The Soulless

by Kate Martin

  “I can handle anyone who might use the door.”

  With a shrug, Kai inspected his now blood-covered thumb. “Are you ready then?”

  When he offered her the blade, she took it. “Oh yes.”

  Another circle around the room, this time to add the reaper’s blood to the labrynths he had already scribed and powered. The humans collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain, screaming with agony. Kai walked past them with the detached air of a professional, and Lillianna took a moment to imagine the man he would grow into. The perfect companion for one such as herself.

  Whoever had thrown him to the gutters as a child had been a fool.

  Finishing, Kai went to her and pressed his thumb with the remainder of Tassos’s blood to her forehead. “They’re all yours,” he said, smiling with a hunger that stirred Lillianna’s own.

  She kissed him, because she could not help herself, and breathed in his scent as she pulled away. “The first step,” she said. “I can hardly believe it is actually here. The next time we touch, I will be more than a demon.”

  Still less than a god, but she knew how to be patient. One step at a time.

  In a blur of action, her excitement no longer contained, Lillianna approached the first of her nine sacrifices, raised the bloody dagger, and plunged it into the fragile chest. The screams did not end, they increased. She worked her hand into the wound, past flesh and bone, until she felt the pulsating muscle of heart.

  Then she pulled.

  It came free with little resistance, beating against her palm, gushing bright red blood over her silvery wrist and arm. The body beside her continued to writhe, eyes wide staring at the organ that had for so long sustained his life.

  Kai came to her side, a labrynth-etched box open in his hands. She placed the heart inside, watching it continue to pulse even as Kai closed the lid.

  One. Eight left.

  She glided from body to body, tearing through their chests to take their hearts. The blood washed over her flesh, stained her clothes, but she didn’t care. It was rejuvenating. Already she could feel the power growing inside her, increasing with each heart.

  Four, five, six. She counted as she placed them in the boxes. Nearly there.

  Alec tore another serpentine creature from his legs, not having the time to burn it before another attacked.

  He hated hellions. Damned creatures of Hell would attack anything and everything. No loyalty at all. They could be set upon anyone, and at the moment, they had been tasked with emptying the workshop of all life.

  Picadilly cut through what she could, sending halves and quarters of creatures skittering about the floor. She was covered in blood, bitten and scratched. Carma had fared better, but not by much. Her demon flesh was tougher than a soulless human, but it made the hellions only more determined. Labrynths flashed along their backs and tails, driving them with a force manned by someone else’s will.

  Or, at least, that’s how Dorothea had explained it in between bouts of joyous laughter and annoyed howls of pain.

  Alec had made it his personal mission to stay by her, to keep the hellions from digging into her flesh while she devised a way to get them out.

  Another creature bit into his shoulder. Reaching around, he tore the strange dog-like thing from his back as claws raked their way past his spine.

  Across the room, he heard the familiar hiss of Carma’s hellfire. It snuffed out as it had all the other times—a single labrynth in the far corner flaring to life, absorbing the power, then going quiet again.

  “Carma, try something else!” Two hellions caught his legs and he tumbled to the ground, slamming his elbow against the hard stone and seeing sparks. By his hand, a labrynth burst, sending chunks of stone flying into his face and singeing the tips of his fingers.

  A huge weight lifted from his back, the hot breath disappearing from his neck, and all in one swift instant before he was pulled to his feet. Carma stood before him, her hair equally red and silver, her face sharp bronze angles and curling lips that revealed pointed teeth. Her sapphire and gold eyes flashed as her clawed hands dug into his arm. “I am doing what I can.” She caught one of the rat-like sniffers as it flew through the air at her face, crushing it in her grip. “Dorothea is supposed to be neutralizing the problem.”

  Picadilly scoffed, stumbling until she stood beside them, wrestling with a hairless, wrinkled, tiny creature of a man, something that looked shrunken and unholy, fangs snapping at her neck. It was no larger than her forearm, yet it battled her with the strength of an ox. Carma drove her claws into the hellion’s back, closed her fist, and pulled out its spine. It fell dead to the floor.

