by Lisa Swallow
“Is it? You’ve never questioned any of this? About souls? You’re not a typical soul-hunter. You’re a survivor. And survivors live because they question and they challenge. Like you.” He paused. “Like me.”
Ava ignored his implication. She wasn’t him. “You can’t free every soul.”
“Not on my own, I can’t. That’s why some of us do this. We free the souls trapped in the easiest place to find. Demons. For now.”
“They know you’re doing this?”
“Of course they do, they’ve been trying to stop me for a long time now. I’m not Mr. Popular with the Demon Lords because I’m not behaving. And the Caelestia hate me because I’m Nephilim. Life’s interesting.” He smiled weakly.
Souls free. Ava stared ahead, the cool winter chilling her face as his words ran cold through her blood. Was this the answer to her unspoken questions? She knew about the battle between good and evil, the war which made her and Keir enemies. But souls belonged on her side. In crystals for Darius. Souls weren’t a race of their own.
Staying with Keir and listening to more of his insanity threatened her own. “I have to go.”
As she began to move, Keir got back to his feet and caught her arm. He spun her to face him. “I don’t want to kill you, Ava. So I haven’t yet. But that doesn’t mean I won’t if you try to stop me. I’m giving you a chance by asking you to help me free souls. Because I think you want to.”
Ava took a deep breath, feeling the ground lurch beneath her. Through her jacket, the awareness of his grip reminded her of their last encounter. Not again. He couldn’t ask her this. Releasing a soul was forbidden - all souls must be returned. She didn’t know the true consequences of breaking rules, but it wouldn’t be good.
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
Ava looked away at a gaggle of teenage girls walking nearby, enjoying their freedom, untroubled by life or death decisions. Unaware of what walked amongst them. The girls jostled each other playfully and their laughter carried through the empty space between Keir and Ava.
She slung her bag across a shoulder, glancing at his face. He watched her intently from under his long lashes, waiting for the response she couldn’t give. Keir confused her, not just because of the word games and rapid personality changes, but why he did what he’d just admitted. The uneasy feelings Ava harbored about her role before she’d met him grew with every passing day, every meeting they had. The shift toward thinking what he did was right and what she did was wrong increased the more she discovered.
He’d laid out the answer to her unspeakable question - what happened to the souls she collected.
Ava pushed her hair from her eyes. “I can’t help you even if I did believe it was right. I’d be signing my own death warrant.”
Keir shifted his jacket closer around himself. “You signed your death warrant the day you chose to become a soul-hunter. You need to decide who to believe and which cause is the one worth dying for.”
Chapter 11
Keir held the demon on the ground, face down. A few meters behind, Ava watched wondering what the hell she was doing there. The creature writhed against Keir’s fierce grip, snarling in a demonic language Ava had heard many times before. The times she stole souls. This one betrayed signs of its true self through more than just its yellow eyes - beneath its shaggy black hair, two small bumps protruded near the front of its head, barely visible but enough to prove this creature wasn’t human.
“Ava?” Keir didn’t look round, concentrating on restraining the demon.
An old mattress leaned against the wall in one corner of the litter-strewn room. The smell of rotting garbage pervaded the derelict house. How was she here? With him. Doing this.
Another week of isolation followed her talk with Keir, alone in the world and trying to fight her feelings for the guy she was supposed to kill. His words about freeing souls looped around her mind, feeding on her deepest doubts.
She now possessed the reason she didn’t see malevolence in his eyes the first night by the fountain. Every demon she’d killed before him exuded evil around them. Not Keir. Now she knew why.
Ava’s nights had been filled with dreams of Keir, replays of everything that had happened between them. Each morning she awoke a little more convinced than before he told the truth. Each day a greater part of her wanted to seek him out, challenge him to demonstrate what he’d told her.
Keir’s explanation of what he did and the nature of souls fueled her unvoiced suspicions. Admitting to what she’d buried, fighting against her indoctrination was harder than Ava imagined. Souls wanted freedom. Was she helping perpetuate a war, handing souls for the creation of more Fated and more soul-hunters? Is that what the Caelestia truly did with the souls - enslaved them in half-angel bodies to do as they wanted? Or was he lying? If it were true, the Caelestia were no better than Demon Lords and she was no better than a demon.
