Unholy Ghosts

by Stacia Kane

  “Okay, sure.”

  He turned to his left and took a couple of steps, but Chess froze in place. Her skin crawled.

  Only one thing could make her feel that way.

  “Stop,” she murmured, reaching into her bag. After the other night with Lex she’d thrown some spare asafetida into her bag, along with generic graveyard dirt. It wouldn’t be as effective as the personalized stuff, but it would do. Where were all these ghosts coming from? Aside from Mr. Dunlop this was her second in three days, and that did not feel right at all.

  What was stirring up the ghosts of Downside?

  At first she couldn’t see it, only feel it, but as she strained her eyes into the shadows at the end of the alley it started to take shape. A hat first, perched jauntily on top of the head. Then features, indistinct but all present and accounted for, and finally shoulders, a torso, and legs.

  The ghost wore what looked like a double-breasted jacket, but the cut was tighter than Chess had seen before and flared slightly over the hips. A tiny patch of lighter, more iridescent space sat just above the chest on the left side, and as she watched a belt formed at the waist.

  Lips parted in a grimace and the ghost started toward her, moving slowly and precisely. Another followed him, dressed similarly and with the same solemn expression. Not anger, necessarily, but … need. It—they—wanted something, and she had no doubt that that something would be her head on a plate if she didn’t act fast.

  Beside her Terrible moved. She flung her hand out toward him. “Don’t!”

  But he moved again, and Chess couldn’t spare a moment to glance at him because her fingers fumbled with the bag of graveyard dirt as she tried to gather a handful. It slipped over her skin, cool and full of power, but even as she pulled her hand out of the bag the ghosts stopped moving, stopped looking at her.

  They looked at Terrible. Their right hands raised in unison. And they disappeared.

  “What the fuck—how did you do that?” Terrible cleared his throat, and lowered his own hand. He’d been saluting.

  He opened his menu and shrugged, but the color on his cheeks hadn’t faded. “Just a guess,” he said again. “Thought maybe if they seen we was holding respect they’d back off.”

  “I don’t even know how you guessed.”

  “They was wearing uniforms.”

  “Was that what they were—” She paused. The ghost she and Lex had encountered in the tunnel was dressed similarly. “I didn’t know.”

  “Ain’t you guys supposed to learn that stuff?”

  “Not military. Armed forces are a special branch, they have their own Debunkers.”

  “It matter? I mean, can you Banish soldier ghosts?”

  She lit a cigarette. “Oh, I imagine I could. It’s the same thing, I just wouldn’t be allowed to try it. Once they’d identified the ghost as military the case would be taken away. Because of the POW problems during Haunted Week, they figured … well, they wanted people with special training.”

  The waitress interrupted them to take their orders—burgers and fries for both—and left them again. Outside the diner the street came to life, hookers cruising up and down in their teetery shoes and spandex, Bump’s minions hovering on corners with their pockets bulging, gangs of teenagers wandering around looking for trouble. Downside woke up around nine every night and kept going until the horizon turned pale again, even though most stores closed by eleven.

  “How long you been doing the job?”

  “Three years, almost four. Well, I started training nine years ago—they start at fifteen—and then when you turn twenty-one you’re hired. Or not. One kid from my class didn’t make it.”

  “What the training like?”

  “Um …” Was he really interested? He certainly looked interested, and it was easier to talk to him than she’d ever imagined it would be, but something still held her back. “Like regular school, I guess, but with more magic studies and lore. You know, which herbs serve which purpose, how to direct energy and control it, Banishing rituals, summoning—although we’re not supposed to do that. They do refresher courses, too, and regular energy raisings and cleansings on grounds.”

  “You ain’t live there why? I thought all you had to live in them cottages there.”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yeah, just like that.” She blew out a stream of smoke, and relented. “I … I had some problems living on grounds and applied for leave. I’m not good with living in a group situation, is all.”

  “You lose family in Haunted Week?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Dunno. Guessing I’d remember if I had, but … don’t recall no family.”

  “How old are you, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Older’n you, but ain’t sure the number. I recall Haunted Week, aye, maybe a year or two before. So twenty-seven, twenty-eight? Somewhere there.”

  Chess was glad the waitress came back with their food. It gave her something else to look at. She’d never guessed he was so young, although she didn’t know why. It wasn’t as though he looked old and grizzled, he was just … so big. It made her uncomfortable to know he wasn’t so far off her in age, as if he was somehow more real. She cleared her throat and picked up her burger.

  “So how’s Amy? Where’s she tonight?”

  “She right. Off doing whatever she do, guessing.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Ain’t tied to her.”

  Ouch. She had to swallow the enormous bite she’d taken—it was delicious—before she could answer, which kind of took the edge of her reply. “I was just asking.”

  “She ain’t mine, dig. Just a dame I know.”

  “Well, sorry I assumed, okay?”

  He looked for a minute like he wanted to say something else, but started eating instead. So much for that conversation. She ate, too, shifting her gaze upward, looking around the room. She’d never been to this place before, even though it wasn’t far from her apartment. They didn’t do much of a take-out business here, and she rarely had the urge to eat by herself in public—rarely meaning never—so it wasn’t on her personal radar. She’d definitely come again, though, if the burger was an indication of their regular food and not part of a separate stock they brought out for Terrible.

