by T. G. Ayer
As the only Wraith-Hunter around I owed it to Todd and to his un-dead father to do my job.
Skin Deep Ch4
I stood in the shadows of a huge elm on the corner of a nondescript street in a very suburban part of town. In the daylight, I would expect to see little girls skipping and little boys riding around on bright red trikes. But the night hid the niceness, making everything look the same, gray and dark and haunted. I watched from the time Todd came home until the Wraith returned as well.
Tonight was for observation. Wraiths were strongest at night. Weakest at dusk and dawn, not to say they became helpless during the day. I just preferred to fight them when they were less strong. Why make things harder for myself?
I relaxed and borrowed night sight from my feline self.
A sharper, more focused vision.
I’d poached my Panther’s ears long before I arrived. And now I listened to the sounds the two occupants of the house made as they prepared for dinner. One, young, innocent and troubled. The other, ancient, evil and filled with glee.
It still amazed me how blind I’d been to the torment of Todd. I stared now at the front porch virtually glowing with peachy tendrils. I’d seen enough. They were settling down for the night. Maybe the Wraith felt satisfied with his efforts of being a good father for the evening.
As I turned to leave, a sound within the house caught my feline ear. Something crashed. Could the Wraith have decided the charade had stretched on long enough? I crossed the road, ducking behind a bush of rhododendrons, their heavy scent no longer sweet. I crawled to the nearest window, staying low.
Inside, an angry, raised voice filtered through the curtained window. I peered through a slit in the drapes, where the two halves had failed to meet.
Mayhem greeted me.
A side table lay overturned, an old lamp shattered, the solid base crushed to dust. An armchair sat on its side. Then I saw the Wraith and his captive. It held Todd by the throat, suspended in midair by only the power of the un-dead. Todd’s eyes bulged—pain, fear and shock warring. At his temples, blood vessels enlarged slowly as he grappled with the hand at his throat. He kicked as he struggled desperately for air.
Todd’s arms flopped limply as he began to lose consciousness. It was now or never. I sprinted around the house, readying my bow. Made a mental check on the two vials already in the chamber as I ran. At the back door, I gripped the handle and paused when it opened smoothly. The Wraith feared no one and his arrogance allowed me to slip in for the kill.
I followed the sound down the hall to the front room where Todd was now a frightening shade of blue. He no longer gasped for breath, no longer kicked helplessly.
Almost no time left.
The Wraith, his back to me, still had no knowledge of my presence. In their true form, Wraiths have no substance, but yet possess strong Magyk. When contained within the body of a mortal Human, they have limited access to their powers, although they still remained powerful enough. I preferred my kills at a distance, usually eliminated them in sniper mode. I’d tried hand to hand combat a long time ago but the creatures were unpredictable and sometimes too strong. But this Wraith didn’t afford me the luxury of distance.
And though the Wraith lacked super hearing power, he did possess an acceptable level of hearing. When I stepped into the room, he turned. His lack of attention to Todd changed nothing of the boy’s circumstance. Todd remained midair, dying a slow and painful death.
Had I been wrong about the limitations of their power when in Human bodies? Had something changed? They’d increased in numbers, and increased in strength. Plus the Veil was more fragile than ever. What was going on?
The Wraith speared me with a venomous glare. I was so focused on the foul creature that I barely heard the sound of Todd’s body as it landed on the ground in a crumpled heap.
In that brief moment, my arrogance betrayed me. He sneered, his eyes a smoky black. I lifted my bow and aimed at the creature’s chest. It mattered where I hit him, because it was the mortal shell which had to be killed a second time. I’d thought I had enough time…
He covered the distance between us with lightning speed and hit me—a full body slam. I went down, still holding the bow across my chest, stunned and confused by this new and unusual show of speed. My weapon, about a foot in length, could double as a club if needed. Unfortunately, the Wraith’s body crushed it against mine.
