Says the man who doesn’t have to carry him, I grumbled.
You could drag him.
Not if we want any hope of our presence here to remain unknown. The fucking floor is full of grease and muck. And while my footprints would undoubtedly show, at least there was a chance of them not catching anyone’s eye, given that the twisted shifter and who knows what else came through here.
I rose, grabbed the shifter’s hands, then hauled him to his feet with a grunt of effort. After draping his arms around my neck, I knelt in front of him and let his body fall over my shoulder and back. Then I lifted him, holding on to one arm and leg to keep him in place. That done, I turned and headed for the exit.
It felt like I’d run a fucking marathon by the time I reached the loading bay. The shifter might not have been overly tall, but he was thick and muscular, and weighed a goddamn ton. I eased him from my shoulder, then propped him against the roller door and sucked in great gulps of air. When the trembling in my muscles finally eased, I shifted my grip to his arm and let him drop sideways. And, in the process, just about ripped his arm out of its socket. Not that that particularly worried me.
I shoved his upper body through the hole in the roller door, and Azriel dragged the rest of him out. I followed, relieved to be in fresh air again.
I studied the street, making sure no one was paying any particular attention to what we were doing, then knelt on the other side of the prone form. “So, can you read him?”
“Wait.” Azriel closed his eyes and placed two fingers lightly against the shifter’s high forehead. After several moments of silence, he shook his head and glanced at me. “The shifter’s mind is a maze of magic and blocks, and it feels like the work of the Aedh. It has not the feel of dark magic.”
I frowned. “But Lucian’s dead —”
“Yes,” he cut in. “But these creatures were more than likely created by our sorceress while he lived, and the Aedh was more than a little aware of my abilities. He ensured I could not get information from this mind.”
“So I carried this bastard out here for nothing?”
He smiled. “The Aedh was not as clever as he liked to think. There is more than one way to get information from a mind.”
With that, he placed his hands on either side of the shifter’s head and closed his eyes. Almost instantly Valdis’s sides began to glow, showering the immediate darkness with blue sparks. Energy surged, its feel sharp and fierce, and in the space between Azriel’s hands pictures began to flow – flickering images that moved so fast they were little more than blurs of color. The last time I’d seen him do this was when he’d tried to capture the lingering memories from a dead man’s mind. This man was very much alive, and perhaps that was why the images were sharper, faster.
I watched in silence, catching an occasional glimpse of Lauren but little else. After a few minutes, Azriel lowered his hands and leaned back on his heels.
“Well, that was interesting.”
I raised my eyebrows. “In what way?”
“He has only ever dealt with Lauren and Lucien. I could find no indication that there was another party involved in their schemes.”
“Which doesn’t mean there isn’t,” I commented. “Just that he’s been extraordinarily canny about revealing himself.”
“Perhaps.” Azriel’s gaze briefly swept the shifter, and distaste briefly touched his expression. “He was created just over a week ago. His flesh belongs to a drifter but his soul was wrenched from the fires of hell.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
His gaze came to mine. Anger burned deep in those blue depths. “When Lauren creates these creatures, she replaces the original soul with one who is bound by her magic to obey. Her source is hell itself.”
She was dragging souls back from hell? Not just demons, but souls? Holy fucking crap. “So what happens to the original soul? Do they share flesh space?”
“No. It was forced out, so it would have become one of the lost ones.”
A ghost, in other words. Anger surged through me, and Amaya burned to life, her flames shooting fierce lilac streaks through the darkness. Echoing my emotions, as Valdis sometimes echoed Azriel’s.
“How the hell could she do something like that, Azriel? I would have thought only the powers in charge of both heaven and hell were capable of such a feat.”
“It is doubtful she would have attempted drawing souls from the light path, if only because they would not have the level of corruption she seems to require. But the dark path has always allowed access to those with enough power and strength of will.”
“But why? I mean, the gates were created to prevent souls and demons escaping, weren’t they?”
“Yes, but any barrier can be breached. The portals have never been totally impervious. They cannot be, when souls must constantly traverse them.”
“We really do have to catch this bitch,” I muttered, and glanced back at our shifter. “He seemed a whole lot more rational than some of the others we’ve come across.”
“Perhaps Lauren has finally refined her technique.”