Serpent's Game: The Soul Eater, #5

By Pippa DaCosta

More than darkness...

Reeling from the revelations discovered in Egypt, Ace Dante is on a knife-edge, but the gods aren’t going to wait for him to come to terms with the truth. 

Ancient and deadly beasts straight out of the underworld are targeting Nick “Cujo” Jones and his daughter. There doesn’t seem to be a connection to Ace, until a mysterious and familiar box turns up. A box marked with the snake-headed jackal. And it’s open. 

This time, the gods crossed a line. Ace is done with their puppet-mastery. He’s fighting back. 

But as hidden secrets come to light and Ace’s friendships crumble around him, will he have the strength to fight for what’s right, or will he allow the darkness inside to consume him? 

After all, what is one man’s hope against the will of evil incarnate?

The wildly successful Soul Eater series ups the stakes in the penultimate book, Serpent’s Game. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pippa DaCosta
• Release date: Jul 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781540195937

Pippa DaCosta

Born in Tonbridge, Kent in 1979, Pippa's family moved to the South West of England where she grew up among the dramatic moorland and sweeping coastlands of Devon & Cornwall. With a family history brimming with intrigue, complete with Gypsy angst on one side and Jewish survivors on the other, she draws from a patchwork of ancestry and uses it as the inspiration for her writing. Happily married and the mother of two little girls, she resides on the Devon & Cornwall border. She loves fencing, archery and photography and is also the author of a five book urban fantasy series; The Veil Series. www.theveilseries.co.uk www.pippadacosta.com www.facebook.com/pippadacosta www.pinterest.com/pippadacosta

Book preview

Chapter

1

N

ew

York

.

8.4 million souls.

From my vantage point crouched on the rooftop, I watched those souls flicker and glitter like countless lights scattered across the cityscape. If the rumors about me were true, I held the potential to reach out and capture every single one. Take each immortal soul in my hands and swallow it down. I’d tried it before. And failed. But I hadn’t known who—what I was then. I hadn’t believed.

Apophis. Evil incarnate. It was one thing hearing you were the biggest bad there ever was, but another to believe it. But I did believe. I didn’t have access to those memories or that power, but I believed they were locked inside. A gift to myself. A way to hide in the modern world. And it had worked—until Isis. Now the past was catching up with me, but I was still hiding. Unsure. Waiting.

I wasn’t Apophis yet, but the truth slumbered within like the old gods, and that made me dangerous.

Movement down on the street caught my eye. A man sauntered through the late evening crowd, collar up, chin tucked against his chest, pace brisk.

I straightened and walked along the roof, keeping him in my sights.

He jogged across a side street, weaving through stationary traffic. The glance over his shoulder sealed it. I got a look at his face, tight with concern and guilt, but in his eyes, a glimmer of truth exposed him. Joseph Aaron, fresh out of prison where he’d learned a few new magic tricks, like how to siphon magic and hoard power. Most witches worked in covens, but not him. Joe was a loner and up to trouble.

I tapped my earpiece, waking it up. "I’ve

got

him

."

Where’s he heading? Cujo’s small, disembodied voice

came

back

.

"East Sixty-eighth. Looks

like

home

."

As Joe turned left below, I followed my rooftop path and took a running leap over an alley to the next building, keeping Joe’s hasty getaway on my right. He had no idea a monster watched him. I almost felt sorry for what was about to happen. Almost. He’d stolen magic and used it to manipulate people around him. If he wasn’t careful, worse things than me would come after him—things that would use his stolen, compromised magic against him and against innocent people who didn’t know about gods and monsters.

Joe stopped beneath a spindly tree and broken streetlight, looked around him to check he was alone, and dug into his pocket, probably for a cell phone. He should have been heading straight back to his apartment. Something had spooked him.

Likely

me

.

Ace? Cujo grumbled in my ear. Remember what we talked about?

I’m good. I stepped up to the edge of

the

roof

.

"We both know that’s

a

lie

."

I chuckled at the sour note in my friend’s voice and stepped off the edge. Five stories sailed by. I landed in a crouch, feeling the impact through my bones but riding it out. Joe spun and watched me straighten, watched me lift my eyes to his. Alysdair hummed melodically against my back, ever hungry. My duster coat—the second in recent months—had gained a few new battle scars. I knew the picture I painted, as did most who followed the urban legend of the Nameless One. He recognized who I was, but he couldn’t know what

I

was

.

He flung his cell at me—the only thing he had in his hand. I leaned sideways, and it flew right past and shattered against the wall

behind

me

.

I hope that wasn’t the latest model? I asked. He had more magic than most people in this city, but he’d thrown his phone at me? I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I stepped forward.

