by Stacia Kane
He didn’t. Just stood for a minute, absorbing what she’d told him, then shrugged. “Where?”
Chess looked at Fletcher, still standing with his feet planted a little too widely apart like he was having trouble balancing. What a lightweight. “Fletcher? Where?”
“What? Oh. You’re assuming he’s set up in one of our buildings? There’s four in this part of town. One on … Second, I think, by the cemetery—What?”
Chess stiffened but just managed not to cringe. “Where are the others?”
“Let’s see. Eightieth, that’s a warehouse. I think the houses are on Mercer and Wharf. I understand the one on Mercer burned down or something recently, though.”
“Wharf? By the docks?”
Fletcher nodded. “I assume so. Landrum handles the purchasing. I only remember the addresses because I looked them up the other day, I was filling out some tithing tax forms.”
Terrible looked at her for the first time, but his eyes still focused above her head. Like she wasn’t really there, like she was invisible. “You got what all you need?”
“I’ll get it. Can you, um, will you come help me? Some stuff is up on the shelf in my closet.”
It wasn’t fair, she knew. But if he wouldn’t talk to her any other way—
“Fletcher here ain’t little, aye? Figure he willin to give you the help.”
Fletcher looked uncertainly from Chess to Terrible, and back again. “Yeah, sure. I’ll help you.”
Her bedroom was a total mess; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cleaned it. Just what she wanted, Fletcher seeing her dirty clothes strewn all over the floor, her unmade bed.
He ignored all of it, though, to give him credit, and handed her various boxes and bags from the top shelf as obediently as a child. “So what’s the deal with the big guy, anyway?”
“What do you mean?” She’d need ricantha and althea, since they were already being used. Some hellebore would be good, too, and melidia and ajenjible. In fact … She grabbed the box where she stored her herbs and ingredients and upended it over her bag. Her psychopomp, the skull kept in its silk wrapping. Candles. Extra black chalk for sigils of protection. She had the dirt from Vanita’s grave. She had her knife, but it might be a good idea to take a spare just in case, and she’d need to grab her portable first-aid kit, too.
What she did not need was to discuss the ins and outs of her relationship with Terrible—such as it was—with her blackmailer.
“Looked like you guys were friends, looks like now you’re not. Does it have something to do with the Asian guy?”
“How do—” Oh, right. The pictures. “None of your business.”
“Just trying to make conversation.” Shit, was he high? Yes, of course he was. High and chatty. This just kept getting better.
“Well, don’t.” She finished packing and zipped the bag. “Let’s go.”
It was so cold outside she expected ice to form on her eyelashes, but she left her coat in Terrible’s car just the same. Not that it mattered. Nothing could warm her up after the frigid silence of that ride, with Assuck—a band he knew she disliked—playing so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. Not that she really wanted to hear her thoughts at the moment.
Terrible watched her while she shouldered her bag, grabbed her stang from the floor where she’d set it. Fletcher stayed in the car, apparently waiting until the last minute before he left the warm interior.
She didn’t blame him. This close to the docks the constant breeze stank of sewage and gasoline and the sour brine tinge of stagnant seawater. Nothing like the actual ocean, which she’d seen once … with Terrible.
She closed the door on that memory before it had a chance to open and looked around at the quiet street. Odd, that. She’d never been in this area before—Downsiders tended to stay in their own neighborhoods—but it certainly looked like the type of place that would be busy. Dive bars studded the rows of buildings, neon beer signs flickering in their darkened windows, but no crowds stood outside them. No kids wandered up and down the alleys looking for scraps of food, a place to fight or a place to fuck. Even the music drifting along the street seemed subdued.
And more than that … they were in the right place. She felt it, her tattoos tingling, ghost energy creeping along her skin like tiny secret fingers. Powerful. Powerful enough to send a shiver through her body that had nothing to do with the crystal-cold air.
“Is anyone else coming?”
Terrible shrugged. “Ain’t you gave your boyfriend a ring up?”
