Resurrection reprise a s.., p.1
Resurrection Reprise: A Soulbound Universe Novel, page 1
RESURRECTION REPRISE
A SOULBOUND UNIVERSE NOVEL
HAILEY TURNER
© 2023 by Hailey Turner
All Rights Reserved
Cover design by James T. Egan, www.bookflydesign.com
Professional Beta Reading by Leslie Copeland.
Sensitivity reading by Julie Kinney.
Developmental Editing by Mackenzie Walton.
Edited by One Love Editing.
Proofing by Lori Parks: lp.nerdproblems@gmail.com
Proofing by M.A. Hinkle.
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WELCOME TO THE WORLDS OF HAILEY TURNER
Urban Fantasy
Soulbound
Science Fiction Romance
Metahuman Files
Steampunk-inspired Epic Fantasy
Infernal War Saga
To May Archer
You know why.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Glossary
Author’s Notes
About the Author
Other Works By Hailey Turner
CHAPTER ONE
Spencer Bailey was many things—mage, former special agent at the Preternatural Intelligence Agency, caffeine addict, single—but he was not a morning person. That didn’t mean he was allowed to sleep in. While most people could hit snooze on their alarm and roll over, Spencer’s alarm weighed about twenty-five pounds when she deigned to and more when she wanted to make a point.
Like right now.
“Oof,” Spencer grunted, cracking open one eye to glare blearily at the ocelot who’d jumped onto his torso like she was trying to give him CPR. “Seriously, why?”
Fatima stuck her wet nose against his cheek, whiskers tickling his face. Get up. I am hungry.
Spencer turned his head into the pillow and squeezed his eyes shut. “No, I was sleeping.”
You will be late, and I will bite you.
Spencer opened both eyes to glare at her. “Do fucking not.”
Then get up.
Fatima sat up, her hindquarters settling on his stomach, forepaws resting on his sternum. One ear twitched toward the hotel room door, but Spencer didn’t hear anyone out in the hallway. He’d laid down a warning spell last night after he’d checked in late from a cross-country flight to Washington, DC, and a quick internal check told him nothing and no one had messed with it. If they had, Fatima would’ve warned him of their intent well before they reached the room. Psychopomps were talented that way, as she routinely liked to remind him.
She lifted a paw and set it over his mouth, forcing Spencer to wrangle a hand free of the blanket to bat it off his face. “Gross. I don’t know where you’ve been walking.”
Right beside you, like always. But we could be walking to breakfast, and I could be having bacon if you were not lazy.
“You don’t even need to eat,” Spencer grumbled. “You’re a spirit guide. Where does the food even go?”
It was an old argument that was mostly one-sided because Fatima never bothered to answer him. She swatted him gently upside his head with one paw. Up. She will be here soon.
Fatima dug her paws into his chest and launched herself off him and landed on the hotel room floor. Spencer grunted at the force of her leaving. He rolled onto his side to grab his cell phone from the nightstand. The clock indicated that, yes, he was going to be late for his day of government meetings if he didn’t get moving.
Groaning, Spencer dragged himself out of bed and to the shower, feeling bleary-eyed even after he’d cleaned up and got dressed for the day. For all that Fatima was a spirit guide and could perform amazing feats when it came to souls, she couldn’t make a pot of coffee to save his life.
He was contemplating the instant coffee pack on the desk when someone knocked on the door. Fatima barely flicked her tail from her spot on the unmade bed as Spencer went to answer it. He knew who was on the other side, the familiar presence of Special Agent Nadine Mulroney from the Preternatural Intelligence Agency seeping through his magic as a comfortable eddy in his soul.
“Hey,” Spencer said in greeting, eyeing Nadine where she stood in the hallway.
She quirked a smile at him, makeup immaculate as always, dressed in a navy blue sheath dress beneath a wool coat and a pair of Louboutins that Spencer was pretty sure he’d bought her as an apology gift some years ago. He’d been the catalyst for quite a few of her ruined outfits throughout the near decade and a half of knowing each other. While their romantic relationship might have fizzled in their twenties, they’d remained friends—sometimes friends with benefits when the mood struck them and they each weren’t in a relationship—and Nadine was the closest thing to family he had these days, despite him residing on the West Coast of the United States and she in Paris, France.
“I see Fatima managed to get you up with mere seconds to spare,” Nadine drawled as he stepped aside so she could enter the hotel room.
“She wants bacon.”
“Of course she does.” Nadine leaned in to kiss the air on either side of his cheek, her typical greeting, before pulling back. She studied him through narrowed brown eyes for a moment before snorting delicately. “And those circles under your eyes mean you need coffee. Get your shoes on. I’m taking you both to breakfast.”
