City of Ghosts. Stacia Kane

we do not trust you,” Elder Griffin said. “It’s that the sensitivity of this case, the subject of it, makes explaining a little difficult.”

      Elder Thompson folded his arms. “We can’t tell you what it’s about. Not until you agree to take it.”

      “What? I don’t—”

      “And it will require a Binding Oath.”

      Her mouth fell open. A Binding Oath? They had to be kidding. No. No way. They wanted her to take a case so serious it required an oath of secrecy—a form of magical control over her actions—and they weren’t even going to tell her what it was about first? Not even a hint?

      Lex would surely front her. If he was going to stop giving her what she needed for free, she knew he would at least front her until she got a real case, one where she’d get a bonus. It wouldn’t be long, it never—

      “The case comes with a bonus before you begin, simply for agreeing and accepting the Bind,” Elder Griffin said. “Thirty thousand dollars. You will be given a thousand dollars a week on top of your salary for the duration of the case—we anticipate a resolution within two weeks, however—and an additional fifty thousand when it ends.”

      Her protest died in her throat. Eighty-two thousand dollars. Eighty thousand dollars minimum. That was a fuck of a lot of money.

      That would buy her a fuck of a lot of oblivion. And the way things were going these days, oblivion was even more important than usual.

      And she still needed a new car.

      “I assume,” she said, pushing the words out through a throat gone gummy, “that it’s a dangerous case?”

      Lauren Abrams rearranged her legs with another nylon hiss; Elder Thompson and Elder Griffin both watched her like they thought she might get up and run screaming from the room. None of them replied.

      She’d just watched two people die. Her hand throbbed where she’d sliced it. Her thigh ached. She wanted a cigarette, and she wanted her pills. And she wanted eighty thousand dollars.

      No matter what the case was.

      “I’ll do it,” she said, and hoped it would be worth it.

       Chapter Three

      And we honor those first Elders above all others, for they were the Founders of our Church and thus the saviors of mankind.

      —The Book of Truth, Origins, Article 1256

      Elder Griffin stood up. Light from the candles on the floor spilled across his face, cast jutting shadows over one eye. For a moment he looked alien, almost scary; then he turned farther to his left and was himself again.

      Chess’s heart pounded in her chest. It’s just a bit of magic, she told herself. Just an oath, no different from the ones she’d taken when she started her training, certainly no different from the ones she’d taken when she completed that training and became a full Church employee at the age of twenty-one.

      It didn’t work, though. This was different, and she knew it. And she didn’t like it. Nor did she like the energy rising in the room, sly and intrusive, or the peculiar smile on Lauren Abrams’s face as she watched the Elders set up the altar.

      Chess stood in the center of the room with her hands clasped behind her. Dried blood had settled into the fabric of her plain ceremonial dress, making her stomach protest a little when she thought about it. She didn’t worry about the executioner and Elder Murray; what few blood- or fluid-borne diseases had survived the Church’s strict quarantine and eradication policies, Church employees had been vaccinated against.

      But Madame Lupita…disease aside, who the hell knew what sort of bacterial stew had simmered in her plaque-clotted veins? Realistically, Chess knew the risk was gone now that the blood had dried, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to get the damned dress off as fast as she possibly could.

      But of course she didn’t have much choice. And the sooner she took the damned Oath, the sooner she’d get a nice fat check. She could slip it in the night deposit on her way home.

      Movement to her left brought her back into the room, back into the ceremony. The Elders had started laying out a salt line, murmuring words of power as they moved solemnly clockwise. Lauren stood against the wall, outside the circle, watching them with her arms folded and her ankles crossed. Irritation prickled Chess’s skin.

      It wasn’t that it was so unusual for her to dislike people right off the bat. That was pretty much the way she felt about everyone. But she wasn’t usually forced to work with people she disliked right off the bat. She felt…intruded upon.

      But then, nobody was forcing her to take the case. No, not forcing. Bribing. And she was taking the bribe, because she needed the money.

      Behind the Elders the salt line erupted into shining deep purple, hissing faintly as it rose in thick lines and cast colored light across everything. Their white stockings glowed, their faces glowed; Elder Griffin’s pale hair surrounded his head in a corona of blazing violet that made Chess’s eyes sting.

      Not just her eyes, either. The energy buzzed and twirled around her, battered her skin. She was caught in it, a vortex of power swirling around her, catching her in it and twisting her inside out. She didn’t know where to look, what to focus on; she couldn’t bear to close her eyes.

      So she looked down, focused on the dusty, bloodspecked toes of her once-shiny black heels. It wasn’t a good compromise. Her head swam; her feet looked vertiginously far away. But it was better than watching the Elders move—setting up their bowls and setting fire to their herbs—inside the sparkling, viciously bright dome.

      The only good thing was that Lauren Abrams could no longer see her. The circle would block her view. It was some relief.

      Smoke filled the circle, thick, choking smoke the same purple as the circle, the same color as the fire burning in a large firedish opposite her. She didn’t want to breathe it in. Breathing it in was part of the Oath, part of the Binding. Even she didn’t know what some of those herbs were, but when they entered her lungs they would enter her bloodstream, locking every cell of her body into the magical oath she was about to take.

      Powerful binding herbs, too. The calamus herbs, vetiver, and sweet flag, combined with the deep, throbbing energy of licorice root. She could feel them spreading through her, finding every empty place, drawing her own magic and mixing with it. She was naked, open to them; they swept through her without caring, without feeling, winding from her feet to her head and forcing her to bend to their power.

      This wasn’t like the oaths she’d taken when she was initiated, not like the ones when she began her training. This was…this was heavy, dark magic, trapping her, squeezing her with so much pressure that she thought she might implode. Like nothing she’d ever experienced before. This wasn’t right, it couldn’t be right…

      Dimly she heard the Elders speaking, saw vague movement as they added more herbs to the glowing purple fire in the north end of the circle. Myrrh and cedar, bergamot and dragon’s blood. Her vision blurred. Shapes formed in the smoke, open mouths, staring eyes. Someone moaned. She wasn’t sure if it was her.

      Elder Thompson started chanting, low and slow, his voice thick with smoke and power and the spine-tingling thrust of command. She moved without intending to, bound by him. Bound by his commands. Somewhere deep down she fought against it.

      She didn’t want to do this anymore. She’d changed her mind. Her heart slammed around in her chest like a pinball caught between the paddles, trying frantically to escape. Her mind fought against the Elder, against what he wanted her to do, but she was caught. Trapped. Her hands rose at his words, turned so her pale wrists, veins blue-purple beneath the thin skin, faced the top of the dome.

      Elder Griffin’s hand on her arm. Desperately she swam through the smoke before her eyes, fought