The elemental stumbled back a step, more to brace itself, before roaring ferociously and clasping the Gemini in between its hands, tightening like a vice. The Gemini winced and screamed just as a blood-curdling snap echoed from his sternum. The base of the bone burst through the center of the flesh in his torso. Had it stopped, there might have been hope for his survival. But the elemental kept compounding his body like a sideways bailer, each bone popping until the Gemini’s dull soul pried out of his body and hovered towards the ceiling of the foyer.
Floating towards the Gemini’s soul were the souls of the men whom Cater had slain, along with a few others that’d been downed by Lyle. Since I wasn’t transporting the souls, I didn’t have to transfer them into my obelisk, so each of the free-flying ones was fair game. I reached up to the souls skipping over the dull ones, until I found one that was a dim pink – not quite pure, but easily malleable.
At the threshold of the foyer with my hand outstretched to the orb, a pain more deadly than a thousand razors sliced through my gunshot wound. My eyes clamped shut, and I fell to the ground, screaming and writhing and writhing and screaming. I tried to clutch my side, but the pain was too severe, my hand quivering just above my midsection. Dust and debris settled onto my face from the ravaged walls, yet I was too incapacitated to care.
Through the red pain, I expected to hear Carter mauling through the others or Lyle mangling them in his bear form. Instead, I heard footsteps – solid clicks against the hardwood floor. Gradually, like the meticulous removal of sutures, the pain drained out of me, and I was finally able to open my eyes. Still, the debilitating effects of my wound kept me pasted to the floor.
First I saw the polished black shoes, then the creased olive slacks, which led to the beige tie and light green button-up. He’d found the time to change clothes from earlier. “Ah, missy,” Marcus said, “were this a trap, ye could at least have made it a bit more of a challenge for me.”
I wanted to reply, to say something just to show that he hadn’t gotten the best of me, but the residual effect of the pain kept my lips sealed.
“Following me Druid’s trail was cleaver,” he said, “but at the wee heart of it all, quite foolish.”
“What do you mean ‘were this a trap’?” Lyle asked. A woman with blond hair down her back, wearing a floral hippy dress down to her ankles, held Lyle against the wall with her telekinesis from ten feet away from him. The fiber in his flesh altered colors like a chameleon, as if he were trying to decant into an animal form, but the woman’s telekinesis held him steady in his human form.
Marcus shook his fingers at him. “The three of ye come here looking for a tussle, and by the gods of Asgard, ye found it. I certainly didn’t ask for ye to come here.” He spread his hands apart, glancing at each of us. “Especially not to bash up me walls and such. It’s gonna’ cost a poor man’s fortune to patch this place back to the way it was before ye came in and did what ye did – all money that not a one of ye has, might I add. So now if ye be confessin’ that ye don’t owe me anything…well then I might just be inclined to disagree.”
I didn’t know why he was making a point about whether or not we owed him anything. He was still forcing us to get Castella’s obelisk for him. Then it dawned on me. Leprechauns couldn’t lie, though deception and stretching the truth was acceptable. Marcus hadn’t said that this wasn’t a trap, only that if it were a trap.
Lying on the floor with my head in the kitchen and the rest of my body curled up across the threshold into the foyer, I was so angry with myself. Why did I let him trick us into coming here? By letting us out of jail, we didn’t owe him anything, since we hadn’t asked him to bail us out. Coming here was different. We now owed him for smashing in his house, which meant we were locked into a contract with him until our debt to him was paid, or until we found a way out somehow. But how?
More importantly, what exactly did he intend to do? Why was Castella’s obelisk so important to him that he was willing to drag us here with the possibility of some of his employees getting killed just so that he could lock us into an agreement with him?
Off to my right, Carter had been subdued by two red-haired Gemini with wooden swords trained at his heart. He hissed from time to time, but it was more out of frustration than aggression. The Gemini didn’t flinch.
“We came here looking for Stephanie,” I said, between my teeth, finally able to get out a few words. “She was supposed to be healing me, but instead she rooted me.”
Marcus stood over me, offering me his hand. Now holding my side, I took his hand, not unlocking eyes from him. “Don’t be takin’ yer frustrations out on me healers. They, just like everyone else ya’ see, have got a job to do if they be expectin’ to fill their money pots. What she did was of no action of her own, and if it makes ye feel a wee bit better,” –he held his thumb and forefinger together – “she wasn’t all too pleased to do what I asked of her. Isn’t that right, Stephanie?”
The red-haired Druid who’d sat on my porch in shorts and a tank-top now wore more form-fitting jeans along with a navy business coat that hung just past her hips. Sheepishly, Stephanie made eye contact, then looked away, choosing to lean casually against the sink with her arms crossed.
I could feel Alex heating up along the side of my leg.
I acknowledged him with my mind.
That made me give an internal grin, though outwardly I was staring blades into Marcus’s soul. I could almost sense it slithering around inside of him.
