The Fourth Soul: (Cards of Death book 4)

by Tamara Geraeds

  In three strides, the Horseman reaches him. He presses his bony nose against Trevor’s and hisses, “Do not argue with me. You are to leave them alone until I’ve got my horse back.”

  Trevor flinches but keeps his ground. “Your horse is lost. Accept it, take your revenge and move on.”

  A skeleton hand shoots out and grabs him by the neck. “You do not tell me what to do. Ever!”

  Trevor’s eyes grow wide. “I’m… sorry,” he gurgles. “I didn’t… mean to dis… respect you.”

  The Horseman shakes him like a rag doll. “Without my horse, I will wither and die. We have to save it.”

  Trevor tries to nod but makes choking sounds instead. After another piercing stare, that has the intensity to melt Trevor’s brains, the Pale Horseman drops him and turns to us. “Reverse the spell!”

  I shake my head. “Sorry, it’s not that easy.”

  “Sure it is.” He crosses the space between us with only two large strides and pokes his bony finger in my chest. “Reverse it, or I’ll kill you right here.”

  Maël calmly steps up beside us and clears her throat. “I’m sorry to spoil your plans, but the spell I just cast says that only we can reverse it and only by free will. Blackmailing us won’t help you. Neither will killing us.”

  The skeleton man pulls back his arm as if he’s burned himself. Trevor grumbles something behind him, but the Horseman silences him with one quick gesture.

  Slowly, he turns back to me. “What do you want?”

  I cross my arms and lift my chin. “We want you to step back and let Trevor handle his business on his own. Even the odds, so to speak.”

  Vicky nudges me from my right. “Don’t flatter him,” she mouths.

  But as I expected, the Horseman responds well to flattering.

  “I see,” he grins. “You want a better chance in this battle, do you?”

  “Exactly.”

  There’s doubt in his eyes, and it takes all my willpower to keep my gaze steady and determined.

  He’s not buying it! my thoughts yell at me. He’s looking right through me.

  The pounding of hoofs makes us all look up. Above our heads, the ghostly horse speeds by, shaking its head as if in great pain.

  The Pale Horseman follows it with clenched fists, then turns his fiery eyes on me again. “Fine. I will no longer help Trevor―“

  “Or anyone else helping the Devil with his plans to reach Earth,” I add.

  He gives me a stern look, but I just raise my eyebrows.

  Eventually, he breathes out loudly and repeats my words.

  “In return,” he continues, “you will reverse your spell on my horse.”

  “As soon as you leave, we will reverse the spell,” I promise. “But if you meddle in the Devil’s business again, we will make sure your horse dies for good.” I hold out my hand. “Deal?”

  “Deal.” He shakes my hand, then gestures at the circle. “I’ll be expecting Dust back in about fifteen minutes, since you’ve got everything you need right here.”

  I bend over with laughter.

  The Horseman isn’t amused. “What’s so funny?”

  “You really think we trust Trevor? He’ll kill us the moment you disappear.”

  When the skeleton man turns on him, Trevor thrusts up his arms. “No, I won’t! I’m out of here. I’ve got things to do, new plans to make.” He backs up so fast that he trips over his own legs.

  Jeep sniggers softly while the rest of us try to keep a straight face.

  The Pale Horseman waits for Trevor to be out of sight before bowing to me. “I trust you will keep your end of the deal as I will keep mine.”

  A little surprised I bow back. “Of course.”

  He snaps his fingers and goes up in greenish smoke.

  CHAPTER 36

  There’s no time to gloat over our success, and we all know it.

  Maël returns to her bowl, takes the piece of charcoal that Vicky hands her and crushes it between her fingers. She mixes it with the herbs and quickly lights two of the candles.

  Jeep and D’Maeo keep an eye on the lawn and church behind us.

  “Horse of smoke return to me.

  Leave no trace and seize to be.”

  We all lift our gazes to the sky, where everything is quiet except for a plane passing over in the distance.

