Thirteen Mercies, Three Kills

by Liv Olteano

  “So I’m consuming his soul?” I shrieked.

  She shook his head. “You’re not an alkemist yet, just a changeling. Your device stores what it extracts because you can’t consume or use it yourself. Mine, however, will integrate what I extract into me. It’s how extractions work. Alkemic souls are not like regular ones. They behave differently. His soul would be too dangerous.”

  I shook my head. “So you’ll just watch?”

  Verner frothed at the mouth, squirming around harder.

  Natalia rested her hands on her knees. “You need to hurry. His golems keep pouring in. And he has a lot of them. I won’t be able to keep up.”

  “He basically has all of them,” I said as I squinted at Nikola.

  She looked away for a moment.

  “Nikola, I won’t manage it alone!” I bit out.

  “You don’t understand the risks!” she shouted.

  I flinched and looked away. Verner’s soul seemed to explode. For a moment I thought I’d succeeded. Then Nikola’s golems flew away from him. The glow of his soul disappeared. It turned into a thick, black hole that seemed to suck in all the light around us.

  “You stupid little girl,” he said, chuckling.

  Darkness hit me. I flew against the wall. My back made a disgusting cracking sound as I hit the floor.

  “Mer! Mer, are you all right?” someone screamed.

  I opened my eyes and saw Nikola standing over me.

  “I think I broke something,” I whispered.

  The extraction device in my hand clunked to the floor. I couldn’t grip it anymore. I couldn’t move. Natalia kneeled by my side.

  “Your back is broken,” she said calmly. “I chose the wrong side. I’m as good as dead.” She chuckled strangely and disappeared from my line of sight.

  “What, what is she doing?”

  Nikola looked after her, then back at me. “She’s attacking him. Mer, I’m sorry about this. I promise I’ll fix it. I will. I won’t lose you. I won’t let you die.”

  “I thought alkemists don’t die,” I whispered and coughed.

  Something wet and hot poured out of my mouth. It tasted like copper, sweet, yet salty. Nikola wiped at it. Her hand came away from my face with blood smeared over it. “Changelings don’t either. But the body is breakable, more susceptible to injury in the changeling phase. You might slip into a coma if I don’t fix the damage soon enough.”

  I coughed. “A coma?”

  “Endless sleep, Mer. Whatever happens, don’t fall asleep. I beg you.”

  “I’ll do my best….”

  She stood up, nodded, then walked away. I heard a terrible shriek and turned my head around. It hurt horribly. Spots of black and white danced before my eyes. I saw Natalia’s body hit the floor beside me. A loud crack followed. Her back bent at an odd angle. Blood trickled out of her mouth, nose, and ears. But her eyes were alert.

  “Natalia? Are-are you—” I winced.

  “Dying? No. Just suffering, and vigorously so. I’m upgraded enough that death is not a threat. Lying here and suffering is worse, if you ask me. I’m hoping you people will manage a way to turn this around and fix me. Sometime soon, one would hope.”

  Her face looked so smooth, though. I couldn’t even believe she was hurting. I coughed. More blood trickled out of my mouth. “How much of you is really synth?” I barely whispered.

  “Oh, quite a bit.”

  Pink smoke slithered all around me. It took a lot of the pain away. My mother’s face appeared over me. Her eyes seemed worried and pained. “If I fall asleep, come visit me in my dreams,” I whispered.

  Natalia snorted. “We’ll have dream tea and everything, of course.”

  I smiled. She couldn’t see my mother’s ghost. Mother nodded and reached down. She caressed my cheek with her ghostly hand. All the pain went out of my system. I breathed a sigh of relief. I sent a tendril of the soothing smoke to Natalia as well. She’d chosen us and fought, after all.

  She breathed out slowly a moment later. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Something boomed, an incredible sound. Walls and floors shuddered. There was an explosion of light and tendrils of darkness. That soul-extraction pulling sensation clawed through my body, too strong to resist. I watched my mother one last time, her lips sewn shut and her eyes wild.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  A ball of fire rushed in our direction. Nikola jumped in front of me, trying to shield me with her body.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter 21

  THIS COMA situation was utterly confusing. I felt no pain, at least, so I appreciated that small mercy. Now and then I heard doors, whispers, chatter of ghosts, shrill wails. Sometimes I felt my mother’s presence. The smoke was like a solid second skin around me.

