City of Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  And that meant her fellow employees, now shuffling to their feet with satisfied looks on their faces, had no idea the Lamaru were wandering around, cooking up another plot to destroy the Church. Had no idea they were all in danger, that the Lamaru were even at that moment plotting the death of every one of them.

  And Chess had no doubt she was high on their list.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Cesaria. I was at the executioner’s house. He was experimenting. There is no connection between him and whatever happened in the prison today.”

  The car door closing cut off Lauren’s words, but luckily for Chess—luckily, anyway, if she’d been the sort of person who enjoyed being lectured by a snippy, stuck-up bitch—Lauren was still talking when Chess got out of the car herself.

  “He was clearly acting on his own. No evidence of Lamaru involvement. No evidence of any kind of involvement by anyone else.”

  “But where would he have learned how to create—” Chess began for what felt like the dozenth time, but Lauren cut her off. Also for what felt like the dozenth time.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. We have other Inquisitors looking into that. Maybe he hung around the Materials Department. Maybe he was buddies with somebody there. Maybe he found some books on them somewhere. It’s not our business.”

  “Come on, Lauren. You don’t think it’s even remotely suspicious that we’ve had two psychopomp incidents in two days, just as the Lamaru show up again?”

  “No. I don’t. I think what’s-his-name today must have made a mistake, which—”

  “His name,” Chess snapped, “was Gary. Gary Anderson. And he—”

  “Fine. So Gary made a mistake. And the executioner—whose name, by the way, was Louis Reynolds—also made a mistake, messing around with things he had no business messing with. Accidents happen. You know that.”

  “We’re investigating—”

  “The Lamaru. And only the Lamaru. Remember them? The ones who’ve been dumping body parts all over the district? Let’s stay focused here.”

  She gave the building to their right a significant glance; Vanhelm’s building, or at least the address on his ID. Pale walls, open walkways with iron railings. Suburban generic, right down to the coffee shop sharing the parking lot, so the yuppies could have their frothy caffeine fixes before they even left the property.

  Funny how addiction was socially acceptable—even a status symbol—when it made people extroverts rather than introverts. Whatever. Like she cared about social acceptance. Especially not if the people she was expected to pal around with were like Lauren. “Sure. Focused. Let’s totally ignore any possible other avenues and just tunnel-vision our way along. Maybe we’ll get lucky and blunder into a Lamaru hangout, right?”

  Lauren folded her arms, boredom all over her face. “Psychopomps do not slice their victims up and leave them in piles. Psychopomps are animals. If you can tell me a way that a psychopomp could have used a knife—”

  “The Lamaru could have cut the bodies up to hide the cause of death. None of the magically important parts were in that alley, I didn’t see that the Seekers even tried to determine—”

  “Do you normally ignore the subjects of your investigations to go interfering in cases that don’t involve you?”

  This. This was why Chess worked alone. Arguing with Lauren was like trying to persuade Bump to be less self-involved: impossible and exhausting. “Do you normally ignore every other option in your cases and refuse to open your mind for even a second?”

  Lauren tilted her head. Her hair flowed over her shoulder almost to the elbow, a solid, swinging mass. “I really don’t think that attitude is necessary.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. She had to work with Lauren; she had no choice in that—at least, she had no choice that wouldn’t leave her totally broke again. But she did not have to put up with this. Lauren outranked her, yes, but she wasn’t her superior, and Chess might not be the Grand Elder’s daughter, but her file looked pretty fucking good just the same.

  “I’m not giving you any attitude you’re not giving me. And I’m really not interested in comparing dick sizes here. But this is my investigation, too, and I deserve a say in how we handle it.”

  Lauren’s eyes narrowed. For a second Chess thought of what she might do if she had to give the money back; surely there would be another case soon? False hauntings usually spiked at the end of March when annual tithing taxes were due. Something would come in soon.

