Unholy Magic (25 page)

“That’s why Fletcher’s Church education wasn’t mentioned?”

He nodded. “We thought, to dredge it up … Tell me, Cesaria, do you believe Oliver is behind the haunting at the Pyle house? Is it indeed a visitation?”

She supposed it was possible. The actual ghosts could have been summoned, then filmed, their images forever replaying in the rooms of the Pyle home. Safer that way. Something a man as clever as Oliver Fletcher—a man who’d practically hung a sign over his head reading
I DID IT
when speaking to her—would have come up with easily, pulling it from his crafty brain like a dangerous sigil.

But that didn’t feel right, either. And it definitely didn’t match up with the eyeballs in her car or with Vanita.

She studied Elder Griffin for a minute. She’d trusted him, hadn’t she? Not entirely, but as much as she was able. And he’d lied to her. He could have told her that day in the library. Could have passed her a note. He knew this was her livelihood, knew she needed the money this case would bring.

Knew what she’d be dealing with when he assigned the case to her.

She was so fucking sick of them all. Elder Griffin putting her in danger on a case through his reticence. Terrible taking her to Bump’s to be blackmailed into putting herself in danger. Lex unfastening his jeans with one hand while he gave her pills with the other.

No, that wasn’t entirely fair. Terrible had apologized. Lex had never made any bones about who he was and what he wanted from her. In his mind, she had no doubt, the connection between giving her drugs and giving her orgasms was tenuous at best. Frankly, she doubted that his jaunty ego would allow him to see it differently.

But he had used her. Kept her as a spy, her body made more valuable to him by the triumphant sense of putting one over on his enemies.

“Do
you
think Oliver would do such a thing?” she replied, stalling. To give him a straight answer at that moment would be committing herself to a course of action, and she wasn’t ready for that. Not until she’d had a chance to talk to Fletcher, to investigate him further.

He sighed. “The Oliver Fletcher I knew wouldn’t have.” His blue eyes grew overcast with memory. “I didn’t know him well, only one night … We were both at the cafe, a rainy night. I was—I am—a few years older than he. I believe he was … impressed by me, by the attention I paid him. We …” He shook his head, shutting away the memory while Chess’s eyebrows rose.

Elders didn’t have sex. Or at least, she never imagined they did, never mind that some of them were married. But Elder Griffin hadn’t been an Elder then, only a student, and Oliver Fletcher was a handsome man.

A handsome man whose head she’d seen buried between Kym Pyle’s legs. But who was she to judge? Absolutely nobody.

The discussion felt over. Chess stood up. “Thank you, Elder Griffin. For telling me. It’ll help.”

His smile refused to develop, was only an attempt. “You’re welcome, dear. Fare well, Cesaria. Facts are Truth.”

“Facts are Truth,” she agreed, and let herself out.

But the facts and truth had never seemed more muddled.

Chapter Twenty-five

For it is Truth that things are not always as they appear. It is also Truth that things are as the Church tells you they are.

—
The Book of Truth
, Veraxis, Article 5

She turned down the radio when the Pyle house came into view, not wanting to blare the Replacements into the security guard’s face. She’d thought the music would make her feel better, drown out her thoughts, but it hadn’t. All it had done was insulate them, force them to grow louder so she could hear them over “Raised in the City.”

Fletcher knew she’d been investigating the hooker deaths. Of course he knew; he’d been sending his pals around to harass her, to leave little presents for her, right?

But they hadn’t killed her. Now she knew why. When Fletcher discovered she was vulnerable to blackmail, he’d told them to step back; if she died, the Church would assign someone else to the Pyle case, and a Debunker who could be controlled was far preferable to one who couldn’t.

What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t let Fletcher go on killing people. But neither did she look forward to seeing the expression on Elder Griffin’s face when he realized she’d failed him. She’d do almost anything to prevent that, even after the way he’d let her down.

Just like Bump and Terrible, Slobag and Lex would do anything to stop the murders. When she told them who was behind them …

Fuck, was she really considering this? Murder? Having Fletcher killed to—No, she couldn’t. Could not.

But he was a murderer. The penalty for murder was death. If she didn’t tell her drug-dealing pimp friends, if they didn’t take care of Fletcher, the Church would, no matter if he sold her out or not.

That wouldn’t be murder, though. It would be execution, legal and sanctioned.

She couldn’t tell the Church what he’d been doing, because he’d expose her. She couldn’t tell Bump what he’d been doing, because Bump would have Fletcher killed.

For the tenth time she picked up her phone, started to call Terrible. He would know what to do. Maybe he’d come along and get Fletcher to give her back the pictures and the negatives, help her …

Yeah, right. Terrible would be eager to help her, wouldn’t he, after what he’d seen, what he’d heard? Now he knew she’d been betraying him for months, knew she’d listened to his speech—words she still couldn’t believe he’d been brave enough to say, shit, she couldn’t imagine what that must have cost him—and run over to Lex’s place for sex? And then told him the next day that she wanted to be with him, but not just yet?

