Sacrificial Magic

“Aye, guessing you did.” He laughed. “An now you done it.”

“But someone did tell you. About the pipe room.” That was pushing it, she knew. Sure, he’d laugh at her attempts to find out who the snitch was, which one of the people Bump and Terrible trusted had given Slobag the let’s-go on blowing up that pipe room. But he wouldn’t laugh for long. Especially now that her attempts to feel him out for information were no longer followed by her allowing him to perform his own feel-outs on her.

Sure enough, his eyes narrowed a little. “Maybe them did. Maybe not. Maybe somebody’s luck were just running right up. Thought you and me weren’t having the troubles on this one.”

And there it was. The iron door slamming shut. “I’m not trying to cause trouble. I just—Never mind.”

Yeah, she could probably tell him why it mattered so much to her. But so what? Their friendship seemed to be persisting despite the fact that they kept their clothes on when they met these days, but that didn’t mean he’d actually go out of his way for her. Her life wasn’t in danger, just her—Well, okay, it was her life, but not in a way Lex would care about.

Not to mention she just didn’t want to. She didn’t want to admit to him that she felt as though a big red pointing finger of suspicion hung right over her head, and that everyone saw it. Including the man Lex probably knew she’d essentially dumped him for.

It was her problem, and she’d deal with it.

Because dealing with personal problems was so fucking high on her list of skills.

Chapter Eight

You might not think it’s true, but it is: Everyone is capable of some magic, no matter how small. Everyone can change things in their lives. Even you.

—You Can Do This! A Guide for Beginners, by Molly Brooks-Cahill

Lex dropped her back at her car a couple of hours later, pleasantly cotton-wrapped from the Pandas he’d given her and ready—mostly—to head home. Lurid orange streaked the sky above her, above the Mercy Lewis school; the building stood against it like a lurking shadow, cold and unreal.

Or maybe she was just high.

She didn’t think so, though. Well, yes she did, of course she was fucking high. But she suspected the sunset was really that gorgeous, the lone cherry tree beside the school blooming pale pink, the evening chill about to set in but not enough to make her cold in her long sleeves.

Lex had just driven away when she heard the sound, a clanging, crashing noise behind the building. At least she assumed it came from behind the building; the spring air still held enough crispness for sound to carry well.

Probably just a custodian emptying the trash. Or a Cooking Goody doing who the hell knew what to the food. Or a ball hitting a steel fencepost, or any number of things.

But it could be someone who liked to play with metal, maybe someone who hadn’t known a person would be on the catwalk and decided to go ahead and bring it down? It wouldn’t bring in a lot of cash, but not a lot was usually enough, especially in Downside. You could bolt things down to keep people from stealing them, sure, but they’d just get a wrench.

Her boots slid through the grass, jewel green at her feet, as she walked around to the side of the building. Not tiptoeing or sneaking, no. Just walking. With care.

Voices floated toward her, and another clank, clearer than the last one. Female voices, murmuring and giggling. It didn’t reassure her. Women could be just as dangerous as men; life had certainly taught her that.

These weren’t really women, of course. They were girls, high school girls. So focused on the small firedish before them, the pocket-sized floral book next to the little portable stang they’d set up—they were fucking serious—that they didn’t even notice Chess rounding the corner of the building and approaching them until she was close enough to hear their individual breath. Her shadow fell over their altar, and they froze.

For a moment they all just stood there—or in the case of the girls, knelt there—looking at each other. What was Chess supposed to do? Magic certainly wasn’t illegal. Quite the opposite. Citizens were encouraged to try their own spells, though the girls were being more elaborate than most. Even if magic had been illegal, Chess’s authority only covered one or two very specific crimes.

And even if it didn’t, the bottom line was that she just didn’t care enough to bust them. Especially not when she was there to investigate their possible haunting; the last thing she wanted to do was set herself up as a horribly strict authority figure. She needed them to talk to her.

Finally one of the girls—her bleached-blond hair made a striking contrast with the warm, pale golden color of her skin—spoke, rather bitchily. “You needing something?”

