Rogue Soul (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 3) (20 page)

Cam nodded. Before he’d met her, he’d had no reason or desire to go to earth. The other gods were the same. Earth was a mess of mortal emotions, unappealing to the gods. Most even believed that their presence was required in Otherworld to keep it operational.
 

But then he’d found her in the forest all those years ago and changed the entire course of his life. And hers. Guilt tugged at him. It clung to him like the barnacles to the hull of a ship.

“Why do you come to Edinburgh when you could go anywhere else?” Cam asked as he turned the car onto the less-crowded country road that would take them out to the university.

“My friend Esha lives here. She works for the university.”

“You don’t mind it when she drains your power?”
 

“No, I like it. Makes me feel mortal again.”

He supposed it would. “It’s dangerous to be weakened like that.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I like having the strength and abilities of a god. But sometimes it’s just nice to feel a bit different. And the world isn’t as bad as it used to be, especially if Esha and I stick to mortal places.”

She had a point. The university, which was more than just an educational institution, kept tabs on the Mytheans who were too violent or likely to reveal their existence to mortals. Only law-abiding Mytheans were permitted to live in cities. The rest were sent back to their afterworlds when they became a threat to the secrecy of all Mytheans. The university had a department that dealt specifically with keeping track of such things. As a result, Edinburgh was safer for the law-abiding Mytheans than it had been in the past.

All the dangerous ones were pushed into the fringes, like the jungle, with him. Which was how he liked it.

“What mortal places do you and Esha visit?” Every minute he spent with her, he wanted to know more about her. Dangerous is what that was.

“Depends. Bars and clubs if it’s night. Crazy stuff in the day. Scuba diving, skydiving, skiing. Anything exciting. Anything I can’t do in Otherworld.”

“Makes sense. You’ve lived a long time. Lots of Mytheans seek out thrills.”

She sighed, and he caught sight of her fiddling with her bow out of the corner of his eye. “It’s not that, really. Being in Otherworld is like being in a coma. It feels like time passes more quickly there. Enough that I feel like I haven’t really lived. I guess I just want to make up for that on earth. All the fun stuff I miss out on when I’m stuck there.”

The car suddenly felt very quiet and small. The longer he spent with Ana, the more aware he became of what exactly he’d done to her in their past. He’d been a selfish son of a bitch when he’d stalked her in the forest. He should have left her alone. Instead, he’d brought her to the attention of the gods. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that.
 

Being around her brought into sharp focus how much she loved life—how curious and intelligent and passionate she was—and how he’d truly screwed her by getting her stuck in Otherworld. He’d done the best he could in a shit situation, but she’d still gotten screwed. The more he realized how much he liked her, the more he realized how much he didn’t deserve to even be near her. He was a bastard.

So lost in recriminations was he that he nearly missed the turn for the university. He stomped on the brakes and turned onto the road that was hidden from mortal eyes. The car hurtled through oak trees that were just an illusion until an enormous wrought iron gate loomed before them. It swung open silently, and Cam drove them down the lane toward the cluster of ornate stone buildings in the middle of fields scattered with hardwoods.
 

It was beautiful, he supposed, but he didn’t care for it. Too civilized or something. He couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong with it, but he didn’t care.

“I love this place,” Ana said as they pulled up to the ancient buildings that loomed over the main part of campus. She pointed to a gray stone building on the other side of the cobblestone courtyard. “Fiona’s office is in there, I think.”

She’d called Esha when they’d landed to let her know they’d arrived and to see if she’d learned anything more about Druantia. Esha had told her to go see an Acquirer in the Department of Magical Devices, Fiona Blackwood. Acquirers were like archaeologists who were magically inclined to find artifacts.
 

Cam parked in one of the cobblestone parking lots in the middle of a group of stone buildings, one of which held Fiona’s office. Ana climbed out of the car and looked around, taking in the monstrous stone edifices that rose all around. She set off across rain-damp cobbles. They gleamed in the yellow light of the old-fashioned street lamps.

“Ana!” A feminine voice echoed across the parking lot.

Ana whirled to see her friend Esha running down the wide stone steps of the biggest building in the square, her scruffy black cat at her heels. Her familiar, Chairman Meow, never left her side, though sometimes it pained him to have to keep up with her. The Chairman liked a nice fire and a tuna steak more than anything in the world, and if he didn’t have both in front of him, he was a bit of a grump.

“Esha!” Ana cried and threw her arms around her friend. Esha’s long black hair tickled her nose.

She heaved a sigh of relief when much of her power drained away. She’d always felt like the power of being a god never fit quite right on her shoulders. Sure, it gave her extra strength, immortality, and the ability to aetherwalk, all of which came in handy. But it also made her feel tense and strange, probably because she’d started out mortal.
 

And there wasn’t much to worry about as long as they were on the university campus. By law and by magic, the gods weren’t allowed on the campus except by invitation. It better allowed the university staff to manage relations between the afterworlds if they were protected from the wrath of any gods who might not agree with their diplomacy. Ana had a standing invitation from Esha, which got her around the rules and allowed her to see her friend.

Ana pulled away from Esha and grinned up at her. Esha’s smile reached her amber eyes.

“Is that guy—” Esha stopped abruptly, presumably at the sight of Cam.
 

Ana glanced over her shoulder. Yep. Cam stood behind her with a
You’ve been talking about me?
expression. Ana turned back to Esha.

“That’s him,” she mouthed. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a normal tone. Esha’s black hair matched that of her familiar, who now sat at her heels staring combatively at Cam. Chairman Meow was the suspicious sort.

