Tattered Souls (Broken Souls Book 1)

by Richard Hein

  “Come on,” I said. “You don’t mention anything. Job? A scrappy little dog you rescued from a house fire? You’re just… Kate.”

  “I’m taking lessons from you,” she said. Her eyes flickered open, filled with pain. She rubbed her temple a few more times and straightened. There was an amused smile there, subtle and pained, but still present. “I had to get you drunk—”

  “Buzzed.”

  “To get anything useful out of you. You’re not exactly the most personable guy I’ve met, Samuel. It’s…” She blew out a breath and tucked her dark hair back behind an ear as she stopped. In the dim light of the faded street lamps, it was hard to make out much beyond Kate’s eyes. “Do you have any idea how frustrating you can be? For someone that’s new to this world, it’s daunting, and here’s Samuel Walker — a man with the information that might help me figure out why my brother was killed. Why I’m being hunted. Except you’ve got to play your cards close to your chest because you’re afraid I’ll cross some line I can’t see because you won’t show me. I’m just some person you decided to help, but this is everything to me. I don’t have anything left.”

  Her words came out soft, pulled away by the gentle night’s breeze. Her hand fell away from the door. I shifted as the words lashed at me, tiny barbs digging at my skin, accusations I couldn’t deny. My reasons were sound as far as I was concerned, but would I feel any different in her shoes? I rubbed the side of my nose with a thumb.

  “I don’t know what to make of you,” she continued, throwing up her hands. “You’ve got this seething anger that boils up at any perceived slight. Maybe I don’t want to be a part of that.” She stopped. “I heard what you said to Stefan and Dieter. I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to, and I’m sorry. You don’t want a repeat of… something. I understand that.” She took a breath. “Maybe I don’t want to get too close to someone either, Samuel. I think I was letting that happen here. Maybe a guy who lost four jobs and who looks for solutions to each of his problems in a bottle isn’t someone I want to…”

  Kate’s words dwindled. I expected a reaction in me, some fire, some anger. Something. There was only the resounding sting of a slap somewhere within me, a primal ache that went beyond mere words. We had been getting close, a connection I’d not felt in a long while, that electric buzz in the stomach and mind that made you happy and afraid of messing it up all at the same time. I felt hollowed out, as if something had just cored me through and left a shell standing there beside her. We stared at each other. I could see she hadn’t enjoyed saying the words, but the truth hurt sometimes. Had she meant it, or was she protecting herself?

  Did it matter?

  It did. I crossed my arms and leaned back against the grimy wall beside the door, thoughts churning.

  We needed to be able to trust each other. When you worked with the stuff of nightmares, you had to trust. Like it or not, I’d even trusted Francis, even if I loathed the guy. I knew he’d been put through the paces, endured his own fires, and come out the other side as someone you could rely on. He wasn’t someone I was going to invite over for dinner. I was the one that had broken, the one that couldn’t be trusted. Kate was my partner, despite my vicious words to the contrary the other night. Even in a simple situation like this, we had to work together or things could go sideways real quick. I slapped a hand onto my face and rubbed like I was trying to scrub the permanent fuzz of shame that had been there for the last three years away.

  It had to end, this cycle of mistrust. I wasn’t sure if I could repair things with Kate. Maybe I didn’t even want to, somewhere within me. Some people just don’t deserve it. If we were going to make it all the way through, though, I couldn’t keep accusing her of withholding things if I was doing the same.

  “Full disclosure,” I whispered. My gaze tilted to her and I took a deep breath. “Look. If we’re going to be working together, we can’t have this edge between us. You need to understand some things.

  “Lauren was my girlfriend,” I said. My words were quiet. Each syllable burned as they passed my lips, freed from the cage I’d locked them in. Despite the grime and the risk of deadly infection, I dropped my head back against the cool surface and crossed my arms. “We both worked for the OFC. I’d been there a bit longer, but not by much.”

  Kate nodded and joined me by the wall. My eyes closed. Years had passed, but some things leave their mark so deeply that time never washes them away. Her face was there still as it always was, the emerald eyes sparkling at me. I could still hear her voice.

