Downside Ghosts: Unholy Ghosts Part 31

"Chess! Chess!" Terrible's roar, audible over the interrupted chants. At least someone was looking for her, someone noticed. What had he said they called them, the pilots? Flying aces? At least she'd done something right, at least she'd learned what was really haunting the airport ... flying aces. Dozens of them. Here. Aces in the hole. Aces up the sleeve. She could certainly use one of those.

Aces who still haunted here, above the ground. Aces who hadn't gone below to the City. The words kept circling in her head, like they should mean something, like she was trying to tell herself something but couldn't get through the thick, black static of the thief's connection.

She forced herself to relax and rest her forehead on the ground. The City. The murderous ghosts, the Lamaru controlling ghosts ... controlling what they summoned ...

The smell of dirt, dirt and smoke and green things, filled her nose, cleared her head just enough for her to open up, to focus on her pinky and her blood as it poured into the earth.

Her swirling thoughts snapped into place. The airport was haunted. Real ghosts. Real ghosts who'd been here for just over a hundred years, who'd been created when the place burned, when ... sleep deprivation caused madness. Madmen who died sometimes splintered apart, became something else, twisted and merged and formed new ent.i.ties.

Like Dreamthieves.

If this was where he'd come from, if he was made from discarded parts of the airport's ghosts, they would seek to reabsorb him. They would overpower him, dissolve him.

If she was right. If she wasn't ... if she wasn't she'd just better hope she was strong enough, because an entire battalion of ghosts would take them all out, every living person on the field, in about two minutes.

f.u.c.k it. She didn't have a choice, did she? Story of her life. Either the thief and Lamaru would kill them all or the ghosts would, but at least with the ghosts she had a chance. She forced energy into her blood, into the earth, and opened herself to it as wide as she could, waiting for it to leap back into her, to flood her senses. Waiting for it the way she waited for her pills to dissolve, every muscle in her body tense and expectant-but this would be more than her pills, more than any drug. The ultimate rush. The Summoning words hesitated on her tongue, ready to leap from her mouth into the air the second the power hit her.

Nothing happened. She could feel the thief advancing, knew he would be on top of her any second. This had to work, had to work, she had no idea how she would fix it later or what it might mean to b.u.mp or Lex if she did, but at least she might be alive to do so, relax ...

Energy surged up from the ground, into her finger, through her. Earth power, solid power. The kind spirits could not draw on, not like humans could. It was their prison, they could not pa.s.s through it and they could not use it.

She flipped over. The thief was there, only a few feet away. Not much time at all. Her fingers closed around a match, sc.r.a.ped it on her jeans, touched it to the herbs spilling from her hand.

"Kadira tam! Kadira tam! You are compelled! With blood I summon you and with blood I compel you!" Wind tore the last words from her throat. Nothing happened.

s.h.i.+t. She'd never done it before, was breaking half a dozen Church laws by even attempting to do it now.

The Dreamthief stood directly above her, knife at the ready. She raised her leg, trying to kick him away, but it pa.s.sed through him. Only the knife and the hand holding it were solid. Good.

She lay back, as though too weak and afraid to do anything else, and waited for him to lunge. The opening would come, be ready ...

He moved, dropping down, and she shoved herself up as hard as she could. His blade sliced her arm but she barely noticed, too distracted by the freezing pain of pa.s.sing directly through him.

She didn't bother to break her fall as she came out behind him, but let herself land on her chest with a thud. The rest of the melidia was still there on the ground, it might be enough.

Over the now-quieting shouts of the fighting men came another sound, a low, heavy buzz like a drill. She ignored it. She'd failed, but she was still alive, and she would not go down without a fight. If he was connected to her she could unconnect him.

The melidia was there. The black chalk was gone, but she had her knife. Not the best option but an option.

The buzzing drone grew louder, drowning out everything else. Chess grabbed her knife and brought the point to her left arm, gritting her teeth against the pain, glancing up to watch the Dreamthief pick himself up off the ground.

Hands on her, barely closing around her shoulders before an ugly crack rent the air. The witch's body crumpled to the ground, his head twisted sideways. Terrible's feet by her leg. He'd broken the man's neck.