  It was even clean, which was saying something. No wonder it had filled so rapidly. She didn’t recognize a lot of the faces, but some she did, people who ran stalls in the Market, a guy who lived in the building across the street from her, a shadowy face with coals instead of eyes half-covered by a black hood …

  Her hamburger fell from her hand.

  “Chess? You cool? Chess?”

  She barely heard him over the roaring in her ears. Her legs wobbled as she tried to stand, her stiff fingers fumbling for her bag even though she knew it would be no use. Whatever he—it—was, it would take more than a few herbs and some dirt to send him away. She’d have to go in with Doyle and the others, take their case to the Grand Elder …

  But just as Terrible had appeased the alley ghosts earlier, so she hoped she could make him disappear, just for now, just until …

  “Chess! What you seeing?”

  She thrust herself out of the booth, smacking right into a waitress carrying a heavy tray. The edge of it caught her in the ribs; the waitress fell sideways with a squeal that seemed to go on forever.

  The man was gone.

  Chess scanned the restaurant, her heart pounding, unable to believe it. He’d shown up and then just … disappeared again? Was he following her? Hovering invisible over her while she wandered the city all day?

  No, he couldn’t have, right? She’d have felt him.

  You didn’t feel him just now, did you?

  Her legs gave; she gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling. Only then did she realize Terrible and the waitress were talking, that she’d knocked the woman over, and that a vanilla milkshake had flown from the tray and poured all over Terrible’
s shirt.

  The sketch on the folded piece of paper made her heart give a funny leap in her chest. No words, but the artful rendering of a tulip in black ink could only have been left by one person.

  Terrible was apparently too discreet to ask—she imagined he had a lot of practice at ignoring things, working for Bump—but his heavy eyebrows rose. She folded the note and tucked it into her back pocket.

  “Right. Get that shirt off and give it to me.”

  “I just wash it home, Chess, no worries on it.”

  “I don’t want it to stain. Come on, it’s the least I can do.”

  He stared at her for a minute. She stared back. The white patch on his black shirt taunted her, reminded her how she’d lost her cool, how she’d been losing it ever since she saw that thing in Albert Morton’s bedroom. She couldn’t erase the memories or the shame of them—although she’d be able to blot them out awfully well when she opened her pillbox again—but she could erase that stain from Terrible’s shirt.

  Finally he shrugged and lifted his hands to the buttons. “You so determined, you have yourself a time, then.”

  The wet fabric slid across her fingers as she carried it into the bathroom, followed by Terrible in his white T-shirt. The room seemed to shrink around him, and when he sat on the edge of the tub his feet almost touched the opposite wall. Splotches of white stood out on his jeans like he’d been playing with bleach.

  “Maybe you should give me your … um.”

  He glanced down. “Keep em on all the same, aye?”

  “Sure. Of course.” She busied herself at the sink with the liquid laundry soap she used on the few good items of clothing she owned. Her right palm stung; she’d almost forgotten about the wound, it had been healing so nicely.

  “You not bad at that washing,” Terrible said. “Maybe I start bringing all my clothes here, aye?”

  Surprise tore the smart reply right out of her mouth. Terrible made a joke?

  “You do mending? I tore on the fence the other day, you recall.”

  “Ha ha.” The white stain had come out. She rinsed it and started soaping again just to be sure. “Don’t think I’d be too good at that. It’s not really my thing, you know?”

  “Not dangerous enough?”

  “I’m not into danger, either.”

  “Aw, Chess. You so into it you ain’t climb out with a rope. Why else you do your job, live down here, buy from Bump?”

  “It’s just—I mean—I just do, is all.” Her cheeks burned. She shouldn’t have let him come in here. She should have just sent him home and let him wash his stupid shirt himself.

  “No shame in it. Some of us needs an edge on things make us feel right, else we ain’t like feeling at all, aye?”

  “Your shirt’s done.” She handed him the sopping bundle, suddenly eager for him to leave. “You can wring it out, if you don’t mind. My hand’s still a little stiff.”

  He accepted the change of subject and turned around. Water splattered into the tub, again and again, until the shirt was almost dry and looked as though it had been pushed through the eye of a needle.

  “Thanks again for your help earlier,” she said, hoping he would take the hint and go. She had a kesh all rolled and ready to smoke, and she had a pillow calling her name. “With those army ghosts.”

  “Ain’t army.”

  “What?”

  Terrible strode back into the kitchen and put his hand on the doorknob to leave. “Ain’t army, them ghosts,” he said. “Air force. Them pilots we saw.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Those who seek to undermine the Church’s authority through their own communion shall be punished; and their sentence shall be death.”

  —The Book of Truth, Laws, Article 40

  The image of the man in the hood—whom Doyle had called “the nightmare man”—hovered in front of her as she tried to sleep. He wasn’t present, physically, in her apartment, but all the same he was there. Haunting her. Taunting her. Every time she started to drift off he appeared, chasing her into her dream, startling her awake. Refusing to go away and give her peace, even with the soft light and sounds of the TV on low.

