“Oh, dear.” Mrs. Morton clutched at her sweater. Her blue eyes examined the room, sweeping back and forth as though something was going to materialize and jump out at her any second. Either she was a great actress, or she was genuinely frightened. Was it possible the son—Albert—was doing it without his parents’ knowledge? Or that Mr. Morton was behind it? That had happened once, too, a husband faking a spooking so his wife would be too afraid to ask for the house when he left her for another woman.
She scribbled on her pad: Girlfriend Mr. M?
“I’m sure we can take care of it before things start going really badly,” Chess said. “Now, if you could please show me around the house …?”
All three of the Mortons came along on the tour, much to Chess’s chagrin. Extra bodies crowding around her in small spaces like the Morton’s cramped hallway were not what she needed in the slightly nervous state the Nips had left her in. And if little Albert accidentally-on-purpose brushed against her breast again she was going to hit him. The quality and quantity of porn she imagined she’d find under his bed, when she got around to searching, would probably be staggering.
Mrs. Morton’s pale fingers trailed over the picture frames in the hall. “We trace our family back over three hundred years,” she said. “Roots are so important, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” She wondered what Mrs. Morton would say if Chess told her she had no idea who her parents had been, much less anyone further back.
Her tattoos didn’t so much as tingle, nor did the Spectrometer beep, when they entered a small bedroom on the right, which looked as though some bizarrely pretentious child lived in it. Batman wallpaper warred with posters of mallard ducks and prints from the Tate gallery. A teddy bear slumped on the dresser next to a rack of silver cuff links. Books tilted on the scarred pine bookcase like crooked teeth, but when Chess stepped closer there were dust lines on the shelves. Someone had recently—probably very recently—removed quite a few titles.
Little Albert was into sci-fi and technology. All the big fantasy names were there—Tolkien, Card, Anthony, Weis—along with Sagan, Heinlein, Sturgeon, Straub … but no how-to tech books, not even a single Idiot’s Guide, which was unusual because the more she looked around the room the more she noticed the bundle of cables peeking out from under the bed, the empty shelf under the flat-screen TV in the corner. Albert looked like an A/V Club boy, and A/V Club boys read books about hacking and splicing and F/X. They read about digital imagery and home theaters and how to rewire speakers so they went up to eleven.
When she came back later, or the next night, she’d have a more thorough look around.
She let the Mortons lead her through the spare bedroom and the bathroom, into the master bedroom. The signs of desperate upward mobility were strewn all over the house as if an L.L. Bean catalog had exploded; a beautiful dresser in a bedroom with mismatched bedside tables, expensive lotions on a cracked bathroom countertop. The copy of The Book of Truth next to the bed had been arranged so the light shone off the gold lettering and reflected back at her when she stepped through the doorway.
“This is where it was.” Mrs. Morton waved a nervous hand at a spot on the floor to her left, about a foot from where she was standing. There was something vaguely familiar about the movement, about Mrs. Morton herself. Maybe the family really did attend Church sometimes and Chess had seen her there. “I was in bed, there, like I said, and it just … hovered here, and stared at me. It looked so angry, I just didn’t know what to do …”
This was ridiculous, a waste of her time. She switched off the Spectrometer and tape recorder, shoved them both back into her bag.
“Well, I’ve seen enough for now. If we could go back to the living room and you could sign the complaint, we’ll get started processing it.”
“But … you didn’t see the ghost, does that matter?”
Chess pulled the zipper on her purse shut, realizing as she did that her hand was shaking slightly. She glanced at the clock by the bed. Five to nine. This was taking forever, she needed to go.
“We’re not done yet,” she replied, trying to sound cheerful. “It’ll take at least a week or two to really investigate. This was just to get the papers filled out, and so I could get a feel for what we’re dealing with. You’ll be seeing quite a bit of me, Mrs. Morton, don’t you worry.”
