Soulshifter

by Barbara Pietron

  The older man shrugged. “Just lie down on the couch, relax. Impatience and anxiety will only be counterproductive.”

  Jack did as his adviser instructed, stuffing a pillow under his head and drawing in a deep breath. He let the air out slowly, trying to force his stiff muscles to go limp. Brody handed him the worn leather bag Jack’s grandfather had used to carry various medicines. “You’re calling on your grandfather?”

  Jack nodded. “I’ve asked for his advice before. I think he’ll be easiest for me to contact.”

  “All right. Close your eyes. Seek your grandfather and when you find him, show him Natalie.”

  “Show him?”

  Brody touched Jack’s forehead. “Here.”

  Jack closed his eyes and began the practiced exercise of mentally retreating inside himself in order to enter another realm. He pictured his grandfather—the tanned face, severe cheek bones and somber eyes. As a small child, Jack was at first afraid of his mother’s father, until he learned that with a smile, he could make his grandfather’s eyes sparkle. The man had taught Jack many lessons, and when he died, a piece of Jack’s heart went with him.

  All at once, a wave of vertigo spun the images in Jack’s mind. He dug his fingers into the nappy fabric of the couch cushion and then felt a strong grip steady him. “Show me.” No words, no sound, but his grandfather’s message came through loud and clear. The image of his grandfather dissolved as Jack pictured Natalie driving, on their way to Harbor Springs. The mental rendering was as crystal clear as Wes’s high definition television.

  Caught up in the remembrance, Jack composed a montage of his favorite Natalie moments. Like the way she instantly came to his aid the night he got beat up at the coffee shop—screeching to a stop in the middle of the street and flying out of the car with the door hanging open behind her. The slight flush to her cheeks when she said she’d love to be his girlfriend. The feel of her soft and gentle fingertips as she applied make-up to his black eyes. The warmth of her hand in his…

  “Jack? Oh my God, Jack, is that you?”

  Wait. When did she say that? Jack didn’t remember this. He felt a poke on his leg. Brody? Jack frowned and opened his eyes.

  He peered through a dusky haze into Natalie’s shocked face and blinked repeatedly, disoriented.

  Natalie backed away, her red, puffy eyes wide with terror.

  Jack pushed up from the cold stone floor. “I made it.” He stared at Natalie in disbelief. They were in a tiny room—a cell by the looks of it—dimly lit by a flickering light that emanated through a square opening in the door.

  “You can’t be Jack.” Although Natalie had her back pressed against the far wall, the space was so small Jack would only have had to lean forward to touch her. “I heard them torture you.” She sniffed, as tears welled in her eyes. “They told me you were dead. You and Emma,” she said in a wavering voice, oblivious of the droplet that escaped her eye and ran down her cheek.

  “It’s not true.” Jack wanted to reach out and dry her tears, comfort her, but first he had to convince her he wasn’t a ghost—or a fraud. “They tricked you, Natalie—to break you down. I got Emma out. She’s safe with her parents. I wanted to find you, but they kicked us out—literally,” he added bitterly. “I couldn’t come back. The moon had set.”

  Natalie pushed herself harder against the wall and eyed Jack suspiciously. She hugged her knees close. “But you just… suddenly appeared out of nowhere,” she whispered.

  “Because I’m only here in spirit—I’m spirit-walking. I’m actually on Brody’s couch.”

  The only change in her expression was a few added worry lines that furrowed her brow. “Okay, I’ll prove I’m me,” Jack offered. “Ask me something only I should know.”

  Natalie narrowed her eyes, thinking for a moment. “Who is Jase?”

  The corners of his mouth lifted. “My six-year-old brother. But that’s too easy, be more specific.”

  “All right. What’s Jase’s favorite car?”

  He replied immediately. “1968 Monte Carlo SS, black with white racing stripes.”

  The lines on her forehead smoothed out and Natalie raised an eyebrow. “My locker number?”

  “Let’s see, right of me so 328.”

  “What did you have for lunch last Saturday?”

  He thought back. Saturday was the day they went to Harbor Springs. They stopped at a diner and he ordered…“Club sandwich. At a diner—with you.”

