by Michele Vail
I didn’t like that grin, or the feeling I got about what it meant.
Irina strode back into the room carrying a small obsidian box.
“Have you seen a soul box before?” asked Yuri. He put his drink down on the coffee table and took the box.
Irina snorted.
“Now, now, sister dear.” Yuri stroked the obsidian square. “A soul box is rare and very old. Only a few ancient Egyptian reapers knew how to make them and for whatever reason, that knowledge has been lost. No one has been able to recreate a soul box—at least not one that works.” He waved fingers at me. “Come. Give me the soul.”
I couldn’t bring myself to deposit what was left of Sylvie into that soul box.
“Incentive, sister, for our friend who is too burdened by her conscience.”
Irina pulled out the gun. “I will shoot you.”
“I know, I know, I know. You’re ruthless,” I said. I unzipped my pocket, reached in carefully and extracted the purple teardrop.
Yuri laughed, obviously delighted by the oddness of my soul stashing. “Is it there?”
He turned to his sister, who held up a strange, diamond-shaped, milky gray glass to her left eye. She sucked in a breath. “Da,” she said in wonder. “She has done it, Yuri!”
“Into the box!” he demanded. He opened the lid. I was disappointed to see that it just looked like a regular box. Nothing was on the inside—not even carved spell work or reaper symbols.
I guided the soul into its new home. It was reluctant to go, but it obeyed me. When that which had been Sylvie dropped inside, I nodded to Yuri.
He snapped the lid shut.
“Good,” he said.
“You’re a traitor, Irina,” I said in a shaking voice. “You’re doing this for Set!”
Yuri laughed. “You said she was dumb.”
“Not dumb enough,” muttered Irina. She tossed the glass to her brother who caught it in the hand not holding the precious soul box. “We go.”
“Go where?”
“Disneyland,” she snapped.
“Beat that attitude out of her,” suggested Yuri. “She must be more malleable.” He patted the box. “We need only three more.” He glanced at me. “You are valuable to us,” he said. “So you will probably live. For a while.”
I got it now. Irina had somehow tracked me when I hit Vegas. She’d known about Rick, too, I had no doubt. Why had she waited until I came here? Why not just kidnap me from Nekyia and be done with it?
“Come,” she said. “I’ll show you to your room.”
“Get comfortable,” said Yuri.
Irina escorted me through a door into a scummy little apartment. “The windows are barred. The front door is welded shut, and there is necro magic keeping you bound. You cannot leave.” She shut the door behind us. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “Rest, Molly. And then prepare.”
“For what?” I whispered back.
“Opportunity.” She patted my cheek, and then turned. The door shut behind her and the lock snicked.
I couldn’t figure out Irina. Was she friend or foe?
* * *
I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep on the bed until a backfiring car startled me awake. I rose up on my elbows and glanced around the darkened room. The door to the tiny bathroom was open; weak light splashed from the light that had been left on in there.
“Molly!”
Rennie was floating near the bed, panic in his gaze. “Get down!”
I heard the urgency in his tone, so I scrabbled off the bed and huddled on the floor. He squatted next to me, his velvet brown eyes wide with fear.
“How did you get here?”
“I followed you. From Nekyia. I’ve been invisible. Watching out for you.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
Another car backfired, and another, and then a barrage of poppoppoppop. Gunshots! My heart nearly stopped beating. I flattened onto the floor and covered my head. I pressed against the thin carpet and tried not to breathe in its stink. I felt Rennie’s hand stroke my hair. I hadn’t realized I could feel the touch of ghosts, too. It should’ve been obvious, I guess, since I’d felt Aunt Lelia’s touch, too.
Then the terrible noises stopped. People were screaming and crying. I heard men yelling in Russian, then car doors slamming, and tires burning pavement.
“It’s okay,” said Rennie. “It’s over.”
