by Stacia Kane
“That’ll do. How much?”
“You probly don’t wanna pay me now. Terrible sees you got money, it won’t make him too happy.”
“Does anything make Terrible happy?”
Edsel shrugged. “Hurting people.”
They chatted for a few more minutes, but the crowds around her didn’t feel as safe as they had when she arrived. All those people, and most of them had two eyes.
Not that it mattered. She had to see him before she left, she didn’t have a choice. He could hunt her down or she could walk through that black door herself. She much preferred the second.
She put the Hand in her bag—its fingers tried to grasp hers as she did—thanked Edsel, and walked on. No point in doing any more shopping if Terrible was watching. Edsel was right. The sight of her spending what little money she had would only piss him off. So she headed straight for the lower office, figuring the element of surprise might swing things in her favor a little bit.
Too bad it was impossible to surprise someone lying in wait. Terrible grabbed her as she rounded the corner, his lips curved in what would have been a grin on a normal person, which he wasn’t. On his scarred, shadowed face, the smile made him look like he was getting ready to bite.
“Bump looking for you, Chess,” he said. His fingers dug into her upper arm. “He been looking awhile.”
“I saw him two days ago.”
“But he want you tonight. Like now. Come on, you gonna see him.”
“I was already on my way to see him.”
“Aye? That’s good luck then.”
She didn’t bother trying to wiggle her arm from his iron grip as he led her, not to the black door, but around the corner to Bump’s pad. A finger of fear slipped under her skin, penetrating the pleasant little fog in her brain. She’d never been to his place before.
Terrible knocked, a syncopated pattern that sounded like a Ramones song. She looked around them; a few people caught her gaze then turned away quickly, as if she could transmit her bad fortune through her hazel eyes. If only. There was an awful lot she’d like to get rid of.
“How’re those big sideburns working for you, Terrible? You managed to find yourself a steady ladyfriend yet?” Hell, why not stick her hand in the cage? He wouldn’t hurt her without Bump’s say-so, and if Bump had already said so she wouldn’t be standing here. She’d be in the filthy, urine-smelling alley behind the Market being beaten and puking up her guts. Sometimes her job had its advantages; roughing up a Church employee could lead to trouble.
“Never you mind.”
“So you have! Is she human?”
To her surprise, Terrible’s cheeks began to color a dull red. It almost made her feel sorry for him. Not quite, but almost. She hadn’t known he had feelings.
The door opened before she could say anything else. One of Bump’s ladies, she guessed, a petite blonde in a see-through gray top and a shiny, red mini skirt. The black makeup ringing her eyes made her look terrified, at least until she yawned as she inspected Chess and Terrible both from top to bottom.
Without looking away, she stepped back enough for them to slide past her and enter Bump’s house.
If Chess hadn’t known he was a drug dealer and pimp—among other things—this place would have told her in an instant. Everything was gilded or covered in fur, as though Bump had visited the Liberace Museum and decided to go it one better. Stylized paintings of guns and vaginas hung on the walls, turning the room from simply tacky to creepily Freudian in an instant.
Not that Bump would have heard of Freud. The Church kept a pretty tight grip on such things. But Chess had been allowed to study in the Archives, had spent months reading late into the night, every night. Gazing at Bump’s ode to the id she wondered if Freud was as full of shit as she’d always thought.
The blonde led them down a glaringly bright red hallway—more id—and into a large red room. Everything was red, the carpet, the furniture, the walls. Different shades of red, like a nightmare. Chess’s eyes dilated as the room shrieked at her. Being in this room straight would be bad enough. Being here while 400mg of narcotic simmered in her blood was like being trapped in the womb of a fiery spirit prison.
“Sit you down,” Terrible said, urging her onto one of the velvet couches. “You wait for him.”
“Don’t think I’d be going anywhere, even if I tried.”
“Naw, I’m guessin you wouldn’t be.” Those heavy sideburns moved as he showed her his teeth. “But we wait, just the same.”
