Immortal Souls: The Immortal Souls, Magic & Chaos (Book 1)

by Karen M. Dillon

  “No,” Sam said, running her hand through her hair to fix it in case he’d messed it up. “I just wanted to leave early.”  

  She paused as she was struck by a sudden thought, Wait . . . I left early . . . the fuck is he doing here?

  Turning to Jamie suspiciously, she asked, “Do you just stand around here all day and wait for me to finish?”  

  Jamie shook his head. “No,” he said defensively. “I was keeping tabs on you, and I sensed that you were upset so I came to see if you were okay.”  

  Sam blinked, surprised not only by the fact that he was spying on her, but that he’d just openly admitted to it as if it wasn’t a big deal. She sighed and closed her eyes. “Jamie . . . ”  

  He looked at her and smiled excitedly, as if he were anticipating some words of kindness. “Yes?”  

  She shook her head. “You are such a stalker.” Jamie’s smile faded. “Stop keeping tabs on me, I’m not okay with that. If I need you I can just call you.” Sam walked towards the school gates.  

  He walked along behind her. “Would you?”  

  “Would I what?”  

  “Call me if you weren’t okay?”  

  Sam shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Not that I’d need to considering the fact that you never . . . go . . . away.”  

  Jamie looked up at one of the posters on the notice boards by the school gates. He pointed to it. “Are you going to that?” he asked.  

  Sam looked to where he was indicating. She saw the poster for the Halloween dance and sighed, turning away. “No.”  

  “Would you like to go with me?” he asked.  

  Sam gritted her teeth. “No!” she said again, this time firmly. What was with people and wanting her to go places with them?  

  “Oh,” Jamie said, looking deflated.  

  “I was already asked, and I said no because I don’t want to go,” she explained in an attempt to make him feel better. “And why would you ask?” Sam wondered out loud. “You don’t even go to school.”  

  Jamie shrugged. “I’ve never been to a dance before.”

  “What? They didn’t have dances back in ye olde ancient times?”  

  Jamie smiled. “They did,” he said. “I just didn’t go.” His gaze shifted around the street in confusion, brow furrowed as he looked behind him. “Uh, Sam?”

  “What?” she asked, her voice sounding more irritated than she actually was.  

  “Isn’t your house that way?” he asked, pointing in the other direction.  

  “Yes,” Sam stated. “I’m not going home yet.”  

  “Then where are we going?”

  Sam noticed that he said ‘we’ as if she had invited him on her journey. Then, after she spent a moment thinking about it, she realised that he would assume he had been invited because she hadn’t told him to go away yet.  

  He could come along, Sam decided, as long as he didn’t talk anymore about dances or dates. “Tír na nÓg,” she answered as if she had said something normal like post-office or laundromat.  

  Jamie laughed as if he thought she was joking. “Good one,” he said. “Now where are we really going?”  

  Sam looked at him. “Tír na nÓg,” she repeated with a serious tone to match her serious expression.  

  He looked confused. “Tír na nÓg? . . . As in the mythological world of Faeries?”  

  Sam nodded. For someone who had two centuries to learn all sorts of things, he could be pretty stupid sometimes. “Yeah,” she said.  

  “But Faeries aren’t real,” he said, stressing the word ‘real’ as if he were trying to convince her of that fact.  

  Sam grinned widely. “Do you realise that by that logic you’re not real either? And neither am I, or Jack, or—”  

  “Okay!” Jamie held his hands up to stop her from speaking. “But I am real, and you are real, and Jack is real, but Faeries are not real.”  

  “Yes they are,” Sam stated.  

  “No they’re not,” Jamie said adamantly.  

  Sam laughed. “Why not?”  

  “Show me the evidence that Faeries are real!” Jamie demanded.

  “Show me evidence that they’re not.”  

  Jamie looked around him and directed at all of the trees. “Do you see any Faeries?” he asked.  

  Sam laughed and shook her head. “Not right now I don’t.”  

