Souled Out

by Blakely Chorpenning

  What was I doing?

  Gabriel stepped closer to the wall, away from the flames. “Leaving any time soon, Peaches?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Hail Mother Mary, you even said please. Let’s go.”

  “We can’t leave Ellenore.”

  Annoyed, he snapped, “You were just about to kill her.”

  I couldn’t help but look insulted. “I changed my mind.”

  He rolled his eyes and kicked the door in. Ellenore was crouching in the corner. Gabriel snatched her up and disappeared faster than my human eyes could track. Again, I was alone. Not a promising trend. However, I probably deserved it.

  I was still standing in the doorway when Gabriel reappeared. “Thought I left, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  And then we were gone.

  Gabriel’s chosen method of travel, flying, was not very settling, but at least it got us away from the flames. Although it was more like gliding than actual flying. Flying is something Superman does. By that standard, we were not flying.

  I had no clue where we were going. It was far enough away that I had time to ponder one major blunder: did I burn a stranger’s house down with innocent people inside? Was Seth still inside? If he was, nothing would be left to save now. Vampires are very, very allergic to fire. I could only hope he was alive.

  And what happened to my sister? Where did Gabriel take her? Damn it all. Gabriel had some questions to answer when we landed.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We stepped down into an expansive, overgrown field leading to an undersized farmhouse. The wood siding was old, white paint flaking away with every revolution of the earth. A skinny porch ran the length of the backside, only interrupted by a door flanked by two windows each, and a porch swing. I could see a dirt driveway wrap from the front to the side of the building. Other than a similar residence twenty yards or so away that looked abandoned, there was nothing but desolate farmland and trees. Utter seclusion.

  Without speaking, Gabriel entered the petite house and turned on the kitchen light. The house may have looked old, but at least it had modern conveniences. In the back of my mind I was hoping there wasn’t an outhouse lurking somewhere in the endless field. I’m sure if there was electricity, there would be plumbing as well. Fingers crossed.

  Following Gabriel inside, I looked around the narrow yellow kitchen. The bathroom was on the right and a large open doorway exposed the bedroom off the living area. There was a door in the living room that seemed to go nowhere, something out of the ordinary. Upon further inspection, it literally opened up to the side of the house. No steps.

  Gabriel was still in the kitchen on the phone with someone, so I took it upon myself to look in the bedroom. The two windows were boarded up from the inside. I could see black material on the other side, in between the boards and the windowpanes, so no sunlight could creep in. There were two twin beds, one against the windows and the second one on the opposite wall.

  The closet practically exploded with clothes. Dresses, pants, blouses, shirts, sweatshirts, men’s, women’s. All there. It was definitely bizarre. Who lived here?

  I wandered back to the living room. There were two couches. One was an old, fuzzy green love seat. The other was a full-sized, faded floral contraption. It was a foldout bed. I could just tell. The clock on the side table read five thirty-nine. I needed to get information out of Gabriel before he went to sleep for the day. Dawn wasn’t far off.

  As soon as he hung up I was in the kitchen asking questions. “Okay, spill the green beans. Why are the Members and my sister conspiring against me? Why are you on their side one minute and mine the next? Where did you take my sister? Was Seth in the house when it burned down? And whose house is this?” I stopped to take a breath.

  “Out of questions already?”

  “This is serious. I almost killed my sister and committed suicide tonight. Answer me, damn you!”

  Again, Gabriel was in my face. Actually, since he was taller, I stared up into his. Looking away to ignore his macho display would have been smarter, but I couldn’t. If I did, I might never learn what was happening to my life. It was so simple a few days ago: live in a depressed existence, hope my sister didn’t hate me, and work. Quite mundane. Now I hated my sister, my existence was threateningly spontaneous, and I didn’t know if I had a job anymore. Complete anarchy! There was no room for weakness.

  “Answer me!”

  “Sit down.” His patience was teetering.

  “No, get out of my face and talk to me.”

  I knocked him backward with a thud. I was only able to do such a thing because he didn’t protest, meaning he let me shove him, which annoyed me further.

  “I want to help, but I can’t do that until you cease yelling. I don’t want you to burn this house down, too.”

  “Why would you care?”

  “It’s mine.”

  “You live in the stuffy white mini-mansion in town.”

  Choosing to ignore the negative slant, he corrected, “That is my residence now. This home belonged to my parents.” Before my mouth could fully open to speak, he anticipated my dumb ass question and added, “When I was mortal.”

  I pointed to the door that opened up to nothing. “Where does that go?”

  “It used to lead to the master bedroom, their bedroom. I didn’t come back for a long time. When I finally did, termite and weather damage had collapsed it to the ground. It was disposed of.”

  “So this is a keepsake of sorts?”

  “I guess.”

  “But I thought vampires were supposed to let go of their human ties.”

  Gabriel looked worn out. “I did as I was told, for the most part. I changed my name, forgot about any relatives, near or far, shifted funds. But when the time came, I couldn’t let this go. It’s a safe house now—the closest thing to forgotten—which is the best I can do.”

  “Why are we here? I want to make sure my home is still in one piece.”