  So she met that measuring green gaze with her own. If Lauren fired her from the case, she fired her from the case, but she was not going to be spoken to like that anymore. She wasn’t a fucking lackey.

  Then Lauren burst into laughter. She was very pretty when she laughed, Chess noticed unwillingly.

  “Okay.” Lauren nodded, nodded again. “Okay. What about asking his neighbors, what do you think?”

  “I don’t think we’ll get anything from it, but it’s worth a try, sure.”

  The building was one of those places that called itself a “community,” as if a group of random rent payers constituted anything like one. It gave Chess the shivers. All those assembly-line apartments, with the exact same floor-plan and the exact same imitation-wood, glass-topped furniture and the exact same oat-colored carpet and oat-colored appliances. All those people living identical lives.

  She found herself being surprised every time a door opened and a different person greeted them. She found herself again very grateful that the Church let her live in Downside instead of forcing her into sardine-can sameness in the employee cabins behind the main Church building.

  They started at the top and worked their way down, interrupting dinner most of the time. Oh, well. Wasn’t like anyone was going to complain, not when the Black Squad stood on their doorstep. It was a little like questioning Downsiders with Terrible, except the residents here weren’t quite as scared of the Squad as Downsiders were of Terrible; she doubted parents here told stories about the Squad to their children to make them behave.

  Over and over the same questions and answers, until she could have recited them by rote. No, nobody knew Erik. No, he’d kept to himself. Seemed pretty quiet. The serial-killer checklist, basically, and they ran it down with every person behind every door.

  Until they reached the apartment at the end of his hall.

  Barking dogs answered their knock, so many barks that both women took a cautious step back. Big dogs, sounded like. And no matter how many times besotted pet owners claimed their dogs were perfectly nice or well trained or whatever the fuck they wanted to say, the fact was that dogs were pack animals. Pack animals who behaved like pack animals; all it took was for one to lose its head and they all followed suit.

  So it was with some apprehension that they watched the doorknob turn, listening to the muffled cries of “Down! Down! Go lie down! Go lie down!” that were the standard doorside pregreeting of any dog owner. Lauren’s hand moved to her side, beneath her tailored black jacket.

  She dropped it when the barking quieted and the door opened, though.

  He was one of the most nondescript men Chess had ever seen. Just … basic, was the only word she could come up with. Medium brown hair, medium build, medium yuppie-after-work clothes: khaki pants, khaki plaid shirt. He matched the slice of room visible behind him; she wondered if people entering his apartment had to pause for a minute and hunt around for him, he blended in that perfectly.

  Lauren introduced them both. “We were wondering if you could tell us anything about your neighbor there, Erik Vanhelm? Maybe you talked to him or knew him?”

  Khaki Guy rubbed his chin. “I didn’t talk to him a lot or anything, just to say hi, you know? I had some friends over once to watch a game and he came and had a couple of beers with us. He was really good with my dogs.”

  “Did he talk about friends? Did he say anything about himself?”

  “I don’t think so. Just, he was just my neighbor. We weren’t, like, buddies or anything. I think he said something abo
ut the slaughterhouse, like he did something there. Management, I think. He said something about interviews, about interviewing some people?”

  Chess and Lauren exchanged glances; Lauren’s eyes gleamed with the same curiosity Chess knew was in her own. Most Lamaru didn’t have jobs, at least not ones like management, and the thin file they had on Vanhelm didn’t indicate a place of employment. Were they talking about the same man? Or had the Lamaru just picked some poor slob and stolen his address?

  It was worth checking out, anyway. They thanked the man—Chess had already forgotten his name—and headed for Vanhelm’s apartment.

  The inside was pretty bare. But not totally. Chess figured it was possible for a man to live there with so few possessions; hell, she didn’t own a lot of stuff herself. And it wasn’t like she’d spent a lot of time putting personal touches all over her place, either. Most of her stuff came from thrift stores. Who was she to judge how other people kept their homes?