Right. Her arms and chest were covered; the girls had no idea who she was. “Just wondering what you’re doing. I was about to get in the car and heard you, and thought it might be related to the haunting I’m here to investigate.”

“You the new Churchwitch, then? The new Debunker, or whatany you’re called?”

Chess nodded. “Do you know anything about it, have you seen anything?”

Bleached Blonde shook her head, but her friend—oh, such a typical best-friend type, a little chunkier, a little less pretty, a little more desperate—spoke up. “I ain’t—we ain’t—but Vernal did.”

“Vernal Sze?” The one Beulah had mentioned as a good kid who needed a place to hang out, and Monica had acted as if he was one step down from a serial killer.

The boy who’d apparently scared Aros.

The girl nodded. “Saw in the theater, and in the gym on the later.”

In the gym, too? No one had mentioned a sighting anywhere but the theater.

Of course, it was possible they just hadn’t gotten to it yet. Aros’s notes were as bad as Elder Griffin had implied; after the first couple of pages they degenerated into scribbles and random words like “turtle” and “butler.” Who knew what information he’d gathered?

And he’d disappeared, so she couldn’t even ask him.

“Vernal told you about it?”

The girls glanced at each other, like they needed to check before they answered. Hmm.

“Aye,” said the bleached blonde. The challenging look in her eye grew deeper, stronger; an edge crept into her voice. “Gave the story to lots of people. Sayin it’s proof the Church ain’t doing them job.”

Chess would not rise to the bait. Wouldn’t remind them that they were only alive because the Church was doing its fucking job, and that the general statistic in the District of one ghost-related death per 350,000 people was further proof. If the Church wasn’t doing its job, no one would be alive.

But no, she wouldn’t say it. Wouldn’t, wouldn’t, wouldn’t. Instead she just shrugged, let the girl see the comment didn’t bother her. “Do you believe him, that he saw a ghost?”

Another pause. Another glance. “Aye. Vernal ain’t give us the lie, not on a tale like that.”

“Besides, he ain’t the only one seen it,” her friend said. “Were like four of em in the theater, I recall, they all seen.”

If that meant anything at all in cases like this one, Chess would be glad to have that information. As it was, who the fuck cared? So a bunch of kids lied for each other. Yeah, that was really trustworthy confirmation.

They could all be telling the truth, of course, but lying was probably the better guess. “Do you know who the others were? And maybe what they were doing in there that day?” The tray and candle behind the curtain crept back into her head. Had Vernal and his pals been doing something they shouldn’t have been doing in that theater? Not just drinking, as Monica had said, but magic? Summonings, even?

It shouldn’t have been possible. If they had the kind of power required to do that sort of magic, the Church would have found them, and they’d be in school there.

Unless, of course, being from this part of town they’d refused. But even then—She forced herself to stop the mind-wander she was about to take when Bleached Blonde opened her mouth again.

“One of them Goodys should be able give you the knowledge. Ask them.” Her mouth turned down. “In the middle of something, we are. An wanna get it finished up.”

Little bitch. “Right. What are you doing? Memory spells for studying, or a glamour or something?”

No answer. She crouched down herself, bracing one hand on the ground so the weight of her bag didn’t make her tip over. Maybe they were doing a love spell or something equally embarrassing, and that’s why they didn’t want to say?

No. Whatever they were doing, it was not a love spell. Wasn’t any kind of spell anyone should have been doing outside of the Church, and she would have known that even if the girls hadn’t leapt up, snatched the book, and run when she saw the Herb Paris berries in the firedish.

Half an hour later she closed her front door behind her with a sigh, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and headed for the two-week-old couch. Pretty cool not to have to dodge broken springs when she sat down anymore, yeah, but … That old couch had been one of the first things she’d bought when she moved into the cozy one-bedroom apartment in what used to be a Catholic church. One of the first things she’d ever bought for herself that was permanent, bought for the first real home she’d ever had outside the Church.

But then, she probably could have held on to it longer if she and Terrible hadn’t broken it one night, so she guessed that was a pretty fair trade-off. Blood rushed to her face at the memory; her face, and other places, too. He wouldn’t be there for at least another hour or so.