Natural Enemies (Spirit Seekers Book 2)

by Janna Ruth

  Iván scoffs again. “You want to know what I do with the money?” He takes a few steps, fuming. “I use it to update our equipment. I use it to make Budapest just a little bit safer.”

  “If you needed extra provisions, there are official channels to go through,” Wulf starts to explain, still working his way through the issue at hand.

  “You think I didn’t do that?” Iván laughs before mimicking, “I’m sorry, but we can’t extend your budget this year. Or the year before or in any given year, as a matter of fact.” With each word, he becomes louder. “You don’t get it, do you, Wulf? The SSA isn’t some big wish fulfilment machine for the rest of us.”

  I’m contemplating whether I can slip out of the room without being noticed. Clearly, there are some high-level issues here that I shouldn’t be privy to.

  Wulf shakes his head. “I’m sorry if you think your headquarters is underfunded. That’s an issue you should raise with the officials, but you can’t sell spirits to civilians to make up for it.”

  “He’s paying us for the privilege to work on them. We get the results, not that it’s been worth it so far.” Iván picks up the miniature staff and throws it on the table. “Useless shit.”

  József steps forward and runs his hand over the staff. “You’re commissioning him to build weapons?”

  Cockily, Iván leans against the table, taunting Wulf to throw a fit. “There are not enough ancient staffs to go around. There’s surely no way Budapest will end up with one. So what if we try to do our own research? If we sent them off to Rome, any successful weapon would go west, I’m sure. We get to catch the powerful spirits, and you get the powerful weapons. Doesn’t sound fair to me.”

  I feel like a stone has just dropped into my stomach.

  “Again,” Wulf stresses, slowly losing his patience. “This is an issue you should raise through the official channels.”

  “Oh, come on,” József says, suddenly taking his brother’s side. “They won’t change anything. Yes, what Iván did is wrong, but I get where he’s coming from. The distribution of funds and weapons is grossly unfair.”

  “Always goes west, never east,” Iván adds bitterly.

  Now having to deal with both Varga brothers, Wulf shifts his feet. Usually, he thinks quicker on his feet, but this time, he’s weirdly stoic about it. Even I understand that there is something fundamentally wrong with an unequal distribution of funds.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “I really am. If you want, I’ll lend my voice to the complaints. Nevertheless, the risk in dealing with spirits is too high.”

  “The risk is that people are dying!” Iván shouts. “People are dying, and they’re dying on my watch! And there’s nothing I can do about it, not because I’m not a good fighter or I’m not as well-educated as you, but because I don’t have access to the proper equipment. You come here and think you’re such a big hero when the only reason for your success is that ancient staff in your hands. Oh, look at you, cutting straight through an A-class spirit wave.”

  I guess I completely misjudged what the battle staffs can do and what they can’t. Which is weird because I damaged the Erlking with Daisy’s certainly not SSA-issued staff. Iván seems to think Wulf’s success against the polluted spirits largely hinges on the ancient staff he got as a reward for stopping a volcanic eruption. And neither of the others moves to correct him.

  Wulf is at the point of growling now, “You can’t blame me for your failures.”

  “I’m blaming the system,” Iván clarifies. “It’s just that the system is so far up your ass, it’s hard to separate the two of you.”

  “Sorry, Wulf,” József says, “but I have to side with Iván on this. The system is skewed towards the big money-makers, and we all know Germany is the biggest of them. I guess it doesn’t hurt to be raised by the Vallescos either,” he adds in a murmur. Wulf is staring at him, but József seems oblivious. “What I did wasn’t too different from Iván’s approach. Instead of asking for funds, I asked the one getting the funds. I couldn’t see how we could possibly stand against those powerful spirits with the means we have.”

  Wulf looks from one brother to the other, his jaw so clenched I fear for his bones. At last, he speaks. “So, one of you uses his personal connections to order reinforcements, while the other blames me for having similar connections.” As József lowers his eyes, Wulf looks to Iván. “And you issue your own spirit weapon experiments by selling out the SSA’s secrets.”

