Wager's Price
Page 31
Wyatt put his headset back on and started talking to HORU. Finn jogged down the steps, wondering if Mike and Jay had decided to come over after all.
“Your friend from school is here to see you,” his dad said. He pointed toward the foyer and disappeared in the direction of his office. Finn rounded the corner expecting to see Mike or Jayden. Instead, Hope Laudner stood awkwardly near the front door.
“Hope?” He looked at her in confusion. “What are you doing here?”
Her auburn ponytail swung as she tipped her head and smiled. “Can’t an old friend pop by for a visit?”
He pulled her into a quick hug. “You popped by from Illinois for a visit? You live, like, seven hundred miles away. Did you drive here by yourself?”
“No. I haven’t even had a chance to get my license yet.” She tapped the top of her shoe behind the heel of her opposite foot. “My parents brought me. Official business.”
“Official business deserves a drink. Come on.” He led her into the kitchen and sat her down at the table. “Coke? Lemonade?”
“Ice water would be great.”
“So what’s this official business?” He started filling a glass from the fridge door.
“How would you feel about helping me with that problem we dug up at Revelations?”
He dropped the glass. It didn’t break, but the water spilled in front of the fridge. Quickly, he grabbed a kitchen towel and set the half-full glass on the table between them while he mopped up the spill.
“I thought you and your, um, angel would have handled that by now.”
She snorted. “You underestimate the Devil. I haven’t been able to find him, let alone figure out how to stop whatever he’s up to. Lucifer is a lot like a termite colony: he does the most damage when you don’t know he’s there. If he were walking down Main Street, horns blazing, he’d be a lot easier to deal with. No. First, we’ll have to flush him and his followers out, then find a way to vanquish him again.”
“Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“That’s just it. I do this thing now where I ask for help when I need it. I need it, Finn.”
“What are you saying?”
“I want to reinstate the Soulkeepers. I told you about them. People charged with protecting human souls.”
“I thought you were the last one.”
“I am. Was. It’s complicated. We upset the balance of things. The natural law requires balance between light and darkness, and darkness just experienced a huge victory. Which means the Big Good is taking my handcuffs off.”
“But didn’t you say that all the Soulkeepers had an inherited gene? They were predestined or something?”
“Yes. And you have it.”
He shook his head. “No, I don’t.”
“Your great-grandmother Mimi’s trunk was my first clue. Gabriel did a little research. She was part of a group of Soulkeepers who fought the Nazis during World War II. The Nazi regime was fueled by dark magic, demon magic. You are a descendant of a Soulkeeper, Finn. It’s why you were able to adapt so quickly to the mutation of Revelations Island. It’s why you were invited to Revelations Island in the first place.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Ravenguard and Applegate were targeting Soulkeeper potentials. The charts in the headmistress’s office contained your genealogic history. They invited you to Revelations to kill you. It’s why Mike was so slow to change. He never had the gene. He was only invited because of you.”
Finn felt off balance. “Ravenguard said he didn’t have the potential, but I refused to go if they didn’t take him too.”
She nodded. “Lucifer started the school during WWII, when he still had access to Earth and Soulkeepers were still a real threat. They’ve been running on autopilot ever since. They didn’t care if Mike died or not as long as you did too.”
“Nice thought.” Finn leaned against the counter, throwing the wet towel into the sink. “I thought you said that you didn’t change on the island. Couldn’t change were your exact words.”
“I’m different. A Soulkeeper since birth, not a potential. If you’d already come into your power, you wouldn’t have had the same results.”
Finn took a long drink from the glass he’d poured for Hope. “We’re lucky to be alive.”
“I need your help, Finn. I can’t do this alone.”
“You want me to help you bring down the Devil?” He scoffed.
“You and the others. Anyone who still has abilities. Even Mike, if he’s willing to help.”
“I start at Beaverton in the fall.”
