Spirit Sorceress: Spirit Sorceress: Book 1 (9 page)

I frowned and crossed my arms, “It’s not what I think, I was
there, it’s what I know.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Really, so you read your father’s
soul then?”

I shook my head, “I left it for my mother to do.  She
was his mate.”

She looked me in the eye, “And she gave up and died while
you slept.  Let me ask you something, her aura of power, her shields were
all over the place right, and so were yours?”

I shrugged, “So?” I said with a little attitude, “We were
grieving.  So yes.”

Melody said, “I’m sorry, but you should know.  You felt
your uncle last night.”

I gaped, a third time for this morning, “No I don’t have an
uncle.”

Melody gave me a look, “Yes you do.”

“Where is he?  Why don’t I know about him?”

Melody gave me a look of pity, and I trembled, I didn’t want
to hear this.

“Your mother was fairly young, just five hundred when she
died.  Did you ever wonder why she moved to the west coast?  Did you
ever wonder where your grandparents were?”

I shook my head.

She continued, “Her brother, your uncle turned against Inari
and the tenets.  He left home and did whatever he wanted.  Abused
people, used his power to gain wealth and manipulate people.  Eventually
he got paranoid, afraid his parents would hunt him down and stop him as they
should have but didn’t, so he snuck home and killed them.  Killed his own parents,
your grandparents, in the middle of the night as they slept.

“Your mother fled, went west where we met.  I found out
about the tenets simply because she needed someone to talk to about what
happened.  She should have killed him, but she loved him as your grandparents
did, he was her brother, and she fled instead of staying to hunt him down and
fight.  Eventually, she moved passed it, got passed the guilt, and then
met your father.”

“Why are you telling me this?” my voice was empty, I felt
like sobbing, but my face was dry.  It was too much, too much had happened
the last three days.  I didn’t know what to do with this information.

“Do you know anything about the elemental power of earth?”
she asked.

I shook my head, “Outside of manipulating dirt, rocks, the
ground, not really.”

She took a deep breath, “Air gets its information from the
ether, that contains a kind of… combined memory of what everyone currently
living knows.  I know spirit as well, from your mother, you get your
information from one soul at a time.  If you want to learn surgery, you
find a surgeon and read his soul.  Earth magic is different, we get our
information from locations.  We take the memories from the very earth
where it happened, not from a person, or a soul.

“For instance, I know what you had for dinner last night,
and where you sat in the cafeteria.  The concrete floor in the floor below
us holds a record of everyone that ate in that dining room since the building
was built.”

She paused a moment, allowing me to process that
information.

“I’m sorry Miku, but when you said your mother abandoned
you, I went to the cabin.  I didn’t believe it of her, I knew she would
have given up everything else before she gave up you.  She didn’t abandon
you, and your father’s death was no accident.  Your uncle killed them, and
I don’t know why he left you alive.”

I shook my head again, denial was failing me though, I knew
she wasn’t lying, and my voice cracked, “How?”

Melody took a sip of coffee, her eyes were miles away, and I
wondered what thought had pulled her away.  I had never known my mother as
a woman, not really, just as a parent, and I felt suddenly jealous of this
woman that sat across from me.

“Your uncle, Jiro, he manipulated your father from a
distance, made him lose control of his body and fall.  When your mother
found him, she lost it, as you said, her shields were shot.  Jiro… took
advantage of that.  He was in fact, counting on it happening.  The
stones tell me he killed her, as to how I can only guess, the stone doesn’t
record spirit magic.  Most likely he breached her shields, and while you
thought she was catatonic, she was probably fighting for her life.”

I shuddered and the tears finally came.  My mother
hadn’t left me, it was all my fault, I’d failed her.  Somehow my uncle had
killed her while I’d been watching over her.  All I’d have had to do was
reach out and touch her soul myself, and I’d have known what was
happening.  Of course, I’d been told not to ever read her, had it drummed
into me.  Still, I should’ve ignored that, I should have known it was more
than my father’s death.

“Where is he?” my normally soft pleasant voice sounded like
grinding gravel.

She shook her head, “You can’t.  I’m not even sure your
mother at her best could have taken him down.  That he struck her at a
time of weakness shows his cowardice more than his lack of power.  You
need to grow.  Besides, he left the city last night, I have no idea where
he went.”

