by Leigh Kelsey
“The rest of us should cast a shield spell around ourselves,” Rahmi said, her voice ringing with authority. “Just in case.”
“In case whatever is out there gets in here?” Georgia Valentine, a girl with shocking green hair and a coat that more resembled a teddy bear, screeched, her voice thready. Her stoat familiar let out a panicked sound, too. “Is that going to happen?”
“Don’t piss yourself, Georgia,” Alexandra snapped. “We’ll be fine.”
Kati pressed her mouth into a thin line. Alexandra could have afforded to be a little more sympathetic—this was a pretty fucking terrifying situation—but she didn’t miss the attempt to reassure Georgia.
“There!” Naia shouted, pointing at a corner window, and Kati spun, peering through the big window at the front of the bus and inhaling sharply. It looked like a tornado of shadow. But Kati blinked and it looked like a cloaked woman flying through the darkness, fair hair streaming behind her in the darkness as if through water, her body a few shades lighter than the void.
“Souls,” Kati breathed, her stomach twisting. “It’s not … not a death magician.”
“No,” the driver agreed, a scowl on his face. “It’s a soulwraith.”
The Life And Soulwraith Of The Party
Kati killed her light spell and called up her shield, violet magic in a circle of buzzing, electric power on her left arm, attached to her wand by a thread of magic. Her mouth had gone dry, her mind racing as she thought of everything she’d ever heard of soulwraiths.
Wraiths were what happened when a person died and their soul forced its way back into the living plane, rather than being placed back in their body by a necromancer. Without a body to bind it … it was pure energy and magic. And impossibly dangerous.
Most soulwraiths only stayed in wraith form long enough to find a body to possess—a soulhost—but they could do much more damage in this form.
“It can’t be a soulwraith,” Alexandra disagreed. “We don’t get soulwraiths in York. You need a wider portal for that, and the nearest one’s in London.
“She’s right,” Naia agreed quietly, a nimbus of silver hanging around her from her wand. “Soulwraiths can’t escape through the minor portals normal people create; you’d need a commercial one.”
“I know what I saw, girl,” the driver snapped. “I just wish I could see the damn road in front o’ me. I know it curves somewhere.”
“You can’t drive like this,” Kati hissed. “We’re going to crash.”
“First sensible thing you’ve said in your life, Wilson,” Alexandra snarked, and then yelped. “You—you bitch! Your mongrel bit me!”
Dolly, Kati chided.
She tastes surprisingly nice for someone so foul, Dolly replied, shameless.
“Could you focus?” Kati snapped. “Watch the back of the bus like you were told to do.”
Marigold screamed again, and this time Rahmi let out a rasping cry too. “It really…” Rahmi breathed. “It’s…”
“A soulwraith,” the driver grunted, slowing the bus and then jerking to a halt again. “I’m calling Hawkness.”
“Call the gentry,” Jacob Alders argued, all puffed up with self-importance. “We need a whole team of them right now. Tell them Bison Alders’s son is on board.”
Bison? Kati thought at the same time Dolly scathed, Bison? Wow, rich people.
But he had a point. Kati wouldn’t have said no to a team of enforcers here to save them. But it would take half an hour for them to get here from the headquarters in York centre. Too long for them to be of any help.
Which left them with twelve students, four familiars, and the driver. They had to figure it out themselves.
“The way I see it,” Kati said slowly, her stomach twisting as she faced everyone, her wand and shield high. “Either we wait here for the wraith to break the glass and force its way onto the bus, or we go out and take it down.”
“Sounds like you’re volunteering, Wilson,” Chen remarked.
“Who knows how to fight a soulwraith?” Kati asked, ignoring her. “Naia?”
“Light weakens it,” Naia replied, her voice thin with fear. “That’s all I can remember.”
“I’ll do it,” Harley said, moving out of the huddle of students in the aisle and making her way to the front of the bus. She looked pale and thin in her baggy clothes, and she was mostly hiding behind her long blonde hair, but she met Kati’s gaze and said, “I should do it.”
