Chasing Magic

  “Could be,” she said.

  Bump shook his head. “Nay, nay. Thinkin him got all the fuckin knowledge what him people sell, yay, got all the fuckin plan on why, too. Ain’t fuckin stupid, him ain’t. Bump got what him up on, too, what him fuckin plans be.”

  He waited, his eyebrows raised, giving his next statement the dramatic weight she guessed he thought it deserved. “Blake come to Bump, see, four, five weeks past, he done, looking for a fuckin deal. Wanting me fuckin sell Downside on, dig, sell him all I fuckin got, wanting fuckin take over, make he some fuckin developments and wha-the-fuck.”

  She was pretty sure her mouth literally dropped open. No. No way. Yeah, people were scummy and selfish and heartless, and yeah, people would generally crush their own mother’s skull under their feet if it meant they could be rich or famous or whatever other bullshit people were raised to believe actually mattered. But if she was understanding Bump, what he was getting at, that couldn’t …

  Couldn’t what? Right. There was nothing people couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

  “He’s doing it deliberately,” she said. “He’s turning them into zombies, he’s controlling them so completely, he’s getting them to kill each other. Or themselves. He’s getting rid of all your customers to drive you out of business, to take over your territory.”

  Bump shook his head. “Ain’t fuckin all, Ladybird. Ain’t just me, neitherways. Bettin him gave Lex the fuckin chatter, too.”

  “Gettin em out of Downside all over,” Terrible finished. “Ain’t gotta worry on finding dead ones new homes, dig? Ain’t gotta worry on em fuckin up you new building, squattin inside an all. Just clean the place out, tear it down, build all new on it. Like over a death-yard, aye? Him tryin turn Downside into some fuckin suburb, an he kill any tries stoppin him.”

  “So what you thinking, on that dude Blake? Got a thought why him wanting Downside so bad?”

  They were in the Chevelle, Black Sabbath coming quiet through the speakers and the high afternoon sun in her eyes, heading for the building on Eightieth where Marietta Blake had apparently met Tagger. Whether they’d find anything there was another issue—and she doubted they would—but they’d be close enough to the docks to check out the Agneta Katina, as well, so that might be something.

  “I don’t know. He’s done it before, I guess. Looks like this is the way he likes to work. Actually … listen to this.”

  She shifted in her seat, angled her body to face him more as she read from the magazine Bump had given her. “ ‘Blake’s first major urban-rehabilitation project was in the former Wainwright area of Baltimore. After the 2013 riots he bought whole blocks of abandoned and empty buildings, converting them to modern housing and a now-thriving shopping district.’ ”

  “Aye, got some recall on that. Thinkin he caused them riots?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe it was just what gave him the idea. Easier to buy all that property when the people who should live there are gone. This is all about money. Who cares who dies, as long as Kyle Blake gets rich.”

  Terrible’s mouth twisted: a half smile, half frown. “ ’Salways all about money, baby. Everything.”

  She sighed and glanced around. The streets were even emptier than they had been before. From Sixty-fifth and Wallace onward she hadn’t seen a single person.

  Terrible said it before she could. “Awful fuckin empty up here. Ain’t good, aye.”

  “It’s not just me, then.”

  “Naw. Oughta be lots on the street, it bein hot out an all, too. Should see more.”

  “So they’re … Do you think they’re …?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. It didn’t matter. He shook his head, the downward tilt of his lips and the look in his eye telling her he knew exactly what she was thinking. And thought she was right.

  “Ain’t thinkin them somewhere good. Don’t like this one, Chessiebomb. Don’t got the right feel to me.” He hesitated. “Thinkin maybe oughta take you on ho—”

  “No.”

  He glanced at her, then sighed. “Aye, right. Guessin you needing to see, anyroad.”

  “If there are any people on the ship who don’t know what’s going on—if any are honest, you know—I can get us on board with my Church ID, too.”

  “Wish we had us some other way find that dude Razor.”