Mrs. Morton smiled weakly. The cheaters always hated it when she said she’d be around a lot. And the Mortons were faking it, she knew it. Not even a beep, not even a blip on the Spectro. Very unusual in an enclosed space with ghosts.
And the Mortons would certainly be learning about enclosed spaces if she was right, and they were faking. The Church didn’t take kindly to attempts to steal from it; Mr. Morton would have a hard time examining eyeballs from a little blue cell.
“So let’s just go sign those papers and I can leave you to your eveni—”
Something darted through the air behind Mr. Morton, so fast it took Chess a second to realize it wasn’t just a hallucination. A black shape, man-size but crouched over. She had the impression of a hood hiding its face, of the light by the bed catching the sharp edge of a blade, before it disappeared into the closet.
It looked almost like a cartoon, like an image projected on the wall instead of moving in front of it, but it had been so long since she’d seen an actual cartoon, she could have been wrong about that.
She wasn’t wrong about the sense of unease, though, more than simply the unease of her body starting to get serious with her about its needs—at least she thought it was. Fuck, she shouldn’t have waited to take her pills, it was throwing her off. For the first time a ribbon of doubt slipped through her mind. Withdrawal, or ghost? No way to be sure.
The Mortons stood watching her, faintly perplexed, waiting for her to finish her sentence. They hadn’t noticed anything—or perhaps they had, and they were watching her to see if she said anything.
Of course. The image had looked like a cartoon, like something being broadcast, because it was. When she came back later she’d look for the projector. It was probably behind the mirror over the dresser. The thought was comforting, but not enough to ease the cool sweat on her forehead and body. She felt sticky with it.
“To your evening,” she finished. “I’m sorry I’ve kept you so late, my last interview ran long. And I’ll be in touch.”
Sooner than they knew.
Chapter Seven
“Debunking often looks like the most appealing of Church positions, but very few possess the skill, intelligence, and above all, integrity required.”
—Careers in the Church: A Guide for Teens, by Praxis Turpin
All buzzed up and no place to go. At least, not until three, when she investigated the Morton house again.
The Market was closed. Bump’s place would be open—Bump’s place never closed—but she didn’t particularly want to go there either. She had everything she needed.
But the walls of her small apartment were closing in, the faint colors from the stained-glass window sliding over surfaces like they were chasing her.
She could go get cigarettes. The Stop Shop on the corner had special dispensation to be open twenty-four hours. That might be nice. A little walk in the cool night air would clear some of the anxious cobwebs in her head.
What the hell had that thing been? She’d never seen anything like it. Projected image or not, it was menacing. She’d had the feeling that if it had turned and saw her, looked at her, she might have screamed.
Maybe she should eat. It wasn’t like her to get so paranoid. Take a little of the edge off, fix the sourness in her stomach. The Stop Shop sold snacks, too.
She fished a twenty from her bag, then grabbed her knife and tucked it into her pocket. Walking alone and unarmed in Downside was never a good idea. She locked all three of the bolts on her door as she left.
Her building had once been a Catholic church, before the Church of Truth made every other religion redundant.
Many of th
e old places of worship had fallen into disrepair, but buildings with some sort of historical value or level of attractiveness were permitted to remain. Chess’s was both, and she was glad, even if the extra floors built in ruined the effect a little bit.
It was still one of the prettiest buildings in Downside. And the air outside her apartment did seem clean, despite the odors of garbage and exhaust that never went away.
The heavy double doors at the end of the hall stood wide open, framing the empty street beyond. That was odd. The doors were normally closed and locked. Could be old Mrs. Radcliffe on the second floor left them open. They were difficult for her to move, and she always forgot what kind of neighborhood she lived in.
Or it could have been the four members of Slobag’s gang from Thirtieth, lying in wait in the protective darkness between the huge slabs of wood and the walls. Chess reached for her knife but she knew it was useless. A hand closed over her mouth before she could open it to scream, and the sharp pinch of a needle was the last thing she felt before the world went black.
