Sacrificial Magic (28 page)

Chess agreed. But she also wondered—wondered a lot—if it wasn’t simply that without the pressure of society, with nothing to lose, the cruelty and viciousness of the dead were simply the cruelty and viciousness of the living permitted finally to surface.

Ghosts were what living humans would be if they thought they could get away with it.

Lucy McShane had been a Triumph City baby, born in Northside. Since the file indicated Lucy had lost both of her parents, had gone to live with an aunt and a cousin, they’d probably been part of the Relocation program the Church ran in those first years while they reorganized.

Downside had been wealthy once; the kind of wealth people were stupid enough to think equaled protection. Chess had always imagined they’d gathered together there behind their thick walls of privilege,
Masque of the Red Death–
like, and instead of a mysterious guest in bloody robes had found a gathering of ancestral dead waiting for them in that dark room at midnight.

That left large homes empty, large homes the Church could fill with people who no longer had homes or were afraid to go back to the isolation or memories of the ones they had. In time, people who could afford to left and bought their own places; those who couldn’t stayed in an area where the property values dropped by the minute, and where enterprising men like Bump and Slobag found plenty of privacy and room to expand their empires.

Didn’t matter. Downside was what it was, and it was home, no matter how alone she was in— She shook her head. No. She had work to focus on.

Work, the thing that didn’t send stabs of shrieking pain like cold silver knives right into her heart, or make her want to slam her head into a wall until she passed out just to stop the ache.

Or to take more pills, which luckily might not be necessary since her stomach was just beginning to warm with the ones she’d taken at the file cabinet.

The file didn’t mention where— Okay. Lucy McShane’s aunt had died. Her cousin, Chelsea Mueller, had left Triumph City entirely about ten years before.

Chelsea Mueller.

Lucy McShane’s cousin. Lucy’s cousin who’d owned a book on ghost summoning and who’d missed Church training by less than a point.

Lucy McShane’s cousin whose copy of that ghost-summoning book had been tainted with energy, and that energy had been what Chess felt the night before. She’d thought it was Lucy’s—well, some of it had been—but of course, they were related, their energy might very well have been similar.

Chelsea Mueller had been summoning her cousin’s ghost.

Well, wasn’t that interesting. Damn! So where was Chelsea? Was she in Downside? Well, yeah, duh, of course she was in Downside—but where? Her side of town, Lex’s side of town? Did she live by the pipe room, or the school, or …?

Both victims had been from Lex’s side of town, at least to some degree. Even—even Terrible had said Eddie lived on the border streets. And Jia … Well, Jia had had Chelsea’s book. Jia must have somehow known Chelsea, had some contact with her.

She could just ask Beulah. Beulah was right there. But
no. This was rather important information, confidential information, which meant it should be sought with care, when the time was right. Especially since if Jia had somehow come in contact with Chelsea at the school, asking Beulah outright might tip her off that it mattered, and she might mention it to who knew who else.

So she made a note—not that she’d forget—and went back to the file. Lucy’s suicide, yes, a few very unpleasant black-and-white photographs that Chess flipped image-down the second she realized what they were. Looking at them made her think of the catwalk, and the talk she’d had with Terrible. Back when he’d been glad she was alive, when he’d known without having to be told that she’d thought of suicide every day of her life and accepted that knowledge the way he accepted everything about her.

Or the way she’d thought he had, anyway.

Before the thoughts could dig too deep, she forced them away. Work, this was work, and it needed to be done. She jotted down the drawer number of Lucy’s grave supplies. Those would have to wait until morning. A summoned ghost required special Banishing, yeah, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. She could at least do that right.

She flipped through more pages. An autopsy had been done on Lucy, and she had indeed been pregnant. They’d done a DNA analysis on the— Hmm. Okay, that she could ask about.

“Beulah?”

“Yeah?” Movement in one of the aisles; Beulah appeared at the end, holding a thick white book. “What?”