  “Miss?”

  Oh, and Nana’s voice too. At least I could hear voices of people I loved. The tick-tock of a clock, a chair screeching against the wooden floors, the light of a flickering candle seen from behind closed lids…. Was this a coma? Or was I awake? I felt awake. I moved, pain shooting up my shoulder and paralyzing my lungs midbreath.

  “Miss, you’re awake!”

  Nana poked her gray head into my line of vision, an image I was entirely happy to see. Smiling stung my lips, but I risked it anyway. It took me a couple of tries to speak; my throat was raspy and painful. “Where’s Nikola? Is she…?”

  Nana blinked, darkness covering her gaze. No. No, I refused to contemplate it. “She’s not dead,” Nana said, noticing my distress. “But, Miss… she’s not quite… right either.”

  Though it hurt me to the marrow of my bones, I struggled against the pain and propped myself up against the headboard. A couple of places stung and throbbed, the crust over wounds pulling open with my every move. The pink smoke was quick to slither over the damage I could see, taking away the sting.

  “You shouldn’t move around. You’re still weak. That bastard hurt you bad, Miss.”

  My head still bothered me despite the smoke’s help. I ran a hand up my face, wincing as an extra-sensitive area around my eyes felt odd.

  “What happened? I can’t remember much after the scuffle….”

  She sat on the bed beside me. “You were injured, Miss. Ms. Skazat had to do one of her wonders to save you. Well, more than one, truth be told.”

  I inspected her, the curiosity with which she regarded my face, my eyes. Something was wrong. “You’re staring at me. Why is that?”

  She bit her lip, obviously debating how much to tell me. It had to be bad, so I reached out a hand to comfort her. It moved, but it felt odd. Starting from the shoulder that throbbed strangely, my arm felt… foreign. I inspected my right wrist, moved it around as I reached for Nana. She and I focused on it and I rotated my closed fist. I froze and she went very still.

  “The skin,” I muttered. “It doesn’t crinkle.”

  Air burst out of her chest, a rush I felt keenly on my new skin. “Not just the skin, Miss. She reconstructed your right arm from the shoulder down, and—well, there was an explosion.”

  Blurry images ran before my eyes. Fire scorching my skin, agonizing pain, and then some words as complete darkness fell over me. The mattress shook.

  “Shhh, settle down. Settle down, you’re safe now. You’re all right.”

  I gulped. “More than just the arm, isn’t it? It’s more. My eyes. I couldn’t see. My eyes stung as if hot pokers had been stabbed through them.”

  “You shouldn’t get all agitated. It’s bad for you….”

  I shot my right arm up, silencing her. “Give me a mirror, please.” After a couple of moments of stillness, I frowned at her. “Mirror, Mrs. Herran!”

  She sighed and finally produced my mother’s silver one. I focused on the image before me—the bruised face, the healing wounds around my eyes. My eyes…. They were still gray, but not quite the right gray. They looked different, the whites like perfectly clear milk. They were… new eyes.

  “The expl
osion took your eyes. She fixed you…. She made you whole again.”

  My eyes burned with the desire to shed tears, but I kept them back. Why wasn’t she here, hovering around, waiting to check on her new creations?

  I cleared my throat. “I want to see her.”

  Something flickered over Nana’s face, something that made my skin prickle, the natural part that could. Synth skin apparently didn’t crawl with goose bumps. I pulled my feet out of bed. Weakness tried to hold me back. I pushed against it harder and finally got up. Though the room swirled around me a bit, I kept upright. I wasn’t going to last long enough to dress properly, so I put on the housecoat over my nightgown and walked into the hallway. Piano music greeted me as soon as I reached the top of the stairs, the music low and melancholic, sadder than usual, tragic. It pulled at my heart, made my knees buckle. Nana had to help me go down the stairs, the relentless thrum of the piano music almost debilitating.

