The Downside Ghosts Series Books 1-3: Unholy Ghosts, Unholy Magic, City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane

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       Chapter Thirteen

      “There is no proof, of course, that a clean, well-run home automatically equals a safe, ghost-free one, but why take chances?”

      —Mrs. Increase’s Advice for Ladies, by Mrs. Increase

      “Don’t get how the soul and the heart got anything to do with each other.” Terrible slid into the exit lane, heading off the highway to take her home. She couldn’t wait to get there. The thought of that man—Bump had identified him as Slipknot, a cutpurse who worked the financial district—and the horror his last hours must have been, of the indignities his spirit was suffering even now and how she could do nothing to help him … She rubbed her forehead with her palm like she was trying to erase the unwanted vision.

      “Technically they don’t. But as long as there’s life in the body, the soul can’t leave.”

      “So he’s not dead.”

      “No, he is dead. His soul is trapped. His body isn’t sustaining life. The spell is sustaining his physical life so it can feed off his soul.”

      Terrible thought about this for a moment. “So they do the spell, use his blood and innards to power it. Then they trap his soul, aye, so’s it can keep feeding the magic. And the magic keeping the body alive? Like a cycle?”

      “Right,” she said, surprised he’d caught on so quickly.

      “And you can’t help him? Ain’t that what you do?”

      “Normally we’d do a ritual to release the soul. Like a Banishing.”

      “Send him to the City, aye?”

      “Right.” She shifted uneasily in her seat. “But we can’t in this case, because we don’t know what the spell is.”

      “Don’t it end the spell, you Banish the soul?”

      “Don’t know.” She’d smoked so much that day the tip of her tongue burned, but that didn’t stop her from lighting another. “If I can decode that amulet, find out what the spell is for, I should know how to end it. Probably. But as it is … detaching the soul might end the spell, or it might backfire. Somebody else could get sucked into it.”

      “Somebody like you.”

      “Yeah.”

      It almost had sucked her in. She’d never felt darkness like that, and greed. What was happening at Chester was far worse than a simple haunting. And thanks to her own stupid curiosity, she’d managed to get herself tangled further in the mess. The amulet hiding in her bag had tasted her blood. She’d fed it, in her small way, and she had no idea what that meant for her except chances were that if the spell needed another soul, hers would be the first one it came to. Whoever cast it hadn’t been stupid or amateurish, that was for sure.

      Fuck.

      “We find the spell, we set Slipknot free?”

      “I’ll do my best.”

      He nodded. “Slip not a low one. He don’t deserve it, being trapped.”

      “I don’t think anybody deserves it.”

      “Aye?” he glanced at her, the dashboard lights coloring his face greenish as he turned onto her street. “Then you ain’t had such a bad life at that, Chess.”

      Five hours later, after a restless nap that felt more like swimming through sleep than actually sleeping, she arrived at the Mortons’ house. The street was soulless and blank, dark houses lined up like empty tombs while cars slept on their driveways. Only the trees spoke, whispering back to the breeze.

      Chess set her bag on the stone walkway leading to the Morton’s front door and unzipped it. The Hand’s fingers tried to grip hers as she pulled it out and placed it next to the bag.

      Lockpicks came out next, in their leather case, followed by a short, fat candle. The Hand twitched, then shriveled slightly as its muscles tightened around the candle’s base. Her camera had fallen to the bottom, but she found it after a minute of searching and slipped the strap around her neck. Last was the steel syringe full of thick, oily lubricant for the lock.

      This she squirted in, sliding the needle as far into the mechanism as she could get it. Some Debunkers used a spray can with a tube, but Chess found that too messy, especially after one of her books had managed to wedge against the nozzle of her old one and soak everything inside her bag. The syringe worked better, was quieter and more accurate.

      After that sat for a minute she went to work with the picks as silently and quickly as she could, listening for the minute click that would tell her the catch had given.

      It came. She grabbed her things, swung the door open, and stepped inside the house.

      The Mortons did not believe in leaving a light on, it seemed, and they did believe in running the heater even on a night like this one, when autumn’s chill barely touched the air. The heat didn’t bother her but the lack of light did. People who were genuinely frightened of ghosts in their home tended to leave them on, often even sleeping under their glare.

      “Algha canador metruan,” she whispered, striking a match. Light flared from the tip, casting shadows on the tasteful ivory walls of the living room. Once again the Hand twitched as she lit the candle and shook out the match, placing it in her pocket.

      She relaxed. The Mortons would sleep СКАЧАТЬ