by Tegan Maher
Soul Keeper
Southern Soul Hunters Book 1
Tegan Maher
Magical Words Publishing
© 2020 Tegan Maher
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, by any means electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system currently in use or yet to be devised.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or institutions is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Connect with Me!
Other Series by Tegan Maher
About Tegan
1
“You want me to do what?” I asked, disbelief sparring with indignation for my top emotional spot.
“I didn’t stutter,” Adam said, kicking back in his red leather chair and propping his boots up on the corner of his massive mahogany desk. Everything in his office was large and lavish, but in an old-money, understated way, just like him. “You have to return all the souls that escaped through the gate when your mother opened it.”
That didn’t seem fair to me at all. Why did it fall on me to pay for my impetuous mother’s mistakes? I asked him as much, and he shifted in his chair.
“Because Calista’s in the wind and you knew what she was going to do beforehand and said nothing.”
I couldn’t dispute that no matter how much I wanted to. Somehow, the powers that be always knew. “And how am I supposed to find them? We don’t even know for sure how many escaped. Or if any did, for that matter. We could have caught the breach before anybody else got out.”
He arched a dark brow at me. “Do you really believe that?”
I sighed because in truth, I didn’t, and that little voice in the back of my head—wayyyy in the back—was screaming that I had a duty to make it right. My family had guarded Abaddon’s Gate for centuries. It was our responsibility to make sure the Valley of Lost Souls stayed secure because the beings that were sentenced to serve out their eternities there were the worst of the worst. Beings who had been rotten to the core in life and had only gotten worse during their imprisonment.
I mentally shouted for the goody-two-shoes in the back of my brain to shut her pie hole, then slammed my arms across my chest in defiance of both her and Adam. “Maybe,” I said, not quite able to look him in the eyes. “It’s not like we have security cameras. It’s possible none of them noticed.”
“Kira, be real.” Impatience laced his tone, and I knew that even though he had a soft spot for me, he was about at the end of his rope. Even as smart-mouthed and flip as I tended to be, I knew better than to push him any further. Pissing off the angel who held my fate in his hands would have been suicidal, and my self-preservation instinct was even stronger than my brash nature. Barely. Most of the time.
Adam nodded to one of the refrigerators in suits standing guard at the door, and he opened the mahogany door and stepped into the hallway. A few seconds later, he came back in, half dragging, half pushing a cowering, whimpering soul of a man with a bad combover and a beer gut that had likely taken years to grow. After shoving the porky, pasty dude into a chair, he stepped back to the door and assumed a parade-rest stance.
I curled my lip in derision. There were two types of beings who came through our gates: ones who were truly powerful and horrible in life, and ones who’d gone through their existence thinking they were, mostly due to circumstances. This guy was the latter, and they didn’t tend to fare well in the Valley.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“This is Hank Doolittle,” Adam replied, casting the gross little man a disgusted glance. “He spent his life overeating and abusing his position as sheriff in a little town called Keyhole Lake, bullying people and taking their hard-earned money. He even racked up a few murders before somebody took matters into their own hands and poisoned him. Came down here thinkin’ he was all that and a bag of chips, too, as your generation likes to say. Swaggering, talking a big game. Then he ran into Lucky and tried to bully him.”
“Ah,” I said, then snickered. Lucky was a mid-level demon who’d killed an angel when he’d welched on a gambling debt. Despite common belief, angels weren’t all light and goodness. Nothing in existence is that black and white. Except maybe Lucky. That dude was the King of Mean. “How’d that work out for ya, there, buddy?”
The man whimpered, his beady little eyes darting between me and Adam. “Please, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Just don’t put me back in there.”
“Oh,” Adam said, standing and flexing his shoulders. His massive white wings snapped open and the man slid out of the chair, sobbing. “You’re definitely going back in there. You got a one-way ticket, pal. This isn’t a negotiation. Before you do though, you’re going to tell us who left through the gate, the hard way or the easy way.”
I tilted my head at the man, trying to decide which he’d choose. It wasn’t a tough decision, and he proved me right two seconds later when he folded like a cheap lawn chair.
“Lucky,” he said, then listed a dozen more names. “That’s all I know of, I swear,” he said, and the truth rang in his voice. “But it was open when I got there. There might have been more. Probably were. You can’t blame me if I missed any.” That last was said with a little bit of attitude.
Adam raised his brows. “I absolutely can blame you. I can do anything I want with you, sport, just like you spent your life doing to others. Ain’t Karma a bitch?”
She wasn’t really. As a matter of fact, she was one of the more forgiving beings I knew, but if you pissed her off, woe be to you. And unless I missed my guess, this guy wasn’t one of the folks who’d gotten a taste of her mercy. She took a hard stance on bullies.
