Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The entire world was white. The ground covered in snow, the sky blanketed in clouds, and the snowmobile between her thighs. Esha was just grateful that the snow had stopped falling and hitting her cheeks like tiny daggers whenever she pushed up the clear face-guard on her helmet.
 

Warren was about a dozen yards away on her right, speeding over the vast snowy expanse of the Vatnajökull glacier. Felix had picked them up right before sunrise and brought them up onto the glacier in his super-Jeep, a great monstrosity of a vehicle on giant tires meant for the remote Icelandic terrain. Though tourists occasionally visited the edges of the glacier, once you got toward the middle of huge expanse, it was miles upon miles of uninhabited snowy terrain.
 

Warren drove his snowmobile closer to hers and yelled, “Sense anything yet?”

She read his lips more than heard his words and shook her head. Felix had pointed them northwest, telling them that it was the most remote part of the glacier. They’d been driving for hours—thank gods for the spare fuel they’d brought—but she’d yet to feel anything that indicated they neared the city.

“Chairman okay?” Warren shouted.

She looked down at the Chairman, who sat in front of her, secured to the seat in a ridiculous little harness and fluffy egg-like thing. Felix said he’d made it for his dog, and though the Chairman looked ridiculous, he did look happy to be zipping across the snow. The Chairman had always had a thing for speed.

“He’s fine,” Esha yelled back, and as soon as the words left her mouth, a zip of energy hit her in the chest. She gasped and her hand loosened on the throttle. The snowmobile slowed. Once she caught her breath, she tightened her grip again and caught up with Warren, who’d slowed his pace ahead of her.
 

“We’re close,” she yelled. The feeling in her chest—that felt like energy ping-ponging off her ribs—grew stronger as they headed farther into the most desolate part of the glacier.
 

A spot of shadow on the vast expanse of white grew into a great stone monstrosity that took her breath away. It rose like a great stone castle, sprawling across the ice and defying all logic of city construction. There was no way to survive on the glacier except through magic, which clearly hadn’t been spared while constructing the soulceresses’ greatest city.

“There it is!” she yelled at Warren.

“Where?”

So he couldn’t see it. “Stop your snowmobile.”

They pulled to a stop, still half a mile away. Esha climbed off hers and clomped across the snow toward Warren, her huge borrowed snow boots slowing her to a trudge.
 

“Come here,” she said, and pulled off one of her gloves. When he climbed off his machine and leaned close, she pushed up the clear faceguard of his helmet to lay her hand against his cheek. She closed her eyes and willed her ability to see the city to him.

“Oh, fuck,” Warren breathed.
 

She withdrew her hand and climbed back onto her snowmobile. “Let’s go.”

They set off again. What had initially looked like a great stone wall surrounding the city was actually formed by the backs of the buildings themselves. They rose tall, pressed cheek by jowl, with glinting glass windows that reflected the sun. Every hundred feet or so, a road or path led into the city. Apparently hiding was enough for the soulceresses of old. They hadn’t been afraid anyone would find them way out here, not in the ninth century at least.

Warren climbed off his snowmobile and joined her. “Do you think we can leave the machines here?”

“Yes. I think they’re hidden within the city’s magic now.”

He nodded and unstrapped a big duffel from the back of the snowmobile. She unhooked the Chairman from his fluffy space pod, and he leapt down into the snow, immediately sinking in a puff of white. He yowled indignantly, and she leaned down to pull him out. “We’ve learned our lesson now, haven’t we?”
 

He hissed at her. She laughed, but made a vow to remember to watch out for him around the deeper snow in the future.
 

Warren tromped through the snow over to her machine, unhooked her duffel and swung it over his shoulder. “Are there any magics we should be concerned about?”
 

She looked up at the looming gray stone and twinkling glass. Technically, the buildings were too old to have such huge plate-glass windows. Magic had been used to create them, and magic had kept them from breaking over the last millennium. “I assume so. Magic, or something else entirely, is holding this place together. It’s too old to be in such good condition. Whether or not there are protective spells in place, I don’t know.”

“We’ll tread cautiously, then.”

They set off for the nearest street that spilled out onto the glacier. The gray cobblestone was completely free of snow.

“It’s like they left yesterday,” Esha said as she poked the stone with the toe of her clunky boot. She wasn’t getting any negative vibes, but then, because she was a soulceress, she probably wouldn’t. She glanced at Warren and he looked fine, so she stepped onto the street, where gray stone walls rose high on either side of her. “All clear.”

She put the Chairman on the cobblestones and the three of them walked down the narrow street. None of the buildings had doors, and it was so eerily quiet and perfect that it made her nervous.

“Wait, where the hell are we?” Warren asked.

“What? We’ve only been on this street for a minute.”

Warren turned in a circle, brow scrunched. Gods, he was handsome, with his gleaming hair and green eyes. Even when he was confused. “Aye. I should be able to see back onto the glacier at the end of the street. I canna. I doona even know which way we’ve come from. It all looks the same.”

“Oh. Wow. There must be a disorientation spell. Only soulceresses can navigate through the city.” They’d reached a crossroads of five streets, two of which led upward via stone stairs. It was like a labyrinth of gray stone and glittering glass. “We’ll have to stay together.”

“Aye, no kidding. Any sense of where the temple might be?”

She looked around. “No. I’m pulled in four directions—the compass points—where important buildings might be. Or something that is important to me. I don’t know which.”

“All right. We should find a base camp first. Night is going to fall soon. Damn northern sunset.”

