The Downside Ghosts Series Books 1-3: Unholy Ghosts, Unholy Magic, City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane
bottle of it rested in her bathroom cabinet. The sharp medicinal scent stung her nose as she soaked a clean cloth with it and pressed it against his wound. His arm twitched but did not move as she finished cleaning it and put a fresh pad over it, taping it into place.
“Sorry about the pain.”
He shrugged. “Had much worse.”
Which reminded her. She crossed back into her small, dingy kitchen and grabbed a fresh bottle of water from the fridge, then another for Terrible.
Awkward silence descended as they sat and sipped their water.
But what was she supposed to talk about with him? She barely knew him. Nobody really knew him. Nobody really wanted to. Better to run when they saw him coming.
He cleared his throat, gulped his water, cleared his throat. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” It wasn’t, really. It was bare, and plain, and dull, except for the enormous stained-glass window taking up one entire wall. But if she’d been forced to spend most of her time in the gynecological horror chamber that was Bump’s place, she probably would have thought it was nice, too.
“So what you think, Chess? You think Chester haunted?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I’d like to look at it during the day.”
“On the morrow?”
“I have church. Saturday.”
“Right. You not there they miss you, aye?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded slowly and got up, taking his water with him. “I talk to Bump, give him what happened. Come to his place on the early. He’ll front you.”
“Thanks.”
Sleep was out of the question when he left. Looked like she’d be pulling an all-nighter whether she wanted to or not. She shrugged and started chopping out another line. Might as well enjoy herself, watch some movies, dye her hair—her reddish roots were starting to show under the black—before Church in the morning.
Normally she arrived at church before the Reckonings started, in order to avoid having to watch. This morning she’d been busy organizing her CDs, so citizens with bags of ripe fruit and sticks greeted her when she finally stepped onto Church property at five to nine.
They weren’t looking at her. They barely even noticed her, but she still felt exposed, as if they were all watching her from the corners of their eyes, waiting for her to turn her back so they could curse her and beat her. It was hard to remember sometimes that they wouldn’t, that that part of her life had ended the day she entered the Church training program.
Two Minor Elders led the first Penitent into the square, a large man with a heavy beard. His bare, dusty feet shuffled across the pavement toward the stocks, but the look on his face belied his body’s reluctance. He couldn’t wait to be abused, couldn’t wait to be cleansed by filth. Easy answers made everyone happy. Idly she wondered what he’d done. Broken an oath, told a lie? An information crime, perhaps? He didn’t wear the gloves of a thief, so she guessed his infraction was a moral one; adultery, or lying, perhaps.
Chess didn’t stop, crossing the square past the enormous stone 1997 Haunted Week memorial, remembering as always to dip her head in respect for the millions worldwide whose lives had been stolen.
She didn’t remember Haunted Week herself, she’d been only an infant. She only knew the ghosts hadn’t taken her own parents, whoever they were—or rather, that their death wasn’t the reason she was in the system. They’d given her up already. But the story of Haunted Week she knew, of course she knew, as everyone did. She could only imagine what it must have been like, people huddled together in churches and homes and schools, praying and crying, while silent ghosts, risen from their graves, moved through the walls in search of them. Stealing their lives. Armed with knives and broken glass, armed with ropes and hatchets and razors, their blank faces impassive as they killed.
She wasn’t the only one who saw the Church as her salvation, despite the few grumpy splinter groups who attempted to rebel in their small, largely useless ways. All of humanity—all that remained, a third of what the population had been before that fateful week—owed their lives to the only group, the only religion, that had been able to control and defeat the ghosts. Before Haunted Week—before the Church showed the world what Truth was—they’d been a tiny group, devoted to the theory and study of magic. Now they ran the world.
And she was part of it. It was the one thing in her life of which she was proud.
She pushed her way through the heavy iron doors so she stood in the cool blue entry hall of the Church of Real Truth.
It always felt a little like coming home, and why shouldn’t it? The only constant thing in her entire life had been this building. A different set of parents every couple of months, a different house, different siblings. Take your choice between being beaten or fucked by a series of Rent-a-daddies. But almost every Saturday she’d been brought here to listen to the Grand Elder, to learn the secrets of entering the city of the dead.
And of course, once they’d discovered she had some talent, it had become more than that. School, and the first place she’d ever been somewhat safe.
Her heels clicked across the tile floor. The sound followed her, a half beat behind her actual steps, rising up past the bare walls to the carvings around the ceiling. Skulls and shrieking faces on the west side, the beatific smiles of the rested dead on the east.
“Cesaria. Good morn to you.”
Elder Griffin opened the door to his office and stepped out into the hall. His dark blue velvet suit glowed in the dim light, emphasizing the pure white of his stockings over well-defined calves. The broad brim of his matching hat cast his face into shadow, making his smile float like the Cheshire cat’s.
He bowed over her hand. “You look tired, dear. Are you well?”
“Fine. Only …” She hesitated, but only for a moment. “I need a new case. I finished the Sanfords last night, I’ll turn in the file before I go.”
“But no bonus.”
She shook her head.
“Any trouble at the Sanfords’?”
Um … “Actually, I need a new psychopomp, too. This one appeared early. It’s not a problem, it’s fine,” she amended quickly, seeing the concern in his eyes. She did not want to be questioned on what had happened. “But I think the one I had would work better with a different Debunker from now on.”
“Talk to Elder Richards before you leave. Did you bring the old one with you?”
She nodded. “And then I’m ready for a new case. Please.”
“Is it your turn?”
“I think so. Please, Elder Griffin. I want to get started, I really … feel lucky.”
He thought for a minute, narrowing his black-ringed eyes. “Actually, something came in late last night. Come with me. Elder Murray is doing the service today, I’m just leading the Credo, so I have time.”
Light glinted off the silver buckles on his shoes as they clicked down the hall to the Reports Room, where Chess averted her eyes while he performed the necessary ritual to break the warding spell on the door. “I started the file this morning, haven’t gotten the financial reports yet. The Mortons, out in Trebor Bay. They claim to have been having problems for several weeks, but they’ve only just called.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Same old story.”
“Exactly. Here we go.”
Without the imposing figure of Goody Tremmell sitting behind it, the Reports Desk looked oddly empty, even with the jumble of loose papers and empty coffee cups scattered across it. The files stayed tucked in the long row of cabinets behind the desk; Goody Tremmell never allowed anyone but herself and the occasional