City of Ghosts

He gave a short nod, barely more than a dip of his chin. Still refused to look at her. “Why?”

“You don’t remember? Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“Ain’t nobody gave me the rundown. Nobody there, you recall, ceptin yon boyfriend, he people.”

“He’s not my boyfriend. I’m not…I’m not seeing him anymore.”

If she thought that would get a response—and she had—she was wrong. His face didn’t move. Nothing.

She tried again. “The hospital Goodys must have told you, though. That you almost died. You would have died if I hadn’t—”

He turned the key and jumped the Chevelle off the curb. Warm air blasted from the vents; Johnny Thunders blasted from the speakers. Born to lose, no shit. One of her favorite albums, but not the message she needed at that moment.

Words kept coming to her tongue and disappearing before she could give them form. He wouldn’t look at her; she couldn’t look away. Through the windows the streets slid past, hookers and customers, Bump’s people selling little bags of cheer on the corners, their forms black smudges around blazing firecans. Some kids in a ragged group, dancing jerkily; they zipped by too fast for her to figure out what they were doing, and it didn’t matter anyway.

“How’s—” She snapped her mouth shut. Asking about Katie would be a mistake, one that could very possibly cost her her life. He would not want to be reminded that she was one of the few people who knew the child existed, that he had a little girl out there with his smile and another man’s name.

“How are you feeling?” she asked finally. “I mean, are you okay?”

Now he did glance at her, his eyes glittering in the dashboard light. Cold. Dead like a shark’s. Apparently chat time was over.

The words tumbled from her mouth before she had time to think. “Terrible, if you would just let me explain—”

He turned up the volume. All the way. So loud her ears rang and her seat vibrated. So loud she couldn’t hear herself screaming in her head. She considered turning it down, but managed to stop herself. No point making him even angrier. If that were possible. She didn’t think her insides would ever thaw from that last look.

The Market had slowed down, save the lines waiting to get into the pipe room. Chess looked longingly at them as Terrible got out of the car; it took her a minute to realize he was just standing by the hood. Waiting for her to get out. No open-the-door service for her at either end anymore, it seemed.

Which was just what she deserved. But damn if it didn’t hurt, almost more than his silence or his dirty look or the fact that he acted like every word he said to her had to be dragged from his mouth.

But anger was one thing. Anger she expected. The door thing…like she wasn’t even human anymore. Didn’t even deserve to be treated like one. She couldn’t even blame that on the fact that he thought she was a junkie whore. Bump ran a lot of junkie whores, and Terrible dealt with them, knew them. She’d never seen him treat any of them like that.

But then, she didn’t guess any of them had made out with him and pretended they didn’t remember it, then made out with him again, listened to him bare his soul, told him they wanted to be with him, then got caught—ahem—red-handed with his enemy on the ground in a graveyard. So she was pretty fucking unique in that respect. And didn’t she feel special because of it.

Shit. She wouldn’t have opened the door for herself either. But then again, she never would have. So Terrible had finally found out she wasn’t worth a second of his time or thought? If she were honest, she’d admit her only real surprise was that it had taken him that long.

She looked down at her hand; she’d grabbed an Oozer. Fine. Why not. Bump wouldn’t have a job for her, she imagined; nothing she’d need to remember later, and she had her notebook anyway if she needed it. All he was going to want was an explanation of what she’d been doing there—oh, fuck.

She couldn’t explain. She couldn’t tell him what she was investigating, not if she wanted to stay alive. Her fingers went numb. She was about to step into the lion’s awful clashing red den, and she had no idea what she could safely say without activating the Binding.

She tossed the pill into her mouth and got out of the car in one movement. Maybe if she was lucky she’d pass out.

Why she expected Bump’s place to be different from before she had no idea, but part of her did. So much had changed since the last time she was there. It somehow didn’t make sense for everything else to remain the same, for the horrible cacophony of reds to assault her and make her already tight nerves jangle as though she’d wandered into a hell dimension, for the naked women on the walls to eye her seductively.

But they were all the same. And so was Bump, leaning against the shiny black bar, toe ring, gold-topped cane, and all.

Terrible sat down; she turned and started to sit beside him the way she would have done before, but his look stopped her. Right. She scooted down, leaned against the opposite arm.