The longer Ava was away from her own world, the more distant the reality and the more logical Keir’s arguments sounded. She considered Darius, the Caelestia - how they treated people and her suspicion increased.
Perhaps she’d failed anyway. After so many weeks without success, Darius must be a heartbeat away from retrieving her. And then?
Stuck between the two worlds, distant from hers and not close enough to his, she needed to make a decision before one was made for her. She went to Keir, told him she wanted to help him kill a demon. Putting herself in the situation, and acting on her gut instinct would make the decision for her. Release the demon’s soul or take Keir’s.
“Ava? Come on!” Keir’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the demons neck, sweat growing beneath the shirt across his broad back.
“Where will its soul go if I don’t take it?”
“I’m not taking it if that’s what you’re asking. The soul will go free, choose its own destiny, out of this war.”
Ava’s sheathed dagger sat against her hip. The gem which could hold a soul, nestled in her pocket. A picture of Darius’s face had crossed her mind as she prepared earlier that evening, and at the last minute she’d stuffed the crystal into her pocket. Now she faced her choice. Keir was vulnerable as he concentrated on the creature. She could take his soul.
Ava took a step toward Keir and the demon.
“Soul-hunter?” The demon coughed into the dirt. “Working with a Nephilim? You really do want to go to Hell don’t you?”
“What does it mean?” she asked, halting.
Keir held the creatures face against the dirty floor, sweat beading across his forehead. “It’s trying to trick you. Kill the demon. I can’t hold it here all night.”
“You trust the Nephilim boy? Ha!” snarled the demon.
Keir increased his pressure on the demon’s neck. “Over you? I think she does.”
Did she? Ava looked from one to the other, decision not yet made. This is your chance, a small voice told her, kill both of them. Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook the thought away, telling herself fighting both Keir and the demon at the same time would fail.
She took another step and paused again, tugging at her hair in confusion.
“Do you just want me to do it? Walk away from this back to your old role?” Keir growled.
“It’s not that easy, Keir.”
“It is, just slash its fucking throat.” Keir’s face reddened as he struggled with the demon.
“Help me instead, soul-hunter,” said the demon, twisting its head to look at her with yellow eyes, “I’ll help you kill him. Gladly.”
Keir pushed the demon’s face back into the dirt. “Are you playing me, Ava? Is this a trick? Because I’ve told you, if we fight, you won’t win.”
The demon lifted its head again. “He’s fighting a losing battle, you both are but if you help me take him out you’ll make a lot of friends amongst my kind…”
Ava didn’t need to hear anything more. The abhorrence of a demon telling her she should help their side made the choice for her. She unsheathed the da
gger. Keir’s alarmed eyes focused on the glinting knife as Ava launched herself at the creature and dragged the shining metal blade across its throat. Thick, black blood spilt to the floor, the viscous liquid pooling along the ground, toward Keir’s boots.
Ava watched in silence, as the soul escaped from the creature’s mouth. The black, rank smelling substance flowing from its neck didn’t bother her, but the grey mist snaking into the air above pushed bile into her throat.
Keir’s arm pressed hers. She’d unknowingly taken a step towards the soul and instinctively curled her hand around the crystal. The strange cloud over the demon’s head levitated, temptingly close to Ava. Her final test. Could she disregard everything she’d been created for, be a hunter of lost souls who allowed one to go? Reality drifted out of focus. Ava swayed and Keir supported her back. The warmth of his touch ended her disconnection from what she saw or where she was.
Keir. She wasn’t too late, a tiny part of her mind suggested she could pull the dagger from the demon and kill him, capture his soul and succeed. He was fixated on the soul, the arm holding hers loosening.
Ava stumbled backwards, away from the treachery in her mind. No. He wasn’t just a Nephilim target anymore. He was Keir. He told her the truth, and no one had done since she left the Fated. The connection they shared beneath their distrust drew her into him, into believing in him. Into wanting him.