  Iván nods. “As I said, go ahead and report us. It’s not like it can get any worse.”

  “I have to,” Wulf says, his voice distant and detached.

  József steps in. “Don’t do it. Please. We’ll get those spirits back. I mean those that haven’t been used yet. We’ll stop the arrangement, pay that researcher off, draw up an NDA. Let us take care of it, and maybe we’ll get lucky and receive better weapons in the future.”

  “You know I can’t look away and pretend it never happened.” Wulf takes a deep breath. This doesn’t seem to be easy for him.

  Iván looks ready to murder him while József shakes his head in disappointment. “I thought our friendship was worth more than that.”

  It’s the wrong road to take with Wulf. Even I could have called that after this brief exchange about familial allegiances. His dark eyes are blazing. “You’ve abused our friendship, and now you’re doing it again. I normally like you, Józsie, but I won’t have you making me an accomplice to this travesty. You don’t get to use me like that.”

  “Guess we’re not really friends then,” József replies coldly.

  I’m usually not rule-abiding and think the German obsession with bureaucracy is comical at best and annoying at its worst, but I’m entirely on Wulf’s side here. “He’s turning spirits into weapons, for fuck’s sake!”

  They’ve genuinely forgotten about me until then. József glares at me. “So?”

  “So?” My gaze shoots from him to Wulf, who is taking another deep breath, to Iván, who shakes his head in amusement. “That’s disgusting!”

  József snorts at me, “Hey, Wulf, why don’t you educate your little girlfriend a bit?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend,” Wulf says with a face like stone. Yes, that friendship is well and truly over. Then he grabs my arm and opens the door. “Come on, you shouldn’t even be in here.”

  He’s so distant it sends a chill down my back. The Varga brothers don’t get another look from him, and he drags me all the way over to his room.

  “You’re going to report them to the SSA, right?”

  Wulf closes the door behind him and takes a deep breath. “I will, but not for that.” He takes his staff off his back and puts it into my hands. “Feel it.”

  Confused, I run my fingers over the wood. As before, the staff seems to come alive under my fingertips. “I don’t understand.” My mind doesn’t want to understand.

  Wulf sits down next to me. “All spirit seeker weapons are made from spirits. It’s the only thing that can hurt them. Take a gun, and you might as well try to shoot water. Spirit beats spirit.”

  The staff in my hands suddenly feels like it’s turned into a snake. I drop it on the ground, recoiling from it. “No.”

  “Yes.” Wulf’s voice is merciless. “The first spirit seekers were much better at it than us, though. We know that they used dryad wood, which is why I assume Iván leaped at the chance to secure a bunch of dryads.”

  Don’t defend him, I want to say, but my tongue is a heavy, furry stranger in my mouth.

  “All the others… There have been experiments with using salamanders in forging, but it doesn’t work. Did you never wonder why such a high-profile organisation issues their seekers’ wooden staffs instead of modern weaponry? There’s a trick the old spirit seekers knew, but it’s lost to us. And so far, nobody has been able to replicate it.”

  I bend down like I’m in a trance and pick the staff back up. Once again, I look at it, truly see it. When I finally do, a whimper sli
ps from my throat. “It’s not dryad wood. It’s part of a dryad,” I hear myself saying. Everything clicks into place, but the sound of it makes me sick to the stomach. “You can’t replicate it because your armourers don’t see it.”

  Wulf cocks his head. “They don’t see what?”

  My index finger runs along a groove in the wood, a rune of some sort that accentuates an old muscle of the dryad. “They don’t see the spirit.” I force myself to speak, though all I want to do is to tear my eyes out and scream. There’s no way to unsee this. “The dryad in your staff is whole. When you make those standard staffs, you take away all that makes them who they are. It’s like trying to capture a spirit by only using the first two rings.” I shudder at the thought of those smooth, polished staffs the spirit seeker use for fighting. Not staffs, but mutilated dryads.