Hope brushed her eyebrow with her knuckle. “Ms. D has promised to reopen the school and make the island safe for us. A place to train.”
“You want me to come back to Revelations?”
“I know there are a lot of details to work out. We’re considering a weekend-only program. We’ll have to convince your father. All I need from you today is a yes.”
Her stare was so intense it made him squirm. Did he want this? Lucifer was terrifying. He’d be signing up for something unbelievable, to be part of a select group of spiritual heroes. God and angels, the Devil and demons. Other dimensions. It sounded as ridiculous as a boy who could fly. He turned his back to her, resting his palms on the edge of the sink and looking out the window over the manor’s front lawn.
“Can you still do it?” Hope asked softly.
He rose several inches off the floor, his fingertips leaving the counter. Hovering, he glanced at her over his shoulder, then lowered to the tile floor again. “The magic too, for what it’s worth. I stay away from the dark cards though.”
“Do more than stay away from them. Destroy them. Lucifer can use dark magic to track you.”
Finn shrugged. “My cards are locked away, along with Theodor’s.”
“Are you curious about Wendy? She’s on my list too. Something tells me she’d be apt to say yes if you did.”
“That’s playing dirty.” He approached the table and looked her in the eye. “This is my life we’re talking about.”
Her smile spread slowly. “A life you said you wanted to be more significant. What could be more significant than this? You could be instrumental in saving the world.”
“Have you asked anyone else yet?”
“I’m starting with you. You know damn well that if you say yes, others will too. They look up to you.”
“Finn Wager, world-saver. It has a certain ring to it.”
“Finn Wager, Soulkeeper.”
“Is there a uniform?”
“No capes, I promise.”
“I could totally pull off a cape. It’s the leotard I’m not crazy about.”
He met her eyes and took a long, deep breath.
“I need you, Finn. Please. We started this together. Let’s finish it. You’ll be a part of something bigger than any of us. An ancient society sworn to protect the innocent. You’ll be a Soulkeeper like your great-grandmother.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up. “You promise it won’t be boring?”
“I promise.”
He sighed and offered his hand. “When opportunity knocks…”
Relief softened her shoulders and she pumped his arm. “You’re in?”
“I knew from the first day I met you at Revelations you were into me. Just couldn’t let me walk out of your life, could you?”
“Shut up, or I’ll kick your ass and tell Wendy you wet the bed.”
“Ouch.”
She sighed deeply. “Seriously, I need a firm yes or no.”
A big part of Finn wanted to say no, but another part of him was sure he’d hate himself if he did. “Yes, I’ll help you.”
She tugged his arm and pulled him into a hug. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” Her voice cracked.
He rubbed her back. “It’s going to be okay.”
She pulled back and laughed as she headed for the door. “Honestly? Probably not. But I promise, Finn, it will be worth it.”
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Hope’s Promise (Excerpt)
Please enjoy this extended excerpt of Hope’s Promise, Book Two in the Soulkeepers Reborn Series.
1
Devil in the Windy City
The hunger burning in Lucifer’s belly had as much to do with the wounds still festering in his cheek and thigh as the decadent selection of humans who packed the sidewalk around him. It was late spring in Chicago. Unseasonably warm. Hot enough to feel like home.
Today, he’d chosen an illusion from a magazine: a European soccer star with coffee-colored waves and muscles that nature never intended. He’d changed the face: made the eyes bigger and the nose straighter. Not a hint showed of the damage that lingered underneath. Damage caused by the Soulkeeper, Hope. He’d underestimated her. It wouldn’t happen again.
Next to him on the sidewalk, a young woman glanced his way, a flirtatious smile drifting through her expression like a cool breeze. Too easy. Her pulse throbbed like a drum, and a bead of sweat rolled down her neck and disappeared under her halter top. He sensed she was older than she looked, maybe thirty, but her soul was remarkably well tended, practically innocent. If he drank her blood, fed on her flesh, and ingested that bright soul, it would do much to heal the injury the little Soulkeeper had inflicted. He rubbed his cheek.