  Her voices.

  “Given the nature of the work we did, it’s not that uncommon for couples to form,” I said. “You build a kind of bond, facing down things and not being able to share it with people outside the organization, you know?” My throat felt like a dozen miles of gravel road driven over by a biker gang in a post apocalyptic movie, but I pushed on. There was no bottling it back up now. What was the point? In two hours or so, she’d just ask Daniel or Francis, and get the story from them, and it wouldn’t be so flattering. Kate’s words had cut in a way like little had. I’d actually felt them, when I’d felt so little but numbness in a long time. Maybe this was the wrong way to repay that, but I needed to know she could trust me after this. There was every chance she’d vanish into the night after hearing it, but at least she’d be making an informed decision for once, rather than just going on whatever drove her to keep by my side since she’d found my name in her dead brother’s journal. At least that would be honest.

  “I suppose it’d be hard to keep a normal relationship if you’re jetting all over the world and slaying monsters,” she said in a whisper. I nodded. She was pressed close to me, shoulder to shoulder, and I could feel the heat of her. “The lying to everyone that’s not part of the organization. The times away.”

  “Yeah,” I said forcing the words out. Even committing myself to this, they were still sticking in my throat, the edges sharp and catching. “Though you generally don’t want to get involved with members of your team. Teams swap often as well, depending on expertise, knowledge, ranking and the like. In any case, enter Lauren.

  “I told you someone I knew had the thought there were beneficial things out beyond our reality,” I said. Swallowing was hard. “Lauren. She was…” The smile that blossomed then hurt, and something burned at my eyes. “Smart. Imaginative. Skilled. She was positive that if Entities like the bearded sky man and his host of angels were decent, and things like the twins weren’t actively trying to eat babies, and infinity is awful… infinite, then there had to be chances of reaching benevolent things out there. We had to be scientific about it.”

  I could see her face grow pale out of the corner of my eye. “She didn’t just think it in an academical sense, did she?” she asked in a quiet voice.

  “There’s only so far that research and theory gets you.” I spun the ring on my finger, eyes distant. The street ahead of me with its anemic lamps wasn’t even there for me any more. Just the old house we’d shared. I blinked and it vanished, fading away to mist. Only the rundown sidewalk and Kate as she pressed close remained. “There’s nothing good out there, Kate. We lucked out in the universal Lotto as far as this bit of nothing we live in goes. Everything else is just waiting to get in here for its own fucked-up reasons, and anything they’re telling you are lies to cover up the truth. Whatever reasons things like God and the twins are playing nice for are alien. They have motives we don’t have emotions to describe them with. What got into Lauren was just… malignant.”

  I turned and met Kate’s eyes. “That’s why I wanted to keep you away from all of this. Her intentions were good, but it doesn’t mean shit in the end. You slip past that line, accidentally, altruistically… and you’re gone.”

  “You couldn’t push it out of her?” Kate said. Her eyes were so wide, so blue beneath the pale lights.

  “It was strong. Not Michael’s level or anything, but bigger than anything I’d faced. The longer an Entity is in a host, the more they merge. Personal
ity traits start swapping back and forth. The twins aren’t even really separate from their hosts any more. The creature and the person are all mixed together. A little vodka, a little vermouth. Shaken, not stirred. If you’re strong enough, you can exorcise them, but at that point, you might be getting a vegetable back because you can’t filter out the mess. I tried. God, I tried, and it just laughed.

  “A lot of people died just because it became her.” I hung my head. My heart was ice. I wanted to do nothing more than forget the memories, to push them away and refill my flask again, but Kate needed to know. “They get into a host and everything it knows is theirs. This thing went on to pick some OFC targets — family and friends of OFC workers. A dozen at least. Who knows how many others she killed. It was… brutal. Gleeful.”

  “Samuel,” she said. Her hand was warm on my shoulder. Gentle. “You can’t—”

  I pulled away. “That’s on me,” I snarled. “I helped her. I thought she was right. I encouraged Lauren. When she was puzzling out a way to use magic safely, to find universes with good Entities, I was right there, helping her.” My eyes burned hot as I remembered Lauren’s assurances, right up until the fatal moment. “You can tell me she’d have done it without me, but I helped, Kate. Like it or not, I’m culpable in those deaths.”

