Souljacker Read online

  “Damn it!”

  My shout in his ear threw Ray off his game, and he stepped on a patch of snow that was hiding ice and we both went down.

  “What the hell? What happened?” He shook his head, looking confused.

  “I’m sorry, my fault. Dude, I…” As I searched for something to say, a noise behind us caught my attention. I turned in time to see two of the weretigers who had attacked me earlier burst through the door behind us. “What the hell? Are you guys stalking me?”

  “Tricia doesn’t like failure,” Tall Boy said. “When we saw you walking through the mall, we decided to prove to her that we’re not screw-ups.” As usual, he couldn’t resist running his mouth off.

  I groaned. Not this again. Not now. And then I realized that the car I had recognized had been the one in which they had sped away from the parking lot earlier.

  As my mind flipped through potential outcomes to this scenario—all of which were bad—I suddenly had an idea. “You. Tall dude. Come here. I dare you. You and me—winner takes all. You’ve got an advantage, you know. I’m hurt already.” I glanced at Ray and whispered, “Get on your feet and get ready to run like hell when I grab him. You do not want these men on your ass. Trust me.”

  He frowned, but did as I said, reaching down to haul me up with him. I stood there, motioning for him to move aside as Tall Boy sauntered toward me. Apparently, he and his partner were just about as bright as they had been earlier in the day.

  Nate was frantically making tracks back to the stairs leading up to the loading dock. “Lily!”

  Ray refused to budge. “I’m not leaving you alone with these thugs.”

  I sighed. “Just stay out of my way, okay? I know what I’m doing.”

  He frowned, but just then Tall Boy planted himself right in front of me, a cocky grin on his face. The oaf really thought I believed I could take him down.

  “Okay, succuslut. You and me. Let’s go.”

  As he made a sudden grab for me, I lunged for him, throwing my arms around his neck and planting my lips on his. As we toppled over, with me on top, I immediately began to suck in his breath, drinking as deeply as I could, as quickly as I could. Startled, he lay there like a pancake. I could make the experience hurt, and I did—draining his life force at the fastest rate that I could.

  Nate raced past me as Ray gave a shout and I heard a scuffle. I ignored the noise, focusing on draining Tall Boy of every ounce of energy that he had. He was struggling now, finally realizing just what was happening, but like a drowning man, there wasn’t much he could do. He flailed, trying to push me off, but by now the flow of energy was so rapid that he was quickly losing strength. Another moment, and he lay still.

  I looked up in time to see Ray and Nate trying to hold down the other one. I jumped up, my knee feeling almost 100 percent, and unsheathed my dagger. As I headed over, I realized that from here on out, everything would change. I had already gone beyond the pale, irrevocably cementing myself as an enemy to the Weres.

  “What should we do with him?” Ray asked, straddling the prone weretiger.

  I stared down into the man’s face. There was no going back. He’d already tried to do me in once; this was the second time. He and his crony would have done whatever they needed to get back in Tricia’s favor. I dropped to my knees next to him, ignoring the twinge.

  “Hold him for me.”

  Nate and Ray were doing their best to keep the bucking weretiger on his back. I leaned over and, once again, linked my lips to his. As the rush of energy flooded my lungs, I knew that I was changing, becoming someone new, and that whatever happened from now on, life would never be the same.

  By the time the other weretiger was dead, I was fully able again. I stood up, turning to Ray. “You can go. We’re headed into unsafe territory. I won’t ask you to put yourself in danger.”

  He stared at me for a moment, wavering. “I have a wife and a daughter,” he finally said.

  “Take care of them. You don’t need to be aligned with us. We aren’t going to be very popular with the Deadfather or the Weres after this. You don’t need that hanging over your head.” I nodded for him to go back inside. “Go. And next time I need more ink, I’ll make sure to come to you.”

  Another moment passed, and he finally turned and went inside. Nate watched him go. “I hope he’s okay.”

