Chapter 16
Voren
Being the God of Wraiths sounds impressive on paper, but in practice, it’s mostly just trying to ignore a billion souls screaming for attention while you’re trying to enjoy a decent cup of tea.
Today, the noise is a cacophony. I rub my temples, attempting to filter out the wails of some poor sod who died in the potato famine from the fresh, confused spirit of a sheep that just met a lorry on the main road.
It’s not glamorous, despite what the crumbling statues in the Divine Ruins might suggest. Right now, however, my primary concern isn’t the existential dread of the sheep, but the slayer currently sweating through the crumbling sheets of the ancient bed.
I take a sip of the tea I was enjoying before I felt her hit the ground. It was like an earthquake that rumbled the souls of the dead.
“Quiet down,” I snap at the empty air. The chorus of whispers dips in volume, a sullen retreat. “Unless one of you has a medical degree from this century, bugger off.”
A surgeon from the early twentieth century approaches, snapping his barbaric-looking scissors with a sinister grin splitting his face.
“I said this century, you savage moron,” I snap, and his smile turns upside down before he drifts away.
I set the cup on the dusty nightstand and lean over her.
Nyssa looks small like this, stripped of her sarcasm, which can be sharper than her blade.
Her skin is an alarming shade of grey, slick with sweat, and when I pluck her hat off and place my hand against her forehead, the heat is almost offensive.
This isn’t a mortal illness. A slayer of her lineage doesn’t drop from the sniffles. This is backlash.
“You are a complication I didn’t order,” I murmur, sliding my hand down to rest over her heart.
It’s beating like a trapped bird, erratic and frantic. Beneath the fever, I sense a cold, oily residue clinging to her life force. It tastes of that stitched-together monstrosity that attacked earlier. The corruption is trying to unravel her from the inside out.
“Filthy stuff,” I mutter, curling my lip.
The spirits press closer, a gallery of grey voyeurs eager to see if the slayer joins their ranks tonight. An old woman with a missing jaw drifts through the wardrobe, leaning in with keen interest.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Agatha,” I tell her without looking up. “She’s not checking out yet.”
I press my palm harder against her sternum, ignoring the searing heat of her skin.
I call upon the absolute zero of the grave.
It flows from my core, down my arm, and into her chest. Nyssa whimpers, her back arching off the mattress as my cold collides with the fever.
It’s a violent meeting, like ice hitting magma.
“Easy, slayer,” I soothe, though my voice is tight with concentration. “I’m just taking out the rubbish.”
I visualise the oily residue, hooking my will into it like a fisherman snagging a line.
It resists, clinging to her soul with barbed hooks.
Stubborn. Just like her. With a sharp mental yank, I drag the corruption toward the surface.
A dark, viscous mist seeps from her pores, coalescing under my hand.
It smells of stagnant water and old blood, utterly repellent.
“Delightful,” I drawl. “You definitely owe me a drink for this. Something expensive.”
I clench my fist around the coalesced smog, crushing the writhing energy until it dissipates with a sound like a wet cough. The room temperature drops another ten degrees, enough to frost the inside of the grime-caked windows, but the oily stench finally vanishes.
Nyssa gasps, a sharp intake of breath that rattles in her chest, and then she goes limp against the mattress. The frantic drumbeat of her heart slows to a rhythm that suggests she might actually live to annoy me another day.
“Better,” I murmur, brushing a strand of damp hair off her forehead.
Her skin is cooling rapidly, the unnatural grey pallor fading to a more acceptable, albeit pale, human tone.
She’s still covered in graveyard muck, ruining the vintage aesthetic of the bedding, but she’s alive.
Mortality is such a tedious, fragile state of being.
They break so easily, yet they cling to existence with a ferocity that puts most gods to shame.
“You’re welcome,” I say to Nyssa’s unconscious form, wiping my hand on a relatively clean patch of the sheet.
A ripple in the air near the door announces an arrival. I don’t need to look up to know who it is. The sudden spike in static electricity gives him away.
“You kidnapped her,” Dastian says, sounding delighted. “Dreven is going to have a godly stroke.”
“I prefer the term ‘emergency relocation,’” I reply, turning to face him. Dastian looks entirely too cheerful for a room that smells like century-old dust and sickness. “She collapsed in the cemetery. Leaving her there seemed unsporting.”
Dastian saunters further into the room, his eyes glowing with chaotic golden light. He peers down at Nyssa, tilting his head. “She looks like she went ten rounds with a mud wrestler and lost. Is she breathing?”
“Barely. That stitched-together beast left a souvenir in her system. A corruption.” I pick up my tea again, though it’s gone stone cold. “I pulled it out.”
“Did you now?” Dastian raises an eyebrow, a spark of red electricity jumping between his fingers. “Touching a slayer’s soul without permission? That’s bold, even for you. Dreven is going to be absolutely livid that you got your hands on her spiritual bits before he did.”
“Dreven can get in line,” I say, taking a sip of the cold tea and immediately regretting it. I grimace and set the cup down. “Besides, if I hadn’t intervened, she’d be dead, and then who would we annoy? The options in this town are severely limited.”
Dastian laughs, the sound bouncing off the peeling wallpaper. “True. Speaking of our brooding shadow-friend...”
The shadows in the corner of the room suddenly violently expand, swirling into a distinct, furious shape. The temperature drops again, but this isn’t my cold. It’s the chill of the void.
“Right on cue,” I sigh, bracing myself. “Try not to break the furniture, Dre. It’s an antique.”