Sacrificial Magic (41 page)

“Fuck.” The word slipped out before she’d even finished thinking it. Not that she cared; it wasn’t like she had to watch her language in front of Lex and Beulah.

“What?”

“Yearbooks.” 2020, 2019 … 2000 and 2001 were the ones she needed. She found them at the end, yanked them off the shelf. “Fucking yearbooks. These have been here the whole time, haven’t they?”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“Chelsea Mueller went to school here. She’s the missing
link, the one I can’t identify. But if I can find her picture in here …”

Beulah’s brow furrowed. “You think she’s back here at the school?”

“Somebody poisoned me, right?” Check the index first. She flipped to the back of the 2000 book, that long list of names broken by pictures of Best Dressed, Best Driver, those dumbshit awards schools gave out so the snotty-ass “popular” crowd could pat themselves on the back even more. Whatever. Chelsea Mueller’s picture was apparently on page thirty-three, so …

Martin, McElroy, McShane—there was Lucy, smiling that fakey smile—Mertel, Miller, Miller, Mueller …

Monica
.

A much younger Monica, grinning shyly from beneath incredibly thick eyebrows and a mop of white-blond frizz held back with barrettes. Monica with a different nose, a smaller, more receding jaw, but still Monica, if Chess looked closely. Chelsea Mueller was Monica.

“Chess, holy shit, did you know that?”

“What?”

Beulah’s face right next to hers, staring at the yearbook. “Did you know—”

“That Monica is Chelsea? No, of course I didn’t, I wouldn’t have been trying so hard—”

“No.” Beulah’s finger moved across the page, stopped beneath Lucy McShane’s picture. “Did you know about her and Wen Li? That’s Wen Li, right?”

Beneath Lucy’s picture, a sentence in tiny grayish print:
“Cutest Couple—Lucy McShane and Wen Li.”

Holy shit was right. Lucy and Wen Li? Lucy had been pregnant, Wen had been involved in all of those student groups … She’d just started to think of all the implications when the explosion sounded in the distance.

Lex’s car was the fastest, so they all piled into it. Chess’s palms were clammy, her forehead hot. This was it, this was it … her fingers shook as she texted Terrible. They were coming, whether Aros was there or not, and if he wasn’t she’d just hang back somewhere.

The thought of either one made her mouth feel like she’d been sucking on a vacuum hose. She grabbed her water bottle: almost empty. Just like something else that was almost empty. “Shit, I forgot to ask you to hook me up.”

“Aye?” Lex glanced up at her, dug into the pocket of his battered jacket. “Good thing I brought for you, then, figured were about time.”

“Thanks.” She had to thank him, because he deserved it and because, well, yeah, she was grateful. But she couldn’t help the discomfort making her skin prickle, making her cast about desperately for some other topic of conversation. How much attention did he pay to her habit, how closely did he keep track?

Bad enough she knew Terrible did; loosely, yes, but she felt his eyes sometimes when she filled her palm, felt him checking how many pills were in it and how often she took them when she was with him.

Just like Terrible’s eyes on her pills, it bothered her to know Lex was watching, too, that he kept track of how often she asked him for more and thought about when she might. Why did people feel like they had the right to
know
things about other people, why did they have to observe and pay attention and think about them, why did they have to do that shit?

Her addiction was her own fucking business. It was
hers
. Hers alone. It belonged to her, and she didn’t have to share it with anybody and she didn’t have to talk to anybody else about it and it was private.

“So if Wen is involved … how did Wen get involved?” Beulah’s face in the dull streetlight glow looked too pale,
older with anxiety. “With Aros and everything? He hates the Church.”

“But he loved Lucy.” Another memory snapped into place. “His wife told me Lucy was a slut. She, shit, she said something about men writing Lucy letters—it didn’t even hit me at the time, I assumed it was just a common knowledge thing or something. But I guess Wen wrote her letters, and that’s what Mrs. Li meant.”

