“One mistake that shouldn’t have happened, that I’m going to rectify. That soul belonged to someone. A human. Someone’s parent or brother—” I stop, biting my quivering lip and turn away from him. Give me the directions to Mirrorlands and I’ll be on my way.”
Zig sighs heavily behind me. “Fine.” I turn around to face him. He bows mockingly. “Let’s go.”
My heart feels lighter as I fall in step at his side. “Fill me in on Mirrorlands.”
“You really want to know?” he asks, eyebrows raised.
Do I? “We’re about to go there and retrieve a soul. I’m sure it’s not all rose gardens. I need some info before—
“I could retrieve it for you.”
“No.”
“I’ll do the talking when we reach where we’re going, ok?” he says, halting his long strides. I nod. Satisfied with my answer, he gives me a grim smile. “Mirrorlands is…” He pauses, running a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “…a dangerous place. Sinteler controls them. Traps them in mirrors to do his bidding.”
My stomach churns. “Control’s who?”
“Everything. Souls.” His blue eyes glow. “He’s powerful, dangerous, and demented. The Snatchers work for him. He sells the captured souls to the highest bidder. He also implants them inside other human beings and then controls them.” He leans closer, until all I can see are the silver specks in his eyes. “If he traps you or me, it will be like Christmas to him. Immortal Souls. Do you know how much damage he can do if he gets hold of one? My advice, leave this to Grim.”
My body trembles. I clench my hands together and push them inside my trench coat pockets. Grim’s disappointment for losing that soul flashes in my head. I imagine that soul up for auction. It wasn’t the soul’s fault. It should be safely tucked in a vial.
“Then this is a chance for you to prove you’re not all talk, yes? You’re suave. Like a shadow. You have more going than flirting.”
His eyebrows shoot up. He looks away, shaking his head. “You will do as I say. Which means as long as we’re in Mirrorlands, you will stay close to me. Like hip-to-hip close. Don’t move unless I say it’s time to come out and dance. Good?”
I nod too quickly. “I’ll follow your lead, Zig.”
“You’re too brave for your own good, Ana,” he grumbles.
Brave is not what I’m feeling right now.
After leaving Stephansdom, Zig tucks his hands inside his jeans pockets as we join the pedestrians on the Graben shopping street and steers us towards World’s Edge building.
The evening crowd has dwindled to clusters of partygoers and one or two tourists taking photos. Ahead of us, a ghoul’s form slinks closer to a couple, clinging to a woman’s arm. It shoves its nose into the woman’s hair and sniffs. Without warning, he sneaks his hand in and out of the handbag and floats off.
“Did you see that, Zig?” I leap forwards, pointing. “That ghoul stole something from that woman’s bag!”
“Yeah, they’re famous for that. You can’t do anything about it. Too fast and too sneaky. You won’t be able to identify one from another anyway.”
“So they just get away with it? With everything?” I shake my head. “Where’s the justice?”
He shrugs and yanks me back to let a horse-driven carriage pass. “Just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you can’t feel pain.” I shake his hand off, seething.
“So what happened between you and lover boy?”
I inhale sharply, trying to swallow past the pain in my throat. “Why do you ask?”
“You look—for lack of a better word—awful. He had the same look when I saw him earlier, dragging his weight—”
My head jerks up. “You just happened to see him? How convenient.” He glances away, ears turning pink. “Where did you see him?”
He frowns. “He looked pretty out of it as he stumbled his way inside a restaurant in the Marc-Aurel Strasse.” His eyebrows pull lower. “I’m sorry.”
A restaurant? The portal Schulz and I used? I miss a step and stumble. I bite my cheek to focus on the sting, rather than the ache threatening to strangle my heart. “It’s all right.” I avert my gaze.
Brave. I am brave.
I push back the tears to concentrate on the mission at hand.
“You don’t need to take things so seriously, Ana. You have eternity. Live a little. But if you want to go back and make up with him, it’s all right. I’ve seen how you two look at each other.” His expression is gentle, but changes abruptly. “Unless you want someone better than him. Someone capable of handling a woman. Like me.”
