Touch of Death (Order of the Elements Book 2) Read online

  “Let’s get out of here.” Brant’s face appeared greenish in the half-light. “Better leave those to whatever killed them.”

  “I don’t think it expected to get a meal out of them.” My gaze snagged on the node, a torrent of unbroken energy, and alarm sparked within me. “What if whatever killed them got out through the node? It might have ended up on Earth.”

  He shot me a look tinged with concern. “I just had the same thought, but the Order would know if something dangerous was at risk of crossing over.”

  “If not, I can always report it.” I gave a grim smile. “I’m sure they won’t pin the blame on me this time.”

  Meaning, no way in hell would I be the one to enlighten the Order on the possibility of there being some unknown monster at large with enough power to rip through revenants. Knowing them, they wouldn’t believe me unless I brought proof. But there was someone who might believe me… and who I was supposed to be meeting with anyway.

  Brant and I returned to the surface on swift feet, the horrible smell pursuing us like a persistent ghost. By the time I clambered up the ladder to the surface, my hands were shaking, and the taste of bile coated the back of my throat.

  “I think you should go home,” Brant insisted. “The last thing you need is a meeting with His Deathly Highness after seeing that.”

  “I like how that’s his official title now,” I said. “Good job I haven’t accidentally let it slip in front of him. Or about how he inspired a villain in our D&D campaign…” I trailed off. A familiar pair of armour-wearing figures stood at the edge of the alleyway as though they’d been waiting for us to climb to the surface. One was the Air Element, while the other was a tall lanky guy with dark hair and a scowl on his pale face. He wore a cloak identical to the Air Element’s, except lined with dark red instead of green.

  “You,” said Ryan. “What were you saying about my master?”

  Uh-oh. “Nothing important. What are you doing here?”

  “I saw you going into the tunnel, so I decided to wait until you came to the surface,” said Ryan. “This is Davies, the Death King’s Fire Element.”

  “Hey,” I said to him. “I’m Liv.”

  The Fire Element grunted in acknowledgement. Then his gaze fell on Brant, and his eyes narrowed. “Didn’t my master turn you into a lich?”

  Brant’s expression turned equally hostile. Oh, boy. Fire mages in general didn’t get along with one another at the best of times, and Brant had a short fuse. It looked like this dude did, too.

  “Nobody is getting turned into a lich!” I took a step forward, placing myself between Davies and Brant. “I’m guessing you waited for me because your master wants to ask me a favour again?”

  “He wants your report, of course,” said Ryan, apparently not noticing the fiery tension next to us.

  “He’s not her employer,” said Brant.

  The Fire Element scoffed. “Can’t she speak for herself?”

  “Yes, she can.” I shot Brant a warning look. “I find it interesting that none of the authorities here are talking about the state of the tunnels. Does your master know there’s a pile of dead revenants down there?”

  Ryan frowned. “The tunnels aren’t part of my master’s jurisdiction, so it’s none of our business what happens down there.”

  That figured. The underground was the lowest level of the city of Arcadia, but that didn’t mean whatever had attacked those revenants wouldn’t find its way to the surface. If it hadn’t already.

  Davies scoffed. “C’mon, Ryan. If those two want to slum it with the revenants, they’re welcome to.”

  He swept around and walked away, his cloak billowing behind him. After a moment, Ryan followed. Brant made to ambush the Fire Element from behind, but I caught his arm, dodging the flames that sparked on his hands.

  “Brant,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “You can either stay here and ask more questions at the market or come with me and promise not to set the Death King’s castle on fire. I went through hell to get your soul back into your body once and I’d rather not do it again.”

  “Fine,” he said. “I’ll stay here, but if those arseholes try anything, I’d be more than happy to teach them a lesson.”

  “I’d rather your soul stays put.” I leant in to brush my lips against his. “Don’t let the Elements get you down.”

  His mouth twitched. “Isn’t that usually my line?”

