by Lisa Shearin
I took a shaky breath and blew it out. “Well, next time we won’t chase a specter into a cathouse while there’s an orgy going on. Did you know any of them?”
Mychael stood and chuckled softly. “Just all of them. A few visiting dignitaries, a minor elven royal, and more than a few Conclave officials.”
Sid whistled. “That must have been some party.”
Mychael grinned. “Let’s just say I got to see a different side of our government at work.”
I grimaced. “Glad I missed that; I got to see more than enough up here.”
“So it appears. Never let it be said that I don’t take a lady to interesting places.” Mychael glanced down at the manacled naked guy at our feet. “And speaking of having seen enough . . .” He turned and pounded once on the nearest door with his fist. “Blanket, please.” The words were polite; the force and the volume demanded a response.
Sounds of scrambling came from inside, and the door opened just far enough for a hairy-backed hand to push a blanket through. The door quickly closed, and at least three dead bolts were thrown. Mychael made good use of the blanket, and the naked, possessed guy was finally covered.
“One down, five to go,” I said. “I’m going to take this as a sign that our luck’s about to improve.”
“Raine, you were going to go to him.” Mychael’s voice was in my head, his words for me alone. It was a smart way to communicate, considering that where we were standing was about as public as you could get. And for a necromancer, Sid was a nice enough sort, but neither one of us wanted him or anyone else to know the details of what had almost happened.
“No chance.” I tried for a quip. “Neither one of them was my type.”
“Type doesn’t matter and you know it.”
“Mychael, I’m the only one who can track these things.”
“Next time you’ll track; we’ll retrieve.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him now. There’d be plenty of time for that later. First, I had to find the next escaped soul—before their ringleader found me.
Sarad Nukpana was an evil that I could almost smell in the air. I glanced at the man on the floor. I could see the faint, dark outline of the elven sorcerer trapped inside. And now the evil could touch me right back. The evil stalking me was breathing down the back of my neck. Not literally, but I could sense the gloating, the anticipation, the eagerness of Sarad Nukpana close to getting what he wanted.
Me.
Nearly two months ago, to keep Sarad Nukpana from sacrificing someone I loved like a brother to the Saghred, I had tricked him into picking up the stone with his bloody hand. In that moment, the Saghred considered him a sacrifice and took him, destroyed his body, and imprisoned his soul. As far as Nukpana was concerned, no body equaled my fault. The bastard would love to take mine.
It had been three weeks since Sarad Nukpana and his allies had escaped the Saghred, three weeks that I’d been hunting him—and he’d been haunting me.
I hadn’t even come close to finding him, not yet. The goblin was being smart; he had too much at stake to do anything other than execute his plan. Sarad Nukpana wanted the Saghred and all the kingdom-crushing power that came with it—that and vengeance against me and a number of people I cared about, Mychael included. Our best guess had him holed up in the goblin embassy where there were plenty of magically powerful and politically influential people to possess. Nukpana could take his pick. And even though Mychael was the top law officer on Mid, he couldn’t legally set foot in the goblin embassy. If he did, it’d be an act of war. Mychael wasn’t holding his breath that an engraved invitation was going to be delivered to his office in the citadel. And with the Saghred in the citadel behind heavily guarded and warded doors, Mychael wasn’t going to be inviting anyone from anywhere over for a visit.
We heard booted feet running up the stairs. Vegard didn’t even pause at the head of the stairs, but covered the distance to us with long strides. Vegard Rolfgar was a Guardian. He was also big, blond, and human; and as my personal bodyguard, he had his work cut out for him. Let’s just say guarding me was a challenge.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he told me.
“Not your fault, Vegard.” I gave him a half grin. “How did you know you were going to get caught in a stampede of screaming, half-naked working girls?”
Mychael scowled. “You wouldn’t have been separated from him if you had waited rather than storming up here.”
“I wasn’t going to lose this one,” I said, a little more forcefully than I’d intended.
