The Downside Ghosts Series Books 1-3: Unholy Ghosts, Unholy Magic, City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane
He chuckled, like a clogged engine coughing its way into life. “Accidents do happen.” His hand snapped shut. “I can tell much of it. What shall I get in return? The book needs its sacrifice if it is to open.”
“What book? Can’t you just tell me?”
“The words cannot be spoken unless cast. Thou must read them, but not say out loud.”
Nothing good could possibly come of this. She saw herself at the door, saw Terrible behind her as they left and climbed back up the hill to his car, saw them hauling ass away from here and back to the city.
Then she saw Slipknot, with his body rotting more every minute and his soul trapped inside the maggoty, desiccated ruin, and she knew she could not go.
“What’s the price?” She picked up her bag, ready to dig into her wallet. For that matter, she was ready to make Terrible dig into his. Bump would be paying both of them back. This was his project, he could use his own damn money.
“Oh. Thou offers money.” Those extra teeth of Tyson’s glowed in the dim light. “The book does not require such cold sacrifice, dear. It asks for something more … Perhaps thou had better see. Wait here.”
Chess and Terrible exchanged glances as he got up and disappeared through that black door, the shiny gold and red fabric of his robe floating behind him.
“You ain’t get this learning any elsewhere?”
She shook her head.
He sighed. “Ain’t liking this, not one bit.”
She was about to reply when Tyson swept back into the room, holding a book flat in front of him. At first Chess thought Tyson had cut himself on something in the other room, that he either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. Then she realized the blood spattering onto his robe and absorbing into the dirt floor wasn’t his.
It was coming from the book.
It dripped dark and clotted from the covers and oozed out from the pages. Chess’s skin crawled. She did not want to read that thing, didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to go near it. Her palm burned and itched, the tattoos on her arms warmed as the book was brought closer to her.
Tyson nudged a small table with his foot and looked at Terrible. “Will thou bring it over?”
Terrible’s face did not move as he lifted the table and set it in front of Chess, but when his eyes met hers she read the message in them. He felt it, too, didn’t like this any more than she did.
It couldn’t be helped. She tried not to cringe away when Tyson set the bloody book on the table, forcing herself instead to reach for it. Tyson’s hand stopped her.
“Thou is sure? Thou is ready to touch the book?” His eyes gleamed.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?”
Terrible stepped forward. “Give it me.”
“No. This isn’t your—”
“Ain’t having you do it, Chess. It’s why I come along, aye?”
Droplets of blood plunked onto the dirt, loud in the silence while she and Terrible looked at each other.
“One of thee decide, if it pleases,” Tyson said. “Charming as this little moment is, I haven’t got all day to watch.”
Chess reached out, but Terrible was faster. The tips of the fingers on his left hand brushed the cover, and the book flew open, scattering drops of blood everywhere, onto him, onto Chess, onto the walls and furniture.
She barely noticed. She could not tear her eyes away as the pages shifted, fluttered, brushing against Terrible’s hand, then finally falling open, clean and white. The blood was gone.
For a moment, anyway. Then it started again, spreading across the pages in a crimson flood, forming words and symbols that seemed to float above the parchment.
Terrible grunted softly, an uncomfortable sound, one she did not like. His hand, which had been resting on top of the book, seemed to shrink, to flatten, and she realized it was actually sinking in. The blood on the page now was his.
He sank to his knees, his face flushing, his eyes closed.
“Terrible? Terrible?”
He shook his head. “Ain’t … no …”
“Terrible!” She reached for him, meaning to pull his arm away, but Tyson’s voice stopped her.
“Thou had best get the knowledge,” he said. “Quickly, lest the book kill thy guard before thou do.”
“Often we find ourselves as parents unsure how to guide our children. In those cases we should simply look for the Truth, and we will be correct. Protecting our children is the highest way of serving humanity and Truth.”
—Families and Truth, a Church pamphlet by Elder Barrett
Terrible moaned, a sound so low and frightened it felt like someone rubbing tinfoil against her brain.
“Stop this!”
Tyson shrugged. “His time shortens while thou speaks.”
Fuck! Fuck, shit fuck. Where was her note pad? And her pen? The words in the book had almost finished forming, stretching across the pages like the footprints of bleeding ravens. An image started to form in the center, the amulet, the runes around the edge growing and shrinking.
“No … not me … not me …” Terrible’s body convulsed, folded over on itself, his head bowed. His entire body trembled and shook as he sank farther to the floor, shrinking into a semi fetal position. Red symbols scrolled up his arm, swirling around his elbow and creeping over the slice of bare skin showing at the back of his neck, then back down to spread over the page.
Finally her fingers closed over the pen and pad. She started writing, hardly paying attention, just trying to copy the pages and stop this. If it would stop, if she hadn’t just sacrificed a man’s life just to decipher that stupid amulet. Slipknot could rot forever for all she cared, who cared, just please let this end …
Tretso, yes. To power. And the other one, Etosh, to direct it. More. Vedak, to trap the soul. Arged, to feed from it. Who the fuck had done this, had concocted something so foul? The lettering flowed faster across the parchment now, almost too fast for her to follow.
“That’s good,” she heard Tyson say softly. “So much pain … and strength … the book is pleased …”
“Fuck you,” she managed, but it was drowned out by Terrible’s roar, like a tiger in pain, setting every hair on her body on end.
The last rune formed now, pulsing bigger and thicker, the red marks forming a rune, then a face, then a rune again, the words stretching out even as Chess’s heart thudded and skipped. That face was that of the nightmare man, and his name was Ereshdiran, the stealer of dreams.
“Done!” she shouted. “I’m done! I’m finished, stop this now, stop it please …”
Red ink covered Terrible’s face, fiery bright under his skin, under the tears squeezing out from beneath his closed eyelids.
“No more, no more, no more, not me, please, please don’t.” Over and over, a litany she could not bear to hear any longer.
Terrible’s eyes flew open. Chess screamed. His irises were red, bright glowing red, his pupils nothing but black pinpoints against it. It was in him, oh fuck, whatever it was was inside him, eating him …
Tyson laughed softly as she reached out without thinking and grabbed the book, trying to yank it away.
Tyson’s