Chasing Magic

She’d run that fast before, but not very often. Her chest ached by the time she reached her bedroom and grabbed the stack of hardcover books she used as a step stool when she needed one. Usually she didn’t anymore, because Terrible got things down for her, but she figured he was pretty well occupied in keeping down a homicidal maniac who seemingly refused to die and radiated black magic and ghost energy like blood spreading through clear water.

She kept all the standard stuff in her bag—iron filings, graveyard dirt, asafetida, iron-ring water, and blood salt; the sort of all-purpose things she used a lot. The box on the top shelf of her closet was where the other stuff was, supplies she’d bought just because, or in case she ever needed them. Always good to be prepared, and almost everything in that box would be helpful in breaking curses or hexes, weakening dark magics, crossing the Evil Eye.

Okay. Powdered crow’s bone, of course. She had some dried chunks of snake, some goat’s blood, tormentil, ground rat tails, a handful of lizard eyes and cat claws. Hell, she should just take the whole box, except someone would steal it.

Her hands shook as she tossed everything she thought might be useful into her bag, catching the silver glint of her pillbox in its pocket. If only … Too bad all the adrenaline in her system made it totally useless to even think about taking more. Maybe after all of it was done she’d take an Oozer or two. If she could; if she was still alive to do so.

Maybe that was being dramatic, but if there was one thing her life had taught her—one lesson it had rammed down her throat until she choked on it—it was that nothing was ever safe. Positive expectations were for idiots.

The crowd had grown in the short time she’d been upstairs. It spread out into the yard of the building across the street, into the corner itself. Some people had brought chairs to stand on or rickety ladders; others sat on the walls edging the staircase to her front door. It was a hell of a show, after all. Nobody wanted to miss it.

Nobody except her, anyway. Too bad she didn’t have a choice. She fought her way through the forest of bodies, pushing as hard as she could. What were they going to do, attack her? Fuck them. They needed to get the hell out of her way, and they needed to do it immediately.

With every step—with every person she shoved to the side—the buzzing of her tattoos, the creeping sensation through her body, the cloud of despair and horror, grew, until she wondered how she managed to stay upright.

Luckily she did, and so did Terrible, although he definitely looked paler than he should. Whatever that was, it was clearly starting to get to him, to infect him, and she didn’t have much time.

The killer still struggled to get up, still waved that arm around like a fucking winning lottery ticket. No way was that guy alive by normal means; she could see his throat almost crushed under Terrible’s foot.

So how was he alive at all?

First things first. She grabbed the iron-ring water—clean water with iron rings in the bottle, left to purify under a full moon—and watched Terrible take a swig. Some of his color returned. At least that was some weight off. For the moment, anyway.

More of that heaviness lightened when she took a drink herself. Excellent. Start with the iron filings, then; clearly iron had some power over whatever the spell was—it usually did—and what she needed most was to neutralize it enough to think.

“Arkrandia bellarum dishager.” Her hand swung in an arc over the supine killer, spreading a fine dust of iron. The power lessened again.

But the killer hadn’t blinked. He hadn’t blinked and he hadn’t choked. Chess bent down, trying not to get too close but needing to see it anyway.

Holy shit. Either she was in the presence of some unbelievably fucked-up magic or this guy was out of his mind on Burn—a drug even she wouldn’t go near—or both, because he hadn’t blinked, and tiny shards of iron dug into his eyeballs. As she watched, blood welled around one of the largest pieces, started trickling down to the outer corner.

He could certainly see, though. His free hand—the one not clutching its grisly souvenir—shot out and grabbed for her, caught her ankle in a grip so strong she cried out. Horrible cold magic, death magic, ghost magic, flew up her leg, spread through her body and darkened her vision.

Terrible’s foot smashed into the killer’s head; blood sprayed from his nose and mouth. Still the killer’s hand clutched her ankle; still he pulled harder than she would have imagined he could.

Chess went down. Lukewarm blood soaked into her clothes, her hair. Her stomach lurched. She was covered with it, it was all over her, on her skin. …

Terrible’s foot slammed down again, and again. The killer’s face broke. He still didn’t let go, started yanking her closer. What the fuck was going on? He couldn’t be alive, no way could he be alive.

