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

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СКАЧАТЬ gave her one of his killer smiles and headed past her into the living room, holding the plates piled high.

      “Yeah, um, about that …”

      “You’re going to tell me you don’t want me to just come over unannounced, right?” He plunked himself down on the couch, right in the center so if she wanted to sit she’d have to be practically touching him.

      “Something like that.”

      “I’m sorry. I just … I wanted to talk to you, and not over the phone or on Church grounds.”

      “Why?” She perched on the arm of the couch, curious in spite of herself. She never got to hear gossip.

      “You know Bruce Wickman, right?”

      “I know who he is.” Damn. This was probably going to be the same thing she’d overheard between Bruce and the Grand Elder the other morning.

      “He says the City’s going crazy. Like, more than usual after the Festival. He thinks something might be going on.”

      “Has he talked to the Grand Elder?”

      Doyle nodded. “Says he doesn’t believe him, though. Bruce is scared. He said in ten years of Liaising he’s never seen them like this. He said he’s been having trouble sleeping, that he’s been seeing things. In his dreams.”

      Chess cocked an eyebrow. This was sort of interesting, but she didn’t want to let him know that. “And?”

      “So I think he’s right. I’ve been having a hard time sleeping lately, too. So have Dana Wright and a couple of other people.”

      Dana was a Debunker, like herself and Doyle. It wasn’t unusual for Liaisers to have issues with spirits—if they weren’t careful they could be tailed or even possessed when a spirit refused to leave them after a Liaising, another reason their pay was higher—but Debunkers …

      “Randy’s, like, panicking. He actually wanted to sleep at my place last night, he said he’d had some horrible nightmare. Typical, huh?”

      Chess laughed, but not unkindly. “Randy’s just having a hard time, I think. Maybe the job is getting to him. He’s been off for a while.”

      “Have you been? Having trouble sleeping, I mean?” Doyle leaned closer. “You look kind of tired.”

      “I never sleep well.”

      “But you don’t usually look tired like this.”

      She scooted herself back along the arm of the couch so she wasn’t quite so close to him. “Thanks.”

      “I don’t mean it that way. I just … Bruce thinks something is going on. We thought if we could get a few of us together, try and figure out what, we might have enough evidence then to force the Grand Elder to listen.”

      “And you want my help.”

      He nodded.

      Telling him she never slept well wasn’t a lie. She didn’t. Which made it impossible to say if her recent troubled rest was a normal reaction to a fairly stressful few days or something else.

      “There’s more, too,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing around like he thought Church spies might be hiding behind her television. “I’ve had nightmares. Like, real ones. And I thought I saw—no. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

      “I already think you’re crazy.”

      “Bruce has seen him, too, though. In his kitchen.”

      “Seen him? Who?”

      Another glance. “The man in the robe,” he said. “The nightmare man.”

      Damn it, damn it, damn it!

      After a fat line of crushed Nip she didn’t feel like sleep was something she’d need for another couple of days, but that didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t been able to. Whether it was because of Doyle’s information or … something else … she didn’t know, but sleep had done nothing but taunt her while she lay in her bed with the covers piled high, shivering although the room wasn’t cold, watching the hours tick by on her clock until the early afternoon sun streamed through her narrow bedroom window.

      Where was Terrible, anyway? She checked the slip of paper Bump had given her along with another package of chemical cheer, and glanced at the faded numbers on the empty storefront. Number seventeen. Her destination was a couple of blocks away yet.

      This was stupid, a stupid sidetrip on a stupid job she couldn’t even do thanks to stupid Lex.

      Or not just thanks to stupid Lex. What ever she’d seen at the Morton house, what ever it was that Doyle claimed was stalking Church employees … she was beginning to think she wouldn’t be able to handle it anyway. Not if the night before was any indication. Some tough Churchwitch, calling someone else to retrieve her stuff from the spooky haunted house.

      A small gang of teenage goons edged down the street toward her in their black bandannas and latex-tight trousers, fanning out like they were about to run an offensive play. Which they probably were. Without making eye contact Chess shrugged her tattered gray cardigan off her shoulders, letting them see her ink. Their formation tightened up. They might not be afraid of the Church, but they’d be stupid not to know Bump had the only Churchwitch in Downside working for him, and everyone was afraid of Bump.

      Their fear didn’t keep them from hissing at her and making lewd comments, but those she could ignore. Too bad she couldn’t ignore everything else, and just stay home today listening to records and getting high. Or even doing her actual job. She should be interviewing the Mortons today, not wandering the streets hunting for a tattoo parlor so she could then go find an adolescent boy.

      The parlor was easy enough to find, at least. Just walk until the scent of Murray’s hair pomade drifted to her nose, then turn left.

      “Looking for Terrible,” she said to one of the greasers guarding the door. Inside the building she heard the unmistakable sounds of hurried movement, not quite drowned out by the Sonics record playing at high volume.

      He barely looked up from the hangnail he was trimming with his butterfly knife. “Aye? Business you got witim?”

      “Business.”

      “Aw, chickie, you don’t gotta keep no secrets from me, I ain’t—”

      Terrible’s voice rumbled from the back room. “Quit playin, Rego, an let she in.”

      Rego glanced over in that direction, then up at her, really looking for the first time. She hadn’t slipped her sweater back over her chest and upper arms, and when he saw her skin his blue eyes widened.

      “Shit. You that—”

      Chess didn’t bother to reply. She brushed past him and walked inside, pausing for a moment so her eyes could adjust to the comparative gloom inside. She’d lost her sunglasses again.

      The place smelled of antiseptic and smoke, of male bodies and the curious sharp odor of ink and oil. Frames filled with bright flash covered the walls, СКАЧАТЬ