Naw. Aint married. Aint sure he likes the dames, dig. Never seen him with any.
Oughta give Berta the fuckin ask, yay. Bump poked at the body with the tip of his cane, for no good reason Chess could fathom. Do her got one onna street that fuckin name? Maybe her got some fuckin knowledge on it.
Terrible nodded.
Okay, this wasnt getting them anywhere. She hated to do it, didnt want to do it, but she didnt think she had a choice, either. I need to get his clothes off.
Bump snorted. Aint had the thinking you into the fuckin dead ones, Ladybird.
Chess gave that remark the response it deservedwhich was noneand reached for the tattered, singed remnants of the shirt on the body.
Terrible was faster. He always was. Aint you do it, Chess. Lemme, aye?
His eyes caught hers. Warmth rose in her chest, spread through her whole body. Looking into his eyesinto himwas a high she could never get tired of. Bump disappeared, the mutilated corpse on the table before them disappeared, the icy air around them disappeared. It was just the two of them, standing so close the warmth of his body caressed hers.
She reached up to touch his face, meaning to pull it down to hers so she could kiss him, when Bump cleared his throat. Loudly. The moment ended.
Thinkin we fuckin get on the move this fuckin night? Maybe you quit on the cuddle-ups, get some attention on the fuckin job, yay?
Asshole.
Terrible reached out for the buttons on the shirt. And fell.
Chess was already moving when his eyes started to roll back in his head, thrusting her arm in front of him over the body. She couldnt catch him, couldnt stop him from falling, but she could at least keep him from face-planting into a corpse.
Or she could quit fucking playing around and figure out a way to make it stop happening. Another good idea might be to get her damn head together; shed felt the magic, she should have known it would affect him. Shed been so busy getting mushy she hadnt been focusing, and that was a Bad Thing.
He was out for only a second. That was usually the case when he touched something Wait. What the fuck?
The body on the tableGordon Sammsswas empty. The soul inside it was gone. So there shouldnt be much for the magic to work on, it shouldnt still feel as strong as it did. Yes, she should feel it, of course, but not that much. And it shouldnt be strong enough to do that to Terrible.
Nobody spoke as Terrible stood up. He didnt look at her. She didnt need him to. The color rising up his neck, the stiffness of his movements, spoke clearly enough, even if she didnt already have a pretty good idea what he would say.
Okay, she said finally, tossing the word into the silence as if it didnt matter. So Im not just feeling residual magic, I guess. Whatever the spell is, its stilltheres still a bag on him or something, therell be something there. Bump, you have his wallet, did anyone search his other pockets?
Bump shook his head. Figured on letting you have the fuckin job, dig, you the one got the handle on it.
It was so cool the way he was always thinking of her. She suppressed the eye-roll and dug around in Gordons front pockets, stopping at the left one when she pulled out a spell bag about the size of a walnut. Darkness rolled up her arm in waves. Not good; of course it wasnt, what did she expect?
She set the bag on the table near his feet, to check when they were done, and kept searching. Nothing else. Just the spell.
So why did his body still radiate magic, why did it still make her tattoos itch and sting the way ghosts did?
Terrible started to reach for Gordons shirt buttons again, then stopped. All cool now?
No. Her first instinct was to grab his hand and pull it back, but not only would he really not like that one bithow childish did she want to make him look? She didnt see it that way, but she knew he wouldbut she didnt want to touch his skin with anything that had touched that spell. Like her gloves. Theres something in the body, still.
His face darkened; he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it, still not meeting her eyes.
For a second she considered asking Bump to help her, but yeah, like that was going to happen. No, lucky Chess got to strip the corpse all by herself.
Naked, it was even more pitifuland gross, but shed expected that.
What she hadnt expected was the faint teeth marksdog teeth marks, psychopomp teeth markson Gordons upper thigh. What she hadnt expected was the familiar milky-blue cast on his skin, the coloring she hadnt seen on his face and hands because they were mutilated or dirty.
Oh fuck. She jerked back, her hand automatically going to cover her mouth; she caught it just in time. Shit.
What?
Her stomach roiled and shifted. It didnt matter, she tried to tell herself. Gordon Samms had to die, shed had no choice, thered been nothing else she could do.
