The DarkWorld SoulTracker Series Box Set Vol II Page 6

  She was good, with her smile and her gentle tone, putting me at ease quickly. I had to wonder if she was a mage of sorts. Perhaps someone with an ability similar to Chloe’s? I smiled and shook my head. “Sorry. I’m a little concerned. People have said this place…I mean that you deal in magical…stuff.”

  Lorin lifted a shoulder. “We are surrounded by magic, are we not? Conception is the greatest of magics, so is birth. A mother’s instinct, a child's innocence? Even death. Magic is everywhere.”

  I lifted my shoulder and sobered my expression. “And I want to kill what could possibly be a magical creation.”

  Lorin leaned close again. “Are you certain you want to do this? If you have doubts, it’s best to work through them now rather than regret later.”

  I nodded, feeling all the more guilty for generating the girl’s genuine concern for my suspected pregnancy fears.

  I studied the bottle and was about to say that I’ll take it when the girl gasped and spun on her heel. She grabbed something from the shelf behind, and I almost flinched before realizing she was shoving a box of tissues at me. Sighing, I grabbed a few and dabbed my nose, cleaning up the blood.

  When I was done, I looked up to find Lorin staring at me, an odd expression on her face.

  “Thanks,” I said softly, crumpling the tissues in my palm. I wasn’t about to leave my blood behind, especially not here in this store that served the dark arts.

  “Do you get them often?” she asked, a strange note in her voice that had me wondering if she was onto me already.

  I was about to answer when the shelves above her head began to shiver, bottles and boxes vibrating against each other, raining specks of dust down on our heads.

  Lorin glanced up, concern and suspicion an odd blend in her expression. She dashed aside just in time to avoid a large metal pot as it crashed down on the spot where she’d just been standing. It narrowly missed the glass countertop and hit the floor with a hollow gong, the sound reverberating through the store as the pot bounced once then again before rolling to a stop.

  Thankfully, the steel pot was the only item that had attempted to kill us from above. The only problem was that around us were more than enough items that could potentially end us. Like the ceramic pot with its trove of half a dozen daggers which were all now rising and hovering in the air before me, turning slowly so that six deadly points were aimed at my heart.

  Shit.

  I wasn’t too sure what to do about it, but instinct seemed to work faster than my fuzzy brain. I found myself grabbing a wooden tray from the counter—paying no heed to its contents as glittering stones spilled all around me—and holding it in front of my chest as the suspended blades flashed toward me.

  I listened to the hollow thud of each dagger as they embedded themselves within the tray with such force that each point was driven all the way through the solid wood.

  Still feeling the vibrations within my wrists, I sighed and set the tray back on the counter as steadily as I could, tempted to scream at the damned poltergeist to leave me the hell alone. Which would have been futile.

  So instead I said nothing.

  Chapter 10

  The store had quieted now, and Lorin moved slowly back to her side of the counter. She retrieved the metal pot, studied it for a moment and then set it aside on the counter. Then she stared at the wooden tray and the daggers embedded within it.

  “I’ll pay for the damage.”

  “You most certainly will not.”

  “Why?” I asked. “This was my fault.” I waved my hand around the store.

  Lorin shook her head. “My wards should have worked to ensure this type of thing doesn’t happen.” Then she studied my face, her head tilted as she concentrated on me for so long that I soon began to feel uncomfortable. “It’s very strong. His hold on you is too strong. Do you know about it?” At last, her eyes met mine and refocused as if suddenly returning to consciousness.

  I nodded. “It’s been with me for a while now. I’m not sure how to get rid of it.”

  She gave me a rueful smile. “I’m assuming you don’t need the morning-after magic?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry for the subterfuge. I’m just never sure who I can trust.”

  Lorin nodded again and took my hands in hers. “Especially not after being cursed with such evil. Don’t worry. I understand.” I wasn’t sure why I allowed her to touch me. It was probably not the best idea ever, but I didn’t immediately wrench my hands from her grasp the way I wanted to.

  I needed information from the woman. I had to get her on my side.

  “Is everything okay here?” a deep voice spoke beside me, so close to my ear that I would have jumped had I not already sensed the boy approach.

  Lorin smiled serenely at him. “We are all fine.”

  “What was that disaster with the pot and the daggers? You some kind of talent?”

  I raised a brow, taking in the low-riding jeans, the untidy man-bun, the rumpled clothing and the fingernails caked with black soil. “Talent?” I asked archly.

  I knew I sounded offended and I bit back a snarky comeback. This was New Orleans. Perhaps the magic lingo was different. Besides, I needed to be on my best behavior. I realized then that my temper had gotten far too short, a habit I wasn’t used to.

  Lorin waved him off. “Haram Stenman, you get back to your chores and let me attend to the customers.” She spoke kindly, batting him away with both her hands, her body language that of a mother scolding a child.

  He stood his ground, giving me a slow once-over. “She didn’t look like just another customer when she was throwing shit around here. You could have been killed by that pot.” He cast a dark glare at me again, as if for emphasis.

  “And you think she wanted to kill herself with those daggers that were aiming themselves at her heart?” Lorin said, her tone a tiny bit sharper now.

