Living Soul

by S. B. Niccum

  “Alex … I don’t want to go. Besides, why can’t you disconnect? You have in the past.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Aquí tengo agua. Quien quiere agua?”

  “Agua … agua … ” one of the soldiers, pleaded.

  “Agua?” the man said cynically, then laughed, and by the sound of splashing water I could only assume that he threw water on the soldier, rather than give it to him.

  “Vamos, hombre! Dale agua a estos pobres, o se nos van a morir antes de que podamos venderlos.” A second voice said.

  “Who’s that Alex?”

  “I don’t know … I’ve never heard him before. He must be a new guy. Did you understand what he said?”

  “Yes, he said to give you guys water, or you would all die before you were … sold,” I translated, and as the words registered, a chill went through me. Then suddenly, I felt Alex’s hair being pulled back and lukewarm water being poured down his face. I could feel Alex slipping away from me and into consciousness, but not before hearing the voice of the second man, “Valor, muchacho. Help is on its way!” he whispered.

  When I came to, the sun was prickling my skin with its heat, and my hand was gripping the book I had been intending to read, before I fell asleep. Slowly I straightened myself up into a sitting position and tried to focus my disoriented mind.

  Could it be true? Could that second man be someone who was trying to help Alex? And what was that he said about selling them? Who would buy American Soldiers? Who would sell them, and why? I should ask my aunts. They know more about what goes on here in Central America. Maybe there’s a group of guerillas that are known to do this. Maybe—as I stood up to go back into the house, I felt a strange chill come over me, and an awful feeling started to surround me. My knees buckled and my strength weakened. A cold claw seemed to be pulling me down, engulfing me in dread and fear. All kinds of vile whispers surrounded me.

  “Give up … he’s dead … jump in the ocean and join him!” the voices suggested, and with the suggestion all hope seemed to drain from me.

  From the back deck of the house, I could see Luz, standing there looking back at me with a strange look on her face. Her pigtails looked incongruous with the determined grown-up look on her face. I reached a hand out to her, pleadingly. I tried to call her, but words failed me, the feeling like I was slipping away into some unseen cold dark abyss was overpowering me. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Luz lunged herself forward and charged toward me like a mad bull.

  “Leave her alone!” a man’s voice demanded. The voice seemed to come with Luz, yet Luz remained mute with a look of sheer terror on her face.

  A demonic laughter filled the air, the sound of many voices, speaking in unison hissed, “You can’t stop us! She’s been marked, she will be ours.”

  “I might not, but the First One can! Depart at once,” the stern male voice asserted. Then the laughter started up again, but weaker, and then slowly retreated, releasing me from its unseen grip. My limbs went limp all at once and I crumbled back onto the towel in a heap.

  “Are you okay?” Luz asked in her childish voice. I nodded, but I felt weak and mentally strained. “Come on; let’s go back to the house, it’s almost teatime,” the grown little girl said, as she extended one of her arms.

  I took her hand and stood up; giving myself a minute to make sure my knees wouldn’t buckle again. “What was that, Luz?”

  She shrugged. “Who was that with you?” She shrugged again, and once I was safely on the deck, she released me and ran into the house.

  “That house has special protection, it shouldn’t have happened!”

  “You should have been there, Kerubiel!”

  “How about you? Why weren’t you there?” the Cherub lashed out in frustration, then took a deep breath and his face softened. “Dayspring, you know that I can’t go there. Only human spirits are allowed there.”

  Dayspring looked away, frustrated and angry, but knew that he was right. No one but human Angels were allowed where Luz could see them. Too much could be revealed and then Luz would be responsible for that knowledge; a knowledge that she couldn’t understand. But someone had dropped the ball, and she was angry about that. She had asked Kerubiel to keep an eye on Tess for her, because he looked more human than she did. She was afraid that if for some reason Tess ever were to expand her gift, even momentarily, she would be looking at a half-human, half-lion, Seraph. Dayspring knew from personal experience that anyone who had ever seen her on Earth had been shocked, to say the least. Someone even started worshiping her by mistake and created the sphinx. Every time she visited Egypt she was painfully reminded of that mistake.