I sat up, shaking, and scrubbed at my cheeks. More cars squealed away. The booming music turned off, and in the silence, I heard apartment doors slamming.
I accepted Rennie’s chilly hug. I was still amazed that he felt real to me. But Rennie’s odd comfort was better than none.
He pulled away and offered a half smile. He tilted his head. “There’s been some kind of adjustment in the spell work around this place. It’s weak. I think I can get the door unlocked.”
I rubbed my arms to relieve the chill of Rennie’s embrace. “Thanks, Ren. You’re a good friend.”
“I’m a ghost. You’ve got too much heart, Mol. You don’t turn away no matter how bad it gets.” He brushed the hair out of my face. “Leave the dead and the dying alone.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I’m a reaper.”
“You’re a sucker.” He straightened and waited for me to climb to my feet. “I’ll make sure the coast is clear. Then we’ll bail.”
“I gotta go to the bathroom first.”
“Really?” he said. “Now?”
“Sorry, dude.” I went into the bathroom. When I was finished, I washed my hands. I stared at myself in the cracked mirror. I was too pale. Shadows bled under my eyes and my lips were chapped.
“Molly?”
Crazy as he was, Rennie was the only one around I could rely on. The dead and dying. They were mine, I thought, the dead and the dying.
“Mol? Seriously. You need to come out.”
I opened the door and stepped into the room. Fear punched through me and I took a step back. Then I realized the man standing there wasn’t Arctic Eyes.
He turned toward me, his blue eyes wide with shock. He was talking rapidly in Russian. I understood the pleading tone, but not the words. His hands were pressed against his stomach and doing very little to stave the blood burbling from the wound.
Horror filled me.
Yuri was begging for his life.
Only he didn’t know he was already dead.
Chapter 22
“Weary of utterance, seeing all is said;
Soon, racked by hopes and fears,
The all-pondering, all-contriving head,
Weary with all things, wearies of the years;
And our sad spirits turn toward the dead...”
~from “Death, to the Dead for Evermore”
by Robert Louis Stevenson
“Those gunshots were pretty obvious. The police will probably be here soon,” said Rennie. He stayed next to me, almost protective. “I got the lock jimmied. You need to go, Mol.”
“In a sec.” I walked forward and stopped before the devastated Yuri. He was silent now, his craggy face serious.
I noticed a gossamer line, as silvery and thin as moonlight, stretching from Yuri to...somewhere. It flowed through the door, shimmering. “You see that, Ren?”
“So?”
“I think he’s still attached to his body.”
“Not for long,” said Rennie. “He’s a dead man.”
Yuri stared at me. Hope glittered in his eyes. “You will save me?” he whispered.
I didn’t answer. Because I didn’t want to save him. Was he supposed to die? Or live? I went with my instincts. I took his hand, which felt like clutching icicles. He clenched my fingers, his red with ghostly blood, and when I got to the locked door, it swung open easily.
Rennie came with us. “This is a bad idea!” he said.
I didn’t respond. Because I knew it was a really bad idea. People didn’t stop being people just ’cause they died. Irina’s directive for me to be rut
hless was a shout in my conscience. Unsurprisingly, the line went to Yuri’s living room—into the floor behind the couch.
Rennie joined us and we all stared at the brown shag.
“See?” Yuri pointed at the line...no, at a crease in the carpet.
I squatted down and pressed my fingertips underneath it. “It’s a trapdoor.”
I lifted it, and we peered down into the hole.
“Ren, go take a peek.”
“You’re stupid,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“Just go.”
Rennie hovered above the escape hatch and lowered himself inside. When he reached the floor, or so I assumed, he looked around. “I see a light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Very funny,” I said.
Yuri used Ren’s floating trick, and I followed the ghosts into the small concrete room. The gossamer line shone in the dark, and we followed it down a hallway to a closed door.
“Open it,” said Yuri, excited. “Hurry.”