  When we finally reached the drawing room, the first thing I noticed was the short black hair. Longing tugged at me. The desire to run my hands through her hair again would now be impossible to make true—it was so short now. Cleanly cut, there was still that silky texture to it. Had it been ruined in that explosion?

  She looked up, her lips tilted in the lopsided smirk that made my blood freeze. It wasn’t Nikola’s mysterious smile, but Verner’s grin. It almost made my heart burst out of my chest. I trailed my gaze above the smirk to reach her eyes, and I was ready to faint then. The beautiful green was there, but only in one eye. The other was golden with a black slit for a pupil. I dry heaved and tried to step back as she slowly got up from the chair.

  “I’m so happy you’re awake.”

  It sounded like Nikola’s voice, but not her usual manner of speaking, her tone, or the way her accent fell on words.

  “What—what is this?” I stuttered.

  For a moment a flash of my Nikola ran through her eyes, both of them, but it was gone fast. With her usual grace, she walked to a chair, sat down, and smoothly crossed her legs. Nana led me to sit down too. I was close to passing out on my feet as it was. When the weight of my body was taken off of my bones, I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  She fixed her gaze on me, even more focused than usual. “How are you feeling, Mer?”

  I gulped. It was confusing, like it was her and yet wasn’t. Had I woken up in a parallel reality, or was I still dreaming, hallucinating, perhaps? She seemed so real, smelled like… home.

  “I’m… adjusting. Nikola, what… what happened to you?”

  “Mrs. Herran, if you’d be so kind as to arrange for some tea for us?” she instructed.

  With Nana gone Nikola’s gaze grew even stickier, the golden eye’s pupil blowing up wider with her focus. Shivers ran down my spine.

  “Cristina Mera, we almost died in the explosion. Once Edgar’s soul was displaced, his house exploded and crumbled. Might have been some sort of fail-safe. He certainly went out with a bang, I’ll say that much,” she added, shaking her head.

  “Didn’t you say alkemists don’t die?”

  She smiled. “Once the soul is lost, the body is affected easily. If the soul isn’t lost, once the body is fixed, it will last. Those fixes just have to come before we fall into a coma. Some fall under and never wake up in the end.”

  “How come you didn’t?”

  She grinned crookedly. “I used my new resources. The important thing is I survived and managed to keep you alive.”

  It sounded ominous. “And how exactly did you do that?”

  “When the house exploded, I had Edgar’s golems form protective layers over us. Some of them were lost, but my control over them was flimsy at best anyway. They would have simply disconnected.”

  “My father?” I asked weakly.

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mer. He didn’t make it.”

  I shivered. “What about Natalia?”

  “I managed to pull her beside us. She made it too. Not unscathed, but she made it. She’s recovering. Her losses were significant. That and her upgrades were more complicated to fix than I’d initially thought. I’m still working on some parts.”

  “But she’s still alive? Not a golem?”

  She shrugged. “She’s something of a sapient golem. Edgar had a lot of work invested in her. I’m surprised she considered siding with us, in fact. I would have thought she’d be unflinchingly faithful to him. What could have swayed her to our side?”

  I smiled. “Free will. And a healthy regard for her best interests. I don’t think she liked working for Verner anyway. She never said as much, but if she’d sided with him back at the ball—”

  “He would’ve lost,” Nikola whispered.

  I nodded. “So how did we win, in the end? I think there was a spiritual explosion before the real one, yes?”

  The smirk was back again, and I shuddered. She cocked her head to the side, a gesture not quite Nikola’s, but not quite Verner’s either, at least from what I could remember.

  “You were amazing, Mer. You nearly extracted the reaper’s soul. With more experience and the kind of boost you got, I think you’ll be able to extract alkemic souls in the not-so-distant future.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. I think. But I didn’t quite manage it on my own.”

  “Teamwork this time. I extracted the root of his soul once properly weakened. But I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “So you extracted it, and then stored it somehow?” I asked in a hopeful tone.

