Stacia Kane: Finding Magic

“Do you ever have any problems with people stealing your vans or anything? I mean, I just wonder how you keep track of all of them.” Chess pretended the question didn’t matter; pretended, too, that she didn’t see Jillian glaring at her.

Jillian wasn’t just glaring, either. She was fidgeting. Rubbing her arms, shifting from foot to foot.

“Theft is a problem in any industry,” Mr. Ross said. “Why?”

“I just—I know you guys do some work for the Church, and I’ve always wondered about the vans you have for that work. If you have to keep them somewhere special or anything.”

It was so lame she almost cringed. But Mr. Ross didn’t seem to think there was a problem with her asking; maybe being only eighteen had some advantages.

“Those are more attractive to thieves, yes,” he said. “It’s a problem. And of course we rent them out on occasion—it’s part of our business.”

Chess wanted to ask what sorts of things people rented iron-lined vans for. Really, what possible legitimate reason could there be? Iron usually related specifically to ghost magic, and ghost magic was illegal for anyone outside the Church to perform.

But she didn’t get to ask. Instead she got yanked to the side, almost falling, Jillian’s fingers wrapped around her arm and Jillian’s shout hurting her ears. “Get out! We all have to get out, hurry up, let’s—”

Too late.

The ghosts slid through the walls, silent and awful. Against the mundane surrounding of the room—beige sofa, brown carpet, ivory walls—their luminescent forms seemed even more terrifying, just from the sheer oddity of them, the sheer sense of—of not belonging , of strangeness. Like a clown at a formal dinner party.

Chess didn’t have time to think of anything else before she hit the floor. Jillian, to her credit, was moving, pushing the Rosses behind her to protect them, but Chess could see it wasn’t going to help. One ghost blocked the door; the other two had already grabbed weapons, were throwing lamps and knickknacks. Chess watched as one of them threw a framed photograph—it smashed against the wall where Eric Ross had been standing only a second before—and picked up a poker from the fireplace. Shit, wasn’t it iron? How could—Oh. A wooden handle.

Jillian threw something at the ghost by the door, shouted the words of power Chess had memorized the year before. “Arkrandia bellarum dishager!”

The ghost froze. Good. Except it was still blocking the doorway, and if anyone human touched it as they tried to get to the door, it would probably manage to unfreeze.

Jillian swiveled around, readying another fistful of what Chess knew was graveyard dirt and asafetida. Chess turned to Mr. and Mrs. Ross, standing stupefied a few feet away. “Where’s the back door?”

They didn’t respond.

Mrs. Ross was closer, close enough for Chess to see the horrible shade of white her face had gone, the fear-wide eyes and the way her nostrils flared as she breathed. “Mrs. Ross, where’s the back door? Where’s the other exit?”

Jillian froze the other two ghosts; Chess wished she had more of a chance to watch her in action, because she really was impressive. She paused and glanced at Chess. “Get them outside, and come back in to help me.”

Chess nodded. The Rosses still stood frozen with terror, but there had to be a back door, and back doors were by definition usually in the back , so she’d find the damn thing. She grabbed each of them by the arm and started pulling them away from the ghosts, through the Old West–style doors into the kitchen. The freeze Jillian had put the ghosts under wouldn’t last forever; the one by the front door would probably shake it off within a minute or two, so they didn’t have much time. And yes, there it was, the back door with its frosted glass panels and ivory curtains.

Even in the middle of all of it, in the middle of the heart-pounding scary reality of it all, she had a second to be proud of herself. She was handling it okay. She was doing what needed to be done, acting on instincts that seemed sound. She was scared, yes, but she wasn’t paralyzed, she wasn’t panicking. That was something to be proud of, it was, and she wasn’t going to feel bad about that or like it was the wrong time to feel that way.

All that pride evaporated when Mark Pollert opened the back door and walked into the kitchen with his gun drawn.

Fuck. She should have known. Fuck fuck fuck, why hadn’t she known, why hadn’t she guessed?

Of course Mark was there; of course he’d come. Gloria had called the Rosses. She’d called Mark as well, and he’d known. Known they were on to him, known where she and Jillian were going. Known, too, that Trent and Vaughn were on their way to his place.

If he hadn’t killed them already. That time of night, the trip from his address on the outskirts of Downside to this place would only take fifteen minutes or so if he went the speed limit, and somehow she didn’t think he was the type to worry too much about traffic laws. She didn’t think he was the type to worry much about anything but his own shitty plans.

But apparently—obviously—she was the only one. Both Rosses were finally shaken from their semi-catatonia, surprise replacing the fear on their faces.

Mr. Ross spoke first. “Mark, what—guns won’t work against ghosts, you know that, you—”

“Shut up, Eric.” Mark waved the gun. “Go stand over there. Where’s the other bitch from the Church?”

“Mark, I don’t—”

Mrs. Ross cut him off. “This is what you were doing? Why you needed the van? This is—you used me? You were using me to kill our friends?”

What?

But as Chess glanced from Mark to Mrs. Ross and back again, the pieces fell into place. Of course, that might have been helped by the fact that Mark replied. Cheerfully. Just like the fucking psycho he was.

“Of course I did, Tracy. What did you think, that a woman your age could really interest a man like me? Did you really believe that?”

Eric Ross still looked like he couldn’t understand what was happening; Chess guessed she couldn’t blame him. Finding out his wife had been cheating on him with a trusted friend and that said trusted friend also wanted to kill him probably was a lot to take in. Not to mention finding out that the trusted friend was an egotistical shitbrain. “Tracy, I don’t—Mark, what are you—”

The gun went off. Tracy screamed, Chess threw herself to the side, and Eric fell dead to the floor. Blood spattered the wall behind him, a physical embodiment of the life that had escaped.

Eric’s ghost rose from his body, a glowing column of death. It looked at his corpse on the floor. Looked at Mark, at Tracy, at Chess.

And snarled.

Shit. Why wasn’t it disappearing? Why wasn’t a psychopomp coming for it, taking it to the City?

Jillian appeared in the kitchen doorway, her gun drawn. “What the hell is—”

The gunshot cut her off, and she fell. Her gun clattered across the floor; Chess lunged but was too late. Mark already had it.

Tracy whimpered and sobbed. Jillian moaned. Not dead, then, at least not yet, though that could change at any second. Just like it could change for Chess, because Eric Ross was gliding toward the row of knives stuck to a magnetic strip on the wall, and the ghosts in the other room would be there any second, and Jillian was down.

The barroom-type doors weren’t the only entrance to the kitchen. There was a hallway, too. From her position on the floor Chess couldn’t see where it went, and she doubted it ended in any kind of exit, but she was sure there was at least one room off it that would have a door she could lock, a window she could climb out of. Anything to buy her even a second or two, not just to try to call the Squad but because the memory of the City loomed in front of her, throbbed in her mind, and her entire body went cold at the thought of being there again as a permanent resident.