  “It’s not working.” Taylar’s desperation echoes around me, teasing me.

  “Give it time,” Maël says calmly. But the frown between her eyes tells me she’s just as worried as I am.

  “Come on…” Vicky urges the silent sky.

  And then I hear it. The patter of hoofs. The restless neighing.

  The horse gallops toward us so fast that we all duck reflexively. Our clothes flap when it soars over our heads and lands inside the circle, where it immediately shrinks, until there’s nothing but a sliver of smoke left.

  A collective sigh breaks the tension.

  “That’s one,” Charlie says. “Now all we have to do is send the real horse to the Horseman.”

  Taylar fidgets with his white hair. “What if it’s already back with him?”

  I shrug. “Then he’ll think we did that.”

  Vicky exchanges the full bowl with an empty one, then looks at me. “What do we need?”

  It takes me a second to understand what she’s talking about. “Oh, right.” I take out my Book of Spells and flip to the right page. “Here it is.”

  She pulls the herbs I jotted down from her endless pocket. “Thyme to contact an entity from another world, a statice flower that symbolizes reunion and of course salt to protect us.” She holds on to the flower and reads the rest of my instructions. “This has to be crushed with a granite or basalt rock for secrecy.” She stands up, her shoulders sagging in defeat. “I don’t have any of that.”

  “Then we’ll have to find some,” I say cheerily.

  Taylar starts panicking again, pacing up and down between the bushes that hide us from sight. “Like where? We don’t have time for an extensive search. If this takes too long, the Horseman will come back and squash us.”

  “Okay, okay.” I lay my hands on his shoulders to stop him from moving around. “Stay calm, we can do this.”

  “I’m not so sure anymore, Dante.” There are tears in his eyes. “Have you seen how powerful he is? Can you imagine what he’ll do to us if he finds out we tricked him?”

  “He won’t find out. Just―” I break off my sentence and lean closer to his face. “What’s happening?”

  Holes are falling into his cheeks, and his whole body flickers.

  The others gather around in a heartbeat.

  “Taylar? Try to calm down, son,” D’Maeo says urgently.

  I look at the others. “What’s wrong with him? What’s happening? Why is he blinking like that?”

  Of course, I know the answer. Jeep warned me about this, but I don’t want to believe it.

  Taylar closes his eyes. His knees buckle beneath him, and D’Maeo catches him just before he hits the ground. “He doesn’t have much time left.”

  “What do you mean?” My voice is high-pitched, and I swallow hard.

  D’Maeo eases the young ghost onto the grass. “It’s his unfinished business. We have to get rid of it, or it’ll get rid of him.”

  I try to respond, but my voice is too hoarse.

  Vicky takes my hand. “How much time does he have left?” she voices my question.

  Maël kneels down beside the young ghost and places her hand on his heart.

  She stays silent so long that shiver after shiver runs through me. This can’t be happening. Taylar doesn’t deserve to go like this.

  Finally, Maël lifts her hand. “A week. Two if we’re lucky.”

  “Will he be like this the whole time?” I whisper.

  She brushes some dirt off of Taylar’s cheek. “I hope not.”

  While I try to gather my thoughts, all eyes turn to
me. Everyone is waiting for me to decide what our next step is. I have to keep it together for the sake of all my friends and for the sake of the world. I cannot let my fear and desperation take over.

  So I straighten up, take a deep breath and follow my guts. “Vicky and Jeep, you take Taylar home. Put him to bed and don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Without hesitation, they bend over the white-haired, flickering ghost and pull him up.

  “D’Maeo, please follow them until they vanish but stay a couple of paces behind. I don’t want you to flash back to Darkwood Manor. We might need you here.”

  He bows his head. “Of course, master.”

  “We will stay here and finish the spell,” I tell the others. “All we need is some basalt or granite. Any form would work. It doesn’t have to be solid rock.”

