Witch's Soul

by Emma L. Adams

  “Someone decided to kill a bunch of vampires.” I said. Now Lloyd mentioned it, maybe I should have done more poking around at the market to find if someone else was screwing around with dark magic. “Have you seen Mackie today?”

  Morgan grunted. “I went to talk to her because she’s still refusing to wear the iron, and her dreams are keeping me awake all night. Stuff about being chained up in the spirit realm. This is the only place I can get any peace.”

  I stared at him. Those were my dreams. Or Evelyn’s. My Hemlock nightmares were infiltrating the nearest psychics’ minds? That must mean Mackie was able to hear them, too. And if she ended up in the enemy’s hands again, they’d almost used her to break the spirit line once already without the need for a necromantic device.

  Cold fear washed over me. Maybe the vampire king’s death was connected, maybe not, but Mackie was in more danger than even she knew if the person harnessing spirit energy got hold of a psychic. People would notice if necromancers started disappearing, but a girl who’d once lived on the streets…

  “Morgan, please try to convince her to stay at the guild,” I said.

  “Do you think I’m not trying?” He tugged at his overlong hair. “If she doesn’t want to, nothing’ll keep her there.”

  That’s what I’m afraid of.

  “We’ll help her,” Lloyd said. “We’re on the dawn patrol tomorrow, right? Tell her about the vampires then. If we tell her the truth, she’s less likely to run.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” I downed half my glass of witch’s brew, shuddering at the taste.

  If my nightmares had ended up in Mackie’s and Morgan’s heads… what else might have sneaked in?

  Dawn came with another burst of fog and a lot of regret, but luckily, I had a spell for every occasion. One hangover-cure charm later, I hummed as I pulled on my cloak and skipped out of my room.

  Lloyd met me outside. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like the dead. Which, in my experience, involves a lot of flailing around and trying to poke people’s eyes out.”

  He gave me a bleary-eyed stare. “Why are you in such a good mood?”

  “I may have brewed up a hangover cure and put in too much of a mood booster.” At least, I hoped that’s what I’d put into it. The fourth round of shots yesterday had seemed such a good idea at the time, and I sincerely hoped the part where I’d sung karaoke had been a dream.

  “Give me some of that, Jas. I’ll pay you for it.”

  “I’m not turning it into a business, believe me.” But I handed him a purple band-shaped spell. “Think of it as payback for dragging you into danger yesterday.”

  “I wouldn’t say you dragged me into it,” Lloyd said, activating the spell. “I did volunteer. And you bought the drinks.”

  “Oh, shit.” I groaned, my good mood evaporating. “I was supposed to save some cash to buy some more marigold leaves from the witch market.”

  “Speaking like a true witch. Eye of newt and cauldron bubble.”

  “Keep it down,” I said. “Does my memory deceive me or did you and Morgan duet at the karaoke with that awful faerie ballad?”

  “Was that before or after I threw up on his shoes?”

  “Remind me never to buy you two shots again.” Even after using the hangover spell, my head still felt decidedly fragile. If we ran into an undead patrol today, we’d have less brains between us than the zombies. At least I’d fallen asleep in an instant thanks to the alcohol in my system, but furies and Evelyn Hemlock were never far from my thoughts. I’d received no contact from Keir either, which came as no surprise. Whatever other issues he had going on, the vampire was too damned stubborn to accept help from the guild.

  “Have you seen the boss yet?” Lloyd asked as we headed downstairs.

  “It’s the crack of dawn,” I said. “I can give her the you-know-what after the patrol. One disaster at a time.”

  Mackie and Morgan waited in the lobby, the latter looking as rough as Lloyd did.

  “Dawn patrols should be illegal,” Mackie said.

  “We wouldn’t be on this one if you did one bloody thing I asked,” said Morgan, his eyes bloodshot and his hair dishevelled. “Did you at least wear the iron yesterday? Considering I got to watch you struggle in a net all night, I guess not.”

  “Get out of my head,” she shot at him.

  “I wouldn’t be in your head if you used basic protective measures,” he said.

