by Michele Vail
“Zombie hunting is a sport in most countries except the United States, where it is illegal. However, that hasn’t stopped zombie hunts on private lands. The English have done zombie hunts longer than fox hunts. France’s annual La Chase de Morts has been around since the French Revolution in 1793, when King Louis XVI was turned into a zombie, chased by citizens and then beheaded.”
~The Unofficial Guide to Zombie Hunting
by Dillard Mahoney
I stared at her. Wow. She was level ten cray-cray. And that was a whole lot of crazy. Plus she was outing my reaper abilities, which was so not cool.
“Do you not see?” she screeched as she pointed to me, her be-ringed finger quivering. “The reapers are without jobs, and they will take any souls they please. We must give them back the ghosts!”
“Sylvie.” A uniformed police officer stopped his downtown stroll to take in the scene. “I’ve told you before. You can’t panhandle here.”
“I’m preaching,” she said, affronted. She scooped up the plastic bowl at her feet, which had some change and a few bills in it. She clutched the sign in one hand and the bowl in the other.
He rolled his eyes. “Move it along,” he said, pointing down the street. “I don’t want to arrest you.”
“I shall take my message elsewhere!” she declared.
“Take yourself home,” he insisted. “Or you’re going to jail.”
I felt sorry for Sylvie. I agreed with her message, although she hardly seemed serious about it. The spirit harangue was just another entertainment to procure some coin and she was just another Vegas character, a story for the tourists to take home.
I turned...and felt as though I’d fallen into a snowdrift.
What the—
To my left, I saw a flicker of black. I felt something. Someone. This felt familiar. If I tried to focus on the flicker, it slipped away. Frowning, I reached out with my power and pushed aside the odd energy blocking my view.
Rath appeared in front of me.
He was back in his regular wardrobe. Both the T-shirt tucked into his jeans and his sneakers were black. He crossed his arms, which showed off the muscles. Did he do that on purpose?
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
One chocolate eyebrow rose. “I don’t think you should be here, Molly.”
“Well, I am,” I said. “Apparently, part of being a Nekros Society member is chasing after soul stealers.”
“This won’t end well, brown eyes.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Fury flashed. “You are so stubborn! You’re vulnerable out here. You’re not ready, damn it.” He snaked out a hand and grabbed my elbow. “You gotta come with—” He glanced over my shoulder, and his eyes widened. “Molly!”
I turned to see what he was freaking out over, and saw Clarissa a couple feet behind me. She aimed a big, black ball of pulsing energy. It hit Rath full force and he disappeared.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled at her.
“We don’t have time for your love life,” she said, fury boiling. “Do your job.” She gave me one last evil look, then slipped away into the milling tourists. Okay. Dude. I had a healthy respect for Clarissa now, because I didn’t think anyone, other than Anubis, could kick Rath’s ass. And she’d done it with necro magic. I’d kinda expected Rath to pop back in and punch Clarissa, but he hadn’t. Was he okay?
I didn’t have any way to find out.
Well, my job was to find a soul eater and...call in the cavalry. Rath was right. I shouldn’t be out here. I wasn’t prepared. And why they’d want me on the team when they hated the idea of me being in the Society... It made no sense.
I strode forward and noticed the hapless Sylvie ducking into an alleyway, her arms full of signs and the plastic bowl.
I wandered through the mass of people in the brightly lit mall area, occasionally stopping at kiosks to view the wares. I watched one of the canopy light shows. Like most native Las Vegans, I tended to ignore the flash. I wasn’t old enough to gamble, and I wasn’t stupid enough to try.
On the concert stage at the opposite end of the mall, a ghost of an Elvis impersonator offered a fifteen-minute show. He was good, right down to the “Thank ya, thank ya very much.” Vegas had a lot of impersonators, alive and dead. Nobody had been able to call forth the actual ghost of the King, not even the company that had bought the rights to his spirit. It had led to speculation that Elvis wasn’t actually dead.
