Soul Riders (Book 1)

by Helena Dahlgren

  “You’re a gifted student, Alex. That’s why it pains me to see you in here so often. I know things at home haven’t been easy for you these past few years.”

  These past few years? Alex thought sarcastically. Try this past life. She sighed, which the principal chose to interpret as agreement, and focused on the nineteenth-century ethics paper she needed to spend her afternoon on. As she wrote, she cursed herself for ending up here. She needed to be at the stables with the others. This was her last time in detention, she promised herself. Never again.

  Progress was slow. The cursor in Word blinked at her mockingly. The minute hand on the big clock behind the teacher’s desk moved at a snail’s pace.

  She pulled her necklace out of her pocket. The metal had now cooled, but there was still a burn mark on her neck and blisters on her thumb and forefinger. She spotted a small hole in the pocket of her jeans where the necklace had been stashed. It is often said that ethics is about following your internal compass, she wrote. Some claim that compass is calibrated in childhood, when parents and other adults show the child what good behavior is. But what happens when the compass is skewed? What if we have been focusing on the wrong things all along?

  Linda and Lisa agreed to meet in the club room at Jorvik Stables. The first lesson of the day was still in progress, so they were all alone. Lisa made tea in the tiny kitchenette while Linda tried to coax some cookies out of the vending machine.

  “Seriously, Herman has to fix this soon!” she groaned, poking at the flap. Eventually, a small package of chocolate cookies fell down. She smiled with relief and sat down.

  “Linda,” Lisa said after joining her at the table, “I looked up the name of that project my dad’s working on. Nox Nucleus.”

  “Mm . . .” Linda immediately pulled out her phone and started googling. Lisa continued.

  “Yes. Nox Nucleus. It seems to be Latin, meaning something like ‘the essence of darkness’ . . .”

  “Or, perhaps, ‘the Heart of Darkness,’ ” Linda suggested. “This is interesting. Did you know the Romans pillaged Jorvik after the end of the Bronze Age?”

  “Is this really the time to talk about ancient Rome?” Lisa asked. Her head was already spinning with new information. Linda ignored her and read out loud:

  “ ‘. . . the Romans discovered that an evil darkness they couldn’t dispel enshrouded Jorvik. They named it Nox Nucleus—the Heart of Darkness. To their dismay, they discovered that the evil, which local legends named Garnok, was no myth. Several suspicious deaths befell the Roman ranks. Perhaps it was the realization of what lay dormant at the heart of that evil that made the Romans leave Jorvik . . .’ ”

  “Dark Core could be another translation for Nox Nucleus,” Lisa added.

  Linda nodded.

  “I think Dark Core wants to ruin things for us. For anyone standing in their way, in fact. When we moved here, I figured all the talk about good and evil was nothing more than a bunch of fairy tales. But now . . . I’m not so sure. I’m starting to think there’s more to those old legends than we realize.”

  Lisa knew exactly what she meant.

  “Nice digging,” she said.

  “Thanks!” Linda replied, opening the package of cookies. “Here,” she said and handed half of them to Lisa. “We need to feed our brains so they can keep growing and coming up with more clever hypotheses.”

  “Are you sure that’s necessary? Because I feel like my head’s about to explode,” Lisa said.

  Linda chewed her cookies and was just about to say something encouraging and upbeat when she lost her train of thought. She sat motionless with her hand half-raised.

  “Linda?” Lisa said hesitantly. There was no answer. Linda’s eyes had glazed over and she was breathing heavily.

  A darkness spread through Linda. Suddenly, she was no longer in the warm club room that smelled of horses, but far out to sea. It was dark and cold. The tall waves broke and velvety blackness surrounded her. A loud roar came from deep beneath the ocean . . .

  “Linda?” Lisa said again. There was a pink glow in Linda’s eyes.

  This time, Linda heard her. She ran her trembling hand through her hair and then let it fall into her lap. When she spoke, her voice was hollow.