  “Well then,” he said with a satisfactory grin. “How can you say they’re real when you can’t even see them?”  

  “Do you believe in God?” she asked.  

  Jamie got a half confused, half surprised look on his face. She had caught him off guard with the question. “Yes . . . maybe . . . I’m not sure. I used to, but . . . anyway, that’s different. That’s a matter of belief.”  

  Sam smirked at his naivety. “Everything is a matter of belief, Jamie. You fall asleep every night without fear because you believe you’ll wake up the next morning. You drive when the traffic lights go green because you believe that means it’s safe. You lock all of the doors every time you leave the house because you believe if you don’t you’ll get burglarised. But just because you believe all of that, does it mean that you will wake up every morning? Or that you won’t crash your car? Or your house won’t get broken into?”  

  “Well, no, but—”  

  Sam interrupted, “So does that mean that Faeries aren’t real, just because you believe they’re not?”  

  “Yes,” Jamie said in an ‘I know everything’ matter-of-fact tone.  

  Sam laughed and shook her head. “Well Faeries are real. And I don’t believe that, I know that. And I’ll prove it . . . when we get to Tír na nÓg.”  

  CHAPTER 41

  They made their way through the woods until Sam found the fallen tree she was looking for.  

  Sam stood on the fallen log, she stretched out with her arms so that each was resting on the bark of the trees on either side. Jamie watched her curiously. “Uh, Sam . . . ”  

  “What?” she asked without turning back to look at him.  

  “What are you doing?”  

  Sam rolled her eyes.

  The fact that Jamie was a Vampire, yet knew nothing about the supernatural could be very frustrating. Especially when he questioned everything she did or said. “Opening the portal,” she informed him as if the answer had been obvious. Which it would have been, if he knew anything.  

  Sam reached up, keeping her hands on the trees until she felt the pinprick on each of her index fingers. A drop of blood from each hand was pulled from her wounds and sucked into the bark of the ancient trees.  

  She jumped backwards off the log, a pile of dead leaves crunched beneath her feet; she watched the air between the trees shimmer slightly, a cool breeze flowing through it. She took a few steps backwards so she was standing next to Jamie, who was rooted to the spot, watching the space where she had been intently. “I don’t see anything,” he said after a moment.  

  “That’s because you have to go through it.”  

  Jamie pointed ahead. “Through there?”  

  She nodded her head. “I used my blood to open it, so it will close when I go through. You have to go first.”  

  Jamie looked at her as if she were crazy. Then he hesitantly walked towards the trees, stepped onto the fallen log and disappeared before he reached the other side.

  Sam followed quickly, knowing that if she waited too long Jamie would get so scared he’d probably cry like a small girl. Which was what she assumed he did when she wasn’t around, and what he had probably spent the last two centuries doing.  

  As Sam stepped onto the green grass, she felt the portal shut behind her. Her energy feeling more drained than it should have been by the time she got to the other side. She let out her breath slowly, closing her eyes as she attempted to regain some of her lost strength.

  “Where are we?” Jamie asked. W
hen she opened her eyes to look at him she saw that his expression was filled with bewilderment, amazement and wonder, with the slightest tinge of fear.

  Sam brushed past him, walking forward confidently despite the fact that her legs felt weak. “We’re in Tír na nÓg, stupid.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Jamie stood on the greenest grass he’d ever seen and gazed out at what Sam had referred to as ‘Tír na nÓg’. It seemed like a suitable name, considering that it looked like some place out of a children’s fairytale.  

  Green fields that appeared to stretch for miles were filled with a rainbow of plants that Jamie had never seen before. Large, ancient trees stretched out into the forest behind him. The sky was a twilight blue, with streaks of green and pink and even a vanilla colour.  

  Jamie felt something nudge at the back of his knees, his stomach filled with an overwhelming feeling of apprehension. He turned and looked down . . . behind him there was what looked like a black panther sniffing at his legs. “Sam,” he whispered in panic. “What do I do?” he asked, his body rigid, too scared to move in case it lead to the panther trying to maul him or Sam. 

