Casting Souls

by Becca Andre

  Perseus jumped down from the table and came to the defense of a Scourge man fighting nearby. The ferromancer he faced was one of the cloaked ones, but the hood had fallen back as they fought. This ferromancer wasn’t as devolved as Farran, but he was close. His face was mostly metal, but a bit of human flesh still covered the area around one eye and down his cheek. That reminder of humanity made it worse than Farran, in her opinion. It had been easy to think of him as a thing that never had been human, but this…

  Perseus stepped between the Scourge man, who now cradled a wounded arm against him, and the badly devolved ferromancer.

  Briar reached out to both the wounded Scourge and the ferromancer. Her song soothing and calming, but at the same time, demanding their attention. She was their rightful leader, not Lucrezia or Solon. They would listen to her.

  Both men visibly relaxed, and Perseus glanced back at her. “Keep it up,” he encouraged, then turned and ran off to join the battle.

  Briar wanted to call him back, to keep him close and safe, but reminded herself that he couldn’t be killed. Instead, she reached out to the next nearest knot of conflict and repeated what she’d just done. She still felt a bit lightheaded, but this song didn’t drain her the way dissolving the chimera had. Perhaps because it was a different form of her magic.

  She continued weaving her new song around the room, gradually taking control, and the sound of fighting began to diminish. Unfortunately, she couldn’t calm the whole room. The space was too large, and there were far too many people. But perhaps she didn’t need to mesmerize everyone. Only the one who had started this fight. Lucrezia.

  Briar began a counter melody, her gaze locking with Lucrezia’s across the mass of fighting that stood between them.

  Unfortunately, the noise and distance diluted the effect.

  “Get her!” Lucrezia shouted.

  The rest of the ferra started down the steps, led by Agatha.

  Briar chewed her lip. A strong enough blast of soul fire, and she would be rendered unconscious. Could she stop that many ferra on top of what she was already doing? But then, maybe she only had to stop one.

  Redirecting her song, Briar focused on Agatha, seeking out the connection between them to strengthen her ability to reach her. Agatha was not only the closest thing she’d had to a mother, she was also her grandmother. Well, great great grandmother. There was a blood connection as well.

  Agatha jerked to a halt, and Briar knew she’d heard her. Yet the other ferra continued toward her.

  Briar debated what to do. If she pulled back some of her influence to deal with them, those ferromancers and Scourge she’d calmed would rejoin the fight. More would die. But if the ferra reached her, there would be no one to stop this fight. Briar would die, and Lucrezia would win.

  Her gaze darted to the dais, where Grayson still stood, the lone quiet figure in a sea of conflict. He watched the fight with an indifference that made her heart ache.

  Unable to stand it, Briar directed a thread of her song to him. Grayson?

  His head came up, and his eyes locked on her. She hadn’t expected such an immediate reaction. Before she could try something else, his wings snapped open, and he sprang into the air. A few flaps, and he landed on the table before her.

  Grayson?

  He cocked his head, as if trying to puzzle something out.

  She continued to play, sending calming influences to the room while throwing the brunt of her influence at Agatha, trying to wrestle her away from Lucrezia.

  Come back to me, Grayson, Briar reached out to him.

  A bolt of red light shot between them, and she gasped, almost losing control of her song.

  Grayson took a more active approach, whirling toward the source of the shot. The ferra had drawn much closer, one woman lowering her still-glowing stylus.

  “No!” Lucrezia screamed. “Don’t shoot at her. You nearly hit him.”

  The woman in question suddenly stumbled forward, heaving as she did so. Briar thought the force of Lucrezia’s command had caused the reaction, but when she opened her mouth, blood gushed out. The woman collapsed, clearing Briar’s line of sight to the man standing behind her.

  Dale Darby gazed up at Grayson with an adoring smile, a blood-slicked knife held in one hand. “Yes, Master. I eliminated the problem.”

