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  “Why did you stop having them? The parties, I mean.” The Solomons glanced at each other; Mr. Solomon spoke up. “We’ve just been busy lately, is all, and tired. But we will have them again. We’re not going to let that nosy bitch keep us from living our lives. What we do is none of her business, and we believe in spreading love around, that it’s positive and right to spread love around, and we’ll keep doing it.”

  Mrs. Solomon leaned closer to her husband, rested her head on his shoulder. “If it’s never happened to you, you don’t know. The…the energy we can raise together, the joy we fill the room with…it’s beautiful.”

  Mr. Solomon twitched. Not a big twitch, nothing Chess would have noticed had she not been specifically looking for it. But a twitch was a twitch, and Mrs. Solomon had mentioned raising energy, and now Chess knew how they were summoning ghosts. She just didn’t know why.

  Speaking of twitching… It was time to go. She had some pills in her bag with her name on them.

  She stood up. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time this afternoon. You’ll probably hear from me at some point in the next few days, so don’t leave town or spend the night elsewhere or anything until further notice.”

  “We have a vacation home in Crestview,” Mr. Solomon said. “We were planning on taking a long weekend—”

  “Sorry. You need to stay here until my investigation is complete. I’ll try to finish it as quickly as possible.”

  Not that it mattered. When she finished her investigation the Solomons would go to prison and then to the City of Eternity below the earth where the dead lived forever.

  Where humanity was safe from them, because a ghost aboveground was a fucking killing machine, and the Solomons were putting thousands of lives at risk.

  One last thing. Chess stopped at the door, held out her hand. “Thanks again, Mr. and Mrs. Solomon. I’ll be in touch.”

  Mrs. Solomon shook first. Energy, yes, but not particularly strong or powerful. It was definitely in the air, in the house, but that was only to be expected. Especially since the woman was so open. She had no protections, no “psychic armor” for lack of a better term, to keep her energy inside and away from people. A born victim, really. Just a twist of fate had led her to being a villain instead.

  Mr. Solomon was different. His hand touched Chess’s, and energy shot up her arm and made her tattoos vibrate. She glanced up at him just in time to see a flash of silver disappear from his eyes.

  Mr. Solomon was Hosting.

  Chapter 4

  “Like that dude Tyson, aye?” Terrible slid the Chevelle up against the curb two streets away from the Solomons’ house. “Got a ghost inside.”

  “Right. He’s not as creepy, but he’s still sharing his body with a ghost. That’s why they have all those sigils and shit on the windowsills and doors. They’ve made their house a spirit home to keep the ghost there.”

  Terrible got out of the car, came around to open Chess’s door for her, a little habit of his.

  She’d wondered a few times where it came from, why he did it; certainly he hadn’t had a mother or father to teach him. He’d grown up like her. Well, he’d grown up both better and worse than her, sleeping on the streets or being taken care of for a week or two by the occasional drunk or lonely junkie instead of being moved from foster home to foster home like she’d been, beaten or raped by a string of shithead rent-a-parents, starved or treated well all according to chance.

  “Why do you do that?” she asked, as they started walking toward the Solomon house with his hand engulfing hers, making her feel safe. “With the door, I mean. I always wondered.”

  “Ain’t you like it?”

  “I do, I just wonder where it came from.”

  “One of Bump’s dames. Brenda, were her name. Told me I should.”

  “Bump’s women taught you a lot of things.”

  “Aye.” He grinned down at her. “Recall I tell you on Lisa?”

  “The one who taught you how to read?”

  “Ain’t all she taught me.”

  She stopped, and gave his hand a little tug to make him do the same. His puzzled expression relaxed when she reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck to press her lips to his. “I think she did a very good job.” His hands slid further down her back, all the way down to hold her bottom and pull her closer. “Aye? Thinkin maybe I forgot me some, maybe you oughta give me some reminding. True thing, ain’t wanna lose the knowledge.”

  “Later.”