  “If you’re right…” Wulf takes the staff from me to run his own hands along the shaft. “Rika, you could’ve advanced our weapon-making by light-years. We just need to get some dryads and…”

  I slap him so hard, his eyes fly wide open. His head jerks in my direction. Tears are burning in my eyes as I try to stare him down. “Listen to yourself!”

  “Rika…”

  “Stop it!” My head is shaking under the force of my own anger. I have to get some distance between us. “This is unspeakably cruel, even for your kind.” I retreat to the far wall.

  His concerned look turns into a glower. “My kind? It’s yours too.”

  “Never!” I struggle to hold myself up, my knees as weak as jelly. “I will never set foot in an organisation that supports such cruelty. That is based on such a disgusting practice.”

  Slowly, Wulf gets to his feet. He puts the staff on his bed beside him. “What we do ensures the survival of the human race. You might not like our methods, but they’ve been proven time and time again.”

  “Oh, it’s that ‘the end justifies all means’ speech.” My wrath keeps spilling out of me. It’s like my entire mouth is filled with bile. “You’re such a hypocrite, Wulf! You’ve eaten up their bullshit all your life. Who cares for a few spirits, right? We’re saving the world.”

  His face grows darker. “Well, if you have a better idea, go ahead. I want to hear it. Tell me how we can fend off the next typhoon that rips a million houses apart. Tell me how we can protect the thousands of people dying in mega earthquakes every couple of years! Tell me how we should have dealt with that salamander that boiled people alive!”

  “There have to be other ways.” My voice is shaking like the rest of my body now. There has to be at least one. “We can talk with them, we can…”

  “Don’t kid yourself!” Wulf interrupts me. “Just because you know one sylph that’s not trying to drop you down a cliff doesn’t mean you can negotiate with a volcanic eruption or a forest fire. You can’t talk down a flood. You can’t stop a landslide by asking nicely.”

  “Did you ever try?” I hurl back at him. “Did you ever consider not chopping up spirits and turning them against their own kind? How would you feel, huh? How would you feel about it if some spirit cut off your mother’s arm to come at you? You don’t think they’ve got an excellent reason to be angry? Don’t you…”

  Wulf’s face has turned ashen. He raises his arm and points toward the door. “Get out!” The vein in his neck is pulsing wildly.

  No, I’m not going to stand down now. “Wulf, we take away their living spaces, we pollute their environment, and then we chop them to pieces? Experiment on them?”

  “Get out!” he snarls.

  “This can’t…”

  I don’t get any further because, at this point, Wulf’s fingers wrap themselves around my upper arm, fingers digging into my skin as he drags me to his door. Once there, he almost rips it out of its hinges and pushes me out. “Get out of my sight!” Then he slams the door shut with such force that a crack appears at the top.

  I feel like he’s punched me in the face instead, and my stomach, and my chest. My mind circles around our argument faster and faster. He was on my side just minutes ago. But he isn’t. He never was. The things standing between us aren’t just a difference of opinions. We are fundamentally opposed. No compromise will ever be able to bridge the chasm between us, and I knew that. I knew it from the day I stared into his eyes as he tried to go after Aeola. Without hesitation, without even considering asking first. I thought I could change his mind. That eventually, he’d have to see my truth. I thought he did after yesterday, but I kidded myself. I let myself be blinded by his good looks, his empathy, and, most importantly, by his stupid promise.

  Now I know I won’t ever be able to look him in the eye and not flinch at the horrors he’s so willingly part of. I can’t stay here where they sell spirits to be turned into weapons, to destroy even more spirits.

  Blinded by my conclusions, I return to my room. I pack all the essentials, which takes me fewer than ten minutes, and then I’m out. I don’t know how I’ll get back to Berlin yet, but I’ll find a way. I’ll walk if I have to. I survived eight years on the streets; I can do it again. Anything will be better than this.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I CAN’T RUN away from this. There’s no going back to my aimless wandering on the streets. Sure, I could pride myself in the genuine spirit relationships I will build and how I’m doing the right thing. But running away isn’t the right thing. It’s the cowardly thing. After learning what I did, I’ll have to spread the word. I have to get my story out. I have to find ways to stop the cruelties. I have to try at least.

