Odd Cases

I stopped looking at Penny’s soul, checking to see if I was still being watched. Aside from Berserker, Penny and her posse were busy chatting, and I didn’t care too much if they saw me anyways. Penny was the only one with reason to be nervous, and I was sure I was doing her a favor.

I rolled back, intangible, and crawled through the wall. Initially, the empty space beside the café held nothing, so I peered further like I had earlier.

A man was looking through the window, taller than me, with black hair, matching eyes, and lightly tanned skin.

“Speak, spirit,” I said as he flinched, “What is your name?”

“My name is of little importance,” he spoke in a tongue I only recognized from esoteric books.

“You weren’t human,” I identified in my best attempt his language “How are you… world?” I pointed at the ground to identify Earth.

“I understand your tongue thanks to my master. I just cannot speak any but my own to others.”

A master, an alien language, and damage to the soul. This spirit belonged to a djinn.

“Why are you on Earth?” I asked.

“I was banished.”

“Banished?”

This had to be a ghost. Djinn were a high race, some influence over the soul, but still corporeal. Ghosts weren’t usually stuck where they died. They would have some connection, but they wouldn’t be stuck there. How did this banishment work? Maybe he just liked Earth.

“I am trapped within metal until such punishment is undone,” the djinn explained before I could ask.

“Does that mean you’re alive?”

He nodded.

Alive, but practically a ghost in form. I could sort of relate.

I was so caught up in pity, I almost forgot the problem I had to address.

“You’re destroying her soul.”

“I have no say as long as she gives me orders.”

Like Magek’s return, this djinn’s influence on souls came at the price of one’s own.

I was at a loss, I had no idea if damage to the soul could be recovered from. I knew it had to stop, but something told me Penny was too far gone to listen to reason.

“Do you know if she can recover?” I asked.

The djinn shook his head.

“How do I disconnect you?” I asked, “Because I think that’s the only way to get what I need.”

“She, or a soulmate, must give me away willingly, or she must die.”

I glanced through the window at Penny again, there were definitely some connections to the friends around her, but none seemed to have the mutuality of soulmates.

“Fuck. What counts as willingly?” I asked.

The djinn shrugged.

“Great.”

I had to tell the girls, and admit how much I was out of my depth here.

“We’ll talk later.”

I had agreed to meet the girls at Alyssa’s foster parents’ home. Before I could get to business, my hosts insisted on feeding me. Circe was right to save room for it.

“So are the girls right that something is going on?” the mother asked me.

“Yeah, they were onto something alright. Penny’s got herself into quite the pickle.”

“Penny?” Alyssa asked, “What about Berserker?”

“The tool Penny is using to manipulate him, and probably everyone else around her, is destroying her soul.”

I kept the Djinn out of discussion. It would complicate things too much to explain that the thing killing her was someone arguably enslaved to her.

“I always knew she was soulless,” Circe joked.

“Not soulless, and destroy probably isn’t the right word. Her soul has a structure closer to the dead than the living, so the right word is that the tool is killing her soul.”

The humor left Circe’s face.

“She’s a ghost?”

“Not yet, and I don’t know if this decay has any effect on her body. I need information.”

“And payment?” the father asked.

“I’m taking Penny’s tool after we get it off of her,” I said.

“Didn’t you just say it was killing her?” Alyssa asked.

“I did, and I don’t necessarily plan to wear it, just keep it out of other people’s hands, disable it if possible.”

“And how are we going to get it off her?” Alyssa looked at Circe, who shrugged.

“That’s Ms. Emery’s job.”

“You can call me Juliet,” I corrected, “Please.”

Circe gave a nod.

Everyone watched me expectantly.

“I need to stalk a teenager,” I answered.

By handy coincidence, Circe’s foster parents lived in the same neighborhood as Penny’s family. She talked them into letting me stakeout a random neighbor’s house, which saved me some trouble.

Penny’s house was larger than Alyssa’s, though not intimidatingly grand. There were security cameras, and a warning sign. Any motion of my size would cause a problem.

When I relayed this to Circe, she wasn’t surprised.

“But you have a solution.”

I nodded. There was always a risk in this, but a child’s soul was at stake. The problem was I hadn’t brought her with me.

“I need a knife,” I said.

“What?”

“Our best solution requires that I have a knife, the sharpest knife you have.”

Circe gestured to the knife-block.

I grabbed the longest non-serrated one.

“This only works if you’re me,” I warned as I took my jacket off, “Where’s a bathroom?”

“Just down the hall,” she said, “What are you doing?”

“A dangerous trick to save that girl and your friend.”

I closed the bathroom door and locked it. Then I took my shirt off, angled the knife on my shoulder where I already had a scar, and sliced.

Spirit mages like myself lose access to spellcasting in the way other mages can, but there’s a way to circumvent that. I found it out by chance, and then researched it intently. Apparently my old name has a bogeyman reputation back in Magek.

The blood in my veins, and sometimes in other’s veins, acts as an element for me in the same way as other mages, just less accessible. I can manipulate it, and I can use it to cast spells. It’s not a particularly safe choice, so I save it for emergencies, or stock up slowly, but I don’t take any of my stockpile with me for teenager issues.