Many celebrities sold the rights to their spirits for limited engagements to various venues. They often had the same managers in death that they’d had in life. Not every “callback” was successful, though. Spirit energy was fickle. As for regular folks, well, they were just screwed. The process for getting a spirit waiver was complicated and expensive. If you weren’t a millionaire, then spirit-you was pretty much up for grabs.
According to the check-ins I was hearing in the earpiece, nobody was having luck finding the “unusual.” Surely they had some sort of clue about the soul stealer. They hadn’t said what had led them to downtown Vegas, or what the soul stealer looked like. Someone had mentioned energy surges, or something. Gah! I really didn’t know what I was doing. Still. The directions had been clear: when you find the thing sucking out people’s souls, call for backup immediately. Ms. Chiles and Mr. Jacobs would then subdue the whatever-it-was.
I decided to head back. I was unnerved by the lack of a sign, maybe a freaking clue, about my so-called job as part of this team. I didn’t have a good feeling about any of this.
“Excuse me, miss?”
I turned and found myself facing the same cop who’d busted Sylvie the Preacher earlier. Crap. I was underage and it was after midnight. I couldn’t believe I had gotten caught. I couldn’t exactly send out a code to the other necros without making the cop suspicious. You’d think the Nekros Society would’ve clued in the local PD about our mission. Or maybe not. We didn’t want to panic tourists.
“Miss?”
I affected an innocent expression. “Da?”
He frowned. “You speak English?”
I shook my head, trying to act as if I couldn’t understand him.
“There’s a curfew,” he said slowly and loudly, as if I were stupid and deaf. I took offense on behalf on foreigners. “Are your parents here?”
I brightened. “Da!” I made excited gestures, pointing at a group of people down the street.
“I’ll escort you,” he said, gesturing for me to walk ahead of him. “You’re too young to be out here alone.”
I had an idea that he didn’t quite believe my Russian act. I turned and walked determinedly toward the people I’d pointed to, wondering how long I could push the charade until I had to make a break for it.
A woman’s piercing scream stalled us.
“Wait here,” the cop said sternly, pointing to the ground and making a gesture that I assumed meant “stay.” He unsnapped the holster of his gun and headed toward the commotion. Three drunken women were leaning against each other as they peered into the darkness of alleyway. The middle chick was the one making all the fuss.
“Oh, my God!” she screamed. “That crazy bitch is dead!”
“Um, guys?” I said into my mic. “I might’ve found that unusual thing we’re looking for.” I told them where I was.
“On my way,” said Clarissa in my ear. Man, I did not like having her voice in my head.
I didn’t want to find out if there really was a dead body or just a passed-out homeless person. Nor did I want to wait for the cop to come back. But I didn’t have a choice.
Clarissa loomed ahead of me and grabbed my elbow. “Come on.”
I allowed her to haul me the short distance to the edge of the alleyway. The cop had drawn off the hysterical women, who were now hugging each other and babbling. He was trying to calm them down, and he didn’t notice us slip past him.
Clarissa let go of my elbow, and I followed her deeper into the narrow alley, resigned
and fearful. She took out a flashlight from the band around her waist, and the wide beam cut through the dark and soon revealed the prone form of the female preacher.
Sylvie lay in a pool of blood. Her eyes were wide, but not empty.
“She’s alive,” I said.
“Barely,” said Clarissa. She knelt down and studied the poor woman. “Her soul is still—”
She was knocked to the side, the flashlight slipping from her hand and rolling until its beam shone beyond Sylvia. Clarissa flew across the alley, into the deeper dark. I heard a thud and a wounded moan.
Rick stumbled into the light, landing hard on his knees. His eyes were completely red, and the wound on his face had enlarged. Skin was flaking off.
“Molly,” he said. “You’re here.”
His voice was raspy, as though his throat had been rubbed with sandpaper. “So...hungry.”
I was horrified. I couldn’t move, I could only watch as Rick cupped his hands and leaned over Sylvie.
“Stop!” I cried. “What are you doing?”
“I have to,” he said. “It’s the only way.”
“Did you do this, Rick? Did you hurt her?”
He blinked up at me, and I didn’t recognize the look in his eyes at all. He put his hands over her heart, and to my shock, I saw Sylvia’s soul begin to stream upward into his palms. He leaned over as if he was going to drink it.
