Sacrificial Magic Read online

  But that was the price she paid, and she knew that. So she squared her shoulders. “You don’t have any idea who could have told? Who knew the place would be empty?”

  “Terrible an meself, coursen. An a some they others. They needed for fuckin clearin up, dig, movin fuckin furniture. Movin them fuckin Dream out, yay. They Bump gots fuckin trust for.”

  “So who could they have told?”

  Bump shrugged. “Ain’t shoulda given none the fuckin tell, yay? Bump’s business Bump’s own fuckin business. Ain’t for nobody givin out.”

  “Well, clearly someone you trust isn’t really someone you should be trusting,” she said without thinking, and regretted it when Terrible glanced at her. He did it fast, just a quick cut of his eyes in her direction and then away again, but she saw it. She felt it.

  It was starting already. She wished she could say she was surprised, wished she hadn’t been waiting for it, expecting it the way she expected rain from black clouds overhead. Nothing in the world was permanent, especially not happiness.

  She’d always known that. She just wished life would stop proving her right.

  That thought, and the feeling of doom it created in the pit of her stomach, burning a hole into her soul, stayed with her as she walked into Elder Griffin’s office the next morning. Most cases were given out on Wednesdays, and she could use a new case. Sure, she’d made a good chunk of cash on her last one—and almost been killed a few times to earn it—but after a new car, couch, and some clothes, a weekend at the pipes and another in a hotel in Northside with Terrible, her bank account still looked good, but not as good as she would have liked.

  Besides, seeing Elder Griffin made her feel better, as much as she could. And she could use it. She’d ended up home in her own bed, alone, because Terrible and Bump had things to talk about, things to do, people to beat down—so she assumed—and he didn’t know how long it would be. She’d left her kitchen light on hoping he’d come over when he was done, but he hadn’t. He’d texted around six to say he was just going back to his place because it was closer. She really, really wanted to believe that.

  It grew so exhausting waiting for the other shoe to drop that she wondered if she wasn’t trying to make it fall already. Sometimes, even, she almost wanted to tell him to just end it and get it over with. But she couldn’t. Just the thought of it … No. She couldn’t.

  Elder Griffin stood up to answer her quiet knock, to greet her as she pushed the already unlatched door open and slipped inside. “Good morrow, Cesaria. How fare thee?”

  She dipped into a quick, automatic curtsy. “Very well, sir. How are you?”

  He smiled, his blue eyes kind. And happy. He looked … yeah, happy. Not happy like he usually looked. Extra happy. “Excellent, my dear. Come, sit down.”

  She followed him back to his broad, shiny wood desk, situated right in front of the window covered with sheers. Through that gauzy, barely-there fabric the side lawn of the building glowed with the green of early spring while the trees showed off their new leaves. Everything new. Everything except her. She hated spring.

  She sat in the leather chair opposite, some of her tension—the tension even four Cepts hadn’t managed to chase completely away—fading. It would never totally disappear, no matter what she did or what she took. But it faded a little. Just the sight of the room, the skulls on the shelves, the jars full of herbs and potions, the television mounted high on the wall behind her with the sound muted, felt safe. The way the building felt safe. The first place that had ever been a home to her, the place where her entire life changed.

  “I’m pleased you’ve come,” he said, folding his hands on the desk. “I have a few things to discuss with thee, if I may. My trust in you and your discretion is absolute, my dear, which is why I chose you.”

  Uh-oh. “Chose me for what?”

  “A sensitive case. And … a sensitive issue I’d like to discuss with you.”

  Double uh-oh. “Elder Griffin, I really appreciate it, but I don’t think I’m ready to be Bound again. It’s—”

  “Oh, no, no. I apologize. I surely did not mean to make you think ‘twould be so strict. No, I merely wanted to discuss something with you of a more—a more personal nature.”

  Her brow furrowed. What personal issues could he possibly have to discuss with her? Sure, he liked her. She knew that. Knew she was probably his favorite out of all the Debunkers he worked with. Certainly he’d always been her staunchest supporter.

