A wave of rage overcame Bob. Her life was gone, and Grimm was taking her soul. He leapt off the platform straight at Grimm. He grabbed the monster by the throat, meaning to strangle the bastard to death. One instant, Bob was consumed with rage, and the next, he was consumed with light.
It was as if a thousand souls all entered him at once. What was normally a pleasantly warm sensation became a white-hot fire that burned right through Bob’s heart—not the muscle that kept a body alive, but the part of a person’s soul that only a rare few understood and only a Journeyman knew how to find. Bob felt the fire pass into him and burn hotter.
The Blacksouls surrounding Grimm all fled. Grimm screamed in agony as he shoved Bob away.
The last thing Bob remembered seeing was Grimm running to the fire escape. Why not fade into the shadows? Where did his Blacksouls go?
It was impossible. Drisc stared at his friend, who was unconscious on the ground. Drisc replayed the scene in his mind over and over again trying to make sense of what just happened, and the impossible continued to be the truth.
“Is he OK?” Richard asked as he knelt over Patience. Drisc knew she was gone. He knew, because he understood where the most important part of her had gone.
“I honestly don’t know,” Drisc answered.
“What do you mean?”
“Her soul,” Drisc started, still trying to understand it himself. “It Passed into him.”
“Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen?”
“No, it didn’t Pass through him. She left it to him.”
“What does that mean?” Richard asked. He removed his coat and draped it reverently over Patience’s body.
“A newborn has a soul like anybody,” Drisc began his explanation. “But its soul lacks a certain density—infinite, but not whole. A Journeyman has that same density. What separates us from you is the fact that other souls Pass into you. A soul gains more of itself, and the mortal life cycle truly begins.”
“What’s that mean for Bob?” Richard asked, walking over to the man in question.
“It means he’s mortal now,” Drisc said. “Patience gave the last piece of her soul to him, and he’ll live and die like any other mortal would.”
31
In Memoriam
December 20, 2007
The hospital blamed everything on a small group of people who reportedly tried to take the place over and failed. None of the videos captured the suspects, and only a few patients saw anything. None of what they saw made sense or was generally very helpful.
None of it helps me, either. The only thing that does is her. I can feel her with me. I don’t think a normal mortal can, but I’m nothing close to normal. I still have my powers. I’m still a Journeyman, or something like a Journeyman. But what am I supposed to do? Who am I? Who was I? Grimm was a deranged serial killer. Is that what our existence is—some sort of prison sentence? Was I some sort of monster before?
Whatever I can do, I will. I just need some answers first.
“Tori helped us out by identifying us as people who were just caught up in ev’rything,” Bob heard Drisc say.
Bob had been up for a minute, but he didn’t feel like facing the world. From the sound of it, Drisc and Richard had waited for him to wake. Waking was painful. Not because of the bruises or scrapes Bob had received while attacking Grimm. They hurt like hell. It was the beautiful warmth inside him that hurt. It was her, and he knew it. She lived there, choosing to live in him though he didn’t deserve it. He had let her down, and he’d spend the rest of his life knowing it.
At least that life would end eventually. Bob continued to listen to his two friends talk. Richard seemed to be the least injured. They talked about Grimm. Apparently, the bastard had fallen off the grid.
“So what do we do next?” Richard asked.
“The next step for you,” Bob said, opening his eyes to look at Richard, “is to go home.” They were in the hospital. Bob realized that he came out of the event with more than just his girlfriend’s soul.
“Ye’re awake,” Drisc said. “Well, obviously. What I mean ta say is, ye’re not in too bad a shape.” He stood beside Bob’s white bed and dragged a curtain around them for more privacy.
The pain shooting along Bob’s muscles would have told him his mentor was lying even if Drisc managed to sound convincing.
“I can’t just leave you two alone in this,” Richard said.
“And what do you think you’ll do?” Bob nearly shouted the question. “Enough of us have lost pieces of ourselves these last few days.” Did her soul just surge a little warmer?
“I know how it feels,” Richard said sadly.
“Yeah, and you know what I told you to do about it, what Kyle told you to do.”
“So what can you do?” Richard argued.
“I’m still a Journeyman,” Bob said. “And for those of us who are meant to deal with Grimm, we have to figure that out.” He grudgingly let the last comment escape his lips. Pulling teeth would have been easier.
“There’s just n’aught too much to do,” Drisc said.
“I know what I have to do first,” Bob said. His friends looked at him.
