Thief of Souls

by Emma L. Adams

  “Then I’ll finish him fast.” His second fireball turned several revenants to ashes and sent Vaughn backing against the wall. The earth mage looked between us, genuine fear in his eyes.

  Brant grabbed the scruff of his neck. “What are you playing at? Trying to knock down your own hideout?”

  He spat out blood. “The city will be rebuilt from the ground up when our true leader takes his throne.”

  Brant raised Vaughn’s head and smashed it into the wall. “No chance.”

  The wall trembled, and Brant staggered as the earth behind him began to fracture. Vaughn smiled, his face a bloody mess. “I’ll take you down with me, Brant, you’ll see if I don’t.”

  Brant looked at me. “This is our fight. I won’t ask you to get involved.”

  “Like hell,” I said, incensed. “I’m not losing you again.”

  “How touching,” said Vaughn. “You sicken me, you know that? All that power at your fingertips, and yet you choose to toe the line rather than doing anything with it.”

  “Someone else said something similar to me once,” I told him. “It didn’t end well for anyone involved.”

  Brant was right, though—it was Mr Cobb I needed to find, before he finished off the Death King and claimed the rest of his army.

  “I’ll handle him,” Brant said. “He doesn’t have the amulet.”

  No… the false Death King did. “He’s not underground. Where is he?”

  Brant slammed Vaughn’s head into the wall again. “Where is he? Where is your master?”

  He grimaced. “He’s at home, of course… his new home.”

  The Death King’s castle.

  He’d already gone there to claim his throne.

  22

  I ran for the steps back to the surface. Brant and Vaughn’s shouts echoed behind me, interspersed with tremors that wrenched at the ground beneath my feet, but I couldn’t worry about Brant now. I had to warn the others.

  I ran out of the house and found Ryan directing liches out of the streets and away from the fleeing Order members. It seemed at least some of them still took orders from him, as long as the false Death King wasn’t around.

  “Mr Cobb is already at the castle,” I told them. “He went to declare war on your master directly.”

  Ryan swore. “I should have known he’d try to give us the slip. We’ll go there right away.”

  As we turned to leave, one of the Order guards accosted me. “Where are you going?”

  “The Death King’s territory,” I said. “Mr Cobb has gone there to take his throne and his army in one go, unless we stop him.”

  “What’s going on in there?” A shifter indicated the house, which trembled as though a great beast stirred beneath the earth.

  “Vampire turf war,” I told them. “A diversion, to keep us from the Death King’s territory. If you want to stop Mr Cobb, you’d better come with me.”

  I didn’t wait for a response. Ryan took the lead, their air magic lending them speed the rest of us couldn’t hope to match. Dex flew over my head, occasionally diverting a lich or two off our trail. While Ryan could command obedience for now, I suspected that would all change when we reached the swamp.

  The Order guards fell in behind us as Ryan and I made for the outskirts of the swampland. Mist curled above the ground, while dark shapes swirled around a figure standing alone on the marshy ground.

  Mr Cobb stood in the midst of the liches, an expectant look on his face.

  With a curse, Ryan raised their hands and blasted Mr Cobb with air magic. He didn’t bother to dodge. He just held up the soul amulet, and the attack slammed into an invisible shield. My teeth rattled in my skull as the air vibrated around us, but Mr Cobb remained unharmed.

  “You can’t lay a hand on me,” he said. “None of you can. Your king is dead, and I am your new master.”

  He can’t be.

  A furious cry escaped Ryan, and they fired another blast of magic at the spirit mage. Ryan’s magic was stronger, but they couldn’t get through Mr Cobb’s shield. The Order representatives fanned out across the swampland.

  “Ryan,” I said. “You help the Order deal with the liches. I’ll handle him.”

  The liches, at least, could be stalled by the Air Element’s magic, but as long as Mr Cobb held the Death King’s soul, none of the Death King’s soldiers would be able to raise a hand against him.

  But I would.

  “You will, will you?” Mr Cobb held up the amulet, which hung from a chain around his neck, then let it fall against his chest. Energy hummed around him like an invisible force-field. He was using the Death King’s life energy to give him power.