  “Until the Members make a decision, this is your home. It’s safer this way.”

  He had done it. He totally threw my mind off the important questions. “Stop trying to change the topic.” Gabriel was good at that.

  “You changed the topic.”

  “I did not.” Okay, I had, but it was too late to admit it without sucking up my pride. Instead, I confronted him again, trying to seem remotely dangerous. Not very effective, but I tried my best.

  Using vamp speed, he kicked my legs out from under me and I was left staring up at him from the floor. He hadn’t moved from the wall. He leaned against it like he was trying to look cool in a club. Just chillin’. Yeah, right.

  After a long, awkward minute he kneeled over me. “You’re no bully, so stop trying.”

  “Well, you’re doing a great job of it.”

  “I’m tired and very, very hungry. If you want your questions answered, sit on the couch like a good human and I’ll tell you what I know. If you insist on keeping this attitude, I’ll go out for a bite and leave you here to wonder.”

  It’s tough trying to be a badass. There’s a lot more to it than just being angry, so I gave it up. “I’ll sit if you stop pushing me.”

  He sighed. “I wanted to eat.”

  I sat on the foldout couch along the wall. “Too bad. Okay, Green Bean, where did you take my sister?”

  He sat on the large sofa. “She’s safe. Her Member-appointed bodyguard took her home.”

  “She has a bodyguard?”

  “He sat in the other room while we tried to talk at dinner.”

  “He wasn’t very helpful.”

  “He’s very young, and you were very scary. The fire was too much for him. There was no reason for both of us to risk death.”

  “Why don’t I have a bodyguard?”

  He sighed again. “I’m your bodyguard.”

  “They don’t like you much.”

  “Not very.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s not a questi
on you have permission to ask.”

  I sank into the couch, leaning sideways onto the oversized pillow. “Fine. Was Seth or any of the other prospects in the house?”

  “No. They were removed immediately once their purpose was served. You’ll see Seth again.”

  A weight in my heart lifted to hear I hadn’t burned my only friend alive in a blind rage. “I just wanted to know if he was okay. I’m not looking for a reunion. Had enough of those lately.” I was uncomfortable talking to Gabriel about Seth, so I quickly changed the subject. “What’s this ceremony my sister is so obsessed with?”

  Gabriel squirmed a tad and glanced toward the kitchen. I think he was stalling. After a few lifetimes, he shook his head. “You know as much as I do. I had no clue she had your soul. I was told...” He cleared his throat. “I was told it was in our best interest to make sure you had no plans of desertion, that steps may be taken involving your sister to maintain your appointment as the Cypher. The Members also wanted to make sure that, even though you weren’t first chosen, your skills are accurate and true.”

  “They wanted to know I wasn’t making everything up.”

  “Yes. Had you, they would have known eventually when nothing accurate happened. But time, even to immortals, is precious. They had to be sure now.”

  “Understandable. I hadn’t read those people before though, so how do they know I’m still not making stuff up?”

  “They were read by the previous Cypher.”

  “So now they know I’m not a fraud. Not where the important stuff is concerned, anyway. Why are they helping my sister?”

  His eyes wandered again. “I don’t know.”

  He was lying. He knew something he was unwilling to share. No freebies in my future, but I was desperate. I was tired of fighting, so I had a new idea.

  “You haven’t eaten all night. If you tell me what you’re hiding, I’ll be a willing meal. No kicking. No fighting.” He met my proposition with a skeptical eye. “Scout’s honor.” Unable to remember if they used a hand signal, I threw up the peace sign.

  “If you’re the product of any troop, the state of our mortal youth is tragic.” Even as he spoke, Gabriel was quietly mulling over my proposition. His attention moved to my neck. I could almost feel it, like it had manifested into a transparent weight caressing the bend of my neck. Was it too late to renegotiate? Yes. That was the only offer I knew he would even think about taking.

  “I wouldn’t normally conduct business like this.”

  I smiled. “But you’re starving.”

  “And you should know anything that might help you figure out what you’re up against.”

  “Accept it, Gabriel. Drinking my blood wouldn’t be the worst part of this evening.”

  He tilted his head like he always does when he’s in deep thought, like he does right before he agrees to something. I knew he’d say yes before he shook his head and sat beside me. It’s funny how you know someone so well just by being around him so often, even when he’s not someone you’d consider yourself to know at all, really.

  Until recently, we never spent time together outside of unpleasant greetings, but I saw him on an almost nightly basis. I saw him before his dinner and sometimes after if it was late enough. I knew when he was having a good night or a bad one just by his greeting. Unconsciously, I knew when he was happy, sad, or just going through the motions. I knew this weird, ornery son of a bitch sitting in front of me better than anyone else.

  Somewhere deep inside, it made me happy to know a part of me still paid attention to others. I still cared to notice. Then again, it was sad to note I was the one who never gave anything back. It was me who had given up. I had said it to my sister earlier, but it hadn’t sunk in. The words weren’t backed by real emotion then. They were now.

  Gabriel looked skeptical. “Do you really want to do this? I can miss one meal.”