  With a swift kick to the head of another patchwork creature of Hell, Picadilly regarded Carma coolly. “I had it.”

  “Of course you did.” Carma wiped the blood on her hand across Picadilly’s shoulder. “Dorothea, we need to get out of here.”

  Alec stepped back, pressing himself as close to the witch as he dared, shadowing her as she moved along the walls. Carma and Picadilly followed, though the hellions continued to battle on.

  “I am working.” Though Dorothea answered, Alec was surprised she had been listening. Her lips moved with silent words; talking to herself or to the lines that occupied so much of her life. Alec noticed something off about her mouth and the way her lips moved. Were her lips always that full and pink?

  Dorothea pressed a hand to the glass, blood leaking from her fingers. Another labrynth lit up, spilling power into the room.

  Across the workshop, in the farthest corner, a hole opened up, spilling black fire onto the floor. It crawled as though with hands and feet, coming towards them.

  Carma and Picadilly turned to face it.

  Alec leaned against the glass wall, slamming a hand by Dorothea’s face. “What are you doing? Stop activating them! You’re only making things worse.”

  “Bah. Shut up. You know nothing of it. I can exhaust his power.”

  “Exhaust it?”

  She wiped a bloody hand across yet another series of lines and turns, and the entire room shook with violent force.

  Alec’s head swam from the knock it took against the wall. “Can you finish before you kill us all?”

  Dorothea pushed him along, hands groping and scribing all along the glass. With each labrynth she found, the workshop burned, spun, shook, erupted, and gave birth to more hellions. Carma and Picadilly continued to fight, but Alec had to give up worrying about them or trying to watch. As one labrynth caused an explosion, he threw himself against Dorothea’s body, shielding her from the fiery blast. The heat tore across his back, then settled in with a deep burning.

  It was then that Dorothea laughed with delight.

  The room wobbled, and his hearing wasn’t quite right. Surely he had imagined her laughter. But when she turned in his arms, hands cupping his face, he saw that he had not imagined the mirth. It was written all over her face.

  Her young face.

  It had been centuries since he had seen her this way, but he knew her all the same. That soft face, slender with youth. No wrinkles or age lines, no glaze of old age over her grey eyes. Her hands were soft and held no sign of shaking. Hair black as night and alive with blue highlights swept about her face and over her shoulders. Her lips were full and pink, which Alec remembered noticing earlier that night.

  “What have you done?”

  She smiled, and more memories came flooding back. “I have his source.”

  “His what?”

  “His source. The thing from which he draws his power down here. Power holds no loyalty, it is why we guard our workshops so carefully and why I know this witch to be arrogant and far too young for the skills he possesses.”

  Fire and battle still raged on behind him. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “Can you get us out of here now?”

  “Better.” She held up one hand, working her fingers in quick little motions that sent blood dancing on the ai
r, then snapped.

  Everything stopped. The air cooled, the fires died. The hellions dropped to the floor, sinking and melting into the stone and dirt. Every labrynth that had glowed with life went quiet and dark.

  Carma and Picadilly tripped over each other with the sudden lack of adversaries, catching one another before either lost their footing. They straightened and dusted themselves off then looked around. The two women stared at the witch and gasped.

  “What have you done?” Carma voice rasped from the smoke still on the air.

  Dorothea closed her eyes and breathed deep. “So much power. I had to put it into something when I drew it away. It needed a channel, something to do.” She opened her eyes and cocked her head inquisitively as she looked at Alec. “This young body, it feels odd. You think you remember what it feels like to be young, but you don’t. The body forgets. I wonder what else I’ve forgotten.”

  Twisting with each breath she took, as though fitting herself into her new skin, she stretched and rolled her shoulders, all the while appearing lost in thought.

  Alec stared. In all his years, he had never seen magic like this.

