Sin & Spirit (Demigods of San Francisco Book 4)

by K. F. Breene

  “Enough from the peanut gallery,” I grumbled, not needing one more distraction. Power throbbed within the newly filled bodies, higher and higher, until everyone had obtained the max level they were capable of in spirit form.

  “We’re ready,” I told Bria, clutching souls by their strings, not compelling but controlling. I’d apologize to the spirits later.

  “Tell Kieran through the blood link,” Bria said, her animated bodies jerking and twitching like zombies in the movies as they gathered in a neat little cluster.

  One of mine took off running, one poorly attached leg wobbling dramatically. Another started off in the other direction.

  “Get a hold of them,” Bria hollered.

  I tried to communicate to Kieran as I battled the fear still poisoning my blood, the push of the various magics messing with my head, the thick fog and darkness hindering my vision, and my zombies’ attempt to scatter. I had no idea what message Kieran would receive.

  “Direct them at the enemy troops and make them use their magic,” Bria instructed me, yanking me into action again. She seemed to have the directional sense of GPS. “This way. Just make them use their magic. You know how!”

  I called up her teachings from my memory. All the practice sessions. I tried to focus on that as I forced my crew into a jerking horde.

  Shapes moved through the glowing darkness, passing under a glowing streetlight. Spirit punched my middle, the same magic as before. A black strobe blotted out the glowing streetlight, restoring the darkness. It didn’t matter a whole helluva lot here. It was impossible to see anyway.

  I imparted my will onto my troops, forcing them to lurch after Bria’s well-organized group. Their souls, like little ribbons gathered in my hand, strained to break free. I relayed this to Bria.

  “All spirits try to break free. Yours were all level fives in life that didn’t die too long ago,” she said. “Real nasty people. There are only a handful of people on this great green earth who could control them all. Welcome to the elite. Now hurry up and get them doing their magic.”

  A black stick swung through the murky white, and I realized too late it was a sword. It sliced through the arm of one of Bria’s zombies. The creature jerked, outraged, and I heard its spirit yelling obscenities from within the rotting corpse. The disembodied limb fell to the ground and a ball of fire exploded from its remaining arm. More shapes pushed through a slice of one of the still-glowing streetlights. Three of them in a row. More followed in the murk.

  I cursed myself for forgetting that I didn’t need my eyes to see. I opened myself up, feeling the souls. Dozens of enemy troops bleeped onto my radar. Kieran and the guys were a ways behind me, standing together on my house’s side of the street. They were taking on the Hades Demigod, I knew, keeping him or her busy until I could join them. Or maybe keeping him busy so he wouldn’t know I was right here, fully exposed, ripe for the taking.

  The Line appeared beside me, but before I could draw power from it, someone slapped me in the face.

  “No Soul Stealer magic yet,” Bria hissed. Someone screamed ahead of us. Then another. Her zombies were doing magic. “That Demigod would be down on you in a minute.”

  I gritted my teeth, not arguing. She was right. Instead, I bore down, forcing my zombies to do as Bria had said. Use their magic. Help us fight.

  Lightning rained from the sky.

  “Oh shi…” I couldn’t even finish my thought because the next bit of magic took my breath away.

  Zigs and zags of electrical current ran through the fog like a living thing. Kieran had clearly used precipitation from the ocean—the salt with the moisture a great electrical conductor—in preparation for this spirit-zombie’s magic. Somehow, he’d been ready for an oncoming battle. He’d made preparations.

  “He was worthy of the divine hand,” the cat said quietly beside me.

  A glow preceded a flailing man running. The fireball zombie had sent out another one, and it cut through the air around the man, sending out forks of fire as it touched down on his skin. He screamed, the top of his body already consumed in fire and now convulsing, his legs somehow kept running, shaking but determined. Right at me.

  I back-pedaled to buy time, sucking in a startled breath, but the body wouldn’t go down. Without thinking, I yanked the man’s spirit out, injected it with my desires, and shoved it back in, locking it into place. All in the space of seconds.

