Soul Thing

by Lana Pecherczyk

  Despite the devil picking at my sanity, Roo gave me patience to wait out the darkness.

  So I did.

  I waited to see again. To feel again.

  And I goddamned waited for her touch to release its hold on me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten, listening to her tiny breaths wheeze in and out until they smoothed into a constant rhythmic fluctuation. Yes. She would heal. She must heal.

  One minute.

  Two minutes.

  She was powerful. Quick. Strong. Once, I’d seen her heal a nigh disembowelment in seconds. She would make this. She had to.

  I made to move. She whimpered into my chest, and the sound was like a shot to my heart. Her hands grasped my shoulders, fingers trembling.

  Keep calm.

  Three minutes.

  Four minutes.

  Oh, dear gods. What had I done?

  I braced the back of her head and, with surgical precision, flipped her onto her back. She stared up at me through large honey-colored eyes, blinking the glimmering pain away.

  “Roo.” I moved a strand of red hair from her face. “I’m sorry… say something. Fuck. You can’t talk yet. Idiot.” I grimaced, scrubbed my face and put a trembling arm on the bed beside her. Her beautiful neck. I’d squashed it. Broken it. Yet, it gathered shape before my eyes, like a balloon inflating.

  I looked away.

  She lifted her finger to trail my cheek, and shivers ratcheted down my spine. When I glanced back at her, she mouthed "your eyes" between gasps.

  I’d woken from a nightmare, mistaken her for the enemy—almost killed her—and she worried about my sight.

  I sat back on my heels and wiggled my fingers in front of my face to confirm her observation. Yes. I could see again.

  Whoopdie-fucking-doo.

  She was out of my league. I was supposed to mentor her, teach her in the ways of the Nephilim, the Seraphim, and the Game. But how could I do that when, just under the surface, I was a vicious animal, a killing monster?

  My latest nightmare had been a doozy and some part of me knew it wasn’t a dream, but a distant memory. I still felt the echo of flames lick at my burning skin. At some point in my past, I’d burned to death.

  Had I deserved it?

  Probably. Prior to Roo "fixing me" I’d devoted my life to rescuing those ill-fated enough to be born human and possessed by witches. But before then, I’d been worse than a murderer: a contract killer for the Empire. A murderer who couldn’t think for himself.

  I sat on the edge of the bed with my back to Roo. I knew it was cowardly, but I couldn’t look at her. Not like that, broken and gasping.

  I braced my head in my hands, fingers spearing into my short hair.

  Two cool hands encircled my stomach. I inhaled sharply at the sensation against my bare skin as a soft, warm weight dropped between my shoulder blades.

  She hugged me!

  Adrenaline buzzed through my body as she pressed herself against my spine and tightened her embrace. She couldn’t speak, yet, but she was trying to tell me it would be okay.

  I struggled to keep my tumultuous emotions in check. Shame, regret, self-loathing. Gratitude. It was all new. It had been easier when my soul was in pieces when I wasn’t capable of caring. True, I didn’t love, but perhaps that was a small price to pay for living without the icy pain that obstructed my breath and halted my heart when I’d seen her broken.

  Although my body quivered with the urge to leave, I closed my eyes and let her soothe me. I forced myself to relax. Somehow, she calmed my storm. I twisted to face her, wanting to apologize, but she didn’t let go.

  Our eyes met, paused, and our breath mingled. My fingers trailed her jawline, and when I pushed her hair aside to explore her neck, I heard her pulse quicken.

  I froze.

  She’s afraid of me.

  But no.

  Slowly, she leaned in to me and moistened her lips. Her scent was divine, sending my nerves to the brink of combustion. I mimicked her movement, wetting my own lips.

  My weakness lasted an eternal glorious moment, and then my eyes caught on her delicate neck. The fine detail of my regret came into sharp focus and I discovered broken capillaries, fading. Her heartbeat thrummed, thudding faster above the volume of my own. In that moment, I despised my heightened perceptions. Great vision wasn’t so bad, but advanced olfactory and auditory perception? Disruptive.

