Thief of Souls

by Emma L. Adams

  “We’re not talking a regular practitioner.” He released a breath. “Look, Liv, I’ve already told you too much. Just believe me when I say I’m on your side and I’ll do my best to keep you out of this.”

  “This coming from someone who gambled away his own soul by accident.” The guy was even worse than me, and that was saying a lot.

  Dex zipped into the room. “The Death King’s folks are out on the streets again.”

  “Bugger.” Had the Air Element finally snapped? “Are the soldiers out?”

  “No, just the liches,” he responded. “Something about an escaped prisoner. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  I blinked. “Don’t look at me. I’m not a prisoner. They didn’t even know I was there.”

  “They didn’t,” said Brant. “Who are they looking for?”

  “A thief who was found on their territory, apparently,” Dex said.

  “Wait, you mean they’re after the water mage?” I asked. “I didn’t know they left him alive.”

  I’d seen the scorched ruins of his hut… but not a body.

  Wait. The water mage knew where the amulet had come from. If I found him before the Death King did, I might be able to salvage this situation before anyone else got hurt.

  “Want me to find him?” Dex said. “I can throw up some sparks where he’s hiding.”

  “I doubt that’ll endear us to him.”

  “Coming from the person who blew him up.”

  He had a point there. “Look, that guy knows how to get into the Death King’s home. He sneaked in once already. If I corner him and get him to tell me—without letting on that I’m carrying the amulet—I might be able to return the damned thing after all.”

  “Assuming you don’t get caught on the way,” said Brant. “I don’t know…”

  “Got any better ideas?” I tensed at the sound of pounding hooves from outside. “You know, they never did see my face. Not even the Air Element. I’m going out.”

  Ignoring Brant’s shout of protest, I wrenched the door open and ran into the street. Thundering hoofbeats reverberated in the dusty air, but I forced myself to walk at a normal pace, as though I was nothing more than a curious onlooker.

  Brant caught me up. “Liv.”

  “Don’t you start,” I hissed. “I need to find a node anyway. You can’t argue with that.”

  He couldn’t. We moved casually through the alleys, glimpsing black-clad figures riding past and peering into doorways. Chill winds accompanied them, as though the breeze of death had crept among us with their presence. Creepy bastards. Without their souls, the liches had turned into something between spirit and human, their bodies fading into identical cloaked figures with shadowy faces.

  A gasping figure pelted along the alley, in the direction of the node. Not a lich, but a human—wide-eyed, panicking, and running as though the hounds of hell were on his tail.

  “Ooh, there he is,” said Dex. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was…”

  Crossing over.

  The water mage ran straight into the node. At once, a current of energy soared, and he vanished.

  I didn’t think. I ran after him. Brant shouted my name, but I was already in the path of the node. The surge of energy slammed into me, pouring through my veins, filling my body and spirit with exhilarating energy.

  My knees slammed into hard concrete. An unfamiliar street surrounded me, terraced houses and cold grey sky—and no sign of the water mage.

  Curses exploded from my mouth. I’d lost him. He must have hopped out somewhere else, and now I’d landed in some unknown location.

  Brant appeared behind me, breathless. “Shit, Liv. You had me worried there.”

  “He’s gone.” I pushed to my feet, my knees stinging. “The bastard legged it. He must have come out somewhere else.” I hadn’t thought to fix a clear image in my head. I’d been focused on following him, and now I’d wound up lost.

  “You’re bleeding again.”

  So I was. My jeans were torn at the knees, while gravel studded the holes ripped into my legs. Ow. I rotated on my heel. “Any idea how to get to my house from here?”

  “You aren’t far.” He pointed ahead and to the right. “The water mage won’t resurface, in all likelihood. He was running for his life.”

  “He’s as likely to get caught by the Order as not.” I took a painful step forward. “They’re always on the lookout for rogues.”

  “Yeah, well, people do unwise things in order to survive,” he said.

