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

by Karen M. Dillon

  Not that he really would; the room was empty of all furniture apart from a small wooden table in the centre. Still, he thought, better safe than sorry.  

  He approached the table, carefully placing his hand on the wooden box that rested on top of it.  

  The Oracle.  

  He slowly lifted the lid and peered inside.  

  The box was lined with red velvet, and on top of the lining was a big lump of iolite. Malachi placed his hands on the stone. It lit up so bright it momentarily blinded him. He blew out his candle and put it back into his pocket, no longer needing its illumination.  

  He stood there for a moment with his hands on the stone, unsure of what he was supposed to do next. He had never called upon The Oracle before. I probably should have learned how to do this first.

  He took a breath.  

  “Oh great and powerful Oracle . . . um . . . I seek answers from your . . . wise self.” Malachi waited a moment. Nothing happened. “Um . . . I seek answers . . . please?”  

  He sighed again when, once more, nothing happened. He slid his hands off the rock, accidentally cutting himself on the jagged edges.  

  He jumped back a little and put his finger in his mouth to stop the bleeding. Malachi peered up as he heard a low rumble.   

  The gemstone shook, then slowly the light inside it shot out as it cracked open.  

  Oh shit, I broke it! he thought in panic as he looked behind him at the door, wondering how far he could run before Kraven found out what happened. He took one last look at the stone, and gasped.  

  Floating above it was the ghostly image of a woman. She opened her pupil-less eyes and stared directly at Malachi. “You are not my Master,” she stated, her ghostly voice ringing out in an echo. Malachi winced, briefly peering over his shoulder at the door. I hope this room is soundproofed. “You have no right to call upon me.”  

  “Hi,” he said lamely. “Yeah, I know. But I need answers and I didn’t know who to ask. So I thought . . . you know, who better to answer a question than an Oracle?” He smiled hopefully.  

  The Oracle didn’t seem pleased. “I answer questions only for my Master. That is the agreement to which I am bound.”  

  “I know. But Kraven is your master. And my question is about him . . . kind of.” Malachi sighed. “I don’t know who else to ask.”  

  The Oracle regarded him for a moment. “I should not allow this, but since my current Master will leave me to you when he dies, I suppose I can allow for this one exception.”  

  “Thank you!” Malachi smiled. “Okay, so—”  

  “You may ask me one question,” The Oracle interrupted. “And that is all. I will answer you as best I can.”  

  “Okay . . . ” Malachi thought hard about the question he would ask. She probably already knows everything that’s been happening and everything I’m thinking of asking. Malachi looked at The Oracle, hoping she’d have an expression that would confirm his thoughts.  

  She didn’t.  

  Her expression was neutral.  

  She probably doesn’t have any other expressions. He sighed. “What should I do?”

  The Oracle appeared to give him a half smile. If she did though, it was gone before Malachi fully noticed it. “What should you do about the past? What should you do about the present? Or what should you do about the future?”  

  Malachi opened his mouth to answer ‘the present’, but stopped himself, shrugging instead to indicate that he wasn’t sure which one he meant. Why get one answer when I can get three?  

  The Oracle was silent for a moment, then she said, “Do not trust your past. Presently you should do as you believe to be right.”  

  Malachi waited a moment for her to continue. “And the future?” he asked, hoping since he was simply prompting an answer for the question he’d already asked, that she didn’t treat what he said as a separate query.

  “Follow the path of jade, to find the truth of your soul.”

  “What?” Malachi asked in confusion. “What does that mean? Where is this jade path . . . is this a real path or a metaphorical one?”  

  The Oracle looked down at him. “I said I would give you one answer. I allowed you to have three. I will speak with you no more.”  

  “Wait a minute.”  

  The Oracle disappeared in a swirl of light, which seeped back through the cracks in the gemstone.  

  “That last one doesn’t really count,” he said to the empty room. “If I don’t understand it it’s not a real answer!”  

  Malachi waited a moment for a reply he didn’t get. He sighed, then closed the lid of the box and walked out of the dark room.  

  “Malachi!” He jumped at the sound of Kraven loudly calling his name. “Get in here!”  

  Lucky timing. Malachi quickly locked the door and hurried down the hall to where he’d heard Kraven call from.  

  He caught a glimpse of a tall cloaked figure as he . . . or she walked out of the room Malachi was about to walk into. The cloaked figure appeared to be oozing shadows. Malachi shivered, turning his face away as he approached Kraven.  

  He didn’t ask who that had been as he got the distinct feeling that he would rather not know.  

  “What is it?” he asked.  

  Kraven opened his mouth to speak, but he paused, furrowed his brow and studied him curiously. “Why are you not wearing shoes?”  

  “Oh.” He looked down at his feet, then back at Kraven. He shrugged. “ . . . Because I’m not going outside today?”  

  Kraven stared at Malachi for a moment, before laughing. “You can be so strange sometimes.”  

  Malachi grinned and rolled his eyes. “Why did you call me?”  

  Kraven pointed to the floor, where there was a locked wooden chest. He eyed the chest in confusion, then lifted his gaze back to Kraven.  

