Soul Merchant (Isabella Hush Series Book 5)

by Thea Atkinson

  "You are leaking," she said. "It's not critical yet, but there is a definite leak. One you should look into right away."

  "Leaking what?" I said, feeling the impulse to check my pants.

  She inhaled deeply while Maddox stood in front of us both, his nostrils flaring as she inhaled as though he were scenting me like a dog or a wolf.

  I tittered nervously.

  Her grip tightened on my hand the way someone might if they thought you were going to bolt.

  "Your soul is draining away."

  "That's impossible," I said with a snort. Souls were part and parcel of humanity. They didn't just leak out of a body unless...

  "Am I dying?"

  Maddox jammed his hands in his pockets and spun away from me. Kerri was the one to answer.

  "No."

  Relief was a short-lived blast of warmth at best. It didn't last.

  "I'm just tired," I said. "I haven't slept in god knows how many hours."

  She adjusted the open slit of her dress so it covered her knee.

  "I understand your Kindred needs to invoke the god you know best," she said. "But I would prefer you not invoke him in my presence."

  "Sorry," I said demurely.

  "She got attacked," Maddox interjected, and as though he'd conjured it, the box dropped onto the floor in front of us. I suppose while he had been busy avoiding my eye, he'd grabbed the loathsome thing in order to show us. "Take a look," he said. "I bet you'll find it interesting."

  Kerri glanced at the box. "A ferryman," she said with a grimace, that indicated she knew what was inside without needing to look, and found it repulsive.

  "Pfft," I said thoughtfully. "I didn't even fix a price or see a hooded old man at the rudder." I chuckled softly as I sang the verse in my head.

  Kerri frowned at me, her full lips pulling down at the corners but still managing to look entirely sensual.

  "It was a snake, Kerri," I said flatly. "Not a hunched up old man."

  Kerri sighed and stretched her leg out. Her foot arched, letting the bare toes point delicately toward the box.

  "Let me describe to you the thing that attacked you, Isabella," she said and swept her arm in the direction of the box, in case I didn't notice the way she'd pointed at it already.

  "A snake denotes a harmless, earth-bound creature. They eat bugs. The occasional rodent. Some of them eat water buffalo in the right parts of your ninth world. Yours was a serpent. Its eyes were like the center of an inferno. Its scales were like living oil, black and glistening and so wet you'd swear you could plunge beneath the depths if it were a river."

  She stared at the box as though it was made of clear plastic and she could see through it to the serpent inside.

  "Your ninth-world myths call it a psychopomp: an entity meant to guide a soul to its afterlife. You have many other names for them. Angels. Spirits. But they're shape-shifters," she said. "And they are not myth. They are very, very real."

  I stole a glance at the box and imagined again the way the thing had leapt at me. I remembered its teeth in my skin. I shook my arm reflexively. I thought I felt the wound tingle.

  I hugged my arm to my chest. "But I'm not dead," I said.

  Maddox turned away from us to face the litter of books he'd thrown on the floor.

  "Maddox?" I pressed, but he refused to turn back around. Instead, he kicked at another book. It sailed toward the shelf and knocked off a rather fragile looking vase.

  I felt Kerri's hand on my arm again. Soft. Comforting. As though I was dying. A veil of tears filmed my eyes. It stung. But it also felt like an autonomic function. My chest didn't ache the way it should. I had the horrible sense that she might be right.

  "I already told you your soul is leaking," she said. "Someone was out to take it. Someone may actually be getting it."

  I started to protest but she held up her hand, anticipating my argument.

  "I don't need to open the box to feel its magic. And I don't need to have conjured the spell to scent the magic that remains."

  That made Maddox pivot on his heel to regard us both.

  "You meant there's a carrier spell?" he said. "Can you trace it? Can you reverse it?"

  Kerri ran her palm over my solar plexus in a movement I barely felt but sensed as keenly as the pressure of Maddox's arms when he'd carried me.