  It sucked to pull away from him, but she had to. If nothing else, they stood in the middle of somebody’s lawn in a strange neighborhood at one in the morning. Not really the time or place to start taking off clothes.

  He obviously disagreed. His strong arms stayed around her, trapping her against him as he kissed her again. Harder this time. Deeper. Deeper still, until her blood pounded in her veins and her hands wouldn’t stop moving, exploring his back under his shirt, tucking themselves into his jeans.

  “Let’s get us back in the car.” His voice, low and thick in her ear, made her shiver.

  “No.” One last kiss before she pulled away again. This time he let her go. “Let’s just get this done. Then we have the whole night. In bed.” The streetlight on the corner cast half of his face in shadow, but the visible half clearly showed him calculating how likely he was to get her back into the car.

  Not likely. She tugged on his hand. “Come on. It won’t take long, I promise.” They started walking again.

  “So why you thinking he got it on? Tryna kill somebody? Power, maybe? You get any feel from him why?”

  “I didn’t get much of a feel for either of them, really. They’re just…lame. The only halfway-interesting thing they seem to do is sleep with other people together.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t I—? Oh, no, sorry, I didn’t have time to mention it before. They have an open marriage or something, and they both sleep with other people, and sometimes I guess they both sleep with that other person at the same time. A threesome.”

  “Damn. Them out here got so much they don’t mind givin the share, aye?” They’d reached the Solomon house, once again dark and silent inside. Oh, they had a ghost. They just weren’t scared of it, didn’t feel the need to turn on lights.

  Stupid. Lots of people—especially people who’d managed to build themselves a little power by borrowing from others in a gathering like the Solomons had done—tried to summon ghosts. Some of them succeeded, too. And most of them died. A ghost couldn’t be controlled, couldn’t be reasoned with, or at least something like ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them couldn’t be. Their humanity…changed, after death. Disappeared, really. All ghosts wanted to do was kill.

  “I didn’t think of it that way,” she said. Funny, that. But he was probably right; he usually was. These people didn’t mind sharing because they always knew there’d be more. They never doubted it.

  This time he was the one who stopped, tugged her back to him. His hands were warm and solid on the sides of her face, cradling it while he kissed her. “Got some knowledge for you.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  His lips touched her forehead. “Don’t give a fuck what else I got. Ain’t never sharin you.” Sometimes he looked at her and their eyes met, and it felt like time stopped. Like he wasn’t looking at her, he was looking into her, and like she was doing the same to him.

  She reached up to stroke his face, his thick muttonchops rough and soft at the same time against her fingertips. “Me either.”

  She’d always loved his smile. Even back in the very beginning, when she’d thought he was ugly and, well, terrible, she’d noticed it. She’d been so stupid then not to see the rest, to waste those months because she was scared or whatever the hell her problem had been.

  “C’mon,” he said finally, pulling away. “Let’s get us inside, aye?” Chess knelt on the cement slab that called itself a porch and pulled the Hand of Glory from her bag. Terrible stood by silently whi
le she lit the candle in its palm, whispered words of power. The click—or whatever it was, she always thought of it as a click—when the spell set came back to her a second later. She turned back to him and nodded.

  A minute with her lube syringe and lockpicks got them inside the house. Even in the middle of the night the scent of incense assaulted her as if they had a pound of it on the fire.

  Terrible sniffled, his face hidden in the dark. “Likes they some stink-herbs, aye?”

  “Yeah. I think they’re using sandalwood to cover up something else.”

  “An they all asleep? Ain’t wake up?”

  “Nope.” She pulled her flashlight out of her bag. “The spell lasts until I put out the candle, so they’re in enchanted sleep. You could shoot a gun in here and it wouldn’t wake—”

  His lips cut her off, taking hers in a kiss that refused to be denied. She knew that kiss.

  Knew it meant that he had no intention of stopping until both of them were exhausted, and if she wanted him to stop she needed to say something fast. The trouble was, as his hand slipped under her shirt and up to slide over her breast, as he pulled her bra cup out of the way so he could roll her nipple gently between his fingers, she didn’t want him to stop. She never wanted him to stop, not ever.

