Soul Magic

by Jennifer Lyon

  He pulled himself back from the brink of darkness. “It’s too dangerous for you to come here. I just got ambushed. A rogue witch hunter lured me into a building, then smacked around a mortal woman, making her scream so I’d respond. When I found her, she was alone in a room. It was a mortal woman, Carla. She had the control to the bomb in her hand, and once she saw me, she pressed the button to blow us both up. You are not coming near this place.” He looked up at Ram. “Where were the explosives?”

  “They were strapped to the woman. She’s dead.”

  Linc and Key walked in from the back alley. Key added, “No identification anywhere. We’ve searched, but there’s no sign of the rogue.”

  Sutton looked past Key to Linc. “It was Brigg. I saw a shadow and smelled a new rogue. It was him lurking around the back of the club when I pulled up. I followed him and—”

  Linc’s eyes shuttered. “Did you actually see him?”

  He had to think. “No.”

  Linc nodded but didn’t comment.

  Remembering what Axel had told him, he said, “You pulled me out, why were you there?” The 911 he sent only went to Axel, Ram, Phoenix, and Key. It automatically activated the GPS on the sender’s cell, so each phone was getting directions to where the 911 call came from. But he hadn’t added Linc to the emergency system yet.

  “I was in the club,” Linc answered.

  Key added, “Phoenix is dealing with the police. Telling them it’s a meth lab that blew, that we heard it at the club and checked it out.”

  “That works.” Sutton returned his gaze to the computer.

  Carla’s face was pale, but her eyes were bright and furious. “It was another brainwashed woman. It’s Styx. He has my sister, and he’s brainwashing these women into killing.”

  The edge in her voice made his eagle tat twitch and shuffle, infuriated that he couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t use his feathers to cuddle and stroke her. Sutton wanted to touch her so goddamned badly, he could barely resist going to her now. His entire body went tight with vicious need, while the pain of the burns made him dizzy. Christ. They needed answers. “What does your father say?”

  She looked away from him, then turned the computer and shifted so the two of them sat together.

  Jerome looked at Sutton. “From the way Carla describes him getting a lock on her mind, yanking her from her body, and dropping her into a room, then almost instantaneously building a brick prison around her, I’d say you’re dealing with a very powerful psychic. Or more specifically, a psychic who has found a way to amp up his or her natural abilities. In my studies, I’ve found most mortals who are psychic have low-level abilities, like knowing a phone will ring seconds before it does.”

  Sutton shifted his gaze to Carla. “That’s what it feels like? Like your mind is being captured?”

  “That’s the best way to describe it.”

  How did she endure it? He remembered her refusing to leave this time, looking around and realizing that the knife being used on the witch had her sister in it. Her mind had been held prisoner but she’d had the strength to think and observe. He asked, “You don’t think it’s a witch, maybe a demon witch?”

  She looked right at him. “Few witches have the kind of power to separate the mind from the body.”

  Pride filled him as he said, “You do.”

  Her eyes lit up at his tone of voice, then she sobered. “I do, but it makes even witches nervous. Witches who can open their communication chakra can meditate themselves to the astral plane, but most can’t take the subconscious of another with them.”

  From his left, Darcy added, “Some in the Circle Witches are trying to say that Carla’s misusing her power.”

  Sutton whipped his head around to Darcy, caught the gold fury in her brown eyes, and shifted back to Carla.

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  She waved a hand. “It’s not important. My point is that I know what that kind of witchcraft feels like and this isn’t it.”

  The witches weren’t supporting her and she called that unimportant?

  Darcy put her hand on his tense arm. “Carla has friends, Sutton. It’s just a few in the Circle causing some trouble. We’ll handle it. More important is finding a way to track this psychic.”

  Carla had been the one witch to help Darcy when no other would risk it. She was strong, smart, and resourceful. And she had a hell of a friend in Darcy. He asked, “How is he locking on to you?”

  Jerome said, “My hypothesis is that he’s got Keri and he’s locking onto the twin-witch bond. We believe you’re in that bond, too. It’s become a three-way bond.”

