Chapter 6

”…in my twenty years of studying human and fae behavior and patterns, in both natural and controlled environments, I’ve begun to identify the traits associated with various soul-shades. Though much research is still needed, I’ve determined the most common shades are the primary colors.”

-Excerpt from the personal journal of Dr. Claude Foster, Director of Faeology at Mesmeric Labs

FANTASIA

Iscan the Phantom, trying to interpret his intentions.

Soul-seer.

The word rings in my head.

Is that what I am? There’s a name for me? Are there more like me?

My father told me that the ability to see soul-shades was a gift to be cherished. Something secret—special. But after his murder, I tried to stop paying attention to it. At first, this was nearly impossible. Everyone has a fog of color surrounding their body. They come in all hues—bright and dark, weak and strong. After a while, I suppose I grew desensitized to seeing them. A soul-shade is a part of everyone—an extension of them. Like an arm or a leg. Except for big crowds or extremely vibrant hues, I’m fairly good at ignoring them.

But a gift, my ass.

My stomach rumbles, and I sigh. On instinct, I reach for my phone and am surprised when my fingers brush against the device. I tug it out, looking at the time. A few hours have passed since I started chasing after the patrons—the now likely dead patrons, if the Reaper finished what he started.

The bar’s closed.

I have missed calls from both Mellie and Reed. My finger hovers over the latter’s name, until I realize I have no service here.

Wherever here is.

“I really don’t feel like talking. Can I get out of here now? I’m hungry and tired.” And for a gang leader, you’re not that frightening, I want to add, because part of me finds it entertaining to irritate him. But it’s best not to press my luck.

He drags his gaze to the knife still in my hand, then lifts a brow and raises his hands placatingly. “It’s a friendly conversation, I assure you. If you don’t mind—” He mimics throwing the blade on the ground.

“No.” I hit the button on the knife’s handle, flipping it shut, and then tuck it into my back pocket. “I’m keeping this.” With my other hand, I pull out my phone and quickly find an app for recording. I hit a button, and it beeps with confirmation. “And I’m recording this conversation. If anything happens to me, I want them to know it was you, the fucking Phantom of the Nightcrawlers—Packing District, Southside.”

His lips quirk. “If I did something to you, don’t you think I’d dispose of the evidence, too?”

I see the illogic behind my tactic, but I don’t care. Like I told him, I’m tired. It’s been a helluva day, and I want this to be over with.

On cue, my stomach rumbles again.

His eyebrows rise. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crinkled, flattened protein bar. It looks as if it’s lived in his pocket for some time, has been sat on a few times too many. He hands it to me, and I hesitantly accept.

“I’m not thanking you for this.”

“Fine. Okay.” Laughing, he shakes his head as I peel open the wrapper and devour the whole bar in two massive bites.

I swallow and wipe my mouth.

“You’re a shitty gang leader. Giving me a weapon and feeding me.”

His answering smile is subtle—shy almost. My stomach dips, and I scowl.

“I only brought you here to offer you an opportunity.” My ears perk up when he says, “A paid opportunity, Fantasia.”

I swipe my clammy hands on the front of my jeans. “It’s Tasia.”

“Okay. Let the record state that you, Tasia, are a soul-seer. A human one, at that. Which is—”

“Wait!” I growl at him as my thumb fumbles to stop the recording. If something does happen to me—although if he were going to harm me, he probably already would’ve—I don’t want anyone knowing about my unwelcome ability. The one I should not have. I shove my phone into my pocket. “You were saying?”

He crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow. “I need your help.”

“Doing what?”

“Like I said, you can see the Reaper. And you mentioned the mens’ auras tonight.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking about my parents. “They had grey soul-shades.”

“And that’s abnormal?”

My eyes fly open. “I thought you could see them too,” I say accusingly.

He strokes his chin, glancing at the door, then back at me. “I can sense impending death another way.”

The fist around my heart tightens. “How?”

He taps his nose. “Scent.”

“So…you’re a soul-sniffer?”

The Phantom frowns at me. “No. Is grey an abnormal color?”

“Yes,” I say. “A colorless aura would indicate a soul is preparing to leave its body.” Colorless. The grey appearance, the absence of color, indicates a soul on the verge of fading away. “But those men were alive.”

The Phantom runs a hand through his hair, pacing the small space.

“And you can see all soul-shades?”

“Yes.” I’ve never noticed a person who didn’t have one.

“I need to find the Reaper. If he’s feeding on people close to death, we can find anyone with a grey soul-shade—”

“You can save them?”

“—and lure him in. You are the perfect person to assist me. This opportunity, if you choose to accept, will be on a need-to-know basis.”

“Wait.” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear and ponder his words. “I haven’t accepted shit yet. And I want answers before I entertain whatever your offer is.”

