The Spirit Eater

by Rachel Aaron

  “How did you know that would do it?”

  Nico looked at him. “All spirits hate demons,” she said quietly. “Normally, the fear keeps all but the strongest of them from fighting. But Sted isn’t a wizard. He can’t open his spirit, and so the fear isn’t broadcast. Without the crippling fear, even small spirits are free to be heroes. ”

  Eli pursed his lips. “That’s actually quite brilliant. ”

  “Thank you,” Nico said, surprised, but all the good feelings from the compliment faded when she looked back at Josef, who was bracing for Sted’s next charge. “It won’t be enough, though. Even awake and trying its best, that sword can’t become something it’s not. It’s still pot metal, and Sted is still a demon. ”

  “Then we’ll just have to overwhelm him,” Eli said, reaching down to grab two more swords from the arena wall. “I’ll wake them up; you get them going. ”

  Nico grinned wide. “Right. ”

  They worked quickly. Some swords didn’t want to fight, and Nico set them aside. Others, though, were ready from the moment Nico told them Sted was a demonseed. These she tossed to Josef. He caught each one, sticking it point down in the sand beside him. The first sword they’d thrown him was already whittled down to a sliver, but it was still fighting, slashing Sted like a blade five times its sharpness.

  Sted ignored the swords at first, attacking Josef with single-minded purpose. But as the blades began to build up, and the blade in Josef’s hands refused to break like all the others, his focus began to shift.

  “What?” he shouted, swiping at Josef’s head. “You think it matters that your swords aren’t snapping like rotten wood anymore?” He thrust his arm into the air, proudly displaying the gash that Josef had made earlier, which was now little more than a red line on his skin. “You can’t beat what you can’t kill, Liechten! Not without real power. Give up! You don’t have a hope without the Heart. ”

  But Josef just smiled, dodging his swipe neatly while catching the next sword Nico threw with one hand. He swung his swords, one fresh, one eaten to nothing but still holding on, and announced in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “The day I need the Heart to beat an amateur like you is the day I give up swordsmanship. ”

  Furious, Sted launched into a mad charge, and that was when Josef struck. He jumped out of the way and spun, bringing his swords down on the back of Sted’s neck so hard the larger man lurched forward, landing in the sand with a grunt. As soon as he was down, Josef was on top of him, ramming sword after sword into his back. Sted bellowed in pain, but Josef only moved faster. He filled Sted up like a pincushion, using every sword Nico and Eli had woken for him. Nico could hear the blades all the way at the edge of the arena. They screamed at the demon, pressing down with all their might, turning to widen the wounds even as they pinned Sted to the sand.

  Page 114

 

  Plunging the last sword down into Sted’s spine, Josef stepped back. He was panting, sweat and blood running down his sides, but his face was triumphant. Sted thrashed on the ground like a speared bull in front of him, the sand turning black as his blood ran down the swords. The blades hissed as he devoured them, but this was too much even for his healing abilities. His struggles grew weaker and weaker, and then, at last, they stopped.

  The arena fell silent. The crowd stood still, staring in wonder at what had just happened. Down in the arena, Josef took a careful step forward, nudging Sted’s leg with his foot. The demonseed did not move, and a grin spread over Josef’s face.

  “It’s finished,” he said, turning to Nico and Eli with his hands raised in victory.

  A great cheer went up. Up in the wooden stands and the rooftops, the bandit crowds were fall ing over one another in their excitement. Money changed hands frantically as wagers were called in, and everyone was smiling, especially Nico. She stood on the edge of the arena, grinning like mad as Josef started toward them. But then, just as she moved to jump down and congratulate him, the Master spoke.

  Nothing is over until I say it is.