  “Were you not the one who was complaining about being left out of the plans?” he asked with more sarcasm than was necessary.  

  “I wasn’t complaining,” Malachi said defensively. How the hell did he know that? I never said a thing out loud. “I didn’t even—”  

  “This box is how we’re going to get her,” Kraven interrupted. “It’s filled with Shadows and about as much Dark Magic as we could manage to cram into it. My friend, who just left, told me that she needs to have a sad heart when she opens it, to make her more susceptible to what’s inside.

  “So we’re going to upset her, then give her the chest. When she opens it, the Shadows will possess her, then her Magic will be drained and sucked into the chest. Then all we have to do is go and get the chest and make everything look normal for when the human police arrive at her house.”  

  “Why would the police be at her house?” Malachi asked curiously, doing his best to hide his concern.  

  Kraven bent down and picked the chest up. “Most likely to investigate her death. Isn’t that what police do?” he asked sincerely, the innocent gleam in his eyes making it obvious that he saw nothing wrong with what he’d said. He held the chest out for Malachi to take.  

  He reached out slowly, taking the chest in his arms. Malachi could feel strong Power throbbing inside; it wasn’t the good kind and being so close to that amount of evil made him feel queasy. He tried his best not to let it show on his face. “Keep it in your room until tomorrow,” Kraven said. “I’ll send the Shifters to get it from you then.”  

  “Why do I have to keep it?” Malachi knew that, in this situation, the right thing to do was to hand the chest back to Kraven and admit that he wanted nothing to do with this plan. Not if it involved killing an innocent girl. And the way Kraven had described it, it sounded like quite a painful way to die.  

  Kraven smiled slowly. “Because I wouldn’t trust anyone else with it,” he said as he left the room.  

  Malachi stood there alone for countless moments, a thousand thoughts rapidly running thro
ugh his brain.  

  He sighed dejectedly, then made his way back to his room.

  The chest would be in his possession all night.

  Which meant that between now and tomorrow when the Shifters came to get it, no one else would see it.  

  No one else would touch it.  

  So no one else would know what he had done to it.

  CHAPTER 53

  Sam had always considered herself to be nobody’s victim, but as she lay in bed crying she realised how wrong she had been. The dictionary definition of a victim was somebody who experienced misfortune and felt helpless to remedy it. That was Sam; she wasn’t nobody’s victim, she was everybody’s victim.  

  People who didn’t know her hated her guts and wanted her dead for no reason other than the fact that they were greedy for the Magic she possessed. There was nothing she could do to stop them, every time she killed one of them another took their place.  

  She buried her face in her pillow, taking in shallow breaths as she tried to calm herself down. What the fuck is wrong with me? She turned over so she was staring at the ceiling. Keeping her arms straight at her sides. Her hands balled into fists, gripping the sheets tighter and tighter as she tried to regain control of herself.

  Loves me? Why does he have to be so damn stupid!  

  Her throat ached. It felt like it was filling up with something. Blocked, so that each breath she took through her nose was followed by the feeling of something trying to force its way out of her mouth. Sam pressed her lips shut, forcing her teeth together so tightly they hurt. She closed her eyes again to try calm herself.  

  It wouldn’t work though.  

  When she closed her eyes all she could see was the look of hurt on Jamie’s face as she had run away from him. Her heart felt like someone had it in their hand and was squeezing it horribly tight.  

  He doesn’t understand, she told herself, he can’t understand.  

  Sam felt something inside her break as she recognised the lie in her thoughts. The truth was that he could understand if she would give him a chance to. It was just another lie she had been feeding herself to make the pain of the truth stop hurting.  

  Her lips parted as she sighed, and with the sigh came the sound of a whimper. She squeezed her eyes closed again and let the tears fall.  

  Silently at first.  

  Then with loud sobs.  

  She turned on her side and buried her face in her pillow again, this time trying to muffle the sounds of her crying.  

  He wasn’t supposed to love me.  

  “Sa—”  

  “Don’t!” Sam snapped, interrupting Jack before he had a chance to do his impersonation of an alarm clock. She moved the duvet down, so that Jack could see her face. “I’m in a bad mood and I’m not getting up.”  

  Jack looked at her, she could see concern in his eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked.  

  Sam groaned and closed her eyes tightly, trying to make the stinging go away. “I’m just tired.”  

  “Tired?” Jack looked into Sam’s eyes. She didn’t look away. She knew that her eyes were probably red and puffy from all the crying, but that could also make them look tired. If she looked away he’d know something was wrong.

  Jack sat down on the edge of her bed. The covers didn’t crease beneath him, which meant he wasn’t corporeal. Sam always wondered how he was able to sit down in a noncorporeal form. She never asked though, and right then she really couldn’t have cared less.  

  “Did something happen?” he asked, sounding as concerned as he looked.  

  Sam shook her head.  

  “You know you can tell me if you’re not okay?” Sam nodded. “‘Cause that’s why I’m here. To make sure that you’re okay.”  

  “I know,” Sam said, feeling slightly guilty for not talking, but not enough to make her speak.  