  Briar had to force herself to keep playing as she understood the horror of what she’d witnessed. Grayson had commanded Darby to kill the threat.

  Grayson, no. These women are not acting of their own will. It’s Lucrezia we have to stop.

  He again turned to her, frowning as if uncertain as to how she was communicating with him.

  But don’t kill her, Briar quickly added. We need her to open the soul box that holds your construct.

  His eyebrows lifted, and she thought she saw understanding in those ferromancer eyes that, though the same color, were so different from his human eyes.

  Briar sawed the bow across the strings, doubling her effort to reach Agatha and call off the Scourge. If they could—

  “Fall back!” Liam’s voice carried above the din, and suddenly, the Scourge were falling back, fleeing from those ferromancers still standing.

  Briar turned toward him. He no longer stood at the base of the steps, but leapt into the fray even as she watched.

  “Briar, do it, now!” Liam shouted, his knife out and glowing with violet light.

  “Do what?” Grayson surprised her by speaking. “Kill us all?”

  Seeing their opponents on the retreat seemed to rejuvenate the ferromancers, and they gave chase. Several men with wounds that should be mortal rose from the floor and chased down the fleeing Scourge. Soulless henchmen their masters had reanimated?

  “Briar! Now!” Liam shouted again.

  Tears blurred her vision, but Briar let go of the last of her reserve. She scraped the bow across her fiddle’s soul-iron strings and reached out to—

  The fiddle shot out of her hand. She spun to follow the movement, and watched Solon snatch it out of the air. He’d gotten free of the conflict and circled around behind her.

  “Call off the others,” she pleaded. “I can reverse their devolvement without hurting Grayson.”

  “I’ve seen what you can do, Scourge bitch.” He raked his silver fingers across the strings, severing them as if they were made of spider webs rather than metal.

  “You haven’t. Grayson and I can—”

  He gripped the neck of the fiddle and, before she could finish, slammed it against the back of the chair beside him. The delicate instrument shattered, sending broken splinters of polished wood flying.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Solon released the neck of her fiddle, and it fell to the wooden floor with a clatter.

  A high-pitched scream carried across the room, and Briar turned toward the sound. Andrew had Lucrezia by the hair, a knife against her throat. The hand holding the knife was made of soul iron. Had Solon fashioned him a new arm?

  “Stop him!” Briar said to Solon. “She’s the only one who can open the soul box that holds Grayson’s construct.”

  “Finish her, Andrew,” Solon spoke the words softly, but Andrew had no problem hearing him, or maybe, he didn’t need to hear the command to act on it. He sliced the knife across Lucrezia’s throat, going so deep that he probably came close to severing her head. He dropped the body an instant later, then gave Solon an eager smile, waiting for his next command.

  Briar’s heart pounded so hard she was lightheaded. She looked up at Grayson, who regarded her with indifferent alien eyes. The metal glinted in his chest as he turned his head to look back across the room. She didn’t know what had caught his attention and didn’t care. Lock was trapped in that soul box, and there wasn’t a ferra alive who could open it.

  Grayson would remain as he was, until he devolved completely.

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nbsp; Chapter 19

  Solon sprang up onto the table and seized her by the arm, his crushing grip bringing tears to her eyes.

  “Step away from her.” Perseus walked toward them. He still had his sword in hand, and blood was splattered across his shirt and waistcoat. A slash across his forearm glowed with a golden light and sealed as he moved toward them.

  “Grayson, take care of him,” Solon said.

  “Why?” Grayson didn’t sound like he cared one way or the other.

  “Because I’m busy, and no one else is capable.”

  Several ferromancers were still standing around the edge of the room, or milling around the dead, but no one looked eager to step into Perseus’s path.

  She looked around for Liam and finally found him kneeling beside someone on the floor. Agatha. He lifted her to him, and Briar hoped she might still be alive.

  Andrew left the steps where he’d been standing over Lucrezia’s body and headed straight for Liam. Apparently, Solon had noticed him, too.