It wasn’t self-restraint that kept him from acting on his desires. On the contrary, it was a singular focus on something more important—revenge. Hope Laudner and her friend Finn Wager had sprung the trapdoor he’d created decades ago and allowed him to circumvent the prison he’d been sentenced to by the Great Oppressive Deity. The trapdoor had served its purpose. He’d transcended his prison and returned to Earth. What he hadn’t expected was that when the portal closed behind him, it had cut him off from the source of his power: the human souls trapped in Hell. To return to full power, Lucifer had to reconnect with Hell or he’d continue to suffer the constant drain this world had on his constitution. Such a feat wouldn’t be easy.
Building a bridge between Earth and Hell was something he’d tried before, albeit from the other side. He knew how it was done. It required a vast resource of energy, powerful sorcery, and a sacrifice of body and soul. How he wanted that sacrifice to involve the destruction of Hope Laudner. He gritted his teeth. Ending her was going to take more than a curse or physical wound. She was immortal, blessed, and housed a nauseating amount of faith in that insolent teenage body. It would take an object forged in another world to kill her—an object that would permanently split her soul from her body. Kill the soul and there would be no regeneration.
Luckily, he had the tool to do the job, and he’d hidden it here, in Chicago, before he’d been so rudely vanquished. Ironically, it was the same obsidian blade that had once plunged into Hope’s mother’s heart, only, at the time, Abigail didn’t have a soul. And once she received one, the dagger had already been pulled from her flesh. Forged in Hell, the blade was once buried under tons of dirt and concrete, but Lucifer had gone to great expense to retrieve it the last time he was here. It was the only weapon that could do what he needed it to do.
“Good afternoon,” a solidly built woman said to him. She was wearing the uniform of a doorman, but she hadn’t opened the glass door for him. “Can I see your resident identification card?”
“You don’t need any identification from me.” He looked her in the eye, using the slightest amount of power to influence her feeble human mind.
She blinked rapidly and tugged on the door. It didn’t budge. Shaking her head, she swayed on her feet. “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t open the door without the chip in your badge. The security here is top of the line.”
Indeed. Lucifer scowled at the thick layer of bulletproof glass and steel that separated him from what he wanted. He was already weak. Forcing his way in wouldn’t be prudent. “I’m a guest.”
“The owner should have given you a guest pass. I’m very sorry. You can go down to the security office and they might be able to help you.” She pointed to a door on the other end of the building.
Lucifer didn’t acknowledge the woman as he turned on his heel in annoyance and strode toward the location she indicated. To his dismay, when he reached the security office, his welcome was less than courteous. A man who looked like he hadn’t smiled since the Obama administration leaned toward the speaker mounted in the window. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to visit a colleague, and unfortunately, he neglected to give me a guest pass. Will you assist me in obtaining one?”
“Certainly, sir. What is your friend’s name?”
“Mr. Bordeaux. Damien Bordeaux.” Lucifer had left everything to the demon of greed. Actually, it had been Damien’s idea to list his corporation as owner of Lucifer’s property in the event G.O.D. won the Great Battle. When Lucifer was cast into Hell, the humans were made to forget the war that took place between good and evil. God erased it from their minds and returned them to the pitiful lives they’d had before the clash. But, thanks to Damien, Lucifer’s property had been protected from falling into enemy hands.
Damien was good with money. He worshiped the stuff. His greed was practically limitless. As the only fallen angel allowed to persist on Earth to balance out the last Soulkeeper, he’d flourished, and if the articles Lucifer had read were accurate, owned a little bit of everything these days. That would come in handy until Lucifer regained his strength.
“You must be mistaken. Damien Bordeaux hasn’t owned anything in this building for years. He let the lease lapse on the penthouse almost a decade ago.”