I focused on the wound as I thought of what I wanted to summon.

The blood floated up, turning into a tiny humanoid form, with a pair of wings on its back. Then it turned pale, with hair and eyes much like me. Now that it wasn’t imitated by blood, you could tell her dress was made from a scrap of fabric.

After looking down at my still-bleeding shoulder, the Pixie scowled.

“Sorry for taking you from your post, Vi, but I need you to do some recon.”

She gestured at my shoulder.

I made the blood quickly scab over.

“It wasn’t a deep cut,” I justified, putting my shirt back on, “You’d take over a day to fly here on a summons, and this girl needs help now.”

I checked for any evidence of my actions, but all I had left was the slight amount of blood on the knife. I snapped my fingers, making the blood remove itself and dry out, then threw it into the toilet before flushing.

I opened the bathroom door, where Circe waited just outside.

“Done. I should wash the knife.” I didn’t want to give Circe details on what exactly I did, even if she had all the context necessary to guess.

“Gabe prefers to wash them himself,” she said.

“Where should I set it then?” If he cared so much about the knives, he probably didn’t want them in the sink.

“What’s that?” Circe pointed at Vi instead of answering my question.

“That’s my pixie. She’s going to spy on Penny for us. Where do I put the knife?”

Circe held a hand out, and I gave her the knife.

She was still staring at Vi—no, a little lower than Vi.

Her eyes were locked on my shoulder.

“Thanks for your sacrifice,” she said.

I sat meditating in Circe’s living room. I chose against seeing through Vi’s eyes, since that made her easier to find for some reason. I focused on the small amount of facts at hand.

Penny’s family was well off if they were in this neighborhood, or they were in terrible debt. It could be both.

Penny must have had that bracelet for awhile if her soul was in such a poor state, or she’d been using it with abandon. Possibly both again.

Assuming the Djinn told the truth, he was forced to do this against his will, but there was nothing to stop him from lying. He didn’t seem desperate to be free, but he could just be resigned to his fate.

Speaking of Fate, Circe knew more than any Oracle I’d met, and I would have known if she were a mage. She seemed like too much for an empowered though, but maybe I just hadn’t met one at her scale.

Right now all I had were questions, and not one of them seemed useful.

“Is that normal?” I overheard Alyssa ask. She’d joined us after her shift ended.

“No,” Circe admitted, “At least I don’t think so. I’ve never met another mage before, but she said it only works for her.”

So Circe was a bit of a snitch. It would be worth remembering if I wasn’t sure she’d find out whatever I planned to keep from her.

“Well, as long as it’s not killing someone, I don’t care,” Alyssa said, “Just don’t let Berserker know.”

“Of course not.”

Maybe Circe only shared things so openly with Alyssa.

I sensed the pixie before either of the girls said anything.

“What’s that?”

“Her pixie apparently,” Circe said.

“I feel like that’s the wrong hair.”

Vi’s hair was shorter than mine, but most people didn’t notice the finer details.

Vi landed on my head, nestling into my hair as she shared the details of her excursion.

Vi got into the house through a wall. She stayed within it as she tried to overhear anything said, but the insulation prevented such eavesdropping.

After giving up on maximum stealth, she found herself in the bathroom, shaking off anything she might have accidentally carried from the wall.

She formulated a map, using Circe’s home as a blueprint, and flew straight up into what she expected to be Penny’s room.

It was a study, but she did see the Djinn, who saw her back.

“Are you the woman in the alley?” he asked.

Vi shrugged. She wasn’t not me.

“My master is downstairs, speaking with her parents. Her room is behind me.” He pointed to the wall.

Vi flew through it to an uncomfortably plain room, aside from the wall full of photos, names, and, for lack of a better term, ranks of all her classmates. Circe and Alyssa each had the title of “Freak”. Berserker only had a name, with question marks where the rank would go.

The people she kept around her were clearly “high-rank” in this chart. I recognized a few photos. None of them seemed to walk in the same groups.

She’d been at this awhile.

I needed to get that bracelet off of her.

Suddenly the window opened, and Berserker climbed in as the alarm went off. Vi hid under the desk, watching Berserker pace the room unbothered.

A man ran in.

“I warn you, I’m armed.”

“I also have arms,” Berserker said, “And legs.”

Penny ran in next.

“Dad, it’s fine, it’s just Berserker.”

She rubbed the Djinn bracelet, and her father’s expression lost its intensity.

“I’ll go turn off the alarm.”

“She’s watching you,” Berserker said, grabbing Penny’s wrist, “She wants this.”

Penny pulled her wrist away.

“As long as I have you, Alyssa can’t do anything to me, and if she steals this, it will come right back.”

“Not Alyssa, the woman at the café. She solves problems.”

“The blind lady?”

Berserker shook his head.

“She isn’t blind. She sees souls, and walks through walls. She knows what you’re doing.”

“Well then,” Penny said, “Your job is to protect me from her.”

Berserker walked right to the desk.

Vi flew straight out the side of the house and back to me.