Sin & Surrender (Demigods of San Francisco Book 6)

by K. F. Breene

  Juri stopped in front of me, disappointment on her face. She waited expectantly for me to hang up.

  I waved her away and showed her my back. “You mean Harding? Talk to him. He’ll calm down. They probably just pissed him off.”

  “If it is Harding, Alexis, he is done being nice. He came after us. He nearly killed me.”

  I shook my head. “But that’s impossible. He has a soft spot for you. He wouldn’t—”

  “He’s out from under your thumb now, Alexis! He must have only played along because you could control him. They could not. Now he’s completely free, and— Holy— Look out!”

  Something crashed, drowning Bria out.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, clutching the phone.

  “Fuck me, Thane has a knack for ruining a place. Turn right,” she yelled, so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear.

  “Alexis, we have a strict—”

  “Shh,” I said to Juri, and hurried away, shoving the front door open and stepping into the bright sunlight. The cats padded after me.

  “Right, damn it!” she hollered. “Lead him to that battle courtyard and try to lock him in. Then we can turn back and find the other Soul Stealer for Lexi. We can’t have that thing running around, tearing out all the souls in this place.”

  “Miss Alexis?” Parker stepped away from the idle throng of magical people waiting on their bosses. Bertha pushed away from the wall down the way, apparently not into small talk or socializing.

  “Get the cart,” I yelled at him, hurrying toward the parking area. “Hurry! I’ve got to get to the summit building. Aaron’s idiot Necromancers turned loose a Spirit Walker, and it set off Thane.”

  “Alexis, that’s no longer your job.” Juri stepped out of the lodge after me, her disapproval turning to a look of patience. “The…crews battle for status. That’s what they do. You are no longer one of them—you must let them earn their place without interference.”

  Parker took off running and Bertha yelled at the rest of my party, getting them moving, then moving faster.

  I took the phone away from my head for a moment in order to level Juri with a stare.

  “You don’t get it. A Soul Stealer, with my killing ability, has somehow gotten away from two level-five, experienced Necromancers. He’s loose. He knows how to siphon energy from others in order to keep going, and it sounds like he’s pissed off enough to do it. With Thane set loose, the whole place will be in disarray. I have to help.”

  “That’s what the Demigods are for. They have the power to fix this.” She tilted her head a little to the side and then put her hand out, intending to lead me back into the lodge. “This all takes some getting used to, I know. I didn’t expect to lead a territory either, and I wasn’t trained for it. It came as a shock. With time, you will find your feet, don’t worry.”

  Frustration ate away at me. “By the time the Demigods get around to noticing something other than their own mightiness, my kids, my people—your people—might be dead. This is leading. Showing up first when danger presents itself. I can help, and so I will help. Go back to your tea party and let me save the day, if you want. It makes no difference to me.”

  I flicked off my stupid high heels and ran for the golf cart that Parker had pulled out. Bertha was in the cart behind it, already loading up the cats. The others were waiting for us to get moving.

  That was the great thing about a pack of misfits. They didn’t care about the right protocol, only about doing what was necessary.

  “Where to?” Parker asked, slamming his foot on the accelerator as soon as I was seated.

  The cart lurched forward…and continued at a steady clip only slightly faster than I could run.

  I leaned forward, my heart thumping. “Damn these things and their gutlessness. At least we’re close.”

  “Reach in the back and grab that duffel. There’s a change of clothes and a pair of runners in there. Your ward packed them for you in case your other ward got into trouble he couldn’t get her out of.”

  I sighed with a smile and hurried to grab it. Bless Mordecai—his preparedness was a godsend.

  The Summit building loomed, right up ahead. I grabbed out the shoes and didn’t bother with the leather clothes that would have taken too long to yank on.

  “Call Kieran,” I said as I pulled on the socks. “I mean…” Demigods didn’t get their phones in the meetings. “Call…whoever is with him. Interrupt Kieran’s meeting. I might need help with that Spirit Walker. He’s trained better than I’ll probably ever be. He might be too much for me.”

