City of Ghosts

Around the perimeter of the circle stood the ghosts, their clothing so familiar, their faces ones she’d seen before in paintings. The First Elders. The founders of the Church.

Controlled by herbs, neutered by magic, they stared at her with eyes that were nothing but blank white spaces. Their hands were clasped before them, their feet planted on the floor. They would witness her oath. They would bind her.

They would punish her if she broke the Oath.

Holy shit.

Elder Thompson’s voice boomed through the silence, an edge of hoarseness ruining the thick slide of it.

“Cesaria Putnam, this night we Bind you. Bind you in loyalty to your Church, to Truth and Fact, to the power of the Church and the power of the earth. Do you accept this Binding?”

Elder Griffin whispered something in her ear. She repeated it with a mouth that felt alien and strange, a voice rusty with nerves. “I request the parameters of the Binding.”

“The parameters of the Binding are these: That you will not speak of your purpose to anyone but those authorized to know it. That you will not act with disloyalty against the Church. That what you hear of your purpose after the words of Binding are spoken, and until they are retracted, will not be repeated by you to anyone but those authorized. That you will repeat them to those authorized when told to do so. Do you accept those parameters?”

Another whisper from Elder Griffin. “Who are those authorized?”

“Those authorized are Elder Thompson. Elder Griffin. The Grand Elder. Lauren Abrams, Third Inquisitor of the Black Squad. Those authorized will also be those names given to you by the aforementioned. Do you accept those parameters?”

“What are the penalties of breaking the Binding?”

“The Binding is unbreakable.”

“No Binding is unbreakable.”

“If this Binding is broken the penalty is thus: That the spirits of the First Elders will punish you. That the First Elders will remove you from your body and discard it. That you will be taken to the spirit prisons and left there until the First Elders shall determine you have been punished enough.”

She shivered. They weren’t fucking around. But then she hadn’t imagined they would be.

“Cesaria Putnam, do you accept these parameters?”

Purple swirled before her eyes; purple flames, purple energy. The First Elders, standing in silent disapproval around her, were translucent, purple glowing through them. Elder Thompson was simply a hulking black shape, barely visible in the vibrant light.

“Cesaria Putnam, do you accept these parameters?”

She licked her lips. “I do accept them.”

Elder Thompson muttered something; her arms lifted again. Her breath rattled in her chest, she knew what was coming and she didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see, but she couldn’t help it that her eyes wouldn’t close—

Bright violet shrieked off the edge of the blade, just before Elder Griffin brought it down over her wrists in a quick, decisive slice.

Her nerves vibrated. Dimly she felt the pain, a cold prickle beneath the skin, but the magical control holding her kept the worst of it at bay.

She saw it though. Saw her blood burble up from the wounds like purple-black ink, like oil bubbling from a fault in the surface of the earth, and fall on the smoking pile of herbs at her feet. She hadn’t seen either of the Elders move it but there it was, the purple flames flashing red when her blood hit it.

“Cesaria Putnam, you are Bound. Bound to obey the strictures of this agreement. From this moment forward you will not speak of what you are told. Say you are Bound.”

“I am Bound.” The words felt sick and slimy in her mouth.

The First Elders came forward. One of them carried a blade, a real one not a spectral one, shining purple. Her tattoos screamed; her soul screamed.

The blade rose. The ghost—how did that work; she didn’t know—he’d sliced their wrists. Each of the ghosts had a wound, a gaping mouth dribbling whitish ectoplasm. Dripping it into her similar wounds. It stung and burned, it raced into her bloodstream, ran through her body, a blast of power and fear and icy death that chilled her even as it set her afire.

“Cesaria Putnam, you are Bound. Bound to obey the commands of those aforementioned in speaking of what you are about to hear. Say you are Bound.”

“I am Bound.”

Dizziness swam up through her stomach, to her chest, to her head. The First Elders continued to invade her. Her blood continued to flow from her wounds, sizzling onto the fire below them like fat drippings onto firecans in the Market. She smelled it, blood mixed with the herbs, changing the scent into something like cinnamon and copper.

