The Soul Thief

by Leah Cutter

  “Waiting for you, Franklin,” the man said. His voice was smooth and educated. He took a loud breath. “Now, watch.”

  The man continued his conducting, moving his hands out toward the edges of the table then scooping them together, like he was raising armfuls of leaves. The glow spread out, growing long across the top of the table.

  More mist rose up, darker mist. It started collecting itself into a shape.

  A human shape.

  “What are you doing?” Franklin asked, horrified. He tried moving forward to stop the man, but he found himself moving sluggishly slow, as if the mist had wrapped around his ankles and had tied him there.

  Franklin reached down to see if he could free himself.

  He still had his phone in his hand.

  The mist was freezing his bones. It was hard to think, hard to move.

  Franklin typed out “9-1-1” and hit send.

  Would Karl get the text in time? Would he understand that Franklin needed help?

  Franklin pulled himself back up straight slowly. At least the man behind the table hadn’t seemed to notice Franklin’s call. He was focused on the mist, pushing it together, making it more solid. Sweat dropped freely from his forehead.

  Whatever the hell he was doing, it was taking an awful lot out of him.

  Finally, he seemed satisfied with his work. He lifted his hands up above his head and called out in some foreign language.

  It weren’t a friendly language. The man gargled and hissed, the words wrapped around his tongue like thorns.

  Franklin shivered. It was like the doctor was invoking an evil spirit to come down and witness his work.

  Something unholy.

  The form on the table solidified more, changing shape, growing breasts and hips and a recognizable face.

  Mama.

  Franklin had heard the phrase before about “a body at rest.” And that’s what Mama looked like—a body at complete rest. She was at peace.

  Then her eyes opened.

  Franklin had to smile when that familiar glare was immediately directed at him. Then it fixed on the stranger.

  But then Mama’s eyes started changing. Hollowing out. Growing dark and black and empty.

  “Stop!” Franklin said.

  The man was bringing back Mama’s ghost, like he’d brought back the others. The ones who was still howling in Franklin’s backyard.

  But it wouldn’t be Mama. Not really. It would look like her, but Franklin could already see the life being drained out of her.

  Not that a ghost had that much life to start with. All her will was being taken away, just leaving her with the anger of being ripped out of Heaven.

  “You don’t want to see your mother?” the man asked, his voice dripping with false concern. “What kind of a son are you?”

  “Don’t you mess with my mama,” Franklin warned. “You put her back.” How dare he? It just weren’t right, messing with the dead like he was doing.

  It was why the ghosts who’d returned to haunt Franklin had seemed unnatural. The man had brought them back against their will, against nature.

  The man seemed to consider for a moment before nodding and saying, “All right. I’ll stop the process, scoot her back beyond. But I’m going to need something for my efforts.”

  That right there stopped Franklin cold. “What?” he asked, though he had an idea.

  “That blade you carry so thoughtlessly in your pocket,” the man said.

  Greed filled the man’s beady eyes.

  Franklin did not want to give this man the knife. It was a dangerous thing. Not evil, but not good.

  What would this man…this magician…do with such a powerful tool?

  “Make up your mind,” the man warned. “I can only hold her like this for so long. Then she slips into awareness, comes back to this plane.”

  Mama didn’t have enough of herself to throw an effective glare at the man.

  But Franklin didn’t have to hear her actually howl to know what she would sound like, how awful it would be. It would tear him to pieces. While he might miss her something fierce, it wouldn’t be the same.

  Mama might not be happy with Franklin for handing over the blade to this man, but she’d never forgive him for allowing her to be brought back, her will not her own.

  Franklin slowly unzipped the pocket on his thigh where the blade had been resting, heavy and cold. It didn’t seem repelled by the man, though Franklin was equally sure the blade kinda liked where it was, being held by Franklin.

  Could Franklin just throw it at the man? Would it cut him? Or would it just go gliding into his hand, as if it were made to be there?

