“Okay, I see your point,” I allowed. “But you’re making a lot of assumptions about what the Order will let me do. They only let me off without punishment last time because they didn’t find out I used spirit magic, but it’ll only take one slip-up for me to end up getting slapped with a memory spell again. What’s to stop you from walking around the city and questioning people yourself? I’m pretty sure anyone will talk to you if you ask.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said. “Most people don’t react well to force.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You might want to try telling that to those Elemental Soldiers of yours.”
He ignored the jab. “If it was possible for me to investigate on the ground myself, I would, but I have too many other matters to attend to, and I will not leave my castle unattended.”
“So you want me to?” My voice rose in surprise. “What about your four Elements? The Air Element seems to be taking matters into their own hands, anyway.”
He shook his head. “My Elemental Soldiers are needed to defend the castle. Besides, they’re not trained in espionage.”
“Uh, neither am I,” I told him. “I’m a retriever for the Order. I find dangerous shit that’s been stolen and return it to a secure location. I don’t spy on people.”
“Precisely,” he said. “If any of my liches’ soul amulets have been removed from the hall of souls, I’m sure I can rely on you to track them down, given your contacts.”
Meaning, Brant. “Why me? You’re not my employer. The Order is. Not only are you asking me to go out of my way as a favour, you’re potentially asking me to go against the people who actually pay me.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to go uncompensated for your efforts,” he said. “I should have made that plainer at the start. I can pay you generously.”
Of course he would offer me money at a time that I desperately needed it. And if he’d been anyone else, I might have considered taking him up on the offer… if not for his apparent obliviousness to the fact that my own soul was more fragile than his. “I already turned down the offer of working with you, on account of the fact that spirit magic is illegal. We can’t all have endless second chances at life.”
“I have no intention of asking you to use spirit magic,” he said. “I’m simply requesting that you keep an eye out for any missing amulets. I’m sure it won’t be impossible for you and the fire mage to talk to traders at the markets you frequent.”
“Now you’re making assumptions about my boyfriend and the Order.”
“I was under the impression questioning rogue mages isn’t new territory for you.” His tone was slightly peeved, as though he was disappointed by my refusal. “I’m not asking you to break the laws.”
Yeah, that’s because you make the laws here. Though the vampires ruled the city, and they and the Death King had a long-standing rivalry. Maybe that was why he refused to leave his castle to question people in the city. The vampires were forever wanting to expand their territory… which was just one more reason for me to stay the hell out of their business.
He kept looking at me, not to be contented with silence. Fine, then. “I’ll see what the Order says about me taking on a side job in the Parallel for another employer.”
Which meant, no way in hell. He couldn’t be that desperate, surely. I was the last person he should be asking for help, and whatever he thought, involving me was more trouble than it was worth. For all of us.
“Very well,” the Death King said. “I’ll be waiting for you next time, Olivia.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to call me Liv—only the Order called me Olivia—then caught myself just in time. That would be too friendly. Not to mention I was pretty sure his real name wasn’t Death King, but he’d never told me what it was, and I didn’t want to spend any more time with him than I had to.
I turned and floated back through the castle doors and down the stone steps, towards the rippling point of the node in front of the castle. As soon as I moved into its path, energy rushed through me, and I crossed back into the house on the other side.
Devon’s muffled laughter greeted me, along with someone else’s. Trix sat beside my body on the sofa and burst into hysterical giggles at the sight of me. Tall and slender with pointed ears and silky hair, the elf must have shown up while I was on the other side.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
Devon grinned. “You might want to look in a mirror.”
“Oh, for the Elements’ sakes.” I floated downward and peered at the body I’d left behind. My face had been carefully painted to resemble one of the ogres from our D&D campaign. “Hilarious. How old are you two, really?”
Trix snickered. “What were you doing that you didn’t need your body for?”
“Astral projecting into the Parallel to talk to the Death King.” I slipped back into my body and sat up, stretching out the kinks in my neck. Then I rose to my feet and walked into the kitchen to clean my face. “This is a waste of your decent makeup, Devon.”
“Hey, I have to get some practise in before comic con.”
I scrubbed my face over the sink while Trix got the laughter out of his system. By the time I’d returned to join them, he was still snickering at my misfortune.
“Are you done?” I rolled my eyes and sat down next to Devon. “I take it your customers didn’t show up, then?”
“You haven’t been gone that long,” she responded. “Nobody’s shopping for cantrips.”
“Why, did a rival business open up down the road and nobody told us about it?” I was joking, but Trix sat up straighter, no longer laughing.
“In the Parallel, yes,” he said.
“What?” Devon frowned at him. “What d’you mean?”
“I thought you knew,” said the elf. “The Collective of Spells, also known as the COS. They’re new at the market, and they sell state-of-the-art cantrips. Everyone buys from there.”
“Seriously?” I blinked. “First I’ve heard. Who is this COS?”
“I don’t know.”