It took a deep restraint not to berate Marcus with a million questions – questions that he wouldn’t have answered – questions that would have given him the satisfaction of knowing that he was making me squirm, that he had the upperhand and that there was nothing I could do about it.
Marcus motioned to his telekinetic and his Gemini to release Lyle and Carter, offering a threat if they chose to “test their luck,” as he so graciously put it with a smug smile. After Lyle was released, he fully decanted into his human form, massaging his shoulders where his bones had cracked when he’d shifted into bear form and out of it – breaks that healed quickly, even though the pain lingered.
The Leprechaun stepped closer to me and rested his hand on my shoulder. “Ye’ve got one job to do. Find Castella and get her obelisk.”
The warmth from my stone heated my thigh.
Chapter
THIRTEEN
Back at my apartment, I sat on the sofa beside Lyle. Carter had elected to go back to his place – er…Lyle’s place, I should say – without saying goodbye, which was a good thing because a goodbye from him tended to have a dual meaning.
You have to understand the situation I’m in. I’ve agreed to a date with a maniacal killer, who as I’ve just told you, was more agile than I’d ever imagined. I’d heard the stories, but the word-of-mouth anecdotes about an overweight vampire with the speed of a puma and the stopping power of a wrecking ball just didn’t have that…that credibility factor when I’d heard mention of it, not until I saw it with my own eyes. And now that I’m not floating on an adrenaline high, I’m not too sure how there wasn’t some predatory collateral damage involving Lyle’s and my blood supplies.
Don’t forget that Alex just told me that the Master Summoner, the one I’m supposed to kill and rob her of her obelisk – yeah, that one – well she just so happens to be the mother of the soul I’m carrying in my own stone. What in the name of the dead am I going to do about this?
I wrestled with the idea of
just forgetting the ethics of it all and just resolving to compel Alex to help me subdue his mother, but that was wrong on a thousand levels. Souls needed to be cared for, not broken and bruised.
But what was I going to do? She’d already tried to kill me. What could really stop her from trying again?
Lyle sighed, folded his arms, and sat back on the sofa. “We should just do what Marcus says and get this over with.”
“If only it were that easy,” I said. “The target complicates things.” I was trying to be discrete so that Alex wouldn’t know whom we were talking about.
“By target, you mean Castella?”
When I kicked him in the shin, he wished he could have swallowed his words. I pulled the obelisk out of my pocket. “There may be an issue with the original plan.”
Nervous, Lyle gritted his teeth. “The target and the uh…” – he doubly nodded to the stone – “they know each other?”
I pursed my lips and nodded also.
“How close?” Lyle asked.
“Real close,” I said. “Like flesh of my flesh kinda’ close.”
“You can’t be serious. Boy? Girl?”
“The first,” I replied.
My cheeks turned blood red, which became a perpetual flood of discomfort. The more I thought about what Alex said, the redder my cheeks grew. The more Lyle stared at me, the redder me cheeks grew. The redder my cheeks grew, the more Lyle stared at me. The more Lyle stared at me, the more I dwelled on what Alex said. I’m like one red delicious apple set amongst a row of Granny Smiths.
“What’s wrong with you?” Lyle asked.
I shook my head and pushed for a topic change. “Nothing. Just fixed on the whole flesh of my flesh thing. Probably wondering if that has anything to do with why I got shot at.”
“Dwelling on it is one thing,” Lyle said. “But why do you have to make those faces? You know, with all that blood in your cheeks, you’d better be glad Carter’s not here.” He elbowed me softly in the ribs.
Stop touching me, you idiot, you’re only making it worse. In my head it came out rather singsong.
“Weirdo.” He nudged me again. “What makes you think this has anything to do with the gunshots?”
Hoping my flashes of giddy schoolgirl had gone away, I said, “Remember when you read Officer McKinney’s thoughts in the hospital…just before things got out of hand?”
Lyle turned towards me, rested his back against the armrest. “What about it?”
“You mentioned that you heard the word æther from him, right?”
“I wouldn’t bet my life on it or anything. I told you, I wasn’t able to get a good enough decant before he pulled away. That’s why I wasn’t able to decant his werewolf form.”
Knowing that there wasn’t any reason under the moon for æther to be in the forefront of the officer’s mind, I wasn’t willing to let Lyle write off the term as an accidental blip. “I think I know what she wants with me – why she wants me to…you know…” I avoided saying dead, not wanting to alarm Alex.
Squinting with confusion, Lyle said, “Why would she need you for that? You can’t even access æther.”
Æther was once thought to be the essence of gravity, a tangible substance beyond the earth. Space exploration put an end to that with the help of Isaac Newton, but only because physicist were searching the wrong areas for answers. What æther truly is, in its purest form, is the conjuring of light and dark, the very basis for the sustaining of the earth and life on earth. If Castella came to me with æther in mind, that could have meant that she’d tried to wield æther…and failed.
