Finding Magic (downside ghosts) (4 page)

J
illian picked her up at eleven the next morning, late enough that Chess had just about managed to shake her hangover, but still early enough that Jillian’s enthusiastic discussion about the men the night before, and which one she liked, and how he’d asked for her phone number, and blah blah blah whatever, still felt like fingernails on Chess’s mental chalkboard.

“Thanks for letting that other one give you a ride home, anyway,” Jillian said, taking a swig of coffee. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure.” That wasn’t all he’d given her, but she wasn’t about to mention that. He’d chased away some memories, distracted her for a few minutes, and that was all she cared about.

“What was his name, again?”

“Um … Mike, I think.”

“Did he ask for your number?”

“I didn’t give it to him.” Chess pulled out her notepad and started flipping pages in an effort to get Jillian to quit the girl talk. “So where are we going today?”

“Back to the Waring house. Gloria Waring is meeting us there. Why didn’t you give him your number?”

“I just didn’t, is all.” Lie. That was a lie and she was a liar. She hadn’t given it to him because she never wanted to see him again, because she never wanted to see any of them again afterward. Because she was weak enough to want them so the least she could do was keep them from hurting her; because if she let them into her life they
would
hurt her. How could they not? They were people. That was what people did to each other.

Jillian opened her mouth; Chess spoke before she could. “So Gloria Waring will be there again? What are we going to ask her about? I thought you said it was just a crime of opportunity.”

“It is. At least we’re ninety-nine percent sure it is. But we want to be a hundred percent sure—we are the Black Squad, after all—so we just want to give the place another go-over. It won’t take long.”

“Then what?”

“We’ll see.” Jillian shrugged as she turned the car onto the Warings’ street. “Maybe we’ll head down to the City and talk to the Liaisers, see if they’ve turned up anything on these ghosts, if they’re missing from the City or—”

“The City?” It came out as a sort of raspy squeak; embarrassing. Chess cleared her throat and tried again. “The City of Eternity? We’ll go down there?”

“Today or tomorrow, yeah. Oh—you haven’t been down there yet, have you?”

Chess shook her head. Shit. The City … that was a big deal. An exciting deal, and a scary deal, and she wasn’t entirely sure which emotion she felt more.

“Don’t worry about it, you’ll be fine.” Jillian parked the car on the curb outside the Waring house and turned it off. “It’s kind of weird the first time you go, but really, once you see how peaceful it is … it’s really nice, this whole other world, and you get to go there when you die. So it’s like not even really dying. It’s, well, it’s nice, you know?”

Chess forced a smile. At least she knew exactly what reaction was expected from her on this subject. “I’m just amazed I might get to see it.”

Jillian’s smile widened. Double shit; Chess knew what Jillian was going to say before she said it, and it wasn’t really what Chess wanted to hear. “Tell you what,” Jillian said, “we’ll go down there either way, okay? After we leave here, we’ll just go.”

“Oh, hey, don’t put—”

“Don’t be silly.” Jillian’s hand rested on Chess’s arm for a minute; Chess managed not to react. “I’m here to teach you stuff, right? Just think, you get to go before anybody else in your year. They’ll be so jealous.”

Like she gave a shit what they thought. “Wow, yeah, that’s … thanks, that’s really great.”

“No problem.” Jillian grinned at her for another few seconds, like she’d just handed Chess a couple thousand dollars for no reason, then opened the car door. “Come on, let’s hurry up here so we can go.”

Yeah, that really gave Chess incentive to hurry. The thought made her feel even shittier. What was the matter with her? Jillian was being nice to her, she genuinely was. Chess had little doubt that yes, her classmates would be jealous if she got to visit the City before they did. What Jillian was offering was a Big Deal. And here she was, being a fucking bitch about it just because … well, who the hell knew why. Because she was a fucking bitch, really.

Vaughn and Trent—oh, goody—stood outside, smoking cigarettes and squinting at the sun. They nodded when Chess and Jillian crossed the yard. “Hey.”

Jillian glanced around. “Anything?”

“Not really. Just what we saw yesterday.”

“Gloria Waring is on her way—” Trent started, but stopped when another car, a dark green sedan of some kind, pulled up behind Jillian’s. “Ah. Gloria Waring is here.”