  “Me too. Come on, I can run now, so let’s try to catch up to Archer.”

  Thoughts of Dani filled my head as we slid and slipped our way across the street. The snow was coming down so thick that we could barely see, and even the street lamps were just faint glowing masses in the midst of the whirl of flakes. Nate and I held onto each other. Even in the middle of the street, it would be too easy to lose track of each other in the blinding snow.

  We managed to slog through, getting to the other side of the street without falling. The entrance to the Underground was right off the sidewalk—at street level, luckily, so there were no stairs here to navigate. There would be inside, but that was another matter.

  I was so full of chi from the weretigers that it felt like I had taken a large dose of Hype or some other drug. My body buzzed and every noise seemed louder, every color a little brighter. As we stumbled in off the street, we stamped our feet on the wide mat and looked around.

  The back entrance to the Underground led into a narrow hall that branched off every ten to twelve feet into another hall. It really was a labyrinth, and unless you knew where you were going, it was easy to get lost. Considering those who hung out in the Underground, it wasn’t a tourist trip I would recommend to anybody who didn’t have a good weapon, be it natural or manmade.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Nate looked around, frantic. “How are we going to find them down here?”

  I thought, then stood back. “Marsh? Marsh! We need you.”

  Another moment, and Marsh appeared. “What should I do?”

  “Go—search through and see if you can find Archer. Or Dani—especially Dani! Then come back so you can show us the way. If we start randomly trying tunnels and hallways, we’ll get nowhere fast.”

  Marsh nodded, then vanished again. Ghosts could move through walls, zip along at an incredible speed—he could cover the tunnels far more efficiently than we could. I yanked Nate out of the way as a group of thugs passed by. I could smell the stench of werewolf on them—they were fresh in from a night out shifting. We weren’t under the full moon, so it must have been a hunting party. My guess was they had taken a trip out to a meadow or rural park where they could race around in the snow in their natural forms. I thanked the gods they didn’t know who I was, or we’d be in a lot of trouble.

  The din from up ahead was getting louder, and I turned to Nate. “Stay here. I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

  He nodded, wincing at the increasing noise. I motioned for him to stand back against the wall, hiding in one of the nooks that pockmarked the place. Then I headed toward the noise. A moment later, I realized that I had entered one of the nightclubs from the back entrance. The bouncer turned to me and held out his hand.

  “ID and fee?”

  I shook my head. “Just wondering where exactly I am. I came in through the back way and am unfamiliar with the layout in this direction.”

  “You’re at Belltower Mae’s. Now either buy a ticket or sod off.”

  I could hear the veiled threat behind the words and slowly backed away. He was a vampire, and Belltower Mae’s was one of the most popular low-life brothels around, catering to those who sought anonymity and compliance in their paramours. It was also a good place to pick up a disease that was a one-way ticket to the doctors, or worse. As I returned to where Nate was waiting, I glanced down each hallway, trying to place our whereabouts.

  I didn’t visit the Underground very often. White Tower Center was good for shopping and entertainment, but the Underground was a seedy underbelly to the mall, a parasitic symbiont that fed off the buried hungers of those who preferred life on the wild side. It wa
sn’t that it was all bad—no, the wild boys and the satyrs howled it up in the depths, but there were too many vampires here, and too many who didn’t know how to harness their darker desires. The Underground was a rich playground for them, and too often their playmates were unsuspecting and unwilling.

  I made my way back to Nate, who looked visibly relieved when I showed up.

  “This place scares the hell out of me, I don’t mind telling you. I wish Marsh would get back. Every minute that freak has Dani is another minute he could be…” Nate trailed off, his voice sharp.

  “I know, Nate. I know.”

  “Do you think…do you think he does it after he kills them? So it won’t hurt?”

  I had to take Nate’s fear in hand. I was afraid too, but I was good at hiding it, and with Nate being human, any Were or vampire or even some of the Fae would be able to smell his panic. It was an aphrodisiac for some of them.

