Smoke and Summons (Numina Book 1)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

Could she have family somewhere in Dresberg?

  Did she have family?

  Her mouth went dry. The discussion in the room dribbled to a buzz in her ears. Her parents had died when she and Anon were still young. Her brother had perished shortly before Kazen bought her. She had no one left. No one but the grafters, and Ireth.

  But . . . Gwenwig. Could her salvation be sitting a few feet to her left?

  Kazen’s cold hand landed on her shoulder, his long fingers curling around it. Sandis lifted her eyes but did not meet his. What had she missed? Something terrible, if her master was paying her attention. He only did so in public for one reason.

  The three bankers watched her with stark fear. Two of the three Skeets left the room.

  “Kazen,” the oldest banker said too loudly, perhaps trying to push authority into his voice. “This is unnecessary!”

  “I don’t believe so.” Kazen turned Sandis toward him, away from the ledger she desperately wanted to read. If she turned back, he would know, so she looked at the floor and closed her eyes, waiting, her blood running faster in anticipation of the summoning. Kazen hesitated for a brief moment—was he looking over her shoulder?—but then his palm pressed into her hair, and she forced herself not to cringe. He must be eager to act; he usually made her undress first, so as not to waste clothing.

  It never got easier. No matter how many times Kazen summoned a numen into her, it never got easier. Neither did the fear it instilled into Kazen’s victims, nor the pure, unrelenting pain possession wreaked upon her body.

  Her stomach tensed, but she opened her mind, welcoming Ireth. Acceptance made the transition more bearable.

  Ireth didn’t mean to hurt her.

  The old, fluid words flowed from Kazen’s tongue with an evil sort of reverence. Four lines, but they felt like four syllables. Sandis breathed and missed them.

  White-hot fury descended upon her. Sirens screamed in her ears. Her body was a thousand threads pulled apart, breaking, snapping. Iron and bile, acid and ripping, tearing, twisting—

  Sandis awoke with a start. The familiar checkered brown pattern on the ceiling of the vessels’ quarters greeted her. A chill prickled the skin of her arms, but beneath her forehead was a residual heat, and when she closed her eyes again, she felt the impression of fire. Of need. Of . . .

  It was gone.

  She sat up slowly, knowing quick movements would rattle the headache already beginning to surface behind her temples. She breathed deeply, slowly, staring past her gray bedcovers, trying to remember . . . but there were no memories this time. Only fleeting impressions. She tried to grab on to them, mull over them. Fire. Ireth always left the impression of fire. Need. That had been a frequent one, too.

  For three and a half years, Sandis had awoken from possession with nothing more than black gaps in her mind. Not even dreams had filled that void.

  These flashes had started six months ago. The memory of a face, a scream, the sound of Kazen’s voice giving an order she never could or would have completed in her mortal human form.

  Ireth was reaching out to her. Sandis had told no one. She was an enigma, she knew that, and the puzzle of what the fire horse needed remained largely unsolved. The numen could not speak to her directly, or at least, he had not done so yet.

  Blinking rapidly, Sandis allowed herself to come fully back to reality. She winced at a headache. Wasn’t surprised to see herself in a new shirt and slacks—Ireth would have destroyed the ones she wore to the bank. When she reached for the water on her side table, her muscles whined of an overuse she could not recall. She downed the liquid in the wooden cup in three swallows, grit and all. The medicine had settled on the bottom. She’d been unconscious longer than usual.

  Her stomach growled. She scanned the room, relieved to find some cold meat and an apple set on a tray near the door. She was a slave, yes, but Kazen kept her and the others well fed. Summoning into a broken vessel rarely ended well.

  As Sandis carefully stood on still-shaky legs, she heard a muted, choking sound from the corner of the room. She turned and scanned the narrow beds. Six, including her own. All property of Kazen. Her gaze settled on the quivering lump on Heath’s mattress.

  She glanced back at the meat. Sighed. “Heath?”

  The lump flinched.

  Were it any of the others—Alys, Kaili, Dar, even Rist—Sandis would be more concerned. But Heath was often unwell. His moods changed quicker than a shift at the firearms factory. He wore his fear like a heavy cloak.

