Witch's Soul

by Emma L. Adams

  “Clearly you’re not,” I said, but my heart beat faster.

  He picked up a folder that’d fallen from the shelf bearing the name Aidan Langford, and returned it to the bookshelf. “I should have checked if there’d be side effects before I fed on you. A less experienced vampire might have killed you.”

  “I have nine lives, remember?” I buried my own shaking hands in my pockets. “Why not just tell me?”

  “It’s hardly a conversation topic for a first date,” he said. “Besides, I’ve been searching all my contacts trying to find a solution without giving away your secret.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  It barely registered that he’d said first date. Because there was no way to solve his dilemma, short of letting someone else in on my second soul problem. But Keir couldn’t end up dependent on me forever. Right?

  “Exactly.” He ran a hand through his overgrown hair. “I think I’m satiated for now, but I generally need to feed every two or three days, and that’s assuming I haven’t been drained by another vampire. Let’s just say it’s been a while since I visited the king.”

  Now I had to add ‘deadly to vampires’ to my ‘Jas’s weird powers’ list. Great. “Do you think… do you think Evelyn might have done it?” A final ‘screw you, Jas’ before I’d sealed her away?

  “No,” he said, his voice husky. “I mean—possibly. But I only remember you.”

  I stared at him for a moment. A flush brightened his prominent cheekbones, and his eyes were positively fever-bright. I swallowed hard. I couldn’t afford to be distracted, and god knew we had enough dilemmas to solve already. Not to mention, I didn’t entirely trust his vampire side.

  I looked away. “I’m sorry, Keir, but my boss is probably going mad. I hid that spirit device in my room and nearly got Mackie killed.”

  “That wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You said yourself the boss wasn’t around at the weekend, and technically it wasn’t a guild mission you acquired the device from.”

  “The rules are kinda fuzzy when it comes to running into necromancy issues while off the clock,” I said. “Usually we’re advised to report in anyway. But obviously, most people don’t have sentient forests, extra souls or forbidden covens to contend with. And Mackie herself hasn’t told the guild everything. Probably for the best, considering she knows all my secrets.”

  “She can read your thoughts?” he asked.

  “No, but she can see into my head when I leave an opening and she happens to be linked into the spirit realm at the time,” I said. “So basically, when I’m sleeping, or my defences are down. Then she gets impressions and thoughts of whatever I’m projecting. Morgan—he’s the guy who was with us at the house—is the same, but he wears iron and actually bothers to control the link. Mackie is wide open.”

  “So someone lured her to the house?” he said. “I got your message, but I was in too much of a rush to read it all.”

  “The vampire behind this lured her through their mind link,” I explained. “It’s like he hypnotised her, almost. And he’s still out there. I think he captured her before Leila Hemlock did, or maybe they worked together. I’m not sure.”

  “And can this vampire read your mind, too?” he asked, his expression wary.

  “Possibly, but I don’t know. It might only be psychics he can connect to, but it depends if he is one. Do psychic vampires exist?”

  “I’ve never met one,” he said. “From what I know of psychics, they can pick up on the thoughts of anyone with a strong presence in the spirit realm in the vicinity, but can only link mind-to-mind with other psychics.”

  Not just psychics. Ilsa mentioned there was a type of fae who could do it, too. But that Soul Collector… vampire or not, he looked human.

  “Yeah, I heard the same,” I said. “Either way, he might have got anything just from reading Mackie’s thoughts, considering how much info she got on me when Leila Hemlock had her captive. Hell, for all I know, she read Evelyn’s mind, too, before I locked her out. I mean, we’re two separate minds, technically. And she was their prisoner for weeks.”

  His mouth thinned. “Did you see nothing of where the vampire who spoke to you actually was?”

  “Nope,” I said. “He didn’t really have an accent and he never shows up to the crime scenes in person. On that topic—how did you control that vessel halfway down the country without knowing I was there?”

