Lost Soul (DarkWorld: SkinWalker Book 2) (7 page)

"And the Demon Hunter who also spells the destruction of the earth," Tara responded, her eyes darkening with sadness.

"Tara, be silent. As with most prophecies, it is often the interpretation that causes hysteria. We cannot define exactly what the prophecy says. Just because it mentions the word 'destruction' does not mean Kailin will end the world." Gracie patted my hand. "That's just narrow-minded thinking. There is far more to the prophecy than just the ramifications of a single word."

Tara slowly turned her still wide-eyed gaze to Gracie. All she said was, "Yes, Mother."

***

Gracie's words remained on my mind for a long while after I left the shop. I watched the sky darken outside as I ate my takeout dinner, barely tasting the usually delicious burger. Grams hadn't returned, as expected.

At seven I heard Logan's knock on the door and opened to find him with Jess. And nobody else.

"Where's Nerina?" I asked, looking around him at the empty corridor.

"She'll be along soon. She prefers not to walk the streets like the rest of us have to." Logan smiled as I shut the door and the three of us gathered inside.

"We are ready?" Jess asked, looking from Logan to me.

We both nodded and she closed her eyes for a moment. The action struck me as odd but not surprising. Something else I'd just learned about Immortals. They were on a telepathic network with Death-talkers.

Interesting.

Before I could do much else but breathe in and out, the air shifted in the corner of my vision. I turned to watch empty nothing darken and twist, grey shadows of every shade from darkest metal to palest grey. A fluttering like feathers or fabric sounded as the grey mass of shadow coalesced into a more solid collection of swirling, dancing fabric.

The whirlwind settled to reveal a girl. She could have been anywhere between eighteen and twenty, but her silvery eyes gave away nothing.

"Greetings, J
ess. Greetings, Logan." Then she turned to me. "And greetings to you, Niamh. I am honored to meet you."

My heart stuttered. I didn't want to be referred to as the Niamh. Talking about it was one thing, but people using it as my name? I didn't like it. Not one bit.

"Please, call me Kailin. I'd much prefer it." I couldn't help the slight edge to my voice, but if the girl noticed, she didn't react.

"Very well, Kailin. As you wish." She nodded, the silver in her eyes turning and twisting although her face remained neutral. "We can begin as soon as you are ready."

"Where would you feel most comfortable?" I asked, waving a hand at the apartment.

"The table is fine."

"Now, you have a personal item I can use to find her?" asked Nerina.

I withdrew the plastic pouch and placed it in her upturned palm. She opened the packet and dropped the strands onto her hand, her face remaining expressionless. That fight with Greer was certainly coming in handy
.

Nerina closed her fist and sat against the backrest of the chair.

Silence blanketed the table.

An invisible breeze ruffled the Death-talker's hair, playing with the soft grey silk of her flowing dress. Everything about her was grey. Even the strands of her thick, lustrous hair was washed of all color.

She lifted her chin, her neck straightening until she looked at me. But she didn't see me at all. Her metallic eyes shifted color so smoothly, becoming a pearly grey, the change sending shivers up my spine.

Her fist tightened over Greer's hair and she opened her hand, splaying her fingers wide.

Nobody spoke.

I blinked as a grey-white mist rose from the strands of hair in her palm, swirling and twisting like an incandescent snake. It rose, curling toward Nerina's face as if she called it to her
.

She probably had.

The smoke reached her and she breathed it in. It flowed smoothly toward her face, then twisted and broke apart into tiny little smoky dregs of grey, like torn bits of fabric. Then the sinuous shreds of grey disappeared into Nerina's nostrils as she continued to breathe in.

Nerina shuddered, her sightless eyes still staring in my direction. She let out a soft breath, more like a gasp. "I see her. A Panther Walker. She lives and yet she walks the Greylands." She spoke as if she was not surprised. Logan or Jess must have filled her in on Melisande's tracking results.

Jess leaned to her. "Is she in danger, Nerina?"

Nerina's gaze didn't waver. She just stared straight ahead, transfixed on whatever it was she was seeing, on wherever it was that Greer's hair had taken her. She puffed a soft breath again and whispered, "She is prey. She is hunted."

We'd known that was possible. A human in a dead land must be big-time demon fodder. But just having Nerina say it out loud made Greer's retrieval all the more urgent.

"So she is not safe," said Jess as she spoke to Nerina. "Is she hurt?"

"She was injured, yes." The Death-talker spoke slow and soft, as if she spoke in secret and didn't want to be overheard. "Old wounds. A few of them. They were inflicted when she entered the Greylands. But I can feel the wounds have healed."

"Are you able to communicate with her?" Jess asked.

Nerina shook her head. "She is blocked to me. Perhaps it is because she is still alive. When I perform the Calling, the soul I am normally trying to contact is no longer alive. There is an empty space within the soul I can fill, which allows me to communicate with them, through them. In this case, the girl is closed off from a joining, so I cannot speak to her directly."

A shaft of disappointment ran through my gut. I'd expected more information from Nerina but we were nowhere further than we'd been after talking to Melisande. But Nerina continued to speak
.

"I can sense her, though. Sense her emotions. And I think she can tell I am there with her." After a small pause. "She thinks I am a ghost."

"Apart for the injury you mentioned, is she okay?" I asked without thinking. I gave Jess an apologetic glance but she just inclined her head as if to say it was okay.

Nerina gave her head an almost violent shake, sending her silvery grey hair shuddering around her face. "No. Her mind is unstable. Her thoughts are frantic, distorted. She has a deep anger in her. And a profound bitterness." Nerina paused. "Has she always been this way?" And even though she spoke to me her eyes remained out of focus.