Still Bump did not move. Both his hands rested on the top of the cane. His head was bowed. Sky-blue silk covered his skinny chest and arms; gaudy bright gold covered his wrists and fingers.

“Ladybird,” he drawled. She could feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Hear tell you wanderin round Bump’s places, yay? Bringin you fuckin Churchcops along. Bump hear true?”

“Yes.” Okay. No First Elders showed up; the room was still clean—figuratively speaking. But then, that wasn’t the difficult part, right? Where she’d been wasn’t part of the Binding.

“Got a fuckin tell for me?”

Okay. Deep breath time. “It’s nothing to do with you, okay? Church business.”

The cane switched hands, angled to the side, like Fred Astaire performing some graceful move. But this wasn’t a Technicolor musical. And it sure as fuck wasn’t a beautiful dance hall. “All business Bump’s business down here, Ladybird. All business. You want to keep doing Bump’s business, yay? Keep getting yon fuckin needs? You chatter it out now.”

“I—it’s an investigation we’re doing. That’s all.”

Bump’s brows turned into an arrow; he spun on her with the kind of speed she knew he possessed but had never seen. “Think we playin a fuckin game here? Ain’t fuckin playin, yay? You tell now. Or Terrible get he fuckin fight up. Thinkin you ain’t like that one, yay?”

“It’s nothing to do with you, Bump, okay? I can’t talk about it.”

Bump shook his head, his expression sorrowful. Chess didn’t buy it for a second.

Then she didn’t have a chance to buy it, because her face hit the dusty red carpet and something hard and heavy dug into the small of her back. Terrible’s knee.

He’d taken her down. He’d really, genuinely taken her down. Like he’d never talked to her, touched her. Like he’d never bought her dinner or sat next to her on her broken couch. Like she was nothing to him. Just another junkie who owed Bump money, just like all the rest of them.

Her right shoulder rang an alarm; he’d twisted it back, pinned her wrist between her shoulderblades. It didn’t hurt, but whether that was because she was so loaded with painkillers she wouldn’t have felt it had he amputated her foot or because he was being gentle with her, she didn’t know. She suspected the former, hoped for the latter.

“Ain’t can believe we here,” Bump drawled. “Thought we had us some fuckin trust, yay? You an Bump. Thought we had us some fuckin understanding. Hurts Bump, this do. An Terrible…Dig me, Ladybird, think you putting the fuckin hurt on he, hard. Why ain’t you just give me the fuckin tell, yay? An end this, so’s we can be fuckin friends again. Ain’t you like bein Bump’s friend?”

“Black magic,” she managed. “The Lama—”

The words turned into a scream, one so loud and long it scared even her, as her wrists caught fire. Agony like she’d never felt before, agony like the worst withdrawals multiplied by a dozen, shot up her arms and into her chest, into her brain, until nothing else existed. Bright red flared behind her squeezed-shut eyelids, searing her retinas; patterns like the ones on her wrist swirled in her brain.

Dimly she felt Terrible leap off her as she writhed on the floor, her body curling and twisting like a salt-covered slug, and felt his big hands lift her. Felt one of them on the side of her face, turning it, patting it. Heard his voice calling her name.

It only lasted a few seconds, maybe ten. They were the longest of her entire life. When she came out of it her cheeks tingled and burned from tears; her entire body shook when she tried to sit up. Terrible’s arm was behind her back, trying to help her, but she couldn’t do it. Her vision spun and popped in front of her, like she was seeing the room through some crazy funhouse lens. She squeezed her eyes back shut and tried to hold on to the water in her stomach.

His free hand moved, lifting her wrist and exposing the underside of it. The skin there still stung, as if she’d been smacked with a wet towel; an itchy, twitchy sort of sting too tender to scratch. Like a healing sunburn, or the first indications she’d gone too long between pills.

“Fuck, Chess,” he said, and she realized she hadn’t heard him say her name in weeks. “The fuck you do?”

His heart pounded against her cheek. Against her cheek…She was in his lap, her legs draped over one of his brawny arms while her ass rested on his thigh and the warm scent of his skin sent a fresh stab of pain—pain that had nothing to do with the fucking Binding—through her chest.