She leaned back and closed her eyes, shutting out the horrible red. It remained imprinted on the back of her eyelids, chasing her even into her own head. Her lips curved. Plenty of demons in there already.
Outside, the Market was slamming, full of bodies and radios and live music. In the office next door, people were fixing, lining up against the walls for their turn, heading downstairs to hit the pipes. She shifted in her seat. Pills were what kept her going, but the pipes were something else entirely. She’d been hoping to get down there herself before the night was over, to fill her lungs with thick honey smoke and float home to bed. That was looking less and less likely by the minute.
How much was she into Bump for? Three grand, four? The Sanford case turning out to be real had seriously hit her finances. Debunkers were paid shit, barely enough to cover her rent and bills. The bonuses were where the real money came from, paid for her supplies and…everything else she needed.
Three or four grand wasn’t that much, though. She’d owed him more than that before and always paid.
Metal clinked and heat brushed her skin as Terrible lit a cigarette from a flame half a foot high. Chess sat up. “Can I have one?”
He made a “why not” face and held out the pack, then spun the wheel on his black lighter for her. She had to tilt her head to avoid burning her nose.
They smoked and waited for another few minutes, until finally a door opened in the red wall and Bump slouched into the room.
He moved like he was riding a platform with oiled wheels, silently and smoothly, faster than he looked. Rings glinted on his fingers and diamond studs sparkled in his ears, but his clothes were surprisingly nondescript. Chess imagined it was his “at home” look, because the few times she’d seen him out on the streets he looked like a bedraggled medieval king. Tonight, though, he wore a plain burgundy silk shirt—another shade of red to add to the off-tune chorus—and black slacks. His feet were bare save a gold toe ring on his right foot.
He pulled a wilted sandwich bag out of his pocket and tossed it casually onto the table in front of her. Pills slept inside, each one whispering a promise. Pink Pandas snuggled against green Hoppers, blue Oozers and red Nips looked patriotic set against the pure, clean white of the Cepts. Every one was a different ride. Up, down, sweet, or sleazy. Two months’ worth of good feelings, right there in front of her. Her mouth filled with saliva; she swallowed it, along with some of her pride for good measure.
“You into me, Chess.” Bump’s voice slurred low through the room, adding to the impression he gave of a man who thought slow, moved slow. It was a lie. Bump hadn’t become lord of the streets west of Forty-third by being slow. “You into me fuckin good, baby.”
With effort she tore her gaze away from the bag and focused on his scraggly beard.
“You know I’m good for it,” she said, hating the faintly whining tone that crept into her voice. She cleared her throat and sat up straighter. “I’ve always paid before, and I’ll pay again.”
“Naw, naw. This ain’t like before. You know what you owe? I give you the number, you see what you fuckin think. Fifteen, baby. Fifteen big ones you owe. How you pay that back?”
“Fift—I do not, there’s no way—”
“You forgetting the interest. You owe Bump money, you pay interest.”
“I never did before.”
He shrugged. “New policy.”
New policy, my ass. What the fuck game was he playing? She’d expected to be threatened, maybe. She
hadn’t expected this. “Even if that’s your new policy, my actual debt can’t be more than four grand. What interest rate are you charging, two hundred percent?”
“Don’t matter what the rate is. I fuckin charge the interest I want to charge.” He leaned back against the arm of the other couch and pulled a knife out of his pocket, then started cleaning his fingernails with it. “I says it’s fifteen, so it’s fifteen. When you pay me?”
“I can go somewhere else.”
“Aw, sure, ladybird. You go anywhere you want. You head on over to Slobag on Thirtieth, see how them tattoos get ’preciated by the fuckin scum down there. But you still owe me.”
Again she glanced at the bag. Bump smiled. “You want one? Go ’head. You have one. Whatever you like.” He picked up the bag and held it out to her so it gapped open. “Go ’head.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What are you going to charge me for that?”
