Stacia Kane: Finding Magic

And really, it was about all she knew, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even graduated yet, much less started training. Yes, she’d read ahead; all those late nights in the library, sneaking books from the Restricted Room and the Archives to study, all those long silent hours of peace meant she probably knew more than the average last-year student.

But there was so much more to know, so much more to learn. No, she didn’t want to join the Squad, but she might as well try to get something out of her time there, right? The more knowledge she gathered and the harder she worked, the better chance she had of graduating, of passing training, of getting to be somebody. “So what do you do next, then? How will you catch them?”

“We’ll talk to a Liaiser, maybe,” Jillian said, glancing at the men. “See if they’ve picked up anything about unrest among the dead, or if perhaps they know who’s gone missing.”

Vaughn nodded. “We’ve upped the street patrols, of course. The others have been in neighborhoods like this one, so we’re making sure the streets are well covered at night.”

“Do you warn people, or anything? Maybe have someone go around laying out salt or putting blood on—”

Trent started laughing. “Are you crazy? And terrify half the city? Hell, no, we haven’t made an announcement. And you won’t tell anyone, either, none of your little friends back at Church, understand?”

Okay, now she was pissed. To imply that she—of all people—couldn’t keep a secret? She’d kept secrets that would turn his Haircolor for Men No. 8 hair white.

And she was still keeping them. She always would. “I know how to keep a secret.”

“Well, if you don’t, we’ll certainly find out soon enough, won’t we?”

“Give her a break, Trent,” Vaughn muttered.

“I’m just teasing.”

Ah, yes. Just Teasing: the defense of the cowardly asshole. Whatever.

Jillian touched Chess’s arm—what was the deal with that?—and glanced toward the hallway. “You want to come check out the other rooms with me, Cesaria? I’ll show you how we run a search.”

“Don’t know why you’re bothering,” Trent said. “You know ghosts are opportunity killers. Searching the last few houses didn’t—”

“Because it’s a good way for her to learn,” Jillian said. “Because I’m supposed to be teaching her.”

The scream from outside interrupted whatever response Trent was about to make, and sent a chill up Chess’s spine for good measure. It was a horrible scream, the high, long shriek of pain and loss. “Nooooo! Mom—Mommy! Daddy! What—”

Vaughn was moving before the words really gelled in Chess’s mind; to Trent’s credit—look at that, she could find one nice thing about even him—he was right behind, with Jillian following. Chess hesitated for a minute; was she supposed to go, too? It really wasn’t her business. It definitely wasn’t something she wanted to see.

Not that staying there with a couple of dismembered corpses appealed more, but … Oh, shit. The door was open, and from the doorway those corpses were clearly visible, and if that scream came from the dead couple’s daughter she really, really wouldn’t need to see that.

Chess leaped for the door, intending to slam it shut, but she was too late. The green lawn and black cop cars she saw through the doorway disappeared, replaced by a woman’s body, little more than a shadow against the sunshine outside. She was a shadow, blotting out the light, her misery and pain more than enough to cast darkness all around her.

She stared at the room, stared at the carnage, her jaw working soundlessly, her eyes wild in her round face. Chess saw those eyes start to roll back and made a move, but it was Trent who caught the woman when she fell.

Beyond the closed door Chess could hear the voices of the Evidence Team cleaning up the mess in the living room, but in that room—apparently Gloria Waring’s childhood bedroom—silence reigned.

Chess hadn’t volunteered to babysit the victims’ adult daughter. Something told her an eighteen-year-old girl was maybe not the most qualified to do the job, either—especially not when the eighteen-year-old girl in question was herself, who had almost as much experience with loving families as she did with mechanical engineering. Which was none. But there she was, sort of standing around, trying not to look at Gloria huddled on the bed staring swollen-eyed into space. Her sadness filled the room, made Chess’s skin feel raw.

Pictures in glass frames sat on the dresser, covered the walls. Gloria and her parents in front of a lake. Gloria and her parents at Gloria’s second-school graduation. Gloria and some people Chess assumed were Gloria’s friends on a beach. A picture of a group of adults, the image tinted with the sort of orangey color given by age; closer inspection showed Chess two people she thought were Gloria’s parents, standing in the back.

Interesting. Well, not really—Chess didn’t give much of a shit about the late Warings—but interesting that Gloria kept the picture in her room.

But then … it looked more like a guest room now, didn’t it? A few souvenirs of the type of childhood normal people had were visible, a couple of yearbooks on the lone shelf and kindergarten art projects on the walls. But the furniture, the curtains and bedcoverings, were new and generic. So maybe the Warings had just stuck things in there they no longer wanted to display elsewhere. In fact … yes, the lake picture had been in the living room as well, only larger. Chess picked it up to get a closer look.

“Deep Creek Lake,” Gloria said. “I was sixteen.”

Shit. What was she doing? Chess set the picture back down, hoping her face hadn’t gone as red as it felt. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Gloria sniffled and sat up, clutching the cheap floral comforter around her as she did. “What are you supposed to do, just watch me lay here?”

Okay, then. “Um. I’m sorry. For your loss, I mean.”

Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say; Gloria’s face crumpled again. Shit. Chess took a step toward her without any real sort of plan—was this a touch-her situation, should she pat the woman on the back or something?—but was saved from the necessity of doing anything by a tap on the door, the turn of the knob. “Gloria?”

A man. Gloria’s boyfriend, or—no, her husband. Relief probably wasn’t the right thing for Chess to feel upon realizing she no longer had to touch Gloria, but she felt it anyway. And really, when had she ever felt the right thing?

“Matt!”

They hugged. They blocked the door. Damn. That would have been the perfect moment to slip out of the way, too. All that naked emotion … it made Chess feel like her hands and feet were too big, her arms and legs too long. Awkward and uncomfortable, like she was being forced to observe things that were none of her business. Which she supposed technically she was.

Thankfully, Jillian poked her head around the door a minute later. “There you are. Come on, I want to show you something.”

Chess angled herself past the weeping Warings—or whatever their last name was; maybe Gloria wasn’t a Waring anymore, since she was married—and followed Jillian down the short hall to the master bedroom. A decent-sized room, heavy on ruffles, taupe, and rose, with bowls of potpourri all over the dressers and the desk and the shelves of the TV cabinet. It smelled like a cinnamon stick had thrown up in there; how had they slept in that air? It made Chess’s nose and throat itch.

Jillian opened a window, giving Chess a half smile as she did. “Pretty awful, huh?”

Chess nodded.

“We probably won’t find much up here—well, actually, we’re pretty sure we won’t. Like Trent said, ghosts are opportunity killers, and we’ve got a couple on the loose here. But we generally have a look around, just to rule out the idea that the victims were Summoning on their own, or whatever. Even good investigators can miss things, so we try to be really careful. You want to start in the closet there?”