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

  Brant glared at them. “Deal, but if you touch Liv again, I’ll burn you to cinders.”

  The vampire stepped around me, entered the house, and slammed the door on us. I debated hammering on it until they let me in to confront them, but now I thought about it, the liches and the vampires hated one another. No way would the lich traitor come back to this place now a group of vampires were squatting inside the house.

  I rolled my eyes. “Newbie vamps are such drama queens.”

  Brant grunted. “What now? I doubt the lich traitor is hiding in their basement.”

  “No, but there’s still the other underground lair he used.” The place where the earth mage had taken me when I’d ambushed him on the Death King’s territory. It wasn’t like Vaughn had concentrated his meetings with the lich here in his house, after all. “It’s worth looking around.”

  The two of us walked towards the warehouses once again, this time heading for an abandoned alley. As we drew closer, I found myself missing Dex’s presence, even with Brant at my side. The fire sprite was the one who’d brought Brant to rescue me from my underground cage… because I’d tracked him down using spirit magic. Could I find him using astral projection? Maybe. I was a little more practised than I’d been back then, after all.

  That would have to wait until after we’d searched Vaughn’s old bolt hole. The corridor at the foot of the narrow staircase was lich-free, while the door into the room where I’d been imprisoned lay open. Chills whisked down my arms at the memory of a lich looming over me in the darkness. A terrifying, indomitable foe, or so I’d thought at the time. Not so much now I’d seen two of them flayed open by a beast that defied description.

  The lich wasn’t here. Mr Cobb was in jail, and so was Vaughn. The place felt empty, and it made me miss Dex like a physical ache in my chest.

  “Hey.” Brant nudged me. “Something up?”

  “I don’t understand where Dex went,” I whispered. “He’s never disappeared for this long before. I even managed to astral project and track him down from inside the cage when I was a prisoner.”

  Now, even the cage was empty, though the upturned soil within was a reminder of the earth mage’s secret tunnel leading under the Death King’s territory. I couldn’t picture a lich using it as an escape route, though.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone here,” muttered Brant. “The lich would have no reason to come here alone, not when this place is known to be on the vampires’ watchlist.”

  “I doubt they keep a close eye on the place.” I stepped closer to the cage, trying to put myself back in the mindset I’d been in when I’d astral projected away from a node for the first time. Cold silence filled the background, punctuated by a distant humming sound… not just a sound, but a sensation, too. “Give me a second. I just need to check something.”

  Silence filtered in as I tuned into the humming sensation. The nearest node lay to the west, I knew, but I didn’t need to be on top of a node to astral project. I let the humming sensation spread throughout my body and floated upwards, out of the underground hideout and into the street above.

  Hovering on the spot, I searched for any signs of Dex’s presence in the skies above Arcadia. He couldn’t have just vanished, surely. The nodes stood out like pinpricks against the surrounding world, more of them appearing the higher into the air I ascended.

  Brightness pinged on my vision. I turned my head, seeing a shape too small to be a human moving within the node to my left. I floated in that direction, straining my eyes to see inside the glowing light. “Dex?”

  I halted, my heart lurching against my ribs. The brightness resolved into a dark shape within the node’s current, surrounded by revenants. Piercing screams sounded from the revenants as the dark shape within the node lashed out with viciously sharp claws. The beast was too distorted for me to make out its features. Even when it raised its head and looked directly at me with pitted eyes…

  I reeled, floating backwards over the rooftops and back to my body.

  I blinked back to alertness to find Brant was shaking me. “Liv?”

  “We’ve got to get to the node.”

  I took off at a run, though I knew we’d be too late to stop whatever was happening on the other side. I ran out into the corridor, climbed the stairs, and hurtled through the alley towards the bright spark of the node.

  I skidded to a halt. Dead revenants lay all over the alley, their bodies flayed open, and on top of them lay the decomposing corpse of the fiend I’d seen within the node. A phantom, like the one that’d attacked our house, lay dying, its clawed hands shrivelling on the spot, its skin peeling off, its organs decaying.

  As Brant caught me up, a coin fell out of the air, borne by the current of energy from the node. Brant and I watched it tumble for an instant, then I reached out and caught it in my palm.

  “This is proof.” My fingers closed on the coin. “The Death King will have to listen this time.”

  9

  By the time we reached the swamp again, I was starting to wish I’d asked Ryan how to call one of those skeletal horses. Trekking back and forth through the swamp was getting old.

  “Warn me next time you take off like that,” Brant said.

  “I didn’t think we had much time.” And I’d been right. A phantom had killed the revenants, then died itself, as though the very force that had returned it to life had taken back what it’d given. It should be impossible, but I knew what I’d seen.

  “It’s lucky the thing was already dead when we got there,” he said. “Those claws could decapitate someone.”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that they only seem to be targeting beings that should already be dead?” I said.

  Not only that, the phantom had come through the node when it’d attacked, so for all we knew, there might be more of them waiting to pounce. It made sense to use a node as a power source, because nodes were places of high magical energy, powerful enough to connect the two realms… and, in some cases, powerful enough to breach the boundary between life and death.