Joe cowered back. Wait. His bottom lip quivered. "I don’t have any cash. Don’t

hurt

me

."

His clothes were tatty, and his chin was a mass of whiskers. Everything about him screamed that life could have been kinder, but the truth was in his eyes… and his soul, which slithered and knotted inside him like a bucket full of eels. Didn’t anyone ever tell you you can’t lie to a soul eater?

He knew then that his act was pointless, and from one blink to the next, his vagrant act peeled apart. His glamor dissipated in a fine mist, revealing the sharply dressed, keen-eyed man beneath. His fear had vanished, replaced by an aura of smugness and a sharp smile on an even sharper face. He lifted his

right

hand

.

"Catch me if

you

can

."

With a click of his fingers, he vanished. Gone. Or so it would seem. But I was aware of his MO. I’d been watching him since Cujo tipped me off about the jewel and fine arts thief who disappeared in front of security cameras.

He hadn’t chosen the spot beneath the broken streetlight by chance.

At my feet, where the tree branches cast skeletal shadows, those shadows rippled like a sheet lifting around something hidden beneath. I watched him sneak off inside those shadows. Hiding in shadows was a hard trick to

pull

off

.

The thing about borrowed magic is, I said as I followed the shadows as they stretched and bled into each other, it’ll never be as strong as soul-born magic. The second you severed it from its source, it was compromised.

The shadow crawled up a wall and around a corner into a quiet, leafy residential street. The first streetlight popped and died, and the shadows continued

to

move

.

So when someone like me comes along, I continued, striding alongside the shadow, "it’s almost too easy to take

it

back

."

I plunged my hand into the shadow, appearing to bury my arm up to the elbow in the wall. Joe’s slithering presence recoiled, but I was done playing games with this fool. I yanked him free from his hidey-hole and slammed him against the wall. Something cracked. Pain flitted across his eyes. He wasn’t

smiling

now

.

"There’s a saying from the old world. A serpent’s game is a long one. I don’t expect you to understand, so let me lay it out for you. If you want to play the long con, you’ll have to play it day and night. You commit to it until it becomes part of who you are. Until the lie becomes truth. You’re a two-bit player and your game is over. Didn’t it ever occur to you that something might come looking for the magic you stole? I leaned in and let him get a good look at my eyes. Whatever he saw widened his gaze until tears swam in his vision. My grip tightened on his neck, choking him. There are worse things out there. Things you could only imagine come from nightmares. His soul recoiled as I rooted around inside the man’s eternal life force because he needed to understand. This isn’t a game. This magic isn’t your ticket to whatever you think you deserve. It’s your death looking you in

the

eye

."

Ace… Cujo queried from so very

far

away

.

I ignored him as easily as I’d ignore

a

fly

.

You have no idea about the creatures that will gladly sup on your soul as though it were nothing but a delicious treat before the main feast.

Joe’s eyelids fluttered and his pupils widened, allowing me to delve deeper. He had no defense, no means to stop me. His hoard of borrowed magic and its tricks weren’t enough. I tilted my head as I studied the things I found inside this mortal man. Dashed dreams. Lives ended by his hand. Not just a jewel and magic thief, but a coldhearted

killer

too

.

We’re the same, you and I. My voice had taken on an edge and an accent laden with the old world and the old language, with sand and smoke. The edges curled and flicked and burned.

This killer’s soul

was

mine

.

Something bright white and barbed snapped up my left arm, through my shoulder, and struck somewhere in my chest. I recognized it as pain, but I didn’t feel it

as

such

.

Ace, you sonofabitch, don’t make me wheel my ass down there!

Cujo’s voice joined that detached pain and pulled me back from the brink, back into my skin. Shock did the rest. I dropped Joe and forced myself back three steps, almost stumbling into the street. The magic thief spluttered and wheezed on his knees, drawing in breaths like they were

his

last

.

I lifted my left hand. The sleeve fell, revealing the slave cuff beneath. It glinted under the pale light. A reminder. A precaution. It had worked.

Cops inbound, Cujo barked. "Get your ass out of

there

.

Now

!"

I locked glares with the wan-faced Joe and narrowed my eyes. "Your trinkets and jewels were either destroyed or returned to their original owners. Mark my words, thief. I know you, and I will find you. I suggest you

try

to

—

"

The gun was unexpected. So was the shot. But there it was, in his hand, and there I was, turning into the kind of hungry shadow that made his look like mist. My smoke and ash were made of the things he called nightmares. I didn’t speak the words, didn’t judge him. I just swallowed his soul in one satisfying embrace.