“You didn’t let me finish.” Halting in place, he turns and smiles widely at me, and it’s so charming, so disarming, that it’s hard to believe he’s a kidnapping asshole. “You don’t need all the information, but I will give you this.” He reaches up to scratch the back of his head, and my stomach tightens when I get a glimpse of a tattoo on his right forearm—intertwined vines and flowers in dark ink etched into his deeply tanned skin. “I have reason to believe the recent string of deaths around the Packing District has been caused by something unnatural. I believe something else is going on.”

My attention snaps back to his face. “Why do you care?” I ask skeptically.

“I care about the city.”

I snort. “If it weren’t for you and your little worm minions—”

“Worm minions?” he asks, face scrunched.

“If it weren’t for you guys, the city would be in fine order. It’s your fault we’ve had an uptick in crime. First the dreamdust. Now the—”

“What do you know about the dust?” he asks, eyes narrowed and voice cold. He steps closer, and I instinctively back up until I hit the wall.

“It’s your fault for the mass addictions that killed thousands.” The Nightcrawlers were the ones responsible for creating and distributing the drug—all for profit.

The Phantom pauses, his jaw going slack before he clenches it tightly and shakes his head. He turns toward the brick wall, letting out a huff of disbelief.

When he finally speaks, all he says is, “Wrong.”

“The details don’t matter. If it weren’t for the Nightcrawlers, the Silver Scouts wouldn’t need to have such a massive presence.” My parents might never have died. And I wouldn’t live in constant fear of my own stupid ability.

The Phantom looks much too young to have been in a leadership position all those years ago, when the dust first hit the streets, but it doesn’t matter. Whether it was him or someone else, the Nightcrawlers are all the same to me. Selfish, uncivil instigators of mayhem.

The air leaves his lungs in a long, slow whoosh as he turns to face me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So you’re a law-abiding citizen?”

His mouth opens, and then he clamps it shut, fury blazing in his eyes. “We have more important things to discuss than my civil disobedience to a corrupt political system that takes advantage of the working class.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“We have more important things.” Cracking his knuckles, he says, “The Reaper is a type of fae meant to ferry souls to their final resting place. However, I have a working theory that he’s consuming souls for power rather than releasing them as he should.”

My skin prickles. “Releasing them where?”

He holds up a hand. “Beyond.”

“Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated.”

“It isn’t sarcasm. And the minor details don’t matter.”

“They do to me.”

“Simply put, when you die, you’re dead for good. Your soul is no longer identifiably human. It’s more…energy than anything else. And it settles back into nature.”

“How the hell do you know this?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

I grit my teeth. “So you think the Reaper is behind the deaths?”

“I don’t know—reaper fae can only consume the souls of those who have died.”

“Wait…” The gears in my mind spin. “Those men—they were alive when the Reaper took their souls. So how is that possible?”

“I don’t know.” The Phantom runs a hand over his face, and the sight of his skull tattoo reminds me of who I’m in cahoots with currently. “I was wondering how he was able to consume a living soul, too.”

“I’ve only seen grey soul-shades around people who are…no longer living.”

“Which leads me to believe that something—or someone—is causing peoples’ souls to die before their body does.”

“How?” I whisper, shivering at the implication.

“It’s too coincidental that he is simply in the right place at the right time,” the Phantom mutters, more to himself than to me. “I believe their deaths were unnatural. I can sense death. And you can see it.” A beep comes from his pants. Sighing, he pulls his phone out. His eyes dart across the screen before he stuffs the phone back into his pocket.

My blood pounds in my skull. This is an opportunity for me to get some answers, to find out more about what happened to my parents. I work to stay collected so he won’t pick up on my excitement and take advantage of it. Right now, he needs me. I have the upper hand, and I would like to keep it that way.

“Wait—how the hell do you have service down here?” I snap.

“Jammer.” He points to the pocket where my phone sits. “Blocks your service. Doesn’t affect my phone.”

“You can’t keep me down here forever.”

“No,” he agrees, squinting at me.

“So, what, you want me to find people with grey soul-shades and bring them to you before the Reaper gets them or something?”

His jaw tenses as he levels me with a piercing stare. “Not exactly.”

“You can sense them, too. Why don’t you do this yourself?”

Hesitating for a moment, he runs a hand over his jaw. “I juggle a few…operations. I don’t have time to stalk people all day on a whim.”

I scoff. “And you think I do?”

“That’s what you were doing when I found you. Was it not?”

“I was trying to work,” I say through gritted teeth.

“And how much does this job of yours pay? A thousand silvers a week?”

Less.

Way less.

I think of Fredrik’s lack of a tip, of how I’m lucky if I’ve walked away with five hundred silvers by the end of each week.

“Something like that,” I grumble.

“I’ll double it.”

My heart trips over itself. “Two thousand silvers? Per week?” I’m surprised my tone comes out steady when my insides are wobbling.

He frowns. “Is that not enough? Three thousand?”