Spencer wasn’t going to pass up a free meal and did as he was told. The dress shoes he’d brought with him from his stopover in San Francisco were brand-new and pinched his toes, but there was nothing to be done for that except walk it off. His charcoal-gray business suit was a little wrinkled from travel; nothing a bit of magic wouldn’t fix, which Nadine handled for him.
Pale violet magic flickered over him, smoothing out the lines of his outfit. Spencer ran a hand through his hair before spreading his arms. The pull of his shoulder harness and holster beneath his suit jacket was familiar, while the brand-new badge tucked away in his back pocket wasn’t what he was used to yet. “Do I pass muster?”
“For now.” Nadine glanced over at Fatima lounging on the bed. “Ready?”
Yes, Fatima said.
Spencer heard her voice in his head, clear and distinct, while he knew almost everyone else only heard the typical growls, chirps, and hisses of an ocelot. Psychopomps chose a single person to manifest for and communicate with. Fatima had chosen him when he’d been four years old and living somewhere in the Midwest with his biological family. They’d gladly given him up to government care once it became clear he was a mage with a particular type of magic that could’ve been a death sentence if it was a shade further down the necromantic scale. Still, a legal battle had been fought over his life, and this was the result—government oversight for his entire life. Complaining wouldn’t change anything and hadn’t.
They left the hotel room, and Spencer let Nadine lead the way to breakfast. He’d been put up at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill on the government’s tab, but Nadine bypassed the on-site restaurant in favor of a short walk to the Dubliner Restaurant. The place was occupied by more business-type people than tourists, but he knew that would change once summer came around. It was barely spring at the moment, and the chill in the air was a reminder of that.
They were seated almost immediately, with the hostess ignoring Fatima entirely as if the psychopomp wasn’t even there. Which, to everyone around them, was definitely the case. Fatima could hide her presence when she wanted to. Fatima hopped onto the booth’s bench and settled on the plastic cushion, tail wrapped around her paws as she poked her nose at the condiments.
“Don’t lick the bottles,” Spencer warned.
Fatima ignored him. Get me bacon.
Their waitress came by a few minutes later for their orders, not batting an eye at Spencer’s request for three sides of bacon. She left and returned with their coffee. He fell on the mug like a dying man, doctoring it with enough cream and sugar to cause Nadine to roll her eyes at him. “Glad to see your taste buds haven’t changed in your old age.”
“I’m thirty-three, not old,” Spencer muttered against the rim of his coffee mug before he swallowed a mouthful of sweet, sweet sanity.
“You’re something.”
Nadine was smiling as she spoke, a gentle sort of humor in her eyes. Spencer snorted at her teasing but knew she didn’t mean anything cruel by it. She’d been his staunchest supporter when they’d both been in the PIA, having pestered him to join the agency after they both declined to re-up with the Mage Corps. His choices had been limited at the time, but the PIA had been an option, one he’d ultimately taken. Nadine had climbed the ranks since then, making a name for herself in Europe, while S
His kind of magic came with a lot of baggage and a lot of restrictions. The sheer fucking mess that had led up to the fight at the end of the world hadn’t endeared him to his superiors or Congress. Spencer had been placed on paid administrative leave for nearly a year after everything happened in New York City, spending more time in his apartment in San Francisco than he ever had before.
It hadn’t been a surprise when PIA Director Cornell Franklin finally bowed to congressional pressure and removed Spencer from active field duty. It meant he could no longer handle cases outside the country’s borders, keeping him from putting the United States into a sticky political situation with a foreign country. Government oversight at its finest.
Necromancy was illegal in every country on Earth, and Spencer’s magic was too close to that kind for people to ignore. No matter how many times he said he put the dead to rest, he didn’t raise them, all anyone could focus on was his affinity with the dead. That was something he couldn’t change, but he could change jobs.
PIA Director Franklin had accepted Spencer’s resignation and hadn’t impeded his hiring by the Supernatural Operations Agency. Spencer hated starting all over again in his career, but the PIA had become a dead end, and the SOA handled domestic supernatural cases. Congress hadn’t wanted him to leave the country, but they’d said nothing about crossing state borders. So here he was, in Washington, DC, a few hours away from officially starting after twenty weeks of training because Spencer’s choices were working for the government or having his passport confiscated and being perpetually under surveillance.
“You’ll be fine. The SOA is doing a lot better now that the Dominion Sect is no longer a force to be reckoned with,” Nadine said.
“I’m not worried about being unable to do the job. I would’ve just liked a choice in taking it,” Spencer said.
“You can always talk to Patrick about that.”
“He walked away from the SOA.”
“He still consults for them.”
“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to.”
