Dark Souls: Box Set: Books 1-5

by E. J. King

  I removed the ice bag and started carefully moving my foot. It didn’t hurt quite as bad as it had previously.

  “Just a light sprain I think. I’ll be good as new in no time.”

  “Good.” Rafe’s arm went around me, something he almost never did in front of the others and especially not in front of Lincoln. “Keep looking at me like we’re talking casually.”

  “What?’”

  He glanced quickly at the others who were far enough away that they couldn’t hear us unless we raised our voices. “Just smile a little, nod. Don’t look serious.”

  “Okay.” Whatever Rafe was doing, he had his reasons.

  “Something’s wrong with Ethan. He’s not himself.” Rafe smiled at me, but his eyes were dead serious. “I think the Souls that jumped him might have done something to him.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ve been reading Benton’s journal, and he was really obsessed with the idea that Souls could engage in mind control.” Rafe twirled a strand of my hair between his fingers. Partly to keep up the façade that we were engaged in normal conversation, but also because that was what he always did when he was stressed.

  “Mind control? Like hypnosis?” I had only heard stories of that type of thing, never actually witnessed it.

  “More like compulsion.” His fake smile finally faded completely. “I think Benton sent him back to take us out. Or spy on us. Something.”

  My head tilted as I tried to keep my skepticism in check. “I don’t know, Rafe. It seems like a stretch. Why would Benton do that? If his goal is to kill me, he had that taken care of back in the science lab.”

  “Back-up plan. Benton knows you aren’t exactly easy to kill. I’m sure he was just covering his bases.”

  It was my turn to look at Ethan. He was seated next to Hope, laughing at something Olivia had said.

  “You really think he’s acting strange?”

  “Just look at him. That’s not Ethan.”

  Rafe sounded so utterly sure, that I looked again.

  Hope smiled up at Ethan, her eyes sparkling. Ethan smiled back, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. Rafe was right- something was off.

  “Okay, I believe you. What do we do about it?”

  “First, we watch. Just to be sure.”

  “And when we’re sure, how do we break the compulsion?” I wasn’t sure I had ever heard or read anything about breaking compulsion. Hopefully Rafe knew something I didn’t.

  “We need to get him to drink some holy water,” Rafe said. “Depending how strong the compulsion is, maybe a lot of it.”

  It seemed simple enough, but I was sure it couldn’t be that easy. “And until then, we act like nothing is wrong?”

  “Yep. We act like there is nothing weird about you and I having an intimate conversation with your brother sitting on the other side of the room, glaring at me like he wants to murder me.” Rafe frowned. “Think you can handle that?”

  “Just a regular night in the Hart household.” Feeling bold, I kissed him quickly and didn’t check to see if Lincoln was watching. “Don’t worry. It’s going to take more than an angry older brother to keep me away from you, Rafferty.”

  “That’s good news considering I need to share your bed tonight.” Rafe smirked. “I’m pretty sure Ethan was lying about that lost key as a way to get us all in the same place at once, but I’m not going to complain.”

  I smiled. “I’m alright with it as long as you don’t hog the covers.”

  “No promises.”

  “Then I can’t promise I won’t put my cold feet on you.” I shrugged helplessly.

  “What else is new?” He turned serious. “We haven’t talked about what happened earlier, yet.”

  “What needs to be said?” I could tell that wherever he was going with this conversation, it wasn’t a place I wanted to go with him.

  “You took off without telling anyone and almost got yourself killed,” he said, loudly.

  My sock made a return appearance as it landed in my lap. I turned to see the others staring at us.

  “No fighting, lovebirds. This is supposed to be a fun night with friends.” Hope gave us a stern look.

  “We’re not fighting,” I said. “But I need another drink. Anyone else?”

  “Yes!” Everyone answered at once.

  After that second drink, I was ready for bed. My ankle still hurt and it had been a long day. We had been watching Ethan all night, but he hadn’t shown any true signs that he was being compelled. Just to be sure, I’d slipped some holy water into one of his beers in the kitchen. Fortunately, Hunters kept holy water sitting around for special occasions.

  When Ethan sipped from the beer, he showed no sign that it had affected him in any way, other than when he said, “This beer tastes funny. How long has it been in the fridge?”

  I looked at Rafe and he shrugged. If Ethan had been compelled, we had to hope that the drink had broken his compulsion.

  Faking the need to use the bathroom, I went to bed instead. Everyone else had been drinking too much and it was looking to be a long, awkward night. Sleep just sounded like a better alternative.

  I must’ve drifted off for quite some time, because when I opened my eyes again, Rafe was snoozing next to me, one arm thrown across my chest. I tried to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but now I was wide awake.

  Sitting up slowly, careful not to wake Rafe, I looked around the room. My bedroom curtains were open and the street light cast just enough light for me to be able to see. I spotted Rafe’s bag on the floor next to the bed and saw a familiar journal peeking out of the top. I’d seen it in his room previously, but I hadn’t been ready to read it then. I had been sure that whatever was inside would be too hard to read. But now I knew that if I was going to beat Benton, I needed to know everything about him.

