Page 17 of Wild Ivy
He chuckles in my head.“And what a perfect time to pass on the mantle.”
“Oh, you are dead. Deader than dead. Do you hear me?” I shriek, slamming my hand into another horrible being.
“This is getting dull.”Another voice echoes in my mind. “Shall we help her out?”
“Oh, please do,” I snarl, kicking out at one not-dead fucker so I can get rid of another. “And who areyou?”
“Mazzarat.” The pissed-off tone makes it clear he knows I called him Mattresshead earlier.
“Well,Mazzarat. How about you give me a hand, and I promise to be the best damn Death any of you have ever seen?”
“Hmm, we’ll see.”He sniffs, still miffed off. “Close your eyes and channel the power in an arc. You don’t need to touch them to bring them back.”
Well. Gee. That was hardly an epiphany. I’d have probably figured that out myself at some point soon. But I don’t bitch, instead, I do as he says, and when I open my eyes, I see the black arc, etched with deep purple, whip around the souls with a lasso. It tightens under my will and draws them kicking and screaming into a huddle in front of me before they fade from existence, disappearing into the void that is me.
Panting and sweating, I bend over, placing my hands on my knees. “That all of them?”
“Yes,” Torin says, looking around.
“No,”Mazzarat says at the same time.“That was only the ones who were here.”
“Fantastic,” I growl.
Torin frowns at me.
“The ex-Deaths say no,” I explain.
“Great,” he mutters, earning himself a death stare from me. Or should that be a Death stare?
I straighten up, still catching my breath. “Okay, so there are more escaped souls out there wreaking havoc. How do I get to them all?”
“How many more?” Bram asks, scanning the trees warily.
I close my eyes, reaching out with my new Death senses. The awareness of souls floods through me. It’s an overwhelming tide of life and death across realities. I grit my teeth, trying to focus just on the escaped ones.
“Too many,” I finally growl. “Hundreds, maybe thousands. They’re scattered everywhere.”
“Shit,” Tate mutters. “We can’t possibly track them all down one by one.”
“No kidding,” I snap. “Any other brilliant observations?”
He glares at me. “I’m just trying to help.”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“We need to figure out how to fix this,” Bram says. “Not just rounding up escaped souls, but the whole fucked up timeline situation.”
“What if instead of you tracking them down, we get the souls to come to you?” Tate asks.
“Oh, the warlock is smart,”Mazzarat pipes up.
I ignore the first Death, not even wanting to contemplate how old he is.
“Great idea in theory, but how do we do that? Not to mention, we still have this other thing to deal with.” I chew my lip, still heartbroken over Ramsey and Josh.
“What if one fixes the other?” Tate starts hesitantly.
All eyes go to him.