  “Take a deep breath. You can’t afford to panic here.” I heard my voice—sharp and edged—and tried again. “You have to stay calm while we’re down here, Nate. Please. For all our sakes.” After a pause, I added, “I think he kills them first. It makes it much easier and that way…he won’t chance ruining the tattoo. You know.”

  He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Where is—”

  But before he could finish, Marsh appeared. “I’m back. I found Archer and he said he’s pretty sure he knows where the Souljacker’s taken Dani. He remembered something while he was hunting around. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”

  Grateful to be on the move again, and praying we were in time, I grabbed Nate by the arm and we followed Marsh over to a side door leading to a stairwell heading down. It was time to introduce Nate to the depths of the Underground.

  Chapter Thirty

  Two floors down, we met Archer by a diner that catered to subterranean Fae. I hadn’t realized there was a call for such specialized niche cuisine, but apparently there was.

  “You made it. Marsh said you would be on the way down, so I waited.” Archer stared at me. “You’re moving fast on that knee.”

  “We had to take down two weretigers. I stole their chi. It healed up most of the damage.” I still felt unsettled over what I had done, but they hadn’t had any compunction about hurting me the first time and wouldn’t have had the second time, so I did what I had to do. “Do you know where Dani is?”

  He let out a long breath. “Yeah, I think I do. As I told Marsh, I remembered something about the Underground that I discovered in a case I was working on last year. There’s an abandoned medical facility on this level. There were a couple of Fae healers here, but they vanished a couple of years back. I was assigned to track them down for Wynter, but we never did solve the case. But the rooms are still there. It would be the perfect place for the Souljacker to…” He stopped, his voice fading away.

  I knew precisely what Archer was about to say but couldn’t bring myself to say the words, but Nate did it for both of us.

  “For him to strip the tattoo off Dani.”

  “Right. Let’s go. It’s down this corridor and then through a back passage. The place was well hidden from prying eyes. This part of the Underground is extremely dangerous, so be careful. There are some terribly unsavory creatures here, and not all of them fall into the Were or Fae category. Some are just out-and-out nightmares.” He turned and led the way, away from the stairwell.

  Archer was right. This area of the Underground was different from the two levels above. The walls weren’t brick, but carved out of rock—actual tunnels beneath the city. They were damp, which didn’t surprise me, and the air down here was stuffy and slightly fetid. The narrow passages were lit by dim wall sconces that had been jury-rigged every five yards or so, and the light was so low and yellow that the shadows themselves took on an eerie life, flickering in a way that made it look like they were actually moving. The floor was composed of broken flagstones, set in concrete, offering a dry, if bumpy, surface.

  Archer took the lead, and I made Nate go second. Now that I was back up to speed, I figured that I was a little more equipped—given my dagger and the pentacle—to handle any attacks that might come from behind us.

  The tunnel passage wasn’t straight, but it curved, branching off into other tunnels as we went. I began to appreciate just how labyrinthine the Underground truly was. Everybody assumed that it was mostly created from what had once been Underground Seattle, but the truth was, it went far deeper than that. For years the Fae and Weres had been working belowground, carving out a place where they could be safe, hidden away from a society that would have tried to kill them if they had come out before it was safe to do so. Unfortunately, darker elements had moved in, taken over parts of the Underground.

  The vampires for one, and other, even more deadly creatures had joined the mix and driven the others to the upper levels. From what I understood from Jolene, the authorities did their best to keep them from becoming common knowledge. The last thing needed was for a group of teens to come gallivanting down, trying to prove how brave or tough they were. The vampires weren’t the only ones not opposed to snacking on humans—blood or flesh.

  Archer moved quickly and silently. I was surprised by how well he seemed to slip into the mode of hunter. He would pause to listen and peek around the corner before moving past each side tunnel that peeled off from the main corridor. We wound deeper—the floor was sloping down at a mild gradient, and I realized it was spiraling.