“Visiting Warren. His office is in that building. You’re on your way to see Fiona?”

“Yeah, thanks for setting that up. She’s in that one?” Ana pointed to a smaller building at the edge of the lot, and Esha nodded.

“Yeah. And no problem about arranging it. I asked around after you called and she’s the person to talk to. Come to my place after.” Esha’s amber eyes lit up with excitement. “Warren will be working all night. We’ll stay in my tower.”

Cam stepped forward. “Actually—”

“Seriously. Come up after you talk Fiona,” Esha said.

Ana turned to face Cam, wondering if her face showed how much she wanted to stay with her friend. There were guest quarters they could stay at, but it would be so good to see Esha, especially with everything else in her life going crazy. Apparently her face did show something, because Cam nodded.

“Ana, we should go see Fiona,” Cam said.
 

He shifted on his feet, and she realized that Esha was probably pulling power from him as well, only he didn’t like it. Ana was the only one who really did; other Mytheans gave Esha a wide berth. She and Esha were both outcasts, which might have been one of the reasons they bonded so well.
 

“Great,” Ana said. “We’ll be over in a bit.”

“Brilliant.” Esha headed into the night, her black cat a silent shadow on her heels.
 

“All right, let’s figure out where this priestess is,” Ana said, and strode across the cobblestone lot.

A few minutes later, after passing through gleaming wooden corridors and beneath the eyes of ancient portraits, she knocked on Fiona’s door.

“Come in!” The voice echoed through the door and Cam and Ana stepped into a cluttered little office. It was almost a broom closet, but instead of brooms, there was a tiny desk, a chair, and a beat-up laptop. A dark-haired woman turned away from a bookshelf she’d been trying to squeeze a book into and smiled.

“You must be Andrasta and Camulos. Come in. Enjoy the ambiance of my office.” She swept her hand around the space. Her eyes welcomed them from behind glasses. A little black cat peered over the edge of the top shelf on the bookcase. It was a ball of fluff that blinked big yellow eyes at her from where it perched three feet above her head.

 
“Oh, don’t worry about Fluffy Black. She comes to the office on Tuesdays. That’s her nap spot.”

“Okay.” Ana looked around for a place to put herself. With Fiona occupying the space in front of the bookshelf that stood behind the desk, and the cat on the top shelf, the only space available was to lean against the desk. Ana and Cam squeezed in.

“It’s cozy,” Ana said.

“Sure, like a grave. But whatever. You’re here to ask me about Druantia, the Druid priestess.”

“Exactly,” Ana said. “How’d you find her?”

“I didn’t find her, exactly. I found her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Ana had not been expecting that.

“Boyfriend, lover, whatever. The man she’s currently boning. Who, by the way—and this is crazy—is
the
Logan Laufeyson.”

“What?” Cam’s voice was sharp, disbelieving.

“I know,” Fiona said. “I was shocked too. Everyone thought he was dead. But he’s not.”

“Wait—explain, please,” Ana said.

“Oh, sorry.” Fiona squished her face into what Ana always thought of as an
apology face
. “For hundreds of years, Logan Laufeyson was a renowned mercenary whose skill was the bow. He sold his services all over southern Europe. He was the absolute best in the world. But he fell off everyone’s radar about three hundred years ago. We thought he was dead—until he popped up and stole an artifact from us. An ancient amulet. No one else in my department thinks it’s worth the effort or the money to go after it, so they dropped the recovery effort. But I know it’s important. I’m sure of it.”

“Why do you care?” Ana asked.

“Ah, well. I care for history’s sake. The artifact should be in a museum. But, on a more personal note, these fabulous accommodations of mine”—she swept her hand around the office—“are the result of a bit of a mix-up with a very important artifact a few years ago. Basically, I fucked up bad. Real bad. I was demoted from field Acquirer to record keeper in this purgatory.”

“I’m sorry,” Ana said. Fiona gave off the vibe of someone who’d been stuck in her surroundings too long, desperate to get out.
 

“You’re wondering why this is all relevant, I’m sure. Simply put, I’m trying to win my old job back by finding the artifact that I lost, as well as any others that have been stolen. That’s how I came across Logan. I found him living with a woman in Inverness—Druantia, your Druid priestess.”

“Holy shit,” Cam breathed.

“Crazy, right? I was going to go up there on my week off to find him and retrieve the artifact.”
 

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Ana asked, glancing around the office. If the woman was used to spending her days in a place like this, was she really qualified to go up against one of the greatest warriors the world had ever known?

“I’m
not
a desk jockey. I’m a field Acquirer. I’m just being punished here in the stacks. Anyway, I’m not going to challenge him or anything. He’s dangerous as hell. I was going to try to sneak in and steal it. You’d be surprised how often that works.”
 

“Did you learn anything about Druantia?” Ana said.

“I did some digging when Esha told me you were interested. She’s still acting as a Druid priestess—though with a lesser following than in years past, of course. For the last two hundred years or so, she’s had a shop that sells magics and trinkets.”

“Excellent, thank you.”

“No problem.” She turned and grabbed a notebook off the shelf. With a quick hand, she flipped it open and transcribed an address on a page, then tore it out and handed it to Ana. “Here you go. Don’t scare off Logan. I want that amulet.”

“Sure. Thank you again. Really.”

“Not a problem. I know what it’s like to want something badly. Glad I could help.”

The cat above her head peered down and meowed a tiny
meep
, as if it agreed with Fiona.

“That’s right, Fluffy. Way to be hospitable.”

Ana huffed out a small laugh, then said her goodbyes with Cam and departed.