The Soulkeepers Series, Part Two (Books 4-6)

by Ching, G. P.

  “It’s hard to give you specific directions. There are no street signs,” Dane said.

  “I know, but ‘wander aimlessly through the jungle’ doesn’t help me much.” She wanted to find the ocean. She wanted to be alone. Rumor was that Dane had been there.

  “I followed Archie back. All I can tell you is to head left into the jungle and follow the trail to the end, then keep going.”

  She stood and nodded. “Got it.” Plugging her ears with her headphones, she set her favorite playlist, and then walked briskly toward the giant front doors.

  “Bonnie, wait!” Sam called from behind her.

  Bonnie pretended not to hear her. For maybe the first time in a decade, she didn’t want to see her sister. Bonnie loved Samantha. Always would. Only she was sick of her incessant whining about Jesse, or Ghost as everyone else called him, that she thought she might hurl. If the two weren’t tongue wrestling around every corner, there was some sort of drama that required Sam’s full attention. Bonnie couldn’t remember the last time she and Sam had shared a conversation that wasn’t about Ghost. Oh, wait. Yes, she could—in Nebraska, before they’d moved here. She pulled open the door.

  “Wait!” Samantha’s hand closed around Bonnie’s bicep.

  Bonnie stopped and pulled her earbuds out. “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to go running with you.”

  A frown crawled across Bonnie’s face. “Wouldn’t you rather hang out with Jesse? We’re done with training for the day. You guys could be alone until dinner.” She made the word alone sound illicit.

  Sam straightened her ponytail. “I thought I’d spend some time with you.”

  Bonnie rolled her green eyes and jogged out the door.

  “Hey, what’s with the attitude, Bon-bell? If you don’t want me running with you just say so.” Samantha synced into step beside her, matching her gate exactly with clockwork precision.

  “Maybe I just wanted to be alone,” Bonnie whispered. She tried to pick up the pace, but Samantha matched it. Her sister laughed at the comment.

  “Oh. Oh! You’re serious. You want to be alone? After Mom tells us we’re assigned one of the most dangerous missions ever? After we find out we could die?”

  Bonnie didn’t reply. She could hear the hurt in her sister’s voice and wasn’t proud to be the one who caused it.

  “Why, Bonnie? What did I do?” Samantha begged.

  Deep within the jungle now, the cries of monkeys and birds overhead could not drown out the pain in her sister’s words, and Bonnie felt compelled to answer. “I’m just sick of everything always having to do with Jesse. Even this mission includes Jesse! If you must know, I wanted one Jesse-free hour.”

  Samantha gave an exaggerated gasp. “You’re jealous! You’re jealous that I have a boyfriend and you don’t because the boy you thought you liked turned out to be gay.”

  “I’m not jealous. Yes, I was disappointed to find out about Dane, but there are other fish in the sea. I’m not going to say I’m happy about being a perpetual third wheel, but I’m happy for you. I really am.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem is, I don’t know you anymore without him. He’s invaded every crevice of your life. It’s like you’ve become one of those celebrity hybrids, Jemantha.”

  Samantha jogged quietly by her side, weaving between trees until the path became so narrow that she had to follow behind. She became so quiet for so long that Bonnie slowed to check that she was still there. She was, her footsteps slowing to match Bonnie’s. Sam didn’t say anything but hit her with a sour stare. Bonnie accelerated again.

  “We both knew this would happen eventually,” Samantha finally said.

  “What would happen?”

  “One of us would have to break away.”

  This brought Bonnie up short. She turned in the shelter of the trees, feeling the humidity press against her, suffocating her. Hands on her hips, she willed Samantha to elaborate, and of course she did. They’d been reading each other their entire lives.

  “Bonnie, we’ve spent every minute of seventeen years together. We share flesh for heaven’s sake. When we do what we do, we literally become one person sometimes. But we aren’t one person. We are two women who, I think, have dreams of marriage and babies and futures. You must have thought about what would happen if one of us married before the other?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we can’t always live together. Things are going to change. They have to. We each have to come to terms with the reality that someday we will have separate lives.”