  Fire spat at me from two feet away. The guy jerked to a halting stop. He’d gone from dying to dead to zombified with head-spinning speed, and clearly had no idea what the hell was going on. Without hesitation, I gave him a little nudge. I didn’t even feel bad about the situation, the bastard.

  He turned around, smoother than any zombie because of the familiarity of his body. He faced the shapes moving through the darkness. Faced the screams, zombie and enemy both. Faced the carnage.

  And then he started running right back the way he’d come.

  A glowing ball of flame slammed into the enemy troops, knocking into them. More lightning rained down, too. Souls bleeped out as our enemies took down the spirit-controlled bodies and vice versa.

  “And now we see what you can really do,” the cat said as Bria said, “You’ve done it now. Might as well just go whole hog.”

  A shock of spirit pulsed through the air, freezing my blood with fear. Bria screamed and ducked, clutching her head. More screams rose from the enemy.

  And then Kieran was running my way, the others behind him.

  The fog lifted in an instant, pulled up high overhead. Suddenly the moon was free to rain down on the battle. The street lamps could brighten small pockets of action.

  A quarter of the enemy force lay on the street. Half of the zombies. The battle raged on.

  The soulless Demigod of Hades stood back where Kieran had been, its full focus on me. Its shadowy form had grown to a height of twenty feet, its muscles popping out like a Berserker’s.

  “It literally thought I was in the house,” I said quietly, my heart ricocheting around my ribs from the magically induced fear. Spirit wrapped around my insides so tightly that I didn’t know if I could move.

  “Without fear, there can be no courage,” Bria said. She straightened in strained, jerky movements. “Fear does not rule me. Fear will not control me. Fear is but a speed bump on my journey to victory.”

  The Demigod took a step toward me, and power boomed out from it. But not the power strength of Kieran or Valens. Leaving the body behind lessened the spirit. It was as true for a living Demigod as it was for the dead.

  He was still more powerful than me.

  “Fight back,” Kieran yelled, nearly to me. “Fight back, Alexis.”

  The fear in his voice shocked me. The fear in the blood and soul connection. I was a part of this equation. I was a part of this plan. I needed to show up and own my position.

  Another wave of heady spirit pounded into me, trying to force me to submit.

  I gritted my teeth and called forth buckets full of power from the Line. I’d taken my brief training earlier to heart. When it came down to survival, I remembered what I learned.

  The world around me filled with ultraviolet rays of spirit, layered on the ground, crawling up the streetlights and hovering around all of our bodies. A veritable fountain of it rained down on us from the Demigod, who was dousing us from his position across the street.

  Chewing my lip, I let part of my mind run through that problem while I grabbed up the nearest bunch of enemy souls. Just as I was about to reduce them to the ground, Kieran pushed out his hand, five feet away. A blast of air ripped past me.

  Wide-eyed, I glanced back. Bodies tumbled across the ground, and the souls I held popped out like champagne corks.

  “Well, that was easy,” I murmured.

  Kieran reached me and spared one moment to inspect my face. He nodded, as though assuring himself of something, then said, “Take out the rest of the enemy. Show them what you can do. When that’s done, let’s make a stat
ement to that coward hiding in shadow.”

  Anger and pain rang through our connection, making me hesitate, but impatience and fierce determination colored his words. I’d ask him about the emotion later. First, I needed to clear the field.

  Bria jogged to catch up with me, moving stiffly, responding to the terror but not letting it run her down. The cat loped on my other side.

  “This is ridiculous,” I grumbled, feeling the power pulse through me. A splashing sound attracted my attention, and I looked back to see a monstrous water tornado splash through the trees. A whirlpool on land. That was terrifying. Thank heavens Kieran was on my side.

  I drew more power. As much as I could.

  “If I’m going to own this horrible Soul Stealer mantle,” I said, “I should be Death upon the pale horse, not the cat lady in her jammies.”

  “Whoever owned that office in the government building before you was probably more terrifying than any lunatic riding a horse,” Bria said, fighting the magic. “Don’t underestimate crazy cat ladies in their jammies.”

