City of Ghosts (31 page)

“Naw, ain’t give a fuck what them got in them heads. Here.” He crossed to the window, its glass long since replaced by plywood. It took him a minute to force it open; paint cracked and the entire frame screeched and shook. “C’mon.”

He lifted her up, helped her squeeze out the window. “Go on out front, aye? Meet you up there.”

She wanted to say something. Wanted to lean back in and kiss him, to touch his face or fix the strands of pomade-slick hair that had fallen over his eyes. But this new armistice was too delicate; she was acutely aware of it beneath her like a tiny storm-tossed raft. For the first time in weeks she had some hope, honey-poison sweet and thick on her tongue and in her heart. She didn’t think she could stand losing it again.

So instead she just nodded and watched him push the window down until the slab of weathered plywood covered the hole where he’d been.

Chapter Thirty-two

Not all danger comes from without. But most of it does.

—
The Example Is You
, the guidebook for Church employees

The alley she stood in was bordered by a chain-link fence and full of Dumpsters and shadows. Maybe walking back through the club itself wouldn’t have been so bad after all. So people would have seen her, would have known, so what? She wasn’t ashamed of it.

Of course, it was entirely possible
he
was. Wasn’t that a happy thought. She wrapped the edges of her cardigan closer around her and headed toward the street, picking her way through the garbage. It stank back there, of trash and puke and urine—typical alley smells, with stale beer thrown in for spice.

Things rustled as she walked past them; rats, other rodents. Bugs maybe. It was a little early for them yet, but Downside roaches were awfully hardy. Everything had to be, to survive.

Music drifted through the walls as the band started to play. They usually played a pretty good show; she kind of wished she could stay. Wondered if Terrible’s date had. They hadn’t been in the bathroom that long. Ten minutes? Fifteen? It was entirely possible that whatever-her-name-was—what bullshit, Chess knew her name—just thought Terrible was waiting in line or had gone off to talk to someone else, and was still sitting in the booth looking vacuous and waiting for him to come back so she could flop all over him again.

She sighed. What a stupid emotion hope was. And incredibly premature in this case. There was no reason to—

The growl stopped her in her tracks. Where had it—Surely it was just a dog. Just an ordinary stray. It always paid to be cautious around a stray, but it wasn’t anything to worry about, not really.

She took another step forward. The growl grew louder. Something moved behind her, a clattering noise like a wooden box falling.

Her blood went ice-cold in her veins.

Okay. Okay, no need to panic. It could be anything. Anyone. It didn’t have to be a psychopomp after her, right? Psychopomps didn’t usually growl. It was just a dog.

But even a dog was bad enough. And combined with the sick, twisted energy slick with blood and mucus that invaded her, surrounded her, insinuated itself over her skin and into her hair and mouth in a curling black mist that tasted of sewage and death, it was especially bad.

Even as she started running she knew she probably wouldn’t make it. The fence on her right was too high, the mouth of the alley too far, and they were behind her, she heard them racing through the garbage.

She wanted to scream but couldn’t spare the breath. Didn’t know if it would matter anyway—who would come to investigate a scream? Nobody. Maybe in other parts of town they might, but not here.

Her feet slipped on slick piles of trash and she stumbled, almost fell. The energy around her thickened, stealing her strength. She was going to be sick, the end of the alley didn’t look any closer and she couldn’t run anymore, she was going to be sick—

Another growl behind her, lower and louder, echoing in the small narrow space. She pushed herself as hard as she could, but it was like running through treacherous mud sucking at her feet.

She wasn’t going to make it.

Terrible was going to hit the street soon, what would he think when she wasn’t there? Did he trust her enough again to know something had happened to her? Or would he assume she’d ditched him?

She should drop something. Leave something. So he would know she hadn’t ditched him, that she hadn’t played another trick on him.

The street loomed in front of her, she was almost there. Behind her a snarl, the sound of panting—

She reeled around the corner of the building just in time to see Terrible’s date slap him.

Ordinarily she would have ducked back out of sight, but nothing in the world would induce her to step back into that alley, not even the very good chance of being assaulted by a furious woman who’d apparently just found out what her date had been up to in the bathroom with another girl. With
her
.

