Downside Ghosts: Unholy Ghosts Part 7

He thought for a moment. They were farther down now, the ground sloping gently. Every thirty feet or so a weak fluorescent bulb in a metal frame fizzed at them from the ceiling. It made the whole experience even more unreal to Chess. She was actually walking underground on purpose, in a cold, dank cement tube that stunk of mold and offered no protection against anything. It was hard to remember the walls were banded with iron when it felt as if they were closing in on her, as if they could swallow her and turn her into another rust stain on their gritty faces.

"Three years past, four? Convenient. n.o.body see where you heading, n.o.body know where you are."

"Do they go all the way under the city? I mean, everywhere?"

"Now you asking for secrets. Secrets you don't need."

Unless she wanted to find out how someone could have disappeared from Chester Airport so quickly the other night. "I just wondered. Curiosity. Maybe I'd need to come talk to you, sometime."

"You need to talk, you call." He paused. "Lessin you want to give me a secret, I tell you what I know." The gleam in his eye was definitely not related to the airport; in spite of herself, a little trickle of excitement worked its way up her spine. He was, after all, just her type: handsome, arrogant, and totally self-centered, as bad for her as her Cepts and just as appealing.

"Forget it."

"Your choice, tulip." He kept walking, forcing her to catch up. He may not have been the safest company in the world, but their footsteps echoed in the small s.p.a.ce and she was overly conscious of how far underground they were.

The tunnel split into three separate shafts. Lex took the right-hand one, not breaking stride as he turned.

"How do you know where you're going?"

He started to whistle. Right.

They made another turn, a left this time. It was like a rabbit warren, but spookier. Her neck started to ache with tension. "How long are we going to be down here?"

"Until we get where we're going."

"That's not very helpful."

"I ain't a helpful guy."

She rolled her eyes. At least he'd stopped whistling.

Maybe that wasn't such a good thing. As the sound of their feet grew m.u.f.fled by moss and slime covering the ground, Chess became aware of another noise. A low humming sound, burbling like distant laughter.

"What's that noise?"

He stopped. "You want to chat, or you want to get you home?"

"I want to go home. But ... hold on." Her fingers closed around the hard muscle of his left arm as he started to turn away. "Is that a normal sound down here?"

"I don't hear nothing."

"That gurgling noise, like somebody talking."

It was louder now, as though whoever was making it was getting closer. Her skin p.r.i.c.kled.

"Sorry. Not hearing it." He turned again, took a couple of steps. The next bulb they would pa.s.s under was burned out, casting that section into blackness.

"d.a.m.n it, will you stop a minute? Just listen. How do you not hear that?"

He s.h.i.+fted on his feet, his gaze in the dim light s.h.i.+fting up and down the tunnel.

"Well?"

"You said be quiet, so I'm being quiet."

"But do you hear anything?"

"I hear you."

"No, that's not-"

The rattle broke into her speech, the spine-crackling sound of dead vocal chords trying to live again.

Chess turned, her heart pounding an alarm in her chest, and saw the ghost staring right at her.

Chapter Nine.

"And the sun set so nothing but darkness existed, and the dead rose with a violent hunger."

-The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 2 At first all she could see were his eyes, burning black holes in the pallor of his hard face. More details slid into view as she stood, frozen, unable to think of anything but the fact that her workbag was still in her apartment. She had no salt or bones, no herbs, no Ectoplasmarker, no way to protect herself or summon a psychopomp.

And the farther underground one went, the more powerful the ghosts became.

On top of his head sat a peaked cap of some kind, sepia tinged as though it had been brown in life. It matched his jacket and the suggestion of baggy trousers below his belt before his feet faded into nothing.

Lex, to his credit, stood rock still next to her. He barely seemed to be breathing.

"I thought you said the walls here were banded with iron," she muttered.

"I lied."

Great. Chess turned to the ghost, holding her hands palm up, hoping he would read innocence and helplessness from the gesture.

"We're just pa.s.sing through," she said carefully. "We're not trying to disturb you."

It didn't work. The ghost shrunk, his features twisting into a furious grimace, like a lion preparing to pounce. Chess spun away, grabbing Lex's arm.

"Get us out of here! Get us out of here now!"

The filth on the floor sucked at her feet as they ran into the darkness. Behind them she felt the ghost, felt the freezing cold of its spectral body almost touching her back. They couldn't get away, there was no way to escape it. Ghosts didn't get tired. They didn't give up.

