The Court of Souls?_Volume 2_Agent of the Realm?

by Andur

  We are interrupted by Patricia, who is taking the used tableware. “Have you seen Adea recently?”

  I shake my head and look around. “Ahem, she was at the academy today. I didn't see her afterwards. But I think she was with her B.F., so she should be okay. Probably they are just making out somewhere.”

  Patricia's gaze rests on the table. “It's just that she kind of walked in on Jimmy and me in an inopportune moment. We were busy doing some kinky stuff. I didn't manage to talk to her about it since she ran off. And when she didn't show up at the shop today...”

  I purse my lips and raise my eyebrows in surprise. Patricia surely doesn't waste any time. Go girl! Will she also marry Jimmy? Or just use him as some kind of vibrator? “I hope you aren't using my shop to explore each other. I am paying you for work, you know?”

  Patricia blushes. “I would never do that! It was at my place, though I suppose it's my and Jimmy's place now.”

  She doesn't waste any time.

  “Her B.F., you mean that she was with my little brother?” Marcus asks with a concerned voice.

  I look at him. “Yes?”

  He tilts his head in thought. “It's probably nothing, but he talked about exploring the battle zone with his friends. They think it's some kind of courage test. Of course I forbade him to go anywhere near the area.”

  I puff up my cheeks and let the air flow out. “Dang! If they really want to go exploring, they will surely find a way past the blockades. It's not like there are enough soldiers to cover the whole area.”

  Marcus shakes his head. “My little Bro is still childish at his core, but he isn't so stupid as to not follow my orders when I say that something is dangerous.”

  Patricia's voice turns unexpectedly sharp. “Oh! You never had children, did you! It isn't about him being smart or a good kid. It's about the people in his group. Three smart heads don't count for much if there are seven idiots to counter them!”

  Marcus pulls a grimace, one of concern. “We better go and look for them.”

  I sigh. What did I get myself into when I took Adea in. “You stay here, Patricia. Maybe Adea is just late in showing up.”

  The woman nods and I follow Marcus out of the shop and to his car. As soon as I am inside and the door is closed, he accelerates and we are on our way. The way in which he decisively takes the first street towards the battle zone tells me that he knows something I do not.

  “Did your little brother tell you where they intended to go?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “No, but I've known Caden's aura since he was born. I'll always know where he is as long as he is close enough.”

  I say nothing to that. Sometimes it's beneficial to have an inbuilt GPS-Tracking-Device. I wouldn't want my family to always know where I am. Though getting away from them is always a challenge.

  When we close in on the battle zone, Marcus opens the window of his car and slows down. “He really came here.” With a sudden jerk on the steering wheel, he pulls into a side street which leads away from the blockades.

  The blockades are intended to stop people from entering the restricted area. The reason for the lockdown is as much the fact that there are still bodies all over the place, as to stop people from looting.

  Nobody cleans up several thousand bodies in just a few days.

  I say nothing, figuring that interrupting his concentration doesn't help. Instead, I concentrate on watching everything on my side of the car. It's late in the evening when Marcus finally stops at a street which leads towards the battle zone. “They are in that street... and something else.”

  The statement wakes me from daydreams and before I can stop him, Marcus is out of the car and running down an alleyway.

  I hurry to follow him, stretching out my senses. There are fourteen people in front of us... and five of them don't feel normal. Their auras feel twisted.

  Three people are on the ground, but alive. They are students. The six remaining students are pressured against a wall, obviously frightened. They indeed managed to encounter our mysterious attackers, but the supposed spirits look entirely too much like humans in my opinion.

  “Stand down, or suffer the consequences!” Marcus calls out, but the strange men are unimpressed. Two of them turn towards us and attack while the three others go for the students. A shadow in the corner of my eye alarms me and I dodge out of pure instinct.

  Everything what happens afterwards is a matter of action and reaction as I don't even have time to think about it. We are surrounded by enemy reinforcements as they drop from the roofs.

  My attacker strikes out yet another time and I barely avoid the hand which has strange claws instead of fingernails.

  Bringing my leg up and around his head, I use him like a dance pole to get to the guy behind him. As I twist around my unwilling victim, I force his head to rotate with me until his spine crunches to my satisfaction.

  The next opponent in line isn't as unprepared and blocks the first strike. I didn't hold back, so it's a little surprising to be simply stopped with an explosion of displaced air.

  Frowning, I re-evaluate the danger level of these guys. My opponent raises his other hand and I recognise the forming spell. As my father taught me, I jab two fingers into the spell matrix and emit my own mana into it, empowering the spell.

  Using spells with long casting times in hand-to-hand combat is just stupid. I dismiss the opponent from my mind, as his spell goes out of control and backfires, his own death magic rebounding into his body.

  As I turn to face the battle, something hits my chest and I exhale in pain. Fire wavers over my skin and scorches me. The smell of burning flesh wafts into my nose. Fighting these guys while keeping my aura in check is difficult, so I abandon keeping my life magic under control.

  A quick search exposes the guy who threw the fireball at me and I scream, using a flash step to get into his defence.

