by D. N. Leo
Zach glanced back at her, and she could see he was thinking the same thing. He followed Ciaran outside, and Leon went after him. Then she stepped out. The scene in front of her hit her like a tidal wave—a memory of a scene of death and the remnants of her battle in the valley that had cost more than two thousand lives.
She gasped and staggered back as she felt Zach wrap his arm around her. “Are you okay?” he asked. “They’re just flying around. They’re not attacking us.” He pushed her behind him.
She shook her head, snapping herself back to what she considered to be their current reality. Floating in front of them were groups of the human-shaped white objects with hollow eyes. “They’re spirits. We’re at the market of souls and spirits.”
Zach raised an eyebrow. “Why the hell are we here?”
“Can these spirits be considered creatures, Mya? Can they harm us or any other living creatures?” Ciaran asked.
“No, they’re lost spirits. They’ve been taken by soul traders, but their souls have not been exchanged. So they’re lost. Most of the time, it happens with unnatural deaths.”
“So are we where you think we are?” Zach asked.
“We’re not in Babylon. Leon and I channeled us to the court, but somehow we ended up here.”
“But is this a place? If I could navigate, I could fly us home in that chopper,” Ciaran said as he looked up to the black sky. But there was nothing around them. It looked and felt like a cemetery even though there were no tombs around. It was simply a dark, flat, black surface without any landmarks he could use for navigation.
Agitated, Ciaran walked back and forth. Mya looked at Zach, and he looked back at her and shook his head. He whispered into her ear, “I’ve never seen him like this before. He has a temper, but he’s always in control and never loses his cool. This agitation isn’t like Ciaran at all.”
“Ciaran,” Leon called out.
Ciaran stopped pacing. “Yes?”
“These two wonder why you’re agitated.”
Mya glared at Leon. He shrugged.
Ciaran stared at them for a short moment and then sighed. “I had a disagreement with Madeline. I wasn’t focused. When you called, and the call was interrupted, I knew the signal might not be authentic, but I didn’t check it. I left without having a word with Madeline. I left a message for her. But now that I think about it, that message might have been intercepted as well. Whoever paid for my head probably wanted my family, too. My wife and children might be in trouble. And now, without the wrist unit, I have no idea how to contact her to let her know. I’m not psychic. I can’t channel!” He waved his arms in the air in frustration and then let them flop at his sides.
“Look out!” Leon shouted and pointed.
Behind Ciaran, the lost spirits gathered and lined up. They turned and looked as if they were going to fly right at him.
“Mya, you said they’re spirits, right? They won’t bite?” Zach asked.
“In theory, they can’t.”
“What would make them attack?” Ciaran asked.
Mya shuddered at her thought. “They might if they were offered a chance to be traded by a soul trader.”
“Some traders make these lost souls feel wanted. What scumbags! Trading for what?” Ciaran muttered to himself.
“If they come all at once, we’ll be in deep shit,” Zach said. He pulled out his gun and pushed Mya behind him. She yanked him back by his jacket. “I’m sick of you trying to protect me. This is my turf. I’ll call the shots here.” She pointed at Ciaran. “You as well, Ciaran. Get back here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said get back here, Ciaran. Leon and I will handle this. In this world, your technology and your supernatural skills don’t seem to do much.”
Ciaran stood still. “You expect me to go back there and behave like a meek dog?”
“I’m sorry if I hurt your ego, Ciaran. But I’m a deity. I’m in charge here.” As she ignored Zach’s curses and darted past Ciaran, the flock of spirits formed into the shape of a spear and were about to attack. She knew Leon was right behind her. She had fought many battles, but she’d never fought spirits. If they’re dead already, can she kill them again? she wondered.
She shook the thought out of her mind. Curling her hand into a fist, she willed her minor deity power. In her mind, she aimed at the bad spirits, whom she was entitled to kill. She threw her fireballs, hoping the majority of those in the way were bad spirits.
The fire hit a number of them, and they exploded into nothingness. A loud quacking sound disturbed the quietness of the market. The wind started to whirl up, and they heard the hum and chant echoed as if from the underworld.
She shifted her shoulders. She had taken out half of the flock. Those remaining were not bad spirits, and that was why they hadn’t been killed. But if they had accepted bribes from a soul trader and attacked them—people whom they shouldn’t attack—she thought they should be considered bad spirits. Apparently, she was wrong. Again.
The spirits formed again in the sky, this time as an arrow. But now, they were not only lost spirits, they were also angry ones because she had attacked them first.
“My fire can’t kill them. How many can your guns take out?” she asked, turning her head slightly toward the back, expecting an answer from Zach and Ciaran. But she heard neither.
“Hello? I need back up here!” she repeated as the angry spirits took aim and were about to fly at them.
Chapter 28
Ciaran was sure it was enough justification for him to do what he had just done. Mya had called for help. In his panicked state, Zach was quick enough to let him know that Mya couldn’t kill the good spirits. Yes, they were angry spirits, but they weren’t sinful ones, so her power wouldn’t work on them.
While Mya’s power was selective, Ciaran’s wasn’t. His mind blade didn’t discriminate. It was a powerful weapon, and it did one job—it killed whomever or whatever he wanted it to.