Not just Gloria, either. At first Chess thought the man with her was her husband, but no. This was a different man, older. Maybe not as old as the Warings—definitely not, she saw as he drew closer—but he had a good ten years or so on Gloria.

What was he doing there? Who was he?

Uncle Mark was who he was, at least according to Gloria. “Well, he’s not really my uncle, he’s just—he’s been friends with Mom and Dad for … my whole life.” Her lip trembled; Uncle Mark put his arm around her.

“Why did this happen?” He looked at all of them, even Chess, like
she
had any answers. “How did this happen?”

Jillian spoke. “Sir, the rate of ghost-related deaths in the District is one of the lowest in the world—”

“But it still happened,” he snapped, and real malice flashed in his eyes, solidifying Chess’s initial instinct. Something about him bothered her; something about him set her on edge. She didn’t like him one bit.

“Yes, it happened.” Trent stepped forward. “And we’re sorry for your loss. But that’s no reason to get nasty with Inquisitor Morrow. Is it.”

A moment of stare-down. A moment of something flashing in Uncle Mark’s eyes. How could Gloria stand there and let him touch her, how could she not see—

Maybe there was nothing to see. Maybe she stood there and let him touch her because there was no reason not to, right? She knew the guy. Chess didn’t. And just because something about him made Chess uncomfortable—well, shit, a lot of people did, didn’t they?

And she needed to pay attention to what was happening, because Trent had clearly won the little mental battle and the conversation was moving on.

“Shannon and Joe would never do that sort of thing,” Uncle Mark was saying. The sun hovered just over his head like a halo. How appropriate. Or not. “They were kind of afraid of magic, really. You know, they had very strong beliefs before Haunted Week and never really—”

He stopped, apparently realizing to whom he was speaking. “I’m not saying they kept believing after Haunted Week or anything. They didn’t, of course they didn’t. Just that they were kind of set in their ways.”

Chess started to ask how he knew that, how long he’d known the Warings, when Jillian asked for her. Which was good, because Chess didn’t figure she should really be asking any questions.

“They worked at a mission,” Uncle Mark said. “A religious charity. I was—well, I lived there. I was an orphan, and they took me in, gave me a job.”

“When was this?” Jillian asked.

“Oh, um … I was thirteen, so that would have been in 1993. They helped a lot of people. Too bad it was all a lie, really.”

A lie? Chess looked at him more closely. Yeah, a lot of people who’d believed in the old religions had felt betrayed after Haunted Week; well, of course they had. That was one reason hardly any of their churches or whatevers still stood: angry hordes of ex-believers vented their rage on anything and everything they could, and the fires had burned all over the world for weeks after.

When the—what was it, the New Hope Mission?—had burned, had Uncle Mark poured the gasoline? Had he stood and watched? Cried? Smiled?

Jillian didn’t ask, damn it. “And what happened to the mission after Haunted Week?”

A shadow passed over Uncle Mark’s face. “It closed. Well, of course it closed. They all did, didn’t they?”

“Uncle Mark stayed with us for a while,” Gloria said. “Before he got a job and got his own place and everything.”

“I just can’t believe they’re gone.” Mark wiped his eyes, took a few deep breaths. “They—they taught me everything, they made me feel like a real person. They told me anything was possible, and I believed them.”

The others nodded and made sympathetic noises. Chess didn’t. He sounded … bitter, didn’t he? Again she inspected him; again she saw something in his eyes that she didn’t like, something that made her uncomfortable.

It wasn’t until the conversation had ended that she realized what it might be—what it probably was. He held out his hand to her; her first instinct was to ignore it, to pull away, even, but with everyone watching she really couldn’t. So she took it. She let his skin touch hers, and his energy shocked her, made her breath catch in her chest and her heart give an unhappy leap.

He was the one who’d made the sex spell.

“Maybe he did,” Jillian said. She glanced at Chess. “Sorry. He probably did, if it felt like the same energy to you. And that’s cool, you know? Actually, it’s doubly cool, because it means you made an energy identification, and we learned something more about his relationship with the Warings. About
him
.”

Yeah, something gross. Chess hesitated. Maybe it wasn’t the best thing to ask; maybe she was being weird wondering. But she couldn’t help it. “Isn’t that kind of … strange, though? To have a friend you’ve known since he was a kid make a sex spell for you?”

“Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe he’s good at it. I mean, they were married and they had a kid, it’s not like it’s a secret that they had sex.”

