Witch's Soul

by Emma L. Adams

  “If you do, then it is you who will pay the price for it, Jacinda,” she rumbled. “Your companion here hides secrets that belong to us alone.”

  “If you mean the fact that you exist, it’s your own fault for putting the geas on me to begin with,” I said. “As for the Ancients, they kidnapped his brother. That’s all he knows. Let him go.”

  Silence descended. Crap, what if he did know more? There was a time and a place to get answers from Keir, and in the middle of the forest while Evelyn Hemlock possibly went on a massacre using my body was definitely not one of them.

  The tree roots trapping Keir shifted, releasing him. He gasped for air, pulling them away from his face with his hands. Small cuts lacerated the skin, but he looked in better shape than I’d feared.

  “Keir!” I ran to his side, reaching for his arm. My hands passed right through him.

  “Shit, Jas,” he said, staring through me. “Evelyn—she took over. I couldn’t stop her. I don’t know where she went.”

  I whirled on the tree Cordelia had spoken from. “Tell me where she went. Is she in Edinburgh?”

  “She’s beyond our borders,” said Cordelia.

  “It’s my body. I should be able to track her.” If she was in Edinburgh, she might be back at the guild making trouble. But otherwise? The forest could link to literally anywhere on the spirit line. Who knew where she’d run off to?

  “Calm down, Jacinda.”

  “Calm down?” I said. “Tell me how to get her spirit out of my body. Now. I don’t care if it leaves you without an heir. She’s a madwoman, and she wants the world to burn.”

  “She does not,” she rumbled. “She carries much passion and pain, but her mind is clouded from so long imprisoned. Given the time to heal, she will be able to take over as heir.”

  “You want her to be heir,” I said, my voice shaking. “Not me. I was never a consideration. Just—a vessel.”

  “Not at all, Jas,” said Cordelia. “You’re two separate individuals, and I’m sure you’ll learn to cooperate in time.”

  “Oh, you can’t pretend you didn’t play favourites,” I said. “I don’t care if you were buddies with her when you were all still alive and kicking: she nearly destroyed the spirit line to get power. And if you can’t see that, you’re beyond my help. Feel free to have a heart to heart when she does come in here to finish you off. Maybe I’ll even watch.”

  “You used Jas,” Keir said, addressing Cordelia. “You do realise that what you did broke the laws of this realm, and you let an innocent person take the fall?”

  “They know,” I said. “They just don’t care.”

  Cordelia’s dark eyes briefly flicked to Keir before moving back to me. “Let it not be said that I care nothing for your well-being, Jacinda. Evelyn was a loyal and dedicated apprentice who died before her time. You have done nothing but run from your responsibilities.’

  “I’ve spent the last month dealing with the enemies you brought on my tail,” I said, my ghostly fists clenching. “Someone is breaking the spirit lines to get to the Ancients. And if I fail to stop them because of Evelyn’s quest for power, you’re equally to blame.”

  “Evelyn is not your enemy, Jacinda. I believe she acted rashly out of desperation, but believe me when I say that I do not believe Evelyn plans to turn on her coven.”

  I threw up my hands. “You’re taking her side even now?”

  “Did Evelyn ever use her power to hurt others?” she enquired. “Evelyn does not desire to destroy us, only share in the power she sees as rightfully hers.”

  “No, she wants more power. She implied you gave up most of yours.”

  “We did,” she said. “To create this forest, we poured our lives and our souls into the magic, and as long as we remain, the Ancients will never return.”

  “That’s what the enemy wants, right?” I said. “To free the Ancients. They’re… in another realm somewhere. Right?”

  The void-like dimension where that winged monstrosity existed… was that what the Soul Collector planned to crack open? He’d already knocked out one spirit line, to say nothing of how he’d freed Evelyn using the knowledge he’d yanked from Mackie’s head. He knew everything she did—about me, about Evelyn, and maybe even about the forest. The only reason he wasn’t already here was because he needed a Hemlock witch’s magic to enter, and now he had one. And Cordelia still had the nerve to act like I was the villain.