My body went limp in the chair as I separated from it. 
Spirit walking was fairly easy, although I didn’t do it often.  I also had
my full power this way, since my power was the element of spirit.  I sped
through the walls and around the city, not wishing to believe he was out of my
reach.  I searched the city in seconds, as fast as a thought my spirit
moved through up and down the streets like a mile-wide spotlight.  But no
other spirit sorcerer was present in Seattle.  I returned to my body with
a thought, and gasped a breath of air.

I nodded angrily, “He’s gone.  Why let me live? 
That makes no sense.”

She shrugged, “Who knows how people like that think. 
Maybe he’s lonely, and you’re his last family member.  Could be he wants
you to be like him?”

I gasped out, “That’s insane!”

She nodded, “I believe that was our point.  He’s
nuts.  I’m sorry for bringing you such news but felt you ought to
know.  If you want to talk about it, or your mother, I’ll be around.”

She got up and left, I stayed for a while longer trying to
pull myself together.  The news wasn’t all bad, it had a bittersweet
flavor to it.  My mother hadn’t just left me after all, not on purpose
anyway.  It was a small comfort, but it meant everything to me at that
moment.

The third floor was painfully boring.

This was where all the paperwork and bookkeeping happened for
all the businesses.  Only the two night clubs, bar, and pool hall had a
physical presence.  The rest of the business was wall street trading,
corporate real estate, banking, accounts payable and receivable for the
businesses.  The coven also owned non-controlling shares in hundreds of
other companies.  There was even a computer guru type guy that did all the
websites.

Bartending was fun right?  I’d get to meet new people…
yeah, I wasn’t sure I bought that.  Actually it didn’t sound that bad, I
was just still in a funk from earlier.  I was definitely leaning that way
though, since office work definitely wasn’t holding any appeal to me. 
Eustice came in and I could tell he was in a bad mood too.

Misery loves company.

“What’s up Ice?”

Eustice grimaced, “The pool hall, there was a fight there,
late last night.  Some idiots broke the bar, knocked a hole in the wall,
and cracked the large front window.”

I frowned, “I see?  Does that happen a lot?”

He shook his head, “No, but now I have to go down there and
deal with mutts.”

I tilted my head, “Mutts?”

He sighed, “Yeah, damned werewolves.”

I was lost, my mind wasn’t making the connection, “Why?”

He scowled and said reluctantly, “Because they’re the best damned
contractors in the city.  I’ll give them that much, damned mutts can build
crap like no one else.  It also helps that we don’t have to explain to
some human how some skinny guy gouged wood out of a bar made of finished oak
with his fingers.”

I don’t know why I said it.  Maybe I liked to be
kicked, maybe I wanted to torture myself with what I couldn’t have, maybe I was
just a masochist, but it just slipped out, and rather eagerly at that.

“If you’re busy I could go, I just need to let them in
right, and collect an estimate?”

I was so pathetic.

He smiled at me as if I’d invented sunglasses, and trust me
that was high praise for a vampire.  Sunglasses for the vampire race was
the best invention since… ever.  It was when the vampires were able to
come out of the dark and live in the light of day again.

 “Good, be there at two.  I’ll have the security
guys add your access to the building.  There’s a thumb scanner on the back
door,” he pulled me close and kissed my forehead, “You are the best,” and then
he ran out of there before I could change my mind.

Crap.  I sighed, I was such an idiot.

I ran out to a cell phone store, and picked up one of the
iPhones, just so I’d have a phone number.  I worried that my future not
mate wouldn’t even show up, it was a big pack after all, but just in case he
was there, and didn’t spit on me in disgust, I was prepared.  Actually, I
was kind of pathetic, and grew a little manic.  By the time one in the
afternoon rolled around, my bed was covered by clothes I’d tried on and rejected.

I knew it was impossible, might as well be the Hatfield’s
and McCoy’s, but a part of me built up hope anyway.  I was such a fool.

However, I’d finally decided on a pair of jean shorts, a
clingy light pink tee, and a pair of casual open toed sandals.  It wasn’t
professional, but then I’d seen how they dressed the other day, they were
contractors, so not in suits.  I took a deep breath, and went downstairs
to eat.  I was able to finish about half my meal, and luckily no one else
was around this late to see my freak out.  Then I got out of there.

Billiards and Beer.  I know, it was descriptive, but a
terrible name for a pool hall.  But then what did I know, I grew up in a
forest, and was a three-day old baby vamp in the big city for the first
time.  Really, I wasn’t ignorant, I’d been around a long while and knew
how things worked.  We’d even had internet out there in the cabin, and my
mother had a hundred years to teach me.  That was a lot of learning.

