Stacia Kane - Finding Magic

But Jillian was neither, so her place was approximately the size of a blanket. And about as difficult to navigate, because all of the cottages were laid out the same, with a door opening into a living room, a kitchen area in the back to the right, the bedroom in the back to the left, and a bathroom in between.

That made Chess shudder, too, for reasons she didn’t understand. Being like all the others … there was nothing wrong with that, right? Wasn’t that what she wanted, to be like the rest of them, not like herself? Didn’t she lie awake at night wishing she was like them, that she’d grown up clean?

Yeah, she did. That didn’t mean she deserved it. Maybe that was the problem.

Something to worry about later, though, because Jillian had been talking and Chess should have been listening. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked if you wanted to lie down for a while or something, or if you want to get to the library. It’s okay with me if you want to stay here or go back to your room—”

“No, the library is fine. I want to get to work.”

Jillian looked doubtful.

“Really, Jillian, I’m feeling better. And—well, you’re going to have this solved soon, right? So I want to make sure I get as much done as I can, you know?”

That worked. Awesome. “Yeah, I know. Come on.”

Chess followed her through the living room—ugh, lots of pink and bright blue, lots of little pillows everywhere and pictures of ballerinas; Jillian was girlier than she appeared—but stopped at the door. The open door … “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t Trent say—at the Warings’ house—didn’t he say the front door was unlocked? And the garage door was open?”

“Right, yeah.”

“So why would the Warings have left their door unlocked like that, their house open, at night?”

Jillian shrugged and, as if to illustrate her words, closed her front door behind them and turned to walk away without locking it. “Lots of people don’t lock their doors until they go to bed. They’re home, they’re in their living room … why would they need to be locked in?”

“But the Warings were paranoid. Remember all those spells I found? They had a bunch of protection and ownership charms, and they’d bought some of them, at least I think they had.”

“Maybe some were given to them as gifts. Maybe they just liked them. Owning them didn’t mean they were using them.”

“Yeah, but—”

“It was ghosts, remember? It’s not like you can lock them out.”

They’d reached one of the main footpaths leading back to the tall double doors at the front of the Church; they’d be inside in a minute, and once they got inside they wouldn’t be able to discuss the case so openly anymore. Chess twisted her hair into a knot to keep it from blowing into her face—damn breeze—and tucked it into her shirt collar. “But the ghosts were Summoned, right? So there’s a person behind it.”

Jillian considered it. “You’re thinking whoever Summoned the ghosts did it at the Warings’ house?”

“Well—”

“We didn’t find any signs of that kind of witchcraft.”

“Yeah, but—wait.” They stopped at the front doors; Chess grabbed Jillian’s arm. “This is the third murder, right? The third ghost murder? What if it’s not just random, what if someone’s deliberately targeting these people?”

“I don’t know.” Jillian shook her head. “I’d think if that was a possibility, Trent and Vaughn would have figured it out by now.”

“Maybe they weren’t thinking about it.”

Jillian glanced at the front doors, at the parking lot, at the doors again.

So Chess made another push. “We can ask them, right? I mean, you can ask them. Maybe they’ve thought of it and already know it’s not what happened or whatever, but maybe they didn’t.”

“They’re good investigators, Cesaria.”

“But even good investigators miss stuff. Isn’t that what you told me before?”

She wasn’t sure why she was pushing so hard, especially when it didn’t really matter. She was only in training. She wouldn’t get any kind of bonus—did Inquisitors get bonuses? She’d heard Debunkers did, and Liaisers got annual payouts based on how many ghosts they’d channeled, but she had no idea about any of the other employees—and she wouldn’t get anything in her file or anything, no class credit, but … she didn’t know.

She only knew that somehow, suddenly, it was important to her. Somewhere along the line, between the day before when she’d seen the Warings’ living room transformed into a bloody abattoir and that moment when she stood looking at Jillian, it had started to matter to her. She wanted to figure it out, because she wanted to be right. To win.

She wanted to prove that she wasn’t wrong about everything.

“I’ll ask them,” Jillian said finally. “I’ll see what they think. And if there’s time and you want to look for a connection between the victims, I guess you can—after you look up Mark.”

“Thanks.”

A nod. “Well, come on, let’s check out the ghosts, anyway. But remember, we don’t have proof that the ghosts Anna and Bruce found missing have anything to do with the murders, much less that they were Summoned to pick people off some list or something. You can’t assume things in this job.”

“Sure.” Whatever. Well, no, not whatever; Jillian was right. But still. The more Chess thought about it the more she thought it made sense, the more she could see how it could be done, even. How someone could use ghosts as murder weapons. All they needed to do was Summon some ghosts—

No, they hadn’t found any evidence of Summoning. So how would they …?

Maybe they could Host? No, a person could only share his or her body with one ghost at a time. Of course, there could be more than one killer involved, and hence more than one ghost. And it wouldn’t be at all unusual for people to let their ghosts go free to kill someone, or even for the ghosts to—No, that couldn’t be it in this case, though, because Trent and Vaughn hadn’t found any real evidence of other people in the house. Only ghosts.

So how would someone move ghosts from place to place? How could ghosts be kept contained, kept in line, during that travel?

A van. They could transport ghosts in a van, one of those windowless ones lined with iron like the Church used to transport corpses or those who committed magical crimes—or both.

So someone could be at that very moment driving around Triumph City with a van full of ghosts, just waiting for their next opportunity. And if Chess wanted to get anywhere in the Church, she needed to convince Jillian that was a distinct possibility. She needed to prove it.

As usual, the wide, bright hallway just inside the front doors made something rise in her chest, something she thought might be real happiness, real pride. She belonged there—well, sort of. They thought she belonged there, and she was going to make damn sure they never had reason to doubt it.

They walked past the long low bench where people waited for Liaising appointments or to meet with other Church employees, up the staircase, and across to the library, where Jillian led her to the filing cabinets along the back wall. “The green labels are place files, where it’s recorded if a building or something is confirmed to be haunted. Mostly Debunkers use those, though we sometimes check them. Red labels are ghosts themselves, pre–Haunted Week deaths. If you want to check people who died after that, or living people, you have to check the computers, although how much information you can get depends on your position. Only Elders have access to full files, but we have almost as much, and then other employees usually have less. But to get everything you’re always going to have to ask an Elder or a Chief Inquisitor.”