Unholy Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  But Chess didn’t have time to think of how busy she had been during the Festival, or of anything else. Her bones ached with tiredness. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Her hand—among other parts—still throbbed faintly, and she craved sleep almost as much as another Cept.

  Her ramshackle little car—on its last legs, but how was she supposed to afford a new one?—crawled through the deserted streets, past boarded windows and graffiti, finally sliding into a parking space half a block from her building. Chess grabbed her bag and her knife and headed for home.

  She crossed the entry hall that had once been the nave and headed up the stairs, only to stop halfway up the first flight. It wasn’t unusual to find people in here trying to escape either rain or cold or people with weapons, but the boy sprawled across the landing was neither.

  “Chess,” he said, and that slightly high, nervous voice placed him in a way his narrow face had not. “I talk to you?”

  “What are you doing here, Brain?”

  “I talk to you?” he asked again, glancing around the stairwell as if he expected someone to leap out of the solid wall and attack him. His nervousness bothered her. If someone was after him she didn’t want to be involved.

  But neither could she tell him no and send him back out on the street. He was just a kid. Damn it.

  “All right,” she said, pushing past him up the steps. “Come on.”

  It felt like she hadn’t been home in weeks. She half expected to see a shroud of dust covering all the furniture. Or rather, more dust than there was already.

  Brain closed the door behind him and stood, shifting his weight from foot to foot. In his small face his eyes looked huge, shiny as marbles.

  “So what’s up, Brain? What’s the tale?”

  “Hunchback. He … He heared about t’other night. Guessing Terrible gave him the speech. He mad at me, Chess. Say he don’t want me around no more …” He blinked rapidly, his thin mouth twisting.

  Shit. “What did Terrible say to him?”

  “Angry, methinks. Of cause Hunchback saying the tales about Chester being haunted and all. Hunchback blame me now. Say I not so brainy after all.” His too-big black coat bunched up around his shoulders as he crossed his thin arms over his chest.

  “Ain’t got no other place, not now. Maybe I sleep here? Just a few hours, aye? Then I find a new place. I knows other people out there, somebody help me. Only none of them awake now.”

  Something about the way his eyes shifted as he spoke made Chess suspect this wasn’t the entire truth. He’d had no reason to believe she’d be awake either, but he’d come here, and if what he’d said about Hunchback on Friday night was true, his squat was a good twenty blocks away. A long walk in the chilly, dangerous Downside predawn.

  “You can stay for now,” she said, setting her bag on the kitchen counter. “But just for now. You’re not moving in, got it?”

  “Aye, oh my thanks, Chess, my thanks, you ain’t gonna even know I’s—”

  “No, I won’t, because you’re not going to be here long enough for me to notice. You can sleep on the couch. Don’t touch anything, got it? Nothing.”

  He nodded.

  “And don’t tell anyone either. How did you get into the building?”

  “Back door lock’s loose.”

  “What do you mean, loose?”

  “I only had to play with it a minute afore it gave. Loose.”

  “You broke in?”

  “Was I ain’t supposed to?”

  She sighed. As if her money situation wasn’t bad enough, now she’d have to pay to get the lock fixed and new keys made for everyone in the building. Leaving the back door unprotected was out of the question.

  In fact … she always carried spare nails, good strong iron ones so they had the additional benefit of warding spirits. That would at least put a temporary stick on it. It wasn’t a fire-safe stick, but the chances of someone breaking into the building were a lot better than those of it catching fire. She didn’t particularly rate the odds against either.

  “No. You weren’t supposed to, but it’s done now. You can fix it before you go to sleep. I’ll get you some nails and a hammer, you can close the door and jam the lock.”

  “Ain’t suppose you got some eats? Only my belly getting tight. Can’t remember last food I put in.”

  Chess ignored him and set a couple of nails on the counter. Their pointed tips reminded her she’d need to refill her lube syringe, so she grabbed the bottle of oil from under the sink, too.

  “Chess? Got me a few dollars, I could help for some food …”

  “Take a look in the fridge. I don’t think there’s much.”

  There wasn’t. Brain stared into the empty depths as though a four-course meal would magically appear. When one didn’t his shoulders sagged. “I have a beer?”

  She shrugged. “If you want one. Get me one, too.” Hey, he wasn’t her kid, and chances were he’d already done a lot more than have a beer or two. Kids younger than him OD’d every day.

  He handed her one. “I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  She filled the syringe and a spare and set them on the counter. Her bag was a jumble of magic items and mundane; she really ought to clean it out. No time like the present. For some reason she didn’t feel like going into the living room and sitting down. Perhaps it was the unexpected presence of a child in her apartment, or maybe she was just afraid that if she did she’d fall asleep.

  “You gonna try to clear them ghosts at Chester?”

  “Why?”

  Brain leaned against the opposite wall and studied the floor. “I just curious. About what you do. Good thing, right? Good magic clears the ghosts.”

  “In general, yes. The Church doesn’t do black magic.”

  “But do you?”

  “What is that supposed … Brain? Do you know something about that airport?”

  His eyes widened. “Don’t know what you’re meaning. I just curious, is all.”