Shit. She’d left herself wide open for that one, hadn’t she? “He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Trick, then.”
Ouch. “I haven’t called him.”
“Aye? Figured you’d give him the knowledge soon as you got any. Ain’t that how it work?”
“No, it’s—it doesn’t ‘work’ any way. Terrible, if you’d just let me explain, if you’d just listen to me—”
“Maybe I need time.”
“Yeah?” Damn him. She needed to focus, needed to concentrate, and he wasn’t helping. “Well, take it somewhere else. We have work to do, don’t we?”
That was good. She thought it even sounded like she actually meant it, like her throat didn’t ache and her eyes didn’t sting and her belly didn’t feel shriveled and dead.
And of course, he was right. She had been giving Lex information, of a sort. Nothing important. Nothing she didn’t think it would help everyone for him to have. But how they’d met … how she’d agreed to sabotage Chester Airport … In the end she hadn’t had a choice. But she doubted Terrible would see it that way.
She’d tell him, though. She’d tell him the whole thing if he would let her, and hope it made a difference.
“Aye. An let’s get it done. Ain’t exactly wantin to chatter with you, dig?”
“That makes two of us.”
He stared at her for a minute, his face inscrutable, then knocked on the window of the car, telling Fletcher to come out.
That he did, weaving slightly. Chess frowned.
“Are you going to be okay, Fletcher? Maybe you should stay in the car.”
“Nonsense. Horatio is my friend. I should be there.”
“Yeah, but—” Movement to her right caught her eye. A man, skinny and dirty as a stray dog, made his way out of an alley toward them. Normal enough, really; the odds of standing on a Downside street and not being approached by a panhandler or mugger or worse were pretty slim, and they shrank the longer one remained a stationary target.
She wasn’t worried about muggers or worse, not with Terrible there. The way things were between them, he wouldn’t save her because he wanted to, but they were here to do a job and she knew he took that seriously. Hell, her very presence here was proof of that, wasn’t it, since he looked at her as though he’d be happy to see her dead?
But something about their visitor bothered her, whether it was the odd fixed stare or the way he seemed unaware of what his body was doing. He ignored them, ignored the Chevelle tilted up on the curb. Like they weren’t even there.
“Hey!” Terrible said, but the man didn’t even blink. His half-closed eyes stayed focused straight ahead, on a point somewhere beyond their vision, something that softened his face and made his mouth hang open despite the cold.
He looked like a man about to fall into bed with a woman.
Terrible and Oliver both must have thought the same thing. The three of them looked at one another, realization dawning on their faces.
“The prostitutes,” Chess said. “The tri—the men. They’re killing them.”
“What a way to go.” Oliver’s smile faded when Chess and Terrible glared at him. He shrugged. “Well, it is, right? When you’re my age you tend to think of such—”
Chess grabbed her phone. “We need more people. If there’s going to be men there, even if it’s only a few, and they’re that fixated and probably armed, they could be dangerous.”
“Aw, right. Ain’t wanna m
ake a move without Lex here, aye? Let him get his eyes in?”
None of the responses she thought of were sufficient, so she just glared at him and dialed. “I suggest you call Bump and let him know.”
“Ain’t give a fuck what you suggest.”
Lex answered, his usually smooth, rapid speech muffled and slow. “What’s up, Tulip?”
She explained the situation as fast as she could, glancing over her shoulder. Terrible was on his own phone, his black steel gaze following her as she paced. Stripping her.
“Aye, okay,” Lex said. “Guessing I’ll get over there, me. Hang on, aye?”
“Yeah.”
She stuck the phone back in her bag, pulled out her black chalk. “Come here, both of you. We’re going to need some protection.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Minds and mouths lie. Souls do not.