The fire rose, blinding purple. Rose at her feet and rose inside her. Sweat poured down her forehead and neck, between her breasts. Her bangs clung to her forehead.

“Cesaria Putnam, kneel.”

Her knees gave way. She didn’t feel them hit the floor but knew they had.

“Richtaru bessiden amacha.” Elder Thompson’s voice rose, thick and strong above the roaring in her ears, the rasping desperation of her breath in her lungs. Smoke curled around her, pressed against her power, twined with it, wrapped around her like a hot, heavy wet blanket.

“By my power you are Bound. By your power you are Bound. By your blood and bones you are Bound. By the power of the Church, by the power of the Truth, by the power of the First Elders and the earth you are Bound.”

Flames danced before her eyes, blurred with tears and stinging sweat. Too hot, it was too hot in there, she was losing too much blood…

“Let the Binding be sealed!”

The flames leapt, scorching her face. Something poured over her wrists, it seared her skin, stank of herbs. She looked at her arms, watched the thick reddish water pour over her, felt it enter her bloodstream and burn its way up her arms, to her chest, to her brain.

Her throat ached. She was screaming. Screaming so loud and so long she barely felt the Binding lock into place when her wounds healed over. Barely felt something snap in her skull, in her body.

Barely. But she still felt it.

The fire died. Elder Thompson said something else, too quietly for her to hear. The energy lifted; the First Elders disappeared, leaving only the purple circle glowing around them.

Elder Griffin’s hands on her shoulder urged her to lean back, to rest against his chest. Her breath hitched; she didn’t want to cry, didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it. Thirty thousand dollars didn’t seem like enough for what she’d just given up. Even her faith in the Church, her trust in it, seemed to fade in light of what she’d lost.

The circle disappeared; fresh air flowed into where it had been, dispersing the smoke. Through the last purplish tendrils of it she saw Lauren Abrams reappear, smiling slightly, looking down at Chess on the floor like that was just the right place for her.

That was enough for Chess. She shrugged Elder Griffin’s hands away, pushed herself to a stand on legs that threatened to give out on her. She couldn’t do anything about the tears she’d already shed, about her sweatsoaked dress clinging to her body or wet hair clinging to her skull. But she could damn well face Lauren on her feet.

Lauren smiled slightly, looked her up and down. “You did well.”

“She fought me.” Elder Thompson sank into a chair, pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his heavy brow. “She almost broke out of the circle.”

Lauren’s eyebrows lifted; she looked at Chess with new interest. “Really.”

“Cesaria is very strong,” Elder Griffin said, and Chess had to fight not to look at him. Not to go to him and let him hold her again. She’d never—never had someone do that, not like that. Had never heard anyone talk about her with such pride in his voice.

That wasn’t exactly true. One other person had done both of those things. But he never would again.

“Well.” Lauren dusted her hands together, as though she needed to wash them of Elder Griffin’s kind words. “Now that it’s done, we have some things to discuss, don’t we?”

Chapter Four

Be proud of the wrinkles and lines that life has given you! They’re a symbol of the promises you’ve made to your family and of your achievements. All important events leave scars.

—Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies by Mrs. Increase

The picture slid across the polished wooden table, the image’s horror barely contained by the thin white edges of the paper. Chess looked at it, swallowed hard. Looked again.

“He was found three days ago. Well…that much of him was. We expect an ID any moment.” Lauren’s crisp, cool tones cut through Chess’s anger, the overwhelming pity she felt, looking at the ruined body in the photograph. It was an effort not to leap across the table and smack her. How could she do that? How could she look at that—that thing, that lump of flesh and goo that had once been a human being, and just move on with her pat little speech?

“Down by the docks. I believe you’re familiar with the area?”

Chess nodded without thinking of it and reached out a tentative hand for the picture. Her dress was still wet; it clung coldly to her body. But that was not why she shivered.

Another picture slid over, knocked into the first one before Chess could touch it. “Yesterday this turned up, farther south. Fifty-fifth and Brand. Several different victims this time, but not their whole bodies. Just what you see.”

