The soul bringer glanced at the plate as if Libby held forth a stew of rusty nuts, bolts and chirping crickets, and he wasn’t certain if one should eat it or build something with it.
Reichardt adjusted his attention toward Vika. “Take off your clothes.”
Sensing Libby’s pout, Vika tugged her shirt over her head again. “The cookies are excellent.”
“I grate chocolate into the mix,” Libby said proudly. “It makes them super chocolaty.”
Dropping her pants about her feet, Vika was thankful she’d worn a bra and panties today. Often, she forwent undergarments, preferring the sensual feel of fabric sliding against her skin. But when on a job, she wore as many layers as possible. Seemed to keep the unclean away for reasons she knew were superficial yet clung to anyway.
“Step back, please,” Reichardt said to Libby, ignoring the proffered treats.
Her sister dutifully complied, though Vika could sense Libby’s dismay at not being able to pawn off a cookie on the man.
Reichardt was a psychopomp, a soul bringer whose only job was to deliver the souls of the recently departed to Above or Beneath. The soul bringer put out his hands before him, palms flat, and drew them over Vika’s body, without touching. He utilized a form of catoptromancy—his silvered eyes were the mirrors—that would draw the wandering souls out of her body. He would pass over her many times, each time drawing up warmth to her skin and then pulling up a tickle as each soul left hers in a sparkle of phosphorescent light and attached to him.
Corpse lights, they were called in that moment of release from a body when they gleamed giddily. Yet they were lost and wandering souls not moved on to either Above or Beneath, usually due to a violent death—and an absent soul bringer.
Vika had a sticky soul, and when out on a cleaning job, she tended to pick up the wandering souls. It wasn’t purposeful; they attached to her for reasons of which she could never be sure. It was a condition she’d become aware of only since taking on the cleaning jobs.
She had developed an agreement with Reichardt years ago. Once a week he scrubbed her of the souls because they did belong to him, and he could not abide losing one. Which served her well because the idea of walking around with dozens of souls clinging to hers was weird. They didn’t hurt her and she didn’t notice their presence, save when they entered her soul or left it.
Feeling one last tickle, Vika let out a sigh as Reichardt stepped away from her. The man nodded, his eyes now closed, as he consumed the souls through his skin.
Vika winked at Libby, who winked back.
The man opened his kaleidoscope eyes, and the blade-sharp look he thrust at Vika made her gasp and press a hand over her lacy black bra.
“One’s missing,” he said in his deep, monotone voice that rattled in Vika’s rib cage.
“Missing? But—”
Oh, hell. The sneeze. She’d actually sneezed out the soul that had attempted to attach to her. How that was possible, she had no idea, but she innately knew that is what had happened earlier.
“I didn’t do it purposefully,” she offered. “It just— You see, I sneezed.”
“I need that soul.”
Vika felt Libby’s arm brush aside hers, joining her ranks in support, the plate of cookies still held in feeble offering.
“You will return it to me by next week’s scrubbing or...” Reichardt paused, bowing and shaking his head as if to lament her stupidity.
Or he’ll kill me? she thought dreadfully, fully expecting such an announcement from so ominous a being.
“I will take your soul in exchange,” he finally announced. With the speed of a homeless thief, the soul bringer nabbed a cookie from Libby’s plate and disappeared.
Libby squealed. “He took a cookie!”
Vika could but shake her head and grab a cookie from the plate herself. But she didn’t take a bite. Instead, she stared at the lumpy brown morsel as if it were her soul, all flattened, cooked and...not in her body.
Bending, she tugged up her pants. “Libby, how am I going to get that soul back? I don’t know where it is. It’s probably floating all over Paris by now. And he’ll know. Reichardt will know exactly which one it is if it isn’t in me next time he visits.” She took a bite of cookie. “Oh, great goddess, this is good.”
“I know, right? It’s the best batch I’ve made so far. I’m thinking