Semiautomatic Sorceress Boxed Set One: includes: Southwest Nights, Southwest Days, and Southwest Truths

by Kal Aaron

  “There’s no way I’m going to be able to solve this without taking some risks.” Lyssa shrugged. “Let’s get you tucked away. I’ll also spend some time setting up a trap spell. If someone tries to get into that vault, everyone nearby will know.”

  Another lift trip, along with a journey down the endless hallways of the main portion of the Heart of Remnant. At least there were fewer sealed passages than in the Vault of Dreams.

  Two men armed with shard spears escorted Lyssa for the entire trip, which ended with reaching not the Tribunal Chamber but a small, elegantly appointed office filled with books on shelves and scrolls in racks. Nektarios sat on an uncomfortable-looking bench seat, hunched over a small table covered with scrolls packed with dense Lemurian writing. He squinted at the writing and didn’t bother to look up.

  The ancient, wizened man wore a loose gray robe that was plain and unadorned compared to many regalia Lyssa had seen. He lacked a mask, but he did have a necklace of crystals and blackened bones hanging around his neck. She hoped they were from animals but didn’t dare ask.

  Still looking down, Nektarios snapped his fingers. “Leave me with Corti,” he said in Lemurian.

  The guards departed without another word. They closed the door behind them.

  Lyssa bowed her head. “I, Lyssa Corti, bearer of—"

  “We’ll dispense with the useless chatter, Corti,” Nektarios interrupted. “I know who you are. I called you here. You asked to come to Last Remnant, and now you’re here, bringing darkness and disruption in your wake.” He narrowed his eyes and gestured at her jacket. “Show me.”

  Lyssa slowly drew her pistol and held it out. “It’s not one of his. It’s just a normal gun.”

  “What nerve you have to ignore my orders.” He glared at her. “I said to leave your pistols.”

  Lyssa met his angry gaze with her own. “And we both know the reason you said that. I have people trying to kill me. Asking me to come unarmed goes against customs here, and—”

  “Silence, girl,” snapped Nektarios. “You dare lecture me on what is allowed on Last Remnant? When you’ve brought chaos with you? When you’ve brought the Snow Ghost here?”

  “You’re not the one people are trying to kill,” Lyssa objected. “I’m only being targeted because I did my duty. It’s not my—”

  “Speak when I ask you to. Shut your mouth otherwise. I’m tired of your prattle.”

  Lyssa gritted her teeth. It wasn’t like he could see under the mask. She might have to dial it down in front of a member of the Tribunal, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Nektarios had held a reputation for being an asshole longer than she’d been alive. She waited for him to continue.

  “That spirit is the source of all this trouble,” Nektarios snarled. He turned toward her, his rheumy gaze fixing on her. “Good men are dead because of it. The Society is being weakened at an inopportune time.”

  She had to give the man credit. He was over a hundred and eighty years old. Whatever she thought about him, it was impressive to last that long.

  Lyssa waited for his rant to continue. Every part of her wanted to make jokes about mummies and fossils, but antagonizing one of the leaders of her people who might order her to sacrifice her life to contain Jofi wasn’t smart.

  “Speak,” barked Nektarios.

  “Jofi has been useful in my job as a Torch,” Lyssa replied. “As an example, without him, I don’t think I would have been able to take down the monsters in southern Arizona. There would have been a high number of hurt and killed Shadows without a powerful and immediate way to take down the most dangerous of the creatures. If we’d had to rely on the Shadow military to kill it, we would have looked weak, or worse, we would have looked like we can’t control our rogues.”

  “Three of our kind have paid with their lives because someone wants that thing.” Nektarios wheezed. “I’d be willing to sacrifice a small Shadow town if that’s the trade-off.”

  She stared at him, unsure of what to say. Not every Elder valued Shadow lives, and she’d heard Nektarios was one of the worst that way, but having it shoved in her face was hard to accept.

  Lyssa’s hands curled into fists. “I’m not willing to make that trade-off, and the problem isn’t that—”

  “Did I tell you to speak?”