  “I wish we had some other way to do all of this,” she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t when his brows drew together and his hands tightened on the wheel. Quickly she added, “I mean, I wish we had more information about Blake. I wish the Church could help us out.”

  He had to realize how lame she sounded, but thankfully he let it go. With the way he seemed to be feeling the last few days—at least since her little near-death fuckup—the last thing she wanted to do was give him another reason to keep an extra eye on her or worry about her.

  “Any knowledge you can get on him, up you Church? Maybe get he records or whatany, like you get in you cases?”

  “No. Um, I saw Elder Griffin earlier, but … he wasn’t really in the mood to talk. I don’t think he’d pull the records for me.”

  She felt him glance over at her while she kept her gaze pinned to the emptiness outside the window. She didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to tell him. Damn it, wasn’t it enough that he knew she’d had to tell Elder Griffin, that he knew Elder Griffin was angry at her, that he knew she’d fucked up and lost someone who mattered?

  Why couldn’t she just look … good to him? Like a good person, a worthwhile one?

  He broke the silence. “Still ain’t happy with you, aye?”

  “No.” They’d reached Baxter; she watched the ruined building on the corner swing on its axis as he turned the Chevelle. “No, he’s not.”

  “Ain’t turning you in, though?”

  “No.” She needed another subject. And more speed, right there in her bag at her feet, waiting for her. Beckoning her. Something to give the pills in her system a needed kick, because thinking about Elder Griffin was not exactly letting her relax into her high.

  Of course, speed also fucked with her ability to feel ghosts. Maybe not such a good idea. Damn it, what the hell was she supposed to do? Didn’t she have enough shit in her head without all the extra baggage of the last couple of days?

  Fuck that. She needed something, whatever it was. And she couldn’t have it, and the whole thing sucked.

  Terrible cleared his throat. “Ain’t … Maybe not such a good time for pills, dig, might be—”

  “I’m not— I know.” Her face felt as if someone had poured gasoline over it and lit a match. Was she that fucking obvious? Shit, how much babysitting did he think she needed? “I’m not stupid, okay, I know where we are.”

  “Ain’t sayin you is, baby, just—”

  “I didn’t even reach for my bag.”

  For a second she thought he was going to push it. No matter what she said, she sure as fuck had been thinking of grabbing her pillbox, and she knew he knew it; he knew her too well to doubt it. And if he pushed it, she’d— Damn it, what did he want from her? She’d already promised to be more careful, she’d apologized so many times already. She’d promised before not to get too fucked up when they were alone together. She’d already let him so far into her life, let him see so much …

  Right. And he’d wanted in because he loved her. He’d asked her not to jump too far off the bridge, he’d been upset by the OD because he loved her and wanted to be with her. With her. What was the matter with her?

  He wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, either; this wasn’t the time, and he had every fucking right to mention it. His life was in danger, too. Especially so, in fact, because he’d die before he let her get hurt, and that was something she knew about him. Something she never doubted.

  “Sorry,” he said, breaking the tense silence. “Sorry, ain’t meant—”

  “No. No, I’m sorry, I didn’t … I’m sorry.”

  Some of the tension lessened. Some.

  He pulled the car
up onto the curb at Eightieth and Baxter, and when he shut off the engine she remembered something else they needed to do. “Hey, let me get that sigil on you, okay? We should have tried it last night, but I guess now’s as good a time as any, right?”

  He didn’t reply, which she took as assent as she pulled her black chalk and her notebook from her bag and reached for him.

  He caught her arm. “Chess … what I say afore. Ain’t meant—”

  “It’s okay.” She met his eyes and, like always, warmth sparked deep inside her, warmth that turned into some kind of strength. Fuck, she was so lucky. “Really. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I—yeah, I was thinking—it’s just been a really shitty day.”

  “Aye. No worryin on it.” His hand squeezed hers for a second before letting go. “C’mon, let’s us get movin. Sooner we done here the better.”