  “Not in so many words.” I turned after the retreating Elemental Soldiers. “See you later.”

  I caught up to the two armoured soldiers at the edge of the expanse of swampland leading up to the Death King’s castle. Ryan whistled, and a skeletal horse trotted over to them. A second horse kicked moodily at the marshy ground, the bone of its skull gleaming in the weak sunlight. The Fire Element swung up onto its back with ease, cantering away across the marshy ground.

  Ryan whistled again, and a third skeletal horse materialised. “Do you want to ride?”

  “Me?” My voice rose in surprise. I didn’t particularly fancy wading through the swamp while those two ran miles ahead of me, but the horse was… well, dead. “I’ve never ridden a horse in my life. Living or otherwise.” I was a city girl, after all.

  “It’s easy.” Ryan handed me the reins of the first beast. “This is Neddie. He’s friendly to new riders.”

  A zombie horse called Neddie. Why not.

  I gave the skeletal horse a sceptical look. “Okay, mate. Let’s give this a go.”

  The horse bent its head, which gleamed smooth and white. Trying not to think about how fragile it looked, I climbed into the stirrup and positioned myself on the saddle.

  The Fire Element had already taken off, but Ryan held back to keep pace with me, which was oddly kind. An attempt to make up for breaking into my house, maybe. The ride was almost relaxing if I didn’t look down and remind myself that I was riding a skeleton, reanimated by magic and held together by little more than a fragment of spirit energy.

  “Why dead horses?” I asked. “Why not bring in live ones?”

  “It’s easier to use a reanimation spell than tame a living horse,” said Ryan. “Living horses wouldn’t come near this place, anyway.”

  “Sensible animals.” My hips protested at the jolting movement as we shuddered to a stop beside the gates leading to the castle.

  The two liches on guard were identical on the outside, tall and dressed in black. They parted without speaking, and the gates creaked inward to let us into the castle grounds.

  Getting off the horse was harder than getting on its back. My foot got stuck in the stirrup, and I’d have fallen on my arse in the mud if the Air Element hadn’t used their magic to steady me. A current of air pushed me back upright and I climbed down more carefully this time.

  “Thanks.” I landed on my feet, facing the castle steps. “I think I’ll astral project here in future.”

  “It does take some getting used to.” Ryan led the way through the doors to the castle, which opened to reveal a large, opulent hall.

  The Death King stood in his usual spot on the dais at the back of the hall. Tall and forbidding with his hood pulled up to conceal his face, he nevertheless projected an expectant look in my direction. “I take it you have news to report?”

  “Kind of.” Crap, I should have rehearsed what I’d say, but my thoughts had been knocked off balance by what I’d found in the tunnels and the surreal experience of riding on the back of an undead steed.

  “So you don’t have anything to report,” he said.

  His disdainful tone bothered me more than I’d have expected. “You gave me almost no information. You didn’t even tell me how your people died. I need way more to go by than ‘someone’s killing my liches’ before I can turn into a super-spy.”

  “What do you want me to tell you?” he said. “I was under the impression you were going to ask about the illegal trade in souls.”

  So I was. I’d forgotten to bring up the subject to anyone at the market after
our discovery of the Collective of Spells and their mysterious acquisition of hundreds of cantrips. “There’s a new trader who’s taken over half the market with mass-produced cantrips. I didn’t see any souls for sale, but if the liches are already dead, wouldn’t their soul amulets be… well, worthless?”

  If he’d had a visible face, he’d probably have shot me a glare for that comment. “Not to the right trader.”

  “Is that what you think happened?” I pressed. “Someone stole some of your souls and then… sold the empty amulets? Are they definitely missing?”

  “Yes, but there is no telling when they were taken,” he said. “I have now barred access to the hall of souls for everyone except for my closest allies, but others might have been taken during the time I was unaware of a traitor within my army.”