  “I am speaking!” Lyssa shouted. “These guys are trying to kill me, not you, and getting rid of Jofi risks my life and my soul. I volunteered for the ritual because it was the right thing to do and to protect people. I care about innocent people’s lives. If you don’t think saving thousands of peoples’ lives is important, I don’t know what to say. We might as well go to war with the Shadows right now because that’s where this will end up.”

  Nektarios stared at her, his lips tight. “Are you finished whining, little girl?”

  Lyssa shrugged. “For now.” She paused. “Wait a second. Did you say, three Sorcerers? Somebody else other than Lubon and Lee is dead?”

  “I’ve just received word that Samuel fell to assassins,” Nektarios replied. “It’s why I called you here. His death is an unfortunate escalation of this already disastrous incident. I think he figured they wouldn’t come after him again so soon. He was being careful, but the Society is weakened as a result of his carelessness.”

  Lyssa gasped. “What the hell?” She leaned over and took a few deep breaths.

  A world without the white-suited old man was hard to contemplate. She’d assumed he’d last to be at least two hundred.

  She didn’t understand how it could have happened. He was so careful. Had their meeting led to his demise?

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked, clinging to a desperate hope Nektarios had decided to try his hand at cruel pranks.

  “I’m never anything but serious,” Nektarios replied in an annoyed tone. “Losing Lee and the Eclipse was bad enough. It’s as you said before. Losing an Elder makes it seem like the Society can’t protect its own. This is a very, very serious matter. It’s now obvious that someone else is aware of the grand emptiness spirit and is taking extreme measures with little concern for how much attention it draws. We can no longer wait on this matter. We need to be more aggressive in containing this issue. We believe the assassins intend to transfer the grand emptiness spirit to their control.”

  Lyssa wished the Elder had a chair. Her knees wobbled. “You probably shouldn’t have made me leave him, then.”

  “I assume you used a shard vault and took precautions,” Nektarios replied.

  “Alarm spells that would draw a lot of attention,” Lyssa said.

  A vague hint of satisfaction flashed over his face. “Then you’re not a child. I question your maturity, but you do have some skills. Please note I have people watching your room as well.”

  Lyssa watched him for a moment before deciding she needed the Elder on her side. “Someone attempted to smuggle a spying shard into my room the other day.”

  “Really?” Nektarios frowned. “Then we know the enemy is already on Last Remnant, or their servants are. Where is the shard now?”

  “Probably floated out to the ocean by now.” Lyssa shrugged.

  “Unfortunate, but at least you stopped them.”

  Mentioning Tristan might not help. She didn’t need the Elder changing his mind about supporting her, and having different people targeting whoever was after her might lead to different and hopefully converging solutions.

  “What do you intend to do?” she asked. “I thought we couldn’t risk unsealing Jofi without big trouble, and there’s no good way to destroy him.”

  She’d been so distracted by her brother’s regalia she hadn’t realized something important. Trying to steal Jofi came with a lot of serious challenges.

  “What could anyone do other than try to kill me to get him?” she asked. “That doesn’t guarantee anything. Now that I think about it, stealing him isn’t enough since the seal involves the ritual, the Night Goddess, and my essence.”

  Lyssa wa
sn’t about to risk her life and soul because an Elder panicked. They needed a decent plan that didn’t involve pointless sacrifice. She now had both her brother and Samuel to avenge.

  Nektarios flicked his wrist dismissively. “My subordinates have found evidence the enemy has been investigating powerful spirit sorcery techniques. They’ve come across information concerning a ritual the enemy could use to wrest control of the spirit without as much risk as during the first sealing ritual. It wouldn’t destroy the spirit, but we have no reason to believe that’s their goal.”

  Lyssa nodded. “Okay, so they’ve got something figured out and want to steal Jofi. Do we have any idea who it is?”

  “No, that information eludes us.” He inclined his head toward her. “Which is why we’re going to force them out of hiding and eliminate them directly. That’s the most straightforward solution.”

