Something slithered behind his eyes, clouding them smoky gray like an overcast sky for a second before they normalized again. But Chess had seen it, and the hair on her nape stood on end. Tyson was not human, not entirely. Whether he'd been born that way or whether he'd made himself what he was through dealing with the Underworld she did not know, and she hoped she wouldn't find out.

He rubbed the palm of one surprisingly large hand over his short white hair. Now that she'd had a second to adjust she realized he wasn't old, as she'd first imagined. He might have ten years on her, possibly twenty, but not more. His small, stooped frame had been bent by something other than age.

"Thou must be Cesaria," he said, his voice pouring over her like whiskey. "And thou has brought an escort. A guard?"

"Just a friend," she said.

"Awfully big friend, is he not?" Tyson looked Terrible up and down, a shifty half-smile playing on his lips, then shrugged. "Aye, welcome in. Edsel sayest thou needs information? About some runes?"

"Yes."

He bowed and stepped back, sweeping his right arm wide to usher them in. "I have information, indeed."

For a moment the size of the place made her dizzy. Had he somehow subverted the rules of physics, made his little hut bigger on the inside? Then she realized why the room smelled of dusty rock, dry and powdery in her nose. With the exception of the weathered wood front wall, the rest of the house was made of stone. He'd tunneled back into the cliffs. She made a mental note not to walk farther back if she could help it. The thought of all that heavy rock-and one BT muscle car-with absolutely nothing to keep it from falling ...

Focusing on the house itself did nothing to put her at ease. Shelves lined every wall, stuffed full with jars and bottles, with bones and feathers and fur. Why did this man shop at Edsel's, when he had virtually everything a spellcaster could ever want right here? Skulls from at least fifteen different animals on one wall, rows of various other parts on another. Jars of herbs stacked one on top of the other, three deep, intruded into the room from the back, framing a small black door that she imagined led to Tyson's bedroom.

She turned around to see Terrible brushing cautiously at the objects hanging from the ceiling as he entered. Amulets and charms, all tied to colored ribbons and strings. They would have hit him in the face if he didn't push them aside, but she could feel his reluctance to touch them and couldn't blame him for it.

"I have made refreshments," Tyson said. "Would thou care for some? A drink? A cookie?"

It should have been amusing, the offer of a cookie from a man whose eyes kept sliding into and out of gray and lived in a museum of sorcery. But his smile was a little too wide, a little too full of teeth. She couldn't help but wonder what sort of cookie he might have made.

According to Church law, world-bound souls were not permitted to exist. The human host could be sent to prison, one of the special prisons where souls were tortured and escape was impossible. Chess wondered why Tyson did not seem afraid she might report him. Most tried to hide their binding. He did not.

"No, thank you," she said, realizing he and Terrible were both watching her. "Can we just get down to business? I'm afraid I'm in kind of a hurry today."

"Of course. The formalities are only that-formalities. Having dispensed with them we may conclude our transaction at any pace thou desires."

"Um. Great." She pulled out the amulet, wrapped in its tea towel. "I was hoping you would be able to decipher some of the runes on this, they-what?"

Tyson collected himself with some effort. His eyes smoothed back to gray as he forced the smile to leave his face, but Chess could still feel his amus.e.m.e.nt, could still hear his light laugh in the air. "I am sorry, Cesaria. Tell me, where did thou find this thing?"

"I can't say."

He nodded and held out one large hand, his too-slim fingers curving gently like seaweed in the tide. "May I hold it, please?"

She set it and the cloth in the center of his palm, hoping he didn't notice her reluctance to touch his skin. He whipped the towel away, closing his fingers around the amulet and holding it up.

"Oh, aye," he said. "It does its little job, does it not? Hmmm." He brought it to his nose, stuck out his tongue for a taste. His eyes rolled back in his head. "Thou has given it blood, Cesaria."

"It was an accident."

He chuckled, like a clogged engine coughing its way into life. "Accidents do happen." His hand snapped shut. "I can tell much of it. What shall I get in return? The book needs its sacrifice if it is to open."

"What book? Can't you just tell me?"

"The words cannot be spoken unless cast. Thou must read them, but not say out loud."

Nothing good could possibly come of this. She saw herself at the door, saw Terrible behind her as they left and climbed back up the hill to his car, saw them hauling a.s.s away from here and back to the city.

Then she saw Slipknot, with his body rotting more every minute and his soul trapped inside the maggoty, desiccated ruin, and she knew she could not go.

"What's the price?" She picked up her bag, ready to dig into her wallet. For that matter, she was ready to make Terrible dig into his. b.u.mp would be paying both of them back. This was his project, he could use his own d.a.m.n money.

