Soul Fire

by D. N. Erikson

  Little orange arrows appeared at my feet, glowing beneath the dirt like neon signs on the Vegas Strip. I caught up with Kai, then walked behind him since the corridors were too tight for passing. The fake smoke had vanished. All I could smell was dust and the kind of stale incense that all psychics seemed to buy in bulk.

  We rounded a corner and were greeted by an empty ring at the maze’s center. There were footsteps in the dust, along with a wired microphone. A straight pathway led to the exit.

  It was then that it clicked.

  The flames, the stupid mythological maze—they were all sleights of hand to rattle us and draw us in to Williams’s con.

  She needed us in the middle, so that she could waltz out the exit without interference.

  Simple.

  But oh so effective.

  And Samantha Williams wasn’t done.

  No amplified voice accompanied the next trick.

  I tackled Kai into the dirt as the top blew off the tent.

  This time for real.

  44

  We hit the dirt as the plywood maze collapsed around us, narrowly missing our legs. The canvas blew away from the sudden storm, leaving only the tent’s metal skeleton. Kai flipped me over, his body covering mine as thunder crackled in the dark sky. Through his massive arms, I watched lightning spark off the Ferris wheel. Large droplets of rain pounded down, turning the dust bowl into a muddy swamp.

  In the distance, near the pirate ship pendulum, I saw Samantha Williams running away. Even in the maelstrom, she was easy to spot.

  Her sigils were glowing. Three bangles on her wrist—one for each sigil—glittered in the storm.

  But the glow was fading, and I suspected she’d used every last bit of her power to fend us off.

  Kai pulled me up by the shirt and then broke into a dead run through the splintered wreckage.

  I stumbled as a plywood plank whapped me in the ass. That settled any lingering questions about this being another illusion. My right butt cheek hurt too much for this to be fake.

  The rest of the carnival wasn’t faring much better. Jagged slivers of lightning zigzagged through the sky, the rides acting like massive lightning rods. Fires raced from booth-to-booth like a virulent plague.

  Maybe we should’ve waited for backup.

  But that wouldn’t have changed a damn thing. We would’ve been waiting outside, and Samantha and Johns and their daughter would have come out, and she’d have triggered the storm then. Or, if she’d waited inside for a little longer, FBI personnel would have surrounded the tent—then she would’ve just blown them all away.

  I didn’t have the luxury of reflecting on what could’ve been.

  A flaming sledgehammer from the show-your-strength game spiraled through the sinister sky. My wrist bandage tore open as I dived into the mud, narrowly avoiding decapitation. The sledgehammer collided with the wavering skeleton of the Tent of Authentic Illusion.

  It groaned as it collapsed behind me.

  I got to my feet, blood mixing with the mud covering my arm, and started sprinting again.

  When did crappy carnivals get so damn big?

  Everything was ablaze, although the lightning was growing more infrequent. I took that as a sign that Samantha was tiring. One bolt snapped across the blackened sky, turning the merry-go-round into a bubbling chunk of metal.

  “There.” I shouted at Kai, twenty paces ahead, and pointed. He followed my finger to the parking lot, where Williams was ushering someone into a white sedan. It was hard to tell with all the smoke and wind, but it looked like a kid.

  Her kid.

  She and Johns must’ve made the hand-off inside the tent.

  I put my head down, straining to catch up.

  A pair of shotgun blasts suddenly erupted from a cotton candy stand, sending Kai crashing into the mud. I sprinted over. He grimaced, blood staining his teeth as he grasped at his pistol lying near a puddle. Over by the stand, I heard new shells scratching as someone slotted them into a shotgun.

  I kicked the pistol into Kai’s hand, then dragged him by his vest to a toppled ice cream cart a yard away. My arms shook from his weight, but the reduced friction of the mud relieved some of the burden.

  Another blast rocked the cart as we hunkered behind it, rain pelting our position.

  The spear sigil on Kai’s arm glowed a supernova blue as a small groan escaped his lips.