  "There's more than just carrier magic left over," she said. "There's an attempt to warp the energy, as though the space the soul leaves when it goes needs to become a different shape."

  "Fuck," Maddox said and I could swear it sounded like my own voice.

  "That can't be good," I said, guessing. "It's why I feel so strange."

  Except strange wasn't the right word. It certainly didn't feel like I was dying. In fact, I felt liberated.

  "Whoever wanted your soul and used the ferryman for transport, didn't have enough power to actually take it."

  "Your landlord," Maddox said.

  Kerri glanced up at him, her graceful features confused, and Maddox explained.

  "The box was delivered to the wrong address. Her landlord got the brunt of the magic as far as I can guess. He's in a coma in the hospital. Probably got the near full effect of it."

  "Lucky for me," I said, and for a second paused as I considered how the words sounded. After a moment, I decided they sounded perfectly fine even though Maddox and Kerri both gave me a queer look.

  "No doubt he somehow managed to disengage the ferryman before he totally lost himself to the magic. Isabella probably got the last of it, all that was left. The carrier spell."

  He actually looked relieved and hopeful, and this time when he toed the box, whatever was inside rustled around unsettlingly. I made a face at it.

  "Whoever visited this shop in my bazaar did not buy the ferryman there," he said. "Of that, I'm certain. They don't deal in that sort of thing. Simple spells are what they do. A few innocuous potions. Mostly for the witches of the ninth world who frequent the shops of the first quarter."

  I knew I should have been disquieted by the thought that the part of the Shadow Bazaar I'd been able to see was tamer than most and that there were other quarters if he called it the first one, but I felt nothing but interest.

  Kerri nodded her agreement. "No doubt purchased ages ago for some other purpose and used as a convenience and that's all. But you should check to be sure."

  I could see death for the unknown buyer written in Maddox's eyes, but his voice was calm when he asked Kerri if she could reverse the spell.

  At that, Kerri stood. Her collared shirt rippled and shifted and she wore the blood red velvet again.

  "If she dies, perhaps I could be sure she's reborn in a similar human vessel. I can inspire you to find her. I can transform the shape trying to warp her insides into something Isabella shaped, but I cannot restore her soul."

  "Fuck," I said, not entirely sure it was an expletive of grief.

  "Yes," Kerri said as she looked down at me. "But I didn't say her soul cannot be reclaimed."

  "Sweet Jesus," Maddox said. "Not that."

  "Not what?" I asked.

  "A soul merchant," he said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I LISTENED WHILE KERRI and Maddox discussed whether a soul merchant might be the best option or the worst. They did so without including me in their planning, and to be honest, I didn't care if they silently agreed I didn't need to be included. It was fine by me. I was too tired anyway. I started to drift off as I sat listening to the ebb and flow of their discussion. The flat-out urgency was gone from their tones, but had been replaced by something edgier; dread, I thought. As though what I had was a sickness worse than death.

  It didn't feel that way to me. I felt mentally lighter than I had in weeks. The dread and guilt and nagging sense of self-loathing that Maddox had tried to lift by giving me Scourge's gift at Christmas was gone.

  As my eyelids started to close, I could sense something sniffing at the back of my head. Mildly interested, I twisted around to see the
tiny kitten Maddox had saved from Fayed's back alley. It sat on the backrest of the chair, with one tiny paw lifted as it craned forward to smell me.

  It had been cleaned up and fed. I expected a bloated worm-belly, but it was chubby in a healthy way. Its whiskers had beads of milk clinging to the tips. I glanced at Maddox, wondering if he had used his magics on the little thing to take away her pain. I didn't see any evidence in his skin or pallor, and I imagined that small amount of pain on a kitten wouldn't be so much for a grown man to bear. I decided I would believe he'd done that for her.

  I reached out to touch the silky looking fur and drew back my hand with a sharp hiss when it scratched me. Her back arched upward for a moment as she decided whether she should bolt or stand her ground.