She opened her eyes and caught his, wide with fear, dark with concern. In that one second it was as if nothing had changed—

And it was over. His face hardened; he looked away. Rather than sit there like an idiot staring at him, so did she.

That’s when she saw the blood.

It wasn’t much. Just a few trickles, winding their spidery way down her arm, seeping from the horizontal black scars below her wrists. Oh…shit. Not just pain, then. Blood. A graphic reminder of her oath seeping into the ends of her sleeves.

Was that how the First Elders would kill her if she talked? Open those magically sealed wounds and let her bleed out?

She did not want to find that out for herself. Didn’t even want to think about it, but couldn’t stop. The blood—her blood—transfixed her; now that the pain had faded, all she could do was stare as one lone drop fell from her arm to Bump’s red shag pile.

Terrible lifted her enough to set her on the couch and got up. She heard drawers opening, paper rustling; he came and sat down next to her with some alcohol pads and a couple of Band-Aids.

She started to fold her arms, then thought better of it. “No.”

“Ain’t can leave that shit open,” he mumbled.

“No, it’s not—It won’t help.” She dared to look at him; he was totally absorbed in playing with the little alcohol wipe packet, and pale around the eyes. She could only imagine what he must have been thinking. Having her freak out like that couldn’t have been pleasant. Even Bump looked shaken, at least as shaken as it was possible for Bump to look. The knuckles he wrapped around the tip of his cane were whiter than usual.

“They’re Binding marks.” She waited for the shocking pain to come again, braced herself for it. When it didn’t come she continued. “They’re why I can’t talk about what I was doing. I’m Bound from it.”

Bump’s head tilted back. “You ain’t give Bump the tell then, causen them Church ain’t give you the fuckin yay.”

“Right. I can’t. It’ll—well, you saw. And that’s just a warning.”

Silence. Okay, well, they both knew she couldn’t talk, and knew why, but she had the distinct feeling the matter wasn’t going to drop there. Maybe if she tried something else? A little different wording?

“It’s not about you.” Another shot of pain raced through her bloodstream, but not so bad this time. Certainly not like what it had been a few minutes before. Okay. She was starting to get a feel for this thing now, and that was good.

“But where you at this night…Bump got fuckin business there, yay? Ain’t wanting no Churchcops havin a wander-round there.”

“They found some—” This time she didn’t need the pain. No way was she going to be allowed to let that particular piece of information fly.

Terrible spoke up, glancing at her as he did so with quick little eye-darts, like he was looking at the sun and couldn’t do it for too long. Only in her case she doubted he was seeing anything bright. “Figure on it bein them body parts, aye, Bump? Ratchet find em, you recall, two days past. That it?”

“You know about them?”

His eyebrows cranked up. Right. Of course he did. What went on in Downside that Bump and Terrible didn’t know about?

“You know who found them?”

Another dead look.

“No, seriously. I need to talk to him—her. Whoever. I don’t know if their name’s in the fi—”

Okay, this was starting to piss her off. On the one hand it was good to get some kind of calibration going, to find out exactly how far she could go. Pushing boundaries had always been one of her hobbies. But she could have done with an easier way to figure out where those boundaries were.

Plastic rustled: Bump’s pillbag. Probably the same one he’d offered her months ago, when she first got involved with him—well, involved more than the usual buyingselling game they’d been playing for a few years. She’d taken an Oozer before they came in but it wasn’t kicking in. And even if it had been, why the hell not?

She grabbed two more and chased them with water. The little hand on the clock had sneaked past four; she was crashing hard from the Nips and thought of her bed with the kind of yearning she normally felt for…well, for the pills she’d just swallowed.

Bump tapped his cane against the floor, setting the gold band around the bottom flashing.

“So…Sound like Bump got some fuckin knowledge you need right, yay? Like I do some fuckin help for you. Ain’t have they Churchcops all down Bump’s fuckin business, dig, ain’t have it noways. Think we make us a deal, Ladybird, yay? Fine deal Bump got for you.”

Her sigh felt dragged from the depths of her soul. Great. Working for Bump again.

Chapter Seven

Don’t be afraid to admit to yourself what results you’re looking for, or to ask your friends for help.

