Finding Magic
Stacia Kane

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Excerpt from Chasing Magic

Also by Stacia Kane

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Chess was sitting in the Church library, studying Psychopomps: Their Uses and History, when Elder Marks appeared on the other side of the table. As usual, his blue suit looked dusty and the cuffs were frayed; as usual, the black Church makeup ringing his eyes had smudged halfway down his cheeks, making him look less like a ghost and more like a drunken clown.

“Thou are wanted in Elder Griffin’s office, Miss Putnam,” he said, and left almost before he’d finished the sentence, like giving her the message had been only a stop before the many important errands he had to run.

Chess already knew that was bullshit. Three years of Church training had taught her a lot; a lifetime of shit had arguably taught her more, and she knew—along with everyone else, to be fair—that Elder Marks did little more than fill space at that point, that he was just waiting for the retirement shoe to drop.

Not that she blamed him. How could she? He’d been with the Church all his life, had started back when it was nothing more than an underground magical group, before the ghosts rose from their graves during Haunted Week in 1997 and changed the world forever. Before the Church sent those ghosts into the City of Eternity under the surface of the earth and took control of the world above it.

Elder Griffin … the name conjured up a flash of blond hair and a friendly smile, but not much else. She’d never really spoken to him before; hell, she didn’t think he even knew her name. And why would he? He wasn’t a teaching Elder. He oversaw the Department of Spectral Fraud: the Debunkers, the Church employees who investigated reports of hauntings to determine their truth.

Those reports were usually fake. Not hard to believe, considering how much money the Church paid as reparations if a house was really haunted. Not hard to believe, considering what greedy sacks of shit most people were.

She closed the book and stood up, brushing her hair off her shoulders. Just seeing the stupid dirty blondish color of it annoyed her. As soon as she graduated from training she was going to start dyeing it again. Maybe not dark blue like it had been when she’d arrived at Church to start classes there, but something.

The book went into the big army-green bag she’d found at a thrift store a few weeks before, along with her notebook and pen. Or … maybe she should keep those out? So she looked serious, so he could see she was prepared. After all, he wasn’t a teaching Elder. He was administrative, he reported directly to the Elder Triumvirate, to the Grand Elder himself.

So what did he want with her?

No way to ask Elder Marks; he’d already drifted out of the library. No time to think about it, either. The last thing she wanted to do was delay, make herself look irresponsible or like she didn’t care.

The Church headquarters were always busy, but especially on Thursdays, when the Liaisings took place. People crowded the low dark-wood bench against the wall opposite Elder Griffin’s office, waiting their turn to visit with the spirits of their dead family members. Above them a frieze of ghosts and magic symbols lined the wall near the ceiling. Still hard to believe she was a student here, that if she passed her training she would actually work here. She could live the rest of her life here, safe under the Church’s watchful eye. It could be her home … her real home.

Shit, she was lucky.

Elder Griffin’s door opened under her careful tap. He’d been waiting for her, she guessed, since he stood only a few feet back, smiling that smile she’d remembered. Friendly. Open. “Welcome, Miss Putnam. Are thee well?”

She dropped into her well-practiced curtsy, trying to smile while her insides froze. Elder Griffin wasn’t alone in his office. Elder Hancock and Elder Charles sat in rounded wooden chairs in front of a desk—Elder Griffin’s desk—and Goody Evers stood by the tall built-in bookcases near them. At her side were two people Chess couldn’t identify.

All those people. Six of them. Her breath froze in her chest. They were kicking her out. Oh shit, they were going to kick her out, she knew it, she’d been waiting for it … she’d known it was too good to be true.

“Miss Putnam? Are thee well?” Elder Griffin took a step toward her, his gentle brow furrowed beneath his wide-brimmed hat.

Right. They were watching her, they could see her. If they wanted to kick her out, fine. They could kick her out. She couldn’t do anything about that. But she sure as hell could do something about her reaction to it. She could make sure they didn’t know they’d hurt her.

She was good at that.

Her bright smile hurt. Too bad. “I’m fine, sir, very well, thank you. And you?”

“I am well indeed. Come in, please. Here, we’ve saved you a chair.…”

They’d saved her a chair. Because they knew she’d need to sit down after what they had to say. Her legs were numb.

She made it to the chair—thankfully—and sank into it, hearing the leather hiss beneath her. Hearing her breath rasp in her lungs, hearing her muscles move. Like it was all happening to someone else, like she was watching a slow-moving close-up in a movie while her brain jammed at triple speed. They were going to kick her out. She’d fucked up somewhere. They’d figured out she didn’t belong there, that she wasn’t good enough, smart enough, that she didn’t deserve it.

Where would she go? Where the hell was she going to go?

Elder Charles cleared his throat. “Thou are probably curious about why thy presence was requested.”

In his lap sat a pale blue file: her school records. He opened it, his face tilted down to look at the pages. “Your results from the latest aptitude test round have come in.”

She’d flunked. She’d flunked, and that was it. She just—How was that possible when she’d studied so hard, practiced those spells into the wee hours, long after lights-out in the dorm?

They were all looking at her like they expected some response, but she couldn’t bring herself to make one. Her throat was too tight, so tight it hurt. The best she could muster was to raise her eyebrows a bit, tip her head in what she hoped looked like a curious nod toward the paper he held.

“Very impressive,” he said finally. “We were especially interested in your counterhex results, and the number of spells you improvised from the ingredients you were given.”

Elder Hancock smiled. “The power-raising sigil was an especially nice touch.”