  “Nonsense. He’s a ghost. You are not. You have the advantage.”

  But if I’d learned anything about Harding, it was that he had a true mastery of all things spirit. I could hardly count the number of ways he’d surprised me over the last months, doing something I could barely wrap my head around, let alone duplicate.

  Parker stopped the cart right in front of the entrance, turned it off, and jumped out. Bertha hadn’t even completely stopped her cart before the cats leapt to the ground, running for me.

  One of the staff raised his hand to tell us to move those carts, but I was already past him and through the door. The way was clear, the pandemonium not having reached this far. If it did, I realized, they probably would just assume one of the hallway battles had gone too far. They would likely get out of the way, assuming it would either die down on its own or the Demigods would handle it. By then, dozens of people would be dead.

  I called Bria, and as soon as she picked up, I said, “I’m at the front entrance, which way?”

  Several staff looked up from the front desk, appearing bored.

  The cats stopped beside me and Parker behind. Bertha caught up and stuck out her hand, giving me view of her phone screen, where she’d pulled up a map of the building.

  “We’re just— Duck! We didn’t make it to the outdoor battle arena, but we found a big hall that has been set for a meal. We’re unleashing Thane there. The service staff should keep him busy.”

  She gave me the name of the hall where they’d left the Spirit Walker, and I repeated it for Bertha to find.

  “I’m headed to Harding,” I said into the phone. “It’ll be fine. I can talk him through this.” I couldn’t believe Harding had lost himself so quickly. Sure, he’d been a hellion in life, but as a spirit he’d offered to help me of his own free will. He’d helped me trap himself, for pity’s sake. He’d helped me heal people, something he had never done in life. Clearly he’d known how, but he hadn’t had it in him. Without the pressures of the living, he was a better person. I truly believed that. Maybe this whole episode had messed with his head, but I had to believe I could talk him around.

  “Alexis,” Bria voice low and firm, “watch yourself. This isn’t the Harding you know.”

  Bertha led the way, a large woman but fast on her feet. So fast that I was huffing just trying to keep up. The cats followed beside me, loping along like jungle creatures.

  Near the battle halls, a man lay facedown in the middle of the hallway. His spirit stood just outside of his body, bent down as if in agony, withering away. A light trance showed me the violet cord attached to his chest, sucking his energy dry.

  I snapped the cord and shoved the spirit into the afterlife. I could probably have reattached the spirit to the body, but it would have taken a lot of time and energy, and I needed to conserve both.

  Around a corner, three people lay in a clump, their positioning suggesting they’d been preparing for a battle they hadn’t gotten the chance to fight. Their souls were in a similar state, tortured, even more so than the spirits in Lydia’s house.

  Had Harding done this? Why?

  After I cut them loose and sent them on their way, we kept going, slower now. I pushed out my awareness and found a group of the living in a room off to the side. I knocked on the door, then opened it slowly. The souls were in the corner, barricaded behind a desk, still firmly lodged within their bodies. Another body lay broken i
n two, its soul nowhere in sight.

  “What happened here?” I asked softly.

  No one spoke.

  “I’m Alexis Price, the Spirit Walker. I know you’re there. Did a cadaver come this way?”

  A middle-aged man with haunted eyes rose from behind the desk. He glanced around nervously before his gaze settled on me. He and the others were all low level fours, which meant they wouldn’t have been in these halls on the first day. Maybe they shouldn’t have been in them now.

  “Not a…cadaver. A fae. A dark fae. There was a dark fae here! Beyond the borders!”

  “Wait.” I held up a hand, my mind reeling. “A dark fae? What would a dark—”

  I cut myself off, remembering what Lydia had said about her agreement with them. I’d thought their agreement would be null and void, but truthfully, I had no idea. I barely knew anything about the magical world—I knew even less about the fae lands and the people who resided there.