  I plucked the book from the bag and crept to the other side of the room, where I curled up in the window seat and started to read.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Benton Hart’s Hunter Journal

  Proceed at your own risk.

  If Benton’s current personality was any reflection of the person he had been when he was human, I assumed that line was an attempt at dry humor. The journal started after he became a Lost Soul, after he knew that he didn’t have much time.

  His entries were detailed, but to the point. He wanted to share his story without spending a lot of time on superfluous information. I could appreciate that. But it also didn’t give me much insight into the type of man he might have been.

  One thing that was clear about Benton- he had loved my mother. I read the passages that mentioned her very carefully, struggling to learn more about the woman that had given birth to me and then vanished from my life. Had she still been pregnant when Benton transitioned to a Dark Soul, or was I already born? Had my father ever held me in his arms, or had he always wanted to kill me?

  I didn’t find my answers until the end of the journal. Benton was almost completely gone at that point. He claimed his moments of lucidity lasted only for minutes each day. But during one of those small windows of time, my mother, Violet, visited him and told him the news. She was carrying his child.

  Benton was not pleased with the news. He didn’t want her to keep the baby, thought that it was too dangerous. He thought the baby would be a monster when it was born. Violet tried to explain to him that the baby would be fine, but she still hadn’t told him what she had learned about her own past. She was also the child of a human and a Lost Soul. And from reading her own journal, I knew that at this point she knew that her blood could cure him.

  I read three pages of Benton ranting about his unborn child, the monster, before it finally broke me. I had always believed that if Benton hadn’t become a Dark Soul, he would’ve loved me. He was my father after all. But now I knew that he had never wanted me. It hurt.

  “Kaylie?” Rafe’s sleep-heavy voice called out to me.

  Quickly, I wiped tears from my cheeks, glad that my b
ack was turned to him.

  “Yeah,” I said, composing myself as quickly as possible.

  “What are you doing over there?”

  I closed the book and looked at him over my shoulder. “I couldn’t sleep so I decided to read a little.”

  “Nerd.” I could just make out the flash of his teeth when he smiled. “Come back to bed.”

  “Alright.” I left the journal on the window seat so that he wouldn’t see what I had been reading. I knew that Rafe had already read the journal and knew what Benton thought about me. If I told him that I had read it, too, he would want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about it, I wanted to forget about it.

  Rafe lifted the covers for me and I slid between them until I was nestled against his warm body.

  “You’re cold,” he said, wrapping his arms around me to stop my shaking.

  I let him think that the uncontrollable shaking was because of the cold and buried my face into the pillow so he wouldn’t see that I was crying.

  “I’ve got you,” Rafe said, holding me tight, “and I’m never letting you go.”

  That sounded just fine to me.

  But when I woke in the morning, he had let me go. The bed next to me was empty. Benton’s journal was still by the window and I returned it to Rafe’s bag before going in search of coffee.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” Rafe chirped when I entered the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  Before I could even answer, he approached me with a full mug in hand.

  “You sure are chipper today,” I said, wondering if that was because Lincoln would be leaving soon.

  “I woke up with a hot woman next to me in bed, sunlight streaming through the window, and no hangover even after all that drinking last night.” Rafe grinned. “What’s not to love about all of that?”

  I eyed him skeptically as I took a sip of coffee. He laughed and kissed my forehead.

  “Cheer up, Red.”

  “Hope and Lincoln are leaving today,” I reminded him softly.

  “I know.” He sighed sympathetically. “They’ll be back soon. Everything will work out.”

  “Who are you and what have you done with Rafe?” I joked.

  While it was nice to see him being optimistic, it was also a little strange. I was used to a darker, more logical Rafe.

  He smiled at me. “Just drink your coffee.”

  I took my coffee into the dining room where I could drink it while also scanning the news. Hunters read the news every day to keep up on potential supernatural activity in the area. I was expecting to see something about the science lab collapse from the previous night, but it had gone ignored in the wake of more pressing news.

  “Rafe.” I called out his name while still reading.

  A string of activity had happened in downtown Jackson last night. Muggings, theft, assault, and robbery. It seemed there was a sole perpetrator of all of the crimes, and he had been caught on camera. The still shots were grainy, and most people would never have recognized the guy. But I did.

  “What’s up?” Rafe bent down and read over my shoulder.

  “We need to wake the others,” I said.

  Rafe looked confused. “Is that…”

  “Ethan.” I confirmed. The man in the photos was Ethan. “I’ll round up the troops.”

  It took some doing considering they were more passed out than asleep. I had to bribe them with coffee and pain killers just to get them all in the living room. When I told them what was in the paper, none of them understood.

  “Ethan was with us last night,” Hope said.

  “After he was attacked,” I said, wishing that Rafe and I had taken some time to talk about how to approach this situation with everyone. We had no idea how Ethan would react when we brought up the compulsion.

  “That’s not me,” Ethan said, emphatically shaking his head when I held up the picture of him in the paper. “How could you think I would do those things?”

  I leaned forward, elbows on knees, to break the news. “We don’t think you did it, Ethan. Not really. We think you were compelled.”

  The room was silent.

  After a long moment, Lincoln said, “Compelled? Like mind control? Dad always said that was just an urban legend.”