  Bonnie pushed a clump of ferns with her toes and watched the leaves curl in on their stems. “No, Sam, I haven’t thought about that, and I certainly don’t consider it reality. Here’s my reality. We are Soulkeepers and anyone who loves us, especially another Soulkeeper like Jesse, is going to know that we can’t be separated. Doing so would render us powerless. And if that person loves, truly loves, either one of us, they will work to find a way to keep us together. I don’t know, maybe we each own a side of the same duplex. But honestly it sounds like you’re ready to make a clean break. Maybe it’s you that hopes we won’t always be together.”

  “That’s not true.” Samantha glanced toward her toes.

  “We’re twins. You can’t lie to me.” Bonnie continued down the trail.

  “So I want my own life! Is that a crime? I want a husband and babies and to pick out my own carpeting without having to ask my sister’s opinion.”

  “You know we’d always pick the same thing.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is … The point…” Samantha stopped, and Bonnie, who’d been intermittently looking over her shoulder at her sister, did too. Bonnie followed Samantha’s stare to the opening between two fat pine trees that looked a lot like pineapples.

  “It’s beautiful,” Bonnie said.

  The ocean rolled in, washing up a white sand beach with fat liquid fingers that left trails as they receded. Instinctively, she took off her shoes and socks and stepped onto the soft shoreline, moving toward the line of sea foam.

  She sensed Samantha do the same at her side. The sea called to her, and she stepped closer until the water just barely washed across the tops of her feet and the sand squished between her toes.

  “Look who’s here?” Samantha said.

  Bonnie looked where her sister pointed. Down the beach a ways, Malini sat on a piece of driftwood, enchanted staff in hand. “Looks like she wants to talk.”

  “Nothing more anxiety producing than a talk with the Healer.”

  “Maybe it’s girl talk. She wants to tell us how Jacob isn’t paying her enough attention.”

  Samantha laughed at the absurdity.

  At a stroll, Bonnie approached the driftwood, shoes in hand.

  “Hi, you guys,” Malini said. “I suppose you suspect I’m not here for the view.”

  “What’s going on?” Bonnie asked.

  “Did your mom tell you about the mission?”

  “Yeah, we leave for Chicago after Thanksgiving. Lillian is hoping the crowds of shoppers will give us some cover.” Bonnie popped her knee up and leaned against the driftwood, half sitting.

  “Lillian knows what she’s doing. Before you go, I wanted to give you this.” Malini pulled a necklace from her pocket. Bonnie had seen the red stone before, most recently on Dane. The disc-shaped gem was set in a black leather cord. Very masculine. “I can reset it for you if you would like. I have a gold chain with a mount that fits the stone.”

  “No, it’s beautiful,” Sam said.

  “Only…” Bonnie began. “There’s only one stone but two of us.”

  Malini dangled it from her fingertips and smiled ruefully. “But you’re always together.”

  Bonnie frowned and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “It will work for either of you, Bonnie, or both of you if you are touching,” Malini explained.

  “What do we need it for anyway?” Sam asked.r />
  “Use it when you are in need of guidance, when you are confused or in danger. Relax, look deep into the stone, and you will have access to the oldest, wisest part of myself, the part of the Healer that is eternal.”

  “I want Bonnie to wear it,” Samantha blurted.

  “What? Why?” Bonnie argued. She hated that her voice sounded defensive.

  “Because I’ll have—” Sam stopped short.

  Bonnie’s shoulders slumped. “You’ll have Jesse to protect you. The stone is my consolation prize.”

  Bonnie snatched the necklace from Malini’s hand and yanked it over her head. The cord got stuck on her ponytail. She wrestled it free, face heating with embarrassment, then succeeded in putting it on, adjusting the cord so the stone rested at the base of her neck.

  “I didn’t mean it like that, Bonnie,” Samantha snapped.

  “Thank you, Malini. I hope I won’t need to use this, but it comforts me to have it.” Bonnie gave a small wave in Malini’s direction then took off running, shoes in hand. She broke into a jog, heading for the path that would take her to the school.