They weren’t kicking her out. They were—they were saying nice things to her, they were smiling, they thought she’d done well. Relief flooded her system, so strong her vision wavered; for a second she was afraid she was going to pass out. “Thank you, sir.”

He nodded. “As you know, students in their last year of classes are given the opportunity to work with employees in various positions around the Church, to help them choose their future career. You have not yet made a decision?”

“No, sir.”

He turned from her then, gesturing at the two people standing behind him. “This is Special Inquisitor Scott Freemont and Inquisitor Second Jillian Morrow. We’d like you to work with Jillian for the next week.”

Whoa. Okay, that was not something she’d ever considered doing. “The … the Black Squad? I’m not—”

“We think your talents may be a fit,” Elder Charles interrupted. “We’d like you to work with Jillian for a week.”

Shit.

She wanted to work for the Black Squad about as much as she wanted to cut off her toes and eat them for dinner. No, she hadn’t put down a preference yet, but that was because … well, because she didn’t want them pigeonholing her. She didn’t want them thinking they knew her.

Besides, rumor had it that the Church viewed actually listing a preference as a sign of stubbornness and pride, and would go out of their way to disregard those preferences.

She was lucky to be there at all, she reminded herself, and forced another smile. Her lips were starting to hurt. “Sure, I mean, of course, sir. If you think that’s the best thing for me to do.”

Elder Charles looked pleased; well, they all looked pleased. “Excellent. Jillian, will you take Miss Putnam with you now to get her things, and you can head out.”

Wait, what? Right that minute? She didn’t want to seem difficult, but … “Um, sir? Elder Charles? I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a sigil analysis test in the morning, and I don’t want to—”

He chuckled. “Do not worry thyself. You are of course excused from classwork for the next week; thou can make up the test on your return.” He leaned forward with the smirking sort of air of someone pretending to care about breaking confidences or embarrassing people. The air of someone who honestly thought he did care, to be fair, but didn’t really, not deep down. “Don’t worry. It won’t affect your scholarship.”

Once again, years of experience in keeping her face calm, in pretending she didn’t feel it, didn’t hear it, held her in good stead. Her lips curved into what she knew was a natural-looking smile. No one seeing that smile would know that she wanted to spit at the Elder and run, that she wanted to cry. Like she hadn’t heard enough over the years about her going to classes on “charity,” like she hadn’t dealt with enough of her fellow students looking at her, whispering about her, knowing she was nobody and had no ancestry, that even her last name had come from the Church and not from a family. “Thank you, sir. I was concerned.”

Elder Griffin cleared his throat behind her; she turned around to see his expression clear, like he’d been making a face. He smiled at her. He was smiling, she was smiling, the others were smiling … they looked like they’d all been dosed with some sort of hallucinogen. “I’m sure Miss Putnam is simply surprised. Perhaps we can give her ten minutes or so to get her things together and drop off her books.”

Chess looked at him, unable for a second to hide her surprise. Was he …? He was—he was giving her a few minutes to adjust. A few minutes alone. And he was doing it on purpose, because when he glanced down at her—just a glance—their eyes met and she saw in his that he knew exactly what he was doing.

So what did he want from her?

Maybe greeting his kindness with suspicion was wrong; he was Church, after all, and she’d been trying to accept that some people—most people, it seemed—in the Church weren’t playing some kind of angle; hell, most of them weren’t even aware of her. But someone overtly helpful to her like that … what did he want? What was he going to want her to do, to repay it?

She’d worry about that later. For the moment she focused on Jillian Morrow’s ready smile as the Inquisitor looked down at Chess and said, “Sure. I’ll meet you out front in fifteen, okay?”

Chess was ready in ten.

She’d run to the student dorms, tucked behind the main Church building, back past the building housing the elevator to the spirit prisons, behind and to the left of the Church employee cottages. Maybe someday she’d have one of those, although she had to admit the thought didn’t appeal as much as it should have. Life in the dorms made her itch, all those people on top of her; life in the cottages would be just as bad, she imagined.

But some employees lived off-grounds. Some of them got permission. Maybe one day … maybe one day she could, too. If she worked hard enough, was smart enough. Which she would be. The others didn’t know how lucky they were to be there; the others had families to fall back on. All Chess had to fall back on was the knowledge that she could turn tricks for food money if she had to, and she refused to allow that to happen. Not now. Not when she’d almost had something different.

The early afternoon sun blazed right into her eyes, like a finger pointing straight at her, as she crossed the square of bare earth where the Reckonings were held every Holy Day morning. That day, Monday, the stocks stood empty, the dirt around them freshly combed after the mess Saturdays always brought, the piles of rotten vegetables and tears that always ended up there after sinners gained their redemption, after crowds got off on giving it to them.

She crossed the space and waited right outside the enormous double doors of the main entrance until a dull black sedan pulled up to the curb fifteen feet or so away and Jillian Morrow beckoned her through the open window. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Chess forced her reluctant feet to move. She didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want to work for the Squad. Working for the Squad meant having a partner, someone to cozy up with and have over for dinner or whatever else, and she did not want that.

But she didn’t have a choice, at least not at the moment. So she popped the door handle of the sedan and sank into the pine- and Armor All–scented interior, clutching her bag on her lap and fastening her seat belt with the feeling that she was on a roller-coaster ride she didn’t want to be on.

“Guess you didn’t think you’d end up working with the Squad,” Jillian said, pulling carefully away from the curb. “Don’t worry. Nothing big on the schedule for today, just going for a drive.”

“Great,” Chess said, because it seemed like an answer was required.

“Mostly we just—”

Static on her radio broke into her sentence, made her brows draw together in annoyance at first, before anger and a little fear replaced them. “Damn it.”

