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

  “Why would the Order sell cantrips to their own members all the way over there?” she said. “They wouldn’t need to bother setting up in the Parallel if that’s what they wanted to do.”

  “Good point,” I said. “Maybe it’s an ex-Order employee, then. Or they’re sending some of their people over to set up a permanent base in Arcadia.”

  I’d thought the last thing the Order wanted was to actively work within the Parallel, the place they sent anyone too dangerous to live in the ordinary world: a definition that covered anyone who didn’t want to obey the Order’s stringent rules. To anyone born in the decades since the war, the idea of being able to freely walk between the two worlds seemed as distant a dream as the notion of being able to use spirit magic without consequence.

  Devon stabbed the fabric with a needle. “If they’re asking for volunteers, I’m not moving into the fucking Parallel.”

  “Ditto.” As out of place as I felt among the ordinary humans here in the middle of England, the Parallel’s lack of any regulations had nearly cost me my life countless times. I was as likely to die there from a paper cut as anything else. If the Order had moved in with the intention of improving life for the people living over there, it could only be a good thing… but I somehow doubted that was the case. The vampires wouldn’t give up their city that easily.

  Devon began stitching the seams of the coat together. “At this rate, I’ll end up living off commissions for the next month.”

  Guilt twisted inside me for turning down the Death King’s offer. But really, how did he expect me to solve his liches’ murders? I was no detective, and besides, whatever could turn a lich into a decomposing corpse was as far from my knowledge as humanly possible. “I’m sure it’ll turn around. I guarantee whoever runs this COS business can’t possibly have every single variety of cantrip. They look mass-made, not custom. I bet their creators took so many shortcuts that half of them will fall to bits before they can be used.”

  “I’ll just wait for the custom orders to roll in when people figure it out.” She stood up and walked into the kitchen to check on the pizzas she’d shoved in the oven.

  “It’s just a slow season.” I turned on the Xbox to distract myself with a game of Skyrim. “Maybe it’ll turn out the COS is making cantrips out of dead rats or something. Things like that always turn out to be too good to be true.”

  Devon snorted. “Yeah, maybe. Did you see anything else in the market?”

  “I met the Fire Element,” I said. “He’s a colossal prick who thinks I have no business getting between him and his beloved master.”

  Devon closed the oven and walked back to the sofa. “Did you speak to the Death King, then?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He seemed to think I was his employee, so I put him straight on that. I don’t need that kind of crap in my life. What does he expect me to do about someone turning his liches into roadkill?”

  She flung herself back on the sofa and picked up the needle and thread again. “How’d they die, exactly?”

  “If I knew that, I’d know how to get the Death King off my back,” I said. “Something clawed them to pieces, but from the way their bodies were rotting, it was like they were living humans, not liches.”

  She blinked. “Someone brought them back to life just to kill them for real?”

  “His Deathly Highness doesn’t seem to think it’s possible,” I said. “But he admitted their soul amulets were unaccounted for, too.”

  “Did he ever catch the guy who betrayed him?” She threaded the needle again. “I know the earth mage was caught…”

  “He’s in jail,” I said. “The Order’s jail, not the Death King’s. Problem is, all the liches look the same, and I wouldn’t be able to pick the traitor out of a crowd.”

  “Tricky one,” she said. “But like you said, the Death King is better equipped to identify the culprit than you are. If you ask me, he’s trying to shove away responsibility onto someone else. What did Brant think?”

  “He still hates the Death King, of course,” I said. “He also stayed behind to check out the market, so I’ll have to see if he has any updates when he comes back. Also, Dex is missing. I didn’t see him the whole time we were over there.”

  “Weird,” she said. “Did the Death King lock him up again?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.” I watched the loading screen appear on the TV screen. “Maybe he found someone else to hang out with.”

  It seemed unlikely. Most people didn’t even notice sprites, and they typically didn’t associate with humans, either. Dex had only made an exception for me after I’d saved him from a dodgy rogue who’d stuck him in a cage to sell at the market, but we’d worked side by side for years and that ought to merit at least a goodbye, right?

  The sofa jerked to the side as a sudden surge of energy rushed through the room, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. At once, the TV turned off, as did the Xbox, and I dropped the controller.

  “What the—?”

  An alarming crash sounded from the shop, and Devon and I both made for the door at once. I got there first, opening it, and something solid and fleshy collided with my face. Recoiling, I hit out, and sent my attacker crashing into the table. A light snapped on courtesy of Devon, illuminating a decomposing mass that hardly looked alive.

  The creature flopped over on the table and leapt at me with its clawed hands flailing. I raised my foot, and a sharp kick sent it flying, landing on the floor a heap of flesh and bone.

  “What the hell is that?” Devon pressed a hand to her mouth, gagging. I did likewise. The smell was horrific, and despite the way the heap of flesh kept flailing about, there was no way anything in that stage of decomposition should still be able to move.

  “I don’t know.” Holding my breath, I reached into my pocket and grabbed a coin, tossing it at the fleshy mass. It flopped over, feebly twitching. “Not sure what it was, either. If it ever used to be alive.”

