Jar of Souls

by Bradford Bates

  “Ah, Jackson, you made it. Let me introduce you to Inspector Lapointe.”

  Inspector was a title that I had never heard used before. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “I can assure you the pleasure is all mine,” the inspector said, his eyes watching me with an intensity that was contagious. Something about him just said that he enjoyed what he did. “You may also call me Jean.”

  “Thank you, Jean.”

  “Jackson, why don’t you take a seat.” Adam pointed to the open chair. “The inspector was just filling me in on a few details of a case he has been working on.”

  “Yes, I had been telling Adam that I could use a little help out in the field, a fresh pair of eyes to maybe pick up something I missed.”

  “I’m not sure how much help I would really be. I’m still learning about our world, and there is so much I still don’t understand.”

  “That’s exactly why I thought you would be perfect, Jackson,” Adam said. “We could use a fresh take, and no one else will look at it the same way you do. This might be a shock for you; some of the things you see may be a little more graphic than you are used to.”

  “Adam, don’t try and scare the boy. Normally when we get to a scene, there is no action. Just a few dead bodies to keep us company while we poke around.”

  I was a little confused as to what was going on, but if they wanted me to go out in the field with the inspector, I would do it. Maybe it would be exactly what I needed to break out of the funk I had been in. “I’d like to go. Hopefully this will teach me a little bit more about what we do.”

  “Jackson, this will be a little outside of what the Ascendancy normally does. The inspector works outside of our normal scope of activity. When something just doesn’t add up, we send him in to see if he can make sense of it, and then we act on the information.”

  “Don’t make what I do seem so important, Adam. What he means is they send me in to poke around and rile things up until something shakes loose. Its gritty work, but sometimes I get the chance to find out what happened when no one else could.”

  “It sounds like it will be fantastic, but what about my training here?”

  Adam watched me for a moment before he spoke. It seemed as if he was looking to find any hidden reasons for me not to want to go. I had a few, and one of them was Britta, but I would never say no to Adam. “Jackson, the good news is these will be small trips out into the field and then you will return while the inspector follows up on what you find.”

  “Awesome, I’m ready whenever you are, Inspector.”

  Adam and the inspector both gave me a look before Adam spoke again. “Why don’t you go change into something besides those workout clothes and meet the inspector outside of my office.”

  I looked down at my clothes, not really understanding what was wrong. I had on my Adidas pants and a long-sleeved Nike shirt. It seemed like an ok outfit to me. Around the arena, we tended to only wear our workout gear. Our lives here, at least for now, centered on training, and when we weren’t training, we all liked to be comfortable.

  “Just something a little less casual. Grab a pair of jeans and an actual coat. That should be sufficient,” the inspector said. His eyes seemed to hold a barely contained laugh as if he was enjoying that I was a little out of place.

  “Will do. See you soon.”

  I met the inspector in a tunnel by the arena floor. It was still raining, so I was thankful we weren’t meeting out in the open. The water came down just outside of the entrance and was echoing around us.

  He gave me a once-over as I approached. “Nice coat.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled, thinking about when I had unwrapped my birthday gift from Britta. My first thought was that she spent way too much money on me. My second thought was that it was a bitchin’ coat.

  “All right, here are how things are going to work. It’s just like when you were a kid. Speak when spoken to. Otherwise just follow and listen. If you see something that requires attention, point it out to me. This should just be a quick in and out for us. No resistance is expected, but keep your eyes open. Any questions?”

  “Seems simple enough. Follow your lead, keep my mouth shut, and pay attention.”

  “I knew I liked you for a reason. You got the gist of it right away. Now let’s see if you can do it.” He walked forward to a door set in the side of the tunnel. I felt a little tug as he called on his gift. When the door opened, it looked out into an alley. He motioned for me to step through, and I did. There was a familiar sense of my stomach falling, and I was out standing in a trash-strewn alley. I pulled the collar of my coat up as the light wind seemed to be sending the rain directly down my neck. The door closed as the inspector stepped out, revealing a door to a building behind him.

  He opened the door, giving me the brief flash of a kitchen before closing the door again. “It’s always a good idea to make sure the gateway is actually shut before you leave. Last thing you want is something nasty to pop out because it didn’t seal properly.”

  “The gateway?”

  “Ah, so you haven’t made it that far in your studies yet. Well, a gateway is a portal that links two areas together by magical means. It lets us travel great distances in the blink of an eye.”

  “Kind of like the portal?”

  “Almost, except it takes much less power to do it this way and is much more likely not to leave a trace.” He gave me a once-over and then motioned for me to follow him as he walked by. We stepped out of the alley, and I felt my breath catch for a second. There was no way we were still close to home. It was hard to say exactly where we were, but I would have put us somewhere in Washington or Oregon. It was going to take me a while to get used to this new form of travel. Just a few minutes ago, we had been in Arizona.