  We neared the spread-out crowd of enemy, those whose souls I hadn’t ripped out. They were down the block. Many of them struggled to rise on broken limbs, injured by that burst of air from Kieran.

  “Never own the mantle of Death,” the cat said from beside me. “You were not designed to be Death. Nor does your magic have just one purpose. You are the yin and the yang of the living world—you can save a life as easily as you can destroy it. Your Demigod is not Death, either, though he kills just as readily as you. Besides, you are not killing these people; you are simply setting their spirits free.”

  “Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to,” I said, raising my hands to make it easier to envision grabbing all their soul ribbons.

  “Though if your Demigod was Death, he’d probably use a giant goldfish for a trusty steed. He’s too cheap to buy something as cool as a pale horse,” the cat murmured.

  Wind from the Line rustled my hair, only it suddenly struck me that it wasn’t wind at all. It wasn’t relegated to the spirit world, only affecting me because I was working with spirit—it was the hovering spirit all around me. When I drew all the power to use in this manner, I was unknowingly messing with the spirit and creating that movement.

  And if I was creating it, I could control it…

  20

  Kieran

  A pounding ache filled Kieran’s middle, threatening to derail him. One set of emotions was missing from his Six. One complex weave of feelings had fallen away, leaving a void.

  He gritted his teeth, the rage roaring through him. The need for vengeance dizzying his thoughts. But even if there was a way to kill this Demigod here, tonight, doing it would be the wrong play. It would bring down too much heat on Kieran. It would open up Alexis to more danger. No, he needed to focus on the long game. He needed to cool his rage with logic.

  The backs of his eyes stung, but he clenched his jaw and sent another wave of power at nothing more than a feeling in the air, stopping the Demigod from advancing. All he needed was Alexis to make an impression with her magic, and they could send this sad excuse for a Demigod packing.

  He turned back to her. Wind didn’t blow her hair to the side this time; it circled her like a windstorm. Her cotton jammies lifted at her sockless ankles and worried an undone lace on her runners, drawing the attention of the cat at her side, who promptly pounced at it. She slapped at her face, and the wind suddenly changed, blowing at her face and whipping her hair behind her. It also caught Bria, sending her back-pedaling, using her forearm to block the magic.

  “She’s figured out another facet of her magic,” Zorn said, his voice strained.

  “She needs practice,” Donovan said, his words hollow.

  She did indeed, but even though the display was amateurish, the effect was not. The enemy screamed and clutched at their middles. One by one they fell, bonelessly sliding to the ground. And one by one the bodies rose again, twitching as they did so. The effect worried a person’s primal side, hinting at forces not known to the living. Hinting at death walking among them.

  “She’s just getting started,” Kieran yelled as he turned back around.

  The ground bucked and Kieran nearly lost his balance. But the power was weaker now than it had been at the onset of the attack. Even then, it had been weaker than Kieran on his worst day. The magic of invisibility clearly had its cost.

  “I have found a trainer for her,” Kieran yelled through the street, in the direction of the invisible pulse of magic, “and you are a dead man!”

  Newly dead and reanimated cadavers lurched up and readied themselves for battle, their hands up, magic spinning. Alexis jogged forward, the wind blowing her hair elegantly to the side, her eyes on fire, her newly stolen army at her back. She and Bria could’ve handled them all on their own. Kieran merely needed to chase the Demigod coward from the battlefield.

  Kieran jogged to stay by Alexis’s side, but he looked back at Thane, his heart aching. “Take someone and go. See if he can be revived.” They all sensed one of them had fallen.

  Thane glanced at Henry and they were off, sprinting toward the house and Jack. Hoping against hope he was still clinging to life.

  Filled with sorrow and rage, Kieran pulled the water tornado from behind the creature and strained to focus and contain it. It was the Demigod’s shadow form he wished to destroy, not the neighborhood. Alexis’s magic rolled in, slashing and tearing, cutting through the creature. When he was beside her, he followed her gaze and moved the water, covering the area she was focused on. Covering the invisible coward.