  But even to her this seemed like subsistence living, like a front. It reminded her of the bedroom one of her foster parents had claimed was hers; everything in its place, but the layer of dust and general air of neglect, the stale musty odor permeating the walls, the unmarked, stiff couch cushions, told another story.

  But the neighbor, what’s-his-name, had seen Erik. Had invited him over for football and beer. So what had he done in here?

  Not cooked. The fridge was full of moldy takeout containers. Maybe he slept; the bed was neatly made but at least looked as though it might have been used. He’d kept a few changes of clothing in the closet.

  Chess glanced at Lauren, who was digging through the almost empty drawers in the pressboard dresser against the wall. Either the clothes in there had a different purpose, or Lauren didn’t notice it; but Chess did. The closet smelled of herbs—the kind of herbs she’d found in that horrible fetish earlier.

  For the fourth or fifth time she tried to think of a way to tell Lauren what had happened, and for the fourth or fifth time she discarded the idea. There was no way, especially not after the We-do-this-the-way-I-say-and-that’s-final-so-shut-the-hell-up discussion they’d had outside. Not that “discussion” was really the word for it, but the point was the same. Lauren didn’t know who Ratchet or the other dead people were, or that they existed; Chess had no reasonable explanation for why she hadn’t contacted Lauren immediately to share the information. Besides, Lauren already knew the Lamaru were around and planning something.

  The only new clue Chess really had for her was the fetish, and she could surely think of another way to introduce that. In fact, it went against every instinct she had, every last smattering of integrity, but for a moment she wished she hadn’t bagged and salted the thing so carefully. Vanhelm’s apartment would be the perfect place to plant it. Technically it wasn’t even planting evidence; it was real evidence, she’d just be fudging the location and circumstances a bit.

  But no, she couldn’t. She’d have to find some other way. So she glanced back at Lauren again, now moving into the small bathroom, and started poking around in the pockets of the hanging clothes.

  She’d reached the last shirt when her fingers closed around something small and stiff, a square piece of card about two inches on each side. Its edges rasped against the fabric as she pulled it out of its pocket.

  Oh, shit. The room darkened around her; for a moment she thought she was falling, tumbling into a black tunnel so deep she’d never hit bottom.

  Then the world righted itself. What was she, surprised? She’d known the Lamaru knew who she was, known they were after her.

  But the superstitious shiver running up and down her spine didn’t stop until she’d tucked the picture into her own pocket. Her picture—her official Church employee portrait, updated yearly and kept—supposedly—in her confidential Church file.

  Erik Vanhelm had been carrying it over his heart.

  Chapter Twelve

  Of course, no home is complete without a copy of The Book of Truth, and the Church provides these in colors to match any décor.

  —Your Home, Your Sanctuary, by Delilah Ross

  Randy Duncan could have given him the picture before he died. Chess had never seen her confidential file; she supposed she could ask Elder Griffin about it—if she wanted him to panic and order her back on the grounds. Hell, she could ask Lauren. The Black Squad could access any fucking thing they wanted.

  If only Lauren weren’t so damned offputting. Not a surprise, really; most of the Squad members Chess had worked with were fairly irritating, in an anal, law-abiding kind of way. But Lauren had in addition the arrogance of birth and her father’s position, which took her beyond annoying. Bottom line: Chess didn’t trust her. Couldn’t bring herself to trust her. They were opposites, natural enemies. The haves versus the have-nots.

  And again, it didn’t matter anyway. The Lamaru knew who she was, so what. They had for months. Of course, without Terrible’s protection … yeah, that sucked. Funny how she hadn’t realized how much she depended on that until it was gone—how much she depended on him until he was gone.

  But she’d been over that ground too many times lately, and she had other things to focus on at the moment. Like the fact that what she was doing right now could get her fired. Well, a lot of what she did could get her fired, but this was different.

  She hid in the shadows behind the executioner’s house, with her lube syringe and her lockpicks, and prepared to use them.