"Oh. Thou offers money." Those extra teeth of Tyson's glowed in the dim light. "The book does not require such cold sacrifice, dear. It asks for something more ... Perhaps thou had better see. Wait here."

Chess and Terrible exchanged glances as he got up and disappeared through that black door, the shiny gold and red fabric of his robe floating behind him.

"You ain't get this learning any elsewhere?"

She shook her head.

He sighed. "Ain't liking this, not one bit."

She was about to reply when Tyson swept back into the room, holding a book flat in front of him. At first Chess thought Tyson had cut himself on something in the other room, that he either hadn't noticed or didn't care. Then she realized the blood spattering onto his robe and absorbing into the dirt floor wasn't his.

It was coming from the book.

It dripped dark and clotted from the covers and oozed out from the pages. Chess's skin crawled. She did not want to read that thing, didn't want to touch it, didn't want to go near it. Her palm burned and itched, the tattoos on her arms warmed as the book was brought closer to her.

Tyson nudged a small table with his foot and looked at Terrible. "Will thou bring it over?"

Terrible's face did not move as he lifted the table and set it in front of Chess, but when his eyes met hers she read the message in them. He felt it, too, didn't like this any more than she did.

It couldn't be helped. She tried not to cringe away when Tyson set the b.l.o.o.d.y book on the table, forcing herself instead to reach for it. Tyson's hand stopped her.

"Thou is sure? Thou is ready to touch the book?" His eyes gleamed.

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

Terrible stepped forward. "Give it me."

"No. This isn't your-"

"Ain't having you do it, Chess. It's why I come along, aye?"

Droplets of blood plunked onto the dirt, loud in the silence while she and Terrible looked at each other.

"One of thee decide, if it pleases," Tyson said. "Charming as this little moment is, I haven't got all day to watch."

Chess reached out, but Terrible was faster. The tips of the fingers on his left hand brushed the cover, and the book flew open, scattering drops of blood everywhere, onto him, onto Chess, onto the walls and furniture.

She barely noticed. She could not tear her eyes away as the pages shifted, fluttered, brushing against Terrible's hand, then finally falling open, clean and white. The blood was gone.

For a moment, anyway. Then it started again, spreading across the pages in a crimson flood, forming words and symbols that seemed to float above the parchment.

Terrible grunted softly, an uncomfortable sound, one she did not like. His hand, which had been resting on top of the book, seemed to shrink, to flatten, and she realized it was actually sinking in. The blood on the page now was his.

He sank to his knees, his face flushing, his eyes closed.

"Terrible? Terrible?"

He shook his head. "Ain't ... no ..."

"Terrible!" She reached for him, meaning to pull his arm away, but Tyson's voice stopped her.

"Thou had best get the knowledge," he said. "Quickly, lest the book kill thy guard before thou do."

Chapter Twenty.

"Often we find ourselves as parents unsure how to guide our children. In those cases we should simply look for the Truth, and we will be correct. Protecting our children is the highest way of serving humanity and Truth."

-Families and Truth, a Church pamphlet by Elder Barrett Terrible moaned, a sound so low and frightened it felt like someone rubbing tinfoil against her brain.

"Stop this!"

Tyson shrugged. "His time shortens while thou speaks."

f.u.c.k! f.u.c.k, s.h.i.t f.u.c.k. Where was her notepad? And her pen? The words in the book had almost finished forming, stretching across the pages like the footprints of bleeding ravens. An image started to form in the center, the amulet, the runes around the edge growing and shrinking.

"No ... not me ... not me ..." Terrible's body convulsed, folded over on itself, his head bowed. His entire body trembled and shook as he sank farther to the floor, shrinking into a semi fetal position. Red symbols scrolled up his arm, swirling around his elbow and creeping over the slice of bare skin showing at the back of his neck, then back down to spread over the page.

Finally her fingers closed over the pen and pad. She started writing, hardly paying attention, just trying to copy the pages and stop this. If it would stop, if she hadn't just sacrificed a man's life just to decipher that stupid amulet. Slipknot could rot forever for all she cared, who cared, just please let this end ...

Tretso, yes. To power. And the other one, Etosh, to direct it. More. Vedak, to trap the soul. Arged, to feed from it. Who the f.u.c.k had done this, had concocted something so foul? The lettering flowed faster across the parchment now, almost too fast for her to follow.

"That's good," she heard Tyson say softly. "So much pain ... and strength ... the book is pleased ..."

"f.u.c.k you," she managed, but it was drowned out by Terrible's roar, like a tiger in pain, setting every hair on her body on end.

The last rune formed now, pulsing bigger and thicker, the red marks forming a rune, then a face, then a rune again, the words stretching out even as Chess's heart thudded and skipped. That face was that of the nightmare man, and his name was Ereshdiran, the stealer of dreams.

"Done!" she shouted. "I'm done! I'm finished, stop this now, stop it please ..."