The bulb ahead of them flashed, blinding her, before exploding in a shower of powdery gla.s.s. Chess ducked her head and yanked up the bottom of her T-s.h.i.+rt to cover her face.

Her left foot slipped sideways. She kept running, taking long, awkward steps in an attempt to keep her balance. Lex's fingers bit into her skin as he grabbed her, dragging her along like a reluctant toddler.

She didn't know what made her fall, if it was simply that she could not regain her stride or if the ghost somehow managed to hit her with something. Aboveground they couldn't attack humans without using a weapon. Below, all the rules changed.

Filthy water filled her nose and stung her eyes. It tasted like sewage and iron. She gagged, trying to raise herself back up, but something forced her head back down.

Her fingers curled into sludge as she tried to grab hold of something, anything, to help her. Filth oozed through the bandage on her palm and soaked her wound. In the chaos of the tunnel her heartbeat seemed unnaturally loud, only drowned out when the roar of a gunshot made the floor beneath her vibrate.

She thought her ear drums were going to explode. The sound didn't stop, reverberating through the confined steel-and-concrete s.p.a.ce for what felt like hours, while she struggled beneath the weight on her back.

Gathering all of her remaining strength, she managed to s.h.i.+ft her body sideways, lifting her face out of the foul wet slime. Air rasped into her throat to fill her lungs. A very dim light still shone, enough for her to see Lex backed against the wall, aiming for another shot.

"No! Put it away!" It was meant to be a scream. It came out more as a gurgle.

Metal glinted above her head as the ghost raised his hands. In them he clutched the end of a piece of pipe from the ceiling. If he touched her with it, she was dead. Even from her position on the floor she could see the wires sparking inside it.

Time froze. Chess watched the pipe start its descent, watched a single glint of light erupt from the end of it and die. Her fingers found a seam in the wall and gripped it, so hard she felt each individual piece of grit in the cement as she struggled to pull herself out from beneath the ghost's legs.

Lex stepped forward, his heavy industrial boot catching the pipe and trapping it between the wall and the rubber sole. The ghost turned to him, its face contorted in fury.

Chess scrambled out of the way as Lex fell backward. The ghost lifted the pipe again, aiming for him. He ducked. Metal rang against cement.

"Break the pipe!" she shouted, hoping Lex would understand as the ghost turned on her.

Lex did. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him leap up and hook the length still attached to the ceiling with his bent arm, using his leather jacket as insulation. For a moment he hung in the air, his legs spread like a professional basketball player making a slam dunk, before the brackets holding the pipe creaked and snapped and they were plunged into blackness.

"Get out the water," he gasped. Something sc.r.a.ped behind her as she braced her feet against the very edges of the floor.

It only took a second, but it felt like forever that she stayed there, s.h.i.+vering and covered in filth, listening to Lex's heavy breathing in the dark.

Then light exploded through the tunnel as the live wires. .h.i.t the sludgy mess covering the walkway.

Like a photo negative Chess saw Lex's tall, slim form outlined in blinding blue-white, saw the ghost contort and disappear. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could but still she saw it, still she heard the shrieking hiss as thousands of volts poured through the tunnel.

A final explosion, somewhere in the distance, and it was over. She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted salt on her lips.

"You right, tulip?"

He could have been anywhere. Right beside her, or fifteen feet away. She started to nod before she realized he couldn't see her, either.

"I'm fine."

His hand brushed her arm. "Didn't know electricals killed the kickers."

"They don't. I mean, it doesn't work that way. It was probably an energy overload. Shorts them out, same as the lights." It would also get her shoved into a cell for a few months if anyone from the Church ever found out about it. Spectral abuse was a pretty serious issue, ever since some descendants found out a Debunker purposely summoned a spirit wolf instead of a dog and it savaged the ghost. The descendants sued and won.

Metal clicked against metal, and the tunnel filled with a soft yellowish glow. Lex held the lighter up near his head. "More light a few turns away. Let's us move, aye?"

"Is the ground safe?"

"Safe enough. Transformer blew, I'm guessing." He stomped his feet in the sludge. "No volts here."

Not quite as brave as he, Chess stepped gingerly into the center of the path. "Okay, then. Can we get out of here now?"

He laughed softly. "Whatever you say, tulip, whatever you say."

Half an hour under the hot water in her own bathroom was just about enough to get the stink of sewer out of her nose. Funny how the tunnel itself hadn't smelled so bad, but that mess at the bottom ... urgh. Her hand stung from the water and the gallon of disinfectant she'd soaked it in.