  Darcy inhaled next to him. Sutton saw the agony color Carla’s eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “Keri’s soul is tapping in to Carla’s blood and power. And you’ve partly formed your soul-mirror bond with one of them by touching her blood, then Carla touching yours.”

  Sutton didn’t like this. “Carla’s my soul mirror.”

  “You don’t know that,” Carla whispered.

  She had told him her fear that she was letting Keri slip away from her to keep Sutton for herself. But he knew, his eagle knew, they belonged to her. “I know, baby.” He didn’t give a shit who heard him. “My eagle knows. He recognizes you.”

  “She called you Eagle.”

  Her sadness was making his eagle tat burn as badly as his chest. “My eagle belongs to you. Only you. Believe in that, Carla. In the meantime, we won’t do anything to cut Keri out of the bond. We’ll both hold on to her until we can find and free her.” He would never make her choose. He already knew she was coming to care for him, to trust in him. He could feel it. No matter how painful it was, they would wait until Keri was freed to go on to her next life and Carla was ready.

  Her gaze softened. “I need to heal you, Sutton. You won’t help Keri or me like this.”

  His eagle danced over the back of his skin, wanting to do her bidding and practically quivering for her touch. But it was too dangerous, he was too close to losing control of himself. “I can’t.” He closed his eyes, struggling to restrain the raging hungers boiling inside of him. The pain in his chest and face fed the dueling agonies of dark curse and unfulfilled soul-mirror bond. Her sister’s soul was dying! They had to find Styx and do it now, before he managed to destroy Carla or kill off Keri. He opened his eyes and said, “I’m fine, I heal fast. Right now I’m going to get to work to find Styx so we can free Keri.”

  Carla checked on her father. He was working in her little office, hunched over her computer and his laptop. There were deep craters beneath his eyes, his skin was loose and he was too thin. That tug behind her ribs tightened. “Do you need anything?”

  He looked up at her. “Why can’t Keri get out of the knife? If she got in, why can’t she get out?”

  “She doesn’t actually have her powers. She’s tapping into mine because we’re connected.”

  “How would she have gotten out of your armband if she had bound her soul there?”

  Carla leaned against the doorframe. “Maybe I could have freed her with a spell, but that would probably take higher magic than I have. But—worst-case scenario—she’d stay there until I died, then her soul would leave with mine.”

  “Because of the twin bond, you could keep her soul alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re keeping her soul alive now?”

  Her skin went icy and sweaty at the same time. She hadn’t thought of it that way. “Yes. She existed for two years, maybe able to pull just enough from me. But Dad, what she’s seeing, what she’s experiencing, it’s destroying her soul …” She trailed off as the scent of incense filled the room.

  “She’s dying all over again,” he said. “Why couldn’t she reach you before now, Carla?”

  Why did she smell the incense? Was Keri trying to reach their father? Softly, she asked, “Do you miss her at all, Dad?”

  He jerked his gaze up to Carla, then away. “What difference does it make? It didn’t make
any difference to her.”

  Carla rubbed the ache in the scar at the base of her spine.

  “What allowed Keri to reach you after two years?”

  “I think Sutton touched my blood and that began to form the soul-mirror bond. It strengthened either my power or hers. And she recognized him.” Sutton kept saying he recognized Carla, but Keri was the one who recognized him. “Somehow it gave her the strength to reach me. And she saw Pam on the astral plane and got between us. She’s been protecting Pam.” That was just like Keri.

  Heal him.

  She jumped at the voice. “Keri?”

  Jerome shook his head impatiently. “Yes, we’re talking about Keri. What about when Pam shot Sutton? If Keri thinks Sutton belongs to her …”

  Had she imagined hearing Keri’s voice? “Yes. I knew Sutton had been shot, so Keri would have known, too. That could have been the thing that gave her enough power to reach out to me on the astral plane.” She frowned. “What does all this have to do with tracking down the psychic?”

  “I need to understand how the power matrix is operating. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  She studied her dad, remembering how much she had idolized him, how hard she’d tried to please him. “She’s your daughter. I’m your daughter. Not some power matrix …” She trailed off, mad at herself for doing this. Her dad was there to help her find Keri, that was it.