“He cheats on her all the time,” Beulah said. “I never understood how he manages to get all those women—”

“No telling what some dames like, aye?” Lex shot her a look. “Guessing for some ain’t matter iffen them married, iffen them treated shitty, dames always fuckin—”

“Shut up, Lex. You don’t know anything about Theo, or our—”

“Know he strung you on the lines two years, know you spent so much time on the cry us thought you ain’t never find a way off—”

“Guys, can we drop this for the moment?” Yes, it had been interesting at first, but interesting had turned into a waste of time awfully fast, especially given where they were headed and why. “Don’t we have more important things to think about?”

“Yes. Let’s talk about something important.” Beulah shot Lex one last glare. “Wen cheats on his wife all the time. I think he’s slept with half the teachers in the school. So I didn’t think anything of it when he started up with Monica, but … I guess that’s different.”

This time Chess didn’t need any speed to get her mind clicking. But then she did have a hell of a rough night ahead of her, didn’t she? Miles to go before she slept, and after the day she’d had she could use a little help, and luckily she had some she could snort.

She started digging in her bag for her hairpin. “Monica first told me the story of Lucy McShane. Monica does all those student groups, she did a few with Wen.
One of the ones Jia Zhang was in, right, one of the ones that met right by Aros’s place? And Aros was sleeping with Jia, too, he had nude sketches and photos of her in his cottage.”

Lex made a disgusted face. Beulah just looked sad. “That poor girl.”

“Yeah, well, shit, she must have—right. She could have arranged the catwalk with Wen and Aros, or one of the students. There were two people working the bolts.”

“I thought that seemed weird when it happened,” Beulah said. “Even if it was a ghost, how could one ghost handle two things at once like that?”

Chess nodded. “Then any one of them could have locked me in that trunk in the theater, and she has keys to the building, she could have gotten in the night Jia was killed—Jia had a copy of the—of a ghost summoning handbook and I took it from her. It had belonged to Chelsea Mueller, that’s probably why they killed her, because I found it. She’s the one who tried to poison me, she was in the room, wasn’t she, and— Fuck, she followed me into the bathroom, I’m such a fucking idiot!”

“Followed you into the— You mean earlier, before I came in?”

“Yes. She was waiting outside your office to see if I left, and she followed me to the bathroom to see if I knew anything, suspected anything. She tried to blame you, too, she told me you—”

“That bitch!”

Chess turned in her seat. “
That’s
what got your attention?”

“No, I just— What a bitch.”

“Yeah. Anyway. She must have set this whole thing up, right from the beginning. She seduced Bill Pritchard to get all those prescriptions for Aros, she started drugging him to make him crazy so he’d do what she wanted
him to do. That’s why Aros didn’t have any problems before. I mean, that’s just a guess, but I think it’s right.”

Lex spun the car onto Ace, heading for Twenty-fifth to turn north again. The music drifting from the speakers changed to G. G. Allin’s “Hell in NYC.” How appropriate. Wrong city, but still appropriate.

What exactly were they facing? Aros and Monica, yes, and their magic. But probably Bump and Terrible, too, and she knew about it and Lex and Beulah didn’t, and that made her feel kind of shitty even though she knew she shouldn’t. “So, I think they’re going to be doing another ritual, another sacrifice, up there by Twenty-fifth.”

Lex’s eyes caught hers in the rearview. “Ain’t that what’s already on the happening? They done they murder, building caught up fire?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, of course.” Not telling him was one thing. Lying was another.

“So she’s doing all of this to bring Lucy back, then? Her and Wen,” Beulah said. Yes! A change of subject, that was just what was needed.

A change of subject, and her speed. She dug a bump from the little bag, braced her wrist to suck it back. And another. And a third for good luck.

“She’s not very strong, remember? The ghost. I bet Monica thinks this is just going to be enough power to make Lucy solid, maybe even let her talk. She thinks she can bring her back. She’s going to destroy the balance in the world just so she can play with her cousin again and Wen can fuck her or something.”

