Soul Dealers

by D. N. Leo

  From a distance, Mya watched as Lucas turned around and approached the cell with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other. She saw Zach dart outside the cell. Seeing the gun, he pushed Dan back inside and slammed the door shut. He locked it from the outside, ignoring Dan’s cursing. Then he turned to Lucas.

  Saying nothing further, Mya charged toward the cell to rescue Dan. Zach fought Lucas away from the cell door. A shadow jumped out and stopped her on her way—it was a tall woman. There was something in the woman’s eyes that made Mya uneasy.

  “I don’t need you here, Alice. Go away!” Lucas shouted at the woman while keeping his eyes locked with Zach.

  The woman smiled at Mya. At the same time Lucas attacked Zach, the woman flew at Mya.

  The woman was stronger than Mya had thought. Mya had her deity power on, but she could tell that the woman was no ordinary human. As for what kind of creature she was, Mya wasn’t sure. The only thing she was sure about at the moment was that the woman was trying to stall her, not kill her. She was trying to prevent Mya from saving Dan, but she left open a view of the pathway to where Zach and Lucas were fighting so that Mya could see.

  The woman either wanted her to see Zach die in front of her or wanted her to jump in to save Zach.

  When Mya neither charged toward Dan’s cell or ran toward Zach, the woman turned more vicious. From the corner of her eye, Mya could see that Leon had nearly reached the Xillok soldiers. Alice saw it, too. She flew at Mya. Her roar was deep and demonic. When her body was not in view of anyone but Mya, her hand turned into a blade, and she slashed at Mya.

  Taken off guard, Mya staggered back, grabbing at the gash on her arm.

  Zach saw it happen, and in the moment of losing his concentration, Lucas kicked him backward and followed with a jab of his knife. Zach blocked him, but when the knife got closer to Zach’s body, Lucas flicked it up, deliberately slashing at the seal on Zach’s arm.

  Everything happened as if in slow motion in front of Mya. With all of her deity power, she shoved the woman to the wall so hard she almost passed out. Mya ran toward Zach, who had slumped to his knee, clutching his fatal wound.

  Lucas stepped out in her way. With her momentum, she needed only to turn the dagger and she would have stabbed him in the heart. But she shoved him away instead.

  She charged toward Zach as he fell into her arms. She held him. “Zach, please don’t die!” she cried. He had told her if he was injured again, it would be fatal. It had happened too fast, in a blur of motion. And now he was going to leave forever.

  “I won’t die,” Zach whispered into her ear as she held him.

  She lowered him to the ground and looked into his tired face. She wiped a blood smear off it. “Tell me what to do, Zach.” Tears streamed down her face.

  “Take me back to Eudaiz.”

  “Can I?”

  “Will you?”

  “Yes, of course. If I can,” she cried out.

  “Not a chance,” a demonic voice croaked from behind her.

  Mya turned around and saw a shadow fly at her. She held up her dagger to block, and the blade pierced through Lucas’s body.

  Alice approached with a smirk on her face. She had thrown Lucas toward the tip of Mya’s knife. The voice that came out of Alice’s mouth wasn’t human now. “Mya Portman, you’ve killed a human to save a subject on a dead list that isn’t yours to save. You’re now excluded from the protection of your Goddess. Your soul belongs to me.”

  “You killed your lover just to get me? How can you live with yourself for eternity?”

  The woman laughed. “I’m not his little girlfriend. Alice thought she was in the wonderland for money and power. She was greedy. She annoyed my God. So I used her as my breakfast yesterday.”

  “You’re wrong. I have permission to save Zach. I’m not violating any of my Goddess’s rules.”

  The woman’s face started to turn red. “I don’t care. I have to have you.” She shrieked out a stream of strange demonic sounds. Mya’s body was numb. She couldn’t move. It was as if the woman had put a spell on her. She wriggled and twisted, but nothing worked.

  Leon had finished with the Xiilok creatures. He saw what was happening. He charged toward Mya.

