The Soul Healer

by B. Groves

  “Stop bitching,” the man answered. “It’ll heal.”

  The woman turned around to glare at Olivia who sat stoically beside Alison. “I should have knocked your ass out.”

  “Leave her alone,” Alison said.

  “Shut the fuck up, hunter,” the woman answered.

  “How about both of you shut the fuck up,” Justin said, shaking his head. “We have a team of hunters to deal with, not some kid.”

  The woman smirked and turned back around in her seat still nursing her hand. “It’ll be more fun taking down the hunters and Reverend Ellis. Right, Justin?”

  Justin laughed and imitated Kyle. “It was so funny watching him trying to exorcise me. He was so serious, and the faces he made were priceless.”

  The woman joined in and said, “Come on, Karen. I know you’re in there. Fight it.” Karen giggled. “Karen’s gone, dumbass.”

  Alison listened as they continued to mock Kyle when he tried to exorcise them. She remembered Kyle’s videos of these two and remembered how they antagonized him the whole time.

  “Stop making fun of Reverend Kyle!” Olivia yelled.

  Justin and Karen laughed at the little girl’s outburst and continued to imitate him.

  Alison leaned over to Olivia and said, “It’s all right, honey. They’re demons. Reverend Kyle will have his moment.”

  The little girl turned to Alison with tears welling in her eyes. “Where are they taking us?”

  “Our amazing mayor is ready for you to meet the rest of the team,” Karen said before Alison could answer.

  Chapter 50

  Kyle tried not to stare at all the hunters gathered around a table inside one of the abandoned mills in town.

  He marveled at how they set up such high-tech equipment in such a short amount of time.

  From lights to tables, chairs, computer monitors, and other surveillance equipment, one would have thought they were setting up some kind of sting for a drug bust.

  There were ten hunters from various walks of life. It didn’t matter what their ethnicity or their race, but there was one thing they all had in common, the green eyes.

  Kyle didn’t remember all their names, but he was grateful for their help.

  A man in his early fifties with a head full of salt and pepper hair, tall and thin, introduced himself as John. He seemed to be the leader of the group. He said he was a private investigator, formerly a cop.

  “When did you discover your powers?” Kyle asked him out of curiosity.

  “I’m one of the younger ones,” John explained. “I was about ten. This kid was bullying me, and we were fighting outside of school. He punched me in the face hard.” John scratched his day-old growth. “I fell to the ground and wondered what was going on inside me. Everyone watching the fight screamed because my eyes were glowing. I turned around and saw the demon inside the bully.” John laughed at the memory. “Let’s just say I discovered my powers and did my first exorcism that same day.”

  All their stories fascinated Kyle, but foremost on his mind was Alison and Olivia.

  “Alison let them take her,” John commented.

  “She was protecting the girl,” Kyle added.

  Kyle glanced down at Simon, who lay beside him. This whole mess exhausted the poor dog, but Kyle knew he’d find more energy to help save his owner.

  John brought over a picture of Samuel’s house for Miguel and him to view.

  Miguel had been pacing and practically ripping his hair out over Olivia’s kidnapping.

  “I should have kept her with me,” he kept mumbling until Kyle stood up to speak with him.

  “You know they were onto us all along. She was safer with Alison because Alison can handle them better than us. She brought two down on her own.”

  It was true. They’d listened to the police dispatch when they arrived at the old mill. They found two men unresponsive. One in an alley and one in the middle of the street. The police officers suspected ODs since meth has been a problem around the community, but they weren’t sure.

  That didn’t convince Miguel but he sat down and tried to relax. Another hunter gave him some water to help calm his nerves.

  “She took down those two,” John said, shaking his head. “She had no choice. Unfortunately, their souls are lost.”

  Kyle said a prayer that those two men’s souls would find peace or maybe find their way back to the body they belonged to. It was the least he could do.

  John pointed at the map and said, “This is an older picture, but it looks like Manes built his house near this barn.”

  Kyle shook his head. “I never knew there was a barn there, but I’m not a native to this town.”

  “From this view, it looks like it had collapsed years ago, so he must have been working on it in secret.”

  “My daughter thought they were talking about a shed, but they talked about the barn,” Miguel said.

  John nodded. “Emma’s place was a distraction for us. This isn’t the first time we’ve had traps set.”

  “What do you think he’s planning?”

  John pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and read it over. “Reverend Ellis, Miguel, you’ve seen them at their feral stage. That’s when they’re the strongest and most confused. All they understand is violence, they have to kill until they acclimate themselves into their new bodies. Some never acclimate, because the soul is strong enough to resist, but Samuel will use those demons to his advantage.”