  “What did he want with you?” I asked. I felt Kieran’s confusion through the soul link, probably a reaction to the alarm and anxiety he felt from me and the rest of his people. He wouldn’t be able to leave, though, not without just cause. It would ruin him.

  Not leaving might ruin his family.

  “What did he want with you?” I repeated, my voice an octave too high.

  “To call Demigod Lydia out of her meeting, but we don’t have that authority. We don’t have her personal line. I tried to call—”

  “Fine, fine, what about the cadaver? The other Spirit Wa—the cadaver with the Soul Stealer in it. Did you see him?”

  The man blinked and pushed against his chest. “I thought that was you. We felt…”

  I motioned for him to keep talking. “What? You felt it what?”

  “It felt like fingers trying to tear out my…heart…or?”

  “Your soul. It was trying to tear out your soul.” He’d definitely gone off the deep end. The question was: was that because he was angry he’d been controlled, or because he saw an opportunity to get revenge on the Demigod who killed him? “Thanks. Stay in here until… Just give it a while.”

  I fled through the door and ran down the hall, finding the body of a staff member with the customary spirit standing beside it. Farther on, nothing.

  “This way!” I looked back, and one of the second stringers whose name I couldn’t remember—I’d never actually spoken to him, which now seemed shitty of me—stood at the opening of the hallway we’d just passed. He waved us toward him.

  More bodies lay down the hall. More souls stooped, drained. We turned in that direction, following the string of dead. The Line pulsed as it followed me, happily accepting the wayward spirits I fed it.

  Screaming cut through the quiet hallways. A pack of magical people rounded the corner and came into view, racing toward us. A distant crash sounded and the floor shook.

  That must’ve been Thane.

  Two people broke off from the group, turning my way. They waved their hands at me to turn back.

  “There’s a zombie,” the woman yelled, trying to grab my arm as she raced past. “It’s killing people. And a Berserker! It’s out of control.”

  “Where’s the zombie?” I yelled.

  The woman tried to keep running. Bertha grabbed her by the shoulders, slapped her across the face, then turned her toward me as though she were a rag doll. “Answer her!” she shouted.

  “Where’s the zombie?” I repeated.

  “Down… Down…” She pointed left, toward the crashing of Thane.

  Was Harding actively seeking out my crew?

  Fire sparked within me, kindling into rage. What game was he playing? He knew I would fight dirty when my loved ones were on the line.

  Maybe this was his way of bringing me to him.

  My legs had never moved so fast in my life. I didn’t even register the anxious tightness in my chest as I flew around the corner, nearly tripping over a dead body, and slammed into a person running to get away from the danger behind them. I was on the right track.

  I fought through a swell of people that came after, everyone fleeing without sense, panicked to the point of hysteria. Harding had been at their souls.

  At least he wasn’t killing everyone.

  At the next intersection, the hallway was a mess. Magical people packed the space, all of them trying to get past me. Some sort of gathering or public battle must’ve been underway farther down the hall, before everything had gone to hell.

  I fought through them as best I could, but the mass of them continually pushed me back. I could barely see the point where people were shoving into the hallway, but I knew it had to be a door.

  “Bertha!” I shouted.

  “I gotcha.” She pushed in front of me, forcing people out of the way like a linebacker. With the brute strength of ten men and the determination of someone who’d crack some heads to get her way, she created a hole and dragged me behind her. The cats stayed tight to my legs, working in with me.

  The walls around me shuddered and the ground rumbled. Something enormous crashed away left. That was clearly Thane. Which meant he hadn’t caused this mad dash.

  We found the door—an entrance to a large hall with tiered seating—and squeezed through it. Once inside, I could just see a glowing exit sign across the way, above another door stuffed with people, no doubt. Tables lined with various types of technology stretched out along the sides of the room. One had been overturned, the electronics on it scattered and trampled. In the rear, a large stage held a podium and a large white screen, only a corner of it catching the image from the projector, which had been bumped off-kilter.