  The woman had grown to about ten feet tall. Her arms and legs stretched out, and her face distorted. She turned into a space creature, half ape and half lizard.

  She flicked her scaly tail. Leon was lifted from the ground and thrown toward the far wall like a rag doll. The soldiers approached the creature. It stood, thumping its tail on the floor.

  No one dared move. It cast a lizard-like glance at Mya. “Let’s go,” it said and bent down, gnashing its teeth and reaching for Mya.

  She felt a movement from behind her. Zach, as quick as a cat, grabbed the creature’s head and pulled it down further with one hand. Taken off guard, the creature fell forward. Zach swung the dagger with the other hand and pierced the creature’s skull.

  It roared once more and collapsed to the floor, black liquid leaking out of the wound on its head. In a short moment, its body dissolved into a large wormy puddle.

  As soon as the creature died, the spell on Mya broke. Zach darted over and grabbed her just before her knees buckled.

  Chapter 22

  She cupped his face with her hands. “You didn’t die. Why?” She smiled at him.

  “Did you want me to?” He smiled back.

  “But I saw—”

  He pressed a kiss on her lips to stop her from talking.

  Someone had let Dan out of the cell. He walked toward Zach, cursing. Zach turned and looked at him. “You should thank me for locking you in. Now you don’t have to explain to anyone that the reason you don’t get involved in fights is because you don’t approve violence—and not because you’re a chicken.”

  “And you think throwing yourself at drawn weapons is sensible?” Dan said.

  Zach shrugged. “It worked.”

  Mya looked at the gash on Zach’s arm. From the wound, red blood seeped out instead of the silver substance. “It’s only a seal. Ayana moved it when she gave me the wristband. Because it’s such a critical point in my body, I’m trying not to advertise its new location.” He grinned at Mya. When she didn’t return the smile, he frowned. “What’s up?”

  “Why did you do that?’ she asked him.

  “I knew someone from the multiverse wanted you, so I came up with a little plot to figure out who had an interest in capturing you.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. But it’s not relevant now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a deity, Zach.” She looked into his eyes, gauging his reaction.

  He smiled. “I told you I’m half alien. Now you’re telling me you’re a deity. If we’re in competition for weirdness, you win. But why isn’t my attempt to lure out the person who wants you from the multiverse relevant?”

  “To get people here to save you, I promised Ishtar I would come back and serve as a deity under her forever.” She felt a lump in her throat now.

  “Ishtar, the Goddess of love and war?” Dan asked.

  Mya nodded.

  “Nasty!” Dan muttered.

  “What?” Mya exclaimed.

  Dan said nothing further, but he looked at Zach and shook his head slightly. Zach’s eyes grew intense. She knew he was going to do something he’d regret.

  Leon approached and poured out a stream of Babylonian. He said if Mya didn’t make it back to the court this time, Ishtar would kill her. Nobody stood this Goddess up, and Mya had already done that once.

  But Zach didn’t speak Babylonian, and Leon didn’t speak English. So the conversation, or lack thereof, didn’t go anywhere.

  Zach held her shoulder. “Mya, I can only think of two reasons you should go with me. One, you know my feelings for you. Two, your Goddess isn’t going to protect you. She’s playing a power game in which you’re a pawn. Someone or something from the multiverse wants you, and your Goddess is going to trade you for her benefi
t.”

  “How do you know that?” A tear rolled down her face.

  “You know a lot about this, Dan. Please tell her.”

  Dan nodded. “In a nutshell, legend suggests that your Goddess always played double-crossing games. She would do it to her friends, family, and lovers. You’re her deity. You can’t be worth that much to her. I’m sorry.”

  “But that’s all speculation, isn’t it?”

  Zach raked his hands through his hair. “Whatever it is you’re doing for your Goddess, is it because you owe her something?”

  Mya nodded.