—Families and Truth, a Church pamphlet by Elder Barrett
Oliver, his face almost hidden by magic symbols, smoked a cigarette against the side of the Chevelle. He really was good; he’d done his own arms and showed Chess a few tricks she hadn’t thought of. What a shame things at the Church had turned out so badly for him, she thought, and had to stop herself from smiling. Earlier she’d been convinced Fletcher was a murderous pedophilic blackmailer; turned out he was just a blackmailer. Everybody had their flaws.
At least he was there. She could almost forgive him for forcing her to add yet another lie to the stack she’d already told the Church, just because he was there and willing to help.
Too bad not everyone was so quick to forgive.
Terrible sat on a stack of crates along the curb, his long legs stretched before him, his arms folded over his chest. She needed to mark him, to scrawl protective runes and sigils across his skin to keep him safe, but the thought of actually doing it …
Well, that was a lie. She didn’t have to. She could have asked Oliver to do it. His memory was good enough, even if he was high. He certainly had the power to put behind them.
She wanted to. That was it, the fact and truth of it. She wanted to mark him, because she wanted to touch him again. Because somewhere in the back of her mind she thought if she could touch him, if she could get close to him and look him in the eyes, she could explain. She could have him back. Even if he didn’t want her anymore, maybe he would be her friend again. She missed him. It had only been a day and she missed him.
“Pitiful,” she muttered, but the chalk still shook a little in her fingers as she planted herself between his legs. “Look up.”
He glanced up, then away.
“Terrible. Tilt your head back. Come on.”
He didn’t move for a minute, such a long minute she started wondering if she might have to call Oliver after all. Then he gave a half-nod, as though he’d decided something, and angled his head back, eyes to the sky.
Not looking at her.
Chess bit her lip and leaned forward.
He flinched when the fingertips of her left hand came to rest on his neck, just below the jawline. Like it hurt to have her touch him.
Which maybe it did; she wasn’t feeling too good herself.
And here she was again, with the scents of his pomade and smoke and soap filling her nose, feeling the vein throb beneath his skin, hearing his breath catch and seeing his eyes darken when he realized she’d heard it.
She scrawled a basic protective sigil on his forehead, her focus shifting at that moment from him to what she was doing, putting as much power as she could behind it. Next came a few runes, one to lend him strength, one to dispel fear—not that he needed either of them, but it made her feel better to do it.
Her left hand slid around to the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair to shift his head. His sideburn brushed against her wrist; could he feel her pulse pounding?
She stepped closer to him, closer than she’d intended, until her knees wedged between his thighs and his chin hovered right around her breasts. If he looked down, or even straight ahead …
She swallowed. Down the side of his brow to his cheeks she moved the chalk, adding anything she could think of to protect him, to dispel as much of the power they were about to face as she could.
She cradled his face in her hand, wished stupidly she could keep doing this. With his breath heating the tender skin of her inner arm, his mouth silent, his angry eyes focused elsewhere, she could almost pretend nothing had changed. With his body so close to hers, so close his broad back sheltered her from the wind, she could almost imagine they weren’t here on the street, they were somewhere else, somewhere warm and dark where sheets whispered against their bare skin.
Her entire body tingled. Power, some of it; she was summoning as much as she could, letting it flow from her to him through her hands and the chalk. But the rest … The rest was simply her, wanting him, arousal sizzling up her spine and along every nerve ending, flooding her lungs and stomach and all points lower.
“Other side.” Was that her voice? It sounded dry and hoarse, both too quiet and too loud on the dead street.
He obeyed, his face lifting, and their eyes met.
The chalk fell unnoticed from her hand.
He still wanted her. She saw it in the burning depths of his gaze. Felt it in his body almost touching hers, in his slightly too heavy breath and rapid pulse. He was angry, oh yeah, that was there, too. But he still wanted her, and he knew she wanted him. Knew she wasn’t just trying to protect him, she was trying to seduce him.