  It seemed a major risk to let anyone into the room that contained the souls of his entire army as it was, but I supposed he’d always thought he and his fellow liches were invincible.

  My thoughts must have shown in my face, because he added, “The price for treachery is steep. Few would be foolish enough to risk their own soul.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “How did the victims die, exactly? You said they were definitely dead, with or without their soul amulets, but not how it happened.”

  “You wish to see the bodies?” He stepped down off the dais. “Come with me.”

  Oh, boy. I suspected he was about to make me pay for failing to turn up any useful information. In fairness, I should have asked about the trade in souls while I’d been at the market, but I’d been too distracted by the new cantrips and stopping Brant from starting a fight with the Air Element. Not much of an excuse, but no thief would have been foolish enough to bring a soul amulet to a public market. If anyone bought it, their throat would be cut and their prize taken away before they reached the doors.

  The Death King glided through a door on the right-hand side of the hall, and I hurried to catch it before it swung shut in my face. A short corridor carpeted in blue contained several more featureless doors. Apprehension warred with curiosity about seeing more of the Death King’s domain, and my nervousness quadrupled as he led the way through another wooden door into a small stone-walled room.

  I reached the doorway and recoiled. Two bodies lay decomposing on a table in the centre, their decaying flesh buzzing with flies. Vicious slash marks ripped each body open from shoulder to hip, revealing putrefying organs inside.

  I pressed a hand to my mouth. So that’s what a dead lich looked like. I could have lived a long and happy life without seeing that, thanks. “What killed them?”

  “They were found in that state,” he said. “As though their souls were returned to their bodies for long enough for them to die a normal death, but not long enough for their bodies to fully regenerate before decomposing. If a soul amulet is destroyed, we normally fade away.”

  “So it wasn’t a spirit mage?” I backed up a step to get away from the smell, swallowing hard. Something with very sharp claws had killed them… but judging by the state of the bodies, something else had returned them to life first. And just where had their amulets disappeared to?

  “I never said that,” he said. “It should be impossible to reverse the spell turning a person into a lich—that is, for anyone who isn’t like us.”

  “Yeah, I’m lost.” I ducked into the corridor, trying hard not to vomit in front of him. “If the soul amulets are missing, maybe they contain the answers. Where were the bodies found?”

  “On my territory,” he said. “The soul amulets have yet to be accounted for, but neither is inside the hall of souls.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling an oncoming headache. “I think I might be the last person you should be asking about unknown magic.”

  I mean, I barely knew my own magic.

  “So you refuse to help me.” He stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him, mercifully cutting off the smell of decaying flesh. The image of the liches’ half-decomposed bodies was more difficult to shake loose.

  “I don’t refuse.” I breathed through my nose and out through my mouth, walking back to the entrance hall in order to put as much distance between myself and the slaughtered liches as possible. “As a matter of fact, I found something weird in the tunnels earlier.”

  “Oh?” He halted beside the dais. “In what way?”

  “Some kind of unknown creature with sharp claws has been slaughtering revenants,” I said. “The other revenants were freaked out enough that they’ve started running to the surface to feed on the nodes instead of underground, which is a major pain for anyone crossing over.”

  “I imagine it would be.” He gave me a long look I couldn’t read, what with his face being hidden. “You think there’s a connection.”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “You couldn’t pay me to go into those tunnels again and face whatever killed them.”

  “Couldn’t I?”

  Right. He’d already offered me cash. With our business in peril, Devon and I needed to figure out a way forward, one way or another—but my knowledge on faceless monsters that killed the dead was about as substantial as my knowledge of high fashion or water sports. That is, non-existent.

  “I don’t know that there’s definitely a link,” I said. “I’m only pointing out that both deaths involved creatures that should have already been dead ending up slaughtered. If you don’t know what’s responsible, I sure as hell don’t. It’s out of my area.”

  “Out of your area,” he echoed. “Is nothing in your life connected to the Parallel?”