  “You must have come close to paying if off at some point. Didn’t you notice you never seemed to be able to pay it off?” Zach asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You should know. It’s a classic power game. She will never let you pay it off. You’ll owe her for the rest of eternity. Come with me. I’ll negotiate a way out for you. If I can’t, our king will be able to do it. Eudaiz is a very significant universe. Your Goddess should have some respect for us.”

  She looked at him. She had never seen green eyes so striking, so compelling. She believed every word he said. She believed he would make her happy. He would protect her. She had never had this kind of offer of protection in her life.

  Another tear rolled down her face.

  Zach pressed a button on his wrist unit. A portal opened right outside the window of the building. They could just walk right into it. Under the bright light of the portal, he looked like a dark angel. He reached his hand out for her. “Come with me, Mya.”

  She smiled and reached her hand out to his.

  When their fingertips were close to one another, Leon exclaimed, “Ishtar will seek revenge. This will damage her ego, and she will never let this go. You’re creating a war between the two universes, Mylittle.”

  She stopped and withdrew her hand.

  She could see Zach didn’t understand a word Leon just said, but he could tell the impact the speech had on her. He curled his fingers back and withdrew his hand. Then, as fast as lightning, he pulled his knife, swiveled, grabbed Leon, and pressed the knife to his throat. “Mya, step inside the teleport with Dan, or I’ll shove this knife into his throat. This isn’t your doing—it’s on me.”

  “Don’t do this, Zach.”

  “If you go back to court, you’ll be handed over to whoever was dealing with your Goddess. I’m not going to let that happen. Step inside the teleport, Mya.”

  Mya stepped inside the teleport and stood next to Dan. Zach shoved Leon away. Then he closed the teleport. In a short moment, all Mya saw was a bright light.

  Outside the teleport was a magnificent rolling hillside. Mya had never felt such genuine peace in her life, even during good times. Now she wondered whether Zach’s speculation was right. Ishtar was the Goddess of love and war, but during the entire time she had served the Goddess, she had only seen war—both on a galactic scale and a personal scale. The Goddess was in constant war—even with herself.

  Zach looked at her. His eyes were pensive, striking, and more focused than ever. “Shouldn’t you slap me in the face for forcing you to come here?”

  “That’s what ordinary girls do. I’m not ordinary.” She smiled.

  “That’s right. You’re a deity. A good one. You’d rather jeopardize your chances for freedom than risk innocent lives.”

  “Are we in Eudaiz? You said it’s at war. This is so peaceful.”

  “No, this is the Daimon Gate.”

  “Oh, the neutral gateway between universes. I know of it and have arranged for a number of my subjects to get here. I’ve never been myself.”

  Zach grinned. “Then I don’t have to explain anything. You know you’ll be safe here. Even your Goddess has no access to this place. I have arranged a guest pass. You are a guest of the Daimon Gate. No one in the multiverse will be able to touch you here.”

  “When did you arrange this?”

  He smiled and said nothing.

  “Before you came back? How confident you were that I was coming here with you!”

  He merely smiled. But the smile quickly faded. “I have to go back to Eudaiz. Will you wait for me here?”

  More than a thousand years ago, on her first mission, she had arranged a peace treaty that had resulted in the massacre of thousands of innocents. Nadinn, the tribe leader, had said the blood debt was on her and that it would come back for her.

  For more than a thousand years, she had never been able to work off that debt. And even if she had, she would never be able to forget that bloody afternoon. There had been the smell of wildflowers and wet grass—the smell of a good and prosperous season. And then the air that carried the aura of a dead battlefield had haunted her for those thousand years.

  What had those women said to their loved ones before the men went to sign the treaty and never came back? Was that what she was doing with Zach right now?

  She had believed in the difference between good and evil. Between right and wrong. And she still did. She had done everything she could do for the tribal war. If she had to do it again, the peace treaty would always be her solution. But when humans betrayed one another, there was nothing she could do to help.

  She knew she was no ordinary woman. She knew Zach was not just a soldier. He was smart. He was built to lead. He had promised to come back to her. That was the only thing she’d need.

