Lost Soul (DarkWorld: SkinWalker Book 2) (9 page)

"I'm sorry, Lily. Either your elders didn't know or they were keeping the truth from your people. Maybe they were trying to protect your clan, but the truth is Walker Mages exist. I am proof of that."

"And so is your mother."

"No, she isn't."

"Oh man, Kai. You're making my head spin. You just told me she was a Walker Mage." Lily rubbed her temples and scowled.

"No, I said she was a Demon Hunter. Not a Walker Mage. And not a Walker."

"Dear Ailuros, Kai. Your mother is a human?" Lily's jaw dropped and she stared at me.

I nodded, probing myself for feelings of shame or embarrassment. There were none. And there was no judgment in Lily's expression either. "So you're okay with this?" I asked her.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

" 'Cos not too long ago you didn't even want me anywhere near Anjelo, Alpha or not."

"That's 'cos you're too hot for your own damn good and I had dibs on Anjelo."

I snorted. "You were afraid I'd steal him from you? You're nuts."

"I guess I just didn't realize at the time what type of person you were or why Anjelo always had your back. Now I do. And you being a Demon Hunter and a Walker Mage makes no difference to me. I'm still here. By your side. Not going nowhere." Lily nodded more to herself than to me, asserting her status by my side.

"And what do you plan to do when I go to the Greylands?"

"I'll wait for you. And I do have school. Storm will kick my ass if I skipped without a good reason."

"How is Storm?" I hadn't seen the Immortal in ages.

"Worried about you. He asks way too many questions every time he sees me. He said to tell you to take care of yourself. I think there are many people who've wanted to see you but kept away so you could recuperate."

"Yeah, tell him I'm much better."

"I will." Lily placed the tub of ice cream on the coffee table and turned to face me. "Now, tell me for reals. Are you okay? You've been through so much in the last few weeks. Clancy. Niko. Finding your mother. And now this whole Demon Hunter thing."

"I'm fine. I'm dealing with it. Lots of time to think when you're too weak to do anything else but lie in bed all day."

"And the center? Have you thought about your job?"

I snorted. "Yeah, I can see Dr. Hyde just jumping up and down with excitement knowing I'll be back full time." I shook my head. "I'm not sure I can go back. I'll have to think about it."

"I can understand that. So what about your studies?"

"That too. I'm still thinking about it, but I might take a year off. Find my feet with this whole Demon Hunter thing. I have a feeling I have some work to do to brush up on skills I never knew I had." I stabbed the ice cream with my spoon, suddenly feeling the weight of all my responsibility begin to suffocate me.

"So this demon killing stuff. Is it like the Wraith hunting?"

"I assume so. I could track the Wraiths because of the trail they left behind. It's like a residue, almost a dust. A pinky-coral color. They used to leave it everywhere, on the doors and the walls. And on the people they spent time with. I'm not sure how to track a demon, but I believe the Wraith tracking is part of my abilities since Wraiths are demons."

"Makes sense." Lily met my gaze but I hesitated. I wanted to tell her about the prophecy but I convinced myself I still needed to know more about it before I began sharing the information. "So what's your next move?"

"I wait on Logan to see if we get an appointment with the Death-talker's High Priestess and then pray like crazy that she grants us the use of a seal."

Lily's eyes widened. "Man, Kai. I can't believe you're actually going to go to the Greylands. There's only ghosts and demons there. How will you protect yourself?"

"I'm waiting on some weapons and ammo from Tara. Specialized demon-hunting stuff."

"Oh, good," she said, her stiff shoulders relaxing a little.

I looked at Lily with new eyes. Brave, strong, tenacious. She was no longer that lost, rebellious, stubborn girl I once knew. "Lily, how are you doing?" She knew what I meant.

"I'm fine. I haven't touched the Synthe since we got out of Niko's lab. I don't need it anymore. I know why I used. I was empty inside. Even though I had Anjelo, being Pariah made me feel hollow, like I was only a shell."

I understood what she meant. I'd been an Alpha but I'd never felt like it was a title I deserved. I'd felt empty too for a lot of reasons. But I let Lily talk. She needed it.

"But when I saw what Niko had done, and what your sister had become because they were just like me, I saw a future I didn't want. I knew I needed to deal with how inadequate I felt before it took any more control of me. And then there was you. No matter how nasty I'd been, you still helped me. You didn't care what I'd done. You just went ahead and saved my ass. Like you're doing now with your sister. Forgive me, but there's no way in hell she'd do the same for you, yet there you go, off to save her sorry ass too. And that's what made me wake up too. I lost Anjelo and I gained you, and I don't want anything to ever get between us." She paused, then turned to face me. She took my hands in hers and said, "I accept you as my Alpha."

That was not what I was expecting.

I cleared my throat, unsure what I was meant to say to her pledge. But Lily had already stuck her spoon into the ice-cream again and was busy eating. Saved me from concocting a response. "Right then. If you're going to be by my side, then you're going to need to get shooting."

"Huh?"

"Guns, Lily. You're going to need to practice your shooting. Now is as good a time as any. Let me just grab you a couple of my practice weapons. A gun, a crossbow, and a few different knives should do it. And a bunch of dead shots."

"Dead shots?"

"Yeah dead ammo. So you can shoot, but won't hurt anyone or anything."

"Okay, fabulous. That's just so cool." Lily bounced up and down on the couch a few times.

"Do you need to be anywhere tonight?"

When Lily frowned, I said, "We can start tonight if it's okay with you. I'm also going to teach you how to fight. Just a little. Just enough so if you're ever in a dangerous situation, you can debilitate someone long enough for you to get away."

I thought of Brand, then. For all my own ability to fight, I'd walked right into Brand's lair and got myself trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey ready for carving. If not for Logan, I would have made a tasty snack for Brand.