  Sandis stepped toward him slowly until she knew dizziness would not claim her. “Heath, what’s wrong?”

  He rolled over, his dingy long brown hair peeking out from his blanket cocoon. His eyes were bloodshot—Sandis’s probably were, too. It happened, with possession. She’d likely have more gray hairs as well.

  “I’m next,” he whispered, sounding more like a child than a man two years Sandis’s senior. “I’m next, I’m next.”

  “Kazen probably won’t need us again just yet.” Sandis inched toward Rist’s bed and perched at the edge of it. “Are you hungry? I’ll share.”

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t hear the screams this morning.”

  Prickles cascaded down Sandis’s neck. She lifted her hand to rub the skin beneath her dark hair but winced at a prick of pain. A small red dot on the inside of her elbow told her Kazen had taken a syringe to her while she’d been out. She frowned, but it was expected. Kazen needed her blood to control Ireth.

  Refocusing on Heath, she said, “I was dead.”

  Not literally, of course.

  Heath shook his head. Shot up suddenly and clasped both sides of his head with his large hands. “There was screaming. Last week, too.”

  The prickling returned. Sandis had woken in the middle of the night to that screaming. She’d covered her ears and rolled over, singing a lullaby to herself until it went away. She hadn’t investigated. Kazen didn’t like them coming out of their rooms at night, and Sandis followed his rules to perfection.

  Screaming wasn’t uncommon, down here.

  Heath circled his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth. “He’s experimenting again.”

  Her shoulders tensed. “Again?”

  “He’s doing something. Summoning . . . something new. I don’t know. I’m next, though.”

  Sandis glanced at the door, ignoring the waiting food there. “Why are you next?” Her voice had less strength with that question. She cleared her throat. One had to be assertive when talking to Heath during one of his episodes.

  Heath shook his head. Rocked. “I’m next. He hates me, I know it. And I’m not bound.”

  Bound, like Sandis was. She reached back, tracing Ireth’s name at the base of her neck. Being bound to a specific numen made summoning it much faster. Ireth was a strong numen—a seven on the scale of ten. Kazen used him frequently. Dar and Rist were bound as well.

  “Being bound isn’t a privilege.” And yet she’d started to feel a strange closeness to Ireth, a creature she’d never met. A creature she couldn’t meet. She knew Dar and Rist did not have similar feelings. She could tell by the way they talked, by the way they answered—or avoided—her careful questions.

  Sandis watched Heath’s rocking long enough to grow nauseated. He said, “He wouldn’t use a bound vessel to summon that thing. He’d use his spares.”

  Sandis straightened. “Summon what thing?”

  No, this wasn’t good. She was feeding Heath’s worries. He’d lose it, and then Rist would blame her for riling him up.

  She swallowed. “You’re valuable, Heath. You know that.” Not just anyone could be a vessel. There were requirements. The first was good health. No sickness, sturdy bones, the basics. Scars and piercings had to be minimal for higher-level numina. Vessels also had to have what Kazen called an “open” spirit, which was either something a person was born with or something he or she obtained through a great amount of meditation. They had all cost Kazen a fortune—a fortune Sandis suspected he’
d earned back quickly.

  Kazen had been a vessel, once. Only those who had been possessed at some point in their lives could become summoners. There was no doubt, however, that Kazen had since destroyed his brands so he’d never again have to feel the pain he so readily inflicted on others.

  “Not like you. You’re his favorite. He’d never use you.”

  She tried another tactic. “Alys and Kaili aren’t bound, either, and you’re stronger than they are. Kazen wants you to be . . . flexible.” Heath could summon a seven or less, like herself.

  When was the last time Kazen had used him?

  But Heath whimpered and buried his face against his knees. Rocking, rocking . . .

  “He’s right.”

  The new voice startled her. Rist stood at the door, his arms folded across his chest. His dark hair flopped lazily over his eyes.

  Heath mewled.

  “Not about you.” Rist sounded annoyed. He lost patience with Heath more quickly than anyone else did, which Sandis had always found odd. They were family.

  Moving away from the door, Rist murmured, “Kazen’s had a lot of slavers by lately.”

