that’s what happened to him.”
It was probably what happened to him. Which made things worse. “If it’s the anniversary of his death, and his birthday, and she has his body, that can make it pretty easy for her to bring him back even without me here. Maybe that’s why she was so sure she’d see him tonight. We need to hurry. If we get there before she finishes summoning him, it’s not a problem, but without my bag…”
He tried the doorknob. Locked. Of course. “Want me breaking this or the window?”
She hesitated. Wandering around outside in the freezing cold didn’t appeal, but for all they knew Eliza had her tranq gun all loaded up and ready to go, and the sound of the door flying open would give her plenty of time to take aim.
He seemed to know what she was thinking. He pushed the curtains open, which didn’t let in much light at all, and tried to slide the window open. It didn’t budge. “Grab you that pillow offen the bed, aye?”
She did, while he stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around his fist and forearm.
“Is this going to be that much quieter than the door?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “Iffen she hear it and comes down, still ain’t be so easy to aim at us. Ready?”
Chess ducked her head behind the pillow. The sound of shattering glass drowned out “Close to You” for a second or two; icy air caressed Chess’s skin. She pulled the pillow down to see Terrible brushing glittering shards off the sill and hoisting himself up on to it, over it, landing outside with a barely-audible thud. He held his hand out to her through the hole. “C’mon. Bring the pillow.”
It probably wasn’t necessary, but she set the pillow on the sill anyway. Being sliced by jagged glass wasn’t her idea of fun. Neither was trying to find places for her knees and feet among the photographic detritus covering the dresser. But she did it, and Terrible pulled her safely out through the window and into his arms as a surge of magic from the living room took her breath away.
Or maybe it wasn’t the magic, or at least not that kind of magic. His arm curled around her waist, yanking her to him, and before she could react, his mouth was on hers. One of those kisses she hated as much as she loved, a kiss that knew they were about to throw themselves right into the path of danger and might not survive; a kiss that told her how much he loved her just in case they didn’t.
And she said the same, in the same way, pressing her hands on the sides of his face and pushing her fingers into his hair. This wasn’t the end for them. It couldn’t be. It wouldn’t be, because there never would be an end for them. She knew that. It was Truth, and she believed in it more than she believed in anything else, even the Church.
His fingertips stroked her cheek, barely a touch before he grabbed her hand and started running around the back of the house.
The tide was in. Waves lapped the stone retaining wall only twenty feet or so away, the sound shrouded by both the thick fog that made her feel like they were running through a nightmare and the ever-present “Close to You” that made her want to shove a fucking drill into her eardrums. She gripped Terrible’s hand tighter.
They had to slow down when they reached the end of the house, almost invisible in the mist. Gravel and rocks littered the ground, and who the hell knew what junk they might trip on? Even with the eerie glow coming from what must have been the lit Christmas tree in the front window, there wasn’t enough light to move at anything like full speed. The energy in the air, in the mist, from Eliza’s ritual, thrummed against Chess’s skin and burrowed into her soul. It was hard to breathe, would have been hard to breathe even if the air hadn’t frozen her lungs.
Finally they reached the window. And stopped, staring for a moment they couldn’t afford at the scene framed by fog-edged glass. Mrs. Hudson stood by the tree, her body limned in festive multicolored light, and raised a knife. Chess’s knife. That bitch. Terrible gave her that knife. She’d have to re-consecrate it if she were to use it again—oh, what the fuck was she whining about that for? Surviving this holiday nightmare was sort of a bigger concern just then.
Just as Chess figured, Vincent’s body—well, it wasn’t much of a body at that point, just a skeleton covered in scraps of fabric and scraps of things Chess didn’t want to think about—lay at Mrs. Hudson’s feet. A pillow supported its skull. Around it several items were arranged like afterlife tokens at a Viking funeral: a wallet, a pair of worn tennis shoes, what looked like baseball cards, a pair of socks and some underwear. Very personal, so very powerful. One of the items was a hammer, which was awesome because what they really needed was for Vincent’s ghost to have a deadly bludgeoning tool within easy reach.
She had to admit, though, that she was a little impressed. Despite Mrs. Hudson’s obvious lack of training and her failure to mark a circle, she’d planned her little ritual awfully well, substituting personal items, anniversaries, and a corpse for real magical ability, thus enabling herself to bring the whole thing off even without Chess’s power. But Chess figured she’d had years of practice at that; something told her this wasn’t the first time Eliza had tried this. Maybe it was a yearly ritual, too, just like the decorations and presents.
What Chess didn’t see was her bag. Shit. Not only were all of her magic supplies in there—including the black chalk she’d use to mark protective sigils on herself and Terrible—but her fucking pills were in there, and maybe not all of the itching she felt was magic. Maybe some of it was early withdrawals, which meant she really really needed to find it and end this mess. It was too late to escape and call the Squad, because even as she started to jump toward the window, Eliza stabbed herself in the hand. Blood poured from the wound onto the decayed corpse. Magic blasted like a mushroom cloud, blue light flared, and Chess’s skin erupted in stinging, burning itches as that magic grabbed her own power and the runes and sigils tattooed on her body reacted to it. She gasped and stumbled, suddenly weak, and especially suddenly a lot more pessimistic about their chances of surviving, because the flash of blue cleared to reveal the ghost in the living room.
Vincent Hudson had arrived.
Chapter Four
He was wearing a Santa suit.
A fucking Santa suit.
Ghosts always appeared pale ice-blue, clothes and all, but Chess had seen images of Santa Claus in the Church archives and museum, and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that this ghost was dressed like Santa, even down to the weird hat.
The itching all up and down her arms and across her shoulders grew worse. That seemed like an awful lot of itching, actually, for just one ghost. Which it might not have been. The room was full of junk and the area around the house even fuller, so who the hell knew what else might come through the hole Eliza had opened—if she was using personal objects as totems and power-generators, she could raise half the City with all the old crap in that place.
For that matter, who the hell knew how big the hole was? Anything could be ready to materialize, in a place that was basically a deadly-weapon-smorgasbord for ghosts, and without her bag Chess couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them. Or to stop them from turning Eliza and Terrible and herself into ghosts who would then leave the house and join the slaughtering fun. Ghosts didn’t stop killing until either someone stopped them or the sun came up, and it was just a couple of days past the longest night of the year.
Vincent’s face—the same one from the pictures, only a little older, and obviously not flesh-colored—broke into a wide grin at the sight of his wife. Chess wasn’t fooled.
Eliza was. She opened her arms, threw back her head. Her voice came tinny and jubilant through the glass. “Vincent! Oh, Vincent! I did it! I did it this time!”
“Come on.” Chess started hunting through the fog for something to throw through the window. “My bag’s got to be in there somewhere, once I find it I can—”
Terrible’s hand hard on her arm, stopping her. She turned to him, ready to ask what the fuck he was doing, but the look on his face stopped her. It was serious, and sad, and he said in a quiet low tone, “Let she have it.”
“He’s going to kill her, we can’t just—”
“What she’s wanting, aye? Be why she’s done all it.”
“But—”