  I have to get it out of his hands. Whatever he’d done to get the liches to obey him relied on him keeping the amulet in his hands. He was borrowing the power through a conduit—and for all I knew, maybe I could do the same. After all, several feet away from him lay the node in the centre of the swampland, a current of power connecting both realms. Even through my panic, I felt its power humming beneath the surface.

  “Do you really want to challenge me, Olivia?” he said.

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “I’m giving you one chance to hand over the amulet. If you do, the Death King might spare your life.”

  “The Death King is dead,” he said. “These liches serve me now. You could join me, Olivia. I’m still willing to give you another chance.”

  “I’d rather eat dirt,” I said. “You’re using a dead man’s soul to gain power.”

  “You care so strongly for the man who terrorised you?”

  “No, the Death King was never my master,” I said. “I think he’s an utter dick, actually, on account of how he locked me in jail and turned Brant into a lich. But you’re worse.”

  I called on power straight from the node, no longer caring if the others saw me use spirit magic. It was him or me, and I intended to win.

  Energy roared from my hands, straight at the soul thief. He pivoted, tucking the amulet into his coat, and shot a blast of power from his own palms. I ducked and rolled, avoiding his attack.

  “You can’t beat me, Olivia.” Energy surged from his hands, vibrant as the glowing current of a node. “My knowledge far surpasses yours, however powerful you might be.”

  He wasn’t wrong. His memories of spirit magic were fully intact, after all. I might have remembered enough to save my life, but perhaps it wouldn’t be enough to beat a master. Especially one holding onto a soul as ancient and terrifying as the Death King’s.

  Worse, more liches floated towards us, drawn by their master’s aura. Dark shadowy shapes surrounded me on all sides, and Mr Cobb gave a thin-lipped smile. “Kill them.”

  A horrible scream came from behind me as the liches closed in on the Order’s forces. Two went down, falling like puppets with their strings cut as the life was wrenched from their bodies. I cursed, aiming another attack at Mr Cobb, but a lich got in the way. Energy blasted from my palms, sending the lich flying into the air. The node glowed, too, and shock punched through me when I realised Cobb was utterly ignoring it.

  I might not remember my lessons, but I was fairly sure that losing his magic meant Cobb had also lost the ability to sense the nodes. Even holding the Death King’s soul hadn’t restored that power. His magic was concentrated inside the amulet, and he couldn’t bolster it with energy from elsewhere.

  I began circling him, firing off blasts of energy as I did so, and keeping one eye on the node. Mr Cobb’s gaze followed me, probably wondering what in hell I was playing at, but I didn’t have any better ideas. The closer I drew, the more the node’s power roared in my blood, and I wondered how I’d ever forgotten how to use it. Magic punched through my fingers, and the liches who grabbed for me flew in all directions, unable to touch me.

  The third stage. Drawing on a node to bolster my own strength.

  I raised my hand and directed a wave of spirit magic at Mr Cobb. The shock on his face sent a bolt of satisfaction through me, but it swiftly turned into
a goading smirk.

  I faltered, seeing a nearby Order employee watching me. Mr Cobb wanted me to suffer for the crime he believed I’d committed. My grip on the node slipped, and the liches closed in once more. I might be able to attack them, but they couldn’t die, not as long as their souls were bound to their own amulets. And I’d tire out eventually.

  Cold shadowy hands brushed against me from behind, and a piercing chill banished the buzzing in my veins. Two liches closed in, one on either side of me, and a horrible yawning emptiness pierced me, as though they were reaching for my very soul. Mr Cobb’s mouth twisted with hate and bitterness intermixed with triumph. “Goodbye, Olivia.”

  Fire flared across my vision, and the liches released me, recoiling away from the flames.

  Brant. He also came with Dex, who blasted sparks into the liches’ eyes from above and flew around them like an angry wasp. I retreated to safer ground, next to Brant.

  “Glad to see you,” I breathed.

  “Likewise.” Fire blasted from his hands, forcing Mr Cobb to conceal himself behind his liches. The bastard might have made himself immune to the Death King’s Elemental Soldiers, but any other mage could harm him.