  “Guys, it’s way too early for this crap,” Lloyd interjected. “Come on. We’re on patrol, and that means no diverging from the route. Also, Jas has a secret hangover cure.”

  I trod on his foot, but not hard. “It’s not a secret. I got it at the market.”

  At this rate, my friends would expose my Hemlock powers before Evelyn did. I reluctantly handed over the last spell to Morgan, figuring that having to put up with Mackie’s disobedience was punishment enough without a hangover on top of it.

  The street was quiet, the city wrapped in fog beneath a barely-risen sun. Cold shadows washed the ancient buildings, and silence followed our steps. Mackie walked alone, her body tense. I wondered where she’d lived before the guild. If the vampires had found her, maybe she’d have some idea of who’d try to bump them off. Or maybe I was better off not poking that beast.

  Hmm.

  Caution urged me to tread carefully. “So do you know how to track vampires?” I asked her.

  “No. Should I?”

  “It’s advanced level,” I said. “But you can probably skip some of the basics. You saw the vampires at the station, right?”

  “I spent the whole time trapped in a witch’s net, so no.” Her voice was brittle and angry. Okay, change the subject.

  “They look like shadowy people,” I told her. “I didn’t have a clue what they looked like until I saw one.”

  “I know,” she said. “Like Keir. I saw him last night, too.”

  Oh, damn. So much for keeping my thoughts to myself. A psychic being able to read my mind was the least of my problems this week, but was it too much to ask to be allowed some peace?

  “You should put the iron on,” I said. “I’m going to start doing the same. There’s… there’s another vampire trying to recruit people. You know how dangerous they are. You can’t trust them.”

  “Then why do you want to sleep with one of them?” she asked, entirely too loudly.

  Lloyd and Morgan both cracked up laughing, while my face flamed to my collarbones.

  “Mackie, it’s not polite to dive into people’s thoughts,” I said, shooting a look at Lloyd that dared him to keep laughing.

  “It’s not polite to lie either,” she said. “Which every single one of you has been doing to me since the start.”

  Morgan and Lloyd both stopped snickering at me.

  “What?” I said to Mackie. “We’ve never lied about the guild. We’re here to help you.”

  “You took me in because you’re scared I’ll wipe you off the face of the planet.”

  “Mackie,” I said warningly. “We took you in because the alternative was sending you to rot in a jail cell for what Leila Hemlock made you do.”

  “Maybe I did it because I wanted to.” Her voice deepened, and anger flared in her grey-blue eyes.

  As Morgan took a step in her direction, she whipped something out of her pocket, and magic blasted the three of us off our feet. My elbow cracked off hard stone, and stars swam before my eyes. Then she screamed, and the spirit realm dissolved into a blur. I rolled over on the stones, my head throbbing.

  “Dammit, Mackie, get back here,” I yelled.

  Lloyd was on his feet first, chasing her down. Of the three of us, he was probably the fastest, but she’d disappeared down a side street. I swore and pulled myself to my feet, my elbow and head throbbing with every step.

  “She used your metal thing,” Lloyd shouted over his shoulder.

  “Shit!” I picked up the pace, with Morgan on my heels. “The vamps got to her. I knew it.”
>
  I hadn’t expected them to act this fast, much less tell her to steal something I hadn’t even owned until two days ago. If ever I needed proof that the same Ley Hunters were operating up and down the country…

  The alley halted at a dead end. I tapped the spirit realm and it came up murky, still fuzzy from her screaming. And—we were on the spirit line, the one that led from the guild to the station.

  “I can’t track her,” I said. “She’s gone.”

  And she’d taken the spirit-absorbing device along with her.

  “I tried telling her,” said Morgan. “She wouldn’t listen.”

  “I don’t think she’s alone in her head.” One of the vampires had contacted her, poisoned her mind, and turned her against us. Unless she’d never been on the guild’s side to begin with… but her desperation had seemed so genuine.

  Whatever the case, Mackie had just walked headfirst into a death sentence. And unless we got that device back before she activated it on the spirit line, so would I.

  11

  “You lost the psychic?” said Ilsa.

