Stacia Kane - Unholy Magic

Laria gasped; Terrible’s fist was so tight around her arm that his thumb pressed the second knuckle of his middle finger. “Terrible, you hurtin—”

“Be hurtin worse, you don’t talk up.”

Chess held out her hand. “We can do this tomorrow, can’t we?”

“Come the morrow she won’t get any recall,” he said. “Gotta get what we can now.”

Laria’s cheeks were wet. “He had a hat on. All’s I remember, he had a hat on.”

“He big? Small? You see through him?” Terrible’s grip relaxed, his voice softened. “Come on, Laria. You recall it, aye? You just gotta think on it.”

“He weren’t big. Ain’t much bigger’n me. He were bendin over her when I come close enough to see—he stood up and he was …” Laria swallowed once, then again. “I seed through him.”

“He was transparent?”

“Could see through him,” Laria whispered. “’Ceptin he looked up at me, under the brim o’ his hat, aye … funny hat, with a point in the center and them flaps on the side, on the ears? All of him clear, his clothes and all, ’ceptin …” She raised a hand to her face, patted trembling fingers beneath one eye.

“His eyes?” The chill creeping up Chess’s spine had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.

“Not his eyes,” Laria said, and it came out like the low moan of a wounded animal. “Hers.”

“What?”

Laria started to cry. “Him were wearin she eyes.”

The knock on the door came just when she’d started to think it wouldn’t. Typical Lex. She opened it, determined not to let her tiredness loosen her lips.

Of course there were other things to do with those. Despite the way she’d hung up on him earlier, he seemed to be in a good mood—at least his kiss indicated he was. She was almost dizzy by the time he pulled away and set a plastic baggie in her hand. More pills.

“Plan on giving me the clapperclaw, Tulip?” His dark eyes gleamed with amusement—or desire. She didn’t bother to analyze.

“It’s no more than you deserve, being so flippant. I thought I was going to get killed in that damn alley.”

“But you ain’t killed.” He opened her fridge and grabbed a couple of beers. “Look, you still here. So whyn’t you tell me what was on the happening?”

She stiffened. “Why do you want to know?”

“Ain’t I allowed some curiosity? You get stuck in the middle of some road brawl, I can’t ask why you was there in the start? Why you always so mean to me?”

“I’m not mean.”

“Aye, you sure is mean.” He kissed her forehead and handed her an opened beer. She watched him slump gracefully onto the couch and lean back, his Buzzcocks T-shirt riding up to expose a thin line of flat stomach. “Especially after I called them men off. But no matter. Come on in here and sit down.”

She drank off half her beer in one nervous swig. She did not want to sit down. If she put herself within easy reach of him, they’d never get around to discussing anything, even if she wasn’t still jacked from the sex magic around that poor dead girl. “Tell me what you meant first.”

“Meant by what?”

“You know what. You said it was about time Bump got some payback. What did that mean?”

“You ain’t really wanna talk about dead folks and that Bump, do you? I ain’t seen you in a week.”

“Just tell me what you meant, and then we can talk about anything you want.”

She didn’t want to ask him if Slobag’s men were responsible for the dead girl. Didn’t want to ask, because fear coiled in her stomach when she thought about what his answer might be. Payback could mean a lot of things, yes, and she honestly couldn’t believe he would have anything to do with men who would cut the eyeballs out of a human head, living or not. But still …

Finally he shrugged. “Lot goes on here, you know that. Sometimes people turn up dead, and no way of knowing who did the killing.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You ain’t asked a question.”

“Do you know anything about the dead girl? Do you—do you know who killed her?”

He didn’t act offended, or as though he didn’t understand the question. That, more than the way his gaze grabbed hers and held, made her believe him. “Nay, Tulip. Ain’t had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all. Don’t know who does—order ain’t come down from us, dig?”

The breath she hadn’t realized she was saving left her in a quiet rush, only to catch again when he said, “Coursen, Bump ain’t say the same thing.”

“What?”

“You hearing right. Can’t say as that girl ain’t payback from somebody decided to take matters into they own hands.”

Without thinking Chess reached into the baggie he’d given her, still dangling from her clenched fist, and extracted a couple of pills, swallowing them with more beer. Hey, she didn’t have to get up early in the morning. Good thing, too, as it was after three.

“’Specially with she so close to us, hanging the border like that. Why she up there? You ask Terrible that one?”

“No.”

“Maybe you oughta.”

Talking to Lex about Terrible made her twitchy, as it always did. It felt like they were talking around something rather than through it. She crossed the open space between the wall and the kitchen and leaned on the countertop, hiding her lower body. “I wish you would stop hinting around and say whatever it is you’re trying to say.”

“I’m saying, you gots a dead hooker. Only it ain’t the first dead hooker I seen about.”

“What? Wait. You mean somebody’s been killing hookers on your side? Slobag’s girls?”

He nodded. “See? I keep thinking you smart, you keep proving me right.”

“And you think Bump’s behind them.”

“Who else?”

She blinked. “No offense, Lex, but they’re hookers. I can think of a lot of who elses.” Like the Cryin Man, she thought, but did not say. Life had taught her ghosts were real, but the Church had taught her to be skeptical when faced with rumors of one, even if the magical evidence of human involvement wasn’t making fine sweat break out on her skin.

“Aye? Like who. They ain’t with a trick, dig, when it happen. Just picked right off’n the street. You think—hey.” Chess watched the nimble movements of his hands as he lit a cigarette and exhaled thick bluish smoke, more fragrant than the cheaper smokes everyone else she knew bought. “You figure it for a spook, aye? Bump bringing you in to catch a ghost.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Ain’t gotta say it. You ain’t got such a stiff face as you suppose, least not with me. I got some practice with you, aye? So Bump bringing you in to see if you gotta kicker doing the killing. Lemme say, Tulip, you sure do get yourself in demand.”

She raised an eyebrow. He grinned. “Oh, you in demand with me, and you know it. How Bump trick you into checking this one out?”

She blinked. There hadn’t actually been a trick, had there? Only the vague, implied threat that if she didn’t do it, Bump might make trouble for her. Maybe invent another debt—she still bought from him, despite getting most of her drugs free from Lex, simply because to stop buying from him would raise suspicion. And she wouldn’t dare visit Slobag’s pipe rooms. Not everyone in Downside stayed with Bump or Slobag. Some switched back and forth. The last thing she needed was to be recognized, even if most of the Chinese gangs—like Slobag’s gang—didn’t hate Church employees on principle.