Kati shook her head. Quietly, she said, “You don’t have to sacrifice yourself to make up for last term. What happened wasn’t your fault.”
“I had literal blood on my literal hands,” Harley replied sombrely. “I should be the one going out there.”
Kati couldn’t fight her on this; it seemed like she needed it, a way to atone for past sins. “Alright. You and me, then.”
She chewed her bottom lip. Light… What they needed was an advanced light spell. She fished her phone from her pocket but swore when she had no bars. If she could just text Iain, she knew for sure he’d have a spell.
“Alright, who knows an advanced light spell?”
“Lunar storm spell,” Alexandra replied. “Brightest one there is.”
“And you know how to cast it?”
“Naturally,” Alexandra drawled.
Kati nodded, a plan forming. “You’re going to teach it to me and Harley, and the three of us are going to go out there and fight that wraith. I’m not standing here waiting to be murdered.”
Chen snorted. “Oh, sure. Because I’m known for my selflessness.”
“You said it yourself,” Kati snapped, her heart thumping against her ribs at Alexandra’s confrontational tone. “We’re the best at spells, which means we’re facing that damn thing whether you like it or not. Do you want to get to SBA some time today or do you want to be drained of your magic by a soulwraith?” Because that’s what they did; they sucked energy, life, and power out of a person, getting more and more dangerous with every attack. They couldn’t kill a person, but they could make it extremely unpleasant. And leave them emptied of all magic.
“Alexandra, please,” Hannah begged in a wisp of a voice. “We’re all going to die if you don’t.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic,” Alexandra sneered, but she said, “Clarke, come take my place. You’ve read enough books that you should know a spell to protect everyone else if we’re gruesomely murdered.”
Naia squeaked. “I don’t think—”
Rahmi squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve got this.”
Naia swallowed but nodded, taking Alexandra’s place.
Chen wound through the students until she reached them, giving Kati and Harley matching scornful looks. Her suspension hadn’t done anything to her attitude, it seemed.
“Gull,” Kati said, jerking her chin. “You watch the front of the bus when we’re out there.”
“This is the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard of,” the driver muttered.
“I don’t hear you offering to help,” Alexandra snapped at him, neatly silencing the balding man. “Right,” she said, facing Kati and Harley with a serious expression on her face. She looked remarkably different when she wasn’t sneering or scowling. Much more human, Kati thought. And annoyingly pretty. “Circular motion, twice. And you need to say Light Storm, or at least those are the words I use. You can find your own, I don’t care.”
Kati nodded, practising the motion twice and going over the words in her head. Silver-violet light flickered at the tip of her wand even though she hadn’t actively cast it and Kati suppressed a wince. Normally, she’d try to hide any sign of her unnaturally advanced magic. Right now, it might just save them from a soulwraith.
“One thing, before we go out there and do something either heroic or totally suicidal,” Alexandra said, her eyes narrowed on Kati. “I get why Harley wants to go out in a blaze of glory, but why you?”
Kati shrugged, not liking the scrutiny. “Like you said, I’m one of the best at spells here. And wh
o else is gonna do it? You certainly wouldn’t have if I hadn’t forced you to help.”
Alexandra’s lips thinned. “Hero complex. Got it.”
Kati’s mouth opened on an argument but Alexandra reached over the driver, slammed a button on the console, and the fragile bus door clattered open.
With a deep breath, Kati held her wand tight and went into the blackness after her worst-enemy-turned-temporary-ally.
Give Me Strength
Kati’s breath clouded in front of her in the magic-lit darkness. She shuddered as she stepped off the bus onto what turned out to be tarmac, a chill spreading through her. It wasn’t cold outside—the opposite. It was muggy and humid in the oppressive dark, moisture gathering on her skin, but on the inside, Kati felt like she’d been plunged into an ice bath.
“Anyone see it?” Alexandra demanded, her wand high in front of her face, casting an orb of ruby magic around her and cutting deep shadows into her features.
