Soul Hook (Devany Miller Book 5) (Devany Miller Series)

by Jen Ponce

  “So, all these weird things I’m feeling, this disconnection, that’s normal?”

  “Normal? No. Nothing about it is normal. But, it’s to be expected.”

  “Not by me! I didn’t expect any of this, thank you very much.” I weaved my fingers through my hair and gave it a slight tug. That always felt good when I was stressed. “This is ridiculous. How am I going to keep this … magical tumor safe?” I dug into my pocket. “I have this from Vasili.”

  Tytan snatched it out of my hand and stuffed it back where I’d plucked it. “Don’t. That kind of thing is forbidden. A drug that can incapacitate an Originator? All the Skriven would be after it and the Originators would kill anyone who made it.”

  “Uh, Vasili didn’t seem concerned.”

  “Because Vasili is an idiot.” Tytan disappeared and reappeared a moment later shaking out his fist.

  “What did you do?”

  He smoothed a finger over his bloody knuckles and magic smoothed the small nicks. “Reminded him he’s an idiot.” He palmed the bag and slipped it to me. “Keep that hidden. We won’t get a chance to use it if we’re both torn limb from limb.” He glanced over at Baow and then put a bubble around us both. “You’re hidden in Odd Silver. Not well, but it will be hard for him to hunt you down. He doesn’t have any kind of tie or link to you, so he won’t be able to search for your thread. I’ll work with our Skriven and his to figure out a trap that might hold him long enough for us to cram that thing down his throat.”

  “Wait. His Skriven?”

  “At least two. One that accidentally got himself ensorcelled by Elizabeta and another that has decided Zeph is her bestie.”

  “Elizabeta magically enslaved one of Gaius’ Skriven?”

  Tytan explained and I laughed at the thought, but my amusement was quickly sobered by another. “He’ll be pissed at her, won’t he? Gaius, I mean?”

  “Oren will know if he comes and Oren can fend him off. The flower compels him to protect her, even if he’d rather not. Gaius can’t override that. It’s a clever trap, pretty and hard to wriggle out of. Besides, Vasili won’t let any harm come to her either, I’m sure.”

  “Where’s Nex?”

  Tytan sighed. “He went off to lead a rebellion.”

  “Oh.” That sounded like my friend, though I was sad that he wasn’t here to exchange snarky insults with me. So much had changed since I’d died. I wasn’t sure I liked it. “What are we going to do about this magical tumor?”

  He stiffened all over as if I’d said something nasty and he was offended. “Do?”

  “Yeah. Magical tumors eventually grow up to be magical … er, kids.” I brushed away my idiot-metaphor. “You were the one that made it with Devany Two. You surely want to have some say in what happens next.”

  I didn’t expect him to look almost childlike in his hesitant happiness. “You won’t keep it from me? This,” a smile touched his lips, “magical tumor?”

  “No. Why would I? That would be cruel, and I tried not to be cruel. Mean at times. Bitchy at others. But cruel?” I thought about Arsinua rotting in her cell on Earth. Had that been cruel? Yeah, kind of. Then again, she took my Bethany, so I was pretty sure her perfidy outweighed my cruelty. “We’ll have to have some good ground rules, boundaries, good communication. God. I don’t even know what this kid will be. Ravana said it would be a god. Now Gaius said it will make him a god. What if it’s just … normal?”

  He laughed and laughed until I had to poke him hard in the chest. “Ow,” he said, fending off my pokes. “Normal? Really?”

  “Without magic. What if it’s a null?”

  He shrugged. “Then it will be safe, won’t it?”

  Ah, that was true.

  This was the weirdest conversation I’d ever had with Ty and I was ready for it to be over. “I think I’m going to go back to Krosh and see if I can figure out a way to explain this that doesn’t leave me looking like an asshole. Don’t go after Gaius on your own, okay?”

  “If he comes for me, I’ll take him on.”

  I touched his arm, yanking it away when Dev Two’s memories sizzled between us. “You have your soul back and he could easily snap your neck like he did mine.” I gave the ball back to him. “Just in case. Be careful. Please?”