That was Fact, and Truth, and she knew it. But her throat still ached as she forced herself to speak. He was alive. He I thought it was a ghost stuffed into his body, that he was dead before he attacked Pete, even, but he wasnt. He was alive. He was still alive.
Bump and Terrible watched her: Bump with impatience, Terrible with concern, but neither with understanding. Right, of course they wouldnt know.
I killed him, she said. My psychopomp killed him. He was alive, and my psychopomp ripped out his soul and killed him.
She would not throw up. She would not cry, either. She hadnt had a choice. And, as she recovered from her initial panic, she realized that she really hadnt had a choice. If he was still alive and movingor at least, if his soul was still in his body and he was moving, what the fuckafter Terrible crushed his throat and head, then there hadnt been any other way to kill him, and there hadnt been any way to subdue him, and shed done the only thing that could be done save for literally chopping him into pieces while he watched.
That made her feel better. Some. But still shed used magic to kill someone. Shed used her psychopomp to kill someone, and that was different from using a real weapon to save her life when she was being attacked. Using magic to commit a murder that was an automatic death sentence.
Of course, so was killing a psychopomp and carving an illegal sigil into someones chest to prevent them from dying, and shed already done those, so what the hell.
The thought almost made her smilenot quite, but almost. At least it loosened her chest enough for her to take a deep breath.
You right, Chess?
She nodded. Yeah. Um, yeah, Im okay. Come on, lets see if we can figure out whats inside him or whatever.
Bump raised his eyebrows. Any fuckin place I gots the thinking of where some shit maybe got stuffed into, I aint for fuck wanting get my fuckin look-see in.
Eeww. She hadnt thought of that. Yeah, Im not really, either.
Terrible shifted his weight beside her, his arm touching hers. I cut he all open, aye? Straight down, we get a look inside.
Ill check his mouth first, she said, moving to do exactly that. What there was of his mouth; his teeth wobbled at odd anglesthe few still remaining did, though she had no idea how many of them hed had before Terrible used his skull as a footrestand beneath the skin his jaw felt like gravel in a sack.
It made her job easier. His lips stretched open wide enough for her to fit her latex-covered hand inside; she wiggled her fingers in his throat, swallowing the sympathy gag threatening to rise in her own. The man was dead, after all. She could shove her hand all the way down into his stomach and he wouldnt feel it or care.
I dont feel anything. Except tonsils. Ugh.
Terrible pulled out his knife. Straight down, aye?
I guess so.
The point of the blade slid into Gordons flesh and disappeared, moving like a zippers tongue from the base of his throat to his groin. Terrible glanced at her. She shook her head.
Yay, let he have the keeping on he fuckin cock. Bump grinned. Aint fuckin wanna see that come off nowheres.
Ah, Bump. Polite as ever.
Silence reigned as Terrible made another cut perpendicular to the first across Gordons abdomen. He kept his left hand above the skin, making sure not to touch, but Chess wondered how strongly he felt it, how hard he was fighting against that horrible darkness rising like steam from Gordons innards.
He stepped back. Cool?
Yeah, Iyeah. What was she supposed to do, reach in and start pulling stuff out? Shit, what was she doing, why was she doing this? How the hell had she ended up there, in a freezer, about to shove her hand into a corpse like it was a cereal box and she was looking for a prize?
Did it matter? Addiction led to working for Bump, working for Bump led to falling in love with Terrible, and it would take weeks spent pawing around inside dead bodies to even come close to making her wish she didnt have him. She guessed all things considered, messing around with body parts was a small price to pay.
That didnt stop her insides from jerking a warning when her fingers closed around something she was pretty certain was Gordon Sammss stomach.
Hows it feelin, Chessie?
Really fucking gross, she managed. And yeah, still powerful. Can you cut this open?
That was what did it. When Terrible cut the stomach open so she could see what remained of Gordons last meal she barely made it to the wall before throwing up, humiliated to be doing it in front of Bump, humiliated to be doing it at all, but unable to stop herself.
Terribles hand in her hair, gathering it behind her and holding it out of the way. His other hand on her back, rubbing it in slow circles until she finally managed to get herself under control. Sall cool, baby, aye? No worryin on it, sall cool here.