  “The Ancients,” said Cordelia, “will never be allowed back into the realm of mortals. And the spirit lines cannot be destroyed.”

  “But they can be opened,” I said. “Some furies already escaped through the gap.”

  Keir shot me a sideways look. “So that’s how they got out? They weren’t summoned?”

  “I should have told you.” I screwed up my forehead. “Keir… is there anything you know that I don’t? About the Ancients?”

  “It might be that my brother knew things I don’t,” he said quietly. “I’d never heard of the Ancients before he was kidnapped. After… I went direct to the mages and appealed to them for help. But they shot me down and insisted that the Ancients no longer existed and neither did any realm they might have inhabited.”

  “They might well believe that. Everyone thinks the Hemlocks are extinct, after all. But what are the Ancients, precisely? Come on, Cordelia, at least give me a clue.”

  “Our predecessors,” said Cordelia. “Gods, or so our ancestors believed. It is said that they died out, but they are not so easily destroyed. Tell me the name of our enemy.”

  “The Soul Collector,” I said. “Why, do you know him? He’s not… oh, hell.”

  The Soul Collector wasn’t human. He was more powerful than any vampire had the right to be… yet he was weak, hiding behind others and sending them to do his bidding. He couldn’t be one of the Ancients, right?

  “Cordelia,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “The Soul Collector wants to come here, and with Evelyn, he might just get his wish. Put your bias aside and tell me… if Evelyn used your magic against you, would she be able to undo the spells you used to lock the Ancients out?”

  Her eyes blinked, once, and I knew I’d lost. She was determined not to see Evelyn for the villain she really was.

  “No,” she finally said. “It’s not possible for a single Hemlock to undo the work of the others. But there’s no reason for Evelyn to turn on us. It’s thanks to our magic that she survived at all, and if you were to be destroyed, so would she.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to destroy me. Just taking my body and leaving me stuck as a ghost forever is enough,” I said. “If you’d had your way, I wouldn’t have survived at all, would I? You wanted her. Not me.”

  “If we had our way, we would not have died out,” she said. “We would not have been forced to sacrifice ourselves in defence of this realm.”

  “Spare me the woe is me speech. You chose to bind yourselves here.” I turned to Keir. “We have to get to Evelyn. But if she’s too far off, I might lose all connection to my body.”

  Keir moved to my side, and I stiffened in surprise as his hand interlocked with mine, through the spirit realm. In the grey fog that briefly appeared, his ghostly form appeared less shadowy, like a veil had peeled back and I saw him the way he really was, behind his vampire form.

  “Look,” he said. “The rules on shades—hell, the rules of necromancy—throw them out the window. If the connection between the two of you was going to break, it already would have. She won’t let your body die, not while she needs it, and as long you both live, you’ll stay connected. You’ve even passed through liminal spaces without your body and the connection still exists. The forest alone is much further from Earth than the distance between two key points.”

  I drew in a breath I didn’t need to take. “Thank you. I think you’re right… but I don’t like not knowing what she’s doing with my body.”

  “I can find her,” he said. “If you cross over, you’ll be able to bring me with you. Trust
me.”

  You know what? I trusted him.

  Keir’s grip on my hand remained steady, and I closed my eyes, pulling both of us out of the forest, back to Earth.

  18

  Seeing Edinburgh as a ghost was like viewing the world through a grey haze. Anyone who looked at Keir and me would think he was alone—except for necromancers. Best hope I didn’t run into anyone I knew before I got my body back.

  I focused as hard as I could on the sensation of inhabiting a body, wishing I wasn’t so close to the guild, and closed my eyes. Take me back. Let me in, Evelyn.

  A whisper of a connection, then nothing.

  “Nope.” I turned to Keir. “I can barely sense her. She’s too far away.” Or she’d got better at shutting me out.

  I closed my eyes, reaching out. Even when she’d temporarily shut me out of my body before, I’d been able to push my way in eventually. Now, it was as though she was nowhere at all. She couldn’t be dead, or beyond the veil, otherwise I’d have died along with her. Unless…

  “Maybe… maybe she’s not in this realm.”