She couldn’t blame him for feeling used, for thinking she’d been stringing him along in hopes of getting more information to give Lex. She hadn’t exactly given him the benefit of the doubt when it came to Bump wanting her to do magic for him, had she?

What a mess.

The guard waved her in and she steered her car along that peculiar driveway, conscious of being watched. Faces hid behind curtains in the house, behind the one-way glass of the security booth. The entire building seemed coiled, ready to spring at her. She shivered, patted herself where she’d tucked one of Edsel’s little bags into her bra with six pills inside, backups in addition to the three she’d taken ten minutes down the road. The search she’d been given last time had been thorough, but no actual fondling had occurred, so she figured that was safe enough.

If it wasn’t … Hell, she was already being blackmailed. And Merritt had mentioned having to work today. Of course, there was every chance
he
would try to fondle her, but she’d deal with that if and when it occurred.

Merritt was on; he sat in front of the monitors in the security room, eating noodles from a little plastic bowl, with his legs up on the table. He smiled when she walked in, set his feet and bowl down so he could get up and greet her.

“Hey, Chessie. Wasn’t sure you were coming today, after how much you drank last night.”

He leaned in to kiss her, and Chess, unsure of what to do, let him. His lips on hers made her queasy, made her want to escape. What had she done? He was part of her case, a possible witness. Hell, for all she knew he could be involved.

She’d done so well for so long. Keeping her life compartmentalized, not letting anything get too out of control, not forgetting to take notes, to put things exactly where they belonged so she could find them no matter how fucked up she was. It was exhausting, but she’d done it.

And in the blink of an eye, in five minutes’ time in a cemetery, everything had spun so far away from her she didn’t know if she’d ever get it all back in place.

“Hi. Where is everyone?”

“Who? The other security staff? Or the Pyles?”

“Any of them.”

He rested his forearm on the door by her head, while his other hand found her waist. “The Pyles have gone out for a little while. The staff … they’re around, but I could lock the door.”

Ugh. She slid away from him, almost spearing herself on the muzzle of one of the rifles on the rack. “I’m working today.”

“You don’t have to work all the time, right?”

“Today I do.” One more reason to get this damn case over with. She could ignore Merritt’s phone calls; she couldn’t ignore him when he was reaching out to stroke her cheek. And she did not want to baldly break it off with him—not that there was anything to break off, but he seemed to think the night before had meant something—when she still might need his help.

“You’re no fun.” For fuck’s sake, was he actually pouting? Yeah,
that
was sexy.

“Look, Merritt, I’m sorry.” She forced the apology out; the words were razor blades scraping her tongue. She did not have time to coddle some infantile guy, not when even now Oliver Fletcher could be plotting another murder, very possibly her own.

“Maybe you can stick around another hour or so? I get off at six. We can go out to dinner, there’s a nice place not far from—”

“Why don’t we wait and see? I’ve got a pretty full day and, yeah, I’m still a little off after last night, so I might just go to bed early tonight.”

“Why don’t I come to your place? I’ll bring food.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaned away. Not too far away, not far enough to make him angry, but far enough that she didn’t have to feel him breathe on her. “We’ll see, okay? Maybe tomorrow or something. Hey, is Oliver Fletcher here?”

“Fletcher? Yeah, he’s in the house somewhere. I think he might be in Mr. Pyle’s office, you want me to check?”

“Check?”

“I can call over to the house and find out.”

“Oh. Oh, sure.” Her heart started beating again. For a second she’d thought there were monitors inside the house as well as outside, and that she and Terrible might have been recorded the other night.

Not that it mattered, but old habits died hard. So to speak.

Through the windows the landscape looked dull, tinged an odd pale sepia from the one-way glass. Unreal, like a painting, but too mundane a subject for art. Just a yard, with a few spindly trees here and there. Just a house, gleaming with fresh paint against the gunmetal sky.

Just her career and life hanging on the whim of the man inside.

“Yeah, he’s in Mr. Pyle’s office,” Merritt said. “Said to tell you he’s been waiting for you. Why’s that?”

“Oh, he’s waiting? I’d better not keep him then.”

“Yeah, but how did he—”

She mushed her lips against his to shut him up, let him turn it into a deeper kiss than she wanted. Of course any kiss with him was deeper than she wanted, but whatever. Damn that Fletcher. He must have known Merritt would ask why he was waiting, knew it would make things more difficult for her. The arrogance of him, thinking he had her under control. Thinking she wouldn’t know what he was doing, what he was up to. Thinking she would overlook murder to save her job.

She pulled away from Merritt, plastered on a smile. Mustn’t keep the murderer waiting.

Fletcher sat behind Roger Pyle’s desk, leaning back in the leather chair as though he expected a spotlight to go on over his head at any moment. Which maybe he did.

“Miss Putnam. How nice to see you.”

She plopped into one of the delicate chintz chairs opposite the desk and eyed his ever-present whiskey glass, wishing she’d downed another pill before she came in. “Cut the shit, Fletcher. I figured it out.”

