Suzanne McLeod - The Shifting Price of Prey

My hand tightened around the knife. ‘You want me to bind Malik’s soul to your body?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Your task is to do as I direct, not to ask questions.’

‘Fine.’ I jabbed at him with the knife. ‘But remember I’m new to all this, so don’t come crying to me if I get it wrong because there’s something you haven’t told me.’

His left eyelid twitched with impatience. ‘Malik al-Khan is a true immortal. He cannot be killed. Whomsoever bears his soul also bears his immortality.’

I rocked back on my heels. Wow! No wonder Malik’s soul was the hot ticket item. Vamps might not die of old age or natural causes but they could still be killed. Of course, the older a vamp is the harder it is to bring them true death; it usually takes the complete destruction of their physical bodies with their ashes scattered over running water before their souls are forced to move on to wherever (the general belief is hell). But once a vamp’s soul is gone, that’s it, they’ve had it; no chance of reincarnation, unlike humans, or rejoining the magic, unlike fae. So despite the Emperor being a millennium-and-a-half-years old (if he was the original Roman Emperor Romulus Augustus) and probably being harder to kill than most vamps, I could see the attraction of Malik’s true immortality.

Only why had the Emperor waited till now to choose to steal Malik’s soul? It was a stupid question the moment I thought it. He’d waited because he needed someone who could do the soul transfer: an Anima Devoro , in other words— me.

And no one, least of all me, had known I could consume souls until last Hallowe’en.

Maybe I should be surprised it had taken him eight months to get here?

Then again, maybe I should stop thinking everything was about me. No way was I the sole person who could play with souls (because – bad pun aside – someone had obviously transferred Malik’s soul to Bastien, at some point) so maybe I should be more surprised, astonished even, not that the Emperor had taken eight months to get here, but that it had taken him five centuries. The Emperor was the one who’d made Malik and despite siccing him with the revenant curse he evidently hadn’t known about the immortalising effects of bearing Malik’s soul. Which meant someone – Malik, or more likely Bastien – must have let the Emperor in on that little secret.

My hand clenched around the knife as things suddenly clicked into place.

I’d thought that Bastien was running scared of the Emperor, that the Emperor was muscling up to depose Bastien as the Autarch. When in fact Bastien was the one plotting in the corner of his sticky web to trap the Emperor. He’d used Malik’s soul, an Anima Devoro , a.k.a. me, and Janan, the soul-bonding knife, as his bait. And he’d teamed up with Viviane and her tarot cards to get me here. Not so I could make a choice to save him, but so I could do his dirty work. And kill the Emperor.

So the real question was: what did Bastien gain from the Emperor’s death?

More pertinent, if I did choose to kill the Emperor on Bastien’s behalf, how the hell was I supposed to do it?

I narrowed my eyes at the imperial vamp. Despite his impatience he’d seemed happy to let me think things through, but then maybe he thought I was communing with Janan or something. Whatever.

Another question struck me. If I was to shift Malik’s soul from Bastien to the Emperor then, apart from donating blood which might or might not be specific to the swapping souls bit, what the hell was Malik doing here?

I asked.

‘That answer is not relevant.’

I shrugged. ‘Told you, on your head be it, if this soul transfer thing doesn’t work.’

The Emperor’s mouth thinned in irritation. ‘Once the current Autarch is vulnerable I will dispose of him publicly. I will become the new Autarch. The Oligarch has agreed to give me his Oath of Fealty. Once I have his Oath, the other blood families will accept me without any needless Challenges and bloodshed, which could raise irritating questions among the human authorities.’

Malik was a willing part of Bastien’s plot. Or hey, since Malik was the Machiavellian one, this was Malik’s plot all along . . . which meant Malik was the one who’d set me up . . . nope, not going there . But there was one good thing in all this: the Emperor was going to kill Bastien. And Bastien dead was what I’d wanted since I was fourteen. All I had to do was choose to let this whole thing play out and the psycho would be out of my life for ever. I should be delirious with joy . . . except his replacement was treating me to his scary alien stare. And hell, the grass wasn’t looking any greener or more inviting on the Emperor’s side of the blood-fence.

Letting Bastien live was a high price to pay to gain Katie’s, Freya’s and the rest of the coins’ victims’ freedom.

‘Okay, question time’s over.’ I tapped the knife against my thigh, mind processing everything. ‘So you want me to take two souls out of that body, separate them, put one back in, and bind the other to yours.’ I jutted my chin at the empty stone circle. ‘If you want to make yourself comfortable, we can get on with it.’

The Emperor lifted his finger. ‘Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova. Your task is not successful unless you bind Bastien’s soul back into his body, before binding Malik al-Khan’s soul to mine. Do not think to confuse the issue by being less than specific, else I will consider your task a failure.’

I grimaced. It was worth a try. Not that I thought he’d fall for it twice. ‘Fine. Bastien’s soul bound back to his body, and Malik’s soul bound to yours. Once that’s done, my task and our bargain are complete, yes?’

‘Yes.’ He nodded, and two of the silent centurions rushed in through the tent entrance and started undressing him. As they finished and were dismissed, and I sincerely didn’t want to see him naked any more than I had to, I turned away and knelt down next to Bastien, wondering exactly how Janan the soul-bonding knife was supposed to work. After all, the only time I could see souls was when they were disembodied, like Viviane and Gold Cat.

Turned out soul-bonding is instinctive and easy.

You grip the hilt in your right hand, blade pointing down, lean over and stab it straight into the heart. It goes in like the proverbial hot knife through butter; little things like cutting flesh, cracking ribs and spurting blood don’t seem to happen at all. Which was a total tragedy when it came to stabbing Bastien.

I narrowed my eyes at Janan, hilt deep in Bastien’s chest, waiting for the blow back, since magic is never that easy without a price, but all that happened was the knife’s handle warmed and the dragon’s tear on the end glowed with a soft amber light. Then silvery smoke, scented with cloves, spiralled up into a humanoid shape and a recognisable translucent figure formed within it, as if I’d uncorked a bottle and released a djinn. Bastien. He looked down at me, doe-brown eyes calm as if having his soul removed was an everyday occurrence. But then he’d been expecting this. Expecting me to ‘save’ him.

I cut him a flat look. He was so dead if I had my way.

He blinked, startled, his expression rapidly changing to an almost comical one of anger as he started patting himself as if to check he was actually there, his mouth spitting words I couldn’t hear. Evidently, unlike Gold Cat and Viviane, his soul couldn’t mind-talk to me. A minor upside to go with my impatience for Malik’s soul to put in an appearance.

A few seconds later the heat from the handle began travelling up my arm. As the heat reached my elbow, burning pain flared over my hand and wrist, red blisters bubbling on my skin as if I’d stuck my hand in flame, the dragon’s tear turning bright amber, flashing like a warning light. Crap. I knew the knife went in too easy. There had to be some sort of time limit on using it. But there was still no sign of Malik’s soul—