  Kate’s silence was damning.

  My head banged against the disgusting wall. “I couldn’t push it out of her. I did what I should have done from the beginning, what the law said was required. I killed her, Kate. I ended the vessel.”

  When I looked back up, her eyes were shimmering. She looked away. “I turned myself into the OFC. I’d… taken care of the problem, but I’d waited too long. People had died. Had I reported what she was doing when I knew about it like I was supposed to, had I not believed that maybe she was right…”

  I could see the realization in her eyes. The reason that everyone had stared at me with barely restrained hatred when we’d gone to Sanctuary. I’d killed one of our own, and fostered the environment that had allowed it to glory in the death of yet others of the organization. I might have been able to save her, to save all those lives, if I’d just done my damn job. They hated me, but no more than I loathed myself.

  “Normally that would have meant death for me too,” I said with a sigh, rubbing at my eyes. “I hadn’t technically broken any rules though. I should have brought her in at the beginning, and especially at the end when things got overwhelming, but that’s still bullshit. There’s never been a proven case of mass exorcism. All theory against something that big, and they didn’t meet this thing.” I felt the last remaining bit of my energy drain away. Everything felt heavy right then. “I did. They wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  “So they exiled you.”

  My nod felt drunken. “I hadn’t done anything wrong by the protocols, but there was no way anyone in this universe or in Sanctuary was going to work with me. Helping Lauren with her research, killing one of our own… trust is important in this gig, you know?” Her eyes were wide as the shock of understanding went through them once more. “So, I want you to trust me, which means coming clean. I’m not excusing my problems. Maybe I have good reasons for all my shit. Maybe I don’t. A little understanding goes a long way, and right now, if you’re going to work with me, you’ve got to understand me. If you want to tell me we go back to get the knife and wait for the professionals, I get that. Now you know everything.”

  Her hand was warm as her fingers curled around mine and gave me a tentative squeeze. I shivered. It felt good in the sort of way that oxygen felt good, like sleeping felt good. Something you needed and only noticed when you’d missed it for extended periods. We shared a weak smile beneath the faded street lights and I knew right then we were okay.

  Which was great because lying by omission is still lying, especially when laying it all out to build trust. A cold feeling of wriggling nausea settled in my stomach, but there wasn’t anything to do but move on from the conversation.

  The doors howled like a sack of wet cats at I pulled one open and held it for her. I stopped inside the entry hall, feet squeaking across black and white tile that was as much mildew as floor. The buzz of fall insects flickered by my ears, and the smell of aged garbage was strong enough to taste. Someone had painted the walls a convincing color of mildew.

  Kate moved with a subdued silence, and I could see her thoughts whirling behind those eyes. She was processing everything I’d said. I hoped she made better headway than I had. It had eaten me up for three years, and I still didn’t know what to think. Kate crossed over to the battered mailboxes that filled one wall. A few hung open, like gaps in steel teeth. “What’s the apartment number?”

  “417.”

  Her finger traced a line in the air as she sought it out. It was open. She arched an eyebrow at me as she swung it closed. No mail within, and the key hole had looked to have been chiseled and mangled ineptly. I shrugged, but an icy feeling began worrying at the pit of my stomach.

  The elevator was worse. The doors were ajar, the car nowhere to be seen. Empty chip bags and crushed and faded energy drink cans littered the bottom when I poked my head down. The external buttons had been pried loose. All of it looked like it had been done awhile ago, while the twins had implied that this infestation had been recent. It seemed more likely that the state of this place drew the sort of people that might dabble, rather than vice versa, but as we took to the stairs, I stuffed my hand into my jacket and wrapped my fingers around the grip of the weapon I’d been given.

  Ancient mildew greeted us on the climb up the stairs, and the flickering anemic light didn’t help the mood any. Kate’s eyes grew distant, and I could almost see her shoulders tightening up like a castle before a siege.