  Brant and I moved to stand back to back. “Your fire can hurt Cobb,” I told him. “He can only be harmed by people who don’t support the Death King.”

  “Then I guess I’ll have to continue being opposed to his reign of terror.” A torrent of flame blasted from his palms, and Mr Cobb let his liches take the fall, a calculating expression forming on his face.

  Don’t you dare hurt him.

  Mr Cobb deflected the next wave of flames with ease, and my heart sank. The Death King’s powers were far beyond mine and Brant’s. I remembered four lessons, that was all.

  Out of ideas, I ran for the node again, but Mr Cobb swept in. He raised a hand, and my body ground to a halt, freezing on the spot the way it had when the Death King had unleashed his power on me.

  “Useful tool, this.” He held up the amulet. “I think I’ll let you watch me kill your friends before I use it to finish you off.”

  Bodies already littered the swampland—Order guards, stripped of their souls. Ryan stood surrounded by liches, strong enough to hold them off, but they couldn’t fight an army single-handedly. Order guards fell, crumpling as the life bled from them. Mr Cobb didn’t care about killing his fellow Order members, and as long as he held me in his grip, I was powerless.

  “Stop right there!” Currents of water swirled into view, and several liches vanished beneath a tidal wave directed by an armoured woman with a blue-lined coat. Her hair was braided down her back, her dark blue coat marked with the Death King’s symbol.

  At her side walked a soldier with flames dancing between his palms, while another rode on horseback, the earth cracking beneath his steed’s skeletal feet. Liches fell into the cracks, struggling to regain their balance. The other three Elements had come to join the first in fighting against Mr Cobb. They don’t recognise him as their leader. Unlike the liches, they had the freedom to make that choice, and they’d chosen to stand by their true master.

  My heart lifted despite myself as the four Elements engaged the lich army, leaving Mr Cobb and I alone.

  “Why not join me, Olivia?” said Mr Cobb. “You’d be better off at my side than with the Order.”

  “Never,” I shot at him. “You killed them. Slaughtered them in cold blood. I’d rather join the Death King than you.”

  “I am the Death King,” he said. “Or I will be, once I win the last of his servants to my side.”

  The four Elemental Soldiers’ attacks had the liches retreating, but none could harm Mr Cobb, who remained as indestructible as ever. My body, meanwhile, remained frozen to the spot. Powerless to escape.

  I reached for the node, willing its energy to come to me. There had to be a way to break out of his spell.

  Astral projecting. It wasn’t ideal, but maybe… maybe there was a chance the Death King had survived, and I could reach him. If I left my body behind, that is.

  I flew out of my body, arcing above the ground, and spotted Dex flying above the liches, throwing fireballs in them.

  He gave me a wave. “Oh, we’re flying away, are we?”

  “No, we’re going to find out how to stop that dickhead,” I said. “How do I get that amulet out of his hand when I can’t move and he can’t be affected by anyone who recognises him as their master?”

  “I can try,” he said. “Can you give me a boost?”

  “Can I what?”

  He flew towards me in a whirl of flames. “I reckon I can take him. Or at least slow him down.”

  “How—what do you want me to do?” Now I was thoroughly confused.

  “Do what you did when you brought me with you through the node,” he said. “Get back into your body first. Before he sees you.”

  I sailed back into my body, and Dex floated in front of me. As I did so, I drew on the node’s power, willing it to flow through me and into the fire sprite.

  Energy surged from the node into me, right through Dex. The fire sprite launched forward and slammed into Mr Cobb with the force of a bullet. Mr Cobb staggered, and his spell broke. I lunged at him, tackling him to the ground and grabbing for the amulet around his neck.

  “Deal with him,” Mr Cobb snarled, fighting my grip. I grasped the amulet and tugged it over his head, and the Death King’s soul appeared floating above it before vanishing again. My fingers grasped the chain, but Mr Cobb tugged back.

  Dex screamed.

  My grip on the amulet broke, and I looked up in time to see one of the liches seize the fire sprite. In a wrenching movement, Dex’s body blazed all over—then he burst into flames, turning to ashes that scattered on the breeze.