  She would wait.

  She smiled and nodded. “I will.”

  Zach pulled her into his arms. They kissed each other like they kissed for the first time. She would make sure that every kiss would be like the first time, because she would never know when his name would be up on any list.

  Part II

  Chapter 23

  The shiny floor of the Babylonian Court reflected her shadow. Mya could clearly see the modern outfit she wore—her skinny jeans, her pointy heels, the soft silky blouse that flattered her figure, and her one-of-a-kind leather jacket.

  The first time she had forgotten to change into her ridiculous golden bikini-like outfit to attend court, she panicked. But not this time. And it wasn’t because she had done this before. It was because she had come here to die.

  It was never a good day to die. But she deserved to do it in her favorite outfits when her time was up. As much as she had sworn to herself she wouldn’t think of Zach, she still did. This wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t her fault, either.

  She’d waited for him in the Daimon Gate as she had promised. He hadn’t come back, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t.

  Then the message from Ishtar came.

  After so many years working for Ishtar, she should have known. Zach was right that her Goddess couldn’t touch her if she stayed in the Daimon Gate—the most powerful neutral universe in the cosmos. But that didn’t stop Ishtar from sending her an ultimatum.

  If she didn’t go back to court, Ishtar would reverse all of Mya’s cases from the last thousand years. That meant the evils she had killed would return, and the innocents she had saved would die.

  She couldn’t message Zach. Eudaiz was at war, and because of that, the communication device Zach had given her was unresponsive.

  Mya cursed silently. Her Goddess knew her too well. Left with no choice, Mya had come back to court to face certain death.

  In the middle of the fighting ground, Leon grinned in satisfaction. He had won. After such a long time as the temple guard, he’d thought his combat skills were gone. But he proved himself to be a competent warrior after all. He looked at the blood pooling on the sandy ground of the Well of the Death and kicked at the monstrous two-headed lizard one more time to assure himself it was really dead.

  Ishtar had sentenced him to death after he had broken the news that Mya wouldn’t come back. He hadn’t revealed her location, but he was sure Ishtar would find out somehow.

  He thought he was only a messenger and should be fine. But Ishtar—the Goddess of love and war—had shown no mercy. Mya, who had seen only the warlike side of Ishtar,
had been right the whole time. But that was irrelevant. He would have been dead if he hadn’t won this fight. But he had. He killed the monster at the bottom of the well.

  Leon shook his head, thinking about how much Ishtar loved games.

  His adrenaline surged in waves through his mind and body. He was still drunk from the sensation of his unexpected victory. The gate opened for him, but as he approached it, a daunting feeling weighed heavily on his chest. Something was wrong.

  At the gate, instead of giving clearance for him to exit, a group of soldiers marched toward him, splitting into two rows as they approached. In between the rows stood Ishtar, adorned in her war regalia, looking at him with a half-smile on her face.

  She was challenging him.

  It was totally ludicrous. Even if she fought him using only one pinky finger, he was not supposed to defeat her. How is this a fair game? he wondered.

  He looked up at the stretch of limestone at the top of the well which reflected the sunlight. Leon had always loved the court. He had always been proud of what he did. Until now.

  “My Goddess!” He bowed.

  “How many times have you been a witness to this fight to the death? You know there are two rounds,” said Ishtar.

  “I had forgotten, Ishtar.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry. I will remind you.”

  He opened his mouth, about to say something. But before a single word came out, a curved dagger flew in his direction. If he hadn’t ducked quickly, his throat would have been sliced open. Although it missed his throat, the sharp blade of the knife cut into his arm. Blood spurted out.

  “Ishtar!” he whispered in shock.

  “Why are you so surprised?”

  “I don’t deserve this…I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  The Goddess shook her head. “You favor Mya. That’s what you did wrong.”

  “I never knew feeling fondness for a person was wrong, Ishtar.”

  “It’s when you act on that fondness and let Mya go free to a place where you know I can’t reach her that it becomes unacceptable.”