  Souls I knew registered in the far corner of the stage, my group huddled together with Donovan, Zorn, and Amber out front, their faces a mask of cool efficiency. Red and Bria stood on the sides, blocking Jerry in the middle, who stood in front of Daisy and Mordecai in his wolf form. Boman was at the back of the stage, working at a door under another exit sign. Given he’d been reduced to battering it with his shoulder, he wasn’t having much luck. Dylan and Henry were gone, and fear gripped me. I hoped to hell they were with Thane and not dead.

  Unless Boman worked some serious magic, the crew was trapped, blocked off from the other exit by the cadaver pacing in front of them, walking with a smooth grace that shouldn’t have been possible. From this distance I couldn’t do much but a quick assessment of the situation.

  He’d barricaded his spirit in the body with thick, beautiful prongs woven of spirit and power. I widened my eyes at the mastery, delicate yet extremely strong, something that would be a bitch to break through. His magical power pulsed in thick and heady waves, and my heart beat faster. Above a level five. Far above. Not quite the power of a Demigod, but damn near close.

  How the hell was that possible?

  His soul burned black and dense, malicious. I suspected it would take me a second to talk him around.

  The thing was, I had been prepared to talk to Harding.

  This was not Harding.

  21

  Kieran

  Kieran glanced away from the speaker in the large meeting hall as emotions poured into him from the soul link and his connections to the crew. Something had pulled Lexi and her portion of the second string away from the tea party. She had now reunited with most of the crew, and it felt like they were preparing for battle.

  Something must have gone wrong. The tea party wouldn’t have ended so early, and even if it had, there was no reason for anyone but Thane to be fighting. And while Kieran sensed Thane had changed and was busting heads, it felt like he was still in the building. The Berserker battle should be outside, on the grounds.

  Kieran leaned forward and bent his head over his suddenly flexed arms. He would kill for his phone.

  Thane wasn’t a weak or inexperienced Berserker. It would take a Demigod or Lexi to back him down.

  Lexi.

  The dots connected, and some of his tension bled away.

  That was probably it. Tha
ne had unexpectedly changed, and the crew had called in Lexi to back him down. They’d clearly thought disrupting Lexi was better than breaking up a Demigod meeting.

  He turned his attention back to Demigod Lily droning on about the strained communication between her territory and the neighboring non-magical government. He debated taking notes, but none of this concerned him. Her arrogance and unwillingness to compromise was clearly the problem. Her situation would get worse before it got better.

  “Have you tried…” Aaron put his hand in the air, waiting to be noticed so he could continue with his interruption. Yet again. This was the third time he’d interjected. He’d interrupted the two presenters before her, too, for no real reason. Clearly he just wanted to hear his own voice.

  Kieran checked his watch, and he noticed Dara, next to him, doing the same. She caught his notice and rolled her eyes. At least Kieran wasn’t the only one annoyed that Aaron was making them run late. They should be heading for a short break about now. Kieran could use his coffee and a phone call.

  He hadn’t expected the Summit to feel like he’d been locked up.

  “If this suggestion is similar to the last two, Demigod Aaron,” Lily said, amazingly calm, “I probably have. Now, if you will please let me finish…”

  A blast of emotion rattled Kieran’s nerves, fear pulsing through his links with the crew. Demigod Helga, on his right, frowned and glanced at him before putting a hand to her chest. A couple of other Demigods looked around, shifting in their seats, distracted.

  Whatever was happening wasn’t limited to his people.

  A rumble shook his computer, perched on his desk. A muffled crash in Thane’s direction made his heart beat faster. Thane was still a ways off, but he would not be easily contained. He’d stepped up a level with his magic since practicing with Lexi. When he let loose, it was as though the heavens were letting loose with him.

  “I think your problem is that you put too much stock in communication with the non-magical people in the first place.” Aaron glanced up at the clock. A smile spread across his face and he leaned back, half slouching. “But you probably see things differently. Go ahead and continue. We’ve wasted enough time today.”