Soul Eater

by Lindsey Sparks

  A tiny, sad smile touched Mei’s lips. “I cannot tell a soul. Just as you cannot.”

  I frowned. “What? Why not?” There was a distinct note of defiance in my tone. I wasn’t a big fan of being told “no.”

  “Re and Apep must have built a fail-safe into the very fabric of the universe. It is impossible to speak of—” She sucked in a breath, squeezing her eyes shut and clenching her jaw. After a few, slow breaths in and out through her nose, she opened her eyes. “As you see, I am incapable of even breaching the subject. But I suppose it’s safe to say Re and Apep didn’t want any soul speaking of you-know-who.” She gave me a meaningful look.

  My eyes opened wide, and my lips parted. The universe wouldn’t let me tell the others? Like it had any control over me? I sucked in a breath, preparing to prove to Mei just how wrong she was. “Isfet—”

  The name caught in my throat. I tried to inhale, but my lungs wouldn’t work. There was no room for them to expand. And now that I knew this reaction was connected to the greater universe, I could feel the tendrils of At and anti-At coiling around my organs within my ribcage like a boa constrictor. My elbows slipped out from under me and my head banged back onto the carpeted floor. Stars fluttered across my ever-darkening vision.

  Lex burst into the room, Aset and Nik hot on her heels. “Kat!” she exclaimed. “Oh my God!” Her voice was the last thing I heard before the lights went out.

  Chapter Five

  When I woke, I was alone. Someone had moved me to the bed and removed my shoes, leaving me lying there atop the comforter, confused as all hell.

  “You are awake,” Dom said.

  Groaning, I raised my head just enough that I could see him in the standing mirror. “Yep.”

  “I’ll alert Lex,” he said. “Aset will want to attend to you.”

  “No,” I said, maybe too quickly. “I’m fine.” Or, so long as I kept my mouth shut about the only shit that really mattered, I would be. “I just need to rest.” And to talk to Isfet, because it looked like she was the only one who would be able to guide me in the impossible task she’d given me, and I needed to know if she was the one sending me the visions of the school. I needed to know if what was going on there was somehow connected to Aaru . . . to her.

  Dom didn’t look convinced.

  “Please,” I said. “I’ll get up soon and let them know I’m alright, I promise. I just need a minute . . .”

  Dom’s features pinched in displeasure. “Very well. But if you have another fit, I’m alerting them.”

  “Be my guest,” I muttered, letting my head fall back onto my pillow. The only way I knew of to talk to Isfet was from within Duat, which made the path forward pretty clear. I just had to figure out how to get into Duat in the first place. No big deal. I’d been there twice—once with Anapa, and once on my own. Only problem was, to get there on my own, I was pretty sure I had to die.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a few seconds, considering calling out to Anapa to see if he was lurking anywhere nearby. I could ask him to open a portal to Duat, and that would be that.

  Except my gut was telling me I couldn’t trust him. What if he ferried me into Duat, then the second he realized that I knew the truth about the universe—about Isfet and what Re and Apep did to her—he shoved me straight into Aaru? Obviously, to rescue Isfet I needed to get into Aaru eventually, but I wanted to have a solid exit plan before I dove in.

  Maybe I was looking at this all wrong. Maybe I didn’t even need to actually be in Duat to talk to Isfet. Maybe I just needed to be connected to that other, higher plane of existence. Only one way to find out.

  I took a deep breath, then closed my eyes and opened my mind, reaching out with my ba. I called on the soul-energy, just as I’d done onstage at the Tarsi Tiff concert at our grand coming out. This would only be my third time drawing on that mystical connection, and I did so with the greatest of caution; after the concert, I’d been able to feel the veins of At and anti-At that marbled my ba thickening and expanding. Even as it strengthened my connection to the universe and upgraded my power, it felt as though that primal matter was taking over my soul, and I feared that if I relied on it too much—if I let it get too strong of a foothold—it would, in time, drown out everything that made me me. After feeling those otherworldly strands constricting around my lungs and heart, I was even more reticent.