His foul breath enveloped me; coral wisps encircled my head. His thrall – with which he would’ve ensnared his human host before he’d taken possession – failed to work on me, but I gave him points for trying. All I wanted was him off me. Desperation and hysteria fueled my strength, and I shoved hard. I managed to move him enough to tilt the head of my arrow toward his head.
He smiled through crooked, yellow teeth. The smell of death rolled off his body in waves, and my stomach churned bitter bile. Most people couldn’t smell these vile creatures. My ability to sniff them out helped a great deal. Not so much when I was stuck nose to nose with one. I struggled in his putrid embrace, and he laughed again. He was so sure of himself. And while I stared into the black, swirling depths of his eyes, I fiddled for the trigger on the bow, my finger bent awkwardly against the soft flesh of his chest.
His fingers crept to my neck as he began to close the distance between his mouth and mine. My time was very limited. The Wraith’s kiss—the worst possible death. My heart thundered as he inched closer. Once his mouth locked onto mine, he would suck the breath and life out of my body. Before long, he would absorb every bit of moisture from my flesh until I became a dried-out husk. The process was excruciatingly slow and agonizing. I’d rather dispense with French-kissing soul-sucking monsters. I had better things to do with my time.
At last, I felt the lever click and counted the milliseconds as the cylinder retracted and the spring coiled tight. In the next moment the barbed arrow exploded from the chamber and smashed into the wall behind the Wraith. A shower of tiny splinters spewed onto the floor.
Damn it. Slick. Real slick.
There went my only option. My weapon was crushed against my ribcage, pressed uselessly between our bodies, and I lay cheek to cheek with death, helpless.
No. Not if I can help it.
I still had my feline strength. I wriggled my hands upward from where they’d grasped the bow and its trigger. The black metal dug deeper into my ribs. Good. Pain proved I still lived. I snaked my hands around the Wraith’s neck and squeezed. I tried to concentrate and pull some latent feline power from within me, but nothing feline came to my aid.
It was something stranger than all the anomalies of my life so far. My hands glowed as I squeezed the demon’s neck. Glimmered the palest gold. The elegance of the color looked misplaced on the body of the Wraith. What other powers did these creatures possess that I was not aware of? My hands still glowed, growing warmer. Warm and bearable. Was it the Wraith emanating this golden glow or was it me?
The Wraith struggled within my chokehold, gasping. Bent on freeing himself, he let go with one hand and I could’ve tossed him off me and ran. But I stayed. Had to finish it.
I watched the swirling blackness as it began to fade from the creature’s human eyes. The Wraith screamed and my skin crawled with the sound as it rippled across the fine hair on my body. I still held him in my golden death grip.
The Wraith exerted all his final energy in digging his thumb in my throat. The lights dimmed and as the Wraith died I slipped into a gray unconsciousness.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but a rapid, semi-violent shaking brought me swiftly back. Todd, in his desperation to awaken me, entirely missed the fact he’d succeeded. He continued to shake my arm, saying my name over and over again, a desperate mantra. My turn to shake him. He stopped speaking and stared at me, the dark eyeliner smudged in streaks on his eyelids and cheeks, his hair mussed and no longer neatly spiked.
“Thought you were a goner for sure,” he whispered, as if he were afraid someone bad would
hear his words and seek him out.
“Are you okay?” My eyes raked his skinny frame, checking for obvious injuries. He could have undetectable internal injuries. “What did he do to you?”
“Tried to throttle me.” As he spoke, bitterness flooded his eyes. “Bastard.”
How to proceed? I’d never had to discuss the business of Wraiths with a victim before. Never had my fights with those soul-sucking leeches been witnessed before. My worried gaze flicked to the remains of the Wraith, but it seemed Todd, in spite of his youth, understood my dilemma.
“Don’t stress. He wasn’t my Dad. Not for a very long time, anyway.”
“When did you realize?” Taken aback at his calm, I was curious.