  Jack nodded. “Okay. I’ll leave . . . call me if you need me though, okay?”  

  “Okay.”  

  “For anything, right? Nothing is too trivial. You can call me if you only need a tissue or something.”  

  Sam forced herself to smile a little. “Okay . . . thanks.”  

  Jack smiled at her kindly, then disappeared, leaving her alone to bury her face in her pillow once again and cry some more.  

  CHAPTER 54

  Jack knew that there was something wrong with Sam. He could always tell when things weren’t right with her. It was like a sixth sense he had developed through living with her since she was a child and learning to see through her bullshit.

  She used to be good at pretending that she was okay, but he was never stupid enough to fall for it. Although he did, on more than a few occasions, allow her to think that he believed she was completely fine.  

  Sam wasn’t really the type of person who enjoyed sharing feelings. And the older she got, the less she showed them.  

  To anyone.  

  But just because she didn’t openly show them didn’t mean that Jack couldn’t see.  

  It has to have something to do with Jamie. And if it doesn’t, well, he follows her around enough for him to have some idea as to what’s happened.  

  Jack corporealised inside Jamie’s house. He knew Sam had buried spell jars around the perimeter and carved some protective sigils somewhere. Her spells would keep anyone and everyone out of this place. Unfortunately for Jamie, anyone and everyone only included those with physical bodies.  

  He gazed around the living room where he had corporealised. Jamie wasn’t there. He wandered in and out of all the downstairs rooms trying to find him. When he couldn’t locate Jamie, he checked upstairs.  

  Up the stairs there was just a bedroom and a bathroom. And the stupid Vampire wasn’t there either.  

  Jack walked back downstairs and sighed.  

  Where the fuck else would he be?  

  As far as Jack knew the only person Jamie talked to around here was Sam. And since Jack was pretty sure that Jamie wasn’t with Sam right now, he should be here.  

   . . . If I were a Vampire, where would I be?  

  Jack sighed and sat down on the sofa in the living room. All these years of being dead have murdered my hunting skills. He picked up the TV remote and flicked through the channels, trying to find something interesting to watch while he waited for Jamie to come home.  

  CHAPTER 55

  Jamie wandered through the woods, barely paying any attention to where he was going.  

  Last night kept playing through his mind.  

  He was still in shock over Sam running out the way she did.  

  The night had come and gone, and so had most of the day, but he barely noticed the time pass. It wasn’t until the sun was almost in setting position that he realised how long he had been wandering for.  

  I should go see her, he thought. I should find out what happened. Find out what I’ve done wrong. Jamie continued walking through the woods, but now with a better sense of where he was going. It took him about twenty minutes to get from where he’d found himself to the street that Sam lived on.  

  As her house came into view, he saw that she was walking towards him. He froze where he was standing, and she appeared to do the same. She must have been just leaving to go somewhere and hadn’t expected me to be here.  

  “Sam?” He took a hesitant step in her direction. She folded her arms across her chest and took a breath. Then she marched towards Jamie, looking slightly irate. He took a cautious step back.  

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. Though it seemed like more of an accusation than a question. She was now less than an arm’s length away, staring at him like she was trying to intimidate him.

  Before Jamie had a chance to open his mouth to speak, Sam continued, “What the fuck gives you the right to be around me? What gives you the right to invite yourself into my life then mess it all up? Everything was perfectly fine before you came along. I was perf
ectly fine.”  

  “Sam . . . I—”  

  “Who says you’re allowed to make me cry?” she shouted. Jamie noticed her lips press together almost as if she were trying not to cry. “I never cry, who said you’re allowed to do that?”  

  “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Jamie said, feeling guilty. He felt his throat get tight. I’m just upsetting her more by being here. “Tell me what I did so that I can make it—”  

  “No!” Sam yelled in frustration. “Stop doing that.”  

  “Doing what?”  

  “You know what! . . . Stop being nice to me! Stop liking me!” She looked like she wanted to either scream or burst into tears. Instead she just turned her back to him. “Just leave me alone. I was used to it being that way, so just leave me alone. I don’t need you.”  

  Jamie sighed. “Maybe you don’t need me,” he said. His voice sounded tired and sad. Jamie placed his hand on Sam’s elbow, turning her around so that she had to look at him. “But did you ever stop to think that maybe I need you?”  

  He felt Sam shaking. That was the first time he noticed that there was something not right about her.  

  Her skin looked pale, she had circles under her eyes that were so dark they were visible through her make-up. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.  

  But not like she had been crying. More like blood was about to start leaking out of them.  

  “Oh my God!” Jamie stepped closer to her, filling the small space between them. Sam tried to move back, but he didn’t let her. Jamie breathed in the air around her, it was dark and heavy, and felt as though it would suffocate you if you breathed it for too long. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  

  She tried to pull her arm out of his hand, but she was too weak.  

  About three months ago she could floor me and keep me there and now she can’t even push me away?  

  “Let me go!”  

  “How long?” Jamie shouted, the memory flooding back to him, just now realising what Sam had meant. “You asked that Faerie how long.”  

  “Let me go,” she whispered, her eyes welling up with tears.