  “Dad was wrong.” We were finding out that our dad had been wrong about a lot of things in the supernatural world. This was just one item to add to the list. “Ethan, do you remember anything about your attack?”

  “They hit me from behind,” he said. “I didn’t see or hear anything.”

  Rafe and I exchanged a look.

  “What?” Ethan asked defensively. “Do you think I’m lying?”

  “If you were compelled, part of the compulsion was probably to have you forget everything about the attack,” Rafe explained. “Even if you saw who attacked you, you won’t be able to tell us.”

  “Is it over?” he wanted to know. “Or am I still under compulsion?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Well how do we fix this?” Ethan looked desperate. “What if they compelled me to hurt one of you? We can’t let that happen.”

  It was a valid point. “Holy water can break the weaker compulsions,” Rafe said. “We already tried that with you, but there’s no way to know if it worked.”

  “Until I try to hurt someone?” Ethan finished the thought. “Swell.”

  “If Benton is responsible for the compulsion, it probably didn’t work. He’s a strong Soul.” I looked to Rafe for confirmation and he nodded. “I think we have an even bigger problem, though.”

  “Bigger than me not being in control of my mind and body and potentially killing you?” Ethan scoffed. “I find that hard to believe.”

  Maybe bigger hadn’t been the right word. I explained, “You’re a wanted man now, Ethan. That crime spree last night isn’t going to be forgotten soon.”

  “They don’t know it was me. It will be almost impossible to trace it back.” He stuck out his chin stubbornly.

  “You haven’t been living in a cave, Ethan. This isn’t a big city. People around here pay attention to their neighbors. It won’t take them long to trace it back.” I hated what I had to say next. “We can’t be there when that happens. We need to leave town.”

  “What?” Ethan’s jaw dropped. “That’s crazy. You’re overreacting.”

  “She’s not.” Lincoln hadn’t spoken in a long time, but now he was completely invested in the conversation. “You need to get out of here before the police start knocking on the door. That’s the number one rule for Hunters.”

  It was true. All Hunters knew that you couldn’t stay in one place for long, especially if the police were suspicious of you. My family and I moved at least twice a year when I was growing up; often times, more frequently.

  Ethan seemed to understand. He had been in denial, but that wouldn’t do any of us any good. “Okay, I’ll go. But Kaylie and Rafe don’t need to leave.”

  “We do,” I said softly. “The police might only be looking for you right now, but when they find out you’ve left town, they’ll start digging into our pasts, too.”

  Hunters’ pasts were not places you wanted the police to go. I was pretty sure the Hart family had one of the darkest, most criminal-looking pasts possible. Sure, we were trying to save the world. But to non-Hunters, the weapons in our closets and our penchant for fighting and violence immediately painted us in a bad light.

  “We should start packing. I’d like us to be on the road in a couple of hours.” I kept my voice even, not wanting to betray how I really felt about leaving.

  This place had been my home for a long time now, by my standards. In fact, it was the first place I had lived that I actually saw as a home and not just a house. I was going to miss it. I was going to miss school. Maybe I hadn’t been as committed to a non-Hunter life as I’d originally intended, but I’d made a good life in Jackson. I wasn’t ready to let go yet.

  I didn’t stop to see how the others were reacting to the news. It was time to
start packing.

  Fortunately, my nomad lifestyle meant that I didn’t have a lot of possessions to pack. My clothes went into two suitcases. A few other items filled a couple of more boxes, and then I started on the books. The Hunter Chronicles. My family’s legacy filling a wall of shelves. It was the only thing I had bothered to take with me from our family home after their murder. Now it was time to box them up again.

  It took six boxes. I filled my car trunk and the backseat with everything. Rafe tried to help, but I told him that I needed to do it myself. The truth was that I was protective of those books.

  While the boys filled their car, I watched from the porch with Lincoln at my side.

  “You’ll let me know where you settle down?” he asked urgently. I could tell that he was worried. “Call me every day, just so I know you’re okay.”

  “Okay. I’ll be fine.” The words sounded hallow. “When are you guys leaving?”

  “In about an hour. Hope is finishing some packing.” He rolled his eyes. “She has a lot of shoes. Clearly not a Hunter girl.”

  I had to laugh. Hope was the exact opposite of a Hunter girl, and that was why I loved her so much.

  “You’ll take care of her?” I needed to know that someone would be looking out for my friend.

  “Yeah. I will.” Lincoln threw an arm over my shoulders, crushing me against his chest in the way that big brothers hug their little sisters. “Don’t do anything stupid out there, okay?”

  “I’m a Hart. No promises.”

  It was time to go.

  Saying goodbye to Hope took the longest. She wouldn’t stop hugging me. I handed her off to Ethan and moved away to give them privacy. A quick nod at Olivia sped up the process and Lincoln and I had already had our moment on the porch. I was surprise when he stopped Rafe.

  “I still don’t like you,” Lincoln began. “But I know that you care about my sister and I have to hope that I can trust you to keep her safe.”

  “You can.” Rafe didn’t flinch under Lincoln’s hostile glare. “I would die to protect her.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” Lincoln stuck out his hand and Rafe shook it.