"Daquir," I whispered, twisting now-human lips around the word and turning Joe’s remains to dust, scattering the thief and killer into New York’s diesel-

tainted

wind

.

By the time the cops rounded the corner, sirens wailing, I was a block away, collar up. I hid the sword at my back and strode into the late evening flow of people with a sated smile on

my

lips

.

Chapter

2

Cujo maneuvered his wheelchair across my apartment bedroom and living area to where I’d slumped in a chair by my desk. He navigated like he rode on rails, grabbed at my left arm, and shoved the

sleeve

back

.

Did it work? he demanded. The slave cuff was still there, just like I’d told him on the phone, but it only worked as much as I

allowed

it

.

I pulled my sleeve down, covering the cuff, and winced at the fire in my side. The magic thief’s bullet had grazed my ribs just under my arm. It had left a messy, ragged wound, but nothing I couldn’t shrug off after a few

hours

’

rest

.

It worked.

He’d stopped trusting me around the time I lied to him about Thoth using him as leverage against me. Cujo didn’t know I’d killed the god to keep him safe (among other reasons), but he sensed something wasn’t right. Then, three weeks ago, I’d turned up on his doorstep, shoved a slave cuff in his face (the one now sitting pretty on my wrist), and demanded he help me by occasionally zapping me with some mojo should I get frisky. A month before that, I’d called him and told him to pack a bag if I didn’t return from Osiris’s. Right after, I’d promptly vanished for thirty nights. The bastard hadn’t packed a bag, and he hadn’t left the city. He’d known Osiris had me, and on my return, he’d said something along the lines of, Decent folks don’t abandon their friends.

Now, he looked at me like I was a kid he’d dragged off the street for the third time, like we both knew where I’d end up. He sighed and ran a hand through his graying jaw-length hair. "I don’t know what to do

with

you

."

Coming from anyone else that comment would have been laughable. I was a few thousand years old and here was a wheelchair-bound mortal berating me with

his

eyes

.

You can’t keep delivering justice like some righteous vigilante on a personal crusade, Cujo went on. "You were supposed to scare him, then let the first responders

arrest

him

."

Technically, I had scared him, but then I’d eaten him. Do you think the NYPD could handle a magic thief?

He should have been arrested, charged, and tried in a court of law. That’s how the system works. Innocent until proven guilty. He had rights. Cujo stopped, jaw working around all the other things he wanted to say but couldn’t. For the first time, I saw a narrow glint of fear in my friend’s eyes. "You agreed that’s how this would work. Innocent until proven guilty, right? I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You of all people should

know

it

."

He was guilty. Cujo turned his back on me and wheeled away. His soul was black, I added. "You can’t get more guilty

than

that

."

Isn’t there always the chance of redemption? Look at you. Your soul is black and here you are, supposedly fighting the good fight. By your reckoning, you should be judged and condemned.

He was right, more right than he could know. If he truly understood the monster who stood before him, he’d shoot me between the eyes without a moment’s hesitation. Cujo was a good man, and good men knew when to do the right thing.

The guy was a killer, I said, quieter. The detour this conversation had taken stirred up the unknown parts in me, the fears and truths I didn’t want to acknowledge. "It’s done. Let’s

move

on

—

"

So you judged him and devoured him? Is that how this works? You’re the judge, jury, and executioner?

‘My rightful place as Devourer alongside Anubis in the weighing chambers?’

‘Oh no, dear monster, that is not who you are.’ Isis’s words drifted back to me on memories that smelled of baked rock and ash. The Bitch Goddess, as Shukra often called her, had been right. Devouring was a hobby, something I happened to be good at, but it wasn’t all I was. Not a god, but something worse. Something older and primal.

I studied the black window instead of looking at my friend, unable to bear his gaze. I’d deliberately kept Cujo at arm’s length since meeting him. When Shu and I had the investigation business, I’d called on him for favors, telling him only the necessary details. He already knew too much. Maybe he was in too deep, but it was my job to keep

him

safe

.

I shouldn’t have come back. Ace Dante is

a

lie

.

I shoved from the chair, ignoring my protesting muscles, and dug a bottle of vodka out of the desk drawer. "Executioner, huh? Who have you been

talking

to

?"

I’d guessed the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him. There was only one demon sorceress I knew who routinely threw the executioner word around.

I poured vodka into a tumbler, capped the bottle, and turned to find Cujo scowling at me from his chair. He had the kind of scowl that frightened rookie cops into believing he was the department dinosaur—one with teeth and claws.

Shu, he admitted.

Shukra. My cursed demon counterpart and the woman who’d been spying on me for Osiris. I’d fired her right before Osiris summoned me and tried to trap me inside a sarcophagus. I hadn’t seen her since, but she could never