  For want of a better plan, we’d agreed with Morgan that bringing backup was the best move to quickly track down Mackie. Which meant letting the Gatekeeper in on our little mishap.

  “Worse,” I said. “She stole something of mine. A device that stores spiritual energy. It’s what switched off the key point, I think, and it can absorb ghosts.”

  Ilsa’s eyes widened. “Tell me more.”

  I explained Saturday’s discovery as we hurried out of the guild’s headquarters and retraced our steps. If the rest of us couldn’t track Mackie, then maybe even the Gatekeeper couldn’t, but short of telling the boss and winding up locked in a jail cell while Mackie ran amok with a dangerous weapon, our options were limited.

  “Who, exactly, told her to steal it?” said Ilsa, a step behind me on the cobbled street.

  “I have my suspicions,” I admitted. “But I don’t know for sure. I saw someone… before the necromancer died, in Birmingham. I think he was a vampire. I think it’s safe to say the person orchestrating this can project over a long distance.”

  The vampire must have seen I’d stolen his device, worked out where I lived, and used Mackie to get back at me.

  “The place is a maze,” said Lloyd over his shoulder. “And she ran fast, right onto a spirit line. Jas said that makes her harder to track.”

  “Does the device itself leave a signal?” asked Ilsa, pausing behind us when we reached the alley where we’d lost her.

  “A weak one,” I answered. “It’s easier to track Mackie herself, but they probably told her to run this way on purpose. She screamed, jolted the spirit line, and that’s all it took for her to escape.”

  “She screamed again?” asked Ilsa. “It didn’t knock anyone at the guild out, so she couldn’t have used as strong a blast as before.”

  “No, she is stronger,” said Morgan. “I kept trying to tell you. She’s learned to control that attack of hers—hell, she might even have already known how to do it. She hit us just hard enough to stop us tracking her. She’s way too smart.”

  Ilsa swore. “And now the enemy has her. Do you think they’ve been recruiting her through the spirit realm, the same way that fetch got to you?”

  “Fetch?” I asked.

  Ilsa glanced over her shoulder. “A faerie creature with a fixation on psychics. It could get to Morgan by connecting with his mind, but it stopped when he moved into the guild and started carrying iron everywhere.”

  “That sounds awfully familiar,” said Lloyd. “So the vamp’s been whispering in her ear the whole time?”

  “If I had to guess—yes, he has,” I said. “I warded my room, but I guess I didn’t put a strong enough protection spell on the device. It wasn’t like I thought anyone would break into my room and steal it.” I hadn’t exactly been at my most observant yesterday.

  “It isn’t your fault,” Morgan said. “It’s that damned fetch all over again. Look, when something is speaking to you through a psychic link, it’s kind of like… hypnosis. You can’t resist. You’re almost sleepwalking. She probably doesn’t know why she took it and was hardly aware of doing it. That voice she used before she left—it wasn’t hers.”

  “So she’s possessed?” asked Lloyd, backing out of the alley onto the street.

  “Nope,” I said. “I think it’s more… the enemy is speaking through her, like a vampire, except she’s still alive.”

  “There were vampires involved in the battle, right?” asked Ilsa. “Lady Montgomery told me a witch was there, too.”

  Ah, crap. I’d planned to keep the details of the battle to myself, and as far as anyone knew, the fighting had taken place entirely within this realm. It didn’t sound like the vampires were taking any influence from Leila Hemlock any longer, considering she was dead. But on the other hand, the spirit line was right under our feet.

  “A witch was,” I confirmed. “But she died. They all did. And the vampires. I’m not sure if this is linked to the same rogues, but that device—I should have handed it in from the start.” I’d been too set on keeping up the deception and not giving away my Hemlock powers that I’d let it fall right into the enemy’s hands.

  “No, I’d have done the same,” said Ilsa. “I’ve never heard of a handmade device that can store spiritual energy before. Must be a new creation, and definitely not guild-approved.”

  “There’s at least one more out there, considering the number of people killed in the first attack we found,” I said. “The vampire… I don’t know how he managed to trace me back here. Vampires can’t generally pinpoint a person’s exact location, especially that far off. Except when it comes to their vessels, I guess.” I’d need to ask Keir how it worked.