  “Liam!” she shouted.

  Solon jerked her closer with a snarl.

  Perseus turned and, catching sight of the problem, threw his ignited sword. It whirled end over end. Andrew’s eyes widened, but he made no real effort to get out of the way. The blade thunked into his chest. He crumbled to the floor an instant later.

  “I’m sorry, my lady,” Perseus said in the silence.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. Andrew had been dead a long time.

  “Grayson,” Solon reminded him.

  With something like a sigh, Grayson hopped down from the table.

  Grayson, no.

  He stopped and looked back at her, a puzzled look on his face.

  “What did you do?” Solon asked her through gritted teeth.

  “I asked him not to do it.”

  “Touch his mind again, and I will kill you.”

  It occurred to her that he could have killed her easily the moment he’d seized her. “Why haven’t you?” she asked.

  “Don’t think I don’t want to,” he answered, the words soft and disturbingly full of emotion. “But that’s too easy. You’re going to watch everyone you care about die, just as I have.”

  “You led Lucrezia to Grayson and Esme in Peninsula. And you threw that fire iron at Tristan.”

  Solon continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Once Grayson devolves, I’ll turn him loose on your sorry little crew, then this town. If we survive, perhaps this whole area, and beyond.” Solon laughed, the sound devoid of anything resembling human warmth.

  Perseus and Grayson began to circle each other, stepping over bodies as they went. Perseus was now without his sword, but that was a good thing as far as Briar was concerned.

  “You know this won’t work,” she said. “Perseus can’t be killed.”

  “What if we bind him in iron and toss him in the river? I’m rather surprised that’s never been done.”

  “You’re one twisted son of a bitch.”

  Solon reached up and wrapped his metal hand around her throat. “All I have to do is squeeze—and damn, I want to.” His grip tightened, and she clutched the warm metal of his wrist.

  Grayson and Perseus traded a couple of blows before drawing apart. If they spoke to each other, Briar couldn’t hear it over her heart pounding in her ears. Solon’s grip was so tight that it made it hard to swallow.

  “That a boy, Grayson,” Solon muttered.

  Briar didn’t understand the comment until several pieces of cutlery left a nearby table and flew at Perseus. Solon must have felt Grayson use his magic before Briar saw evidence of it.

  Perseus dropped to his stomach, grabbing the legs of a chair, pulled it down in front of him. The knife and fork speared the seat and remained impaled there.

  Perseus lunged to his feet, then hurled the chair at Grayson. It slammed into him before he could dodge and sent him sprawling.

  Briar bit her lip to keep from calling out to Perseus not to hurt him. Any damage Grayson took he would repair—with metal. He didn’t need to devolve any more. If only she could get through to him. If only Lock wasn’t trapped in a soul box. The soul box that was in her pocket.

  She remembered the way the soul fire protecting the box had jumped at Tristan when he tried to touch it. What if she could touch it to Solon? If she could get free, Perseus could disengage with Grayson and they could flee. Maybe find her another fiddle—though she wasn’t sure what to do about the strings.

  Feigning lightheadedness, she slumped against Solon and let her hand fall to her side.

  “Don’t pass out on me.” There was a smile in his voice.

  She didn’t comment, moving her hand to her dress pocket. The wrapped soul box was crammed in there so tightly that it was going to be a challenge to get it free without alerting Solon.

  Grayson lifted his hand, and this time, a revolver rose from the floor.

  Perseus raised his hands. “That’s not very sporting.”

  The gun rotated in the air, aiming at Perseus.

  “Grayson, don’t,” Briar shouted, more as a distraction for Solon than in any real hope of influencing the fight.

  Solon gave her a shake, and she used the motion to pull the wrapped box from her pocket.

  “Didn’t I tell you to remain silent?” he demanded.

  “No,” she whispered. “You told me not to touch his mind, so I used my voice.”

  His grip tightened on her throat. “Don’t encourage me. I want to make you suffer, but I will kill you.”

