Something else was different, as well. All the lights were on, though the sun was just setting.
“I don’t know why you’re asking all these questions,” Mrs. Morton said, for the third or fourth time. “I haven’t slept in days. Please, when will you be able to get rid of it?”
“We’re working on it. Have you thought of staying somewhere else for a while? A friend’s house, perhaps, or a hotel?”
“We can’t afford a hotel,” Mrs. Morton snapped. Her eyes widened. “I mean, a hotel for weeks would be very expensive.”
Chess didn’t react, or make a note. She didn’t need to—this part was set hard into her brain. “According to the records you gave us, you have approximately ten thousand dollars available on your credit cards. Surely you can stay at a hotel for a while? You would of course be reimbursed by the Church after the Banishment.”
She said it with such confidence, she really did. Just as if she hadn’t found out earlier that one of her fellow Church employees was doing illegal magic to call forth something whose name she’d never heard before. Something that reeked of evil like a dead dog in the street reeked of decay.
And speaking of decay … The image of Slipknot’s rotting flesh, sliced open, marked up like a demented child’s tortured dolly, refused to leave her. What his soul must be suffering as he lay trapped in the stinking wreckage that was once a living, breathing body, was unimaginable. And she was responsible for it, because she hadn’t yet figured out how to release him.
It was hard enough not to think of herself as someone who barely deserved to live, without that kind of shit smeared all over her conscience.
How could one of her coworkers do such a thing? For what felt like the millionth time since leaving the beach she tried to think of illegal ink, forbidden tattoos, the possibility that the culprit might simply be someone who looked like a Church employee.
But no. Tyson knew who he’d seen, would know the difference between genuine Church tattoos and illegal ones. Inked like thou, he’d said, and it couldn’t have meant anything but Church ink.
She hoped he’d been lying. She couldn’t deny the possibility that he hadn’t.
“Yes, well, we’d rather stay in our home and have everything taken care of quickly, instead of being in-convenienced by living in a hotel,” said Mr. Morton. It took Chess a second to remember what they were talking about.
“Has the haunting escalated? You said last time that it was just a gray sexless shape, Mrs. Morton. Has it taken form? Started moving objects, anything like that?”
“It’s not gray anymore.” Mrs. Morton pulled at the string of pearls around her neck as if they were choking her. “It’s black. A man, in a black hood. He … he watches us while we try to sleep, he sneaks into our dreams … he scares me.”
She dissolved into sobs, sobs Chess could not hear over the pounding of her own heart.
“So they found the open spaces beneath the surface of the earth, and found the power there stronger than even that of the spirits, and they sent their guardians and messengers to the surface and brought the spirits to their new home, and imprisoned them there.”
—The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 400
She didn’t want to go home. Not after the break-in—had that really only been the night before? It had, and she couldn’t bear the thought of spending a night there alone. Not now, when she knew the person after her knew her, knew everything about her, had worked with her for years.
Tyson could have been lying, but Chess knew he hadn’t. Knew it the way she knew what the Truth was, the way she knew … the way she knew the only safe place now, even in the midst of all her doubts, was the Church. This late at night the building would be deserted, no one would be in the great library, and she had a key. She could do some research, try to decide what everything meant. She could just sit and breathe. The locks in her home could be picked, but the locks of the Church buildings were impregnable.
Of course, whoever had murdered Slipknot had a key, too. But they wouldn’t know where she was. It was still the safest place she could think of.
She spread her notes on the table before her, scanning them to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, looking for things she might have missed, before starting.
Neither Ereshdiran nor the symbol on her assailants’ robes appeared in any of the standard texts. She hadn’t expected them to, but wanted to be thorough.
Why would someone want to summon a Dreamthief? This wasn’t the first time illegal entities had been summoned, of course. When Chess was still a student someone had tried to call an elemental hate spirit, to show off at a party. Those who’d survived the carnage had failed to be impressed.
But a Dreamthief …? She kept thinking if she could remember where she’d seen that damned symbol she might have some idea what was going on, but her memory of it seemed too fuzzy. She couldn’t be sure in her mind it actually looked like she remembered, or if she’d embellished it somehow, made it up.
Sighing, she closed the last book and glanced at the clock. Almost ten. She’d have to leave soon if she wanted to replenish her supplies, and she definitely wanted. Only a desire to get to the bottom of this had kept her from running straight for the pipes after Terrible dropped her off. After the book … after the memories, carving themselves fresh into her head and leaving bloody tracks running down her neck … if she hadn’t been determined to make that hellish experience worth the price of admission she would have done it.
She gave herself half an hour more. Enough time to check a couple of the restricted books. Then she’d go. Straight to Bump’s.
The door to the Restricted Room was locked, but Chess knew where a spare key was kept, tucked on the ledge at the top of the center desk drawer. She’d never needed to steal it before, but then she’d never done research like this after hours before—the library Goodys had always been there to let her in. Feeling a little like a criminal, she felt around the ledge with her fingertips until the key dropped into the drawer, then crossed the room and slipped it into the lock.
It gave an audible click as the catch released, a click that seemed to echo in the big, empty room. Chess froze. Had that just been the lock, or had another click followed it, so closely she just mistook it for an echo?
She whipped around, her gaze skittering from shelf to shelf, across the empty expanse of shining wood floor and up the walls to the fans hanging like bizarre spiders from the ceiling. Always look up. Nobody ever looks up.
Nothing was there, and gradually her heart rate—already fast from all the speed—calmed down. She gave a soft, snorting laugh at herself, like a child bravely declaring themselves unafraid of the dark, and turned the knob.
She’d always loved the Restricted Room. Here were the banned books, the esoteric books, the relics of past forms of religion. Ornate gold crosses and a diamond-encrusted Star of David in glass cases lined the walls and glittered in the dim light, welcoming her into their presence like they’d been waiting for her. Bibles and Korans rested silently on pillars, their wisdom no longer needed, and in one corner sat an enormous gold Buddha, his benign smile blessing them all—if blessing had been permissible, anyway.
To own such items without proof of historical worth outside the Church meant heresy. Here she could look at them all she wanted, read the archaic words, piece together what life must have been like even thirty years before, much less centuries in the past.
She padded across the thick carpet to the Esoteric shelf at the far end, flicking the light switch as she went. The