“No!” Rick was the soul stealer? Oh, Anubis! I jerked into motion, and jumped over Sylvie, knocking Rick away from her. “Stop it, Rick!”
“Don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Please, Molly.”
The pleading in his tone nearly killed me. What had I done to him? I stayed between him and Sylvie. “You can’t do this. It’s wrong.”
“Have to.” He reared up and hit me across the face, hard. “Move!”
I staggered away, but I righted myself. Tears fell, but Rath’s voice was in my head, an echo of training, telling me to go low and hit hard. I used a low kick to knock Rick off balance, and followed with a punch to the chest. He fell, and I jumped on top of him.
He struggled, and he was supernaturally strong.
But so was I.
I couldn’t let him go down as the soul stealer. I couldn’t let him be taken by Nekros. I owed him that much.
“Henry!”
He appeared instantly. “Miss?”
“Take him,” I said, my tears clogging my throat. “Keep him safe.”
“Yes, miss.” The ghoul lifted me off with one hand, and then leaned down and punched Rick hard in the face.
He went limp.
Henry scooped him up, and said, “I will take care of him.”
“You have to get Rath,” I said. I swallowed the knot in my throat. “Do you know him? He’s a reaper. Clarissa...did something to make him disappear. I don’t know what.”
“I know how to contact reapers, miss. I will find him.”
I nodded and watched him carry away the boy I should’ve let die.
I went to check on Clarissa. She was out cold. I tried to call for the others, but my earpiece was gone. It must’ve been knocked out when Rick hit me. My face throbbed, and my lip was swollen.
I returned to Sylvie and stopped cold.
Irina was kneeling next to the woman. She looked up at me.
“Are you here to reap her?”
“Nyet, stupid girl. She’s almost gone. And when she goes—you grab her soul and you come with me.”
“What?” I backed up a couple of steps. Irina and I had practiced soul-binding magic in independent study. But never with an actual soul. What the hell was I supposed to do with a loose soul? Carry it around in my hands? “How do you expect me to cart her soul away?”
Her answer was a steely stare.
“Why?” I asked. “And don’t tell me Anubis said so!”
“She’s dead.”
I looked down at Sylvie. Irina had picked up the flashlight and aimed it at Sylvie’s face. She hadn’t made a sound at all or tried to utter any last words. She’d just...died. And now she was in danger of being a spirit. But before someone could be a ghost, their soul had to reject the Light.
When I looked back up, Irina was pointing a big, nasty-looking black gun at me. “She’s dead,” she repeated. “And you will be, too, if you don’t take her soul.”
I swallowed as new fear gouged at my insides. “Hoo-kay,” I said.
The world around me went gray. Just like with Rick, I was somehow blending into the Shallows. It was like the presence of a soul drew me in—it was easy, like moving from one room to the next. Not even Irina had offered an explanation about why I could go into the Shallows.
I saw Sylvie’s soul pop free, just like Rick’s had when he’d almost died, except the orb hovering above Sylvie was teardrop-shaped and purple. Once again, I heard the strange music, saw how Sylvie’s soul danced upward. She wasn’t going to stick around. For a moment I was glad she wanted to leave the earthly plane.
Irina was watching me. Waiting.
I lifted my hand, cupped my palm a little, and as Irina had taught me, said, “Adstringo.”
The soul floated toward me, completely intact. That single word had bound it—not only so that it couldn’t separate, but so that it would come to me. The soul settled like a tamed bird into my hand. It had worked.
“You got it?”
I nodded, staring at the pulsing orb. I didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t like I had a sandwich baggie handy. I carefully put Sylvie into one of the bomber jacket’s pocket and zipped it up.
The Shallows faded away, and then I was standing in the dark alleyway with a reaper and a corpse.
Nausea roiled.
“Why didn’t you do it?” I asked dully.
“Because it is not a reaper gift, foolish one. You think we can handle the souls as you do? We must wait, untether, guide. You can control them. Touch them.”
I didn’t have much to say about that. Since I was only just learning about my reaper gifts, I didn’t know if Irina was telling the truth or not.