  Keir’s hand brushed against mine. “Keep trying. Maybe she went into a liminal space, maybe not, but she’s on the hunt for this vampire. He’s in this realm, as far as we know. He wouldn’t be able to possess anyone otherwise.”

  “He’s not a vampire,” I pointed out, opening my eyes. “And—bloody hell. She has my body, which means she has my phone. She can easily call anyone whose number I have and lure them into a trap, or… anything.”

  His mouth pinched. “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit—or the people who really know you. They won’t believe her for a minute.”

  “And does that number include you?” A heartbeat passed, then I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  I turned away, my mind spinning in circles. There must be a way to reach my friends which didn’t require having a physical body. Most of them were necromancers, for crying out loud.

  “I want it to,” he said, so quietly I half thought I imagined it.

  I extended my senses through the spirit realm, searching for any familiar people. If I went directly to the guild without a body, the boss would pick up on me immediately. But there was one way to communicate with them. “Wait. There are two psychics in that building. If I get their attention, they’ll know it’s me. You can probably do the same.”

  “Aren’t they wearing iron?” he asked.

  “Dammit.” Of all the times to regret pressuring Mackie to block out her psychic connection.

  “I can go there myself and tell them you’re in trouble,” said Keir. “Or I can find them through the spirit realm. Nobody noticed when I visited you.”

  “It’s risky,” I said. “The guild is on full alert—specifically, for a vampire. They won’t let you in.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll check first.” He closed his eyes, then opened them again. “No. They have guards outside. Any higher necromancers will sense me the instant I go near.”

  “Bugger. Maybe they sensed me, too.”

  “No, they won’t have. I’m easier to sense than you are, since it’s vampires they’re looking for. None of them can project that far, and if that Ilsa is involved, she’ll know it’s me.”

  “Let’s hope so. I think reaching the psychics is the only way.”

  Mackie! I thought loudly. Morgan! It’s Jas. I need help. Come and meet us at Waverley Bridge now. I repeated the thought, over and over. Mackie!

  Keir tapped a foot. “Are you sure it will work? How do you know they can hear?”

  “I don’t,” I admitted. “Mackie implied that psychics are super attuned to anyone who has a strong presence in the spirit realm, so if you do anything to draw their attention, it hits harder. But I can’t link mind-to-mind the way other psychics do. The fact that she saw into my dreams, though… it implies the iron isn’t enough to completely block it out. It’s only a temporary measure. Morgan said that you have to learn to control the power yourself, otherwise anyone else with psychic abilities can still get around the link.” Like the Soul Collector had.

  “Maybe they won’t let her leave the guild,” said Keir, after another minute had passed.

  “They probably won’t.” And for Mackie’s own safety, she shouldn’t. “You know what, I should probably try to link to my body again instead…”

  Keir gripped my ghostly hand. “There they are.”

  Several cloaked figures approached the bridge, moving fast. Ilsa led the way, with Morgan and Mackie behind Lloyd and Isabel.

  “God, stop yelling at me, Jas,” Mackie exploded. “You nearly blew our cover.”

  “I didn’t know if you could hear me,” I said. “Or that you’d bring the others.”

  “Like we’d stay away,” said Lloyd, hurrying down the bridge. “After you ran out on us.”

  “Wait, you’re a ghost,” said Morgan. “Am I the only person seeing this?”

  “No,” said Ilsa, staring through me. “Jas, what in hell happened to you? Where’s your body?”

  “Yeah, the thing is, I’m kind of not allowed to tell anyone. Pain of death. Suffice to say, it’s not where I want it to be, and I can’t find it.”

  Lloyd’s eyes bugged out. “But you’re still alive. I mean, relatively speaking.”

  “For now,” I said. “I’m stuck like this until I find my body, but wherever it is, there’s a strong chance our enemy’s there, too.”

  “Did your body go walking off by itself?” said Morgan. “Seriously, that’s not normal in my book. Unless you’re secretly a vampire?”

  “No, she…” Ilsa hesitated, her forehead screwing up. “I’m lost.”