Chess didn’t reply. She was too busy listening to the radio, the announcer’s voice saying something about bodies found and an address.

Jillian glanced at her as the announcer—not an announcer, Chess realized, a dispatcher—went quiet. “Well,” she said, lunging the car into traffic and speeding down the road, cutting off another car behind them, “looks like you’re going to get a taste of real Squad work after all.”

Chapter Two

The sedan pulled up in front of a bland-looking ranch house in Cross Town, a semi-suburb struggling to leave the working class behind. The house, a slab of dull tan and brown, hid behind a couple of trees and about half a dozen sedans and Squad cars. Holy shit, this was a real crime scene.

Well, duh, people were dead, right? Of course it was a crime scene, or at least a dead-body scene. But still … Chess was aware of her feet crossing the tidy green lawn, the sound of her boots sliding against the grass and the sound of her bag shifting on her shoulder. The lawn looked extra green, the sky extra blue, like the nights back in the Corey Youth Home when she and a few of the others would score some Sizzle and spend the night giggling and watching the colors dance in the air. But that had been fake. This looked too real. It looked like something she didn’t want to see.

Jillian approached two men standing just outside the wide-open front door. “Vaughn, Trent.”

The men nodded. One of them spoke. “Morrow.”

Their gazes fell on Chess, who forced herself not to fidget under their weight. They wanted to look at her and wonder? Let them. She didn’t need to offer them any information.

Jillian gave her up. “This is Cesaria Putnam. She’s a student, out with me for her last-year shadowing.”

The men’s eyes thawed a little. One of them—Trent?—gave her an appraising kind of smile. “Thinking of joining us?”

Chess shrugged.

Trent’s face hardened; clearly he’d expected her to blush and giggle under his manly attention or something. “Well,” he said, stepping back and sweeping his arm out in a you-first kind of gesture, “this is as good a start as any, right? Go ahead.”

She should have hesitated. She should have looked at Jillian, waited for a nod.

But she didn’t. Not with Vaughn smirking and Trent still standing there waiting for her to move.

She started walking.

“Let’s see how tough she is now,” she heard one of the men murmur. Her back stiffened. They had no idea what tough was.

Tough was walking through that wide-open doorway and entering an entirely different world, a world full of blood and body parts thrown around, a world of overturned furniture and broken glass and death. A world where the walls themselves seemed to vibrate with horror, still in shock at what they’d been forced to witness.

Holy shit. Bile rose in her throat; stars exploded before her eyes. What she was seeing? How many people had been killed there, how many bodies made up the clutter of lost mortality strewn across the oat-colored carpet?

A chuckle from behind her managed to penetrate the roaring in her ears. Right. Right, they were watching her, waiting for her to break down. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Jillian’s hand on her arm. Something in her eyes, something not quite sympathy but not quite pleasure, either. More like … curiosity, maybe? Annoyance. “You okay?”

Chess nodded, forcing herself not to pull away from Jillian’s presumptuous touch no matter how much it made her skin crawl. She was trying, she was getting better with that, better every day, but … it still sent discomfort skittering along her skin, down her spine. “I’m fine.”

Jillian paled as she looked at the mess. “Damn. They weren’t kidding when they said it was awful.”

“What happened? I mean, what do—”

“These people were murdered, that’s what happened.” Trent stood in the doorway; as he spoke he started walking, essentially shoving Chess and Jillian further into the death-chamber. Sunlight made his hair a brownish halo around the shadowed oval of his face, so she couldn’t read his expression. She bet she knew what it was, though. “See, when people get all torn apart like that, they usually can’t live anymore.”

Chess stared at him. A long, even stare, one that told him exactly what she thought of him and his patronizing little games.

Vaughn cleared his throat. “Neighbor called this morning, screaming, saying she’d come over to pick up the woman—Mrs. Waring, Shannon Waring—to go shopping, found them all like this. She said she didn’t enter the house.”

“Any confirmation on that?” Jillian asked.

“Still working on it.” Vaughn flipped a page in the little notebook he carried. “Nobody heard anything, nobody saw anything, everyone’s horrified, the Warings were such nice people, you know, the usual shi—stuff neighbors say. Doors weren’t locked, garage door was open. There’s a tire track off the driveway, but we have no idea when it might have been made.”

“I guess we should—” Jillian started, but Trent cut her off.

“I think we should ask our new recruit what she thinks we should do.” Amusement glinted in his eyes as he looked at Chess. “She can learn by doing, right?”

Was he always this much of an asshole, or was it something personal?

Not that it mattered. Fine. He wanted to be a dick, he could go right ahead. One benefit of an upbringing like hers: nobody could make her feel worse about herself than she already did. His attitude, his dislike, was just another raindrop hitting floodwaters.

There was a pause; in it she felt them all waiting for her reaction, Jillian and Vaughn torn between wanting to stand up to Trent and wanting to see what she’d do.

So she looked around the room, thought for a second. “What about the weapon? Do you know what kind of weapon was used?”

“A knife.” Trent had moved, so she could see his face, the glint in his eyes. What did it feel like to be so smug all the time? Not that she cared, really; it was just idle curiosity.

But wait. He did look smug, didn’t he? And he wouldn’t be looking so smug if she wasn’t missing something, if there wasn’t something big she should have figured out but hadn’t.

She stopped and inspected the scene again, trying to separate the bloody limbs and lumps of flesh from what they meant. It was so … grisly. What did that—why was that? Why had the bodies been chopped up and left lying around like that? Usually when killers chopped up bodies it was to make them easier to dispose of, right?

