Stacia Kane: Close to You

Despite what Eliza had done to her, to Terrible, she just couldn’t quite bring herself to condemn her to an eternity of torture for it. Eliza’s words from earlier echoed in her head again, about it being just the two of them, no children, no one else. Eliza had spent the last twenty-five years alone waiting for him to come back, trying to bring him back. Suffering. It was a little too close for comfort, really, and Chess knew all too well about committing crimes in order to be with the person she loved—the person she needed. Was Eliza’s crime really worse than her own?

Maybe she was just going soft from withdrawals.

She’d just finished crunching the pills into a bitter mess and washing it down when the sound of scratching vinyl interrupted the Carpenters, and silence fell. Beautiful, wonderful silence. Terrible handed her a lit cigarette.

“Damn,” he said, looking around the room at the dark remains of the Christmas tree, at the destroyed ornaments, at the tattered wall hangings and smashed picture frames. “Christmas always such a fucked-up holiday?”

She smiled. “I’m pretty sure it was just this one.”

“Know how to make it all better, though.” His arms slipped around her waist. “Seem to me you still got some owes with me, if you dig. Supposed to be a prize I’m getting.”

She glanced at the ghosts, pacing the circle and glaring at her with furious intensity. She looked at the room. She thought about what Eliza had wanted and why she’d summoned her husband’s ghost, and how they’d be together in the City of Eternity forever. And how she and Terrible would be, too.

Then she looked up at his face, blood dried down his cheek but still smiling at her. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I do.”

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Stacia Kane is the author of the gritty, dystopian urban fantasy “Downside” series starring Chess Putnam and featuring ghosts, human sacrifice, drugs, witchcraft, punk rock, and a badass ’69 Chevelle. She bleaches her hair and wears a lot of black. Visit her at: www.staciakane.net

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

“Close to You: A Downside Ghosts Story” copyright © 2013 by Stacia Kane.

All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Cover art © Trisha Schmitt (Pickyme)

eISBN 9781466849198

First eBook Edition: October 2013