  It wasn’t violating a direct order. Lauren hadn’t forbidden her to search the place. Nor had Elder Griffin or any of the other Elders. But as Lauren kept reminding her, it wasn’t technically part of her investigation. Which meant that what it was, technically, was trespassing. Trespassing in a dead man’s house. If she got caught, and if they wanted to be hard on her, they could call it looting and she could do time for it.

  But she wasn’t going to get caught. She’d parked two blocks away. She’d watched the house for almost three hours, while the neighbors returned to spend their cookie-cutter evenings in their cookie-cutter homes. Not a soul had moved on the street for the last hour, and windows were starting to darken, lights popping off like spent bullets.

  The executioner’s house was dark, and had been dark. Empty. No family, no friends. Time to go.

  She tossed another couple of Cepts into her mouth and crept toward the door. A quick squeeze of the syringe plunger—she used to use a spray, but after a major leak in her bag she’d switched to the syringe, which she’d discovered one night had the additional advantage of being an excellent murder weapon—and a few seconds with her lockpick, and the door swung silently open.

  Enough light seeped through the half-open blinds and the open door to let her see. Her flashlight rested in her hand, warm from her body heat, but using it might alert the neighbors. Best to wait until she really needed it.

  The back door brought her into the kitchen. Debunker protocol demanded she search all the cabinets, left to right, then the fridge and freezer and other electronics, but technically this wasn’t a Debunking case. And even if it was, it wasn’t hers. And even if it was, the kitchen was a veritable soup of gross bits of food and empty containers and grime on every surface. Even with gloves on, plunging into the mess didn’t appeal.

  So instead she shut the door behind her and wandered around for a few minutes, avoiding furniture and stacks of porn magazines and dirty clothes, opening her senses. If he’d been making psychopomps in there he would have left traces of magic. Hell, the Psychopomp Division in the Church building set every hair on her body on edge when she just walked near it. So surely experiments like creating wolf psychopomps would leave traces.

  But she felt nothing.

  Okay, then, shit. Start searching, just as she’d been trained to do. Under the furniture, along the shelves on the wall. Plow through miscellaneous papers, most of which related to various dating services and not to magic of any kind. Pity twinged in her chest, pity and shame. The first because lonely people d
eserved pity; the second because she’d become one of them, hadn’t she?

  Into the kitchen, placing her feet carefully on the tile floor. Unused cleaning supplies under the sink, canned food in the cupboards, vodka in the freezer. His possessions told her nothing.

  But what he did not possess interested her as well. No bare marks in the dust indicated anything had been removed. Clearly he kept his supplies elsewhere.

  The stairs didn’t protest as she crept up them. Here the sour, unused smell of the house grew stronger; here the light from the windows did not penetrate. Her gloves skittered along the banister, sticking intermittently; she switched the flashlight on just long enough to see the staircase walls were bare.

  Nothing in the bedroom. Nothing in the spare room. Frustration rose in her chest, almost stronger than her high just starting to set in.

  No empty spaces. No herb-scented drawers or cabinets. No animal fur, no traces of blood. She supposed the Squad might have removed such things, but given the outrageous mess, how would she know?

  What a waste of time. The idea that the executioner was innocent, that the Lamaru were involved up to their slimy necks in whatever was happening with the psychopomps, still throbbed in the back of her head, but no proof awaited her in this house. Fuck. Much as she hated on principle to believe Lauren, maybe she’d have to. Working with the Squad wouldn’t give her access to their evidence rooms or files unrelated to her own case; the house was her only hope. So much for hope. Like she didn’t know that already.

  She’d just managed to shove the door of an overstuffed closet closed when a man’s voice drifted up the stairwell.

  “This place is disgusting.”

  Something about it—aside from the mere fact of it—stopped her in her tracks. Familiar, but not overly so.

  Someone else spoke—a woman. “Yes, but it’s practically the only place in the city we can guarantee no one will be looking for you. You have too many neighbors.”