by Lisa Daniels
What would she even talk about, anyway?
She made sure her mask wasn’t about to slip off, and jumped when, a moment after she sat down, someone aggressively parked themselves next to her.
That person, without anything covering her face, turned out to be Eleganza. “Why bother to be here?” Eleganza said, her voice already flat and hostile. Theon towered in the seat to Morgana’s right, bristling in preparation to send Eleganza away. “Your spirit is clearly powerful. I don’t think you need to have anything else. At least until you part ways.” There seemed to be more in her statement, but Morgana didn’t comprehend it, and didn’t want to reveal her ignorance.
“I wanted to have a second spirit,” Morgana sprung up her carefully prepared answer. “But I didn’t find one to connect with. How do these auctions work, anyway? In Europe I never attended one of these. I had permission to use bodies.”
“Hmm. How… liberal,” Eleganza said with a slight sneer to her voice. She relaxed back in her black seat, crossing one knee over the other, her jeans tight, a wrinkle appearing just above the knee. Her raven-dark hair was tied into a messy knot, which gave her the unflattering look of an exhausted housewife who’d escaped for a few minutes. “Well, they always make sure the bodies here have the spirits that match with them. Have to sell prime fighting stock, after all. They’ve got some surprises this auction. Not that I would know anything about it.”
“You’re Regal’s daughter. You must know something.”
“I guess I do,” Eleganza conceded. “I’m just not telling.”
“Why are you here, then?” Morgana countered, not sure if Eleganza was hustling to make her an enemy or not.
“My father likes to invite me to all the events,” she replied. “And I like to go. I won’t be getting anything. Daddy provides.” There was a certain, peculiar note to the way she said this that made Morgana perk up. Was there bitterness here? Was all not well in the Regal household?
“It sounds like he cares for you. He even allows you to participate.”
Eleganza let out a soft snort. “Not quite, Crimson. He sees it more as a way to keep me quiet. I want to learn, to become better, and he indulges… somewhat. But not all the way. He thought that me and Blight would beat you—you shook him up. Once I got over my own failure.” Eleganza folded her arms, tilting her head toward Morgana. Her eyes were a deep, ocean-depth blue, the kind that made you think she was capable of drowning someone. “You’ll have to be careful when you come again. Or you’ll go the same route as the last winner to have the kind of spirit you have.”
“Should I miss the next event?”
“I wouldn’t do that, either.” Eleganza’s voice was soft and ominous. “Or he might just track you down and drag you over to it. Should have stuck to a spirit like mine. Your type vanishes once they believe they complete their oath in full.”
Morgana stared. And stared some more. Eleganza made to move, but Morgana’s hand lashed out to connect with Eleganza’s wrist. “You know about the type of spirit I have?” She inwardly winced at her confession. In an attempt to cover her own blunder, she added, “I’m sorry. Everyone around me I’ve spoken to had no idea what the spirit was. I got used to Americans being so ignorant.”
“Hmm.” Eleganza regarded Morgana with narrowed eyes. “I’m surprised you got one to work for you. Usually they only like to attach themselves to the one they believe they have an oath with. Unless… there is an oath you both share?”
“Yes,” Morgana said, while her mind swam in blank confusion. She didn’t want to reveal too much of that confusion to Eleganza, however. “Her oath is with me. She won’t be leaving for a while yet.”
Eleganza whistled. “Impressive. She feels like an old spirit, and yet her oath is with you?”
Morgana drew a blank, and her mind shut down. In her mild, frozen state of panic, of groping for a response, Theon cleared his throat.
“Are old spirits not able to give oaths to new people?”
“These ones can’t,” Eleganza said, leaning close to whisper in Morgana’s ear, even taking the time to brush a wayward crimson strand aside. “The ones we call guardian angels.”
Morgana drew in a breath, shock zapping her brain.
“You don’t know about them. I knew it.” Eleganza grinned. “Not bad, your bullshitting, though.”