  Sandis’s stomach tightened. “You’ve seen them?”

  “Kaili has. And I saw one of their stamps on a paper in his office.”

  Gooseflesh pricked Sandis’s arms. Her ensuing whisper was almost a hiss. “You can’t go through his things again, Rist. Last time he was lenient.”

  Kazen would never have his vessels beaten enough to cause them permanent harm, but he had other methods of tormenting them. Last time Rist had been caught snooping around, he was locked in solitary for nearly a week . . . and Rist couldn’t even read. The isolation had nearly broken him. Sometimes food or water would be denied or changed, or Kazen would sic Galt on one of the other vessels and make the offender watch. Sandis hated that one. Often, however, Kazen got creative. Not knowing what to expect was the worse punishment to Sandis. That was why she tried so hard to never break any rules. Why she tried so hard to be, as Heath put it, the “favorite.”

  All she had ever wanted was to be good.

  Rist pressed his lips together for a moment before saying, “Regardless, I think he’s doing experiments at night, when he has someone to practice on. Maybe potential vessels he can easily discard. Hosts he can get for cheap.”

  “But they’re so hard to find,” Sandis countered.

  Rist shrugged. “Here, maybe. Not across the border.”

  Heath covered his ears. Sandis put her hand on his shoulder. “It won’t be you. Any of us. We’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t like the uneasy look on Rist’s face, so she turned away from it. But that only brought her attention to the other cots. Alys, Dar, and Kaili were elsewhere. Maybe one was being briefed on an upcoming job, or doing a chore for Zelna, or being punished for something Sandis didn’t yet know about. She tried not to think about where they were; the worry could be maddening.

  Her gaze lingered on Alys’s bed. She was still so new to this, and the weakest of Kazen’s vessels. If these slavers didn’t deliver, would Kazen decide she was expendable?

  No. She’s safe, Sandis told herself. You’ve taught her everything she needs to know. She keeps her eyes down, stays quiet, follows all the rules, just like you. She’ll be safe. Sandis would make sure of it.

  Yet uneasiness bloomed in her gut like a rancid flower. Telling herself it was merely hunger, Sandis left Heath’s bedside for the food tray.

  She forced down every bite.

  Chapter 2

  The best way to travel in Dresberg, Rone had discovered, was above it.

  The air wasn’t any cleaner—smoke rose, after all—but there was a lot less traffic, fewer people, and a much smaller chance of him stepping in a puddle of unknown refuse. A person never got used to that.

  One might say that jumping from building to building—occasionally using ropes, boards, and other creative measures—wasn’t safe. And yet Rone was certain his chances of not getting mugged, stabbed, or spat on were better five stories up than down on the cobblestone pathways.

  And if he fell, well, he had his special trinket for that.

  The overly orange sun had dropped behind the city’s massive wall a few minutes ago—a wall one could compare to the hefty mountains separating Kolingrad from all other civilization. A wall that reminded him this place was a cage where people had shat in the corner so long they couldn’t remember what clean air smelled like. Up here, Rone could see over the wall. If he kept his eyes up, he could almost pretend it wasn’t there. That it was simply him, wide roads, and general nothingness for miles.

  He’d also fall to his potential death, so he kept his eyes down, sprinted, and jumped.

  Dresberg was a cesspool of people and factories and work, work, work. Disease flourished in its densest parts, and yet the people kept trying to cram more things into them. Taller buildings. Narrower rooms. Children to stuff into every nook and cranny. But at least the lack of space made Rone’s job easier. His legs were long enough to hop alleyways, and sometimes the buildings leaned up against each other so tightly that jumping them was like a twilight stroll.

  That was the best way to start a burglary. Strolling.

  This wasn’t a burglary per se. The item had been paid for. The money just went to Rone and not to the item’s owner. Regardless, tonight’s quarry was an ancient Noscon headpiece, so really, the true owner had died a thousand or something years ago. It was a thousand, right? Rone had never been a great student. Then again, his absent father hadn’t tried very hard to teach him foreign history.