  “Like wager their souls in poker games.” My knees gave another throb. “Or jump through nodes illegally, multiple times in one day. Better hope the Order doesn’t send another assassin after me, because I’m not winning any races in this state.”

  “Don’t joke about that, Liv,” he said. “Someone wants you dead.”

  “I know. Unfortunately.” I heaved out a breath. “All right. Once I’ve cleaned up, I’m going directly to the Order. I think the only way to find out what’s going on is to head there, not the Parallel.”

  My thoughts spun in circles as I walked. Someone who worked for the Order wanted me dead. I’d never thought of myself as particularly valuable or dangerous to them, but there must be a good reason one of them wanted me out of the picture. And I’d bet it had to do with the spirit magic buried in my memories.

  After Brant and I parted ways, I entered the shop to find Devon sitting at the desk, idly playing with a couple of orc miniatures. “You look like you tore your way out of a dragon’s mouth.”

  “Nah, I’d have fewer limbs left if I had,” I replied. “Still, I’ve had one hell of a day.”

  “Please tell me you got rid of that amulet,” she said. “Judith showed up asking about you again. I told her you were still in the Parallel.”

  “Judith,” I muttered. “Was it her who put them up to this?”

  “Er, what?” she said. “Look, sit down. You’re not doing yourself any favours by walking around with blood pouring down your legs.”

  I staggered into the back room, collapsed onto the sofa, and told her just how much trouble I was in. I made her listen before she started helping me remove the gravel from my legs, in case her shock caused her to accidentally stab me.

  Devon was silent for a moment after I’d finished. “You’re in deeper shit than that time you rolled a natural one on a stealth check and tripped every alarm in the bad guys’ castle.”

  “Thanks.” I winced when she applied a pair of tweezers to pull a shard of gravel from my leg. “Was Judith acting oddly?”

  “No more than usual,” she said. “That girl can’t tie her own shoelaces without asking the Order’s permission. She’s not in on this, whatever it is.”

  “How do you know?” Fear and frustration warred inside me. “Someone sent me after the amulet because they wanted me dead, and I don’t even know if it was the same person who sent me to take the amulet back where I got it from. Maybe they wanted to finish the job.”

  “Uh, why?” she said. “Not that I don’t believe you, but we don’t have the full picture.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “The rogue vampires want me dead, too, and on top of that, I got bitch-slapped by one of the four Elemental Soldiers because the Death King thinks I stole one of his subjects’ souls.”

  “Then how in hell did Brant end up involved?” she wanted to know.

  “He’s looking for the soul thief for his own reasons,” I said. “I think he knew I’d be targeted, too. And once we shook off the vampires, the water mage who stole the amulet to begin with hopped through the node and ran off somewhere in this realm to get away from the Death King’s soldiers.”

  “But he doesn’t have the amulet. You do.”

  “Fat lot of good it is over on this side,” I said. “I can’t even return it to the wastelands without one of the Death King’s own people blasting me with elemental magic.”

  “I really doubt returning it will get the enemy off your tail, Liv,”
she said. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”

  My shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I know. The vampires have me marked as a troublemaker—which is also the Order’s fault, I might add.”

  “Damn right,” said Dex.

  I jumped to my feet, heedless of the pain in my legs. “What the fuck?”

  “I’m insulted,” said Dex. “I’m a who, not a what the fuck.”

  “You’re not supposed to be here!” I said. “You’re a spirit. You can’t survive in this realm.”

  Dex twisted in mid-air. “Funny. Looks like I’m surviving to me. You’re the one who dragged me through the node.”

  “So it’s my fault?” Something seriously screwy was going on. Spirits weren’t meant to be able to survive on this side of the nodes. There wasn’t enough magic. Granted, our house lay on top of a node, but he shouldn’t have been able to follow me all this way from the Parallel.

  “Yes, it’s all your fault.” Dex flew overhead, bringing a warm breeze along with him. “Not that I’m complaining. This place is neat.”

