“That one had a soul. The big one didn’t,” I said without thinking, and then immediately regretted the statement when she whirled around.
She crossed the area between us quickly. “Like the robbers in the bank had souls? So you can just reach in and jerk out souls whenever you want?”
Crap. “I—”
“Turn off the light and wind show, Craft,” she said, pointing to my eyes.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I glared at her. “Because my power damages my eyes, and if you’ll remember, we tripped an alarm ward when we walked in here, and I don’t want to be blind if whoever—or whatever—made these monstrosities shows up.”
“Couldn’t you just rip out his soul?”
“Only if he’s already dead,” I ground out between clenched teeth.
We stared at each other for a long time, and I could almost feel the scales in her head, weighing whether she should arrest me. I’d more or less admitted I had, in fact, been the reason the robbers had all collapsed. But you can’t murder someone who is already dead.
“I have to call in a magical hazmat team. Don’t go anywhere,” she finally said, turning away from me.
I didn’t plan to go anywhere. For one thing, I couldn’t drive while peering across the planes. I had no idea how I was going to get my car out of these woods. Also, I wanted to check out the spells on the two beast bodies. None of the human corpses I’d encountered had been tied in spells. Of course, none had been visibly rotting either. That meant either we were dealing with two unrelated groups of walking dead—which didn’t seem likely—or as Briar had said, these creatures were early experiments or progressions of the necromancer’s process.
I knelt beside the enormous reptilian beast. I could barely stand to look at the stubs where his back legs had been. My gut twisted, threatening to rebel again, but I needed to examine the magic. It used the same orange and red energy I’d seen in the illusionary oak and the ward, but the intricate tangle of magic wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen or felt before. It was powerful, and detailed, but I couldn’t make sense of it. If I hadn’t known that what I was examining was a dead thing that had been walking around, I wouldn’t have guessed that was what the spell could do. Hell, I wouldn’t have had any clue what I was feeling at all.
After fruitlessly tracing the magic with my mind, I stood. My legs ached from kneeling, and I’d been still so long that vultures had gathered around the beast. I startled them as I hobbled away and they squawked at my back. Briar was no longer on the phone—in fact, for a moment, I was afraid she was no longer in the clearing, but then I felt her distinct signature of spells near where we had first entered the clearing. She was here but hidden behind her look-away charms again. Which meant if the necromancer who could animate dead creatures returned, I’d be the only one visible. Great.
I considered heading over to where she was, to hide behind her spell as well, but once the hazmat team showed up, I’d likely not get another look at the bodies, and I wanted to compare the spells on the soulless beast with the one who’d had the wrong soul navigating it.
And speaking of souls, there were four new souls that had joined the army of animal ghosts in the clearing. Even with me straddling the chasm between the planes, the new animals looked weak, drained; like mere memories on the wind. I passed by the ghost of the winged jungle cat, and it looked up at me, its rounded ears pressing flat against its head.
“Nice kitty,” I whispered, lifting my hands flat in front of me.
The ghost stalked forward. It looked insubstantial, even to me, but as I basically always existed on all the planes, more so when I had my shields open this far, it might still be possible for it to hurt me. I really didn’t want to get mauled by a ghost after I’d just survived being attacked by corpses. I backed away slowly, never turning my back, but also not running. Smaller ghosts scattered around my feet as I moved, but all my attention was on the winged cat.
“Craft?” Briar called, the hint of concern clear in her voice.
I didn’t answer or look over. Even with all the spells in her personal armory, it was unlikely she had anything that would be effective against a ghost. They just weren’t something most people had to worry about.
I could have pulled the ghost’s remaining energy out, draining everything that made the ghost still the animal it had been, and I would if I had to, but I’d already done horrible things today. I hadn’t been sure before today that animals had enough ego to leave ghosts behind. Now that I knew they did, I didn’t want to cannibalize a creature who had already been through so much.
So I kept backing up, moving slow, making soothing sounds as I crept away. The ghost stopped stalking forward as I felt the first buzz of the ward at my back. The ghost opened its mouth as if to let out a yowl, but if it made a sound, it was lost in the winds of the land of the dead. Its gaze moved beyond me, to the ward.
“You just want out, don’t you, buddy,” I said, still keeping my voice low, calm.
The ghost stared at me. I bent slowly, pulling the dagger I’d sheathed after the final creature had fallen. Then I half turned, not actually giving my back to the ghost, but turning enough that I could reach the ward.
“What are you doing?” Briar asked from a lot closer than I expected, and I jumped.
“I’m . . . uh . . . cutting a door in the ward.”
“A door?”
I shrugged, dragging my dagger through the thick magic forming the ward. The dagger could cut about anything, including most spells. It didn’t disappoint on the ward but sliced a clean line through the woven strands of orange and red energy.
“The ghosts are stuck,” I said as way of explanation.
“Uh-huh,” Briar said, lifting a skeptical eyebrow. “And how is that supposed to help? You can’t cut magic.”
This enchanted dagger could. Or maybe it was this dagger in a planeweaver’s hand. I wasn’t sure. I could have used a mentor in this whole planeweaving thing, but they were all dead or stuck in an inaccessible court in Faerie. So most of what I’d learned in the last few months since my planeweaving emerged was gained through trial and error—mostly error.
Door cut, I stepped to the side and looked at the ghost cat. It stared at me, eyes narrowed and ears flat. It didn’t move. It didn’t understand. Being dead didn’t change that it was an animal with an animal’s instincts and intelligence. There was also a good chance it couldn’t see the force that held it in the clearing, it just knew there was a wall.