“I have to say goodbye,” he continued. “I could die at any time. I’m half afraid if I wake up, I’ll see a Death Trail and realize it leads to me, but I can’t let that stop me. So I’ll go on. First, I’ll say goodbye to her. Then, I’ll figure it out as I go.”
“That’s about the only plan I could come up with, too,” Richard admitted. “But—don’t take this the wrong way, Bob—even if you guys are all part of some bigger design, if you knock on my front door, I’ll probably shoot you.” He smiled at Bob. It was the first time Richard had ever called the Journeyman by his first name.
It took a day for Bob to get released from the hospital. He drove to Mitchell Caverns, and Drisc joined him for support. They took the same way down that Bob had helped build years back when he worked in the mine. He had wanted to take Patience back here one day, when she knew the truth. He meant to share everything with her. He felt the last part of her in him surge again. He didn’t understand the sensation any more than he understood how it was possible for him to have the soul.
“This is where her soul would have been Transported,” Bob said. They sat in a boat together where Bob and Patience had shared their first kiss. He knew where her soul, if Grimm hadn’t destroyed it, wanted to go, because the last part of her soul yearned to go to the same place.
Bob reached into his backpack and carefully pulled out a row of flowers he’d tied together with a white ribbon. He set them in the water, one at a time, and watched the cool, glass surface of the water ripple with each flower.
Neither man said anything for a long while. Bob found his thoughts wandering through every second he had spent with Patience. A smile would threaten to form on his lips, but the memory of Grimm, and the look on his face when he had stabbed Patience, wouldn’t let any smiles take shape.
“We still don’t know where he is,” Drisc said. Somehow, the Senior Journeyman knew where Bob’s thoughts had landed. “I can’t seem to find anyone who’s ever heard of a Journeyman have a soul Pass into him.”
“So we’re lost,” Bob said. He didn’t bother to look at his friend. He kept his gaze on the flowers in the water.
“Not yet,” Drisc said. He sounded a little worried. “Someone might know. He’s ... well, let’s just say he’s someone who has a bit more information than the rest of us. He’s a clockmaker in San Diego.”
Bob jerked his head in Drisc’s direction. “How do I get in touch with him?”
32
Reunion
Richard looked nervously at Linda’s door. It was her door because it had stopped being their door when he left. They chose it together all those years ago because they liked the color of the red-brick home with the dark-blue door. She told him it felt like home, so he bought it. Everything was simple when it came to her. Everything but knocking on the damn door.
The door opened. Looking at her was like taking a breath after holding it for a long time. He felt lightheaded and nervous, relaxed and panicked at the same time. Everything he knew about her, which was everything there was to know, came rushing back to him, including the look of surprise on her face. She was shocked, scared, and very angry. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail, the universal sign that she wanted to look like she was taking care of herself but wasn’t.
She’d lost weight. I’m a complete ass, Richard told himself. But there was nothing to do but to say what he’d come to say and see if there was any truth to what Bob had told him.
“As always,” he said as seriously as he could, “you were right. You said the night Kyle died, that living was the point.”
She stared at him as if he were some sort of creature that had just crawled up from under the garden gnomes on the front lawn. “Turns out, Kyle had the same advice for me.” He paused. “I’m so, so—”
She slapped him as hard as she could. Without thinking, he looked at her. He knew that look would show how much he understood he deserved to suffer for her. He should be torn apart for a year and then offered a chance to see how much he once had. For that look of shame, she slapped him again.
“Do you have any idea?” she shouted. “Every time the phone rang, I knew it was you. Every time a car passed.”
She punctuated every shout with a slap or a punch to the chest. He didn’t bother fighting, even though she was stronger than she looked. She continued to yell and hit him. He’d hurt her. He’d left her. He was selfish. Nothing she said was a lie.
“Do you know what it’s like to lose a part of yourself?” she said at last. She’d run out of strength to hit him, but her tears were more painful than a thousand slaps to the face. He could never stand it when she cried.
“Oddly enough,” Richard said, keeping his gaze down. “I do. I was lost. I thought I could find myself if I did something. I thought I could be me again if I just got the guy who killed Kyle. I thought I would find myself out there somewhere, but the truth is, I was always here. Kyle tried to tell me; you tried; hell, even the guy I thought was responsible tried to tell me. It took me too long ... ”
He took a few steps back. “I’m going to do everything I can to make this right,” he said. “I’ll talk to the lieutenant and get my job back. Then, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make things right with you.”
