cHApTEr 18. rEADy or noT (1 of 3)

“Team Lokiel has scored another soul,” Niles’s voice echoed through the earpiece. “That puts us at sixteen, while team Erinel is still sitting on nine.”

Mioray put on one of the kindest smiles he could manage. He was in the middle of explaining to the soul of another dead person that it was time to move on, and he was trying to make the thought easier to bear. The poor man had been struck by a pedestrian signpost during the meteorite crash and killed instantly. He was still grieving his loss, and Mioray couldn’t bring himself to rush him through it.

Almost an hour had passed since the start of the competition, and Mioray’s team was losing badly. Lokiel’s people were proving just how skilled they were. Since they were used to moving from place to place, helping other greanrips, it showed in the way they handled themselves. The ethical side of it was questionable, but that wasn’t what the competition was about. What mattered was quantity, and at this rate the prospect of catching up looked grim.

The only variable that could change everything was the crater. For now, both teams were searching for souls of the dead in the streets. It was easier to deal with individual souls than with larger groups. Those gathered inside the crater outnumbered them by far, and trying to convince them to cross over could easily stir up chaos. The moment anyone from either team headed for the crater, the others would rush there too. Mioray could already picture the confusion when several people appeared before the souls at once, each trying to persuade them to pass through their own portal.

There was no point in stirring the hive while the wager was still going on. Once it ended, then all of them could join forces and move into the crater. From the Artery office, Kevin was monitoring the situation in the crater. So far, there were no signs of a Soul Collective beginning to form. Some souls were drifting out of the crater and into the streets. That was convenient enough, since Mioray or anyone else could run into them and guide them into the afterlife.

Mioray sighed as he watched the man’s soul slowly step through the portal and pass into the realm between realms. He had spent around fifteen minutes talking to him, and that already felt like too much. That stupid wager had twisted the meaning of guiding souls to the other side. It was a sharp reminder of how differently greanrips saw humans. To them, human souls were something trivial, just checkpoints to be crossed so they could fulfill their duty. Mioray wondered if they even considered the disaster a tragedy, or if, to them, it was merely an unfortunate increase in workload.

“One point for team Erinel. They now have ten!” Niles’s voice announced as the soul Mioray had guided disappeared from view.

The mint-glowing portal shrank and dissolved, but Mioray remained standing in the middle of the street, staring at the spot where it had just been.

What was it that Erinel wanted? What did she actually desire? What could be so important that she was willing to risk losing the Cursed Blade of Avalon over it? Mioray’s blood boiled at not knowing why she had agreed to Lokiel’s proposal. He felt as if he knew nothing about her at all. He had taught her about modern human life, and in return she had only briefly lifted the curtain hiding greanrip culture, while keeping her own life locked away behind metal doors.

What did he really know about her as a person, not just as a greanrip? Erinel was fascinated by alcoholic beverages. She had shown interest in films, and she seemed to enjoy listening to music. She had looked forward to visiting the hot springs.

But was that all she wanted? Or did she have another desire, one no one knew about except Lokiel?

“Two more souls for team Lokiel! It’s now eighteen to ten.”

“Did you hear that, Mioray?” Amika’s voice rushed into his head. “Say, where are you right now? I want to see your face. You must be pretty embarrassed, losing this badly.”

“Oh, come on!” Mioray growled. He broke into a run down the street, searching for souls nearby.

He looked everywhere. Around corners, through rubble, inside the surviving buildings . He was unable to shake the feeling that he was being watched. Through his own eyes, no less. Niles’s ability was one of the strangest he had ever encountered. He could see through the eyes of others, and to do that, he only needed to touch them. Establish a soul link, as he called it.

Good for him.

Mioray had never agreed to share his sight, but Niles had already taken it a couple of weeks ago, without his knowledge or consent. Yes, he swore he didn’t use the ability when he wasn’t nearby, but how much had he really seen?

Mioray closed his eyes, heat rushing to his head. It was wrong on too many levels. It made him feel as though his own eyes were no longer his, as if they were betraying him. At least Niles couldn’t hear through Mioray’s ears, but that was a small comfort. He didn’t need someone else inside him.

Were there limits to Niles’s ability? Could he see through other people’s eyes from any distance? Could he establish a soul link only with other Restored, or with any human being? Mioray kept tormenting himself with these questions, but one thing was certain. Farah was right – once the competition was over, something had to be done about Niles hijacking their sight. Either Niles had to be taken down, or Mioray would have to end himself temporarily. He had to reclaim his own vision from Vision Corpse – a name that suited Niles all too well.