  “Okay… one more.” She’d stopped hugging her legs and rested her gloved hands on her knees. “How did we get here?”

  Jack hesitated. The question could have a couple of different answers, although he was pretty certain she was already convinced. He decided on a two-part response. “We shifted at the ancient burial mounds.”

  Natalie tentatively stretched her hand out and touched his foot. “If you’re here in spirit, how come I can feel you?”

  “Because we’re both from the living world.”

  “I don’t understand, but I don’t really care.” She unexpectedly sprang forward and threw her arms around Jack. He recovered quickly from the surprise and extracted his arms from her embrace so he could hug her back. “You were wrong, you know.” The words were muffled; she’d buried her face in his shoulder.

  “What do you mean, wrong?”

  “The burial mounds. That’s not really how we got here.” She pulled away, just enough to look into his eyes.

  She was in his arms, her face inches from his, so Jack gave her the answer she was looking for. He realized, as he leaned down and pressed his lips on hers, how many times he’d thought about this over the past few days. At some point what he wanted had changed, yet he stubbornly clung to his old aspirations. He could no longer deny his feelings, though—kissing Natalie felt so right.

  “Yep. It is you.” She spoke softly, a blush coloring her too-pale cheeks.

  “Now that we’ve established that,” he said, feeling his own face flush, “we gotta figure out how to get you out of here.” He reluctantly released her to examine the small cell. “Do you know where you are in the compound? They didn’t…”

  She shook her head. “They marched me down here. They weren’t nice about it, but they didn’t knock me out or anything. We’re in the bottom of the citadel.”

  Of course. Zalnic knew better than to put her in one of the pits. “Did they discover you with Emma?” Jack turned to the door and crouched down to examine the lock.

  “Yeah. On the rope, after I’d finally convinced her to climb up. There was nothing I could do at that point—nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.”

  “Were you wearing the brimstone?”

  She was quiet for a moment and Jack glanced over his shoulder at her. She stared at the ground. “I put it on Emma. She was in front of me on the rope. When they pulled it up—”

  “They felt her.”

  Natalie nodded, her eyes still downcast.

  Jack swore. “I should’ve given you mine. It’s not like it was doing me any good.” He scrubbed his face with a hand. “Man, I totally botched this whole operation.”

  “Stop it, Jack.” Natalie put a hand on his shoulder. “I didn’t think of it either. Besides, what I did didn’t make much sense either. For one, she was in front of me, so once they saw me, they’d find her, and two, there’d be no surprise at seeing Emma in the pit. They would’ve never had to know I was down there with her.”

  Although everything Natalie said was true, none of it would’ve mattered had both girls been wearing brimstone. Belaboring their mistakes, however, was a waste of time so Jack didn’t voice his protest. He reached to his neck. At least he could give her his amulet now.

  Except his neck was bare.

  “What the—” he sat back on his feet and groaned.

  “What?” Natalie shuffled over on her knees, her eyes on the door.

  “I was going to give you my necklace now, but it didn’t travel with me.” He felt his pockets and shook his head, frowning. “
Nothing did.” He sighed heavily. “Whatever. Let’s start with trying to get this door open. Did they search you? Do you have anything on you?”

  Natalie pulled her gloves off to thrust her hands into her jacket pockets. “They didn’t search me at all, actually. They just threw me in here.” She produced the packet of tissue, a flashlight and a pouch of bandages. Then she fished a pink Swiss Army knife from her jeans pocket. “Sorry, I put most of the stuff in my backpack.”

  “I’m just happy they underestimated you.” Jack wore a grim smile as he picked up the knife. “Okay, here’s the deal. My spirit-walk was directed at you, so I’m here only to you. To anyone—or anything—else here, I don’t exist. I can use things from the living world,” he nodded to the knife as he pulled it open, “but I will pass through anything else.”

  He turned to the door and slid the blade between the door frame and jamb. He wiggled the knife up and down, but the latch held fast. “Mmm, I need something else.” His eyes flicked to her hair. “You’re not wearing a hair clip, are you?”