One more heavy stomp. The killer’s head … “exploded” was the only word that seemed to fit, although it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that. It looked like … like a smashed M&M, oozing blood and spilling pulpy tissue from its hard candy shell.

His grip didn’t loosen.

She shoved her blood-slick hand into her pocket to pull out the switchblade Terrible had given her a couple of months before, but Terrible was faster. He crouched down, dug the point of his own knife down into the killer’s arm, hard enough that it scraped the pavement beneath.

The killer started to babble, syllables falling from his misshapen mouth dying-fish-like against the pool of blood.

Terrible dragged his knife to the left, slicing through the killer’s arm; Chess did the same on the other side. Oh, that was so fucking gross, and the magic kept spreading through her body, thicker and heavier every minute like cold crawling slime, making her vision blur further and her head buzz.

Terrible’s eyelids fluttered again. His hand had come in contact with the killer’s wrist as he finished cutting through the skin. Chess reached out to grab him, pushing as much energy as she could into him. Please, please let it work. If he passed out that man-thing was going to get up, she knew it, and no one else would have a hope of defeating it.

Not to mention what it would do to Terrible to pass out in front of everyone, how that would affect him. She couldn’t even think of that.

His head dipped for a second, his face paling further. He started to fall forward. No, no damn it, that couldn’t— She gripped his arm harder, dug her nails in and shoved everything she had into it, as much energy as she could summon.

That, at least, worked. Too bad when he slipped, his foot left the killer’s head, and the killer was moving again. Would that thing never die— No. No, it wouldn’t, would it? It snapped together in her head, a disgusting idea, but the only one she could think of.

The man was possessed by a ghost. Or worse, it was a corpse re-animated by a ghost.

Okay. It was a ghost, and she could Banish it. She just had to disconnect it from that body first, and while that wouldn’t be easy, it was something she knew how to do.

Terrible straightened, kicking out at the killer and shoving it back to the ground, while Chess threw a handful of graveyard dirt and asafetida at it.

It froze.

Her shoulders had started to sag in relief when it moved again. Shit! It must be getting some sort of extra protection from the body it was in, either the body or the magic or both.

Okay. Try something else. She popped the cap of her salt canister and started walking a circle, focusing on the energy. People stepped out of her way and stayed outside the circle, something she hadn’t expected but was grateful for.

But, then, of course they stayed outside it; Downsiders weren’t quite as afraid of magic as they were of Terrible, but probably close. At least of this kind of magic.

She reached the end. Fuck. She needed to use her blood to set the circle, but her knife had just been buried in a dead man’s muscles. The thought of cutting her own flesh with it was just … No.

Oh, this sucked. It fucking sucked. She wiped her knife on her jeans, set down the salt canister, and gritted her teeth. The second this was done, she was going to soak her hand in antiseptic.

“With blood I bind.” The stinging pain of the cut in her left pinkie faded when the circle set in place, strong and pure, giving her that little rush of energy that never grew old.

That was all well and good, but whether or not the circle would hold a ghost possessing a corpse was another question entirely.

Terrible glanced at her, his expression a question. She nodded and he turned to Burnjack, still holding down the killer’s legs inside the circle. “Go on, now, only don’t step on that salt, aye? Don’t fuck it up.”

Burnjack nodded. The second he let go of the killer’s legs they started moving again, kicking and jerking like a toddler having a fit. At almost the same moment Terrible crossed the salt line himself and stood near Chess.

Not too near, of course, but at moments like this she almost didn’t give a shit that they’d decided to keep their relationship secret, that Terrible thought it would keep her safer if people didn’t know they could get to him through her. It made sense, and she agreed most of the time, but right then … right then she was freaked out and covered with cold blood, and she wanted nothing more than to have him wrap those strong arms around her and make her feel safe.

