Stacia Kane - Unholy Ghosts

Terrible examined the lockpicks with a practiced eye, then selected the largest one, which she hardly ever used. Her ears started ringing when he held it over the blue gas flames of her stove.

“Maybe you oughta sit on the floor. Ain’t want you falling off.”

She slid onto the cracked linoleum and waited, watching him heat the pick until it glowed.

“You sure you wanna do this?”

She nodded and held out her hand, bracing her elbow on her knees to keep it steady. She could still back out, she could tell him she’d changed her mind, he wouldn’t think any worse of her if she did…

Too late. His left hand grabbed her fingers, squeezing them together with bruising strength, and he pressed the bright red steel into the wound on her palm.

Her entire body convulsed. Her arm tried to jerk away—she didn’t move it, it was pure reflex—but Terrible held it fast. Tears poured from her eyes. She lunged forward, hoping to surprise him into releasing his grip, but he simply twisted his upper body, capturing her arm between his biceps and chest with enough force to cut off her circulation.

Her throat was raw from screaming. Her head ached. With her free hand she hit him, beating his broad back, and when that didn’t work she leaned over and bit him like an animal caught in a trap. She shook, she forgot her name, forgot where she was. All she knew was pain, unlike anything she’d ever felt, pain which lessened for a few seconds at a time while he reached up to reheat the pick, then exploded again when he applied it to her skin.

Nothing had ever sounded sweeter than the clattering of the pick as he dropped it onto the floor. Chess rested her head against him, breathing in the comforting scents of smoke and pomade and soap, wretched sobs erupting from her throat. She didn’t think she’d have the strength to lift her head. She knew she wouldn’t have the strength to stand.

Terrible did. Disentangling himself gently from her grasping arms, he got up and opened her freezer. She watched through blurry eyes as he wrapped ice cubes in some paper towels and came back, pressing them into her hand. It felt wonderful. Adrenaline rushed through her body in a tidal wave, leaving her with the inexplicable desire to laugh. She did laugh, weakly, a hysterical giggle that sounded nothing like her, and tasted blood on her lips. Not her blood; her lips felt fine. His.

“I’m sorry,” she began. “I didn’t mean to hurt—”

“No problem.”

“But…”

“Just keep that ice on for a minute. An tell me how to break yon curse.”

“Shit.” She gave another shaky laugh. “I actually forgot about it, can you believe?”

“Aye.”

“Okay.” Deep breath. Deep breath. “Bring it here.”

He looked doubtful, but did, setting it a safe distance away from her. The burning cold of her palm made it impossible to tell if the bag affected her or not, but she didn’t think so.

Following her directions, he used the picks to ease the bag open and empty it. Her eyes bulged. “That’s not just a curse. That’s…that’s a death curse.”

He nodded. “Figured it were some heavy shit. What do I do?”

For a minute she just sat, clenching the wad of soggy paper and ice in her hand. A dead insect. Black powder. Broken pins and a coffin nail. A ball of black wax that proved, when carefully scraped at, to contain a slip of paper with her name on it, and a long strand of hair, crinkled from the wax.

Her hair. How the fuck did—right. Someone from the Church. Someone got hold of a piece of her hair. Harvested it. Plucked it from her shoulder, from her bathroom floor or her bed. Taken from Doyle’s pillow, perhaps, the morning after? The worst thing she’d ever done was let that slimeball put his sticky little hands on her.

Well, obviously not the worst . That was a long fucking list. But it had been a stupid mistake, one she wouldn’t make again.

Terrible’s lips twisted as the last items fell out. A fleck of copper that made her shudder and press her lips together, but didn’t surprise her. A smaller ball of tight, curly hair, and a wad of fabric stiff and brown with dried blood.

“Hair from a corpse. Menstrual blood,” she said, answering his unspoken question. The blood could be hers, too, for all she knew, taken from the Church’s supply. At least Doyle hadn’t gotten hold of that during their night together.

He shook his head. “Some nasty. What happen iffen we ain’t find this?”

“I probably would have died. Eventually. Death curses take time to work. Weeks, maybe. If I spent a lot of time at home it’d be faster—it would have had more time to affect me—but I haven’t been around much lately.”

He nodded. “So who done this, then? Any clues?”

“Lots of clues. No answers. Something like that requires a lot of fucking power, more than I would think—whoever it was probably performed another sacrifice for it, but that body would have been discarded somewhere.” She moved her legs and tried to get up. That seemed to work, so she stood. The room spun onto its side for a second, but righted itself quickly enough.

“Shit. Ain’t even know you can do that shit with magic, for real an all.”

“It’s just energy,” she said. “Everything has energy, you know? It’s just a matter of how you use it, whether you have the ability to use it. The more powerful you are the more you can do.”

“So them made this, they powerful.”

She nodded. Fear slid down her raw throat; fear not just at what they were facing, but at the reminder that some of that power was her power, thanks to the stupid blood connection. A mishmash hybrid ghost comprised of sick and evil, made stronger by her own blood. And nothing to do but fight it.

Speaking of which…“Want to wash that all down the sink and come lurk menacingly in front of a dull suburban family?”

His face broke into a grin. “Lead the way.”

They were too late. The Morton house was silent as death, the harsh light from the overhead bulbs leaching the color from the Mortons’ faces until they looked ethereal, the babes in the suburban wood forever sleeping.

They were sleeping, the deep, untroubled sleep of the just, no matter that they were guilty. Their still bodies curled like newborn kittens on the couch and floor. Either they hadn’t made it to their beds or they’d become too afraid to sleep in them.

From outside the house came only the sounds of crickets chirping, of wind rustling through young trees. Every house on the street was dark, revealing nothing as they’d walked past; was everyone asleep? Had the thief already begun stockpiling power?

Chess raised a nervous hand to her forehead, careful not to smudge the sigil there but wanting to reassure herself. Terrible’s eyes rolled up as if he could check his that way, but outwardly he seemed completely unconcerned. She tried to tell herself that was because Terrible hadn’t endured having red-hot steel thrust into an open wound, but that wasn’t the case. Terrible also hadn’t dealt with the Dreamthief before. She didn’t think either of those facts truly accounted for his calm.

Still his presence reassured her, loath as she was to admit it, and she made her way up the stairs with more purpose than she felt. About halfway up she stopped to examine the blank space she’d seen in the picture. It wasn’t as clear in the eye-crackingly glaring light, but it was still visible.

The Morton bedroom hadn’t changed much either. Still just as tidy, but The Book of Truth was nowhere to be seen. They probably stuffed it under the bed.