  “Back again?” The voice came from inside the stand. “You’re the bitch who was breakin’ into my house. Stickin’ your nose where it just don’t belong.”

  Thomas Johns, if I had to hazard a guess. My ears rang, thunder crackled, and I sure as shit wasn’t popping out to catch a full view of his ugly ass. But who else would it be?

  “Knew that would come out to bite us.” Kai grunted as he touched his wounds. His fingers came away a deep shade of crimson. The vest had absorbed most of the pellets, but a couple had snuck into his torso. His other hand trembled as he tried to raise his pistol.

  It flopped back into the mud.

  I wasn’t a doctor.

  But this didn’t look good.

  I dug out the Reaper’s Switch. It was like wielding a letter opener against Johns’s sawed-off.

  A vest of my own wouldn’t be such a bad thing, now. Eden the planner, defeated by Eden the gambler once more.

  Good thing I could still bluff with the best of them.

  I called into the darkness, “We got three units in the parking lot, Johns. It’s over.”

  “Like hell you do.”

  “Why’d you do it, man?” I asked. “You know what happens if things get bad on this island, right?”

  I made an exaggerated explosion noise. That was putting things mildly. The island would redefine scorched earth if the phoenix didn’t return soon.

  Hopefully Lucille was taking my ultimatum seriously.

  He answered with two blasts. A chunk of plastic toppled off my head, into the muck.

  “Jesus, man, we’re just talking here.”

  “Maybe I just wanted everything to burn.” Johns snapped the shotgun. I heard him reloading.

  The ice cream cart wouldn’t withstand much more punishment.

  “A nihilist doesn’t try not to get caught.”

  “Who says we covered our tracks?”

  “So she’s your kid too, is that it?”

  “Fuck off,” Johns said.

  I helped Kai sit up. He was still having trouble raising his arm. His breathing was getting shallower. If Rayna’s Gauntlet Root coffee was going to kick in one more time, then it’d be nice for that to happen right now.

  But time didn’t slow.

  Rain drifted over my eyelids, blurring my vision.

  Guess that meant I was on my own.

  “You know what happens when they return,” I said. “You read the Phoenix Protocol.”

  “It ain’t gonna be like that. Not for our little girl.”

  Shit. I felt for them, I really did. But Sierra’s words echoed in my ears: People didn’t come back the same. I’d seen it in Xavier Deadwood.

  “That’s not your little girl anymore. You know that.”

  “Don’t tell me what I know.”

  The truth wasn’t going to convince him to lay down his arms. So I said, “And who’s gonna raise her when the two of you are sitting in jail on the mainland?”

  “We’re blowing this joint. No one can stop us.”

  “Seems your beloved left you in this carnival marshland.”

  “You don’t know nothing, bitch.”

  Kai coughed up blood, gargling as it dripped down his jaw.

  “My partner’s dying.” My mind raced for another option. “I work for Aldric. We can make a deal.”

  A blast slammed against the cart, and I saw daylight through one of the holes. I pushed myself flat into the slop, bringing Kai with me.

  “You listening? We got a plan already.”

  “If Deadwood was involved, you should know he’s dead.” I paused, then add
ed for effect, “For good.”

  “I should thank you for killing that crazy fucker.”

  “You could thank me by letting me save my partner,” I said.

  “It’s a real shame killing someone so pretty, lemme tell you.”

  “See, I might let you buy me a drink with a line like that.”

  Johns belted out a rolling laugh in the swirling chaos. Shrieks drifted through the dark air from the scattered people still trapped inside the hellish carnival. Streaks of orange flickered across the ruined field.

  If I didn’t make it out alive, at least I’d gotten a glimpse of what the apocalypse would look like.

  “You ain’t gonna be drinking much, where you’re headed.” Johns pumped the shotgun. “But hell, I ain’t know much about the afterlife. Just that I don’t wanna go.”

  “You could use me,” I said. “I’m a Reaper. Help your kid out. She’s gonna—”

  “She don’t need no help.” But he didn’t sound sure, and he didn’t fire.