“Damn, that’s some sick— Fuck.”

“Yeah, I— Oh.”

He wasn’t calling Wen a sick fuck. He was looking ahead, at the flames scorching the sky, engulfing a building several blocks down. At the corner of Twenty-fifth and Mercer, she guessed, and just as the thought crossed
her mind, another explosion, a louder one, rocked the street and sent debris and fire flying into the air.

Not just the building on the corner. The building across the street, too. Bump and Terrible weren’t fucking around. She hadn’t expected them to.

And apparently neither did Slobag’s men. Or Bump’s, because plenty of both filled the street, fighting, gargantuan and mad in the bright, changing orange firelight.

Where was Terrible? Was he in there? She checked her phone: any message yet?

No.

Suspicion lurked in Lex’s eyes, in the set of his shoulders, when he parked the car and turned to her. “Why Bump got he people here?”

She shrugged, didn’t reply as they got out of the car.

“Tulip?”

Fuck. “Bump and Terrible both know we expected another murder here tonight. Maybe they sent some guys to look for Aros or something.”

It sounded so lame she half expected him to pull his gun on her. But what was she supposed to do, admit she knew an attack was planned on that storeroom and hadn’t told him?

No. Yes, she owed Lex loyalty. But she owed Terrible more, so no matter how shitty it might make her feel …

Gunshots sent all three of them racing back behind Lex’s car to duck down and hide. “Some fucking fight, aye?”

“What do we do?” Beulah looked from one of them to the other. “Are you coming with us, Lex, or—?”

A wave of magic flew over the street, hard and fast as though driven by hurricane winds. Chess’s knees buckled beneath her; she braced herself on Lex’s trunk to keep from falling. Shit, that was so strong, so dark … so fucking powerful.

“Chess? Are you okay?”

The first effects of the wave passed but the magic remained, beating at her, thickening the air. Where was Terrible, was he feeling that? Her entire body went icy cold. If he was in that crowd, if he was fighting, and energy like that hit him … if he fell in the middle of that crowd, he’d be dead. He’d be killed, and the one who did it would be a hero on this side of town.

She swallowed. Swallowed again; too much saliva in her mouth, in spite of the amount of speed she’d done. She was going to be sick, that was the problem. Just thinking about Terrible on the ground, about guns pointing at his head or knives driven into his throat, made her want to be sick. Another swallow, a drink of water, but the energy around her made her feel even worse.

“They’re starting,” she managed to say in reply. “They’ve started, I can feel it. The ritual. The sacrifice.”

Lex looked around. “Who they sacrificing? You got the knowledge?”

She shook her head. “Could be anybody. They could have grabbed somebody from the streets like they did before. Who knows.”

About a block up, at the corner across from the burning warehouse, a parking garage rose from the broken street. Chess bet that was where they were, where they’d do their ritual. Maybe at the top of it? Maybe in the street, yeah, but they might want to be up high if they could; it would be more dramatic, and she had a feeling Monica was into that sort of thing. Anybody who dressed that badly had to be.

She pointed to the garage. “They’re in there.”

Her discomfort grew with every step. Which made sense, seeing as how every step took her closer to playing no-you-don’t with a pair of homicidal crazies. Every step took her closer to the ritual they were performing, the knowledge that they’d stolen so much power from the earth that beating them would be almost impossible.

Every step carried her closer to the outskirts of the fighting crowd, too. She scanned the heads bobbing and ducking. Terrible’s wasn’t among them. She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse.

They crept along, hugging the crumbling wall of the apartment building opposite the garage despite the very real possibility it could blow up any second.

Shadows moved in the garage. Shadows? Right. Shadows she could see because candlelight flickered softly behind them. Aros and Monica. Possibly Wen Li. And their sacrifice, of course.

“Lex. Are you coming with me?”

He looked at the fight, then at Chess. “Come along on the start, leastaways, aye.”