Soul Merchant (Isabella Hush Series Book 5)

by Thea Atkinson

  He dropped his head back, laughter that sounded far more like sobbing burst from him. His chest shuddered. He threw his arms out sideways as he arched back so far I would have thought him a member of Cirque. At the apex of a bend I didn't think humanly possible, a word of power erupted from his throat.

  The amulet froze in place, as it halted a shot of electricity flew out and snapped in the air.

  Maddox jumped a step toward Adair. Then he paused. Then he pulled both arms to his chest and let go a choking sound.

  Adair gagged as though he was trying to swallow and speak at the same time. His stomach undulated like a snake was moving around inside. Maddox charged, the mace held out sideways and then flung backwards as the chain left his grip. When he struck the first blow, it bounced back off the film and rounded his body to connect his ribcage. He hunched in pain at the contact.

  I heard bone break.

  Adair heard it too. He lifted his head and for a moment I thought he would choke on the words he was trying to form, then they came out in a rush of words that sounded like one.

  "I'msorryyouhavetoseeherdie."

  Maddox clutched his side.

  "It's not the right magic, Adair."

  "It's the perfect magic," Adair replied with a hiss. "The stone's bond on this soul makes it perfect. I can't just let the chance go."

  Maddox splayed his fingers over the sac that protected Adair.

  "You don't know that," he reasoned. "You can't know that. What if it doesn't work?"

  Adair threw his shoulders back. "Oh, but I do know. It's what I do. It's what I became so I would know when the time presented itself." He tapped his temple with a finger that had gone black, and I realized the mottling was still there, somewhere beneath the glamor and it had turned color.

  "I trusted you," he said. "I let you convince me she could be free but now I see you just wanted to control me. Imprison me. Exploit me."

  Those words struck me like blows.

  "Maddox?" I said and crept forward inches. Adair caught sight of my movement and rolled his head on a rubberlike neck in my direction.

  "Her death, her bond, her soul. All of those elements plus my alchemy will bring her back." He lifted his gaze to Maddox. "I know it will."

  It was then that I saw what both men had realized was happening above us while I'd been rapt on Adair. High above us, a shape was coming into focus. A woman. Beautiful. Long black hair and full hips. Even as a mere shade, I could see she was strong. Dressed in worn looking leathers, she had the look of a primitive warrior but there was nothing primitive about the intelligence of her face.

  Maddox made a choking sound.

  Adair called out a word that had no English equivalent that I could imagine. It was all consonants and humming sounds.

  And at the utterance of the word, I collapsed to my knees. I had no feeling in my entire body. Every muscle, sinew, and joint went limp. And yet, I was held there, in place on my knees, by some power that had no physicality.

  Maddox swung around to face me at the sound of my knees striking the floor. He hefted the mace, holding it at my eyelevel.

  All that flashed through my mind was that whatever was coming, it was bad enough that he was willing to kill me if he had to. He, the demon warrior, was waging war right here in this room and I was the one thing he could affect to win.

  In my mind, my arms flew up over my head, wrapping around the top of my skull and protecting the vulnerable temples. But in the physical, I just knelt there, barely moving and weaving subtly like a grass in the breeze. I was held like a sacrifice by some power none of us could control.

  And Maddox didn't look like Maddox. Fury and fear had stolen the intelligence of his gaze.

  "Don't make me do this," he said.

  "Please don't kill me," I said.

  I wanted to live. With a soul, without a soul. I wanted to live.

  I saw him shudder and pivot in place. His chest was heaving. His fist was clenched around the handle of his mace. Whatever he was fighting it was a battle I was afraid would win him over.

  "Adair," he pleaded. "Please don't make me."

  "You locked me in here for hundreds of years," Adair said. "Kept me caged like an animal, believing you could do something to free her. To fix me."

  "I did it to protect you." Maddox said. "You can't be trusted anymore. Your powers make you unpredictable."

  A guttural cry broke from Adair's lungs, one of pain and sorrow, and something far more primal. Lust, I thought. The air became cloaked with it.

