The Soulkeepers Box Set

by G. P. Ching

  “Healers are leaders because they know what direction will lead to the greater good. Not only can they heal people physically, they can heal situations—solve problems. Noah was a Healer. He had to solve the problem of the Ark, of how to heal mankind.” She smiled down at him.

  “So, which one am I?” he asked.

  “I don’t know yet, but we are going to find out,” she replied. Reaching out, she squeezed his upper arm at the place where she’d given him the injection.

  “Owww!” he yelled and pulled away.

  “You’re not a Healer. If you were, that would have been healed by now. Tell me what you used in your fight against that boy at the grocery store.”

  Jacob remained silent for a minute or two, rubbing his shoulder. If he said it out loud he’d be admitting that some part of him believed he had caused the water to move. He wouldn’t be able to tell himself it was a coincidence anymore. Of course, he hadn’t believed it was a coincidence since the incident with Dane and the water fountain at school, but he’d never fully owned up to the power.

  “Water,” he said.

  “Ah, as I thought. Let’s begin.”

  She pulled a hose from the side of the house and filled up the bowl that was already in his hands.

  “How did you know?” he said, staring at the bowl that she had handed him long before his confession.

  “I didn’t. I only suspected because of where and when the fight took place.”

  Once the water was turned off and the last drops had left concentric circles in the bowl, the liquid settled in his hands, calm and clear. Nothing happened.

  “Now concentrate, Jacob.”

  “On what? What exactly am I supposed to be trying to do here?”

  Dr. Silva rubbed her chin. Her mouth pulled into a pout that was so attractive Jacob had to look away.

  “Ask the water to point out evil.”

  He opened his mouth but Dr. Silva held up her hand.

  “Not with your voice. With your mind.”

  Jacob closed his eyes and pretended to play along. He was sure he couldn’t make the water move again but didn’t want to disappoint Dr. Silva. Not thinking about the water proved to be harder than he expected. Behind his closed lids he saw the scene in the parking lot, the water flowing out of the puddle, between his feet, toward Dane. He saw that afternoon at school when he’d saved himself from Dane using the water fountain. Why had the water done that? How had the water done that?

  A familiar hum vibrated in his hands. The water shifted in the bowl. Opening his eyes, he was shocked to see the liquid spinning like a whirlpool, splashing over the edge. He concentrated on two words: find evil. The water slowed, then shifted to one side of the bowl, defying gravity.

  The water pointed at Dr. Silva.

  “Good, good!” she said. “Yes, I am in fact the closest thing to evil in the vicinity. That means it’s working!”

  Jacob frowned. “What are you?”

  “Not now, Jacob. All in good time. We are just starting to make progress. But pointing out evil could mean anything. We need to know more. Now, ask the water to jump into your hand. Think of a weapon. Pretend you want to destroy me,” she said, grinning as if the idea of him destroying her was preposterous.

  Gideon, however, did not seem amused. Leaping between Dr. Silva and Jacob, he crouched and showed his teeth.

  “Oh, Gideon, please!” she said with a small laugh. She picked the cat up and cradled it against her chest. “Let’s go, Jacob. Show me what you’ve got.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine Dr. Silva attacking him. The water moved again in the bowl, but all he could produce was a harmless splash that drenched his hand. “This is ridiculous. If I am truly a Soulkeeper, shouldn’t I be able to walk on this stuff?” He threw down the bowl and turned his back to her. The water seeped into the ground.

  “You have gifts from God, but you are not God. You just need to figure out how to use the power you’ve been given. There’s always a trigger, something that allows you to access what’s within you. You just need to find it.”

  “Right,” he said, cynically. “And the purpose of these gifts would be what?”

  All humor drained from Dr. Silva’s face.

  “To fight the Watchers,” she said. “To stop the evil ones from taking human souls.” Her lips were a straight line and her eyes as sad as Jacob had ever seen them.

  “Who are the Watchers?”

  “Evil creatures that thrive on the destruction of humanity. They are called Watchers because they are lazy creatures who sit back and watch the universe unfold, waiting until a person is at their most vulnerable before moving in and destroying them. Under the western world’s lexicon, you would know them as fallen angels.”

  Jacob, who’d been listening intently up to that point, slapped his forehead with his palm. “You’re crazy. You have had one too many cups of your own tea.” He started walking toward the gate.

  “It’s in the Bible, Jacob. The Archangel Michael cast Lucifer and his followers from heaven and they fell to Earth. It’s right there in Genesis. ‘The sons of God saw the daughters of men and took of them all that they chose.’ They never left and it’s up to us to hold them back, to keep them from wrecking all of God’s creation all over again.”

  “Again?” Jacob stopped halfway out of the gate, the wrought-iron latch carving a groove into his palm.

  “Your first assignment is to read a Bible,” she snapped. “Lessons continue next week. Don’t be late.”

  The gate slammed behind him. He didn’t say goodbye.

  * * * * *

  What was good for the goose was good for the gander. At least that’s what Jacob told himself as he parked the big blue truck that he’d borrowed from the Laudners around the corner from the Gupta residence. He’d had to roll the beast down the driveway in neutral; the engine was loud enough to wake the dead. But it was worth the risk of getting caught if Malini had some answers.