  Every cell in my body sizzled as I made contact with the endless swarm of personalities making up the soul-energy. The buzz of a thousand—million—billion voices filled my head. Bits and pieces of the consciousnesses of every human who had ever lived—of every being who had ever had a soul—flowed in that great river of energy that made up Duat, and thanks to the At and anti-At veins marbling my soul, I had a permanent connection to that great collective. I could feel the soul-energy filtering through my ba, awakening latent preternatural senses and making me more than I was.

  I opened my eyes. My skin now glowed with flames of every color imaginable, the colors reflecting off the white ceiling. Despite being expected, the appearance of the soul-energy burning through me still stole my breath. The beauty of it all. The wonder. It brought tears to my eyes. They spilled over the brim, streaking down my cheeks.

  I shut my eyes once more. “Isfet,” I thought as loudly and distinctly as I could. “I need to speak to you.”

  Just as the collective’s sight and voice merged with mine, so did their thoughts. I knew, in an instant, that it wouldn’t work. Isfet couldn’t hear me, not from out here in the physical realm. Not even through my connection to the soul-energy.

  “Come join us,” several voices whispered.

  “Yes,” others said, one on top of the other. “Together, we will call to her . . . we will find her . . .”

  Another pulled free of the humming, buzzing mass: my mom. “No, Kat! Don’t do it. Do not enter Duat! It’s too dangerous . . .” Her warning faded away just as quickly as it had come, and she was reabsorbed into the collective.

  The shock of hearing my mom’s voice knocked me out of my Zen state, and I lost my hold on the soul-energy. Didn’t really matter now. I’d found the answer I was looking for, even if I didn’t like it. The only way I would get another shot at talking to Isfet was to enter Duat. Which meant either trust Anapa or die. Neither was an appealing option.

  I rolled onto my side and curled up into the fetal position, hugging my knees to my chest. The tears wetting my cheeks were now for another reason entirely. I missed my mom, desperately. Hearing her voice had torn the scab off the wound in my heart caused by her death. It all became fresh, raw. The last time I’d heard her voice, it was Isfet who was truly speaking. But this time, it was all my mom. I could feel it. Feel her.

  “Little sister,” Dom said, voice soft. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, wanting to keep him from running off to fetch Lex once more. Sniffling, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and nodded. I wiped the tears from the side of my face and cleared my throat.

  I stood and arched my back, arms extended over my head. I stretched to one side, then the other. I wasn’t quite ready to go diving back into Duat, death-first. But then, I had one final trick up my sleeve when it came to getting hard-to-find information.

  It was time to consult the cards.

  Chapter Six

  Sitting near the foot of my bed, feet tucked under my legs, I drew the top card from the deck of freshly shuffled tarot cards. The deck crackled with otherworldly energy. It was charged and potent, and there was no doubt in my mind that this reading would at least give me some guidance. How could it not? I was so clueless at this point that a snail could give me guidance.

  I hesitated before flipping the card over. I was standing at a fork in the road, the way forward uncertain. Once I had whatever answers the cards offered up, it would be time for action. I would have to choose a path—go to the school and figure out what’s really going on there, or focus all of my attention on the Isfet issue. Specifically, f
igure out how to get back into Duat to have a little chat with Isfet herself. Based on my lack of progress on the latter, I was really hoping the cards would indicate that the two were linked. That the school would bring me closer to fulfilling my promise to Isfet. That I wouldn’t have to die—again—just to figure out what to do next.

  Crossing my fingers, I took a deep breath and set the card down.

  Judgment, reversed. Traditionally, when reversed, this major arcana card represents a sense of being trapped, possibly even stuck in the past. Of repeating old patterns but refusing to see it.