"Oh thank you, Kai. You won't regret it. I'll be the best student you've ever had."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Lily. You're the only student I've ever had." Then we both laughed.

***

While I packed up, I had to deliberately zone Lily out. She buzzed with so much energy I wanted to tape her mouth shut, tie her up, and leave her in a dark corner. My head ached, my arm ached, my neck ached.

Purple and blue bruises darkened the skin around the healed ridge of the cut. And dark blue veins were beginning to spread throughout my body again. Sure didn't take long for the poison to reclaim its hold again. Would it be worse in the Greylands? Or better?

I tried to wipe it out of my mind. Pointless thinking about something I couldn't change. Logan would have to treat me before I left and we'd just have to hope for the best.

I packed my weapons into my rucksack and Lily and I headed out the door. It was easy to ignore her chirpiness as we strode deeper into the abandoned part of town, beyond the unspoken line between the good part of town and the part where you could lose your life in the blink of an eye. But there were worse things than dying and we had a mission.

The pace we set wasn't normal. I usually only used my panther speed in the really late parts of the night when the chances of being seen speeding around the streets were nearer to zero. But the part of town we headed for wasn't very populated. You only went there if you had to.

The abandoned factory entrance sat at the end of a long dark alley. We sped down the alley, which was unusual for what it was. It didn't have the usual rank odor of human waste and garbage. Abandoned long ago, nobody came around here long enough to use the stretch of empty concrete as a latrine.

"Here." I beckoned Lily to follow me toward a metal door.

Every inch of the door was rusted, so it looked more like bronze than steel. I cranked the handle and motioned for Lily to follow inside, wiping crusty flakes of rust and metal off my hands and onto my pants. I barred the door and followed Lily up a short flight of stairs.

I'd been here many times so the place was already set up with bull's-eyes pasted on many of the concrete pillars dotting the empty floor. An office building in a previous life, it was now abandoned. All the partitioning and interior decor had been removed leaving just bare concrete floors and pillars, and yards of electrical wiring hanging from the ceiling.

I knelt at my usual spot and began to empty my bag onto an old foldout table I'd brought over months ago. I glanced over my shoulder and met Lily's curious gaze. "Over here. I like to lay all my weapons out next to each other." Lily did as I did and then stepped away ready and waiting for the next instruction.

"We'll start with the gun. It's your standard revolver and it has a bit of recoil, so tense your muscles for it, or you could get hurt."

"Recoil?" Lily frowned.

"When the gun goes off, the power it takes to push the bullet out of the chamber is enough to generate a reverse power into the gun. And since you're holding it, that power goes into your hands and your body too."

"I see. Okay. Gotcha." She nodded, her eyes still sparkling with excitement.

I positioned Lily in line with the target, lifted her elbow, got her jaw and eye in line, and shifted her hips. Everything my siblings and I had been taught when we were growing up. I'd almost forgotten we'd all received the same military-style training. Made sense what with Dad and Mom and Grams all working for Sentinel.

My gut tightened. That, of course, meant Greer could look after herself to a certain extent. The only question is for how long?

I refocused my attention on Lily and asked, "Ready?" She jerked her head up and down in a stiff, nervous nod. "Okay. Fire when you're ready."

She stared the target down, an almost comical look of concentration on her oddly angled face. Her finger closed over the trigger. Then she pulled it.

And stumbled three feet backward, stripping and landing on her butt, a look of shock spreading slowly on her face.

I would have bet she was about to burst into tears.

Instead she giggled and said, "Cool."

It was near one in the morning when we packed up and left the abandoned building. I didn't want to go for too long. Lily had gotten a good feel for all the weapons and it was enough for her first session.

We hurried back through the dark streets. No streetlights worked in this part of town. It was as if the city council deliberately wanted to forget about the area and its people.

Our route took us through the edge of the darker red-light district. Both Lily and I were used to the sight of the working girls, garishly painted, barely clothed, pacing their spots until a client drew up beside them. But I stopped walking so suddenly that Lily continued for at least twenty feet before she realized she was alone. My heart thudded and I prayed I'd been wrong.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." The honey of Lily's lynx eyes glowed with worry. Even for a Pariah she still had some underlying feline instinct.

"Not a ghost." I breathed,
gaze moving between Lily and the girl. "A Wraith. Or the trails of one at least."

"What? Where?" Lily tensed, searching the street as if she would see what I
did.

"Across the street. The girl in the fishnets and red corset." I looked at Lily who stared over at the girl.

"Dear Ailuros. She doesn't look older than fourteen." Lily's face was barely visible, yet the set of her shoulders revealed her horror.

"Yeah. That's her."

"What do you see, Kai?" Lily whispered loudly as we both watched the girl. Heavy black liner shadowed her eyes, making the gaunt lines of her face deeper. The color of her lipstick matched the painfully bright red of her corset. The garment was meant for a more well-endowed woman. In the girl's case it made her look even younger, as if she were playing dress-up in her mother's clothes.

But what drew my attention and held it were the coral trails encircling the girl's neck that ran from her shoulders down to her hands and twisted around her wrists.

I had to know who the Wraith had possessed, and just by looking at her, I knew who I'd start with. Her pimp. My gut insisted it would be him or one of the guards he would set to watch over the girls.

"I have to talk to her," I said, my voice a little shaky. I normally didn't get nervous, but the sight of the girl set me off kilter.

"Are you insane? Do you want to get yourself killed?" Lily asked, her tone ragged.

"I have to find him. And preferably tonight." Lily gave her head a sharp shake. She didn't like it but she didn't see what I saw. "Lily, if her pimp or someone close to her is possessed, it means there's more to these possessions than we thought. It's strategic. They are no longer taking bodies just for the power the souls give them. What if they want to control businesses? The darker seedier parts of town would be the best place to start."