Red ink covered Terrible's face, fiery bright under his skin, under the tears squeezing out from beneath his closed eyelids.

"No more, no more, no more, not me, please, please don't." Over and over, a litany she could not bear to hear any longer.

Terrible's eyes flew open. Chess screamed. His irises were red, bright glowing red, his pupils nothing but black pinpoints against it. It was in him, oh f.u.c.k, whatever it was was inside him, eating him ...

Tyson laughed softly as she reached out without thinking and grabbed the book, trying to yank it away.

Tyson's house disappeared. Instead she was back in a bedroom, a familiar one, though she had not seen it in years, while heavy footsteps clumped across a wooden floor as she pulled the covers tighter over her head. She was only ten, she didn't want him in here, didn't want him to make her do those things again ...

A different room, a different father, his beefy fist swinging backward to catch her across the face ...

Another hit. A heavy, sweaty female figure climbing into her bed. Her clothes torn. Every image Chess ever wanted to forget flashing before her eyes, and over it all the despair, the pain, the misery and loneliness of never being touched except in anger or l.u.s.t, of being outside, not belonging to anyone or with anyone, of hating herself so much it made her choke. She couldn't even feel her body anymore, couldn't see or hear anything but the voice in her head that reminded her every minute of every day how worthless she was, the voice she tried to dull with drugs and work but never really went away, it never would go away, not until she finally died and went to the silent and cold City beneath the ground, a place she'd always thought bad enough to make life just a tiny bit preferable to it. There was no solace there for her, no peace, just endless days and nights of drifting ...

"Noooo," she sobbed, and just like that it ended. Her knees hurt from hitting the floor. Every muscle in her body ached, but it was done, the book was closed, and Terrible was halfway across the room before she stopped feeling the imprint of his hands on her arms.

He grabbed Tyson by the throat and lifted him, flinging the smaller man against the rough-hewn stone like a ball at the end of a tether. Tyson made a small choked sound that could have been a cry or a laugh, his eyes slithering back to solid gray.

"Lemme hit him, Chess," Terrible moaned, his voice breaking. His right hand fisted and flexed, fisted and flexed, the muscles on his arm bulging as his whole body trembled. "Just let me ... you ... you f.u.c.king ..."

"Thou saw things thou did not want to see again." Tyson smiled like a zipper sliding open. "Bad memories, guard? Was it worth it?"

"Chess ..."

"No! No, Terrible, don't, don't-wait." Her leg b.u.mped the table as she got up and crossed the room, leaving a smear of blood soaking into her jeans. "Wait. Who else saw this, Tyson? Who came here before, and made that amulet?"

"I know not-"

"No, you do. You do, that's why you laughed when you saw it, isn't it? Who was it? Tell me, or I'll let him beat you. I'll let him kill you if he wants to, and I think he does." She glanced at Terrible, but his eyes were still focused on Tyson with the intensity of a hungry wolf watching a house cat. "Do you want to, Terrible?"

"Aye."

"Thou cannot kill me. I am more powerful than thou knows."

Terrible growled.

"You know what I have in my bag, Tyson? Melidia weed. Melidia, and my psychopomp. I can send you and whatever that thing is you're hosting into one of the spirit prisons so fast you won't even have time to beg for mercy, and I can let Terrible break every f.u.c.king bone in your body first. Now tell me, and we'll go. Fair evens."

Terrible tightened his grip on Tyson's throat. Tyson's eyes bulged slightly, rolling back into his head. "Like thou," he gasped. "A dark man, inked like thou ... ahhh ..."

His arms stretched out at his side, his fingers spreading as his eyes went pure silver. s.h.i.t.

"Terrible, let him go!" She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away from Tyson. "Let him go, now!"

Terrible obeyed just as the thing inside Tyson freed itself, flying from the man's open mouth and into the air over their heads like pale, misty vomit. Chess ducked, pulling Terrible with her. They fell to the dirt in a jumble of arms and legs as the thing formed itself into a face, vaguely human, with huge empty eyes and a mouth that opened as if on hinges.

It spread across the ceiling, growing larger and larger. A long finger of tattered ectoplasm brushed Chess's cheek, leaving a trail of freezing slime across her skin.

Terrible's fingers were warm and hard in hers, painfully tight, as he yanked her up and pulled her across the room, throwing his body against the door to break it open. The thing screamed behind them as they ran, but nothing emerged from the ramshackle hut, and after a moment silence fell.

"My bag," she gasped. "I left my bag in there."

"s.h.i.t. You joking me?"

She shook her head. The wind blew so hard she couldn't seem to catch her breath, or maybe her lungs were simply frozen in terror. Inked like thou, he'd said. A Church employee? "I have to have it, I have to go back for it."