“Didn’t you tell me—or Monica, or somebody told me—that Lucy McShane got pregnant by her drama teacher?”

“Um … I think so. I don’t know the story very well, but I think that’s what she said, yeah. Why?”

Chess glanced at the file again. “They— No reason.”

“Oh, come on. I know you have to be all confidential and everything but you know, maybe I could actually help you, since I know the school and the neighborhood and you don’t. I’ve lived there my whole life.”

“Do you remember when this happened?”

“Kind of, yeah. I was only little, of course, but I kind of remember them talking about it. It was a big deal, you know?”

“Yeah, I guess it would be.” She looked at the file again. “This says they tested the teacher’s DNA, and Lucy McShane’s baby wasn’t his.”

“Really?”

Beulah rounded the tables, her slim form weaving through the patches of light cast by the windows along the outside wall until she reached Chess’s side. Chess glanced down at the file, scanned it to see if that sheet contained anything Beulah shouldn’t see—but oh, hell, who the fuck cared? It didn’t matter. Lucy McShane’s death was Fact and Truth, and it wasn’t being investigated anyway. This was just background. Chelsea’s name was on it, sure, but not in any way that connected her to anything.

So she just pointed at the pertinent line. “See?”

That spicy smell again, that almost-Lex smell, as Beulah leaned over. Her slim hand rested on Chess’s shoulder.

“Where does— Oh. Okay. Is that important?”

Chess shrugged, which had the added benefit of getting Beulah to move her hand. When was the last time anyone other than Terrible or Lex had touched her? Kind of odd, really. How often did people touch each other? Was that normal, to just touch someone like that?

Didn’t matter. “It’s not important, really. I mean, it
doesn’t make a difference to me, as far as the case goes. It’s just odd, that she supposedly killed herself because she was pregnant by this teacher but she wasn’t.”

“So she was sleeping with somebody else, too.”

“Maybe.” Duh. “I mean, yeah, obviously.”

“Maybe she just thought it was the teacher’s? Maybe Monica just heard it wrong.”

And Mrs. Li had said Lucy didn’t know who the baby’s father was, that Lucy was a “slut.” Interesting. She’d have to try to get another chat with Mrs. Li.

She flipped the page. “Oh well. Like I said, I don’t care why she did it or who was involved or anything. I just need to get her grave supplies so I can Banish her, really.”

“So it’s a definite haunting.”

Shit. She hadn’t—well, what the fuck ever. Wasn’t like Beulah wouldn’t find out anyway. “Yeah. I saw her last night.”

“Lucy McShane’s ghost.”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t Banish her or send her away or whatever it is you do.”

Chess sighed. “No, I didn’t. She kind of caught me off guard.”

She waited, tense, for some sort of snide comment about how exactly Chess had been distracted; thankfully it didn’t come. Instead Beulah grabbed the other file. “What’s this? The school’s file?”

Chess grabbed it back. “Yes. And it’s none of your business.”

“You are really fucking touchy, aren’t you? Again. My side of town. Maybe I can help.”

“Funnily enough, I’ve managed to solve lots of cases in parts of town where I don’t live without help from random local residents. So thanks, but no.”

Beulah didn’t answer. Chess glanced at her and
found her staring at the open page of the McShane file. “What?”

Okay, that could not be a good smile. That smile, the one spreading across Beulah’s face, could only be described as smug. “Oh, really?”

Shit. “What.”

A slim finger rose into the air, planted itself right down on the page in front of Chess. “Look at the address.”

Chess did. “What? What’s the— Oh.” Little wheels in her head spun; double-time, in fact, because the speed was starting to kick in. “That’s the building, right? The one Aros rented an apartment in?”

“Oh,” Beulah said, widening her eyes, batting her lashes like Chess was a Victorian suitor, “I’m sure you would have figured that out on your own, though, right?”

   Being wrong sucked.