  As the words echoed in her head, a piercing scream shot through the air, and Sted ripped himself up. Josef whirled around and stopped cold, staring in horror as Sted pushed himself to his feet. Blood dripped from his body, sliding in red rivers over skin that was now totally black. He stumbled forward, his head up, his eyes too wide and bright as lanterns. When he opened his mouth, the sound that came out was no longer human at all.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I will not lose. ”

  Even as the words tumbled from his black lips, Sted began to run. He lurched across the arena, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Despite his wounds, he ran faster with every step until he reached his goal. Sted slammed into the post that held the Heart of War. The wood groaned and crumpled under the demonseed’s pressure, and the Heart tumbled down, landing with a great crash on the sand below. Even before it hit, Josef was running toward his blade, but he was too late. Grinning around teeth that were suddenly too large and too sharp for any human mouth, Sted laid his hands, now both transformed into claws, on the blade, and the Heart of War began to scream.

  CHAPTER

  18

  The Heart’s scream reverberated through the air. Nico fell to her knees, slamming her hands over her ears as it hit her. Eli was down as wel. She could see his lips moving as he shouted something, but she couldn’t hear anything except the enormous roar of the Heart of War as Sted’s claws dug into the black metal. Then, as quickly as it started, the sound stopped.

  Nico looked up just in time to catch Sted’s surprised expression before the Heart of War erupted in a blinding flash of light. The blade did not change. It was still the same black, dented metal, and yet it shone like noon sun on fresh snow. Even as she saw the light, Nico heard another sound, like a whip snapping, and Sted flew backward. He rocketed through the air, blown backward by the Heart’s will, and landed with a bone-cracking crunch on the edge of the arena. The Heart was blown backward as well. It flipped through the air, whistling gracefully, its light fading to a warm glow as it landed perfectly in Josef’s outstretched hand.

  The second the Heart was in his grip, Josef rushed at Sted, who was still lying stunned at the arena’s edge. He moved so fast Nico’s eyes could barely keep pace, but when he struck, Sted was no longer there. Josef stopped his blow and whirled around just as Sted crawled out of the shadows on the other side of the arena. Nico held her breath. She couldn’t even call the thing on the ground Sted anymore. Sted had been human, at least in form. This was something that did not belong in the world. Its skin was pure black, but deeper. Looking at the thing was like staring into a void, like the shape on the ground was a hole in the world rather than the remnants of a man. What had been human arms were now sickeningly long, thin as beanpoles, and triple jointed, bending to completely circle Sted’s body. Its legs were long and powerful, tipped with claws that had sliced through what was left of Sted’s boots. But worst of all was his face. His face was a black nothing, too black to look at. The only thing Nico could make out were the rows of sharp, uneven teeth, and the eyes. Sted’s eyes floated in the void that was left of his face, enormous and golden yellow. Shapes moved behind them, horrible clawed shadows that made Nico’s skin crawl, but she could not look away. She could only watch as the creature opened its mouth in sickening slow motion, its long, black tongue sliding hungrily across its jagged, black teeth.

  The demon panic hit her like a stone wall. She felt Eli seize up beside her, and even Tesset stumbled. For a moment they sat there, paralyzed, and then the world went crazy. All around them, spirits began to panic. The ground was shrieking, the sand was shrieking, the wooden arena walls were shrieking, even the blunt swords were shrieking in terrified horror. Behind them, Nico could hear the wooden buildings weeping in fear, followed by the surprised shouts of bandits as the rooftops and balconies began to twist and pull against their supports in a desperate attempt to flee. This started a human panic, and
the arena crowd dissolved into pure chaos in a matter of seconds. Bandits were pouring out of collapsing buildings, crying in terror as the ground under their feet tried to run with them. Nico could hear Izo shouting from his box, but his orders were drowned out in the panic. None of the bandits so much as looked at him as they fought and clawed their way down the packed-dirt street toward the gates.

  Page 115

 

  But even as the screaming bandits jostled past her, Nico didn’t look away from the arena. Despite the fear, Josef was still advancing, the Heart rock-solid and steady in his hands. The demon hissed and sank to the sand, its triple-jointed arms reaching out, claws spread, ready to strike.

  Josef turned the Heart to a defensive position, but the blow never came. Instead, the demon just grinned, a sickening spread of teeth, and plunged its clawed hands down into the arena sand.

  The ground lurched with a horrific scream that soared above all the others. Each tiny grain of sand cried in mortal terror before snuffing out in a silence that was even more horrible as a black circle began to grow from the demon’s claws.