Brant might know. There was little he missed when it came to the workings of the markets in the city. He probably wouldn’t have thought to mention a new source of cantrips, but if this new collective was taking away our business, we needed to know about it. The reason so many practitioners came to Devon in the first place was because she didn’t come with the usual risks of buying a cantrip in the Parallel—namely, the risk of it backfiring in the user’s face. Despite years of complaints, the vampires who ruled the city of Arcadia refused to allow any kind of legislation which would lower the risk levels, and if a legitimate business had stepped in, they might have filled a gap in the market for people who didn’t want to risk being caught by the Order when they came to Devon’s shop to buy their cantrips.
I turned to Trix again. “When did they set up their business?”
“A few weeks ago,” he said. “They pretty much appeared overnight.”
“Can’t have happened overnight,” said Devon. “You need the right materials to make spells. Not to mention skills most practitioners don’t have the patience to learn.”
It was a point of contention for Devon, because the Order had refused to listen to her appeal after she’d failed her exams at the academy and had assumed that she spent all her time making cantrips instead of studying was a choice rather than a symptom of undiagnosed ADHD. By the time she’d got the diagnosis, it was already too late. That was how we’d met, as two dropouts below the Order’s lowest rung, yet we’d clawed our way up from rock bottom once before. Like hell would I let anyone take away everything we’d managed to gain in the last few years.
Trix fidgeted. “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask them.”
“I might just do that.” Whoever these newcomers were, they surely couldn’t be new to the Parallel itself, so maybe they’d heard if someone was still trading in soul amulets. I’d see what Brant said when I brought up the subject.
And here I was, actually thinking about ta
king the Death King up on his offer. You should know better than that, Liv.
“You haven’t said what the Death King wanted,” Devon said. “Go on, spill. Is he really pissed at you?”
“He’s trying to hire me as a private investigator and spy, despite the fact that it isn’t my job and he isn’t my employer.” I gave her the rundown. As predicted, Devon gained a calculating expression when I mentioned his offer of ‘generous’ compensation.
“He’s probably loaded, given that he lives in a castle,” she said. “He can’t have much to spend his fortune on, either, being dead.”
“He might have done a better job decorating the place, considering,” I said. “I know he’s an ancient immortal, but still. I can’t take money from him. He probably stole it all from the people he’s murdered.”
I didn’t know how long he’d been Death King, but his Court had ruled that part of the Parallel since before the war. They’d outlived the Elements and anyone else who’d ever held power … ironic, considering their undead state. Which was probably why nobody had killed them off.
No wonder he was worried that someone might have found out his liches’ weakness lay in the soul amulets—but I didn’t know nearly enough about how it all worked to figure out how this particular killer was operating. He hadn’t even told me how the liches had died.
“Money is money, and we’re almost out,” said Devon. “Take the job. You can always back out and say the Order doesn’t want you working with him if it turns bad.”
“You’re supposed to tell me not to take risks,” I said. “Also, he works with the Order, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I walked into the office to find him sitting there again trying to blackmail me.”
“He’s not trying to kill you anymore, though,” said Devon. “I know, I’m the last person who should be encouraging you to cooperate with him, but this job is just what we need to get us out of this hole.”
Yeah, right. Still, if I took my request to the Order and gained a permit to get into the Parallel, I might at least be able to see how much of a threat this Collective of Spells was. I could also ask around about soul amulets, and if it turned out they didn’t know anything, then I’d leave it there. I wouldn’t take any permanent jobs from the Death King, not in a million years. He was manipulative, cruel, and inhuman, and he could crush me in the palm of his hand if so inclined.
Yet considering all that, he must feel he had no choice if he’d opted to ask me for help. His supposed enemy. A living spirit mage with too much to lose.
Despite everything, it was reassuring to think that no matter what the universe threw my way, I could always count on my enmity with the Death King.
4
I wouldn’t have put it past His Deathly Highness to find out if I didn’t keep my word, so off to the Order’s office I went. I was actually starting to entertain the idea of using him as a cover story. If the Order thought I was working hand in hand with the notorious King of the Dead, they might start treating me a little less like pond scum. Already, some people had taken to avoiding eye contact with me in the corridors, based on the Death King’s intervention with Mr Cobb’s trial. Better than their disdainful mutters about the black mark on my record and my abysmal grades at the academy.
On the other hand, basing the Death King’s potential actions on one favour he’d done for me was a dangerous idea. He might not step in to save my neck the next time I wound up on the chopping block, and without his own life on the line, there was nothing to stop him from leaving the Order to hang me out to dry.
I rode the bus into town to walk to the Order’s HQ and shot Brant a text on the way asking him to meet me by the nearby node to the Parallel—assuming the Order gave me permission to go, that is. I decided against telling him my plan until we met in person. I didn’t think he’d flip out and flat-out refuse to let me take on the Death King’s mission, but his request was too bizarre to accurately convey via text message.
I showed my Order ID to the guards outside the narrow brick building which served as the Order’s local branch—both of whom made a big show of goggling at the black mark on my ID, as usual—and walked through the reception area to the stairs leading down to the retrieval unit. The head of the department, Mrs Carlisle, occupied the desk with the computer, while boxes filled the rest of the space inside the basement. Judging by their hand-written labels, they must have come from the Parallel.