After taking a moment to steady himself, Mioray resumed searching for wandering souls, ignoring the living. He hated the idea of walking past people in need, but that had been the agreement. He helped the living only until the souls appeared, and now that they had, he had a clear task to focus on. And with the competition hanging over them, he didn’t have a minute to spare. A few times the police stopped him, but it was enough to flash the swan badge, and they let him through.

He was hurrying around a corner into another street when he collided with a fair-haired man in a tee and shorts. Both of them fell to the ground.

“I’m sorry!” Mioray said at once, but the man had already scrambled back to his feet and ran off, disappearing almost as abruptly as he had appeared.

Mioray remained sitting on the asphalt, staring after him. For some reason, the man had seized his full attention. What was wrong with him? It took Mioray a moment to realize.

The man’s soul had been flickering green above his head.

Mioray shot to his feet.

Had he just seen another Restored? What was he doing here? Mioray ran after him, but he couldn’t find the man anywhere. He must have slipped away already.

Should I look after him? Mioray wondered. He could fire his arms upward and launch himself above the street, but he hadn’t brought the mask with him. What if people saw him use his power? It was bad enough that Lady Anetta’s Foundation already knew his secret.

Speaking of which…

“Didn’t expect to hear from you this soon, Mioray Meindmy,” Reyna Kayree said through the speaker when he dialed her number. “I thought you’d avoid me for as long as humanly possible.”

“Me too, to be fair,” he said. He saw no point in lying. “But I just saw something weird, and I need your advice.”

“My advice?” Reyna asked, surprised. “That’s unexpected. I’m flattered you already trust me. What do you need?”

“Well, just a minute ago, I ran into a Restored I’d never seen before. At least, I think he was a Restored. I wanted to ask if you know anything about it.”

Reyna Kayree did not reply at once. Mioray had time to glance into another back alley, but it was empty.

“How do you know he’s a Restored?” Her voice sounded tense now.

“Spiritual sight, remember? I saw his soul flickering. It was attached to his body from the outside.”

“It’s that power granted by the greanrips, isn’t it? I still can’t get used to it,” Reyna exhaled heavily. “Alright, this does sound concerning. I’ll send my people to look into it.”

“So you don’t know anything about him?”

“I wish I did, but no.”

“Could the Order of Mercy be involved?” Mioray asked.

“It’s possible, but I haven’t noticed any suspicious activity on their side lately. They’d avoid causing another uproar after last year. Though if an opportunity presented itself, the meteorite crash would be one. Still, the Restored used by the Order of Mercy are barely functional on their own. They need clear commands. I doubt they’d be running around the city without a purpose.”

“The Dismantler would beg to differ.”

“True, though he did have a purpose, didn’t he?” Reyna had a point. “And after what happened with him, I don’t think the Order would want to repeat the same mistake. Anyway, I’ve asked Donavan to look into it. Contact him immediately if you see that Restored again.”

“Alright. You’re the boss.”

Mioray was about to hang up, but Reyna was not finished with him.

“What’s the situation with the souls? Nothing yet about that… Soul Collective, was it?”

“It’s fine. We’re working on it,” Mioray answered quickly. It still felt strange talking to Reyna Kayree about soulwork at all.

It was better if she didn’t know about the wager between Erinel and Lokiel. If she found out, she’d be furious. Mioray kept wandering through the streets, looking for the suspicious man who might have been Restored. The fact that the Order of Mercy’s Restored were different, that they didn’t act of their own free will, was disturbing. They were perfect undead soldiers. Weaponized, just like Natalie had said. Hopefully, Reyna Kayree would win her case and put an end to the Order’s dubious experiments.

That, of course, had been pushed aside for the foreseeable future because of the meteorite strike.

After describing the man’s appearance, Mioray ended the call. The sun was already beginning its descent toward the horizon, but nighttime was still a ways off. Another one of Niles’s announcements came through the earpiece, followed, as always, by Amika’s sneering. The score had already reached twenty-four to twelve. For the time being, Mioray decided to stop looking for the strange man. Maybe he had been wrong about him being Restored. But if he was Restored, where had he come from?

Only one answer came to mind.

Lokiel.

