The Downside Ghosts Series Books 1-3: Unholy Ghosts, Unholy Magic, City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane
shouldn’t be down here,” she said, without really knowing why, and left him there in search of a way out. If she could retrace his steps, she should be able to find it, but which way had he come?
“Ai! T’other way, t’other …”
Big Shog was already passing out again, but before his hand fell to his side she saw the way he was pointing. Great. Chess fished a five-dollar bill out of her bag and tucked it into his pocket. “Thanks.”
The door was only a few minutes down the tunnel, tucked at the top of a short flight of stairs, and she walked through it with the air of someone about to start a new life. She’d survived. The moon was full overhead—it must be at least eleven o’clock—but she’d made it out of the library, out of the church, out of the tunnels, and here she was, on a dingy street in an unfamiliar part of town that smelled of smoke and filth. Sometimes things worked out, after all.
“All Church employees are expected to comport themselves in a manner befitting their stations at all times. You represent everything that is right and holy in the world. You must never forget it.”
—The Example Is You, the guidebook for Church employees
After two Cepts, a hot shower, and one purple Valtruin, it was as though the entire day had never happened. Chess strolled into Trickster’s Bar just before one with her face set in a permasmile and her body feeling as though it existed on another planet where nothing bad ever happened. Not like this world. Not like the stuff she had to tell Terrible about before she could head off to Lex’s place for the night. Lex … Lex and that slice of bare skin she’d seen, Lex and that kiss … Him she didn’t trust, not at all. Not that it mattered; trust and sex had nothing to do with each other, at least not for her.
She had to tell Terrible what happened first, though. Because they needed to set up a time and place where she could perform the ritual to set free Slipknot’s soul. Because she was supposed to keep reporting in, and Bump was nowhere to be found. But mostly … mostly because she owed him the knowledge, as fast as she could get it to him. He’d involved himself when he didn’t have to, he’d touched the book for her, and he deserved to know exactly what they were dealing with. And who might be coming after him.
It took a moment for her wildly dilated eyes to adjust to the light, and another minute to find him. The interior of Trickster’s was like a dive bar in a hell dimension, scented with smoke and stale beer and lit with blue lights and red gels so everything white glowed fluorescent red.
Terrible stood in the back, talking to some men whose faces she couldn’t identify but who looked vaguely familiar. From the tattoo parlor, perhaps, or just guys she’d seen around. Downside was a small, small world. Chances were the person you robbed on Tuesday would be dating your neighbor on Thursday.
She floated across the room to him, aware from about halfway that he was watching her.
“Hey, Chess. You right?”
“Right up. Can we talk somewhere?”
He gave her a slow nod. She followed him back into the hall where the bathrooms were. The music was quieter here, by just enough that they didn’t have to shout, but the hall was narrow, forcing her to stand a little closer to him than she’d intended, close enough to smell soap and beer.
“So I found out about him,” she said. “About … the name, on the amulet. What he’s doing here. I mean, I found out what he does, I don’t know what he’s doing here, why they wanted him specifically.” She felt she was babbling suddenly and stopped short. Was he looking at her oddly?
“Aye.”
“He’s a Dreamthief. That’s how he gets people—he sneaks into their heads while they sleep and feeds on the energy of their dreams. He’s like a demon, but not a demon, just a very nasty spirit with a lot of extra power. Like a huge entity made of junk from other ghosts.”
“Thought demons wasn’t real.”
“They’re not, it was just the only thing I could come up with. He’s powerful like they were supposed to be, is what I meant.”
“He that powerful to start? Or causin he feeds up on a lot of sleepers?”
She thought about it for a minute, which was harder than it should have been. “Probably a bit of both. The book didn’t really say exactly how he came into being, or when, but … Sometimes spirits disintegrate, or meld—sometimes one part of them feeds on the rest, absorbs it, and then combines with other bits from other souls. So he was already pretty jacked up. What he gets from humans only adds to it.”
This still didn’t explain why he hadn’t killed her when he had the chance. Some ghosts needed to work hard to be able to kill people or do damage, but he should have been strong enough right from the beginning, especially with the power of Slipknot’s soul keeping him earthbound.
“Why somebody wanna call a thing like that?”
Oh yeah. He didn’t know what had happened to her at the Church. “Not just somebody. The Lamaru.”
His eyebrows raised. Right. Why would he know?
“They’re a … they’re an illegal coven. Not one we want to get involved with. You remember a couple of years ago, when they found that—that kid, on Belden Hill?”
Terrible nodded, his eyes darkening. Not a surprise, that. Almost three years on nobody liked to think of what that child’s last hours must have been like.
“That was the Lamaru. We’re still not sure what they were doing, it looked like they were trying to force his soul into slavery or something, but the point is, they’re involved in this, and they’re not people anyone wants to mess with. They summoned the thief. And they have an ally in the Church, somebody I work with. They tried to attack me tonight at the Church library.”
Quickly she sketched out the story for him, eliminating her terror in the dark and making it sound as though she’d heard about the tunnels from one of the Elders. She was inordinately proud of herself for remembering to do so, especially as looking back at what happened only a couple of hours before felt like trying to remember a story she’d been told once in childhood. “Only an employee could have gotten in.”
“How’d they know you there? They following you? Shit, Chess, you call me, aye? Don’t go off alone.”
She was going off alone, all right. Her head felt stuffed with cotton, her skin electric and so sensitive, the hair on her arm stood up when it brushed the wall beside her. She giggled, then tried to turn it into a cough, which failed when she actually choked. This struck her as even more amusing. It was several minutes and a sip of Terrible’s beer before she was able to speak.
“I didn’t see anyone following me, and I paid attention.”
“They waiting for you. At the library, aye? Knew you’d figure it out, so they just waited.”
“Someone would have noticed them there, I’m sure of it. Nobody’s supposed to be in there after dark, it’s—”
“Aye, but you there, and someone else, too.” He shook his head. “You ain’t count on no rules to save you, Chess. You oughta know that. Don’t know where your head was.”
Her head was floating off somewhere in the distance, bobbing along to the heavy beat of The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Her entire body pounded along with it, so it was hard to concentrate, and she knew she’d been stupid and he was right, but the Church was safe, it was the only place in the whole world that had ever been entirely safe, didn’t he know that?
“So’s a lot of people in this one, them tonight and last night, too. Any guesses what they after?”
“No,”