Chapter Three
The street of the soul vendors looked deserted. Dim moonlight filtered down through a heavy lid of clouds highlighting soot-stained brick buildings, most with empty, dark windows reflecting the empty, dark street. Only a single ifrit, glowing coal-red against the darkness, was in sight, and it was in a hurry. Its bouncy, jittering movement left a trail of sparks on the cobblestones as it rushed past.
That wasn’t entirely unexpected in an area where the shoppers were often as incorporeal as the items for which they bartered, but the place felt empty, too. The clammy mist of spirits that usually flowed around him, ruffling John’s hair and sending chills across his flesh, was simply gone. But at least the small shop he wanted was open, spilling rich golden light into the muddy street.
He crossed the lane and pushed open the door. This place hadn’t changed, at least. It still looked like a Victorian-era apothecary, with a scuffed wooden floor, gas lights overhead and shelves of glass jars lining the walls. The owner was the same, too, hurrying out of the back as soon as the string of bells over the door announced a customer.
And then trying to hurry back inside once he saw who it was.
“Hello, Sid.” John reached over the counter and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, causing the demon to curse and spit. A trail of ooze started sliming down the wall, eating into the plaster and leaving an ugly burnt scar, as John jerked the creature back against him. “That was unwise.”
“Instinct,” his captive babbled, the ruddy face breaking into a nervous smile. “Just instinct. You startled me.”
“Then you must be startled constantly, if this place is as busy as I remember.”
“My other customers aren’t outlaws!”
“Neither am I.” John released him. “The council has given me a weekend pass, so to speak.”
“Why?” Sid demanded, turning around.
He looked like a small, bald man with a pleasant, round face and pronounced jowls. It was an illusion, of course, like the rest of the shop, like the street outside, for that matter. What he actually was might have scared off the occasional mage who ventured here for supplies, and Sid wasn’t about to lose a sale.
“They hate you,” he pointed out.
“Fortunately, they hate Ealdris more.”
“Ealdris?” Sid sounded like he’d never heard the name. John shot him the look that deserved. Sid had been a fixture among the incorporeal demon races for longer than anyone could remember, and he paid attention. “Oh, yes,” Sid looked diffident. “That Ealdris.”
“Rosier has offered me a deal. I recapture her, and he refrains from attempting to murder the new pythia.”
“And you believe him?” Sid’s bushy eyebrows met his nonexistent hairline.
John sighed. He was already getting tired of that question. “I believe that he doesn’t want to go up against her himself. But it’s one of his responsibilities as a member of the council.”
“He wouldn’t be on the council if he wasn’t strong enough to handle it,” Sid pointed out. “Why does he need you?”
“Because she’s hiding here.”
That was the part that didn’t make sense to John. The Shadowland was a minor demon realm that had risen to prominence as a marketplace, to facilitate trade between the various dominions. But then the leaders of the main factions had started moving in, establishing secondary courts where they could meet without the danger of entering another’s power base. Over time, the demon council had begun meeting here as well, making the unprepossessing hunk of rock the de facto capitol of hell.
And a damn strange place for a wanted ex-queen to choose for a hide out.
“This isn’t a run of the mill demon we’re talking about,” Sid said, wiping his shiny brow. “The ancient horrors were locked away by the council because even they couldn’t control them. What do you think you’re going to do if you find her?”
“I dealt with her before.”
“She was on earth for the first time in six thousand years! She was confused and disoriented, and she underestimated you. I wouldn’t bet on that happening twice.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” John leaned on the highly polished counter. “Where is she, Sid?”
“I don’t know,” the demon’s pudgy hands nervously smoothed his pristine white apron. “And I wouldn’t tell you if I did. People have been going missing, John--a lot of people--and everyone else is lying low. Which is what you’ll do if you have any—” he suddenly cut off, staring at the darkened windows over John’s shoulder. He must have sensed something that John couldn’t, because his face closed down, becoming business-like.
A second later the bells tinkled again, announcing a new customer. John moved away to peruse the shelves, leaving them to it. If it had been another time, he might have been tempted to do some shopping. The small slotted drawers on the lower half of the antiquated fixtures held the kind of potion supplies almost unobtainable on earth, and when they were the cost was staggering.
He tried to keep his eyes on the drawers, but the shelves up above were impossible to ignore. The glimmering contents of the rows of apothecary jars writhed and twisted in a spectrum of colors--pale amethyst and deep green, brilliant turquoise and ruby red, glittering white and darkest obsidian--with glints like captured fire. But what they contained was far more precious, and far more destructive.
He stepped back, but the shop was small and jars ringed the walls, as well as being stacked high on display tables. His hand brushed against one behind him, and for an instant, he caught a flash of the wonders it promised: cool green water slipping over his skin, a darting school of tiny fish up ahead, their scales gleaming in the light that dappled the shallows. He surged after them, faster and sleeker, the joy of the hunt thrumming through his veins, scattering them like sliver petals in the wind—
He snatched his hand away, but they were all around him, whispering, promising, yearning. They sang to him with siren songs and glimpses of wonders, of colors that had never lived in human imagination, of music beyond the range of his senses, of the sounds and scents of worlds long dead. He’d been shielded when he came in, but he’d let them drop to save strength, knowing that Sid’s protection was the best available.