Mioray would not have put it past that greanrip in the emerald tailcoat to keep another undead companion hidden. Why? That was almost beside the point. Most of what Lokiel did seemed detached from ordinary sense. Maybe he had done it so he could guarantee an advantage in the competition.

A secret fifth participant.

But that seemed unlikely. Mioray trusted that Erinel would see through something like that, and Kevin was on guard as well, making sure everything stayed fair and square. He had to trust them and his teammates. But Lokiel? Mioray did not trust him at all. That greanrip was definitely up to something, plotting a way to screw them over, just as he had manipulated Amika into seeking revenge for her husband’s death.

That was why Mioray had contacted Reyna Kayree and no one else. He could have asked Niles whether he had seen that man through Mioray’s eyes, but could he really trust him? He was Lokiel’s companion, after all. He seemed nice enough, almost friendly, but what if that was only an act? What if even the story of his death was a lie? No, until Mioray was certain whom he could trust, he would keep quiet about the mysterious Restored and let DEAD handle it. It was a perfect chance to see what Reyna’s department was actually capable of.

For the next hour, Mioray focused solely on soulwork. He was slowly drawing closer to the crater, and the farther he went, the more the once-familiar streets, once full of life, resembled a vision of post-apocalyptic extinction. Sand and dust covered everything. Cars, streetlamps, and traffic lights lay buried beneath the debris of what had once been buildings. From time to time the wind howled through the ruins, carrying with it the cries of the living and the dead alike.

It would take years to rebuild the city, if it could ever truly be restored to what it had been. Mioray hurried past what used to be the board game shop where he and Chris sometimes went to play. Now it had been reduced to a heap of wreckage, with plastic figurines scattered here and there among the rubble.

The score changed again, widening the gap between the teams even further. Then Mioray’s phone rang. It was Kevin. He braced himself before answering. He had a feeling Kevin wouldn’t be calling to praise him or the team for their performance.

“Look, I’m doing my best!” Mioray blurted out the moment he answered.

“Are you far from the crater?”

“What?” Mioray frowned. That was not what he expected Kevin to say, not at all. He looked toward the jagged wall left by the impact in the distance. “Well… ten minutes away. Why?”

“Make it five. Matt decided to go in. I tried to stop him, but he’s determined. He said there’s no other way to even the score. If he fails – and he will – who knows what might happen.”

Instinctively, Mioray broke into a run toward the crater wall.

“I’ll do my best, but I don’t think I can get there in time.”

“Use your powers. You’ll be faster that way.”

“But what if someone sees me?”

“Don’t be a fool, Mioray!” Kevin shouted into the speaker. “This is not the time to worry about that!”

A sharp signal told Mioray that Kevin had hung up. He cursed under his breath. So much for keeping his identity a secret. Shooting one arm forward, he latched onto a speed limit sign that had somehow survived and launched himself into the air, landing on the third floor of a building whose facade had completely collapsed. He scanned the area quickly, judging whether he could make it to the crater by swinging through the air. The conditions looked favorable. Mioray immediately started crossing the ruined city from building to building, extending his arms and latching onto exposed metal supports. He stopped only once, and that was because he noticed a figure on the road below, dressed in a white sleeveless blouse and loose blue cotton pants.

It was Amika.

A green portal stood open beside her, but the soul of a woman standing there still hesitated to step through. Mioray couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was clear Amika was pressuring her to enter the portal. Then the woman turned away and started walking off, covering her face with her hands.

Before Mioray could even gloat over Amika’s failure, she seized the edges of the portal with her coffee-blonde hair. That in itself was not extraordinary. Mioray had done something similar once during the encounter with the Soul Collective, when he needed to widen the portal so the spiritual beast would fit inside. Amika, however, had no intention of stretching it. She did something far more incredible. She lifted the portal as if it were a physical object and hurled it at the soul of the woman. It was like a magician tossing a cape over an assistant to make them vanish. The cape – or, in this case, the portal – spread across the ground, and when it settled, there was nothing underneath.

A moment later, Niles’s voice came through the earpiece.

“Team Lokiel – thirty-two! Team Erinel – eighteen!”

“Hey, Mioray!” Amika’s voice followed at once as she touched her earpiece to activate it. “Why won’t you just admit you’ve already lost?”

“Amika, what the hell?” Farah shouted. “Stop acting like Mioray is your only opponent!”