Guardian angel? But they didn’t exist. Morgana had never heard the terminology. “Why have I never heard of this term before?”
“If there are demons, there are angels,” Eleganza said. “Revenants and guardians.”
“How do you know… how do you know something others don’t know?”
Eleganza’s expression became steely, guarded. “I had one. When my father found out, he spent many hours questioning her.”
“Who was she?”
“My mother.”
Brief silence enveloped them. Morgana, still clutching onto Eleganza’s wrist, finally released it. The news shocked Morgana to the core. A new category of spirits she’d never considered. “Your mother?”
“Long story short, she died to save me,” Eleganza said. “A violent death, created from that single moment where she sacrificed herself. At least, that was how my father described it. He thinks a lot of people may get accidental guardian angels, but without the magic, they don’t sense them. And in a moment of dire consequence in that person’s life, the angel intervenes just once. All that incredible power, he says. Focused on diverting even death itself.”
One thing didn’t make sense to Morgana in all this, though her mind worked overtime, imagining a spirit making such a sacrifice. There were definitely humans who died noble deaths, as well as violent ones. The ones with hate and anger and unresolved feelings, like a murder not yet uncovered, bones disturbed in a sacred site… all those led towards a revenant. Her confusion, however, centered on the fact that Regal was letting her fight with a guardian angel, though he knew what one was. Why?
“He wanted to ask more questions of my mother. He started to use her in fights, quickly obtaining an undefeatable reputation. But one day,” Eleganza said, lifting a finger, her voice tight, but clearly willing to confess something as heavy as this, “someone broke into the family home. I was… fourteen. They were ransacking, spraying paint over the walls, some anti-necromancer group or whatever. I came out of my room, wondering what was happening… and that someone charged at me with a baseball bat.”
Morgana held her breath, unsure why Eleganza was telling her, but unwilling to interrupt all the same.
“I didn’t die, because something diverted the blows. The man hit everything around me… and then he just ran off. My father said later that my mother vanished in the middle of a training match against four other fighters. Neither of us could find her in Samhain’s Beard. And we concluded that she sacrificed herself once more, for me.” Eleganza seemed to swallow a knot. Her eyes became glittering, shadowed jewels. “My father’s been wanting to get his hands on a guardian angel ever since. One unable to fulfill its oath for one reason or another. So however nice he treats you, Crimson… he wants that spirit. He’ll make you trust him, and then back you into the corner until it’s too late.”
“Why are you telling me this? What’s in it for you?” Morgana didn’t understand.
Eleganza remained silent for a long moment, as if it had taken all the energy in her body to confess this. “Because if my father gets his hands on a guardian angel like that, I don’t think I’d like the world we live in afterward. He has… ambition. Ambition capable of killing millions. He has a plan. And it involves getting a spirit like yours.”
Theon gave one visible shudder, like an animal’s fur rippling. “You don’t agree with these plans?”
“No. And I don’t agree with how he used my mother,” she said. “He was angry, you know. That I’d gone and gotten myself into danger, that it caused the spirit to vanish. So he likes to keep me close. He brings me into his world. Indulges and seems generous. Because who knows? Mayb
e I’ll sacrifice myself for him. Maybe I’ll become his next guardian angel.”
With that, she released a grim smile and got up from the seat. “If we fight again, I intend to kick your ass. Spirit or no spirit.” And just like that, steel coated all of her, and she might have been an angry rival sitting down to smack-talk Morgana.
It left Theon and Morgana in a frightened, uneasy quiet. Because if what Eleganza had said was true, and not an elaborate manipulation for some game Morgana had no concept of, then it meant that she likely had an unbounded guardian angel. One that never fulfilled its oath.
One that didn’t even remember why it died in the first place.
Holy hell. Her legs felt weak, her insides were swimming, and she had no energy to get up and move. This news… she imagined it would be received with similar blank shock from Rosen Grieves and Amelia Hargraves.