Patrick Collins was a close friend to them both and the catalyst surrounding all the crazy shit that had gone down in the last few years. He was the reason Spencer believed in gods he used to think were merely myths. Spencer knew otherwise now, and he didn’t begrudge Patrick’s decision to no longer directly work for the government but instead charge them a ridiculous retainer for consulting work when it suited him. The guy deserved a break.
Besides, it was a job Patrick could do remotely, never really needing to leave New York City. He was the only non-shifter and one of the alphas to the New York City god pack. Werecreatures with the god strain of the werevirus couldn’t hide their distinctive eyes that hinted at their heritage. God packs as a whole acted as a buffer between humanity at large and the packs who could hide what they were.
Patrick had chosen his pack over everything else in the end, and the arrangement had worked out well. New York City was still recovering from the damage that had occurred when the veil ripped open over Manhattan and they’d all been fighting to survive. The packs in the five boroughs needed support and guidance, which meant being available. Patrick couldn’t have done that if he remained a special agent, and Spencer would never begrudge his friend the family and love he’d found with his pack. It was something Spencer always wistfully hoped he’d find for himself one day, but the likelihood of that happening was slim to none.
Their waitress returned with their food, passing the plates around. Nadine had gone with an egg-white veggie omelet, while Spencer had chosen a Denver scramble. The extra sides of bacon were set on the table, and Spencer shoved them in front of Fatima once the waitress left. Fatima immediately leaned over and bit at a piece, crunching her way through it.
“I’ll reach out to Patrick for advice if I need to,” Spencer promised after he’d eaten enough to take the edge off his morning hunger.
“I’m glad to hear that. I still think this will be a good change for you,” Nadine said.
Spencer hoped she was right.
He steered the conversation to topics that were less headache-inducing for the remainder of breakfast. Nadine gamely followed his lead, catching up on each other’s lives like they always did when they managed to be in the same city. Spencer paid for the meal when they finished. He left a good tip before they headed back to the hotel, walking slow, Fatima padding alongside Spencer.
Nadine elbowed him gently in the side, catching his eye once they were finally waiting at the taxi stand. “If it doesn’t work out, let me know. We’ll figure something out.”
“What? Like kidnap me to France?”
“Or something.”
Spencer laughed. “If anyone could orchestrate that, it would be you. I don’t think Paris would be happy to have me back though.”
“If not Paris, we’d find you a different way out.” She was a good friend, always would be, and Spencer was glad to have her in his life.
He hugged her goodbye when a taxi pulled up and watched her climb in. Nadine waved as the taxi drove away, whisking her off to whatever business was next on her agenda. The life of a PIA agent wasn’t his anymore, but he figured the SOA couldn’t be worse.
Spencer looked down at where Fatima sat by his feet, patiently waiting, ears twitching to catch the cacophony of sound around them. “Ready?”
The psychopomp swiveled her head around and up, blinking large golden eyes at him. I go where you go.
She always had, for which Spencer was grateful. No matter what happened in his life, he knew he was never really alone with Fatima by his side.
The Supernatural Operations Agency headquarters was warded from the foundations up. The layers of magic were like soft white noise to Spencer’s senses as he waited in the reception area of the director’s office. Fatima didn’t seem bothered by any of it as she judiciously cleaned her tail, ignoring the side-eye from the director’s executive assistant.
It was atypical for a newly graduated special agent to be welcomed by the director herself in a private meeting, but Spencer’s situation was a little more unique than most new SOA agents found themselves in. For one, he was here so the SOA could act as oversight to him, and for another, the director was that oversight.
“The director will see you now,” the executive assistant said.
Spencer nodded and stood, nudging Fatima gently with his foot. “Come on.”
Fatima flicked her ears at him before trotting ahead into a large, tastefully decorated office. His ears popped the second he stepped through the doorway, the silence ward embedded in the walls creating static that washed everything else out.
“Ma’am,” Spencer said with a polite nod.
SOA Director Priya Kohli stood from her chair, reaching across the desk to offer Spencer her hand in greeting. “Congratulations on the completion of your training, Special Agent Spencer Bailey.”
“Happy to be here.”
Priya arched an eyebrow at his answer but kept her peace. Then her attention settled on Fatima, and she gave the psychopomp a respectful little nod. “Hello to you as well, Fatima.”
She yowled a response back before jumping onto one of the two chairs angled in front of the desk. Priya smiled slightly and shook her head. “Well, she seems to have the right idea. Take a seat, and we’ll get started.”
Spencer sat, keeping his spine straight and resisting the urge to slouch. “I meant it, ma’am. I am glad the SOA accepted me on.”
“You were an asset during the Battle of Samhain and before then. I’m not one to discard assets.”
