I’d made it outside the Death King’s territory, but my body was nowhere in sight. The shimmering nodes stood out amidst my surroundings, bringing a rush of déjà-vu. I’d seen this before, once, though I couldn’t recall when—and yet that wasn’t the forefront thought in my mind.
I have the Death King’s soul. Someone stole the soul of the most powerful man in the Parallel.
Worse, he’d seen me. Not with it, but I’d told him I had something he wanted, and now all his liches would know my face.
“Damn, Liv,” said Dex. “What’re you doing?”
“Finding my body, for a start.” I peered down the street where we’d crossed over. “Brant’s gone. Must have run.”
Not that I blamed him. I’d drawn every lich within reach, and now they’d all be on the lookout for the rogue spirit mage who’d had the nerve to astral project onto the Death King’s turf.
Did I learn to astral project when I trained with Dirk Alban? Before I lost my memories?
If so, then the memory was ingrained somewhere in my subconscious, and it must have been triggered when I’d tried to get into the Death King’s territory. Instead of bouncing straight off his defences, I’d projected onto the other side.
“Hey, at least we found out you can leave your body,” said Dex. “You’re like me now.”
“I’m not like you,” I protested. “You’re not human.”
They said sprites were the remnants of the magic belonging to those whose lives had been lost in the war. The war, which was supposed to have wiped out all the spirit mages. And yet here I was, and I refused to die without finding out why Dirk Alban had sought to make me the exception to the rule.
I rotated on the spot, scanning for familiar territory. Brant couldn’t have gone far. Now I recognised the way to his hideout, and flew in that direction, past warehouses and beaten down houses. Reaching the right one, I passed through the door, and the sight of my own body lying on the sofa bed sent a jolt of shock to my core.
Then my eyes flew open. I lay on my back, my gaze on the ceiling, my breaths coming quickly. Vaughn stood over me with an awed expression on his face. “Whoa, Liv. I thought you were dead.”
“Not quite.” Did he know what I’d done? It was bad enough that the Death King knew. “Where’s Brant?”
“Looking for trouble,” he responded. “The liches are out there patrolling the streets. Scary beasts.”
I reached for my neck and felt for the reassuring weight of the amulet. Or not so reassuring. How had someone stolen the Death King’s soul without him noticing? Granted, he’d been separated from it for centuries, for all I knew, but still.
The liches were ageless, and the Death King himself, most of all. When they separated their souls, they gained immortality in the process and became something far removed from the living beings they’d been beforehand. Everyone knew it, but I hadn’t really thought about what it would mean. That loss of humanity. The utter disconnect from reason and sympathy. I’d been lucky to get out. Really lucky.
And now the Death King himself knew there was an illegal spirit mage here in the Parallel. He might not be on the same side as the thief, but that didn’t mean he’d show me any mercy if he caught me. He’d take back his soul, and then take mine as a bonus.
I sat upright, shivering all over, when there came a knocking at the door. Vaughn paced towards it, and when Brant entered, the two exchanged a few words before Vaughn slipped into the street.
Brant strode to my side and swept me into a hug. “Congratulations.”
Whatever I’d expected to hear, it wasn’t that. “You what?”
“You made it in,” he said. “I knew you could.”
“Brant, my soul got ripped out of my body.” I pulled back from him. “I nearly died.”
“Your soul wasn’t ripped out,” he said. “You tried to access the node, and I’m guessing the Death King’s defences kicked off your powers.”
“Yes, and he nearly killed me,” I said. “What the hell are you congratulating me for? Since when was it good news for me to wind up on the Death King’s hit list?”
“You’re a spirit mage,” he said. “That proves my point. Your memories might be gone, but you still have all your skills.”
“That’s not the point.” But he was right. I might have forgotten my skills, but my body and spirit hadn’t. Like a muscle memory, they’d never been erased. “The Order will have my head for this, assuming the Death King doesn’t get there first. He thinks I’m the thief, and I can’t return the amulet if I can only get into his castle via astral projection, can I?”
More to the point, the amulet didn’t belong to any old lich, but the King himself. No wonder he’d personally involved himself in getting it back.
“The amulet?” said Brant. “Ah. I should have realised you wouldn’t be able to carry it through with you.”
“Even though there’s a soul trapped inside it,” I added. “How does that work?”
“If I knew, I’d know how to save my own.” He gave a half smile. “It’s a lich thing, and I get the impression it’s a one-way spell.”
No kidding. They said their dark bargain was how the liches had survived the war, but if they’d ever had real bodies, they didn’t anymore. I’d thought their amulets contained the entirety of their life essence, yet the Death King had still managed to astral project without his. Into the regular world, no less.
“Please don’t separate your soul.” I rose to my feet. My legs felt wobbly, disconnected, like I’d been asleep for a long time.
Brant caught my arm as I stumbled. “Whoa. You okay?”
I sank down onto the sofa bed again. “I just used spirit magic, for the first time in Elements know how long. I have no idea what the hell is going on, but now the Death King himself wants me dead and nobody is telling me the truth. I’m a long way from okay, Brant.”