  Lyssa almost laughed but stopped herself at the last second. “Does this involve a plan where we use me as bait?”

  “You are the most expendable person left in this matter,” Nektarios replied coldly, “and the one who is the next most likely target. I believe the others were targeted because of their practical knowledge of the related ritual and the possibility of being used against our enemy should they gain control of the spirit. The remaining Illuminated involved, other than you, are now in deep seclusion.” He took a deep, wheezy breath. “This is all frustrating. We should have handled this better than relying on this foolish lie and a young girl.”

  Lyssa wanted to complain about being dismissed as a young girl, but the man was almost six times her age. Betty White was a young girl compared to him.

  “I suspect Tristan St. James might be involved,” Nektarios said. “We can’t ignore the timing of his return to Last Remnant. I was tempted to deny him the right to return, but when I realized he was coming, I thought it was an excellent opportunity to lay a trap for him.”

  Lyssa cleared her throat, taking her time to decide her next words very carefully. She couldn’t lie to a Tribunal member without suffering repercussions, but she also wasn’t inclined to cooperate fully with a man who saw her as nothing more than an expendable asset he could use to eliminate a threat to the Society. Tristan might be ruthless, but at least he’d demonstrated he cared about Shadows’ lives.

  The best strategy, as always when dealing with Sorcerers, was telling the partial truth and leaving out one or two critical pieces of information. If she’d been watched from her arrival, they already knew some things, including about her recent chat with the Eclipse.

  “I don’t know if it’s Tristan,” she replied. “He’s had plenty of chances to kill me. I saw him the other day in the Garden of Glories, and I’ve bumped into him a couple other times.”

  Nektarios narrowed his eyes. “The city isn’t that small. He’s likely preparing to kill you. He’s known for his patience in stalking and eliminating targets.”

  “A lot of people visit the garden.” Lyssa shrugged. “And this is the one place there will be a guaranteed shard and Illuminated response to public sorcery assassinations. I would think if he wanted to kill me, he’d be a bit more secretive about it, rather than going out of his way to be public.”

  “You underestimate his boldness, little girl.” Nektarios’s nostrils flared. “We should have dealt with him a long time ago. Our foolish restraint has led to this.”

  “That’s your plan, then? Jump Tristan?” Lyssa argued, “People will die if that happens. And I don’t think it’s him.”

  “I don’t care what you think,” Nektarios said. “But I have a more considered plan than simply flinging men at him. The enemy isn’t the only one who has been researching the matter of your spirit. The rarity of grand spirit materialization and the lack of spirit essences has left us less prepared to deal with them, but your spirit’s containment has been of extreme interest to the Tribunal these last six years.”

  “Okay.” Lyssa folded her arms. “What’s your plan, then?”

  “As I noted, I believe the assassinations of the others were intended to discern their involvement and knowledge of related rituals. Lee was working with some of the others on a sealing ritual that wouldn’t require a regalia or an active Illuminated, but we haven’t been able to find his notes. We believe the enemy destroyed them.”

  Lyssa blinked. “You’re saying you could stick Jofi in a lamp or a jar?”

  “A feeble analogy, but not inaccurate. Yes. You are expendable compared to Elders, but your death would further weaken the Society. Our best choice is to remove the spirit from the guns and seal it in a shard.” Nektarios nodded at his table. “We will then take measures to further secure the grand emptiness spirit so it will present no risk to Last Remnant or the greater world.”

  “But his seal hasn’t broken yet,” Lyssa replied. “There’s no reason to risk it.”

  “Three Illuminated are dead.” Nektarios wheezed. “That’s reason in and of itself. Lee reported directly to me on this matter. I’m well aware that you harbor delusions of friendship with the spirit and are perhaps intoxicated by its power.” He glared at her. “You don’t know, girl, because you don’t have a spirit essence like me. Those things aren’t people. Some feign it, but they’re nothing more than the embodiment of concepts, many dangerous.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Lyssa grumbled.