Luck was with her in that, at least. Sela didn’t turn around. Instead she did something much worse; stalked off on her five-inch platforms to where Terrible’s Chevelle sat under a streetlight, and leaned against it with her arms folded over her chest. “Taking me home, you are,” she called. “I ain’t walking back alone.”

Terrible glanced at Chess. “Ain’t can just leave her—”

“I have to go with you. I mean, I can’t stay here.” Quickly she told him about the alley. “He’s here, he’s probably watching, if I don’t get out of here—”

“Shit.” He glanced at Sela, back at Chess. “Ain’t gonna be a fun ride, aye? She pissed up right. Ain’t can say I blame her, guessin somebody gave her the happening….”

“It has to be better than sitting here waiting to be attacked.”

“Ain’t so sure you ain’t gonna be,” he muttered, but he jerked his head just the same for her to follow him to the car.

“… and whoever the fuck you thinking you are, you runcy slut,” Sela went on, glaring at Chess from the shotgun seat, “you want him, you fucking take him. See how you like it when he forgets calling
you
causen he too busy with some other dame. Thinking about some other dame. Amy don’t even see him no more causen of it, you knowing that?”

“Hey,” Terrible started, but Sela cut him off.

“So ain’t you think just causen you in this car now means any damn thing. It ain’t. He pretending it do, he lying and saying it do, but it ain’t. Pretend that other dame just he friend, so he say, but ain’t like it true.”

Terrible turned up the music, trying to drown Sela out with Nashville Pussy. It didn’t work. She reached over and snapped it off. “Some Churchbitch she is, too. Leastaways that’s what Amy telling me. Amy say she met her once and she weren’t shit.”

Chess cringed. Not that this little monologue wasn’t fascinating, but Terrible looked as though his head was about to explode.

He whipped the Chevelle around a corner with a squeal of tires; she checked the speedometer and saw they were doing about fifty-five. Well, she guessed she couldn’t really blame him for wanting Sela and her mouth the hell out of his car.

Still, she almost found herself wishing the journey could last a little longer.

“Thinking I seen her too,” Sela said. “Some Churchbitch, all her tattoos, thinking she so special. Seen her two weeks past, I did.”

Two—What? “What did she look like?”

Sela snorted. “Ain’t so fucking hot. Hair like mine, and she poking around some vacant lot. Betting she looking for more magic shit, trying to hurt people. Them all—”

“She had red hair?” It had to be Lauren. None of the other Church employees—at least none Chess could think of—had red hair.

But Lauren had supposedly just arrived in town the day Chess met her.

“Aye, red like mine. And she skinny, too, she like you, got no—”

“Two weeks ago? You’re sure?”

Sela rolled her expertly made-up eyes. “I ain’t stupid. Were two weeks past, causen I’d just got paid the day afore. I recall it causen I’d bought new shoes and I were—”

“What was she doing?”

“Why you care?”

Terrible was looking at her, too; she caught his eyes in the rearview. He snatched them away before she could see the expression in them.

“It might—I mean, I’m just curious.”

“Just snooping around, she were. Like she looking for summat. I seen her and can’t even take a guess why Terrible so—”

“She was snooping around in a vacant lot?”

“Aye. Freaky, iffen you asking me. But guessing that what Terrible like, aye? What he deserve, sneaking off into the bathroom with some rigmutton
cunt
, leaving me on my alones in the bar, and other men talking to me and me saying I got me a date there and he fucking some
whore
while everyone outside the bathroom hearing them—”

“‘S enough, Sela,” Terrible cut in.

“—and ain’t even got the balls to pay me my fair jannocks and gimme the tell he own self. Cocksucker.”

They squealed around another corner. Terrible cut the Chevelle up sharply in front of a rundown house with a sagging roof.

Sela glared at him. At both of them. “Ain’t wishing you luck, bitch. Or you neither. And ain’t you call me again, dig? Done, Terrible. Bad enough I gotta hear that Churchbitch name all the damn time, now you pull this trick on me. No more. You go fuck yourself, aye?”