“What’s in here?” I peered through the gap in the nearest box’s seal, which revealed a number of gleaming coins. Cantrips, already pre-made. Where’d they materialised from?
“New tools for our staff,” said Mrs Carlisle. “After the incident a few weeks ago, the upper room gave us permission to update our repertoire of defensive spells for use in battle.”
“You commissioned cantrips for the retrieval unit?” I said. “Wait, if they’re from the Parallel, how do you know they’re safe to use? I thought most cantrips made over on that side were either duds or dangerous.”
The Order’s regulations only covered this side of the nodes. Everyone knew that.
“Our new supplier is different,” said Mrs Carlisle. “We have reassurance that they’re in compliance with Order standards, and these cantrips have been thoroughly tested before being distributed among our staff.”
“Damn,” I said. “I guess that’s why we haven’t had much business lately.”
“That’s right, your friend makes cantrips, doesn’t she?” Mrs Carlisle looked up from the computer screen, wearing a calculating expression I didn’t like. “Pity.”
“What does that mean?” I said. “Isn’t it more convenient for you that you have someone on this side you can buy from? I mean, the Parallel isn’t known for sticking with standardised safety regulations. The vampires don’t have any need for them.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Olivia.” She tapped on the keyboard, her attention on the computer screen again. “It’s beyond your level.”
Now that was just patronising. “If you’re wondering why I’m here, the Death King came to me with a job offer and requested that I visit him in the Parallel. I’m going to need a permit.”
She halted, her hand on the computer mouse. “The Death King came to you?”
More or less. I didn’t need to mention the fact that I’d used astral projection. It’d be easier if they assumed that he’d come to visit me instead of the other way around. “Yes, he did. He has a job that only I can do.”
“Which is…?”
“Confidential.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t give you a permit without any more details.”
“Ask the Death King himself,” I said. “Or you can send someone to tag along after me into the swamplands of the dead if you really want to.”
Her mouth thinned. It was a low blow given how many Order people had died in the battle in the swamplands, but even if that hadn’t been the site of our final stand against Mr Cobb, nobody wanted to go to the Death King’s home anyway. Even the Order knew better than to draw the ire of the most powerful individual in the Parallel.
“Fine.” Mrs Carlisle held out a hand, and I pushed my ID book across the desk to her. She stamped it one-handedly without looking at me. “Don’t be surprised if you’re subject to interrogation upon your return.”
“As I said, you’re welcome to ask the Death King for further details.” I rose to my feet and climbed up the stairs to the reception area, where practitioners milled around in groups, either returning from trips to the Parallel or chatting between missions. While the notion of the retrieval unit gaining better equipment wasn’t an unappealing one, we were a long way off from the funding the upper levels got. Like proper clothing designed for the unpredictable conditions of the Parallel. My once-squeaky-clean new boots were already dyed mud-brown from traipsing through the swampland, as were the frayed hems of my jeans, while the unpredictable climate and hostile inhabitants had pretty much destroyed most of my wardrobe.
I
left the Order’s HQ and made my way to meet Brant. He greeted me with a kiss, his worried gaze raking me up and down. “You’re going to the Parallel? I thought you were going to take my advice and see the Death King the other way. Not in person.”
“I did.” I dropped my voice. “Astral project, I mean. He’s just a cover story so I could get a permit to go to Arcadia and have a look around. There’s something fishy going on at the market.”
I told him about the new cantrip business Trix had mentioned as we headed towards the node leading into the Parallel.
“Damn,” he said. “First I’ve heard of it. I haven’t been in the market much lately, but they must have set up shop fast.”
“Apparently, and not only are they stealing our independent clients, they’ve snagged the Order, too, by sticking to their regulations,” I said. “Which is kind of weird for a Parallel-owned business.”
The Order’s notoriously finicky nature meant anyone who wanted to sell to them had to fill out reams of paperwork. Most people in the Parallel were just trying to stay alive, so even the legitimate practitioners discounted the Order’s members as a potential market because they didn’t have time for that shit.
“No kidding,” he said. “That’s not what the Death King wanted to speak to you about, is it?”
“No…” If the Death King found out I’d told Brant about his request, he’d be displeased to say the least, and the very last thing I wanted was for Brant to part company with his soul again. “He’s concerned because the lich insider wasn’t caught and he’s growing paranoid about someone sharing his secrets with outsiders. Which is why the Air Element decided to take matters into their own hands.”
He frowned. “What does he expect you to do about that?”
“Question people at the market who might know about illegal trade in soul amulets.” I halted beside the node. “Needless to say, I’m not his lapdog, but it gave me a handy excuse to grab a permit so I can snoop around the market. If the Order’s people decide to ask him if he really gave me permission to be there, I’ll be forced to comply with his orders, but I’ll leave it up to them to decide whether to take the risk of angering His Deathly Highness.”
Touch of Death (Order of the Elements Book 2) Page 3