My heart stutters, injected with a dose of hope at the thought of me and Rolf. Maybe it isn’t too late to make up with him. The sharp pain eases a bit. “I wonder if your bragging lives up to expectations. Besides, you have Sylvie.” He frowns as if he can’t remember. “Your French dinner date?”
“Ah. She’s history. Now, it’s Dahma.” He straightens his trench with a confident flick of his wrists. “I’ll have to introduce you two sometime.”
“Can’t you stick with one girl for more than two weeks?”
“Boorring,” he says as we halt below World’s Edge. “Dahma is quite special.”
“I bet she is,” I mutter under my breath.
Perched above on the entry is a dragonhead. Its fierce green eyes gleam, seeming to judge who is deemed worthy of acceptance in its circles. Ignoring it, I trudge behind Zig through a hallway decorated with portraits of men with hard eyes—which send shivers down my spine—and exceedingly handsome faces, sitting on black thrones. Their arms and necks are finely dusted with scales.
Zig’s warm breath tickles my neck as he leans forwards to peer at the portraits. “Draangel royalty.” He turns and heads to a flight of winding stairs and down another hallway decorated with more portraits. Music seeps through the walls and shakes the floor. “You hear that? The music has some undertones. Caters for humans and Otherworlders.”
I cock my head, hearing the fine tune weaved with the rock beat. Beautiful. We halt in front of a red door with the name ‘Bastian’ on a small rectangular plaque. Zig knocks twice and waits. The door flies inward.
“Siegfried!” a deep, melodious voice booms. “What a wonderful surprise.” I have just a second to glimpse the owner of the voice before Zig steps forwards, blocking my view. Long, well-toned arms grab Zig in a manly embrace, the kind that involves loud thumping of backs as if to prove their manliness. “Come in, come in.”
Zig saunters inside the room, and I follow. The door closes behind me, cutting off the music. Symbols and signs are scattered all over the walls, some mathematical or astrological and others I don’t recognise. I stumble to a stop at Zig’s side. My jaw drops as my eyes travel the length of the over-six-foot-tall man before me. His long, mid-back hair is pulled back and trapped at the nape of his neck with a band to reveal a square-jawed face dusted with a beard. His full lips curl into a smile. Before I have the chance to complete my scrutiny, his emerald eyes settle on mine. I didn’t think it was possible for his lips to stretch wider, but they do, causing his eyes to crinkle at the corners.
He steps around Zig and clasps my hands. “Ah, a sight for a poor Draangel’s sore eyes. Siegfried, introductions please.”
Zig sighs. “Ana, Bastian, the high priest of Vienna. Bastian, Ana, Ernest’s Novice.”
Bastian tsks. “It is high priest extraordinaire. I don’t understand why everyone cannot get it through their knuckle-headed skulls. So…” He rubs his hands, having made his point. “Ernest has been tucking away such magnificence from the public eye, eh? Naughty, naughty.”
I catch Zig rolling his eyes. “If you had attended the Unveiling Dinner, you’d have met her.”
Bastian waves a hand. “I had a conference to attend in Copenhagen.”
“Then stop complaining,” Zig says. I blink stupidly, still reeling from such utter beauty and charm.
“Oh well. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ana. Please, save me a dance for your
birthday dinner ball, will you?” Bastian lifts my hands and presses his lips on the back of them. No one told me there’d be a party for my birthday.
I quirk an eyebrow at Zig, who smiles smugly. “You knew about the party?” Zig shrugs. I narrow my eyes at him.
Bastian shrugs out of his white lab coat to reveal arms covered with scales. He strides towards the floor-to-ceiling windows covering the entire east side of the room, motioning us to the burgundy sofa. Letting my rucksack drop on the floor, I perch myself on the edge of the armchair. Zig opts to pace the polished wooden floor.
The desk moans as Bastian rests his hip on it and crosses his arms. “Now, to what do I owe this pleasure? Or should I ask, who needs to be De-spelled or mediation…?”
Zig’s head snaps to Bastian, then to me. His ears and cheeks turn pink. What kind of stuff has Zig been up to in the past to require De-spelling?
“Come on, Bas. I’m over that now. It’s been a while—”
Bastian flicks a hand. “Yes, yes, that’s what you always say. But we know better, don’t we?” He winks.