Well, she didn’t know that for a fact, but she’d known a few people in her life who would have. And it just—it just seemed like if a killer was going to go through all the trouble of slicing and dicing a corpse, there ought to be some purpose to it aside from making the biggest possible mess.

But. There was one type of killer who might very well chop people up just for fun and discard the individual parts like peanut shells tossed on a barroom floor. There was one type of killer who had the kind of rage that would drive a person to destroy another like that; one type of killer who felt nothing but hate.

Chess lifted her chin, looked right into Trent’s oh-so-clever eyes. “Ghosts did this, right? You found ectoplasm?”

His face fell. She managed not to smile.

Vaughn shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “We did, yes. And this isn’t the—” He stopped himself. The three Squad members exchanged looks.

“There’ve been others?” Chess asked.

Pause. Long pause, while the others had some sort of silent conversation. Chess didn’t watch them. Now that her initial shock had passed she was more interested in the room, in the house itself.

It was nice, in a dull sort of way. Like someone with not much flair but a decent amount of cash had decorated it, and like the people who lived in it—who had lived in it—either didn’t spend a lot of time there or were a bit on the neat-freaky side. Of course, given the horrendous mess in there at the moment, it was hard to tell, but she noticed dust-free picture frames, glass cabinet doors devoid of fingerprints. They had one of those entertainment-center units with drawers and boxes built in, presumably for pictures or knitting or who the hell knew what; Chess had lived with one family once who had one of those, too, but they’d used the drawers to stash porn and drugs. Maybe these people did the same? They didn’t necessarily look like the type, but there really was no “type,” was there? There were just people, and they were all sick beasts with shit to hide.

Jillian’s voice cut into her thoughts; apparently the three of them had reached some kind of decision. “We have had a few ghost murders recently, yes. We believe there may be a small band of ghosts that escaped from the City, and we’re working to find them.”

“How would they escape?”

Vaughn shrugged. “It happens sometimes. Nothing for you to worry about. We’ll catch them quickly, we always do.”

“The current ghost-caused death rate in the District is one in every half million,” Jillian added. “That’s very low, as you’ve probably been told. And it’s low because we’re very good at handling just this sort of problem.”

The fact that this was at least the third murder of this type—Chess figured it had to be at least three, because if there had only been one before, Jillian would have said “another” instead of “a few”—seemed to indicate that they weren’t as good as they thought, but Chess sure as hell knew not to say that.

And really, it was about all she knew, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even graduated yet, much less started training. Yes, she’d read ahead; all those late nights in the library, sneaking books from the Restricted Room and the Archives to study, all those long silent hours of peace meant she probably knew more than the average last-year student.

But there was so much more to know, so much more to learn. No, she didn’t want to join the Squad, but she might as well try to get something out of her time there, right? The more knowledge she gathered and the harder she worked, the better chance she had of graduating, of passing training, of getting to be somebody. “So what do you do next, then? How will you catch them?”

“We’ll talk to a Liaiser, maybe,” Jillian said, glancing at the men. “See if they’ve picked up anything about unrest among the dead, or if perhaps they know who’s gone missing.”

Vaughn nodded. “We’ve upped the street patrols, of course. The others have been in neighborhoods like this one, so we’re making sure the streets are well covered at night.”

“Do you warn people, or anything? Maybe have someone go around laying out salt or putting blood on—”

Trent started laughing. “Are you crazy? And terrify half the city? Hell, no, we haven’t made an announcement. And you won’t tell anyone, either, none of your little friends back at Church, understand?”

Okay, now she was pissed. To imply that she—of all people—couldn’t keep a secret? She’d kept secrets that would turn his Haircolor for Men No. 8 hair white.

And she was still keeping them. She always would. “I know how to keep a secret.”

“Well, if you don’t, we’ll certainly find out soon enough, won’t we?”

“Give her a break, Trent,” Vaughn muttered.

“I’m just teasing.”

Ah, yes. Just Teasing: the defense of the cowardly asshole. Whatever.

Jillian touched Chess’s arm—what was the deal with that?—and glanced toward the hallway. “You want to come check out the other rooms with me, Cesaria? I’ll show you how we run a search.”

“Don’t know why you’re bothering,” Trent said. “You know ghosts are opportunity killers. Searching the last few houses didn’t—”

“Because it’s a good way for her to learn,” Jillian said. “Because I’m supposed to be teaching her.”

The scream from outside interrupted whatever response Trent was about to make, and sent a chill up Chess’s spine for good measure. It was a horrible scream, the high, long shriek of pain and loss. “Nooooo! Mom—Mommy! Daddy! What—”

Vaughn was moving before the words really gelled in Chess’s mind; to Trent’s credit—look at that, she could find one nice thing about even him—he was right behind, with Jillian following. Chess hesitated for a minute; was she supposed to go, too? It really wasn’t her business. It definitely wasn’t something she wanted to see.

Not that staying there with a couple of dismembered corpses appealed more, but … Oh, shit. The door was open, and from the doorway those corpses were clearly visible, and if that scream came from the dead couple’s daughter she really, really wouldn’t need to see that.

Chess leaped for the door, intending to slam it shut, but she was too late. The green lawn and black cop cars she saw through the doorway disappeared, replaced by a woman’s body, little more than a shadow against the sunshine outside. She was a shadow, blotting out the light, her misery and pain more than enough to cast darkness all around her.

She stared at the room, stared at the carnage, her jaw working soundlessly, her eyes wild in her round face. Chess saw those eyes start to roll back and made a move, but it was Trent who caught the woman when she fell.

