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

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СКАЧАТЬ it felt like someone rubbing tinfoil against her brain.

      “Stop this!”

      Tyson shrugged. “His time shortens while thou speaks.”

      Fuck! Fuck, shit fuck. Where was her note pad? And her pen? The words in the book had almost finished forming, stretching across the pages like the footprints of bleeding ravens. An image started to form in the center, the amulet, the runes around the edge growing and shrinking.

      “No … not me … not me …” Terrible’s body convulsed, folded over on itself, his head bowed. His entire body trembled and shook as he sank farther to the floor, shrinking into a semi fetal position. Red symbols scrolled up his arm, swirling around his elbow and creeping over the slice of bare skin showing at the back of his neck, then back down to spread over the page.

      Finally her fingers closed over the pen and pad. She started writing, hardly paying attention, just trying to copy the pages and stop this. If it would stop, if she hadn’t just sacrificed a man’s life just to decipher that stupid amulet. Slipknot could rot forever for all she cared, who cared, just please let this end …

      Tretso, yes. To power. And the other one, Etosh, to direct it. More. Vedak, to trap the soul. Arged, to feed from it. Who the fuck had done this, had concocted something so foul? The lettering flowed faster across the parchment now, almost too fast for her to follow.

      “That’s good,” she heard Tyson say softly. “So much pain … and strength … the book is pleased …”

      “Fuck you,” she managed, but it was drowned out by Terrible’s roar, like a tiger in pain, setting every hair on her body on end.

      The last rune formed now, pulsing bigger and thicker, the red marks forming a rune, then a face, then a rune again, the words stretching out even as Chess’s heart thudded and skipped. That face was that of the nightmare man, and his name was Ereshdiran, the stealer of dreams.

      “Done!” she shouted. “I’m done! I’m finished, stop this now, stop it please …”

      Red ink covered Terrible’s face, fiery bright under his skin, under the tears squeezing out from beneath his closed eyelids.

      “No more, no more, no more, not me, please, please don’t.” Over and over, a litany she could not bear to hear any longer.

      Terrible’s eyes flew open. Chess screamed. His irises were red, bright glowing red, his pupils nothing but black pinpoints against it. It was in him, oh fuck, whatever it was was inside him, eating him …

      Tyson laughed softly as she reached out without thinking and grabbed the book, trying to yank it away.

      Tyson’s house disappeared. Instead she was back in a bedroom, a familiar one, though she had not seen it in years, while heavy footsteps clumped across a wooden floor as she pulled the covers tighter over her head. She was only ten, she didn’t want him in here, didn’t want him to make her do those things again …

      A different room, a different father, his beefy fist swinging backward to catch her across the face …

      Another hit. A heavy, sweaty female figure climbing into her bed. Her clothes torn. Every image Chess ever wanted to forget flashing before her eyes, and over it all the despair, the pain, the misery and loneliness of never being touched except in anger or lust, of being outside, not belonging to anyone or with anyone, of hating herself so much it made her choke. She couldn’t even feel her body anymore, couldn’t see or hear anything but the voice in her head that reminded her every minute of every day how worthless she was, the voice she tried to dull with drugs and work but never really went away, it never would go away, not until she finally died and went to the silent and cold City beneath the ground, a place she’d always thought bad enough to make life just a tiny bit preferable to it. There was no solace there for her, no peace, just endless days and nights of drifting …

      “Noooo,” she sobbed, and just like that it ended. Her knees hurt from hitting the floor. Every muscle in her body ached, but it was done, the book was closed, and Terrible was halfway across the room before she stopped feeling the imprint of his hands on her arms.

      He grabbed Tyson by the throat and lifted him, flinging the smaller man against the rough-hewn stone like a ball at the end of a tether. Tyson made a small choked sound that could have been a cry or a laugh, his eyes slithering back to solid gray.

      “Lemme hit him, Chess,” Terrible moaned, his voice breaking. His right hand fisted and flexed, fisted and flexed, the muscles on his arm bulging as his whole body trembled. “Just let me … you … you fucking …”

      “Thou saw things thou did not want to see again.” Tyson smiled like a zipper sliding open. “Bad memories, guard? Was it worth it?”

      “Chess …”

      “No! No, Terrible, don’t, don’t—wait.” Her leg bumped the table as she got up and crossed the room, leaving a smear of blood soaking into her jeans. “Wait. Who else saw this, Tyson? Who came here before, and made that amulet?”

      “I know not—”

      “No, you do. You do, that’s why you laughed when you saw it, isn’t it? Who was it? Tell me, or I’ll let him beat you. I’ll let him kill you if he wants to, and I think he does.” She glanced at Terrible, but his eyes were still focused on Tyson with the intensity of a hungry wolf watching a house cat. “Do you want to, Terrible?”

      “Aye.”

      “Thou cannot kill me. I am more powerful than thou knows.”

      Terrible growled.

      “You know what I have in my bag, Tyson? Melidia weed. Melidia, and my psychopomp. I can send you and what ever that thing is you’re hosting into one of the spirit prisons so fast you won’t even have time to beg for mercy, and I can let Terrible break every fucking bone in your body first. Now tell me, and we’ll go. Fair evens.”

      Terrible tightened his grip on Tyson’s throat. Tyson’s eyes bulged slightly, rolling back into his head. “Like thou,” he gasped. “A dark man, inked like thou … ahhh …”

      His arms stretched out at his side, his fingers spreading as his eyes went pure silver. Shit.

      “Terrible, let him go!” She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away from Tyson. “Let him go, now!”

      Terrible obeyed just as the thing inside Tyson freed itself, flying from the man’s open mouth and into the air over their heads like pale, misty vomit. Chess ducked, pulling Terrible with her. They fell to the dirt in a jumble of arms and legs as the thing formed itself into a face, vaguely human, with huge empty eyes and a mouth that opened as if on hinges.

      It spread across the ceiling, growing larger and larger. A long finger of tattered ectoplasm brushed Chess’s cheek, leaving a trail of freezing slime across her skin.

      Terrible’s fingers were warm and hard in hers, painfully tight, as he yanked her up and pulled her across the room, throwing his body against the door to break it open. The thing screamed behind them as they ran, but nothing emerged from the ramshackle hut, and after a moment silence fell.

      “My bag,” she gasped. “I left my bag in there.”

      “Shit. СКАЧАТЬ