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

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СКАЧАТЬ he slowed down to make a turn. Through the mist loomed a blackened, craggy shape; the remnants of what had once been a church, one of the many destroyed by furious citizens when Haunted Week finally ended. The country was littered with these brick and granite corpses, silent testaments to a system of belief that had served mankind for centuries but ultimately proved as worthless and obsolete as a black-and-white television.

      “Roll down yon window some,” he said.

      “But it’s raining.”

      He raised an eyebrow and glanced at her. “Ain’t say open it wide.”

      They seemed to be rolling through a neighborhood now. She could barely make out the shadows of buildings at regular intervals, and he’d slowed to about forty. Maybe he wanted to throw things out of the car? Whatever. She grabbed the crank and gave it a half turn.

      “What is that smell?”

      “The ocean.”

      “Doesn’t smell like the ocean.”

      “Naw, don’t smell like the bay, what you used to. That’s the for real ocean, Chess. Ain’t it sweet?”

      It was. She’d never smelled anything like it. Tangy and salty, with an undercurrent of sour fish that should have been nauseating but somehow made her feel clean instead.

      “Are we going to see it?”

      “Guessing, aye. Look like your friend live down on it.”

      “He’s not my friend.”

      “Let’s hope he ain’t an enemy. This don’t have the right feel to me.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Just we don’t know the man. You don’t know him, and I don’t know him, and he maybe knows too much himself about some shit nobody want to be involved in if they got their sanity working right.” He made another turn, then swung left onto a road Chess imagined would have been almost invisible even on a clear day. It couldn’t even be properly called a road, really, more like a track, two shallow ditches winding through tall brown grass. The Chevelle rattled and bumped over it like a lumbering insect, finally coming to a halt by the edge of a cliff.

      “We here,” Terrible said, and he did not sound happy about it. She knew he was right. She wasn’t really sure why she was in such a good mood, unless it was Lex’s excellent speed. Certainly there wasn’t much for her to be so cheery about. Edsel’s warning that he didn’t know much about Tyson came back to her, a warning she should heed. Edsel was her friend; if he said she should be careful, she should.

      Just the same, she was cheery. Or at least she wasn’t depressed, which was a victory in itself. Drugs or not, she hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Which meant it was time to make sure she didn’t come down unexpectedly.

      “Hold on a minute.” She closed her window and brought out Lex’s Baggie and her hairpin. “You want some?”

      “Naw, thanks. Jerky enough out here. Ain’t the city, feels empty.”

      She shrugged and bumped up, then tucked everything back in her purse as he came around to open her door. The fresh-smelling wind caught her full in the face, and she sniffed it and her drugs down in one long deep inhalation that sent sparkles all the way to her toes.

      And there was the ocean, in front of her, stretching out into the fog like a piece of napped gray velvet. Her hair whipped around her face and stole the view. She pushed it back with an impatient hand and closed her eyes, lifting her chin, letting the wind wash her clean.

      “Can we touch the water when we’re done? Before we go, I mean?” Smiling, she turned to him, but he looked down before she could catch his eye and started digging in his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

      “Aye, if you’re wanting,” he mumbled, turning away from her to light up. “C’mon, let’s get this done.”

      The cliffs hunched over Tyson’s little house, sheltering it from some of the rain and giving it the appearance of a troll crouching under a heath. Chess almost expected it to leap out at her, and her mood went from unusually good to cautious and tense in the space of an eyeblink. Edsel’s warning reverberated through her head, and this time it caught her. She wondered what exactly Tyson purchased from him. She decided she was very, very glad she had Terrible with her.

      That thankful feeling grew as they walked across the flat stones laid in a path to the front door. Each one was carved with runes, most of which she knew but a few she didn’t. One in particular sent a shivery tingle up her leg when she stepped on it, like someone had rung a bell in her veins.

      In the doorframe were more runes and symbols carved deep into the wood. Totem images and swirls, letters in some of the ancient alphabets, pentacles … too many for her to take in before the door swung open and Tyson stood framed before them.

      Something slithered behind his eyes, clouding them smoky gray like an overcast sky for a second before they normalized again. But Chess had seen it, and the hair on her nape stood on end. Tyson was not human, not entirely. Whether he’d been born that way or whether he’d made himself what he was through dealing with the Underworld she did not know, and she hoped she wouldn’t find out.

      He rubbed the palm of one surprisingly large hand over his short white hair. Now that she’d had a second to adjust she realized he wasn’t old, as she’d first imagined. He might have ten years on her, possibly twenty, but not more. His small, stooped frame had been bent by something other than age.

      “Thou must be Cesaria,” he said, his voice pouring over her like whiskey. “And thou has brought an escort. A guard?”

      “Just a friend,” she said.

      “Awfully big friend, is he not?” Tyson looked Terrible up and down, a shifty half-smile playing on his lips, then shrugged. “Aye, welcome in. Edsel sayest thou needs information? About some runes?”

      “Yes.”

      He bowed and stepped back, sweeping his right arm wide to usher them in. “I have information, indeed.”

      For a moment the size of the place made her dizzy. Had he somehow subverted the rules of physics, made his little hut bigger on the inside? Then she realized why the room smelled of dusty rock, dry and powdery in her nose. With the exception of the weathered wood front wall, the rest of the house was made of stone. He’d tunneled back into the cliffs. She made a mental note not to walk farther back if she could help it. The thought of all that heavy rock—and one BT muscle car—with absolutely nothing to keep it from falling …

      Focusing on the house itself did nothing to put her at ease. Shelves lined every wall, stuffed full with jars and bottles, with bones and feathers and fur. Why did this man shop at Edsel’s, when he had virtually everything a spellcaster could ever want right here? Skulls from at least fifteen different animals on one wall, rows of various other parts on another. Jars of herbs stacked one on top of the other, three deep, intruded into the room from the back, framing a small black door that she imagined led to Tyson’s bedroom.

      She turned around to see Terrible brushing cautiously at the objects hanging from the ceiling as he entered. Amulets and charms, all tied to colored ribbons and strings. They would have hit him in the face if he didn’t push them aside, but she could feel his reluctance to touch СКАЧАТЬ