Chapter Three

Beyond the closed door Chess could hear the voices of the Evidence Team cleaning up the mess in the living room, but in that room—apparently Gloria Waring’s childhood bedroom—silence reigned.

Chess hadn’t volunteered to babysit the victims’ adult daughter. Something told her an eighteen-year-old girl was maybe not the most qualified to do the job, either—especially not when the eighteen-year-old girl in question was herself, who had almost as much experience with loving families as she did with mechanical engineering. Which was none. But there she was, sort of standing around, trying not to look at Gloria huddled on the bed staring swollen-eyed into space. Her sadness filled the room, made Chess’s skin feel raw.

Pictures in glass frames sat on the dresser, covered the walls. Gloria and her parents in front of a lake. Gloria and her parents at Gloria’s second-school graduation. Gloria and some people Chess assumed were Gloria’s friends on a beach. A picture of a group of adults, the image tinted with the sort of orangey color given by age; closer inspection showed Chess two people she thought were Gloria’s parents, standing in the back.

Interesting. Well, not really—Chess didn’t give much of a shit about the late Warings—but interesting that Gloria kept the picture in her room.

But then … it looked more like a guest room now, didn’t it? A few souvenirs of the type of childhood normal people had were visible, a couple of yearbooks on the lone shelf and kindergarten art projects on the walls. But the furniture, the curtains and bedcoverings, were new and generic. So maybe the Warings had just stuck things in there they no longer wanted to display elsewhere. In fact … yes, the lake picture had been in the living room as well, only larger. Chess picked it up to get a closer look.

“Deep Creek Lake,” Gloria said. “I was sixteen.”

Shit. What was she doing? Chess set the picture back down, hoping her face hadn’t gone as red as it felt. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Gloria sniffled and sat up, clutching the cheap floral comforter around her as she did. “What are you supposed to do, just watch me lay here?”

Okay, then. “Um. I’m sorry. For your loss, I mean.”

Maybe that wasn’t the right thing to say; Gloria’s face crumpled again. Shit. Chess took a step toward her without any real sort of plan—was this a touch-her situation, should she pat the woman on the back or something?—but was saved from the necessity of doing anything by a tap on the door, the turn of the knob. “Gloria?”

A man. Gloria’s boyfriend, or—no, her husband. Relief probably wasn’t the right thing for Chess to feel upon realizing she no longer had to touch Gloria, but she felt it anyway. And really, when had she ever felt the right thing?

“Matt!”

They hugged. They blocked the door. Damn. That would have been the perfect moment to slip out of the way, too. All that naked emotion … it made Chess feel like her hands and feet were too big, her arms and legs too long. Awkward and uncomfortable, like she was being forced to observe things that were none of her business. Which she supposed technically she was.

Thankfully, Jillian poked her head around the door a minute later. “There you are. Come on, I want to show you something.”

Chess angled herself past the weeping Warings—or whatever their last name was; maybe Gloria wasn’t a Waring anymore, since she was married—and followed Jillian down the short hall to the master bedroom. A decent-sized room, heavy on ruffles, taupe, and rose, with bowls of potpourri all over the dressers and the desk and the shelves of the TV cabinet. It smelled like a cinnamon stick had thrown up in there; how had they slept in that air? It made Chess’s nose and throat itch.

Jillian opened a window, giving Chess a half smile as she did. “Pretty awful, huh?”

Chess nodded.

“We probably won’t find much up here—well, actually, we’re pretty sure we won’t. Like Trent said, ghosts are opportunity killers, and we’ve got a couple on the loose here. But we generally have a look around, just to rule out the idea that the victims were Summoning on their own, or whatever. Even good investigators can miss things, so we try to be really careful. You want to start in the closet there?”

“Yeah, sure, but … what am I looking for?”

“Anything unusual. Anything magical—they’ll probably have stuff like sleep-safes or luck charms or whatever, maybe some sex magic. Just bring those out here so we can have a look. And of course if anything seems really strange, let me know before you touch it.”

Jillian pulled a white wad from her bag, which when she held it out proved to be a pair of latex gloves, cloudy with powder. “Here, put these on. And you should pick up a box at the Church store and always keep a pair or two with you. You’d be amazed how often they come in handy.”

Chess snapped on the gloves, hating the medicinal smell and texture and the way they made her hands feel trapped. It was a good idea, though, she had to admit. Or it would be, if she ended up doing some kind of work where she might come in contact with magical items.

Weird to be thinking of her future as something she chose, and not something that she was either forced into or did because she had no other options. Three years since the Church had found her, three years since they’d approved her scholarship and she’d left the Corey Home, and the idea still hit her sometimes, hard and fast like a pissed-off foster father’s blow to her head and leaving her almost as stunned: She might have an actual future. She would have an actual future, if she managed not to fuck it up.

Jillian pulled a little velvet bag out from under the Warings’ bed. “See? It’s a—oh, no, just some rings. Huh. Anyway, go ahead and start in the closet, and let me know if you see anything weird or interesting or whatever.”

Chess nodded and crossed the dull tan carpet to the walk-in closet. The Warings’ clothing was about as adventurous as their bedroom. Lots of earth tones and pastels, the colors nervous people wore so they could hide. Everything cut rather loose, so it seemed, but then Chess hadn’t really seen how big the Warings were, considering that they’d been chopped into pieces.

Ugh, and she was going through their things. Like some kind of ghoul. Those people were dead, they’d been taken to the City of Eternity below the earth to live forever and they’d never be back, and there she was judging their clothing choices. It would have made her sick if she didn’t already know—had known for years—that she was a bad person, a twisted one with filth and darkness in her soul.