The itching woke her up. That, or the intense discomfort of lying on a cold cement floor. But she was pretty sure it was the itching. It burned a path from the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, up her arms and legs, and spread across her chest and throat as if she wore a cheap, terrible necklace she couldn’t take off.
She had no idea what time it was, but if she was this bad off it had to be late Sunday morning, at least. Shit. She’d missed the Mortons’ place. Not that they knew she’d missed, but still.
Her head pounded as she pushed herself to a sit. The worst possible thing she could do would be to scratch. Scratching would only make the itching worse. Experience had taught her that. Once she started scratching those invisible itch-bugs wandering beneath the skin she might as well give up. It was like issuing them a challenge. Itch-bugs didn’t like to lose.
Of course, her stomach was giving them a run for their money in the torture-and-discomfort department. It felt like she’d swallowed a big gulp of acid. The palm of her right hand screamed in pain.
Faint light entered the room through a window high up on the opposite wall. If she leaned her head back she could see a slice of gray sky. So it could be early morning, or simply a cloudy day. She bet on the latter. No way she’d be withdrawing like this if only a few hours had passed.
Slobag’s minions had lain a quilt on the floor, but it hadn’t made a difference. Now it did. She wrapped it around her shoulders to try and ease her shivering, and leaned back.
No point even trying the door. The heavy iron lock looked shiny new and very strong. There were no other doors. There wasn’t even a convenient ring connected to a secret trapdoor in the floor.
There was a toilet, though. She wasn’t about to use it, not when they could be watching, but at least it was there. Nothing like a considerate kidnapper.
Oh shit. What the hell did they want with her? It wasn’t as though they could mistake her for someone else, or rather, something else. Not with her tattoos, not unless they were stupid, which Slobag’s people weren’t.
She didn’t know much about Slobag—not her neighborhood, not her dealer. She didn’t need to. Like Bump, Slobag ruled his part of town. Like Bump, he would be utterly ruthless. And unlike Bump, he would bear a grudge against her simply because of who she worked for, which was not good news for her. The Church’s ascendance had been welcomed far more suspiciously in the Asian countries than it had in the West, and Slobag and his men were Cantonese.
She caught herself trying to scratch and folded her arms tightly around her chest under the quilt. Her body thrummed with need. She needed to get out of here. She needed her pills. Just the thought made her groan.
Metal scraped against metal as the lock unbolted and the door opened.
“So she’s awake.”
Chess didn’t recognize the man standing in the doorway, his hair standing up in short black spikes. Everything about him was black except his skin, the silver chains he wore, and the chunky silver skull ring on his right hand. The black Chinese character tattooed on the back of his left hand would have identified him as one of Slobag’s even if his features already hadn’t. His people all carried the mark, something like the tattoos that granted her some protection against spirits and gave her additional power to fight them. She suspected there was some power in that ink, as well. Maybe not the kind of power hers carried, but who knew?
Through the gaps around his body in the doorway she saw a few others, their arms folded neatly in front of them. No chance at overpowering him and escaping, then. Of course, even if he’d been alone she probably couldn’t have accomplished it, not in her state. Not in any state, if the rumors about this crew could be believed.
“Why the face, tulip girl? You look moanworthy indeed.” His voice was deeper than she would have expected, and not accented like street no matter what the words were.
She bit her lip and turned her face away, hanging it forward so her dark hair could cover it. Not much choice except to look and act as docile as possible so they’d let her go. At least until she knew what they wanted.
From outside the doorway he produced a chair and sat down in it a few feet away from her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “I’m Lex.”
She glared at him.
“Don’t feel like making the speech? Okay by me. Only maybe I got something might loosen your tongue.” He reached into his jacket. Chess tensed. She didn’t have her knife, didn’t have any weapons at all, but if she had to, she could probably at least get him with her fingernails or a good solid kick in the balls.
