fuck, she’d found it. It had been opened, and her skin crawled at the thought of Eliza’s bony hands rummaging around in her belongings, but at least she’d found it. Even better, a quick shuffle told her everything was in there; two seconds to find the pouch that held graveyard dirt and dip her fist into it, and she was ready. Or not quite ready, because she really needed her pills, but she couldn’t let Terrible stay in there a second longer than she had to. Dirt first, then pills.
The scene that confronted her through the window was like something from the world’s sickest educational holiday re-enactment. Terrible stood in the corner, fighting off Vincent and the Christmas tree with Vincent’s bone, while Eliza threw framed pictures and Yuletide bric-a-brac at Terrible’s head. Blood ran down the side of his face; his shirt was torn. And “Close to You” still played, making the whole thing even more bizarre.
First thing Chess was going to do when the ghosts were locked down was break that fucking record.
Which she did. Despite the way her body screamed for her pills, when she ran through the window and threw the dirt, her power flew along with it in a clean arc, and her voice rang clear. “
It wasn’t as strong as it would have been if she’d been feeling better, but it worked. Vincent and Eliza froze in place. The Christmas tree thudded to the floor. Terrible climbed around and dragged it out of the way as she salted a circle around them, moving as fast as she could to get it done before they became mobile again. She could feel their furious gazes on her back as she worked.
“With blood I seal the circle.” Her knife slid through the pad of her left pinkie. Blood welled from the cut to drip onto the salt. The circle snapped shut. Done. Her breath escaped in a rush; she dug in her bag for her pillbox and grabbed three Cepts. Pills, then rest for a minute, and then she’d banish them herself. It was too cold to sit waiting for the Squad. And if she were honest with herself, well, the Squad would send Vincent and Eliza straight to the spirit prisons, wouldn’t they? Chess could do the same—she had melidia in her bag—but…
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