His laugh seemed to come from his feet and roll up his body. “I don’t gotta charge you none for it, baby. You owes me enough already, ain’t you?”
He folded his knife and tucked it into his pocket. “Course…now I’m thinking…could be I know a way you pay. A way you work off your owes.”
“Forget it.” She started to stand up. She’d never go that low, no matter what. Even she had a little self-respect, and the thought of letting a grease stain like Bump have his sleazy way with her…ugh.
“Aw, baby, I know what’s in your head. Not that. Though if’n you wanted to I could take you on a real sweet ride. That’s a promise from Bump. The ladies never had it so good as when I give it them.”
He laughed, then shook the bag at her. “Go on. You take one. I know what you need, don’t I? Don’t Bump always know? Bump’s your fuckin friend, yay? So you trust Bump. Take what you want, then we have a chatter. Maybe we help each other.”
Warily she reached for the bag. Her impulse was to grab an Oozer, but she managed to refrain and took another Cept instead. She had a feeling she would need her brain for this one.
“Good, that’s real nice. Now, why don’t Bump tell you what? You hear my plan?”
She nodded, dry-swallowing the Cept.
Bump sat down next to her, close enough for her to smell the pipe room on his clothes. He smiled. “Maybe I got a problem. Maybe you help me with it.”
Uh-oh. She was going to have to turn him down. The only people who ever asked witches for favors were those who wanted either unholy luck or unholy deeds done, and she didn’t much feel like doing either. Especially considering Bump was already a pretty lucky guy, and she wasn’t a killer.
“What’s the favor? I’m not agreeing, I’m just asking.”
“Oh, I think you agree, ladybird. I think when you hear, you say yay. Let me run this down. You know the airport?”
“Muni?” Even if the third Cept had kicked in—which it hadn’t—she wouldn’t have been more mystified. Triumph City Municipal Airport was a major hub, and one of the few areas that was heavily policed. Most Downside residents, especially drug dealers, stayed as far away from Muni and the surrounding factory district as they could.
“Naw, naw, what you fuckin say? Muni. Not Muni. Chester. You know Chester Airport.”
“Chester’s been shut down for years.”
“Yay, it have. But maybe Bump open it back up. Maybe Bump expand his fuckin business, he open it up.”
This was starting to make some kind of sense. “I don’t have enough pull in the Church to lean on the city leaders for something like that, nowhere near enough.”
“Bump got the pull. Bump already got that place wide up, see, wide up. But Bump gotta problem. Bump’s planes—planes carrying them sweet pills you ladybirds like—Bump’s planes crash. Something attacking planes, dig? Make they go all silent. Turns they off.”
“I don’t know anything about planes. I’ve never even been in a—”
“Not planes, ladybird. Ghosts. Say Chester haunted. Don’t guess on that. Somebody sending signals, making planes silent. Electromagnetics and such, yay? You find sender. You find sender, you rid they.”
He leaned back and lit a cigarette, letting smoke wreath around his head. “You catch me them fake ghosts, so my planes they fly. You catch, ladybird, and we even. No more debt to Bump.”
Chapter Three
“Above all, to work for the Church is to be entrusted with the protection not only of yourself and your loved ones, but of the human race. You must never forget this responsibility.”
—Careers in the Church: A Guide for Teens, by Praxis Turpin
Pleading exhaustion was not the best idea for getting out of doing something for a drug dealer. Or, to put it a different way, it was a very good idea. As Terrible drove them out toward the airport, Chess’s entire body felt sparkly, light, as if someone was about to tell her the punch line of a very good joke at a fabulous party. At least that’s how she imagined it would feel.
He’d even chopped up four more Nips nice and fine for her and bagged them, so she could snort them tomorrow if she wanted to. There had to be some advantage to having him grab her by the balls—figuratively—and squeeze, right? And this job wouldn’t take long, probably only one night, so she should milk it for all it was worth. The kind of equipment that would down a plane couldn’t be easy to conceal. She’d find it, she’d tell Bump, and four thousand dollars worth of debt that had magically grown to fifteen would go bye-bye. Not a bad deal, really.