She threw open the heavy door of the car and flounced out, nearly slamming it on Chess’s hand.

Chess barely noticed, though. She was too busy giggling, helpless snorts of laughter forcing themselves out from between her tight lips. She didn’t want him to see she was laughing, to think she was laughing at him.

She glanced at him guiltily, expecting to see him frowning at her. But he wasn’t even looking at her. Didn’t appear to even realize she was still in the car. His shoulders were shaking, hunched over the wheel. His face was turned away.

Her laughter died. “Hey …” She stretched out her hand. Should she touch his shoulder or something? Shit, if he was that upset …

But he was laughing. He turned to her and she saw it, and her own giggles came rushing back, and she climbed over and collapsed into the front seat with tears in her eyes, she was laughing so hard. She couldn’t even have said why it was so funny; it was horrible, what they’d done to Sela. She couldn’t blame the girl for being angry or for saying any of the things she’d said. Hell, if Chess had been in her position she probably would have said a lot worse. But for some reason she couldn’t explain it just struck her as endlessly amusing, funnier than anything she’d seen in ages, and it felt so good to laugh she didn’t bother analyzing it. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d laughed, really, really laughed.

They laughed until her chest started to ache, and then suddenly they weren’t laughing and his face was only a few inches from hers. Darkness hid his expression from her, she had no idea what he was thinking. What he thought of her now. It didn’t make sense that everything could have changed in the course of one short drive or a few minutes of shared amusement, but how would she know? The sum total of her wisdom on the subject of emotional relationships could be written on the head of a fucking pin.

He cleared his throat. “Guessing we oughta move on, aye?”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Was that her voice? It didn’t sound like her.

For a second she thought he wasn’t going to move after all; her entire body tightened. But then he did, pulling away from her, shoving the car in gear and nosing back onto the street. She gave him Lauren’s address, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

Damn.

There had to be a reasonable explanation. Had to be.

The Chevelle idled outside the modern apartment building where Lauren lived, its engine noise echoing off the cars around them until he switched it off.

Once the moment-that-wasn’t faded, her mind returned to the Lauren question. Sela said she’d seen Lauren—well, she hadn’t said “Lauren,” but Chess couldn’t imagine who else it could have been—in a vacant lot two weeks before. But Lauren shouldn’t have been there, because Lauren should have still been in—well, whatever city it was she came from. New York?

Surely there was a reasonable explanation for it. It wasn’t really a big deal. But it made Chess uncomfortable just the same.

“Want me give you the wait, or what?”

“Huh? Oh. No, I guess not. Lauren can give me a ride home.”

His eyebrows rose. “You heading back your place? After them in the alley and what you tell me on the earlier, about—about them tunnels?”

“I’ll have her take me to Church. I can spend the night there.”

The minute she said it she wished she could take it back. She’d lied and told him that before, let him think she was spending nights in one of the cabins on Church grounds when, in fact, she was in Lex’s bed. Told him that lie more than once. And he knew it; she saw it in the way his expression hardened, saw him looking back and remembering every time she’d said that, wondering if she’d been honest about it.

“No, I mean it. Really. Unless … could I stay at your place? On the couch, I mean, I’m not asking to—” Fuck. She should have stuck to her earlier resolve not to ask him.

He hesitated. “Ain’t thinkin that a good idea, aye?”

“Oh. Right. Yeah, of course, I understand, it’s no big deal. I’ll be fine.”

“Shit.” His hands twisted on the wheel. “I give you a ring up an hour on, aye? Iffen you ain’t got yourself a bed, you come to mine. My couch, dig. Ain’t can have you crashin your place, not with them after you. Cool?”

“Yeah, that’s—Thanks. Really.”

He shrugged. “Better get you in, aye. Ain’t early.”

Before she could stop herself or talk sense into herself she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. One more chance to breathe him in. “Thanks, Terrible.”

He just nodded. She gave him one last look and got out of the car.

Chapter Thirty-three

Church employees work together, united in their common goals: to protect humanity, to punish the guilty, and to live in the Truth.