  What the hell was this blade? What kind of spirits made up its essence? Why was it giving Franklin all these thoughts and feelings?

  The doctor seemed to know—he knew all kinds of things about the knife, Franklin would bet. Probably had been studying it for some time.

  The man gestured for Franklin to come closer. Franklin didn’t want to go. Damn it, he hated being bullied.

  But Mama didn’t have a lot of time, or she’d be stuck here, howling like the other spirits.

  Franklin took two shuffling steps forward. Again, he hesitated. He couldn’t run—the mists held him too tightly for him to do much than just shuffle along. Turning the blade on himself didn’t make no sense either: he’d just end up dying and the doctor would take the knife anyway.

  With a suffering sigh, Franklin raised his arm and reached over the table where Mama still lay, her glare losing more power as her will dribbled away, handing this dangerous, far too aware blade over to a madman.

  “You did the right thing, son,” the man said solemnly. “You’ll see. Everyone in the whole world will see. You’ll be sung of as a hero. Just as the knife will be praised for playing its part.”

  Was this guy drunk or something? What was he talking about?

  “The world will be a much better place. You mark my words,” the doctor said, running his fingers carefully along the blade of the knife, turning it to see all three prongs.

  Mama started fading immediately, her eyes losing their haunted stare and going back to normal. She shook her head at Franklin, disapproving of what he’d just done.

  Franklin hoped she’d understand some as well.

  “Goodbye, Mama,” Franklin said softly.

  When Franklin looked back up, the man was already on his side of the table. He smelled of sour sweat and burnt sage, like what Lexine had used when calming her spirits.

  “You’ve got your phone with you?” the man inquired.

  Franklin told the man, “No,” though he still had it in his other hand.

  “I can see it right there,” the man said. “Good.”

  He moved faster than Franklin had anticipated, as fast as the vines he’d fought earlier.

  Just as suddenly, the knife was in Franklin’s side. The blade seared cold into Franklin’s body. He stumbled against the table, the pain in his side making the room waver.

  “Why’d you do that for?” Franklin asked.

  “Call 911,” the man instructed. “They have a response time of nine-point-two minutes in this county.”

  Franklin reached for his phone but he couldn’t get his fingers to work.

  “It’s okay if you do die,” the man told him just before he walked out the door. “I’ll just use your soul too.”

  Hell if Franklin was going to let that happen.

  He kept trying to press buttons when suddenly the phone in his hand rang.

  Did he do that?

  He managed to press the “On” button.

  “Hello?” he said. He was impressed by how normal his voice sounded.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Karl yelled.

  “I been stabbed,” Franklin said. He was losing his grip on the table.

  That was okay. It was much better down on the ground.

  Oh. Or even more better outside.

  “Franklin—Franklin!”


  Karl’s voice sounded tinny and far away.

  “I’m here. Going outside,” Franklin added.

  If he were gonna die, it was gonna be in his cornfields.

  Hopefully they’d find his hat and bury him in that too. As well as his good Sunday suit. And maybe the green shirt that both Julie and his cousin May liked.

  “You ain’t dying. Not until I come and personally kick your ass,” Karl said. “I’ve already called 911. They should be on their way.”

  “In nine-point-two minutes,” Franklin said.

  The door was already open. Franklin pulled himself outside.

  He felt as if he could breathe, finally, though the pain in his side made it hard. He rolled over onto his back, his head on the edge of the porch, just so he could see the stars.

  Franklin weren’t afraid to die. He’d done his best. Even Mama would say that he deserved his peace.

  Was that sirens in the distance? Or just the cycling of the cicadas?

  Franklin took as deep a breath as he could and closed his eyes.

  If only he could have seen Julie one more time.

  Five

  FRANKLIN FELT AS though sand glued his eyes shut. He scrunched them tighter, before finally prying them open.

  First thing he saw were the white walls of the hospital. A white curtain hung on his right, separating his bed from the next. He wiggled his toes under the white blanket.