Zig clears his throat. “We need to use your Passage Room.”
Dark eyebrows shoot up in question, eyes no longer teasing.
Zig tugs on his earlobe. “The Snatchers soul-napped one of ours. I—we need to retrieve him from Mirrorlands.”
“It was my fault.” The words burst from my lips. Zig frowns at me. “I should’ve been there on time.”
Bastian blows out a breath. “That is quite some request on a territory less treaded. Does Ernest know about this?”
I nod at the same time Zig says, “Gave us his blessing.” Oh, he’s smooth.
Bastian narrows his eyes, then pushes off the table, shaking his head. “He really let you go? Why doesn’t that shock me?” He stalks to a built-in cupboard with red doors and returns to his huge desk carrying a leather-bound book. He thumbs through the pages. I crane my neck, glimpsing numbers and signs again. He halts abruptly and flattens the page with his large hand, murmuring under his breath.
Zig leans down and murmurs, “I’ve seen the women. Quite magnificent and delectable.”
Yeah, he would know that.
“And we have excellent hearing, Siegfried,” Bastian says. He lifts his head. “It would be better if Kian accompanies you.”
Zig rears back, his body rigid. “No.”
Whoever this Kian is, he must rank up there on the list in Zig’s Book of Sinners.
Bastian’s jaw hardens, his playful mood gone. “Put your differences aside and think of your safety. If not yours, then Ana’s. Is she Cured yet?”
Zig opens his mouth, but I speak up quickly. “Yes, I am.” I still hate that word. Cured. As if mortality is a disease. “We’re wasting time. Who knows what the soul is going through? If this Kian can help, I say he should come along. Please, Zig.”
Bastian straightens. “Kian is my nephew and an excellent tracker and hunter. He knows his way around Mirrorlands. Have you heard of Sinteler? Met him?” Bastian’s gaze is intense. “This is his domain. Travelling there is insanity. Ernest should not have agreed to this.” His eyes glaze for a moment, staring at me and yet not. “He’s on his way.”
My heart lurches forwards, pounding faster. “Sinteler?”
“Kian. Had a mental conversation with him.”
“He is not coming with us.” Zig lips carve into a snarl. “I’m capable of taking care of her.”
“I have faith you can do it, Siegfried. But—”
“I said no!”
I blink at Zig. I’ve never heard him yell. “Zig—”
The door swishes open. Zig tenses. I turn to look and end up gaping. A sigh escapes my lips as I stare at that square face plastered with carelessly cut hair. And those eyes! Like molten gold.
I close my mouth and hop into business mode. “Kian, I assume? We’re ready to go.”
Kian glides to a halt in front of me, hand extended. I place mine on his. “Ana, I assume? A pleasure to meet you.” He kisses the air above my hands. “Siegfried.” He cocks his head in greeting. The tension in the air is enough to blow up a concrete building. Kian turns to face Bastian, dismissing Zig with a single look. “We found the flat where Jean lives. Seemed abandoned, though different portraits and paints were scattered all over. He must have been in the process of Immortalising a soul.”
My ears perk up.
Bastian rubs his jaw. “He’ll show up eventually. He always does. Did you confiscate the portraits?”
“Under lock and key in the office.”
Bastian lets out a breath. “That painter is going to be the death of me.” He looks up as if he remembered us. “Ah, something which Ernest should be looking into as well.” I blink at him, my pulse jogging for this juicy piece of story. “Jean—an unsavoury character—draws portraits of humans, the highest payers, gifting them with immortality. He’s very slippery, that boy.”
“How does that involve Ernest?”
“Those are souls not meant for immortality. Nature’s balance of life and death is jumbled up.”
“How many souls are out there?” I ask
“Hundreds, thousands… no one is sure. Until we capture him.”
Snatchers, slippery Jean, Sinteler. Who else is out there messing around with souls?
“How does he immortalise a soul?”
“Magical paint and a gift of drawing,” Bastian says.
Definitely something to discuss with Grim later—if he doesn’t skin Zig and me and hang us to dry when we return from Mirrorlands.