  For once, Samantha didn’t follow her.

  Chapter 11

  Forever Darkness

  Abigail pressed her hands against the glass and looked out over the city of Chicago from her penthouse prison. It must be close to Christmas. The buildings were decorated in gaudy baubles of red and gold with swags of evergreen in the windows and balconies. Tiny people walked the sidewalks below, arms laden with packages, joyfully choosing the perfect gifts for loved ones. A constant flow of traffic carried folks on their way to making happy holiday memories. At least that’s what she imagined. She couldn’t say for sure due to the distance.

  She wondered what Gideon was doing. No doubt the gnomes had decorated Eden for Christmas and perhaps the Soulkeepers would have a party to celebrate. Her heart sank thinking about the Soulkeepers. She’d assumed they would have rescued her by now. Then again, Lucifer did not want her found. And when Lucifer set his mind to something, he usually got what he wanted. The reality was this: if the Soulkeepers hadn’t found her by now, they likely never would. Her heavy sigh wasn’t even enough to fog the window. Ghost breath.

  He was torturing her. For the last two weeks, he’d fed her the same thing. One meal a day. A pasty dish from a Korean restaurant in the city—some type of porridge. It wasn’t the food she detested; it was the hunger. One meal a day was barely enough calories to keep her alive, and always on his schedule, when he chose to feed her. She rested her forehead against the glass, giving herself over to the heaviness that followed her everywhere. She couldn’t do this much longer. Her mind, once strong and self-assured, was cracking from the solitary confinement.

  But she had a plan. The only part of this apartment she could touch was the walls. Lucifer must have walls for his cage, or his pet ghost would pass through and escape. Every Thursday at two thirty, the cleaning lady would come, a Polish woman in a babushka that put too much care into the devil’s abode. Care that included vacuuming. She’d watched the woman plug in the machine time and time again, saw the small spark as the prongs met the outlet, and formed a plan of escape. This time when the housekeeper came, Abigail would lower her hand to cover the outlet. If her presumption was correct, the electricity would travel through whatever she was made of, conducted by the prongs and the solid magic of the wall, and hopefully stop her heart.

  Sad that it should come to suicide. Better to take herself out than to allow Lucifer to use her as ransom against the Soulkeepers. Suicide meant no one would be tempted to risk their lives for her anymore.

  Right on schedule, the front door opened and the bent figure of the cleaning woman backed into the room, pulling her cart of tools and supplies along with her. As usual, her head was wrapped in a red scarf, tied under her chin, that hid her face, and her body was covered in a loose-fitting, long-sleeved dress that gave her a billowing, round appearance.

  The woman closed the door, positioned her bucket and mop in the kitchen near the sink, and then busied herself unloading the vacuum cleaner. Abigail moved closer, silent as a draft, and readied herself. The woman reached for the cord, and Abigail lowered her hand, feeling the hard, smooth expanse of the wall. She took pleasure in the cool paint, perhaps the last thing she would ever touch. She stopped her hand’s descent just above the outlet cover.

  The housekeeper unwound the cord and lowered the prongs to plug it in. This was it. All Abigail had to do was slide her hand down to block the outlet, make the woman stab through her enchanted flesh and electrocute her. She stopped short of her goal. Could she do this? After all she’d gone through to become human, could she throw it all away? Ten thousand years she’d waited. What was a few more?

  She pulled her hand away and began to weep silently. No, she would not take the easy way out. Starving or not, she’d accept her fate. Somewhere, deep inside, she hoped her suffering had purpose. In the past, her pain always had, even the self-sacrifice that made her human. Funny, she’d needed to die then. Now, her intuition told her she must live. There was a difference between self-sacrifice and personal escape.

  Crumpling into a ball, she sat down and leaned against the wall.

  “I knew you wouldn’t do it,” a soft voice said. “You’re stronger than that. Always have been.”

  Abigail glanced up in surprise to find her reflection looking down at her from under the babushka. The housekeeper untied the headscarf and cast it aside, freeing a cascade of honey-blonde waves. Abigail looked at herself—the best version of herself—and her mouth dropped open.