  No. He’d started to say he’d been there before, hadn’t he? Friday night with Terrible. He’d almost said he went there all the time.

  “Did you see something out there, Brain? Did you see something happen?”

  “No! No, I never been there cepting when you met me. I see nothing there.” His fingers wrapped around his beer bottle were white.

  “You can tell me, you know. If you saw something, it might be important. Really important, okay?” She paused. “I bet Bump would be grateful if you saw something that helped him open that airport. Might even give you a job.”

  “Terrible hate me.”

  “Terrible doesn’t hate you. And even if he did … he’d like you if you helped. Wouldn’t you like that? Working for Bump? Having Terrible as a friend? You could tell Hunchback to fuck off right to his face and he wouldn’t be able to touch you.”

  Some of the fear drained from Brain’s face. “Thinking so?”

  “I do. If you know something, Brain, you should tell me. It might be important. And I’ll … I’ll keep you safe. You can stay here, as long as you need to.”

  “With you?” The hopeful expression on his face was like an arrow straight into her heart. How many times in her childhood had she dreamed of safety, of being somewhere no one would hurt her or of being so powerful no one could?

  Now she was. Practically untouchable, thanks to her position with the Church and her new alliance with Bump. No wonder he’d come to her.

  “Yes, with me.”

  “True thing?”

  “True thing, Brain.”

  He sighed, a long, shaky sigh that seemed to come from his toes and work its way up, and nodded.

  Chess picked her beer up off the counter. “Okay, great. So let’s go in the living room and sit down, and you can tell me all about it, okay? Everything you saw.”

  The knock at the door startled them both. Months went by and not a single person came to visit her. Now she had two, at the crack of freaking dawn. G
reat.

  Doyle held up a white paper bag. “Thought you might like some breakfast.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “It is not permitted for those outside the Church to inscribe power into their skins. Only purely decorative tattoos are acceptable.”

  —The Book of Truth, Laws, Article 420

  He took her silence for assent, and brushed past her to come in. “I was up, and I figured you’d be up—you went to the Morton place last night, right?—so I figured, why not. Wanted to find out how that hand is doing, too. Have you been cleaning it?”

  He set the bag on her kitchen counter and started unpacking it. Sodium fumes filled the air, along with the scent of damp sausage. It didn’t make her remotely hungry.

  Chess’s first instinct was to send him away, but Brain had wanted something to eat. If Doyle was so eager to feed someone he could feed him. They’d get some food into the boy, then Doyle could go away and she could hear what Brain had to say. And if Doyle didn’t like it, too bad. It was awfully presumptive of him to just show up here like that.

  “How did you get in the building?”

  “Somebody was leaving.” He glanced at her. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, but I just wish—”

  “Chess?”

  Brain stood in the middle of her living room, his cheeks paler than usual. “I gots to go, Chess, sorry, I forgot something I’s supposed to do, aye?”

  “But there’s plenty of food, we can talk after—”

  “No! I meaning, no, it’s cool. I catch you another time.”

  “Brain, don’t—” Too late. The boy moved fast when he wanted to. He was down the stairs before she could get into the hall and stop him. “Shit.”

  “Who’s that?”

  She shrugged. Now she was going to have to be alone with Doyle. And mountains of food. “Just a kid. He said … never mind.”

  “He looked pretty upset.”

  “His boss kicked him out.”

  “And he wanted to talk about it? Why’d he come to you?” He opened cabinet doors, finally finding her mismatched plates and grabbing two of the three she owned.

  “I guess he knew I’d be up.”

  “Just like me.” He gave her one of his killer smiles and headed past her into the living room, holding the plates piled high.

  “Yeah, um, about that …”

  “You’re going to tell me you don’t want me to just come over unannounced, right?” He plunked himself down on the couch, right in the center so if she wanted to sit she’d have to be practically touching him.

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m sorry. I just … I wanted to talk to you, and not over the phone or on Church grounds.”

  “Why?” She perched on the arm of the couch, curious in spite of herself. She never got to hear gossip.

  “You know Bruce Wickman, right?”

  “I know who he is.” Damn. This was probably going to be the same thing she’d overheard between Bruce and the Grand Elder the other morning.

  “He says the City’s going crazy. Like, more than usual after the Festival. He thinks something might be going on.”

  “Has he talked to the Grand Elder?”

  Doyle nodded. “Says he doesn’t believe him, though. Bruce is scared. He said in ten years of Liaising he’s never seen them like this. He said he’s been having trouble sleeping, that he’s been seeing things. In his dreams.”

  Chess cocked an eyebrow. This was sort of interesting, but she didn’t want to let him know that. “And?”

  “So I think he’s right. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately, too. So have Dana Wright and a couple of other people.”

  Dana was a Debunker, like herself and Doyle. It wasn’t unusual for Liaisers to have issues with spirits—if they weren’t careful they could be tailed or even possessed when a spirit refused to leave them after a Liaising, another reason their pay was higher—but Debunkers …

  “Randy’s, like, panicking. He actually wanted to sleep at my place last night, he said he’d had some horrible nightmare. Typical, huh?”

  Chess laughed, but not unkindly. “Randy’s just having a hard time, I think. Maybe the job is getting to him. He’s been off for a while.”