  As we went along, I noticed that the light was growing dimmer. More of the sconces were out—either broken or failed—and the shadows were deeper, the dampness more pronounced. I began to think about what might happen if we were down here during one of the big quakes that happened in the area every now and then. A tunnel system like this? Was the perfect place for a cave-in, should the land decide to shift and roll.

  To take my mind off the possibility, I tried to focus on Dani, on how we would find her and she would be safe, and the Souljacker wouldn’t have had the chance to hurt her yet. I struggled to keep the darker possibilities at bay, but images of Tygur kept flooding back.

  Finally, desperate to clear my head, I whispered—because whispering seemed apropos—“Archer, are we almost there?”

  He glanced back. “Yeah, another couple minutes, and we’ll be at the turnoff.”

  “Whatever happened to the Fae you were trying to locate, do you think?” Nate asked.

  “I don’t know, but chances are they were dragged off by something. I followed every clue I could find, but nada. Nothing. One day they were there, and the next, they had vanished as if they were never born. There are things down here that have no resemblance to humankind, monsters in the dark. The mountains and land of this area spawn beasts and spirits. And this close to the Puget Sound? Creatures come in from the waters.” He shrugged. “What can I say? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio—’ ”

  “ ‘Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ” Nate finished for him. “You’re scaring the crap out of me, you know.”

  “You should be scared. Never, ever get complacent down here. You think the vampires are bad, and they are, but then you meet one of these other critters and you’ll realize the vampires are actually rather fun chaps compared to them.” Archer stopped, keeping his voice low. “There, to the right—we turn there. A little ways into the tunnel, we take the first left into the chamber. So here’s how it’s going to play out. I’m going in first. I will come back and tell you what I see. If we all go clunking down the hall and the Souljacker has her, he might kill her to spite us, even if she’s still alive. So wait here. Do nothing. Say nothing. I’ll be back in a few moments.”

  “We could find Marsh—send him?” Nate suggested.

  “I don’t want to chance there being anybody who can see him and warn the Souljacker. We’re reaching areas where the creatures are powerful, and the danger…well…it makes anything you’ve come through so far seem tame. We can’t afford to screw up.”r />
  As Archer moved off, Nate huddled close to me. I wasn’t exactly thrilled with our surroundings, either. A sudden thought occurred to me, and I stripped off one of my wristlets—the one on my right, non-dominant, wrist. I grabbed Nate’s wrist and wrapped it around his arm, strapping it tight. As he looked at me, puzzled, I leaned close to his ear.

  “Silver dragon scales. Against the vampires. Hold your arm up to your neck if you have to—it will keep them at bay,” I whispered.

  He smiled wanly, but I could feel him relax a little. “Thanks, Lily. I appreciate it.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Do you think Dani’s still alive?”

  I stared at him, then shrugged, looking away. I didn’t want to guess, didn’t want to speculate in any way because my mind had the habit of running away with itself into the worst possible scenarios.

  At that moment, Marsh popped up beside me. I jumped, but managed to keep myself from yelping.

  “Marsh, you have to be careful,” I whispered. “You could give us away if you startle me too much. Go follow Archer, see what he’s doing, and then come back and tell us so we’ll be prepared.” It occurred to me that it was better to make use of a ghost when you had him. It wasn’t like he was a genie with a limited number of uses.

  He nodded, vanishing without a word.

  I strained to hear whatever I could. Archer could move silently, that was for certain, and much to his credit, he seemed to take things one step at a time without panicking. I, on the other hand, wanted to charge down the hall and see what we were facing. Every minute we hung behind was another minute the Souljacker had to hurt Dani. But luckily, it was only a moment before Marsh was back.

  He glanced around, then motioned for Nate and me to huddle.

  “Archer is searching the room there. There’s nothing in sight, but as I was poking around with him, I happened to notice a lever. There’s a secret passage into a back room and Dani’s in there, strapped down to a table that’s decked out with a number of scary restraints.”