  She laughed a little. “Relax,” she said calmly. “It’s just a Cat Sídh. It’s making sure you’re not human, or a threat.”  

  Jamie looked down at the thing Sam had called a cat in disbelief. That was definitely not a cat. Cats were small, and that . . . thing wasn’t. Another one padded through the trees behind Jamie and over to Sam. He let a hiss to try scare it off but all that accomplished was a smile of amusement from Sam. The ‘cat’ sat down beside her, nudging its head against her hand. Sam scratched its ears, and the cat let out a purr.  

  The other cat was still sniffing around Jamie’s feet. After a few seconds it finally moved away and Jamie heard a deep, melodic voice say, “Vaimpír.”  

  Jamie felt his eyes grow wide and he turned around to stare at the animal. “Did that cat just talk?”  

  Sam laughed. “Come on.” She grabbed Jamie by the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him away from the trees and the talking cats. He looked over his shoulder to see both of the animals retreating back into the woods.  

  They were talking to each other.

  As if that was a regular thing for giant cats to do. 

  Jamie looked to Sam. “It talked.”  

  She rolled her eyes and let go of his sleeve. “It’s a Cat Sídh,” she repeated, as if that explained everything.  

  “Cats don’t talk.”  

  Sam shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s a Cat Sídh. A Faerie cat. They guard the entrance to Tír na nÓg, they’re Faeries.”  

  Jamie checked behind him again. The cats were gone. “They look like panthers,” he said. “I thought Faeries had wings, and were three inches tall.”

  Sam gave him a smirk. “I thought you said Faeries weren’t real.”  

  Jamie pretended he didn’t hear her.  

  They walked through an open patch of green field that was growing too many flowers for this time of autumn. Strange looking human shaped creatures and animals wandered around in the distance.  

  “Maybe I was wrong,” he said reluctantly. It was difficult to argue the non-existence of creatures that were walking around right in front of him. “Sam?”  

  “What?” she asked without looking at him.  

  “What did that cat say?”  

  “Vaimpír,” she said with a laugh. “It was identifying your species.”  

  “Oh.” They walked through the grass, which Jamie thought was slightly longer than it should have been. But who was he to dictate how the Faeries should maintain their fields? They were supposedly nature spirits after all.  

  “So, why are we in Tír na nÓg?” he asked, as they came near to what he could only describe as an ancient rural village.  

  Or at least, it looked like what he would imagine an ancient rural village to look like.  

  “I come here every month to restock my shelves,” Sam answered.  

  “Restock your shelves of what?” Jamie asked.  

  She gave him a look, suggesting that he should know the answer to that. When Jamie didn’t respond she rolled her eyes and said, “Herbs and plants and candles and gems and potions . . . you know, stuff that usually goes on shelves.”  

  Jamie couldn’t help laughing at that. “Who’s shelves?” he asked, wondering if she actually believed that she had listed the kind of stuff that regular humans kept in their homes. 

  “Mine,” Sam said with a coy smile.  

  Jamie watched with childlike fascination as what he could only describe as a Tinker Bell type Faerie flew past. It was like a three inch tall strangely shaped firefly. Jamie reached out to touch it, but Sam grabbed his arm before he could.  

  “Insects,” she said. “Their bites are poison.” 

  Jamie let his arm fall back down to his side, and just watched the Faerie insect as it flew by. That was when he noticed they were being followed.  

  CHAPTER 43

  “Sam . . . ”

  “What?” she asked without looking in his direction.

  “There are two girls following us,” he whispered staring straight ahead, acting as if he hadn’t said a thing. “And one of them looks just like you.”  

  Sam stopped walking; her heart skipped a beat. She took a breath and looked over her shoulder, already knowing what she would see.

  A thin girl with silver hair, deathly pale skin and large dark eyes.  

  A Ban Sídh.  

  And beside her was a ghost, shedding silent tears as she looked at Sam with a face that was identical to her own.  

  A Feit.  