  Oh dear lord. That was a mistake. Just that little movement woke up the rest of his body. Everything hurt. From his fingernails up to the roots of his hair, down his shins. Even the soles of his feet.

  He’d been stabbed, right? Franklin thought about it, trying to feel the wound.

  It felt…different. Like there was still a part of the knife stuck inside him, a hard line of silver pain.

  That damned idiot hadn’t come back and stabbed him a second time, had he?

  But Franklin couldn’t find any other parts of his body that hurt like the knife wound.

  He was reaching for the nurse’s call button, to get someone to tell him what the hell had happened, when Julie came bursting in. She was in regular clothes, not her nurse scrubs, a snug-fitting purple T-shirt that would have made Mama frown and jeans. Her soft brown hair was mussed, like she’d been in a hurry that morning. She looked nice, her eyes more green than brown.

  Franklin couldn’t help the happiness bubbling up inside him at the sight of her. “Hey darling,” he said, reaching out his hand for hers.

  Julie took his hand, then leaned over and kissed his dry lips. She smelled wonderful and womanly.

  Not that he was in any shape to do anything about it.

  Huh. It might really be love if he felt like that about her even when the rest of him felt like he’d been dragged along three miles of gravel road.

  When Julie straightened up, she fixed Franklin with a glare.

  Where’d Julie learn to do that? To make him feel so guilty just with a look? Or was it a woman thing? That now Mama, May, and Julie all knew?

  “I don’t ever want to find you here again. I mean it, Franklin Kanly,” Julie said. She held onto his hand when he would have pulled it away. “You scared me silly when I got the call that you was here.”

  “Sorry,” Franklin said. Though it wasn’t really his fault. It weren’t as though he stabbed himself.

  “I got stabbed. By that blade. Eddie’s knife,” Franklin said. The line of hard metal pain in his side flared at the mention of it. “What the hell is that thing? What was it made for? Do y’all know the history of it?”

  Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. Eddie’s always had it. Used it as a power focus for the group, when we were praying and chanting.”

  “We need to talk to Eddie,” Franklin said.

  “Okay,” Julie said, nodding. Then she grinned. “Road trip.”

  Franklin chuckled. “Oh, don’t make me laugh,” he said. “It all hurts too much. What happened to me?”

  Sheriff Thompson walked through the door to the room just at that moment.

  “That’s exactly what I’d like to know. What happened to you?” the sheriff said sourly.

  Julie nodded at the sheriff as she moved to the other side of the bed, sitting in the visitor’s chair there and taking Franklin’s hand again.

  Franklin was glad for the support as the sheriff continued to stand there staring down at him with his hard eyes.

  “Well?” the sheriff said. “I’m waiting.”

  Franklin cleared his throat. “I came home from Darryl’s last night. Late. About two-thirty in the morning. When I walked into my house, there was a man there.”

  “Describe him,” the sheriff said, taking a notepad and pencil out of his sheriff’s jacket pocket.

  “He was a white man,” Franklin said. “Little taller than me. Cold gray eyes. Was wearing blue scrubs, like what Julie wears sometimes.”

  The sheriff nodded, writing things down. “Go on.”

  “He was wearing a white mask, like a doctor’s mask,” Franklin added.

  “A surgical mask?” Julie asked.

  “Sure,” Franklin said. He didn’t know the name for them.

  “Gloves?” Julie asked. “Like white surgical gloves?”

  “Nope,” Franklin said. “His hands was bare.”

  “What did he want?” the sheriff asked.

  “An old knife of mine,” Franklin said. “It were the oddest thing. He made sure I had my phone with me, told me to call 911, before he stabbed me.”

  “I looked at your report,” Julie added. “You were stabbed in an area of the torso where there couldn’t be much damage.”

  “So this guy was probably a doctor,” the sheriff said.

  “Or a nurse,” Julie pointed out. “I’d know exactly where to stab a man to do both the most damage as well as the least.”