  23

  A roar of fire swallowed my scream. Dex didn’t even have time to cry out before his fragile form broke apart into splintered fragments. Time slowed to a crawl, each second painfully crystallised, before the node’s power roared into my fingertips once again.

  Instinct took over. The fragments that had once been Dex coalesced into a swirling mass in the midst of the node’s power rippling from my hand. My magic caressed the ashes, kindling them into a flame. Willing Dex to return to life.

  Dex’s humanoid transparent figure reappeared in the same spot in which he’d vanished. “Ow, that hurt.”

  Mr Cobb’s expression was raw shock, and despite my own disbelief, I knew an opportunity when I saw one. While Mr Cobb’s attention was on Dex, I lunged for the amulet.

  My hand closed around the cool metal, tugging it free from Mr Cobb’s hand. He snarled and grabbed for it, but before he could yank it out of my grip, Dex flew into his eyes. He swore explosively, batting at the fire sprite and cursing when the flames singed his hands. The amulet came free, flying in an arc over the swampland.

  I dove after it, kicking Mr Cobb as I did so. He grabbed at my legs, but Brant flung a handful of flames over my shoulder. Cobb swore and threw himself flat on the ground.

  “Get him!” I shouted in the general direction of the four Elemental Soldiers. “He can’t defend himself without this!”

  My hand closed around the cold shape of the amulet. The liches instantly zeroed in on me, but when I rose to my feet, they stopped in their tracks.

  “Stop fighting the Order,” I told the liches. “Attack him. Keep him away from the castle.”

  Mr Cobb ran at me with a roar of fury, but the liches converged on him in a dark mass, no longer bound to his will. As for me, I gripped the amulet in my hand, and I ran towards the castle, hoping that I wasn’t too late.

  Magic roared to my fingertips, straight from the node, and the amulet’s sudden glow nearly made me trip over in shock. The Death King’s transparent form appeared hovering above the surface. My speed quickened, my feet skimming the ground as I ran. Was he loaning me his power?

  Whatever the case, the liches weren’t challenging me, Brant and the rest of the Order’s people held back Mr Cobb, and
I kept running until I passed through the gates leading to the castle. I put on a burst of speed, my nerves jangling, my lungs screaming at me. I have to make it. I have to.

  Taking the stone steps two at a time, I pelted up to the castle entrance and into the main hall. My feet pounded on the stone floor as I ran up to the dais, where the Death King waited.

  He was still alive, I knew at once, but fading, almost entirely transparent.

  I held up the amulet. “Looking for this?”

  “You.” Even his voice was quieter than usual. “I need you to return my soul to its original vessel.”

  I dug my hand in my pocket and pulled out the now-vacant skull amulet, holding it side by side with the new one. “Can’t you jump from one to another?”

  “That’s not how it works,” he said. “A spirit mage must make the transfer. That’s why… when the spirit war ended…”

  “You were all stuck as liches.” I’d thought they’d made that choice, but perhaps it wasn’t a choice after all. “You couldn’t reverse what happened to Brant, but I could.”

  No wonder spirit mages were such a valuable commodity. Liches could create other liches, but they couldn’t reverse the process on their own. When the spirit mages had died out, the liches had been trapped in their current form. Yet with their resurgence…

  “Go on,” he said. “We can discuss the nuances of spirit magic later.”

  The Death King trusted me to put his soul back into place? It seemed surreal, but I had no time to dwell on the bizarre turn my life had taken. If I’d been a different person, I might have considered disposing of both amulets, but if there was anyone I trusted to bring an end to this conflict, it was the Death King. Rather him than Mr Cobb, anyway.

  Holding the amulets side by side, I waited for the Death King’s figure to appear floating above the new vessel. I willed it to move into my hand, which still buzzed with the power of the node.

  For a few panicked seconds, I was afraid it hadn’t worked. The glowing soul in my grip looked so insubstantial, it hardly seemed like it had ever belonged to a person. I held my breath, my hands trembling, and when I was sure the soul was disconnected from the amulet, I took the second one in my hand.