  “Yes,” Linda said. “I am here.”

  “Of course you are,” Lisa replied with a frown. “Where else would you be? Antarctica? Let’s head over to the stable now. Meteor misses you!”

  As they got up and walked out to the stable, Linda could feel the ocean’s roar still vibrating inside her like a bassline. She swallowed repeatedly, blinked rapidly, and tried to calm her breathing. But the rumbling within her didn’t subside until she was inside Meteor’s stall, stroking his smooth, warm neck.

  23

  In a separate stall, Anne was prepping Concorde for the photo shoot. Derek would be there soon, and she wanted Concorde to be even more pristine than usual. She continued to groom him even though he was already immaculate. Concorde enjoyed it, though, and stood completely still. Anne didn’t feel like Concorde was just a regular horse; he was unique to her, and so was their relationship. She had agreed to this photo shoot for his sake. Concorde could be a bit grumpy in his stall sometimes, when no one was watching. So it was good to get him out in public where he loved all the attention. No one, not even Herman, knew exactly how old he was, only that he and Meteor were the oldest horses at the stables.

  Anne couldn’t bear to think about what would happen when the day came that her faithful friend would no longer have the strength to train and compete. Granted, he was sometimes temperamental. But whenever they had an audience, he blossomed and performed far beyond her wildest wishes and expectations.

  Anne sometimes thought that Concorde was an extension of herself, the only creature who really understood her. As she put her face against his soft neck, careful not to smear her makeup, she thought about the SUV the night before. How close it was. How had they escaped unscathed? She still didn’t understand it all.

  She tacked Concorde up and led him through the stable doors. They had time for a quick ride before Derek arrived.

  As she headed off on Concorde, she noticed a pink glow in the sky. It was just above the stable roof, over by the forest where she usually rode after her dressage sessions. Could it be the Northern Lights?

  The strange pink glow lingered around the stable building while Derek photographed Anne and her horse. She could already feel that these would be the best pictures ever taken of her and Concorde. She wanted to see them straight away.

  Being in front of the camera helped disperse her dark thoughts—until Jessica and her horse appeared out of nowhere.

  Their approach clearly made Concorde nervous. Concorde, who usually loved being in front of the camera and had been so calm, started tramping around anxiously. As Jessica dismounted her raven mount and walked toward them, Concorde shied away and reared up.

  “Concorde! What’s the matter? There, sweetie, there, now.”

  Anne tried in vain to calm her horse. The whole thing felt unfamiliar and unsettling, as though it were happening in slow motion.

  She blinked, and for a second, everything turned bright pink. She blinked again, and everything returned to normal again— except she was frozen. Jessica was standing close enough for Anne to smell her shampoo. Anne clicked her tongue at Concorde, hoping he would move away from Jessica and all this strangeness. She took a firm hold of Concorde’s reins and led him into the stable.

  Anne heard Derek calling out after her, but he sounded remote and distant, as if there was water between them.

  Concorde calmed down once he was inside his stall. Anne untacked him, figuring that Derek probably managed to get enough good pictures.

  When Anne emerged from the stable, Derek and a few stable girls were peering at the digital screen on the back of Derek’s camera. They seemed excited. Out of the corn
er of her eye, Anne noticed Jessica walking past them, in the direction of the stable.

  “What are you looking at?” Anne asked. She tried to see the camera’s screen over Derek’s shoulder. She saw a picture of Concorde in the yard, taken as she was trying to calm him down. In the picture, he had two great, unfurled wings like that mythical horse—Pegasus, was that his name? Her mind instantly returned to the photo in the library book.

  She could hear the girls around her talking about “light reflections in the lens,” “dirt in the camera,” “special filters,” “fingers blocking the subject,” and “Photoshop, you can do whatever you want these days.” Her heart skipped a beat. She didn’t know what to think.

  Suddenly she was back again to where time was in slow motion, and the pink glow encompassed her field of vision. She wondered if she was going to faint. Through that strange haze she heard Concorde cry out for help. Then he was . . . gone?

