Sin & Spirit (Demigod of San Francisco #4)(64)

Except…if I pulled Kieran away from trying to find Daisy, and this didn’t work…

With enough time, she could be dead.

“Okay.” I lay down on the grass. “I’m going to try to find her.”

Bria put out her hands like she should be doing something. “Do you need…incense or bells or anything?”

“For the love of the Great Mountain, no bells,” the Spirit Walker said.

After I relayed the info, she paused, then said, “I’ll get the incense. Maybe I can see what’s going on.”

“She is tenacious. I like that in a woman.” The Spirit Walker scooted closer to me and lay down on his back. His spirit arm brushed mine, and I scooted away. “Don’t worry. I’m not hungry for your energy. Just you.”

“Will you take this seriously? My kid’s life is on the line.”

“Close your eyes,” he said softly, and something in his voice changed. It reduced down to a whisper that seemed as old as time, drifting in with the breeze from the Line. “Get into the headspace to find a soul.”

I sank into a light trance, feeling the spirit around me, feeling the pulse of power.

“Deeper. You’re clinging to the living world. Clinging to your body. You need to set those things free. You need to step out.”

Fear wormed through me, but I went deeper, thinking of Daisy’s soul, bright and beautiful, full of energy and light. Full of love hidden behind sulks and sharp knives. Deeper I went, knowing she was worth the risk. She was worth me trusting this character. Whatever else his flaws, he clearly knew what he was doing.

“There you go.” This time, his voice wasn’t a whisper at all. It was wordless, moving through me. I understood without knowing how, confident it was him but unsure why. “With your soul, just like in the dream walks, rise.”

He held out his hand, less like a shadow than it had ever been. I lifted my hand to take it, and my skin fell away. My soul jiggled free of my frame, suddenly loose and free of gravity.

Fear accosted me, and I slammed back into my shell. My soul clutched on, and I could feel it docking. Reality rushed back in, and suddenly I was sitting up, gasping for breath.





25





Alexis





“Fear is such a tricky devil, isn’t it?” The Spirit Walker was smiling at me teasingly.

“What’s your name?” I asked, suddenly needing to know who I was trusting with my life.

He studied me for a moment. “Harding.”

I repeated it for Bria.

“That’s the last Spirit Walker’s birth name,” Bria said.

So not the nickname he’d created for himself when he was high on power, or the one he’d been given after being turned into a killing machine. He’d chosen the name he used when he was just a regular guy. Well, a regular guy who could pull souls out of bodies. That had to be good, right?

I didn’t actually say any of that out loud. He’d probably set me straight, and I didn’t want to hear it.

The grass was plush and welcoming. The cool breeze carrying the salty ocean flavor was relaxing. Drifting back down into a deep trance, I felt my soul swish around like it wanted to float up.

It was still downright terrifying.

“Easy does it,” came that voice, melodic and entrancing. Not real. “Don’t rush this. Just ease into it. You’ll learn to love this part, when you become weightless. When you feel what it must be like to fly.”

I focused on that description. Flying. Lifting up out of my skin.

My heart hammered. My limbs tingled. I gritted my teeth.

Then I no longer had teeth. Or limbs. Or a heart. I was walking into spirit, Harding beside me.

“It’s okay. I would sooner start a war than let anything happen to you,” he said, the voice reverberating around me, sliding against my skin and tickling fingers I no longer had. “You must train your consciousness to let go. It will reach for your body. You must not let it, or you will be jarred off course.”

He stood next to me in a world painted with grays and violets, outlined in deep blues, throbbing with peripheral color. I could no longer see my body or the house.

“If you focus, you can change the colors to something a little more normal for you.” He smiled without lips. Without a face.

How did I know he was smiling?

“You can feel me.” The answer reverberated off the inside of… Not my skull. I didn’t have one. Just a shadowy orb, like the guy next to me.

My reality wobbled with the fear of this strange place.

He held out a hand, and regardless of any lustful trickery, I reached out to take it. Thankfully, his shadow touch was nothing but comforting.

“There are different rules here,” he said. “Different everything, but once you are familiar with it, it’ll seem natural. Beyond the Line, in front of it, within it—it’ll all seem as natural as the world of the living. That’s your gift, Spirit Walker. Only a Demigod of Hades can maneuver it as well as you.”

“I don’t feel like I’m maneuvering at all.” I stuck out my leg, remembered I didn’t have a leg, just the shadowy equivalent that didn’t feel like anything at all, and wondered how I was moving without muscles. Reality wobbled again.