—
The Example Is You
, the guidebook for Church employees

Lauren’s hair was as mussed as her apartment; it was obvious Chess had awakened her. Either that or she had a man in there, and somehow Chess doubted that that was the case. Even if it hadn’t been for the events of the night before, she didn’t think Lauren would allow a man to see her in stained sweatpants and a T-shirt with worn-out armpits. It was one of the most unappealing outfits Chess had ever seen in her life, about as sexy as an oozing sore.

The rest of the apartment wasn’t much better. Lauren had obviously just moved in, so some mess was to be expected, but this place was all empty shelves and empty food containers. Worse than Chess’s place, although Chess didn’t leave food lying around. Even if she ate regularly at home she wouldn’t have left food out like that; she could practically see the germs breeding in the congealed bits of yuck clinging to the sides of the cartons and bowls scattered on every surface.

How could someone who looked like such a tidy little bitch be such a slob? It just … didn’t fit.

Like what Sela said didn’t fit. “You haven’t been here long, huh?”

“No, only—well—” Lauren lowered her voice, gave Chess a grin that might have been conspiratorial if she hadn’t still looked off. “I’ve actually been here almost a month, but my dad doesn’t know. I didn’t tell him when I got in so I wouldn’t have to go stay with him, you know? I wanted a little freedom first.”

So much for that theory. Not that Chess had really believed it anyway. Why would the Grand Elder’s daughter conspire against the Church?

“I’m going to go take a shower, okay?” Lauren dug into one of the boxes and pulled out a towel. It at least looked clean. “Sorry. I was at the gym and I was hungry so I threw on these old rags. They’re comfy, you know? Let me just clean myself up and then you can tell me everything.”

Chess didn’t believe her, not for one second. The shadows under Lauren’s eyes had not come from too much jogging or whatever the hell it was people did at gyms. There was something haunted about Lauren now, something furtive and hunched. As though the other woman was trying to hide inside herself.

Couldn’t be done. Nobody knew that better than Chess. But who wanted to get into a discussion about it? Not her. So she did the next best thing and ignored it completely. “Oh, could you take me to Church after? I don’t want to go home tonight, not after—Well, I’ll tell you about it.”

“Elder Griffin said they’ve been trying to get you moved back on grounds for a while. You’re like bait for the Lamaru where you are, you know.”

“I’m fine where I am.”

“And that’s why you need another place to stay tonight?”

Chess folded her arms over her chest. “Are you going to give me a ride or not?”

“Yeah, fine. You’re really touchy, you know that?”

When Chess didn’t respond, Lauren gave a dramatic sigh. “Whatever, I’ll take you to Church. Or you can stay here if you want, I don’t care.”

With difficulty Chess suppressed a shudder. Stay there? And let all those bacteria crawl all over her while she slept? Ugh, no thanks. “I think the Church is best, really. I have a couple of things I want to look up and I need to talk to Elder Griffin before Elder Murray’s Dedication.”

“Oh? Why?”

“I just want to talk to him about the case. You know, keep him in the loop and everything.”

“Do you have new information?”

Chess forced a smile. “Yeah, actually. Why don’t you take your shower, and then I’ll tell you about it.”

“Yeah, I get it. I stink. Okay, just … make yourself comfortable. Here.” The couch’s pink toile fabric was covered with papers and files; Lauren stacked them up, clearing a hasty space. “Watch TV or something. I’ll only be a couple of minutes. And I have some news, too.”

Chess waited until the water started running before peeking at the files. Hmm … employee records for the slaughterhouse, that was good … preliminary reports on the cause of the fire … a slim file on Vanhelm with his birth certificate. Why hadn’t Lauren told her she had that?

Well, she might not have had a chance. Files didn’t always get put together as quickly as everyone would like. And Lauren had just said she had some news, too.

Okay. So, slaughterhouse records, Vanhelm’s file, reports. A few pages on psychopomps copied from
Tobin’s Spirit Guide
. An employee file—

CESARIA PUTNAM
.

Her hand paused in the air above the slim, pale-blue folder. She supposed it was reasonable that Lauren would have her file. She’d already admitted she’d read it; making copies was unorthodox, to say the least, but … the Black Squad kind of did whatever it wanted.