I shift on the sofa. “I’m keen on rescuing this one soul before any damage is done.”
Bastian beckons to us. “Follow me then. But first, you will need this.” He snatches a huge black cloak from a hook next to the door and holds it out to me. “You will thank me for it.”
FRIGID AIR SLAMS INTO MY FACE when we step inside the oval-shaped Passage Room. I pull the cloak tighter over my trench, smile at Bastian, and follow him to the centre of the room, which is buzzing with a soft whirring noise. Two huge clocks with Roman numbers are mounted next to each other on the right side. Inside the clock, are six thin black clock hands. Four point to respective compass letters: E, W, N, S. The other two indicate the minute and hour.
We halt at the edge of a circle on the floor, with interweaving bright blue lines. Just like the ones in the portal at the international cuisine place. Bastian taps the symbols and letters—with a stick or pen, I can’t tell—then steps out of the circle. More lines burst forth, spilling into the room. He turns to face Kian and Zig. Kian leans his shoulder on the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. Zig stands with his hands fisted at his sides like he’s about to punch anyone brave enough to cross his path. I’m really dying to know the history between these two.
“Siegfried?” Bastian lifts a brow in question.
A quick shake of the head from Zig confirms he hasn’t changed his mind about Kian hopping on our rescue boat. I sigh. If we start arguing, we’ll lose precious time. Better to have one man, than two men who can’t leash their hostility against each other.
“All right, then. Kian stays.” Bastian moves closer. “But if I don’t hear from you in one and a half hours, I’m sending Kian. Like it or not, Siegfried. Now, listen very carefully and do exactly as I say. It’s the only way to make sure you find your way back here. Time moves differently there. As you know, Sinteler is powerful. More powerful than two of me combined. Which means, he can alter anything to suit his immediate needs. Even change portals within his territory.
“Getting stuck inside that dimension is not a good idea. Make a point of not getting stuck.” He pauses, his eyes drilling into my face, then Zig’s. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I sidle closer to Zig. I wish he’d say something funny or sarcastic, like he always does.
“There are several entry and exit ports within Sinteler’s fortress, and I cannot guarantee where they lead to,” Bastian says. “The one you will use now is one we man very well. Use the sam
e one or you’ll end up somewhere else, say in China.”
We nod.
Bastian sighs wearily. “Is there any point in discouraging you? This is dangerous. At least let Kian escort you two. His hunting skills will come in handy.”
“We’ll be fine, Bastian.” Zig cups my elbow firmly, and his blue eyes flash down at me.
Bastian extracts two small pouches from a drawer behind his desk and hands them to us. “Use as little of this powder as possible to mark your way.” This is so Hansel and Gretel. He steps back. “Now, step into the first circle. Place your feet on the ‘eight’ sign.”
We do as we’re told.
Bastian walks over to the clock on the wall and taps three symbols with astounding speed. He bows. “Good luck.”
The last things I see are Kian and Bastian’s worried expressions.
***
As soon as we come through the portal, I blink several times to adjust to my surroundings, lit by sconces perched high on the wall. The room stretches a width of about twenty metres. I inhale deeply to clear the tightness in my chest and immediately choke on the scent similar to rust and electricity short-circuits. I fling one arm over my nose, readjusting my rucksack on my shoulders.
“You okay?”
I nod, blinking several times. His hand drops from my elbow.
“This feels wrong.” I look around. “If you control one of the strongest businesses, handling souls, wouldn’t there be guards all over the place?”
“This is Sinteler,” he says, as if it sums up the kind of person Sinteler is. Maybe it does. Lengthening my stride to catch up with Zig’s, I open my pouch and start to mark up the walls as Bastian instructed. The powder is hardly visible, unless one really knows where to look.
Zig marks the wall on his right. “What next, lovely Ana?”
“Here’s my proposal: burst in, grenades in hand, toss them, reclaim the soul, and Speedy Gonzales out of this hell pit.” I wish I felt as confident and fearless as I sound.
Zig laughs. “A girl after my own heart.” After a few seconds of silence he says, “I meant it when I said I’ll take care of you.”
Reaper's Novice (Soul Collector #1) Page 25