—You Can Do This! A Guide for Beginners, by Molly Brooks-Cahill

“I can’t do that,” she said again, and just as he had before, Bump waved an imperious hand as if her objections were lowly servants to be dismissed.

“Ain’t sayin take Terrible when she fuckin Churchcop along, dig. But after. You ain’t can say you knowledge, yay, but he fuckin can. Bump gots what he needs, so you gets you fuckin needs. Real simple, Ladybird. Ain’t it clean?”

“I’ll die, Bump. This isn’t something to fuck around with, I took a blood oath—”

“An you ain’t breakin it, dig. Just doin you some side work, yay? Takin you some protection where you go. Give Bump the listen-down, here, Ladybird. All business Bump’s business, you recall. They black magic shit goes down, Bump’s business. They ain’t got a sweet spot for Bump, guessing, after Bump’s men done give them the crack-up out Chester. Danger for Bump, danger for all, if you dig. Bump gotta get he Churchwitch in it, yay? Ain’t gotta run it up again, do I?”

No. He didn’t. They’d been through this before; only a few weeks before, no matter that it felt as if a lifetime had passed. Bump ran Downside, and without Bump in control things could get even worse than they were already, hard as that was to believe. Nor was he wrong in assuming the Lamaru’s return put Terrible and Bump in at least as much danger as it put her.

And there was more to it, much as she hated to admit it. If Bump wanted to bring her in on this, it meant Terrible hadn’t told him about her and Lex. And if Terrible hadn’t told him—despite the reason he’d given her for keeping his mouth shut, about not wanting Bump to know how he’d failed, how he’d convinced Bump she was trustworthy and had been wrong—maybe there was a chance.

And working with him? Would give her an opening to find out. Maybe to prove herself again.

Just thinking of it all made her want to dive under a blanket of Dream and stay there until her bones dissolved, to suck that thick yellowish smoke deep into her lungs until she forgot him. Forgot everything and became nothing more than another loose-limbed body draped on a velvet couch, another tiny spark of consciousness fluttering in the ecstatic drugged-out breeze.

Bump seemed to take her silence as the need for more convincing, instead of simply a few minutes’ wallow in her own pitiful bog. “Terrible know them streets, dig. Be a fuckin help, he do. You take he ‘long, Ladybird, see if Bump ain’t right. Bet we get you all in the good lights with you bossmen, yay? They Elders. Like you right, them will, you catch they black magic witches.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself with something ridiculous like common sense or dignity. “Okay. I’ll try.”

The leering grin split his face like a knife through a half-rotted peach. “That’s good, yay, real fuckin good. You get you started on the morrow, yay. Bump takin he off to he fuckin bed now, ain’t keep Bump’s ladies on the wait longer, dig.” He reached into the bag, took out a handful and held them out to her. “You take them. For friendship.”

The room spun a little around her when she reached out, let the pills fill her hand. Not too many of them; he was being generous, sure, but generous for Bump was awfully stingy, especially considering all the work she’d done for him. But hey, what was she going to do, turn them down? Free drugs were free drugs, and she wasn’t stupid.

At least not about that.

About other things…yeah, totally stupid. As she followed Terrible back out into the predawn chill she had plenty of time to think about how stupid. Despite that second or two of connection he still hated her, wasn’t likely to forgive her. All she was doing was signing herself up for more heartbreak.

Not to mention the great chance of being killed by the First Elders if she stuck a toe—or said a word—out of place.

Cold seeped through her jeans from the leather seats. Wings of exhaustion fluttered behind her eyes; she could barely keep them open. Even “One Track Mind” wasn’t helping. The Nips were well and truly gone. She felt like someone had filled her skin with chilly sawdust, too burned out for the Oozers to do much good.

The drive back to her place seemed to take no time at all. Before she knew it he’d pulled up in front of the steps; she had a sneaking suspicion that she’d fallen asleep.

“So I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said to Terrible’s profile. “Do you want me to meet you, or what?”

He shrugged. “Whatany you want.”

A million thoughts ran through her mind, none of which would do any good to verbalize. So she said, “Okay, why don’t you pick me up at noon? I have to meet Lauren—she’s the girl from earlier—I have to meet her at five.”

Pause. “Meet me. Up Edsel’s booth, aye? You wanna say midday, no problem.”