  “Is everything clear or should I waste time explaining?” Dorothea asked.

  “Nothing is clear,” Carma said. “But we do not have time for explaining. If you can get us through here now, I would be appreciative.”

  “To the Moral Realm we go then.”

  “Excellent,” Carma said. “Are you alive there, Alec? Or has she killed you with shock?”

  Alec coughed, collecting himself. “I’m fine.” He looked at the three women; two bloody, and one old witch who looked the youngest of them all. The smile Dorothea beamed when their eyes met was a wicked one. He had forgotten about that.

  “Off we go then,” she said, snatching a knife from his belt, cutting her already bloody hand.

  So close. I am so close.

  Eight beating hearts. She had sensed each of their pulses. Their beats filled her empty insides, drumming a rhythm into her being. The souls she had locked away within herself surged, rejoicing as they experienced a forgotten sensation. That surge brought power and sent out a call. All human souls would feel it, though only some would answer—at first. They would feel the pull of another being, one stronger and larger than their small lives.

  It was the call to worship.

  And she desired it above all else.

  Only one more, then it will be within my grasp.

  She laid the eighth heart within the proffered box, sighing as she heard the light click against the screams of the undead bodies all around her. Kai set the box with the others. For the final time, Lillianna proceeded to the remaining body. Although she had ignored whether her sacrifices were male, female, old, or young, this one—the last—she wanted to savor.

  A woman, well-bred, richly dressed, well-fed—a sure sign of wealth. Her shining brown hair had fallen free of its fancy pins and curls, and her dress had been stained with blood from her burned hand. The carved face above her was a familiar one; someone Lillianna had once trusted. A face almost human, but twisted into something more. Not less. She would never think of a demon’s true face as lesser. Mortal standards of beauty could not apply to a superior species. On occasion, her own face looked much the same; fangs and hard lines. Once painted, the bronze had lost its color to time, but Lillianna could still remember the vibrancy of her old friend’s simulated eyes.

  Sapphire and gold.

  Olin had been a fool. Despite what had happened, it had been a shame to lose her.

  Now they were destined to face each other once again. How odd fate could be. Even when one did everything possible to avert The Grand Plan, some things still clung. But that was a problem for another time.

  Lillianna raised the knife, watched the heaving of the woman’s chest as she screamed and breathed until Lillianna saw nothing but the precise point where she would have to strike.

  A resonating pop echoed through her temple just as her muscles prepared for the killing blow. Olin’s scent carried with his voice. “You are running out of time.”

  “Then don’t interrupt me.”

  “They are coming. Kai’s traps didn’t work.”

  “What?” Her arm faltered, dropping to her side. Olin was deadly serious. Lillianna searched for Kai who should have been waiting at her side with the final box. “Kai!”

  She expected him to be furious that his defenses had been being breached. He wasn’t. He seemed unaware that Olin had arrived, much less that he had brought such bad news. Her little witch was staring at his own wrist, mouth agape, trembling.

  “Kai, did you hear that? Do something about it. I can’t be disturbed now.”

  The boy wasn’t listening. He muttered something, the sound low in undistinguishable tones.

  “What was that?” she demanded, furious she didn’t have his attention.

  He looked up at her then, grinning like a mad man. “He’s there!” Turning his wrist, he pointed to where a labrynth scrawled into his skin had begun to glow. “He’s there. Now. I can get to him.” He raised one finger to his mouth.

  Lillianna knew he meant to draw blood. “Kai, don’t you dare. You have work to do here. Now is not the time. Olin, stop him.”

  They were not quick enough. Kai swiped his bleeding finger across his wrist and disappeared like a ghost into a fog.

  Blistered little son of a whore. Lillianna screamed and raised her knife arm once more.

  Four more pops broke the music of her victims’ agony.

  “Well, well, Lillianna,” said a musical voice she had not heard in centuries, “you always did have a flare for the dramatic, but this is a bit much, don’t you think?”