  The image of those liches laid out like the festering corpses of slain animals came to mind, and I choked on bile. The heap of dead thing kept twitching, more feebly than beforehand. If it wasn’t already dead, it had to be dying, surely. Its stumpy legs twitched, its raw skinless arms pushing as it tried to stand. A ragged breath tore through its body, and a jolt of recognition mingled with my revulsion.

  Devon ran from the room, while I circled the beast, wondering how to put it out of its misery. I didn’t need to wonder for long. The creature’s feeble thrashing faded by the second, until it shuddered to a limp halt.

  Devon returned with a mop and bucket I hadn’t known we even had. “Is it dead?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  She put down the bucket. “Whatever it is, I’m not keeping it in the house. Where’d it come from?”

  “Through the node.” I swallowed hard. “I think it used to be a phantom.”

  Devon lowered the mop. “How’d you figure that one out?”

  “A hunch.” I didn’t particularly want to get too close, but I picked up the bucket while Devon used the mop to transport the monster’s body. “You know I saw those decomposing liches earlier? That thing looks pretty similar, but less… substantial. Less human. Like the phantoms would look if they had bodies.”

  “Well, it’s not winning any beauty contests.” She lowered the mop and the creature flopped into the bucket.

  “No kidding.” I adjusted my grip on the bucket, trying not to look at its contents. “I guess we should return it to the Parallel.”

  I didn’t particularly want to go back, but it wouldn’t do our business any favours to leave it decomposing in the shop.

  “I’ll dump it in the bin,” she said. “Or bury it in the garden, maybe. It’s not gonna do any harm now it’s dead.”

  “I guess not, but if another dead monster lands on my face in the middle of the night, I’m sleeping in the garden.” I hefted the bucket over my shoulder and walked out of the shop into the back room.

  “Thanks for reminding
me,” said Devon. “You know what—fuck it, I’m calling the Order.”

  “If you’re sure, but please don’t start an argument with them.” I made for the back door into the garden. “Also, if they ask too many questions about the Death King—”

  “I’ll tell them to check in with His Deadliness themselves if they really want to know what he wanted with you. Trust me, I know how they work.”

  She dialled, while I took the bucket into the back garden. Burying the dead thing underground would be the best way to avoid it being found by any Order personnel who visited our shop… as long as it didn’t rise as a zombie and come shambling into the house.

  Great way to avoid nightmares there, Liv.

  I unlocked the shed, retrieved a shovel and some thick gloves, then got to work digging a hole. The garden was a tangled mass of weeds—neither of us had the time for gardening—so the odds of someone finding it were low, but I still dug a deepish hole just in case. As a gamer who was better at running than fighting, I wasn’t built for manual labour, so my arms ached by the time I straightened upright.

  Devon still hadn’t come outside to tell me if she’d made any progress with the Order, but I wasn’t leaving the dead thing lying around while they decided whether we were worth bothering with or not. Holding my breath, I emptied the bucket’s contents into the hole. Then I began to pile earth on top. We’d have to avoid the garden until the smell went away, but this would have to do.

  I picked up the empty bucket and spotted something small glinting in the very bottom, underneath where the creature had been. With one gloved hand, I scooped it up. The coin was pale gold in colour and blank on both sides. Not money, I didn’t think, but there were all kinds of weird coins floating around in the Parallel. Might even be worth some cash.

  That was a mystery for tomorrow. For now, I intended to thoroughly scrub every inch of myself to get the stink of the dead creature off me.

  As I walked back into the house, Devon accosted me. “Bastards didn’t care. Told us to call them tomorrow if we thought the creature was a genuine threat. They were bloody accusatory, too, as though we invited the thing in here ourselves.”

  “I figured,” I said. “So did they agree with our plan to bury it in the garden? I don’t want them coming over here and demanding to see the evidence, unless they want to dig it up themselves.”

  “Nope, they just said it must have been an accident that it showed up.” She snorted. “In other words, they were implying it was one of us who brought it with them.”

  “Meaning me.” I should have guessed. I was the only one of the two of us who frequented the Parallel on a regular basis, and the one with the reputation as a troublemaker.

  If you asked me, the Order should have been a little more concerned given how many nodes were present in the city, but if they refused to see the dead phantom as a potential threat, there was nothing more we could do to convince them.

  Never mind the Order: I had yet another reason to regret turning my back on the Death King’s offer. The trouble had followed me to my own door after all.

  That night, I floated out of my body and through the roof of the house. I’d expected a slew of nightmares after last evening’s incident, so the ease at which astral projecting came to me was a refreshing change. I wheeled around above the rooftops, admiring the glinting lights of the nodes piercing the city like transparent spires from another world.

  I floated into the city centre and above the slew of drunken students staggering out of nightclubs, the sound dulled to a pleasant hum in the background. I was a bit too close to the Order for comfort, so I changed directions—and found myself nose to nose with the shadowy form of the Death King.

  “It was you.” My voice came out steady, belying how his sudden appearance had startled me. “I thought I was dreaming last time.”