  Her dad’s face tightened. “I don’t have magic, Carla, all I have is science. Keri turned away from me because of it. Do you know how that felt, to be seen as lacking in your own daughter’s eyes?”

  His words sucked the air out of her lungs. “No. She never thought that.”

  His eyes lost their shine, going flat and determined. “Fine, believe what you want. All I have left to help Keri is science to figure out a way for you to use your magic to track her to this Styx. And keep Styx from destroying you with the twin bond. That’s all I have left to give either of you. Let me work.”

  Carla walked out of the office, and made her way across the family room. The scent of incense moved with her. “Is that what you thought, Keri? That Dad wasn’t worthy because he didn’t have magic?”

  Hurry. Heal the Eagle.

  She paused at the hallway. “Sutton?”

  The scar warmed and tingled.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Keri.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Sutton doesn’t want me to go to him.” She leaned back against the wall in the hallway, afraid to move, afraid to lose her connection. There was so much she wanted to tell Keri, the words, thoughts, and emotions backed up in her throat.

  A soft laughter floated around her. “Don’t ask him. Heal him.”

  That was Keri. She could feel her laughing at Carla’s caution. At the same time, the incense scent faded, and her scar cooled. She couldn’t lose contact! “Keri! I have to know: Is he your soul mirror?”

  She was gone. A deep ache of loneliness settled between her breasts. Her mom and Pam were settled for the night, so she went into her own room. Her thoughts were tired and confused, and she had a lingering headache from mentally tangling with Styx.

  But Keri was right; Carla was a witch, and she wasn’t going to leave Sutton suffering. The image of Sutton with his burned, blistered face and chest made her stomach roll.

  He had to be in agony.

  She’d seen the jagged line where Darcy had removed the chair leg from his chest and closed the cut. She hadn’t been able to heal Sutton any further because Carla had pulled him into the vision.

  So it was up to her to heal him. She could do that in the astral plane, but she needed to make sure they were safe from Asmodeus first. She didn’t have enough power to set a salt circle that would protect them, but she knew someone who did. She picked up her cell and called Darcy.

  Sutton stared at the computer monitor, trying to find a comfortable position to sit in. He wore only pants and boots. His skin was a black-and-red blistered mess. Some blisters oozed a clear crap and it was annoying as hell, almost as annoying as trying to crack the Rogue Cadre computer network.

  But his careful tracking had paid off. He’d managed to follow a route from the pool of anonymous proxy servers to the computer that sent a message to one of the rogue’s BlackBerrys.

  He was in. Now he needed a user name and password to get into the system.

  What would Quinn Young use?

  Ram walked in, set a cold beer down on his workstation, and then stood behind him and watched. He said, “Key and Phoenix are asking around, seeing if any of the witch hunters have heard of a psychic rogue.”

  Sutton grunted, his brain spinning over the problem of the name and password. “He can’t hide forever. His psychic shit won’t work on a witch hunter so someone’s going to remember him. You know what’s bugging me?”

  “The third-degree burns?” Ram asked dryly.

  He ignored that. “What would Young use to password protect his computer?”

  “Can’t you do one of your programs to crack it?”

  “Tried, the network recognized a threat and shut down. I had to wait for the system to reboot. I have to do this the hard way.” And he had to do it fast. Carla had been pulled into visions twice now.

  “What makes you think it’s Young? He has flunkies do all the work, right?”

  Sutton sat up, barely concealing a wince at the flash of pain from the burns. “Shit! That’s it. Styx. He’s the one sending out the brainwashed mortals to kill us. He’s pulling Carla into visions. He’s the Rogue Leader, at least in this area.”

  “But we don’t know who he is, just the name Styx.”

  Sutton felt the burned skin on his face crack when he smiled. “Styx isn’t his real name. He chose it. Styx is the river that forms the boundary between earth and Hades in Greek mythology. The souls were ferried across by Charon.”