"A little," I answered, not so sure how much to say, not so sure how much I wanted people to know about Greer's emotional issues. "But what you are describing seems much worse than she has ever been."

"I suspect the Greylands have begun to affect her mind," Nerina said, and she gasped softly.

"What happened? What's wrong?" I leaned forward wanting to shake the Death-talker until she said something.

"There are demons around her." Nerina frowned, her porcelain forehead wrinkling. "But she does not seem afraid of them. She seems impervious to them."

"She is a strong walker. From an Alpha pack. Perhaps she managed to overcome one or two of them?" Jess suggested.

"Perhaps." Nerina wasn't convinced. She frowned. "I can tell you no more about the girl than this." The milky cloudiness in Nerina's eyes faded and she was back with us. "My connection to her is gone. But I can give you information of her location."

"Thank you, Nerina. That would be very helpful." Logan provided the Death-talker with a pad and paper and on it she wrote an address.

"The Greylands, the land of In-Between is referred to as such because it is an intangible place. But it has structure and form to those who occupy it. Unlike the other planes, the Greylands do not have their own makeup. It is a mirror image of our plane that is devoid of color and light."

"It looks like this world?" I asked.

"Yes. From the buildings to the street names to lakes, mountains, and trees. The only difference is there is no power, no color. Only shadows and an endless twilight." She pushed the pad toward me and I turned it around, frowning at the scrawl.

It took me a few moments and then I grinned. "I see. You said the world was ours in a mirrored form. Ninety-five Gilligan's Way. I know where that is." I tapped the table with my forefinger. "So what will I need to take with me?"

"I would suggest food as nothing grows in the dead lands. There is no commerce, no markets, nowhere to purchase items that do not exist. So you will need sustenance. And weapons. If something exists here in this world it will exist there. If it is created here it will 'become' there. So you do have a choice with weapons. You may leave them here and pick them up there or you may take them with you."

Yeah, demon-grade ammunition and weapons. Tara and Gracie had that covered. "Food and weapons. Got it. So how do I get in?"

"That is something you will have to discuss with the High Priestess."

Jess shifted in her seat. "I thought you would be able to tell us how to get in?" Jess didn't seem to like the idea of consulting this High Priestess. The set of her jaw made that clear.

"You will need a seal. And unless you have a working seal that opens the Veil to the Greylands, you will need to have an audience with the High Priestess t
o make that request."

Jess gave the tiniest shake of her head. She didn't like it. I thought of Grams and the High Council. Maybe she could speak to them for me. Nerina shifted her chair back a bit before standing with the tips of her fingers touching the surface of the table. "Please contact me as soon as you are ready. I will accompany you to visit the High Priestess."

Then there was a fluttering of grey and a gusting of shadows and Nerina disappeared.

***

Logan sighed and sat back in his chair. "Well that does make things complicated."

"Isn't there somewhere else we can get a seal?" I asked, hoping he'd say yes, although from the look on his face, I wasn't prepared to bet on it.

"There are other places but the Death-talkers would probably be the most compliant." Then he snorted. "Not that
they
are the easiest of the races to deal with."

"What's wrong with talking to their High Priestess?" I turned to Jess.

"She is not the easiest person to bargain with. Her sense of fairness is a little warped at the best of times."

"Then why is she the leader if she's not such a nice person?" After the question left my lips I realized how naive I sounded.

"She was next in line," Jess answered with a shrug, although the darkness in her eyes didn't imply a nonchalance.

"That would explain it," I said
, my tone dry. I swallowed the desire to laugh. "Yet you say she is the easiest option?"

"She is," replied Logan. "There are necromancers we could contact who w
ould happily help." I perked up. Necromancers? "For a price. Necromancers usually take things you need. Like lives or bodies or souls. I think you might want to keep those for yourself, wouldn't you?"

I didn't answer the question. Wasn't necessary. "Looks like we're out of choices." I looked at Logan. "When do you think they will allow us to see her?"

Logan sighed again. "Let me see what I can arrange." He got to his feet then paused to search my face. "Are you sure about this?"

"Yes. Greer needs rescuing as soon as possible. And after what Melisande and Nerina had to say, I think I've pretty much been convinced I made the right decision. We do whatever it takes to rescue Greer. Besides, I don't think my mother would be too impressed if I left her daughter in the Greylands to die a horrific death."

Logan nodded and rose to his feet. "Right, then. I'm off to HQ. Maybe Gunther can help me smooth Kira's feathers a bit, get her in a good mood before we see her. Jess?" He glanced at the Immortal.

She waved him off. "You go ahead. I have a few things I need to attend to."

Logan gave me a smile then hurried out the apartment. I stared at the closed door for a moment. "He's really not happy about this, is he?"

"He knows we have to deal with paranormal red-tape as he calls it. He just doesn't like it very much when egos get in the way of him doing his job," Jess said, her voice holding a clear note of affection for Logan.

"I think I know exactly how he feels." I took a deep breath. The Greylands certainly didn't seem like a place I wanted to go. In fact, I would have thought nothing would get me to set foot in a place that sounded as dangerous as that. But here I was, putting things in motion, preparing to do exactly that.

I turned to Jess. "Is he okay? I mean in terms of your watching over and protecting him because of who he is?"

Jess nodded serenely. "I do what I can. The rest is up to Logan."

"So what is so all-fired important about him anyway?"

"I am afraid I cannot discuss the details of Logan's purpose with anyone."

I'd expected a similar response so I wasn't surprised. Just annoyed at being thwarted again. But I decided to press on. "Then can you discuss
me
with me?"