  Natalie started to shake her head and then her eyebrows shot up. “Wait.” Pink spots bloomed on her cheeks as she slipped her hand inside her shirt. A few seconds later she held out a bobby pin which, Jack assumed, had been fastened to her bra. “Sometimes outfits don’t have pockets,” she explained before Jack could ask any questions. “I have a hair elastic too.” She snapped the band she wore on her wrist like a bracelet.

  Jack took the hair pin and spread the prongs until they were nearly flat. With his left hand, he poked the bobby pin into the key hole. His right hand held the knife blade against the latch. Concentrating mainly on the bobby pin’s exploration of the keyhole, he intermittently pushed against the catch.

  “So… how is it that you know how to pick a lock?”

  Jack chuckled. “I was a curious kid. If it was locked, I assumed there was good stuff inside—I wanted in. Made it challenging for my parents at Christmastime.”

  A few jabs later, Jack was rewarded with a distinct click. He pressed the knife blade against the latch and the door swung inward.

  Natalie held up her hand for a high-five and Jack tapped her fingers. “Unfortunately that was probably the easy part,” he admitted. “I’m going to look around and find out where the guards are stationed, then I’ll come back.”

  “Okay, hurry.”

  Jack slipped out the door into a corridor dimly lit by torches set in wall sconces. To the left was deep blackness. To the right, three separate flames flickered along the passage, so he headed in that direction first. A few other doors lined the corridor on either side. He heard an occasional scuffle as he passed and told himself the noise must be rats. He didn’t want to imagine alternate possibilities and refused to contemplate the putrid smell coming from some of the cells.

  Just beyond the last torch, the corridor turned right and became an open stairwell. Yellow light spilled from the space above and voices echoed downward as Jack mounted the steps. Although he knew the truth of his spiritual invisibility, his heart thumped at an increased rate as he poked his head above floor level. Two disfigured men sat a table tossing dice. Jack frowned. Getting Natalie through here would be tricky.

  He returned to Natalie’s cell, retrieved her flashlight and turned left this time into the dark end of the corridor, hoping there was another way out. Not too far down the hallway, though, he reached a dead end. On the way back to the cell, Jack pondered how to get Natalie through the guard room. As a visiting spirit, he couldn’t fight, so he had to lure the guards out. Basically, create a distraction. While mulling over possible scenarios, his gaze fell to the flashlight in his hand and he was struck by an encouraging thought—he couldn’t fight directly, but he could use the things Natalie had with her.

  Back in her cell, they devised a plan.

  “It’s going to work,” Jack said, reading the apprehension in her face. “Are you ready?”

  Natalie put on a brave smile that didn’t match her frightened eyes. “As I’ll ever be.”

  Positioning himself in the corner at the base of the stairwell, Jack nodded to Natalie. She bent to the ground and skidded her pocket knife across the stone floor toward him. The rasping sound echoed loudly down the hallway.

  As anticipated, a voice sounded from above. “What in the heck was that?”

  Jack quickly stooped, slipped the knife into his pocket and then got out the cord he’d pulled from the bottom of Natalie’s coat and entwined it around each hand. Natalie dodged back into her cell, leaving the door noticeably ajar.

  Jack’s elevated heartbeat bumped up another notch at the sound of a wooden chair scraping on stone—a guard was on the way. Footsteps grated across the floor and then clumped down the stairs. A dilapidated shoe appeared first, the sole ripped from the upper to expose toes that appeared to be rotting. Then, legs clad in pants too filthy to determine what they might be made from carried into view a rotund, hairy belly which protruded from beneath a greasy t-shirt. When the pockmarked face appeared, Jack was not surprised to see the man was missing an ear.

  He let the guard pass and turn the corner, hoping he’d notice the open cell door. When the man paused, Jack stepped forward and tossed the cord over the guard’s head, crossing the ends and yanking hard against the guy’s throat. The sentry’s hands flew up in a futile attempt to get what few fingers he still had under the string, but Jack held fast as the man thrashed and kicked.

  “What’s going on down there, eh?” guard number two shouted from the top of the stairs.

