Sacrificial Magic (22 page)

“Ain’t leavin you here alone.”

“You can’t stay, though. Not here. They’ll kill you when they see you.”

He snorted.

“She’s right, Terrible,” Beulah cut in. “Not to mention what seeing you with her will do to anyone he might bring, what they’d say. She’s having a hard enough time getting any information at all.”

Oh, fuck, Chess hadn’t even thought of that. If they knew she wasn’t actually with Lex, wasn’t Slobag’s witch, one of “them”—ha, they’d probably think she was cheating on Lex with Terrible. Oh, the irony. So fucking funny.

Or it would be if Beulah wasn’t spot-fucking-on in saying that they’d try to kill him the minute they saw him.

She took the three steps that brought her right in front of him, put her hand on his still folded arms, and looked in his eyes, wishing violently that this hadn’t happened, that none of it had happened, and she could just get in the car and go home with him, dive under the covers and stay there.

She let that wish show on her face, hoped he’d be able to see it. “They don’t trust me. It’ll be worse if they see you.”

He shook his head. “Ain’t leavin you alone.”

“I— You can take my car. Take my car, and Beulah will drive me home. Right, Beulah? See, she’ll drive me home. Just please, take my car and go, okay?”

“Don’t trust her.” He said it loud enough for Beulah to hear it. Deliberately loud enough.

Thankfully Beulah didn’t respond, although she very well might have made a face or something. Chess didn’t know; she refused to turn around and look. Didn’t want to look, anyway, not when she could look at him instead.

“Please. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt, not tonight. Especially not you. I’ll be fine, you know I will.”

He was going to give in. She saw it in his eyes, in the way his brow furrowed. “Ain’t like it. Who the fuck knows what them might give a try on. Ain’t want you here when they do.”

“I don’t either, but—”

“Lex and I will both be here,” Beulah cut in, and Chess’s heart—along with any hope she’d had that this would be resolved without making him angry—smashed to the bloody cement at her feet. She had to bring him up, didn’t she?

Of course if Chess knew anything about Terrible—which she did—it was that he’d already thought of that, already seen it play out in his head. But knowing something was one thing; having it confirmed was something else entirely.

And oh, shit, was that why he didn’t want to leave? He’d seemed to believe her about not knowing who Beulah was, but she knew very well how much he could hide when he wanted to. What if his wanting to stay didn’t have anything to do with worrying about her? What if he was really worried about what she might be up to with Slobag, with Lex?

She didn’t want to think about that, but she couldn’t help thinking about it, either.

“You know Lex won’t let anything happen to her. You know that.”

The almost-bruise on his throat disappeared again, lost in the dark flush spreading over his skin as he glared at Beulah. Shit. Just what Chess needed. Reassurance from Beulah about how Lex would take such great care of her.

Nobody spoke for a long moment, the silence hanging between them like a crystal globe about to shatter.

“Aye.” He reached up, rubbed the back of his neck, turned his head away.

“I’d rather have you here,” Chess said, quietly so Beulah might not hear it. She wasn’t embarrassed or anything, she just didn’t think it was any of Beulah’s damn business. She put her hand on his chest. “You know I would. But I’m tired, and I want to go home as soon as I can, and if you stay— You need to tell Bump anyway, right? Go let him know and everything?”

Beulah coughed. A deliberate cough. “I’d like to go home myself sometime before dawn, if that’s okay with you two.”

Rather than punch her, Chess handed Terrible her keys. If it made him trust her less, fine. At least he’d be alive to do it. “Have fun driving my car.”

That earned her a sort of half smile, a semi-laugh. “Aye. Be all cool in it, maybe get myself one.”

Relief flooded her system, in the same way and pattern as her pills; and damn, how she wanted a few of those, too.

But then, she could have them, couldn’t she? Wasn’t like Beulah didn’t know.

Still … something kept her from pulling out her pillbox and chasing her troubles away enough for her to breathe. “Will you go back to my place?”

“Aye, leave yon car there. Then Bump’s. You text me aught happens, dig? Anything.”

“I will.”

He hesitated. She waited for him to kiss her, to give her some sort of reassurance, something she could hold on to after he left. Some sign that he trusted her.

It didn’t come. A nod; a short glance at Beulah. Chess watched him disappear around the corner of the building, into the shadows there, black as a murderer’s heart. It was an effort to keep her feet from running to catch up with him.

Beulah’s voice formed an oddly familiar background, speaking Cantonese into her phone while the grass behind the school turned briefly, shockingly red from the taillights. Chess watched the car slither through the grass, slow and smooth; watched him drive away. He was too far for her to see his face, so she didn’t know if he was looking at her or not. She lifted her hand in a useless wave anyway.

“They’re coming,” Beulah said behind her. Like it was good news or something, instead of yet another fucking complication destroying yet another night. Like Chess wasn’t probably going to sleep alone again, like her stomach hadn’t landed in her shoes and decided to set up housekeeping there.

She slipped a little on the damp cement patio as she neared the body again.

She and Terrible had been inside. They’d been
making out
inside while a sorcerer killed a young girl right outside the building. Had Jia known what was coming? Had she screamed?

Would Chess even have heard her if she had? Over the sound of her own heart and her breath and the curious isolation of desire that made the entire rest of the world, everything but herself and Terrible, disappear?

Never mind that they’d been hunting, battling, and losing a ghost for part of the time. When the spell started, they’d been in the booth. If she hadn’t been yanking his
jeans open they might have heard sounds outside, might have been paying attention.

She knelt by the symbol, taking care not to lean over it, not to let the energy touch her yet. She’d have to touch it, yeah, but she wanted to examine it first; this one wasn’t destroyed by fire.

“You know I’m not going to tell him,” Beulah said, yanking Chess back from her speculation.

