Chasing Magic (36 page)

But she belonged with Terrible. He knew her and he still loved her, and damn he was wrong to do that but it was Truth, and she found that thought deep inside herself, a tiny nugget of gold buried in shit. She needed to do this for him.

So she turned that hate—those flashing horrible images of every one of them, all of them who’d hurt her, who’d used her, who’d laughed, who’d treated her like the garbage she was, into power. She took those images
in her head and made them strong. She turned that love—and fuck, she did love him, she’d never in her life met anyone who made her feel the way he did—into power, and shoved it with all of her might into the key.

Her heart skipped in her chest; she heard it in her ears. Too much power. She couldn’t handle it. Red lights exploded in her eyes, in her head, searing pain shot through her.

And above it all was the power making her shake, the endless, bottomless well of emotions inside her turned to energy so strong she couldn’t stand it, so strong it ripped her apart. She was afraid to let it go, afraid to let it take over, afraid to let it have what it wanted because it wanted her, all of her, everything. It would consume her soul if she let it.

She didn’t let it. Instead, she pushed it into the key as hard as she could. It reverberated out from there; she felt it hit her blood, hit the walls, hit the floor, wrapping her in her own power, changed from what it had passed through. Her heart kicked so hard in her chest she thought she would die. Maybe she was dying, because blackness rolled through the room, obscuring everything, coming to claim her, and she collapsed into it, exhausted, and let it have her.

“C’mon, Chessie, open yon eyes, know you awake, c’mon, gotta—”

Movement. She was moving. She was lying down, but she was—running. Terrible had her in his arms and he was running down the hall, that awful narrow hall on that ship, and when she opened her eyes she caught a glimpse of the ceiling above her, of Terrible’s worried expression, before she closed them again.

He turned and stopped; a pause while his body jerked and a door slammed. He must have kicked it shut, and the sound of it brought it all back: the bodies, the magic, the pain in her arm and in her mind and soul, the dizziness and the clearing clouds.

And the knowledge that it had worked. Somehow it had worked.

A new voice, one she hadn’t heard before: “Hey! Who the fuck—”

Terrible set her down, rather less gently than usual, but she figured that could be excused when she heard the sound of a fist slamming into flesh. She opened her eyes to see a man fall, Terrible standing over him, ready to deliver another blow.

The man on the floor—she guessed he was Razor, seeing as how his shaved head had images of razor blades tattooed onto it—glared up at Terrible. His right hand reached back toward his pocket, where the handle of a knife protruded; Terrible kicked his arm away before he reached it.

“You Razor, aye? Came to have a chatter with you.”

“Don’t want to—”

Another kick. “Ain’t give a fuck. Just come to give you some knowledge you needing, dig? Get outta Downside. Take you boat and whatany other shit an get the fuck out.”

Razor wiped at the thin line of blood trickling from his nose. “Don’t think you unnerstand, see, I gots me—”

The snap of a gun being cocked, and Terrible stood aiming at Razor’s head. “Naw, thinkin you the one ain’t understand. Don’t give a fuck who backin you, payin you bills. Done now.”

Razor glanced at Chess, back at Terrible. His hands rose into the air—the universal “Please don’t hurt me I’m not armed” pose—but something in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, bothered her. He didn’t look worried. He looked like he had an ace up his sleeve.

And the door wasn’t locked.

Chess got up on unsteady legs and wobbled toward it. Anybody could walk in, and when Razor’s voice followed her, she knew that’s exactly what he was counting on. “Hey! Where you going, bitch? This—”

She’d been expecting another kick, another punch. She hadn’t been expecting the gunshot or Razor’s thin, high screech. The lock clicked shut; Razor writhed on the ground, squealing, clutching at his shin.

“Don’t see what you so fuckin pissed about,” he said, when his whining subsided. “Know that boss of yours got a big offer, plenty of cash, and shares in more later.
Plenty of cash. Were you I’da taken it, cause this way you don’t get shit.”

“What about the people?” Chess couldn’t keep her mouth shut anymore. “What about all those people you’re killing, turning into fucking zombies? Do they get money? Or no, they get to die, right?”

“The fuck you care?” Razor’s brows drew together. “They just junkies. So they die, so what? Ain’t like they worth a shit, they—”

Another gunshot report slammed off the walls, another scream from Razor.

“Just gimme the tell.” Terrible’s voice was cold, as cold as Chess had ever heard it, and anger poured out of his mouth along with it. “Who the one does the magic? Tell me now, maybe you live, dig. Iffen you don’t … I put more holes in you, throw you in the bay.”

Razor glared at him again, the kind of glare Chess had gotten used to seeing when it came to Terrible: the kind that started defiant, then turned to fear and acquiescence. Good. Fucker. As if he was any better. As if he could judge anyone, any of those people in the hall, any of those people just trying to get through the day.

“Don’t know,” he said finally. “I just get the stuff. The speed an them walnuts I’m s’posed to give em. Tell em they good-luck charms. Dumb fuckin junkies believe it, fuckin wastes of life they all is. Scratch a junkie find a piece of shit, aye? Can you—”

The gun went off again. For the last time.

Chess and Terrible stood in silence while the sound echoed off the walls, in her ears, quieter and quieter until it finally stopped.

She didn’t know what to say. Should she say anything, should she—

Terrible cleared his throat. “Guessin … guessin we oughta search in here, aye? See if we can find any useful.”

“Yeah.” It felt colder in there than it should; her body
felt weak and shaky, but whether that was from the magic before or from—well, from what had just happened, she didn’t know.

Pause. “Maybe oughta sit you down, Chessie, still lookin kinda—”

“I’m fine.”

“I can do all the—”

“I’m fine.”

And she was. A little trembly, her movements a little jerky, but fine.