  I made the decision for her with a shove. She fell to the floor with a solid thud and scuttled off into the shadows.

  "Isabella?" Maddox said, turning his eye to me.

  "The bitch scratched me," I said, clutching my hand.

  He cocked his head at me then at Kerri.

  "Are you sure you can't do something?" he said to her.

  She gave me a pitying look before turning back to him but I could make out the same pity in her tone as was in her expression when she spoke to him.

  "Your best bet is the Soul Merchant."

  "Blast it," he said.

  I gave Kerri the finger even if she couldn't see it because I didn't enjoy being the object of anyone's pity. I didn't need it. I felt better than I had in weeks.

  Beyond her, on Maddox's desk, I caught sight of the grimoire we'd brought with us. I ran my gaze over its spine. The writing was in a language I didn't understand, and it had a metallic glint to it even though the color was a deep enough crimson that it looked black. I'd certainly thought it was black leather when I'd first spied it.

  But I'd not had a truly good look at it back at Mr. Smith's apartment. Now that I had time, I could see it was smaller than I remembered. It even had a scent that I caught all these feet away from it. Like leather and cotton candy all at once. It might as well have been calling out to me.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek as I considered doing what I really shouldn't with the two of them working so diligently to save me from a soulless life. I mean, it would be pretty shitty, wouldn't it?

  And yet. Here I was in the Shadow Bazaar. A place where, as I knew from a previous visit, Kindred of all sorts bartered and sold all types of things. What would a grimoire be worth here, I wondered? Would it even have value or could I barter it for something more useful if I found the right client?

  And why should I let Maddox have it and reap the benefits, anyway? I was the one who had suffered the bite. I was the one whose soul was leaking.

  I swiveled my gaze to the two non-humans arguing now over whether or not it was more dangerous to visit the soul merchant.

  "You guys mind going into another room to discuss my misfortune," I said to him and Kerri as their voices rose over some detail or other. "I'm tired and you're keeping me up."

  Maddox shot me a look that said he'd already told me not to fall asleep, but Kerri put her hand down on his arm. "It won't matter one way or the other," she said. "Let the poor girl rest."

  He sighed and nodded and the two of them shuffled off somewhere I couldn't see them. I listened hard, straining my ears to assess how far away they were. When I was satisfied I was alone, I eased up off the chair and trod toward the desk as quietly as I could. The kitten jumped up on the desktop and spit at me.

  I tried to distract it with a piece of string from the ferryman's box, but it wanted nothing to do with it. Instead, it leapt from the desk and bolted out of sight.

  I hefted the book in one hand. It felt comfortable in my grip. The leather was soft and pliable. It bent sideways with the ease of a manuscript that had been opened many times over the centuries.

  I didn't have a pocket big enough to fit it in, but I hitched it beneath my armpit and tested its weight. I swung back and forth as I held it there, and decided it was easy to carry. Not so big as to be cumbersome, and not so small it would fall out if I moved too fast.

  "Perfect," I said, then squared my shoulders as I panned the room. It had been late night or early morning when all this had gone down. I wasn't sure what time it was now.

  I tried to fathom how much time had passed and figured that it would be just as easy to find out by opening the door and seeing for myself.

  And that was how I came to be standing in the alleyway of Maddox's first quarter of the Shadow Bazaar. And that was how I discovered that here in the bazaar, it was still nighttime.

  I'd not visited the bazaar at night before. The old Isabella would have been frightened. But this Isabella had killed her abusive lover. This Isabella had survived a ferryman's bite.

  This Isabella knew she could score in this place with this relic better than any other target.

  So I headed to the mouth of the alley, each step lit by an eerie purple light from streetlamps that didn't look like they housed regular incandescent bulbs.

  The stalls themselves were closed. At least, I presumed they were. No one stood around barking out deals or offers. Each one seemed shuttered by a blurry petition that might have been a foggy shower door filled with soap scum. I guessed they were barred by magic as well. Not the same kind that lit the streetlights, but magic all the same.