  Rone paused on top of . . . the library, he thought, to catch his breath and gain his bearings. The wealthiest city denizens lived closest to the wall, as far from the smoke ring—and the poor people who dwelled there—as they could get. Again, why anyone with a steady and enormous income would choose to live in Dresberg was beyond him, save for the worthless politicians holed up in the Innerchord, making pointless laws and eating baby animals. Rich people always ate tiny meat.

  Rone was rich at that moment, but tiny meat was expensive, and so was his rent.

  City lights flickered on drowsily beneath him as he took the long way around the police hub and, begrudgingly, dropped down to a two-story building with a sturdy drainpipe and then slid the rest of the way to the ground. His gray clothes helped him blend in. The nice cut of his collar would hopefully do the same if he was caught snooping around one of the finer flats in the area.

  He rechecked the address he’d written down. District Two, a neighborhood on the northeast side of the capital. He turned down one street, hopped the gate on another. Oh, not a flat. A house. No shared walls or anything. It was even white. Leave it to the fanciest people to paint their houses white in a city where the constant spew of factory smoke turned rainfall into sludge. Some lucky orphan had a good job cleaning up for these folks.

  No, Rone wasn’t going to feel bad about this at all.

  There weren’t many people in the streets here—the residents were the sort who didn’t have to work long shifts or late hours. It was past bedtime by now, and so Rone, on feet that had been lashed by his old master until they could walk without sound, approached his target.

  The use of tiny quartz chunks in the slender yard was annoying—Rone had to walk on the concrete border or risk his steps crunching. At least Ernst Renad—this was his house, supposedly—had enough sense not to keep a garden. Plants didn’t grow in Dresberg. Not outdoors, anyway. Everything the people ate was shipped in from the farms in the north, away from the smog.

  He reached the southwest corner of the house and utilized the brick chimney and white cornices to haul himself up to the third story. Dear Ernst had been kind enough to offer him a small balcony. He settled onto its railing, checking his pocket for the small golden trinket that had saved his life too many times to count. Unlikely he would need the amarinth for this—the robbing of ancient artifacts from one of Dresberg’s richest denizens was actually one of
his safer jobs—but he preferred to be cautious.

  His employer had given a detailed explanation of where Ernst Renad kept the headpiece in question, as well as what it looked like, but Rone had never worked with the man before and didn’t know whether he could fully trust him. Some factory owner or the like, based on what Rone had gathered from their short in-person meeting. Rone was a freelancer, so his clients varied.

  Rone slipped down to the balcony floor. Only problem with robbing the wealthy was if you were caught, they could push money down the throats of jailers and politicians alike to ensure your sentence far outweighed your crime. There were laws, lawyers, and judges, but when it came down to the final ink on the paper, Dresberg operated on money. The whole country did. Rone’s trinket couldn’t save him from corruption.

  He wiped a hand down his face, calluses catching on stubble. Now or never.

  He pulled a shiv from his back pocket and jimmied open the whitewashed door that led into the house. Held his breath, stepped into the room, and dropped into a crouch. The bed was bigger than most people’s flats. Two lumps lay in it. Rone slipped by, willing his eyes to adjust to the new darkness. The bedroom door was open. He passed through. Ernst Renad had two children, both grown and possibly out of the house. Rone wasn’t sure. He kept his guard up as he moved.

  A rail followed the hallway and guarded passersby from dropping down two stories to the first floor. The architecture featured a huge square cut out of the second- and third-story floors so one could see all the way up to the highest ceiling upon entering the home. What a waste of space. Rone crept around the corner and counted doors. That one should be the sitting room—nope, that was a linen closet. This door . . . yes, this was it.

  Rone stepped in and shut the door behind him, turning the knob hard to the right so it wouldn’t click when it latched. Even with all the shadows and darkness—only the smoke-covered moon illuminated the space—the room made his stomach turn. He could work every hour of every day of his entire life and not be able to afford half of this room’s furnishings. Gilded mirrors—he looked a little scruffy—framed paintings, and weird egg-shaped things with maybe-real, maybe-not-real jewels in them. Fine carpets and end tables with intricately carved legs, holding up board games with intricately carved pieces. And was that a harp? Rone rolled his eyes.