“I’m sorry.” He pulled me against him, wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders. “Sorry I contributed. I had no idea, I really didn’t.”
I could believe that. He was as impulsive as a leaping flame, and here I was, hurling myself over the edge of a cliff with him again.
I wrenched away from his grip, ignoring his hurt expression. I wanted my own bed, my own house, and no liches trying to feast on my soul.
“Are the liches near the house?” I asked.
“Not close by,” he said. “Most of them are in the swamplands.”
“Looking for me.” I gave a humourless smile. “Or whatever they saw of me. He knew I was astral projecting.”
Brant extended a hand, then let it fall to his side, his mouth pinching with concern. “I swear I didn’t know the Death King’s defences would have that effect on you.”
“But you were curious enough to use me as a lab rat,” I said. “And you wonder why I have trust issues. Whatever happened to getting my memories back? Or was that a ploy to trick me into working with you again? Because you seem awfully keen on me using the same magic that got me slapped with a black mark once before.”
“I just wanted you to get rid of the amulet,” he said. “I already offered to take it off your hands—”
“And you think I’ll let the Death King’s army trample you?” The guy had zero caution. He’d get himself killed. He’d already all but lost his soul to the enemy.
I didn’t want to lose him. The realisation scraped me to the core. He annoyed the shit out of me, he’d already taken off once, and yet… and yet I couldn’t fathom the idea of turning my back and letting this so-called soul thief take away his soul.
“I never thought of you as a lab rat, Liv,” he said softly.
“But you lied by omission.” I clenched my shaking hands. “You knew I was a spirit mage, and only told me when it turned out someone wants me dead for it. Quite a few someones.”
“Liv, I swear I didn’t know it was this serious,” he said. “I thought this thief guy was working with a few revenants and that’s it. I got involved when my own soul wa
s on the line, but I never expected…”
Someone to steal the soul of the most powerful man in the Parallel.
“So how do the souls fit into this?” I said. “What exactly is this thief planning on doing with the souls he acquires?”
Owning someone’s soul meant owning their power, but surely the Death King wouldn’t have made it that easy for someone to claim dominion over him.
Or would he?
Then it hit me. “The person doing this is one of the spirit mages. Right?”
Brant closed his eyes. “I swear, I didn’t know. I thought they were extinct.”
“Apart from me.” I pushed upright, cursing my shaking limbs. Had spirit magic always had that much of a toll on me, or was it because it’d been so many years since I’d last used it? I was in no shape to fight. Let alone go head to head with a fellow spirit mage.
After all, he didn’t want any old soul. He wanted the soul of the King of the Dead himself. He wanted to kick the Death King off his throne and obtain dominance… and I was the only person standing between him and achieving his goal.
13
No liches patrolled the streets when we went outside, to my relief. I could barely walk in a straight line, and I was in no fit state to traipse over to the Death King’s swamp and beg for one of his faceless monsters to take the amulet off my hands.
Knowing its real value, though, I didn’t dare leave it in anyone’s hands except for its owner’s. Anyone in this city, in this realm, might be working with the rogue spirit mage. And now I knew what I was up against, the enemy’s interest in me made a horrible kind of sense. The enemy didn’t just see me as an annoying obstacle, but a competitor with the kind of skills that could really mess up their plans.
Of course, the reality was that I had no skills but missing memories and instincts and little more. I stood as little a chance against them as I did against the Death King himself.
The person who’d stolen the amulet had been able to get past all his defences without resorting to astral projection. That brought theories I didn’t like to contemplate, exhausted as I was, so I pushed them to the back of my mind and concentrated on getting to the node. Brant held my elbow as I walked, and I didn’t have the strength to push him away.
Brant and I walked through the node and crossed over, emerging in the back room of the house. Devon wasn’t around, but she’d still be working in the shop at this time and expecting me to come back on the bus. I’d lost track of the number of illegal crossings I’d committed by now, but I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit.
Brant kissed me goodbye—a quick brush of his lips over mine—and walked through the door into the shop, leaving me too startled to voice an objection. After our clash earlier, kissing him had been the last thing on my mind, but his latest revelations painted a different picture of his reasons for keeping me in the dark. Elements help me, but I understood why he’d done it. That didn’t mean I was any closer to figuring out what I wanted.
As the sound of the door closing echoed through from the shop, Devon emerged into the back room. “Liv, what’s going on?”
I staggered over to the sofa and collapsed onto it. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Devon closed the door behind her. “You did go to the prom with Gap-Toothed Dave?”
“This isn’t funny.” I reached around my neck and held up the amulet with trembling fingers. “I have the Death King’s soul.”
She blinked. “I know. I mean, it’s what we’ve been trying to get rid of for the last two days.”
“I don’t mean any old soul, I meant literally the soul of His Deathly Highness himself.”
Another blink. Then her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding. How?”
I held the amulet up to the light, which shone on the skull symbol, my swimming vision warping it into an even more grotesque shape. “If I knew that, I’d know how to get it back where it’s supposed to be. I tried hopping through a node into the Death King’s castle, but his security caused me to astral project instead.”
