Kelley Armstrong - Haunted

"Ah, the angel," the Nix said. "Better late than never, hmmm?"

Trsiel spun, saw Jaime, and frowned back at me. "What's she-?"

"I was just about to tell Eve what I'm doing with this body," the Nix said. "Of course, I could surprise her, but that would quite ruin things. How much better that she should know exactly what I have in mind… so when it comes to pass, she can know that she failed to stop me."

"Trsiel!" I said. "That's the-"

"Nix," she said. "He knows, witch, and he'll do nothing about it. He won't interfere even when I wrap my hands around their necks. Yes, their necks. Those whose lives you made this bargain to save. Ironic, I think."

"Paige and Lucas?" I said. "Don't you dare-"

"Not only will I kill them but, with a little ingenuity, I can take an even sweeter revenge. What could be worse than your poor daughter losing her perfect guardians? Thinking she killed them herself."

I started to lunge at the Nix, then remembered it would do no good and spun to face Trsiel, shouting his name. But he didn't move.

"Goddamn you!" Kristof said, turning on Trsiel. "If you don't-"

The Nix's laugh cut him off. She lifted a hand, waved, and walked out the door. With a roar, Kristof rushed Trsiel. He grabbed him by the shirtfront and threw him toward the door.

"Get out there and do your goddamned job!" Kristof snarled. "Stop her!"

"I can't," Trsiel said softly.

Kristof bore down on Trsiel again. He grabbed him by the shirt, then rammed him against the wall. He locked his forearm under the angel's chin.

"You've tricked Eve, haven't you?" Kris said. "Betrayed her to that…" His mouth worked, unable to find the right word. He lowered his face to Trsiel's. "If you've had something to do with this, no Fate is going to save-"

I laid a hand on Kris's shoulder. He stopped, jaw still working as he eased back.

"Trsiel? You said you can't," I said. "Why can't you?"

"Because I'd kill Jaime."

"And your point is?" Kristof said.

Trsiel's gaze hardened as it rose to meet Kristof's. "My point is that Jaime Vegas is an innocent party. I don't know how the Nix got into her body, but unless she's a willing participant-"

"She's not," I said softly. "The Nix tricked her. Jaime thinks she's helping me save Savannah from the Nix. Which means Trsiel's right. We can't kill her… not if there's another way. The Nix can't teleport while she's in Jaime, so we have some time before she gets to Portland."

Kris stepped back and rolled his shoulders. A moments hesitation, as he slipped back into character. "I would suggest, then, that we not waste time trying to figure this out ourselves. We'll see what the Fates have to say."

"Trsiel is right," the middle Fate said. "He cannot kill her."

We stood in the throne room. Kristof and I, that is. Trsiel stayed outside, probably having decided he was better off keeping away from Kris for a while.

"Fine," I said. "He can't kill an innocent. We get that, and so long as we still have a chance of stopping the Nix before she kills Paige or Lucas, I don't want Jaime hurt any more than you do."

The Fate shook her head. "I don't think you understand, Eve. Trsiel cannot kill her. Not now. Not ever… even as a last resort."

"What?"

"Hold on." Kris stepped forward, hands raised. "You mean to tell me that you'll let this Nix kill those kids, and you won't interfere? What kind of justice is that?"

The oldest Fate slid into her sister's place and fixed Kris with a glare. "Is her life worth less than theirs?"

"Yes. There's no question about that, is there? No disrespect to Jaime Vegas, but this is a woman who whores her-"

"Kristof-"

Kris met the Fate's gaze. " Whores her talents to the highest bidder, while Lucas and Paige are down there doing your work, fighting on your side. You cannot compare her to them."

The middle Fate took over. "It's not our place to judge the value of a human life, Kristof."

"Then whose is it? Because I want to talk to him."

"No one has that power… or that right."

Kristof shook his head in disgust. "Fine, then. Maybe you can't compare lives, but I'm sure you can count, and two lives lost plus one destroyed must be worth more than a single loss." The youngest Fate appeared. "We can count, Kristof. Even me. It's you who needs a lesson. Not in math, but in English. We didn't say Trsiel may not kill the Nix while she's in Jaime's body, or that he will not. We said can not."

"You mean it's not possible," I said. "Because Jaime's innocent." The Fate nodded. "The Sword of Judgment cannot bring to justice the soul of an innocent."

"But the soul isn't innocent," Kristof said. "The Nix-"

"The soul of the body still belongs to Jaime."

"So now what?" I said. "Where does that leave us?"

"Exactly where you were," the girl said. Then her lips twisted in a rueful semismile. "Only without the backup plan."

"Great."

The Fates called Trsiel in to join us then. The more brains we had working on this problem, the better.

The most obvious solution was to treat this as a normal case of spirit possession, and contact a few living necros to perform an exorcism. Problem was, as the Fates reminded us, this wasn't a normal case of spirit possession because the Nix wasn't a normal spirit. They were ninety-nine percent sure it would fail. By the time we tracked down and prepped a necromancer for the exorcism, if it didn't work, it would be too late to try something else.

As long as we stayed in the throne room, plotting, we were operating on the Fates' time, and only minutes would pass in the living world. But the moment we stepped into the living world, we were on our own, clock ticking.

"So we need to find a way to separate the Nix's spirit from the body of her living partner," I said. "And the only way to reliably do that is to use an angel's sword… which won't work in this case. So how the hell-?"

"There is another way," the child Fate said.

"What?"

The young Fate began to shimmer, her body lengthening and aging, morphing into her middle sister, but in slow motion, as if fighting the change. A split-second burst of light, and the child stood there again, her face a grim mask of childish determination.

"There's another way," she said, words spilling out almost too fast to understand. "It's been done before. The second seeker-"

"No!" Trsiel said. "We agreed-"

"You agreed what?" I said. "Are you telling me that after all this, you know another way?"

"No, I don't." He shot a scowl at the child Fate. "And neither does she."

"But the other one does," she said, chin lifting. "The second seeker."

"You mean the angel you sent the second time?" I began, then stopped. "No, it wasn't an angel, was it? It was a ghost. A man named Dachev. You sent him after the Nix and he caught her. Then she cut a deal, persuaded him to join her instead of turning her in."

The youngest Fate's mouth opened, but her middle sister took over before she could confirm it. I didn't need that confirmation, though. One look at Trsiel's face, and I knew I'd put the pieces in the right place.

I continued, "And if he wasn't an angel, then he must have managed to separate the Nix's spirit from her body without a Sword of Judgment. How?"

The Fate shook her head. "We don't know, Eve. We only know that he did… and that things became much worse after that."

"A problem some of us foresaw," Trsiel said.

The Fate nodded. "Yes, Trsiel. We should have listened to those with a better understanding of such matters. We made a mistake, and we have paid for it."

"Such matters…" I said. "You mean evil. This Dachev, the Nix didn't tempt him into a partnership, did she? It was his idea." I looked up at her. "Send a killer to catch a killer… and I'm not the first killer you've sent."