Unholy Ghosts
If you liked the compelling characters in 50 Shades of Grey, you’ll love the Downside Ghosts series.Murderous spirits and ruthless drug dealers combine to create serious problems for fiercely independent heroine, Chess, in these fast-paced, sexy and addictive novels.The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen and constantly attack the living. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Consequently, there are many false claims of hauntings from those hoping to profit.Enter Chess Putnam, a fully-tattooed witch and freewheeling Debunker and ghost hunter. She's got a real talent for nailing the human liars or banishing the wicked dead. But she's keeping a dark secret from the Church: a little drug problem that's landed her in hot and dangerous water.Chess owes a murderous drug lord named Bump a lot of money. And Bump wants immediate payback. All Chess has to do is dispatch a very nasty species of undead from an old airport. But the job involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and crossing swords with enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust with a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump's ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.
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Unholy Ghosts
Downside Ghosts
I
Stacia Kane
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2010
Copyright © Stacia Kane 2010
The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authorâs imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.
Source ISBN: 9780007338276
Ebook Edition © MAY 2010 ISBN: 9780007352821
Version: 2016-02-12
To Cori. Not just my best friend, but my best reader. Her enthusiasm for this book in its earliest stages and beyond kept me going; her friendship kept me sane.
Contents
âAnd the living prayed to their gods and begged for rescue from the armies of the dead, and there was no answer. For there are no gods.â
âThe Book of Truth, Origins, Article 12
Had the man in front of her not already been dead, Chess probably would have tried to kill him. Damned ghosts. A year and a half sheâd gone without having to deal with oneâthe best Debunking record in the Church.
Now when she needed her bonus more than ever, there he was. Mocking her. Floating a few feet off the parquet floor of the Sanfordsâ comfortable suburban split-level in the heart of Cross Town, with his arms folded and a bored look on his face.
âToo good to go where youâre supposed to, Mr. Dunlop?â Mr. Dunlopâs ghost gave her the finger. Asshole. Why couldnât he just accept the inevitable?
Heâd been an ass in life, too, according to her records. Hyram Dunlop, formerly of Westside, banker and father of two, all deceased. Mr. Dunlop should have been resting for the last fifty years, not turning up here to rattle pipes and throw china and generally make a nuisance of himself.
Right. She set the dogâs skull in the center of the room, checking her compass to make sure she faced east, and lit the black candles on either side of it, her body moving automatically as she arranged her altar the way sheâd done dozens, if not hundreds, of times before. Next came the tall forked stang in its silver base, garlanded with specially grown blue and black roses. She set the bag of dirt from Mr. Dunlopâs grave in front of the skull for later use.
Her small cauldron in its holder took a few extra minutes to set up. Mr. Dunlop moved behind her, but she ignored him. Showing fear to the deadâor any sort of emotion at allâwas asking for trouble. She filled the cauldron with water, lit the burner beneath it, and tossed in some wolfsbane.
With a stub of black chalk she marked the front door and started on the windows, stepping deliberately through Dunlopâs spectral form despite the unpleasant chill. The set of his jaw lost some of its defiance as she pulled out the salt and started sprinkling it. âThis is probably going to hurt,â she said.
Her gaze wandered to the grandfather clock in the corner, just outside the sloppy salt ring. Almost eight oâclock. Fuck. She was starting to itch.
Not badly, of course. Nothing she couldnât handle. But it was there, making her mind wander and her toes wiggle in her shoes, when she needed to be sharp.
Sheâd just begun closing off the hallway when Mr. Dunlop bolted up the stairs.