  And perceptive.

  She’s afraid.

  I disengaged and stood, not looking back.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I said in monotone, walking away. “I’m going to have a shower, and you should probably get yourself ready for the day. We have work to do.”

  Perhaps if I acted like a moody motherfucker, she’d get sick of me. It was a strategy that had worked on many women before. And it was easy. I walked into the adjoining bathroom, refusing to look at her as I closed the door. With trembling hands I turned the tap to scalding and stood underneath the stream until my body went numb. But no matter how much sensation I took away from the surface, I could still feel the tingle left by her touch. And if I looked inwards, deeper, there was a darkness prowling within the chasm of my new soul, awakened from its recent fiery rebirth and scratching to get out.

  CASH

  BY THE TIME I’d finished my shower and had a shave, I’d decided to exit the Game, thus ending my human life. For the safety of everyone near me, it was time for my soul to return to the Empire—if possible—and get answers. If my soul winded up floating in the ether around this world, then, whatever; I’d tried.

  I wrapped a towel around my waist and started making plans when I re-entered my bedroom.

  She was still there.

  On my bed.

  She lay on her stomach, legs kicked in the air, squinting at her laptop and tapping a smart phone to her forehead. A tiny whine came from her earphones to the beat of music. Her nightgown, flimsy at best, had little holes in it, and rode up the back of her legs to expose her thighs. She must know what this did to me. My heart pounded in my ears and my towel grew tighter around my waist. I dropped my hands to cover myself. Just in time.

  She turned towards me and smiled then turned back to her screen.

  All thoughts fled, and I stared, unblinking. “You’re still here.”

  She ignored my statement, or couldn’t hear it past the music blasting into her ears. So I bent and waved a hand in her face. She turned and popped the earplugs out.

  “What’s up. How you feel?” she asked in a raspy voice, inspecting my eyes with concern.

  “I should be the one asking you that, but you seem to have recovered just fine.” I tried to avoid eye contact and inadvertently sent my gaze trailing the soft curve of her shoulders, down to the strap of her nightgown, and across the swell of her breasts. Her pulse beat rapidly in her neck and echoed in my ears. I could smell it too. When blood filled her vein, it plumped and hit the chain around her neck dispersing a heady, metallic scent that only my nose could pick up. The necklace she wore, my father’s old necklace—a gift from Tommy—hung heavy with a key that landed in the valley of her chest.

  She turned the computer screen to face me. “Um, so, I’ve been looking into the mythology surrounding your ah… situation. And also,"—she waved the phone—“your mother called. She wants to know why you haven’t called her yet. The funeral is…”

  Roo kept talking, but I stopped listening. Her scent was already in me, devouring me. I wanted to taste her. Her skin. Her body. To throw the laptop on the floor, rip her earphones out and have her underneath me on the bed. No one else on this planet had this effect on me. Not since before the beginning.

  Get a grip.

  I shook my head to clear the fog and realized she was waiting for me to respond to something she’d said.

  I hit her with a cold stare. “What?”

  “Well, grumpy-bum, Marc said you’ve been called Orion and the Archangel Michael, and I thought if we cross-reference mythological leg
ends, we might find evidence of what really happened to you. We might find at least a small clue as to where your Seraphim body is being kept.” She turned to me, eyes sparkling under the LED lights of my loft apartment. “That’s what you need isn’t it, your original body? You aren’t healing as fast as me, and quite frankly, I’m a little concerned.”

  “You shouldn’t be. Anyway, Marc is on the case. I’m fine. You should be more concerned with educating yourself in preparation for your trials. We’ll be at The Ludus in less than two weeks. Spend your time on that, not on me.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in this together. At the very least, you’re teaching me, right? You can’t go falling apart just yet. Who else will help me shove the trials up my father’s ass?” She rolled and flopped onto her back, breasts jiggling.