The Grieves family were considered knowledgeable, authorities in both the cities of Lasthearth and Stoneshire. Yet there was this one, gaping slot of ignorance that they didn’t know about or publish, despite generations of settlement and powers. Amelia Hargraves interwove her anthropological studies with necromancers, did more research than anyone, and yet she didn’t know.
Morgana’s school didn’t know. Why didn’t people know? Either way, she needed to release this information to the police. Such a discovery needed to become viral. It was amazing to her that Eleganza or Regal hadn’t bothered sharing the information, either, hadn’t allowed it to become common knowledge.
She barely processed the auctioneer beginning to announce the lots, or that the rest of the room had fallen silent. Her original mission and intention had evaporated on the spot.
Beverly Heath had sacrificed herself for someone, long, long ago. Perhaps thrown herself in front of a gunshot, pushed someone out of harm’s way—something that had caused her death, all for the effort of saving someone. Clearly Beverly couldn’t have ever sacrificed herself for Morgana—the age difference being one reason, and the fact that Morgana might just remember a momentous event such as that.
So she had, by pure chance, an unbound guardian angel. And she still felt utterly clueless.
One by one, the auctions were called. Most were names she didn’t recognize, names not on the list of what the police had given her. It wasn’t until the seventh sale that Theon nudged her at a name’s mention. Montgomery Garcia-Lent.
A considerable stirring of interest went through the room at the name. The first supernatural president of America.
“That’s who we need,” Morgana hissed to Theon, who was every bit as tense as she was. A former president was no laughing matter. Her eyes flitted over the richly dressed people in the crowd, how they leaned forward, and all the police budget and her own personal earnings in the world might not be enough to contend with some of these people.
Still, she had to try. “Bid for me,” she whispered. Theon swallowed thickly and nodded, and she allowed herself to slip into the Other Side, hunting for the president’s spirit.
When she found it, she saw that other necromancers were also in its presence, all clamoring to have a look at this spirit, which pulsed a malignant red, a hair’s strand away from complete revenant state. Come to think of it, down in these lower levels, she saw other similar situations, almost as if the spirits were being brutalized to encourage that hostility. Needless to say, the whole thing sickened her, and she wanted nothing to do with them. Since the other necromancers were attempting to address it, even though it snarled and swore at them, she slipped back out of the Other Side, tumbling into a world of color and a current price range of two million dollars.
Which did not sound like the current police budget at all. She didn’t know if she had permission to buy the corpse for such a price, but this was a former president. And once someone else bought it, who knows where it might end up?
Theon gave her a questioning look, but kept raising his placard every time someone else lifted the price. It eventually turned into a battle between Theon and some diminutive gentleman, who seemed to become paler and more strained every time Theon countered him.
Finally, at the heart-stopping price of 3.2 million dollars, the gentleman won. But Morgana gave a rather discreet message of the gentleman’s claimed name, and of any other observable details. She was also informed, in no uncertain terms, to try and locate the man’s car and place a GPS tracker under it. Rosen Grieves had provided five small ones for Morgana, each capable of being stuck under something, each small enough to be placed in her bag, in her little purse.
“Shame you lost.” Regal passed by her, and she almost jumped out of her skin, all too aware of the trackers in her purse. “You seemed very interested in that one.”
“I don’t have that kind of money,” Morgana said. “I wanted to mess with the other guy. I’d given up once it got past a million.”
“That’s cruel of you,” Regal said, though his eyes glittered in amusement. “Better luck next time.”
Morgana plastered on a fake smile, and stared at Theon afterward, miming a sigh of relief. “Wonder what else we’re going to see this morning? How many other sales are gonna be so expensive that I’d hyperventilate if I won the bidding.”
“That was a little close on the last one, though,” Theon said lightly. “Imagine if he did drop out of the race.”
“He would have if I went a single cent higher.”
They grinned, before slipping back into listening for the next set of rounds. Two out of Rosen Grieves’ extensive list turned up—far less than Morgana had anticipated. She bought one of them, a malicious tiger spirit formerly known as Korok Ironclaw, ninety years dead compared to the antiquity that was Iretha One-Eye. The other sold for 4.4 million, even more than the former president. Morgana knew why when she scouted out the spirit. Another almost-revenant, snapping and growling at the others.