  “Don’t be absurd.” I dug my hands in my pockets. “I’m not dead. You are. That makes it more your problem than mine.”

  The room seemed to grow colder with each word I spoke, as though the Death King’s temper frosted the very air itself. “If that’s your decision, I will honour it. Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”

  “Uh.” Crap. I had the distinct impression I’d made a huge mistake, but had he really expected me to throw myself headlong into the investigation after seeing the state of those bodies? “Weird question, but have you seen Dex lately? My fire sprite companion.”

  “No, I haven’t. Any reason?”

  “He usually shows up to annoy me whenever I visit the Parallel,” I said. “Then again, he’s not your biggest fan, seeing as how you locked him in jail that one time.”

  “I expect not,” he said. “He’s the one whose life you saved during the battle.”

  There was an undercurrent of meaning to his voice, meaning he knew I hadn’t just saved his life… I’d brought him back to life, using spirit magic. Dex had died, scattered into fragments under the impact of Cobb’s power.

  Power he’d borrowed from the Death King.

  Even spirits didn’t last forever, but what I’d done—reversing Dex’s death—shouldn’t even be possible according to the regular laws of magic. Yet I’d done it, and the man in front of me might be the one person who could actually give me some answers. If I stepped further over the line that’d cost me two years of memories and cost my mentor his life, that is.

  “Never mind,” I said. “He’s probably lying low, if he has any sense.”

  “I expect he is.” His tone was neutral, with no underlying hints except those in the gaps of my imagination. Like a hidden invitation to take him up on his offer.

  I shook off the thought and turned my back. “Until next time, then.”

  I felt the Death King watching me as I left the castle, pursued by a sense of disquiet which wasn’t entirely connected to the bodies of the dead liches. I’d been right in assuming there was nothing I could do about them, nor their killer, and even the Death King was bound to accept that soon enough.

  As for the fire sprite, Dex must have his reasons for being absent. I’d saved his life in as literal sense as possible. It was bound to have shaken him up a little, and if I were him, I’d want to lie low for a while. That didn’t mean he was in trouble. I hope.

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nbsp; 6

  To no surprise, Devon was less than thrilled to learn of my latest discoveries at the market in the Parallel. Once I’d left the Death King’s castle, I’d hopped straight through the node to home without bothering to check into the Order on the way back. If they wanted to know what I’d been up to, they were more than welcome to take it up with His Deathly Highness himself.

  “Who the bloody hell are the COS?” She tugged at a loose stitch on the coat she was sewing as part of her costume for the local comic con later this month. “Who are they to think they can get away with stealing my business?”

  “I’m not sure they know they’re stealing it,” I said. “Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Even in the Parallel, people have to realise that teaming up is more efficient than going it alone.”

  “Yeah, that’s not a surprise,” she said. “I’m more pissed at the Order for going directly to them for all their supplies. The Order doesn’t just jump headfirst into buying from an unknown supplier in the Parallel without assessing the risks first. They must have made this decision a while back”

  “I suppose the Parallel is easier for them in some ways,” I said. “Given how close the node near the market is to their headquarters.”

  She grunted, grabbing a handful of fresh thread. “Yeah, but they’ve bought custom cantrips from me for years. Now all this business with Cobb happens and suddenly they want nothing to do with us. Sure, maybe the COS was already in the works, but the Order stepped in to buy from them pretty damn quickly.”

  “Maybe it’s someone from the Order who’s making the cantrips,” I suggested. “Must be a practitioner. A fairly substantial group of them, given how many cantrips they were selling. Nobody else can create them.”

  They must have asked permission from the vampires who ruled the city in order to operate, too. Small businesses or individuals could do whatever they liked until they drew the wrong attention, but a huge operation like that would get shut down hard if they stepped on the wrong toes. The vampires didn’t like ceding power. I’d assumed they were indifferent at best to the Order, but that might well change if the Order’s people stepped onto their turf.