  “I extended my spirit sight in your general direction then grabbed the nearest corpse and shoved some of my consciousness into it,” he said. “It wasn’t a very neat job.”

  “Sure you’re not still sore that Isabel and I beat you?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  His mouth twitched. “I have to say, it was a pleasant surprise to find that you weren’t the dangerous rogue shade I was expecting.”

  “Not dangerous?” I said. “You certain about that?”

  A grin widened his mouth. I wouldn’t lie, it was a relief to see it at this point. “No, you’re dangerous, Jas. I forgot how much I like having you around.”

  Me, too. Unfortunately. “So… want to come and introduce yourself to my boss?”

  13

  The necromancers on guard duty outside the guild’s headquarters looked suspiciously at Keir when he walked alongside me into the lobby, but none of them stopped us. The absence of familiar faces fuelled my certainty. “I think the others have been hauled into the boss’s office for a grilling. Still want to come?”

  “He’d better,” said Lloyd, approaching us. “The only reason she’s not yelling at me for letting Keir take you away is because she’s more pissed with Morgan and Mackie.”

  Sure enough, Lady Montgomery’s voice drifted down from the upper level. She didn’t yell so much as project her voice so the walls rattled and everyone in a mile’s radius ducked for cover. No wonder all the novices were hiding downstairs. I glanced at Keir, whose mouth quirked in an inexplicable smile.

  “What?” I hissed. “If you think this is amusing, half the reason she’s so mad is because I nearly died.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not you. I was… forewarned about the guild’s leadership approach. I’m glad to see they’re taking the threat seriously.”

  “Of course we are.” Lloyd glared at him. “If you hadn’t brought Jas back in one piece, we’d have strung you from the ceiling.”

  “Lovely sentiment,” said Keir, taking a step forwards in the direction of Lady Montgomery’s strident voice. “I think I can find my own way upstairs.”

  “Now is not the time to pick a fight, you two. We’re all deep in the shit.”

  Lloyd scowled at Keir and turned back to the stairs. Several novices stared after us—or more specifically, at Keir’s expensive-looking jacket and jeans, and the absence of a hooded necromancer’s cloak. Most of them wouldn’t know a vampire by sight, but I could see them putting his presence together with Lady Montgomery’s shouting and drawing their own conclusions.

  The upper corridor, by contrast, was empty, and the boss’s voice drifted towards us. I winced at the sound of Ilsa’s name. Of the group, she was the person who least deserved to be yelled at, considering we’d dragged her in to help undo the mess we’d created.

  “Jas,” said Lady Montgomery, through the closed office door. “Come to say your piece?”

  “I also bought an ally.” I opened the door and entered. Ilsa, Morgan and Mackie gathered around her desk, all of them looking noticeably chastened.

  “Keir Langford,” the vampire said smoothly, reaching out a hand. Lady Montgomery shook it, her sharp eyes appraising the new arrival.

  “Keir is the vampire who helped us out,” I said. “And he helped us save Mackie the first time around, too.”

  “And did he know about this illegal device?” she enquired.

  “Not until yesterday,” I said, my shoulders tensing at the warning hint in her voice. “And I didn’t know they existed until I found one.”

  “Yes, I’ve had to listen to an extensive
explanation from your partners-in-crime.”

  “It wasn’t really a crime,” said Morgan. “It’s a non-guild matter, right? She wasn’t on a mission when she got the thing. It wasn’t like she knew someone would hypnotise Mackie into breaking into her room.”

  Wait, since when was Morgan defending me? Someone must have put him up to this… and the person in question was hiding behind Keir and me at the back. Thanks, Lloyd.

  “Yes, I’m aware that the situation isn’t covered by our usual procedures,” said Lady Montgomery. “But the fact remains that the council will want an explanation as to why a device outlawed by the guild ended up in the hands of a new recruit who then handed it over to a criminal. Are the vampires all dead?”

  “The ones from the scene of the crime are,” I said. “Uh… outlawed by the guild? Has someone made one of these things before?”