  We all look around for ideas, until Charlie calls out, “The roads!”

  Before I can ask what that means, Gisella gives him a high five. “Good thinking, Lee! There’s basalt in asphalt.”

  They set off back through the bushes without waiting for a response.

  I pace up and down the small clearing and rub my hands, trying to stay calm. My head swerves from left to right. I still expect Trevor to show up with an army of demons for back-up. But all stays quiet.

  “We’ve got it!” Gisella calls out, hurrying back to our spot between the bushes.

  “How did you manage that so fast?” I ask, staring at the chip of asphalt she drops in Maël’s hand.

  Gisella straightens up and shows me her blade hands. “These came in handy.”

  Charlie’s usual happy grin is back when he pulls her into a sideways hug. “You’re awesome.”

  “You both are,” I say.

  Within seconds, Maël has crushed the flower, and D’Maeo appears soon after. He nods at me to let me know everything went well.

  “Horse of magic, near or far,

  you will flee from where you are.

  Travel now with hurried feet,

  to where your rider longs to meet.”

  The African queen drops some more salt into the bowl and keeps stirring.

  “Hear me now and listen well.

  If the rider’s where you dwell,

  the previous words that I recited

  will be irreversibly blighted.”

  She stops stirring, picks up both candles and holds the flames in the bowl until the herbs ignite.

  “No matter who will search or ask,

  this spell will hide behind a mask.

  As a reversal it will show,

  to anyone who is a foe.”

  She blows out the candles and stays still for several moments.

  Except for the wind in the overgrowth around us, and some traffic in the distance, there is no sound. We’re all holding our breaths, waiting for a sign that something went wrong.

  Eventually, Maël lets out a heavy sigh and stands up with a smile. “That went well.”

  I help her remove all traces of the circle. “You did great.”

  Still, I don’t feel great at all. We might lose Taylar, and what if that means...

  I whirl around to face the others, who are on watch. “What if we can’t save Taylar? I mean, that’s bad enough as it is, but what if his powers, my powers, are lost with him?”

  “Then we’d have no chance of beating the Devil,” D’Maeo says grimly. “Which means we have to save him, no matter what.” He takes the bowl from me and looks me in the eye. “And we will.” Then he strides off into the bushes.

  I nod at the others. “Go back to the car, we’ll be right there.”

  We quickly pick up the last remains of the spells and follow them. Maël seems to have more energy than I do. After only a couple of steps, she’s already way ahead of me. That’s at least one ghost at full strength, I think bitterly.

  I find Gisella waiting for me where the end of the garden meets the pavement. She straightens a couple of red locks that point the wrong way and smiles at me. “Don’t feel too bad about Taylar. It’s not your fault. Besides, we did get rid of one strong enemy today.”

  “There’re still a lot of demons waiting for us.”

  “Sure. But we can take them.”

  My limbs get heavy, and my throat clogs up as doubt tugs at me again. “I’m not so sure about that. We’re getting weaker by the day, by the hour even! Our powers might be strong, but that won’t do us much good if our minds are falling apart. There’s only so much we can take, Gisella, before we all crack. And my Shield has gone through a lot already before they even met me.”

  “I know. But I might have an idea.”

  Hope peeks around the corner of my despair. “To fix it?”

  “Not to fix it,” she smiles, “but to delay the break-down until we have the time to give it the attention it needs.”

  I finally manage to smile back. “What do you need?”

  She raises her hand and counts on her fingers. “An angel, a fairy godmother and a Magician that can separate bad molecules from good ones.”

  “Well, we’ve got those.”

  Her eyes sparkle in response.

  I look over my shoulder at the church. “I hate to leave the priest, but I guess we have no choice. You can tell us your plan on the way back to Blackford. Let’s hope Mrs. Delaney is home.”

  CHAPTER 37

  When we arrive at Mrs. Delaney’s house, the Magician we need, Mona is already at the front door. I called her as we drove out of Mulling. She must’ve left Darkwood Manor immediately, using her fairy godmother sparkly way of traveling, or she wouldn’t be here so soon.