He conjured the fury in his mind and shaped up a gigantic steel blade that hurled through the air at the flock of angry spirits. The blade spun and swung, dipping and descending on them from above. A quacking, squealing, and crying sound flooded the air of whatever the place was they were.
Soon, the spirits disappeared into nothingness.
The blade dug a large hole in the ground and gradually cracked open the area so it looked like the Grand Canyon.
The execution sucked energy from Ciaran and weakened him. He felt Zach dragging him back by the shoulders. “That’s enough, Ciaran.”
He shrugged Zach off. “I didn’t get all of them…”
Zach grabbed him again. “Just a handful. Let them go. They’re fleeing the market.”
Ciaran looked up. Zach was right. He never attacked a runaway man. Suddenly, a sharp pain stabbed in his head. He grabbed it with his hands. He had been attacked like this once during his fight to the coronation. Creatures in the cosmos always tried to attack his mind—every power-hungry creature wanted a piece of his mind.
Ciaran clenched his teeth and willed against the suction of whatever stabbed at his mind right now. A thought dawned on him. This was a trap. For him. Someone or something wanted him to open his mind and attack the spirits. He grunted in pain as he tried to resist the pull. A drop of blood trickled down his nose.
“Talk to me, Ciaran. What’s happening? What do you want me to do?” Zach asked.
Ciaran found himself speechless. The agony intensified. “Let’s get out of here,” he said through his teeth. We need to get back to the helicopter, and I’ll fly us out of here.”
Zach helped him walk and said, “I certainly trust your sense of direction. You said before that you can’t navigate out of here. But as long as we don’t hit hard objects, I’m fine with it.”
They heard a quacking sound in the distance. It was a mourful sound, hovering eerily in the air.
Ciaran’s knees buckled.
“Come on, Ciaran.” Zach pulled him up.
/> Mya rushed over. “They’re after you, Ciaran.”
“Yes, but I don’t know what they want. I don’t have the jar with me.”
Mya shook her head. “I don’t think this is about the jar at all. I didn’t channel us here. Your mind did.”
“Do you mean Ciaran wanted us to come here?” Leon asked.
“Your bullet wound was healed on the way here, remember, Leon?” Mya said. “Ciaran’s injuries were a lot more serious. His mind wanted to heal him, and it channeled us through a healing area.”
“Well then, why is he hurting now?” Zach asked.
“Ciaran, please look at me,” Mya said.
He looked into her dark, intense eyes.
She said, “I think your mind or someone or something that has to do with your mind wants to heal you.”
“Heal me by sucking my brain out?” Ciaran growled.
“It’s not your brain. Or even your mind.” She looked into his eyes. “I think they want your soul. This is the soul trading market. We’re here for a reason. And that reason is you.”
He wanted to chuckle, but it was too painful to do so. He shook his head. “Okay, so if someone wants my soul, why not just kill me? Why take me through the healing process? Letting me die would be more convenient.”
Mya stared straight into his eyes and stayed firm. “That someone might have tried while ambushing you. But apparently it wasn’t successful. So they tried again. Ciaran, have you ever dealt with a soul trader?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Zach nodded. “He heard you, and he’s plotting a lie right now.”
“You know nothing, Zach,” Ciaran snarled.
“I’m not blind. During your coronation, when you got bitten in the heart by that cobra, I saw you die. How did you get back up? And I heard Madeline thanking someone.”
Ciaran shoved Zach’s shoulder and stood up. “It’s none of your business.”
“The hell it’s not. Your mind brought us here. Now, if you’re going cuckoo, how are we supposed to get back?” Zach snapped back.
“There’s one way to find out, Ciaran,” Mya said. “Let me look into your soul.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I can see if it’s your soul they want.”
“If they want my corrupted soul, what can you do, Mya? The answer to your request is no.” Ciaran staggered back as Mya approached him. He was feeling weaker by the second, but he wouldn’t give in to this. “You don’t have my permission, Mya,”
He felt a hard blow on the back of his head, and his world went blank for a brief moment.
Then he was floating. He saw himself lying on the ground.
“Why did you do that, Leon?” Zach shouted.
Leon was standing over him and had apparently just hit him on the head. “You all took too long to talk to him. And he wasn’t going to agree to what you asked for anyway. If we want to get out of here, we’re going to have to let Mya do her magic. I can’t help with that, and we need to pay attention to that fact,” Leon ranted. Then he pointed in the distance.
They looked up at the distant horizon and saw the shape of a woman rising from the ground. She wore a white dress, her long hair was as white as the clouds, and her eyes sparkled in a shade of fiery red. Her shape grew larger by the second.
“What is it, Mya?” Zach asked.
“I don’t know yet.” She quickly turned toward Ciaran, who still lay on the ground.
Ciaran frowned at the floating image of himself. Is this my soul? Why am I outside my body? “Let me talk to the woman,” he said out loud, but no one seemed to be able to hear him.
On the ground, Mya rushed over to his body, hovered her hands over his head, and closed her eyes. Ciaran looked up and saw that the floating woman had risen as high as a small hill. Zach stood next to Mya. Ciaran understood Zach had to protect both his motionless body on the ground and Mya while she was doing her job, whatever that was.