  “Right.” Where to put the sigil? His right arm was probably the best place, since he didn’t have much empty skin on his left. She turned his hand palm up and slid her fingers from his wrist to the crook of his elbow, over the smooth skin, the hard muscles beneath. His pulse pumped steady under her fingertips.

  “Got me some ideas, you thinkin on places you want you a better look at.”

  She grinned. “I bet you do.”

  “Only tryin give you the help.”

  “Uh-huh.” But she squeezed his arm, held his gaze a few seconds longer. Unfortunately, the fact that the street looked empty didn’t mean it was empty, or she would have kissed him.

  Too bad anything—anyone—could be watching, and chances were that whoever it was, they weren’t friendly. They never were.

  Instead, she looked into his eyes long enough for him to know what she was thinking, long enough to see she wasn’t the only one thinking it. And then she got to work.

  She knew the sigil already, of course. She’d helped design it; she’d sweated and worried over every line. That didn’t stop her from double-checking it, from making absolutely sure she was putting it on right, throwing as much power as she could summon into it as she inscribed the thick black lines onto his flesh.

  He shifted in his seat, and she glanced up. “You okay?”

  “Aye. Just … Aye, I’m right.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded. He looked okay, she thought. Not too pale or anything. Was he flushed, maybe, his eyes a little bright?

  The first time she’d ever marked him—back at Chester Airport, almost eight months before—he’d reacted, she remembered. And so had she. That same tingle sliding its insidious way up from her pelvis, subtle enough that she barely felt it but strong enough that she couldn’t help but notice it.

  Yeah. His left hand, resting on her knee, tightened; that was it, all right. And nothing to do about it, at least not for a while.

  So she finished. The distant snap of the sigil setting vibrated for a second in her chest. “That should do it.”

  “Aye?” He inspected the swirling lines she’d scrawled on his arm, halfway between elbow and wrist. “Cool.”

  Nobody had ever just believed in her like that before. Nobody outside the Church, anyway. That was a high in itself, one that never got old.

  Too bad it wouldn’t be enough. Not for the experience she thought they were about to have.

  Not for the experience Terrible apparently thought they were about to have, either. She stood at his side and watched him load himself up with weapons from his trunk; knives tucked everywhere, brass knuckles and chain in his pockets.

  Last was the gun. He inspected the clip, glanced at her, shoved it in. “Here.”

  “What?”

  He held it out to her, low down so the car hid the gesture. “Take it, aye? You only got that blade, oughta have more.”

  She looked at it, trying to suppress a twinge of superstitious fear but not quite managing it. That was the gun. The gun, the one she’d killed the psychopomp with. It sat there in his hand, staring up at her with its impassive steel eye.

  When she glanced from it to Terrible she found him watching her just as blandly. Yeah, he knew.

  She took the gun. It fit awkwardly into the pocket in her bag where she kept her asafetida and graveyard dirt, the stuff she grabbed most often.

  “Guessin you ain’t got a better place for it.”

  “Nope.” Not unless she wanted to leave it sticking halfway out of her pocket or she wanted to carry it. Which she didn’t.

  “Aye, then.” He stepped back and slammed the trunk closed. “Let’s go.”

  They found the doorway without any trouble, about halfway down the alley. Part of the door itself still tried to cover the empty space; they slipped past it and into what had once—obviously—been a taxidermist’s shop. It was now something between a squat and a room for anyone wanting a little privacy—for any number of reasons. It smelled like a dead man’s bathroom.

  Hardly any light made its way through the holes scattered among the filthy windows just below the ceiling, but it was enough for her to see footsteps in the inch-thick dust on the floor, smears from movement. Lots of movement. Whether it was from their mysterious new pal Razor or Kyle Blake himself or whomever else, she couldn’t say, but the few bones and teeth still lying around made it easy to believe Edsel had been there.

  She said as much to Terrible, and he nodded as he headed toward another doorway near the back.

  No windows beyond the door, which had been some sort of workshop. She could guess what kind, too. More bones there, but recent ones; rodents and scavengers that became trapped after following the scent of death. The scent that still hung in the air and itched her nose.