  The following rain of fists quickly takes him down. The life magic is already repairing the damage as I place my fist in his side, breaking the fourth and fifth ribs. He folds over and I use both hands to strike the back of his head.

  A scream returns my attention to Adea. She is on the ground with one of the attackers looming over her. He raises his arm and Adea blocks the following strike, barely. It seems like the stress of real life combat made her forget about our combat training.

  Whatever our attackers are, they aren't in a completely human form and his claws rip through her clothes and into her flesh.

  And I do nothing.

  I just stand there, waiting for the finishing strike. The battle around us is in a stalemate, but Marcus is tearing through the enemies like through a group of preschoolers. If Adea isn't pushed over the edge soon, she will have lost her chance.

  And then it happens! With a scream, Adea points her palm at her attacker and a stream of pure, uncontrolled mana shoots out, instantly obliterating the man's upper body!

  My eyes widen as Adea panics and attempts to drop her hand. That would be bad for the city! In an instant I am at her side and grab her wrist, forcing her to point the uncontrolled spell safely towards the sky. That much power could surely tear through half the city.

  “Control!” I order her, looking deep into her eyes.

  Finally she gets a grip on herself and aborts the spell. I look up and scan our surroundings. Several of the students are down and moaning about their injuries. It doesn't seem like any of them are in danger. Marcus is standing above a mangled body, looking for more attackers, but there are none. Whoever they are, they decided to retreat when Adea's spell went nuts.

  I let go of her arm and give up my kneeling position at her side to get to my feet. Then I study one of the corpses who fell close by. Claws instead of fingernails, strange, completely black eyes and a set of a little too sharp teeth. It wouldn't surprise me if someone has a spirit form which looks like that, but several people with exactly the same spirit form? Not likely. Unnatural.

  “Are you okay?” Marcus calls out to m
e while he helps his little brother to his feet.

  “Sure,” I answer, still studying the corpse from afar. Something else I noticed is that they didn't make a single sound while fighting. I don't like it when something puzzles me. This is definitely something my parents want to hear about.

  “Are you raving mad!? Why did you just stand there and watch!” Adea screams at me and gets to her knees, shaking. Her forearms are a shredded mess, but I should be able to heal that in no time.

  “I just wanted to give you the chance to remember, aunty!” A mad smile spreads on my face as I dig in my memories to remember from where I know Adea's power.

  “I... I... don't...” Adea visibly tries to understand what just happened. She had a flashback to one of her past personalities. And now I know why that girl grew so fast on me!

  Before she can say or do anything, I bend down and reach under her armpits. Then I lift her like a little child and spin her around, laughing.

  “I would have never thought that I'll ever meet you again, aunty Jazira!”

  Adea pales upon hearing the name and her pupils dilate, her voice drops to a whisper, “Your parents aren't here, are they?”

  Our little reunion is interrupted when Marcus approaches us. “You aren't hurt, are you? I saw you taking that fireball head on! Why didn't you release your aura?”

  His words get stuck in his throat as his eyes wander to my chest. I look down on myself and drop Adea to cover myself. If that wasn't a treat for him, then I don't know what was. I never should have bought the clothing of this world. The crystal mesh of my own clothes would never rip because of a little fireball!

  “If that wasn't a treat in your favour! Stop staring and give me your jacket! It's not like you haven't seen them already!” I reach out with an open hand, expecting.

  “Aw... yeah... sorry!” He quickly gets out of his jacket, leaving him with just his shirt. A stupid grin spreads on his face. “You definitely like my clothing.”

  I seriously don't have an answer for that.

  17. ~More cards.~

  “Persistence hunting (sometimes called endurance hunting or cursorial hunting) is a hunting technique in which hunters, who may be slower than their prey over short distances, use a combination of running, walking, and tracking to pursue prey until it is exhausted. Grey wolves, African wild dogs, spotted hyenas, lungless spiders, and humans are adapted to using this hunting strategy. A persistence hunter must be able to run a long distance over an extended period of time.”

  The Journey to the Afterlife

  Kingdom Newerth, Capital City

  Marcus

  I squint my eyes at Seria. A day passed since we saved my little brother and Adea. But something happened yesterday night between Seria and Adea. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was. Now she is going even more buddy and tutor on Adea, even though the girl almost lost it. That's not the right reaction towards a flashback. This academy has the purpose of helping its students slowly along their path to divinity. We do everything to avoid an uncontrolled change to one's spirit form.

  Only the strongest of us can control the instincts which come with an altered body.

  My little brother informed me that Adea is shocked, but doing fine... if you take into account that she got messed up by those monsters. Stupid kids, I hope they learned something from the experience.

  At least Seria wields very potent healing magic and patched them up right away. If she wanted to, she could surely make an career as a healer.

  At last Seria spots me at the edge of the training field. She calls an end to the training session and starts skipping in my direction. The woman looks at peace with herself and the world. Somehow I wish that she would smile like that for me. I huff and cross my arms in front of my chest when she reaches speaking distance.

