Stacia Kane - Chasing Magic

Mrs. Darnell had obviously held a gun before, used one before. Both of her hands wrapped tight around the gun’s butt, and her arms bent slightly to absorb its kick. Her entire stance indicated complete confidence. The safety was off. “Now. Get the forms or whatever you need. Slowly.”

“You won’t be able—”

“Oh, but we will. We’re all ready to go. You didn’t think we’d stick around here, did you?”

Mr. Darnell stood up. “I’ll take the gun, Lois.”

“No. If I take my eyes off her, she’ll move.”

No, she wouldn’t. The witch’s spell grew stronger again, and this time she knew if she tried to say the Banishing words she’d be shot. This was ridiculous. She did not spend her whole life fighting to end up shot in some over-mortgaged suburban ranch house.

Might as well take a chance. She dropped to the floor, pushing herself forward so she hit Mrs. Darnell’s legs. The gun went off as Mrs. Darnell staggered back.

Chess hadn’t been hit. Excellent. She was deaf but she hadn’t been shot.

She raised her fist—like lifting a ten-pound weight through a tub of dense foam—and punched Mrs. Darnell in the knee as hard as she could.

Another explosion from the gun. Mrs. Darnell fell on top of her. Chess tried to roll over and push her off; the woman was surprisingly heavy, but she slipped a little. Enough for Chess to shift herself to the left, enough to find Mrs. Darnell’s right hand still clutching the gun.

The witch’s voice grew louder, the energy in the air darker and thicker. If Chess didn’t get that gun away immediately, she was going to die, no question about it.

She kicked back with her right leg, catching Mrs. Darnell somewhere, she didn’t know where for sure. Mr. Darnell had joined in the struggle, trying to pull his wife away and help her up, but Mrs. Darnell was apparently having too much fun trying to bite Chess and punching her in the legs and side. Chess kicked again, and again, her leg screaming from the effort—it was so heavy, so fucking heavy—until she somehow managed to hit Mrs. Darnell in the face.

The woman’s grip on the gun loosened. Only for a second, but it was enough. Chess snatched it away, raised it above her head, and pulled the trigger.

The picture window at the front of the room exploded; shards of glass filled the air, a deadly tidal wave of sharp edges and splinters that could slice veins, dust that could choke.

For a second everything stopped. Everything except Chess; she’d been waiting for that pause, hoping for it, and she used it—it and the power rushing back to her, since the witch had stopped speaking—to push Mrs. Darnell away once and for all, to stand up and hold the gun on the two of them still on the floor.

The front door flew open—the Black Squad, their own guns drawn, their all-black uniforms and helmets like moving ink spots against the pale walls.

Chess lowered the gun, looked over at them. “You’re late.”

One of the Squad members glanced around the room, then back at Chess. “Any problems?”

She grinned. Now that she had the gun, now that the Squad had arrived, relief and adrenaline buzzed through her body, and she felt cheerier than she had since … well, since that morning, anyway. “No. Not really.”

The best kinds of surprises are intangible! The warmth of a sudden visit from a friend far outweighs material goods.

—Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies , by Mrs. Increase

Her body still ached three hours later, when she trudged up the stairs of her apartment building—a former Catholic church, renovated after Haunted Week proved all religions false—to the hall.

Hers was the only apartment on that side of the L-shaped building, and the stained-glass window that made up the entire front wall of her living room was only one of the reasons she loved it. The privacy, the space—it was hers, something that was only hers, for all that it was just rented.

Nobody came in without permission. Not anymore, not ever again.

That didn’t stop people from visiting, though, at least it didn’t these days. Proof of that stood right outside her front door, slumped against the wall in that elegant lean he did so well. “Hey there, Tulip. Starting to wonder iffen you come home at all on the anymores, aye?”

“Hey, Lex.” As always, a confusing mix of emotions tumbled through her head, through her chest. Happiness to see her friend, the desire for him to leave before Terrible got there, annoyance at the way he always just showed up and assumed he’d be welcome—what if Terrible had been with her? Just because he didn’t forbid Chess from seeing Lex didn’t mean he approved or liked the fact that she did.

She didn’t approve of or like it, either. Nor did she approve of or like the small, insistent tingle of arousal low in her belly, but she couldn’t change it. For almost three months, seeing Lex waiting for her had signaled more drugs and at least a couple of orgasms. It took time to undo that sort of conditioning, no matter how completely in love she was with someone else and no matter how much Lex knew it.

He bent to give her a kiss on the cheek—that familiar Lex smell washing over her—and smiled. “Figured I’d give you the hellos, me, see iffen you needed all anything.”

“I can always use more.” A minute or so to unlock the three bolts on her door and release the magical wards she’d set up, and she led him into her kitchen.

“Figured on that.” He reached into the front pocket of his battered jeans and tugged out a wrinkled plastic sandwich bag half full of her little white best friends.

She took it. Her pillbox was only about a third empty, she’d just refilled— Wait a minute.

She gave him a sharp look. “Why are you really here?”

“Ain’t I can come on a visit? Thinking you ain’t give Blue the what’s-up she brings sheself here, so why I getting it?”

She washed four Cepts down with water. “Because Blue doesn’t only show up when she wants something from me. And because I know you.”

“Know you, too. Like how mean you is.” He walked the few more steps into her living room, plunked himself down on her new couch. Well, maybe not exactly new—she’d had it for about two months—but it still seemed new.

Without asking she grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to him.

He nodded his thanks. “Coursen … now you mentioning it, could be maybe I got a favor you could do me.”

Uh-huh. She let the totally-not-fooled expression sit on her face another few seconds. “Really. Like what?”

“Thinking maybe you ain’t mind working me up a chatter with Terrible.”

If she’d had any liquid in her mouth she would have sprayed it everywhere in shock. Luckily she didn’t, but she sort of sputtered anyway. “What—but—why? Why would you want to talk to him?”

“Got my reasonings, I do.”

Right. Like trying to kill him, presumably, since Lex wanted nothing more than to take over all the areas of Downside currently run by Terrible’s boss—her regular dealer—Bump. Without Terrible, Bump would be a lot easier to defeat, and everyone knew it.

She eyed him with extra suspicion. “Why, Lex?”

“Gots some stuff to chatter on with him.” He leaned forward, meeting her gaze. “Know what thought you got, I do, but ain’t that way. Just wanna sit us down, is all, nothing on the extra.”

Terrible would never go for it. Never. The only time he’d even acknowledged Lex’s existence as anything but an asshole he’d enjoy killing was the night three months or so ago when she’d almost died, and the two men had driven around Triumph City to find her. And that had required her to almost die . Nothing short of that would make him agree to speak to Lex again.