His tidy eyebrows drew in. “Figured it out? I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I think you do. I found out about your Church training. About the sigil. I know what it means, what it does.”

Watching his face at that moment was like watching a street vendor preparing to sell old goods as new; the careful attempt to hide emotion, the fear that the truth might be found out before the money changed hands. Only Fletcher wasn’t trying to put one over on her. He was genuinely dumbfounded. “How did you know about that?”

“You know how far back Church records go. And even if they didn’t, Elder Griffin would have told me. Remember him?”

“Elder—Thad Griffin? An Elder?”

“I see you remember him, then. He certainly remembers you.”

“What did he tell you?”

“He told me about you. Your friends Kemp and Landrum. Your sigil. Nice use of that, by the way. If he hadn’t remembered you, I probably wouldn’t have figured it out.”

“What? I don’t—”

“I’d like to know why, though.” It was her turn to lean back in her chair, to let a self-satisfied smirk alter her features. The only thing she couldn’t control was her anger, both at him and at herself.

It came back to her, sitting there, looking at his pale face. Those girls, killed, their bodies discarded on the street. He hadn’t even taken them to the Crematorium where they could join the stack of shrouded corpses like toy logs against the walls. His buddy with the inked-up face had been able to break into the place once, so why not all the time? Once a body was in the room, covered in anonymous white, no one would know if it was legitimate or not, not in a place as big as Triumph City.

So why leave them, then? Why broadcast what he was doing?

“Haven’t we already covered that? Why discuss it again?”

“I don’t mean the haunting. I mean the girls. The hookers.”

She’d run away. She’d find another job, another place to live. Nobody said she had to work for the Church, right? She could … she could find something, somewhere. And it wouldn’t matter. Because no matter how low she sank, no matter what she became, she wouldn’t be someone who let a man get away with murdering innocent women. At least she could feel proud of that.

“Hookers? Do I look like the kind of man—”

“Yeah, you do. You look like the kind of man who scares his friend to death in order to make him do what you want him to do. You look like the kind of man who assaults your friend’s wife to bolster your fake haunting. You look like the kind of man who terrifies a teenaged girl. And yes, you look like the kind of man who murders hookers and leaves them lying on the street.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I thought we were being honest here, right? I know what you’ve been doing. And I know why. And I have to admit, it confuses the fuck out of me.”

“I don’t understand.” He did look befuddled. Chess didn’t buy that for a second. She’d already jumped off the cliff; the only thing now was to see how far she fell.

“Why fake a haunting here when you could have just summoned some real ghosts? Why set up your little spirit bordello when you’re trying to get Roger Pyle to leave? Why—”

“Miss Putnam, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Spirit bordello? Dead hookers? I understand drug addicts get some crazy ideas in their heads, but this is—”

“Are you honestly telling me you didn’t kill those girls?” She reached for her bag, found her camera in its pocket. He wanted to play photographic evidence? Fine. She could play that game, too.

“I haven’t killed anyone. Really, I think perhaps we ought to rethink this whole thing. You’re obviously far more unstable than I thought.”

“I’m stable enough to bust your ass,” she snapped, and showed him the camera screen.

It was a medium-range shot, wide enough to capture Daisy’s blank, eyeless face and the sigil burned onto her delicate skin, narrow enough so the sigil’s lines were still clear.

A gruesome image, yes. Chess was pretty sure she’d seen it in her dreams the night before, would keep seeing it in her dreams for years, along with other oldies but goodies: Randy Duncan, murdered by the Dreamthief; Brain, who’d trusted her and gotten killed for it. And now Terrible’s disbelieving expression in the cemetery when he realized she’d been lying to him for months.

But the horror on Oliver Fletcher’s face made a shiver run up her spine. He looked like he’d never seen the girl before. Worse, he looked like he was seeing something he’d never expected to see, like a man who’d just watched his family slaughtered in front of him.

“Dear God,” he said, and the words were so hollow Chess hardly noticed the blasphemy. Fletcher didn’t apologize for it. It wasn’t unusual for people who’d grown up BT to slip up now and then and use an old expression; it carried a minor fine. “When … What is this?”

“It’s a dead girl. A murdered girl.” She didn’t really know what to say. Nobody was that good an actor. His utter misery, his terror, filled the air and heated her tattoos, set the hair on the back of her neck on end like it was trying to escape. “That is your sigil, right? The one you designed? The one you used on your friend Kemp?”

He nodded. His gaze didn’t leave the camera. “Horatio … oh, poor Horatio.”

Unwanted sympathy trickled into her heart. She squeezed it ruthlessly away. He hadn’t had any sympathy for her a few days ago, when he was making her metaphorically blow him to keep her job. “Poor because of what you did to him. He’s in an institution, right?”

Now he looked up. His pupils were so dilated she could barely see the slate color of his irises. “No. He’s not in an institution anymore. Based on this … based on this, Miss Putnam, I’d say he’s in Triumph City murdering women.”