She felt so damn confident and good in that moment she would have agreed to walk naked into a Church service.
Something cold and wet nudged her arm. “Oughta have you some,” Terrible muttered, pushing the bottle of water up to her face now. “You don’t realize the thirsty until morning. That speed, she make you dry.”
“Got my own.” She pulled hers from her bag and took a long swig. “Thanks for the reminder, though.”
He shrugged.
They were out of Downside now, speeding along the highway. Chess couldn’t see the stars through the city lights but she knew they were there, winking above them, forming patterns and shapes in the sky. She sighed and settled back in her seat, glancing at the speedometer.
“Are you really driving a hundred and twenty?”
Terrible shrugged again.
“Not real verbal, are you, Terrible?”
This time he glared at her, the greenish lights from the dash highlighting the astonishing ugliness of his profile. His crooked nose—it must have been broken several times—the way his brows jutted out like a cliff over the ocean, the set of his jaw. She held her hands up, palms out. “Okay. Just making conversation.”
“Dames always wanna talk.”
“Not like there’s anything else they’d want to do with you.”
Terrible reached forward and turned up the radio. The Misfits blared from the speakers, singing about skulls. It somehow suited the moment. Chess rested her head on the door, trying to see the stars.
She blinked, and they were at the airport. How in the world did Bump think he was going to smuggle drugs into an airport so close to town? Didn’t he know people would hear the planes, see them?
Silly thought. Bump didn’t care. Neither did she. In fact, the easier it was for him to get his drugs, the better for her.
Terrible rolled the car—a black 1969 Chevelle, built in the period known as Before Truth—to a stop just outside the remnants of the old airport building, now just boards impaling the sky. Chess had no trouble seeing with her pupils dilated like they were.
Grass grew on the runways in fitful patches like a rash. Nothing had landed here in de cades, she guessed, since the Church made Triumph City its headquarters and the Muni was built. This whole area looked forgotten, felt forgotten. Neglect oozed from the ground into the sky.
Terrible came around and opened the door for her, a courtesy that surprised her so much she almost forgot to get out of the car. She did, though, grabbing her bag from the backseat.
He watched without
comment as she pulled out her Church-issued Spectrometer and handed it to him, then grabbed a piece of black chalk and her knife, just in case. Some witches used salt to mark their skins, but Chess had better control over the chalk, found it worked for her and was easier to clean up. It was more efficient, and efficiency was its own reward.
“Come here, please.”
Terrible obeyed, dipping his head as she reached up and marked it with the chalk, pressing her fingers to his jaw to help her balance. A protection sigil, crawling across his forehead like a scorpion. He closed his eyes for a second. Did he feel it? He didn’t seem the type, but maybe she didn’t either.
She was feeling something, too, wasn’t she? Below the cheerful buzz of her body, or rather, inside it. The subtle, familiar creep of power, and the even more subtle slide of arousal.
She shook her head. She was standing in an abandoned, weedy parking lot with Terrible, for fuck’s sake, and she was getting turned on. It was the Nips. Speed always had this effect on her. Too bad fucking on speed was so worthless. If it wasn’t she might have Terrible drop her back at the Market, find a man who wouldn’t ask questions and wouldn’t ask for anything else either.
She shook her head to get her focus back and drew the sigil just above the bridge of her nose. Not necessary—most of her protection was in her tattoos—but something about this place gave her the creeps. It was probably Terrible. The idea that for even one tiny second she’d come remotely close to entertaining the thought of letting him touch her would give any sane woman the creeps.
“Okay,” she said, stepping back from him. “You know this place or what?”
He nodded. His eyes glittered like dirty jewels in the shadows below his brow.
She took back her Spectrometer and turned it on. “Let’s go then. Give me the tour.”
He led her to a hole in the bowed, rusty chain-link fence and watched as she slipped through it, then followed.