He’d never seen the look she had on her face before that moment. It terrified him. The one person he thought he would always know everything about had just shown him something different. The expression was a muddle of so many emotions, he wondered if she knew how she felt. He didn’t ask. He turned to walk away.
“Where are you going?” she asked. The slight rise in the pitch of her voice was a spark of hope for him. It meant she was worried. At least if she still worried for him, perhaps she could love him again.
“I’m not sure,” he said honestly.
She gave him a look he recognized. It meant he was an idiot, but in a good way. It meant he should know better. It meant she still loved him. But that was before he’d left.
“I didn’t want to assume I could just come back home,” he said quietly. He desperately fought to keep the hope from his voice. It felt like keeping a firecracker hidden under his ass, but he fought it just the same.
“Oh, we’re not OK,” she said. “You left me.”
The comment hung in the air, and if Bob had shown up to take Richard’s soul that instant, he would have left without a fight.
“You betrayed me, and who was I supposed to mourn Kyle with while you were gone?” she asked. “I told you then that I didn’t hate him, but you couldn’t see past your own hatred.”
“I—” Richard tried to get a word in.
“Had enough time to get your self-loathing out, and now it’s my turn,” Linda said, cutting him off. “I don’t want to live without you.” It wasn’t some romantic phrase someone shouted at the climax of a movie. It was a simple comment. She loved him and wanted to be with him. Just the slightest hint of the look she used to give only to him flickered through the mask of sorrow on her face.
“But if you walk through this door, you’re in this with me for life,” she said.
Richard smiled. It was all he could ever ask for. “I’ve come to realize that’s the whole point,” he told her. It was a vague enough comment to quiet her voice, if not enough to soothe her anger. “I’ve even learned to believe in soul mates. You’re a part of me, Linda Hertly. And I don’t ever mean to be without that part of me again. I’ll spend the rest of my life living, just to prove it to you.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M.L.S. Weech was born in August 1979 in Rapid City, South Dakota. He fell in love with fantasy and science fiction at an early age. His love of writing quickly followed when he tried to write a sequel to his favorite movie. He didn’t know what copyright infringement was. He can’t remember a time he wasn’t working on some sort of project from that day on. He wrote for a junior high project. The only way his freshman english teacher could get him to settle down was to let him start writing a book. He completed what he calls his first manuscript when he was 17. He got a ton of feedback that was honest, helpful, and not much fun to listen to, but instead of quitting, he simply wrote another, and then another.
He fell in love with reading in high school when he was introduced to Timothy Zahn and the Star Wars novels. Then he was handed Anne McCaffrey, Robert Jordan, Dean Koontz, Brandon Sanderson, and so many more. He went from reading to complete homework to reading more than three books a month, and then three books a week.
He joined the U.S. Navy as a journalist in 2005. He served on aircraft carriers and destroyers. He served in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. When he wasn’t taking pictures, or writing features or news stories, he was writing fiction. Photojournalism was a hobby he enjoyed getting paid for, but writing fiction has been and remains his true dream. His final duty station was as an instructor at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Maryland, where he still teaches as a civilian.
He’s completed nine manuscripts. He published his first book, The Journals of Bob Drifter, in March of 2015. The second edition of Bob Drifter was published in 2017. His second book, Caught, was released Jan. 28, 2017.
MORE FROM BOB DRIFTER
If you enjoyed this second part of the story, feel free to continue the adventures. The complete edition of The Journals of Bob Drifter is available right now on Amazon. It has all three parts, including the one you’ve just finished!
The Journals of Bob Drifter
A REQUEST
I hope you enjoyed reading this story. The months working on world building, drafting, revising, and proofreading are all worth it if even one person enjoys this story. Please take a moment to rate and review this title on Goodreads, Amazon, or both.
Reviews are an essential aspect of an independent author’s work. So please, regardless of whether you loved it or hated it, take a moment to leave a rating and review. There is no such thing as a bad review. Even if it weren’t so important for visibility and marketing, I value feedback. I want to write stories people enjoy, and anyone who offers me their time reading even one sentence has some insight to offer.
Thank you,
M.L.S. Weech
ALSO BY M.L.S. WEECH
AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
“While the author possesses the skills to create worlds where nothing is as it appears, he also makes his readers believe in the reality of those realms ... A smart, page-turning journey into night terror, cybernetic warfare, and the meaning of bravery.”
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Kirkus Reviews
Bob's Greatest Mistake Page 15