She shut her eyes for a second, squeezing the thought from her head, and got back to work. Lots of pictures, boxes and boxes of them. Jewelry boxes, shoes, bags of fabric and craft stuff, a low white box … Oh, shit. “Jillian.”

“Yeah?”

“Come look at this.”

Jillian appeared in the doorway, her hair shining beneath the overhead light. “Yeah, what’s—oh. Wow. Is there a license in there for that stuff?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t touched it. Should I?”

Jillian nodded. Chess reached into the box and lifted the Bible sealed in heavy plastic, the framed sampler embroidered with a quote from same under a large cross, a couple of pictures of Jesus. She’d never seen anything like it before—well, of course she had, the Church had plenty of artifacts of the old religions in the Archives, in the Restricted Room and the museums and—she’d seen that sort of thing before, was the point. But never like that, never in someone’s actual home. Certainly the kinds of houses where she’d grown up—the kinds of people she’d grown up with—weren’t really the type who would have cared about religion even if it wasn’t illegal.

But the Warings’ items were in fact legal; Chess found the license at the bottom of the box. She’d definitely never seen one of those before. “It’s made out to the Warings and the New Hope Mission.”

“Huh.” Jillian scanned the document, set it back in the box. “Well, I guess they were religious. I bet Gloria’s too young to remember it, though. She was born in ninety-two, so she would have been five for Haunted Week. That’s pretty young to really remember stuff like that.”

“Should we ask her?”

Jillian shrugged. “Maybe later. It’s not a big deal. Lots of people were religious before and wanted to keep a few things from it. We see it fairly often. As long as it’s licensed it’s okay.”

“So should I set it aside, make a note or something?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Keep looking.”

About half an hour later Chess had found two small luck charms—ones she was pleased to note that she identified right away, even though they hadn’t covered all the permutations in class yet, ha!—some house-dedication supplies, and four protection spells, which seemed excessive, but what did she know. Behind them sat another bag, a small red velvet one. Shit. She knew what that probably was.

She glanced toward the bedroom, where Jillian was going through drawers. Jillian would come pick the thing up for her if she asked. And she could ask. She was only eighteen, only a student; she could ask.

Except that asking would make her look like a pussy. Asking would be the kind of thing Jillian might report back, with a sorrowful “I don’t think Cesaria is ready” sort of comment thrown in.

Asking would be like admitting that something was wrong with her. That she was terrified; that she had reason to be terrified. That she wasn’t normal.

So she didn’t ask. She gritted her teeth and reached for the thing. Maybe the gloves would help protect her, maybe they’d form some kind of barrier against—

Or maybe the gloves wouldn’t do a damn thing, or at least not enough. Energy crawled up her arm, greedy sex energy eager to find a home. Someone else’s sex energy, forcing itself upon her, insinuating itself across her skin and down into her belly, lower down, dancing a slow cruel path through her body and making her heart kick in her chest.

That wasn’t just the sex, either. That was panic, the bright painful cry of it in her soul, making her eyes sting. Shit, she couldn’t—couldn’t handle that, couldn’t do it, not in that strange claustrophobic room with its cloying too-warm air. It was too much, too much for her, hard hands on her skin, holding her down, her lungs fighting for oxygen, she had to—

She had to drop the fucking bag, was what she had to do. Her stiff fingers didn’t want to let go for a second; as always, her body betrayed her, wanting more even though it was wrong, wanting more even though it was bad. But finally they obeyed; the bag fell to the carpet with a soft thud, and Chess knelt there for a minute trying to catch her breath, swiping furiously at her damp, stinging eyes with the backs of her wrists. She’d have to touch the thing again to take it into the room and show Jillian, and the last thing she needed was for Jillian to see that anything was bothering her.

It was just a damn sex spell. Lots of people had them, big deal, right? She pressed her hand to her forehead, trying to flatten the furrows she knew were there, rubbing to ease the beginnings of what promised to be a killer headache. Just a stupid fucking sex spell. Nothing more. She was older now, she was a student at Church, in training to be a witch. She could handle a little magic. She could, and she would.

One long deep breath, then another, until they came smooth without catching in her throat. Okay. Fine. She clenched her jaw, got to her feet, and grabbed the bags.

From the closet doorway to the foot of the bed where Jillian had placed a few other items was only maybe fifteen feet. It felt like forever while Chess struggled to keep her expression calm, her chest from heaving. Jillian didn’t look up until Chess reached the pile and dropped the bags just beside it. She’d done it.

Yeah, she’d done it then. Once. What happened next time? Or the time after that? What kind of job was she going to find in the Church where she never had to deal with sex magic, ever?

She couldn’t really think of one unless she wanted to be a Liaiser, and the idea of letting spirits have control over her body, communing with them … the thought made her shudder.

Almost as much as that horrible spell bag had. She was going to have to distract herself somehow, because her heart still pounded and she still heard those distant voices telling her how bad she was, how dirty, how it was her fault, and she didn’t want to hear them. Didn’t want to see those faces in her mind.

Jillian peered at her. “You okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Sure. Of course.” Chess twisted her lips into what she hoped looked like a wry smile. “Sex magic. Kinda gross, is all.”

“Ooh, let’s see.” Jillian dropped to the floor and started digging in the bag. “Wow, they weren’t kidding with this, were they? I wonder who they hired to make it. This doesn’t feel like the normal homemade type of spell.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it’s too strong. Here, take off your glove.” Jillian picked up one of the luck charms and held it up, waiting until Chess had stripped off the thin latex to set it in her palm. “See how it feels kind of weak? Close your eyes and really feel it.”

