Chasing Magic

And, nope, she wasn’t going to let them do that.

The witch checked his swing when she leaned forward as much as she could, trying to bend over completely so Mr. Darnell would rise from the floor. He pulled back harder, his arm tightening around her throat. She kept leaning. Lights started sparking behind her eyes, red and green fireworks of imminent death bright against the figure of the witch, the tackily tasteful living room.

Just when she thought she couldn’t bear it one more second, she stood up straight. Fast. So fast Mr. Darnell didn’t have time to react; he kept pulling her, and they both tumbled to the floor, the witch’s fist barely missing her.

With Mr. Darnell beneath her and the witch leaning over, she kicked out with her right leg, managed to catch the witch in his rather ample stomach, and sent him stumbling a few steps away. Her elbow dug into the soft space below Mr. Darnell’s rib cage. His arm around her loosened—not a lot, but enough for her to sit up and start to roll off him.

Roll right into the barrel of the gun.

“Stand up.” Mrs. Darnell’s voice didn’t shake. Her eyes didn’t leave Chess’s face. “Come on, get up.”

Great. This was just great. How many people had she busted in her four-year career? Almost exactly four years, in fact. Dozens. Dozens of people. None of them had ever tried this shit with her.

That could have been because if she had any suspicions they might, she asked the Squad for backup, of course. Where the hell were they?

Her legs still felt weird from the spell. That energy hadn’t faded completely. She risked a glance at the witch, saw him standing with his fists clenched, whispering something. Another spell. Wonderful.

“Mrs. Darnell, I don’t think you want to do this.”

“I think you’re wrong.” Mrs. Darnell’s narrowed eyes shot beams of cold hatred at Chess. “I think you’re really, really wrong.”

“Killing a Church employee is automatic grounds for execution. Not to mention we get a special dispensation so we can haunt you until that execution happens. I really—”

“You idiot. How the hell did you manage to catch us, being that stupid? I don’t want to kill you, no. But I will, unless you sign those forms and give us our money.”

“They won’t—”

“Shut up.”

Chess shut up. What was she going to do, argue with the woman holding a gun to her face? Besides, she wanted to think.

Mrs. Darnell had obviously held a gun before, used one before. Both of her hands wrapped tight around the gun’s butt, and her arms bent slightly to absorb its kick. Her entire stance indicated complete confidence. The safety was off. “Now. Get the forms or whatever you need. Slowly.”

“You won’t be able—”

“Oh, but we will. We’re all ready to go. You didn’t think we’d stick around here, did you?”

Mr. Darnell stood up. “I’ll take the gun, Lois.”

“No. If I take my eyes off her, she’ll move.”

No, she wouldn’t. The witch’s spell grew stronger again, and this time she knew if she tried to say the Banishing words she’d be shot. This was ridiculous. She did not spend her whole life fighting to end up shot in some over-mortgaged suburban ranch house.

Might as well take a chance. She dropped to the floor, pushing herself forward so she hit Mrs. Darnell’s legs. The gun went off as Mrs. Darnell staggered back.

Chess hadn’t been hit. Excellent. She was deaf but she hadn’t been shot.

She raised her fist—like lifting a ten-pound weight through a tub of dense foam—and punched Mrs. Darnell in the knee as hard as she could.

Another explosion from the gun. Mrs. Darnell fell on top of her. Chess tried to roll over and push her off; the woman was surprisingly heavy, but she slipped a little. Enough for Chess to shift herself to the left, enough to find Mrs. Darnell’s right hand still clutching the gun.

The witch’s voice grew louder, the energy in the air darker and thicker. If Chess didn’t get that gun away immediately, she was going to die, no question about it.

She kicked back with her right leg, catching Mrs. Darnell somewhere, she didn’t know where for sure. Mr. Darnell had joined in the struggle, trying to pull his wife away and help her up, but Mrs. Darnell was apparently having too much fun trying to bite Chess and punching her in the legs and side. Chess kicked again, and again, her leg screaming from the effort—it was so heavy, so fucking heavy—until she somehow managed to hit Mrs. Darnell in the face.

The woman’s grip on the gun loosened. Only for a second, but it was enough. Chess snatched it away, raised it above her head, and pulled the trigger.

The picture window at the front of the room exploded; shards of glass filled the air, a deadly tidal wave of sharp edges and splinters that could slice veins, dust that could choke.

For a second everything stopped. Everything except Chess; she’d been waiting for that pause, hoping for it, and she used it—it and the power rushing back to her, since the witch had stopped speaking—to push Mrs. Darnell away once and for all, to stand up and hold the gun on the two of them still on the floor.

The front door flew open—the Black Squad, their own guns drawn, their all-black uniforms and helmets like moving ink spots against the pale walls.

Chess lowered the gun, looked over at them. “You’re late.”

One of the Squad members glanced around the room, then back at Chess. “Any problems?”

She grinned. Now that she had the gun, now that the Squad had arrived, relief and adrenaline buzzed through her body, and she felt cheerier than she had since … well, since that morning, anyway. “No. Not really.”

Chapter Two

The best kinds of surprises are intangible! The warmth of a sudden visit from a friend far outweighs material goods.

—Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies, by Mrs. Increase

Her body still ached three hours later, when she trudged up the stairs of her apartment building—a former Catholic church, renovated after Haunted Week proved all religions false—to the hall.

Hers was the only apartment on that side of the L-shaped building, and the stained-glass window that made up the entire front wall of her living room was only one of the reasons she loved it. The privacy, the space—it was hers, something that was only hers, for all that it was just rented.

Nobody came in without permission. Not anymore, not ever again.

That didn’t stop people from visiting, though, at least it didn’t these days. Proof of that stood right outside her front door, slumped against the wall in that elegant lean he did so well. “Hey there, Tulip. Starting to wonder iffen you come home at all on the anymores, aye?”

“Hey, Lex.” As always, a confusing mix of emotions tumbled through her head, through her chest. Happiness to see her friend, the desire for him to leave before Terrible got there, annoyance at the way he always just showed up and assumed he’d be welcome—what if Terrible had been with her? Just because he didn’t forbid Chess from seeing Lex didn’t mean he approved or liked the fact that she did.

She didn’t approve of or like it, either. Nor did she approve of or like the small, insistent tingle of arousal low in her belly, but she couldn’t change it. For almost three months, seeing Lex waiting for her had signaled more drugs and at least a couple of orgasms. It took time to undo that sort of conditioning, no matter how completely in love she was with someone else and no matter how much Lex knew it.

He bent to give her a kiss on the cheek—that familiar Lex smell washing over her—and smiled. “Figured I’d give you the hellos, me, see iffen you needed all anything.”

“I can always use more.” A minute or so to unlock the three bolts on her door and release the magical wards she’d set up, and she led him into her kitchen.

“Figured on that.” He reached into the front pocket of his battered jeans and tugged out a wrinkled plastic sandwich bag half full of her little white best friends.

She took it. Her pillbox was only about a third empty, she’d just refilled— Wait a minute.

She gave him a sharp look. “Why are you really here?”

“Ain’t I can come on a visit? Thinking you ain’t give Blue the what’s-up she brings sheself here, so why I getting it?”