by R. L. Naquin
“Mmph mah faf mmphah?” I nearly choked trying to keep bits of biscuit from spraying across the table while I talked. I took a drink from the apple juice glass and managed to get it all down. I wiped my mouth with my napkin and tried again. “Did they find anything?”
He shook his head. “They came back two weeks later empty-handed.”
“So, you want me to go out there and find him. I can do that.” It was nice to feel needed. This wasn’t a standard soul chase. This was far more interesting.
“It’s more than a simple errand. I need you to go out there and get his soul stone back.”
“No problem. Hey, did I show you what I did with my soul stone?” I reached to pull the pendant from beneath my shirt to show him its new setting but stopped when I saw the solemn expression on his face. I dropped my hand to my lap without disturbing my hidden necklace.
“This is really serious, Kam. The reaper’s stone still has souls locked up in it. The ones that have been there longest have less than two weeks to go before their exit visas expire and they’re stuck.”
A chill ran up my back and my arms broke out in goose bumps. “What are you saying, Art?” I knew what he was saying. I hadn’t paid close attention during soul-chaser training, either, but I’d listened there more than I had in orientation. Still, I needed him to explain it anyway. To be sure.
He gave me a long look, then spoke slowly. “Come on, Kam. I know it’s a touchy subject for you after being stuck in a box for a hundred years. That’s why I hired you. I knew you’d take the deadline seriously.”
I blinked but didn’t say anything.
His voice softened when he saw the look on my face. “Okay. You need me to say it. I understand.” He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “Most of the soul chasers on my payroll these days are more interested in cashing in than doing the job right. You care. I know how hard you work to help the souls you capture, not just grab them and bring them in. You also have the highest success rate and quickest average capture time. I need that soul stone unloaded soon before the souls inside are stuck inside for eternity. And you’re the one I trust most to find it.”
* * *
After the conversation with Art, I wasn’t hungry anymore. I downed three more types of juice—pineapple, watermelon and some sort of green stuff that tasted kind of like horse breath—then climbed the stairs to find the room Art had set aside for me to nap in.
At first, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep. I flipped back and forth on the fancy four-poster bed several times, haunted by the idea that a bunch of strangers might be stuck forever inside a tiny rock if I didn’t help them.
I’d been so young—practically a kid when the Master had grabbed me and bound me inside his box. I’d escaped every couple of decades, but in the end, he’d always found me and put me back. It wasn’t until I’d run into an Aegis named Zoey in California that I’d finally gained my freedom permanently. Well, I hadn’t. Zoey had. Helping people was kind of her thing. As an Aegis, it was her job to care for the Hidden and keep them safe. Even if she hadn’t been a mystical caretaker of the Hidden, she would have done it anyway. Her nature was to help everybody who crossed her path, and people loved her for it. I loved her because she was my friend—almost like a sister.
Zoey and her husband, Riley, and Sara the demon and Maurice the closet monster—they were my family. And they’d understood when I went off on my own to see the world. They’d let me go find out what it was like to be truly free.
But how could I be free if there were souls out there depending on me for their freedom? I couldn’t. I had to go find the missing reaper. I had to free the souls in the middle of their transition so they could finish the journey to wherever souls went after we released them.
It was what Zoey would do.
With that last thought, I drifted off and slept. Early in the afternoon, the juice fairy woke me with a glass of milk and a sandwich.
“Thanks, Wanda. Will you tell Art I’ll be down in a minute?” I wolfed the sandwich while I put my clothes on and pulled my hair into a ponytail.
She blinked with her hollow eyes, nodded and shuffled out.
It wasn’t so much the blank stare and empty eyes that bothered me. More than anything else, it was her lack of words. Quiet people unnerved me. If a person had a face, words should be coming out of it. Wanda could talk. I knew she could. But she didn’t unless she was told to speak. That right there was messed up. I knew she wasn’t real, but come on. Lots of fake people talked all the time.
Creepy.
Once I was presentable, I trotted down the stairs and found Art waiting for me.
“Did I let you sleep long enough?” Art’s brow wrinkled with worry. “You drove all night.”
“Relax.” I hopped over the last step for luck. “It’s only four hours from here. I’ll be there by dinner.”
The worry on his face didn’t go away. He held out an envelope. “It’s not much. I know you spent the last of your money to get here. I can’t pay you in full until you turn in the souls, but this advance should get you started out there.”
I took the envelope. It wasn’t as thick as I’d hoped it would be. “No worries, Art. I’ll take care of it.”
He gave a curt nod. “Of course you will.”
For a second, I thought he was going to hug me. That would have been weird. Being the boss of everything sure had changed the guy.
Feeling awkward, I took a few steps toward the door. “Well, thanks for breakfast and lunch. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“The envelope also contains what little information the reapers brought back with them. They followed Pete’s path to a community of food trucks at an office park. This should get you as far they did so you can pick up where they left off.”
“Great. Thanks.” I gave him a little salute with the envelope, then stepped outside into the sunshine. I blinked a few times to clear my vision.