  “Higher,” she said, slowing, letting her newly created zombies continue the charge. “If you want to drown it, go higher. It’s almost twenty feet tall.”

  “Can you drown a spirit?” Boman asked, scoping things out.

  “No, but the mind will forget that,” she said, working her hands. Her magic. “His mind is attached to that shadow, and his mind is programmed to protect his living body. Unless he has trained in pushing through the feeling of being drowned, his mind will revolt.” She looked at Kieran, seeming suddenly unsure. “Do you guys train in withstanding each other’s magic?”

  “No.” Kieran moved the water up, sweat popping out on his brow. Anguish bled through his middle, but he gritted his teeth against the onslaught. He didn’t want to know what had caused that emotion in Thane and Henry. “That would take away our advantage against one another.”

  Pain throbbed now, and urgency took over.

  “Go, you sonuvabitch,” Kieran said through clenched teeth.

  “What’s going on?” Bria asked Zorn quietly.

  “Good.” Alexis nodded, her eyes intense, a smile spreading across her face. “Yes. Yes! He’s thrashing. He’s trying to step out—here.” Alexis’s brow scrunched and she raised her hands higher. Her army circled the water tornado, magic firing from their hands. “A little to the left, Kieran.”

  Kieran complied, impatient, wanting this done. Why was the Demigod hanging around, anyway? His army was destroyed. His body was elsewhere. Alexis was protected. What was he hoping to achieve?

  “There you go,” Alexis said, and did a fist pump. “I know he’s gone—I was just about to say that.” She turned to Kieran. “He’s gone. You’re good. We’re good.”

  Kieran barely stopped himself from asking whom she’d just been talking to. Nobody who was physically present had spoken. But it didn’t matter right then. He didn’t want to waste any time. He turned the water into fog and pushed it out to sea. It would disrupt some weather elements, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d fix it later.

  “Make sure everyone is incapacitated,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “Got it,” Bria said.

  “Alexis, you help.” Maybe it was selfish, or cowardly, but he didn’t know what to expect, and if the worst had indeed happened, he didn’t want her to see him cry.

  He made his way through the door and immediately saw a prone body lying in the hall, surrounded by a
lake of blood. Neither Henry nor Thane were there.

  Heart in his throat, Kieran fell to his knees and pushed his fingers against a spot of clear skin in a half-ruined neck. But the skin was cold. No pulse pushed back.

  Agony rose in his chest. Hand shaking, he pulled it away from Jack’s neck. He let his hand hover over Jack’s middle.

  Where the hell was Henry? Where was Thane? Why weren’t they here with Jack? Why weren’t they keeping watch over him, trying to resuscitate him?

  Kieran put his hands over Jack’s heart, but before he started, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

  He sucked in a breath, jerking to standing, reaching for his power…only to feel his hands drop limply to his sides. Heat pricked the backs of his eyes, and all the fight went out of him.

  Jack stood without a body to house him, blinking at nothing. He clearly didn’t know where he was. He probably didn’t understand he was dead.

  He needed someone to shepherd him across the Line. Someone who understood the transition. He needed help. Help Kieran didn’t know how to provide.

  For the first time, he understood the full spectrum of Alexis’s power. Why spirits tried to latch on to her. Why they made their homes close to her. She was the rock they clung to like a barnacle, their shelter in the turbulent world of the living when they didn’t want to, or couldn’t, find their way to the beyond. She had always had one foot in the physical world and one in the spirit realm. She was the protector of the dead. The Spirit Walker.

  And Jack needed her.

  As Kieran watched his friend, confused and helpless, it felt like the world opened up and swallowed him whole. The pain was so great that he didn’t want to feel anymore. He couldn’t help the tears pooling in his eyes.

  Then another blast of emotion rocked him from Thane. He was upstairs in the panic room. The kids!

  A cold sweat broke out across Kieran’s face and his heart stopped in his chest. Another blast of emotion from Boman, way out toward the back of the house but now working his way in.

  “Kieran,” Thane yelled. “Get Alexis.”