Killing Keir stopped being an option weeks ago.
The cloud shot toward the window and dissipated through the cracks in the sill. Nothing remained but the corpse of the demon.
Ava sank to the floor, shaking her head as the enormity smacked her. She held her fear in as long as she could, head buried into her knees so he couldn’t see, but a single sob escaped Ava’s throat. Tears pushed their way from her wide eyes, the enormity of what she’d done flowing down her cheeks.
Ava covered her face. He couldn’t see her like this. No one saw her like this.
Then Keir was there. On his knees in front of her. She felt his rough hands on her wet cheeks as he pulled her head toward him. His eyes. Soft and blue, the violet specks beautiful. Calming.
“You did the right thing,” he said, holding her head so she couldn’t look away from him, “You saved a soul - we saved a soul. Imagine what we could do together, how many we could help.”
Ava focused on his face. “They’re going to kill me,” she said hoarsely, blood draining from her head, the world growing hazy.
Keir shook his head. “No, they don’t come down here, you’re safe.”
“It’s over… why did I do it? I don’t know why I did it… they’re going to kill me…” She couldn’t contain the anguish, and sank forward, deadening the sound against his hard chest.
Keir cocooned her, pushing Ava’s hair from her face and leaning forward to kiss the tears on her cheeks. His warm mouth pulsed electricity through her skin, pulling Ava back to where she was.
“You did the right thing. In here you know it.” Keir put his palm on her chest, his hand over Ava’s heart. “We can make such a difference.”
Ava’s blood pounded through her ears as Keir smiled down at her, kissing away a remaining tear. She shivered. He moved his lips to hers, warm breath and gentle mouth spreading calm through Ava’s shaking body, as she drowned in the comfort of Keir’s embrace. She’d taken a step too far, away from her world, and fallen into an unknown future. Fallen into Keir.
*
Ava perched on Dahlia’s bed as the world around her spun in and out of focus. She couldn’t remember how she’d got there, or how long ago. Or what the hell she was doing in Dahlia’s room. Ava remembered Keir helping her walk away from the scene of her crime, the winter night air hitting her sweat covered face and chilling her into reality. A reality where Darius, or someone he knew, could lurk around the next corner, waiting for her.
Ava looked at Dahlia in surprise as she passed Ava a large glass of red wine. “Here, calm your nerves.”
Ava stared blankly at the glass, unable to face drinking. Maybe not reality after all, Dahlia treating her like this. Being nice.
Dahlia poured herself one and sat in the chair at her desk. “I didn’t think you’d do it,” she said with a sideways glance at Keir.
Keir leaned against the wall, arms crossed. He still wore the darker jeans and black T-shirt from hunting, the darker clothes somehow making him sexier to Ava. As if that was possible.
“I did,” he said.
He’d watched her steadily once they’d returned, every time Ava looked over at him she saw a strange mix of pride and awe in his softened eyes.
“I didn’t,” said Ava. She remembered her hesitation, the demon’s words about Hell.
Ava stared at the strange collection of notes and ribbons on Dahlia’s wall. The information they used to track demons. “Is it what you did? Helped Keir free a soul? Is this why you’re not a soul-hunter anymore?”
Dahlia took a long drink from her glass. “No, I’ve never freed a soul. Only helped.”
“I don’t understand…I thought that was why…” Ava closed her eyes. She’d convinced herself Dahlia released souls too and her human form was the punishment.
“No. It wasn’t taken from me, I chose to leave.”
“You don’t have to talk about this now, Dahlia,” said Keir quietly, “she doesn’t need to know the details.”
“I want to tell her. So she can understand why I did it. So you can see her reaction and ask yourself would she ever do the same.”
Keir turned his face away, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Dahlia’s eyes held tears threatening to spill out and Ava looked away, yanked back to reality again. Shit. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t take anymore tonight. Releasing souls and now Dahlia, the girl who treated her like a sworn enemy until an hour ago, wanted to spill her secrets. Share emotions. Ava had enough emotions of her own to deal with.
“You don’t have to say, Dahlia,” Ava said.