Leon stepped forward and away, facing the giant woman. “What are you going to do, Leon? Stab her with your little knives?” Ciaran asked, knowing Leon couldn’t hear him. But he admired the man’s courage.
Ciaran looked at the woman. “I wager you can hear me.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Yes. Clearly.” Ciaran didn’t know what Death sound like, but he thought her hollow voice could be a close match.
Leon frowned and turned around, looking behind him and above. He had obviously seen the woman talking to someone behind him, but he couldn’t see who it was and couldn’t hear the conversation.
Mya gasped and withdrew, staggering back on the ground, falling on her backside. Zach grabbed her. “What did you see, Mya?”
She whispered into Zach’s ears, but Ciaran could hear her because he stood right next to them. “There are two souls. I saw two in Ciaran.”
Ciaran felt a pull and knew that his body on the ground had started to wake and he would be sucked back in. He looked at the woman at the distance. “You’re a soul trader. And you want my soul. Why?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Who wouldn’t want a king’s spirit? It’s been damaged. But you did well to preserve it, and so I’ll take it.”
Ciaran smiled. “But you can’t trade my soul as you usually do. Am I correct?”
The woman smiled again. “You are knowledgeable. Yes, your soul has been sealed. I need the opening spell.”
“And you think I will voluntarily give you the spell so that you can take my soul?”
“It’s a fair trade. You have more than one in you. I only want the king’s spirit.”
“What do I get in return?”
“Your son.”
Even disembodied, Ciaran felt his knees weaken in the flickering image of his soul. He couldn’t find a response.
The woman smiled again. “You see, you’ll live. You don’t need that king’s spirit. You don’t have to carry it. It’s not your duty. But you only have one son, and he’s a mere infant. I can’t make an appreciable profit from him, but losing him would be a huge loss to you, wouldn’t it?”
“If you know I have the king’s spirit, then don’t fuck with me,” Ciaran snarled.
“Oh no, you’ve been protected for centuries. I dare not touch you. But your family is vulnerable. You can tighten the security in your universe to protect them from creatures. But magic has no boundaries. You can only deal with magic by using magic. And I have been informed that magic is the only thing you don’t have.” She smiled again. “I have to leave now. Deal or no deal?”
Ciaran stared into the woman’s evil eyes. You are forcing me to do this, he thought, and then he said aloud, “All right. It’s a deal,” he said.
She smiled. “What’s the spell?”
Ciaran locked his eyes onto the image of the woman looming over him. “Listen carefully. Here it is. Psychi abadia sýllipsi.”
The smile drained from the woman’s face, and the whiteness drained from her body. She let out a bloodcurdling scream and exploded into nothingness.
On the ground, Ciaran gasped and awoke in his body. The pain had disappeared. He saw the concerned looks on everyone’s faces. He stood up. “Thank you.”
“For what? We didn’t do anything, Ciaran,” Mya said as she gazed at him questioningly.
He glanced around the black and dark landscape. There was a faint mark in the darkened sky where the woman had stood. He wasn’t sure if the others could see it, but he was sure they had no idea what he had just done. He had cast the soul catcher spell, one that Iilos, the teacher of the soul traders, had designed for him. She had told him it should only be used in an emergency situation as the cost for using it could be unimaginable.
“What?” Zach said.
“What’s what?” Ciaran asked.
“You said let’s go back to Camelot. Where the heck is that?”
Ciaran shook his head. He had no idea when and why he had said that. “I meant let’s get back to Eudaiz.”
Chapter 29
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Kirra brought some water into the bedroom and checked on Dex. He had been out for quite a while, which left her with some time to search around his house and nose into his business. Her injuries were almost healed, and she looked almost normal now. That proved the medicine he had given her had worked, so she fed him some, too.
After a wild search of his house while he was out, Kirra could sketch a picture of his life—or lives for that matter. Nothing could weird her out after witnessing what had happened in the week since she had run into Zach, Mya, and Leon. Even so, she still didn’t like Dex’s full name or the fact that he kept grabbing her hands and calling her Elanora in his delirium.
She could figure her way out of here. She was a trained tour guide, after all, and she had a knack for adventure. She didn’t think the underworld was any different from other worlds. It had to have entrance and exit point. But she didn’t like leaving Dex by himself when he was sick as a dog. No matter what had happened, it appeared he had run into the fire to save Elanora, effectively saving her body as well. If he hadn’t done that, she wouldn’t have been able to get back into it now. He was a marshal. It had a nice ring to it. And his actions had proven that there were some good aspects to his nature. So she stayed.
On the bed, Dex stirred and opened his eyes. She brought water over to him and sat at the bedside. “My medicine seems to have worked well on you,” she said and smiled.
He chuckled and sat up, leaning against the headboard. “There is a side effect, though. It’ll turn me into a woman.”
She grinned. “I’d love to see that. Now, are you hungry?”
He frowned.
“You don’t eat?
He smiled. “No, I’m trying to remember the last time we had a meal together. But yes, I’d like some food. I’m starving.”
