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

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      It was probably the longest speech she’d ever heard from him, and she believed him. Not enough to tuck the knife back into her bag, but enough.

      “Come now. What that box do, anyways? It supposed to beep or light up or something?”

      “Something. Just show me around. We’ll see what happens.”

      He took her arm again as he led her through the gaping darkness of the doorway to the building itself. Only part of the roof remained, rusted tin supported by rotten wooden pillars, but it was enough to blot out what little light the moon cast into the interior.

      And it stunk, like woodlice and dead things and fuel, a cocktail of disgusting that made her sensitive, empty stomach twist.

      They shuffled through layers of bones and garbage, while things scuttled away from them across the floor. The boards that had once been solid walls looked like zebra stripes, like camouflage as they picked their way through the bombed-out interior.

      Still the Spectro remained silent. Of course, they hadn’t explored very thoroughly yet. Who knew where the gadgets might be hiding? They could be anywhere, in the building, in the tall grass, under a rock …

      She refused to believe the alternative, and more to the point, she didn’t feel the alternative, the distinctive sensation of her tattoos warming, the hairs on the back of her neck moving. Something was off—an unusual energy was starting to wrap itself around her—but not ghosts, unless of course the Spectrometer wasn’t working. Her body’s reactions could be muddled by the speed, much as she hated to admit it, but the Spectro should work no matter what.

      “Hand me that flashlight.”

      He slapped it into her palm with vigor.

      She ran the light over the cracks by the roof. That was usually the place electronics could be found, especially something big enough to mess with airplane computers. Actually, she’d never seen anything big enough to do something like that, but old habits died hard.

      People never looked up. They looked down, they looked from side to side, but almost never did they think to tilt their heads back and see what was above them. That little human idiosyncrasy left a lot of room for error, so Chess always checked above first, a task she could tick off her list.

      Nothing appeared out of the ordinary up there, so she cast the light down. More difficult here, with all the debris. What she needed was a broom, but she somehow doubted Terrible would be carrying one with him. Instead she headed for the wall and shuffled along it, moving her feet in tiny increments. “Feel for anything solid,” she said. “Anything heavy.”

      If they made a silly picture—the tattooed witch in her tank top and jeans and the hulking guard in his bowling shirt and trousers, black pompadour slipping down into his eyes, sliding their feet along the walls like they were trying to ice-skate over garbage—she didn’t care. Nobody was there to see them, anyway.

      Except the thing creeping silently along outside. Chess caught a glimpse of it through a gap in the boards, hunched and dark.

      “What’s in the eyes?” Terrible’s voice rumbled across the empty space. “What you seeing?”

      She smacked her hand down through the empty air, signaling him to be quiet. Blessedly he seemed to understand, and stood stock-still while she waited. They both waited.

      She glimpsed it again, hovering just outside where Terrible stood, and pointed.

      She knew he was fast, but didn’t know how fast until his arm shot out through the gap and grabbed the apparition by the throat. It let out a distinctly unghostlike squawk as he pulled it through the boards. They crumbled like wet toast.

      “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me! I’s just passing, I swear, I don’t know nothing!”

      Terrible didn’t speak, but he didn’t loosen his grip either. The flashlight’s beam passed up and down the figure he held, little more than a child in ragged trousers and a stained poncho. The hood had slipped off when Terrible sucked the boy into the building.

      “What business you got here?”

      “I’s just passing—”

      “Nobody just passing here. You speak, boy, you tell me. What business?”

      The boy glanced at Chess, his eyes wide and dark in his dirty face. “Lady, don’t—”

      The sound of Terrible’s hard palm striking the boy’s peaky face seemed impossibly loud. Chess stepped forward, her hand out, before she remembered. Lots of gangs used kids to do their dirty work. Just because the boy said he was innocent didn’t mean he was.

      “You tell me, or you get worse.”

      The boy rolled his eyes at Chess again, then looked down. “I heard there was ghosts. Wanted to see me one.”

      “Who told you?”

      “Nobody.”

      Another slap. Chess refused to watch.

      “Okay, okay. I tell you. It were Hunchback, you know him? From Eighty-third. Say he heard from somebody else, who was told by somebody else, that if you comes here some nights, you see them. The ghost planes, right? I came to see, that’s all.”

      Terrible considered this for a minute. “What Hunchback look like?”

      “Small guy, dig? With a limp. Crazy eyes and no hair. He call me Brain. Said I got one in my head.”

      “You don’t, you come playing here,” Terrible replied, but he let go of the boy. The marks made by his meaty palms were fading. “No place for kids here.”

      “I come here all—I sorry. I just wanted to see me some ghosts, is all.”

      “You here before? You see others here?”

      “No, I never did. Just me. My friend Pat. We come, but we ain’t seen planes yet. You gonna see them, you here for them?”

      “Here on business.” Terrible glanced up, saw Chess watching. She dug her notebook out of her bag and flipped to a fresh page. Hunchback. If he was spreading rumors about the ghost planes, he was as good a place as any to start asking questions.

      Terrible must have thought the same thing. He folded his arms across his chest. “Go now. No ghosts tonight.”

      Brain had one leg over the edge of the hole Terrible had made in the wall when Chess’s skin blazed with heat, her tattoos practically tearing themselves from her flesh. At the same time the Spectrometer made a long, solid yowling beep, every light on it turning bright red, casting an eerie glow against the damaged walls for a split second before the room lit up like day and the roar of an airplane directly overhead made Chess dive down to the filthy floor.

       Chapter Four

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