Just not… about dealing with people.  For all I knew,
it was brilliant advertising.  I walked around back and my thumb opened
the door as promised.  The smell of stale beer and other alcohol made me
feel a little queasy after last night, but I fought it off.  It was a few
minutes to two, so I went ahead and unlocked the front door.

I felt the three of them as they pulled in, their
souls.  The same ones from before, at the restaurant that Lisa showed me
last night.  I felt excited, and not a little sick to my stomach, all at
the same time.

I closed my eyes and took another deep breath and calmed
down, or tried to at least.  They were here for an estimate for repair
work, and I was acting like it was my first date.  Really, I knew it was
absurd, but it was hard. 

I used to dream about meeting my soul mate, but I knew this
would be more nightmare than dream.  Still, I had to know.  My chest
started to hurt and I gasped in a breath.  Right, breathing,
important.  I gave a moment’s thought to grounding to the spiritual plane
to calm myself, but that seemed like an amazingly bad idea.  It would be
dangerous to use it as a crutch except for when I used my full power in the
mortal plane.

The door banged twice, and then pulled open.  Three of
the biggest men I’d ever seen walked in.  They were all tall, broad, and
had amazing muscular definition, at least, as much of it as I could see. 
I looked at the one that should have been mine, he was six foot three, strong
jaw, short black hair, and blue eyes.  Right, talking.  I should be
doing that.

“I’m Miku…”

His voice was deep, “Jared.  This is,” he hit the guy
on the right with brown hair and eyes, “my beta, Ted.  And this guy here
is my wet nurse, Bob.”

His beta?  Inari save me, my soul mate was the
alpha.  Wait, wet nurse?  Bob was even taller, at least six foot
four, maybe five.

Bob growled, “Don’t call me that.”

Jared shrugged, “He never lets me go anywhere without
him.  So what’s the damage?”

Oh, probably his enforcer then, protector.

“The large window is cracked, over there by the bar…
hmm.  There’s a hole in the wall somewhere, I haven’t seen it yet.”

Jared turned toward the large window next to the door and
took a look.  Bob didn’t take his eyes off me, like I might be rabid and
attack his alpha at any moment, and Ted had a look of distaste in his
eyes.  Well, it was going better than I expected actually.

Jared shook his head, “That’s a loss, it’ll have to
replaced,” he started walking toward the bar.

I followed him, along with Bob, and I couldn’t help but
smile at the thought that Bob would’ve come along even if it had been a date,
that must be awkward.  I looked around and spotted the hole in the wall,
Ted had gone that way and was examining it.

Bob rumbled, “You’ve got to be the smallest vampire I’ve
ever seen.”

I glared, my nerves suddenly gone, “Well, you’re the biggest
anything I’ve ever seen.”

Jared laughed, and it made me smile despite myself through
my annoyance.

“This one’s got spunk Bob, better watch out.”

Jared examined the bar and said, “We’ll have to swap out
this whole piece.  Ted?”

Ted replied from across the room, “Simple fix on the wall,
just some basic drywall repair.”

Jared nodded, “Alright, let Ice know I’ll email him an
estimate, and when we can do it.  I’ll have to build or order the bar
piece; the window I might have in stock.  I don’t need measurements; I
have them from last time.”

Last time?  Why was I not surprised?

He turned and looked at me with intense eyes, it made me
feel like prey, it also made my stomach flutter.  It took a concerted
effort to keep my heart rate from running away.  As it was, I was hoping
he thought I was nervous.  I really wasn’t, I was insanely attracted to
him.

“Unless, am I dealing with you now?  Should I send it
to you?” he asked.

That was such a bad idea, not a chance I could put myself
through this again.  I’d just wanted to meet him.

Nope, never, not happening.

“Yes,” my mouth betrayed me.

I pulled out my phone and typed something out, “Number?”

He gave it to me, and I sent the text with my email
address.  Dear Inari, I was a masochist.  Worse, being around him
would sabotage any efforts I could make to settle for someone else.  Of
course, how often would this even come up?

We said polite words as they left, except Ted couldn’t help
but sneer as the empty words left his lips.  As if I didn’t have enough
problems.  I almost collapsed as they left the building, and I was a
little disgusted with myself, but also a little pleased.  I locked the
front door, the place was closed until four today, and I went back out the back
door. 

Now, I just had to explain to Eustice that I’d usurped part
of his job.  I wasn’t too worried he’d be upset, because from what I could
tell he despised working with the pack.