  Ram said, “You think he’d use something from that legend to password protect the computer network?”

  Sutton reached over, picked up the beer, and took a long pull, then let the cold bottle rest in his burned palm. “He’s building a whole identity for himself. The powerful river taking people into hell.” He set the beer down and said out loud to Styx, “What would you use for a name? Not Styx, but … ah! The whole point of the river is to get into Hades.” He typed in Hades for the name. “Now the password that crosses us over into the Rogue Cadre network.” He typed in Charon for the password. He hit ENTER and waited.

  “What happens if it fails?”

  Noticing blood oozing from one hand, he wiped it on his pants. “The computer network will shut down.” He looked at the screen and almost crowed in triumph. “We’re in!”

  “Excellent,” Ram said while looking over his shoulder. “Now what?”

  He started looking at files, beginning with the database of rogues. “Looking for who Styx is.” The list of names wasn’t that long. When the Wing Slayer Hunters had destroyed the Rogue Cadre compound and computers months ago, they had lost everything. Rebuilding was taking time.

  “Sutton.”

  “Yeah?” He was on a mission now and time was crucial. The need to protect Carla drove him. He noticed that his hand trembled briefly on the mouse. He cared about her. Maybe he loved her. He didn’t know.

  “I don’t see Brigg Cusack’s name.”

  Sutton skipped down to the last names beginning with ‘C.’ “You’re right.” But he knew Cusack was rogue. “I’m sure it was him I saw tonight. It smelled like a new rogue, and the shape was right.”

  “You could be wrong,” Ram said.

  He wished he was, but he knew better. “I’m not.”

  “He could be dead.”

  “Yeah. Shit. But dead is better than rogue.” He scrolled up the list, then stopped. “Branch.”

  “So?”

  Sutton leaned back and picked up his beer. “You really do think you’re clever, don’t you?” The cool glass felt good against his hand. He looked up at Ram. “The name John River Branch. I’d bet anyth
ing that’s our psychic bastard rogue.”

  Ram snorted. “Branch could mean stick, and spelled another way …”

  “Styx. River Styx. River Branch.” Sutton drank some beer, enjoying the feel of success, finally. Lowering the bottle, he said, “Got you, you mind-raping bastard. Now I just have to find you …” He frowned as his eagle tat suddenly itched. The room started spinning around him, and the beer bottle slid from his hand. The computer workstation faded into a thick fog.

  He smelled lavender and knew. Carla. In seconds, he appeared … in a bathroom? He looked around, confused. Then he saw Carla and his brain flatlined. She stood completely naked on a black marble floor, her white-blond hair falling in silvery sheets to her waist. Her witch-shimmer was bright silver, stretching over her shoulders, down her breasts, making her dark nipples stand out enticingly. Her belly had a gentle slope that made him long to bury his face against her and let all that softness surround him. Her hips curved gently and the hair at the apex of her thighs was blond and damp. Her lavender scent was layered with desire and something else … worry? He looked up and caught sight of her armband, the one she was never without as far as he knew. Trying to get his brain off her body, off the need for her beating thickly in his cock, he asked, “Where are we? It looks like a bathroom.” There was a huge black marble tub to his right.

  She jerked her gaze up. “It is. From Axel and Darcy’s condo. Darcy helped me.”

  He clenched his fists to fight the need to touch her. After he’d brought her father to her house, he’d told her to bring him to the astral plane. Here he could touch Carla, hold her, and he’d intended to show her how much she meant to him, how important she was, making love to her with his hands and mouth. But that was before he’d turned into a burned, leaky mess. She wouldn’t let him touch her now, so he had to ask, “To do what?”

  “Darcy set a salt circle for me. It’s spell magic and I can’t do it. So she set it up, then I pulled the scene into the astral plane. It should work.”

  “To keep Asmodeus out.” Did she want to talk, try to figure out what to do next? How to find Keri? She wasn’t going to let him touch her while he was such a mess. No woman would. And yet, she’d pulled him into the astral plane naked. That told him how deeply Carla trusted him, and desired him when he wasn’t looking like something that had just been barbecued.