He’d forgotten; in this particular shop, the real dangers were already indoors.
“Almost irresistible, isn't it?” a rich voice asked.
John’s head jerked up, only to see one of the Irin standing in front of him, its faint glimmer dispelling the shadows for a full two yards around them. This one was tall, as they all were, and powerfully built, with skin the color of burnished bronze and ebony hair that spilled onto its spotless wings. It regarded John kindly, out of a face so beautiful, so perfect, it almost made him want to weep.
He squashed that impulse by asking himself what exactly it had done to get barred from the heavens.
“Living another’s life,” the Irin continued, picking up the jar, “seeing what they saw, experiencing what they felt… It’s almost like being another person for a time, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” John shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, and deliberately didn’t look at the seductively twisting colors.
“I try to draw out the experience with the more interesting ones,” the creature told him. “Allowing me to visit them over and over. I like to think that it permits them to live again, in a way.”
“They’re dead,” John rasped. “They’ll never live again.”
“No, I suppose not.” The Irin tipped its head, looking at him consideringly. “I must confess, I was surprised that a human could interact with them. I had always understood that to be impossible.”
“I don’t—” John began, only to be cut off as the scene in front of him rippled and changed.
The shop was the same size, but now it had a dirt floor and a thatched roof. Instead of gas lights, there were rough tallow candles, and the windows were merely dark open spaces letting in the sound of crickets and the smell of peat. The same slightly anxious
Sid stood behind a rough wooden counter, a homespun apron serving as a handkerchief for his perpetually damp palms. But instead of the Irin, Rosier stood at his side.
In his hands was a clay bowl filled with shades of honey, gold and burnt sienna. They swirled together in glittering bands, bright as jewels in the candlelight, mesmerizing. “Excellent work, Sid,” his father said, “I admit, I didn’t think you could do it.”
“I wasn’t sure myself. It took two of my best hunters the better part of a month, but there you are. Nothing good comes easy, I always say.”
“And this is very good.” Rosier placed the bowl carefully in his son’s hands. “I explored one of these as a child; enjoyed myself no end. They’re a sort of merpeople, for lack of a better term, in one of the minor water realms.”
Emrys took the bowl gingerly, with both hands, and was surprised to find it so light. As if it contained air. As if it contained nothing at all. “But…how can you—”
“A spell,” his father said easily. “It captures a being’s memories in the moments before death, preserving them for us to study.”
“Then I can see through anyone’s eyes?” he heard himself ask, amazement in his voice.
“It’s better than that,” his father said, putting an arm around him. “For a short time after use, you’ll retain their abilities. In a real sense of the word, you can be anyone.”
Emrys stared at him, speechless, the possibilities spinning around in his mind like the colors in the bowl. His father saw his expression and clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. “What’s the matter, boy? Didn’t I promise you wonders?”
John shoved the memory away, brutally enough to make the Irin flinch. “My apologies,”the creature said. “My people communicate mentally, and sometimes I forget…”
John stood there, panting, so angry he could barely see. It hadn’t forgotten a damn thing. Like most of the stronger denizens of the vast network of realms humans dismissed as “Hell,” it had simply taken what it wanted.
But it wouldn’t take anything else.
John’s shields slammed into place, and this time, he didn’t ward with his usual water, but with ice. The temperature of the room plummeted dramatically, enough to freeze the mud that had been tracked in the entrance and to send a frozen scale creeping across the boards. Sid gave a bleat of alarm over by the old cash register, and the Irin raised a single elegant brow.
“It appears I have offended. Again, my regrets.” The words and tone were contrite, but it flashed him a knowing smile as it turned to leave. “Enjoy your purchase.”
John stared after the creature as it swept out, wondering how much more it had seen. Enough to guess that its parting shot would hit home. “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Sid said, as John rejoined him at the counter. “He’s just jealous. The Irin can only take one kind of energy, and your line can absorb almost anything. Well, not legally, but you know what I—”
John had pulled out a map from under his coat as Sid talked. Now he spread it on the counter and grabbed one of the pudgy white hands the shop owner was flailing around. “Just point,” he said harshly. He wanted out of there. He wanted out now.
“I don’t want to get involved,” Sid protested, while he scribbled something on the portion of the map hidden by the cash register’s iron bulk. “I’m not a warrior. I can’t afford—”
“I understand, although the council may not. You should expect to receive a visit from them shortly.”
“They’ll have to catch me first.” Sid leaned across the counter to flip over the OPEN sign in the nearest window. “That was my last delivery and the rest can go hang. I’ve decided to take a long overdue vacation. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”
John took the hint and the map, pocketing it before turning away from the counter. He stepped out of the smothering warmth and back into the blessed chill of the night. He didn’t make a purchase before he left.