  And that was when I knew I was truly doomed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  THERE ARE SEVERAL MOMENTS in life when you know that what you do next will cause a shift in your path the size of tectonic plates rearranging. Most times, you don't know. When I'd pocketed the rune tile all those weeks ago in a dark and dirty alley, I'd had no idea that moment would bring me here. That it would put me on my knees in front of my own humanity.

  Would I have done it had I known? Would I have stopped to help the man who turned out to be a dark sorcerer had I realized?

  I'd been in a funk, it was true. Maddox had been right. After I'd killed Scottie, I'd wanted to feel nothing. I hadn't killed him in self-defense. Not really. The man had been taking a bath, and I'd bludgeoned him because I wanted to get away from him finally. I'd wanted his persistent hunting of me to end. I'd wanted to not have to look over my shoulder in an anxiety-filled dread one more time.

  But I hadn't taken back my freedom with that blow. I'd traded it for guilt. And guilt was far worse because there was no running from yourself.

  Maddox had tried to gift me Scourge as a Christmas present, so I could have that thing I wanted more than anything, hoping I'd choose happiness and peace.

  But I would have chosen to feel nothing had I used the gift.

  That's what he understood that I didn't. It was why he was worried about me when I didn't understand myself what was wrong.

  I knew now.

  I knew, and I knew I wanted to live.

  I wanted to feel.

  And as that realization came, a breeze seemed to move through the room. The woman becoming more and more clear in the haze of magic over the amulet sort of...shivered.

  Adair's attention whipped to me and he growled. It sounded feral and unhinged. Maddox staggered. He swung around to face me again.

  "Isabella?" he said.

  I tried to nod because I couldn't trust my mouth to answer in anything but a sob. I needed something, some sort of movement to let him know I was still there. But I couldn't manage one. Adair let loose a litany of shrieks that sounded like a chorus of wailing women. It was high pitched enough to make me want to hold my hands over my ears.

  But I couldn't.

  All I could do was watch Maddox lumber nearer to me. In a flash, I saw him crouching over the kitten's crate in Fayed's back alley. I watched him cradling the crate in his arms. That man wasn't a monster. He might have killed monsters, but he wasn't a monster. I was safe with him.

  I kept telling myself that, over and over, and with each image that came to me that proved me right, the movement started to come back into my body.

  My hand twitched. Then my shoulder. I rolled my head on my neck to test it out. All while Maddox fought his own legs from advancing on me.

  "It's ok," I said, pulling my hands up in front of me, facing him in surrender. "I'm alright."

  I dragged in a breath to prove it to him.

  The effect was on the woman, and not Maddox. She swung a surprised and confused gaze to me. She was almost solid now. I could see her flexing her arms as though she too were testing her movements. Both she and the amulet seemed to be lower than before.

  Adair began chanting in earnest. The amulet rose. It made contact with her foot.

  She gasped. Maddox threw a look over his shoulder at the sound, and I realized that I couldn't wait for someone to save me. I couldn't run. I couldn't hide.

  I had to do something. But what?
r />   If time had a way of standing still, it was doing that right then. Adair kept up his chant. Maddox slowly, deliberately, pointed his feet in Adair's direction. The amulet and the woman began to lower to the floor.

  Those elements came together for me like a puzzle piece revealing a beautiful but complex picture.

  Adair had recognized his magic in me. The amulet had been Tamar's. The affinity of the bond of my soul to hers was what could drive the whole damn thing. I wasn't sure how all those slots fit together, but they did. Somehow.

  Whether I was right or wrong, I had to do something. I marshaled whatever energy I'd gained back and flung myself to my feet. The force of the thrust launched me, stumbling, toward the amulet. I pinwheeled toward it several steps before I caught my balance and felt the ungluing of Adair's magic from my limbs.

  I heard Maddox and Adair call out at the same instant, the same one where I reached through the sizzling magic to grab the amulet from the air. The woman above me wavered.