  I pressed the advantage. “Souls can do a lot. Maybe even heal her permanently.”

  “Don’t you worry about Myra.”

  “I’m not worried. You are.” The words swirled in the air with the rainy ash and smoke. “Think of me as an insurance policy.”

  There was a long pause. “We talk face to face. I want to see the truth in your eye. And if I don’t…”

  The silence emphasized what would happen.

  I elbowed Kai. His eyes flashed open.

  I mimed a pistol firing.

  I thought I saw him nod, but it might’ve just been the gusts blowing through his black hair.

  “I’m standing up.” A thought crystallized in my mind, and I took out the Reaper’s Switch. The blade glinted when I snapped it out. “Don’t shoot.”

  I rose, mud dripping down my front, and squinted toward the stand. Then I saw him: an almost-bald man, wisps of hair waving in the wind. Shotgun pointed right at my chest.

  No way would he miss from twenty feet.

  I stepped out around the ice cream cart. The metal had been completely shredded. Another shot—maybe two—and we’d have both been bone meal.

  “What you got there?” Johns banged the shotgun against the counter. “Planning to cut me up?”

  “This is a Reaper’s Switch,” I said, holding the glinting blade up in the air. “You wanted the truth. It’s what I use to harvest souls.”

  Johns shook his head. “I’ve seen bigger pen knives.”

  “Small and mighty, as they say.”

  “So you think you’re gonna get mine? That it?”

  “I’m just showing you I’m for real.”

  “Prove it,” Johns said.

  “How can I do that?”

  “That pretty boy I shot, he’s got a soul right?” His jagged teeth flashed as his mouth twisted into a grin. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “The deal is—”

  “Deal is I got the fuckin’ shotgun.” His skinny arms brought it up off the counter, pointing it at my head. “And that means you don’t get much of a say, pretty girl.”

  C’mon, Kai.

  Pull the damn trigger.

  The sky lightened slightly, Williams’s magic wearing off. Or maybe she was up the road, making her getaway as I stood locked in a faceoff with her deranged boyfriend.

  “Goddamnit, you promising to help my little girl, and now you’re bullshitting me. There’s a special place in hell for folks like—”

  “I promise,” I said, arms still in the air.

  “All talk, ain’t no action.” Johns’s smile disappeared. “I’m countin’ to three. Then your pretty little head is gonna be fertilizer.”

  “I can help Myra.”

  “One.” His eyes narrowed into a hard glare.

  “Trust me—”

  “Two.”

  This wasn’t going to end well.

  A last-ditch, crazy idea came to me.

  “You don’t want me to say the next word, girl, so I suggest you—”

  I flung the Reaper’s Switch at him and hit the mud.

  Distracted, he misfired. A shotgun blast thundered into the stormy sky.

  A half-second later, a pistol shot barked in return.

  I glanced up, eyes bleary from the rain, and watched as Johns tumbled over the counter.

  Then I looked back, where Kai leaned over the ice cream cart, his eyes half open.

  “Three,” he said.

  Then he collapsed.

  45

  I rushed over. The sun was beginning to peek through the bleak sky again.

  Kai’s eyes were closed, but when I pressed my ear up to his damp lips, I felt a faint tickle of breath against my skin.

  I dug into his pocket, grabbed his phone, and dialed 911. I told them to get an ambulance out to the carnival, then I asked to be connected to the FBI field office. When I got the crotchety receptionist, I told her to put me through to Rayna Denton.

  Fifteen seconds later, the first thing I heard was, “You think that little DUI trick was funny, Hunter—

  “I solved it,” I said, ignoring her strained voice. We might not have had enough evidence to convict her for Anya’s death, but we did have Williams on attempted murder, among other charges.

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Block the roads headed out from the carnival. Williams is driving a white sedan. She’s got her daughter with her, so don’t blow her away.” Then, because I couldn’t help myself, “You’re welcome.”

  “For what?”

  “For doing your job while you were in jail.”

  Then I hung up and searched for anything that could be used as a bandage.