  “It’s you!” Abigail beamed. God came for her! She hoped desperately that the Lord wasn’t a figment of her imagination or her injured psyche.

  “Yes. It is I.” God opened her arms. “I’m here for you Abigail.”

  Abigail pushed herself from the floor and tossed her arms around her salvation’s neck, and for the first time in weeks could feel the result. She did not pass through. The warmth of the hug infused her, and bright light lifted her soul. But the best part was the love. Abigail lost herself in the all-encompassing love.

  Too soon, God pulled away. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay long.”

  Abigail sputtered, “You-you’re not taking me with you?”

  “No. It’s not your time, and I need you here.”

  A violent tremor rocked Abigail’s body. “No. Don’t leave me here.”

  “I know this is difficult for you, but you have been chosen for this role because you are the strongest. The world needs you, Abigail. This trial you are suffering will come and go, but the gift you will give to the world will be eternal.”

  Lowering her eyes, Abigail wept in earnest again. “I’m not strong enough,” she squeaked. “I can’t do this any longer.”

  “You can. I know you can. Everything you need to survive is already inside of you.”

  She shook her head. “No. There is nothing strong inside of me.”

  A bright flash crossed the penthouse like a lightning strike. Abigail forced herself to look up into the light.

  “Trust in my plan,” God said. “You’ve always known that life wasn’t about living forever. When you became human you accepted your inevitable death to be part of the greater good.”

  “I did.” Abigail crossed her arms over her growling stomach.

  “Then trust me. Wait on the plan. Keep your eyes and ears alert. I promise you, this is not your end.”

  Abigail nodded slowly.

  “Now, I have only a moment before the dark one arrives, but I have a gift for you.”

  “A gift?”

  God reached into her cleaning cart and handed her a small snack box.

  “Mixed nuts?” Abigail stared at the strange label. “To eat?”

  “Yes. But only one per day. Try one now.”

  God didn’t have to ask her twice. Abigail ripped into the box, selected one that reminded her of a walnut, and popped it between her lips. As she chewed, the flavor of roast bee
f and gravy, mashed potatoes, and fresh asparagus worked through her mouth. When she swallowed, her stomach filled with the contentment of a square meal.

  “Place the box in your pocket. He won’t see it there.”

  She did. The same pocket in the same belted sweater-coat she’d worn the day she arrived. “Thank you. Thank you,” Abigail whispered.

  “I must go. Be patient. I promise you, this is not the end.”

  Abigail nodded. In the blink of an eye, God was gone, replaced by an old, wrinkled woman who promptly picked up her errant babushka and tied it around her head, then began to vacuum. The housekeeper passed right through her in her pursuit of cleanliness, moving from room to room while Abigail watched in her ghostly form. She finished in the kitchen just as Lucifer walked in the front door, bag in arms.

  “Good evening, Mr. Blake. You’re home early today.”

  Mr. Blake? Abigail tucked the name away inside her mind. So Lucifer was posing as a human now. Interesting.

  “Not so, Mrs. Bobik. You’re late to finish,” Lucifer snapped.

  The old woman glanced at her watch. “Oh, how the time has flown tonight. I will finish up and get out of your hair.”

  “Please.”

  Abigail cringed, hoping Lucifer wouldn’t be suspicious of the woman’s lateness. But then, the devil was too proud to suspect God could get the best of him. She could always trust in his arrogance.

  Mrs. Bobik finished and left in record time.

  The old woman was barely out the door when Lucifer fixed his acidic blue eyes on Abigail. “Enjoy your day?”

  She didn’t justify his greeting with a response but turned toward the window.

  He laughed deeply and used the remote control on the wall to fill the room with dark opera music. She didn’t have to turn back around to know the plunk on the counter was a white, waxed cube half full of Korean porridge. She could smell it.

  “Bon appetit!” the devil drawled.

  Abigail turned in time to see him disappear into his office, laughing. She approached the carton, determined not to waste food even though she was no longer hungry. But when she looked into the take-out container, her stomach rolled. The contents swarmed with maggots. The food was spoiled.