
“Tell me who you told!”
“Who planted the ghost? Who planted that psychopomp in the executioner’s bag?”
The First Elders burst into existence.
Chess’s tattoos shrieked, power flaring over her skin so hard and hot that she thought she was going to explode into flames right then and there and that would be how they’d take her.
She flung herself sideways, knowing it was useless to try to hide but trying anyway. Lauren followed, grabbing for her, attempting to throw her back at the Elders, to serve her up to them.
So forbidding they were. Worse even than when she’d seen them at the Binding. Then they’d been cold and aloof, and bound from doing harm to the living by their own laws and the power of the cast circle and spellwork.
Now they were not bound. Their faces, those hideous ghost-white faces, translucent and eerily perfect, smudged with black circles around the eyes, glared at her. They reached for her, their bodies dipping and swaying like dancers.
Chess grabbed Lauren’s hair and yanked. Hard. Hard enough to drive Lauren’s face down into the floor with a satisfying thump.
Lauren screamed and hit back. The First Elders advanced slowly. They had all the time in the world.
Chess didn’t. She was exhausted and her wrists still shrieked in agony; her head was too light and her body too heavy. Still she fought against Lauren’s hands, catching glimpses of the Lamaru backing away into the hall.
Her phone rang.
She was so busy fighting she didn’t realize what it was at first. Lauren didn’t seem to realize either; she twisted Chess’s hair in her fist and tried to stand, presenting Chess to the First Elders like some kind of doll.
“You heard her lie. You heard her break her Oath.” Lauren’s voice shook almost as badly as her legs. Chess didn’t pay much attention to either. Her hand found her phone still in her pocket, slid it out enough to glance down to see who it was as she hit the button to answer.
TNL flashed on the screen. Lex? What was Lex calling her for?
No time to ask. She didn’t bother. Didn’t even bring the phone up to her ear. She screamed instead. It felt stupid and dramatic but she did it anyway; she screamed Terrible’s name in desperate hope that Lex would get the message and that if he did he would do something about it.
Lauren’s grip loosened; Chess figured she was looking for the phone, still on in Chess’s pocket. Didn’t matter. She took the opportunity to twist away—leaving a clump of hair in Lauren’s fist, damn it—and headed for the front door. It was still warded but she might be able to get out, all the power in the air might snap the wards.
The Elders flowed around Lauren, their hideous angry gazes fixed on Chess. The door wouldn’t open. It didn’t matter much, they would simply follow her until they caught her, she didn’t have any way to Banish them—
Or did she?
They were ghosts. Stronger and more powerful, but still ghosts, subject to the laws that ruled ghosts. She didn’t know if a regular psychopomp would take them, and the thought of trying to use a psychopomp pumped fresh terror into her veins, but what the hell. So what if the psychopomp turned on her—she was going to die anyway, and at least if it did she could avoid the spirit prisons.
And maybe it wouldn’t, and it would do its job. Maybe Lauren had some psychopomps that weren’t tainted. Chess bet she did, since if the Lamaru took over they’d need a supply.
Her bag was by the door. She yanked the zipper—they were within touching distance of her now, she saw their hands raise, curled into claws, ready to strike her, to grab her.
Her own hands closed around the bag of graveyard dirt and the clump of mandrake. She dared to look down, grabbed the almost empty bag of iron filings and her black chalk.
She used it to sketch a warding sigil on the floor. No effect. Okay, she hadn’t thought that would work, but the dirt might.
She flung a handful in an arc. The Elders paused when it hit them, their faces going from angry to furious, their energy increasing. Well, they were going to kill her anyway, right?
Lauren burst through the Elders and tackled her. The iron filings fell from her hand. Lauren’s fingers closed around her throat.
No time to think. Just react. She shoved herself sideways, pushing Lauren off and punching Lauren in the face as hard as she could. More pain, in her bones, jolting up her arm. Ignore that, too.
Cold against her skin, the First Elders’ hands, snaking over her. Their rage transmitted to her through her skin, oh, fuck, she was too late to stop them.
Her left hand found the iron filings but the confusion in her head, the pain and fear, made it almost impossible to know what to do with them. The graveyard dirt hadn’t stopped them. Hadn’t done much at all.
She rolled forward, hit the wall. They came at her again. She picked up the filings and, not knowing what else to do, dumped them over her head.
They had power of their own; she felt it merge with hers, give her strength. Not much, but a little, just enough to launch her forward through one of the First Elders’ legs, like running through a freezer. Her heart jerked in her chest, shocked by the cold, the anger …
And they were really angry now, their faces growing harder, their eyes darker, narrower. If they caught her they were not going to make this pleasant, and they would keep trying. Even if she managed to escape now they would keep coming after her, they wouldn’t give up—
She took one desperate second she didn’t have to center herself, to open herself up. Where were Lauren’s supplies? The Lamaru would have the sorts of things Chess didn’t normally carry, items with extra power. Illegal power. She reached for that energy, tried to find it, while the First Elders moved toward her like slow mountains.
Something glimmered to her left. A door. She’d thought it was to a closet, but maybe it wasn’t.
Lauren screamed. Chess didn’t look back. She leapt to the door, flung it open.
Skulls. Dozen
s of them, up and down the walls on shelves, spreading out onto the floor. Dogs and pigs and birds …
She didn’t have her Ectoplasmarker, couldn’t have marked the First Elders even if she did. But she was covered with iron—that might be enough.
She didn’t have a choice. Blood still oozed from her wrists and her head felt soft, too light for her body. The ghosts were right behind her, Lauren coming behind them, still screaming.
Chess scooped up five of the skulls on the floor and swiped her bleeding wrist along their tops; her hands left bloody fingerprints on the bleached bone. Shoved as much of her power as she could along with the blood, enough to make her voice hoarse and her vision blur. “I call on the escorts of the City of the dead! Guardians I call you, come now! Come now!”
She threw the skulls.
The dogs formed in midair, glowing in a way she’d never seen before. In a way she did not like. Oh, shit, those weren’t regular psychopomps—what the fuck were those things?
The Lamaru were shouting, Lauren was screaming, the dogs howled. Every hair on her body stood on end; they weren’t psychopomps—what were they? They had teeth sharper than anything she’d ever seen and as she watched, one of them latched on to one of the First Elders and tore a chunk out of him.
A door slammed: the Lamaru locking themselves in Lauren’s bedroom. The psychopomps she’d created kept tearing, shredding the First Elders. Chess stood rooted to the spot and forgot to breathe because the First Elders were screaming and fighting and it didn’t matter. They were falling apart.
Disintegrating and giving up their power. The dogs grew as they tore, and Chess felt them growing, felt herself growing too because they were connected to her. That wasn’t right, psychopomps didn’t connect to their summoners. Didn’t destroy ghosts, either. Pressure built in her chest, spreading through her arms and legs. What the hell had the Lamaru done, what the hell had they created?
Lauren shouted something. Words of power Chess didn’t recognize but felt vibrate inside her. She watched Lauren set fire to a dish of herbs, she didn’t know which ones or where they’d come from but fuck, if she was going to keep beasts like that in her house she guessed she’d be prepared to send the fuckers back to wherever they came from, too.