  Bed hadn’t seemed very inviting. Not with the small pale walls of her bedroom closing in on her. The living room felt safer, as if the colored light from the stained-glass window somehow sanctified it, even though she knew there was no such thing.

  Being on the couch didn’t help her sleep. But it did mean when the picks scratched faintly in the front door dead-bolt she heard them immediately.

  Her knife was—Shit! Where was her knife? Had she set it down in the bathroom when she washed Terrible’s shirt?

  The lock clicked. Oh, fuck.

  She slipped forward off the couch and scrambled across the floor, pushing herself to her feet as she went. She had razor blades in the bathroom, at least, if her knife wasn’t there. She had—

  They burst into the room, throwing the door open so hard she heard plaster crack as the knob hit the wall. Only a muddled impression of shapes, big black shapes in hoods, made its way through her mind before they were on her, arms like steel around her waist, a hand painfully tight over her mouth and jaw while another hooded figure knelt and hugged her legs so she could not kick. She tried to anyway.

  “Where is it?” The voice in her ear was an accentless hiss. “Where is it?”

  Her head was pressed back against the figure’s shoulder. She could not move, could not bring her face forward, could not elbow him. Her skin burned from the friction of struggling against them both, her muscles ached from the hard pressure of their hands.

  She had no idea what they wanted from her.

  “Where is it?” he said again, loosening the pressure of his hand enough for her to open her mouth.

  Chess didn’t hesitate. She threw her head forward and back again. Pain exploded in the back of her skull as it connected with her attacker’s teeth.

  He grunted and stumbled back, letting go of her. Unfortunately the man kneeling in front of her pushed her legs back, so she fell with him. They hit the ground hard, shaking the floor.

  She brought her right leg up and kicked out with it, catching the kneeling man in the throat with a glancing blow. His head tipped back, but she hadn’t hit him hard enough to really hurt, and there wasn’t time to try again. She didn’t need to escape, she just needed to get her weapon, to give herself some advantage. They didn’t seem to be armed; if they were she would have known it by now.

  He reached for her again as she slammed her elbow back into the other man’s gut and threw herself to the side. The kitchen. She’d left her knife in the kitchen.

  The edge of the counter scraped painfully on her side through her thin T-shirt as she launched herself past it, bouncing off like a pinball but managing to keep her footing. They were right behind her, their hands brushing the ends of her hair.

  They caught her in front of the sink. Her fingertips brushed the handle of her knife but couldn’t grasp it. She stretched her arm, scratching at the countertop, but just as she thought she had it the first attacker caught her by the throat, pushing her back so her head hit the faucet.

  She slapped at him, tried to kick, but he positioned his hips between her legs and pressed forward, immobilizing her lower body. Her hand flailed out to the side and knocked the knife back into the shadows by the microwave. She didn’t think he’d seen it.

  “Just tell us where it is,” he whispered. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other start lifting couch cushions, pulling books off the shelves. “Just tell us and we’ll go.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She couldn’t see his eyes well enough to know what color they were; beneath the hood he wore a black stocking pulled over his face, which turned him into a featureless ghoul, a lump of flesh like a human earthworm.

  His fingers tightened around her throat. “Don’t lie to me!”

  Her left hand slipped along the edge of the sink, and farther outward, looking
for something she could use as a weapon. Something cold and hard hit her fingers, something slim and round.

  Her syringe. Filled with lubricant. Thick, oily lubricant.

  Two choices. She could ask him what he wanted, try and figure out what was going on here, but that might only make him angrier and wouldn’t distract him. Or she could lie and hope he might loosen his grip long enough for her to hurt him.

  The man in her living room gave a shout, a wordless cry of triumph. Her captor turned his head to look, and Chess made her move. One second to gird herself, to tense her body ready to attack … her fingers closed around the steel tube.

  He turned his face back to her just as she brought her hand up, but he was too late. She slammed the needle into his neck, angling it back, hoping if she didn’t hit a vein she could at least hurt him badly enough to immobilize him. Her fingers did not shake as she pushed the plunger in, giving him the full load. At the same time she used the heel of her right hand to smack him in the nose, barely noticing the pain the action caused. His head jerked back and he stumbled, his face turning back to her.

  His mouth opened, but before the scream could materialize, his body collapsed, crashing like a bag of loose rocks to the tile floor.

  The rattling thud interrupted the other one as he ransacked her living room and brought him running across the floor. Chess spun sideways, her legs steady now, a curious elation replacing her fear. The handle of her knife in her palm felt almost better than anything ever had. She braced herself with her legs slightly bent, holding the blade in front of her, and waited for him.

  Lex got there first.

  How or why he’d come to see her she didn’t know, but he certainly moved as if he knew exactly what was going on, drawing a long, thin knife from an inner pocket of his jacket with his right hand while his left reached out and tangled in her attacker’s hair.

  The man started to turn, drew his fist back, but stopped short when the blade penetrated his throat. His mouth opened, his fingers scrabbled madly at his neck for a moment as though to scratch an itch.