  I kept an eye out, trying to figure out where in the Pacific Northwest we were, but nothing really stood out to me. The light rain and dark clouds kept most of the people at bay and bathed everything in an inky greyness. I almost walked right into the back of the inspector when he stopped. He had his head up and was looking around the street. It was as if he sensed someone watching him. After a few seconds, he stopped scanning the street and kept moving. We ducked from alley to alley before coming out on the edge of town. He walked toward a building set a little ways back in the pine trees.

  The building was nothing special, a traditional craftsman style home that could have been found in either location. The inspector walked around to the back of the building and stopped just as he rounded the corner. This time I was ready for the sudden stop, but not for what I saw beyond the inspector’s shoulder. I tore my gaze away from the carnage for a quick second to cast a furtive glance behind us. I hoped whatever had done this wasn’t still around.

  The inspector moved slowly around the edge of the building, and I crept out behind him. The scene in front of us was one of utter destruction. The storm doors to the basement were ripped off their hinges. One of them had been used to somehow nail a man to a tree. The shattered door was sticking out of his midsection. Thankfully he was slumped over, but I could still imagine the look of anguish that must have been on his face. A few limbs dotted the yard. A leg here, an arm there.

  From what I could tell, outside of the man attached to the tree, there wasn’t a lot of blood anywhere. It seemed odd that there wouldn’t be more blood than there was. Even in the near-constant rain, I would have thought there would be at least some trace from all of the carnage. The inspector kept his head on a swivel, taking in the entire area while looking for any new threats. I tried to stay as close to him as I could and watch behind us as often as I could spare a glance. He walked into the trees, and as grateful as I was for the shelter from the rain, it didn’t make up for the two dead bodies left in front of us.

  I wasn’t a doctor, but I didn’t think it was possible for bodies to decay that quickly. It was easy to see why they were dead, though. Each of the bodies had multiple gashes across the pale, almost grey flesh. The wounds didn�
��t look to be bleeding, and I still couldn’t get over how gross their skin looked. For a moment, I was thankful for the rain. The wet smell of the forest kept most of the rotting stink the bodies gave off from my nose.

  The inspector looked at me and asked, “Tell me what you see.”

  I scanned the scene around us one more time before answering. “Ok a couple things I picked up on. The doors from the basement or cellar were either blown outward with enough force to rip them off the hinges or they were ripped off afterward. Either way, the pattern of debris means that the damage went from inside to outside. If it was afterward, someone either used magic or was damn strong to do that.” I pointed to the body impaled to the tree by one of the doors. “A couple other things stood out as odd. I don’t see anywhere near as much blood as I would have expected, and these two bodies”—I indicated the two in front of us—“look like they could have been dead for weeks.”

  “Very good, Jackson. Normally I would tell you there is never as much blood as we think there will be, something TV and the movies tend to get wrong, but in this case, you are right. There isn’t nearly enough for all of this damage. These two bodies have been dead for quite some time, although I am not sure if they were being stored in the cellar or if they were brought here intentionally.” He waved his hand, and the bodies burst into an intense blue flame. Within a minute, they were nothing but ash. He used the same spell on the man impaled on the tree and all of the body parts in the yard.

  “Did you notice anything else?”

  “No, not really.”

  He made the motion for me to follow him again. As I did, he pointed out several tracks. I couldn’t tell what they could be from, maybe the world’s largest dog. Then he pointed out one set of human footprints winding their way through the yard. He looked back at me, his eyes asking if I had seen everything he pointed out.

  I nodded. “The only question I have is did they start from inside or end up there.”

  “There is only one way to find out.” I swear I saw him smile as he made his way to the cellar door. The man must have been slightly insane; all of my instincts said, do not go into the creepy cellar. When the inspector went down the stairs, there was nothing I could do but follow him. The other half of my instincts were screaming just as loud, I don’t want to be out here alone.

  The inspector flipped the lights on, and there were muddy footprints moving into the building as well as out of it. There was no way to be sure if the assailants were still inside or not. I called on my gift and created a shield behind me that spanned the entire hallway. It wouldn’t hold up to a strong magical assault, but when it broke, I would know about it, giving us a warning that someone was coming in behind us. I anchored the spell to the wall, feeding it a little more power. Based off of the practice I had done with Marcus, it should last for a few hours. As we continued further into the cellar, I cast a few more shields just to feel safe.

  The inspector looked back at me as I cast the last one. “That’s a nifty little spell. Not much good in a fight, but as an early warning system, it’s incredible.”

  “My friend Marcus taught it to me.”

  “I might have to try and pick his brain.”

  “I’m sure he would like that.”

  “Let me know if anything comes up from behind us. Otherwise follow me and keep your eyes open.”

  If there hadn’t been sets of muddy footprints leading further into the cellar, then I wouldn’t have been as scared. The inspector kept his eyes forward, and I was thankful because there was no way he would miss seeing the fear in my eyes if he looked back at me now. Right now we were in a long tiled hallway. Nothing much to look at; it kind of reminded me of a hospital. At the end of the hallway was a large steel door. It was hanging from one hinge, the rest of it sprawled across the hallway floor. Something big or powerful had definitely forced its way inside of the room. I hoped that meant that the footprints leading out meant they were already gone.