  She shook her head. “Reaper souls are dangerous if they’re left to their own devices, even if stored somehow. No, he’s contained—in me.”

  “Your eye is golden like his. Because you consumed him?”

  She nodded. Then she got up and crossed her hands at the small of her back, a habit so purely Nikola it made my heart race for a moment. She paced around the room, not looking at me.

  “With absorbing his soul, I’ve gotten some of his knowledge too. It will be of great help to my research.” She stopped pacing, looked at me, and said, “I meant our research. Edgar had some interesting technological developments going. Some of them are incorporated into Natalia as well. Fascinating work.”

  “You sound rather lovestruck,” I muttered.

  She chuckled. “I’m sorry. I’m still a scientist at heart. Progress is exciting.”

  “Well, as long as it means the research will go better, I’ll reluctantly share the enthusiasm.”

  She finally looked at me, a small smile on her lips. “I’m very happy to hear that.”

  She walked up to me, kneeled, and took each of my hands in hers, then kissed them all over. My heart thumped in my chest and my temples throbbed in time with the thumps. I tried to pull my hands away, feeling heat color my face. She wouldn’t let go of me, though, so I stopped trying.

  She met my gaze with hers for a few silent moments. “Do I disgust you now, Mer? Now that I’m partly myself, and partly someone—something else?”

  I regarded her face, lingered on her hair. Not only was she part someone else now, but she had within her something of Verner’s wretched soul.

  I swallowed thickly. “Of course not. But you’re different. Will I be different too, now that I have these upgrades?”

  “Perhaps physically. But you’ll be the same person. Don’t worry about it.”

  I shook, turning my gaze away from hers. I felt strange in my own body, somehow not well settled. And each time I looked into her eyes, it was like looking at Verner too. No matter how hard I tried to ignore that, the ghost of Verner seemed to loom there in the back of Nikola’s golden eye. It scared me, terrified me to think the reaper was somewhere in there.

  “Does that mean you’ll change because you hold Verner’s soul?”

  “I repulse you,” she said in a sad voice.

  “No!” I hurried to exclaim, perhaps a little too emphatically. “No. I just need to get used to this new situation. I look at you and see you, but then I see that golden eye and I ge
t the chills, even if I know it’s Nikola I’m looking at and not Verner. It’s just going to take me some time to get used to it, that’s all.”

  “I suppose you’re right. We’ll both have to adjust to changes. I want to make sure you know it’s me, Nikola, that you’re looking at and talking to. That it’s me touching you and making love to you until you can barely breathe anymore,” she whispered thickly. “If you’ll allow me, that is,” she added, searching my gaze for an answer.

  I wanted to tell her Of course I will!—wished I could be so sure—but that eye of hers terrified me. I smiled, a fake little smile, and I nodded. “Thank you for saving my life,” I said, staring at her lips to avoid her gaze. “I appreciate the upgrades as well. How will I ever be able to repay you?”

  She smiled and kissed my cheek before speaking again. “We’re a team, Mer. That’s what partners do for each other.”

  Warmth danced through my spine. “Partners, right. So where does New Bayou stand now?”

  “I’m the resident alkemist, as we discussed. I’ll hold the position until my research is done and you reach alkemic maturity. Natalia will be my liquidator, though I hope we’ll have little need of that. And you’re my apprentice.”

  I blinked and looked at her, trying to see the golden eye as Nikola’s and not Verner’s. “The mayor?” I asked in a hopeful tone.

  She grinned. “Destitute. We’ll hold elections for a new one.”

  “Verner appointed Naraku. This new one will be elected?”

  She nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. “Like they used to be, back when this was still a living planet. We’ll elect mayors and senators, and they’ll have a limited amount of time to exercise those functions. Then when the time ends, we’ll hold elections for new ones, and so on. The senators almost had a fit over that, but they can’t rebel against the resident, after all.”

  “I hope Herveux had that fit, though.”

  She chuckled. “Well, he’s pretty much done anyway. All legal issues between you and him were solved. I made sure of that.”

  “So I can move back home?”