Soulguard

by Christopher Woods

  “Kharl? Kyra? Would that be Kharl Jaegher and Kyra Nightwing?” she asked.

  I nodded as I was deciding not to say anything else and realized that I had already said it with the nod. Idiot. That’s me. I wasn’t sure how she knew them, but it meant a great deal to her, because she calmed down almost immediately.

  “My dad talks about them all the time, they disappeared years ago, back when the Demonkiller died,” She was interrupted by the bell to end lunch.

  “Meet me in the gym after classes so we can continue this conversation,” I said with excitement coursing through me.

  She nodded and headed to class.

  “Kharl’s gonna kill me.”

  Chapter 3

  The rest of the day flew by. I was excited that I would actually get to talk to someone else like me. The only Guards I had ever met, aside from witnessing memories in their auras, were Kharl and Kyra.

  Classes finally ended and I made my way to the gym. A lot of students used the gym after school, mostly the students who stayed on campus. Students came from all over the US to go to school here.

  I made my way up to the track on the second floor and met Mattie at the far end from where Coach Newman was working with some of the basketball team.

  “So...” that was the only word she got out before all hell broke loose at the far end of the gym. A twisted darkness formed right in front of the doors and something burst from it with a bestial roar. It was straight out of my painting in art class.

  “Oh Hell,” I muttered.

  The Demon shot straight for the closest group of people and tore into Coach Newman and five teens like a buzz saw, as another Demon burst from the portal and another. Right in their path was the tiny slip of a girl I had noticed earlier with the prettiest Soul I had ever seen. She couldn’t have been more than twelve.

  I had never actually faced Demons before and usually, I would have eased into my enhanced speed. At the sight of those two beasts charging that girl, I remembered my mother lying in a pool of blood surrounded by Demon corpses. I felt a rage like nothing I had ever felt before explode within me and I went ballistic. The rail in front of me exploded as I went through it and sailed across the gym, my fists glowing with pure Soulfire and I struck the first Demon in the throat before my feet had even touched the ground. Its head exploded from its body and I turned to the other one.

  Its back was to me and it was inches from the little girl when I grasped the ridges of its back and threw it bodily across the room where it impacted one of the steel posts. Demon blood exploded from the body and on the other side of it I saw Trent Deacons looking at me in astonishment.

  I looked to the left and there was Mattie, a gleaming silver knife in each hand. Just where the hell was she hiding those? She’d just carved a Demon to shreds with them and was going for another. The portal was spewing Demons in a steady stream. I grabbed the girl with the pretty Soul who gasped as I jumped across the space between me and Trent.

  “Get these people back while we hold them off!” I yelled as I handed the girl to him and sprinted back toward the portal.

  You have to give Trent his due, he was yelling and motioning toward the kids in the gym almost immediately. He wasn’t the type to lose his mind like some, for instance, Haley Scott, and her cheerleader squad.

  I paused near them and yelled for them to head toward the not-demon-infested side of the room. Most of them listened, but Haley looked at me in terror, and ran right into the waiting hands of a Demon. It tore her in half with a bestial roar and an explosion of blood. I was dumbfounded. She was more scared of me than a monster from Hell.

  Somewhere Trent had found a whistle and was blowing for all he was worth. Everyone looked and finally started moving. Unfortunately the Demons also were attracted to the sound.

  I met them halfway and used the lessons Kharl had taught me. Hit hard, hit fast, and leave no survivors. Mattie was cutting Demons to shreds beside me, when I glanced back to see Trent with a baseball bat standing between a Demon and the people he’d gathered.

  “Mattie!” she looked at me and we both turned and shot toward them.

  Just as the Demon started to swing its huge arm toward Trent something caused it to stop. I felt an awful presence behind us as we ripped the Demon away from our path. I was facing Trent and his bat.

  “We got to get these people outta here, big guy,” I yelled and he nodded.