  He took it and hid it away, promising to be careful. He left out, I noticed, any promises to stay away from Gaius until we had a plan.

  “Ty? I don’t want you to die.”

  “I didn’t want you to die either and look what happened.”

  I swallowed, hard, at the emotion in his voice.

  “Go,” he said, and I did before I let myself comfort him. Who knew where that would lead now that those memories sat between us?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I didn’t go straight back to Midia, since I wasn’t sure they sold pregnancy tests there. I hooked to the bathroom at Walmart, banking that the stall that had been broken for months was still out of order now. It was, though I’d forgotten money and had to hook home to grab my wallet. It was during the day so no one was home—Bethy Two and Liam Two would be at school and Travis at work. I wondered how they were faring without my clone, wondered if I should make another, wondered what Tom’s parents would think of Midia.

  Not now. I still hadn’t solved that dilemma and maybe I never would.

  I plucked a twenty out of my billfold and popped back to Walmart, waiting until the gassy old lady in the next stall left before popping out. I grabbed myself a candy bar and some chips, and then went to the health section to pick up a pregnancy test. I had to ask for it because they were under lock and key. A three-dollar test had to be locked up?

  I shuffled through the self-checkout and was walking out when I saw Danny and Zech going in. They hadn’t been in the group of people Tytan had gathered to help me, I realized. Zech spotted me first and he didn’t even grimace. An improvement.

  “Devany! Where have you been? Travis said you were sick.”

  Shit. I’d forgotten. She didn’t know I had been using another construct in my place. I had no idea what my other self had been doing at work. Trying to look somewhat ill, I smiled wanly. “I am. Came to pick up some medicine.” I held up my bag, hoping they couldn’t see through the thin plastic to the Snickers and Doritos inside. I almost asked her how everything was going, but I reminded myself I would already know that. “I’d better get home,” I said.

  “Feel better!” Danni leaned into Zech, giving me a little wave before they disappeared inside the store.

  She was so different now, much changed from the timid mouse she used to be. Zech was good for her. Knowing her abusive ex was dead didn’t hurt either.

  I walked around the corner of the box store and hooked home after a quick look around me. The house was quiet and felt empty, like it had when Tom and I had first moved in. The air didn’t feel lived in and it made me sad, though it wasn’t a painful sort of sad. I didn’t miss it anymore, now that Liam and Bethy were with me in Midia. Odd Silver felt more like home now, a place where we could be ourselves.

  I started to unwrap the test, then remembered it wouldn’t be of any use to me this early. Perhaps there was a magical tumor whose energy could be plucked by an annoying Originator, but more mundane human tests needed time. I hid the box behind a stack of towels in the hall closet and made a mental note to come back around the time my period was due. It would likely read positive, because that was how my luck went, but I would take it in a week and half just the same.

  I paused. I had no idea if Devany Two had had a period and if she had, when it was due. Maybe there really was a magical tumor and not a baby.

  A girl could dream.

  I hooked back to the Dream Caves, having already stayed on Earth too long for safety’s sake. It would take him time to find me, Tytan had said so, but I’d taken a risk staying so long. I vowed to pop in and out to grab the test instead of doing it there and shoved the whole thing to the back of my mind so I wouldn’t have to think about it now.

/>   I wanted some time with my kids, needed it, just like I wanted to sit down and drink tea with Lizzie and make love to Kroshtuka at least eighty times. I’d been dead and now I wasn’t, and I felt like I should celebrate it.

  I found Lizzie in her small room inside the caves, calling out to her in lieu of any kind of door to knock on. She was reading a book, this one called Hell Wrecker. “Any good?”

  She glanced up, her eyes dancing. “Quite. Always do enjoy steamy stories.”

  I laughed and settled onto the cushions by the small stream that worked its way through her room. Most of the caves had water in them, which I thought was peaceful as long as I didn’t have to sleep with it. The noise would drive me mad at night, and probably force me to make way more bathroom trips than I wanted. “My magic works. It still feels like I’m missing something or that there’s a gap between me and the world I can’t quite cross, but it works.”