“What?”

“I’m not going to tell him. Terrible. About you kissing Lex today.”

“Lex kissed
me
.” Bitch.

Beulah waved her hand. “Whatever. The point is, I won’t say anything. I won’t tell him.”

Chess waited for the rest of it, for the “as long as you do this or that,” or “if you give me a couple of hundred bucks,” or whatever.

It didn’t come. So why the hell would Beulah bring it up in the first place? If she wasn’t going to tell, why not just pretend she didn’t see it at all?

Beulah must have seen her thoughts on her face. “I don’t want you worried about that, or wondering. So you can just focus on this.”

Ah, right. “Thanks for your concern.”

“Don’t be— I’m trying to be nice to you.”

“Why? Why be nice to me? What’s the point? You weren’t worried about it before. Or was it just because you didn’t have a use for me then? What do you need to butter me up for?”

Beulah stared at her long enough for Chess to really feel it. “You know, Lex said you could be a real bitch sometimes. And I didn’t believe him, I thought it was just because he’ll drive anyone crazy, but I guess I was wrong. Fuck you, Chess.”

She stalked away, over to the wall of the building, and leaned against it. The white light of her phone’s screen
hit her face, made it glow there in the dark while she frowned and started fiddling with the buttons.

Damn. The last thing she needed was to start feeling guilty because she hadn’t been nice to Lex’s sister. Beulah hadn’t exactly been nice to
her
, what with the office ambush and the sly grins and the snotty comments. That was pretty much the opposite of nice, in fact. Chess didn’t owe her shit. Especially not niceness.

That was Truth. So why did she still feel like an asshole?

A feeling she didn’t need, not compounded with the memory of her car driving away, of the look on Terrible’s face when Beulah mentioned how safe it would be once Lex got there. Not when she saw headlights approach and knew Lex had arrived.

This was the Slobag she’d always imagined. Not the one dressed in bells and velvet when he met with Bump, but the one in soft gray trousers and a tidy button-down shirt. The only indicators of who he actually was were his hands heavy with gold and his broad-brimmed red fur hat, like a wealthy Siberian cowboy.

Did he recognize the ritual, the symbol? Had he ordered this?

But if he had, why there? Why Jia, why outside the school?

“So what’s the tale, Tulip?” Lex slid his arm around her, kissed the side of her head. Great. “What we got on here?”

Okay, there was one good thing about that awful dead body. It gave her an excuse to slide away. Had he really told Beulah that she was a cold bitch sometimes?

Not really the time to ask. “It’s a ritual murder, it—”

“Oh, aye? You for certain on that one?”

“Ha-ha.” She gave him a dirty look, even though it wouldn’t be effective in the dark, and if she held her flashlight up to her face she’d just look like a creepy idiot. Looking like a creepy idiot would be a dumb thing
to do. She didn’t want to alienate him or anyone else there; they’d brought two other men along with them, tall stocky men who looked quite serious about the job they were obviously hired to do.

Terrible could kick their asses, she thought, examining both with a critical eye and more than a little pride. He definitely could. Easily.

Too bad he wasn’t there, which meant she’d need to be careful, didn’t it? Bad idea to accuse the drug lord of murder while his men watched. Sure, Lex was her—her friend. But she somehow didn’t think he’d take her side if that subject came up.

“Anyway. It’s a ritual murder, a sacrifice. The symbol on the ground is called a
hafuran
. It’s designed to build power.”

Lex looked at it, looked at her. “A couple of them in that ink you got, aye? There, and there.” He pointed at her right shoulder and her left upper arm.

If she hadn’t been blushing before, she definitely was now. And if the two men Slobag brought with him hadn’t already thought or known she’d slept with Lex, they definitely did now.

And Lex … he remembered her ink that well—remembered her naked body that well? She’d never thought he paid that much attention to those particular parts of her. They were usually busy with far more fun ones.

But then, she supposed if she thought about his, she could remember it in vivid detail, too. Just like she could remember Terrible’s. That thin line of hair down his stomach—she’d never thought she’d like that, but she did, a lot—the scars and ink on his arms and side and back; she could draw those from memory, couldn’t she?

Just like she could remember the way he’d looked at her the first time he saw her naked—the way he looked
at her every time—the way his hands slid over her stomach, her ribcage, and farther up—“Huh? What?”

“What kinda power they tryna raise by killing people?”

Oh. Right. Dead body. What the fuck was wrong with her? “The
hafuran
is a power builder, like I said. So whatever they’re doing, it’s to try to make someone or something stronger.”

“Ain’t got any else?”

“No. Only that whatever they’re trying to build their power for isn’t good. Positive spells don’t usually require ritual slayings.”

Lex’s eyebrows rose. “Aye? Wouldna guessed that one, me.”

The impulse to stick out her tongue was childish, she knew, but she did it anyway, fast so the others wouldn’t notice. Lex did; his grin widened.

She was grinning, too, at least until she glanced down and saw the dead body again, wondered why the hell she was there again. Unfortunately, there was something else she could do. Something she
should
do. She inched closer to the circle, concentrating on holding on to that good feeling, and held out her hand.

Power flew up her arm, raced through her body as fast as a speed-loaded spike and almost as strong. Not just death power, death energy, either. She hardly felt that at all. Instead it felt like earth energy, earth power. What the— Why? Why would a death spell feel like something else?

The thought flashed through her mind so fast she could hardly grab it, because the air left her chest in a hoarse gasp; she felt her feet move, felt her legs shake and struggle to keep her standing. Felt it like it was happening to someone else, because the only thing her conscious mind could feel was that power flooding her body, filling her, seeking … something. Looking for
something inside her, some energy to latch on to and strengthen. Oh shit. The only real energy inside her at that moment was—