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

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СКАЧАТЬ of a smaller man who could only be Hunchback, holding him up against a pitted steel pillar in the center of the cavernous room. Chess wrinkled her nose; the ware house smelled like a gymnasium drain.

      “Where Brain?”

      “I … I ain’t …” Hunchback’s eyes, mismatched and huge with fear, rolled in her direction, then back. “Ain’t knowing.”

      Terrible lifted him higher. “What I fucking say to you, Hunchback? Ain’t I say, keep the boy close? Ain’t I say watch him?”

      “Aye … b-but, you ain’t say I can’t punish him, he going out to the—” The sentence ended in a stifled gurgle as Terrible’s fist tightened around his neck.

      “Punishing ain’t sending him out on the street. You ain’t watching, you ain’t doing what you fucking told. You need reminding?”

      His fist connected with Hunchback’s face before the man could open his mouth to answer, snapping Hunchback’s head sideways. Chess willed herself not to move, not to gasp, not to do anything at all as Terrible started methodically beating the shit out of Hunchback.

      She’d seen the results of his anger—of his attention to duty—before, once or twice when someone crossed Bump or owed him money. She’d never seen him in action, the dispassionate way he moved, as though he were crunching numbers at a desk or watching a not particularly interesting film on television. It terrified her. It took her breath away.

      She wasn’t the sole onlooker. Several painfully thin young teenagers of indeterminate sex stood near her, their mouths hanging open as Hunchback’s shaved head moved with the impact of every blow. Blood arced from his mouth and spattered the cement floor, turning black in the layer of dust. Hunchback’s fingers scrabbled feebly at Terrible’s shirt, trying to grab hold as if he was afraid he would fall off the earth if he couldn’t get that fabric in his grip.

      It only lasted a minute or so, but it felt like much longer to Chess—though not, she imagined, as long as it must have felt to Hunchback.

      “What say, Hunchback? You gonna listen next time you’re told?”

      Hunchback gurgled. His head bobbed up and down like a fishing float.

      “So where Brain rest when he ain’t here? Where he hang out?”

      Hunchback shook his head. “Ainno.” The words sounded strained through wet linen. “Ainnever tell me.”

      One of the teenagers stepped forward, twisting the hem of its T-shirt enough that Chess could barely tell she was a girl. “Um … Terrible? Sir?”

      “Aye?”

      “Sometime Brain go up Duck place. You knowing it? Sir?”

      “Behind Fifty-third?”

      The girl nodded. Her wide eyes and spiky fire-engine red hair made her look like a junkie Raggedy Ann doll.

      “Aye, I know it.” Terrible dropped Hunchback with an unceremonious thud and straightened up. “Think he there now?”

      She took a hasty step back, as if she thought he might hit her too if she was wrong. “Can’t say for sure, but he go there a lot. Say it safe for him most times.”

      Terrible nodded. “Thanks, chickie. You gotta name?”

      The girl stepped back again and shook her head, sending her ropes of hair flying, but one of the others poked her.

      “Tellim, Loose!”

      The girl glared, then spoke. Her voice squeaked. “Lucy, sir.”

      “Aye, Lucy. Here.” Terrible dug into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “Get yourself some eats, girl.”

      Lucy hesitated.

      “Goan, take it. I ain’t hurt you. Lookin all starved. Hunchback, you start feeding yon kids, hear me?”

      The bill disappeared from his hand as if by magic as Lucy snatched it away and leapt back, tucking it into her pocket. “Thankee, sir.”

      Terrible nodded. “He ain’t feeding you, you find me. True thing, Lucy girl. Aye?”

      Lucy nodded.

      “Cool.” Terrible gave Hunchback one last nudge with his toe, and turned to Chess. “Let’s get us moving.”

      His bad mood wreathed his face like smoke as he drove through the bright streets without speaking. Chess glanced at him, glanced again, but his eyes stared straight ahead.

      “That was a nice thing you did,” she said finally. “Telling that girl to come to you.”

      He shrugged. “Hunchback ask Bump for work, sayin he gotta take care of them kids. So Bump lets Hunch operate, and Hunch letting them kids starve. Ain’t right. They need food if they working.”

      “I didn’t know Bump was such a philanthropist.”

      He glared at her. Oops.

      “That’s a person who runs charities and—”

      “I know the meaning.”

      “Oh. Sorry.”

      He turned another corner, heading farther into a part of the city Chess wasn’t familiar with. Like most Downside residents she tended to stay in her neighborhood as much as possible. You never knew what you might find on an unfamiliar street.

      Here it was apparently a street fair, like the Market but less organized. The Chevelle rumbled past booths selling scarves and silver, clothing and cell phones, past firecans with spits propped over them. The scent of roasting meat floated in through the window, and Chess realized she was a little hungry.

      She grew even hungrier at the end of the street, as Terrible pulled up in front of a barbeque stand. It was nothing more than a large black barrel grill and a folding table, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smelled anything so tempting. The wizened man behind the makeshift counter nodded as Terrible stepped out of the car.

      “Aye, T-man,” he said, his voice high but smooth as the motion of his arms as he flipped the long row of meat with a rusty metal spatula. “You eating from me today? What you need?”

      “Maybe later.” Terrible opened Chess’s door—another courtesy she didn’t expect, she’d simply been so busy watching the barbeque man’s sweat-shiny arms move like pistons, she hadn’t thought to get out of the car. “You know Brain? One of Hunchback’s kids?”

      “Aye, I knows him. Seed him earlier, that’s what you askin. He powerful scared. Ain’t in no trouble with you, hoping?”

      “Naw, not with me. Trying to find him though.”

      The barbeque man shrugged. “Headed down the aisle, guess to Duck.” His gaze skittered over Chess’s body, then back to her face, but he said nothing.

      “Thanks.”

      For the second time that day Chess followed him СКАЧАТЬ