Soul Cage by Phaedra Weldon Read Free Book Online

Born was speaking to Umayma's
First Born, Frejya.
    But Azrael wasn't going to wait. He
had a hand on Jason's shoulder. "What are you doing? Don't you care
about our sister?"
    Jason's eyes refocused but
Mephistopheles remained in control. "Yes I do. But this isn't the
issue."
    "Morgan isn't there ."
    "Morgan and Manuel are the diversion
from something else, Azrael." He smiled at his brother. "If we all
divert our attention toward them, it allows something else to sneak
in. Think about it. There is no reason this should have happened to
Manuel, inside the Society House…"
    "Unless," Nona took up the thought.
"Whatever did it is already here."
    Mephistopheles/Jason pivoted and
nodded to her. "Exactly. I've asked Nick to look at the House
logs—there's really only a few places in this building that aren't
covered by a camera. Manuel was found in one of these
places?"
    Nona nodded.
    "And the last thing Morgan said to me
was that Rhonda was angry."
    "But," Azrael shook his head. "No
witch—not even one as powerful as Rhonda—has the power to do this
to Revenant. Not unless they're using—" His eyes widened.
"Magic."
    Again,
Mephistopheles/Jason nodded. "The spell to destroy us is within
that Grimoire .
And she is the only one who has access to its magic. Perhaps she's
found a way to silence a Revenant."
    "But if she did," Nona said, her mind
working. "Why didn't she use it on you? Or any of the others? Why
Manuel?"
    "I don't know…" he sighed and rubbed
at his chin. "I think it might be that Manuel pushed her too far.
Neither he or Morgan like Rhonda. And given the opportunity, I can
see them backing her into a corner."
    "Not a good idea," Azrael said. "She's
probably the most powerful witch I've ever met."
    Nona smirked. "You really haven't seen
me work, or Joe."
    The Phantasm returned the look. "Joe?
Powerful?"
    "Don't count him out yet."
    "Yeah well…Rhonda's powerful and just
a little bit insane," Jason said, once again in control. He related
to the two of them the things he and Nick discussed with Dags, and
then described again what he saw when Dags manifested the
sword.
    "And the sword had flames," Nona
said.
    "Yes."
    "That's Abysmal. Could mean Maureen's
trying to exert herself finally."
    "Maybe," Jason shivered. "I just can't
see how he can do that, you know? I told him what Rhonda's done.
What she did to him. What she took away from him. And you saw how
he was with her. The woman creeps me the hell out, to quote
Zoë."
    Nona could understand Jason's
inability to understand. In fact, Rhonda creeped a lot of people
out lately. "You have to understand, his memories of Rhonda are
more than likely good ones. In cutting out Zoë, she probably cut
out every bad memory of her as well, as least as well
as…she….could…" her expression relaxed as an eyebrow arched
up.
    "Nona?" Azrael said.
    The answer was right there—given what
Jason described with the sword, and the images Dags had seen. His
commenting about seeing himself with Zoë in his head but not
remembering it. Images of two other women, one younger, one older..
"Could it be that simple?"
    Jason and Azrael were in front of her.
"What?" they said in unison.

    "Memories. Rumors generated by the
memories of others set this off for him. Dags started seeing
himself with Zoë because Rhonda couldn't cut all of those memories
out and risk destroying some of the best memories of she and Dags
together."
    "I'm not following," Jason
said.
    She patted his shoulder.
"Zoë and Rhonda got to know Dags because of the Bonville Grimoire , but it started
off as an investigation into Shadow People."
    "Oh I hate those fuckers. They're like
hobos—" Azrael's eye widened. "I remember that! She wailed the fuck
out of me that night. Shot me all the way back to the
Abysmal."
    "And it was also the case that made
Dags into a Guardian. There are good memories there. And I'm going
to sort of tangent out into thinking—that Maureen's using those
memories to reach out and gain a bit of