She slid the knife along her arm. Up, over, down ... a Bind rune, a protective rune, a rune of purity, slashed into her flesh. Agony grabbed hold of her with sharp teeth and made her vision waver as the runes warred with the thief's evil tinge in her blood.

Wind swept over her skin, whipped her hair around her face. She grabbed the melidia and leapt to her feet, stumbling over bodies as the thief lunged for her again. His knife drove into the spot where she was only seconds before.

That was when she realized no one was fighting. They'd stopped. They'd stopped, and they were staring at the sky as planes droned and swooped overhead, so many it seemed the sky was made of them. They were looking up.

It had worked. The ghosts had come.

Ducking her head, she weaved through the men and dumped the last of the melidia out of the Baggie when she reached the edge of the crowd. It lit with a hiss. She squeezed the wound on her pinky, dripping blood on the pile, and dropped the amulet into it.

Flesh smacked against flesh behind her. Her head turned instinctively and she saw Terrible again, his teeth bared in pain and rage, his hands closed around the thief's lone solid hand hovering above her head.

The thief disappeared.

White lights turned the runway into an alien landscape, colorless and bizarre, as the first plane dove in for a landing. Men scattered, resuming their fighting in twos and threes.

"Ereshdiran, I command you to return. Return to your place of silence, return to your place of hiding, return to the place where you hold no power. I command this by fire, I command it by smoke. Return!"

Another plane, and another. Spectral men emerged, climbing from the open holes as the propellers slowed.

Ereshdiran reappeared, at her side. He'd lost the knife when he disappeared, but his teeth looked solid enough, as well as both of his hands.

Chess steeled herself and grabbed them, like dipping her hands into dry ice. She reached for the power in the ground, reached for the dead pilots, and drew them in.

She screamed. Her stomach twisted and lurched in her belly, her legs went weak. She just had to hold him until the amulet melted, just long enough ... she drove power into the fire, heating it, forcing it to burn so bright she had to close her eyes.

He disappeared again, leaving her gripping nothing, with energy surging through her body like a speeding car.

The fire. She held her hands over it as close as she could bear, antic.i.p.ating his next move.

She was wrong. A Lamaru leapt for it, his face twisted toward her so she could see the thief staring at her from his eyes. Possession; a clever move, but a bad one. He'd forgotten humans could be hurt, that they died.

Terrible's knife flashed. Blood spattered over her hair and face. The witch fell, still scrabbling at his throat with clawed hands. The thief emerged from his body like the moon rising over the trees.

The witch's blood hit her fire, building it with more of Ereshdiran's own power. The thief wavered, trying to disappear. His ugly, bulging eyes s.h.i.+fted to the right, watching, as the ghosts advanced on him.

Another plane landed. Another, practically on top of one another, the precision in their movements as breathtaking as it was terrifying. Still the sky was full, still the amulet burned at her feet. It hissed and popped as the copper melted.

"I compel you!" Chess squeezed her finger, shook it and her arm. Blood flew from her wounds into the air, ran down her hand to the ground. She lifted it, pointed her dripping finger at Ereshdiran, and shoved as much energy as she could pull from the ground into her next words, so much her throat burned and her eyes watered. "I summoned you and you are compelled! By blood and power you will obey me! Ereshdiran tama longram!"

For one heart-stopping minute the ghosts didn't move, and her stomach flew into her throat. If she'd been wrong about Ereshdiran's origins, or if she'd brought them here but wasn't able to control them, they were all dead. Had she used enough power?

Ghosts brushed past her, through her, stalking Ereshdiran. His mouth opened, a smudgy hole in his face as they crowded around him, closing in, closing ranks.

Terrible's breath caught. Chess dragged her gaze away just long enough to see him, his head thrown back, for once ignoring everything around him. His fingers closed around hers. "Look," he said quietly. "Look at them."

The planes cut patterns through the air. They shot straight up into the sky then dove back down. And every minute it seemed more of them appeared, more and more, different planes, newer-looking ones, older ones.

Movements across the field. b.u.mps' men, victorious, dragging bodies across the gritty landscape. Where was b.u.mp? She hadn't seen him since the ritual started. He'd probably gone back to his car, waited and watched, let the others do the work. What else could anyone expect?

Her legs weakened suddenly, like someone had smacked her in the backs of the knees. Before she could straighten she felt them, felt people waking in their beds all over the city with their hearts pounding, already forgetting the details of their nightmares but glad to be awake and alive.

