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I flowed past him and inspected the remaining rooms. I couldn’t see anyone, couldn’t feel anyone. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone here.
I went back to the kitchen and hovered over the body for several more seconds. Waiting to see if it was safe, wanting to delay the moment of change a little bit longer. Deep down, I already knew what I would confront once I found flesh again.
I pulled back, then called to my human form, dropping to the ground in a half crouch and staying there for several seconds as the room spun and my limbs trembled.
The scent of evil was so thick and strong, it made me gag. The charm resting against my chest flared into life, heating my skin fiercely but not burning. Even if the scent of evil hadn’t been so strong, that would have been warning enough that something had gone very wrong here.
I reached out psychically and it hit like an express train—the emptiness, the same terrible agony that the little girl in the hospital had gone through. Only Handberry had screamed from within and without—screamed and fought and struggled to survive.
To no avail.
His soul had been ripped free as fiercely and as efficiently as little Hanna’s.
I closed my eyes for a moment, furious at both the thing that was doing this and myself for not getting here earlier to try to save Handberry’s life. He might have been an evil weasel, but even he hadn’t deserved to die like this. Besides, his death destroyed the only real lead I’d had—unless Uncle Rhoan decided to share whatever he came up with. And I doubted he would—especially now, when I’d been following Handberry against his orders.
I pushed to my feet, hauling the threadbare remnants of my sweater back onto my shoulder as I dug my phone out of my pocket. Tao answered almost immediately.
“Risa?” he said quickly. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Handberry’s dead. Something has stolen his soul.” Tao swore rather colorfully, and I smiled grimly. “You want to give me a call when you spot Uncle Rhoan? He’s going to be pissed enough that we’re here. I don’t want him to catch me in the house.”
“Ris, he needs to know about the soul stealer—”
“They have highly trained witches and clairvoyants of all sorts at the Directorate. They’ll uncover it soon enough. Trust me, in this case, discretion is the better part of valor.”
He grunted, clearly not happy but not about to argue. “Okay.”
I hung up, then glanced down at the body again, feeling the tendrils of pain still emanating from his flesh. After taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I said softly, “Azriel.”
I felt him before I saw him. He was heat and energy and perhaps a hint of anger. I turned and saw him snap into being near the windows at the far end of the living room. His gaze met mine, one eyebrow lifted in query; then he straightened abruptly. Obviously, the scent and feel of evil had just hit him.
“The soul stealer has been here.” His words were clipped as he strode forward. I stepped sideways, giving him room, not really wanting to touch him even though every sense I had screamed with awareness of his presence.
“Yes. It happened about three minutes ago. I came straight in, but whatever did this was already gone.”
“You should have called me straightaway.”
“I had no idea Handberry’s soul was in danger until I re-formed.”
He grunted and stepped over Handberry’s twisted legs, squatting next to him and touching his fingers to either temple. The edges of the silver sword strapped across his back ran with blue fire, and I noticed that the wing tattoo that was so noticeable across the left side of his chest and neck was actually part of a stylized dragon image that dominated the left side of his spine. The right-side wing seemed to fade into his flesh before it could sweep under his armpit. But there were other tattoos running up the back of his neck and disappearing into his hairline—a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known (one looked vaguely rose-like, another like an eye with a comet tail) and at other times looked nothing more than random swirls. But I very much doubted random was a word known or spoken in the reaper culture.
Energy suddenly surged, and in the small space between his hands pictures began to flow—flickering images that moved too fast for me to clearly see. But I got the gist of them. They were Han
dberry’s last moments.
I bit my lip against the urge to ask Azriel what he saw and waited until the images died. He removed his hands but didn’t immediately get up. He bowed his head for a moment and spoke, the words musical and oddly captivating, but no language I knew or had ever heard before.
It was a prayer, I realized, and wondered what good it would do when Handberry’s soul would never be reborn, never know life again.
When Azriel finished, he rose and glanced at me. Fury burned in the depths of his eyes. “The thing that did this is not something I’ve seen before. It appears to be little more than a shapeless gray shroud.”
“Will that hinder you tracking the thing down?”
“Yes. It was brought here by magic, so there’s no scent trail to follow.”
“It won’t be a witch.” Despite what Hollywood would have us believe, witches would never, ever be capable of something like this. The Wiccan Rede banned them from harming anyone—and that included themselves—except in cases of self-defense.
And then there was the whole threefold law—one that said all the good a person does for another returns threefold, as does all the harm. No true Wiccan would risk hurting another, let alone killing them.