  She gritted her teeth and struggled to figure out where the opening of the pillowcase was. It was no easy task without the ability to look while using only one hand.

  “Do you understand?” Solon gave her another shake.

  She hadn’t anticipated the movement, and the pillowcase slipped from her grip. Somehow, she managed to close her hand over the fabric before she dropped it completely.

  The gun fired and Briar jumped, so intent on what she was doing that she’d forgotten about Grayson and Perseus.

  She gasped as Perseus dropped to a knee, his hand pressed to his stomach.

  A click came from the revolver, followed by another and another.

  “Sounds like you’re out of bullets,” Perseus said to Grayson.

  “Yes,” Grayson agreed, not sounding remotely concerned. He made a shooing gesture, and the gun itself flew at Perseus.

  Perseus tried to dodge, but he was too close. The gun slammed into his shoulder hard enough to knock him over onto his backside.

  “Use the chandelier,” Solon called. “Wrap him in iron.”

  Briar let the pillowcase slide down until she gripped the end, then slung it upward. Using the weight of the soul box, she whipped it over her shoulder.

  Distracted by the fight and not realizing she even held a potential weapon, Solon was taken completely by surprise. The box hit him full in the face with a satisfying thump.

  He shouted in pain—had she hit him in the eye?—and released her.

  Not giving him a chance to recover, she jumped off the table. “Perseus,” she shouted. “Let’s go!”

  Hoping he would follow, she turned and ran, but only went a short distance before something collided with the back of her legs and sent her sprawling. She glanced back and saw that it was a grate from a furnace vent. The heavy object rose off her legs, but before she could scramble out of the way, it slammed down again.

  Biting back a cry of pain, she tried to crawl out from under it, only to have it rise up again. This time, she rolled to the side, but dropped the pillowcase in the process. She started to reach for it, then jerked her hand back as the grate slammed down where she’d been. The grate bounced on impact, then shot upward, a prong on a corner catching the pillowcase. As the grate rose, so did the pillowcase, and the soul box tumbled out onto the
floor, clattering to a stop beneath a nearby table.

  Pushing up onto her hands and knees, Briar crawled after the soul box, though crawling was a struggle in a dress. Keeping one eye on the levitating grate, she had almost reached the table when Solon cast the grate at her once again. She dropped to her stomach and rolled beneath the table, narrowly avoiding the grate as it fell, gouging the hardwood floor where she’d been. An instant later, she heard it slam into a nearby table and chairs.

  Briar stared at the small silver cube. “Oh, Lock,” she whispered.

  A thump sounded, and she peered out from beneath the tablecloth, looking back the way she had come. Solon’s lower legs came into view, and she realized the thump had been him jumping down from the table he’d been standing on. He started walking toward her.

  She eyed the soul box. Was all hope of opening it gone? Soul singers were incredibly rare. It could be decades, maybe a century before another was born. At the rate Solon was going, Grayson would be fully devolved before the week was out.

  “You’re a soul singer,” she told herself. Just a different kind of soul singer. She reached out a hand toward the soul box, and an arc of red light snapped toward her. Briar jerked back her hand with a gasp.

  No, the soul fire hadn’t dissipated with Lucrezia’s death.

  Briar frowned at the innocuous-looking silver box. Lucrezia could channel her magic through inert soul iron, whereas Briar could do nothing with it. She couldn’t even dissolve it with her Scourge magic. But living soul iron—the soul iron within a ferromancer—was different. Like a ferra soul singer, Briar could channel through it using her music.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Solon moving closer, his boot heels thumping against the floor with a steady, unhurried motion.

  “Living soul iron,” Briar whispered. And Lock was pure living soul iron. He was the perfect conduit for her power, for her soul. Briar had proven that countless times when she channeled through him as the silver fiddle.

  She’d been trying to contact Grayson, but kept failing because the conduit between them was cut off—at least, from his end.