Stacia Kane - Finding Magic

“But you still do it,” Mark said. “You’re still playing their game. That makes you just as bad.”

Another decision to make, and no time to make it. She took the plunge; she needed to divert the conversation away from herself and back onto him, and she needed to try to win him over, make him see her as different from the others at the Church. As someone harmless.

“I didn’t think I had a choice.” Deep breath. “And then I felt—I found the sex spell you made for the Warings and I, I was curious about you, and I looked you up. Well, Jillian didn’t want me to, but I convinced her it was for the case. But really it was because I—you felt like me, like how I feel. And your spell was so strong. You’re so … powerful.”

Would he buy that? It sounded like the biggest pile of bullshit on the planet—probably because it was—and it made her skin crawl just to say it, but he was a man. And she was a passably pretty young girl; not as busty and curvy as some, not as pretty as some, but pretty enough. She’d never had any trouble finding men willing to spend a few hours with her, at least, and those were men her age. Mark was abut forty, and had a hell of an ego, judging by his comments to Tracy Ross and the fact that he thought he was pulling some clever plan over on the Church.

Middle-aged egotists had a special weakness for flattery from pretty girls just over the jailbait line. And Chess definitely qualified there. Any normal guy probably wouldn’t have bought it, but Mark did. Thank fuck. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but if she could get him into a physically compromising position, get him vulnerable … she could hurt him. And she could escape.

She’d done it before.

“You found that, huh?”

“I didn’t know why you weren’t in the Church. I mean, you’re certainly strong enough.” She started to add And smart enough , then thought better of it. Wouldn’t do to lay it on too thick. “But then I realized it was because they didn’t deserve you. They just use people. Like they tried to use me, throwing me into the Rosses’ house tonight when I’m not even marked. I mean, I’m like cannon fodder for someone who can control ghosts like you can, and Jillian didn’t even try to protect me.”

If he believed that shit, he was an enormous idiot. But he would believe it. Because he wanted to.

Then— oh, shit —he turned into the Church parking lot, and her stomach started to tingle. That old familiar tingle, that sweet slow slide of pleasure deep in her belly, of something warm and delightful building there. It was happening, the Cept was hitting; she wasn’t quite smiling yet, but she would be soon.

She glanced at Jillian; was she even awake? Didn’t look like it. Good.

Mark nosed the van into a spot right outside the huge double doors. The lot was empty: not even any Squad vans parked off to the side, not even any Squad sedans sitting in their spaces. No one there.

Of course. Of course they weren’t there. There’d been an explosion, hadn’t there? A house with two Church employees inside. Everyone would be there.

Maybe Mark wasn’t quite so stupid.

Jillian was even harder to drag when Chess’s muscles felt soft and liquidy in her body, but she managed it. Just like she could manage anything else, everything else, because false cheer spread itself through her system like cool water rinsing her clean, and it felt so fucking good. Like how the booze made her feel, but more awake. More capable, more ready. Like she was in control.

And she would be. She was going to be.

They made their way across the patio where the 1997 Haunted Week Memorial stood, past the empty patch of dirt and the stocks waiting to be filled with penitents, and stopped just before the doors.

Mark nodded toward Jillian, still slumping bonelessly over Chess’s shoulder, her weight dragging Chess’s right side down.

“Wake her up.”

Easier said than done. Jillian looked half dead, her barely-open eyes glazed. How much blood had she lost? Or was the Cept kicking in and she was just a lightweight? Or both? Chess didn’t think a gunshot in the shin was enough to kill someone, but how would she know, really? Mercifully, being shot was one of the few things that had never happened to her, and all of the shooting victims she’d seen … well, their assailants hadn’t been fucking around. They’d shot to kill, and they’d succeeded.

Even those images didn’t bother her much at the moment, not when with every second her blood pumped a little slower, a little thicker, and a pleasant kind of light blossomed in her mind. Not a fog; not like what the shots did. Her thoughts didn’t seem any slower or really less sharp. Her head felt clearer. Like she could focus, because she was managing to tunnel-vision away all the shit.

That probably wasn’t a good thing, either, and if she shouldn’t be drinking while working she sure as fuck shouldn’t be dosing. But she didn’t care about that very much at the moment, either. She felt good, really good, and she couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Jillian moaned when Chess jiggled her, poked her to try to wake her up. “Wh—what … leave me ’lone.”

“The key,” Mark said. “Give me the key.”

Jillian stared at him.

“The key.” He still had the gun; he lifted it and aimed it down, presumably at Jillian’s other shin. “Give me the key.”

It took a few minutes of fumbling, but Jillian found it. The jingling of her key ring seemed so loud, like anyone would be able to hear it for miles.

Mark opened the doors, ushered them both inside and toward the stairs. “No lights. Come on.”

She followed him, struggling under Jillian’s weight up the stairs. Why was he heading up there, anyway? The only thing of use there that Jillian’s key could access was the library, really; the Grand Elder’s office was up there, too, but she doubted they gave even Black Squad members free entry to that particular room. Or the Triumvirate’s offices, or any of the other administrative rooms.

For that matter, why had he made them come along if all he needed was the key? He could have just taken that from her. So … oh, duh. Of course. The computers. He wanted to access the files.

Sure enough, he sat down at one of the computers and started clicking keys. “Give me the login.”

“I don’t know it,” Chess said. Maybe it was another chance. “They wouldn’t tell me. She wouldn’t even let me watch as she typed it in.”

He made a little “hmph” sort of sound, but no other reply, and grabbed Jillian to shove her into the chair. “Log me in. Use your login, not some bullshit training one.”

While Jillian’s clumsy fingers stabbed at the keys, Chess looked around. There was a second entrance to the library, one that led to the back stairs by the elevator banks. She might be able to run for it, to—No. No, because getting out of the building wouldn’t help much, and because she didn’t want to leave him there alone to do whatever it was he wanted to do without even anyone keeping track.

So what else? Yes, the room was full of heavy books, but most of those wouldn’t be very effective as weapons, really.

The Restricted Room had some stuff she might be able to use—she pictured herself smashing Mark over the head with the smiling golden Buddha in the corner—but to get in there required a key, and Mark had the keys.

Shit.

She edged over to see what Mark was doing in the system. Of course. Checking his own file. Checking the notes on his file. Hey, that was a lot more information than Chess had been able to see—which made sense, didn’t it, because Jillian was an actual Inquisitor and Chess had only been under the training login.