  Five minutes later, with me pressing my shirt against Kai’s chest—the red and blues lit up the smoldering remnants of the carnival.

  I pressed my lips up against his ear and said, “Unfortunately for you, you’re going to be stuck on this bullshit island for a few more days.”

  He said, “As long as you’re here, that’s fine.”

  I might have blushed.

  After the ambulance whisked Kai to the hospital, and I ignored multiple calls from Rayna Denton, I finally received an interesting text.

  From none other than Lucille—agreeing to my terms. Guess she wanted to extend an olive branch after sending her agents to kill me.

  I even got an invite to the fabled DSA HQ.

  I would’ve gone to the hospital, but Kai was in surgery. I hadn’t been much of a hospital person since Dad had died. Couldn’t stand the smell.

  Instead,

  The bushes around the side of the house rustled as I reached the beach. Reaper’s Switch out, I slunk across the sand.

  I saw a familiar scarred face staring at me, right where he’d killed Roan.

  Mick Anderson’s one good eye looked deranged. “Hello, Eden. I’ve been waiting.”

  I was hearing that a lot, today—and I was getting sick of it. Noting the pistol in his hand, I said, “Hey, buddy, let’s keep it cool.”

  Damn phoenix leaving. He’d died, what, a couple days ago? After the phoenix had left, Mick had risen from the dead. Maybe even from one of those fresh graves.

  “You took everything from me.” He leveled the pistol at my head. “And now, I’ll return the favor.”

  “Think about this, man. I can get you off this island. Anything you want.”

  “I want you dead.”

  A feral scream came from around the house as a blur of a man crashed through the second floor glass. He landed on top of Mick, a glowing sword plunging through the ink master’s neck.

  A gurgle escaped Mick’s lips, then the light vanished from his eyes.

  He dropped dead.

  I brandished the Reaper’s Switch toward the robber.

  “I’m going to—”

  “It’s okay, Eden,” came a voice with a familiar British accent.

  The best response I could come up with was, “What the fuck, Cross?”

  He turned aroun
d, wearing a confident smile. Glancing down at the dead man, he said, “Looked like you could use some help down here.”

  I glared. “That doesn’t even begin to explain it.”

  “Usually a woman in distress says thank you.” His languid charm was irritating.

  “Be sure to thank me when I shove my boot straight up your ass.” I turned to leave, then thought better of one thing. After reaping Mick’s soul—a knotty, sad little affair, fill of bitterness—I pointed at his lifeless head. “Cut that off and dump it in the ocean.”

  “That task is rather unappealing, Eden.”

  “The ass kicking you’re going to get when I get back is going to be even more unappealing.”

  I headed into the villa, seeing that the locks had simply been blown away with a pistol.

  I really needed some better security.

  Khan cowered behind the couch and peeked out. “I tried to stop the treasure hunter, Eden.”

  He leapt into my arms, mewing like a kitten.

  The fact that he was using my actual name and allowing me to pet him meant hell must’ve frozen over.

  “Did he steal anything?”

  “Of that, I am unaware.” Khan’s blue eyes flashed, as if he was regaining his senses. Then he hissed, and I put him down. “Perhaps if you were better at making friends, they would not try to rob—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off and headed up the glass staircase.

  After a quick check of the guest room revealed that Cross hadn’t found my hidden safe, I took a shower. One change of clothes later, I was headed down the front stairs, ready to deliver the treasure map to Lucille. The rough parchment was firmly tucked into the waistband of my fresh jeans.

  Dante Cross got up off the shore and headed toward me, brushing wet sand off his pants. In his hand, he still held a glowing red blade dripping with Mick Anderson’s blood. The body was nowhere to be found.

  “You remove the head?”

  He flashed me a winning smile and a charming wink. “Good to see you again, Eden.”

  I said, “Tell me what the fuck you were doing in my house.”

  There was a minor concern that he’d gone off the deep end completely. I breathed a sigh of relief when I tasted his soul. The swirl of blood, cannon shot, and gold had returned, although it was tempered by a dark sorrow.