  Suddenly, Anne’s head cleared and she raced back to the stable. Derek ran after her.

  Concorde was lying on the floor of his stall, lifeless. Jessica was sitting next to him, her long legs crossed and entwined in a way that shouldn’t be possible for a human being. She reminded Anne of a large poisonous spider poised to attack. The stall was so dark. It was as though Jessica had absorbed all the light.

  Alarm bells went off in Anne’s head.

  “He’s dead!” Anne screamed hysterically. Was she really too late? She bent down, opened Concorde’s eyes, which seemed nonresponsive, and inhaled sharply. She put her ear to her horse’s chest, expecting the worst.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?” Anne screamed at Jessica, inches from her face.

  Jessica slowly got to her feet and mumbled something inaudible while backing out of the stall.

  A group of curious and frightened riding students entered the stable. Lisa and Linda came running from the club room. Anne tried to wave them away as if they were flies. She wanted to be alone with Concorde now.

  This is how it ends, Anne thought and collapsed on top of her horse.

  24

  Alex was finally allowed to leave detention. She had promised her mother she would stop by today, but that wouldn’t happen now. Alex was ashamed of how long it had been since she’d seen her mother, but it couldn’t be helped. She really didn’t feel like going all the way to Jorvik City right now. Besides she didn’t have time. She needed to get to the stable to take care of Tin-Can, make sure he was safe, and talk with the others about what they had discovered. She wanted to help her friends.

  Alex smiled when she thought about her journey since she first visited Jorvik Stables. She was lost, angry at the entire world, filled with a strange restlessness that sometimes made her see red. Then she met Tin-Can. They found each other instantly.

  And Herman, of course. He had been amazing.

  Sometimes she wondered how many lost souls Herman had welcomed into his stables over the years, putting nervous, impatient hands to work with mucking out, grooming, feeding, and cleaning tack. Calming anxious souls with trail rides and fresh air and a never-ending supply of cookies. Alex didn’t have that overwhelming sense of restlessness very often now—almost never, actually. There were always hay bales to carry, horses to stroke, and someone to gossip with.

  Jorvik Stables had been exactly the place Alex needed. It may have even been her salvation.

  She ambled down long and narrow cobbled streets that eventually gave way to gravel and then meadows. It was a bit of a trek to the stables, but that didn’t matter. Alex had always enjoyed the walk across the fields.

  She spotted a tower of blue and green metal and stopped dead. It loomed up in front of her like a giant, and she suddenly felt very small.

  A deep, electric sound came rumbling out of the tower. Something took hold of her, a faint memory that floated by. Then it was gone again. She wondered where the tower had come from. Surely they couldn’t pop up just like that, overnight?

  About a mile away, Derek was riding his moped away from Jorvik Stables. He was going considerably slower than usual. He was still shaken by the sight of the lifeless horse in his stall. Derek had waited until the veterinarian arrived. What else was he supposed to do, just leave?

  “He’s unconscious,” he had heard the vet say over Anne’s sobs. “We need to run more tests; check his brain activity and take a few blood samples to find out more, but it doesn’t look good.”

  “Do everything you can,” Anne had pleaded.

  Derek stood out in the aisle, clutching his camera, which still contained that strange picture of Concorde he’d taken. All the inexplicable things were nevertheless clearly visible in the pictures he’d managed to take before Jessica appeared. The contrast between the lifeless creature on the floor and the beautiful, majestic animal in his pictures was brutal. But there could be no doubting their quality—that much was immediately apparent. They were possibly the best photographs he had ever taken.

  Suddenly, he heard a loud crash among the trees. He was so violently startled that his front wheel skidded. It was Jessica and her horse, galloping impossibly fast toward him.

  Oh my god, Derek thought to himself, can horses be that big?

  What is she doing?