  Time had not touched her old friend, her mentor, and once confidant. Carma hadn’t expected it to. Lillianna stood in the midst of her forgotten temple, her moon-toned skin and hair covered in blood and flesh, eyes wild with power. The screams breathing life into her ritual bounced off the round walls loud enough to shatter the nerves of any who were unprepared. But Carma was a demon, and therefore the screams spoke to her, stirred the souls deep within her to pulse with life. She felt Alec at her back and saw Dorothea out of the corner of her eye, standing beside him. Picadilly’s soft footsteps traced the edges of the room, her power a shadow of what it had once been, but reacting to the scene all the same. What strength she could gain here. Her restraint was commendable.

  Lillianna shook her hair from her face, smearing more blood across her cheek. “Carma. I had heard you were dead to us.”

  “Had you? Imagine that. I assure you, I am alive and well.”

  “I am glad to see it.”

  “Then who, pray tell, was that elaborate trap set for?”

  “Anyone who wishes to stop me.” Lillianna’s unspoken question hung on the air. “But let’s not waste time with idle chatter. I am busy, and you, I am sure, would rather speak to Olin.”

  Carma had avoided looking at him. She didn’t want to give the impression that he was the only thing in the room worth looking at, that he had drawn her eye first. It had been difficult—she had never expected to see him there.

  He was what the artists carved into stone, his flesh marbled like the stone it became when he took his true form, his shoulders broad and filled with strength. The empty place where her heart had once been ached.

  “Olin.”

  “Carma.”

  The sound of his voice sent memories shivering across her flesh. “What a surprise. Did you think me dead as well?”

  “I know you too well, Carma. Why would I ever think such a thing?”

  She didn’t believe him. She knew him just as well.

  Lillianna breathed, twirling the knife in her hand. “You don’t mind if I finish while you chat, do you?” She knelt beside the final body.

  Final. They had come eight hearts too late. Yet each body continued to struggle.

  “I cannot allow that, Lill.”

  Fire so hot it burned blue coated Lilliann
a’s eyes. “Do not be my enemy, Carma. What do you care what I do?” Her moonlight skin began to eclipse with her mood, creeping up from her feet towards her head like paper charring in flames.

  Carma glanced at Olin, dispelling all the memories that answered that question. She was incapable of lying, even to herself, and there were some things that needed to stay deep within a while longer.

  Lillianna raised her arm. Alec moved, power swelling around him. Dorothea’s fingers twitched, and Picadilly breathed deeply.

  An explosion outside shook the temple, sending them all grasping for balance. Lillianna lost her grip on her knife, and it skittered across the floor towards the open cavern at the center.

  “Another trap has been sprung,” Dorothea said, her fingers moving more quickly now, defter with her young body. She ran to the great double doors, scribing her blood into labrynths so quickly they seemed to appear out of nowhere. When she stepped back, the doors opened, and light spilled into the dark temple.

  The clang of armor and the soft tread of boots were like something out of a dream—or nightmare. Carma had long ago given up the life that made those sounds a part of her every day, and their presence now meant only one thing.

  Complications.

  She stretched her clawed hands, ready. The first face became visible as the light receded, exposing the seraphic soldiers that filled the doorway. Yet another face from the past.

  “In The One’s holy name, you are all hereby subject to Haven’s justice.”

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE —

  The power in Alec’s hands burned, pulsing strength through his veins like a second heart, but the flare that surged through his body when the doors opened was not of Hell’s making. It was Haven’s. A reaction to the seraph who marched into the old temple.

  Magic warred in the air, and beside him, Dorothea shivered and grinned, surely feeling all the powers far more acutely than he did. Alec grabbed her and pulled her closer, putting himself between her and Haven’s army.

  He had been watching Carma carefully, knowing all too well what could happen now that he was there. Olin. The cause of all her problems. Alec knew her past, had heard tales of her times with Lillianna, the mother of all demons, but the look on her face when the seraph spoke surprised him.