  “What you feel and believe is no longer relevant because you’re not being given a choice. The ritual will be held in one week, after we’ve had time to prepare the appropriate materials and shards. Say your goodbyes in the meantime without alerting anyone. You’re also forbidden to leave the city. We can’t risk you being ambushed in a wilderness area. Whether the Eclipse is behind this or another rogue, as long as you’re in the city, they’ll have less chance to kill you.”

  “That’s it, then. We’re doing this?” Lyssa asked. “How do I know this ritual won’t damage my soul?”

  “I assure you it won’t.” There was no warmth in his voice, almost like he was disappointed. “I have no desire to harm the long-term health of Society.”

  “What about my life?” Lyssa asked.

  “No ritual is without risk, but despite what you might think, I’d prefer we end this with the fewest possible losses of loyal Illuminated. You might be obnoxious, but you’re not a rogue.”

  “Faint praise,” Lyssa muttered.

  Nektarios pointed at the door. “Now go. I must begin the preparations. If you see St. James, don’t let him kill you. We have people watching you, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be able to stop him.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  The door opened by itself. Lyssa stepped into the hallway, blinking and shaking her head. Samuel was dead, and she was going to lose Jofi. Without the spirit, she’d no longer be able to use her showstoppers. She had one week left for her best shot at vengeance.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lyssa gave up on her meal. The plate sat on the corner table in her room, holding bizarre-looking gray meat with a sickeningly sweet flavor. Sumira had declined to identify it after wrinkling her nose in distaste. For all the Society’s objections to modifying animals, they didn’t seem to care as much when it involved something they could eat, but something delicious to one person might be disgusting to another.

  The meat went down smoothly, but the overly sweet aftertaste made Lyssa desperate to wash it down with all the saltwater in the Indian Ocean. She’d given up after getting halfway through it. She hadn’t had much of an appetite after meeting with the Elder anyway.

  “Are you okay, Lyssa?” Jofi asked. “You’ve been agitated since you returned from meeting with the Elder.”

  “Nektarios is an asshole,” Lyssa replied. “No surprise there, that’s his rep, but dealing with it in person was harder than I thought.”

  “Are you sure he is unpleasant, or are your innate tendencies to resist authority coloring your judgment?”

  Lyssa scoffed. “Trust me. He’s a Grade-A asshole.” She s
tood, walked over to the window, and looked out at the waves on the water. “He’s also nothing I can’t handle, not after everything else I’ve dealt with in my life.”

  It was deceptively peaceful. Everything had spiraled out of control. Her paranoia had convinced her she’d be ready for whatever strange ambushes might be sprung on her. She’d thought she was prepared, but it didn’t help.

  She’d come to find out the truth about her brother and take out a rogue, not risk her soul in a ritual and lose her spirit partner. Her friends and allies were being weakened and eliminated one by one.

  All she wanted was for some bastard to show up and challenge her. That way, she could kill him or at least weaken him to the point that Tristan could finish him off.

  Samuel was dead. It didn’t feel real. She’d had her issues with him over the years, but he was a good man who meant well for her and the Society. It’d taken her a while to appreciate that.

  “Are you sure nothing else is wrong?” Jofi asked. “You seem unusually glum.”

  “It’s all under control,” Lyssa replied. She paused. “No, that’s not true.”

  Lying to Jofi was the worst part. Whatever people kept telling her, she’d grown used to him as something far more than a way to help channel powerful spells. He might not be human, but he was as much her friend as Aisha or Serafina. She understood why they needed to conduct the ritual, and it was the best choice given the situation, but that didn’t make her feel any better about it.

  “What’s the problem, then?” Jofi asked. “I might not understand all the intricacies of humanity, but talking about it might make you feel better.”

  “Assassins caught up with Samuel again,” Lyssa replied. “This time, they won.”

  “That’s unfortunate. Elder Samuel seemed like a reasonable man.”

  “I wonder if I could have drawn them off him if I had stuck around. They might not have sent them at him if they could take a poke at my house.” Lyssa burst out, “Hell, I wonder if I’m the reason they found him.”