Soul Fire (The Eden Hunter Trilogy Book 2)
Page 1
Soul Fire
The Eden Hunter Trilogy (Book 2)
D.N. Erikson
Contents
Also by D.N. Erikson
Get a Free Copy of Bone Realm
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
Also by D.N. Erikson
THE HALF-DEMON ROGUE TRILOGY
Half-demon Kalos Aeon lives by a simple code. But saving the world might force him to break it.
Demon Rogue (Book 1)
Blood Frost (Book 2)
Moon Burn (Book 3)
The Half-Demon Rogue: The Complete Trilogy
THE RUBY CALLAWAY TRILOGY
After twenty years in lockup, supernatural bounty hunter Ruby Callaway is conditionally released to help the FBI catch a killer.
Lightning Blade (Book 1)
Shadow Flare (Book 2)
Blood River (Book 3)
Ruby Callaway: The Complete Collection (The Complete Trilogy and All Four Side Stories)
THE EDEN HUNTER TRILOGY
Eden Hunter reluctantly reaps souls for a vampire warlord in the island city she calls home. Until an old enemy frames her for murder.
Soul Storm (Book 1)
Soul Fire (Book 2)
Soul Bite (Book 3)
Eden Hunter: The Complete Trilogy
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1
Large cons are built on tiny foundations. The small compliment, the chance similarity, the minor insecurity—all exploited by the talented grifter to gain favor with their mark.
But, above all else, a good con is steeped in the human desire to believe. It’s what brought humanity from a fire-less group of nomads into an app-fueled global enterprise.
Of course, all useful things can be corrupted. And transforming desire into delusion—well, that was how I paid the bills, once upon a time.
Now, it was just how I survived.
Which was why, at 4:46 on a brisk autumn morning, I was walking through one of the most delusional places on earth.
The Golden Rabbit Casino.
Smoke from fat Cuban cigars hung in the darkness of the low-ceilinged casino like faded wisps of magic. Girls in heels that made my feet ache wove through the collection of suit-jacketed men betting chips at the green felt tables. The swirling taste of dueling souls clung to my dry tongue—there was a vampire afoot, a coyote shifter, and a dozen other creatures trying their luck at the Golden Rabbit.
But I wouldn’t be one of them tonight. I wasn’t here to play cards—although I could do that plenty well enough.
Nope.
I was here to reap someone’s soul.
I caught a few odd glances as I wound my way across the long, narrow room. My casual attire—jeans, vintage tee, low-top sneakers—stood out in the upscale establishment filled with white-collar lowlifes.
One of the teetering pieces of eye candy approached me and said in a low voice thick with condensation, “There’s a dress code, you know.”
“But I wore my best jeans.” I tugged at the rips and smirked at the waitress. She wasn’t wearing enough fabric to make a decent pair of socks.
She wrinkled her nose and beelined toward the pit boss. Too bad I knew Danny. Not a nice guy. Former low-level MMA fighter who’d gotten his bell rung one time too many. Dumb as a sack of falling bricks—and about as dangerous if you were standing in the wrong spot. He brushed off her complaints and glanced at me. I gave him a friendly wave and a mega-watt smile, just to rub it in her face. Danny gruffly nodded back, then returned to his day job.
You know: making sure cheaters or habitual winners didn’t feel welcome here.
That was how we’d met in the first place. Four years ago, not long after I’d been brought back from the dead, I’d been on a hot streak. Then I’d received the dreaded authoritative hand on the shoulder—the kryptonite of degenerate gamblers everywhere. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
Or, in my case, sixty-seven thousand in blackjack winnings. Give or take.
I may have been counting cards.
Long story short, instead of getting my fingers broken, I’d added another morally questionable contact to my soul-harvesting network. It was amazing what doors a little cash could open. And that deal worked for me—I needed souls more than I needed money.
Fail to meet my weekly quota—seven souls, every Friday by noon—and Aldric would have me taking a dirt nap. Needless to say, I hadn’t come up short once in the past four years.
Which was why I was here on a Wednesday night—technically, a Thursday morning—underslept and risking second-hand cancer to pay an amoral thug for access to a recently deceased body.
I slid past the tattletale waitress as I hurried to catch up with Danny, brushing so close that her fishnets caught on my jeans. She bumped into a cigar-chomping big fish bleeding chips like they were water.
He turned around and gave her a glare.
“Hey, watch it.” Her made-up eyes narrowed into a death stare, blaming me for the incident. “Some of us are working.”