  Each flight of stairs came and went without much incident, aside from a little bit of heavier breathing on my part. At last we hit the fourth floor, steps whispering across stained carpet. The door to the apartment looked the same as the others. Weathered, in need of a good repairman, and reminding me to get a better job so I could avoid the same fate. My heart was thundering like an orchestra of drunken drummers. This was it. I sucked in a breath of the stagnant air and nodded to Kate.

  “What should I expect?” Her voice hummed like an electric fence, nervous excitement bubbling out of her.

  “Low-level Entities like to make nests,” I said. “Closets are a good example. Miniature dimensional spaces they can cause mischief from. It’s why you get a lot of stories about monsters in them. It’s a positive feedback loop. Kids believe in such things, which gives them enough energy to get summoned through in rare circumstances, which lets them set up shop in a closet and… vicious cycle.”

  She nodded, took a breath, and nodded again.

  “Okay, partner,” I said. “You have my back? The Robin to my Batman?”

  Her smile was glorious, a ray of golden sunshine on a Seattle day. “You bet.”

  “Class is in session, then,” I said and reached to knock on the filthy door.

  Which made it all the more surprising when the door ripped free of its hinges and shattered into a mildew-covered pulp as a dozen shadowy tentacles speared out, wrapped around my arms and legs and dragged me into the darkness of the apartment.

  Chapter 13

  Tendrils of vaguely-corporeal darkness squeezed as I was hefted into the air within the apartment. They slithered over my wrists and ankles, cinching me tight as I was yanked sideways into the apartment. Another parted the air with enough speed that I heard its passing a second before it curled around my throat, feeling like wet, spongy flesh with just a hint of insubstantial give to it. They squeezed as I was hoisted to near roof level, hanging sideways, and black dots floated like tainted stars across my vision.

  I could barely see my attacker. An elderly woman, more wrinkles than skin. Her jaw distended far beyond what should have been possible. Skin cracked and tore, seeping black pus. The tentacles snaked from her open maw, a writhing mass of nightmare fuel that held me alof
t like a mewling kitten by the scruff. Her eyes burned from within, a flickering inferno of electric greens that narrowed as it held me up with a disdainful regard like I used for my empty bottles before hurling them in the trash. A look that says, well, this just isn’t any good.

  Shit.

  “Hurk,” I screamed, coming out at little more than a panting wheeze. I thrashed in its grip as the creature took a shuffling step forward, head tilting to one side and back as it watched me. The sagging skin of its neck rippled with each twitch of the smoky vines that grew from its mouth. Bile rose up and was thankfully forced back down by the strangulation I was enduring. This wasn’t a simple possession — whoever this poor soul had been, she was quite far into the merger. I might be able to separate them if I could get my hands on the pallid flesh for a few moments, but I wasn’t sure what would be left.

  Of course, if I didn’t, I was certain there wouldn’t be anything left of me.

  Kate charged into the darkened room, snatching up one of those horrific painted lamps every grandmother seems to have by the door. She hurtled past me and hammered it right down onto the woman’s temple with a sickening crunch. The lamp shattered like porcelain. The creature didn’t flinch. More blackness welled where it had been struck, pooling and seeping out like Kate had struck diseased oil.

  The tendrils shifted, and the tips pressed against my skin. My panicked twitching became a full-on seizure as I felt the ends bore right into my flesh, pressing into me. Glacial cold slammed through my limbs. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the strands of darkness curled around my wrist and then sliding beneath the skin, gliding back up my arm a couple of inches like thick, disgusting needles, twisting beneath the flesh. Seeking.

  Another tendril split off from the main pack and snapped out and round, elongating and thinning. It swirled around Kate’s ankle, as she continued to beat the creature about the face with the remains of the lamp, and yanked her off the floor. The lamp tumbled free as she was tipped upside down. There was a pause for a heartbeat, and then it flung her across the room like a discus. She spun with a startled yelp, powered through the cheap entertainment center and impacted the wall hard enough to shatter the drywall. She slumped to the ground with a feeble groan as powder rained down on her.