  “Not every human would be scared to see you, Day. If Tess were ever to see you, I think she would just see her old friend and trainer. She might even remember,” Kerubiel soothed.

  “Excuse me?” Max interrupted, feeling a bit uncomfortable. “I’m sorry, to—to … you called me?” Both Dayspring and Kerubiel turned to face him at the same time. Their forms being so much larger than that of a human, they made an imposing sight to Max, who came exactly up to their middle.

  “Yes, Max, we did call you,” Kerubiel responded, turning to Dayspring and silently telling her to go easy on him.

  Dayspring nodded in silent reply then sat on her hind legs in order to look less arresting. “Why isn’t Celeste with you?”

  “She—she—feels bad.”

  “We all feel bad about this, but I need to talk to Celeste. She is Tess’ Guardian Angel, and she was not at her post. She needs to tell me why.”

  “I was with my son,” Celeste said as she glided forward, head down, trying hard to avoid Dayspring’s piercing cat eyes.

  “Your leave had expired; you needed to be at your post. Tess was left alone and Legion, of all the hellish creatures, engulfed her!”

  “Not to mention—” Dayspring began, but was stopped by Kerubiel who cut in, extending his arm toward Dayspring who looked too agitated.

  “Not to mention, that your own daughter saw the creature. I don’t know what she thinks of it but—”

  “ … But it’ll have to be addressed somehow.” Dayspring finished, with more composure.

  “I’m already on it,” Max jumped in, “she doesn’t want to talk about it, but I know her, she’ll come around.”

  Celeste looked down at her feet and wished she could cry. Producing tears used to be such a simple way to relieve emotions, but now that she no longer had a body, the full force of her emotions had to be dealt with head on with no physical outlet to help it along. “I know what I did was wrong. I thought that she would be okay for a little while longer. I mean … the house is filled with spirits, one of them would surely help her … and one did!” she stammered.

  “Thank Heaven that Max was there. But it wasn’t his responsibility and now Tess has heard his voice too! I thought we agreed early on that we would try to keep her as ignorant of this realm as possible. I thought we decided that we were going to let her have as normal a life as possible. Now … ” Dayspring sighed, “there’s little hope of shielding her. She’s going to want answers, and you’re going to have to deal with her questions.”

  Celeste nodded grimly. “She’s older now, maybe she’ll understand better and—” Celeste couldn’t finish her sentence. She knew that she had messed up, but she didn’t think all of this was her fault. Legion could’ve just as easily shown up if she had been there.

  “You might be right,” Dayspring, answered the unuttered words. Her own gift of discernment had been growing and deciphering thoughts was getting easier. “However, it takes them some time to gather up enough cast-outs to form Legion; time that, if you had been there, you could have used to get reinforcements from our side and stopped it. Legion is no trifling matter, Celeste. Legion is so strong that it has the power to control and possess a human. A single human, left to his or her own defenses has very little chance against the Dragon.” Dayspring thought of the time when Tess and her clan
went against Legion as unembodied spirits, they had almost lost Henry and barely escaped themselves.

  It was obvious that the Second One had not forgotten his promise to Tess, and that he intended on having her, or making her life as torturous as possible. Already he had set several traps in motion for her. This, however, she couldn’t share with the Guardian Angel; things of the pre-mortal realm had to remain veiled. After all, Celeste’s probation was not over … even if her mortal life was.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. It will not happen again,” Celeste said humbly.

  “I know … and I know how hard it is to see your son suffer, but he has to walk his own path. You can help him more by being here for his daughter,” Dayspring said, mollified.

  “I’ve already ordered reinforcements,” Kerubiel announced. “Two of our Aeonian operatives have been assigned to her case.”

  Chapter 21

  Inside, all the tea things were perfectly laid on the table and the whole house smelled like roses.