“What now?” I asked.
“We walk.” She waved the gun at me. “Not far. Stay a little ahead of me. Don’t run. I will shoot you, Molly. And not even Anubis will be able to save you.”
Chapter 21
“Destiny sucks.”
~Molly Bartolucci
We didn’t talk. And I didn’t try to run. Ten minutes passed before we were turning into a parking lot for a place called Casa Villa. People spilled out from opened doorways, smoking and drinking and laughing. Music boomed from both sides of the U-shaped building.
“Every weekend,” said Irina in disgust. “Fights. Idiots overdosing. Police. All the time, police!” She sighed. “Go to the middle unit.”
I hunched into my jacket and walked through the parking lot. I got shouted offers of cigarettes, beers, joints and one joker promised to give me “the night of my life.”
I ignored everyone. Except the woman with the gun.
But I couldn’t ignore the car that screeched into the parking lot and stopped about two inches from my thigh. The highbeams of the Jaguar pierced me, and I shielded my eyes as I stumbled back, my heart hammering.
Four doors opened and four men exited. They were dressed in dark, expensive clothes and wore menacing expressions. Three of the men passed by, unconcerned they’d almost mowed me over, but the fourth stopped and looked down at me. He was built like a linebacker. His head was shaved, and his eyes looked like chips of Arctic ice. His face was scarred on one side, a web of damaged skin that went from his temple to his neck.
“You are very pretty, little rabbit,” he said in a thick Russian accent. His gaze devoured me, and I went cold. The look in his eyes sickened me. “When my business is finished here, I find you.”
I swallowed the knot in my throat. Fear made me go numb, made me stare at him with wide eyes.
He lifted his hand and I flinched. He chuckled as he drew one blunt fingertip down my cheek. “You
are sweet little rabbit.” He leaned close until his big, broad face was a couple inches from mine. My heart thundered in my ears, and adrenaline spiked. His ashy breath ghosted over my mouth. “I like to chase my little rabbits.”
Irina spouted off in a string of irritated Russian. The big man looked at her and laughed. Then he chucked me under the chin, turned on his heel and joined his companions. When he looked back, I was frozen in the beams of the headlights, held hostage by the awful power of his threat.
He tossed me a grin that made my skin crawl, then followed the other men into the same unit Irina had pointed at.
“Stupid girl!” Irina stopped in front of me, the gun pointed at me from the depths of her leather jacket. “Come.” She gestured for me to follow her, and she headed toward the apartment. My steps slowed. I didn’t want to go in there—not after that guy had threatened me.
“Why do you stop?” Irina whirled and gave me the evil eye. “Come, come!”
“That guy was...scary.”
“Pah! Did I not teach you to be strong? We go now.”
I reluctantly followed Irina into the apartment. A tall, thin man dressed in a cowboy shirt, denims and shiny black boots stood alone in the luxuriously decorated living room. Whoa. It was like walking through the door of a homeless shelter and ending up in a palace.
“My sister returns,” he said, smiling faintly. “She has the soul?”
I hoped I still had the soul. I’d stuck it in my pocket as if it was a baseball instead of Sylvia’s essence. It was disrespectful. I felt ill about what I’d done, and what else Irina might ask of me.
“Yuri, Molly. Molly, my brother Yuri.”
Yuri executed a half bow. “A pleasure.” He looked at Irina. “The box, darling sister.”
“Are you a—um, you know?”
“A you know?” he mocked. “Such a silly little girl. You are the one the Oracle prophesied?” He laughed meanly.
I looked at Irina, but she was walking away, down the hall toward the far back bedroom. My heart leapt to my throat. I didn’t want to be left alone with Yuri.
“You made quite an impression on my friends.”
I nodded. I don’t know where they’d gone, but I was glad I didn’t have to see Mr. Arctic Eyes. He scared me. I shuffled my feet, unable to still my nerves. I wished Irina would hurry up. Ironically, I felt a little safer with her around. Yuri had a drink in his hand—a tumbler filled with amber liquid. He took a small sip then he grinned at me.