  “He’s releasing vicious killers,” Miguel said.

  “Exactly. He’ll use Alison and Olivia to trap us in that barn,” John explained. “There are two things these demons want the most. One is to kill humanity, and two is to rid the Earth of their greatest threat–hunters.”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  John smirked. “He’s waiting for us. Are you ready?”

  ***

  Kyle squeezed his cross inside the palm of his hand.

  Miguel sat next to him, mumbling his prayers in Spanish and English. He kept running his hand through his hair, asking God to spare his daughter and Alison.

  Kyle tried to stifle his concern over Alison, but he couldn’t. He knew what she meant to him and he would make sure he told her that once this was all over.

  The group rode to Samuel’s house in the back of an old van. Kyle glanced around at the other hunters. Some stayed calm, and some sat there with their eyes glowing, ready to take on the dark souls that infested this town.

  A man sitting next to him named Dennis told Kyle his story as they drove over. Dennis, a man about Kyle’s age with flecks of gray showing through dark hair, had been a career criminal before he discovered his powers in a bar fight.

  Dennis smiled. Kyle could tell by his teeth that he was addicted to meth before Dennis explained.

  “I thought it was the meth, and then I thought it was the recovery,” Dennis said. “I was on and off the stuff for years before I bumped into one on the street.” Dennis grinned at the memory. “I’d been hearing voices—whispers as I approached the dude. We ran into each other. Since I was a nice guy, I reached out to steady him with my hands. I couldn’t figure out why he screamed and I couldn’t figure out why all this power rushed through me.” The grin fell from his face as he lost himself in his memories. “I couldn’t let go and the dude fell to the ground. I somehow entered his mind and saw this cage thing. The thing was empty, but something compelled me to open it anyway. I did and suddenly I’m looking down at the guy whose mouth opened and this black shit came flying out.”

  “How’d you become an official hunter?” Kyle asked.

  Dennis leaned his head back against the van’s wall. “It gave me a purpose. I came from an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Like the rest of us—one parent missing. When John discovered me, I was still wandering the streets wondering what the hell happened to me.”

  “I should have left you there,” John said from the passenger seat in the front.

  The other hunters snickered
and Dennis gave John a one finger salute but laughed.

  Listening to the other stories from the other hunters was a good distraction from their worries, even Miguel sat wide-eyed and fascinated.

  “We’re almost there,” John said. “Get ready. Demons aren’t above using weapons.”

  The van became darker when they turned onto a desolate road. The only lighting was from the dashboard and the slight glow from some of the hunter’s eyes, otherwise, Kyle could only make out silhouettes of the bodies inside the van with them.

  He clutched his cross one last time and placed the cross inside his pocket. He said a small prayer and asked God to watch over all the hunters, himself, and Miguel. He prayed that Alison and Olivia were safe and they could rescue them without many casualties. He prayed for the lost souls the demons had destroyed when they possessed those bodies and hoped the souls would one day find their way to the kingdom of Heaven.

  Kyle tried to calm his pounding heartbeat as he breathed deeply.

  “This life sucks, man,” Dennis said to him, “but we’re here to save lives. It’s not always pretty.”

  Kyle was about to answer when John yelled out from the front seat.

  The driver slammed on the brakes, and all Kyle remembered were the tires screeching on the street, being thrown against Miguel as the van lurched to the left, the other hunters grunting and groaning as they fell on top of each other.

  Kyle was jerked around as the van veered off the road into the forest, and metal crushed against metal when the van stopped.

  Kyle realized he was looking at the ceiling of the van, and something lumpy was underneath him when they stopped.

  He reached for Simon and realized the dog was trying to step over a pile of arms and legs. He didn’t look hurt as he walked around and one hunter cried, “Ouch, damn Simon,” when Simon’s nails dug into his arm.

  Kyle called Simon over to him when someone screamed from the front.

  Kyle turned towards the voice and that’s when he heard popping noises and breaking glass.

  “Get out! Get out now! Go, go, go!” John screamed.

  Miguel said something to Kyle and it took a moment for Kyle to come out of his daze. Popping sounds continued to sound around them, and flashes of Iraq fluttered across his mind.

  Oh, shit. They have guns!

  Kyle sat up and pushed his way out of the van. He didn’t know where he was, or where he was going, but someone grabbed his shirt and pulled him farther into the dark forest with Simon running alongside of him.

  “Run!”

  He followed dark bodies into the forest. Some of them turned around and returned fire through the forest.

  The popping sounds stopped and Kyle realized he was running next to John with Miguel on his other side.

  John pulled them against a tree. The man pulled a gun from his waist and said, “You two all right? Is Simon okay?”