“No,” Harley breathed, her bubblegum pink magic trembling as her hand shook. She flinched hard and Kati jumped too as the bus door slammed shut behind them, leaving them out there alone.
“What are the chances they’ll drive off without us if we fuck up out here?” Alexandra asked uneasily, her throat bobbing as she swallowed.
“Rahmi and Naia would never allow them to do that. Neither would Gull,” Kati added with a glance at Harley.
She shivered as the ice inside her swelled, as if she’d swallowed an iceberg, and frost bit into her face. Because of the wraith?
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Alexandra said cuttingly. “Hannah wouldn’t give a shit about me.”
“You did force her to be an accomplice to an attempted murder,” Kati replied shortly, scanning the full dark around them for fell creatures and monsters, picturing bat wings and spines and claws, remembering the swarm of shadow she’d glimpsed from the bus. “That doesn’t tend to endear you to people.”
“Stop it,” Harley hissed, shaking. “Just … be quiet. Can’t you hear that?”
Alexandra and Kati fell silent, straining their ears. Kati flinched at a whistling sound, like wind howling. But the blackness around them was still, humid and hot. No wind touched them at all.
“Are soulwraiths supposed to sound like that?” Kati whispered.
“It’s echolocation, idiot,” Alexandra snapped, and hissed, “Shield!” Her red magic spread in front of the three of them in an impressive wall of energy and magic, crackling with intensity.
Kati was glad for it when a black shape rushed out of the darkness at them. Kati knew objectively that it had once been a person, but it was no longer person-shaped. It was a seething mass of shadow, malice, and teeth. There were definitely teeth. To latch onto someone and make them a soulhost, she knew.
An instinctive part of Kati recoiled from the nightmare thing bearing down on her, but she strengthened her shield and huddled closer to Harley and Chen. Her heart was pounding hard, sweat breaking out along her spine, but she’d faced down a phantom tower and a psychopathic ghost. She could do this, too.
The soulwraith slammed into Alexandra’s shield, red magic and inky shadow spraying off its surface, and Kati’s stomach dropped to her boots as cracks spread across the wall of ruby power. Shit. Kati had thought the shield might stand up to a few more blows. Had hoped, at least.
“Cast the spell now!” she shouted, moving her wand twice in a circular motion and pushing her thumb into the thorn, feeding the spell more blood as she commanded, “Light storm!”
White light burst from her so strongly that Kati wobbled back a step, a gasp torn from her throat. It felt like electricity lit her up, vibrant and highly charged. It obliterated what remained of Alexandra’s ruby wall and slammed into the soulwraith so hard that its many-fanged mouth snapped shut.
“Damn,” Harley said, blinking.
Kati swayed, weakness rushing up on her and blurring the world around her.
“Shit, Wilson,” Alexandra grunted, and strong arms caught Kati around the middle as she lost all stability, the world going fuzzy and dark as her spell faded. “That’s stronger than any lunar storm spell I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m talented,” Kati slurred, vaguely aware that Alexandra Chen was the only thing keeping her from face-planting the tarmac but too weak to fight off her grip.
“You’re reckless,” Alexandra muttered, sliding her wand into her non-dominant hand and slashing it up, unleashing her own lunar storm spell at half the strength of Kati’s.
It wasn’t as if she’d meant to funnel all her magic into the spell. Sure, she’d fed it power and blood, but … she had no idea how it had drained her so suddenly. And she was freezing, ice biting into her face, frost on the end of her nose and her breath puffing in front of her face, tinged ruby by Alexandra’s magic.
“Albright, cast the damn spell!”
Harley thrust her wand shakily out in front of her and drew two frantic circles in the air with bright pink magic. White light sputtered from the end, nowhere near as powerful as Chen’s, but it grew into a steady glow that kept them out of danger for the moment.
“Didn’t I take it out?” Kati asked woozily, slipping in and out of consciousness. Or at least that was how it felt—one second Alexandra was casting her spell, the next she was grunting and stumbling back, a filthy word hissed between clenched teeth.
