Sin & Surrender (Demigod of San Francisco #6)(72)

“Nonsense. He’s a ghost. You are not. You have the advantage.”

But if I’d learned anything about Harding, it was that he had a true mastery of all things spirit. I could hardly count the number of ways he’d surprised me over the last months, doing something I could barely wrap my head around, let alone duplicate.

Parker stopped the cart right in front of the entrance, turned it off, and jumped out. Bertha hadn’t even completely stopped her cart before the cats leapt to the ground, running for me.

One of the staff raised his hand to tell us to move those carts, but I was already past him and through the door. The way was clear, the pandemonium not having reached this far. If it did, I realized, they probably would just assume one of the hallway battles had gone too far. They would likely get out of the way, assuming it would either die down on its own or the Demigods would handle it. By then, dozens of people would be dead.

I called Bria, and as soon as she picked up, I said, “I’m at the front entrance, which way?”

Several staff looked up from the front desk, appearing bored.

The cats stopped beside me and Parker behind. Bertha caught up and stuck out her hand, giving me view of her phone screen, where she’d pulled up a map of the building.

“We’re just— Duck! We didn’t make it to the outdoor battle arena, but we found a big hall that has been set for a meal. We’re unleashing Thane there. The service staff should keep him busy.”

She gave me the name of the hall where they’d left the Spirit Walker, and I repeated it for Bertha to find.

“I’m headed to Harding,” I said into the phone. “It’ll be fine. I can talk him through this.” I couldn’t believe Harding had lost himself so quickly. Sure, he’d been a hellion in life, but as a spirit he’d offered to help me of his own free will. He’d helped me trap himself, for pity’s sake. He’d helped me heal people, something he had never done in life. Clearly he’d known how, but he hadn’t had it in him. Without the pressures of the living, he was a better person. I truly believed that. Maybe this whole episode had messed with his head, but I had to believe I could talk him around.

“Alexis,” Bria voice low and firm, “watch yourself. This isn’t the Harding you know.”

Bertha led the way, a large woman but fast on her feet. So fast that I was huffing just trying to keep up. The cats followed beside me, loping along like jungle creatures.

Near the battle halls, a man lay facedown in the middle of the hallway. His spirit stood just outside of his body, bent down as if in agony, withering away. A light trance showed me the violet cord attached to his chest, sucking his energy dry.

I snapped the cord and shoved the spirit into the afterlife. I could probably have reattached the spirit to the body, but it would have taken a lot of time and energy, and I needed to conserve both.

Around a corner, three people lay in a clump, their positioning suggesting they’d been preparing for a battle they hadn’t gotten the chance to fight. Their souls were in a similar state, tortured, even more so than the spirits in Lydia’s house.

Had Harding done this? Why?

After I cut them loose and sent them on their way, we kept going, slower now. I pushed out my awareness and found a group of the living in a room off to the side. I knocked on the door, then opened it slowly. The souls were in the corner, barricaded behind a desk, still firmly lodged within their bodies. Another body lay broken in two, its soul nowhere in sight.

“What happened here?” I asked softly.

No one spoke.

“I’m Alexis Price, the Spirit Walker. I know you’re there. Did a cadaver come this way?”

A middle-aged man with haunted eyes rose from behind the desk. He glanced around nervously before his gaze settled on me. He and the others were all low level fours, which meant they wouldn’t have been in these halls on the first day. Maybe they shouldn’t have been in them now.

“Not a…cadaver. A fae. A dark fae. There was a dark fae here! Beyond the borders!”

“Wait.” I held up a hand, my mind reeling. “A dark fae? What would a dark—”

I cut myself off, remembering what Lydia had said about her agreement with them. I’d thought their agreement would be null and void, but truthfully, I had no idea. I barely knew anything about the magical world—I knew even less about the fae lands and the people who resided there.

“What did he want with you?” I asked. I felt Kieran’s confusion through the soul link, probably a reaction to the alarm and anxiety he felt from me and the rest of his people. He wouldn’t be able to leave, though, not without just cause. It would ruin him.

Not leaving might ruin his family.

“What did he want with you?” I repeated, my voice an octave too high.

“To call Demigod Lydia out of her meeting, but we don’t have that authority. We don’t have her personal line. I tried to call—”

“Fine, fine, what about the cadaver? The other Spirit Wa—the cadaver with the Soul Stealer in it. Did you see him?”

The man blinked and pushed against his chest. “I thought that was you. We felt…”

I motioned for him to keep talking. “What? You felt it what?”

“It felt like fingers trying to tear out my…heart…or?”

“Your soul. It was trying to tear out your soul.” He’d definitely gone off the deep end. The question was: was that because he was angry he’d been controlled, or because he saw an opportunity to get revenge on the Demigod who killed him? “Thanks. Stay in here until… Just give it a while.”