“Instead you’d rather risk losing yourself,” said his voice in my head.
Mychael knew what had almost happened as if it had been happening to him. And in a way, it had. Mychael and I were two-thirds of an umi’atsu bond; an intimate, magical bond that usually linked only two mages, binding them first through their magic, then through hearing, sight, and finally their minds and souls. After that, an umi’atsu bond could only be broken by death. Body and soul become one; magically mated, if you will. The level of magical talent I was born with came nowhere near mage level. Ever since the Saghred had latched onto me like a psychic leech, my so-so powers had gotten one hell of a boost, and no one knew what my limits were. And, in a first as far as umi’atsu bonds were concerned, there was a third mage bonded with us—Tamnais Nathrach, a goblin aristocrat, nightclub owner, and quasi- rehabilitated dark mage. Tam was also a good friend of mine. Some considered an umi’atsu bond much like a marriage, which made my intimate connection to two gorgeous and powerful men more awkward than I wanted to think about.
Vegard handed me a dark cloak. “You dropped this downstairs, ma’am.”
I took it and draped it over my arm. “Thank you, Vegard.” I’d been cloaked when I came in here, and no doubt Mychael wanted me to wear it when I left. Thanks to the Saghred, I was in enough trouble with a lot of influential people on this island; I didn’t need to add to it by being seen leaving the city’s most lavish and notorious bordello.
Vegard indicated the blanket-covered man. “Sir, the coach is waiting outside,” he told Mychael.
I knew where that coach would take him—a containment room in the lower levels of the citadel, where an exorcist would be waiting for the man and the ancient specter who had possessed him. Fortunately for the poor bastard, he’d only been possessed a few hours ago. If the specter had been inside of him from one sunrise until the next, the possession would have been permanent.
Four Guardians arrived with a stretcher. They put the man on it, securely strapped him down, and started down the hall toward the stairs. I started to follow. Mychael’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“Professor,” he said to Sid. “Please accompany my men. I’ll escort Miss Benares out another way.”
Sid nodded solemnly. “It’s not exactly a proper place for a lady to be seen leaving.”
“No, it’s not.”
Once Sid and the Guardians were on the stairs, Mychael took my hand and started toward the wall the naked guy had pinned Sid against.
“Uh, Mychael. That’s a wall.”
A corner of his lips curled in a crooked grin as he ran his free hand behind a wall lamp. There was a click, and a section of the wall opened.
I laughed once and shook my head. “Damn, there was another way out.” I looked up at his sea blue eyes sparkling in the lamplight. “And you knew about this how?”
He winked at me. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been here.”
“You don’t say. And you know your way around, too.”
We stepped into the darkness. Mychael spoke a soft word, and lamps flickered to life, lighting the way down a narrow staircase.
“I know the floor plan of every bordello on this island,” he told me. “It’s part of my job.”
“And which job would that be?”
“Prostitution is legal here, as is gambling.” His smile vanished. “But there are other things that are highly illegal. Many of those acts are committed in places such as these, s
ometimes with the knowledge of the proprietor, most of the time without.”
Mychael’s hand tightened on mine to assist me down the steep stairs, and a familiar surge of energy radiated from that point of contact throughout the rest of my body. I knew from past experience that Mychael was feeling the same shiver of raw sensation. We shared a bond all our own that had nothing to do with the Saghred. We didn’t know what it was; we just knew it was getting stronger. But we had bigger problems to deal with. Sarad Nukpana and evil specters first; deliciously tingly and mysterious magical bonds later.
At the bottom of the stairs was a simple wooden door that provided us with a discreet exit to a side street next to a perfectly respectable bakery.
As we neared the main boulevard, Mychael reluctantly released my hand.
Phaelan grinned and his eyes sparkled as he watched the Guardians load the stretcher in the coach. “I was right; the old guy wanted to get laid.”
I sighed and shook my head.