  I looked back at the Demons still pouring out of the twisted portal and noticed the ugly threads that linked them to it. I was seeing their Soul streams and they looked vile to my Inner eye. Ugly, twisted strands of black and purple led back through the portal.

  Two bigger Demons had come through and their Soul streams were a great deal larger as well.

  “Oh shit, Soldiers,” Mattie muttered.

  When Demons enter our realm they slaughter anything in sight. When Wrathguards, commonly referred to as soldiers, come across, they control the lesser Demons. When this occurs, they herd people together to take back across to their world. God only knows what happens to them there.

  “All right, Mattie, take point I’ll keep them from our tails and let’s get the hell outta here.”

  She nodded and Trent turned to the fifteen people huddled behind him, “OK people, we’re following her and running like hell! I’ll signal when we’re out!”

  I nodded and Mattie hit the door with Trent herding the crowd behind her. The Demons charged and I hit anything that came within reach. Trent blew his whistle to alert me that everyone was clear of the gym and I leaped backward through the door.

  More people were in the hallway beyond and Trent was herding them along as well so I parked at the door, where only a few could come at me at once. There, I ripped off anything that came through. I had beaten that initial rage down and now my training was what fueled my actions.

  The whistle blew again and I turned to sprint down the hallway but the two Soldiers crashed through the doors where I had just been. I turned to face them as they charged me and I parried with my arms and lashed out with my foot. The kick shattered the first one’s chest and it flew backwards.

  For a split second I saw my mother lying in that bloody floor surrounded by dead Soldier Demons and rage ripped through me again. With a roar, I seized the throat of the other one and ripped its head from its shoulders. It fell and I sprinted through the outside doors to almost run over Trent, who’d watched the short battle with the Wrathguards.

  The Demons stopped coming after us and surged through the school, I’d just killed their controllers. Stepping outside, I noticed a black dome of energy with my Inner eye and felt that we'd be safe if we got outside of it.

  “Trent,” I grabbed him before he headed back to the crowd, “We need to move out to the other side of the parking lot and I need a cell phone. Can you do that?”

  “Sure thing,” He started again on the crowd and we moved quickly to the parking lot. One of the girls stumbled and fell, so I reached to help her up. She cringed and scuttled back from me. It was like a pit opened up in my chest. I’d gone from outcast to monster, and it hurt, God it hurt.

  Trent stepped up and pulled the girl to her feet. He looked at me and I didn’t need to read his aura to see the pity. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then handed me a cell phone.

  Chapter 4

  I looked back at the school as I felt more soldiers come through the gate. And I watched as human Souls began moving back toward the gym.

  “Damnit! They’re taking prisoners,” I muttered.

  Mattie was back over by me by then, “I felt more soldiers cross, Colin.”

  “Me too, they’re gathering people in the gym.”

  “They’re gonna take em back across aren’t they?”

  I nodded and made the call.

  “Hello,” Kharl answered.

  “Dad, code Zulu at the school”

  “Zulu?!”

  “Yeah, Soldiers,” I said, “and lesser Demons, a lot of em.”
r />   “You’re out or you couldn’t call. Wait where you are, we’ll be less than a half hour.”

  “Dad they’re herding people up for a grab they don’t have a half hour.”

  “You’re going back in,” He said it as a statement, because he already knew the answer.

  “They’re gonna eat those people, or worse. I can’t let that happen.”

  “I know,” he paused a second, “OK, Here’s what you do. You get to those people and you put up one of those crazy shields of yours. Don’t fight ‘em, put everything into the shield. Hold for thirty minutes, that’s all I need.”

  “Yes sir,” I heard the phone hit the floor and something crashed in the background. I don’t think he even used the door.

  Shields are something I learned early on. A Soulguard is taught how to form the privacy shields to conceal their Soul streams at the beginning of training. You have to project a small amount of your life-force out past your body. It takes a little effort to hold it up but not much. Since I can actually see what I am doing, I constructed a privacy shield that radiates from the Soul stream itself, and surrounds me. I really respect the Guard, who can’t see what I see. They accomplish so much while working in the dark.

