Stacia Kane: Home

Terrible was… He was a miracle in a world without miracles, and she couldn’t believe her luck. And there was nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, that she wouldn’t do to keep him in her life, because without him it wouldn’t be a life at all. So, yeah. She knew how it felt to find part of herself in someone else.

Mrs. Solomon was still sobbing. Mr. Solomon had his arms around her, whispering to her.

As Chess watched, his eyes changed; now he was Joe telling Mrs. Solomon how much he loved her, how much he loved Doug, that he always would. His tears fell onto her hair.

They were breaking the law. Chess’s job was to bust them for it. Her job was to keep the world safe and to uphold the Truth.

She swallowed. “Joe…you understand my concerns here. You are a ghost.” He glanced at her over Mrs. Solomon’s head. “I do. But I swear to you, I’m not like that.

I’m human. I’m as human as I was the day before I died ten years ago. I would never harm any living person. I was a doctor, I spent my life healing the sick.” This was so wrong. This was so, so wrong.

But it was all she could do, because she couldn’t look at them huddled together on the couch crying, couldn’t listen to them murmuring to each other, and do something she knew in her heart was cruel. She couldn’t do it because she couldn’t forget how it had felt when she saw Terrible lying so still on the broken sidewalk and knew he was gone forever unless she did something fast.

She tore off a piece of paper from her notebook and closed the file. “Joe, Mr. and Mrs.

Solomon, this is my cell number. I expect you to use it if anything changes. I mean it.

Even if it’s simply that Joe starts to feel angrier than normal. I can take care of it, and you won’t be arrested. But you have to tell me, because if you don’t…if you don’t, we all get busted.”

“What?”

“You need to keep me informed of what’s happening. I need you to swear. I need that to be a magic-bound oath, one you’ll be physically compelled to keep. That means I’ll be putting a magical imperative on that one action, do you understand? And it’s connected to me.”

Mrs. Solomon’s eyes, wide and disbelieving, fixed on Chess, like watching her would keep her in place. “You… I don’t understand. You, you’re not…”

“I’m not turning you in, no.” Chess put the papers back into the file. Good thing she hadn’t told her supervisor, Elder Griffin, what she was on her way to do. She could pass this off easily as the Solomons liking to watch movies in the dark and Mrs. Brent being paranoid. “Provided you agree to my terms. The oath, the phone calls if anything goes amiss. And please, be more careful about what you let your neighbors see, okay?” She expected gratitude. She didn’t expect Mrs. Solomon to burst into tears again, or to throw herself pretty much into Chess’s lap. She didn’t expect Mr. Solomon to fall to the floor and curl up into a fetal position, practically wailing with joy.

Fucking hippies.

Two hours and three more Cepts later she unlocked the front door of Terrible’s apartment and slipped through the magical wards she’d put up as another layer of protection from things both alive and dead. Terrible was sitting on the couch reading a car magazine, Johnny Cash’s “Flesh and Blood” playing in the background. Waiting for her.

“Hey, Chess. You right? All finished?”

She set down her bag and toed off her shoes, pushed them up against the wall. The way she always did, because that’s where they belonged. Because this apartment was where she belonged.

Because with him was where she belonged.

He set the magazine down when she reached him, opened his arms so she could sit in his lap. Her head fit perfectly into that spot just above his collarbone, where his neck met his body. Where she could bury her face in his warm skin and breathe him in.

His arms wrapped around her. “Chessie? You right?” She nodded, closed her eyes for a second and let it wash over her: Happiness from the drugs sliding through her veins. Happiness so bright and strong it burned her heart, because of where she was, because of who she was with. Happiness because now the empty space inside her, the space where everyone else kept love and good memories and peace, had a little bit of those things inside it.

Happiness, too, because she’d done something to help other people feel that way, no matter how nervous it made her when she really thought about it. Hell, that couldn’t be avoided. Love and nervousness went hand in hand, she’d learned; love could be snatched away at any moment, love could end in destruction. Usually did, as far as she knew. But then, what didn’t?

But it wasn’t ending just now, and that was something she could feel good about.

Something she could trust. And she did.

“Yeah, right up,” she said, and planted a kiss on his jaw. “Just glad to be home.”