  He responded with a shrug.

  Lorin just watched him, as if waiting for a response.

  It only took a handful of seconds before he turned away and said, “Fine. Whatever. Your funeral.”

  I watched as he stalked off and disappeared along one of the rows of shelves. When I turned back, I found Lorin watching me with an odd expression on her face.

  “You ready to be honest with me?”

  I sighed. “I may as well. I don’t have any reason to trust you though.”

  “Do you have a reason not to trust me?”

  I scanned the room then waved a hand at the shelves. “This. Dark arts.”

  She shook her head. “It is only in the intent behind an action, in the thought directing the line of one’s spell, that one may find the true darkness or light within one’s magic.”

  I frowned. “Is that a quote?”

  Lorin smiled. “Yes. From the teachings of The Farah. She wrote some of the main texts, spells which are still cast to this day.”

  I nodded. I’d heard of The Great Farah before. A human woman who bore the ability to summon the earth power without a single drop of mage blood in her veins. Many modern witches and warlocks were mages, and a true Farah witch was incredibly rare. I’d often suspected that Natasha was one, but I’d never pressed her for confirmation.

  Lorin sighed, bringing my attention back to her. “But you may not know much about The Farah. What with being a mage as opposed to being a witch.”

  “You can tell?”

  She nodded. “And also…there is something familiar about you.”

  I straightened wondering if she knew who I was, but she lifted her hand and stopped my baseless suspicions in their tracks.

  “You came earlier…” she looked up at me, studying my face again, her gaze flitting along the edges of my body. “You projected here this morning. I sensed you then.”

  Her expression closed, and she took a short step away from the counter. “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry. For the lie. I really am afraid of who to trust.”

  “Why did you come here?” she
asked, her gaze flitting over my shoulder—probably to Haram.

  “The scrying spell sent me here this morning.”

  “You have a witch working for you?” Suspicion filled her eyes.

  I nodded. “Yes. She did the spell and—”

  “What kind of scrying spell?”

  “Umm…the scrying kind?” I said, unsure of what she wanted to know.

  She snorted. “Blood or no blood?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Oh,” I said, then raised my eyebrows in return and gave her a what-do-you-think look.

  “Well, then,” she said then sighed and walked off, beckoning me to follow her.

  She walked toward a shelf that turned out to be a door to a tiny inner room. This space too was lined with shelves, but the contents here consisted of urns and old boxes, dusty old books and bottles of strange liquid, jars and jugs filled with strange misshapen hairless bodies that looked like they belonged in a research facility. I kept my eyes averted and took the seat that Lorin had indicated.

  She took a seat herself, her expression somber as she held out both her palms. I leaned closer, placed my elbows on the table then rested my hands in both her open palms. She didn't need to say anything. I knew exactly what she needed from me.

  Lorin stared at the lines on my palms, frowning for a long while. At last, she looked up at me. “How long has it been haunting you?” she asked.

  I gave a soft sigh and proceeded to give her short rundown of what had happened to me over the last few months. Lorin listened in silence asking a question or two here and there, but mostly letting me talk. Listening to myself, I could hardly believe that I had endured this much terror at the hands of the poltergeist and not already gone insane.

  When I finished my tale, Lorin looked at me for a long moment, her face a little sad. “So, tell me how I can help?”

  I leaned closer and said, “The scrying brought me here, so there must have been a reason why the magic chose this place. I’m hoping it will lead me to the witchdoctor who placed the spell on me.”

  Lorin nodded. “It's quite possible that the sangoma has been to this store. Possible too that he may have even procured a spell from me.”

  I stiffened and sat back, staring at her, worried now that perhaps I had revealed far too much to a person who could possibly be working for the enemy.

  Lorin squeezed my hands. “I can see in your eyes that you are concerned. Please don't think that you cannot trust me.”

  I shook my head. “How do I know that you are not in league with him? Perhaps you even know him.”

  She smiled sadly. “At this point in time, you’ll have to take everything that I say at face value. I haven’t yet earned your trust. I understand that. But it won’t stop me from trying to help you.”

  I nodded. “So, what can you do to help me?”

  “I’ll run through all my purchases over the last three months, see if I can find out who came in to request any herbs that could have contributed to such a spell. That should give me a good idea of who the sangoma is.”

  I paused. “Are there many practitioners of African Black Magic here in New Orleans? I wasn’t aware that it was a commonly practiced art.”

  Lorin smiled. “It has experienced a revival of sorts. And to answer your question: I wouldn’t know. The thing with sangomas is that they are often already practitioners of dark arts like necromancy. Very rarely do you find a witchdoctor who is exclusively a sangoma.”

  I nodded, a little surprised and more than a tad deflated. I’d hoped that my visit to the store would provide me with an address, that I’d go to the place and remove the sangoma from the face of the earth. Naturally, things never went according to plan when it came to me.

  I nodded again. “Well, what do you need from me?”

  Lorin got to her feet. “Nothing. All I ask is that you give me some time.”

  “How long?”

  “Overnight should be enough for me to go through my ledgers.”

  I cast my eyes around the small room. “Do you need help? I’m happy to lend a hand.”