Wanda was at my truck shoving a box into the back with my bags.
Art patted my shoulder. “I had her pack up some food to keep you going for a few days. Can’t have my best chaser out on a secret mission and let her starve.”
I didn’t want to admit how relieved I was. I was an adult. I should be able to take care of myself better than this. I smiled at him. “Thanks, Dad.”
He chuckled. “Bring me back some good news. Soon. The stone goes into lockdown in less than two weeks. You’ve got until a week from Thursday.”
I pushed my shoulders back and my chin up. My insides felt mushy, and I regretted eating that sandwich. At least I could put on a brave face. “I’ll find him, Art. And I’ll bring back the souls before it’s too late.”
Chapter Three
I understood the need to hurry, but once I was out on the road, nearly two weeks seemed like a wealth of time in which to solve a simple missing person case. Usually when I chased after people, they were noncorporeal. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like the easiest job I’d ever been given. I was good at chasing souls. I always found them and captured them in record time.
Pete’s soul just happened to still be in his body. I hoped so, anyway.
Knowing all this, I relaxed into the trip. The route took me right through Cawker City. I had to stop. I was compelled to stop.
One did not drive past the world’s biggest ball of twine.
I grabbed a soda from a drive-through coming into town, then followed the signs to an open-air pagoda housing the miraculous ball. I parked in a spot at the curb and climbed the steps to gawk at the wonder before me.
To my surprise, benches surrounded the ball inside the pagoda, so I took a seat and sipped my soda.
“Isn’t she a beauty?” A man with a mop of red hair and a mole over one wild eyebrow came around from the other side.
/> I nodded my appreciation. “Big.”
His eyes grew wide with excitement. “In August, we all gather in here and add more twine to it.”
“No way!” I slurped loudly and grinned at him. “Do you live here?”
His head bobbed up and down. “I’m Ray.”
“Hi, Ray. I’m Kam.” I slurped again. “Ray, you seem like you’re a twine-ball expert. Can you answer a question for me?”
“I can sure try.”
“How come Cawker City’s got the largest ball of twine, but just last month, I saw the largest ball of twine in Branson, Missouri, at the Ripley’s museum?” It was an honest question. I was genuinely puzzled, because the folks at The Guinness Book of World Records usually took these things seriously.
Ray’s face became still and sober. “Branson has nylon twine.” He patted the rough ball next to him. “This is baler twine. You understand?”
Slurp. “I totally do, Ray. Thank you. I was troubled.”
Ray plopped next to me on the bench and gave me a lecture on the history of the Cawker City twine ball, the original dimensions before it was taken over by the town, the current dimensions and the date of the August twine-a-thon, in case I was in town to help.
Ray had loads of stories, including one about a construction guy named Harold who tried to convince the whole town to switch to tinfoil instead of twine because he thought it would protect them all from aliens. Somewhere in the middle of the story, an ice-cream truck came by, and I bought Ray an orange Creamsicle and myself a rainbow Popsicle that turned my tongue blue. Ray told me so, and I double-checked by sticking my tongue way out so I could see a little bit of it for myself. After almost an hour with my new friend, I thanked him for the chat and told him I had to get going.
“Places to be, Ray. You know how it is.”
“Don’t be a stranger!” He waved as I pulled out and drove away.
Road trips, even short ones, were the best.
* * *
In recent years, there weren’t too many hitchhikers anymore, but it used to be a person couldn’t drive to the grocery store without picking up six kids, a migrant worker and somebody’s grandma.
Not everybody had cars, especially back in the ’40s. I hadn’t had a car then, exactly, but I had stolen one for a while. So when I saw somebody needing a lift, I liked to share my good fortune.
In this century, it was a lot more dangerous to pick people up. But times weren’t so different that a djinn couldn’t protect herself if things went bad. Young human women looking for a ride, however, were vulnerable to all sorts of dangers, especially men in fancy sports cars, like that time in New Mexico when my car broke down. That guy had six hands and a picture of his wife and kids taped to the dashboard. I never found out what the hell a Russian hard hat was, but I knew I wasn’t going to give him one.
Somewhere after I went through Junction City, I spotted a figure standing on the gravel shoulder. I pulled over the minute I saw the teenaged girl with her thumb out.
A thin face peered into the passenger window. I grinned and waved at her to hop in. She hesitated only a second, then opened the door and climbed up, pulling a backpack and messenger bag with her.
I didn’t want to scare her, so I tried to engage in interesting conversation right away—give her reason to stay longer than the next exit. “Have you ever smelled a binturong?”
She took the time to buckle her seat belt and arrange her bags on the floorboard before twisting in her seat to face me. “They smell like buttered popcorn.”
My breath caught in my chest, and I did an excited hop in my seat. “Exactly! How crazy is that?” I pulled out onto the highway. “How weird must it be to walk around the rain forest in Asia thinking there’s a movie theater around the next tree?”
She blinked at me, her eyes so dark blue they looked like velvet. “You don’t eat that stuff, do you? It’s nothing but chemicals. What they call butter hasn’t ever seen the inside of a cow.”