The slick photographic paper threatened to slice her fingers when she picked it up, angled it so she could get a better look. Not that she wanted to. But Lauren and the Elders watched her too closely, sat too silently and stiffly in their chairs. There had to be something they wanted her to see—to notice—and she wanted to know what it was.

Her gaze skittered over the picture, trying to take it in pieces, quadrants, to shield herself from the full horror of it. Across the top first, then down, the lower right corner, the—

Raised black scars interrupted her wrists. Thick and straight, like railroad ties crossing her forearms. Sprouting from them were curving veins of dark purple in a lacy pattern up to her elbows, down over her palms.

Elder Griffin caught her look. “They’ll disappear when the Binding Oath is lifted,” he said. “They remain simply as a reminder.”

Yeah. Like she could fucking forget.

But she just nodded and continued, steeling herself for the full image, until finally she saw what they wanted her to see. It was barely visible, only a linear shadow in the darkness of the black-and-white gore. But it was there, and Chess’s blood ran even colder than it had.

Fuck, she needed her pills. “The Lamaru.”

When no one responded she looked up. “Right? The Lamaru are back. That’s what this is. Who did this.”

Lauren nodded. “We believe so, yes.”

She reached down, lifted a thick file from her lap and plunked it onto the table. “We’ve received information that they’ve re-formed themselves and are operating somewhere in the area known as Downside. Where you live, is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Excellent. So you’ll be an even bigger help than we thought. When shall I come down? Tonight? Are you free?”

“What?” What the fuck? She was sticky with sweat, she’d practically had a fucking breakdown, she’d watched two Church employees die—and now Lauren Abrams, who hadn’t been through any of that, thought Chess was going to invite her out to wander the streets of Downside? At night? And not even her own neighborhood, where she was relatively safe?

“I asked if you’re free tonight, Cesaria. Every minute we sit here is another minute the Lamaru could be working against us, you know. I think it’s best we start right away.” Her eyelashes fluttered. “Unless you’re tired, of course.”

Yeah, Chess was tired. Tired of being poked at by this irritating woman.

Tired physically? Another question entirely. She was exhausted. She was also holding. A couple of Nips, a nice fat line…She had enough pharmaceuticals and botanicals in her pillbox and back at her apartment to keep her wide awake for a week. Ha. The glories of modern living.

“I’m not tired at all,” she said.

“Good.” Lauren spun the file; it skittered across the table and slammed into Chess’s arms. The impact sent the tendrils of purple shifting and sliding, rearranging themselves. Her stomach gave a little twist. Quickly she flipped the file open, shoved the photos inside. She didn’t want to feel them looking at her anymore, and she sure as fuck didn’t want to watch the physical manifestation of the heavy magic in her system wiggle around below her skin like ringworms. Or worse.

The entire file buzzed with energy. Chess couldn’t imagine what kind of shit lurked between those innocuous manila covers. Didn’t want to imagine it.

And lucky her, she didn’t have to, because she was going to become intimately familiar with every page, every word, every smear of darkness, every foul deed.

Just what she needed. More filth in her soul. Someday, maybe, she would explode from it; someday, maybe, every rotten thing that had ever been done to her and every rotten thing she’d ever done would erupt from her in a fountain of sewage and sorrow, all those secrets she kept even from herself spilling out and adding to the muck she could never wash off no matter how hard she tried.

She’d never been bound by magic to keep those secrets. Just by her own shame.

“Okay.” Lauren rose from her seat, her right hand smoothing her skirt behind her. “Shall we take my car, or—”

“No.” Oops, that came out a little too fast; Lauren’s eyebrows rose. Chess could practically see her nose pinch in, her mouth opening—probably to remind Chess that as a Third Inquisitor she was Chess’s superior in rank, though not directly in department. “I mean, I need my car, and I need to change out of this and take a shower. I have blood all over me.” And some pills to take in private, but she didn’t mention that. Her palms were starting to tingle, and she seriously needed some breathing room.

“I’ll follow you.”

Oh, shit. Lauren in her apartment, Lauren poking around in her stuff? No way.

“Actually, Lauren, you should probably change, too. The area we’re looking at isn’t really the safest part of town—”

“I’m a member of the Black Squad, Cesaria. I think I can handle a few catcalls.”

