Besides, talking weren’t Terrible’s strong suit anyroad.
But he finally had to. “How you meet up with Roley? How’d this start up?”
Brian hesitated. Terrible pulled his knife, spun it in his hand. Didn’t say anything. Just waited.
“We’d been working on it for a while.” Brian shifted in his seat. “Trying different formulations, different energies to get things started. We posted a call for volunteers to test it, ten bucks a shot. He was one of them. We got to know him. He’s—he was—a smart kid, had some good ideas. When we realized what kind of energy we needed, he was the one who suggested we use prostitutes instead of regular women. It worked. We gave him a few grand as a bonus and promised him a job, a real one. That was it.”
Spending time with Roley musta been how he’d learned to talk like Downside enough to fool Essie, iffen he’d needed to learn it. But no mention of Slobag, or Lex. Shit. Meant he’d have to ask. “How’d Slobag get involved?”
“Who?” Brian looked puzzled, true thing. But puzzled could be faked.
“Slobag. Lex. Roley set up that one? You ever meeting them? How’d that happen?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I honestly don’t.” Panic filled the car, riding Brian’s voice higher and higher. “Roley was the only one I ever talked to. He seemed to have the connections. He told us to wait for his call, and then one night he called and said if we could be there fast he had a girl we could try. We’d had one of our men rent an apartment in the area so we could be ready, so … he headed over. And it worked.”
Archie, just like he’d thought. “What he name?”
Pause. Terrible spun the knife again.
“Tom. Tom Grant.”
“But calling heself Archie, aye?”
Brian shrugged. “Archie was another employee. He agreed to let Tom use his name and information to rent an apartment, but he … he became a problem.”
And Terrible knew just what kinda problem he’d become. The kind who felt guilty and wanted to report what was happening to the Church. Or maybe the kind wanted more lashers to keep he mouth shut. Either way, he’d become the kind of problem best solved by death. Terrible ain’t had to wonder no more whose body he’d found earlier. “Gav were a problem, too?”
“Of the same type, yes.” Brian looked out the window, ducked his head a little. “We had to take care of it. With this much money involved … Look, I can’t offer you more than twenty percent, but I don’t think you realize the numbers we’re talking about here. Enough that you never have to work again, ever. This spell is—come on. You’re a businessman, right? So am I. Let’s make a deal. Let’s—”
The words ended in a scream as Terrible’s knife sank into his thigh. Deep in. Were a loud scream, too, high-pitched, ending in choked sobs. Pussy.
Brian didn’t talk again until they got to the Peace Factory, a big red brick square with an empty parking lot in front and a chain-link fence around the back. That were the employee lot, and a patio with some picnic tables; Terrible had seen those when he checked the place out before. The gates to that opened with one a them codeboxes. Most of those had an override for ambulances and cops and like that, the same for all of them. Terrible rolled down his window and punched those numbers. The gate opened, and he drove through, nice and slow, switching off the headlights.
The back door were even easier, seeing as it were made of glass. Terrible pulled the gun from his bag with his left hand. No real need to aim. It were a big door, and all glass. Aye, it’d probably set off an alarm, but he’d have at least three or four minutes before he had to worry on that. More, even, causen the Peace Factory weren’t too far outta Downside, and cops and ambulances and shit never responded to calls from there. Besides, Timmy Vee would start everything up as soon as Terrible were inside.
The gunshot echoed loud over the empty lot, the crash of glass like applause coming right after. Brian fell over. The urge to kick him while he lay there cringing was real strong, but … no. He needed to get moving, and he needed Brian to believe he still might live to see the sun come up.
He yanked Brian offen the ground and pushed him through the doors. No alarm sounded, but that ain’t meant there wasn’t one. “Where? Where the magic at, an all the paperwork on it and shit?”
“Upstairs.”
The Peace Factory were an actual factory, looked like, set up a lot like the slaughterhouse except instead of chutes and death-machines this place were full of conveyer belts and big rotating drums, long boxes of steel with knobs and switches on the side and plain iron tables ringed with stools.
Being in there made him uncomfortable, like he were wearing clothes that ain’t quite fit right or had an itch he ain’t could find. Woulda been way worse for Chess, and she had to deal with shit like that all the time. He was real fucking glad he ain’t had to, that he ain’t had to figure out how they made their magic or think on it too hard. Made him feel sick just considering it.
“Lead the way,” he said to Brian, keeping his grip on Brian’s arm.
They walked past the silent machines to a rattly metal staircase, then up the stairs and down a hall with a bunch of other halls leading off. The itchy feeling increased. Not magic this time. Nerves. Anticipation.
Brian headed straight down to the end. Terrible followed, all the way to a door with “DEVELOPMENT” on it in black letters.
Brian turned to him. “The key’s in my pocket.”
Terrible reached out and rested his right hand on Brian’s shoulder to keep him from tryna run or knock Terrible over or whatany other things he might have in mind, fished out the keys, and unlocked the door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SEX.
It crawled over him, raced through him, so strong he thought for a second he were gonna fall down. Brian hadn’t been lying about how powerful that spell was; he’d felt sex magic more’n a few times—coursen he had, at Berta’s place, or when he touched the whores or hung around with them—but this was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Like his first time multiplied by a hundred, like finally having someone he wanted worse than breathing—like Chess.
Suddenly he could see her in front of him, feel her pressed against him, and he couldn’t move. That spell reached into his fucking head and dragged out every memory of her, every fantasy of her, and played them in vivid detail. And he was sweating from it. He was choking on it, dying from it. Her face in front of him was like a bowl of steak in front of a starving dog.
“Told you it was good.” The words came from behind him. Brian’s voice, real soft. “You sure you don’t want to change your mind on making a deal? I’ll give you a boxful of these to take home with you. All you have to do is carry one in your pocket and you’ll have more pussy than you’ll know what to do with. Roley said there’s some witch you’re crazy about. You want her? You could have her.”
That hurt. It actually hurt. He could. He could have her. It could be real, her in front of him. Under him.
Was he actually thinking of making a deal?
No. No, he weren’t, and he wouldn’t, but he couldn’t seem to get his mouth to open and say no. Not when it was like feeling Chess pressed tight against him again, like feeling her hand sliding down his arm, then down below his belt. He gritted his teeth so hard he heard them grind against each other. His legs were weak. He could have her. No maybes, but an aye. Not him trying, but her inviting. He could hear her saying his name.