The Downside Ghosts Series Books 1-3: Unholy Ghosts, Unholy Magic, City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane
flicked his thumb. Terrible’s fingers tightened, his eyes shut, as the gunpowder packed into his open wound flared in a sharp, cauterizing burst of flame. Chess gave a high-pitched squeal that embarrassed her before it even left her mouth, but it was either lost in the smattering of applause or the men tactfully ignored it. Or they were afraid of what she might do if they made fun of her, which was the more likely. Most people had a highly inflated idea of what kinds of powers she had—unless they were dead, she couldn’t do much to them. Of course, there was no point in clarifying. Why take away that protection?
She watched as the artist brought a couple of mirrors and angled them so Terrible could take a look, managing to catch a glimpse herself while he adjusted them. Lines, an impression of wings? The mirror moved too quickly for her to tell, but Terrible was apparently pleased. At least he didn’t look any angrier than usual as the artist began smearing antibiotic cream on the wound and applying gauze pads with tape.
It was strange to see him without a shirt on, though. Chess tended to think of his bowling shirts as armor, and stripped of them he … well, he still looked like a tank.
A surprisingly attractive tank. Tattoos and scars decorated his bare skin and a patch of thick dark hair spread over his chest and dipped down in a thin line to his waist, but underneath them was solid, sculpted muscle, exquisitely delineated, obviously created from real work and not trips to a gym.
He glanced at her, then looked again with an eyebrow cocked, and she realized she was frankly staring. Heat rushed to her face as her fingernails suddenly became fascinating to her. It wasn’t until she heard him saying goodbye that she looked up again.
Together they passed Rego, back out onto the bright street. Terrible had sunglasses, sleek black ones he snapped on the moment they left the doorway.
“So who? Hunchback? Where Brain go, he still at yours?”
“No, he took off.” She sketched out the conversations she’d had with him, and how he’d left before he could tell her what ever it was he seemed to be hinting at. “I think he might have seen the people who killed Slipknot. Maybe not the actual murder, but the same people.”
Terrible leaned against his car and rubbed his chin, sunlight glinting off the spikes of his armband and the thick silver chain he wore on his wrist. “Aye, sound like it to me. I ain’t know where Brain rest. Got any clues?”
She shook her head.
“Look like we go see Hunchback after all.” His grin sent a shiver of fear through her body.
“And they crowded into the cities, seeking with their numbers to overwhelm the dead, and found it futile.”
—The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 120
The Chevelle’s tires squealed in protest as Terrible yanked the wheel to the right, sliding up in front of a ware house building by the docks in a cloud of dust and the Devil Dogs’ “354.” The car shook when he slammed the door.
“You seem really worried,” she said, quickly adding “About Brain, I mean,” when he glared at her.
“I ain’t.”
“Then why are you so mad?” She rushed to catch up with him as he strode into an alley on the left of the building.
“Hunchback been told,” he said. “Watch the young one. Get it, Chess? He seen us. We ain’t want nobody else hearing that, aye?”
“He said he wouldn’t …”
Terrible wasn’t listening. A small door, covered in cracked paint faded to the dusky color of unripe blueberries, hung slightly open halfway down the wall. Terrible yanked it open and thrust himself inside, with Chess hurrying behind him.
Again it took her eyes a moment to adjust. By the time she could see again, Terrible was already in action, one meaty hand clasped around the throat of a smaller man who could only be Hunchback, holding him up against a pitted steel pillar in the center of the cavernous room. Chess wrinkled her nose; the ware house smelled like a gymnasium drain.
“Where Brain?”
“I … I ain’t …” Hunchback’s eyes, mismatched and huge with fear, rolled in her direction, then back. “Ain’t knowing.”
Terrible lifted him higher. “What I fucking say to you, Hunchback? Ain’t I say, keep the boy close? Ain’t I say watch him?”
“Aye … b-but, you ain’t say I can’t punish him, he going out to the—” The sentence ended in a stifled gurgle as Terrible’s fist tightened around his neck.
“Punishing ain’t sending him out on the street. You ain’t watching, you ain’t doing what you fucking told. You need reminding?”
His fist connected with Hunchback’s face before the man could open his mouth to answer, snapping Hunchback’s head sideways. Chess willed herself not to move, not to gasp, not to do anything at all as Terrible started methodically beating the shit out of Hunchback.
She’d seen the results of his anger—of his attention to duty—before, once or twice when someone crossed Bump or owed him money. She’d never seen him in action, the dispassionate way he moved, as though he were crunching numbers at a desk or watching a not particularly interesting film on television. It terrified her. It took her breath away.
She wasn’t the sole onlooker. Several painfully thin young teenagers of indeterminate sex stood near her, their mouths hanging open as Hunchback’s shaved head moved with the impact of every blow. Blood arced from his mouth and spattered the cement floor, turning black in the layer of dust. Hunchback’s fingers scrabbled feebly at Terrible’s shirt, trying to grab hold as if he was afraid he would fall off the earth if he couldn’t get that fabric in his grip.
It only lasted a minute or so, but it felt like much longer to Chess—though not, she imagined, as long as it must have felt to Hunchback.
“What say, Hunchback? You gonna listen next time you’re told?”
Hunchback gurgled. His head bobbed up and down like a fishing float.
“So where Brain rest when he ain’t here? Where he hang out?”
Hunchback shook his head. “Ainno.” The words sounded strained through wet linen. “Ainnever tell me.”
One of the teenagers stepped forward, twisting the hem of its T-shirt enough that Chess could barely tell she was a girl. “Um … Terrible? Sir?”
“Aye?”
“Sometime Brain go up Duck place. You knowing it? Sir?”
“Behind Fifty-third?”
The girl nodded. Her wide eyes and spiky fire-engine red hair made her look like a junkie Raggedy Ann doll.
“Aye, I know it.” Terrible dropped Hunchback with an unceremonious thud and straightened up. “Think he there now?”
She took a hasty step back, as if she thought he might hit her too if she was wrong. “Can’t say for sure, but he go there a lot. Say it safe for him most times.”
Terrible nodded. “Thanks, chickie. You gotta name?”
The girl stepped back again and shook her head, sending her ropes of hair flying, but one of the others poked her.
“Tellim, Loose!”
The girl glared, then spoke. Her voice squeaked. “Lucy, sir.”
“Aye, Lucy. Here.” Terrible dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “Get yourself some eats, girl.”
Lucy hesitated.
“Goan, take it. I ain’t hurt you. Lookin all starved. Hunchback, you start