Pale blue light, too, from the ghosts.
Iron chains hung over the doorway as added protection to keep the ghosts in the City; iron hurt them, burned them, made them lose their shape, and iron was essential to controlling them. The last of the chains slipped from Chesss shoulder as she pushed herself through them to stand, barefoot and naked, inside the only world the dead were allowed to inhabit.
She thought she was going to be sick.
To her left were a few iron cages, leaking dim yellow light through iron-gridded windows. The Liaisers booths, where they sat all day allowing the dead to possess their bodies for the benefit of paying citizens. Through the tiny crisscrosses over the bulletproof glass Chess managed to see Bruce Wickman, one of the Liaisers, his face blank and expressionless as he spoke in the direction of the caged camera and monitor mounted high on the ceiling, while a female Liaiser Chess didnt know stood ready with herbs and iron should anything go wrong.
How did they do it? How did they visit this place every day, spend all day on Thursdays in this horrible, cold cave of misery and death?
She could see them. The dead. The ghosts, their forms glowy and smeared, as if she was viewing them through a Vaseline-covered lens. They appeared like a strip of shifting light on the horizon, an aurora borealis of death. She saw them, and they saw her; their hate radiated across the empty spaceshe guessed they were at least a couple of hundred yards away at that pointto scrape at her bare skin.
Jillian touched her; she jumped.
Sorry. Jillian appeared to be smiling, but it was hard to tell in the shifting semi-darkness. You okay? I know its a bit intimidating the first time. But listen, hear how quiet it is? How calm? And all that space, and the magicits just so soothing, isnt it? When you really think about it.
Chess managed to nod. Soothing? Was Jillian fucking kidding?
No. No, of course she wasnt, because everyone thought the City was peaceful. Chess had been raised to believe it was peaceful. Every Saturday of her life shed been taken to Churchno matter that it was simply a ploy, that whatever foster family she was forced to serve at any given time only took her so they could get credit for goingand told how she would live forever under the earth, in the quiet happy peace there. Shed been told how the ghosts that aboveground were driven to kill were in the City full of joy.
And shed believed it. Because it was Truth. Everyone knew that.
Now she stood in the middle of the terrifying cavern of the City and felt the hatred emanating from the dead, felt the cold against her skin, saw that the gentle future shed been promised was really like the worst hell the old religions could come up with, and something deep inside her broke.
The Church wasnt wrong. Couldnt be wrong. They told the Truth, and theyd proved that over and over again. Theyd found her in the Corey Home and given her given her this, this new life she was living, this chance to be someone for real. Theyd saved her, just like they promised they would.
Which meant it wasnt the Church lying to her. It was her not getting it, not seeing it. Her fault.
Everyone in the world saw the joy of the City. Except her.
Another way she was broken, another way she was wrong. Shit, what was she even doing there if she couldnt see something as basic as the beauty of the City? She didnt deserve to be there if she couldnt see it. Shed failed. This was a test, and shed failed. And if they found out, theyd expel her. Theyd see theyd made a mistake letting her come train there, and shed be on her own again.
She could never, ever let anyone know.
So she swallowed the bile and tears threatening to clog her throat and forced her lips to stretch into the closest approximation of a smile she could muster. Its justoverwhelming, I mean, they said it was peaceful, but this is so much more.
Her eyes had adjusted to the dim underwater-like light enough to see Jillians answering smile, wide and genuine. I thought youd like it. Arent you glad you came now?
Yeah. Liar liar liar. This is great.
Jillian looked like she was about to hug her; Chess braced herself, already clenching her jaw hard enough for her teeth to squeak against each other. Hugging was bad enough normally, but in her current state Chess thought she might scream if Jillian tried to embrace her without any clothes on.
How big is it? she asked, taking a quick step away that she hoped looked like she was just wanting to explore.
They havent told you yet?
Whaoh, um, right, of course. Duh. Im justthis part, this anteroom part, is like two hundred and fifty yards, right? And then it goes on for miles and miles beyond it.
Jillian nodded. Its almost as big asoh, theres Anna and Bruce.
Anna? Oh, right, the female Liaiser whod been in the booth with Bruce. Yes. There was all of Anna and Bruce, smiling as they crossed the hard-packed dirt. But why wouldnt they be? They did this every day. They liked it there. Chess was the one who didnt belong.
