“Little faster, Terrible,” she murmured. “I don’t want it to notice.”
Oh, wait. The guy’s name was Terrible? Really? Didn’t anyone in Downside have a normal name? An adjective and a board game. Sure. Why not?
Terrible kept swinging at slightly shorter intervals, checking his backswing while Chess walked around behind him. Her head was down, watching the line as it poured into place; when she was finished, Terrible and the ghost stood within a circle five feet or so around.
She whispered something else, then looked up. “Okay, get out whenever you’re ready. Just don’t—well, you know.”
Terrible nodded, glanced down, and started backing up. Oh, right. The salt line would—wait. Normal people couldn’t do that, right?
Sure, just about every house had a jar of Church-salt in the cabinets; like a copy of the Book of Truth, it was practically given to people at birth. Well, no practically about it, really. Copies of the Book of Truth and jars of Church-salt were standard gifts for baby Naming ceremonies. Rick had one of each himself. And supposedly if you ever saw a ghost coming for you, you could throw the stuff at it and it would give you a few seconds to make a getaway if you could.
But normal people could not create binding circles like the one Terrible was now stepping carefully out of.
Who the hell was that girl?
“Okay.” She knelt and started marking the floor with what looked like a piece of black crayon or something, scrawling an intricate little symbol just outside the salt circle. The ghost re-formed inside it, its outlines clearing and defining again. When the girl leaned over and started drawing the same symbol inside the circle, the ghost swiped at her head with one long-nailed hand.
Rick gasped, then immediately regretted it when she just kept working. “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“Not really. It doesn’t have the energy to make itself solid, and nothing like a weapon or anything to solidify around, so it’s just cold.”
Okay, something was definitely weird here. How did she know so much? And this kind of magic, the kind of magic she was apparently doing, wasn’t legal. Not for regular people.
“Hey,” he said, aware that his voice sounded a little too loud, his joking tone a little too forced. “You don’t work for the Church, do you?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Terrible looked at him. The iron rod still dangled from his fist. Shit.
But Chess replied, glaring at the ghost as it renewed its efforts to hit her. “Why? Does it matter?”
“No, no, I just . . . You seem to be really good at this, is all.”
“Do I?” She finished the marking and started sorting through her bag. “What do you think, Terrible? Think I’m good at this?”
“Seen better. Knew a dame once controlled a whole flock of birds, just with she magic.”
Chess grinned, a quick flash before she pulled a lump of fabric out of her bag. “That must have been seriously impressive.”
“Weren’t bad.”
She laughed, for reasons Rick could not fathom, and nodded at the ghost. “Where did she come from, do you know?”
“Barreltop find her, lookin’ like. Pulling up floorboards.”
“I thought you were going to let me check over these places before you start tearing them up.”
He shrugged. “You was workin’. Bump only choose the place couple hours past.”
She looked like she wanted to say something, but stopped herself before starting again. “Okay, this should only take a couple of minutes, no big deal.” She glanced at Rick. “You guys want to wait downstairs?”
“Actually, I’d—”
“Aye.” Terrible’s fist closed around Rick’s arm, lifting him from the floor. Damn, could the guy be any more insulting?
But to say anything would only make things worse, so he followed Terrible across the room and down the stairs, taking one last glance back to see Chess unfolding a long black stick and setting it into some sort of base on the floor.
TEN MINUTES LATER she came stomping down the stairs. “It’s not working.”
“What?” They both spoke at once.
“I can’t get a portal to open, and the only reason I wouldn’t be able to do that is if there’s already one here.”
Terrible rubbed his chin. “Like where?”
“I don’t know. Show me where she came from, we’ll see if maybe it’s there. The ghost is masking anything else I might feel, so I’d have to get closer to whatever it is to find it.”
“What do you mean, feel?”
Chess started to answer him—at least he thought she would, she opened her mouth—but Terrible spoke first. His thick brows drew together. “Why you askin’?”
“Just curious.”
“Aye? Don’t be.”
Chess’s voice cut into the silence. “Show me where the ghost came from, okay? I’d like to get out of here.”
“But—” Rick snapped his mouth shut. “Never mind.”
“No, what is it?”
“I just—you have the ghost locked in that circle up there, right? So why can’t we just leave? And maybe call the Church and have them come take care of it.”
Terrible folded his arms over his massive chest and glared, but Chess shook her head. “The wind could blow the salt away any second. And if there’s an open portal in here, that means more ghosts, and they’ll find their way into the streets. We can’t let that happen, right?”
That still didn’t really explain why he had to stick around, but neither was he going to try to leave. His tool kit was still upstairs, and he had the distinct feeling that if he tried to grab it and run he’d end up facedown on the floor.
So the three of them headed back up the stairs and into the other section of the house.
No windows at all back there, at least not ones people could see through. Boards crisscrossed the empty eyes in the wall. For some reason Rick felt almost as if they’d suddenly stepped underwater, or into some kind of jail cell. Probably the jail cell was more accurate.
But as much as he hated this—and he did hate it—he had to admit he was kind of having fun, too, now that the situation seemed under control. It wasn’t every night that he got to fend off a ghost with a curtain rod and hang out with a girl who might not be a Church witch but was definitely a witch of some kind. How many of his friends were having this kind of night? They were probably all sitting around Alex’s living room watching bootlegged porn.
Barreltop hadn’t gotten very far with his crowbar. One board was splintered at the end and split down the center, but that was all. Probably fortunate, really. The thought had no sooner entered his mind than Chess gave it voice.
“Good thing he was lazy. If the ghost came out of here with loose boards and shit lying around, you guys could have had a serious problem. A more serious problem, I mean.”
Terrible didn’t reply.
Chess sighed. “Can one of you pull this board up all the way so I can look underneath?”
She said “one of you.” But she looked at Rick, and he, sensing an opportunity to actually not look like a total wimp in front of her, seized it and headed back to the other room.
The ghost still stood in the circle, her fists clenched at her sides and her long gown moving as if in a faint breeze. She bared her teeth. Her furious gaze followed him as he grabbed the crowbar from where he’d dropped it.
He ignored her. Or at least tried to. It wasn’t very easy, ignoring the presence a few feet away of something that had—maybe not personally, but still—killed three of his grandparents and several aunts and uncles. Not to mention millions and millions of other people during Haunted Week, leading to the rise of the Church and the fall of all other governments and religions. The urge to spit at the thing, to hurt her somehow, rose in his chest, but he fought it down. He couldn’t hurt her. She was a ghost; they didn’t feel pain. And she wouldn’t care if he spit at her.
Better to pry up that board and let Chess destroy the portal or whatever, and send the ghost to the City of Eternity where it belonged.