That didn’t change the dull, helpless anger rising in her chest. Bad enough Lauren had looked at it, read it. She brought it home to study, too? What the fuck?

She flipped open the cover; her eyes ran up and down the lines of print. Name, date of birth, address … training grades and test results … She turned the page. The commendation she’d received for defeating the Dreamthief, another commendation from a particularly sticky Debunking case in her second year.

It should have ended there, but … no. This wasn’t her basic file. This was her personal file, her confidential one. Chess’s hand shook slightly as she picked up Elder Banks’s notes on the results of her fertility test. The edges of that sheet were softened by grubby fingerprints. Lauren had spent some time there, reading that one.

Next came a bundle of papers clipped together; the letter she’d written asking permission to live off-grounds, with comments from her instructors and the Elders—Elder Griffin. He’d been on her side; well, she’d known that. But some of the others, some of the comments they made about her lack of trust in her coworkers, her standoffishness …

She didn’t want to look anymore. There was nothing she could do anyway. Lauren had a right to look at her file. And much as those soft edges and fingerprints bothered her, she couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t make Lauren unsee any of it or remove the knowledge from her head.

But … She flipped back quickly to the first page. There it was. Her picture. The same picture she had in her bag, the one taken from Vanhelm’s apartment.

The Church only printed one copy of those pictures; it wasn’t like they handed them out for employees to trade like they were kids in school. Well, at least Chess remembered other kids getting copies of those pictures in school and trading them. She’d never gotten any of her own.

So if her picture was still in the file, where had Vanhelm’s come from?

The hair on the back of her neck prickled as she dug it out. Same picture. Same background. Same smile, same girl.

But now that she was really studying it …
was
that the same girl? The eyebrows were a little different, it seemed; the girl in Vanhelm’s picture hadn’t plucked hers quite thin enough.

This was crazy. She was crazy. But then … two weeks ago she would have said nobody could cast a glamour strong enough to fool a witch. Now she knew differently. At least one person had—she remembered Lauren’s face changing when she touched that fetish—and who knew how long the effect of that would last?

Had Maguinness created another Cesaria Putnam? Had the Lamaru? And why?

Something wasn’t right here. Her nerves weren’t settling. They were getting worse. She didn’t want to be at Lauren’s place anymore, didn’t want to be anywhere near her. Panic spread from her stomach up into her chest, thrumming into her brain. Exactly why, she didn’t know, but she needed to get out of there. Needed to think. Instead of innocently messy, Lauren’s apartment now looked booby-trapped; anyone, anything, could be hiding in the boxes and clutter.

She was being ridiculous. Lauren was the Grand Elder’s daughter. But who gave a fuck. It felt wrong, and she was going with that.

The water shut off, leaving the room too quiet. Chess shoved the papers back in order and closed the file, setting it back the way she thought it had been.

She reached into her bag for her notebook and pen, intending to scribble a note for Lauren and haul her ass out of there before Lauren got dressed. Her finger caught on something; she pushed it aside, almost jumped out of her skin when the apartment filled with a loud, shrill, sustained beep.

Fuck! Lauren’s tracker. She’d switched it on. Her hands shook as she dug it out, tried to find the off switch, and realized the sensors in her bag weren’t lit up.

The tracker wasn’t reading the sensors in her bag; they hadn’t been tripped.

So where was the sensor that it had tripped? Number four?

One of the two she’d planted on Vanhelm.

The tracker’s high-pitched beep throbbed in her head, a scream of panic she couldn’t utter, while she dug around in Lauren’s couch until she finally found it.

Stuffed under the cushion Lauren had set the files on; she must have shoved it in there when she saw Chess at the door. Must have been looking at it when Chess arrived and not had time to hide it.

Must have been looking at Erik Vanhelm’s shirt.

Chess leapt off her knees, ready to jump over the couch to the front door and get the fuck out of there, but her leap came too late. Just a second too late, it had taken her just a second too long to find the thing, why the fuck had she even bothered, she’d known anyway …

Lauren stood in the doorway, her dark green bathrobe hanging open. Water dripped down her bare skin, over the pale curves of her round breasts and flat stomach.