At least she was until she got around the heavy desk in the corner, closer to the tall steel cabinet behind it. The nuts were in there. They had to be, because magic practically haloed the thing, a dark smudge in the air she could almost see. “I think they keep the nuts in here.”

“Aye?” She was used to him moving quietly, to him just appearing nearby, but she still jumped when he was suddenly at her side. She could have turned around, wrapped her arms around him, and held on, buried her face in his chest until she felt normal again.

Could have. But didn’t. And she didn’t because— She didn’t know why. Because she was scared. Because he’d killed someone a few seconds before and she knew he didn’t like it when she saw that, and she knew why he’d done it and he knew she knew, and she didn’t know if he wanted her to say anything or what. So she avoided the subject. “Yeah. Let’s get it open and take a look.”

It wasn’t locked. She half-expected the nuts to come pouring out when the doors opened, but no, they were in plastic bins—inert plastic bins—lined up on the shelves inside.

The energy, though, the malevolent power of them? That poured out of the cabinet thick and strong, a slow-moving tidal wave spreading over her body and making her shiver. She could practically feel each walnut inside as it— Wait.

Terrible grabbed her hand before she could touch the pile of nuts in one of the tubs. “What you doin?”

“I’m—I need to touch them. A couple of them. I think I figured something out.”

“Ain’t you wanting them gloves you got? Could—”

“No, I’m fine.”

She wasn’t fine. But she was right. She picked up one nut in each hand and held them at arm’s length to her sides, feeling the connection between them arc through her body. “It’s— They’re connected. It’s a mass control spell.”

Pause. “Aye, ain’t you—”

“No. Sorry, no, I didn’t realize it before. How it works, I mean. Yes, it’s a control spell, but it’s all connected. Shit, of course it is, how did I not figure this out before, it’s—” She caught a glimpse of his face, patient but maybe a touch confused, and forced herself to stop babbling.

“Sorry. Here’s the thing.” She set the walnuts on the floor, sat down in front of them. “It’s a master spell. All of these, all of the nuts, are connected. The magic is connected, and it’s connected to one particular master spell—one sorcerer.”

“So … he uses this bag, runs he some other bags from it? Like them Lamaru brought the Dreamthief?”

“Yes. Well, no, not exactly, because those bags were set up as a fence, remember, to hold the Thief in place. But it’s a lot like that. There’s a master spell somewhere. The sorcerer transmits his intent into that one, and it goes from there to all of these, to the people holding these or who have one in their houses or whatever. Some people probably tossed theirs, or haven’t been close enough to them for the spell to really take effect. But most of the nuts are out there, and the people who have them feel the command because it links to the magic in their bodies. They feel it and follow it.”

“Aye, I dig.” He lit cigarettes for them both. “Gives
em the drugs, they get the magic in they bodies. Then this one controls em, and he runnin the whole thing from he master bag?”

“Right. With the bags, he doesn’t have to touch each person or anything like that. He just touches his bag or gives it a magical command or whatever, and the magic seeks out the other bags and the people with those ingredients in their system, and they follow the command. It creates a circle.”

“They know? Like they feel what he wants doing?”

“No.” That was the worst part. The horrible part—well, all of it was horrible, but this was the part that made her shiver extra hard, that made her cheeks flush. “They’re completely driven by the drugs. They’re not—They’re probably not even conscious of it. It’s like they’re dead inside, like their souls don’t exist. No free will, no nothing, they’re just compelled.”

If he knew how much that idea bothered her—and she was pretty sure he did, how could he not—he didn’t say it. Instead he laid his hand on the top of her head, gave it a quick rub. “Fuck of a thing to do to people.”

“Yeah. Um, yeah.”

“Thinkin the master spell be in here? Doin all he work from here?”

“I know
he
sure as hell didn’t have the ability to control the spell.” She tipped her head toward Razor’s corpse, lying on the floor with a look of surprise across his pockmarked face, the off-center bullet hole in his forehead like a third eye seeing right into the City.

“Aye? How’s— Shit, I ain’t even gave you the chance touchin him or whatany, see if he got magic.” He shook his head, his gaze fixed on the floor. “Just got me so mad, Chessie, weren’t—”

“It’s okay.” Why had she waited so long to touch him? That had been a stupid thing to do, because the second she did, the second her fingertips touched his throat, he
reached for her, pulling her into his arms to hold her tight. Warmth spread through her body, giving her enough strength to hold him back just as tight. “It’s okay, really.”

“Aye, but still … coulda got more—”

She kissed him, not a long kiss—no matter how much she loved him, three feet away from a dead body, with presumably a gang of magic zombies waiting outside the door, was not the place for an extensive show of physical affection—but a solid one all the same. “We already know who’s behind it, right? I can’t think of any other information we needed from him.”

He nodded, but she saw the doubt in his eyes. “Aye, well, see what else we can get here, anyway.”

“Right.” She pulled away. “Can you see on that top shelf? Something’s up there. And maybe if there’s anything on top of the cabinet, too.”

“Aye. Got some here, lookin like ingredients, aye? Like shit you use.”

“Here, let me—” she started, but it was too late. Thankfully all he brought down was another plastic tub, smaller than the others. “That’s it?”

“Almost.” He reached into the closet again, with his bare hand, and before she could tell him not to he grabbed whatever it was. She should have expected that; she did expect it.

What she didn’t expect was for him to stagger when he lifted it from the bland ivory-painted metal on which it rested. What she didn’t expect was for him to go pale. What she didn’t expect was for him to …

To start glowing, to start
flickering
, was the best way she could think of to express it. As if his soul was throbbing inside his body, bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller, lit with the faint awful light that ghosts cast in darkness. As if his soul was getting stronger, trying to break out of his body.

What the fuck?