“When Sam told me you didn’t unmake the gayness inside you. That’s when I knew something was way wrong with my dad. He’d been acting funny this last couple of months. Weird and mean and real nasty. Knocked me out a couple of times too.”
I waited for him to continue. These were the most words the boy had strung together since we met.
“He . . . he became something else.” Todd looked at the remains of the Wraith and shook his head. “That is not my father.”
“So what do you figure he became?” I tread carefully.
“Dunno. Maybe he went a little crazy? Multiple personality or something like that?” He didn’t believe those words. Not for a minute. Mere psychological justifications for what he knew to be something far stranger. His face darkened. “To be honest it was more like he was possessed by something. Something evil. And strong.”
He brushed his hair away from his face. I caught sight of a huge purple bruise on his forearm. Grabbing his arm in a light hold, I looked straight at him, eye to eye. “Did he do this to you?”
“Yeah. He hurt me all the time. Broke my hands and legs all the time.” He stopped talking and sat there, watching me, mulling over something. His arms were streaked a violent purple with yellow highlights. He’d admitted to having had his limbs broken recently. But no physical signs indicated he was hurt apart from the shocking bruise.
“You heal?” My matter-of-fact acceptance of the ability to heal gave the poor fellow some confidence to own up.
He nodded and the look of relief flooding his eyes brought tears to my own. I understood what he felt. “What’s wrong with me?”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Todd. You’re just a special kid.” I ruffled his hair and he didn’t resist.
“But why am I this way?” I understood his need to know. At least I came from a family of Walkers. No matter how dysfunctional, I’d at least known what made me different from the start.
“I don’t know.” I kept an eye on the body. On the door. We had to get moving.
“You can see them, can’t you?” Todd seemed to accept the possibility that something evil had possessed his father’s body.
I struggled with a response to his question.
“It’s a little more complicated than that. I can see their residue. They leave it on whatever they touch. I saw it on you.”
Todd rose to his feet and approached the corpse that was once his father.
“What happens when they take you, like they took my dad?”
“They’re a parasitic entity. They kill their host, slowly enough for them to fill the place left by the soul of the mortal. You father would’ve died a few days after being possessed by the Wraith. And it’s why we can’t detect them on their host. I can only track them through the people they hurt along the way.”
Todd nodded in silent understanding. “This thing was walking around in my father’s dead flesh. Nobody would ever have been able to give my dad the peace he deserved. Thank you.” He looked at me, an earnest honesty on his face. “My father was a good man. Not a great man. But a good man—in his heart.” The boy tapped his chest.
“Do you have somewhere to go? Somewhere safe?”
“I can stay here.” He refused to meet my eyes, clearly not wanting me to see his need.
“It’s better you don’t. In case his friends come looking for him.”
“Do they have like . . . social networks or something?” Todd scrunched up his forehead in distaste, obviously disliking the thought the soul-sucking killers who had taken his father from him would dare to be social creatures with friends and families like normal people.
“I don’t really know. I’ve only ever seen one of them at a time. And I never stopped to chat about the sociology of Wraiths.” I failed to educate him on the fact my association with Wraiths was wholly based on method of dispatch. “I think it would be safer for you to be far away from this place for a while.”
“Wraiths?” Todd let the word tumble over his tongue, testing it as he would the taste of a chocolate. “What are they?”
“They are the darker branch of the Ethereals.” My response was automatic, as if it was expected he’d know what an Ethereal was. In a split second I realized how vastly different our worlds were. But in this moment, those two worlds collided and now, however indirectly, I had the blood of his father on my hands. And I had to be the one to break it to him that the world he lived in was a second reality, and he’d just had about the worst introduction into this world.
I had to give the kid some credit, though, he was no mouse. The strength of the man he would someday be flashed through his eyes. “Ethereals?” His eyebrows rose, curiosity peaked.
“Creatures with the power to control the air and atmosphere. The Wraiths are Dark Ethereals. Beings who live in the blackness and the shadows, and feed off the evil energies they collect. They used to never need to come out into the open before.”