“I thought you said—Never mind. Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll meet you there.”

Nod.

Whatever. She still got to shove the heavy door open all by herself, and she’d trudged halfway up the stairs before she realized he was right behind her, his boots silent on the cement. One of his talents, that was, the ability to move so soundlessly. But then it was part of his job. Most people didn’t line up to get beaten down. They had to be found, snuck up on, snatched off the street, and broken before they knew what hit them. And nobody broke people better than Terrible did.

She should know.

“What are you doing?”

He shrugged. “Ain’t can say.”

Okay, so not tired anymore. Was he…Shit! She hated this. Hated this.

Her jumbled thoughts must have been clear on her face; his dark eyes narrowed. “Bump say me come up. Ain’t my choosing.”

“Oh.”

“Shit. Don’t you get no ideas, dig. Ain’t wanting this. An ain’t givin you shit to play pass-on with.”

They’d reached the inside staircase now; her voice echoed in the cavernous lobby. “I’m not playing pass-on with anything. I told you, I’m not seeing him anymore.”

“Ain’t give a fuck who you see.”

“Then why are you so fucking mad about it?”

Redness crept up his neck; he glared at her, then shoved past her to continue up the stairs. She’d gotten him with that one. A hollow victory, but she’d take just about anything she could get at this point.

Her turn to push past him, opening her front door, stepping into the dingy little apartment. She made a beeline for the freezer and yanked out the half-full bottle of vodka she’d bought a couple of days before.

The cabinet beside it contained her pitiful collection of mismatched plastic cups and plates. She pulled down two cups and unscrewed the cap on the vodka. “Want a drink?”

He moved behind her; she heard a faint rustle, and the closing of the door. She turned around.

He was gone.

So was the Lamaru file she’d been given earlier.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a sky that blue, and despite everything, it lifted her spirits. So she was about to meet someone who hated her; so she was betraying the Church and walking a razor-thin tightrope over a pit of messy death; so later on she was going to have to meet a woman she already disliked and investigate an illegal black magic group who wanted her dead.

So the sky was blue, and three Cepts calmed her down and insulated her just enough from the buzzing crowds at the Market and the still-cold breeze to make her feel like she could handle all the shit. So that was good. The sun felt great on her face and hands, raised blue lights in her dyed hair. A month before it had been snowing. Now it was almost spring.

Edsel’s booth must have been particularly busy that morning; when Chess stopped walking in front of the shabby-velvet-covered counter he was restocking runebones and little hand-sewn bags. Made sense, though. News of his wife’s pregnancy had spread.

“How’s Galena?” she asked, reaching out to finger one of the runes. A little shiver ran up her arm. “Good, I guess. I can feel it.”

Edsel smiled. His teeth were the same color as his skin and ice-white hair; his black sunglasses didn’t hide the kind of happiness she’d rarely seen from him. “She right, baby. Still tired, aye, but she doctor say oughta pass up soon and she be bouncin again. She—Damn, what you got there?”

He picked up her hand; when she’d reached for the magical items, infused with the extra energy of pregnancy, he’d caught sight of her Binding scars.

“It’s nothing.” She tried to pull it back.

“Ain’t nothing, baby. Know them marks when I see em, aye. Been Bound, you have.” He dropped her hand; his deep smoke voice lowered. “Bet you lookin for them Lamaru again, aye?”

“How—” Ouch. Shit. “You know—you’ve heard—damn it!”

Edsel nodded. “Been hearin them rumors, if you dig. Know some people, them know people. Say big trouble on the way down, them gearin up right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ain’t seen you much, aye? And you ain’t look like you up for it, baby. Lookin tired. Lookin mighty down. Guessing maybe got aught doing with why Terrible been rippin it up like him dog dead. Aye?”

Fuck. She did not want to discuss that. Not with him. Not with anyone. Edsel may have been the closest thing she had to a friend—at least, he used to be, and she guessed he was again—but some things were just…private. Most things were private.

Of course, she couldn’t deny being a little interested in that last line anyway. So Terrible looked upset, did he?

Then again, why wouldn’t he?

“Who do you know? I mean, you said you knew people who knew people. Do any of them have any information?”

He hesitated. “I ain’t got names, you dig. Need to make some calls.”