  Jesus.

  She chewed her lip a moment before speaking. “Considering I have the bloody Book of The Dead bouncing around inside my head, and that it was put there by the witch I”—she screwed up her face—“absorbed… I still can’t get over that. Gross. But this witch knew about your history. It makes sense we look into Egyptian mythology.” She rolled back on her side and propped her head up with a hand. “Did you know Osiris, the god of the dead, had links to Orion? I think it’s a good place to start.”

  She talked a lot. And she was immature at times. And incorrigible. And I wanted nothing more than to cover her mouth with mine, and give her something else to think about. I frowned at how easy it was for my thoughts to derail around her. This would take effort.

  She pointed to the screen. “See?”

  Words kept coming out of her mouth, but I’d had enough.

  I had to put an end to her interference, for her sake. Why involve her if I’d already decided to leave? Best if I followed through with my plan to act like a complete bastard.

  I slammed the laptop shut, missing her fingers by a hair.

  Defiance burst across her face. “What was that for?”

  Her reaction sparked an echo inside my own body, which was already heavy with suppressed desire. It flicked to rage in an instant. I had to remind myself I didn’t need to fight. Not her.

  “Roo.” My words came through clenched teeth.

  “What.”

  “We’ve got more important things to do than research. Like your self-defense training. I almost snapped your neck.” The thought made me cringe. “You’re fucking shit at defending yourself.”

  “You’re f—”

  “Go wake up Jed.” I lifted her off the bed by the shoulders. She kicked out, squirming, but I placed her near the door. “Then get showered and dressed into something more suitable for training. Pick and an outfit that doesn’t have holes this time.”

  “You can’t just pick me up, Cash. You can’t do that!” She smacked my chest and glared.

  “I just did.” A smile curved up one side of my face.

  “This isn’t funny. You know what I mean. We have to talk about what happened this morning. What were you dreaming about?”

  My smile disappeared. “What are you, my therapist?”

  “Well, what about your sight? You can see!”

  “I know I can see. I can see you’re not doing as you’re told, and I can also see you’re not wearing the workout attire like I asked. That’s going to fall apart in the first minute of training. Part of this mentor-progeny partnership involves you being able to take orders.”

  Take the hint, Roo.

  “As if I’m going to do any more of what you call training—oh, I’m going to train you, but really I’m going to have a witch come out and attack you.” She flared her eyes at me. “In case you missed it, that was me being sarcastic.”

  “Clearly. In case you missed it, I’m not emotionally crippled anymore. I can fully understand your intended, if misplaced, amusement.”

  “Ha! Hmmm.” She gave me a ferocious once over. The attention licked heat over my body. “You certainly seem to have some humor, finally, although I’ve yet to see you smile. Not like, I’m-sexy-and-I-know-it-smile, but, like, I’m-really-happy-smile.”

  “You think I’m sexy?” I smirked.

  She rolled her eyes and when they returned to me, they lit up and she nodded to herself, thinking about some great idea. I recalled a time when I first met her and she’d made it her mission to make me laugh.

  “Oh, please. It’s like I can hear your thoughts,” I scoffed.

  “Challenge accepted.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly. I will make you laugh if it’s the last thing I do. Tommy is in there somewhere”—she knocked on my head—“and I’m going to find him.”

  “We don’t have time to play knock on wood.”

  She gasped and covered her mouth. “Was that… was that another joke?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  She fell back on the bed in fits of laughter. I couldn’t help grinning. When she saw my face, she laughed harder. How did she do that? She could pull me from the brink of darkness in the blink of an eye.

  But we had work to do; my smile clouded. “Seriously, what happened to your clothes?”

  “I can’t help it!” She tugged at the hem of her nightgown. “Every time I get worked up, my fingers burn holes through my clothes. I’ve got nothing left. It’s so frustrating!” To prove her point, smoke curled from her fingers and a burning scent plagued the air. “See?” She threw up her hands. “Anyway, what about your mother? She’s invited us to dinner the night before Tommy’s funeral. I think it’s important to go. She misses you. She’s not as bad as you made out, quite sweet in fact.”