  Fearing the other guard would come barreling down the stairs and save the floundering man in front of him, Jack tugged viciously. But the intermittent scrape and crunch from the stairwell told him the remaining sentry was advancing tentatively. As the guy in Jack’s grasp finally crumpled to the floor, he let go of one end of the cord, stuffed it into his pocket and got out the knife.

  Guard number two’s tall, gaunt frame advanced slowly around the corner, slightly hindered by the length of wood which made up his lower left leg. A large spiked club, gripped in his bony hands, hovered over his shoulder like a baseball bat. With barely a glance at his partner’s body, he continued down the hallway. When the man reached the door to Natalie’s cell and paused outside to listen, Jack jabbed the knife into his back. The guard stumbled forward with a yell as Natalie swung the door open, allowing the man to fall to the ground.

  Jack nodded to Natalie and she kicked the guy in the head, wincing as her foot made contact. She turned away and clutched her stomach with a retching sound. Jack touched her arm. “They’re already dead,” he reminded her.

  His words also raised the thought that the downside of dealing with the dead was that you couldn’t kill them, so they’d better hurry. Jack retrieved the knife from the man’s back, motioning for Natalie to accompany him back into the corridor. He breathed a sigh of relief to see the first guard was still down. Natalie stared with revulsion at the man on the ground. “Thank God for gloves,” she mumbled, bending to grasp the man’s pudgy hands. She tugged. The body jerked, but hardly moved. Natalie grunted as she doubled her effort.

  Jack paced, feeling helpless, but he couldn’t touch the guards. His hands were tied. He could only act with—

  Tied.

  The cord!

  “Here.” Jack knotted the cord around one of the guard’s wrists and then the other. He grabbed the length of string between them. “I’ll pull, you push.”

  Natalie picked up the man’s feet, turning her head slightly and lifting her chin to avoid smelling or examining them, then crouched down and shoved as Jack pulled. A moan issued from the cell and Natalie’s eyes widened in her pale face. Jack guessed she received the same terror-fueled adrenaline rush that he did, because the heavy body shifted into motion. Scooting their load a few feet each time, they were able to heave the rotund body into the tiny cell. The scrawny man stirred and moaned again. “Quick,” Jack whispered, retrieving the cord and setting the lock. Natalie dodged into the corr
idor, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Jack led the way up the stairs, pausing to inspect the guard room before waving Natalie forward. Then he crossed to a closed door and listened for a moment. He turned to Natalie. “Wait here. I’ll see where it goes.” He passed through to find a spiral staircase leading upward. He took the steps two at a time. The arched entryway at the top of the stairs opened directly to the vestibule of the citadel. Zalnic had beefed up his security, posting sentries at each of the four doors leading to the throne room.

  He returned to the guard room where Natalie waited, fidgeting with her hands. He saw her shoulders droop as she let out the breath she’d been holding. She shook her head. “Okay, that,” she pointed to the door he’d just passed through, “is creepy.”

  Jack grinned. “All the horrors we’ve seen here, and me coming through a door is what creeps you out?”

  Natalie allowed a wan smile. “It’s just wrong.”

  He explained the scene above. “Looks like we need another distraction.” His eyes combed the room.

  Natalie picked up the dented metal cup containing the guards’ dice then circuited the room. From a pile of paraphernalia on a table shoved in the corner, she lifted a good-sized knife. When Jack got a closer look at the formidable weapon, he drew in a sharp breath. The six inch blade was black as night and curved wickedly at the tip. He guessed the handle, also black, was likely obsidian—rock born of fire. Though he’d never seen such a thing in reality, his shifter’s codex contained a detailed drawing which labeled the knife a shade dagger. Used to torture souls, the implement could harm the dead, causing wounds that never healed. The book said nothing about how the blade might affect the living. The weapon seemed dangerous to keep, yet too valuable to leave behind, so he settled for a warning. “That’s no ordinary dagger. Be careful with it.”

  Natalie nodded. Jack pointed to the cup of dice which trembled slightly in her hand. “Try to toss the dice as far as you can to the opposite side of the room. I’ll distract the guards, and when you see an opportunity—run. Head to the place we hid when we first got here, remember? It looked like an Anasazi settlement? I’ll be right behind you.”