Lease. Lucifer had never understood how Damien structured the contract for the place. “Who owns the penthouse now?” Lucifer snapped. He was tired of this game. He focused his power on the man, prying the truth from him.
“Nobody. It’s been for sale for over a year,” the man babbled, eyes dull. “They’re thinking of remodeling it into multiple units.”
“That oily, maggot-meat, bastard,” Lucifer said through his teeth. He’d never given Damien permission to sell the place. And what had he done with the dagger?
“Excuse me?”
Lucifer did not respond to the man behind the glass. He ducked into the darkest shadow he could find and reached into the blackness around him. As the Devil, Lucifer owned the stuff Damien was made of and could call him at will. Only, as he searched the void to dig his metaphysical meat hooks into the fallen angel, his body buckled from the effort. Damien must be blocking him, and he was too weak to break through.
He cursed. As a member of the Wicked Brethren, Damien had always been rebellious and more concerned with his own needs than his master’s. But in the past, Lucifer could persuade the fallen angel with promises of increased wealth and power. It seemed the impudent bastard did not wish to entertain such negotiations this time. Unacceptable. Lucifer would bring him to heel.
To replenish his power and his resources, Lucifer needed to find allies who were motivated to help him succeed. And he needed to bolster his strength. He turned the corner, into a seedy part of town, long neglected. Vagrants lined the narrow side street, sprawled like eggs frying on the sidewalk. A semitoothless man waved a cardboard sign that read Please Help.
Lucifer took one look at the track marks on the pitiful human’s arm and dropped a rock of crack cocaine into his bowl. “Why bother with the middleman?”
“Thank you.” The man slid the rock into his shirt pocket.
“It will kill you.” Sometimes the truth was more powerful than a lie.
“So they keep telling me.” The man chuckled, wagging his head contemptuously. “I got nothing to lose.”
Lucifer winked. “Not anymore you don’t.” He gripped the back of the ma
n’s neck and pulled him off the sidewalk.
“Stop! What are you doin’?” the man protested. Lucifer locked eyes with the homeless man, forcing him to see the truth behind his illusion. An echo of Hell burned in his pupils, flames, and death, and every dark and crawling thing. He chuckled as the man wet himself.
The shaking began in the meatbag’s torso, the seizure taking a violent turn until the human’s eyes rolled back in his head. His soul practically jumped from his body into Lucifer’s grip, the dingy silhouette catching on his fingers as the man’s body slumped to the asphalt. The Devil wasted no time ingesting that soul. Although the power it infused was less than he’d hoped—the flickering flame of the man’s life force was barely worth the effort—it gave him enough strength to find the one person he suspected would help him. He reached out into the ether again, this time searching for a specific human soul, one he knew would be desperate and willing to do anything he asked for the right price. She was easy to find and closer than he expected.
Twilight hugged the skyline as he made his way through the heart of the city, a smile spreading across his artificially handsome face. Darkness would bolster his abilities. He welcomed it.
Outside a nightclub called the Goat’s Pajamas, Lucifer materialized in an alley on the North Side off the Red Line. The neighborhood wasn’t bad, but this place was squarely in the seediest section, a refurbished meatpacking plant, a lost artifact of a more violent world the city had all but paved over. He coasted past the bouncer with a wave of his hand and took a seat in a filthy booth near the back of the room.
“Can I get you anything?” a twenty-something in a black T-shirt asked, his hands resting on the hips of his skintight pants.
“Do you have a vintage Scotch whiskey, preferably from a year the world was at war, perhaps 1910 or 1938?”
The boy frowned. “I’m not sure. I’ll ask.” Looking annoyed, he took off in the direction of the bar.
The lights dimmed, and the woman he’d come to see took the stage. She wore a peacock-blue dress that looked worn and frayed at the edges. Her chestnut hair was neat but streaked with gray. Wrinkles had formed at the corners of her eyes as if she’d aged twenty years in the weeks since she’d left the island. Maybe she had.