Captain Phaelan Benares was my cousin by relation, and a seafaring businessman by trade. The Benares family had extensive interests in shipping and finance. That was how the family saw it. Law enforcement in every major port and city in the seven kingdoms called Phaelan a pirate, and our family a criminal dynasty. I walked the fine line of being a member of the Benares family, but not being in the family business. My family didn’t understand why; law enforcement didn’t believe me.
Phaelan had been the one to come to the conclusion that if a man had spent the past couple thousand years trapped inside a soul-sucking rock, the first thing he’d want to do wouldn’t have anything to do with world domination. He suggested checking Mid’s brothels and asking the working girls about their clients. Did they have any new ones? Were any regulars asking for something a little irregular? Naturally, Phaelan and some of his crew volunteered for duty.
“Yes, you were right,” I told him. “You don’t have to be so happy about it.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? I’m a man proud to do his civic duty.”
“By finding a sorcerer in a cathouse.”
“By endangering myself for the greater public good.”
“By talking to every working girl in the city?”
“And flushing out any new perverts in town. Someone had to do it, and Mychael couldn’t spare the men to do the legwork.” Phaelan indicated the coach that was pulling away. “And it looks like it went well.”
I snorted. “Oh yeah, it was a piece of cake.”
A buxom, blue-eyed, blond working girl sashayed by with a come-hither glance at Phaelan, and legwork took on a whole new meaning.
“Speaking of treats,” he said, moving to follow her.
I grabbed him by the arm.
Phaelan wasn’t particularly tall, but he was dark and definitely handsome. Many of the working girls obviously had working eyes, and were doing their best to give my cousin the come-hither. Phaelan’s dark eyes were busy remembering the cream of the crop for later visits.
Once the coach was safely on its way, Mychael came over to where we were. Vegard had been guarding me from a discreet distance. He was supposed to stick to me like glue, but he was considerate enough to occasionally give me a little breathing room.
“I take it you received my bill?” Phaelan asked Mychael once he was close enough.
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You billed him?”
Phaelan looked mildly insulted. “Mid’s establishments aren’t cheap. I merely wanted reimbursement for services rendered.”
I laughed once. “For services rendered to you.”
My cousin waved a negligent hand. “Same thing.” He beamed with his newfound civic pride. “I believe in being thorough. And I’m only billing him for half. The Fortune has been anchored in Mid’s harbor for damned near two months. We’ve never stayed anywhere this long; my men were getting restless, so I footed the bill for half.”
“How generous of you.”
“I thought so. My men are happy; you bagged yourself a ghost.”
“Specter,” I corrected him.
“Same thing.”
“One’s dead. The other is not.”
“Whatever. Either way, tonight was a win-win for me and Mychael.”
I turned to Mychael. “And you agreed to this?”
Mychael smiled slightly. “It seemed a small price to pay. I’ve got enough problems; I didn’t want to add ‘restless’ pirates to the list. It kept the peace.”
Phaelan grinned wickedly. “And we got a piece.”
There was a commotion at the entrance to the Satyr’s Grove.
“Stay here,” Mychael told me. “Phaelan, Vegard—”
Vegard stepped up beside me. “Keeping her here, sir.”
Mychael’s eyes met mine. “I’ll be right back.”
Phaelan’s civic-mindedness had helped snare one Saghred escapee, but there were five more out there—and one of them was Sarad Nukpana. The others appeared to be sticking to the goblin’s plan; and worse, they were saving their collective strength, or at least they weren’t wasting it in bordellos. All that power, millennia of intelligence—and it had a purpose.
I looked around us. At nearly two bells in the morning, the red-light district was a busy place. The entire city was busy, day or night. The Isle of Mid was home to the most prestigious college for sorcery, as well as the Conclave, the governing body for all magic users in the seven kingdoms. Thousands of students and mages, and somewhere among them were the specters of five escaped sorcerers, spirits without bodies. The one tonight had taken a body for fun; the others were stalking bodies for power. Mychael had safety measures in place for the students, though he thought that the students would be safe. The specters were after power, so a teenager sputtering through his or her first spells need not apply.