  Shit, Dex. Where are you? I was outright worried for him now, but I hadn’t seen a single sign of him when I’d astral projected out of my body.

  I halted mid-step as the skeletal outline of a horse appeared against the mist wreathing the wastelands. “Hey, my ride’s here after all. This is Neddie.”

  “I am not riding on that,” Brant said flatly.

  “You don’t have to.” I reached out to stroke the beast’s head. The horse hissed and snorted when it spotted Brant.

  He backed up a step. “What’s the problem?”

  “Probably thinks you’re gonna start a fire,” I said. “Maybe I should go and see the Death King alone. He might still be in a temper.”

  Besides, I didn’t need to deal with a brawl between Brant and the Fire Element on top of the carnage I’d already witnessed today.

  “Sure, but I have the evening free,” he said. “Want me to come over?”

  For some reason, he never invited me back to his place and always came over to mine instead. Maybe because of the risk of the Order finding out I’d spent the night in the Parallel. We’d taken that risk countless times during our first shot at a relationship, but the Order had become more stringent since then.

  Without warning, the horse’s foot shot out, sending Brant face-planting into the swamp.

  I turned to the beast. “Oh Elements. What was that for?”

  The horse gave another snort. Brant lifted his head, dripping wet, and I bit the inside of my cheek to avoid laughing.

  He shot the horse a furious look, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I’m outta here. Text you later.”

  “I’ll see you this evening,” I called after him. My hand steadied the horse before it could give chase. It nudged my arm as though to ask why I wasn’t already climbing onto its back. “Fine, but you need to stop picking fights with my boyfriend, mister.”

  I swung up onto the horse’s back, and it set off at a steady rhythm. The t
hick leather saddle coupled with my knee-length coat meant its bony form didn’t hurt my legs—much—but the horses were clearly more used to carrying the dead than the living, and its rocking gait gave me a mild headache. The two liches at the gates gave no reaction to my appearance and stepped aside without a word.

  And the intrepid sorceress foolishly enters the Court of the Dead. Again.

  I climbed off the horse and hurried up the steps to the castle doors. The Fire Element didn’t stand in the way this time, but the instant I opened the doors, I found myself nose to nose with the Death King.

  “Whoa.” I caught my balance at the edge of the top stair.

  “Back so soon?” he said. “What did you learn?”

  “I was right.” I reached into my pocket and held up the coin. “There was another attack on a node. A phantom was slaughtering revenants, and by the time I reached it, it was already dead.”

  “You saw a phantom attack the revenants?” he asked in sceptical tones. “Phantoms have almost no power. What do you mean, by the time you reached it?”

  “I saw it while I was astral projecting at first,” I explained. “I had to return to my body before I could go there in person, and when I got there, it was already dead.”

  “Was there a particular reason you left your body behind?” He beckoned me after him into the hall. “Or do you just like exercising your talent?”

  “Do I what?” Was he judging me? I really couldn’t tell. “I was looking for Dex. He’s still missing. And considering the beast seems to be targeting the dead, I don’t want to know what it can do to a sprite.”

  “No, I expect not,” he said. “The phantom attacked the revenants and then died itself?”

  “So it seems. But this was left behind.” I held out the coin, before remembering he couldn’t touch it. “It was a cantrip made using the new material the COS use at the market.”

  “Which proves…?”

  “It means this was the work of a spell, not an individual.”

  “A spell must have a person behind it.”

  Did he have to argue with every word I said? “If you want to be pedantic. The individual, whoever they are, wasn’t anywhere at the scenne. It may be that they’re using an intermediary to set off the cantrips in order to avoid getting caught in the act. We need to find who’s creating them, and to do that…”

  “We need to consult the vampires,” he said. “And the council have agreed to speak with us tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I frowned. “Wait, did you say ‘us’?”

  “I believe it would be wise if we were both present for the questioning,” he said. “Lord Blackbourne of the vampire council agreed.”

  The vampires wanted to speak to me? That couldn’t be good. “They don’t know I’m a spirit mage, do they?”

  I bloody well hoped not. They vampires’ council might be a separate entity to the Order, but that didn’t mean they weren’t secretly buddies behind the scenes. Just look at the Death King.

  “Of course they don’t,” he answered. “I didn’t tell them anything but your name. However, you’re a witness to the actions of the beast that’s killing my people, and I think two voices will be more beneficial than one.”

  “If you say so.” I drew my arms around myself against the chill sweeping through the castle walls. “I was under the impression they liked the Order almost as much as they liked the Court of the Dead.”

  Then again, they had the Order to thank for their being able to gain dominance over Arcadia in the aftermath of the war. After the ruling Elemental Council had perished, they’d left a power gap in their place. If the Order had wanted to gain power over the magically inclined, they could have stepped in as the war ended, but they’d chosen to stay on the other side of the nodes and leave the city to the vampires.