“So what changed?” He stared at me with eyes as black as the Wraiths, only they sparkled with life and courage. At the moment, they swam with bitterness as he spoke. “What made them take my dad? He never did anything to anyone.”
“Look, Todd, I can’t answer that question right now without speculating. And the last thing I want to do is give you the wrong answer. You deserve more than a half-baked guess.”
I rose, skirted the body and tiptoed to the window.
“Grab some things and let’s get going. I have a place I can take you. You’ll be safe there.” I looked over my shoulder at the boy standing forlorn at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the banister and gratitude on his face. The only person I knew who could help was Storm. He’d already taken a whole group of Walkers and Humans under his wing- a multi-species clan he called City Deep. I was pretty confident he’d know how to help Todd.
I shooed him away, tapping my watch to remind him to be quick. Turning back to the window, I opened the drapes a tad, keeping an eye out in case the Wraith had been expecting company.
Soon we made a hasty departure from the dark and lonely house on that dark and lonely street.
And my heart ached for Todd and his initiation into adulthood.
Read Skin Deep
Part II
Blood Magic - SoulTracker 1 Sample Chapters
Blood Magic Ch1
My phone buzzed and I grabbed it from the seat beside me, while keeping my eyes on the road. I flipped it open, gave it a quick glance and raised my eyebrows in surprise. Martin Cross. Desperate father in search of his missing child. Something I knew a lot about. I’d just taken his case, a stressed mechanic whose kid had disappeared into thin air months ago. A case I’d assumed would be pro bono considering he didn’t appear to me to have exceedingly deep pockets.
He was confirming my payment had been deposited and I should see it reflect in the account tomorrow. For once, I was happy to have pegged someone so wrong.
I threw the phone back on the seat and peeked at the rearview mirror. It never hurt to be cautious considering I’d pissed off enough paranormal criminals in my time, but no one was following me.
I drove to the outskirts of town, wondering again why I bothered with these visits. I could hear Drake’s voice. “Why do you waste your time? The man probably doesn’t even know yo
u’re there.”
Drake Darvon was my best friend and my sparring partner. He was also a gargoyle. Real live blue-blooded in-the-flesh gargoyle. Drake didn’t realize I went because I needed to. Because something deep inside me drew me to Samuel.
I pulled up in front of the house, a part of me refusing to enter the grand old house, the other part wanting to rush in there and take Samuel away from it all. To take him away and fix him and make him whole again. It still felt like my fault, even though everyone, including Samuel himself, insisted it wasn’t. But if I hadn’t been so persistent, if I hadn’t wanted to find Ari so badly and finally bring her body home for some closure, maybe Samuel would still be whole. Maybe he would still be around to guide me.
Not that I needed his training anymore, though. Samuel Fontaine had once been the Master Teleporter. There was only one person who exceeded him in his ability to cross the Veils and enter the Other worlds. And that was me. A secret only Samuel and I knew. Both Omega and Sentinel could never be privy to that piece of information. Samuel contracted to both organizations so he was allowed on occasion to do his own search and rescue jobs. Storm had arranged for Samuel to train me, to help perfect my astral projection, thus putting in motion a friendship of a lifetime.
But Samuel couldn’t be hoodwinked. He’d forced me to admit my front as an astral projector was a sham. Then he’d taken it upon himself to train me to teleport better. How to jump better, faster, smarter. And to this day he was the only one who knew exactly how powerful I was. How far I could jump, how strong my self-protection was, that I could move through most magical wards.
I rested my head on the steering wheel. Maybe I should just start the car and go home. Maybe Drake was right and coming here only made things worse for me and for Samuel. No. I punched the steering wheel, as if it was Drake arguing with me. I’d come this far. And Samuel deserved some company. I got out of the car, controlling the urge to slam the door shut. Fishing in my jacket pocket for my keys, I jogged to the porch, as if by walking any slower I would give myself the chance to change my mind.