had air-conditioning.
The entire Darnell family sat in the pretentious high-ceilinged living room, slouching on the ridiculously overpriced suede couch and chairs that were partly responsible for the enormous debt they were in. Debt they’d planned to clear by faking a haunting and getting a nice fat settlement from the Church of the Real Truth.
Too bad for them, the Church wasn’t stupid—being in charge of everyone and everything on earth for twenty-four years proved that—and had contingency plans for such things. Chess was one of them.
Brandon Darnell indicated an empty chair along the back wall. “Have a seat.”
Alarms started ringing in Chess’s head. He seemed a little too calm, a little too … cheerful.
But all the other chairs were full, so she sat, shooting a glance out the window to see if the Squad had arrived yet. Nope. Damn it!
The Darnells sat there, unmoving. Watching her. Because that wasn’t creepy at all.
Mrs. Darnell—frowsy, bad perm, blue eye shadow up to her brows—showed her perfect white teeth in what could pass for a smile. “Do you have any news for us? When will you Banish the ghost?”
Chess’s phone beeped—a text. A text from the Black Squad, thank fuck, they were almost there. Good. She didn’t have to sit around wasting time with these people.
“I do have news.” She pulled the forms from the file. “This is my Statement of Truth, copies of which I’ve already filed with the Church. This one is for you to sign. It’s the Affidavit of Spectral Fraud, which is basically your confession, and this one—”
“What the hell are you talking about? We haven’t committed any fraud, there’s no—”
“Mr. Darnell.” Normally she’d stand up for this part, but what the hell. The chair was pretty comfortable. “I found, and photographed, the projectors set up in the attic. I won’t bother to point out to you where the holes in the ceiling are, since you already know. The ‘ectoplasm’ on your walls has been analyzed—twice for confirmation—as a mixture of cornstarch, gelatin, iridescent paint, and water.”
She waited for a response and didn’t get one. Good. “I also have pictures of the portable air conditioner you set up beneath the house—that’s another crime, by the way, putting anything underground, but I imagine you know that—to fake sudden changes in temperature. One of my hidden cameras caught you breaking the mirrors, and another one very clearly shows you and Mrs. Darnell discussing your crimes.”
Mr. and Mrs. Darnell looked guilty. Their children—Cassie and Curtis, how cute—looked confused. Chess directed her next comments to them.
“I have two Orders of Relinquishment here. You two are going to be taken to the Church with your parents, but when they go to prison you’ll be moving in with another family member or, failing that, a home will be found for you. You’ll be safe there.”
She could only hope that last line was true. It hadn’t been for her. None of those “homes” she’d been sent to had been safe, or at least not more than a couple of them.
But that was a long time ago. That was before the Church was really settled. That was a mistake; she was an anomaly, or something, and it mattered only in her memories.
Because the Church had saved her. They’d taken her out of that life and given her a new one. The Church had found her and made her into something real.
The two children looked at each other, looked at Chess, looked at their parents. What was the expression on their faces? Shock, curiosity? Chess couldn’t quite read it.
She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. Shit, she didn’t usually have problems like this from her pills. And no way had she gotten a bad batch; Lex had given her those, and Lex might be in charge of the Downside gang in direct opposition to the one Chess’s … Chess’s everything worked for, but Lex wouldn’t try to do her any harm. She knew that. Lex was her friend.
So what the fuck?
Her eyes itched, too; she raised her hand to rub at them. Struggled to raise it. In fact, she’d been sitting still for a few minutes, hadn’t she? Without moving.
The room started to rock around her, as if she and the Darnells sat on the deck of a ship in stormy waters. Nausea slithered through her stomach, up her throat.
Her skin tingled. Not her skin, actually. Her tattoos—runes and sigils inscribed into her skin with magic-imbued ink by the Church—tingled. The way they always did in the presence of ghosts—or in the presence of magic.
It took forever to turn her head to the left, on a neck that felt like it was being squeezed by strong, hard hands she couldn’t see. Who was … Fuck, someone was casting some kind of spell on her. Who was it, what was it?
She couldn’t tell, couldn’t see well enough to tell. Just a shape, a spot of darker shadow in the long hallway. But whatever it was—it felt like a man, she had enough presence of mind to know that—it was powerful, it was strong, and it was about to beat her.
Something inside her struggled. The noise of the Darnells’ shouting faded, as if a stiff wind had come up and was blowing them all away. The adult Darnells yelling, cackling; the young Darnells panicked and confused.
And over it all words of power seeping into her consciousness, spoken in a deep smooth voice like smoked glass. Smoked glass with jagged edges; she would cut herself on them, they’d slice into her skin and her blood would spill out onto the floor, staining the carpet the Darnells couldn’t pay for. Staining everything except her soul: That was filthy enough already, covered with grime and pain that would never go away, no matter how many pills she took or lines she snorted. She deserved to be punished for that. Deserved to die for it.
But she didn’t want to. Not just because she was afraid of the City of Eternity, either. As her breath came shorter and shallower, as the black edge around her vision thickened until she could see only tiny spots of the room, all she could think about was Terrible. The only man in the world who made her feel … like she was okay, like she could be happy. The only one who understood her. The only one who loved her.
The only one, period.
She would not leave him. She refused to leave him.
His face grew in her mind: black hair pomaded into a rockabilly DA, thick heavy muttonchops, the face she’d once thought was ugly and now couldn’t understand why or how she’d ever thought that. Because every scar showed how strong he was, those hard dark eyes thawed just for her, the heavy brow smoothed when he looked at her and it all added up to Terrible, and she was not going to let some shithead scam artists and their rent-a-witch steal her from him. He’d expect her to fight. He’d expect her to win, too.
Moving her lips hurt. She forced herself to do it anyway. “Arkrandia arkrandia, bellarum bellarum, dishager dishager, arkrandia arkrandia, bellarum bellarum …”
The Banishing words started to come faster, stronger. Not much, and her vision still hadn’t cleared, but she could feel it. Something was building inside her—power was building inside her—and it was chasing away the choking fog of the dark spell.
She kept chanting, her voice creaky and rough, scraping against her throat, while she made her stiff fingers move. She needed to get into her bag; she had
