Stacia Kane - Finding Magic

Chess smiled; in that, at least, Jillian had the right idea. “Don’t look at them, no eye contact, don’t talk to them, no sudden movements, don’t approach.”

“Right.” Jillian slid the car off the highway, onto the exit at Cross Street. “Because I have to be honest with you. If something happens, if real trouble starts and we’re attacked or something … there’s really not much we can do about it. Even with Trent and Vaughn. There’s just too many of them.”

Also like in the City, Chess thought, but she didn’t reply. Instead she just nodded and watched the buildings go by, the stately red brick and stone, the shiny steel, of Triumph City’s good side replaced by crumbling walls and glassless windows; wide tree-lined streets and sidewalks had given way to broken pavement jutting from the earth like it was trying to get up and flee. Graffiti everywhere; litter everywhere; bodies slumped against walls or sprawled on splintery porches or automotive skeletons, smoking and drinking cheap booze out of paper bags.

Something about it made her feel … well, better. Like all that vibrant life, downtrodden and cheap as it was, reached through the car to caress her skin. People just living their lives, just being who they were, and that was okay.

She couldn’t imagine how that would feel.

Jillian turned left, then right, passing bars full of people even in the middle of the day. With every foot the car advanced Chess felt more … “comfortable” was the only way she could describe it. Or, less comfortable in the car and more eager to get out, to join the crowds and just disappear into them. No one would care what she did there. No one would judge. No one would expect anything from her, be it grades or anything else.

She didn’t realize her hand was moving until the cold metal door handle touched her skin. Damn, had Jillian seen—? No. Okay, good. Jillian’s eyes focused directly on the road, her mouth twisted in a little frown. Concentrating, or trying to look tough? Chess didn’t know. All she knew was that the same way the Church’s tidy cottages made her feel antsy and awkward, just being in Downside made her feel like she fit in.

“So, have you always lived in the cottages? On-grounds? I thought Squad members didn’t always.”

“We don’t. I wanted to, though. I mean … it’s cheap, they take all the bills out of our checks so we don’t have to worry about rent and utilities, and, you know, all the single Elders and stuff live on grounds, so … Everybody hangs out, it’s fun. You’ll love it.”

Ugh. No, she would not. “Everybody hangs out” sounded like slow torture. “But how do you—do they ask you where you want to live, or …?”

“They assume you will. For the Squad it’s different. We get to choose. But for everyone else, I think they have to get permission if they want to live somewhere else.”

Chess filed that one away to think about later, because Jillian was pulling the car up to the curb outside what had once been a stately home and was now a fairly typical Downside apartment building with a lawn full of weeds and broken glass and a couple of holey sheets tacked up inside the windows to keep out prying eyes.

Trent and Vaughn stood outside; they couldn’t have looked more out of place if they’d worn clown suits and written COPS on their faces in black marker. Something in the way they stood, the way they watched the street … Chess didn’t know what it was, exactly. She just knew they didn’t look like they belonged. They didn’t look like victims, no, but they didn’t look like they belonged.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

“This is where the last murder happened.” Jillian turned off the car and reached for her door. “Last week. Tom Imry. He’d been dead for a couple of days when he was found.”

“Wait.” Chess grabbed Jillian’s arm; she didn’t want to, but she had to ask the question and she didn’t want the men to hear, because if they heard it they’d know she was basically implying they were stupid.

Or they were actually smart, which would mean the answer made her look stupid. “So … a random ghost murder and only one person in a building full of them died?”

“We don’t know if the building was full. We don’t know exactly when he died—it was Sunday, it seems, but it could have been anytime after about ten Saturday night and before daylight, since of course ghosts wouldn’t be wandering around during the day. Although they could have waited in there with him until Sunday night and left after it got dark. He wasn’t found until Tuesday.”

Trent opened Chess’s door before she could reply. “Well, well,” he said. “If it isn’t the teenager. Come to dazzle us all with your theories?” To Jillian he said, “What’s so important?”

“Cesaria found something.”

“Her pacifier?” Trent gave a satisfied bark of mean laughter. Yeah, ha-ha, shithead.

“No.” Jillian closed her own door behind her and walked around the car to stand at Chess’s side. Nice of her. Unnecessary, but nice. “She found a connection between your victims.”

Trent’s mouth fell open. Double ha-ha. “What—what connection? There’s no … We looked.”

“Not hard enough. Have you heard of the New Hope Mission?”

Trent and Vaughn looked at each other, confusion all over their faces. Dumbfounded wasn’t the most attractive look for Trent, Chess noticed with some satisfaction.

But Vaughn spoke, and he’d been decent to her, so she felt a little bad. “The Warings were part of that, right? You found those souvenirs in their closet.”

“They were all part of it,” Jillian said. “All of the victims were affiliated with the Mission—as employees or volunteers—when Haunted Week happened.”

“That was not in their files,” Trent said. The indignation on his face would have made her laugh if she hadn’t hated him too much to feel anything but anger.

Vaughn looked at Chess. Really looked at her, so her face warmed. “You found this?”

She nodded. And waited for someone else to speak, which no one did. So she said, “I was—Jillian let me look into Mark, so I could get some experience investigating. So I wanted to check on the Mission itself, and, well, there was the list.”

“Pure luck,” Trent said. What the hell had happened to him in his life to make him such an asshole? Or had he just been born that way?

Stupid question, really. All people were born that way. Trent just hadn’t had it socialized out of him.

Jillian glared at him. “It wasn’t luck.” Well, that was nice of her. “Cesaria raised questions about the Warings and the Mission from the beginning, and about Mark Pollert’s involvement in it.”

“Did you find anything else on him?” Vaughn asked her. Asked her , Chess. Damn, that was pretty cool.

“Orphan. His parents died in a fire when he was ten. Lived at the Mission from 1993 onward—he was thirteen when he moved in. Then he lived with the Warings for a couple of years after Haunted Week until he started working at the slaughterhouse.”

The slaughterhouse wasn’t too far away from where they stood, if the smell in the air was any indication. Chess knew it was, actually; she’d been past the slaughterhouse a few times, and if she had the cross streets right, they were maybe eight or nine blocks downwind.

At least it wasn’t summer yet. Just thinking of the stench of the slaughterhouse combined with the others—smoke, dirt, sweat, rotting garbage, human waste—turning the Downside air into a foul chowder, unpleasant and somehow thick against her skin, made her stomach turn. That was a smell she’d never forget. Just like so many other things. But she forced those thoughts from her mind and focused on what Vaughn said next.