Unholy Magic by Stacia Kane Page B

unsure if they should hug or kiss or shake hands, and finally settled into a clumsy half-embrace.
    “Been a long time, huh?” he asked, his face splitting into the wide, crooked grin she remembered. “Ten years? Nine?”
    “About that, yeah.”
    “Since you left to study with the Church.” He nodded at her bag. “Guess you made it, huh? I finally got out when I hit seventeen. Well, you remember, they’ll only keep you until then.”
    “I remember.” She didn’t want to, but she did. Corey Youth Home, they’d called it, but it wasn’t anything like a home. More like a zoo, but instead of standing and watching the animals they locked you in with them.
    Merritt seemed to be thinking the same thing. His blue eyes clouded for a moment, and he put the hat back on to cover his sandy-blond hair. “Anyway, I guess you’re here about the ghosts.”
    She nodded. “Have you seen any?”
    “I haven’t, but I’m day shift. I know a couple of guys did, or thought they did, anyway. Come on. I’ll escort you in.”
    His hand on the small of her back guided her across the blacktop and past the other guards watching with narrowed eyes. Merritt held up a hand. “I know her.”
    “Why are they watching like that?”
    “Normally they’d search you, make sure you don’t have weapons or anything, you know.”
    Chess thought of her knife, tucked into the side pocket of her bag, and of her full pillbox. If she was going to get searched every time she came here … she’d have to be careful.
    “What, just my bag, or my person?”
    His glance flicked over her entire body, from feet to top of head, while he grinned again. He always had been a hound. And she should know, having given him a try once or twice. There wasn’t much else to do in the Corey Home, and sex was the most valuable currency she’d had.
    Still was, if she thought about it, but she didn’t really want to. She wasn’t with Lex for drugs. Technically.
    “Everything. Mr. Pyle doesn’t take chances, and neither do we.”
    She filed that away for future use. She wouldn’t be spending long hours here, that was for sure, not if she couldn’t bring her Cepts. The last thing she needed was to start itching and getting sick while with a subject.
    Merritt led her to what looked like another room attached to the far wall of the garage, with an outside door. It turned out to be a hallway. Fluorescent bulbs cast a garish, shadowless light along its length; it felt like walking through an operating room. She pulled her sunglasses back down.
    Merritt smiled. “Mr. Pyle likes bright lights. And with everything going on …”
    That was a point in Pyle’s favor, certainly. It was something those who faked hauntings never seemed to think of, people’s almost instinctual desire for light when scared. Odd, but true.
    Of course a point in Pyle’s favor was a point against her, but no way was she giving up this early.
    Merritt opened the door at the end of the hall and ushered her through to a small, plain room, still blindingly light but empty. He gripped the bright gold doorknob. “Ready?”
    “I don’t know, what do you think?”
    “I know I am,” he muttered, but before she could respond he stepped through the doorway, tilting his head to the side to indicate she should follow.
    The ceiling rose above her, cresting so far up it was hard to see the ridge. Pale wood beams crisscrossed below it, giving an illusion of intimacy Chess wouldn’t have thought possible.
    That bleached wood was echoed in the huge mantel over the fireplace, big enough Chess figured she could almost stand in it, and the chairs and couches with their ivory cushions and pale orange throw pillows. The carpet was the same pale orange. It was a beautiful room, ostentatiously cozy.
    In the center of it stood Roger Pyle. He exuded charisma the way Bump oozed sleaze; it felt like he’d physically hit her in the chest with charm, and she fought the reaction. Wouldn’t do to start liking the