Her attention turned from the amulet back to me again. “You did what?”
“Split from my body.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know how. I guess it was because I couldn’t get through the defences in a physical sense, so… my magic kicked in to compensate.”
Devon was silent for a moment. I could almost hear the thoughts whirring in her head. “How did you get back to your body?”
“Instinct.” I rested my head against the cushions, my eyes closing. “So I guess I’m a spirit mage.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“What?” I opened my eyes. “You are being way too casual about this.”
“You got dinged for using illegal spirit magic,” she said. “The Order wouldn’t have zapped out your memories if that mentor of yours had just had you making him tea.”
With difficulty, I shifted into an upright position so I could look at her. “Yes, I know I used spirit magic then, but that was all in the past.”
“You can still use it,” she said. “They say you never forget how to ride a bike, right?”
“I think hopping out of my body is a bit different,” I said. “It explains why the soul thief thought I’d be a danger to his plans. I doubt even he would have guessed I’d accidentally steal the amulet, though. As for the Death King, the odds are high that he’ll kill me before the soul thief has the chance to.”
I filled her in on the other details. Devon started out fidgeting and ended with her gaze fixed intently on me. “I should have guessed there was more going on than a simple theft. I mean, there’s a few hundred liches living on his territory. One amulet going missing oughtn’t have warranted him sending out his entire army.”
“Who stole the damned thing to begin with without him noticing?” I remarked. “I mean, he’s been a lich long enough not to notice his soul’s wandering around attached to someone else, but you’d think he’d be able to sense it…”
Like when he’d looked directly at my hiding place when he’d been astral projecting, for instance.
She gave me an assessing look. “Wait, does that mean he’s watching us right now?”
“I hope not. I’ve been carrying that thing in my cleavage for the last day.”
Devon howled with laughter. I didn’t find it funny.
“You know how screwed we are now?” I said. “He thinks I’m trying to assassinate him.”
“Nah, that’s impossible,” she said. “Pretty sure that thing’s indestructible.”
“Even Death Kings don’t live forever.” I turned the amulet over in my hands. “If we don’t get it back to him, he’ll kill all of us.”
“Relax,’ she said. “He rarely leaves the Parallel, and it’s not like he knows our address.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have contacts on the surface, though,” I said. “Nor the soul thief, come to that. He hired someone to steal the soul of one of the most powerful people in the Parallel. He’s not going to just give up and let the likes of me walk off with his prize. And what exactly happens when the Death King dies?”
She paled. “Motherfucking crap. Another war.”
“Thank you for finally understanding why I’m scared.”
“I’d be freaked out in your place,” she said. “But really, there’s something odd about how that amulet escaped his notice. I’m not sure that water mage was the person who stole it, to tell you the truth.”
“He had an invisibility cantrip,” I said. “I saw him using one when he was sneaking around near the Order.”
“Why was he even there?” Her brow wrinkled. “You’d think he’d want to lie low.”
“The Death King has him now.” Chills raced down my arms. “But I reckon escaping the Parallel wouldn’t put him out of reach of the soul thief, no matter how far he ran. He’s marked for death. And so is Brant.”
Devon tapped her foot. “I don’t know if it’s just me, but I’m starting to find it suspect that Brant kno
ws more than you do about your own powers.”
“Duh, so do you,” I pointed out. “And Dex. And the Order. Hell, the milkman probably does, too. And the old lady who always tells me her medical issues on the forty-five bus.”
Devon snorted. “Nah. We all know you were a spirit mage, but not the details. Brant, though, he knew you could use the nodes to get into the Death King’s place.”
“Because everyone can use the nodes,” I said. “That’s only the first stage of spirit magic. The second is astral projection. I don’t know any of the others.”
“Part of you does,” she said. “And Brant, too.”
He was no spirit mage, but he’d had good reason to research the subject, considering his own soul was on the line. “He’s lived in the Parallel for years, he has contacts. Besides, I have no choice but to trust him considering how many other people are out to get me.”
“I get that,” she said. “I wasn’t gonna tell you, but…”
“Tell me what?” My heart lurched. “Don’t tell me the Order sent someone here again.”
“You’ve got it.” She pursed her lips. “They got a tip-off, supposedly, about someone exposing magic to regular humans. No concrete eyewitness accounts, but considering how few practitioners work independently…”
“That’s not why they’d blame you.” My hands fisted. “It’s because they want another way to get at me. It did cross my mind, when someone attacked those people at the bus stop the other day. It didn’t seem like they were trying to hurt anyone. More like they wanted to draw attention.”
To me. No other practitioners had been present.
Devon pursed her lips. “Yeah. That.”
“Who’s giving them orders, then?” I asked. “Mr Cobb?”
“Judith didn’t say,” she said. “Don’t hate me for this, but I think you should drop off the amulet with the Order and make it their problem instead.”
“I thought you wanted me to put it back where it came from.”
Thief of Souls Page 13