  I blinked at her, staring quietly until she fidgeted and asked, “What?”

  “It marvels me how you jump from topic to topic like a monkey on hot coals.”

  “What can I say? I’m multi-talented.”

  The smell of burnt rayon singed my nostrils. “Clearly.” Her clothes were Swiss cheese. I had to help her out. I collected my wallet, retrieved one of the many credit cards and threw it on the bed. “Go with Jed and get more durable clothing today.”

  Roo opened her mouth, presumably to argue, but the ring of my phone cut her off.

  I turned my back on her. “What?” I snapped into the receiver.

  “Mr. Samson, it’s Nell, from the office.”

  “I know who you are, Nell, I hired you.” I glanced back as Roo left. Shit, she’d left the card on the bed. I turned my attention back to the phone. “This better be good.”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you during your personal leave, but there’s been a situation, and the other men asked that I give you a call. I think you’d better come in.”

  “What the fuck do I pay you all for if you can’t handle things when I’m gone?” I clenched my fists until veins bulged in my forearms like writhing snakes. “Okay. Tell me. What happened?”

  “Teenagers all over the South have been reported missing under strange circumstances, and now it’s hit your orphanage. It’s one of your boys.”

  Shit.

  Fuck.

  I kicked the bed.

  I couldn’t ignore this. Training would have to wait.

  Nell filled me in on the details and, after I cut the call, I was both relieved and pissed. Relieved to have a focus for the rage boiling inside me and pissed that I’d have to leave my charge to someone else. I certainly wasn’t going to take Roo with me; she was untrained, insubordinate, and, with her recently gained powers, vulnerable.

  I supposed I’d have to get used to it. I was quitting after all. Roo would be better off under the protection of somebody who wouldn’t harm her in his sleep. Leaving life on this planet was the logical thing to do even if I had no idea whether my soul would land in a body or not.

  I’d figure that part out when I got to it.

  I dressed in a designer charcoal suit with a chalk collared shirt. When intimidation was needed, expensive was best. I secured a black tie around my neck and entered the open-plan living area of my loft. Weights
, a boxing bag and exercise equipment filled the room. I bypassed the gym and poured myself a coffee, sipping as I leaned against the granite bench. I breathed in the rich scent to clear out Roo’s intoxicating smell.

  “Samson.” Jed’s voice, thick with sleep, came from behind me.

  I turned to find the Australian ex-police sergeant, dressed in a pair of gray sweats and a singlet, rubbing his eyes. The blonde regrowth in his auburn hair revealed his Player status. That, and the star map tattoo peeking out from under the chest area of his singlet. I eyed him. Could I trust him to teach Roo—leave them alone together?

  “There’s an emergency. I have to go.” I downed the espresso.

  “Oh?” Jed raised his eyebrows. “Something I can help with?”

  “Maybe. I know I promised to train you, but Roo is a priority. She’s absolute shit at anything but using her abilities on instinct. And, as I can’t be here, I want you to run drills for her on self-defense. Also, see if you can hone her telekinesis. Take her to the park. It’s cold, and no one will be down there to see.”

  I turned to go, but stopped and fished out the credit card Roo had discarded. “And here, take her to get clothes without holes in them. Something for the funeral too.”

  Jed took the card and nodded. He pressed his lips together.

  I clenched my fists. Say something, I dared him silently. Tell me I’m no good for her.

  When he didn’t, I strode for the door and left. I had to put as much distance between myself and my houseguests as possible.

  Her smell lingered.

  MARC

  I INHALED THE dank air at the underground British Ludus, my preferred stomping ground, and sighed in pleasure. About bloody time. It had been too long since I’d walked these halls and I was dying to visit the administration quarters to see which lovelies had been hired since my last visit. How long had it been? A decade? More?