Well, not wrong, exactly. She would have put two and two together when she got to the building—of course, Beulah wouldn’t have known that, but still. She had to admit it was nice to have it pointed out to her, and especially nice to know she already had an arrangement to visit the place, thanks to Beulah.

She also had to admit that checking the place out after dark, as she was doing at that moment, was better than having to come back during daylight, because Beulah hadn’t been lying when she said Chess wasn’t exactly popular in that part of Downside.

Standing on Twenty-first with Lex on one side, his arm around her, and Beulah on the other, she could almost ignore the stares of the small group of people on the opposite side of the street. They didn’t glare at her, not outright, but they watched her, very carefully, and their anger blew in sharp gusts across the empty pavement. She didn’t need either Lex or Beulah to tell her
that only their presence kept her from getting attacked, and thankfully neither of them did.

She wasn’t scared. But she didn’t want to stand on the street, either.

And she didn’t have to, or at least she wouldn’t have to once the owner of the building showed up. Hopefully that would be any minute.

Lex lit up a smoke, leaned against the wall. “Ain’t feelin like spending my whole night here, aye? Gots places I could be, me.”

“I’m sure Lena’s going to be free later,” Beulah said.

Chess blinked, turned her head in time to intercept the glare Lex shot Beulah’s way. “Lena?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t like you still around, aye?”

“Ain’t like you weren’t seeing other people even when I was.” Somewhere deep inside her something twinged, a rather uncomfortable little pinch she didn’t like one bit.

That was a feeling, and those were what she absolutely, positively did not want. She dug in her bag for her pillbox, ready to open it the second she got inside; what had she taken? Three or four Cepts, three Nips to wake up? It had been an hour and a half or so, she could take more. And if she couldn’t she didn’t really give a fuck. What was going to happen, she’d pass out? Oh, yeah, that would suck. Unconsciousness was just so undesirable right about then.

Lex looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he was stopped by the arrival of what could only be the building’s owner, a female sack of bones with pure white helmet hair and fingernails so long and shiny that Chess thought for a second the woman was some sort of clawed mutant.

She raised one of those taloned hands; from the index finger dangled two keys on a tarnished ring. She didn’t say a word.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pai.” Beulah plucked the ring off the woman’s finger and inserted one of the keys in the lock to open the front door.

Mrs. Pai didn’t reply. Instead she glared at Chess, cloudy white eyes like crystal balls set deep in her wrinkled face. Chess forced herself to meet the stare; when she did, Mrs. Pai started to giggle. The charm necklace she wore—tiny bones and gold lightning bolts—glittered with the movement.

Chess’s hand tightened on her knife. This woman looked like she’d left sanity behind her a good ten or fifteen years before, and Chess could see those shiny sharp nails impaling her with scary ease.

Either Lex thought the same or he was just in a hurry to rush off to see that Lena person, because he practically shoved Chess through the building’s doorway and into the dim hall.

The stereotypical naked lightbulb fizzed at them from the center of the ceiling; a warped door to the left leaked the scent of boiling cabbage. Beneath it was another scent, an unpleasant one. The hairs on the back of Chess’s neck rose. That was not good news, that smell. She glanced at Beulah and Lex; their expressions told her they noticed it, too—their expressions, and the way Lex’s hand moved under his jean jacket.

The staircase creaked beneath their feet. Halfway up, the bare bulb’s glow became so weak as to be useless, and Chess switched on her flashlight instead. The scent didn’t grow stronger. Hopefully it was a memory of death, and not evidence of it.

“It’s number three.” Beulah fiddled with the key ring. “That one, I guess.”

Lex snorted. “Aye, with the three on it? Ain’t let em say you ain’t sharp, Blue.”

Beulah opened her mouth, but Chess stopped her with an upraised hand. “Hold on.”

If her flashlight had had new batteries, she might have missed it, but as it was the light was just oblique enough for Chess to catch the scratches in the door, almost camouflaged by the general ruin of the wood and paint.