The coffee-blonde woman laughed brightly. Mioray felt sick listening to it. He had been right about why Lokiel’s team was so efficient. Their way of guiding souls to the afterlife was revolting. Did they always treat souls like cattle to be herded into a corral with no explanation, no closure? Would Amika want the same done to her if she were a wandering soul? The answer was obvious. Of course she wouldn’t. Mioray certainly wouldn’t.

She kept taunting him through the earpiece, but Mioray ignored her. Amika was too absorbed in it to notice him launching himself toward the crater. The moment he reached the top of the ridge, a basin nearly two kilometers wide opened before him. It was like the maw of some gigantic beast, with the remains of civilization buried in its flesh, drowned beneath a sea of mint-green souls that had stayed inside.

One small cluster of souls stood apart from the rest. The others kept their distance, watching that group with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Some kind of conflict had broken out there. That was where Mioray spotted Matt. Sliding down the ridge, he hurried over to help the boy.

“And why exactly should we believe a kid telling us we’re dead?” a man from the group demanded. He seemed to be wearing a white shirt, though it was mostly mint-green now. He had clearly assumed the role of leader.

“What does me being a kid have to do with anything?” Matt asked, stunned. “I’m telling the truth!”

“Yeah, well, we don’t believe you. What are you going to do about it?”

“What’s going on here?” Mioray asked calmly as he came to a stop beside Matt.

“I was explaining to them about death and the realm between realms, but they won’t listen to me!” Matt protested, one angry tear gathering in the corner of his crystal-blue eye. “I don’t know what else to do, Mioray! Miss Erinel is going to be disappointed!”

“Don’t worry, Matt. It’s not your fault,” Mioray said, patting the boy on the shoulder. Then he stepped forward and fixed his gaze on the man in the white shirt.

“Oh, look, another one joined us,” the man said, folding his arms across his chest. “Are you here to sell us the same load of bullshit?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

Mioray stepped closer and shoved his arm straight into him. As expected, it passed right through the man’s translucent, ethereal body. The man flinched backward, completely unprepared for that.

“What the fuck, dude?!”

Mioray ignored him and looked instead at the other souls standing behind him in a loose group.

“Listen, I understand that all of you are scared and confused, but facts are facts. You just saw my arm pass straight through him, and if that isn’t enough, you can try moving through objects yourselves. There’s a gap in your memory, but there’s a reason for it. The last thing you probably remember before waking up here today was a bright flash, right? It was a meteorite from Mars. Three days ago it struck Reques City and killed thousands. You may think you got lucky and survived, but that isn’t what happened. Look around you. Do you really believe anyone could survive a crash like this, when nothing was left where the meteorite fell?

“I’m sorry it has to be this way,” Mioray went on, noticing that the souls were actually listening to him, “but the truth is that all of you are dead. Even so, death is not the end. My friend and I are guiding people like you to the afterlife. That is where the souls of the dead go, where all your friends and family members who passed away before you have already gone. Of course, you can remain in the world of the living, but I’ve seen what happens to those who do. It doesn’t bring them happiness. It only hurts them. They can’t do anything. They can’t truly take part in life anymore.”

A woman from the group raised her hand timidly.

“Can you show us this afterlife you’re talking about?” she asked once Mioray gave her the floor.

“Of course,” he said with a nod. Then he drew an ellipse in the air, which opened into a portal with a glowing green rim, flickering like tongues of flame.

The souls gathered around the portal, studying it cautiously, asking questions of both Mioray and Matt. After a while, part of the group agreed to step through, while the rest, including the man in the white shirt, remained skeptical. Other souls, who had been watching from a distance, started drifting closer. They saw the portal and the souls passing into it and wanted to know what was going on.

“So you finally grew a pair after pinning that swan badge to your collar, huh?” a voice behind Mioray said brightly. “Do you think this will be enough to win, little bird?”

Mioray sighed and turned around. He already knew who he would see, and he was not mistaken. Amika stood there with her hands on her hips, sizing him up with a grin.

“The score has changed drastically, it’s now thirty-six to thirty-four!” Niles announced.

The score was nearly even, but it was far too early to celebrate. If anything, Mioray had a feeling his team was farther from winning than ever. The souls who had been ready to pass through the portal halted the moment another person appeared – another figure who also seemed to be leading the dead to the afterlife. Shaken and unsteady after learning the truth of their own deaths, they waited to see what would happen next.

Well, next there’ll be a commotion, Mioray thought, exactly as he had expected the moment one of the teams entered the crater.

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