Chess did, her face warming. Of course. Duh. They’d just started this in class a few weeks ago, energy identification. She should have realized … shit, what else might she be missing? She’d read about this, she’d even practiced it, so why hadn’t she tested herself on it as soon as she saw the charm bags? Why hadn’t she thought to check if the energy was the same, if she could identify it?

Because she was chickenshit, that’s why. Because she’d been so worried about that sex spell that she hadn’t even thought of it. Too selfish, too concerned about her little feelings or whatever.

She was never going to get anywhere if she didn’t think more, focus better.

The energy in the luck charm was like the energy lingering in the room, only a little stronger. And … “Is this female? It feels like a woman made it, maybe?”

To her relief, Jillian nodded. “Very good. Probably Mrs. Waring. They had a couple of books on basic spells in the living room, don’t know if you saw them.”

Chess nodded—she had—but again she hadn’t paid attention. Shit. She’d been training for what, three hours, and she was already missing stuff, already fucking up. She couldn’t even blame that on the sex spell, because she hadn’t known it was there or touched it yet when they first arrived. She just hadn’t noted the books, hadn’t thought to feel the energy of the luck charms to see if she could identify it, hadn’t thought of anything worthwhile.

Typical. Did she want to end up giving thirty-dollar blow jobs off the street corner? No. So she needed to get her shit together.

She set the luck charm down. Time for the—for the other one. While Jillian watched. Fuck.

Her hand shook as she picked the sex magic bag up again. Ugh. Yes, she was ready for it this time, braced for it. But she was also gloveless this time. She was opening herself up to it, flexing those energy muscles the Church had been teaching her about, training her to use.

The spell washed over her again, stronger now without the barrier, faster. It roared through her blood thick and dark, gloating as it invaded her body, found her weak spots—so many of them—and prodded them; it found her empty spots—even more of those—and filled them.

Someone else’s sexual energy forced on her, someone else’s arousal slithering over her skin like hands on her body, in her body, pinning her down, covering her mouth so she wouldn’t cry. Laughing at her fear. Laughing as she struggled and tried to make it stop—and she couldn’t, she couldn’t struggle or stop it, because Jillian was watching and Chess was supposed to be getting information from this, learning something. She needed to do it. Needed to show Jillian she could.

Sweat broke out on her forehead, under her arms, and where she wasn’t specifically sweaty she was still damp. Uncomfortable. And uncomfortably aware that Jillian was watching her, that no matter how she might struggle to hide it Jillian knew what was happening to her, what she was feeling.

Ignore it. Ignore Jillian, ignore all of it. Whose magic was this, who—a man, was it a man? It felt male, it felt rough and demanding. Angry, almost. It felt, deep down, frustrated.

Which was a weird thing for sex magic to feel like, wasn’t it, since the point was to end frustration, to satisfy?

Her palm burned where it touched the velvet bag; the rest of her body burned where it didn’t, wanting to be touched itself. It had been a while, so much studying … so much following the rules.

Shit, she did not want to be thinking of that, of any of it. Later she could do something about it, if she still wanted to. Now … She gritted her teeth against the dark whispers in her blood, the intrusive lure of what the bag promised, and focused harder. A man. It felt like a man. A man’s energy, a man’s magic. Strong, too. Not strong like one of the Elders, but stronger than the luck charm, certainly.

Her hand shook. She was shaking everywhere, she realized, and she opened her eyes and saw Jillian still watching her, watching her with something in her eyes that Chess didn’t like. The bag fell to the floor.

Instantly cool air swept over her. Well, no, the air wasn’t cooler, her body was cooler. The spell’s created lust—created heat—vanished, leaving her standing there trembling with her hair stuck to the back of her neck and her skin tingling. She swallowed hard against the bile threatening to rise; it felt like her heart had been hooked up to a fucking jumper cable. Her legs were too weak, threatening to give out beneath her. She needed to sit down. No, what she needed was to be alone. She needed cold water on her face, she needed to get out of that room because her breath wasn’t slowing the way it should and red spots exploded in her eyes and she was freaking out, she was losing it, she needed to—

“Having fun, ladies?”

Trent stood in the doorway, grinning like a gambler holding a full house while his gaze raked her up and down. Funny to be almost grateful to see him there, but she was; at least she could focus on how much she hated him even though they’d just met, and hold off the fucking full-scale panic attack threatening to take control of her body any second.

Hatred was better than panic. Hatred was strength, hatred was something she could use. She grabbed it like a drowning woman grabbing a life jacket, and let it burn in her eyes while she glared at him. Yeah, he could maybe report back to an Elder that she hadn’t been very nice to him, and later she’d probably think of that and worry, but at the moment she didn’t give a shit. Let him do it. Better he reported that than tell them she’d gone hysterical.

“Are you all done down there?” Jillian stood up. “I’m sure Gloria wants to go home.”

Trent gave Chess one last knowing look—how she itched to slap that right off his face—and nodded. “We tore up the carpet but the blood’s soaked through. We can’t clean that up, either. But that’s all there is for her to see.”

“Guess that’s the best we can do.” Jillian pulled a camera from her bag and handed it to Chess. “I’m going to go ask Gloria a couple more questions, see if she knows anything about her parents being involved in magic they shouldn’t be. You get some pictures of all this stuff, okay? The bags intact, and then take the ingredients out of each, photograph them, and put them back. Got it?”

Chess nodded.

“Good. Back in a few.”