But he couldn’t, so she focused on the killer dragging himself to his feet, his upper body wavering, his flattened head sagging forward praying-mantis-like, too much for the crushed neck to support. She didn’t know how she managed to keep from throwing up; blood drooled from the sick ruin of his face, dripped on his shirt, flew through the air in a vile rain when he shook his deflated head.

He stumbled toward her, arms outstretched. Did he see her—could he see anything through those eyes anymore? Or, no, he probably felt her, felt the power in her blood. Ghosts always did.

She held her breath when he reached the circle. The entire crowd held its breath when he reached the circle, all of them waiting to see what would happen. He reached out—

The energy of the spell on him, of the ghost and the practitioner, slammed into her and knocked the air out of her chest. So cold, so fucking cold, and so dark. The circle was connected to her and the magic probed the circle, finding her, sticking sneaky inquisitive fingers into her, poking and prodding to see where it hurt the most, finding the weak spots. There were so many for it to find.

She tried to push back against it but she didn’t have the strength, not if she wanted to keep the circle in place. It was holding; she would call it a miracle if she didn’t know those didn’t exist, didn’t know it was the Church—the magic the Church had taught her to use—keeping that barrier in place.

How long it would stay in place, she didn’t know. The spell on the corpse was so fucking strong.

She clenched her fists and struggled. Not the time to think about it. Thinking wasn’t going to help anything. What she needed to do was find a way to separate ghost and body.

She could do it with her psychopomp, but there was no way she could get into that circle to summon it, not without Terrible, and she couldn’t take the chance of him collapsing again. No, she’d need to break or weaken the spell first, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

What else was new?

Chapter Four

Murder is a crime. Murder by psychopomp is an evil.

—Psychopomps: The Key to Church Ritual and Mystery, by Elder Brisson

No point in setting up a firedish inside the circle; that thing would either kick it over or smash it. But she could set one up just outside, and the smoke would drift into it. The faint breeze came from the west, so that’s where she set up, on the broken curb by the sewer grate.

Asafetida and ajenjible went in first, followed by corrideira—all she had—and some melidia. Whatever the hell that thing inside the body had once been, it was now a murderer, and sending it to one of the spirit prisons would be one of the best things—no, would be the best thing—that had happened to her that day.

Thick smoke started drifting from the dish, barely visible in the darkness settling over the street. The smell of it filled the air, filled Chess, and chased some of her fear away. That was the smell of Church, the smell of magic, the smell of things she knew how to do. Things she could do, and do well. She might not be worth much as a person, but she was a fucking good witch, and she could do this.

Iron had lessened the spell’s power before, so that was the first thing she grabbed, gritting her teeth against the sensation of alien hands scrambling her innards. Iron had lessened it and salt had held it, and the two of them together were pretty fucking strong. Stronger than the spell, she hoped.

She filled her palm with them, held them over the hot, fragrant smoke. “Power to power, these powers bind.”

Energy warmed her skin; she could practically see it glowing. Good. She took a deep breath and threw the iron and salt at the animated body still fighting against her circle.

“Cadeskia regontu balaktor!”

Blowback like a brick flung at her chest knocked her over. Her head hit the sidewalk with a thud she barely felt. The power was too strong, too dark, for her to feel anything else. It surged over her, buried her beneath it. She struggled for air.

Through her slitted eyelids she saw the body in the circle wavering, saw the ethereal glow of the ghost emanating from it. She’d done something, she’d managed to start separating them somehow, but not enough. Fuck.

Okay. Crow’s bone and wolfsbane, some black powder and blood salt. Ignore the throbbing pain in her head and get to work. Again she placed her hand in the smoke; again she said the words of power and flung the charged herbs.

This time she was ready for the backlash. It hit her, but not as hard, and she was able to keep watching.

The body—the killer, the ghost, the animated corpse, whatever she should call it—started to weave, its movements slow and staggering like a drunk looking for a place to vomit. What the fuck did it take to separate that thing? Usually the corrideira and ajenjible were enough, more than enough.

She tossed a chunk of snake onto the fire in the dish, gathered more salt in her hand, and scooped up some cobwebs to go with it. The cobwebs might trap the spell; that worked with some hexes, so why not try it here.