They really liked their corrupted spirits in this damn place. What a travesty. Allowing them to be abused and enraged to such a point, sometimes even forcing it just to get something that wanted to fight. If any one of these necromancers lost control of such aggression, there’d be mass graves on the horizon.
These need to be damn well exorcised, rather than be allowed to thrive. Theon left at some point with the trackers, intending to locate the two vehicles himself. Morgana collected her new set of bones—a half-leprechaun called Flinn Milligan, who wasn’t corrupt, but definitely starting to become hostile. At forty thousand dollars, it seemed people didn’t want leprechaun-blooded spirits. Isabel Chantraine had a similar reception, despite the fame of her name.
She waited nervously until Theon shuffled back, giving her a wink. “Let’s get out of here.” They passed Regal and Eleganza, and Morgana bit back a scream when Regal tugged her by the arm, stopping her from escaping.
“I expect to see you in the next fight, Morgana. The stakes will never be higher… and it’ll be worth your while if you come.”
Why don’t you just ask for the spirit if you want it so much? Morgana thought. This was a little too cloak-and-dagger for her liking. Instead, she smiled widely. “I won’t disappoint you. I want to prove myself.”
Eleganza’s expression was perfectly blank, betraying absolutely nothing of her true feelings. If the woman hadn’t gone over to Morgana herself and warned her about Regal, she would have assumed that they were peas in a pod. But no. Now she really saw it, there was something aloof between father and daughter. Something that made her think Eleganza wasn’t trying to trick her at all.
Due to paranoia about being followed, they decided to stay at a hotel for one night before slipping back to the former university suite in the early morning, since there was a chance people might be able to connect her with Amelia Hargraves if they spotted her without a mask. They also needed to wait to hear the whereabouts of the two cars Theon had placed trackers on, as well as reactions to the fact that she might have a guardian spirit under her thrall. The moment Rosen Grieves found out about Beverly Heath’s potenti
al status, she’d called her own sister to hit the research books and to arrange a trip into Asia to consult with some necromancers there to determine if they had any knowledge of guardian spirits. She harbored a suspicion that the Shinto shrines might be her best bet to ask questions.
Because maybe they had guardian angels, but called them something different.
With all the information sorted, there was one last thing to do before Morgana spent her time productively with Theon, taking in every ounce of his presence and his beauty.
She delved into the Other Side until she located Flinn Milligan’s spirit, which pulsed at her with mild hostility.
“Leave me alone,” he whispered, watching her as she circled around him, in the sepia-laden tones of the Other Side she currently lingered in. “Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“I’m going to fix it so that no one disturbs you ever again,” Morgana told the spirit. “I’m going to make you move on.”
At this, the spirit seemed to stutter in alarm. “Now, let’s not… be hasty...”
“Look, you’re not becoming a revenant on my watch, Flinn Milligan. I know what you did in your life—you’re a piece of work, alright.”
The spirit flickered sullenly at her. Though the spirit was considered a hero in the history books, the way he had achieved such heroic descriptions came from his killing of the enemy natives in America. From her close proximity to the spirit, she saw just how unheroic those killings were. Sneaking into the tepees of sleeping natives, cloak and dagger in the dark, killing targets regardless of age and gender, laying pox-riddled blankets on them to enjoy a nice dose of European disease.
Oh yeah. Real hero, this one. The spirit attempted to resist when she detached its bonds, but she shoved it forward into that part of death she had no business touching, and his presence vanished from the Other Side. No more spirit. No more trouble.
Her eyes snapped open, and she rubbed her hands gleefully at a sight worth seeing again. Theon in nothing more than boxer shorts, hovering by the side of the spa they’d commandeered for the next hour, staring dubiously at the bubbling waters. Sinking into them after another pause, he said, “This has nothing on real water.”
