Finding Magic

Read on for a sneak peek inside the next novel in Stacia Kane’s dark and sexy series CHASING MAGIC Coming soon from Del Rey

All of the documents were in place: The Affidavit of Spectral Fraud, the Statement of Truth, two Orders of Imprisonment and two Orders of Relinquishment, and, of course, the list of Church-approved attorneys. The Darnells would want that—well, they’d need it, because they were about to be arrested for faking a haunting.

At least, they would be when the Black Squad got there to back Chess up. She didn’t always want the Squad to come along; police presence tipped people off, made things more difficult, and most people came pretty quietly once they realized they were busted, anyway. The Darnells didn’t seem like the come-quietly type, though. Something told Chess they weren’t going to take this well.

But she’d told them she’d be there at six, and it was five past already and their curtains kept twitching. They knew she was there.

Right. She’d taken a couple of Cepts before leaving her apartment in Downside, so they were just starting to hit—smooth, thick, narcotic warmth spreading from her stomach out through the rest of her body, a pleasant softness settling over her mind.

That was the best thing about the drugs, really; she could still think, still be coherent, still use her brain. She just didn’t have to if she didn’t want to, and it was so much easier to keep that brain from wandering into all those places she didn’t want it to go.

And she had so fucking many of those places.

She grabbed the Darnell file from her bag, locked her car, and started walking along the cobblestone path to the front door, weaving around the flowers and plants scattered like islands across the impossibly green sea of grass. Bees made their way from bloom to bloom, doing whatever the hell it was bees did. Oh, sure, she knew it was something to do with pollen or whatever. She just didn’t give a shit.

By the time she reached the porch, sweat beaded along her forehead and her body felt damp. Summer sucked. Only the middle of June and already it was scorching.

Brandon Darnell opened the door before she’d finished raising her hand to knock. “Miss Putnam. You’re late.”

Asshole. She faked a smile. “Sorry. Traffic.”

At least they had air-conditioning.

The entire Darnell family sat in the pretentious high-ceilinged living room, slouching on the ridiculously overpriced suede couch and chairs that were partly responsible for the enormous debt they were in. Debt they’d planned to clear by faking a haunting and getting a nice fat settlement from the Church of Real Truth.

Too bad for them, the Church wasn’t stupid—being in charge of everyone and everything on earth for twenty-four years proved that—and had contingency plans for such things. Chess was one of them.

Brandon Darnell indicated an empty chair along the back wall. “Have a seat.”

Alarms started ringing in Chess’s head. He seemed a little too calm, a little too … cheerful.

But all the other chairs were full, so she sat, shooting another glance out the window to see if the Squad had arrived yet. Nope. Damn it!

The Darnells sat there, unmoving. Just watching her. Because that wasn’t creepy at all.

Mrs. Darnell—frowsy, bad perm, blue eyeshadow up to her brows—showed her perfect white teeth in what passed for a smile. “Do you have any news for us? When will you Banish the ghost?”

Chess’s phone beeped—a text. A text from the Black Squad, thank fuck; they were almost there. Good. She didn’t have to sit around wasting time with these people.

“I do have news.” She pulled the forms from the file. “This is my Statement of Truth, copies of which I’ve already filed with the Church. This one is for you to sign. It’s the Affidavit of Spectral Fraud, which is basically your confession, and this one—”

“What the hell are you talking about? We haven’t committed any fraud, there’s no—”

“Mr. Darnell.” Normally she’d stand up for this part, but what the hell. The chair was pretty comfortable. “I found, and photographed, the projectors set up in the attic. I won’t bother to point out to you where the holes in the ceiling are, since you already know. The ‘ectoplasm’ on your walls has been analyzed—twice, for confirmation—as a mixture of cornstarch, gelatin, iridescent paint, and water.”

She waited for a response, and didn’t get one. Good. “I also have pictures of the portable air conditioner you set up beneath the house—that’s another crime, by the way, putting anything underground, but I imagine you know that—to fake sudden changes in temperature. One of my hidden cameras caught you breaking the mirrors yourself, and another one caught very clearly you and Mrs. Darnell discussing your crimes.”

Mr. and Mrs. Darnell looked guilty. Their children—Cassie and Curtis, how cute—looked confused. Chess directed her next comments to them.

“I have two Orders of Relinquishment here. You two are going to be taken to the Church with your parents, but when they go into prison, you’ll be moving in with another family member or, failing that, a home will be found for you. You’ll be safe there.”

She could only hope that last line was true. It hadn’t been for her. None of those “homes” she’d been sent to had been safe—or at least no more than a couple of them.

But that had been a long time ago. That had been before the Church was really settled. That had been a mistake; she was an anomaly—or something—and it only mattered in her memories.

Because the Church had saved her. They’d taken her out of that life and given her a new one. The Church had found her and made her into something real.

The two children looked at each other, looked at Chess, looked at their parents. What was the expression on their faces? Shocked, curious? Chess couldn’t quite seem to read it.

She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. Shit, she didn’t usually have problems like this from her pills. And no way had she gotten a bad batch; Lex had given her those, and Lex might be in charge of the Downside gang in direct opposition to the one Chess’s … Chess’s everything worked for, but Lex wouldn’t try to do her any harm. She knew that. Lex was her friend.

So what the fuck?

Her eyes itched, too; she raised her hand to rub at them. Struggled to raise it, actually. In fact, she’d been sitting still for a few minutes, hadn’t she? Without moving.

The room started to rock around her, as if she and the Darnells sat on the deck of a ship in stormy waters. Nausea slithered through her stomach, up her throat.

Her skin tingled. Not her skin, actually. Her tattoos—runes and sigils inscribed into her skin with magic-imbued ink by the Church—tingled. The way they always did in the presence of ghosts … or in the presence of magic.

It took forever to turn her head to the left, on a neck that felt like it was being squeezed by strong, hard hands she couldn’t see. Who was … fuck, someone was casting some kind of spell on her; who was it, what was it?

She couldn’t tell. Couldn’t see well enough to tell—just a shape, a spot of darker shadow in the long hallway. But whatever it was—it felt like a man, she had enough presence of mind to know that—it was powerful, it was strong, and it was about to beat her.

Something inside her struggled. The noise of the Darnells shouting faded, faded like a stiff wind had come up and was blowing them all away. The adult Darnells yelling, cackling; the young Darnells panicked and confused.

And over it all the words of power were beginning to seep into her consciousness, spoken in a deep smooth voice like smoked glass. Smoked glass with jagged edges; she’d cut herself on them, they’d slice into her skin and her blood would spill out onto the floor, staining the carpet the Darnells couldn’t pay for. Staining everything except her soul; that was filthy enough already, covered with grime and pain that would never go away no matter how many pills she took or lines she snorted.

But she didn’t want to go. Not just because she was afraid of the City of Eternity, either. Everyone else thought the enormous cavern below the earth where the spirits of the dead lived on forever was peaceful, beautiful. Only Chess knew what it really was: cold and horrible and terrifying.

That wasn’t the point, though. As her breath came shorter and shallower, as the black edge around her vision thickened until she could see only tiny spots of the room around her, all she could really think about was Terrible. The only man in the world who made her feel … like she was okay, like she could be happy. The only one who understood her. The only one who loved her.

The only one, period.

She would not leave him. She refused to leave him.