  The design on the card had changed since the last time I drew it, not that the change was surprising, considering the power emanating from the deck. A woman levitated above the ground near the top of the card, arms outstretched and back to the viewer. Her long, dark hair floated all around her, and the mere scraps of clothing hanging from her body left little doubt as to her identity: me. The tattoos were unmistakable. Her skin glowed with a gentle golden soul aura, no sign of the black and white anti-At and At veins rooted in her ba.

  Beneath her—me—a half-dozen people stood on parched earth, dressed in similarly bedraggled clothing, reaching up to her. Beseeching her. Nik was the closest, then Dom. Lex and Mari stood farther into the background, Heru, Susie, and Syris a ways beyond them.

  “What the hell does this mean?” I muttered to myself.

  Nothing good, that was for sure. But was the card telling me that my inability to move on from the past would lead everyone, myself included, to ruination? I could be stubborn, sure, but I couldn’t imagine ever endangering the people I loved because of it.

  Pressing my lips together and breathing in and out through my nose, I flipped the next card, hoping it might shed a little more clarity on the situation.

  Wheel of Fortune. Another major arcana card. Traditionally, this card is almost entirely positive. It represents fate and the positive changes that will come to those who surrender to fate’s will. It’s a sign of good luck, of fortune changing for the better.

  In the design, a circle took up the center of the card, black as night and filled with impossibly dense and detailed clusters of light. Stars, I thought, or possibly galaxies. It was as clear a representation of the universe as the cards could’ve given me. An image of myself lay curled around the top half of the circle, not a stitch of clothing on me, and Nik lay in a similar position—and in a similar state of undress—around the bottom half.

  There was no other imagery on the card. Just the two of us, encircling the universe. Fate. Surrender. Us.

  My heartbeat sped up, and I licked my lips. This card appeared positive—felt positive, too—but, even so, it scared the shit out of me. “Nope,” I said under my breath. “Not going there.”

  Needing to move on, and fast, I flipped the next card and frowned. Three major arcana cards in a row—unusual, but not unsettling on its own. The specific card and its imagery, however, left me more than a little uneasy.

  The Devil. Traditionally, this card represents temptation, and sometimes even enslavement. It shows up when too-good-to-be-true people or opportunities shed their masks and show their true faces. It’s the worm inside the pristine, ruby-red apple. It’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing that goes unrecognized until too late. It’s the destruction that comes from following the wrong path, even when it looked so right.

  As I studied the imagery, a shiver shimmied up my spine, giving rise to goose bumps all over my body. Once again, I was featured, and once again, I was nude. The image of me stood near the bottom edge of the card, wrists and ankles chained together by cords of moonstone and onyx At and anti-At, spirit clearly broken.

  Where the devil should have been, towering over the smaller figure, was an image of Isfet instead. On the card, she took on the general shape of my mom, her skin glowing with light of every possible color, black and white threads of anti-At and At writhing around her like snakes. It almost looked like those threads were moving.

  I picked up the card, tilting it to change the lighting. Squinting, I brought it closer to my face. Those threads were moving.

  “What the hell?” I whispered.

  The image of me began to change, the tiny, sad figure’s hair lengthening and skin thinning, then becoming leathery.

  I dropped the card, covering my mouth with my hand. The ink on the cards had never changed right before my eyes like that.

  I watched in horror as the image of me continued to change. Her lips retracted and eyes became hollow caverns, and then she—I—crumbled into a crusty pile of bones.

  “Oh God,” I shrieked and shoved the cards away, scuttling backward on the bed. I clutched my chest with both hands. I could feel my heart pounding, hammering so hard against my sternum it felt like it was trying to beat its way out of my chest.

  Unlike the other cards, The Devil’s message was clear as day. Isfet would lead me to my death. I didn’t know how or why, but somehow, she would deceive me. And as a result, I would die.

  I supposed that meant I had my answer. I couldn’t free Isfet. Not ever. Breaking a promise was abhorrent to me, but this was life and death. My life and death. Despite my recent brush with the afterlife, I wasn’t suicidal.