  Before we got to the door, the inspector’s hands burst into bright blue flames. I took that as a cue and put my personal shield in place and got ready for a battle. I felt my heart start to race at the thought of what could be coming next. I had never done anything but practice magic and fighting. Being involved in something that could result in my death was terrifying. The inspector sprang into the room, and I followed after pushing my fear of the unknown back where it belonged.

  I saw a few more dead bodies burst into flame, and then everything was quiet. I gagged as the smell of the room hit me. This is what it must have smelled like when they found a mass grave or exhumed a body. It was the worst thing I had ever smelled. I started to retch and then spun around when I heard laughter. I shot the inspector a withering glare.

  “It’s awful, isn’t it? The smell, I mean.”

  “I can’t think of anything worse. The rest of this place is pretty horrible. What do you think happened here?”

  “It’s hard to say, really. I can’t be sure if the blood and bodies are from something that was being done before we got here or something that happened afterward. Either way, something horrible happened here.”

  “That might be the understatement of the year.”

  I looked around the single room we were in. Streaks of blood lined the walls; parts of bodies were in glass jars against one wall. Medical instruments or torture devices were lined up on polished silver trays. The back of the room had a single door that had a glass window. Right now that window was frosted over, and I thanked God for small favors. This had to be a morgue of some kind but a scary movie version of one. Just what in the hell had they been doing down here? What kind of experiments?

  I tried to shove those thoughts away when I felt the first of my shields break. “Inspector, we are going to be getting some company soon.”

  “More than you know,” he said.

  A solid thump sounded from the back of the room. “Is that coming from inside the freezer?” I asked as several more thumps and scrapes came from that direction.

  “It sure did,” the inspector said, turning to face the threat at the back of the room.

  That left me all alone to face whatever was coming toward us from outside. I felt my next shield crack under the pressure of what was coming. I had one more in place, and then I was going to have to cast some real magic. This is what I had been training for, right? To go on missions. You know, save the cheerleader, save the world type of stuff. This was my first chance to get it done. Why was I so scared?

  The thumps and scrapes from the freezer started to grow louder, making it hard to concentrate. I tried to push that noise to the side and focus on what was going to be coming my way. Each of my shields continued to fall as whatever was coming continued down the hallway. I filled the hallway with flames and then sent the wall of fire screaming in the direction of what was coming. I stumbled back as I felt someone else dispel the flames.

  “Inspector, I think we have a big problem.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  Casting a furtive look over my shoulder, I noticed a huge claw had scraped its way through the steel door and was scraping and pulling against the outside. Its continued frenzy of activity was starting to shred the steel door. “Maybe we have an even bigger problem. There is someone coming down the hall, and they were able to deflect the spell I cast.” I continued to move closer to the inspector, angling away from the freezer while keeping the opening to the hallway in front of me.

  The inspector cast a quick glance my way. “Think you can handle the freezer?”

  “No, but I can try.”

  “I guess that will have to do.” As he finished talking, he moved away from the freezer and raced toward the hallway.

  I moved across the room, keeping an eye on the freezer door. The large claw continued to rip at the hole it had started in the door. I wasn’t sure what I could do to slow it down. My first thought was to seal the door, but the thing had claws that could rip through steel. All it would do was buy me some time. Calli
ng on my gift, I melted the steel door into the frame, hoping to make it harder to open. The claw pulled back from the hole, and a milky white eye looked out at me. A hideous noise somewhere between a growl and a gurgle escaped from the hole.

  What in the hell was that? I cast a quick look over my shoulder only to see the inspector flying through the air and back into the room. He came crashing down onto one of the steel medical tables. He rolled over it as it fell, and somehow ended up back on his feet. Then the table flew across the room at the hallway. Right before it would have hit the dark-robed figure, the table flew to the side, imbedding itself into the tile wall. The scraping noise behind me grew more insistent, and I noticed with horror that the hole had grown big enough for the beast inside to fit its head through.

  Two milky white eyes turned in my direction, following my movement. The head was scarred, and the fur had been removed in places. Huge staples seemed to be all that was holding the misshapen head together. All I could think of was that this was my first look at a werewolf, but somehow it was twisted and wrong. I knew for certain I didn’t want that thing anywhere near me.

  I heated the hole it had made, causing liquid steel to drop around the creature’s neck. The fur singed and even caught on fire in a few places, but the beast never cried out. Slipping its head back inside the freezer, it attacked the door violently again. This time the creature’s claws ripped through the heated steel as if it was butter. Note to self, when battling something locked in a separate room, in no way should you weaken the integrity of the door holding it back.

  The Lycan launched itself at the hole, and it made it halfway through before the steel stuck into it enough that it was trapped. Its front paws swung violently at me as if willing itself closer. The huge white eyes focused on me and me alone. I felt terror grab my heart. My first instinct was to turn and run, but if it got free, I would be dead in an instant. A quick look confirmed the inspector still had his hands full behind me. I tried to think of what Marcus or April would have done. Next time there was no way I was leaving home without my swords.