  Derek felt panic rising inside himself like a dark, murky tide as he remembered what Jessica had been like in the stable. The triumphant look in her eyes as she stared at the lifeless horse in the stable was terrifying. Those eyes were now fixed on him, which made him realize she was in fact aiming to force him off the road. The gigantic horse was headed straight for Derek. He could feel the horse’s searing heat against his leg.

  He had just a moment to think, This is going to look like an accident, before his moped toppled sideways and he fell off.

  “The camera,” Jessica shouted without dismounting. “Give it to me. Now.”

  “Over my dead body!” Derek replied, hugging his camera bag. Jessica slid off her horse in one fluid, reptilian motion.

  Then Derek heard a familiar voice.

  “Get away from him before I call the police!” a winded Alex shouted. She came running up and her face was all red. Jessica took a step back. They all heard the clatter of hooves coming up the road from Jorvik Stables. It was Tin-Can, cantering toward them, unsaddled and riderless.

  “You’re just in time,” Alex said to her horse tenderly, stroking his tousled mane.

  “You’re going to have to learn to behave yourself, Jessica,” Alex continued, feeling cockier now that Tin-Can was by her side. “If I were you, I’d let Derek leave with his camera. Since when are you interested in photography, anyway? The only thing you’re interested in is being the center of attention and making life miserable for other people. Maybe it’s time you found a new hobby?”

  Jessica sneered and took a step forward. For a split second, Alex was unsure of what to do next. She had no plan. All she knew was that she wasn’t going to let Jessica—or Sabine, for that matter—get away again.

  Alex had never shied away from a fight. At ten, she had made half the neighborhood kids run the other way by simply showing up. But this was different. It was more dangerous. She could feel it in every part of her body.

  Then everything happened so quickly. Jessica grabbed Alex’s arm. Hard.

  They’re back, she had just a second to think. The lightning bolts. The pink glow.

  Then they washed over her. Through her. Around her.

  Alex wrenched her hand free and raised it with her palm out. Tin-Can was standing next to her. The warmth of his body caused the lightning to intensify. Alex glimpsed a bluish ring of light around Tin-Can.

  She aimed her palm at Jessica, like a stop signal. Just like she had done before to protect her brother.

  It was happening again.

  Alex immediately recognized the same sense of energy coursing through her that she had felt when she had chased after that boy w
ho was bullying James on the football field.

  Lightning exploded from Alex’s palm and hit Jessica, who collapsed on the ground.

  For a split second, Alex wondered if Jessica was dead, before she got up and stumbled over to her waiting horse. Then they were gone.

  Derek got up slowly and smiled sheepishly.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Things were getting pretty out of hand before you showed up.”

  “No problem,” replied Alex, who looked calmer than she felt.

  How did Tin-Can know I needed him?

  “Hey. Alex.”

  The abrupt change in Derek’s tone startled her.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “What?”

  “Your arm.”

  He pointed, and she saw it.

  Alex looked at her upper arm, where Jessica had just grabbed her. She rolled up her tattered shirtsleeve. Oh no, I really am bleeding, she thought to herself.

  “Are you okay?” Derek asked, looking worried. He looked very pale.

  “I’m okay, don’t worry. Just a bit of a flesh wound,” she said, grinning slightly. Then she rolled her bloodied sleeve back down. “There’s a first aid kit at the stables.”

  Derek didn’t look entirely convinced. He was shifting back and forth.

  “Um . . . Sorry for asking, but what did you do to her?” he asked.

  Alex patted Tin-Can and took a few deep breaths before answering.

  “I don’t actually know,” she admitted. “But whatever it was I did to her, she’s gone now. Good riddance. Why did Jessica want your camera?”

  “I think she wanted the photos I took of Anne’s horse, Concorde . . .”

  When Derek told Alex what had happened at the stable, her eyes widened.

  “Jessica seems to have done something to Concorde. He’s passed out in his stall. The vet and . . .”

  That’s all Derek had time to relay. Alex and Tin-Can were already on their way to the stables.