  Once, I'd been wearing a dog shock collar Scottie had bought to use on a member of his crew who looked at me a little too long. To teach us both a lesson, Scottie said, he'd tested it on me. Not a lot of shock, mind you. Not at first. Just a quick jolt to see what it felt like.

  Then a larger one, to remind me who was boss.

  Then the highest level to teach me never to consider looking at another man again.

  I'd foolishly reminded him that it was the guy who had looked at me, not the other way around. The insubordination earned me a night's worth of sleep with the thing around my throat, getting jolted out of the blue while I slept.

  This magic was much like that except far, far worse. I had the sense of dread at the same time as I felt the shocks, and it made all my hair stand up. I grit my teeth against the pain as I fought to pull the amulet free of the magic.

  "God damn you," I screamed at it. "Let go."

  From behind me, Maddox shouted. "Break it, Isabella."

  Break it. How?

  I scanned the area from dirt floor to ceiling. Rafters. Dirt. Power sizzling over me and through me, making my heart pound enough to burst. I caught sight of the fireplace directly behind Adair.

  The amulet launched from my grip directly at the stones. I heard the woman sigh in my ear. Adair howled. Maddox might have sobbed.

  The amulet struck the face of the fireplace and cracked on impact. Two halves fell away from each other.

  The magic swept the room like a whirlwind, lifting my feet from the floor. I was thrown a yard away from where I'd stood and I landed hard on the dirt in the center line of mercury trail. My hand fell into it and it bunched into place on either side like my skin was the hand of God parting the Red Sea.

  A movement caught my eye even as I was sucking air in to replace the vacuum that had drained my lungs of air on impact. Adair standing in his circle.

  The film was gone.

  And Maddox was already enroute.

  He swung.

  The mace made a whistling sound as it parted the air around it. I covered my face, my eyes, my very psyche from what I knew was about to happen.

  The sound of the ball colliding with Adair's head was one I never wanted to hear again. It sickened me to my very marrow. I pitied the poor alchemist who wanted to be rejoined with his lover. My eyes blurred with tears and they wet my cheeks, running down to my chin.

  I sobbed as I lay there, curled into the fetal position. Despite it all, I had liked the alchemist. I knew at one time, Maddox had too. I ached at his death because death by violence was always so damn useless.

  Moments passed in which the whole room was silent. I peeked between my fingers when I managed to control my emotions.

  Maddox just stood there. His shoulders had a defeated sag. The mace was on the floor, discarded.

  Beyond him, Adair lay there in a crumbled heap. His head was several feet away. I don't know how Maddox had managed it in one blow, but he'd decapitated Adair so neatly, that the face still showed some semblance of the person he had been.

  There was no sign of the woman.

  "Maddox," I said, testing the silence.

  He didn't respond. He seemed mesmerized by the sight of Adair's body. If I looked at it, I thought I could see a faint aura of what I could only describe as a tailed demon around him. Outside of that was another shell of aura, of the man with the bowler hat. And at the heart of it all, was the true Adair. He was beautiful, even in death, even with his skull completely severed from his body.

  "Maddox?"

  His name urged him into movement. He stooped to pick up the pieces of amulet and held them in his palm for a long moment before he closed them into a tight fist.

  He swung to face me.

  "Let's go," he said and strode past me to the head of the stairs.

  I noted he didn't retrieve his mace. It lay there like a piece of him he didn't want to collect.

  Having got my air, I pushed onto my hands and knees. Pain lanced my ribs but I didn't think anything was broken. Badly bruised, maybe, but not broken.

  That had to be a good thing.

  I followed him down the stairs and he led me through the bazaar, down the alleys and streets we'd come from, back to his library.

  He beckoned me to the gate and bid me enter without a single word. All the while, he clutched those shards as though he'd crack himself if he let them go.

  I couldn't keep his eye, and he didn't seem to want to catch mine.

  I portaled home to my basement and stumbled up the stairs, feeling my way along because I couldn't see through the sting of tears that blurred my vision.

