Stacia Kane - Unholy Ghosts

Even if none of the Church management were asleep, Banishing the entire City back would be difficult. There was a reason why the Festival was so controlled, why only a set number of ghosts were freed each night. It was too dangerous to have them all out at once. Not to mention how terrifying it would be, how people would lose all faith in the Church if there was a mass breakout in the City just as they’d lost all faith in the old religions during Haunted Week. People were fickle. “And the Lamaru can take over.”

“Shit. Ain’t figure on that as a good thing. Figure they really can? Ain’t people notice, say aught?”

“That’s the problem, though. Nobody would know. It would just look like a mass breakout in the City that the Church couldn’t control. So the Lamaru steps in and handles it, and there you go. No more Church.” She shivered. Those bastards. The Church was her home, the only one she’d ever had. Those utter and complete shithead bastards.

“You want me take you back to the Church? Tell them?”

“I can’t. I still don’t know who’s involved in it, you know? If the plot goes as high as Goody Tremmell, it could be anyone.”

“So we handle it, aye? Send the thief back where he come from, an it all ends?”

“Yeah. I hope so, anyway.”

“Still think we got time to check all out, your place? Like to ask your neighbors there. Oughta not take the chance we miss ought, dig, something snap back at us later. If them Lamaru’s the ones break in, could be they nearby watching.”

“We can’t do the ritual until it’s full dark at least, anyway. We might as well.”

The evening stretched before her like an obstacle course. So many things still to do, so much to prepare… And later still the ritual. The ritual that would either kill her or save her, would either defeat the Dreamthief or defeat her.

For a moment she considered Terrible’s suggestion again. It would be easy to head back to the Church. It might even be easy to bypass Goody Tremmell and head straight for the Grand Elder.

But even if she did, and he listened, what would happen? He hadn’t taken Bruce’s concerns very seriously, and she’d heard his thoughts on the Lamaru before, his utter confidence that they were little more than a band of amateurish thugs.

He might be willing to help, eventually. She might even be able to think of a good reason why she’d been out at Chester Airport to begin with, why she’d found Slipknot’s body.

But in the meantime…while she waited for him to come around, while she waited for help, her soul would still be food. She had enough monkeys on her back, didn’t she? Enough memories to suck all the joy out of her life and crush her under their weight.

Her addiction she shouldered willingly, even eagerly. She refused to do the same with the Dreamthief.

Chess followed Terrible up the rickety stairs of the building across the street from hers. Perhaps it was a wasted trip at this point, but if there was a chance someone had seen something, they might as well get the information.

Lex had called again, twice, but she let the voice mail get it. Hadn’t he understood when she said she was with Terrible? Didn’t he understand how important all this was?

They reached the dingy landing, lit by one weak naked bulb hanging on a wire. A rat huddled in a corner, its bare skinny tail whipping the air. Chess shuddered as Terrible knocked on the door of number five.

They waited, then he knocked again, and again, until finally the locks clicked and the door opened a crack.

“Ain’t got no dealings with Bump,” said a husky voice. Chess couldn’t see the speaker’s face.

“Ain’t about Bump,” Terrible replied. “About the apartment across the street. The old church, aye? Your windows look in there?”

“That Churchwitch? I see her sometime. She wander around in there like a ghost, all by herself. Ain’t right for a woman to be alone like that. She in trouble?”

“You see anything there this morning, before sunup? Last night, maybe?”

“Seen some dude in there t’other night. With her. Looking like he trying to make some moves.”

Chess’s face felt hot. Must have been Doyle, when he’d come back and taken care of her hand.

“Last night, I’m saying. You see anything last night, this morning?”

Pause. “Could be I do. What’s it to you?”

Terrible reached in his pocket and pulled out a folded bill. “You see, or not?”

“Aye. Aye, I see. Two guys, dig? Didn’t see no faces, not good. Pale guys. Dark hair. One snuck back into her bedroom, carrying something I don’t know. T’other poking around her main room there. Look like he take something, but left something else. From he pocket.”

“How long they in there?”

A hand slipped through the crack, palm up, and waited. Terrible slapped the bill into it.

“Half hour, maybe. Could be longer. I ain’t watching. I got my own shit, aye? But I see them.”

“Where he leave the thing? You see where he put it?”

“She mighty sweet, Terrible. Sometime she hang around in just little underwears.”

Chess made a mental note never to open her curtains again. She’d thought with the smudgy filth covering every window in Downside she wouldn’t have to worry during the day. She also never attempted to look in her neighbors’ windows. Obviously they had none of the same disinterest.

“Just answer. Where he put it?”

“On the shelf somewheres. Near the top.”

Terrible nodded. “Aye.”

“Cool, then.” The door started to close. Terrible put one hand out and stopped it.

“What? You need more? Ain’t know more, that’s all I see.”

“You see too much, dig? Keep them eyes away from her windows. I find out you peeping in her windows, I come back.”

“Shit. Stealing all a man’s fun.” The door closed.

Chess bit her lip as she followed Terrible back down the stairs and across the street. Something left in her apartment. A charm, maybe? Some sort of curse? Or something worse than that, a camera or recording device to keep tabs on her.

It was both.

Precious minutes disappeared while they hunted for it, flipping through books and dropping them on the floor. Chess was starting to wonder if she shouldn’t just leave them there. The top shelf yielded nothing, not even when she slid her fingers over the bottom of it and probed the space between it and the wall. She was thinking of giving up when Terrible picked up the small silver wolf she’d bought a few years back.

“No, that’s mine,” she said.

“Aye? What’s the little mouth hole for?”

She took it from his hand. “Shit. This one isn’t mine.”

The drill hole was so minute she couldn’t imagine how anyone had even managed to find a bit that small. Further inspection revealed they hadn’t. The wolf was molded around the camera. Masterful. Masterful, and almost certainly created by a Church supplier. Several companies did special contract work creating just this sort of thing, useful in especially difficult cases.

“These things can take weeks to make,” she said. “Unless someone pays extra to put a rush, or has some real juice.”

“Figure that—” He grabbed the wolf from her and strode into the kitchen with it, then tossed it into the fridge, closing the door on it with a thud. “That Goody you mention got some right, ain’t she?”