The gun in her hand pointed right at Chess’s head. In her other hand, raised to her ear, was her cell phone.

“Stop right there,” she said unnecessarily, and then, into the phone, “Yes, now. Hurry up.”

The door stood at least two strides away; there was no way Chess could reach it before Lauren pulled the trigger. And given how cramped that apartment was, unless Lauren was the world’s worst shot there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d miss.

Okay, Plan B. Whatever that was. Shit! Shit shit shit. “Ha-ha, Lauren,” she managed. “Very funny. Put the gun down and get changed. I want to hear your news.”

Better come up with a Plan C, because no way was Lauren dumb enough to buy that.

Nope, definitely not dumb enough. She snapped the phone shut and slipped it into her pocket. “Shut up and sit back down.”

Chess obeyed. What else was she supposed to do?

Laying her cards on the table might be a good idea. Well, she might as well, anyway. Her hand slipped into her pocket. She had her own cell, she could call … who? She still didn’t have Terrible’s number, and she’d probably get voicemail at the Church.

Which left Lex.

Of course even that semi-useless gesture required she be able to see the phone. And somehow she didn’t think Lauren would miss that. Okay. Hold the phone anyway, and wait for a chance. And hope it came fucking soon, because reinforcements were apparently on their way.
Shit
.

She looked at Lauren. “Vanhelm is dead.”

Even knowing what she thought she knew, she wasn’t prepared for Lauren’s reaction. Her face … crumpled, literally scrunched up and seemed to slide down; she was unrecognizable. “No. No, he can’t be—no.”

“I’m sorry, Lauren.” The odd thing was, for a second she actually
was
sorry. It was impossible to stand in the presence of such grief and not be touched by it. Especially when she’d experienced something similar not long before.

She’d been lucky. She’d been able to save him. Lauren hadn’t had that chance.

Lauren’s voice was a harsh, bitter knife cutting through her thoughts. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I saw him. He’s dead.”

“What … what happened to him?”

“He was—” No. Wait. “He was murdered. Cut up.”

Lauren knew Maguinness was after them, but she might not know he had his own psychopomp army below the city. Telling her Vanhelm had been killed by dogs might tip her off—might be playing the only card Chess had.

Tears fell onto the dark green terry cloth of Lauren’s robe. “No. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been him. He was—he was—”

“He tried to rape me, Lauren.” Something else had occurred to her, something that sent rage flying white-hot up her spine. “Or was that a lie? Just like what you told me happened to you. It was a lie, right? You thought you could, what, spook me with it? Distract me? What?”

“He wouldn’t have raped you.”

“Really? Because he sure was ready to.”

The gun wavered in Lauren’s hand. Chess had to admit she was impressed that Lauren had held the thing steady for this long; could she even see Chess through her tears?

Didn’t matter. She could see well enough to know if Chess suddenly got up and made a run for it, and that was the important thing.

“He wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t do something like—”

“Something like what? Like pretend to be raped in order to get a rise out of somebody? What the fuck, Lauren? You unbelievable
bitch.”
She stared at the gun. Watched it, forced herself to remember it was there so she wouldn’t jump off the couch and attack. Lauren had lied. She’d actually
made that shit up
. Just to cause her pain, just to fuck with her. “What were you—”

“I wanted you to trust me.”

Chess stared at her.

“What? I thought, if we had something in common, if I opened up to you, you’d—”

“Oh, for—Whatever.” Stick to the case, she reminded herself. Get some answers, so that on the off chance she managed to escape she could do something about it. “Look. Vanhelm is dead. How many of you have died? How—”

“You should know. Who did you tell? Who have you been reporting to?”

“What?”

“Who did you tell?”

“I didn’t tell anyone.” A jolt of pain shot from her wrists up; shit, the Binding. It kept her from telling … and it forced her to tell.

Like she’d told Terrible and Lex both, in a roundabout way. Oh, fuck, no. No. She would not give them up to Lauren, absolutely not. All the Lamaru would need were their names; five minutes asking questions in Downside would be enough for them to find both men. And as much faith as she had in them and their ability to survive …