  But they never talked about personal things. Not like that. “Is everything okay, sir?”

  “Oh, of course, of course. All is perfectly well.” He gave her a quick smile, then looked down at his hands, the smile fading. “I am certain you know the Grand Elder has decided to step down.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry to hear it.” Actually she couldn’t give a fuck. She’d never particularly liked the Grand Elder, always found him far too hale-n-hearty and far too little actual thinking-n-caring. But even she had to admit that his reasons for leaving were sad: the Lamaru—an anti-Church terrorist organization—had murdered his daughter and sent one of their own people in with the strongest glamour anyone had ever seen. Strong enough to make the girl look just like his child.

  And she’d fooled him. Chess suspected that was what did it—not just that his daughter was dead, but that he’d spent a week with her killer, taking her to dinner, chatting with her in his office, touching her, hugging her. And he hadn’t known.

  Hell, if he hadn’t stepped down, Chess would have put decent odds on him being asked to. Not that she knew for sure he hadn’t been. But she kept that thought to herself.

  “As am I. But his resignation leaves a spot open, which in turn leaves more spots open. There might be one for me, methinks.”

  “You want a promotion?” A trickle of cold she hadn’t expected slid down her back, into her heart.

  She’d lose him. On top of everything else she felt slipping away, everything pouring through her fingers no matter how tightly she tried to grasp them, Elder Griffin wanted to leave her.

  Intellectually she knew it wasn’t about her. Intellect didn’t slow her panicky pulse.

  “I am considering it, yes. I do enjoy my position. I enjoy working with you—all of you.” His eyes lingered on her face just long enough to make her feel the emphasis on “you.” Just long enough to make her feel special. And just long enough for her to start mourning the loss of that feeling.

  “But I would also enjoy moving up. Perhaps to a position with a larger responsibility. And a higher income.”

  She gave him the best smile she could; her face felt like plastic. “Sure, of course. That makes sense.”

  He sighed. “I hoped you would think so, I very much hoped. I do not know how much support there would be for me in that endeavor. Many Elders are interested, of course. But I do not think of putting my name in to be the Grand Elder. I would never presume. I simply thought, perhaps a Resident Elder, or a High Elder … perhaps a Master in the schools.”

  “I think you’d be great at any of those,” she managed. He would be, too.

  “Thank you. You see, Cesaria, part of the process is to give the Elder Triumvirate the name of at least one departmental employee over whom I have direct authority, so they can question you and make sure I am effective in my position, that I uphold the Truth and the laws— I am sure thou knowst the sort of thing of which I speak.

  “Certainly of all the Debunkers your record is the most impressive, but I would also hope … I believe that—I have always believed in your skills, Cesaria, and I believe you have always trusted me, and mine. Your recommendation would be … meaningful to me.”

  He cleared his throat. Before she could respond—before she could even think of a response—he continued. “You see, I have another person to concern myself with these days. I have … met someone, and we plan to be married.”

  “Wow, that’s— Congratulations.” This just kept getting better, didn’t it. Well, no, that wasn’t fair. She was happy for him, she honestly was. How the hell could she not be? She wasn’t that selfish.

  She’d just never thought of him as being a man with a personal life. A romance life. She couldn’t picture him out on the town, having a few drinks and meeting people, or home with street clothes on instead of his Church suit and stockings, with sneakers or something instead of his formal buckle shoes. Elder Griffin Casual was just not an image she could conjure, no matter how hard she tried. She might as well try to picture him in a clown suit.

  His blush showed faintly through the light everyday white powder he wore. “Perhaps you’ll meet him? Methinks he would very much like that. Of course I would.”

  “Yeah. Um, of course, I’d love to.”

  “Excellent.” His eyes caught hers again, held them. “I am glad you feel that way, Cesaria. I admit the thought of working in a different department, of not seeing all of you, is rather painful to me.”