The fire went out. Chess looked down and saw only a river of gleaming copper, already cooling into a twisted shape in the gra.s.s. She held her hand over it, opened up. Nothing. Clean. The copper was empty ... and so was she. No more thief lurking inside. Nothing but her own self, and the overwhelming power of the earth and the ghosts. She closed her eyes, held on to it for a minute. Feeling good. Feeling alive, and actually glad to be so. Then, regretfully, letting it go. That power wasn't hers. She released it, let it seep down through her body to ripple out from her feet.

A pale, shriveled hand thrust itself into the air between ghosts, Ereshdiran's hand, closing into a desperate fist before shrinking back on itself and disappearing. Chess s.h.i.+vered, and suddenly she couldn't stop s.h.i.+vering. Balancing on her own was impossible; she leaned against Terrible, clutching at his s.h.i.+rt, and realized he was shaking, too. The ground was shaking, rolling beneath their feet like it was trying to give birth.

Too late, she realized her mistake. She'd taken earth energy and combined it with her own, used it to call and power the ghosts; now she'd returned that ghost-tinged energy to the ground, and it was reacting to the unnatural mix. Violently.

As the world started to spin around her, as she half-ran, half let Terrible drag her toward the fence and the parking lot, she saw the planes were disappearing one by one from the sky, from the runways. It was like a meteor shower overhead, lights zooming through the darkness and popping off. She hadn't Banished them, hadn't had a chance ... hadn't needed to.

She stumbled. Her ankle screamed but she ignored it, her legs aching and her breath coming in gasps. b.u.mp's men caught up, pa.s.sed them.

The dilapidated wooden building collapsed. Water surged from the well beside it, a geyser of sewage. Chess ran harder. They weren't far now, the fence was just ahead- Cracks formed in the mud, snaking in front of her, to the sides. Blackness oozed around the edges of her vision. She couldn't keep up this pace. Rocks flew through the air, chunks of concrete, sharp bits of gravel that stung everywhere they hit.

The fence ripped, poles falling apart. The rusted links bounced and dissolved under her feet as they ran across it and got in the car. Terrible started the engine and threw it into reverse, slamming the gas, sending a shower of gravel out from under the big, broad tires. The last thing Chess saw as they drove away was an enormous slab of concrete from the runway, standing vertical, sinking like a wrecked s.h.i.+p back into the earth.

Chapter Thirty-eight.

"So the sun rose on the eighth morning, and the people saw the spirits had gone. They might have thanked G.o.d, but they knew the Truth. So instead they thanked the Church."

-The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 1000 Terrible lit two cigarettes and handed her one, keeping his eyes on the road. She didn't think she'd ever had one that tasted better.

It was over, the whole thing was over. No more Ereshdiran, no more Mortons, no more danger. She could go home, once she'd bought a new mattress. She could go back to working on her own job and not b.u.mp's.

"So," she said, grabbing the baby wipes out of her bag and scrubbing her exposed skin with it. "So that was fun."

"Ain't a usual kind of night, leastaways."

"What's going to happen to them? The ones b.u.mp caught, I mean."

He glanced at her. Right. She probably didn't want to know the answer to that one. She could probably guess anyway.

"I guess b.u.mp's not going to be able to use the airport after all, huh."

"Look like not." He shrugged. "b.u.mp always got other plans. You ain't need to worry. You did what he asked, aye?"

There was that d.a.m.n twinge of guilt again. No, it hadn't been her fault that the airport collapsed on itself. But she'd called the ghosts. She'd done it to save her life, to defeat Ereshdiran, but she'd called them, and she'd done it without caring what happened to the airport.

It wasn't the thought of b.u.mp making her feel guilty. He'd used her, jacked up her debt with some bulls.h.i.+t about interest and used it to force her into an investigation she didn't want to be part of. h.e.l.l, if she hadn't been out to Chester and found that amulet, chances were none of this would have happened. She could have asked the Elders for help to Banish the Dreamthief from the Mortons' place. Brain would be alive. Randy might be alive.

Randy had slit his own throat, that was true. Getting involved with the Lamaru, calling or allowing them to call such an ent.i.ty ... She shook her head. Foolishness, but foolishness she could almost understand. That need to belong was so strong in people, it seemed. So strong she fought against it every day. So strong that even when she thought she'd beaten it for good it popped back up.