I turned the handle and yanked open the door. I wasn’t expecting the sumptuous room. Why suffer without luxuries while waiting out your enemies? Too bad Yuri hadn’t gotten here before being fatally wounded.
Persian carpets covered the concrete floor. Most of the furniture was big and dark, from the leather couches to the towering cabinets filled with books, CDs and DVDs. Even the entertainment center with its huge flat screen was gigantic. I wondered how they’d gotten all this crap down here.
In the back corner of the room was a full-service bar. Booze and glasses were lined up on mirrored shelves. Overflowing ashtrays lined the marble countertop. Five barstools were tucked next to the brass footrest. The stale air down here smelled like cigarette smoke and mold.
“Here!” cried Yuri. He stood near the bar pointing at a wall. Rennie and I hurried to join him. I peered at the light switch that Yuri’s ghostly finger was poking. I flipped it, and the lights above the bar flickered on.
“Nyet!” he shouted. He put his palm up and made a pushing gesture. I glanced at the gossamer soul string. It was thinning and getting a lot less shiny. Still, I didn’t want to rush inside another mystery room without some info.
“This is getting seriously Scooby-Doo,” muttered Ren.
“He’s still acting human,” I said, as though I knew what I was talking about. “Can you go through and see what’s behind there?”
“Oh, I get it. I’m Scooby-Doo.” He slanted me a look and grinned. “Guess that means you’re Shaggy.”
“Har.”
Ren laughed as he walked through the wall. Yuri realized he could do the same thing. He tested the theory by sticking a hand through, then his arm. He shrugged and then he, too, walked through the wall.
About two seconds later, Ren returned. “It’s like a surgical ward in there, but no doctor. Our dead friend is in there, on a table. His ghost is lookin’ a little pale.” Ren touched my shoulder, and I felt the chill of his fingertips through my jacket. “This guy ain’t nice. You really think it’s a good idea to try and save him?”
“He’s in pain,” I said.
“The whole world’s in pain, Mol. Doesn’t mean you gotta try to heal everyone in it.”
Who said I was going to try and heal anyone? I stared at him. “Just get me in there, all right?”
He rolled his eyes. Then Ren disappeared. I heard a soft pop then a hissing noise as the wall in front of me slid back and revealed the surgery.
Yuri stood near his body. Ren hadn’t been kidding about the ghost’s paleness. His skin looked as though it had been bleached. The gossamer line that linked him with his physical form had lost its shine, and it was trembling. I knew it would break soon, and when it did, Yuri had no chance to live again.
“What are you gonna do?” asked Ren.
“Just give me a sec.” I’d never seen a soul connected to the body like this before—that ethereal string wasn’t part of the soul...um, was it? Not knowing what else to do, I reached down and poked it.
It felt silky and warm. My fingers tingled with heat, with power and as I touched the soul-line, for lack of a better term, it went all shiny again. Somehow I was strengthening the bond between Yuri’s spirit and his body.
“Da,” said Yuri, excited. “I’ll give you a big reward, Molly.”
Be ruthless. “How many souls do you have?”
Yuri’s gaze narrowed. “It is no concern of yours.”
His arrogance was amazing. I plucked at the string again, then I let go. “What are you going to do with them?”
He remained silent. I don’t know if he was trying to wait me out or consider his options. Maybe he figured out that I was the only option, me being what stood between him and death.
“I have four.”
“Why do you need human souls?” I asked again.
“You were right about Set,” he said. “That is all I can say.” Impatience crackled around him, and his expression went ugly.
I made scissoring motions across the string. “Those souls for yours,” I said.
He took in my measure, probably trying to decide if I had enough courage to do it. Maybe he saw the resolve in my expression because his face went mulish.
“Fine!” He cursed briefly in Russian, and then crossed his arms. “In the other room. In my safe. You save me, and I get the souls for you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “About that.” I grabbed the string with both hands. “I don’t need you to get the souls for me.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Being ruthless.” I pulled on the string hard and it broke. It turned into glittering silver, and Yuri the ghost disappeared. His soul, looking like a shiny black ball of goo, popped out of his chest.