  “Good. I suppose it will take time to get used to a new body, no matter how much it looked like the old one.” She slipped a delicate purple stem between the pages of her book and closed it. “What is it? You have a line between your brows which usually means you’re worrying about something.”

  I reached up to rub at the offending wrinkle, making her smile. “I feel guilty about something I didn’t even do. I had no part in it, but now I’m left carrying the consequences, and I’m not sure how to talk about it.” It was vague as confessions went, and I hoped she would forgive me for it. “It has the potential to affect my relationship with Kroshtuka and my kids.” And with Tytan, too. If this was a baby and not some sort of magical malfunction, then he would have to play a part in the care and raising of it. He owed it to the childhood Ravana had stolen from him.

  “If it’s not your fault, why feel guilty?”

  I had already asked myself that a thousand times. I didn’t know why worry nagged at me the way it did. I didn’t know why I felt guilty for things beyond my control. “It’ll be difficult to explain to the kids.” Yeah, remember that demon guy? He had sex with a copy of me and now I’m wearing that body so … At least they knew I had a new body. For all that having them in the Slip had scared me, I was so glad they knew the truth.

  I sighed. If I was so glad they knew that truth, then why wasn’t I ready to spill this one on them?

  Because you wanted to have sex with Tytan too.

  That was it. The crux of the matter. I had wanted to. I didn’t do it, but I had wanted to, which meant Devany Two had wanted it, too. She just hadn’t had the same boundaries. I was worried if I talked about the one, I would have to admit the other. “Shit.” Before I could chicken out, I told her, and then waited, cringing inside, for her to speak.

  Lizzie leaned over and took my hand. “It will be okay. Thoughts and actions are two different things.”

  “I know but—”

  “Thoughts and actions are two different things,” she said again. “If they weren’t, we’d all be in trouble.”

  I knew it was true, but I still felt bad. “I hate that this might come between us. I hate that something I did or thought about doing could cause Kroshtuka pain. It just sucks.”

  “We all think about things we’d never do. It’s a way for our minds to explore consequences. It’s loyalty to Kroshtuka and your sense of honor that kept you from acting on them. Your other self didn’t have Kroshtuka to think about. All she had were your memories and memories don’t keep a body warm at night. Do you really fault her for what she did?”

  “Well, no. I get it. I do.”

  “This Originator that orchestrated your fall into his pit, he predicted this would happen, no?”

  I sighed. “Yes. He knew. Even when Tytan and I told him it would never happen, he knew. How could he know? I don’t even know what I’m about to do from one moment to the next and he knew all this would happen? What’s the point of going against him if he already knows what we’re going to do?”

  “He guesses probabilities.”

  I studied her face, seeing the glassy look that stole over her eyes.

  “He plucks the strings of the future and reads the signs. He guesses what will happen based on what has happened. He’s not infallible, just patient.” She blinked and the glassy look vanished as if I’d imagined it. Perhaps I had. “It will be hard to outwit him, but not impossible.”

  I shut my eyes, wondering just how Gaius saw the future, how he ‘plucked the lines’ as Lizzie said. I saw nothing in my Magic Eye but the strands of my Skriven stretching away from me … and that brilliant blue line shooting out of my lower abdomen. I touched the line and heard Tytan’s heartbeat.

  Shit.

  I blinked away the sight of the strings and sighed. “Can I just hide in here until the world has been saved?”

  She tossed me a book, Raster City Rebels. “You can stay for a while and lose yourself in another world. It’s a reverse harem novel. You’ll like it.”

  I curled my lip and mouthed, ‘Reverse harem?’ It didn’t sound like my cup of tea, but since I was avoiding the world, I sat back and opened the book to page one.

  Eight days later I peed on the stick and confirmed what Tytan had already told me. He had gotten Devany Two pregnant and now I had to deal with the aftermath. I hadn’t kept the possibility of it from Kroshtuka and he didn’t yell, disown me, or even make me feel bad. If anything, I felt bad for thinking he would hate me for it. When I told him, he kissed me until I couldn’t quite remember my own name and then told me he loved me.