  This was a subject’s house. This was so wrong, she shouldn’t even have brought him along. If the Church found out about it she could get into some serious trouble. Even Chess, whose file looked pretty damn good—certainly the best Debunking record in the District—would get a big-time slap, if not a day in the stocks, for this.

  “Gots it all to weselves, aye?” His warm breath on her throat, her ear, his teeth gentle on her flesh. “Just you an me.”

  She couldn’t answer. Couldn’t, because she knew she should be saying no, telling him to wait until they got back to her place or his. But the words refused to come. Instead she just made a gasping sound, almost like a whimper.

  He kissed her harder, his tongue sliding past her lips to find hers. Metal clinked; he’d popped open his belt buckle, and his other hand left her breast to undo the buttons of her jeans.

  “Want you so bad, Chessiebomb. Now.” His teeth on her neck, biting harder. “Aye? Now.” The Solomons had several bean bags dotting the floor in their living room. Hippies.

  Terrible lowered her onto one of them, reaching over to yank another closer and tuck it under her head. The cold heavy cotton shocked the bare skin of her lower back, the suddenly-bare skin of her bottom when he slipped off her panties and pushed them down along with her jeans.

  His back under her palms, so warm and solid. His chest so strong, covered with the thick hair she’d never imagined she’d like as much as she did. Covered on the left side over his heart by the scar she’d made, the shape of a binding sigil that had kept him alive the night he’d been shot. That sigil might still be keeping him alive for all she knew.

  But he was alive, and that’s what mattered to her. It was all that mattered as she let her palm run down his stomach to play over the thick blunt head of his cock, all that mattered when he gasped above her.

  He pushed her hand away, catching her right thigh in the crook of his elbow as he did, thrusting into her before she had a chance to realize what was happening, yanking a cry from her throat then quieting it with his mouth. The beanbag sighed beneath her, shifted as he started to move slowly, carefully, making little circles with his hips, dancing in and out of her for endless delicious minutes until she dug her heels into the backs of his thighs to urge him to speed up.

  His hands stroked the sides of her face, slid up into her hair, over her breasts. They gripped her hips and tilted them up, holding her steady for him, his fingers digging into her skin hard enough to make pain mingle with pleasure and drive any other thoughts from her head. She didn’t want to think about anything else, anyway. What was the point, what else was there?

  Nothing. Only him, his hand shifting again to slide down between them and touch her in the spot he knew would have the greatest effect. His body driving into hers, against hers, wrapping around hers even as she wrapped around him. His face above hers, his eyes half-glazed and focused on her. Completely on her, like there was nothing else in the world.

  The beanbag shifted beneath them with every thrust. She twisted her arms around his and used them to brace herself so she could lift her hips to meet him, heat building, pressure building like white light pooling in her pelvis, like a star about to supernova.

  He gasped her name. His hips moved faster, harder. The rest of the room disappeared; she didn’t feel the beanbag beneath her, didn’t see the ceiling over them, didn’t smell the horrible incense. She was flying and the only thing holding her to the earth was Terrible’s hands, Terrible’s weight above hers. Terrible putting her back together when she burst apart beneath him, clutching his arms. Terrible gasping louder, pushing her harder, speeding his pace even more, totally absorbed. She heard his breathing grow shallow, felt him swell inside her, watched his face change as he shuddered over her and fell into her arms.

  Chapter 5

  Their breath barely had a chance to return to normal when headlights flooded the front windows and the sound of an engine idling outside made her lift her head. What the fuck?

  Oh, no.

  Terrible looked at her, the same thought reflected in his eyes. But he was faster, leaping off the beanbag and peering out the window. “Cab in the drive.”

  “What? They— Shit! Shit, shit! They weren’t home, they’re not here asleep, they were out. Fuck, we need to get out of here.”

  “Ain’t got time. Them outta the car, dig.”