“One of us is, at least.” I bowed in faux apology before flipping her the bird. Her eyes lit up, aghast, when she saw that I had a bundle of cash—all her tips for the night—between my fingers.
Always hold onto your valuables when people brush against you in crowds.
Before she could react, I threw the bills into the air. They rained down as the stunned patrons looked around in amusement.
I took the opportunity to snatch the cigar from the big fish and said, “Stop hitting on seventeen, dude. It makes everyone else at the table fuckin’ hate you.”
Then I blew out a plume of smoke, handed him back the cigar, and disappeared like a wraith into the next throng of people. Danny had since moved on to the craps table, his arms folded as though he didn’t like what was going down. I couldn’t see why. As one would no doubt expect from a game with horrible odds heavily favoring the house, the craps table was so packed that I couldn’t even get a spot.
The sigil on Danny’s bald head glowed subtly. It was an eye, not unlike the Illuminati symbol hiding on every dollar bill. Instead of representing a Machiavellian secret cabal that didn’t exist, however, this sigil granted him the power to see through articles of clothing. Hazily, like the resolution on a seventies security camera.
&nbs
p; But in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man was king, and that maxim certainly held true at the Golden Rabbit. Dumb as he was, Danny had a swank Armani suit and the gold-gilded Rolex to match thanks to his little sliver of magic.
I said, “Catch any thieves tonight?”
“One guy takin’ photos of the place with a second phone. Think he might’ve been police.” The Golden Rabbit had a strict no-camera policy. That meant checking your phone at the door.
“Aldric’s got them all paid off.”
“Not those alphabet boys from the FBI.” A loud cheer erupted from the table, and Danny leaned over to check on the game. “Goddamn, this guy’s killin’ us.”
Plenty of vitriol has been directed toward the house’s edge, but I had to admit one thing: running a casino on an island dominated by magic must’ve been a royal pain in the ass. Sure, humans still outnumbered magical creatures by a margin of ten-to-one—but casino magnates in Vegas only had to worry about the occasional wizard waltzing in to take them for a ride.
Here, everyone could be running a scheme. Not to mention all the humans trying to get an edge.
After a little elbowing, I squirmed into the crowd surrounding the table.
The shooter, a greasy-haired twenty-something guy who probably thought he was hot shit because he had a sports car, blew on the dice. His girl clung to his arm like she’d get lost if she let go.
After a final blow, the greaseball tossed the dice. They kicked off the table’s backstop, spiraling into the air. The bettors inhaled sharply as their fates hung in the balance. Most of the bets were loaded up on seven, which told me fate wouldn’t sort them out—math would.
Seventeen percent house edge.
But on this occasion, the little slivers of ivory—actual ivory, because that was just how a vampire warlord like Aldric ran his underground casino—came up five and two.
Cue whooping screams of joy.
But I noticed a small issue as I peered at the little white cubes.
I squeezed away from the table and rejoined Danny.
“So, where’s this soul?” I asked, watching a cascading wave of alcohol-induced high fives circle the table.
“Storage closet.”
That was a not-so-subtle euphemism for the place where we beat the shit out of cheaters.
“I know how he’s doing it,” I said as the table’s stickman called for final bets.
“Doin’ what?” Danny turned to me, his scarred face bunched up in confusion. I didn’t know whether he was slow because he’d been punched in the cage one too many times, or because he’d been stupid from the get-go. My money was on a combination.
“Ripping you off.”
His expression told me he didn’t want to know. That he just wanted to cave the guy’s gel-haired head in and toss the remains into the jungle for the leopards to devour. But even an underground casino needed rules. Get a reputation for being a crooked place to play and only the degenerates who can’t square their tabs start showing up.
And that’s how you go out of business, even when you own the police force.
Danny’s nostrils flared like a stuck bull’s. “I ain’t lettin’ you play again, Eden.”
“Wasn’t asking to do that.”
“Then what do you want?”
The table went silent as the gel-haired man hurled the dice again. A couple seconds later, more screams of joy. Everyone was friends when the money and booze were flowing.
“Give me this soul for free. And the next one.”
His reptile brain, eager to solve the immediate problem, blurted out “Yes” without any negotiation.
I said, “They’re not ivory.”
“Like the soap?”
“The material.” Still nothing in his dim eyes. I almost felt bad for him. It must’ve been hard being that dumb. Crossing the street must have been a harrowing activity. “You know, like from elephants. The tusks.”
“That’s how they make the soap?”
Somewhere long ago, his third grade teacher had been asleep at the switch. “The guy swapped the dice. They’re loaded.”