  Ilsa stopped walking. “I don’t think we can go much further without actually leaving the spirit line, and I’m guessing she’s still on the line.”

  Yeah. Because the vampire has a new target. Guilt squirmed inside me. In chasing down his vessel, I’d brought him right to the guild’s doorstep, and now Mackie might lose her life for it.

  “Right, I’m going in.” I ducked down, setting up candles in a circle. “This line is way too obvious a target. There are guild people stationed all over the place since the battle. Which means she can’t be at the train station, at least. She must be closer.”

  The others didn’t argue, nor when I entered the circle and tapped into the spirit realm, searching for the glint of the psychic’s spirit. Within the candles’ glow, everything was brighter than before even with the fuzziness. Ilsa was beside me. Morgan on my other side, with Lloyd just behind. But no signs of Mackie remained, and even the guild looked like a blur when I moved in that direction.

  “There’s an easier way for me to find her,” said Morgan’s voice from my left. “I’m wearing iron, too. If I take it off, there’s no barriers. I can mind-link her and find her that way.”

  “But—that’ll make you a target, too,” Ilsa protested.

  I blinked away the grey and stepped out of the circle. “Okay, get in the circle. If you’re sure.”

  Ilsa’s expression said she wasn’t sure, but psychic links were not my area of expertise, and if anything brought us to Mackie, it was worth a try.

  I stepped away from the circle as Morgan took my place within the candles. He pushed his sleeve up, where a thin iron band was wrapped around his wrist, and he pulled it off.

  Immediately, he dropped to his knees, his ghostly form rising from his body. Lloyd exclaimed in alarm, but Morgan’s ghost shrugged. “It’s okay, I’m still alive. So’s Mackie.” He rotated on the spot as though searching for something close by. “That way.”

  I turned in the direction he pointed in, tapping into the spirit realm. Fuzziness surrounded me, but I pushed forwards, reaching out for a familiar presence.

  Mackie’s spirit shone within, just off the spirit line. My heart contracted. There she is.

  And she wasn’t alone. Faintly glowing blu
e lines indicated at least two—no, three—vampires, and an uncountable number of humans.

  The buzz of my phone jolted me back into the real world.

  “I know where she is,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out my phone. Keir had responded to my message from yesterday, asking where I was. He must have sensed I’d left the guild twice in a short space of time.

  “Who’s that?” asked Lloyd.

  “Keir. I’ll ask him to back us up. There are three vamps in there, I think.”

  Ilsa nodded, her eyes slightly glazed from the spirit sight. “Three… and humans. Get the candles.”

  Morgan and Lloyd scrambled to pick up the candles while I dashed off a message to Keir telling him where we were. Unless he was close, he likely wouldn’t catch up to us before we got to Mackie, but those vampires weren’t messing around.

  “Humans?” echoed Morgan, straightening up. “The guild’s laws say don’t hurt humans, don’t they?”

  “Get that device out of their hands by any means possible,” I said. “And Mackie, of course. The vampires don’t seem that strong, but there might be others hiding nearby.” None of them pinged on my radar as the guy I’d seen staring through the necromancer’s eyes before he expired, but I’d bet he was close by.

  Candles retrieved, we hurried across the road towards where I’d sensed Mackie’s signal. “I didn’t see what the actual place looked like, but a crowd that big isn’t hard to miss. We can take them. Just get that device off the spirit line before it blows up.”

  The device might not contain that much power, but on a key point, with a dozen innocent humans in the room? I shuddered to think what it might do. Especially with the Hemlock witches a mere step away.

  We turned the corner into an abandoned street, which came as no surprise either. They picked derelict locations for a reason. And people who wouldn’t be missed.

  “There,” Ilsa whispered, pointing at a squat, dilapidated house on the corner.

  Morgan’s body tensed. “Right. I’ll get her out—”

  “Don’t just walk in there,” I hissed. “Tell you what… someone put up a candle circle around the place. That’ll contain the spiritual energy if it explodes and stop it from affecting the whole spirit line. It’ll also protect Mackie.”