  After a moment of awkward silence, Franklin said, “That’s my girl,” as he squeezed her hand.

  “Why did he want that knife?” the sheriff asked.

  “Beats me,” Franklin said. “But I think he was crazy. He talked about how the history books would remember me for it. How me and the knife were important.”

  The sheriff’s eyebrows went up toward his hairline. “So what kind of knife was this?” he asked, continuing.

  Franklin didn’t see any reason to lie. “It was from her friend,” he said, nodding toward Julie. “Eddie.”

  “The cra—I mean, the leader of the pagan cult we visited last year?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes. We mean to go down and talk with Eddie to see if she can tell us about the blade,” Franklin added.

  “Good luck with that,” the sheriff said.

  Franklin remembered that the sheriff had thought Eddie was useless the year before, when they’d been chasing the creature.

  “Now tell me about your other wounds,” the sheriff said. “The ones that look like they came from thorns.”

  “I was helping Darryl with a thorn bush out in his backyard,” Franklin said, puzzled. Why did the sheriff want to know about those?

  “The scratches and punctures were all infected. Just like the ones you got last year,” the sheriff said dourly. “From that…whatever.”

  No wonder Franklin hurt so much.

  “Now, I knew you was up to something,” the sheriff added, pointing his pencil at Franklin. “You gonna tell me that thing is back?”

  “No, sir,” Franklin said. “It really was just a thorn bush in the back of Darryl’s yard. Ornery critter, yes, but not about to come after anyone.” He hoped.

  “You sure about that?” the sheriff asked. “’Cause you really shouldn’t be lying to me about that kind of thing. Even if I don’t quite believe what happened.”

  “I’m sure,” Franklin said. It had been an epic battle, but he was sure he’d won. Mostly.

  After the sheriff had left, Julie gave Franklin a hard look. “Just a thorn bush?”

  Franklin was glad he didn’t have to lie to her. “Yes, ma’am. The blade
was buried underneath it.”

  Julie was quiet for a moment. “It really has some power to it, don’t it. This blade.”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Then let’s break you out of here. Get your scripts filled, and go down to see Eddie.”

  Franklin lay there thinking after Julie left to go badger the staff and the doctors. Eddie had refused her gift, would only sometimes let it move her.

  But she was a good healer. She’d eased his soul the first time he’d seen her.

  Somehow, he doubted she’d be able to do anything about the current pain in his side, the way it felt like the blade was still there.

  Haunting him.

  Ξ

  Franklin enjoyed the ride down to the next county to see Eddie. The sun had found its strength, being just after noon, though it weren’t nearly as hot as the coming summer promised to be. Blue sky arched above them, going from horizon to horizon. Lots of green crops in the fields flew by, mostly sorghum and soy.

  The last time Franklin had been so injured, it was mostly his back, from where the creature had picked him up then splatted him down on a bunch of broken glass. It had made sitting anywhere for any length of time painful.

  This time, it was his sides that were aching—the left side, and shoulder, from where the bush had tagged him, and along his right, where the weight from the knife still held him down.

  Julie had called ahead, but there hadn’t been an answer. Eddie didn’t believe in cell phones, and if she was out back in her shed, she wouldn’t have heard the phone ring.

  Still, Franklin was relieved when they drove up, a little past the house, and Julie pointed out the beat-up Jeep that belonged to Eddie, meaning that she was still there.

  A tall wooden fence, painted white, ran from a corner of the house and blocked off the backyard from the street. Julie didn’t bother knocking, just went through the gate as bold as brass.

  Franklin knew that Eddie weren’t the kind to keep guns to shoot trespassers, unlike Darryl. Still, he ducked his head and looked around the yard carefully before he stepped through.

  The tall white fence went all the way around the yard, keeping out the prying eyes of the neighbors. Just in front of it grew a wild assortment of flowers, roses, and other bushes. The main house sat to the right, with what looked like a real nice screened-in porch facing the yard.