  All of the good stuff had been taken, but that didn’t stop her from switching on the flashlight from her bag and peering into the dull plastic bins along the wall. No. Just some unidentifiable bones, no skulls or spines or anything she could consecrate for herself and use. Damn.

  “Chess.”

  “Yeah?”

  “C’mere.”

  She followed the beam of his light to the opposite corner. Hmm. Another door.

  In the floor.

  “Clean on them edges,” he said. “Like been opened some, dig.”

  She leaned closer. “Yeah. Shit.”

  “Lemme go, aye? Check it out. Know you ain’t like the downs, no—”

  “No, I can’t—I have to see it anyway, if it’s related to the magic or if there are ghosts down there or something.”

  “It feel like magic in here?”

  “No. There isn’t any. But who knows what could be down there, you know? They could have iron plates or whatever to block it.”

  He shrugged.

  She knelt by the door—trapdoor, really—to get a closer look. It was locked, but that wasn’t a problem; she had her pick case. And, yeah, she definitely needed it, because those marks were fresh. The areas at the edge were free of dirt and dust, and there were signs of movement in what covered the rest of the floor. “Let me just get it open.”

  He held the light for her while she picked the lock but grabbed her hand before she could lift the handle. Oh, right. He might have to let her go down there, but no way would he let her go first.

  Please let it be just a little storage area, a few feet deep, maybe, where they’d scooped out some of the dirt the Church had filled it with, please— No. No, of course not.

  It was a tunnel, a tunnel breathing warm foul air at her. It was a damp ladder covered with dirty shoe marks, covered with a faint greenish tinge of mold. “Fuck.”

  “Aye. Ain’t good.”

  “No, it isn’t.”

  He crouched beside her, leaning over the empty space to shine the light down into it. “Ain’t see shit in there, just empty. Tunnel, though, keeps goin.”

  He didn’t wait for a reply; by the time she’d opened her mouth, he was halfway down the ladder. He was going first this time, then. Last time they’d done something like this he’d dropped her down, and she’d hurt herself, and … Her body heated at the memory.


  Terrible was obviously remembering, too. His hand slid up her thigh as she climbed down. “You wanna get them jeans you got off again, you just gimme the say.”

  “Ha, no.” But she paused long enough to lean over and kiss him, still amazed somewhere deep inside that she could do so, that he let her. That he kissed her back, his hand finding her neck and resting there.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Lessee what we got waitin for us.”

  Nothing. At least that was what she thought at first, as they picked their careful way along the rough slimy tunnel floor. And it was a tunnel in the most basic sense of the word, a narrow hallway crudely hacked out of solid earth; not like Lex’s tunnels, which had been built for utilities or the train or something back before Haunted Week and had cement walls and floors and fluorescent lighting in places.

  This tunnel wasn’t flat. It wasn’t even. It jogged oddly to the left once or twice before resuming the same trajectory; Chess couldn’t figure out why.

  “Light posts or some shit, guessing.” Terrible shone the light up and to the side, toward the outcropping of solid dirt. “Thinkin we under the road.”

  “Oh, right.” She looked ahead again as they reached another curve. Probably the last curve, because bright light emanated from it so the end couldn’t be much farther. “Shit. That means we’re headed straight for the bay, doesn’t it?”

  “Aye.”

  “And that means—”

  His hand on her arm cut her off. In the same motion he switched off the flashlight, tugging her to the side.

  A few seconds of silence. More than a few, really. Enough for her to lose track, enough for her to become aware of her heart hammering in her chest.

  Terrible glanced at her, tilted his head to the side. Had he heard something? She hadn’t, but, then— Oh. Yes. He had heard something. She leaned forward enough to see a man—one of Razor’s, she assumed, one of Kyle Blake’s—climbing from the bay into the tunnel, silhouetted by the blank bright blue behind its mouth.

  Terrible pressed his palm against her thigh for a second, a “stay here” gesture, before making his silent way up along the rough wall.