“Th-three thousand?” This time I fail at keeping composed. My eyes widen, and I stutter. “That’s…that’s a big chunk of change.”

He smirks. “So you’ll do it?”

“I didn’t say that.” I pause, chewing on the inside of my cheek.

Three thousand silvers is a life-changing sum of money. Might not afford me Sweetcreek real estate, but it’s more than enough to get my own apartment in the Packing District.

But what would I do when the job ended and the money ran out? It sounds like I won’t be able to keep my bartending job while searching for grey soul-shades. And I know Jeremiah well; I doubt he would take me back if I up and quit on him.

After the Phantom is finished with me, I’ll be forced back into poverty, without my job at The Rising Star to fall back on.

There’s no way I can risk that.

But then I think of my parents…

My lungs constrict.

As much as I loathe the gift my father gave me, I did love him fiercely. The loss of my parents left a gaping hole in my life—one I’ve never been able to come to terms with.

Mostly, it’s the lack of answers surrounding their deaths that plagues me. And I also don’t get why my father injected me with artificial magic at all.

For a long time, I figured his execution was related to that. But if that was the case, I’d be dead, too.

Right?

I don’t like the way the Phantom knocked me out and dragged me down here—even if it was to protect me from the Reaper—nor do I love how his crony tied me up. I’m not ready to team up with this gangster and get involved with the city’s criminal underworld. Most of all, the prospect of purposely acknowledging my ability terrifies me.

“No,” I finally say. “I just—I can’t do it.”

I’d rather go back to my job at the bar, pretend like today never happened, and move on with my life.

“All right.”

My body goes still. I’m surprised he agreed so easily. “That’s it?”

He grins at me, scooping up his leather jacket and effortlessly slipping it on as he strides toward the door. “It is. Go home. Think about it.”

His knuckles rap out a quick rhythm on the door, and it creaks open. The Phantom nods at whoever’s on the other side, then gestures for me.

My feet are like cement blocks, refusing to move. “Aren’t you gonna bag me or something first?”

He gives me a quizzical look as he runs his fingers through his hair. “Bag you?”

“You know”—I gesture toward my face—“throw a black bag on my face so I can’t see your headquarters.”

When he laughs, it’s rich and hearty. “You mean hood? It’s a hood, not a bag. And no. These aren’t our headquarters. Just a connection of old tunnels beneath the city.”

“Oh,” I say lamely. “Okay then.”

“You have a healthy imagination.”

“Maybe you’re just a shitty gangster.” I shrug a shoulder.

He gives me a charming, amused smile, and my stomach twists. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you home so you can eat and think about my offer.”

Finally, my feet follow my brain’s instructions and begin moving.

“Oh, and don’t you have a boyfriend looking for you?” he asks.

My cheeks flush as he throws my words back at me.

“Yes. Reed,” I mutter.

Other than when I first woke up down here, I haven’t thought about Reed. And when the Phantom offered me that large sum of money, I definitely didn’t think about the future it could afford me and Reed.

Because we don’t have a future.

There’s no guilt, no sadness with that realization. It’s the brutal truth. We’ve remained with each other out of convenience—neither having a good enough reason to end things. Sometimes having someone is better than having no one, even though I’ve never fully let him in.

The Phantom leads me through the snaking tunnels, up a rickety set of stairs, and to another door. He opens it and steps aside, gesturing for me to pass. The soft glow of a streetlamp spills in, along with a blast of humid air.

Finally, an exit.

My shoulder brushes his chest as I step past him, and I jerk away. My eyes lock onto his jacket. He looks stupid wearing that in this heat.

Sexy, but stupid.

I shake the thought away.

“I’ll check in on you soon. See if you changed your mind.”

“Don’t bother,” I mutter.

“See you soon, Tasia,” he whispers with a chuckle.

As I step out into the swampy air of the street, the hum of a slumbering night greets me. I turn to ask the Phantom one last question. But only a ruddy, weathered brick wall stands behind me, no door—or man—in sight.

Blinking a few times in confusion, I reach out a hand and run it along the wall, searching for a seam or a knob. Within the textured ridges of the brick, I find no cracks or hinges indicative of an entrance.

Dread fills me.

That’show they’ve evaded the Silver Scouts so long. They have magic. But how? The Phantom has a soul-shade. He’s human. He doesn’t have the brutal, ethereal beauty I’ve heard fae possess. He’s certainly attractive—but in an entirely human way.

Then again, I’m human and possess magic.

I have a sudden memory of my father coming home from work frazzled, his lab coat in disarray as he squatted down beside me and told me everything was going to be okay.

The softness of his words were at odds with the sharp needle as he pricked my arm, injecting me with something.

My chest grows hollow with grief. Even after all this time, I miss him.

Frowning, I shoot one last glance back at the wall before striding down the street toward my apartment, trying to shake the new fear settling deep in my bones.