  As I walk out of my room, my gaze falls onto the spirit traps in the hallway. They haven’t been shipped yet. Looking over my shoulder, I check whether anyone’s paying attention to me. There’s no one in sight. I make a quick decision and grab the box. Then I get the hell out of there before anyone can stop me.

  Outside, I look over my shoulder until I’m well past the recently deforested area. Under the trees on the far side of the island, I kneel and take out the traps. As Leon taught me, I deactivate them and open all of them. As I do so, Aeola floats down to me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m freeing the dryads.” Anxiously, I watch the opened traps. No spirit has materialised yet.

  Aeola comes closer. “You can do that? Won’t you get in trouble?”

  “Let me care about that.” My mind pulls up a fantasy of breaking into shipments for the SSA and freeing all those spirits the seekers captured. “Come on, you need to get to safety,” I tell the dryads. The spirit seekers will never be able to convince the city council to take all the trees on Margaret Island down. At least, I hope they don’t have that much of an influence.

  Very slowly, the spirits creep into the open air. It tears my heart apart to see how broken some of them are. I know that they will recover in time, but it will take many years, decades even.

  My tears fall on the grass. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know any better.” I know that my apology will never be good enough, but it’s all I have to offer.

  Aeola gently blows my tears away. “This isn’t your fault, Rika.”

  “I feel like it is. I never wanted to hurt anyone.” There are three dryads I won’t be able to release back into the wild. They’ll never be allowed to recover. A shudder runs through me as I remember the little salamander I once caught with Camille. I wanted to believe her when she told me he’d be sent to Iceland. But it was Miriam’s reaction that told me the truth. A perfect spirit? She was so excited someone would examine it… and then try to turn it into a weapon.

  My stomach can’t take it anymore. It brings up the lángos and the coffee that I’ve consumed what feels like years ago.

  As I rid myself of my lunch, retching and crying all at once, I feel something soft brush my cheek. Looking up, I see Szirom. She’s not the same as before. There are deep scars around her face, and half her leaves are missing. The left side of her is charred. And yet, she looks kindly at me with kind amber eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisp
er, then wipe my mouth.

  Once again, Szirom’s leaves brush my cheek. “I know,” the spirit says in a voice that sounds hollow. She’s lost so much of herself. “It wasn’t you who did this.” She regards my tears on her leaves. “You’re not like them. You actually care.” She lets the tear drop to the ground, her gaze intensifying. “Do you still want to know about the nymphs?”

  I haven’t even thought about them yet. What are they but another group of spirits that have been altered by human greed? “If there is a way to save them, I need to try. I want to talk to them.” I might as well start with them if I want to expose the SSA for its wrongdoings.

  “They nest in the Danube inlet on Óbuda.” Szirom retreats a little. “But be careful. They are angry. Very angry.”

  I know by now that the anger of spirits is often justified. “Thank you.”

  It’s late at night when Aeola and I reach the long Danube inlet on Óbuda Island. Since its mouth is located downriver, the water inside is like a lake. It doesn’t flow but just sits there. I know why the nymphs have chosen it as their nesting spot. It feels as artificial and wrong as them.

  I leave my backpack with the precious pictures near the path and approach the black water, arms raised. “Don’t slip away. I just want to talk. I know you’re here.” Softening my voice, I add, “I want to help.”

  Unlike the nymphs further upriver, these ones don’t shy away from me. Instead, three of them float to the surface. My stomach turns at the thought of what power these three could wield together. But that’s okay. Just because they are powerful doesn’t mean they’ll use that power for destruction.

  “I’m Rika,” I tell them. “I’m a Traveller. We care for spirits.”

  All three nymphs look like something left too long in the water. Their skin is blotchy and bloated. Oil shimmers in their veins. Their eyes are swollen. I’m kind of glad that they are water spirits and not earth spirits, or I’d probably see maggots creep through their flesh.