  “The vampires didn’t bring up the Order when I asked to arrange a meeting,” he said. “I believe they are aware of the attacks on the local revenants, but I cannot say if they have drawn any conclusions.”

  “Guess we’ll find out during the meeting, then.” The vampires. I was going to see the vampire council—in the company of the King of the Dead, no less. To think I’d assumed riding on a skeletal horse would be the most bizarre experience of my week.

  “Yes, we will,” he said. “And next time you decide to use your spirit magic, do tell me, won’t you?”

  “Tell you?” I said. “Why? What does it matter?”

  “It matters because the murderer is targeting spirits,” he said. “It may be that the definition includes those who have left their bodies behind to astral project.”

  “Seriously?” No wonder Brant had been so freaked out. I hadn’t seen the person responsible for turning the phantom into a grotesque half-dead monster, and they’d used a cantrip rather than being there in person… but the phantom had wound up as dead as its victims.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I’d rather you didn’t perish before the case is brought to a close.”

  “And there I was thinking you didn’t like me.”

  Whatever his reply was going to be, I never found out. The door to the castle slammed open with a booming sound which echoed from the high ceiling.

  “We’re under attack!” shouted the Fire Element. “Another lich is dead.”

  The Death King moved at once, gliding towards the doors.

  “Call the other Elements,” he ordered Davies over his shoulder as he vanished outside.

  I ran down the stairs behind him, hurrying towards the sparkling light of the node. Even from here, I could see the darkness within it, and below…

  The lich lay sprawled in the mud, flayed open, body decaying like a weeks-old corpse. If any coins lay beneath his body, I didn’t see them, and I didn’t want to lift the rotting corpse to find out.

  The node’s energy current buzzed beneath the earth, inside my own veins. No signs remained behind of whatever had returned the lich to life and then left them for dead. Their hood had fallen back to expose a face already caving in on itself, bones jutting from between flaps of greying skin.

  Footsteps prompted me to turn around. The other three Elements had joined Davies. Ryan looked sickened, as did the Water Element. The Earth Element stood too far back for me to see his expression.

  The Death King faced the four Elemental Soldiers. “Remove the body and take it to the same room as the others. Tell nobody else of this.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, instead gliding back up the stairs and through the front doors into the castle. I hurried up behind him, even though all my instincts told me to stay back, and he veered sideways into the hall of souls.

  “What’re you doing?” My footsteps echoed as I ran to keep up with his bodiless glide.

  No reply came when he entered the hall and glided down a row of soul amulets. He reached a shelf and stopped, then began to examine each amulet one by one.

  “You’re looking for the victim’s soul amulet,” I concluded. “Might it have been taken recently?”

  The longer the connection between soul and body remained severed, the less likely it was that they’d be able to return to life. Most liches had willingly surrendered the physical world in favour of immortality, but I’d never heard of a spell that could turn a lich back into a living, breathing being again.

  A phantom can’t have done it. They can’t have broken in here to steal someone’s soul.

  The Death King didn’t reply. His silent glide continued, which creeped me out more than I’d have been if he’d been yelling obscenities. I got the message and left the castle, finding the Air Element levitating the dead lich’s decomposing remains out of the node.

  “If I were you, I’d leave,” they said.

  “I’ll just have a quick look around the scene of the crime.”

  I walked the short distance to the node, the swirling current of energy appearing the same as ever. Crouching down, I scanned the ground beneath the node. Swamp water washed over my boots, while mud sucked at my feet. A
nd beneath the mud lay a coin, half-buried.

  With one hand, I lifted it into the air and held it up to the light. Mud darkened its pale gold surface, but I’d bet it was as unmarked as the others.

  The question was, who—or what—had used the cantrip on the phantom? And where had they come from? Anything might lie on the other side of the node.

  Before I could question my decision, I pocketed the muddy coin and stepped into the path of the node.

  A familiar buzzing sensation hummed in my veins, and I pictured the rotting phantom clearly in my mind’s eye, willing the node to obey my thoughts. Instead, I remained standing on the spot.

  “It didn’t come out of thin air,” I muttered. “C’mon, do me a favour and take me—”

  A pair of claws shot out, narrowly avoiding spearing me in the chest. I pivoted, hovering on the spot, suspended in the current of energy. Shit. I wasn’t in my body any longer, instead floating within the current.

  “What are you?” I yelled at the phantom. It was half solid where it’d once been transparent, its humanoid form equipped with clawed hands and a round, toothy mouth like some kind of mutated worm.

  The phantom gouged its claws at me in answer. I drew on the node’s power, feeling it humming inside me, and the beast recoiled away from the torrent of energy. It seemed the third stage of spirit magic—drawing on the node’s strength to bolster my own—even worked while I was astral projecting.

  Yeah, about that. I need to find my body.

  I focused hard on passing through the node, and I landed in the living room to find Devon crouching over my body. “What the hell did you do this time? I thought you were having a seizure.”

  I slid back into my body. “I think I astral projected in the middle of a jump.”

  She shook her head at me. “Your timing might have been better. The Order has been harassing me again. They want to see you at their office two hours ago.”