  Lloyd and Mackie looked at each other, then at Isabel, whose mouth was pinched. All three of the others knew, but the Lynn siblings were in the dark. They were both too smart to stay ignorant for long, though, and getting to the enemy was more important than keeping secrets.

  “Just imagine a vampire piloting a vessel and you’ll get the picture,” I said.

  “Shade,” Ilsa said suddenly, her face paling.

  All eyes turned to her.

  “Shade?” repeated Morgan.

  “It’s what you read from my mind, idiot,” said Mackie. “It’s not like I was great at shutting you out.”

  “Mother-fucker,” said Morgan. “You tried to strangle me. That wasn’t you at all. Was it?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Unfortunately, the person hijacking my body is not friendly.”

  “And she’s probably not in the city,” Keir put in. “We’re assuming she’s assisting the Soul Collector, and has cut herself off from the spirit realm so Jas can’t reconnect to her body.”

  Mackie’s mouth fell open. “I take back every bad thing I’ve said about being a psychic. That’s crap.”

  “It is,” I said. “I’ll be honest and say the odds of me making it out of this alive are slim, but if I don’t find my body, then the enemy is likely to break the spirit line. He’s been attacking smaller nodes to build up power, and has probably succeeded in at least one place.”

  Ilsa swore. “He said he wants the Ancients. Can the person controlling your body take him to them?”

  Oh, bugger. I’d forgotten, momentarily, that she’d witnessed everything the Soul Collector had said to both of us before he’d killed the necromancer and fled. But I hadn’t known she’d recognise the word.

  Keir took a step towards Ilsa. “I knew something about you wasn’t right. You—you know them, don’t you?”

  Ilsa turned to him, her eyes narrowing. “Do I know that the Ancients are the former gods of the faerie realm? Yes, I do. And I wasn’t aware any of them were still alive.”

  My mouth fell open. Ilsa knew? And Morgan, too, judging by his lack of surprise. Well, that made explaining easier. “The Soul Collector is one of them,” I said. “At least, I think so. He’s almost like a vampire, but not quite. And he looks human, except he seems to be able to possess ghosts.”

  “He mi
ght not have his own form,” Ilsa said uncertainly. “Uh. I don’t know. It’s not like I run into ancient gods every day, but as far as I know, a lot of them are, or were, shapeshifters. They can take on human form if they like. But maybe this Soul Collector is different.”

  “Jesus,” said Lloyd. “And he has your body?”

  “No, Evelyn’s seeking him out. I assume he has a real body somewhere.”

  Mackie cleared her throat. “I know how to reach him.”

  “Nope,” said Ilsa. “I’ve been through this with Morgan already. Don’t you even think about encouraging her.”

  “She’s mind-linked with him,” said Morgan. “I don’t like it either. But I can’t think of any other way to get his attention. He wants her, not me.”

  Oh, shit. The only one of us with a direct link to the Soul Collector was Mackie. But if she used that link, she risked him taking over her mind and either turning her against us or killing her.

  Mackie scowled. “Look. You all know I’m right, and there’s no other way to track him down. He thinks I’m terrified of him, he won’t expect me to seek him out willingly. I’ll take off the iron, find him, then put it back on—you’ve done this before, Morgan.”

  “Yes, I have,” he said. “It also nearly killed me. You told me he tried to kill you the last time you met in the spirit realm.”

  Mackie’s hands curled into tight fists. “Yeah, because I betrayed him. He’s a monster. But I can reach him, and when we link minds, I sometimes get impressions of where he is. I think it’s the only way to know.”

  “It’s true, but you’re taking a huge risk,” I said. “If we can lure him here, though, we might be able to force him to face us. He’s after this spirit line we’re standing on, one way or another.”

  “What’s so special about this line?” asked Ilsa. “Wait—don’t tell me. It’s to do with the Ancients, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. “I don’t like the idea of Mackie risking her life, especially when the person on the other end is so damned unhinged, but it’s the best we’ve got. And if she’s absolutely certain she wants to do this…”