  I was ugly crying by the time I flung myself onto my bed. I knew by how bereft I felt that I had my soul back.

  But I might have just lost Maddox's.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I HAD DAYS TO MULL over the events. I slept like the dead for fifteen hours, and didn't miss the irony of the term when I woke and decided I knew exactly how Jesus felt three days after he died. I'd had dreams of the bazaar while I slept, gauzy bits of images that waved away like curtains in a breeze when I tried to see through them.

  Maddox's past was more complex than I'd considered before. I shouldn't have been surprised; after all, he'd lived hundreds of years in a world like my own, but nothing like my own. One lifetime of living was enough to create a kaleidoscope of memories that would alter and change a psyche. With his long life, he had to have crafted thousands, if not millions, of multiple butterfly effects and all through worlds I hadn't even known existed.

  The magnitude of possibilities was astounding. If I tried to sort out how it might all have shaped him, I got too exhausted to think anymore.

  One thing I did know. He wasn't an innocent. But he wasn't a monster either. His Shadow Bazaar was a pulse of things Kindred. Like the Kindred who visited, bought, sold, rented, or lived within, the space was a breathing entity, no more controllable than the wind. He could be forgiven the things that went on within its boundaries, because whatever he'd meant to create when he'd done so, it had expanded to something far more sentient.

  His bazaar was his own Lilith Stone.

  I didn't know if I'd ever really understand the bazaar or why Maddox had built it. Maybe it didn't matter. It had given to me as much as it had taken. I made my peace with its existence. I let it become a sort of tapestry woven into my own life, one with a hundred different story lines coded into the map.

  I knew where Cleo's potion chest was, and that would be an adventure that I hoped would be remunerative but uneventful. I had my soul back. I was free, maybe not of the guilt over Scottie's death, but free to embrace the humanity of it.

  I had hope for the first time in forever because of Maddox and his bazaar, and it was sad that it was so. Because things weren't right for him. Threads were still loose and ragged in the fabric. And it nagged at me that there was no easy fix that I could buy or steal.

  It took me three days to decide to brave the Pussy Gate.

  I did so w
ith two things held in my hands. Both of them the best medicine I could think of for what was ailing my non-man.

  I ignored the pulsing, vibrating pleasure it sent through me and when I found myself on the other side, it was to a view that was at once familiar and sad.

  Maddox lay in one of the chairs by the sofa, facing a fire that wasn't lit. He knew I'd entered. I was sure he could feel it in the shift of energy, as I did.

  But he didn't lift his head.

  Wordlessly, I went to him. He let me push in and somehow the chair grew to accommodate us both.

  I was heartened to feel that he at least put his arm around me. Maybe he wasn't too far gone.

  I laid the two bowls on his belly. It was hard as a table top anyway.

  "Chips," I said, pointing to the first one. "And vanilla ice cream. It won't fix what's wrong, but it'll help you work your way through it. Trust me."

  His liquid gaze drew my own. "I know what you're feeling," I whispered. "It's grief. It's guilt. It's shame. And a dozen other things you can't name right now. "

  I plucked a chip from the bowl and dipped it in the ice cream. Then I aimed it at his mouth. It bumped up against his closed lips and I had to jimmy it to get his mouth open.

  I popped it in and he hesitated, but then chewed. Slowly at first. He opened his mouth again and I dipped another. I would feed him and I would talk and he didn't have to do anything but just be. I'd had days to think about it, and I thought I had it figured out.

  "Tamar was your sister," I said, gathering all the threads of information together to stitch out some sort of understanding. "Adair was the alchemist who created the Lilith stone."

  His eyes revealed I was right, but all he did was pop open his mouth again. I slipped another ice-cream laden chip inside and kept talking, remembering his comment about losing too many of his family to the stone.

  "My bond to the stone, the one Absalom wanted to use, that's the thing he thought could tap into Tamar." I dipped a great gob of ice cream onto the chip. "And he was obviously right. He needed something of hers to fulfill the spell. Was she a guardian too?"