“I know, it just seems—”

“Takes all kinds, you know?”

“Sure.” Chess nodded. It was still fucking weird, but whatever. “The spell was strong. Why isn’t he working for the Church?”

Jillian tilted her head. “You seem really interested in him and that sex spell.”

“What? No, I just—”

“Oh, come on.” Jillian patted Chess’s thigh, patronizing and creepy all at once. “I understand. We’re both girls here, right? I can … I can help you, you know. Like, to meet men. I know the Church doesn’t cover that stuff, so … you know, if you want to talk to someone …”

Why would Chess want to—? Oh. Oh, ick. And oh, like she needed help in that department. The only thing she ever wanted from men was easy to get. “Um, thanks, but, I’m really just wondering about the case. It’s not—it’s not about that.”

“Well, just the same … you know, your mom probably talks to you about all of this, but—”

“I don’t have a mother.” They were on the highway again, heading back toward Church—back toward the City of Eternity, shit—and cars zipped past them, flowed around them. What were those people thinking of, talking about?

If only she was with them instead of trapped with Jillian and her concern.

Again, not fair. Jillian was being cool. She was a nice person. It wasn’t her fault that Chess felt like Jillian was trying to crack open her soul and poke around inside.

“Oh. Well, of course, lots of people—did she die during Haunted Week?”

“I don’t know.” Chess kept her gaze pinned out the window. “Um, I don’t know who she was or anything, I never knew her name. They found me when I was a newborn, outside a hospital. Before Haunted Week.”

“Oh.” So much hid in that “oh.” Surprise. Maybe a bit of contempt? Because Chess had no ancestry, no family she could trace, like everyone else did. No names of the dead to put on her list, to visit through a Liaiser the way normal people did.

Jillian must have realized she’d let the silence sit a little too long. “Well, my offer still stands. I haven’t had a trainee before, so this is … it’s kind of cool for me, to be honest. I don’t have a little sister or anything, either.”

Chess nodded. And changed the subject as fast as she could, because unbidden the image of the flask in her bag appeared in her mind. She couldn’t pull out the flask, and she couldn’t continue having this discussion, either. Her throat felt oddly tight as she said, “So, Mark. How did he make such a strong spell when he’s not Church? Wasn’t everyone tested?”

Pause. “He could have volunteered to be tested, yeah, since he was too old for the mandatory testing. Maybe he did. But lots of people still have some ability even though they aren’t strong enough to work with us. You know that.”

“Can we check that?”

Jillian slid the car into the exit lane. Her brows drew together, not like she was worried but like she was trying to think of a way to say something. Uh-oh. Chess had pushed it too far, hadn’t she? Damn it. Jillian was the Inquisitor, not Chess; Jillian had the experience, had dealt with this stuff before. So why hadn’t she just kept her damn mouth shut?

But Jillian’s reply wasn’t what she expected. “You know … it does kind of stink that we’re not getting a case we can really investigate. I am supposed to be training you. You haven’t said if you actually want to join the Squad after you graduate, but …”

“Um, I don’t really know what I want to do yet.” Not entirely true, but Chess was pretty sure she didn’t want to join the Squad, and equally sure that Jillian wouldn’t appreciate hearing that.

“How’s this, then? Let’s go ahead and pretend this is an actual investigation, and Mark is an actual suspect. You investigate him, okay? And I’ll oversee it. You report to me, and we’ll see if we can build some kind of case. I mean, we can’t, because it’s a ghost murder, but you know what I mean.”

This time Chess didn’t need to fake her excitement. “Really?”

“Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun, huh? And you’ll learn a lot, I bet.”

“Wow, that’s … thanks. Thanks, Jillian.”

Jillian laughed; her smile held a hint of smugness unrecognized, the self-deprecation of someone who knew self-deprecation was expected but didn’t really feel it. But then, Chess wouldn’t have expected anything else. For all of her I’m-your-cool-pal crap, Jillian was someone who did things in order to be admired and acclaimed. And not for any other reason.

Did it matter? Chess was going to actually investigate someone, and she was going to do it because of Jillian, so she needed to shut up and be grateful. This was a big deal; this was something that would go in Chess’s file. If she did a good job it could affect her placing after she graduated, could put her higher on the list for whatever job she ultimately decided she did want to do.