  Shit, Sam thought with an internal sigh, suddenly aware of how weak she felt as her eyes set upon the melancholic faces of the death fey.

  “How long?” Sam asked. The Ban Sídh shook her head, refusing to answer as Sam knew she would. With a sigh, she nodded and turned back to Jamie, who was watching her intently. “It’s okay, they won’t hurt either of us.”  

  “But—” Jamie tried to protest.  

  “It’s fine.”  

  Jamie looked at her, uncertainty written clearly on his face, then he sighed and nodded resignedly. They moved out of the grass and onto the cobblestoned streets of the marketplace.  

  “That’s where we’re going.” Sam pointed to the store at the end of the road, where a boy with violet hair and green eyes sat holding a mandolin in his lap. He had the appearance of a sixteen year old, but Sam knew that he was actually more like a hundred.  

  Cayden smiled as Sam approached. He started strumming his mandolin, momentarily glancing at Jamie beside her. “Do I need to make changes to my ballad?” he asked Sam. “Do I need to make it more upbeat since the last time I saw you?”  

  She suppressed a grin and rolled her eyes. “Not now Cayden.” Sam pushed the store door open and walked inside with Jamie close behind her.  

  “Who’s that?” he asked, peering out the window at Cayden, who was still strumming his mandolin.  

  “That’s Cayden.”

  Sam turned swiftly to look at whoever had spoken.

  “He sits there all the time and makes songs about the people he sees,” said the small girl as she looked from Jamie to Sam and back again.  

  Sam eyed the girl warily; she had been coming to this store once a month for the past three years and had never seen her before.

  Not even once.  

  Which was weird because most of the people who came here did so on a regular basis.  

  Unless of course they were a new recruit to the world of Faerie.  

  The girl held an empty glass jar, turning it around in her hands as she stared inside it. Her skin was white as snow, she was paler than anyone Sam had ever seen in her life, including Jamie, and much like snow her skin appeared to have an unearthly shimmer. Almost as though whatever Power the girl possessed lived within every cell of he
r being. Her hair was pale pink, though Sam doubted it was her natural colour. Judging by the tone of her skin and the luminous reddish-purple shade of her eyes, Sam guessed that the girl’s natural hair was probably the same shade as her skin.  

  The girl’s eyes creased around the corners in a smile as she watched Sam assess her.  

  Sam didn’t smile back.  

  There was something wrong about this girl. By the look of her it was obvious that she wasn’t human. Sam could practically see the Magic leaking from her. But her senses picked up no traces of it.  

  Meaning that this girl had the ability to shield herself from Sam.  

  Which no one should have the Power to do.  

  Sam looked over the girl’s body. Assessing the threat level. She was pretty small, barely five feet. And she was young. Perhaps thirteen, maybe fourteen. Her species of origin wasn’t obvious by her appearance, though she did have some form of markings on her face. One across her forehead, just around the area of her third eye and two identical markings under each eye. Sam had never seen marks like those before, but she was sure they probably meant something important.

  Her left hand was wrapped up in a bandage that looked like it hadn’t been changed in years. It was torn and had both red and black stains on it.  

  “Poison,” the girl said when she noticed Sam looking at it. Sam looked the girl in the eyes. She was smiling in a friendly manner, which just made Sam feel uneasy. Something is seriously off. “My blood is poisoned,” continued the girl, “it makes it turn black.”  

  “Will it kill you?” Jamie asked. Sam jumped slightly at the sound of his voice. In all the time she’d spent looking at the girl she had forgotten there was anyone else in the room.  

  “Eventually,” the girl said conversationally, turning her head to the side to look at Jamie. Assessing him the same way Sam had been assessing her.

  Sam stepped in front of her gaze, taking her attention away from him. If this girl was a Faerie, Sam didn’t want her to pay that much attention to Jamie. He wouldn’t last here. And if she wasn’t a Faerie, she still didn’t want her to pay that much attention to him. He probably wouldn’t last anywhere on his own.