Chasing Magic

Terrible turned to DV. “Where he buy this?”

DV shrugged. “Offen Rickride, same as always, what I got. Buy he three bags, dig, only one’s left there.”

Terrible’s face darkened. Rickride must be Bump’s dealer, then, the one who lived in the area.

She’d ask him about it later. Discussing it on the street probably wasn’t the best idea. Time to focus, so they could get the fuck out of there.

Up close the body before her looked even worse. His skin hadn’t yet taken on the artificial pallor of death, that sort of waxy flatness, but the scratches and marks on his skin already stood out more sharply, looked angrier and more vivid.

Terrible edged closer to her, grabbed her arm. “Getting you outta here. Now.”

“But—”

“Take you some pictures, iffen you need a better look. That body ain’t gonna be here much longer.”

“What?”

He glanced at the growing crowd, at the mist now tickling their legs, gripping his knife tighter as he did. Chess felt his unease; it didn’t show, wasn’t apparent to any of the people standing a few feet away—at least she hoped not—but she knew it was there. Felt it the same way she felt darkness in that fog like angry whispers, and the power created by the edges of the earth by the jointure of three elements. The mist was hungry; it wasn’t magic in itself but it had its own power, as everything did, and that power made the hairs on her neck tingle and shift.

Was it her imagination, or had the crowd gotten a little closer than it was before?

“C’mon.”

He stared at the crowd while she pulled out her camera and snapped four or five pictures. They probably wouldn’t be important at all; just scratches, not runes or sigils or anything like that, but still. She needed them, and, if she was lucky, enough respect remained for Terrible that the crowd of hungry faces watching her wouldn’t decide to try to take the camera from her. Terrible could handle a lot of things, but the crowd looked too big now even for him.

She’d barely lowered the camera when Terrible started hauling her to her feet. She tucked the little plastic packet into her pocket. When she got home she’d toss it straight into the African Blackwood box she kept for magical items of dubious origin.

Assuming she got home. The crowd stepped closer still.

Terrible didn’t look scared, but she knew he was—or, well, not scared but uneasy. And she knew all that unease was for her, as if she’d heard him say it out loud. He wasn’t worried about protecting himself or being attacked, he was worried about it happening to her, and she knew it not only because she knew him but because he took her hand as they started to walk.

“Push yon sleeves up.”

“Wha—oh.” Of course, dumbass. She did it as quickly as she could, hoping the people staring at them with blood in their eyes knew what the tattoos on her arms meant. Hoping they even knew what the Church was, for that matter.

She couldn’t tell if they saw her ink or not, or if they cared. But a woman with long brown dreads who smelled like a sewer stepped out of their way as they neared her.

Terrible didn’t seem to be moving quickly, but he was, and she tried to keep up without appearing to speed herself.

The hardest part was not looking back. They’d passed the edge of the crowd, into the mouth of the street beyond, into the fog. It should have been a relief, being out of the way of them, but it wasn’t. It made her feel even more naked, made her feel as if at any second someone would hit her over the head or she’d fall before she heard the bullet coming. She tightened her grip on Terrible’s hand.

He squeezed back but didn’t look at her until he had her in the Chevelle, with the doors locked. The crowd outside inched closer to the car; Chess couldn’t see the bodies anymore. All she saw was people, those ramshackle dock-dwellers standing in ragged lines, with the mist moving up behind them.

Terrible started the car and put it in gear. “Told you, ain’t a good place to be.”

“No.” She rubbed the back of her head, trying to brush off the stares she imagined she could still feel. “No, I guess not. And I guess we have to go back tomorrow, huh?”

“Aye. Talk to DV again, try to find Rickride see where that speed come from.”

“Great.” One last glance back at the shadowy shapes in the mist. “I can’t wait.”

Half an hour later they trudged up the stairs to her apartment. Neither of them spoke, just as they hadn’t in the car on the way there, every foot they drove a reminder that they’d have to do it in reverse the next day. Every foot a reminder of what they’d left behind. Chess couldn’t stop seeing bone exploding from skin, couldn’t stop seeing foam in the corners of a dying mouth or Terrible’s head sinking when he touched the speed.

There were too many things to say to pick one, so all of them bottlenecked in her throat, forming a horrible lump that writhed and stung and felt like it was trying to break through her skin. She had no idea if Terrible felt the same.

What she did know was that if there was a worse possible time for Lex to show up, she couldn’t imagine what it could be.

Terrible stiffened. She did the same. Oh fuck, please, no, don’t let him be there to try to push Terrible again about working for him; Terrible was pissed off enough already. And probably pissed off at her; it was her fault he kept passing out, after all.

That the alternative was being dead didn’t seem to matter so much. Didn’t matter, to some degree, because she knew that if he couldn’t do his job he’d probably rather be dead.

Lex watched them walk down the hall, his nose wrinkling. “Been having you two a time in the sewers? Look like you done rolled around in a dust pile, you do.”

At least she had some words for him. “This really isn’t a good time, Lex.”

“Aye, tell me on it,” he replied, shifting himself out of the way so she could unlock her door. “Ain’t a good time for nobody, Tulip. Thinking it be just the opposite, dig. Crazy shit going down my side of town.”

She felt what he carried in his pocket before he pulled it out and gave it to her, before she even knew he carried anything at all.

“Where did you get that?”

He folded his arms, gave the ceiling an exasperated glance. “Ain’t you even gimme the invite in? Got some knowledge for you.”

She pushed the door open. The wards on it stung her skin as they reacted to the energy from the powder in her pocket and in her hand.

Terrible shoved past Lex to follow her into her apartment. The first thing she did was grab the African Blackwood box from its spot on the bottom shelf in her living room, toss both packets into it, and slam the lid. The weight of heavy clotted magic lifted from her shoulders. Much, much better.

Too bad she couldn’t put Lex in there, too. For that matter, too bad she couldn’t put the whole fucking day in there.

Terrible crossed to the fridge, gave her a questioning glance. Beer would be good, wouldn’t it, a cold— No. No, because she wanted to get a couple of Oozers down her throat immediately. No fucking way was she going to process what had happened sober. “Water.”

He grabbed a bottle of that and a beer, and walked to the counter at the edge of the kitchen.

“Could use me a beer, too, I could,” Lex said.

Terrible glared at him. “Fridge’s there.”

A long moment passed before Lex shrugged and crossed the floor. The silence was ugly.

Chess spoke a little too loudly in her haste to break it. “So where did that come from, Lex? What is it, where did you get it?”

“Took it offen some jaxers.” He twisted the cap off the beer. “Always got such cheap beer, you do. Why you ain’t buy better?”

“Because I want to piss you off, that’s why. Who did you take it off of? How did you find it?”

He acknowledged her sarcasm with a twist of his lips. “Four of em, dig, having theyselves a wander down the street on the yesterday. Seemed wrong, they did. Too spaced, like them bodies all stringy-loose. An scared as shit, they was, too, all balled together like tryna hide under theyselves, but having them some freaky-ass laughing. Were mighty fucked up, Tulip. Never seen any so bumberjaxed, I ain’t. Never seen powder like that, neither.”

He’d plunked himself down on the couch, right in the center so if either she or Terrible wanted to sit they’d be cozying up next to him.