Close to You
Downside Ghosts 5.5
by
Stacia Kane
Chapter One
Chess had never seen an auto graveyard before. Human graveyards, sure, more than she wanted; her job required her to enter them on occasion—on bad occasions, since entering a graveyard meant she had a confirmed haunting in whatever house she was investigating as a Debunker, which meant no bonus for her—to collect dirt from the grave of whomever it was who’d returned as a ghost so she could banish it back to the City of Eternity under the earth.
The auto graveyard—junkyard, really—was very different. Aside from the obvious, there were no high stone walls and gates and locks, no signs warning people that, by the authority of the Church of Real Truth, unauthorized persons were not permitted to enter.
And she wasn’t alone in there, either.
Rusted-out hulks of cars made treacherous walls. Razor-sharp edges could slice skin and clothing; odd shapes made holes and nooks where anyone could hide. Where
Not to mention the music, the faint and very creepy tones of the Carpenters’ “Close to You.” Ugh. It was tinny-sounding, faraway and half-lost in the wind, like maybe it was some weird auditory hallucination. Like a memory of the song rather than the actual sound of its playing.
She was pretty sure it was playing, though, because why the hell would she think about that song? And why would her head play it start to finish, over and over?
It wouldn’t. So no, she was definitely hearing the stupid song for real. It didn’t help the butterflies in her stomach one bit. He was going to jump out at her, grab her. Anticipation made her palms sweat.
She looked behind her. Nothing. She turned a corner, peering down the alley of wreckage. Nothing. All she could see were dead cars and junk, the remains of a society that no longer existed. The ancient Greeks and Romans left statues and art. The world Before Truth had left garbage.
Not really fair, she knew, but she was too busy trying to find a place to hide to feel bad. He was close. She could feel it; she knew it. Her feet moved faster, almost as fast as her heart. If she could get to the car, if she could just make it to the car before he—
Too late. Hard arms wrapped around her waist, yanked her back against an equally hard body. Her feet left the ground. Her gasping shriek was lost in the wind even before it dissolved into giggles and Terrible’s lips found her neck just above her scarf.
“You win,” she said.
“Aye.” He spun her around. His left hand slid into her hair while his right tugged her hip closer; he kissed her neck again, harder. “So what I’m getting? For a prize.”
“Um…” She shivered. “I’m not sure winning a game of Hide and Seek really qualifies for a prize.”
“Aw, damn.” The Chevelle stood only fifty feet or so away. He started walking toward it, using his body to push her along. His teeth nipped at her earlobe. “Causen I had me a real good idea.”
“Oh?” She meant it to sound arch and disinterested, but she just couldn’t seem to accomplish that. Especially not when his palm slid over her behind and came to rest on the back of her upper thigh. If he shifted it just an inch…
He stopped walking and kissed her. Hard. Hard enough for her to forget the cold wind and the stupid song in the background. Hard enough for her to practically forget her own name. She wrapped her arms around his neck and strained on her tiptoes, afraid she’d fall over if he let go of her.
Except he wouldn’t. He never would. That was Fact and Truth, and she believed it, trusted it, more than she’d ever trusted anything in her entire life.
“Oh, aye.” He pulled back so his dark eyes met hers, so she could see that... that something, that whatever it was, that was just for her and her alone. “Were thinkin I take you on home now, throw you around a little. How’s that sounding?”
It was sounding pretty fucking good to her, was how it was sounding. Her entire body throbbed. And he knew it. She could see he knew it.
Then she felt he knew it, because he hoisted her thighs up to wrap around his waist and his hot hand snaked up under her coat, under her shirt, to stroke her bare back. This time she kissed him; this time she drove her fingers into his hair.
The Chevelle was closer than she’d thought, and still warm beneath her when Terrible set her on the hood and leaned her back so his hard body covered her and his erection pressed against her. Another deep, insides- melting kiss swallowed the tiny sound that she couldn’t stop. His tongue played with hers, making all kinds of promises as his palm glided over her breast and his other hand squeezed her thigh.
Cold wind blew over them, but she barely noticed it. Or maybe she just didn’t care, especially not when his lips left hers and his nimble fingers tugged her scarf open so he could nibble at her throat, so his mouth could travel further down into the vee of her shirt’s neckline and send tingles dancing all over her skin.
She caressed his broad shoulders, his back solid and wide beneath his shirts, and tightened her legs around his waist to pull him closer.
“You taking me home or what?” she managed. Finding breath to talk was hard. Getting her tongue and lips to obey her demands instead of his was even harder.
“Aye.” The words were half-mumbled into her throat. A final kiss, a final caress, before he straightened up. Pomaded strands of hair fell over his forehead. “Let’s us get there fast.”
She slid off the hood and watched him bend down to pick up the grimy engine parts he’d found—the grimy engine parts that were apparently the reason they were there, in the middle of the auto graveyard, in the middle of a cold, gray winter afternoon. “That’s the flam you need for the ganorzle problem?”
His grin made her even more desperate to get out of there and get home immediately. Amazing how she still felt that way. Even more amazing was how he seemed to still feel that way, too. “Aye. Lessin you gots a better idea.”
“Eh. I’ll let you try it your way first. But if you get stuck, let me know.”
He kissed her again before he popped the trunk and tossed the metal in. “You hearing that music?”
She nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Ain’t knowing.” He opened her door. “Nobody living out here, what I got.”
The auto graveyard was on the very outskirts of Downside, so far south the bay’s gray winter water lapped the shore to her right. So far south the territory war between Terrible’s boss, Bump, and his rival, Lex, didn’t matter, because nobody lived there to war over. “Somebody must be here, though.”
He shrugged.
“I hope you’re gonna pay for that.” A woman’s voice, nasal and twangy. Not a Downside accent.
They both turned. Okay, that woman was... what the fuck?
Despite the December cold, she wore a thin evening gown with no coat. No, not an evening gown. A wedding gown. Dingy and tattered, with a high lace collar, dirty pearls and sequins dotting the bodice, and a shredded tulle skirt that had probably once gotten its fullness from layers rather than wrinkles but didn’t anymore. The long sleeves came to points over the backs of the woman’s hands. That was a fucking wedding gown.
It was weird enough, even without the fact that the woman was clearly at least in her sixties—gray hair rose in a matted cloud from her creased, elaborately made-up face. Not that “elaborately” meant “skillfully.” It didn’t. She looked like a five-year-old had attacked her with markers: bright green shadow that extended well past the