  Just after midnight, he crept below her window. Her room was on the second floor with a small terrace barely large enough for a lawn chair. Bright pink flowers bloomed in flower boxes on the railing.

  He picked out several small stones from the landscaping. Unlike the Laudners, Malini lived in town, making his midnight visit all the more dangerous as the street lights glowed brightly and the neighboring homes were close enough to see clearly. But it must have been late enough because he saw no evidence of life behind any of the neighbors’ windows.

  Cachink

  His first rock hit Malini’s window and ricocheted back, rolling out from between the slats of the terrace railing. It was louder than he’d expected and he ducked behind a bush near the side of the house. He waited but Malini’s window didn’t open. After scanning the houses for curious neighbors, Jacob came out from behind the yew branches.

  He searched the wall of the house, looking for some way to climb up. The brick held no convenient rose lattice to rely on. But at the base of the house, directly under the terrace, there was a garden hose. Once he’d determined there was no other way, Jacob decided it was worth a try.

  The puddle he formed on the side of the house wasn’t very deep. The water sank into the ground almost immediately but he let it run long enough to make a twelve-foot circle of very wet grass. Then he turned the water off and placed himself in the middle of the soggiest portion of lawn. He closed his eyes and envisioned himself rising, surfing up to the terrace on a spray of water. Nothing happened.

  Jacob concentrated harder, reaching out with his mind to listen to the hum of the water at his feet. He thought about how he’d felt when Dane had touched Malini, how the jealousy and anger had coursed through his veins, how he’d needed to help her. Something beneath his feet shifted. He concentrated on how he needed to get to the terrace. It was absolutely essential he get to her, to protect her. A wave of self-induced panic lurched in his stomach.

  Whoosh

  All of the water from the lawn rushed out in a geyser beneath
his feet. He squatted a little for balance as the pressure shot him into the air and then abruptly let him fall. Jacob landed awkwardly on the terrace railing and had to circle his arms for balance before jumping down onto the small square of wood. The water had already returned to the lawn below.

  “That was interesting,” he said to nobody. For as much as he was desperate to believe Dr. Silva was crazy, he could no longer deny that this gift was very real—and very cool.

  He knocked lightly. The lace curtain moved aside and Malini’s face lit up behind the glass. She fumbled with the lock and threw open the window.

  “Jake! What are you doing here?”

  “Needed to talk to you. Can I come in?”

  “Of course,” she answered. Her arms snaked around his neck and she gave him a peck on the cheek. “How did you get up here?” She moved aside so Jacob could crawl through the window.

  “Jumped.”

  “Very funny.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the inside light, he was surrounded with Malini. Every inch of wall was covered with a reminder of the vastness of the world. There were framed photos of Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Coliseum, and European castles, but also pictures of a Bengali marketplace, African orphans pulling water from a well, aboriginal dancers, and an American Indian meditating on a red mesa. There were maps of the world, as well as more detailed ones of the Middle East and Asia. An oversized picture of Anderson Cooper hung beside the multicolored sari print of her bedspread.

  It was exactly the type of room he would have expected Malini to have.

  “Wow,” he managed.

  “Thanks.”

  A pang of jealousy and resentment of his grossly pink room shot through him.

  “What’s with the poster of Anderson Cooper?” he asked, trying to get his mind off his own self-pity.

  “He’s who I want to be when I grow up.”

  “You want to be a middle-aged white guy?”

  “No!” she said, slapping his shoulder. “I want to be a journalist, a citizen of the world. I want to be someone who makes a difference, not just for one country but for everyone.”

  Jacob stared silently at her, wondering how so much good could be contained in one person’s body. He wondered why God, if there was one, hadn’t given Malini gifts like his. He was sure she would do something better with them.

  “So, what’s going on?” she finally asked.

  “You’re Christian, right?” Jacob asked, awkwardly.

  “Yep, all my life.”

  “Do you have a Bible?”

  “Of course.” She pulled down a thick book from her shelf and placed the heavy volume on her desk. She turned on a small desk lamp.

  “What can you tell me about fallen angels?”

  “Hmm. You came to my room at midnight to ask me about fallen angels? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “It’s like homework, for Dr. Silva. She wants me to research fallen angels. I’m not sure exactly why but if it means I pay off my debt faster, fallen angels it is.” He looked at his feet, hoping she would buy it. He hated misleading her, but wasn’t ready to share what he’d learned so far.

  Malini considered him for a moment, then resigned herself to whatever conclusion she had drawn and opened the Bible. She also reached across the desk and booted up her computer.

  “I’m not sure where to start,” she said, flipping to the back of the massive book.

  “How about Genesis?” Jacob said, recalling the passage Dr. Silva had mentioned.

  “All right.” She flipped back to the beginning. “I’ve actually heard of this one before. It’s very controversial. We spent an hour talking about it in my Bible study.”

  “Why? What’s it say?”

  “Genesis six, when men began to increase in number on the Earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took of them all which they chose.” Malini looked up from the page. “See it’s controversial because not everyone agrees on what it means.”