Adam flexed his wings, and I smiled when the man flinched. He might have even peed a little. I didn’t typically like to see other beings unhappy, but only truly bad souls ended up in the Valley. I’d learned long ago that the guys in charge didn’t make mistakes when they handed down those sentences.
Too bad my mother hadn’t learned that lesson. If she had, or if she didn’t have a soft spot for bad boys, I wouldn’t be in this spot.
“Get him out of here,” Adam said to his guard, tucking his wings back in. When we were alone again, he stared at me, his fingers steepled, while he waited for my response.
“Fine,” I said, knowing I had no option. This was a punishment, not an assignment. “What happens when I catch them all?”
He shrugged a muscled shoulder. “I don’t know yet. It’s not like you have a pristine past and this is a one-off offense. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you this deal. You get to stay at home on the rare occasion when you’re not hunting, and you’re not stuck doing it alone.”
I whipped my head up. “What do you mean, I’m not stuck doing it alone. I want to do it alone. I don’t play well with others—you know that.” The idea of having somebody in my shadow made me shu
dder.
His dark eyes pinned me down when I started to protest more, and I snapped my mouth shut. “Learn. This isn’t negotiable because you’re not going to be able to collect all of them on your own. His name is Callum Knox. He’s a mage, and he’s got chops. Don’t underestimate him and don’t disrespect him. It won’t bode well for you. With him or with us.”
Thankfully, before what I was thinking bypassed my filters and fell right out of my mouth, somebody knocked on the door. Adam nodded to his guards, and I turned. A tall, dark-haired guy who looked to be in his early thirties strode in, confidence and competence rolling off him. This was a man who knew his place in the world and didn’t take shit from anybody.
Just to be difficult, I didn’t stand to greet him.
“Kira,” Adam said, scowling at me, “this is Callum Knox. Callum, this is Kira. I’d like to tell you she’s not usually this churlish, but that would be a lie.”
That hurt a little, and I sighed. Adam had been good to me since before I could even remember, and I knew if he was here in this capacity, he was running interference for me.
I pushed to my feet and held out my hand. “I’m Kira. Welcome to my nightmare.” I said the last with a wry half-smile. After all, if I was going to have to work with him, which didn’t seem to be optional, I might as well make it as easy as possible for us both and hope he did the same.
“Callum,” he said, taking my hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Well,” I replied, “It looks like we’re gonna have plenty of time to sort out the truth from the rumors, then.”
I glanced at Adam, who’d also stood. He handed me a file folder, and I opened it up. A picture of a body lay on top of the pile. I sucked in a breath. The woman’s face was frozen in fear, her final expression one of abject terror.
“Holy shit, Adam,” I exclaimed, slamming the folder shut and biting back the bile that rose in my throat. “You could have given me a heads up. What is that?”
“It’s your first lead,” he said without a flicker of emotion. “We got that in last night. She was found on the outskirts of the city. There’s another behind her. A man this time.”
I opened the folder again, and Callum stepped close enough to look over my shoulder.
“A fear demon?” I said now that I was able to look at both pictures clinically.
“Yeah,” he said, frowning. “Or at least that’s my guess.”
“It’s almost Halloween,” I said. “People trade on scary things that go bump in the night.”
“Exactly,” Callum said, “which means we’re gonna be looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“Or a particular pumpkin in a pumpkin patch,” I said without thinking. He smiled and a little spark of hope flared before I could tamp it down. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.
“Indeed,” Adam said, handing each of us a little box about the size of a keychain Rubik’s Cube.
“What’s this?” I asked, turning the onyx cube over in my hand. It had a dull gold gleam and pulsed a little with magic.
“It’s a portable containment cell,” Adam replied. “A soul collector, if you will. You’ll know how to use it when you need it. It’s intuitive and responds to your magic.”
“Oh,” I said, “easy, peesy, then. Hit them with a hard hex, shove them in the box, and call it a day.”
“About that,” Adam said. “You need to be careful. Use whatever magic you need to in order to capture a soul, but keep the dark magic to a minimum. No breaking into innocent minds for information or to get your way.”
“What?” I asked, incredulous. “I’m fighting demons, for god’s sake. What do you mean, keep the dark magic to a minimum?” My gaze shot to Callum. I narrowed my eyes when his cheeks pinked, and he looked away. “So that’s why you brought in a mage. To babysit me.”
“No,” Adam rushed to say, and I arched a brow at him. “Okay, that’s not the only reason. Callum’s good. I trust him to help you.”