  Lady Montgomery’s nostrils flared. “There have been incidents in our history where necromancers have met unfortunate ends through trying to create weapons that can harvest souls. Like most experimental necromancy, it never ends well.”

  Ilsa straightened upright, and I could almost see her mind ticking, wanting to get her hands on the guild’s entire history on the subject. I had zero academic interest in the device. I just wanted the damned thing out of my life and people to stop trying to screw up the spirit realm.

  “Just wondered,” I said. “This is… it’s a collective effort. The person behind it is a vampire and I’m almost certain he’s within this city. He called himself the Soul Collector.”

  The air seemed to vanish from the room as Lady Montgomery turned to me. “Is that so? Would you be able to describe this individual?”

  “I only saw him as a ghost,” I said. “I can draw a picture of him, if it helps, but he was kinda blurry, and shadowy. Only his eyes were clear—sort of blue-grey.”

  I dug in my pocket for a pen and paper, since nobody else was forthcoming, and leaned on the end of the boss’s desk to sketch the vampire’s face.

  Lady Montgomery turned her attention to Mackie. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you’ve put your future in the guild, and your safety, in a very precarious position. We’ve taken in one other psychic in the last year and the only reason he was allowed to stay is because he cooperated with the law, for the most part.”

  Morgan shifted from one foot to the other. “Not exactly. What that vamp did to her is the same as what happened to me when I first joined up here. It’s just I never got my hands on a spirit… thingy. That’s all.”

  “And Mackie only knew about it because her mind accidentally ended up linked with mine,” I added, tapping my pen on the notepad. If nothing else, I wanted that little problem out in the open. The enemy’s info on me had come entirely through her, and even if it wasn’t her fault, she was almost as much a wild card as Evelyn Hemlock. “What I don’t get is how the Ley Hunters have been luring in humans without being traced.”

  “Humans are good at not seeing what’s in front of them,” said Keir. “It’s what makes them such willing victims.”

  “Yes, including every one of you,” Lady Montgomery interjected, taking the notepad from me as soon I was done sketching. “You’re not infallible, and you’ve made my life incredibly difficult. This is likely to take weeks to resolve. I’m going to send out patrols to scour the vampires’ known haunts to find this individual. Mackie, you’re to stay at the guild with Morgan. Ilsa, find River and ask him to help you organise some extra patrols.”

  Ilsa, Mackie and Morgan left, but when Lloyd tried to follow, Lady Montgomery beckoned him sharply. “I want a word with you, too.”

  Lloyd froze. “What did I do?”

  “Failed to inform me of the presence of that device, for one thing,” said Lady Montgomery, tearing off the vampire’s picture and handing me back the notepad. “It’s incredibly lucky that it had a limited amount of energy inside it when it exploded, and your candle circle prevented it from damaging the spirit line.”

  “Jas nearly died for it,” Lloyd said. “Trust me, we were back into a corner.”

  “Yet you chose to act alone.”

  “It was my idea,” I said quickly. “I knew Mackie’s life was in danger and we were already on the spirit line. Same line as the guild. We had to act fast.”

  “I see that allowing Mackie to join you on patrol was a bad idea,” she said. “She’s too powerful to be allowed to leave the guild.”

  “But—if you lock her up, she’ll run,” I told her. “Trust me, I know.” Or Evelyn Hemlock did, anyway.

  She looked at me for a moment. “Luckily for all of you, nobody was seriously hurt. But this city has a high number of spirit lines and if this vampire intends on repeating the performance, he may have other devices hidden, too.”

  “I think the best place to look is with the humans,” said Lloyd, then shrank under the boss’s glare. “Uh. Not that you’re wrong. But they lured the humans in by handing out flyers, and no supernaturals knew it was happening. We don’t move in the same circles.”

  “Yes, you’re correct,” she said. “But you have human family, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he said warily. “I have a little sister at uni. I can ask if she’s seen any flyers lying around, I guess.”

  “Do that,” she said. “You have the rest of the day off. Jas, stay here with your… friend.”