“That one, yeah,” Chen replied with a grunt. “Draw strength from your familiar, I’m getting sick of holding you up.” And yet she hadn’t let go of Kati, hadn’t let her slip even an inch closer to the ground.
Draw strength from Dolly…? “How?” she asked, her tongue heavy in her dry mouth. Another icy cloud of air rushed from her mouth and she shuddered, so chilled that she might as well have been in a freezer.
“Why are you so damn cold?” Alexandra snapped. “Harley, now!”
Light burst around them, bright silver-white, and then Kati was sure she was dipping in and out because when she prised her eyelids apart, the blackness was thick and absolute around them, not even a bright pink or red wisp of magic to light their surroundings.
Dolly… Kati tried, even her mental voice sluggish. How do I draw strength from you?
Focus on me, Dolly replied, a weight brushing up against Kati’s ankles. Feel for the connection between us; I’ll send strength to you, just be ready to accept it.
Okay, Kati agreed, but she had no idea what to brace for. How could Dolly send her strength? And would a pug’s strength be enough to help Kati get her feet back under her?
She closed her eyes—or they fell shut as dizziness blurred through her thanks to her drawing too much magic far too fast—and sank into her power, feeling for the thread that tied her and Dolly together. She grasped it, sensing Dolly on the other end, and gasped as a rush of heat like fire covered her from head to toe.
Shit, Kati swore, grappling with the fire blazing through her system. She imagined a wave of water, soothing and cool, rushing over it, and the sensation eased. And Kati straightened, the dizziness receding until she could stand by herself, though she was still icy inside, frost biting at her face.
When she pulled her eyelids apart, it was still utterly black around her, but sparks of bubblegum pink and ruby red shot through the void as Harley and Alexandra shielded.
The first thing Kati did was send blood and magic to her wand and pull her own shield back up, focusing until she was able to spread it from a smaller, circular shield on her arm to a long, curved rectangle that protected most of her body.
“You can let go,” she told Alexandra, startling the other woman. “And thanks. I didn’t know I could do that.”
Alexandra gave her a wide-eyed look, fear in her chocolate eyes as she unlocked her fingers from Kati’s waist, her breath coming fast. With her bravado gone, Alexandra looked very young.
“Are you alright?” Kati asked, scanning her. She looked terrified, paler than normal, and something about her was just … dimmer. Bitchy or not, Alexandra
Chen was nothing if not vibrant. “Did it get close to you?”
“I’m fine,” Alexandra snapped. “Just lost a bit of energy. Nothing I can’t recoup with a nap and a meal.”
“Shit,” Kati exhaled, glancing across her to Harley, but she at least looked fine, albeit petrified, her wand hand trembling hard. Her shield was circular like Kati’s first one, but had spikes on the front, and she was ramming it into the darkness even though there didn’t seem to be a wraith near her. “How long was I…?”
“Comatose?” Harley asked with a worried glance at Kati. “A few minutes. I think we took down another soulwraith, but there’s two more out there.”
“At least,” Alexandra added in a snarl.
“But … why would there be four soulwraiths here? What would make them come this far from any portal?”
From what Kati remembered of their bus journey, they’d been leaving a residential area for a more rural part of York. Not the sort of place you’d find a window into the underworld, and especially not one big enough to let four souls escape without a necromancer. Maybe more.
“Let’s not find out,” Alexandra replied, gritting her teeth and pushing the thorn of her pale wand deeper into her thumb, the light of her lunar storm spell exploding around them.
Kati was careful to only allow a small amount of her power to travel down her wand as she did the same, their spells combining with Harley’s in the air.
It lit up the nightmarish form swooping down on them. Despite not having wings, it seemed soulwraiths were able to fly anyway, and this one raced towards them, a shade lighter than the blackness around them, a swirling mess of darkness with teeth snapping in threat. For a second it flashed into the shape of a man in a lime green shell suit, but then it was back to being a thing of nightmares.