Trent gave Chess one last smirk—oh, he’d definitely seen what had been happening to her, knew what kind of spell she’d been holding, the bastard—and swept out of the doorway, following Jillian, leaving her finally alone.

Chapter Four

The second Trent’s back disappeared from view Chess got up, stumbling over her own feet in her rush to get to the bathroom. Whether it was okay to use the toilet or anything in there she didn’t know, but it didn’t matter; she didn’t need it.

What she needed was a door she could close and lock behind her. What she needed was a corner to press herself into, a place to make herself small, where she could see into every space and under every counter, and know no one would come in. Shit, she hadn’t had to deal with anything like that since she’d entered the Church, she hadn’t expected it to be so bad.…

She huddled next to the cold porcelain bathtub with her arms wrapped around her knees, curling herself into the tightest ball she could. It was okay, she was okay. It was just magic. It was unpleasant but no one had actually touched her. It hadn’t hurt. She was safe; she was with the Squad and the Squad was Church and they were safe. She was okay. She was, she was okay, and she kept repeating it in her head, reminding herself with every shuddering breath she managed to take until finally the pain in her chest started to ease.

And a new one to take over. Fuck, what was wrong with her? She was okay, it was just some dumb magic, why the hell couldn’t she just deal with it? How was she going to get anywhere if she couldn’t handle a little sex magic?

Her bag sat right next to her, pressed up against her side. Her left hand rested on it, right near the zipper. She could … It wasn’t a good thing to do, no. It wasn’t the right thing to do. She was working, she was supposed to be working, and she’d already messed up by not testing the energy from those bags and comparing them. The Church had given her an opportunity and she was already wasting it.

But … her head hurt and her chest hurt and her mind raced, all those memories she didn’t want swirling around in a kaleidoscope of shit. If she could just make them go away—she needed to make them go away, and she needed to do it fast because Jillian could be back any second and no way was Chess going to let her see that anything was wrong. Not only could it mess things up as far as her work—her future—was concerned, but it was none of Jillian’s damn business, anyway. It was nobody’s business.

But she was working …

Right. Okay, then. She was fine, and she’d be fine on her own, she didn’t need—

Her hands were moving. Without her telling them to, they’d unzipped her bag. While she thought about how fine she was, they were digging around in it; while she thought how she didn’t need it, they’d found the flask she’d bought at a secondhand store on her eighteenth birthday and started unscrewing the top.

Before she could stop them, they raised the flask to her lips and tilted it up. And before she could stop it vodka poured down her throat.

Not a lot. No, definitely not a lot; she did manage to do that, to stop it after she’d swallowed half a mouthful or so. Not even a real shot. It hardly mattered because it wasn’t even a full shot, it was barely more than a sip. Right?

She told herself that was right. She knew it wasn’t.

Fuck! What was the—what was wrong with her, damn it? Even as warmth spread in her stomach and drifted out through her bloodstream, even as her eyes half closed in relief and her head sank back to rest against the wall behind her, she felt it, the shame, the sickness festering deep inside her, the fear of what it meant. Her first day outside of class, her first real work for the Church, and she couldn’t even make it four hours before she was at the flask.

Never again. Okay, she’d done it, but she’d never do it again. Yeah, it was her first day, but it was a grisly ghost murder, and really, most people would be freaked out by that, right? Most people were freaked out just hearing about such things; sure, it had been seventeen years, but people still remembered. They’d always remember. And even if they tried to forget, the Festival still happened every year, the dead still walked the surface for six nights, reminding humanity that they were still there and the Church was still in charge.

So it was perfectly natural that, being faced with two corpses chopped to bits by ghosts, she’d need something to calm her down a bit. Doctors even prescribed a little nip to people who’d had a shock, right?

Right. It was totally understandable. It was totally natural. She’d just never do it again, was all.

Never again. She promised.

With her head somewhat cleared, her body calmed, she glanced around the bathroom. She couldn’t stay in there—she had to get pictures of those spells for Jillian—but she could sit just a few more seconds. And grab some cinnamon candies from her bag, too, because she’d need them. Vodka might not have a specific smell but it certainly smelled of alcohol, and she couldn’t have that.

As she stood up and popped the candy into her mouth her gaze fell on something beside the sink. Another spell, it looked like; well, sure, lots of people kept magic somewhere they’d be likely to see it often and come in contact with it, since most spells relied on physical closeness to work. People kept sleep-safes under their bed or behind the headboard, that sort of thing, which—Actually, yeah. Why had the luck charms been in the closet? Why had the sex spell been in the closet?

Chess braced herself and reached out to touch the bag, feeling brave because her mind was still calm enough from the—well, the thing she shouldn’t have done.

A protection charm. Right, because people shaved in bathrooms, maybe? Either way, she felt the difference. If that was Mr. Waring’s energy, which she thought it was, it was definitely not the same as the energy of the person—the man—who’d made the sex spell. No aggression colored this magic, no anger. And hardly any power, either; the man who’d made this might as well have just thrown some cotton balls into the bag, for all the strength it had.

Well, Jillian had said someone else must have been hired to make the sex spell, so no big surprise there, right?

That still didn’t explain why they’d kept the sex spell so far away, though, or why it had felt so angry.

Whatever. Maybe the spell had been too strong for them. Maybe they’d felt the anger somehow, too, and just hadn’t gotten around to tossing the thing. Maybe they liked to fuck in the closet. Probably didn’t matter as far as the case went; probably none of her business.

She rinsed her hands and popped another candy into her mouth, giving herself one last glance in the mirror. Did she look okay? Sober, calm, collected? Yeah, basically, at least she thought she did, so good.