  She raises a hand in greeting. “Hi, did you have a nice chat with the DF investigators?”

  “I informed them of what happened. And ordered that they follow those things. We should know soon enough where their hideout is. And then we go and get some answers,” I say.

  Seria nods and attempts to walk past me, but I hold her back. “Have you reprimanded Adea for her loss of control?”

  “No. Why?” She looks up at me, puzzled.

  I almost double over. “She had a flashback! What if she had shifted into her spirit form?”

  Seria tilts her head. “So what? I held back in helping her, just so that she would remember something about herself.”

  I draw in a sharp breath. “Do you hate her? If she shifts into her spirit form and loses control, we would have to put her down! I thought she means something to you!”

  Her mouth opens in shock, as if to say something. Then she closes it again and bites on her lower lip. She definitely was about to spill something she didn't want to say.

  Realizing my chance, I try to force her to answer before she can think about yet another lie. “Well, what's your answer?”

  Then her cool demeanour is suddenly back. “I can use my life magic to control the shift. If she had gone out of control, I would have stepped in. How do you think I managed my time as a rogue when I had no teachers?”

  I feel my eyebrows arching in disbelief. If it wasn't common knowledge, I would have said that Seria doesn't know that spirit forms are uncontrollable. Everyone who shifts completely, goes mad and is taken over by his spirit form's instincts. Most times the person in question ends up no better than a spirit. “You really can stop people from shifting against their will?”

  Seria smiles. “Of course.”

  Let's say that I simply swallow that point without further questioning. It still sounds strange to my ears. “What exactly happens after a shift?” I ask.

  Seria's smile stays plastered to her face and she doesn't answer for a long moment. “They go fubar?”

  Her answer sounds uncertain and questioning, like a student who simply guessed the answer. And what does fubar mean? Did she just invent that word to confuse me?

  I don't allow her to back out of the discussion so easily, remembering my father's words. She is hiding something, so I stare her down. Seria's lips form a thin line. After a while she breaks. “Do you remember that I hid my flashbacks from the people around me?”

  I nod.

  She spreads her hands and sighs. “Turns out that the ceremony to unseal my memories failed. It's normally meant to stop the developing personality from being overwritten by an old one. I was an orphan and an individualist, so nobody realized when I woke up one day and whoever lived my life before me was gone. It took me a while to search the room and puzzle together what happened.”

  She sighs and shrugs. “Honestly! I asked myself several times why nobody caught on. Did you never ask yourself why the girl who lives a lonely life as a part time worker suddenly cut off all her past ties and opened a coffee shop?”

  My eyes widen in horror. Such a thing is almost unheard of. There are some cases, but it happens just about once every fifty years. And then the media goes all crazy on the one who fucked up or forgot about the ceremony. I clench my fists. “When? Which drunken bastard performed the ceremony on you? No, forget it. I'll find out. Such failure is a serious crime-”

  Seria flicks my forehead with a finger, smiling. “It's a statistical error, I checked. All the other children from my orphanage are fine. I doubt that he did it on purpose. Seriously, I wondered why nobody ever asked me about my sudden change in profession.”

  I feel the corner of my eye starting to twitch. “Of course I read your files. They said that you got lucky with some investments. Everything looked like it was in order.”

  She snorts. “Yeah, sure. I, the average shop assistant and saleswoman suddenly know about investment fronts and market prediction. Why should I even do that out of nowhere in the first place? The previous me had no qualifications whatsoever in that direction. Once all the attention was on me, someone should have noticed.”

  Raising both hands, she gestures with her fingers to signal that
all alarms should have gone off at that point. “I came to myself two weeks before I made the investments. So I don't really know much about this world, except for the things which I learned through self study.”

  I draw in a sharp breath. “At least that explains why you allowed nobody access to your mind.” And it also means that she is a perfect actor. When I uncovered her as a rogue, she went all emotional on me.

  My eyes flick down to her. She is standing close, staring at the ground and sulking. Then she grumbles, “How should I know that spirit forms are bad? This society treats the whole issue like one, big taboo!”

  I am being played! She is playing my strings, I know it! But her story makes perfect sense. How is she able to come up with this stuff on the fly? Think! Think! Think! I already have all the pieces, I just can't put them together the right way. I am sure of that.

  She pokes my chest and draws a small circle on it. “Coffee at my place? I promise to tell you who I was in one of my previous lives?”

  Urgh. It's gone. Whatever was on my mind is gone! And why should one of your previous lives be important to uncover your mystery? I need your current secrets.

  “Why do you keep spinning a web of lies? I am sure things can be sorted out if you just give us a chance.” I reach down and cup her hand in mine.

  She rolls her eyes. “For the same reason I tried to hide. My previous reincarnations had enemies and I am just trying to get a grip on this world before someone manages to use my ignorance against me.”

  I close my eyes and drop my head. Seems like today I won't get anywhere either. But I like the chase. If I can't catch her quickly, then I have to use endurance to chase her down. No matter how smart she is, at some point her house of cards has to come down, and then I'll be there to catch her.