LITMIR.BIZ

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jerked back. Kind of a stupid thing to do, really; she could see what it was—who it was—even as her feet moved without her. But the tension in the air crawled all over her body, the memory of that blood-filled room refused to leave her head, and she could still feel the weight of Terrible’s hand on the back of her neck.

      “Right, now, little one.” Terrible held his left hand up by his shoulder, palm facing the huddled figure on the floor. His right sneaked behind his back; Chess watched it wrap around the handle of his knife. Just in case. “Ain’t nobody hurt you, aye? Whyn’t you get on up, we—”

      The person—the woman—raised her eyes. Chess looked into them and saw what Terrible couldn’t possibly see: the dark glee of black magic. Felt its aura slam into her like a freight train, felt her skin grow hot and her brain expand in her head.

      Two other shapes materialized, grew from what looked like bundles of cloth on the floor into people. Two men, two witches. Two murderers, interrupted before they finished whatever they were planning to do with all that blood and energy in the next room.

      The woman on the floor ripped the tape off her mouth and leapt to her feet in one smooth, too-fast movement. A fetish dangled from her hand; Chess saw it and screamed.

      Terrible spun toward the wall, trying, Chess assumed, to get his back against it. Along the way he grabbed her arm and practically wrenched it out of its socket attempting to force her behind him.

      She wouldn’t go. Couldn’t go. Because the thing that woman held carried death worse than whatever had happened across the hall, and Chess had to stop it.

      Fuck. If she told Terrible what the real worry was it would only make the woman start her spell faster. If she didn’t tell him he wouldn’t know and the spell would go off, anyway.

      Her arm ached where he’d yanked it. She gritted her teeth and lifted it, taking advantage of the split second before the fight started to grab his hand and squeeze.

      His gaze darted to her; she dipped her head toward the fetish, squeezed his hand again. Begged him with her eyes to understand. If he didn’t…Shit, if he didn’t, they would just go ahead and die here. She didn’t doubt for a second that he could beat the two male witches—the two Lamaru, she assumed—standing in lame-ass martial-arts-movie fighting poses in front of them. There was no reason to doubt; even if she didn’t have the confidence she had in him, the look on their faces made it very clear they hadn’t bargained for quite what they were getting, and those looks of worry deepened when he drew his knife and pulled a length of thick dull chain from his pocket.

      But the fetish—the desiccated toad clutched in the woman’s fist, its body stuffed with all manner of—

      She’d bought a bunch of stuff from Edsel, it was in her bag. Get it now, yank the zipper open and find the rustly plastic. Go for the mandrake first, and the mirror…Her hands shook.

      The woman started speaking. Words of power, tinged with seeping, kicking misery, in the kind of voice that made cats scream on fences in the middle of the night. It hammered into Chess’s skull; she fell to her knees, her fingers curling into claws to try to protect her ears from it.

      The fight started in earnest, that second of hesitation over. Terrible’s chain flew through the air and the Lamaru jumped to the side. A hand tangled in her hair and yanked her away from the fight. She scratched at it, wishing she had longer nails, wanting nothing more than to draw blood from that fucker’s sensitive inner arm.

      Blood. All that blood in the room across the hall, the blood of murder victims. All that power, the fear and pain, just waiting to be activated. Don’t forget it, don’t let the fetish taste blood—

      The woman screamed in the middle of her chant. Chess managed to look at her in time to see the chain wrapped around her wrist and Terrible yanking it up, forcing the woman’s arm over her head. The fetish fell at the same time as his fist slammed into the woman’s face. At the same time the other witch thrust a dagger forward: a fakeout while his free hand skimmed the floor.

      Shit, what was she doing? Her attacker’s crotch was just at the right level; Chess clasped her hands together and drove them home. He groaned and collapsed, taking a chunk of her hair with him as he fell. She barely felt it. Get her bag. Get her bag.

      Terrible kicked back the blade-wielding witch and dropped the unconscious woman. Blood ran down his arm. He reached for the fetish, still there at his feet.

      She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t get the word out of her mouth fast enough. His blood would activate it, she didn’t know if the woman had actually finished the chant before he got her, but whether she had or not, if his blood touched that thing—

      He heard her. Stopped. Her own hand closed around the fetish. Violent, raw power tore up her arm and through her body until she couldn’t see, couldn’t feel anything but its unthinking, unfeeling greed. It wanted all of her, her death, her pain, anything it could get; it was pure destruction racing through her body and battering at her skin, looking for escape.

      She would not let it. Her stomach writhed inside her as though it had developed its own mind as she scuttled back to the wall, away from the male witches now back on their feet.

      She couldn’t hold on anymore. Too much, the blood and the misery and the evil pouring through her system. She pressed her head against the pitted wall and threw up, barely conscious, clutching the hideous toad to her chest with every bit of strength she had.

      Clawed fingers closed around her arm. The woman, her face covered in blood. Chess kicked feebly at her, every movement a struggle through mud and the roaring hate in her body.

      The woman’s voice creaked out of her mouth, crawled over Chess’s skin, searching for the fetish in her arms. Chess kicked again, tried to scream past the horrible taste in her mouth and the horrible power suffocating her.

      The woman’s head jerked back. A quick movement like the flash of a hummingbird’s wings, and blood gushed from her throat. The light in her eyes died, a bulb stuttering out. She fell to the floor in an ungraceful heap.

      Silence fell with her, broken only by Chess’s heart hammering. Through the haze over her vision she saw Terrible bend down, reaching for her. She pushed herself farther into the corner, away from his hands.

      “No. No, don’t touch me, don’t touch me, it’s all over me, you can’t touch me—”

      “Aye, Chess. Aye. No touching, aye? Give me the knowledge what to do. What you need?”

      Fresh tears stung her eyes; she shook her head, both to deny them and to try to clear the lowering clouds in it. The spell’s pressure had lessened when the caster died, but the fetish itself still choked her, still felt as though slippery black tentacles were slithering into her body and hooking into her organs. Into her soul. The image—not to mention the feeling itself—made her stomach lurch again. Fuck, it was awful.

      “Got time, Chess. No problem. You say when ready, aye? ‘Sall cool here.”

      What did she need? “My bag. I need my bag.”

      The blood—blood from the three dead witches now littering the floor around her, blood from the victims in the next room—called to her, sung to her so sweetly she had to push her forehead against the wall again, hard, to fight it. The fetish in her arms writhed with power. It wanted the blood. The blood wanted it.

      The bag thunked to the cement beside her, half-open, but her fingers refused to let go of the fetish.

      She tried to speak; swallowed and tried again when the words tangled into a wiry ball in her throat. “Get, um, there should be some gloves in there.”

      It was a little late for gloves at that point, but she had the horrible feeling that every second she touched the fetish was another second it sank its awful teeth into her, another second it sucked out her energy like a mosquito.

      He opened the bag wide, poked his hand in. Even through the haze of power she felt his discomfort.

      After a few seconds the gloves

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