  It even seemed to have a smell. I inhaled as I passed through the courtyard, figuring if I could memorize the scent, it would be something to add to my arsenal of skills. Everything could be useful if brought out at the right time. I'd used small details before to my benefit when I stole for Scottie.

  Mustard, I thought, as the acrid aroma pierced my senses. I wrinkled my nose. Sour and aged like balsamic vinegar.

  I hated balsamic vinegar.

  I moved as quickly as I could, sticking to the shadows that didn't cling to the stalls. No use taking the chance that something wicked waited within. There were plenty of places where darkness hunkered. I very nearly hopscotched my way across the courtyard on cobblestones that muffled my steps instead of amplifying them. It took only a few minutes to cross. All I had to do was decide which alley might have the best opportunity.

  I was still deciding when I recognized a figure several dozen paces ahead of me, heading into another alley. I knew the tilt of her head and the posture well. She was diminutive, the way I was, but I knew her appearance of frailty was all an illusion.

  Kelly, the fae assassin, was nothing anywhere near what anyone would call vulnerable.

  But the small figure at her side was most definitely vulnerable, and she was what caught my attention the most. A girl. A human girl. Maybe four or so. She was holding tight to a jacket that was bunched around her shoulders and hung to her knees as she tripped and stumbled along to keep up with the assassin.

  The girl didn't cry out or complain. Instead, she was strangely silent as she gripped the assassin's hand, but the bow of her head and the tiny steps indicated she was terrified.

  I hated the thought that a small child should be here at all, let alone terrified.

  I slipped into the alley and hung by the wall of a building to watch them. I followed them out of curiosity because what was the fae doing with a human child? Kelly was the dark fae's greatest assassin. She had dogged me months earlier and nearly killed me when I'd accidentally stolen a fae relic.

  If she was here in the Shadow Bazaar, she had come through the Blood Gate, and I knew from experience that if she had entered through that portal, she'd used the girl's blood to do so.

  Maddox had been a fool not to change the locks.

  There was nothing else in the alley for them to be following. No doors or windows. Just one long bank of stone and grout and the occasional blackened window. Garbage littered the area around a very human looking garbage can, and the alley smelled of all sorts of things I couldn't identify.

  I couldn't help slipping closer to watch as Kelly bit down on her wrist and used it to tra
ce a line across the lintel of a doorway, then stooped to sweep it across the transom.

  Streaks of fluorescence blazed into the gloom of the alley even as bits of something that smelled of wet dog flung out in all directions. By some miracle, I was spared the fleshy shrapnel from the door's opening. It stunk of rancid meat and old wool, and I made up my mind in an instant.

  The first step I made behind Kelly came just as a light shot up in front of her, bathing her and the child in such white light I knew they wouldn't see me in their peripheral.

  I sent a silent word of thanks to who or whatever had thoughtfully provided that blast of light, because it disguised me much better than a shadow could.

  At the same time, however, it also washed out Kelly's shape. She and the girl were gone from my sight within seconds.

  I spun around in the wash of pulsing red lights inside the building, trying to get my bearings.

  I saw a dozen or more women, all of them late teens and early twenties, milling through the space naked save for some streaks of paint covering their skin. They carried trays of drinks and passed them out to patrons who spilled over the floor like an empty bag of beans.

  All of the female servers were large-breasted, that I could see, long-legged, and long-haired. The male servers were similar specimens of perfection. Each of them were gorgeous and each came in all colors from mulatto to black and brown and white.

  Right about the same time I noted this, I also realized they were human. Many of them caught my eye with a spark of recognition then one of fear and despair and then finally, their faces went blank. Gazes traveled elsewhere.

  I hitched up the grimoire to remind myself why I was here. I knew instinctively, that I might be a target, that the patrons were Kindred and not human, and that meant I might be vulnerable. Likely, the grimoire might be the only thing to keep me intriguing instead of tasty looking, so I needed to find a way to use that tout suite.