I pressed my lips together and gave a sharp nod as I shut the folder. I moved toward the door but stopped when Adam said my name. I turned, and a finger of ice traced its way down my spine when I saw the intense regret on his face. Whatever he was about to say, he didn’t want to say it.
“Yeah?” I asked, my voice soft.
“Open your wings.”
The fear churning in my belly turned to terror, and I wanted to turn tail and run. I picked my hand up to snap my fingers and teleport out of sheer instinct, but Refrigerator reached out and closed his hand over mine.
I steeled my spine, swallowed, and pushed my shoulders back, opening my beautiful black wings.
Adam clenched his jaw and met my eyes, pity in them as he uttered a spell in French, his native language. A strange tingle raced through my wings, and I whipped my head around. Now it was my turn to whimper and plead as they shrank to half their size.
Callum stood to the side, his face white with shock.
“I’m so sorry, Kira,” Adam said, his voice thick with regret. “They wanted to take them from you altogether, but I convinced them to compromise.”
I was openly sobbing now. My wings weren’t just a part of me; they were also my key into the Celestial City. The stubby, ugly ones I had now were for lesser angels who didn’t have the honor or the bloodline to get into the royal city. My family was ancient and of royal lineage no matter how far we’d fallen. I’d grown up there.
“You can earn them back,” Adam said. “I know that’s not much solace, but it was the best I could do. The elders are angry at you and your mother and taking it all out on you because she’s out of reach. That’s another reason they’ve hampered you with the whole no black magic thing. They think you’re walking a little too close to the edge.”
I managed a jerky nod and pulled in a deep breath, trying to still my anguish. I couldn’t though, and pushed past the guards and out the door, my shrunken wings fluttering behind me.
2
Rather than risk running into anybody in the halls, I slipped into an alcove and twisted the picture of some long-dead angel. The panel slid open to reveal a hidden hallway. I slipped into the darkened corridor and twisted a candelabra to close the panel, then flicked my hand, half-afraid they’d stolen my powers along with my wings.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the torches along the walls flared to life. If they’d taken my magic, I don’t think I could have kept going. But then again, I thought bitterly, I couldn’t do what they’d tasked me to do without it. I supposed that was a good thing, considering it was likely the only thing that had spared me. Lower-level angels didn’t have the power that higher-level ones did, and apparently that was what I’d been reduced to.
When I came to the end of the corridor, I paused. Right would take me to my room, left would take me to a hidden tower where I often went to think when I was visiting Adam. I turned left, trying to still my heartbeat and regain my composure. I tucked my wings—the visible mark of my disgrace—away and climbed the twenty stone steps that led to the top of the tower.
The soft ocean breeze kissed my skin, cooling the sweat and cleansing my soul. I climbed up on the ancient stone wall and took a seat, my feet dangling over the edge. I leaned forward and glanced down at the massive rocks that lay a hundred feet below, the ocean crashing off of them, and thought about the path that had led me here.
My mother had always been flighty. She’d raised me, sort of, on our family’s estate that sprawled on either side of Abaddon’s Gate. We’d been tasked as Gatekeepers since the beginning of time, but somehow the responsibility gene had skipped my mother. Her two sisters—my aunts—had taken up the mantle and carried the weight while she flitted around, going to parties and living her life as if nothing else mattered.
That didn’t mean she didn’t care about people; if anything, it was just the opposite. Every person was a new friend, every new man, the love of her life. And every day was the beginning of a new adventure. Unfortunately, all that came with absolutely zero fi
lters. She trusted everyone even though that had gotten her into trouble repeatedly. She never thought before she acted, which is exactly what had led to this mess.
She’d come to me in the middle of the night four days ago. For once, she’d been home and had been doing her part to fulfill our family’s role. She’d broken the cardinal rule, though, and had spoken to one of the souls that called relentlessly through the high, bespelled cast-iron fence.
Par for the course, she fell for his ruse. He was innocent, he claimed. Suckered and punished for the sins of others. She should have known better. They all say that. If asked, there isn’t a single guilty soul in the valley. But she was true to her character and believed him.
Apparently, she’d been talking to him for several weeks, which explained her unusually lengthy visit home. She’d devised a plan to help him escape, and on the night she finally decided to make her move, she’d come to say goodbye. I gave a wry, sad smile as I stared out at the moon’s broken reflection on the ocean. She’d had the same stars in her shining blue eyes that she always got when she was on the edge of a new adventure. Even though she’d told me what she planned to do, I truly hadn’t believed it was possible for her to breach the multitude of spells and wards even if she was serious.
But she had managed to do it. I should never have underestimated her, and I should have thought to ask who this mystery man was. Turns out, he was the soul of one of the most powerful—and manipulative—warlocks of all time, and my gullible mother fell for his lies hook, line, and sinker.