  I call it a passive shield. It doesn’t require any effort because it’s from the stream, not me. Actually, it takes an effort to keep it turned off when I need to. Using this as a pattern I’d experimented with making defensive shields as well. It takes a couple of moments to construct one but they are tough.

  Tough enough to hold out a bunch of soldiers? I didn’t know.

  “I gotta go back in,” I said.

  I told Mattie and Trent the plan, and Trent interrupted.

  “No, it won’t work, dude. I hate to say it but everyone is as scared of you guys as the monsters,” he was shaking his head, “I’ve got to go in, too.”

  “You’re probably right,” I answered, remembering the cringing girl who wouldn’t even let me help her to her feet, “but it’s crazy to go back in there.”

  “Doesn’t matter, I’m going,” he squared his shoulders, “It’ll save more lives.”

  “All right,” I nodded, “jump on my back, we’re going’ in fast. Mattie can you call your dad, too, and try to get these people moving’ out of the area?”

  “No, dad’s in California and I’m going in with you, someone has to hold them off while you do this shield thing. Don’t argue, it’s a done deal. But you’re carrying the ox, not me.”

  “I am not an ox, and I’ll just walk in on my own, thank you.”

  I gave him my best Kharl look.

  “They’re taking folks to the gym, they’ll just take me to the gym. Give me a few minutes before you blow the doors down and I’ll get folks packed together for the shield thing.”

  “Actually, that’ll probably work, Colin,” Mattie said.

  “You don’t have to do this, big guy,” I said.

  “You know, I’ve never been more terrified in my whole life, but you need me. I can’t just stand here and watch.”

  I nodded, “How much time do you need after you reach the others?”

  “Just a couple of minutes and you get your ass in there. Don’t you let them eat me,” He took a deep breath and started back inside at a jog.

  I watched the light of his Soul as the Demons converged, then he was on his way to the gym.

  I looked to Mattie, “You ready for this?”

  She spun her daggers in her hands, “Let’s do it,” she said softly

  I’ll not lie, I was scared, but this is what we’re born to do. When I think of leaving those people in the hands of the Demons, I see my mother bleeding on the floor and I know that it just isn’t in me to allow that to continue.

  I looked to the school, Trent was in the gym and now was the time.

  “Go.”

  We plunged across the space toward the buildings plowing through walls and anything in our path. The last wall exploded inward as we hit it. We launched ourselves across the gym to land within feet of Trent as he kept people calm.

  I slammed my fist into the ground to anchor the shield in the earth. It wasn’t really necessary because the shield actually was formed from my stream but what can I say? I was seventeen and it looked very, very cool. I began weaving the pattern from my Soul stream. I made it visible to the naked eye so that no one would get too close.

  As it started to form the Demons must have realized what was happening because there was an awful roar and they charged.

  Mattie stepped in front of me and guarded the hole as it grew smaller, her knives a blur as Demon blood sprayed from cut limbs, torsos, and anything else that poked through. Finally my shield snapped closed and a Demon’s arm and head splatted on the floor at Mattie’s feet.

  She looked down, “That’s never gonna come off my shoes,” She said sadly.

  I looked back where we'd come in and another Demon came in dragging Miss Haynes. I started to open the shield when the Demon suddenly stopped and with a roar and a shake of the head it ripped her completely in half and threw her back through the door he’d come in through. I heard someone throw up and another behind me coughed nervously.

  “I don’t know if she was that annoying,” Trent said, “It didn’t even eat her.”

  I felt the portal come alive again and Wrathguards flooded out of it, the regular Demons pulled back and the soldiers sprang forward to pound on my shield. It held.

  After a short time, the Chemistry teacher, I couldn’t remember his name, stepped forward facing Trent.

  “Now what do we do?”

