Sacrificial Magic (24 page)

Somehow she found her legs, managed to speed along with Lex to where the others stood, to where they all watched as the
hafuran
burned.

It felt like Church magic, like twisted and bastardized Church magic. That thought refused to leave her—that thought, and the dark suspicion that blossomed inside her because of it—as the symbol outlined itself in flames, sparks dancing across the ugly lines. It singed her face, burned her soul.

Orange, then red, then a bright, painful blue, beautiful and terrifying as they rose into the night sky. Sparks flew from them, sparks and the most oppressive, intense heat she’d ever felt, worse even than when she’d been trapped in the burning Slaughterhouse the month before. Worse because this heat came from within, from her, and it turned her body into a torch. Greedy fire, taking what it could; it would destroy her with its heat, suck her into the inferno and make her another sacrifice. It pulled at her. Only Lex’s hands on her arms kept her from giving it what it wanted.

Fear washed over her again, all of those vivid terrors the symbol had shown her, playing across the fire where everyone could see. Or could they?

She managed to drag her gaze away from the bright flames—now heading toward purple—and glanced at
the others, panting from the pain, her mouth so dry and hot she thought she felt her tongue crack.

All of them watched the fire with expressions of frozen horror on their faces; even Lex looked worried, and not only was he completely impervious to magic, she didn’t think anything in existence could actually scare him. That symbol was some powerful shit.

She turned back to it as it went to purple, then to black, deep shiny black. The pain grew worse, tearing into her organs, pulling her apart to see how she worked, like a cruel child with a spider. It raged at her, dug into her, seared her soul until all she saw was flames, all she felt was pain, she hadn’t been even herself anymore—

It exploded.

Chess hit the cement with a thud that would have hurt if she hadn’t been so fucking grateful that the pain inside her had finally stopped. Would have hurt, too, if she wasn’t just a bit loaded. Too bad her pills didn’t do much for magic-induced pain, but she couldn’t have everything.

And that almost didn’t matter, not at that moment when the pain had disappeared, the symbol had disappeared. That the memory never would was something she’d just have to deal with; hell, it could join the gang already in her head, the gang that poked her and slapped her and yelled at her every chance it got.

Her legs felt limp and disjointed, like stilts rather than her own body, but she managed to stand on them anyway. Before her lay the charred remains of the symbol, Jia’s body like a misshapen lump of coal inside it. No longer a symbol but a scar, a black wound in the cement, crusted and bubbled like the pipe room floor. Heat still radiated from it, too, and the sharp too-dry smell of burning hung so thick in the air she tasted it.

The others stirred, moaned. Tried to rise themselves,
all of them looking like animated scarecrows, wobbling and leaning on awkward feet.

She waited until Beulah was standing. She could at least do that. But the second that woman was upright, she was ready. No discussion; Chess didn’t trust the discussion to any of them. But she knew what she’d felt.

“Okay, Beulah, can you take me home now?”

   Air-conditioning blasted from the dash of Beulah’s car—the sleek expensive one Chess had noticed in the school parking lot. She should have guessed.

They’d been driving in silence for ten minutes or so, broken only by the Operation Ivy disc in the stereo. Discomfort grew in Chess’s stomach, in her head, creeping down her arms and legs. Damn. She thought she’d be over that, that her exhaustion and the memory of pain that made her muscles feel like hot wet rags would erase it, but apparently not.

She hauled her bag up from the floor. At least there were pills. Just holding them made her feel better; swallowing them made her feel a lot better, and in fifteen minutes or so she wouldn’t care about anything or anyone. She couldn’t fucking wait.

But for now … “Hey. Um. I’m sorry. About earlier.”

“Why are you sorry? Is it because you realize you acted like a cunt, or is it because of my brother?”

Chess stared at her for a second, at her smooth profile sharp against the candlelit windows and fuzzy streetlights. “Are you serious?”

“I think so, yes.”

Ridiculous. Whatever impulse had led her to apologize, it was well and truly gone, and wasn’t she grateful for that. She should have gone ahead and talked about Slobag’s witch and the pipe room instead. “Forget it.”

“I don’t think it’s such a bizarre question. Just because you do doesn’t mean it isn’t valid.”

“It means I don’t have to answer it.”

“No, you don’t. Just like I don’t have to give you a ride. I could have let Lex drive you. Hell, I could have let you fucking walk. But by all means, don’t worry about your apology.”

For a second Chess wished she
had
let Lex drive her; the only thing that had stopped her was knowing Terrible would probably be watching, would be waiting for her. Having Lex drop her off in front of him would not be a good idea.

Too late, anyway. “Why are you like this?” she asked.

Beulah glanced at her; the light caught her face for a second, gave Chess an impression of drawn-together brows and a frown. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means why are you like this? Are you always this big a bitch, or am I just lucky? I said something kind of shitty. Sue me. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that you, a total stranger who hasn’t exactly been cheering me on so far, were trying to be pally with me and not just get something out of me like the rest of your family does.”

Beulah breezed the red light at Thirty-seventh and Ace. “I’m not a total stranger.”

“You are.”

“I’m not. You fucked my brother for months, in my house. He talked about you. I’ve washed your clothes, don’t forget. I’ve seen you almost naked.”

The words fell on Chess’s head like cold raw eggs. Fuck. Beulah
had
seen her almost naked, at least in her underwear; that first night, the night Slobag’s men kidnapped her from her building. He’d told her then that he’d had his sister Blue search her.

“Didn’t know the search was that thorough,” she said, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

“Give me a break. It’s not like I gave you an internal or something.”

“Oh, thanks. I’m really grateful for that.”

“Hey, be glad I did it and not one of the musclemen. How’d you like to have one of those guys pawing you while you were unconscious?”

The first wave of the Oozers hit her, swirled into her head and made her cheeks tingle, pulling her lips into a soft smile despite her irritation. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“Right.”

The lights outside the car windows started to streak, dazzling tails of bright yellow that grew longer and longer. Fuck, that felt good. She wanted to close her eyes, wanted to stop talking and just sit feeling it. Even better, she wanted to close her eyes and sit feeling it with Terrible, in his lap, or with her head on his chest.

Her phone beeped, and her heart skipped with relief. A reply to the text she’d sent when she got into the car; he’d be there, he’d wait. More of the darkness in her head, wrapped around her, faded away. He’d be there, she wouldn’t have to be alone. Wouldn’t sleep alone wishing he was with her, because he would be.

“Good news?”

“Terrible’s going to meet me, he’s going to be waiting. So I get to spend some time with him. We have the whole night.”

“Did you always want to be with him? Even when you were with Lex?”

One problem with Oozers, especially when coupled with brain-soothing happiness: they made her lips as loose as her muscles. Well, she’d started it—she hadn’t meant to, but she apparently had—so she might as well finish it, despite the mental cringe. “Um, I don’t— I guess I did, yeah, but I didn’t know I did, if that makes sense.”

“Because you guys were just friends.”

“Right.”

“So what happened? Did he kiss you, or something?
Is he a good kisser? I guess he is, why would you be with him if—”

“We’re not talking about this.” At least she still had the presence of mind to clamp down on that particular topic. On any Terrible-related topic, honestly, but particularly on that topic. None of Beulah’s business. None of anybody’s business. It was hers, something secret she shared with him, and nobody was going to take that away from her, not ever. She’d kill anyone who tried.

Not to mention the sick sort of squirm in her head, sending waves of panicky irritation through her body. How much did Beulah actually know about her? Wasn’t it bad enough she knew about her habit, that she knew all about Chess’s relationship—such as it was—with Lex, probably right down to how often she went over there and what sort of things they did to each other? She had to discuss Terrible, too?

That was too much, way too much. Beulah wasn’t her friend. Wasn’t anyone she trusted. And even if she had been, she wouldn’t want Beulah to know that shit about her. Once people thought they knew someone, they started expecting that someone to care what they thought or felt or said; they thought their information or instinct obligated that someone.

Chess would be damned if she was going to let Beulah feel that way about her, dig her oh-so-sensitive little hooks into Chess’s skin and tug until it tore away so she could inspect Chess’s soul with curious, satisfied fingers covered in blood. “Not ever.”

“I was just making conversation.” They turned onto Forty-seventh; Cross was only a block down. Almost home. She started scanning the side of the road, looking for the Chevelle, but didn’t see it.

Then again, she could barely see any of the cars that slid so slowly past her, their edges soft in the now-sparkling world.

Beulah started talking again. Chess didn’t pay attention. Where was the Chevelle?

Her own car sat on the street, quiet and peaceful, but the Chevelle wasn’t there. If it hadn’t been for the Oozers coating her with an artificial layer of calm, she would have panicked. As it was she just felt sick.

And Beulah kept talking, her voice an irritating tickle on Chess’s neck, like a hair she couldn’t find.

Until she caught something. “What?”

“What? This is it, right?”

“Yeah. What did you just say?” Her eyes wanted to roll back in her head; she floated a couple of feet above her body. Amazing.

“About Aros?”

“Yes, yeah. What—what did you say about him?”

Beulah looked at her oddly. Was she slurring her words? Not that she gave a fuck, but she still wondered.

“I asked if you’d been to Aros’s apartment near the school.”

“Where was it?”

“What, his apartment?”

She wanted to be sarcastic, but she was too high for it. Beautiful. “Yeah. Where was it?”

“It’s behind the school, on Twenty-first. Twenty-first and Foster. You didn’t know?”

That hadn’t been in her case file. No dispensation to rent an apartment had been noted, no other address.

It should have been. If he’d been sleeping right near the school, he should have—would have—written it down. Even as he freaked out and broke down or whatever, she’d think he would have made some kind of note.

Not to mention, how did he manage to get an apartment down there so fast? In a part of Downside where to admit to being Church was akin to wearing a kill me now sign? The Church wasn’t too popular anywhere in
Downside, but those east of Thirty-fifth made hating it a fetish.

Okay, maybe they wouldn’t kill a Church employee, but they sure as fuck wouldn’t rent to one. Even on her side of town she’d had to get a couple of Bump’s street dealers to talk to her landlord, had to bribe him to let her in, and it had been over a year before anyone even looked her in the face.

“How’d he get it? The apartment, I mean. How—how would he get that?”

“How would I know? I never went in. He had it, was all I know.”

“Is he still there, do you know? Can I see it—can you get someone to let me see it?” The question made her feel vulnerable, yeah, and maybe it was too much information to give Beulah, but she couldn’t help it.

“Probably, yeah. I’ll ask. And actually …” Beulah’s face split into a grin, the kind of quiet grin that meant the grinner was up to no good. Chess didn’t want to respond to that grin, but she couldn’t really help it. Not when her own cheeks felt so tight and cheerful, drawing her lips into a smile that would almost hurt if she dropped it; especially not when she heard the familiar rumble of the Chevelle’s engine and its headlights bathed the interior of Beulah’s car in silvery white for a few seconds before shutting off. He was there. He’d come for her.

“Actually, you could ask Monica about his place. She took her student group there once, I think.”

“Her plaid dress is horrible. It makes her look like a patterned pumpkin.” The words sounded funny, felt funny in her mouth.

Beulah laughed, that pretty, girlish laugh that sounded odd coming from her, especially when she was so viperish in general. “Think you’re high enough now?”