  “Josef!” Nico screamed, lurching forward until she was almost falling into the arena. “It’s eating the spirits! You have to strike now!”

  But she never knew if he heard her, for at that moment the ground erupted. Nico’s coat seized around her shoulders, yanking her back just in time as enormous stone spikes stabbed up from the arena floor. Great swords of stone charged upward with a vengeful scream, scattering sand everywhere as the awoken, angry, deep spirits of the bedrock lurched forward to crush the demon.

  The creature dodged effortlessly. It slipped through the shadows faster than even Nico had once been able to, snickering as the stone spikes crashed and broke when they tried to give chase. But Nico wasn’t even watching the demon anymore. Her eyes were glued to the tiny figure flying through the air, launched upward when the ground exploded below his feet.

  “JOSEF!”

  Josef tumbled as he flew, his body going slack. Nico sucked in a breath as the Heart left his hand. He landed with a crash in a building two blocks away from the arena. The roof shattered when he hit, sending wood raining down through the hole he left behind. The Heart landed in the next building over, crashing through a shuttered window like a sledgehammer through paper.

  The crash rang out over the din of the panicked spirits, and Nico shot up before she knew what she was doing. But as she started to run to Josef, she was yanked off her feet. Her breath slammed out of her as she landed on her back. She coughed and retched, staring hatefully at Tesset, who was standing over her, holding the rope that was tied to the manacle at her neck.

  She bared her teeth at him like an animal. “Let me go!”

  Tesset gave her a dry look and opened his mouth. But whatever he was going to say, he never got it out, for at that moment something extraordinary happened. All around the arena, white lines began to appear. They cut down through empty space, first five, then ten, then twenty, all shining the same brilliant white. The lines hung in the air, shimmering for a split second, and then men in black coats began to step through.

  They came out with swords drawn, surrounding the arena in a loose circle. The moment their feet were on the ground, half of them opened their spirits, pressing the panicking landscape into submission. The other half kept their focus on Sted, who was clinging to the edge of one of the stone spikes with his claws. The demon hissed and dug its claws into the screaming stone, ready to pounce, when another white line opened in the air not a foot from Nico’s head. Nico scrambled sideways just before a man stepped through. He was dressed in the same black coat as all the others, but he had an undeniable air of competence and command. He had a thin, intelligent face and a slender, golden-hilted sword that, unlike the others, was still sheathed. Though he’d nearly stepped on her, he didn’t even look at Nico. He simply walked to the edge of the arena and held out his hand, his long fingers pointing directly at Sted.

  Don’t move.

  The words slammed down like a boulder. Nico could feel the weight of them pressing on every inch of skin that wasn’t protected by her coat, but for Sted, things were much worse. The moment the man spoke, the demon howled and fell. It toppled from the stone spikes and slammed into what was left of the arena floor below, shrieking in that horrible dual-tone voice as it fought against the weight.

  Nodding, the man lowered his arm and glanced over his shoulder, looking straight at Nico. She shrank into her coat, clutching her transformed arm against her chest. But the man said nothing. After several awkward seconds, Sparrow broke the silence.

  “Hello, Alric,” he said, dusting himself off. “Fantastic timing. ”

  Alric gave him a blistering look. “Shut up, Sparrow. I don’t have time for whatever games your mistress is playing. ” He reached down and grabbed Nico’s rope, dragging her to her feet. Once she was up, he turned and grabbed Eli before the thief could object, nearly throwing him into Sparrow. “I have no idea how you caught Eli Monpress,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t care. If he’s stupid enough to get himself caught, then that’s none of my affair, but I want these two out of here now. ”

  Page 116

 

  Sparrow arched an eyebrow. “But you seem to have the situation well—”

  He was cut off by an enormous roar as Sted began to thrash. Several League members threw out their hands, shouting commands to the spirits as the demon fought to get to its feet.

  “Go!” Alric shouted, his hand going for his sword as he jumped down into the arena.

  “You heard the man,” Sparrow said, grabbing Eli.