  “We wait. Cavalry’s on the way,” he answered.

  “Did you call 911?”

  “Nah, we called his dad,” Trent returned, pointing at me. The teacher looked at me and I could see the fear in his aura but he didn’t look away.

  “And who is your father? What can he do?”

  I could see their auras at a mile away, closing fast. I smiled, “You’re about to see.”

  Chapter 5

  The whole end of the building exploded as Kharl and Kyra hit it at seventy miles per hour. I’ve sparred with both of them but what I saw that day was amazing. Kharl was glowing with Soulfire and where he walked Demon parts flew in all directions. He waded into the ranks of Soldier demons without slowing down and ripped them apart.

  Kharl and Kyra are like forces of nature. Kyra is five feet and six inches tall with a slim but firm build. She is of Native American descent with dark skin and black hair and she is a tornado, a maelstrom of death with a sword in each hand. She is so fast, it’s hard to even see her in action. Mostly you just see Demon parts falling to the floor as she flashes by.

  Kharl is the avalanche, the juggernaut. He is six feet and five inches tall and, I kid you not, four feet across at the shoulders. His fighting style is to wade in and destroy anything that gets in his path. Never go around, when you can go through it. It doesn’t matter what it is. No deception, no fear, and no stopping him.

  This is why they're legends in the Soulguard. This is why their names are even known to people like Mattie, who aren’t even old enough to have met them.

  The portal was pouring Soldiers into the gym but they were dying faster than the others were arriving.

  Suddenly something huge stepped through and with one sweep of its enormous arm, both Soulguards flew backwards through the air. They slammed against the shield and I opened a portal for them. Before I could close it, the Demon had crossed the room, one long arm reaching through the portal, to swipe at me. I felt fire run down my face and I pushed the shield out, pushing the Demon away. It backed up and I finished closing the portal.

  The Demon pounded at the shield and I felt every blow. Blood ran freely down the left side of my face.

  “Damn Wraith!” Kharl exclaimed, “What the hell is a Wraith doing here?”

  A Wraith is a much more powerful Demon than the soldier. Soldiers are sent to take people back across but a Wraith only comes across the dimensions w
ith an agenda. They have a specific goal and they control the soldiers and lesser Demons under them.

  A Wraith can stand up to Soulguards without fear. It usually takes multiple Mages to kill one of them.

  “Oh hell, they know he’s here,” Kyra said.

  I knew what they were saying. All this for me, they wanted me dead. All these people had died because of me.

  “Four Soulguards can’t take a Wraith, even us.” Kyra said softly, “but we two can slow it down enough for him to get away.”

  “When I say to, Boy, you drop the shield and let us out. Then you get these people outta here and run like hell,” Kharl rumbled. He snapped his wrists and two huge swords of pure Soulfire were in his hands.

  He rolled his massive shoulders and said, “Drop”

  “No.”

  He turned to me, “We can’t win this one, Son, the best we can do is give you some time.”

  “A Mage can do it,” I returned

  “You’ve been in here,” he motioned toward his head with one of those massive swords, “You know what happens to Mages who try to use it without training.”

  He had made me witness a memory a long time ago to make sure I was convinced not to try to mess with the Source. A man had tried to pull from the Source and it burned him alive. He was ashes in minutes, the power in the Source is that strong. It was horrible and I’ve never been tempted to try to use that burning mass of power, always at the edge of my awareness.

  “No one else dies for me.”

  Kharl looked at me for a minute and nodded. I saw the resignation, in his aura and a great sadness. He turned to face the Wraith.

  “We’ll keep it off you long enough for you to do what you got to, Son.”

  Up until this very moment I had never understood my real father, how he had gone off, knowing it was to his death. Now I did. After seeing how badly the Demons wanted me dead, I realized that he had died, not for revenge, but to give me a life, to have time to grow up, possibly defend myself. But they got here too soon. At least I could keep anyone else from dying for me.