She nodded and turned left, down the widest and most inviting road. Everything was so monochromatic: gray stone upon gray stone, broken only by the sheen of glass windows. There were doors on this street, though, and she picked one that she guessed was a residence.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, and pushed the door open.
 

Light filtered in to reveal the front room of a shop. Fabric in hundreds of hues spilled from the shelves and the forms of faceless mannequins. She swallowed hard. Fabric shouldn’t last a thousand years in these conditions without disintegrating. There was some kind of magic at work here, and it was strong.

“Wrong place,” she said, and backed out.
 

They walked down the street until they reached another crossroads, this one with six streets. She chose right this time, and when she pushed open another door, it led to the foyer of a home. Again, a bright profusion of color gleamed from every surface. Carpet, paint, draperies, all in shades of green and yellow and blue.
 

“Looks good,” Warren said over her shoulder.
 

The Chairman hurtled across the threshold and out of the cold like he’d been ejected from a slingshot. He was as sensitive to threats as she was, and if he deemed it safe, she assumed she could too. After all, the soulceresses had never fought to protect this place. They’d lived here peacefully and in secret, then abandoned it as soon as the Vikings had landed on their shores in their longboats. So there was nothing to be afraid of, right?

“Strange place,” Warren said.

“Yes.” Strange to think that hundreds of soulceresses and soulcerers had lived here. Esha had never met even one, yet there had been a time when there were enough of them to create this great city.

They stripped off their snowsuits and snow boots and explored the house in silence. The bottom floor, with its opulent living areas and ancient kitchen, the upper floor with four bedrooms and no internal plumbing, and finally, the basement. Torches mounted to the wall along the stairs were ready to be lit. With a flick of her hand, they burst into light.

“Holy shit,” Esha breathed when they reached the bottom of the stairs. They’d descended into a stone grotto. The torches illuminated three steaming pools of clear blue water, natural hot springs that heated the air with humid warmth.

“This is how the rest of the house is heated,” Warren said. “But how the hell is it here, in the middle of a damned glacier?”

“Magic, like the rest of this place. Iceland has loads of hot springs. It looks like the soulceresses diverted some and built their houses over them.” She walked over and dipped a hand in. “It’s nice. Not too hot. I doubt it does much to melt the ice, and magic can help with what little harm it might cause.”

The Chairman was batting at the water, no doubt looking for the phosphorescence that he’d found back at the
howf
.

“My ability to navigate works in the house,” Warren said. “I’ve still got no idea how to get out of the city, but I doona have a problem here.”

“Good. Maybe because—” She jerked and stared at a shadow that had appeared on the stairs. A soul shadow. It was very roughly human shaped, but made of nothing but black smoke.

“What the fuck?” Warren whipped his head to the left, where another soul shadow had crept out from behind a ledge of rock.

“You see them too?” Esha asked. The shadow on the stairs began to solidify. Her eyes widened.
That
wasn’t normal. “Who are you?”

Esha stepped forward. It drifted back up the stairs, and the shadow from the corner zipped out to follow it.
 

“Wait!” She raced up the stairs after them, Warren and the Chairman at her heels. When she reached the now dim foyer, she waved a hand to light the wall lamps and caught sight of three more soul shadows of varying opacity. They drifted toward the door and then straight through it and out to the street.

She ran to the door and swung it open. Full dark had fallen and the street was nearly pitch black. The soul shadows had blended into the night, but she could still sense them, hovering just outside the door, watching.
 

A blast of cold hit her, more than just the night air and the snow. Evil—and it was coming from some of the shadows.
 

“The dark hides them. Can you see them?” Warren asked from behind her. He loomed over her shoulder, peering out into the night.
 

“No. But I feel them.”

“Me too.”

That was bad. He wasn’t a soulcerer, so he shouldn’t feel them. With her skin crawling, she raised a hand and cast protective magic around the house. “They can’t come in now. I think they live in the city, and they came out to investigate us.”

“Do you know what they are?”

“Maybe. They’re not like the shadows of evil deeds that I normally see. They’re more solid. Some more so than others. I think they’re actually souls.” She shut the door and backed into the dim foyer.

“Whose?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we should be out in the dark since they’re so much harder to see. They’re not all friendly, and I’ve no idea what they’re capable of.”

“Shite.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Come on, I’ll make dinner.” Warren turned and started toward the back of the house.

She had to suppress a smile at the familiarity of him cooking for her without asking. Was this what it was like to be in a relationship? Just doing the little day-to-day tasks and looking out for one another?
 

Except that they were in a haunted city.
 

Even so, she could get used to it.
Don’t
. Self-preservation edged its way in on her sugary feelings. Hope beat back at it. Sanity won out.
 

She followed him to the weird old kitchen and said, “Actually, I’m beat. I think I’ll just have a granola bar in my room. Don’t worry about me.” She could conjure something decent for the Chairman. It wouldn’t take too much power.

“The hell you are. Set up this camp stove.” He pushed it toward her. “Please.”
 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Chairman glaring at her from in front of the fire. He wanted some of whatever Warren planned to make. Truth was, so did she, even though it would just be some instant camping meal. She’d tried to leave, hadn’t she? That counted as at least trying to preserve her heart.

“Okay,” she said, trying to keep the smile out of her voice. She looked around the kitchen, which looked nothing like a modern kitchen. Long tables butted up against the walls and a huge hearth took up one side of the room. Pots and pans hung from the ceiling, but there was no sink or oven or refrigerator. As ancient as the place looked, she had a feeling it was still far more advanced than what mortals had been using at the time.