  Lloyd left, while the boss finally turned to Keir. The vampire maintained a calm expression, and it struck me that the boss didn’t seem bothered that he’d heard everything. She knew this was the second time he’d helped us, after all.

  “What exactly have you come to give me?” she asked him.

  “Information,” he said. “I have a number of vampire contacts I can ask about this criminal. It might interest you to know that someone has been murdering vampires, too.”

  “Yes, it would. Tell me the details.”

  “I woke up to an attack yesterday morning,” he said. “A wild fae seemed to have been set upon me. When I killed it, I went in search of my allies. I found a number of them had also been slaughtered. The vampires’ king included. None were, as far as I know, working against the guild.”

  He hadn’t mentioned the furies by name. Maybe he couldn’t, like me, or maybe he was being cautious.

  “So you were the one who disposed of the evidence my patrol found at the vampire king’s house?” she asked.

  “It’s our method,” he said. “Vampires become unstable after death and I didn’t want another person reanimating them afterwards. I questioned several other vampires I suspected of being involved, but found none of them knew who’d orchestrated the attack.”

  “And why do you believe you were targeted?”

  “I’m known to be an ally of the king, at least on paper,” he said. “These rogues care nothing for the laws, and they may have tried to take me out because they knew they’d never win me over. I don’t care much for luring humans into lethal traps.”

  “Except as a vampire,” she said. “You’ve had several brushes with the law yourself.”

  “Merely in passing.”

  Oh, great. Maybe inviting him here hadn’t been the best move. He was one of the few people I’d seen stand up to the boss, but it didn’t bode well for their professional relationship. And if he spent too long around Mackie, she’d probably end up eavesdropping on his thoughts, too.

  Lady Montgomery gave him a long look. “It’s lucky Jas trusts you, otherwise I would invite you to spend some time with our council.”

  Wait, she trusted my word? Since when? I’d made a monumentally bad judgement call and was keeping some fairly major secrets. Then again, as I’d found out today, so was everyone she’d yelled at in the last hour.

  “As it is, Keir,” she said, when neither of us responded, “assuming you didn’t suffer any damage in the battle, I’d like to request that you speak to as many of your vampire contacts today as possible.”

  “That may be difficult,” he said. “
Several fled the city after the attacks yesterday. Others fear they might be targeted next. And there’s the matter of the leadership position. We’re typically loners, but it’s likely that it’ll take a while for someone to step into the position. But I can speak to everyone I know.”

  “Do that,” she said. “Jas, go with him. You’re dismissed.”

  I foresaw a mountain of paperwork waiting when we got back. So much for her taking it easy on me after my near-death experience. A pounding headache threatened, probably the come-down from nearly dying coupled with my improvised hangover cure, and I’d rather take a nap than wander around interrogating vampires. But I’d promised the boss, and if I let on how bad the damage had been, I’d give away that I pretty much did have nine lives.

  Once I’d closed the boss’s door behind me, I turned to Keir. “Sure you don’t want to be the new king?”

  “No,” he said. “If I make a bid for the leadership position, I’ll never get a moment’s peace for the rest of my life.”

  “Because you obviously have such a peaceful existence.” I turned the notepad over in my hand. “Hang on, I’m going to draw another sketch of the guy I saw.” My view hadn’t been that clear, but I wouldn’t forget that face in a hurry. “I need to change my clothes, too… I’m still covered in blood under here.” I made for the stairs to the upper level. “Lucky I had that repairing charm. I can’t afford another coat.”

  “I’ll buy you one,” Keir said, as we turned into the corridor which housed most of the novices. At least nobody was up here at this time.

  “You can’t buy back my trust, Keir. It doesn’t work that way.” I paced down to my room and unlocked the door. “Also, this place is a mess. I haven’t cleaned it in weeks.”

  “I won’t judge,” he said. “And I’m not trying to buy back your trust. It was wrong of me to disappear without any explanation, but I expected you to react badly when I told you.”