Randy had never been strong like that, and he'd been taken. Even then it might have been okay if it weren't for her blood, for Ereshdiran hooking into her soul like a poisonous barb and using her power combined with Slipknot's to overcome his captors. So she had been a contributing cause in that one ... at b.u.mp's order.

Just like b.u.mp's orders had led Brain to her, had allowed Randy to hear from blabbermouth Doyle about Brain showing up at her place, so Randy and the Lamaru could make that connection and know they'd been seen. At least she a.s.sumed that was how it happened; it wasn't like anyone was around she could ask except Doyle, and she had a feeling he wouldn't be too eager to talk to her.

No, she didn't feel guilty about b.u.mp not being able to use Chester Airport. She felt guilty because she'd lied. To Terrible. He trusted her, and she'd betrayed that trust. Several times.

It wasn't anything she could apologize for or explain. It just was.

"Hey, how'd you make that happen, anyroad? You bring them ghosts? How'd you make em go after him like that?"

Her spirits lifted a bit. At least somebody cared about what she'd done. "He was part of them. Made from them, after they went crazy and burned down the airport-sleep deprivation, remember? They splintered, or something. So I set them free to take him back, and they did, and since I used his energy and earth energy to call them, once he was gone and I gave the energy back they had to go."

He nodded. "Awful smart, aye."

For a second irritation p.r.i.c.ked the back of her neck. Wasn't he going to express some sort of amazement? Was "awful smart" really all she was going to get?

But then she realized, with an odd, blus.h.i.+ng sort of warmth, that it had never occurred to him that she wouldn't be able to solve the problem. That while she'd been flailing around in the dirt, scared s.h.i.+tless that she was about to kill them all, he'd had complete faith in her ability to save them. Just as she'd never really doubted he could protect her from the Lamaru.

Wasn't that an uncomfortable thought.

"What you gonna tell them up the Church? About what's-his-name back there, the one got himself dead?"

She thought about it for a second, glad to have something to distract her, even for a moment. "The truth, or as much of it as I can. The Mortons were my case. He was involved in it. I'll have to say I only found out about the connection tonight, and that's why I didn't call them, but ... they don't really need to know about the rest of it."

"So you all roses with them, aye? Done a good job and all."

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." It didn't feel much like it, though. It felt like she'd done something wrong, like there was a brand-new stain on her soul. She turned toward the window and caught her own reflection, her eyes wide and dark under her bangs.

"You cool? Ain't talking much."

"Yeah, I'm just ... I'm sorry. I know you were looking forward to using the airport again."

He tilted his head, glancing at her with an amused look. "You joke, aye? Saw something way better than some single-engine puddlejumper in that sky this night, Chess. Ain't trade that for nothing. Worth it all the way up. Like I said, there's other places. b.u.mp always got some plans. Like you, aye? Got some plans for now? I mean, now?"

"N-yeah, actually. I do. I'm supposed to meet someone. I mean, I said I would, after I was done. He-they're waiting for me."

Pause. Barely a pause, but she noticed it. "See? Already on to the next move. Chess. Where I drop you?"

The tunnel where Lex waited wasn't far, down the street from a convenience store. She told Terrible to leave her there, and they pulled up outside much more quickly than she'd thought.

What was she supposed to say? She looked over at him, his face filthy, swollen and bruised from the fighting and stained with neon red from the lights outside. It had been ... good, to work with him. To spend time with him. Like having a real friend for the first time in her life. But how was she supposed to say something like that without sounding like an idiot? What did you say to people, when you actually wanted them around?

"Here." She tugged out a fresh baby wipe. "You're all covered in yuck."

He didn't move a muscle while she ran the damp cloth over his face. She had to use her left hand to do it, while her right braced his chin. His skin warmed her fingers.

"Close your eyes."

He did. She used a new wipe for them, sliding it over his skin until she realized she'd been doing it for too long and stopped.

The wipe crumpled in her fist. "Okay, well, I'll see you, right?"

"Aye, you know, I'm always around."

"No, I mean ..." s.h.i.+t! What did people say? "I mean, you could call me, if you want. Just to hang out or something, you know?"