  So don’t go, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t. Not when he looked so happy, so excited about what his future might hold. That was the way normal people felt when they were trying to move up, when they’d found someone to love who loved them back. Not the way Chess felt, like she was trying to stem an arterial bleed with her fingertip.

  But then, normal people didn’t start their relationships by fucking people over, and normal people weren’t convinced that at any moment the person they were with was going to realize how completely worthless they were and run away as fast as they could. Normal people didn’t deserve to have the person they were with run away as fast as they could. So that might make a difference.

  “My hope is that you will still feel free to visit me. Assuming I am promoted, which of course is not guaranteed.”

  “Of course you will be. And,
um, yes, I’d love to visit you.”

  “Excellent,” he said again. He cleared his throat, sat up straighter in his chair. Chess could practically see an imaginary dial on his back turning from personal to BUSINESS.

  “I have a case for you.” He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a slim manila folder. Yes! Awesome, she could totally use a case. A real one, not chasing air for Bump.

  A case would leave her less time for that, but she’d still have enough. Wasn’t like she was the only one looking for the rat, either. Bump and Terrible would probably suss him out within a day or so, and they could all move on. She hoped.

  “The decision was made this morning to give the case to you, and I concur with that decision. You know I have always had the deepest belief in your abilities, and your discretion.”

  “I know.” Yeah, he had. And now she’d get some different Elder, who didn’t know her, didn’t care. He’d probably hate her; he’d see through her to the filth inside, and he’d know everything, and he’d hate her for it.

  “Good. This case was previously given to Aros Burnett.” He looked up at her gasp, the tiny sound she tried not to utter but which slipped out before she could stop it. “Yes. Aros found it … particularly difficult, and he gave it up. Gave up his post in Triumph City as well, as I see you remember.”

  Her neck practically creaked as she nodded. Of course she remembered. The halls had barely stopped buzzing about it; it had only been eight or nine days.

  “Aros was unable to give us a satisfactory solution. You’ll see his notes in the file. They become rather—jumbled, near the end, I’m afraid. But we feel strongly that you will be able to bring us an answer. We have seen the Fact and Truth of your skill many times. I look forward to seeing your resolution.”

  “Thanks.” The file hovered in his hand, just over his desk; she took it and started to open it. “Where is it?”

  “Well. That is another reason you were chosen, in truth. ‘Tis not too far from your residence. You are familiar with Mercy Lewis Second School? In Downside, on—”

  “Twenty-second,” she finished for him, barely noticing her own rudeness as she cut him off. Barely noticing anything except that address, staring at her from the original report in the file. Twenty-second and Foster.

  Right in the middle of Slobag’s territory.

  The parking lot outside Mercy Lewis Second School hardly looked like a parking lot at all. If not for the four or five battered cars parked at odd angles among the gravel and weeds, Chess would have thought it was just a vacant lot like any other.

  Four or five battered cars, and one sleek shiny coupe, gunmetal gray, the same color as Chess’s new car, although hers wasn’t as stylish. Or as expensive. As unobtrusively as possible she wandered over to where the car sat, pretending to be interested in the view on the other side of the rusty, torn chain-link fence, and committed the license plate number to her temporary memory. She’d write it down as soon as she got inside.

  Despite everything else—and really, given its location and the fire the night before, this case couldn’t have been worse for her—her spirits lifted as she headed up the cracked concrete path to the large front doors. Working again. Something else to focus on, something she could actually do something about, something with actual procedures to follow and clues she was trained to understand. That felt good.

  Mercy Lewis Second School—formerly an embassy for some South Pacific country, she thought—was clearly a product of that phase of architecture that had believed bland was better. It just … sat there, dull and brown, staring out at the dirty streets and crumbling buildings with an air of resignation. Whatever had happened to it, whatever changed in the world, it would remain, glowering at them all, suffering the crowds of teenagers abusing it every day.