  “Would you leave the French doors open, Tess? I like the breeze,” Amor hummed from the kitchen.

  Bubbling over the stove was a glass contraption. It had two tubes sticking out of it, and each one was dripping into separate containers.

  “What’s this?” I asked with interest, as I approached the thing from which the rose aroma was coming.

  “A distiller.” My aunt grinned, then pointed to one of the spouts. “The water comes out of this one, and the oil out of this one,” she explained, next pointing to the second spout.

  “I should know this, I worked selling essential oils for three years, back home.”

  “Did you really? What else do you do that you haven’t told us about?”

  “Here I am! Hope you didn’t start without me,” Paz waltzed in and pulled me in for a tight hug, then jokingly pushed her sister away when she too leaned in for one.

  They tried to call Luz for tea, but she refused to come out. It seemed odd to them that she would not want to join us, but they brushed it off for the moment. Somehow I felt bad, almost guilty, as if I were responsible for her odd behavior.

  “And what’s wrong with you? Did something happen when I sent Luz out to get you?” Amor inquired.

  It was now or never. I either told them everything or told them nothing at all. Something inside me said that I should trust them, and that they would understand. Yet … how could they? We just met yesterday.

  “What is it Tess?” Paz asked this time, as she let a lump of sugar plop into her cup of tea.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Luz enter the room cautiously. She paused when she saw me and regarded me for a moment. Then she scurried to the table and sat down next to Dorian.

  “You can hear them,” she accused, “I know you can.” She looked upset at me, like I was purposely making her look bad in front of her sisters.

  I opened my mouth, prepared to speak, but nothing came out. Where would I begin?

  “Don’t be hard on her Luzita, she’s still trying to understand all of this.” Celeste spoke for the first time in a long time. Hearing her startled me, and I noticed that Luz was looking in my direction, but just a few inches over my head. Not seconds later, Luz, seemed to be appeased and started pouring Dorian some tea and buttering his toast like she would to an oversized doll at a pretend tea party. I watched with amazement as Dorian submitted to her willingly and even let her hand feed him a piece of toast.

  “It’s true,” I finally said. “Like Luz said, I can hear them.”

  “Who?” Both Amor and Paz asked at the same time.

  “Spirits, voices from other realms of existence. Just now … ” my eyes filled with tears and my throat closed up.

  “It’s okay … they’ll believe you.” Both Amor and Paz shuddered and their eyes got misty as if they could sense their mother’s presence.

  “Your mom, Celeste. I’ve been able to hear her for some time now.” Again. A chill. But this time I felt it too. We were all openly crying now; except for Luz, who had a satisfied smirk on her face.

  Spilling my guts to my aunts over tea was fast becoming my new hobby. I told them everything. Starting with my first dream of Alex, down to all the whispers, and I even included the Ouija Board experience with Agatha. I told them of my dreams where I saw that huge winged creature and those cat eyes looking at me. They listened with rapt attention to everything; I even threw in my gift for knowing what Dorian was thinking and the colors I see when I look at people.

  “Anything else?” Paz had asked.

  “Yes,” I answered solemnly. “I can sew; really well.”

  This broke the tension in the room and they started laughing.

  “It’s a gift,” Amor sighed, once the laughter had died down.

  “I agree,” Paz nodded. “After all, the Bible talks about gifts of the spirit, we all have them to one degree or another.” She then rattled a long list of gifts that everyone she’s ever known has had, including her own sister and her ability to heal people with herbs, and her other sister who perhaps was not crazy, but rather enlightened far beyond that of our own comprehension.

  I also took advantage of this time, to ask them about who would sell American soldiers. If there were any groups, of organized crime that did this? They thought about it. Paz said that kidnappings were common these days; an every day occurrence if people suspected you had money for a ransom. “But soldiers, that sounds more like a terrorist tactic,” Amor said, shaking her head, wondering what this world had come to.

