Stacia Kane: City of Ghosts

“Terrible. I love you.”

He blinked. She couldn’t read his eyes, had no idea what he was thinking. Equivocations sat on the tip of her tongue, bottlenecked in her throat in their eagerness to fly out and pretend she hadn’t said it, hadn’t meant it, shit, she felt so stupid—

The City doors exploded in a ball of blue fire and iron.

Baldarel had arrived.

Silence so loud it hurt her ears followed the blast, a heartbeat moment in which everyone—Church, Lamaru, gang members, ghosts—stared at the enormous hole, at the cloud of choking black smoke rising to the ceiling, and at the crowd gathered where the doors used to be.

Baldarel’s power followed the flame a second later, ripping through the City. Chess’s hair blew back from her face, her grip on Terrible tightened as Baldarel’s magic threatened to blow her away.

The psychopomps disintegrated. Just—turned into clouds of black dust and evaporated where they stood, wiped out of existence in the time it took her to realize what was happening.

Baldarel’s voice boomed at them, invaded her body, thundered in her head until she couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t see anything at all. Fuck, that was bad, he was so strong, too strong, what the hell were they going to do, how the hell could they fight a being that powerful—

But then another voice rose, a familiar one, rolling over her and soothing her terrified mind. Elder Griffin, at first alone, then joined by the Grand Elder, by Elder Ramos, Elder Thompson. Tears started in her eyes without her realizing it, and without making the decision to do so, she stood up and joined them as well.

They were reciting the Vakterum Alagarum , a string of power words she’d never been allowed to speak. They were required learning for all Church employees, but like sigils, couldn’t be copied whole without risking a cast, so the Vakterum was not spoken until necessary. She’d written it out for her exams, all forty-five lines of it.

They drowned out Baldarel’s voice, buried it under a thick shower of pure Church magic. Chess’s heart lifted. It couldn’t be that easy, she knew it wouldn’t be, was waiting for the other shoe to drop; but for that one second she just wanted so fucking badly to believe it was possible, that they could win, that Baldarel would be subdued so quickly and easily.

Her own power rose again in her, coming from she didn’t even know where. Certainly she didn’t feel as though she had any left, as if she had anything left at all; the speed was wearing off and she was crashing and she smelled of garbage and puke and Terrible hadn’t replied. She felt as though a fire had ravaged her insides and left only charred lumps where her soul and power used to be.

But still it rose in her, and still their voices rose around her.

At least until Lauren leapt on her from behind and dragged her down again.

Terrible was already moving, his big body a blur as he reached for Lauren. Lauren’s arm tightened around Chess’s neck.

Chess threw herself forward with every bit of strength she could summon and some she couldn’t. Her knees hit the ground with a painful crack, but it worked. Lauren flipped over Chess’s back and landed in front of her.

She was so fucking tired of Lauren suddenly, the bone-deep exhaustion the woman had engendered in her from the very beginning. “I’d ask you to help us stop him but you won’t, will you?”

Shrieks and howls from the doorway interrupted her, and the last vestiges of bright soft hope left her. Baldarel’s family, dozens of them, their bodies low and fast, covering the floor, weapons raised in their mutant fists.

And worse. An army of psychopomps, more of them. Not like the oversized Lamaru hounds; these were larger, their ears stood high off their heads and their noses pointed up, their eyes glowed a bright unholy red and their black fur rippled with terrifying blue fire.

They didn’t howl. Their silence made the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stand up. Not dogs. Jackals.

They moved like a black ocean over the ghost-littered ground, sucking them up. Eating them. Eating the ghost parts, absorbing them, and with every bit they sucked into themselves they grew brighter, their eyes redder. With every part they absorbed, Baldarel’s power shook the air harder.

The Elders’ voices still sounded, the words of the Vakterum still pounding off the walls, but they were losing. Chess felt them losing, knew Baldarel felt it, too, and he started to glow and rose into the air. Grew above them, flew above them. A wraith.

He was a wraith .

How the fuck had she not sensed it, known what he was? He’d touched her, he’d reached into her head like a bank robber grabbing cash from the till and she hadn’t known, hadn’t recognized the spirit attached to him or seen it. His toad-magic was too strong, the same toad-magic that powered Lauren’s glamour. Transformative magic, the magic of the shifter.

Silhouetted against his green-blue glow were the bodies of the men. The Lamaru had stopped fighting, were screaming and running, staring in confusion. Of course. They recognized Maguinness, thought their enemy had arrived and had no idea why.

Lauren got up, glanced at Chess with a sick, hideous leer of panic. “What is he doing here, was he the one you told?”

“He’s Baldarel, you stupid bitch, he’s known who you were all along.”

Lauren’s face went utterly white, her mouth fell open. Triumph rose in Chess’s breast, and damn did it feel good. “He double-crossed you and you were too—”

The first shouts turned her away just in time to see Baldarel’s family start slicing the Lamaru to shreds.

Lex’s and Terrible’s men reacted immediately. Chess almost smiled to see it, might have smiled if she hadn’t been so frozen with terror. They were there to fight, they were trained to fight—fight they would, and who or what they were killing didn’t matter.

Ghosts rose from the Lamaru, tried to keep fighting but couldn’t. Instead they spun around, heading for Baldarel, swinging at his feet. As Chess watched they disappeared, devoured by Baldarel, their energy fueling him and making him larger still, brighter still. How to defeat that? How the fuck did one destroy a destroyer, something that seemed to have no vulnerability, something neither living nor dead, that treated ghosts like chewable vitamins?

Lauren got up and ran. Chess let her, was glad to be rid of her. She had to find an Elder, any Elder, anyone who would listen to her.

She ran as fast as she could—which wasn’t very fast, with all that magic making the air heavy—back to where the circle had been. On the way she almost stumbled over Bruce Wickman’s body, eyes wide open and staring, blood soaking the front of his robe. Bruce was—had been—a Liaiser. How many more of her fellow employees had died?

She looked around for Terrible, found him cutting a swath through Baldarel’s children with a knife in each hand. Didn’t see Lex. Fear stabbed at her.

The psychopomps were getting closer, heat blasted from them. She didn’t dare glance back. Caught sight of Elder Ramos leaning against a wall with blood soaking his sleeve, his mouth still moving, reciting the Vakterum . She couldn’t feel the spell anymore, couldn’t feel any Church magic in the air at all. Her hand tightened around the handle of her knife.

Her firedish was still burning, the flame almost dead. Quickly she reloaded it. Asafetida, tormentil, ajenjible, and melidia, the most powerful herbs the Church had. Powdered bones of crows and toads. She’d grabbed almost everything in the supply room and she used it now, flinging it into the firedish, trying desperately to summon her own power and force it into the dish as well.