Stacia Kane - City of Ghosts

It should have ended there, but … no. This wasn’t her basic file. This was her personal file, her confidential one. Chess’s hand shook slightly as she picked up Elder Banks’s notes on the results of her fertility test. The edges of that sheet were softened by grubby fingerprints. Lauren had spent some time there, reading that one.

Next came a bundle of papers clipped together; the letter she’d written asking permission to live off-grounds, with comments from her instructors and the Elders—Elder Griffin. He’d been on her side; well, she’d known that. But some of the others, some of the comments they made about her lack of trust in her coworkers, her standoffishness …

She didn’t want to look anymore. There was nothing she could do anyway. Lauren had a right to look at her file. And much as those soft edges and fingerprints bothered her, she couldn’t do anything about it. Couldn’t make Lauren unsee any of it or remove the knowledge from her head.

But … She flipped back quickly to the first page. There it was. Her picture. The same picture she had in her bag, the one taken from Vanhelm’s apartment.

The Church only printed one copy of those pictures; it wasn’t like they handed them out for employees to trade like they were kids in school. Well, at least Chess remembered other kids getting copies of those pictures in school and trading them. She’d never gotten any of her own.

So if her picture was still in the file, where had Vanhelm’s come from?

The hair on the back of her neck prickled as she dug it out. Same picture. Same background. Same smile, same girl.

But now that she was really studying it … was that the same girl? The eyebrows were a little different, it seemed; the girl in Vanhelm’s picture hadn’t plucked hers quite thin enough.

This was crazy. She was crazy. But then … two weeks ago she would have said nobody could cast a glamour strong enough to fool a witch. Now she knew differently. At least one person had—she remembered Lauren’s face changing when she touched that fetish—and who knew how long the effect of that would last?

Had Maguinness created another Cesaria Putnam? Had the Lamaru? And why?

Something wasn’t right here. Her nerves weren’t settling. They were getting worse. She didn’t want to be at Lauren’s place anymore, didn’t want to be anywhere near her. Panic spread from her stomach up into her chest, thrumming into her brain. Exactly why, she didn’t know, but she needed to get out of there. Needed to think. Instead of innocently messy, Lauren’s apartment now looked booby-trapped; anyone, anything, could be hiding in the boxes and clutter.

She was being ridiculous. Lauren was the Grand Elder’s daughter. But who gave a fuck. It felt wrong, and she was going with that.

The water shut off, leaving the room too quiet. Chess shoved the papers back in order and closed the file, setting it back the way she thought it had been.

She reached into her bag for her notebook and pen, intending to scribble a note for Lauren and haul her ass out of there before Lauren got dressed. Her finger caught on something; she pushed it aside, almost jumped out of her skin when the apartment filled with a loud, shrill, sustained beep.

Fuck! Lauren’s tracker. She’d switched it on. Her hands shook as she dug it out, tried to find the off switch, and realized the sensors in her bag weren’t lit up.

The tracker wasn’t reading the sensors in her bag; they hadn’t been tripped.

So where was the sensor that it had tripped? Number four?

One of the two she’d planted on Vanhelm.

The tracker’s high-pitched beep throbbed in her head, a scream of panic she couldn’t utter, while she dug around in Lauren’s couch until she finally found it.

Stuffed under the cushion Lauren had set the files on; she must have shoved it in there when she saw Chess at the door. Must have been looking at it when Chess arrived and not had time to hide it.

Must have been looking at Erik Vanhelm’s shirt.

Chess leapt off her knees, ready to jump over the couch to the front door and get the fuck out of there, but her leap came too late. Just a second too late, it had taken her just a second too long to find the thing, why the fuck had she even bothered, she’d known anyway …

Lauren stood in the doorway, her dark green bathrobe hanging open. Water dripped down her bare skin, over the pale curves of her round breasts and flat stomach.

The gun in her hand pointed right at Chess’s head. In her other hand, raised to her ear, was her cell phone.

“Stop right there,” she said unnecessarily, and then, into the phone, “Yes, now. Hurry up.”

The door stood at least two strides away; there was no way Chess could reach it before Lauren pulled the trigger. And given how cramped that apartment was, unless Lauren was the world’s worst shot there wasn’t a chance in hell she’d miss.

Okay, Plan B. Whatever that was. Shit! Shit shit shit. “Ha-ha, Lauren,” she managed. “Very funny. Put the gun down and get changed. I want to hear your news.”

Better come up with a Plan C, because no way was Lauren dumb enough to buy that.

Nope, definitely not dumb enough. She snapped the phone shut and slipped it into her pocket. “Shut up and sit back down.”

Chess obeyed. What else was she supposed to do?

Laying her cards on the table might be a good idea. Well, she might as well, anyway. Her hand slipped into her pocket. She had her own cell, she could call … who? She still didn’t have Terrible’s number, and she’d probably get voicemail at the Church.

Which left Lex.

Of course even that semi-useless gesture required she be able to see the phone. And somehow she didn’t think Lauren would miss that. Okay. Hold the phone anyway, and wait for a chance. And hope it came fucking soon, because reinforcements were apparently on their way. Shit .

She looked at Lauren. “Vanhelm is dead.”

Even knowing what she thought she knew, she wasn’t prepared for Lauren’s reaction. Her face … crumpled, literally scrunched up and seemed to slide down; she was unrecognizable. “No. No, he can’t be—no.”

“I’m sorry, Lauren.” The odd thing was, for a second she actually was sorry. It was impossible to stand in the presence of such grief and not be touched by it. Especially when she’d experienced something similar not long before.

She’d been lucky. She’d been able to save him. Lauren hadn’t had that chance.

Lauren’s voice was a harsh, bitter knife cutting through her thoughts. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. I saw him. He’s dead.”

“What … what happened to him?”

“He was—” No. Wait. “He was murdered. Cut up.”

Lauren knew Maguinness was after them, but she might not know he had his own psychopomp army below the city. Telling her Vanhelm had been killed by dogs might tip her off—might be playing the only card Chess had.

Tears fell onto the dark green terry cloth of Lauren’s robe. “No. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t have been him. He was—he was—”

“He tried to rape me, Lauren.” Something else had occurred to her, something that sent rage flying white-hot up her spine. “Or was that a lie? Just like what you told me happened to you. It was a lie, right? You thought you could, what, spook me with it? Distract me? What?”

“He wouldn’t have raped you.”

“Really? Because he sure was ready to.”

The gun wavered in Lauren’s hand. Chess had to admit she was impressed that Lauren had held the thing steady for this long; could she even see Chess through her tears?

Didn’t matter. She could see well enough to know if Chess suddenly got up and made a run for it, and that was the important thing.