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Chapter 5

Their breath barely had a chance to return to normal when headlights flooded the front windows and the sound of an engine idling outside made her lift her head. What the fuck?

Oh, no.

Terrible looked at her, the same thought reflected in his eyes. But he was faster, leaping off the beanbag and peering out the window. “Cab in the drive.”

“What? They— Shit! Shit, shit! They weren’t home, they’re not here asleep, they were out. Fuck, we need to get out of here.”

“Ain’t got time. Them outta the car, dig.”

She tried to remember the layout of the house as she snatched up her stuff from the floor. “Down the hall there’s a closet. Come on.” This was one of the stupidest situations she’d ever been in on a case. Fuck! Thankfully it appeared the Solomons didn’t use the closet often; an ironing board, a few boxes, and what looked like an exercise machine of some kind, covered in dust, huddled against the walls. Enough room for both of them to get their jeans back on.

“Hopefully they’ll go to bed soon,” she whispered, leaning back against him. She blew out the candle on her Hand.

She had every right to be there. As she’d told Mrs. Solomon, the Church granted her authority to enter anytime she chose, at any hour of the day or night. But getting caught was…bad form. Among Debunkers, not getting caught was a point of pride.

Of course, there was the added complication that she’d brought her…well, boyfriend, though as always that word was too small to encompass what he was to her. That could be a problem.

Terrible’s lips tickled her ear. “I could just knock em out, aye?” She laughed softly, tilted her head to kiss him. “I somehow think that wouldn’t be good if the Church finds out.”

Voices filled the air: Mrs. Solomon, laughing about something. The door closed behind them. Chess leaned forward a little to hear.

“I’m tired,” Mrs. Solomon said. A male voice mumbled something Chess didn’t catch, and Mrs. Solomon laughed. “Right, Joe.”

Joe? Mr. Solomon’s name was Doug, she’d called him Doug earlier. But maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it was her boyfriend, or some guy she’d picked up, or who the hell knew what.

Chess tilted her head back, turned her face toward Terrible’s. He leaned down so she could reach his ear. “What did the guy look like? Outside, I mean, when he got out of the car. What did he look like, did you see?”

“Weren’t too light, but lookin…like them out here, dig. Clean. White buttoned shirt. Had he a beard, them brown pants an shined-up shoes. All straight.”

“And it was just the two of them?”

“Aye.”

Chess had tossed the beanbags back into an approximation of where they’d been; it seemed like she’d done all right, because no alarm was being raised. Instead, murmurs and soft laughs drifted back from the living room. Were they going upstairs or what?

She rubbed her arms, shifted her weight. Hoped Mrs. Solomon and this Joe person would get the fuck upstairs so she and Terrible could sneak out. The incense smell, so strong even in the closet, made her nose itch; her arms itched, her chest—

Shit. That wasn’t a normal itch. That was ghosts: the tingling, burning kind of itch they always caused when their energy hit the magic imbued in Chess’s tattoos. There was a ghost in the house, a ghost nearby. But Mr. Solomon was the one Hosting, and his name wasn’t Joe, and the man Terrible described didn’t sound at all like Mr. Solomon: She doubted Mr. Solomon had ever worn trousers and button-down shirts in his life. The man owned a business and ran it wearing torn denim, so…

The lights in the living room hadn’t gone on, and—oh, shit—little sounds started making their way into the closet, sounds that were unmistakable indications that Mrs. Solomon and her companion were doing some “celebrating.” Terrible pulled back Chess’s hair so he could kiss her neck. “Be in here a while, aye?”

“Maybe he won’t last long.”

Terrible’s short laugh made his chest move against her back. “Aye, maybe so.” Mrs. Solomon yelled something, something that had something to do with cowboys, if Chess heard right, and— Wait. Wait a minute.

Mr. Solomon was Hosting. He shared his body with a ghost, but Chess would only feel that when the ghost was “out,” so to speak—when it had control of his body. The underwear on the floor in the bedroom came back to her. Of course. One man preferred boxers, the other briefs. No, Mr. Solomon didn’t wear khakis, he wore jeans and t-shirts, but there had been tidier clothing on the floor, right? So the ghost wore button-downs, the ghost wore trousers. She honestly didn’t think she’d ever seen anything like it, heard of anything like it in six years of Church training and almost four more of Debunking.

People didn’t Host spirits and just…let those spirits exist as another person using their body. They Hosted for power. They worked with a ghost but didn’t allow the ghost independence. How fucking dangerous was that? What was the matter with these people, did they not realize what a ghost would do if given control of a body?

Mrs. Solomon had been laughing and talking to the ghost. Laughing, talking, and calling it Joe. The man inside her husband’s body. What had Mrs. Solomon said? “We believe in exploring the pleasures of the body,” or some shit like that? Yeah. Some exploring.

Well, she hoped they’d enjoyed it. They wouldn’t be exploring too many bodily pleasures in their prison cells.