Without much real hope, she powered it over the smoke—purplish now from the burning snake flesh—and threw it. No. Just as she’d thought. This was bullshit. Anger rose higher in her chest every second, anger and a kind of frustrated determination. She should be upstairs with Terrible, warm and safe and high from Cepts and his body. Instead, she was on the street, looking more stupid every minute that she failed to break that spell.

Should she go ahead and summon her psychopomp? Yeah, the ghost-thing would probably hit her while she did the summoning, but it wasn’t as if she’d never been hit before. And her psychopomp could tear the ghost from the body—if she could get a passport on it.

The thought of touching that stump of an arm, ragged from where she and Terrible had sliced it in two and still dripping dark blood, made her want to be sick. But if she couldn’t separate them any other way … what else could she do?

Nothing she could think of, unless she wanted to be there all night. Which she didn’t.

Right, then. She dug into her bag, pulled out the silk-shrouded dog’s skull, and unwrapped it. Her psychopomp. In her right hand she grabbed her Ectoplasmarker and tugged the cap off with her teeth. She had no idea who that ghost was, so no way to design a proper passport for it even if she had time, but whatever. If she marked it the psychopomp would sense the marking, and hopefully take it instead of her.

She tucked more wolfsbane into her pocket to help hide the scent of asafetida on her skin from the psychopomp, and stepped into the circle.

It felt so awful in there, so awful, like stepping into a pool of cold murky water. A pool brimming with dead things, with sea beasts full of teeth.

The body sensed her, or heard her, or something. She didn’t know. What she did know was that it turned and walked toward her, waving that fucking disembodied arm—what the fuck, was it some kind of security blanket or something?—and making horrible grunting noises.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Terrible move. She shook her head, held up her hand. No. As much as she wanted him to, no. Too risky.

She braced herself and waited for it to come. Once it got close enough, she could scrawl something on it and duck away. At some point she’d have to fight the thing off her; she didn’t have a choice. But not yet.

It lunged. She managed to grab its arm above the wrist, avoiding the gruesome prize it brandished but not able to avoid touching it at all. Under her palm its flesh was warm and solid, as if it were alive. What the fuck did that mean, then? Because the thing felt like a ghost and she couldn’t imagine a living person was in there, so how the hell did its body still feel normal?

She guessed she’d find out later. She hoped she’d be alive to find out later, anyway.

Three circles would do for a passport. She scrawled them on quickly, tossed the Ectoplasmarker toward Terrible, who caught it, just as she knew he would.

Okay. Time for the psychopomp.

She let go of the body, ducked around it, and set the skull on the ground. Her left pinkie had stopped bleeding from setting the salt circle; she squeezed it hard to get the blood flowing again. Kept squeezing until her blood fell on the skull.

This wasn’t the ideal place or situation for a ritual—she didn’t have her stang, didn’t have her cauldron, didn’t have candles—but oh fucking well. “I call on the escorts of the land of the dead. I offer an appeasement for their aid.”

The skull started to rock. Something hard slapped into the side of her head, knocked her over. Her arm scraped the sidewalk. What the—shit, eeww. It had slapped her with the dead hand; her cheek felt as if someone had thrown an ice pack at it.

Ignore it. She lifted her right hand, pressed it against the body’s stomach to keep it away.

Then had to swallow, hard, three or four times, before she could speak without gagging. “I call on the escorts. Take this spirit back to its place of silence.”

The skull erupted into life, rising from the cement as blue light sparked in its eyes. Bones formed behind it, the dog’s skeleton flowing into being, skin and shaggy black hair growing over it. Her psychopomp. It would take the soul back to the City of Eternity under the earth—the hole had already formed, blurry shapes behind a thin place in the air—and it would stay there. Forever.

The psychopomp lunged. Chess ducked.

The killer beat at the dog with the arm in its hand, its grunts turning to howls. No. No fucking way was it going to defeat her psychopomp, no way. Psychopomps were— They always won; it was their job to win.