Oh, shit, again. Is that all the woman thought they were in for? A couple of street toughs grabbing their crotches and making kissy noises?

Seeing those pictures, finding out they were dealing with the Lamaru—scary enough in and of itself, without the vendetta she had no doubt they were carrying against her personally for extra fun—was bad. Realizing, as she looked into Lauren’s determined, arrogant face, that she was also dealing with a woman who had no concept of what they were about to get into—that was another thing entirely.

And there wasn’t much Chess could say about it, because if she gave them too much information about Downside, they might rescind her permission to live there. And that didn’t even bear thinking about.

“I think it’s probably best if you wear better shoes for walking,” she said finally. “And jeans. Something more casual, you know? We don’t want to attract attention if we can help it.”

Lauren considered it for a minute. “Fine. I’ll go home and change. You do the same, and I’ll meet you at your house in forty-five minutes.”

It wasn’t great, but it was better than nothing. “Do you need my address?”

“It’s in your file.”

“Oh. Right.”

Lauren smirked and swung herself up from her seat. “Be outside, if you don’t mind. I’d rather not have to waste time coming up to get you.”

That remark, and several others, were still stewing in Chess’s head when Lauren pulled her sports car—cherry red, the perfect little princess vehicle for the Grand Elder’s perfect little daughter—up onto the curb at the corner of Fifty-fifth and Brand. “That lot, there,” she said. “That’s where they took the second picture.”

Chess nodded and got out, taking a deep breath. The air stank, a vile, rotting scent from the slaughterhouse four blocks or so away. When the wind hit the deathhouse right all of Downside smelled like a burned-out plague pit in the summertime. And lucky her, this was one of those times.

She had to admit, though, it did have a few advantages over the cloying fragrance of perfume and bitch that filled Lauren’s tricked-out coupe. Like not having to sit right next to Lauren. Or not having to listen to Lauren talk. Or especially not having to listen to Lauren’s music.

Decaying carcasses were infinitely preferable to that, she thought, then regretted it—a little—when she remembered why they were there. Her stomach, already a touch uneasy under its load of four Cepts and a couple of Nips, gave a slight protest; she popped the top of the Coke can she’d grabbed for just that reason and poured some down her throat.

“You know, caffeine can mess with your energy,” Lauren said. “It’s best to stay away from artificial stimulants.”

It was probably the funniest thing anyone had said to her in weeks. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I’m just saying, if you want to advance in the Church you should use every advantage, and one of them is keeping your power as sharp as possible. You don’t want to—”

“Yeah, thanks. So where did they find—them?”

Lauren’s raised eyebrows told Chess exactly what she thought of the change of subject, but she accepted it. “There. Come on.”

Together they crossed the street, the heels of Chess’s boots as silent as she could make them on the broken slabs of cement. The road itself looked like a patchwork quilt: squares of dirt, sections filled with dirty gravel, here and there a foot or two of blacktop.

It looked empty, and every alarm bell in Chess’s head started ringing faintly. Downside streets were never empty, especially not at night. Like tall grass concealing a predator, it was when they were still and silent that they were at their most dangerous. Ready to strike. She knew there had to be at least a dozen pairs of eyes on her back at that very moment, at least a dozen hands reaching into pockets and belts and hairdos in search of weapons.

Lauren’s car was probably loaded with wards, safe as it would be inside the Church itself, but the women’s tattoos were designed to protect them from ghosts and magic, not from Downsiders out to make their illegal livings.

She hadn’t worried about that stuff in a while. Usually if she was out at night she was with Terrible, and nobody dared fuck with Terrible; hell, nobody dared even look at Terrible for more than a few respectful seconds. Even if she wasn’t with him physically, everybody knew who she was, or rather, they knew who she was with; everyone knew Downside’s Churchwitch worked for Bump.

But Terrible hated her, and she had no idea if Bump knew what she’d done. What she’d been doing. “Stupid” was one word for people who thought they could get away with betraying Bump. The other word was “dead.”