Dahlia drained her wine glass then topped up.
“I never came to take Keir’s soul if that’s what you thought before. I was just an average Joe soul-hunter. I killed demons, took their souls back, rinse and repeat. Then I met Jack. A human guy.” She paused, running her finger around the rim of the wine glass. “It’s impossible to explain and you probably don’t understand, but I fell in love with him. I loved him so much I couldn’t imagine life without him - even if they gave me my Will and I lived as one of the Free. So I chose to stay here. With him.”
Dahlia’s story tumbled out, the bare minimum spoken and facts over with. She punctuated her speech with a long drink of wine.
“You can do that? Choose to stay?” Choosing to be one of the weak and stupid humans. Ava’s skin crawled. “Where is he? Jack?”
Dahlia moved to the drawers beside her bed and pulled out a picture in a small silver frame. She handed the picture to Ava. A blond haired guy with a cheeky grin looked out of the frame, his arm around a girl with long brown hair, both smiling for the camera. It was Dahlia, looking up at the guy, vibrant and happy. A world away from the sad, quiet girl Ava knew.
“He’s gone,” said Dahlia, touching the glass.
Ava gasped. He’d left her. Dahlia had sacrificed herself and he’d fucking left her. When a tear dripped down Dahlia’s nose onto the frame, Ava shifted uncomfortably, emptying her wine glass in one gulp. Ava’s gaze moved to the door. She had to go. This wasn’t part of her.
“He died,” said Keir quietly, throwing Ava’s explanation out of the window.
Ava spun round to look at Keir, who looked at the ground.
Dahlia wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I was wrong - I don’t think I can talk about this, not now.”
She placed the frame face down on the desk and turned to open her laptop, shoulders slumped.
The situation explained so much about Dahlia - how she’d retreated into her own world, losing herself in her sadness, becoming the quiet, shy mouse. Guilt seeped into Ava - she’d been a bitch to Dah
lia. No wonder Dahlia hated her. Dahlia had given up everything, now she was alone in this world.
Apart from Keir.
Keir’s focus of attention had shifted from Ava to his friend. Ava’s skin prickled. Dahlia’s out of character disclosure clearly had another purpose. Nicely done, Dahlia. And she’d started to feel bad for her.
“I’ve had enough.” Ava’s eyes met Dahlia’s, a hint of challenge between them. “Of tonight’s events. I need to sleep.”
“Go with her Keir, make sure she’s okay.”
Keir held a hand out to Dahlia’s face and tenderly brushed a tear from her cheek. Dahlia pulled her head away. “Don’t. I’m fine.”
A jealous anger spread through Ava. Dahlia’s and Keir’s relationship always appeared platonic but seeing the affectionate way Keir treated Dahlia she wondered if the connection was more. Had he stepped in and filled the hole left by Jack? And if this was true, what was Keir’s motive with her? Ava stared at her feet, squeezing back tears, telling herself her fears weren’t true.
“I have to go,” said Ava, “it’s late.”
Keir opened the door and followed Ava through. She started to stomp away, but Keir caught her arm, spinning her round before she could leave.
“I want to go with you,” he said softly, “but my friend needs me, she shouldn’t have tried to talk to you about this stuff.”
She wanted to ask why, what Dahlia’s situation had to do with him but didn’t want to hear the answer. “I can walk back, it’s not far.”
Keir reached out a hand and traced his fingertips across her lips; a soft buzz from his gentle touch crossed her face. He leaned in and kissed her, the briefest of touches on her lips, which melted away the doubt she held. “Do you feel safe?” he asked.
Distracted from her fear by the heat pooling in her stomach, Ava reached out to Keir, desperate for him to hold her again. She tucked her head under his chin and he stroked her hair. She wouldn’t tell him how terrified she was to take the short walk home alone. Something else worried her more.
“You and Dahlia…” Ava began.
“It’s platonic, Ava,” He cupped her face in his hands and looked directly into her eyes and she saw herself reflected in the glacial blue. “She’s not the annoying but impossibly sexy girl I’ve wanted ever since she first pretended to bump into me.”