Mychael had made sure that everyone on the island was aware of the situation. But for the vast majority of those on Mid, it was school and business as usual. Public opinion split between not believing in what they deemed ghosts or believing they were qualified to protect themselves. They practiced magic, yet they didn’t believe in ghosts.
The public were idiots.
There was plenty of horse and coach traffic along the cobbled and lamp- lit streets. Many of the coaches clearly cost a small fortune, and no doubt their occupants were shopping for equally expensive company. The curtains on most of the coaches were closed. Rich men or women who couldn’t afford—or couldn’t risk—a house call didn’t want to advertise to everyone that they were anywhere near here.
A gleaming black coach stopped in front of us to allow another coach to cross at the intersection. It was pulled by four sleek, black horses. I didn’t particularly care for horses, and they didn’t particularly care for me, but I had to admire this team; they were magnificent animals. The coachman was cloaked, his collar pulled up, his hat pulled low.
“Bravo, little seeker,” he called out. “You deserve a gift.”
I froze. I knew that voice from dozens of nightmares. The coachman turned his face toward me: handsome and smiling.
And solid.
Sarad Nukpana. He wasn’t a specter. He was solid.
Oh shit.
The coach door opened and a dead body was pushed into the gutter at my feet. The goblin cracked his whip and the horses ran as if the devil himself had their reins. Sarad Nukpana’s taunt carried back to me.
“The first of many, little seeker.”
Chapter 2
The dead elf on the examination table was more of a dried husk than anything that had once been a living man.
Mychael had the body taken back to the citadel. Considering its condition—but mostly that Sarad Nukpana was probably responsible for making it that way—the body was in one of the Guardians’ dozens of containment rooms in the lower levels of the citadel. Wards, spells, and iron-banded doors kept anything inside a containment room from getting outside a containment room. This guy didn’t look like he was going anywhere ever again, but considering
who and what he had been when he was alive, Mychael wasn’t in the mood to take chances. Before something or someone had drained him dry, the man’s uniform had probably fit him very well. Identification had been all too easy.
General Daman Aratus was the fourth-highest-ranking commander of the elf queen’s army. That he was now a dried husk on a Guardian examination table had turned him from an elven general into a political and diplomatic nightmare.
And it had all happened in two blinks of an eye. Sarad Nukpana and his accomplice inside that coach had been that fast, and the coach had been warded. The Guardians fired at it, pursued it, but it still seemed to vanish into thin air. There were plenty of warehouses around the red- light district. Mychael had all of these searched. Nothing turned up, not even a trace.
Someone had tipped off Sarad Nukpana; he’d known we were going to be there. He dropped that body at my feet, and he couldn’t have made the delivery without knowing my destination. Only a few people had known about the raid on the Satyr’s Grove ahead of time. Myself, Phaelan, and Sid the necromancer were the only non-Guardians. Mychael had caught a traitor among his own men a few weeks ago. The young Guardian was the brother of the defense attaché at the elven embassy. The defense attaché had reported directly to the husk on the table that used to be General Aratus.
Mychael knew he had other traitors among his Guardians. I couldn’t imagine one of them selling information to Sarad Nukpana, but stranger things had happened. When someone sold out, it wasn’t always for money. Mostly it was for money or power; sometimes it was to keep a secret untold—or keep someone you loved alive. I knew from personal experience that there was no limit to what Sarad Nukpana would do to get what he wanted.
I’d seen it with my own eyes, but I still couldn’t believe it. “Nukpana was solid. How the hell was he solid?”
I’d asked that question more than a few times already, and I’d probably ask it a few more before I came to grips with the implication of Sarad Nukpana not being a body-hopping specter. The goblin black mage was solid, and he shouldn’t have been. When he’d been taken by the Saghred, his body had been consumed, his soul trapped inside the stone. I’d been surprised that the sadistic bastard had a soul to trap.