  I had left my tea nearly untouched and had had nothing to eat. Everything looked delicious, but my stomach was just not having it.

  “Nerves,” Amor declared. “You have purged your soul, now you have to purge your body.”

  This reminded me of when Alex was deployed and I puked my guts out all the way back to the Preston’s. I didn’t want to purge like that again. Instead I asked for some aromatherapy oils, and Amor lit up like a Christmas tree. “Oooh! I know just what you need!” She rushed to one of her cupboards and handed me a dark blue bottle with a drip nozzle. “Ten drops of cedar and ten of rosemary, five or six of mint, in a bath full of water and you’ll be a new woman!” she instructed.

  Twenty minutes later I was soaking in the tub, letting the invigorating steam relax my tense muscles. Unfortunately my mind wasn’t so lucky, those awful feelings kept creeping in. They were not as intense as they had been on the beach, but their memory had left an imprint in my mind. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I had just had a subliminal conversation with Alex; I would have believed them, and maybe even … No. I would never do that. But at the time, my anger and my sadness …

  Those voices had lied, flat out lied to me about Alex. Why? Maybe they didn’t know that I had just had a shared dream with him. Maybe those other spirits that Celeste told me about can’t read minds. They seem to know so much, but they didn’t know what I was thinking.

  That thought gave me comfort, yet the fact remained that even though I knew that they were lying, and that Alex was alive—I still felt tempted. What would I do if Alex did die? What did Celeste do when Max died? She remarried, rather quickly, too quickly. Then she had my father. What if—? My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices outside my bathroom door. It was Amor and Paz who were trying to speak quietly. Then they knocked.

  “I’ll be going into town tomorrow,” Paz called from the other side. “I would love it if you came with me. You can also check your e-mails at the computer place in town.”

  My aunts had no Internet connection here, and apparently the only place that did was a little store in the nearby town that had a couple of computers you could rent for fifteen minutes at a time.

  “Sure! I’d love to.”

  “Good, I’ll be here around eleven,” she said before walking away.

  That night, Amor gave me some of that valerian root that she was grinding up. Even encapsulated, it smelled horrible. The effect, though, was almost instantaneous. I slept soundly, t
oo soundly, and had no dreams, except for this odd feeling that someone was watching me sleep while sitting at the foot of my bed. When I woke up in the morning, my mind felt foggy and tired still.

  “Maybe I gave you too much,” Amor commented as I sat like a zombie at the table.

  “That stuff is strong!”

  “It doesn’t work the same way on everyone. What I gave you wouldn’t have done much for me, but by the look of you, it knocked you from here to China.”

  A strong cup of tea and a walk on the beach managed to lift the fog a bit, then I went back to my weeds. I took up another row and cleaned it assiduously for the next hour.

  “It’s good to see you here,” Celeste commented, like a friend stopping for a visit.

  “Where have you been?”

  “No puede ser que un espíritu no pueda tener ni un solo minuto para si misma!” she grumbled.

  “Okay, okay! I’m sorry I asked! I actually have been meaning to ask you a few questions.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “What happened to me yesterday?”

  “Ha! Por la boca muere el pez.”

  “What? By the … mouth dies the fish? What does that mean?”

  “It’s a Spanish saying. It seems that my mouth gets me in trouble more times than I care to admit.”

  “Have I gotten you in trouble?”

  “No, not you. I…” she sighed. “It’s hard, you know. To be in the position that I’m in; and have to watch life unfold without getting involved. I’ve never been good at not getting involved.”

  “What happens if you get involved?”

  “I could be reassigned to a different mortal. One that I didn’t care so much about.”

  On hearing her words my eyes started stinging, threatening to tear up. “Wouldn’t it be hard for all Angels who are assigned to watch over their loved ones?”

  “It is hard, for all of us. But the difference, Tess, is that not all mortals hear us. You do. You are aware of me. You ask questions. You want and need answers.” I felt a chill brush against my forehead. She was trying to brush a strand of my hair away from my face.