  “If it’s easier for you, then you’re welcome to think of this as a dream,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Speak for yourself.” I looked around to make sure the Order wasn’t within hearing distance, though hell if I knew whether or not anyone could actually see me. “I didn’t do it on purpose, but I do live on top of a node. What are you doing wandering around here in the middle of the night?”

  “Why are you interested?” he said. “You already walked away from my offer.”

  I frowned. “Did you astral project all the way over here to berate me while I was sleeping?”

  “Is it hard for you to believe the universe doesn’t revolve around you?” he said. “I didn’t come here to see you.”

  “Ouch.” I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling an uncanny chill when it passed straight through me. “Forgive me for jumping to that conclusion, considering you just ambushed me when I was minding my own business. Besides, it’s not like there’s a lot of us wandering around here.”

  Including the Order’s own people. Then again, they were the ones who’d wiped out any surviving spirit mages, either by killing them or by taking away their powers like they’d done to Cobb. As for me, they’d thought taking my memory would be enough… but it wasn’t.

  He glanced in the direction where the Order’s headquarters lay as though the same thought had occurred to him. “Perhaps not, but I would have thought you’d have more caution.”

  “Coming from the guy who hired me as his private investigator.”

  “I thought you turned down the job.”

  “I did,” I said. “I still don’t understand why you picked me and not the Order, or someone with actual connections and experience in the area.”

  “I picked you because you’ve proven to be trustworthy when it comes to matters of utmost secrecy.” His matter-of-fact tone startled me, but I managed to keep my expression blank.

  I folded my arms—with difficulty, given my transparent state. “Excuse me? Didn’t your Air Element attack me because they thought I didn’t guard your secrets?”

  “I told you, I didn’t give them permission to do that,” he said. “I was merely stating a truth. You chose to return my amulet to me, despite the challenging circumstances.”

  “You mean despite the fact that you kept trying to have me killed,” I said. “Doesn’t mean I understand your reasoning. If you’re afraid this beast that’s slaughtering your liches is going to target you next—”

  “I’m not afraid for myself,” he said. “Believe it or not, I value those who serve in my army, and I’d prefer not to lose any more of my people.”

  Huh. It never would have occurred to me that he was the slightest bit concerned about the fates of his fellow liches.

  “Okay,” I said. “Well… I value my life, too. And you should know, a decomposing phantom fell through the node in my house a few hours ago and landed in the middle of Devon’s shop. Given the state of the body, it fell victim to whatever creature slaughtered your liches.”

  “Is that so?” he said. “What makes you so certain it was a phantom?”

  “It sure as hell didn’t look human,” I said. “Also, phantoms have followed me through the node before. It was dying, decomposing, the same way those liches were.”

  “So you’re reconsidering my offer,” he surmised. “Why would the phantom target you?”

  “You tell me,” I said. “I didn’t send out a Bat Signal asking every half-dead monster in the vicinity to land on my face. Unless you sent it yourself.” Wait. Another thought occurred to me. “Whereabouts were those two liches found, exactly?”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “Beside the node near the castle.”

  Well, shit. “The revenants who the creature killed were on top of a node, too.”

  The nodes couldn’t return someone from death to life, but they were sources of energy as well as pathways between realms. Was that why all the victims had been found in close proximity to a node?

  “Is that so?” he said. “Am I correct in thinking you’re reconsidering my offer, then? I will stand by my offer to pay you generously.”

  “
It’s not just the cash I need,” I said “The Order… well. You know how they think of spirit magic. I can’t stop using it even in my sleep, apparently.”

  “You want me to help you learn.”

  Yes.

  I clamped the voice down before I spoke aloud. “No, I want you to guarantee the Order will never know of any spirit magic I use in the course of this investigation. If I have to use it again, I want to know I won’t be punished for it.”

  “Are you sure?” he said. “I could teach you how to use astral projection consciously to prevent incidents like this.”

  Damn him. I kept forgetting how much of a master manipulator he was. “First you think of yourself as my employer, now you’re trying to be my teacher?”

  “The offer stands,” he said. “Are you certain you want to help me in this case?”

  Not in the slightest. I should know better than to accept, given the trouble that he’d caused me already. On the other hand, I wanted answers. Not just about the phantom, but about the revenants, and Dex’s disappearance. If the King of the Dead alone could give me those answers, so be it.

  “All right,” I told him. “Have it your way. I’ll find your killer.”

  7

  Thankfully, no more dead phantoms fell through the ceiling overnight. Instead, I woke to the phone ringing, and blearily grabbed for my mobile and checked the name on the screen. Mum, being a morning person as usual. Yawning, I shoved my glasses on and answered. “Hey.”

  “Hey, Liv,” she said brightly. “Thought I’d call. I haven’t seen you for a while.”

  “I guess not,” I said. “I’ve been busy with work…”

  Meaning, I worked hard to keep my family out of my magical life, especially the parts involving liches. Dead or deader-than-dead.

  “Should I drop by later?” she said. “I know you’re busy with that costume party.”

  “Cosplay, and uh, it’s not a good time right now.” Not as long as zombies kept falling from the ceiling, anyway. “I’ll drop by in a day or two. We’re having… plumbing difficulties.”