I didn’t see a blue light, nor did I hear the odd but welcoming music. Instead I heard a snapping sound, a growling, and then the black yuck that was Yuri was sucked down into the floor.
“Day-amn, girl,” said Rennie. “You lied to him. That’s brass balls.”
“I didn’t promise him anything,” I said. My heart hammered in my chest. Where had Yuri’s soul gone? What did that snapping and growling mean? I didn’t want to be in this room anymore. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Casa Villa—especially if Rennie had been right about the police being on the way. Maybe they were already here. I looked up at the ceiling, as though I could somehow discern if the place had been overrun by cops.
“I’m getting the souls.” I went out of the room, expecting Rennie to follow.
He didn’t.
He was a ghost, and I wasn’t going to worry about him getting out of here.
The safe was obvious enough. What Yuri hadn’t thought about was that I didn’t need a combination. I was a reaper. I knew I was stronger than that stupid box. I would call them, much the way I had Sylvie’s soul. And I knew, somehow, they would come. I’d never felt so sure of anything in my life. If that box was reaper magic, then it should do what I wanted and let them out.
I flattened my palms against the safe. I opened my senses, and the moment I did, I felt the fluttering of the souls in the box. Four of them trapped inside, including Sylvie’s.
“Come to me,” I whispered.
I could feel them trying, but the box kept them secure.
“Enough, you,” I told the box. “Open. Those are mine, you know.”
It sounds weird, but I could feel the box’s reluctance to let them go. It was resisting me, but finally, I felt the lid pop open.
The souls flowed out like escaped butterflies. They popped through the safe and hovered before me.
“I suggest you choose the Light,” I said. “Because the other option doesn’t look all that fun.”
They bobbed up and down, in agreement, I guess. It seemed almost natural. The blue light sparkled down from the ceiling. I wondered about the idea of heaven, or whatever people wanted to call it. What was it like? Did souls become people again there and hang out? Or did they just join up with some beam of energy and...I dunno, become
stars?
All the souls drifted upward, and none separated. The right magic had to be uttered for that. You know, I wasn’t all that sure anymore that making zombies was a good idea. Not that my dad would be thrilled about my new take on zombification. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the souls whose kas had been taken to animate their corpses. Did they go into the Light? Or somewhere else? What happened if their zombie died? Did the ka rejoin the other soul parts, or was it forever an orphan?
I thought about Rick and my heart seized. I knew Henry had taken him somewhere safe. And I knew I had to figure out a way to save him. Again.
“Molly.”
I jumped and turned around. My aunt Lelia’s sheut detached from a darkened corner of the bar. “Go, darling. The spells that held you here are broken.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. It seemed like I was asking that question a lot.
“Trying to help you.”
“How did you find me?”
She smiled. “I can always find you, Molly.” She offered a sad smile. “But you should know that a sheut obeys its master.”
“Was it Yuri?” I asked Aunt Lelia. I reached out, wanting to help. I was a reaper, right? “He’s gone. Maybe I can—”
“No,” said Aunt Lelia. “Yuri didn’t control me.”
“Then who?”
Pain crossed her face, and she sucked in a shuddering breath. “I belong to Set.”
Shock arrowed through me. “He’s here?”
“Not yet. But he will be, Molly.” She shuddered. “I have to go.”
“Wait! Who’s my father?” I asked. “Where’s Mom?”
“I can’t answer those questions, Molly. I’m sorry.” She cupped my cheek. “Be strong. I’ll help however I can, but when Set comes—and he will—I won’t be able to break free of his control. I need you to understand that. I won’t be in control of what I do.”
“Yeah. I get it. Will I see you again?” I asked, thinking of the first time we’d met. And I wanted to help her. I would find a way, some way to free her from Set.