  “Have you been? Having trouble sleeping, I mean?” Doyle leaned closer. “You look kind of tired.”

  “I never sleep well.”

  “But you don’t usually look tired like this.”

  She scooted herself back along the arm of the couch so she wasn’t quite so close to him. “Thanks.”

  “I don’t mean it that way. I just … Bruce thinks something is going on. We thought if we could get a few of us together, try and figure out what, we might have enough evidence then to force the Grand Elder to listen.”

  “And you want my help.”

  He nodded.

  Telling him she never slept well wasn’t a lie. She didn’t. Which made it impossible to say if her recent troubled rest was a normal reaction to a fairly stressful few days or something else.

  “There’s more, too,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing around like he thought Church spies might be hiding behind her television. “I’ve had nightmares. Like, real ones. And I thought I saw—no. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I already think you’re crazy.”

  “Bruce has seen him, too, though. In his kitchen.”

  “Seen him? Who?”

  Another glance. “The man in the robe,” he said. “The nightmare man.”

  Damn it, damn it, damn it!

  After a fat line of crushed Nip she didn’t feel like sleep was something she’d need for another couple of days, but that didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t been able to. Whether it was because of Doyle’s information or … something else … she didn’t know, but sleep had done nothing but taunt her while she lay in her bed with the covers piled high, shivering although the room wasn’t cold, watching the hours tick by on her clock until the early afternoon sun streamed through her narrow bedroom window.

  Where was Terrible, anyway? She checked the slip of paper Bump had given her along with another package of chemical cheer, and glanced at the faded numbers on the empty storefront. Number seventeen. Her destination was a couple of blocks away yet.

  This was stupid, a stupid sidetrip on a stupid job she couldn’t even do thanks to stupid Lex.

  Or not just thanks to stupid Lex. Whatever she’d seen at the Morton house, whatever it was that Doyle claimed was stalking Church employees … she was beginning to think she wouldn’t be able to handle it anyway. Not if the night before was any indication. Some tough Churchwitch, calling someone else to retrieve her stuff from the spooky haunted house.

  A small gang of teenage goons edged down the street toward her in their black bandannas and latex-tight trousers, fanning out like they were about to run an offensive play. Which they probably were. Without making eye contact Chess shrugged her tattered gray cardigan off her shoulders, letting them see her ink. Their formation tightened up. They might not be afraid of the Church, but they’d be stupid not to know Bump had the only Churchwitch in Downside working for him, and everyone was afraid of Bump.

  Their fear didn’t keep them from hissing at her and making lewd comments, but those she could ignore. Too bad she couldn’t ignore everything else, and just stay home today listening to records and getting high. Or even doing her actual job. She should be interviewing the Mortons today, not wandering the streets hunting for a tattoo parlor so she could then go find an adolescent boy.

  The parlor was easy enough to find, at least. Just walk until the scent of Murray’s hair pomade drifted to her nose, then turn left.

  “Looking for Terrible,” she said to one of the greasers guarding the door. Inside the building she heard the unmistakable sounds of hurried movement, not quite drowned out by the Sonics record playing at high volume.

  He barely looked up from the hangnail he was trimming with his butterfly knife. “Aye? Bu
siness you got witim?”

  “Business.”

  “Aw, chickie, you don’t gotta keep no secrets from me, I ain’t—”

  Terrible’s voice rumbled from the back room. “Quit playin, Rego, an let she in.”

  Rego glanced over in that direction, then up at her, really looking for the first time. She hadn’t slipped her sweater back over her chest and upper arms, and when he saw her skin his blue eyes widened.

  “Shit. You that—”

  Chess didn’t bother to reply. She brushed past him and walked inside, pausing for a moment so her eyes could adjust to the comparative gloom inside. She’d lost her sunglasses again.

  The place smelled of antiseptic and smoke, of male bodies and the curious sharp odor of ink and oil. Frames filled with bright flash covered the walls, save one suspiciously clean spot at the left. That explained those frantic scraping movements. The shop dealt in illegal ink, magical symbols only the Church was allowed to use—symbols like the ones covering her own arms and chest, making her easily identifiable. Other people might get the tats, but not where they could be seen; to do so was like asking for a prison sentence and a date with a white-hot iron slab to remove them. She gave a mental shrug. None of her business. Enforcement of nonmoral law was a totally different department, government rather than religion.

  It was a very different room from the one where she’d been given her tattoos, in the ceremony that had officially made her a Debunker. That room was a pure, pale blue, bare save the table and the artist’s equipment, and her fellow initiates and the few older Debunkers attending had knelt, chanting, increasing the energy in the room until she’d felt ready to pass out and hadn’t noticed the pain of the needle anymore, or the power searing itself into her.

  “What say, Chess?” Terrible interrupted her reverie, glancing up from where he sat with his bare chest pressed against the slanted back of a chair. She hadn’t realized how many tattoos he had, aside from the almost-full sleeve on his left arm and the small script circling the base of his throat. His shoulders were covered, too, and something decorated his left side from underarm to waist and into his pants. If he hadn’t been so wide, dwarfing the chair, she wouldn’t have seen it.