For that one long moment they just stared at each other. Her fingers were numb and shaking; all the same they moved, holding his jaw, her head tilting down of its own volition, trying to get closer to his. Her hair fell forward to hide them in their own private world. Just a few more inches and they would be kissing, just another couple of tiny inches …
Something brushed the inside of her leg; his hand. Oh shit, his hand, and it slid up past her knee, farther, until her mouth opened and she gasped, a soft cry she couldn’t stop, and his hand wedged against her, hard, sending shocks through her entire body. She knew he could feel how hot she was through her jeans and she was falling into his eyes, falling so her lips tingled with the heat from his because only a hairsbreadth separated them.
He tensed, swallowed. “Chess. Got an ask for you.”
“Yeah?” It took her two tries to get the word out.
“I got some pills on me, dig. Figure I hand em over, I come back your place on the later an fuck you? Ain’t sure how much you charge, but—”
She slapped him. Hard enough to make her hand scream, hard enough to make her entire right arm go heavy and sore. He had a jaw like a chunk of concrete, the asshole, the total fucking—
Oh shit. He jerked up from his perch on the crates, eyes flashing, face flushed around the pale mark of her hand. His arm rose, drew back.
Chess started to duck, knowing she would be too late. She’d hit Terrible. Nobody hit Terrible and lived to—
The blow didn’t fall. Instead the crates lifted, shot through the air toward the seedy bar to her right. Wood flew when they splintered against the pockmarked bricks, the crash just slightly louder than Terrible’s growl.
“Fuck!” Oliver—shit, she’d forgotten he was even there—ducked, staring at them both like they’d just turned on him with guns. “What the hell is the matter with you two?”
“Ask her,” Terrible said. His thick finger pointed at her like an accusation. Which it was. “Goan, ask her.”
“Fuck you, Terrible. Fuck you.”
“Fuck you, you lyin little bitch.”
“Asshole.”
“Feels shitty, somebody play you the lead on, aye?” His eyes narrowed. “Make you feel stupid?”
He opened his mouth to say more, but Oliver spoke again, straightening his torn, bloody shirt as if he was about to give a speech at a black-tie dinner.
“Can I remind you both what we’re facing here? And that I have friends and family in the hospital? This isn’t exactly the
way I’d choose to spend my evening, even without you at each other’s throats.”
“Fuck you, too,” she said, but without vehemence. She couldn’t manage it; as her anger faded, misery poured in to replace it, and the tingle in her eyes and ache in her throat told her she was about to start crying. She’d thought … She’d been so stupid, but she’d thought for a minute there …
She turned away from them both, not wanting them to see her. Wishing she could disappear, wishing they didn’t have to be there so she could visit the pipes and obscure the pain in a cloud of thick honey-sweet smoke. Wishing she could swallow every pill in her box and make this all go away.
Seeing Lex’s car pull up didn’t make her feel any better. Seeing his face made it worse.
“What the hell—” she started, then remembered. Terrible had knocked him out, hadn’t he?
Looked like he’d done more than that. The entire left side of Lex’s face was bruised and swollen, his eye nothing more than a suggestion beneath his brow.
“Hey, Tulip,” he said, and Chess cringed. The last thing she wanted was to hear his pet name for her. Or to have Terrible hear it.
Lex saw her look, glanced at Terrible, who stood with his arms folded and his face turned away. “Broke my jaw, he did. All full of wires.”
At least that’s what she thought he said, since the words were slurred and dim and his jaw didn’t move. No wonder he’d sounded so subdued on the phone.
“Shit.” She reached for him, but pulled back. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Ain’t like I never thought he might, aye? Just bad luck.”
“Not really.”
“What?”
“It wasn’t really bad luck. We were—well, I was—set up. I’m pretty sure, anyway. By the guy doing this, running this house. He left a message for Terrible, I don’t know how.”
“Ain’t gonna ask neither, aye?”
“No.”
Several men had gotten out of the car with Lex; they lined up behind him, their handsome bronze faces immobile, their eyes pegged on Terrible.
A few more men arrived, men Terrible had called, apparently. They eyed Lex’s men like tomcats protecting their territory.