  I wasn’t sure what to tell the kids, but finally decided it wouldn’t be as hard to explain as I’d thought. They knew I had a new body. I let them know my clone had been the one to get pregnant, not me, but it was mine now because of the way things happened. Bethany had been quiet through my whole explanation and the many questions Liam had. When she didn’t say anything after Liam was satisfied, I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

  She shrugged and then said, “Won’t she be sad she doesn’t get to have her baby?”

  “She was a holder for a copy of my memories. That’s all. She didn’t have a soul or any life except what I’d given her when I made her. So no, she won’t be sad because she wasn’t real.” I slipped my hand in Kroshtuka’s and leaned into him. “It’s not what I wanted and there’s more to this than just a baby. The thing that killed me is out there somewhere and he wants to hurt the baby. Wants to use it to make himself a god. We all have to be extra careful. He can’t track me, but he has Skriven he can send out looking for me.”

  “Odd Silver can hide from them. I’ve already let the other clans know to hide, too. The Elders will shroud us, which will protect us further. Individually, a Wydling might not be as powerful as a Skriven, but together we are strong. They always underestimate us, to their detriment.”

  I wondered if the Spider Queen would help us, if she would welcome me into her tower or eat me. She was a goddess, in a way, with power so great she’d made the Omphalos that had fed magic to the witches for centuries. Perhaps we could send someone to ask her, but I wasn’t going to go myself. I planned to stay with my children, Krosh, and my new family and die protecting them if need be.

  “I think we should all stay here. Not just you and the kids and Dad. But the Skriven.” I gnawed on my lip. “Do you think Meat Clan would be upset?”

  “The more power we can call upon, the better. If they will lend their power to our Elders, they are welcome.”

  I pictured Lizzie sharing a copy of Raster City Rebels—which had been a pretty fun book after all—with Kali and wondered what the Skriven would think of the bounty hunter and her four lovers. Did Kali have lovers herself? Was she straight? I had no idea and vowed to find out some day.

  “If this Originator comes, we will be ready for him. We will all prepare and plan and everyone will know their duty.” He was looking at both Bethy and Liam when he said this, and my children nodded solemnly. I loved seeing how alive they seemed here, how mature they were now. Oh, they still fought with each other and
played games with the other kids, but they cherished their responsibilities here in a way they never liked chores on Earth.

  They felt important here, like their contributions mattered in a way they never did at home. Kroshtuka had done that for them and I loved him for it.

  “I’ll call Tytan and the others to me, then, and ask them to gather everyone Gaius might be able to use against me and bring them here. You sure that’s okay?”

  Kroshtuka grinned. “The Dream Caves are massive. We have plenty of room and our food stores are good.”

  “How long will they last? Gaius is immortal. He could wait forever, wait for the moment we slip up, run out of food, think he’s given up. We have to draw him out somehow. Get him to a showdown that we’re the authors of, that we control.”

  Krosh nodded thoughtfully. “We need to plan this out carefully then. When everyone is here, we meet with Meat Clan and your Skriven to figure out how to end this creature’s life for good.”

  “Yes.” It felt good to picture Gaius dead. And we had an ace in the hole, didn’t we? The baozaball. If we couldn’t make him dead, then we could at least make him regret being able to draw a breath for the rest of his immortal existence.

  When I tugged, I didn’t just get Vasili; I got Elizabeta and Oren too. They were all squabbling and Vasili had fewer clothes on than I ever remembered him wearing … or not wearing. He had a nice body for a tentacle-headed demon. His skin was greyish-blue, and I thought there might have been a few tentacles poking out of the top of his pants, but he dressed himself before I could confirm what I saw.

  He glared at me.

  “Sorry. I did pull three times and thought that was enough warning.”

  Elizabeta smiled brightly. “He’s just cranky because Oren woke us up.”

  Gaius’ Skriven was scowling too, though at Elizabeta not me. “Gaius is preparing to rip another hole in the Slip. As I’m compelled to your service, I was required to tell you what I sensed.”