  Devon swore. “He’d better not break anything.”

  “He can’t touch anything, it’s fine.”

  An orc miniature fell off the table. Maybe not.

  What the hell is going on?

  10

  It took a good ten minutes for Dex to get the euphoria over his sudden freedom out of his system. He zipped around knocking things over until Devon threatened to trap him in a jar like the phantom. Once the gravel was out of my legs and I’d used a cantrip to seal the wounds and dull the pain, I set about making sandwiches for both of us.

  “Want me to toast those for you?” Dex blew a flame onto the plate, and I turned on him with a scowl.

  “Look, it’s been a long, shitty day.” I distributed the sandwiches between plates. “I don’t know why you’re here, but to be perfectly honest, it’s not even in the top five weirdest things I’ve seen today.”

  “Then I’ll have to try harder.” He flew over Devon’s head, rattling the jar in which she kept her dice. “Can I join your game? I bet I can beat Brant.”

  “That’s not how it works.” Devon walked over and picked up a plate. “You’re a ghost, right?”

  “Ghost?” said Dex. “Never seen a sprite before?”

  “No, I don’t spend my time in the Parallel,” Devon responded. “I prefer my limbs to stay attached to my body.”

  “You’re already more sensible than this one.” He flew over my head, backflipping in mid-air. “I like your style.”

  “Ghost or sprite, your kind don’t normally hang around people.” Devon took a huge bite of her sandwich. “What drew you to her?”

  I took my plate to the sofa, swatting Dex away with my free hand. “I saved his life. I told you that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, but if sprites could follow anyone through the nodes, we’d see them around more often.” She chewed methodically. “I guess they don’t always survive the crossing.”

  Dex zipped over to me. “I’m very much alive, thank you.”

  “Yes, I know, but it might not be as easy to return you as it was for you to come here.”

  He stuck his tongue out. “Maybe I don’t want to go back.”

  “You can’t stay,” I said flatly. “We’re the only practitioners on this street. So guess who’ll get blamed if one of the Order’s people spots you flying around?”

  Dex didn’t really understand the Order. Small wonder, when I was the only representative of theirs he’d met, and I wasn’t exactly a poster example of their best and brightest.

  “You worry too much.”

  “Want them to lock you up in a lab and study you?” I chewed on my mouthful, ignoring Dex’s dramatic expression of shock. “Seriously. I don’t know how I brought you over here, but in case you missed the memo, we’re in enough trouble without you adding to it.”

  Dex had not got the memo. He zipped around like a maniac while I finished eating and tried to figure out how in hell to return him to the Parallel without running afoul of the Death King’s latest horde of soldiers. On the other hand, perhaps I could make use of his presence here. For instance, his tracking skills came in handy whenever we paired up on missions.

  “Can you fly away from the node?” I asked him.

  “I followed you all the way to your house,” he said. “That means yes.”

  I brushed crumbs off my knees and rose to my feet to return my plate to the sink. “Can you sniff out practitioners?”

  “I thought you wanted me to avoid drawing attention.”

  I ran the tap. “From the Order, yes. But there’s a certain water mage I want to have words with.”

  “Water mage?” echoed Dex. “You mean that thief somehow survived?”

  “Not only that, he escaped through a node somewhere in the city.” I washed my plate, dried it, and stuck it on the draining board. “If you’d listened instead of zipping around like a hummingbird on crack, you’d know.”

  “Are you sure?” said Devon. “He’ll put out your sprite’s fire like a hosepipe.”

  Dex pouted. “I got the best of him once before.”

  “I’ll only ask you to track him down if you promise to stay inconspicuous,” I warned.

  Devon made a sceptical noise. “Based on what I’ve seen so far, that sprite would fail every stealth check.”

  “Was that an insult?” said Dex. “That was an insult, wasn’t it?”