He didn’t pull out a weapon. Or rather, not a weapon that could hurt her. But nothing could have controlled her as effectively. Just as Bump had done, Lex produced a Baggie full of pills. Unlike Bump, he held it in his fingers, dangling it in front of his face. Her mouth watered.
“What you think, tulip girl? Maybe you want to talk, I let you have one?” He reached into the bag and pulled out a Cept, gleaming white between his burnished fingers. “Maybe two?”
The pill loomed in front of her, shining like a diamond. Her stomach was starting to cramp, her legs to feel weak. If she didn’t manage to get something soon …
“I got all night. My guess is you don’t.” He leaned forward a little more, his voice dropping to a caressing whisper, an insinuating one. His black eyes never left her. “You feeling that pinch, hmm? Them itches? They get right in, don’t they? Like you’ll never stop itching. And the belly gets all fratchy there, those long legs turn rubber …”
She wanted to sink into the wall and disappear. She should have let the psychopomp take her. She knew it was a mistake to stay alive.
“Ain’t gonna get better with time, tulip.” He tossed the Cept into the air, caught it. Tossed it again, missed. It hit the stone floor with a small ticking noise.
Chess dove forward, but she was too late. His boot snapped down over the pill and ground it into powder. That was okay. If he would just leave … It wouldn’t be pretty, but the floor seemed reasonably clean, right? She didn’t know if they’d taken her cash as well as her knife. She could roll that bill up just fine, even with her stiff and aching hand. If he would leave, if he would please just leave.
No such luck. He produced a bottle of water. “Jarkman.”
The door opened, admitting another, smaller man. “Aye?”
“Fetch us some towels. I made a spill.”
Lex uncapped the water bottle, lifted his foot, and slowly, deliberately, poured liquid over the crushed pill. Chess bit her lip so hard she drew blood.
Jarkman was back in a moment with a roll of paper towels. He wiped up the mess in silence and left.
“Want to try that one again? I got a whole bag here, it don’t mind me if I crush them all. Jarkman needs the exercise.”
He plucked another pill from the bag. “You know the worst part, aye? You been there? When the belly gets mad. Starts turning upside out. Methinks nothing in this
world so bad as—”
“Stop.” The word came out before she realized it. “Just stop, okay?”
He blinked. “And that’s four words, ain’t they nice. Here you go, tulip. You have that.”
He tossed the pill to her like a bread crust to a duck. Not picking it up was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
“Aw, you think we give you poison?” She might have appreciated the smile he gave her if she hadn’t been about to burst into tears. He wrapped his fingers around the top of the bag, shook it up, and plucked a pill out of it. She watched it disappear into his mouth, watched him wash it down. “No poison. True thing, tulip. Take it.”
She wanted to be cool, but coolness was impossible in the face of her screaming, throbbing body. The words were barely out of his mouth before she snatched the pill up from the folds of the quilt and gobbled it, grinding it between her teeth, turning it into a slick, bitter paste on her tongue.
Without a word he passed her the water, and she gulped it down. Some of the tightness in her chest eased.
“Ready to talk now?” He held out his hand, flat and open. Another Cept rested in the middle of his palm.
She took it, crunched it, washed it down. “Depends on what you want to talk about.”
“What you suppose I want to talk about?”
“You think you have a ghost?”
His thin lips stretched into a smile. “Not bad, tulip, not bad. Tougher than you look.”
“Why do you keep calling me tulip?”
“Ain’t that the tattoo?”
“No, these are—you asshole.”
She did have a tulip tattoo. Low on her stomach, just above the juncture of thigh and groin. Which her pants covered.
He shrugged. “Some dames hide weapons, aye?”
“So you had to strip-search me to make sure I wasn’t?”
“I don’t strip you, nay. Not me. Not the men. My sister Blue, she done the job.”
Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to thank him.
The knock at the door startled her. Lex turned. “Aye?”