  Eli pried Sparrow’s hands off him. “Now wait just a—”

  His words cut off as Sparrow grabbed the length of rope Eli had slipped out of earlier and flung it around the thief’s neck. “Let’s go,” he said, yanking the rope so tight Eli’s face began to turn red.

  Tesset nodded. He reached down and scooped Nico up, tossing her over his shoulder like an oat sack.

  “No!” Nico screamed, writhing against his grasp. “We can’t leave Josef! He’ll die without the Heart!”

  But the two men kept going, Tesset carrying her, Sparrow dragging Eli, who was digging in his heels as best he could with a rope crushing his windpipe. They ran through the collapsing city. Bandits were good at running away, and the dirt streets were nearly empty now, save for a few stragglers and those unfortunate enough to have been trampled in the panic. The buildings groaned and twitched around them, collapsing as they watched, and Sparrow began to push them faster, cursing loudly as he fought to drag a still-struggling Eli behind him.

  “Want me to knock him out?” Tesset said, looking over his shoulder.

  “No,” Sparrow grunted, yanking the rope tighter. “Sara would kill us if we injured him. What is it about this damn thief, anyway? First Sara goes crazy for him, and now the great Alric himself stoops to giving me the time of day just to tell me to get him out of town?”

  Tesset shrugged and got a tighter hold on Nico, who was trying to claw his face while kicking him in the chest as hard as she could. It did no good, of course. Hitting Tesset was like trying to beat a rock into submission. But she kept trying. Dumped over his shoulder as she was, she could see the great cloud of dust rising from the arena as Sted’s roar echoed through the box canyon. Nico bared her teeth and fought harder. She couldn’t even see the roof Josef had crashed through anymore, but she was certain he wasn’t up yet, not without the Heart. He was defenseless, unconscious, and alone. If the panicked spirits didn’t kill Josef on accident, Sted would for sure. She had to get to him.

  “Stop it,” Tesset said, thwacking her across the back. “You’re slowing us down. ”

  “Then leave me!” she shouted.

  “Calm down,” he said softly. “You can’t win. Don’t make me hurt you. ”

  “No!” Nico shrieked. She bent her neck back as far as it would go, staring him in the
eyes. “If he dies, I can never repay him. He gave me my life as I know it. He taught me everything. If that story you told me was true, then you know what it’s like to owe your rebirth to someone. I can’t just let him die. You have to let me go!”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sparrow said. “That’s the League back there, sweetheart. Have you forgotten what you are? I don’t know why Alric spared you, but I wouldn’t count on him to do it again. You go back, and they’ll have two seeds to bring home to Papa Storm instead of one. You’re much better off going home to Sara and seeing what she can make of you. I’m sure she’d like a demonseed of her own. ”

  Nico beat her human fist uselessly against Tesset’s back as the arena fell farther and farther behind. Hot, frustrated tears streamed down her cheeks. Josef was dying, and she could do nothing. She’d never felt so useless in her entire life.

  That’s because you are useless. The Master’s voice was nearly cackling with laughter. Sted didn’t even have a proper transformation, the deaf idiot, and he’s got nearly twenty League men fighting tooth and nail just to contain him. You can’t even beat one man to save your precious swordsman’s life.

  “No. ” Nico sobbed.

  Yes, the Master said. And you have no one to blame but yourself, you miserable, pathetic failure.

  Nico slumped against Tesset’s shoulder. The Master was right; he was always right. It didn’t matter how hard she tried or how much she fought, she was weak. Weak and pathetic and worthless and untrustworthy and a failure and—

  Her thoughts stopped as something brushed against her cheek. She looked up in alarm before she saw it was her coat. The black fabric had wrapped itself up nearly to her head, coiling itself like a snake ready to strike. It knew she was upset, she realized, and it was reacting to her, trying to protect her just as Slorn had told it to. Suddenly, she had an idea.

  Page 117

 

  She bent her head down and pressed her lips into the fabric. In all her life, even the parts she couldn’t remember, she was sure she’d never tried what she was about to do, but at this point, she didn’t care.