Stacia Kane: City of Ghosts

Lauren said nothing. Her eyes cut away from Chess, widened slightly; thus Chess turned her face directly into the fist.

She tumbled off Lauren, her entire body limp, her brain short-circuiting. Lights flashed in her head, she couldn’t think, dimly felt someone grab her by the throat and squeeze.

Her arms refused to move. Nothing would move, she could still feel her body but it refused to obey her commands. It took her a second to realize she was held down, that Lauren sat on her chest with a twisted smile that rendered her face—Chess’s own face—unfamiliar as she choked her. Ugly power traveled down Chess’s arms, a familiar power, something slithering and glutinous beneath Lauren’s energy: the glamour she was using.

Panic replaced the air in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Struggled harder, to no avail. This couldn’t be it, she refused to let this be it, suffocated on the floor in the City.

Limp. She forced herself to go limp, fighting every instinct she had. Lauren would relax, wait for it, she’d think Chess was dead and oh, fuck her lungs were about to explode and the need to move, to breathe, to fight hammered inside her like the worst withdrawals ever and her heart screamed and ached because she was about to die and there was something she hadn’t done, something she hadn’t ever done in her life, and she should have and she needed to and it was too late.

Lauren flew off her. Air rushed into Chess’s lungs, she couldn’t get enough, great gasping lungfuls of it flavored with herb smoke and blood and so fucking sweet she wanted to bottle it. For a moment she lay there gasping the dizziness from her head, until her vision cleared and she saw Lauren scrambling away from Terrible’s heavy footsteps. How had he known it was her?

Lex’s gore-spattered blue robe clung wetly to him; he looked like a ceremonial butcher at Festival time. Blood dripped off his hands as he quickly dispatched the Lamaru who’d helped Lauren hold Chess down. No time to thank him; she reached out, brushed his sleeve, turned away after Terrible. Her makeshift apron banged her knees; of course. She had that. Lauren didn’t.

Terrible had caught Lauren; she was trapped beneath him, both her arms twisted behind her back and clasped in his fist. Her face was twisted in pain; shit, was that what Chess actually looked like? She’d never thought her nose was so pointy; it didn’t seem so pointy in the mirror, but—She shook her head. This was not the time to get distracted.

Terrible wasn’t distracted; his head moved constantly, checking everyone out, looking to see if any other Lamaru were around.

Chess settled her hand on his sweaty shoulder for a second, said his name. Were his eyes a little too bright?

No time to worry about it. She reached for Lauren’s neck instead, aiming for the thin silver chain digging into Lauren’s skin, certain she knew what it was.

She wasn’t disappointed. Lauren struggled but Terrible held her fast so Chess could haul up the fetish, the talisman Lauren had used, the ugly stuffed toad-body full of filth.

The second the thing left her skin, Lauren’s glamour disappeared, but what was left behind was a woman Chess had never seen before. Not Lauren Abrams, at least not the Lauren Abrams Chess thought she knew.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Lauren—the woman—whoever the hell she was—didn’t reply. Terrible tugged her up from the ground by the arms; the woman’s face went pale.

She had dark hair cut like Chess’s, with the same heavy bangs and black dye; Chess assumed it was to assist the glamour. But the eyes meeting hers were blue, not hazel; the features heavier, the lips thicker. An unfamiliar face, but Chess had seen it before. It was the face she’d seen at Maguinness’s place when Lauren touched the fetish. The face she’d seen in the executioner’s kitchen, too.

Would this endless mind-fuck ever end? Only one way to find out, she guessed. She pulled her arm back and punched Lauren with all her strength, the crunching pain in her already aching knuckles making her entire body hum with satisfaction.

Blood flew from Lauren’s mouth. Almost instantly ghosts appeared, swiping at it, trying to grab it and absorb energy from it. Chess’s body turned from warm to icy and back again as parts of them passed through her. She’d long since stopped noticing the burning rush of her tattoos. Her entire focus at that moment was on watching Lauren and on trying to keep her body from flying apart under the heavy magic in the air, on keeping the fetish from touching her skin.

“Tell me what to say. Tell me how to call them off.”

No reply.

“Tell me how to do it. Look! Look at them! You’re losing, you’ve lost. Tell me how to stop it now and we won’t kill you.”

“You—you wouldn’t kill me.”

Chess smiled. Let Lauren see that smile, let her see how truly unpleasant it was. “I might not, but he will.”

Right on cue Terrible nestled his bloody knife against Lauren’s throat. She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Chess drew her fist back—

“Reklatia halkebirto,” Lauren spat. Power blasted from her with the words. Behind Chess, the dogs began to howl.

The sound stirred the ghosts up further, if that were possible. They darted and spun, their mouths opening wider and wider, their movements frantic.

One of them grabbed the fetish. Chess yanked it back, but not fast enough. The fetish, loaded with power, fed the ghost. Translucent glowing arms became solid, glowed brighter. The ghost’s face twisted into a leer, its hand raised, ready to strike. She pulled her own hand back, her vision narrowing until all she saw was the ghost’s fist, calculating when the blow would come and how she could deflect it—

A flash of movement to her left as Terrible knocked Lauren out. He grabbed the fetish before Chess could stop him.

His entire body stiffened. His already too-pale skin went even whiter, as though he were a ghost himself. Chess remembered how it had felt to touch the fetish, the twisting horrible sickness of it—and she’d been prepared for it, had felt its like before and knew how to handle and fight it. What he might be feeling, what might be happening to him, especially with that sigil carved into his chest, making him more vulnerable, she had no idea. She reached for him with her arms and her power, trying to find what was happening to him and absorb it somehow.

He crumpled. Just fell in a heap at her feet. She screamed and dropped to her knees, stuffing the fetish into her makeshift apron. She’d destroy it in a minute.

In a minute—fuck, so much to do. Speak Lauren’s incantation, check on the dogs and the ghosts, on the fight. It felt like they’d been there forever. A lifetime beneath the earth. They would never escape.

Her watch told her it had been barely fifteen minutes when she glanced at it as she tried—unsuccessfully—to pull him into her lap.

Terrible’s head lifted. His dazed eyes found her, stared at her for a second, as if he’d never seen her before in his life, while her heart jerked then flooded with relief when recognition replaced confusion. He glanced away, checked that Lauren was still out, then pulled away from her to get up.

But she hadn’t forgotten her resolution in those dark seconds when she thought her life had ended. And whether this was the right time or not, it was the only time she had; she needed to get back to the Church employees and tell them the incantation, to chase the dogs away, to soothe the ghosts.

Hours of work ahead, if she even survived to do it. Some Lamaru still fought, screams and howls still filled the air, ghosts swirled around them in blazing streaks of pale light. She put her hands on his shoulders and locked his dark eyes with hers, thinking she would very probably throw up in another minute, but if she died without ever having done it she’d never forgive herself: