LITMIR.BIZ

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Lauren reached for Chess, started scrabbling at Chess’s shirt. What the—oh. The gun. Oh, shit, the gun. “Stop right there, buddy, or I will shoot you.”

      “Lauren, you can’t—” She tried to twist away but Lauren found the gun butt and yanked it from her waistband, spun toward the car with the weapon lifted.

      The trigger clicked. Empty. The clip still lay on the ground by Chess’s feet.

      Lauren bent down, grabbed it, but she was too late. Terrible stabbed the gas and spun the wheel, sending the Chevelle roaring in an arc and spraying them with dirt. Its fat tires squealed on the pavement; he swerved around the pig corpses in the middle of the street and disappeared, leaving bloody tracks in his wake.

      Chess hit the ground, hard. Her legs simply refused to support her. Without thinking she reached for her bag, shoved her hand in. She wanted her pills. Wanted to throw whatever she had into her mouth and swallow it, wanted—needed—to float away from this whole bloody scene and dull the pain in her heart. How he’d looked at her—worse than before. So much worse.

      “Who was that?”

      Oh, right. The pillbox fell back into her bag. Lauren was there. Probably not a good idea to pill herself into oblivion with a fellow Church employee—one who outranked her and was the Grand Elder’s daughter to boot—standing right there watching. Damn it.

      “I don’t know.”

      Lauren’s eyes narrowed. She still held the gun; for a second Chess thought the woman was actually going to raise it again.

      Then it passed. “It looked like he knew you.”

      Chess shrugged. The less said the better. Deny everything—the first rule of survival.

      “So that’s it. You don’t know who he is or why he was here.”

      “No.”

      Movement in the intersection drew both their eyes; Chess silently thanked whatever luck had finally decided to pat her on the head. One of the witches, still alive after Terrible had bolted through the circle and apparently run them down. Must have been interesting, being forced from wraith form back into one’s body and then plowed into by several tons of BT steel. Well, good. She hoped the bastard suffered.

      Her legs felt rubbery beneath her as she followed Lauren to the fallen body. What a mess. Blood ran everywhere from the sacrificed sows. Black ones, illegal to breed or own. The blood of a black sow—that was some heavy dark magic indeed. As they’d just witnessed.

      Charmarks outlined where the circle had been. The inside was full of blood, tacky under their feet. Menace vibrated up her legs. She stepped over the bodies of two other witches, barely glancing at them. This could be a trick. With her right hand she touched the handle of her knife, tucked into her pocket. Lauren would probably freak if she realized Chess was armed, but better that than dead.

      The witch moaned again, writhing in his blood-soaked robe. His robe with the Lamaru symbol on the front.

      “They must have been watching,” Lauren said. She tugged a bright pink cell phone out of her backpack. “Waiting for us to show up.”

      Gee, you think so? Chess thought, but said nothing. Lauren had handled herself pretty well during the attack; even if she hadn’t, and if she didn’t outrank Chess, there was the little matter of pretending she didn’t know Terrible or why he was there. Best not to bring Lauren’s thoughts back onto her, not when there was a convenient injured Lamaru witch right there to take the weight.

      Lauren nudged him with her toe, pressed a button on the phone. “We need a wagon. Yes. Yes. Corner of Fifty-fifth and Brand. Yes, Downside. Yes, you will. What do you want me to do, put him in my car? Get your ass down here.”

      She snapped the phone shut. “They’ll be here soon. Meanwhile…” She nudged him with her toe again. “Hey. Hey, you. What did you think you were doing down here?”

      The Lamaru witch moaned again. Lauren’s mouth twisted. “I asked you a question.”

      “Lauren, maybe he’s not—”

      Lauren glared at her. “He’ll talk.”

      “Why don’t we see if he has ID or something first? You know, what we can find out on our own?”

      Chess didn’t want to touch him. Didn’t want to dig her hands into his bloody pockets, to make contact with the evil hovering over him like a cloud of locusts.

      But she did. The sigil on her forehead blazed on her skin, the wards in her tattoos ringing like fire alarms. She jerked away. “He’s Hosting.”

      “What?”

      “Look.” She forced herself to touch him again, ignoring the stinging sensation, and tilted his head so Lauren could see the silvery cast of his one open eye. Blood clung to her hands, made it hard to breathe.

      Lauren loomed over her, leaning to peer down at him. “How the hell did his Bindmate escape my psychopomps? Shit. Let me call them back and let them know.”

      “Sure, I can Bind him down on my own,” Chess muttered. Luckily the supplies she’d grabbed earlier were still within easy reach in her bag; she dusted the broken Lamaru with asafetida and graveyard dirt, added a little salt and power to keep whatever he had inside him until it could be Banished at the Church. Squatting in pig blood next to an evil piece of shit—and Lauren, too—was bad enough without having to summon her psychopomp and take care of it herself.

      Lazy, sure, but then given the type of investigation this was, the Church would probably want to get a look at the thing themselves anyway.

      She had to move him to get into his pockets; he shrieked when she did. His right arm flailed, narrowly missed her face.

      Lauren grabbed it and slammed it to the ground, eliciting another shriek, while Chess opened the slimy wallet.

      ERIK VANHELM said the driver’s license. Below that was an address in Cross Town. Erik was awfully far from home—if he actually lived at that address—but then he would be. Nobody would try to pull shit like this in one of the decent parts of town, where the Black Squad actually patrolled and the neighbors actually cared.

      She pulled out her notebook and scribbled the information down. Never hurt to keep your own notes, especially not when working with the Squad. Or with anyone, for that matter. One of the reasons Chess chose Debunking was so she could work alone.

      Lauren held her hand out for the wallet; Chess slapped it into her palm, aware again that they were being watched. Aware too that she had to get home. He was going to show up, she knew it. If she was right about Bump owning something near here, which she had to be…yeah. Arriving with a member of the Black Squad and poking around was not going to win her any points in the Bump’s-best-pal contest.

      Would he talk to her when he came to get her?

      She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. She was sure she wouldn’t have a choice.

       Chapter Six

      Be aware that when you work for the Church you belong to the Church, body and soul. You cannot serve two masters.

      —Careers in the Church: A Guide for Teens, by Praxis Turpin

      Pace, pace, pace. Her body still buzzed, woozy from speed; she desperately wanted to take something to come down but didn’t dare. Couldn’t fall asleep. Needed to be sharp when he got there.

      Lit another cigarette. It made her queasy on top of everything else, but what was she supposed to do? She’d rushed through her second shower of the night, dried her hair, put on makeup and a red top she knew he liked, even as the little voice in her head told her there was no point. She took another couple of Cepts to drown it out and kept pacing.

      Tried to read; the words swam on

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