  “Yes,” Miguel answered. “I didn’t know they would have weapons.”

  “There’s only two. I bet they’re the ones that kidnapped Alison and your daughter,” John commented.

  “Anyone else hit?” Kyle asked.

  He listened for the rustle of leaves, but everything had gone silent. The only light was from the van’s headlights, and that wasn’t helping them see where the demons moved to.

  John shook his head. Sweat and some blood poured from his brow. “I don’t know yet.”

  Another shot rang out and John whispered. “They’re close.” Simon kept moving around and John leaned over to keep him quiet.

  Tension settled over the forest like a wet blanket. Sweat ran down Kyle’s back and he didn’t dare breath or move an inch from where he stood.

  Another shot rang out through the forest and the two demons laughed. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” the woman taunted. “We see you.”

  John turned to Miguel and Kyle. “Do you know where the house is from here?”

  Kyle nodded. “It’s about a mile north.”

  “We’ll take care of them. On my signal, run and get to the house. Don’t do anything. He’s waiting to unleash the feral ones on us.”

  Miguel wanted to argue, but John cut him off. “You’ll have your revenge for your wife. I promise you.”

  “I’m keeping you at your word, amigo,” Miguel answered.

  John turned back around. Leaves rustled and all went quiet.

  The two young demons were close by.

  Kyle’s eyes scanned the forest. The other hunters were hidden behind trees and bushes.

  “Come closer, you evil shits,” John muttered.

  John moved to the other side of the tree. Kyle watched as the now familiar glow lit up the bark next to him. He turned around and almost blinded Kyle with his eyes.

  “Go!”

  Kyle and Miguel stood there for a few seconds in shock as John’s eyes glowed through the darkness.

  Before Kyle could open his mouth, he was being shoved away from John and Kyle realized if they didn’t run now, they might not make it out of the forest alive.

  Kyle and Miguel ran through the forest with Simon. Brush, other plants, and sticks made them stumble around. Shots were ringing out around them as they ran as fast as they could through the wooded area.

  Kyle’s chest burned from the exertion, but he didn’t dare stop to see what was happening. The yelling and the gunshots were now behind them.

  “I think we can exit here,” Miguel said.

  “Where?”

  Kyle barely made out the trees with only a dim light behind them.

  Miguel turned on a flashlight from his phone. He stopped for a second and said, “The road is right over there. I see the opening.”

  Kyle thought it was a miracle he hadn’t lost his glasses in the accident.

  He also noticed the opening through the trees. The two men made their way through light brush and pushed branches out of the way until they reached the asphalt.

  Gunshots echoed in the distance, but everything had gone dark.

  He hoped the other hunters stayed safe behind him.

  Both men caught their breath as they walked down the street farther into the darkness and Kyle checked on Simon who sniffed around the street as they walked.

  “I’m turning my phone off. If those demons are alive, they’ll come after us,” Miguel said.

  “Good idea.”

  Miguel turned off his phone and all Kyle could see was Miguel’s outline. Clouds had moved in, covering what little moonlight they had to go by.

  They walked faster, both men jumping at every little sound coming from the forest and beyond.

  Kyle’s eyes darted around. Every little trick of the eye made his skin crawl, knowing the demons could strike any moment.

  “Look,” Miguel whispered.

  Kyle looked straight ahead. Dim lights shined from windows down the street.

  Both men and Simon moved to the side of the road.

  “The barn is right behind the house,” Kyle commented.

  “I think we need to take another trip through the woods,” Miguel said.

  Kyle nodded and they left the roadside.

  This time Kyle brought out his phone and shined the flashlight around the forest. He saw what looked like a small dirt path and both men tried to stay as quiet as possible while they made their way to it.

  Simon barked twice into the darkness making both men stop and hold their breaths. When they realized it was only a small animal they moved again.

  Kyle stopped and kneeled to come face to face with Simon. “You have to stay quiet.” He gave Simon a quick head scratch and they moved on.

  “I hope the others are okay,” Miguel said.

  “The gunshots stopped,” Kyle said, looking behind him.

  “We may have to go this alone, Reverend,” Miguel said.

  “I think you’re right.”

  Kyle swallowed the bile that threatened to choke him. His mouth was already dry and this only made it worse.

  Simon st
arted to whine and Kyle had to bend over to shush him. Alison had given him commands to keep Simon quiet even with a demon around.

  “We’re close to your mom, but you need to stay quiet,” Kyle said trying to calm the restless dog.

  “I did some work for the mayor when I needed some extra cash,” Miguel said. “I remember the old barn was right behind the house. I asked him if he would do anything with it but he didn’t answer. He smiled that creepy ass smile of his.”