  “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “Well, there are different interpretations. See some people believe that the ‘sons of God’ were people descended from Seth.” Malini paused at his quizzical expression. “You have no idea who Seth was do you?”

  “No.”

  “The remedial version then.”

  He winced.

  “Seth was a later son of Adam that was said to be exceptionally godly.” She raised her hands and elongated the word gaawdly, like she found the term a little humorous. “Another interpretation is that it refers to leaders from neighboring countries: like how the Egyptians thought of their pharaohs as the sons of Ra. But the last interpretation is the one that applies to your research. It says that the ‘sons of God’ were fallen angels who married human women and had children by them.”

  “Why would anyone believe that one? The first two sound much more reasonable.”

  “You would think, but the biblical evidence actually points to the third interpretation. Look at this.” She flipped to the index again and then back to a page in the middle. “Job chapter one, verse six, now the day came when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord—and Satan also arrived among them. See the ‘sons of God’ here is clearly referring to the minions of Satan—fallen angels. In fact every other passage in the Bible referring to ‘sons of God’ is about fallen angels. But the best evidence that the third interpretation is correct is not in the Bible at all. Well, not in this Bible.”

  She turned to her computer and typed something into the search bar.

  “This Bible? Isn’t the Bible … the Bible?”

  “Actually no. Different branches of Christianity have different books that they include. The book of Enoch, as it so happens, is a book in the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but no other Christian church recognizes it as anything but a prophetic writing.” She turned the computer monitor toward him.

  “Anyway, the book of Enoch comes right out and talks about fallen angels. It calls them Watchers. See what it says here, in chapter seven.” She pointed to the screen. “Then they took wives, each choosing for himself whom they began to approach, and with whom they cohabited, teaching them sorcery, incantations, and the dividing of roots and trees. And the women conceiving brought forth giants.”

  “Giants?”

  “You’ve heard of the story of how David slew Goliath?”

  Jacob nodded.

  “Well, the theory is that Goliath was a giant descendant. King David was battling a child of the fallen angels.”

  A chill ran up his spine. It was the same story Dr. Silva had told him.

  “But if all this is true, Malini, don’t you think someone would have noticed if angels and giants were here?”

  “Well, the great flood … You know the story of Noah’s Ark, right?”

  He nodded again. Even he’d heard that one.

  “God sent the flood to kill the giants and the humans that had turned to the angels’ dark ways. Then He made it so that it couldn’t happen again.”

  “How?”

  “I think … I’m not sure but I think He made it so that they can’t have relations—you know, sex—with human women anymore.”

  “That wouldn’t have killed the fallen angels, though.”

  “I don’t know. It isn’t logical. That’s why most people believe the other interpretations.”

  Jacob stepped back and sat on the multicolored bed, feeling overwhelmed. Was this what Dr. Silva wanted him to learn? Was this what she meant by destroying man again? Was the battle between good and evil really a battle between the descendants of the Soulkeepers and the followers of Lucifer?

  It couldn’t be true.

  “Are we done with the Bible, now?” Malini asked.

  “Oh, sure. Thanks for helping me,” he said.

  “No problem.” She turned off her computer and her desk lamp. “I fully intend to extract payment for my services,” she waggled her eyebrows
and puckered her lips, “in kisses.”

  The next thing he knew, she was in his arms.

  Chapter 19

  This Might Be Cooler Than It Sounds

  “Something else has happened, hasn’t it?” Dr. Silva said, staring at Jacob in that unblinking way that made him think she was reading his soul.

  “Yes,” he replied. For the first time, he wanted to tell her what happened. He wanted to try it again. “I shot myself out of a puddle—about twelve feet, I think.”

  She clapped her long fingers together and laughed. “This is terrific news. Let’s see if we can make that happen again and maybe stretch it into something more useful.”

  “More useful? More useful for what?”

  Dr. Silva was already pulling over the hose, wetting down the grass in front of the sunroom. “How much did you need?”

  “I don’t really know. It soaked into the ground. I guess I ran it for a couple minutes.”

  A puddle formed at Dr. Silva’s feet.

  “You pulled it from the ground?”

  He nodded.

  “That’s a very powerful gift, Jacob. Think about the implications. I wonder if you even need this,” she said, waving the hose. She turned the water off.

  “Show me. Jump to the roof of the sunroom.”

  He took his place in the middle of the puddle. The hum of the water surrounded him, whispered to him. He concentrated on the roof. Nothing happened.

  “It’s not working,” he admitted.

  “What was different last night?”

  “Well, I was trying to get to my friend … wait, I think I remember now.” He pretended Malini was on the roof. To protect her, he needed to get to her. The panicky feeling came again, the urgency. All at once, he was flying through the air. He bent his knees to absorb the impact of landing on the slate shingles.

  Dr. Silva cheered from below. “Wonderful! What was different that time?”

  “I remembered that I had to pretend I was protecting her to make it work. It was the same in the parking lot and the school. When I felt like I had to protect her, that’s when it would listen to me.”

  “Her who?” Dr. Silva pursed her lips.