I shrugged. “So? It’s delicious.” I signaled and pulled into the left lane to pass a red Mini. “I’m Kam.”
“Ash.” She ran her hand over the seat belt buckle. “Where are we going?”
“Not terribly far. I’m stopping in Overland Park, this side of Kansas City. About another two and a half hours. Where did you want to go?”
“East.” She folded her hands in her lap and didn’t say anything else.
I probably should have taken her straight to a police station. I wasn’t stupid. I knew a runaway when I saw one. And I knew I could get into serious trouble driving around with an escaped minor in my truck.
But I wasn’t about to turn her in. I’d been a runaway once. And after the Master had captured me, I’d been an escapee on several occasions. I knew there were as many good reasons to run away as there were dumb ones. This kid wasn’t stupid, either. Hell, she knew what a binturong was. I had to have faith that her reasons for running were sound.
We rode in silence for a few miles until the quiet was too much for me. “How close are you to your birthday?”
She moved her gaze in my direction without swiveling her neck. “What?”
“Your birthday. When is it? You’re not eighteen yet, are you?”
Ash sat a little straighter, still not looking directly at me. “You know what, you can probably just drop me at the next exit. I really appreciate the ride, but I’m thinking I might head north instead.”
I dismissed her words with a wave of my hand. “No, I get it. You don’t want to answer personal questions. I didn’t mean to pry. Tell me something else. Tell me about your favorite food. I like to talk about food.”
She folded her arms across her chest, frowning in thought and not speaking. Her long sleeves lifted a little at the action, and a bit of white gauze peeked from beneath her right sleeve. I frowned but pretended not to notice. Had someone hurt her, or had she hurt herself?
I didn’t bring it up. She didn’t know me well enough for me to ask her what happened, and it wasn’t something she was likely to bring up herself. But it made me want to ensure her safety—keep her with me as long as possible so no one else could hurt her, including herself.
Sitting quietly and waiting for Ash to decide whether or not to trust me was excruciating. Miles went by full of all sorts of roadkill, big signs advertising weird things and, once, a guy walking a goat on the side of the road. Okay, it might have been a dog. I wanted it to be a goat. I kept quiet and let Ash think when I really wanted to point out all the cool stuff along the way.
After what seemed an eternity but was probably about five miles, she lowered her hands to her lap and clasped them there. “About a week.” She tensed, as if waiting for me to overreact. “I turn eighteen a week from Sunday. And I’m not going back to that place.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
She twisted in her seat toward me. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m not going to make your decisions for you. I have enough trouble making my own.” I glanced at the dashboard. “But we do need to stop for gas.”
She gave me a long look, then faced front, apparently having decided I wasn’t going to turn her over to the authorities in the next town. “I’ll pump it if you want.”
I took the next exit and pulled into a small but busy station. I hopped out and took out the envelope from Art. “Here.” I handed Ash a couple of twenties. “You go in and pay. Give him thirty for the gas, then get us some snacks with the change.”
She frowned at the money in her hand, then met my gaze with her own. “Are you sure?”
I thought about it. “No, you’re right.” I handed her another ten. “You probably haven’t eaten in a while.” I turned my back on the hitchhiker I’d met only a half hour ago and grabbed a squeegee from a bucket so I could scrub the bug guts off the windshield.
Ash hesitated, then I saw her walk off toward the convenience store to do what I asked.
I’d been in her shoes. It was as important for me to trust her as it was for her to trust me. As far as I was concerned, this kid was staying with me at least until I could make sure she was going to be okay. I had no intention of dropping her off somewhere and letting her get picked up by some businessman with a taste for young girls.
By the time I finished cleaning off the bugs, the gas pump was ready for me to use, which meant Ash had at least paid the attendant. She didn’t reappear while I filled the tank, but I tried not to be nervous.
If she didn’t come back, I’d have to go look for her. It wasn’t about the money—though I didn’t have a whole lot to spare at the moment. I didn’t want that traveling business dude who lived in my head to grab her. She seemed smart. But I had a hundred years on her. Sort of.
Okay, if I were being honest, I had about ten years on her. Time spent in the Master’s box didn’t count for much living. I hadn’t aged or experienced anything while I’d been in there. I’d sort of been on hold.
The pump clicked off, having given me what I’d paid for, and I screwed the cap on. The giant bottle of water I’d had on the way down finally hit me, and I ran in to use the bathroom. On my way through the store going in and coming out, I didn’t see Ash. I waited in the truck longer than most people would have. But I wanted to believe she’d be back. People, in my experience, were inherently good.
As the first trickle of doubt finally ran through my head, the passenger door swung open, and Ash climbed in with a bag of groceries. “Sorry it took so long. I hurried as fast as I could.” She slammed the door shut and buckled up. “There was nothing in the store that was fit for human consumption, so I ran into the grocery store across the parking lot.”
I hadn’t noticed the other building. It was small, like a mom-and-pop market rather than a big chain.
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “What’d you get?”