  Lorin shook her head. “As much as I’d love the help, I have details in my ledgers that would be somewhat compromising to the people who frequent my store. I’m a keeper of many secrets, including who my customers are. I can’t mismanage their trust in that way.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, I get what you are saying. There may be innocent people on your list who would prefer not to be inadvertently caught up in my quest for information.” I got to my feet, feeling suddenly drained. “I’ll leave it to you then. Can I return in the morning?”

  Lorin nodded and rose to guide me out into the main office. Haram was nowhere to be seen and I felt an edge of relief. The boy seemed harmless and yet I was glad to find him gone.

  An odd reaction. And one that I knew I had to understand.

  Chapter 11

  With Lorin’s words on my mind, I climbed the stairs to the abandoned loft and entered the silent apartment. A note on the fridge confirmed that Larsson had left after ensuring the coast was clear.

  I was setting the purple Post-It note onto the counter when something hard slammed into my spine. Pain flared, skimming my vertebrae and hitting my brain hard.

  I dropped to the floor, rolling over even as I moaned in agony when my spine came into contact with the hardwood floor.

  Spinning around, I searched out my attacker, finding him quickly in the gathering evening shadows that seemed to suddenly fill the loft despite its bare floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Drawing both my daggers from my boots, I lashed out in a frenzy, spurred more by fear than smarts.

  Though I often knew what I was doing when it came to hand to hand combat, I was first and foremost a jumper; meaning I usually got out as soon as the going went downhill. And right now, faced with the strength of my attacker’s blows I wanted to jump to safety.

  But I didn’t. Instead, I fought on. Blow for blow, I ducked and backed away, eluding the masked attacker as best as I could.

  But the poltergeist had drained not only my blood but my strength, and I was fading fast. I ducked a right hook, but I wasn’t fast enough and caught in on my jaw, the impact vibrating my teeth against each other. My jaw shut and I swallowed a gasp as my teeth cut into my tongue.

  Blood coated my mouth and served only to fuel my anger.

  I lashed out, but my blade met empty air as my attacker swerved away, slipping smoothly into a double backflip.

  Fuck.

  This was not going well.

  Before I could think of what to do next, the intruder somersaulted toward me. His antics gave me time to sidestep him, but I didn’t account for a second attacker arriving to assist the first.

  The man solidified, masked and cloaked in shadows that rose off him like shimmering dark smoke. Just great. Two to fend off when one was more than enough. This was a case of my enemy overestimating me by a mile and a half.

  I’d thought our location had been hidden well enough, but either Sentinel had a mole or I was followed. Perhaps Haram or even Lorin, despite how trustworthy she’d seemed?

  I didn’t have time to think. The second attacker ran at me, slamming his fist into my gut. I let out a choked cry and stumbled backward to the ground. I rolled away narrowly avoiding being knifed in the heart. The man buried his knife so deep into the wood floor that he spent precious moments juggling it to get it free.

  Moments that I took advantage of.

  Supporting my body with my hands on the floor, I lifted my foot and slammed it hard into the man’s head, maintaining my follow through as he fell using it to bounce back onto my feet.

  The moment I was upright, I was ready for the first intruder who came at me, his movements terribly silent. He punched, I swerved away. But it was a feint. He came around with a second punch that caught me on the side of my head, and I saw a burst of stars behind my eyelids as I felt the air escape my lungs.

  I hit the floor hard, my skull bouncing off the wood only maki
ng my predicament worse. I could see a concussion in my near future. Not that the symptoms mattered considering my current evil-spirit-related health issues.

  I shifted, desperate to get up as I knew the intruder would be coming for me. I was down but not out, and both intruders seemed to want me out. Permanently.

  I needed to jump out of there. At this point, it didn’t matter because it was pretty clear my life depended on it.

  In my peripheral vision, I caught a third intruder arrive.

  I was shit outta luck now.

  Taking a hesitant breath, I forced myself to concentrate and began to feel the vibration in my bones that said I was ready to jump. The newest intruder lunged for me.

  “Don’t you dare,” was all he said—his voice strangely familiar—before he shoved the other attacker aside.

  The room spun around me, and I watched them wrestle each other. Mr Don’t You Dare growled loudly and grabbed the other man’s head between his hands. I heard the snapping of vertebrae before I realized what was happening. Attacker Number One fell to the ground in a motionless heap.

  I tried to sit up, to study my savior, to verify whether he’d dispatched the other guy only because he wanted me for himself.

  I squinted as I tried to refocus my vision, and at last the blurry image of his face cleared and I gasped, both surprised and relieved.

  “Drake?”

  Chapter 12

  My body ached in every joint and every muscle, and I felt like I’d been pummeled to within an inch of my life.

  Probably because I had.

  “That was the worst fight I’ve ever been in,” I mumbled to myself as I tried to sit up.

  “That was the worst fight I’ve ever seen,” said Drake from beside me.

  I let out a squeak even though I’d registered well enough that Drake had been the one to save me.

  “Dude. What the hell?”

  “Sorry,” he raised his hands in defense. “Didn’t realize you were so jumpy.”