We think we might have something for you, Bruce said when they got close enough. He was a decent-looking guy, kind of a hippie type but not bad just the same. Not that it mattered, because Chess wasnt interested in anyone shed have to see again after she finished, but still.
And he might have information, which was awesome, because that would mean she could leave.
We got a few names, Anna said. It took some work, but we identified a few missing. And they were here at the beginning of the month, and we havent had any leaksnot that we can identify, and were very certain that means there werent any.
Which means they were Summoned. Jillian glanced at Chess as she spoke.
Right. Anna also looked at Chess. Someone performed a Summoning ritual and pulled these specific spirits from the City.
Right. Anna also looked at Chess. Someone performed a Summoning ritual and pulled these specific spirits from the City.
Chess smiled, hoping shed managed to keep the no-shit-really? off her face. She wasnt a fucking child; she knew what a fucking Summoning was and what it meant.
She also knew that this could be a major break in the case. Which was awesome. But which also kind of sucked, because if the case ended, so would her chance to actually investigate Uncle Mark.
So who were they? Did you write them down for us?
Anna and Bruce exchanged looks, the quick conspiratorial glances of people who were doing something besides working together. Uh-huh. Oh well. Not her business. She shifted her weight and looked away, back toward the dead inching ever closer. Coming for her.
Never had she been more grateful that her fear of failureand the resulting punishment shed gethad kept her from actually using that razor blade on her wrists, from jumping off the Old Home Bridge, from overdosing on anything and everything she could get her hands on. The day shed moved into her little room in the Church dorms shed been grateful, the day shed really realized what a chance this was for her shed been grateful, but this this was gratitude unlike any other, so strong and pure it stung her eyes. Because to kill herself would have been to send herself here, and instead of the peace and beauty shed always been led to expect, shed have been trapped in that
Shit. She would be trapped anyway, one day. She was going to die one day. And when she did shed end up there. For eternity.
Anna, Jillian, and Bruce were still talking, but Chess couldnt wait. No foreign objects or substances were allowed in the City and she was pretty sure vomit counted, and she couldnt hold it down anymore.
Those bespelled walls, those lines of pale blue light mocking her. Those glowing shapes of the dead coming for her, ready to grab her and hold her there and never let her leave. The pounding of her heart and the knowledge that she was wrong, she was broken so badly she couldnt even see the beauty everyone else did She didnt belong there, she was ruined, she was dirty and abnormal, she didnt feel the way everyone else felt because something was just fucked up inside her. She stumbled toward the door as fast as she could with sweat stinging her eyes and her chest aching as she fought her tight throat for air, and she flung herself through the iron-chain curtain and her knees hit the train platform with a bone-jarring smack as she threw up all over the concrete.
Chapter Seven
Shit. Chess took the little plastic cup Jillian offered her and downed its contents in one horrible pink-minty swallow. She didnt want it; a real drink was what she wanted, but fat chance of that. At least Jillian had brought her a Sprite, so she had something to wash down the medicine with. Because she didnt have a choice on the medicine.
She could either admit that shed thrown up because shed realized that instead of her soul living forever in peace and comfort, it would be trapped forever in a world even colder and emptier than the one she now inhabited, or she could lie and say something she ate must not have agreed with her. She chose the latter.
Couldnt even blame it on her hangover, because really, it wasnt like that looked much more professional, was it? Oh, yeah, I knew we had a lot of work to do today so I decided to get hammered alone in my room last night was probably not a great thing to say.
Not that she cared. She couldnt bring herself to care about much of anything at that point; it was like someone had reached into her mouth and scraped out her insides through her aching throat. Shed failed. Three years of studying her ass off, spending hour after hour reading and taking notes and working to try to get somewhere, and shed failed in the biggest and most important task of all: shed failed to see what everyone else saw, didnt have inside her whatever it was that she was supposed to have that would make her see the City the way it truly was.
You sure youre okay? Jillian rinsed the little cup and tucked it back into the medicine cabinet. They were in her cottage on Church grounds, a basic one-bed-one-bath just like all of the other employee cottages. Or most of them; the Elders who chose to live on-grounds had bigger houses, especially the higher-ranking ones. And married Church employees got bigger houses, too.
But Jillian was neither, so her place was approximately the size of a blanket. And about as difficult to navigate, because all of the cottages were laid out the same, with a door opening into a living room, a kitchen area in the back to the right, the bedroom in the back to the left, and a bathroom in between.