She had a funny feeling both those words would end up being accurate if they didn’t get out of there quickly. The whole area felt off, even with the speed turning her blood into river rapids in her veins. Speed tended to mask her reactions to ghosts, but not usually to magic in general, and this corner vibed like a just-struck bell.

“You feeling anything?” she asked softly as they hit the patchy grass at the edge of the lot.

“Hmm. A little.” Lauren didn’t bother to lower her own voice; it sounded like the first bird chirping at dawn. Chess cringed, tried to glance around without being too obvious about it. Still nothing, no movement. This was not good.

Dead grass whispered warnings against their shoes as they trod across it, heading for the inside corner. Rickety buildings leaned over it, ready to topple; they formed a ramshackle archway, a frame of sorts. Chess knew without being told that this was where the body—the body parts—had been found.

Still the presence of magic set her head buzzing, a little high that she would have enjoyed if she hadn’t been halfnumb with fear. This wasn’t her neighborhood. She didn’t know it. Inside those buildings could live a few families scratching out livings working the pipe rooms or at the slaughterhouse or crematorium, or picking pockets in better parts of town. People who kept themselves to themselves.

Or they could be half-mad hallucinating Nipheads with dead nerves and deader eyes. Or worse. No way to tell until they were right on top of her, and then it would be too late.

She shook her head, watched Lauren trot into the shadows in the corner with barely a pause. Either the Black Squad were a bunch of crazy-tough motherfuckers, or Lauren Abrams was dumb as dirt. Chess knew which theory she preferred.

“It was here.” Lauren made a circle with her hand, waving it over an area about a foot square. Well, that was all the space that had been needed. It hadn’t been laid-out corpses in those photos. More of a…pile, really.

Lauren pulled a heavy silver flashlight out of the backpack slung over her shoulder and switched it on. The patch of ground flew into colorless focus, cast spiky shadows against the crooked boards of the wall behind.

Shit. Chess had two choices. Go stick her hand in what was certain to be a raging pool of nasty energy floating above the lit-up spot, or look like a total pussy. And given those options, touching horrible death energy sounded positively appealing.

Tingles ran up her hands, slipping over the new scars on her wrists. In the stark light from the flash the patterns beneath her skin were black; they shifted and curled with the spot’s energy, and she felt it like fingernails tickling her.

Darkness lurked there too, a slow chuckle beneath the surface. But not like she would have expected, not at all. This didn’t feel like death magic, or even really like serious black magic. It felt like the kind of curse Church students tried out on one another: forgetfulness or clumsiness spells, charms to temporarily confuse the tongue so the bespelled victim couldn’t speak clearly. Spells that wore off in ten or fifteen minutes. Harmless shit.

But piles of bloody body parts, carved with Lamaru symbols…That was not harmless. Nothing the Lamaru did was harmless.

So what the fuck was going on?

Lauren seemed to feel it too, the wrongness of it. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Even if they committed the murder elsewhere and just left the parts here, the energy would be darker.”

“Are you sure it was here that they found it?”

“This is where they told me. It’s in the pictures too, so it’s got to—”

Every hair on Chess’s body jumped to attention. She’d just started to spin around when red light splashed across them, across the walls, turning Lauren’s hair into a river of blood around her face.

The circle stood in the middle of the intersection, deep red fire, swirled with icy-hot black energy. Chess’s stomach jerked. It was darkness in that circle, darkness and misery and despair, and whatever was inside would deliver more of it the second it was unleashed. She knew it. Knew it even before the squealing started.

A pig. Not from the slaughterhouse, but closer, right on top of them, right across the street.

The Lamaru had been waiting for them. How the fuck had they known?

Lauren’s eyes widened; the whites gleamed red around black pupils the size of BBs. Chess only caught a glimpse of them, of the other woman’s terrified face, before she dropped to her knees and ripped her bag open. Running to the car and getting the fuck out of there was tempting, but she couldn’t consider it. Didn’t consider it. There were people in those empty building shells, people hiding and watching, and if she was right about what was going on behind that wall of evil, she’d be condemning every one of them to a messy death, and she had more than enough on her miserable conscience as it was without adding that.