  Unless . . . what if it was my refusal to help Isfet that led to my death? If she discovered my betrayal, she would have every right to be pissed. What if she somehow managed to break free from Aaru on her own—something that was maybe not impossible if the haunted high school was a result of a breach between worlds. If she escaped and learned that I’d betrayed her, who knew what form her vengeance would take. Maybe I had to free her, and soon, if only to keep her from killing me.

  I bit my lip.

  And then there was the big, bad impending threat to our universe. The one that Isfet claimed only she could defend us against. Was that her big lie?

  While this card’s meaning had seemed straightforward initially, the more I thought about it, the more convoluted it became until it was the most confusing of the bunch.

  Frustrated, I slid off the edge of the mattress and made my around to the foot of the bed to retrieve the scattered tarot cards off the floor. I froze when I saw the pattern they’d fallen in on the carpet. Every card lay facedown, save for one. The worst one.

  The Tower.

  “Oh shit,” I breathed. Slowly, I crouched down to pick up the card.

  The Tower is arguably the most ominous card in a tarot deck, it’s meaning pure and simple: destruction. It never leaves me with warm fuzzies, upright or reversed.

  This time was no different, and the card’s current design certainly didn’t help matters. In place of the traditional, high-reaching stone tower, the dual buildings making up Newport High School lay sprawled across the card. And instead of a couple of bodies falling from the tower, hundreds—maybe thousands—of skeletons were strewn across the school’s grounds in heaps and piles. So many bodies . . .

  I closed my eyes and lowered my hand, the card slipping from my fingers.

  Whatever the deal was with Isfet, the way forward was chosen. High school, here I come.

  Chapter Seven

  Sitting at the edge of the cushy armchair in the corner of my bedroom, I tied my running shoes. After one last double knot, I stood and combed my hair back from my face with my fingers, knotting it up in a high, messy bun with the hair tie on my wrist. I grabbed the charcoal-gray fleece headband from the arm of the chair and put it on over my head, covering my ears, then approached the standing mirror.

  “Well, what do you think?” I asked Dom.

  Since Nik had converted the glass to At, it didn’t really reflect more than a shadow of my image anymore, but I could still see enough of myself to know it was a pretty damn good disguise. I doubted many people’s minds would make the leap from this young, yuppie jogger to “the Goddess.” I was planning on heading over to the high school to scope it out. I didn’t want to broach the subject with Heru and the others until I had more information on what exactly was going on the
re.

  “It might work . . .”

  I scoffed. “Oh, come on.” I stared down at my attire—gray and purple spandex running pants, a gray, fitted zip-up hoodie, and a purple down vest—all “borrowed” from Mari’s closet. She probably wouldn’t notice any of it was gone, and if she did, I doubted she’d care. All of my tattoos were covered save for the Eye of Horus on my palm, but gloves would easily take care of that, and my makeup was barely there, a far cry from the heavy eyeliner I preferred. I looked like a high school senior heading out for a brisk evening jog. I was hardly recognizable, even to myself.

  “I don’t think this is the best idea,” Dom said for the hundredth time.

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware,” I said as I retreated into the bathroom to add the finishing touch—a layer of rosy pink lip gloss. I was going to the school, end of story. The cards had all but mandated it. I rubbed my lips together, then blew myself a kiss in the mirror. The disguise was perfect. Finally, being eternally eighteen was coming in handy.

  I snuck out of the house through a side door, then jogged to the garage to get my bike. By half past five, I was parking the Ducati in the crowded lot of a Mexican restaurant in the southeast corner of the shopping mall a block down the street from the school. I’d opted to take a gateway to downtown Seattle rather than straight to Bellevue; it had been so long since I’d last felt the rumble of the Ducati’s engine between my legs, and the ride had been well worth the extra half hour of travel time.

  I dangled my helmet from the handle and fixed my bun, then walked out of the parking lot, away from the mall and its satellite buildings. When my feet reached the sidewalk, I broke into a run.