Danny’s eyes finally lit up with understanding. “Why didn’t you just say that shit?”
“Funny. I just asked myself the same damn question.”
Danny rubbed his scarred cheek and turned to address the cheater. The table had gone quiet, anticipating the next roll. It made the loud smack of the idiot’s head against the antique mahogany seem twice as loud.
What Danny lacked in smarts, he made up for in decisiveness.
I nudged his muscular midsection with my elbow, interrupting the beating. “I need the key.”
I could’ve just lifted it, but that sort of behavior tended to annoy people.
He placed the key to the storage closet roughly in the palm of my hand, then returned to dispensing underground casino justice.
My phone buzzed as I headed to the back. After ducking behind the bar and slipping down a tight hall, I answered the blocked number.
“I know it’s you guys. You can stop the subterfuge.”
Agent Rayna Denton ignored me. “We have a situation here, Hunter.” The wind whipped in the background of her call. “Your presence is required.”
Required, eh? I didn’t even work for the FBI. My consulting clearance had been hanging in limbo for two months.
“Thanks for letting me know.” I slid the key into the scuffed lock. When I tried to open the door to the storage closet, it stuck about halfway through. After a couple attempts, I realized what was blocking it.
The guy’s body.
“I’m putting your clearance on the fast track, Hunter.”
“After all this waiting, just like that, huh?”
“Just get your ass down here.”
“Kind of busy.” I put a little shoulder into the door. It opened enough for me to slip into the tight room. Storage closet was an appropriate moniker. Over the smell of blood and tears, the old aroma of bleach still lingered. Although that might’ve also been a half-hearted attempt by the Golden Rabbit’s employees to cover their tracks.
It wasn’t working. My sneaker squeaked on the bloody concrete.
“This is not an invitation to get drinks, goddamnit.” Rayna Denton sounded like she was about to fray into a million pieces.
“Why me?” After shutting the door, I yanked a pull-chain dangling from the ceiling. A meager single-bulb glow trickled down, like even the light was hesitant to hang out in here.
I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for steering clear. The body in the room’s corner was almost unrecognizable. The man had well-maintained salt and pepper hair. From the cut of his clothing—which was covered in a fine red dust—the guy had been in good shape.
Until he’d run into what must’ve been a buzz saw. His face looked like a watermelon dropped off the Empire State Building.
“We’re not playing twenty fucking questions, Hunter. Get to the southeastern steppes. One hour.”
“Or you could tell me what the hell was going on.” I knelt next to the corpse, digging into my jeans for my Reaper’s Switch. The little harvesting scythe’s four-inch stainless steel blade glinted in the dingy light.
“You’re trying my patience.”
“You could always arrest me again.” The obsidian-studded knife glided through the dead man’s skin. Blood oozed from the gash it made right above his heart. “Drag me to the crime scene.”
“We need your expertise.” Rayna’s voice was tight, like the words pained her to say.
“My expertise, huh?” I torqued my wrist, and the blade cut further into the dead flesh.
“It’s a delicate matter.” Rayna exhaled sharply, at the end of her rope. “For discussion in person only.”
Before I could answer, the unlocked door slammed open and knocked me on my ass. My Reaper’s Switch and phone skittered into opposite dark corners. I scrambled toward the blade, heart pounding, until I saw that it was Danny in the doorway.
He was carrying the g
el-haired cheater’s limp body.
A woman shrieked in the hallway.
“We weren’t cheating!” The words stumbled out between tears. Hysterical didn’t begin to describe this woman. “I swear—I swear to God!”
Like that would get Danny to reconsider. The pit boss just tossed the guy on the concrete floor. I glanced at the new body and said, “Jesus Christ, man, you killed this guy just for cheating?”
“Not dead. Just sleeping.” The pit boss glanced at me with a blank expression. “Forgot you were here, Eden.”
“No shit.” I dragged the phone from the corner—Rayna was still on the line, spewing obscenities—and closed the switchblade. I took a last glance at the silver-haired dead man. I hadn’t asked how the guy had kicked it—largely because I didn’t want to know.
Rayna shouted so loud into the phone that I picked it up.
“You need to relax,” I said.
“I don’t need to relax. I need you to help us with this fucking murder, Hunter!”
“Murder, huh?” Casually, I said, “I’ll be there.”
And then I hung up on her, which was immensely satisfying.
Danny blocked the door, keeping the crazy girlfriend from seeing inside the storage room. I hesitated, briefly considering continuing my work. But the vibe was weird, and there were too many prying eyes. “I’m coming for the other one later.”