“She wants my soul,” I said blankly.
That made Lyle lower his head and clench his jaw. “For what?”
“She must think that I have the potential to harness æther, and since she can’t—”
“But you can’t harness æther. Doesn’t she know that? You can barely harness fire as it is.” When he saw the incompetency on my face, he apologized. “I just don’t know what she’s thinking on this one.”
“That’s the problem,” I replied. “She isn’t thinking. Not clearly anyway.” I knew what it was now – why Castella wanted me dead. “If she can have my soul in her obelisk, she’ll try to resurrect her…” I caught myself before I finished.
Lyle pointed to the stone in my hand, an exasperated expression that Castella wanted to bring her son back from the dead. When I nodded, he shrugged. “How?”
“Souls are full of potential, but that potential is bound by the body. Once the soul is free, as in Alex’s case,” I mouthed his name, “that potential is fully accessible. If she thinks I can use æther, then she knows that she can only get to the æther if my body is out of the way.”
Making vibrant shakes of both hands, fingers on each hand spread apart, Lyle stated, “It won’t work! Doesn’t she know that?”
I frowned. “To lose someone that close…” It makes you do some crazy things, I reflected. Castella’s goal of finding me and killing me made sense, but I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t unsettling. Losing her son had to be hard for her, but killing me wouldn’t bring him back.
The æther just doesn’t work like she presumes it does. It’d been tried before, and it just didn’t work. The five elements were what held the world together, not what brought it into existence. Tomes upon tomes upon volumes of lexicons upon hundreds of grimoires argued that very fact – all books that Castella had to have been privy. Logic wasn’t what drove her though. A mother’s madness knew no sanity. Every ounce of logic was fuel enough to enrage her irrationality.
“You think we should talk to her?” Lyle asked.
“There’s no need,” I said. “She knows everything I’d tell her and more.”
Lyle shook his head. “If we approach her without someone who can protect us from her, she’ll do more than—”
I cut my eyes to my pocket, which made Lyle alter his words.
“…She’d do more than what’s necessary,” he finished.
Not ready to think about what exactly Castella would do to me, I stood up and fixed my shirt, adjusting it below my waistline where it had bunched up in the back from sitting.
Summoning the earth elemental earlier still made me feel stuffy and clammy and a bit light-headed. I put a lot of myself into the summons, and the accumulation of Pith made my skin feel muggy and crowded. I figured it’d be best if I moved around a bit until my mind was clear, but not before washing my hands in the kitchen sink and summoning water to cleanse myself of the Pith.
Swinging my arms dry and shaking them loose, I said. “Why would Marcus want the obelisk?” The question was partially to myself. “We were at his place, and yes, he no doubt has dozens more people working for him besides the ones we saw. But Marcus knew we’d follow Stephanie there. He knew we were coming.”
Lyle turned on the couch to face me now that I was pacing in front of him. “All that’s true, but what’s that have to do with anything?”
“Marcus knows that I’m a summoner. Why didn’t he have summoners there when we raided his place? Who in his right mind and with Marcus’s resources would stage an attack and forget, or neglect, to invite a summoner, knowing he’d be up against another summoner?”
He rubbed his chin. “Not Marcus, that’s for sure.”
“He’d only do that if he had no other summoners working for him.”
That made Lyle spring up with a snap of his finger. “Or, unless he did have a summoner working for him, and that summoner was the one he sent us to take down.”
“Exactly! Because Cas—” I almost let her name slip. “The Master Summoner has to be on h
is payroll. But why have us get her obelisk from her? Why not get it himself?” I halted my pacing, akimbo. “The police, Lyle…All along I thought they were sent by the summoner. They weren’t. She doesn’t have that kind of pull.” Something in me twisted into knots. “I think Marcus wants us dead.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Lyle raised both hands to the level of his shoulders, surrendered. “That doesn’t even make sense. If he wanted us dead, he could have killed us at the house. Why let us go? Why not put a knife in both of us right there on the kitchen floor? He had us both. Why not just go ahead and get it over with?”
I ignored Lyle’s volley of rebuttals. “What could it be? Why not just kill us? Maybe the summoner has to be the one to kill us, you think?”
Grunting as he stood up, Lyle said, “Okay, if the summoner’s working with Marcus, why get you to go take the obelisk from her? If he knew we were going to follow Stephanie back to his house, he could have easily arranged for the Master Summoner to have been there waiting for us. He could have ended right then. And don’t give me that ‘He’s toying with us’ bit. Marcus is a surgeon when it comes to these types of things, the kind of man who closes every door he opens, who washes every shirt he wears.”
What was the reason Marcus didn’t just take kill me and have Castella take my soul at his place?
Alex admitted.
That brought me back to reality.
“Something wrong?” Lyle asked.
I waved him off to silence him.
Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1 Page 10