  It could join the damn club. She made her way to the graffiti-covered entrance, pulled open a heavy door that gave a loud shriek of protest. Great. Well, good to know, anyway. When and if she came back at night with her Hand, this was not the entrance to use. She made a note—writing down the license number of the too-expensive car in the lot while she was at it so she could let it drop from her memory—and followed the faded signs to the office down the hall.

  The itching started when she’d made it about halfway down. Not withdrawals—not even possible, she’d dosed up right before she got out of the car—but something worse, something that told her three Cepts wasn’t going to be enough and made her wish she’d washed them down with a couple of shots, too.

  Second school. Any school. She couldn’t say the worst memories of her life came from schools—far, far from it—but the ones she did have weren’t fucking good, that was for sure. The memories she had of when she’d gone; when she’d been forced to go. All of her foster parents made her, because if her attendance dropped they wouldn’t get paid anymore, but none of them gave a shit if she actually learned anything, and her teachers hadn’t either.

  Those voices still echoed with every step she took. Just the air in the building, that particular chalkboard-antiseptic-dust-and-despair smell of school, reminded her where she was, made her remember how it felt and how much she’d hated it. The cold metal lockers lining the walls watched her, considered her, as her boots clicked on the polished concrete floors. She didn’t care what they thought, or what anyone she was about to meet thought, but she still felt that invisible cloud of judgment that seemed to hover near the ceiling of every school, ready to descend on anyone unlucky enough to walk beneath it.

  Whatever. She’d never gone to this school, and it wasn’t her prison now. She was an adult, she was a fucking Churchwitch, and someone in this school was trying to scare people and scam some money out of the Church. So she would catch them. It was as simple as that, and she knew it and believed it as strongly and purely as she knew Facts were Truth.

  Although … who would get the money, if the Church ended up paying a settlement? The Church owned the school, of course, and ran it, at least ostensibly. The Church wouldn’t pay a settlement to itself. So … another note in her pad. Who profits?

  The classroom doors she passed were closed. Through the narrow windows in each of them she caught glimpses of chalkboards and teaching Goodys standing before them, the occasional slice of backs bent over desks. Boredom and sadness seeped through the walls.

  Finally she reached the end of the hall, another closed door. ADMINISTRATION was written on it in peeling black letters, with “Fuck the” scratched into the glass above it. Heh. Without knocking she pushed it open, got a good visual snapshot of three women standing around chatting before they stopped to look at her.

  The one behind the desk, an enormous woman—she had to be close to six feet tall, and solidly built—with thin, frizzy brownish hair hanging limp from the top of her head, gave her the sort of disapproving smile Chess thought people with minor authority must practice in front of mirrors. Inexpertly applied red lipstick made her mouth look like a wound. “Can I help you, Miss?”

  The other two stepped away from the desk, almost in a flanking motion. Had they been Downside kids and not school ladies Chess would have thought they were getting ready to jump her. Then again, maybe they were. Just not physically.

  “I’m Cesaria Putnam.” She didn’t offer her hand. “From the Church. I’ve come about your haunting.”

  A moment of silence, as if none of them knew what to say. What the hell? They had to be aware of the procedure, they’d had another Debunker out there already. Then one of the women outside the desk, petite with red hair and a horrible baggy plaid dress, gave her a tentative smile. “Of course, yes. Please come in and sit down. Can we get you anything? Coffee, tea?”

  “No thanks.” Like she’d ever drink anything a subject gave her, at least in a situation like this. She did sit down, though, on the dingy couch that sank too far beneath her, so her ass hung lower than her knees. Getting out of that would be fun.

  The third woman just looked at her, an odd sort of smile on her face. As if she knew something Chess didn’t and was waiting for Chess to figure it out, or she was waiting for Chess to speak so she could belittle her. A smug look. Chess didn’t like it, and she didn’t think she liked the woman, although something in the way she stood, the tilt of her head and that smirk, reminded Chess for some absurd reason of Lex.