Page 97 of Soul Sucker

“You might not know about the SBLE, but you know you aren’t supposed to cause a disturbance in this world,” Ella said.

“They disturbed me!” hissed the sprite. “They destroyed my nest!”

“I understand that, but they didn’t do it deliberately.”

The sprite showed its teeth. “Humans are worthless!”

“Not all of them.” Ella sat more comfortably on the floor, her hand still locked around the sprite’s upper arm and her weapon at the ready. Vadim and Sam had come a lot closer. “If you don’t like humans, why are you here?”

The sprite looked at her as if she was stupid. “They trapped me. My mother left us younglings in her nest to hunt by the stream, and when we woke up, we were alone, encased inside metal and couldn’t get out.” It shrugged its bony shoulders. “All my siblings perished. I was too weak to break free, so I made the best of it and stayed in the nest until they destroyed itagain.”

“I’m sorry. The original pipes probably contained iron, which bound you here. The new ones tend to be plastic, so your ability to move around and use your magic has been restored.”

“I suppose they did me a favor then, although it doesn’t feel like it.” Her little mouth turned down at the corners. “I’m sorry about all the mess.”

Ella put her gun down. “You can’t stay here.”

“Do you think I want to?”

“Would you like to go back to Otherworld?”

“Not really. I’d like to live by a creek again, though. Somewhere I can find others of my kind, perhaps a mate.”

“Ms.Walsh,I can find that information for you.” Vadim’s calm voice echoed in Ella’s head. “Yes.There are several sprite colonies up in the delta area.We could take her there.”

Ella smiled at the sprite. “We could do that right now.”

“Truly?”

“Yeah.” Ella looked behind her. “I have a couple of colleagues here who can help with that.” She pointed. “That’s Sam and the other one is Morosov.”

The sprite looked dubiously at Sam and then her eyes widened and she ducked her head.

“I am sorry for looking at you directly, sire. Do not kill me, I beg of you.”

Ella frowned at Vadim. “What did you do?”

He held up his hands. “I did nothing. Perhaps the sprite mistakes me for someone else.”

“Mayhap you are right, sire, but I beg your pardon, anyway.”

She put her ungloved hand on the sprite’s shoulder. “There is one more thing I need to do before we can go. I have to erase your memories of this place so that you aren’t tempted to return.”

“I would not want to come back.”

“Unfortunately, female sprites are programmed to return to their original nesting site when they have their own young, and that wouldn’t be a good thing.”

“You are a soul sucker, then?”

“I’m an empath. I promise I’ll just take what I need and not damage you in any other way.”

“All right, then. Do your worst.”

Ella closed her eyes and concentrated, feeling her way through the young sprite’s memories, cherry picking the references to her nest that started even before her birth. She hesitated, unsure of what to put in their place and Vadim’s thoughts slid into hers. He sent her images of the delta, of small creeks and inlets, covered bank and concealed nesting holes… It took but a second to feed them to the sprite.

Ella let out her breath and carefully extracted herself from the sprite’s mind. “Do you feel all right?”

The sprite blinked. “Yes. I just want to get away from here.”

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