She started to raise her hands to her streaming eyes and nose but he stopped her, turning her instead to face him while he wiped her face with a rag hed gotten from somewhere. It was smudged with motor oil on one side but clean elsewhere. Even if it wasnt, she would have been grateful. Thanks.
Aye.
Bump nodded when she returned to the table. Aint fuckin put the blame on you, Ladybird. Fuckin sick, yay.
What? Had Bumphad Bump just been nice to her?
How the hell was she supposed to feel about that? Ugh. Who cared. She had way more important things to worry about.
Like the fact that as the pile of internal organsugh, ugh, ughgrew, she wasnt finding any other spell bag, no spell ingredients. But everything felt like ghosts and magic, every part of him she touched. As if the spell was part of him. How could that happen?
Aint finding shit, yay, Ladybird? Bump shook his head. Got he all fuckin emptied up, what you fuckin do on the now?
I dont know. She eased the gloves off, trying but failing to keep the blood off her skin. When she got home, she was going to spend an hour or so in a very hot shower, and maybe Terrible could pour bleach over her every couple of minutes. I dont know. Lets see whats in the spell bag, I guess.
She slipped on a fresh pair of gloves and jerked the tip of the iron blade she kept in her pick case through the black stitches at the top of the bag.
The rough edges of the fabric fell open, revealing awell, damn. The spell was about the size of a walnut because it was a walnuta large one, but a walnut all the same.
She dug the point of her knife into the crack in the shell and pried it open. Blood oozed out. Thick dark blood, so clotted that for a second it looked like some sort of rotted fruit inside the shell.
Her stomach gave another heave, but she ignored it. Not just because she didnt want to go through that again but because part of her was honestly fascinated. How the hell had hethe same spell caster, the same mandone that? What the hell was that spell?
Aint lookin so fuckin bad. Bump leaned over the table, peering down. Fuckin small, yay?
But really strong. Were those clots in the blood, or was something else in there? Blood I think it might be corpse blood, like from a murder victim, or maybe menstrual blood. When someones using blood like that in a spell, theyre not fucking around.
Of all the things she could have done without that day, having to say menstrual to Bump wasokay, not the biggest or the most important, no, but it was certainly on the list. Not because she was embarrassed; she wasnt. She just didnt want to have to discuss anything remotely related to the female reproductive system with him.
Sure enough, he grinned. Yay, seen me some of that blood fuckin turn dames into
Theres hair in there, she interrupted, holding one of the hairs up with her gloved index finger and thumb. See? Its been tied in knots, too. I wonder if its his.
It probably was. The fingernail clipping she found might have been, too. But the rats eye, the three sharply bent pins, the tiny pieces of eggshell and feather, the ball of cobwebs and waxand were those fish scales?definitely were not.
By the time shed finished laying it all out in an orderly if grisly row, her neck ached. As did her head, because she had a pretty good idea what those ingredients were for, what the spell did. I think thats it.
Aye? Terrible reached over, offering her a drag off his smoke. She took it. Whats on with the blood, then?
I dont know. I guess its clotted, old, you know?
Naw, that aint it. He folded his arms across his chest. Too thick, leastaways what Im thinkin. Old blood dont get rough like that, dig? Gets thicker, aye, an darker, but not like that.
Well, she guessed he would know. Yeah, shed seen lots of spilled blood in her life, but she probably hadnt paid as much attention to it, had a chance to observe it as time passed, the way he had. Yeah? You think somethings mixed into it?
He shrugged. Aint can say on that one. But that aint usual blood.
It feels kind of grainy. She rubbed it between her fingers.
Aint should.
Shit. I have no idea how to analyze it or whatever.
Aint you got you a fuckin lab, up you Church? They got the fuckin skills run it all through, yay?
She stared at him for a second. Sure, Bump, how about if I head on in there and ask if theyll test the blood from a spell I found on the body of a man I killed with my psychopomp? Thatll be no problem at all.
He hunched his shoulders a little, rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. Were only giving the fuckin ask, yay, no needing to get all fuckin rumbly-sharp on it.