  She tried to remember the layout of the house as she snatched up her stuff from the floor. “Down the hall there’s a closet. Come on.” This was one of the stupidest situations she’d ever been in on a case. Fuck! Thankfully it appeared the Solomons didn’t use the closet often; an ironing board, a few boxes, and what looked like an exercise machine of some kind, covered in dust, huddled against the walls. Enough room for both of them to get their jeans back on.

  “Hopefully they’ll go to bed soon,” she whispered, leaning back against him. She blew out the candle on her Hand.

  She had every right to be there. As she’d told Mrs. Solomon, the Church granted her authority to enter anytime she chose, at any hour of the day or night. But getting caught was…bad form. Among Debunkers, not getting caught was a point of pride.

  Of course, there was the added complication that she’d brought her…well, boyfriend, though as always that word was too small to encompass what he was to her. That could be a problem.

  Terrible’s lips tickled her ear. “I could just knock em out, aye?” She laughed softly, tilted her head to kiss him. “I somehow think that wouldn’t be good if the Church finds out.”

  Voices filled the air: Mrs. Solomon, laughing about something. The door closed behind them. Chess leaned forward a little to hear.

  “I’m tired,” Mrs. Solomon said. A male voice mumbled something Chess didn’t catch, and Mrs. Solomon laughed. “Right, Joe.”

  Joe? Mr. Solomon’s name was Doug, she’d called him Doug earlier. But maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was her boyfriend, or some guy she’d picked up, or who the hell knew what.

  Chess tilted her head back, turned her face toward Terrible’s. He leaned down so she could reach his ear. “What did the guy look like? Outside, I mean, when he got out of the car. What did he look like, did you see?”

  “Weren’t too light, but lookin…like them out here, dig. Clean. White buttoned shirt. Had he a beard, them brown pants an shined-up shoes. All straight.”

  “And it was just the two of them?”

  “Aye.”

  Chess had tossed the beanbags back into an approximation of where they’d been; it seemed like she’d done all right, because no alarm was being raised. Instead, murmurs and soft laughs drifted back from the living room. Were they going upstairs or what?

  She rubbed her arms, shifted her weight
. Hoped Mrs. Solomon and this Joe person would get the fuck upstairs so she and Terrible could sneak out. The incense smell, so strong even in the closet, made her nose itch; her arms itched, her chest—

  Shit. That wasn’t a normal itch. That was ghosts: the tingling, burning kind of itch they always caused when their energy hit the magic imbued in Chess’s tattoos. There was a ghost in the house, a ghost nearby. But Mr. Solomon was the one Hosting, and his name wasn’t Joe, and the man Terrible described didn’t sound at all like Mr. Solomon: She doubted Mr. Solomon had ever worn trousers and button-down shirts in his life. The man owned a business and ran it wearing torn denim, so…

  The lights in the living room hadn’t gone on, and—oh, shit—little sounds started making their way into the closet, sounds that were unmistakable indications that Mrs. Solomon and her companion were doing some “celebrating.” Terrible pulled back Chess’s hair so he could kiss her neck. “Be in here a while, aye?”

  “Maybe he won’t last long.”

  Terrible’s short laugh made his chest move against her back. “Aye, maybe so.” Mrs. Solomon yelled something, something that had something to do with cowboys, if Chess heard right, and— Wait. Wait a minute.

  Mr. Solomon was Hosting. He shared his body with a ghost, but Chess would only feel that when the ghost was “out,” so to speak—when it had control of his body. The underwear on the floor in the bedroom came back to her. Of course. One man preferred boxers, the other briefs. No, Mr. Solomon didn’t wear khakis, he wore jeans and t-shirts, but there had been tidier clothing on the floor, right? So the ghost wore button-downs, the ghost wore trousers. She honestly didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like it, heard of anything like it in six years of Church training and almost four more of Debunking.

  People didn’t Host spirits and just…let those spirits exist as another person using their body. They Hosted for power. They worked with a ghost but didn’t allow the ghost independence. How fucking dangerous was that? What was the matter with these people, did they not realize what a ghost would do if given control of a body?