  I turned to Devon. “Got any better ideas? That water mage got right into the Death King’s territory and stole from him without being detected. He’ll know who’s pulling the strings, and as an added bonus, it’s harder for him to evade detection when he can’t use his magic. He only came here because it was that or perish in the Death King’s dungeon.”

  “Pulling the strings?” echoed Dex. “We’re talking about the thief who wants to steal people’s souls for reasons unknown, right?”

  “Not for reasons unknown.” Devon gave me an assessing look. “Brant knows the reasons, doesn’t he?”

  “He’s adamant that it’s all speculation.” I returned to the sofa. “Look, I’m not supposed to be involved. For some reason, the Order wanted me off the table, and instead of docking my pay, they sent me to die instead.”

  “We don’t know for sure what the Order wants,” she said. “Except that amulet gone. Are you sure the water mage will tell you how to get back into the Court of the Dead? Because it’s one hell of a risk if he won’t.”

  “The Order—or at least some of them—want him behind bars as much as the Death King does,” I said. “If he fails to cooperate, I can haul him in. They’d hardly be able to call me the villain if I bring them a wanted criminal.”

  But if they had an inkling that I’d so much as uttered the words spirit magic, I’d be slammed with another black mark at the very least. And if I handed over the amulet, I might well be delivering it into the hands of the enemy myself.

  “Can I come with you to see the Order?” said Dex. “I’ve always wanted to meet them.”

  “Look, if they find out you’re here, who do you think they’ll blame?” I said. “The enemy already has me marked as a spirit mage. Which is ridiculous. I don’t need the Order finding out as well.”

  If they didn’t already. Devon gave me a sideways look, drumming her fingers on her knee. “Who told the soul thief about your past, exactly?”

  I shrugged. “It’s not a big secret. To anyone except for me, that is.”

  But I couldn’t quell my suspicions that the Order’s contradictory claims had another purpose. That not everyone had approved the original mission, I had no doubt, but what did Mr Cobb have to gain by sending me back to my death? I didn’t know the guy. Or I thought I didn’t.

  “Big secrets?” said Dex. “I’m a great spy. Let me know who you want me to follow and I’ll be good, I promise.”

  My mouth parted. The Order had my notes somewhere in their files. They’d know what information they’d stripped from me—and, pot
entially, the reason the soul thief thought me a danger to his plans. But if I’d ever known where they kept their classified information, I didn’t now. On computerised records, no doubt. Dex might be an expert at break-ins, but he wasn’t exactly savvy on all things technology. The Parallel had never quite caught up to this one even before the war.

  My phone pinged with a message from Brant. What’s the plan?

  I looked up at Dex. “How would you like to help with a little espionage? You’ll have to be quiet and inconspicuous. No screwing around. That clear?”

  “Of course,” he said. “What, you’re going to break into the Order?”

  “I don’t need to break in,” I said. “I can just use the door. And I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know why someone in the Order might be conspiring to steal liches’ souls.”

  It wasn’t a perfect plan, but short of sending Dex to scour the whole city in search of the water mage, the Order was my best bet. As I rode the bus into the city centre, I ended up having to shoo him out the window to stop him blowing hot air onto the other passengers.

  “You’re a menace,” I said out of the corner of my mouth as I climbed off the bus. “I’m already seen as the resident weirdo. Aside from all the other weirdos who sit next to me, anyway.”

  Dex blew onto the back of my neck in answer. Ignoring him, I spotted Brant waiting for me. His jeans and plain coat made him blend into the scenery so thoroughly that you wouldn’t have thought he was a mage with firepower at his fingertips.

  The three of us made our way towards the Order’s office. “I’m going to have to go in alone, I think. Dex, stick close to me.”

  Brant startled at the sight of the fire sprite. “How’d he get here?”

  “He followed me,” I said. “Don’t ask me how.”

  His expression darkened. “He shouldn’t be here.”

  “But he is, and he’s going to help us,” I said. “He’s my best spy.”

  “You bet,” said Dex. “Who am I looking for?”