The only thing the shower didn't help was knowing what she had to do next. Terrible's note had not been eloquent, but it had been clear. He didn't appreciate being stood up when they were supposed to go back to Chester that afternoon, and she couldn't blame him.

She popped another Cept on her way out the door, preparing to be yelled at. He hadn't said on the note where he would be, but the Dusters were playing at Chuck's on Fiftieth, and she bet she'd find him there. The Mortons would have to wait. They wouldn't break down her door or cause her severe physical pain if she failed to break into their home tonight without their knowledge. Terrible might do one or both of those things if she didn't make an appearance immediately.

Donning clean jeans, a semisheer black top, and a pair of high-heeled boots, she tucked her knife-returned to her by Lex when he let her out of the tunnel six blocks from her house-a twenty, and her keys into her pocket and headed out.

Two steps down the hall she turned back and grabbed a small bag of asafetida, too. It had been stupid to go out without it the night before. She wouldn't make that mistake again.

Of course, it had been stupid to trust a word Lex said and go into the tunnel to begin with. It had been stupid to sort of agree to this. h.e.l.l, pretty much everything she'd done in the last few days had been stupid.

Nothing she could do to change it now. Surely some way to keep two drug dealers and their various minions in the dark about her activities, while pretending to one that she couldn't Banish Chester's ghosts, would come to her. Probably in the car. Most of her best ideas came to her in the car.

Her heels clicked pleasantly on the pavement as she rounded the corner of Fiftieth and Ace. The usual suspects dotted the street, shoulders hunched against the mild November chill-rockabilly punks like Terrible with their greased DA's and bowling s.h.i.+rts, a few old-school kids like Lex with spiked hair and padlocks around their necks, even some lounge boys in sharkskin jackets and creepers. Most of the girls dressed like Chess. Punks were like birds. The men got to decorate more than the women, as a rule.

The Dusters hadn't started playing yet, so everyone was outside drinking from paper bags. Chess b.u.mmed a smoke off a retro skater kid-complete with a ragged Lance Mountain T-s.h.i.+rt she imagined would fall apart if he tried to wash it-and crossed her arms, scanning the crowd for Terrible. Might as well get it over with.

He didn't seem to be there. Most of the faces were familiar, but his wasn't one of them. She circled the crowd, frowning. If he wasn't there she'd have to go to b.u.mp's, and she'd rather see the show.

A couple made out against the gritty stucco wall on the side of the club. Chess watched them for a second, embarra.s.sed to do so but unable to turn away, something quiet and small twisting in her chest.

The girl was a little thing, platinum blond, in a miniskirt and a pair of platform heels that looked like they weighed more than her entire body. Her thin legs crossed at the ankle behind the guy's waist, while her tiny, pale hands dug into his back. Chess couldn't see her face; it was almost entirely hidden by the guy's hands, cupping her cheeks like he thought the bones might break. Chess didn't think she'd ever been touched like that. A pang of pure envy ran through her.

The girl caressed the back of his neck and lifted her hands to twine her fingers in his hair. His hips pressed forward, pinning her against the wall, and he dipped his head to kiss her throat. The light caught the prominent ridge of his brow and the crooked b.u.mp of his nose.

It was Terrible.

Heat rushed to her face. Yes, definitely Terrible. No wonder he'd blushed when she teased him about his sideburns. She'd never even thought of him as actually being interested in women. He seemed totally as.e.xual to her, like instead of f.u.c.king he preferred beating people up. A silly a.s.sumption. He was a man, after all.

But then, she herself generally preferred drugs to f.u.c.king. In an ideal world she'd take both. So why expect he might not?

Taking a furious drag off her cigarette she turned away, intending to lose herself in the crowd until he was available for talking, but her heel caught a crack in the pavement and her slightly sore left ankle twisted. She didn't fall, but the sc.r.a.pe of her shoe on cement and the tiny yelp she couldn't keep inside was bad enough.

Heads turned. Including Terrible's. "Chess. Where you been, girl? I waited outside your place hours, you never show."

The little blonde gave Chess a look of smug venom. b.i.t.c.h. If she pressed any closer to Terrible's side she'd start to sink into him like some sort of l.u.s.ty Siamese twin.

"I got stuck at work," she managed. "Sorry. I didn't have your cell number or anything, so ..."

"Aye, okay. Remind me, I give you the digits." He nodded toward the line forming at the door. The band must be getting ready to play. "You coming in?"