Stacia Kane: City of Ghosts

And beneath it all lay the old fear, the familiar one: of the City itself, of the silence and the spectral shapes and the dirt, of the empty-eyed ghosts sliding past her. Reminding her, always reminding her, that this was all that waited at the end: this desolation that everyone else seemed to find peaceful and comforting but that still caused her to wake up drenched in sweat a couple of nights a year.

They came to the bottom of the elevator shaft with a small jolt, and the doors slid open.

Thick, powerful energy swirled into the elevator car, over Chess, through her, leaving her chest tight. They’d started the ceremony, they must have, and she practically leapt from the car. They had to get moving, get on the train and go. Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait for it; it returned automatically after each journey. It was too dangerous to keep it near the City; bolts could be unscrewed, parts used as weapons. No foreign objects were permitted in the City.

She hit the switch that opened the train’s doors and gestured the men inside, her heart pounding triple-time. Speed, and her fear of the City, dislike bordering on hatred. And above it all the absolute terror of what they might find when they arrived.

The men sat down. She didn’t. Instead she forced herself to walk into the little booth in the front and press the button that brought the train to life. Dull blue lights glowed overhead, reflected off the Plexiglas windows, gleamed dully off the iron walls and fittings. Like sitting in an iceberg, it was; the heaters whirring overhead would kick out warm air in a few seconds, but for the moment it was cold and sterile inside the car, silent save for the dull grind of the first set of doors opening to admit them to the tunnel.

Chess leaned against the iron pole in the center. She couldn’t sit down. Couldn’t look at any of them as the floor lurched under her feet and the train carried them into the darkness. How many of them were about to die? How many of the men sitting there, close enough to touch, were living the last moments of their lives?

Her entire body buzzed so hard that she thought it might explode if she didn’t focus on keeping it together. Her pouch full of supplies made an ungainly weight in front of her. She still stank. And she was probably about to die painfully, along with the rest of them.

This was her fault. If she’d caught on earlier, this might not have happened. If she’d paid more attention to Lauren and her suspicion that everything wasn’t right there. If she’d sat down and thought about the clues, about Baldarel’s tie to the smuggled ghost at the execution and the fact that the death of a Church employee in good standing automatically meant the entire staff would be in the City at the same time.

She should have been quicker. Should have been better. And if she died—if any of them died—she had only herself to blame.

Best of all, there was a very good chance that she was going to be killed by someone who was actually pretending to be her. Which reminded her …

Something clogged her throat when she turned around. She pushed her words out around it. “There’s going to be a— ow —a girl in there who looks just like me. So … please be careful, okay?” She forced a smile; her face felt like a rubber mask. “Don’t kill anyone with my face.”

They nodded. A few of them smiled. Fear touched their eyes. Terrible’s brows drew together, but he didn’t speak. And she was glad. She didn’t want him to talk to her, didn’t want anyone to talk to her.

Outside the windows everything was black. The train with its motley load of passengers hurtled through the emptiness. With every second the power outside them grew, pressing against her skin, throbbing in her head. Her grip on the pole tightened. She could do this, she’d gotten through worse than this, dealt with power more intense than this, and she could do it this time, too. She held the thought in her mind, pictured it as bright red words against the black earth outside. Focused on it: She could do this . She had to.

Finally the train ground to a halt. The doors slid open, spilling them out onto the smaller platform. Their breath fogged in the icy air, glowed iridescent blue in the light from the lone bulb above the thick double doors.

The locked double doors. No big deal there. It actually felt good to handle it, to know that here at least was something she knew how to do. Something easy. Whatever else was happening, whatever other fears she had, whatever insecurities and blame and self-hatred and other freaky problems plagued her—at that moment it was about work, about doing something she’d been trained to do.

From behind her came the sound of the train’s doors slamming back into place, the rush of wind as it began its return journey, but she ignored it. The train didn’t matter. The work mattered.

First she inserted her key into the ornate lock, turned it counterclockwise three times until it clicked. Energy puffed out of the lock and licked her fingers, testing her. She waited, totally focused. Any second it would recognize her power, that elusive whatever-it-was that identified her as witch , and the power of the oaths and spells that made her Church. This was why the Lamaru needed a ceremony, or at least part of the reason; they could get onto the platform, but unless someone opened the door from the inside, they couldn’t get in. The lock required a Church member to open it.

It happened. A flare of heat against her skin, there and gone in less time than it took for her speed-addled heart to beat once. As quickly as she could she pushed back at it. “Harraskata berkarantus.”

The click would come next. She braced herself, set her feet more widely. Such a simple ward this one was, but so effective; a test of power, of reflexes, of knowledge.

She felt the click rather than heard it; her entire body clicked with it. A rush of heat slammed into her and rocked her backward, but she held her ground, pushed against it harder. Fighting it like she had the Binding, only a few days that felt like months before.

For a moment everything hung in the balance while she struggled with the load of magic threatening to blow the top of her head off. She gritted her teeth and fought harder, waiting, pushing.

And just like that, it disappeared. Her balance was off; her forehead hit the door, but she was too busy feeling totally triumphant to be embarrassed by that. And what the hell, none of the men knew how it was supposed to go anyway.

She turned to them, gave them one last inspection. “Remember what I said, okay?”

They nodded. Their fear drifted through the air to her. Another thing to fight. She had enough problems of her own without worrying about their feelings.

One deep breath for luck, one more to center herself. “Let’s go.”

She pushed the door open and stepped through the thick magical barrier and the wall of iron chains into the City of Eternity.

The men gasped. So did she, but for a different reason. The ceremony was in full swing; she could see the huddled mass of blue-robed figures a hundred yards or so away, could feel their power sweep through her like a nuclear blast and shake her just as hard.

She didn’t want to be noticed, not yet. So she crouched down, motioned with her hand for the men to do the same, and started moving carefully across the uneven dirt floor, not taking her gaze off the Church group ahead.