  There was my chance to say no, but Gabriel wasn’t the problem. He never had been. It was time I gave something back. This was a start. He’d saved me from killing my sister and myself and had unknowingly kept me company for four years when no one else could or would. I could give him this, my blood. Screw the deal. I wanted to know what my sister was up to, but it could wait until tomorrow.

  “Gabriel, just do it.”

  “I won’t take much.”

  “I trust you.”

  He quickly absorbed his surprise and lifted the crook of my right arm to his mouth. I saw fangs. A second ago they were normal human teeth, but now they were the teeth of a predator: long, exact, deadly. They could pierce my skin and drain everything I had to offer in less than two minutes, and I wouldn’t care at all because I would be dead.

  His teeth caused a wet ripping noise that made me shiver. Luckily, however, my donation wasn’t too painful. It hurt, but it was more like getting a bunch of large shots at once rather than having a limb ripped off.

  This was the first time in years I’d shared my blood with anyone. The last vampire to take a bite had dumped me soon after he discovered my occupation. Said something about how I was the equivalent to a spy and that he could never love something like me. Not “someone”, “something”. This coming from a vampire. There was nothing to do but watch him walk away. He wasn’t my first love, nothing that special, just my first and last real boyfriend after I became the Cypher.

  Hence why I’ve kept to myself.

  When my memory stopped wandering, I realized Gabriel was on top of me. He had leaned so far over my body, left hand gripping my arm to his mouth like the last supper, that we were in quite a compromising situation. And he wasn’t the sole guilty party. My legs intertwined his, trying to push right through our clothes to feel skin on skin. To make matters worse, my left hand had crept up his shirt, rubbing his bare chest like I was trying to start a fire. God, I’m surprised we hadn’t burst into flames already.

  We had been swept away by pure adrenaline and pleasure. I couldn’t remember the last time I closed my eyes and just let the moment ransack my judgment. Luckily, we paused long enough to remember who we were.

  Gabriel retracted his teeth and, fighting eye contact, stared at my arm. “This is highly inappropriate.”

  “In all fifty states,” I mused, sliding my hand free from his gray shirt as he sat up.

  Wiping blood from the punctures with his sleeve, he made me bend my arm. “Hold it like that for a few minutes to stop the bleeding.” And then he practically catapulted himself to the kitchen. Killing the last of the awkward moment, he spoke low. “I underestimated you.”

  “What do you mean?” My eyes narrowed.

  “Sometimes we can sense emotions. Vampires, I mean.”

  Full of distrust, I quipped, “I didn’t think you meant poodles.”

  Gabriel became very serious. “Tonight, I saw past your familiar exterior into someone I’ve never seen before. Your eyes were haunted by everything you’ve been denied. I never thought you were capable of such devastation.”

  Sitting up and shaking off the last self-conscious molecule, I said, “Yeah, well sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of until someone else starts making the important decisions for you. It was wrong to burn the house down. I know it was wrong, but while I was doing it, it felt very right, like it was the only answer.”

  He agreed. I saw a glow through the curtains.

  “A new day is breaking, Gabriel. Go to bed.”

  “We made a deal.”

  “It can wait. My head is full right now.”

  He nodded. “Pick out some clothes to sleep in before I turn in for the day. They’re clean.”

  Our conversations were a series of flipped switches. At any given moment it could flip from an argument to friendly banter, from laughing to screaming, from complete suspicion to a truce teetering on a balance beam and, apparently, from making out to psychoanalysis. That was us. It would probably always be this way, this hard. But with each flip, there was a spark. And with each, I was left wondering if it was static elect
ricity or a lightning bolt.

  We walked toward the bedroom. He stopped in the doorway as I proceeded, making me brush past him to get into the room. I looked in the closet that ran along the same wall. Quickly flipping through the choices, I settled on a black T-shirt with white and brown band lyrics. Then I found a pair of red cotton pajama bottoms.

  I changed in front of the closet because Gabriel didn’t have a view from where he stood. What to do with my old smoky clothes? I balled them up and carried them out of the room, clearing Gabriel in the doorway by only two inches.

  “You couldn’t find something more interesting to wear, Peaches?”

  That was the Gabriel I was used to, and it actually helped stabilize my world a little. I turned to face him with a sly grin. “Not for you, Green Bean.”

  As he lowered his head and laughed, dark hair swooped to cloak his face. When the laughter died, he held his head up and used both hands to push the wild mane back. His hands remained locked together between the back of his head and the door jam. I could see his youth in that action, an inkling of what he must have been like human.

  He turned slightly in my direction. “There’s a washer and dryer to the left in the kitchen. Push the curtain aside.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No one knows where to find us. It’s a good idea to lock the doors though, just to be safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good day.”

  “See you tomorrow—um, tonight.”

  He walked into the bedroom and slid the door shut. It had been unspoken that I would sleep on the foldout couch. I don’t think either of us disagreed. Finding the washer, I dumped my clothes in and pushed the buttons.

  As tired as my bones felt, my mind wasn’t ready to settle down just yet. Before I could stop myself, I walked back to the bedroom door and slid it open shy of an inch, rested my ear against the opening. “Gabriel?”