She had to get that arm out of its hand, and she had to do it without getting in front of the psychopomp, because it would give up on the embodied ghost any second and hunt for a soul it could catch. Like hers. The only other soul in the circle.

Hers might have been worthless—well, no “might have” about it, her soul wasn’t worth shit—but she still wanted to hold on to it for a while longer.

She needed something that would distract the killer, make it drop the arm, but not hurt the psychopomp.

Fire. She needed fire.

The killer’s grunts had turned into wails, loud angry moans in the silence as it beat the dog with its gruesome weapon. The crowd had stepped back. Everyone stood there watching, with their arms wrapped around themselves and fear in their eyes. Ha. They could join the fucking club.

She held out her hand to Terrible. “Lighter.”

He set it in her palm a second later, the black steel warm from being in his breast pocket, warm from his energy. She clutched it for a second, wishing she could do the same to him, then opened it and spun the wheel.

Flame burst from the top, six inches high and pale at the base, just like always. Good. How flammable the body would be she didn’t know, but maybe at least that shirt would catch fire. She only needed a distraction, not a full-on cremation.

The psychopomp appeared on the verge of giving up; its tail had ducked between its legs. It turned to look at her. Fuck.

No time like the present. Especially not if she had any chance of surviving. She jumped forward, fisted the shirt, and touched it with the flame.

As she did, the killer swung that arm at her again, hitting her in the back of the head. She ignored it, fought through it.

Thank fuck, the shirt burst into flame, and she scrambled away as the killer roared again and started to beat at its chest with the arm.

Chess gathered her breath. “Take this spirit back to its place of silence!”

The psychopomp obeyed. The killer still waved the arm around, but its eyes—what was left of them—focused on the fire eating its clothing. It didn’t see the psychopomp lunge.

One last howl from the killer, which turned into a squeal as the psychopomp grabbed its soul. The hole in the world behind it rippled again, like water running over glass; the psychopomp leapt through it, dragging the soul in its teeth.

The hole snapped shut, the skull hit the ground and shattered as the body fell on top of it, and Chess sank to her knees in the now-empty circle, wondering what the fuck was going on this time.

The corpse’s ruined head didn’t look any better under the dull glow of the refrigerated warehouse’s fluorescent lights. Its blood had dried a sticky brownish-red; the skin was pale, marked with the tread of Terrible’s boot and various scrapes from hitting the pavement. Even the six Cepts in her system didn’t help it look any better.

Chess held her hand over it for a second. She hadn’t touched the body at all since drawing the passport on it back in the circle. She didn’t particularly want to touch it now, but she had a feeling she was going to have to.

This time she wouldn’t forget her gloves.

Energy slammed into her palm, anyway, thick dark energy that set off a horrible ringing sound in her head, as if her ears had been boxed. Whatever the spell on the body was, it wasn’t pleasant.

But, then, she hadn’t expected it would be.

“What you think, Ladybird?” Bump drawled from behind a fur scarf. “What kinda fuckin witchy shit be this time?”

She hated to admit it in front of him. “I don’t know.”

Silence.

“I can feel the spell, whatever spell it is, and I can feel that it’s male—the spell caster is male, I mean—but I have no idea what the spell is. It feels like ghosts, too.”

“Be him soul inside him fuckin body do the magic, yay? Like him gone an died, then give a fuckin try to coming back.”

“Ghosts can’t cast spells,” she said, only half paying attention. “Do you know who he is? Who the body is, I mean.”

Bump dug something out of one of the pockets in his floor-length white fur coat. “Got us him fuckin wallet here, dig. Be Gordon Samms, it tell. Ain’t knowing him, I ain’t.”

“Had some owes,” Terrible said. He stood at her side with his arm around her shoulders, helping to keep her warm. “Lost he some lashers on the card games, were payin slow.”

Bump’s thin reddish eyebrows rose. “Yay? How much?”

“Six hundred, now. Won heself a game on the other night, paid he a hundred then. At the tables all the time, dig, ain’t could stay away.”

Gambling. That was one thing she’d never seen the point of, one addiction she’d never picked up. Good thing, too. She’d really be broke if she had.