To Catch a Stolen Soul
Page 21
“I don’t need a partner. I haven’t had one since Darius died.”
“I think recent events prove otherwise.” Click, click. Click, click.
My heart sank. “You’re not serious. You’re assigning me a partner?” I thought about it a minute and finally shrugged. “Okay. It was too quiet by myself, and I figured three might be even better than two. Who is she?”
“He.” Art’s pen clicked at record speed. He pressed a button on his desk. “Wanda, send him in, please.”
The door behind us opened, and I rose from my chair to greet my new partner. I froze, and every drop of blood in my body seemed to flow into my shoes and turn to ice.
“Hello, Kam. It’s good to see you.”
I stared at my fiancé, afraid I might be sick on Art’s expensive imported carpet. “Tahm.”
Ash came to my side and rubbed her palm against my back. “Hi. I’m Ash.”
He nodded at her. “Nice to meet you.”
He was taller than I remembered. His dark hair a bit shorter. The smoky green of his eyes was exactly as I’d dreamed for over a hundred years. Lucas had been a fun side note in a tiny chapter of my life. Tahm was all I’d ever wanted. And having him standing in front of me after a century away made every little-girl daydream and teenaged wish come crashing back.
And all I wanted to do was make a run for it out Art’s window.
My tongue wouldn’t cooperate, so it took some work to unstick it and push out words. “How did you find me?”
“Your friends in California are very loyal. But they aren’t great liars. When they wouldn’t help, I came here hoping headquarters might have some record of you.”
I glanced over my shoulder at Art. “And you gave me up, just like that.”
Art opened his mouth to answer, but Tahm stopped him.
“No, Art gave me a job. I’ve been training to be a chaser.”
Art interrupted. “He needs a trainer to go on the road with. Just as you did. And you now have seventeen souls to chase down. You need a team. This is your team.”
It sounded reasonable. But Art didn’t seem to understand the big problem here. I turned back to Tahm. “You can’t force me to marry you.”
He held his hands up in front of him. “Whoa. Nobody said anything about that.”
“Then what are you doing here? Why did you track me down?” My heart felt like it was breaking all over again. How could I marry someone I loved so much when everything he did was out of duty? He was the most noble, honest person I’d ever known.
“I just want to get to know you. Not Kal’s baby sister. You. Kam. And I want you to get to know me.”
“I do know you.” The words came out a whisper.
He shook his head. “No. You knew your big brother’s friend. And you knew him a century ago. Maybe...maybe we’re so different, we can’t possibly get married and we can go back home and tell them so. But we have to get to know each other first so we can prove it. Fair?”
I nodded. “I guess that’s fair.” I never thought he’d be willing to call off the marriage. It wasn’t the dutiful-son thing to do. There must be a reason he was so willing. So, that was it. My true love was someone else’s true love. He must have a girl back in our world he wanted to marry, and I was unfinished business. My heart squeezed in my chest, and I felt more alone than I’d ever felt in the Master’s box. I bit back tears and looked at the bookcase behind him rather than make eye contact. “Okay. So, you’re part of my team. The three of us will go out and hunt down these seventeen souls I let loose, then we’ll decide what to do next.” I glanced around the rooms. “Is everyone on board with this?”
Ash nodded and squeezed my shoulder.
“Agreed,” Art said. “I’ll get the paperwork going and you can start training tomorrow.”
* * *
A week later, the three of us were squashed into my truck. I drove, Ash sat next to me and my first and only love whom I’d run away from a hundred years ago sat on the passenger’s side.
No, that wasn’t exactly true. There were four of us. Art said he’d tried everything to dump, coax, beg and force Pete out of the stone, but Pete had refused to vacate my soul stone and move on through the release station to wherever souls went next.
In the end, Art had shrugged and handed me my soul stone. “If he wants to spend eternity in there, I can’t do anything about it. He’s got several months before its permanent, though. We’ll try again next time you’re here.”
I’d hung my scarab around my neck and tucked it under my shirt. “Maybe he has unfinished business.”
Every now and then, the stone vibrated, as if he were trying to... I don’t know. Talk to me. Or escape the stone. Or maybe escape the stone so he could talk to me. I had a feeling Pete’s journey wasn’t over, and he had a place on my team. I had no clue how, but I couldn’t shake the feeling.
I patted the lump of stone under my shirt. “So. Where are we going first, navigator?” I started up the engine and turned through the circular driveway.
Ash opened her notebook, which was adorned entirely in bottle caps she’d glued to the front and back cover during breaks in training. “Branson, Missouri. First you want to get out on the road and take—”
“Ugh.” I made a series of sounds of disgust, along with a face I hoped wouldn’t stick that way. “I know how to get there. You don’t have to tell me.”
Tahm laughed. “Not a fan?”
“That place ruined pirates for me forever. I used to love pirates.”
We pulled off the driveway, went through the gate. Floyd was wearing a smart fedora instead of his Royals hat, so there must not have been a game today. I waved at him as we passed, then plowed through the wheat field to get to the road. Once we made it back to pavement, the ride was much more comfortable.
We drove in silence for a few minutes before I’d had enough. Silence never was my thing.
“So, Tahm.”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever smelled a binturong?”
* * * * *
Also available from R.L. Naquin
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The Monster Haven Series
Monster in My Closet
Pooka in my Pantry
Fairies in my Fireplace
Golem in my Glovebox
Demons in my Driveway
Phoenix in my Fortune
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About the Author
Rachel writes stories that drop average people into magical situations filled with heart and quirky humor.
She believes in pixie dust, the power of love, good cheese, lucky socks and putting things off until the last minute. Her home is Disneyland, despite her current location in Kansas. Rachel has one husband, two grown kids and a crazy-catlady starter kit.
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When Zoey Donovan found out monsters are real, her life changed—mostly for the better. Follow her adventures in this fun and quirky urban fantasy series.
MONSTER IN MY CLOSET (A Monster Haven Story, book one)
POOKA IN MY PANTRY (A Monster Haven Story, book two)
FAIRIES IN MY FIREPLACE (A Monster Haven Story, book three)
GOLEM IN MY GLOVEBOX (A Monster Haven Story, book four)
DEMONS IN MY DRIVEWAY (A Monster Haven Story, book five)
PHOENIX IN MY FORTUNE (A Monster Haven Story, book six)
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ISBN-13: 9781488022609
To Catch a Stolen Soul
Copyright © 2017 by R.L. Naquin
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