  I park Phoenix and hurry to the door.

  “She’s not here,” Mona says. “I was just about to go looking for her.”

  “That would be great. Meanwhile, we can call Quinn. Let’s hope he’s available.”

  With a wave of her hand, Mona goes up into a thousand sparkles.

  “Quinn?” I say out loud. “We need you.”

  There’s no answer and now even Gisella is starting to look worried.

  “What if we can’t find either of them?” I ask nobody in particular.

  D’Maeo is scanning the street and sky. “Keep the faith, Dante. Maël said we have at least a week to save Taylar.” His gaze moves to the ghost in the dark dress. “Right?”

  I don’t wait for Maël to confirm. “Yes, but we don’t have a week to save that priest, do we? Considering the time they needed to prepare to take the other souls, I’m guessing we have a day at the most.” I hit Mrs. Delaney’s front door with my fist, but it doesn’t bring much relief. “Quinn! Can you help us, please?”

  “I’m sure he’ll answer soon,” the voice of an old lady says softly. “Meanwhile, splitting my front door in two won’t help.”

  I back up and give her a guilty smile. “Sorry, Mrs. Delaney.”

  She shuffles past me and fumbles with her keys. I remember the last time I saw her, all gray-skinned and broken, with barely any energy left to speak. “You look much better. How are you feeling?”

  She finally manages to open the door and steps in. “I feel great,” she tells me over her shoulder. “Thanks to you lot. So I’ll be happy to assist you, if I can.”

  When we don’t follow, she beckons us. “Come in, come in, have some tea while we wait for your angel to arrive.”

  I linger in the doorway. “I’m not sure…”

  “You’ve got trustworthy people looking after the young ghost, don’t you?”

  “Well yes, but―”

  “Come inside for a little story then.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she walks further into the house, humming softly to herself. Mona follows without a word.

  A flash of memory shows me Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, telling me he was supposed to show me something as part of my path to victory. Is this something similar? Mrs. Delaney put me on the right track before when she told me about the circles of
Hell. She might have more crucial information.

  Charlie nudges me. “Are we going in?”

  I search the air around me for a sign of Quinn. There’s nothing there.

  Ignoring the guilty feeling in my chest, I step over the threshold. “I guess we are.”

  Mrs. Delaney puts a tray full of steaming cups on the coffee table in our midst. “You look tired, all of you.” She winks at Mona. “Well, except for you, of course.” When no one moves, she gestures at the cups. “Well, go on, take some, it’ll make you all feel better.”

  “I could give them a sparkle too,” Mona offers, but Mrs. Delaney holds up her hand.

  “No, love, this herbal tea will work just fine. Besides, I have a feeling you and I will need all our energy for what this girl has planned.” She waves her teacup toward Gisella, who empties her cup in one swig, leans back in the flower covered couch and closes her eyes.

  I can almost see the unease and stress escaping her mouth as she sighs and I quickly drain my own cup.

  Serenity falls over me. “This is great stuff, Mrs. Delaney.”

  She smiles sweetly at me. “It’s good to see some color returning to your cheeks, love.” She pulls up a chair. “Now, let me tell you an interesting story.”

  We all lean forward, but she gestures for us to relax, so we snuggle in between the cushions of the couches and wait for her to start.

  “Many years ago, I knew a lovely young Magician. She was a proper young lady with a daring streak. I liked that about her. She would do anything for her friends, and she loved to help other people with her magic, but sometimes she could be so wild.

  “I always had a feeling that there was more to her than met the eye, maybe some hidden power, but I never found out what it was. Mary herself never believed me, until one day―when she was about seventy years old―she found an ancient book in the library of a friend. At least, she thought he was a friend.” She sighs. “How wrong she was.”

  My mouth falls open. “Are you talking about Vicky’s grandmother?”