The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1)

by Gwyndolyn Russell

  "Explain what you mean."

  He was quiet. I thought he had gotten up and left. When I opened my mouth to make sure he was still there, he replied.

  "Pup fought for survival. Always fight."

  "You and me both."

  "Humans live well? Lives here… boring." His voice faded into that guttural growl. Almost thought he was angry.

  "Most do. Good parents who care. Good lives doing what they want. I wasn't that lucky. Never knew my parents. Left me on the side of the street on Mars. Never came back. Had to fight and steal to stay alive. Wasn't the only one. A lot of orphans on Mars. Place is only good for mining and a lot of people die in the mines. I didn't want to keep living like trash, so as soon as I was old enough I enlisted." I gave a shrug.

  "Humans choose fight?"

  "Yeah. Not everyone is cut out for it."

  "Fenris... fought, stole as pup. Others stole from. Starved. Stepped on."

  I pictured a wolf pup abused. Something I've actually seen before. Pups on the street were hated. Seen as food.

  "Sibling attacked Fenris." He growled. "Death imminent. Ate sibling to survive. Fenris’ hunger never… sated."

  I didn't know what to say. I wasn't prepared for such a spiel. He usually gave quick answers that felt more cryptic than not. The way he spoke gave way to the hidden pain. I could hear it through the shifting tones of his voice.

  "Fenris…." I leaned over my knees as if he were right there.

  "Must confess!" He said sharply. "Fenris ate them…. Hungry…."

  The hair stood up on the back of my neck. The realization hit like a brick to the chest. I was speechless. Every fiber in my being wanted to hate him. To yell at him. Call him a piece of shit. Heartless. Insensitive. A monster. Humans don't eat the dead. We don't cannibalize. Our dead are buried. Sent out into space in a coffin. We hold celebrations of the lives they lived. We mourn their loss. We don't eat them.

  Yet somehow, I saw Fenris as that big, black wolf sitting there in front of me. With that pitiful, guilty look in his eyes. Tail tucked between his legs. The regret of succumbing to a natural instinct. Hunger changed people. Hunger made us do crazy things. This wolf looking up at me with those red eyes, the only thing I could see in the darkness that enveloped my very soul, knew it had done wrong. Knew there would be consequences. Just like a good dog, it sat there, unable to disguise its shame and await its punishment.

  I couldn't be mad. I couldn't even be disappointed. What came to my head was sincere concern. How long did he starve before he could not control himself? How often did he starve?

  The pieces fell into place. The missing panel pieces. The missing pets. Fenris was the cause! He was eating them! That's why the claw marks.

  "The missing things and pets...you ate them, too?" I barely got the words out.

  "Seemed... moot."

  I took a deep, slow breath.

  "Fenris---" he cut me off before I even finished thinking that thought.

  "Fenris leave." He said it as if he tried to take the words out of my mouth.

  "No." I shook my head. Christ, I wish I could see his face. "That's not what I was going to say."

  He was quiet now.

  "When was the last time you ate?"

  "Utopia…"

  "Jesus Christ, Fenris, that was two months ago!"

  I put the glass of whiskey down. Or I tried to. I felt it slip out of my fingers, taken by an invisible current.

  “Don’t tell anyone.” I told him. “Not a word. I’ll talk to Reaper.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Sparrow dropped her food tray on the table. She plopped down into the seat and put a hand over it to keep it from floating away. With a sigh, she pressed her other hand into her face. The barracks cafeteria was large enough to accommodate the entire security force at one time, and it was packed. Most seats were taken, filled with the chatter of the latest events. Nonsense about their current jobs, how much it sucked, how they hoped to be on the move again. Sparrow agreed. She had little time to train. Little time to rest. Not to mention being put in a field far out of her league.

  "You look beat." Mjolnir sat down across from her.

  She groaned, looking up at him. "You would be, too, if you were working with those damned rodents."

  Mjolnir laughed. "It's best to stay out of their way when they're stressed."

  "Are all of them jackasses?"

  "Don't think I've met a nice one." He opened his main course of the night, a packet labeled in ardrizian. "I haven't met many. Ardrizi are too big and clumsy to be around their burrows."

  "Clumsy? Maybe in looks." She grinned.

  "Females prefer a scruffier look." Mjolnir returned the grin with one of his own. "What's the word on the repairs?"

  Sparrow bothered to open one of her packets. Chicken alfredo, her favorite.

  "They just tell me 'it's done when it's done'!"

  "Not much luck then." Mjolnir huffed.

  "They're just a bunch of jerks."

  "Have you heard the word as of late? Odd things. Sightings of a monster. People missing."

  "I've heard some things. I think it's paranoia. We're stuck out here and lost. They may just be seeing that thing… Er, Fenris walking around."

  "It's possible, but I believe Jackal has locked himself in his room due to his injury. Fenris has been with him as far as I know. I haven't been able to contact either of them."

  "You think Fenris really ate those people?"

  "What? I'm not sure. He seems to care about life. He makes my hair stand on end."

  "Mine, too." She gently pressed the velcro slabs together once she was done eating. "Jackal likes him, so I can't imagine he's too bad. Not a monster."

  "I could go for some exercise. Would you like to join me?"

  "Anything to avoid going back to those kotoli."

  "I'm telling you that thing did it." Ianisse persisted.

  "But why?" Ruby questioned. "Why wait all this time to make a move? If it wanted to kill all of us, it would have done it the moment it boarded the ship!"

  "What happened on the Utopia?"

  "When we got there, all the damage was already done. Fenris was fighting the monsters and protecting the survivors. Jack and Reaper thought it was protecting us, too."

  "How did those things even get there? That creature probably brought them with it. Fed them with the people!"

  "You think it's doing it again?"

  "It looks that way!" The bird squawked. "It waited until we were all trapped. Sabotaged the ship! I bet it intended for all of us to die in the stasis pods."

  "Yet we didn't, and from what I heard from Sparrow, Fenris hurt itself powering up the stasis cells."

  "How do we know that's true? The ship has backup generators to keep life support functioning. It could be lying. Acting. That thing can't be trusted. It has a bottomless hunger and it will not stop. Never."

  "Is it really Astradon?"

  "I believe it is. The description is perfect. That thing is a black beast. It is chaos."

  "What could we possibly do? Everyone else seems to trust it."

  "We have to show them the truth! Show them that Astradon cannot be trusted."

  "So, the rumors are true?"

  "They must be. Who else would eat another person? Those bodies didn't disappear. They were eaten. It's only a matter of time before that thing decides to eat all of us."

  "Well, we can't just kick it off the ship. It'll terrorize others."

  "We have to find a way to kill it. We must be quick about it."

  "That's gonna be difficult as fuck. Reynolds can't even stick a needle in it!"

  Ianisse sat back, crossing his blackened legs over one another in a loose knot.

  "There has to be something…."

  "Maybe for now we can get it locked up so we can figure something out. If we can convince the Captain of the truth..."

  "Captain!" Jackal pulled himself down the hall, keeping a hand out in front of him to catch anything before f
ace planting into it. "Captain!"

  Fenris was right behind him, giving him gentle tugs this way and that to help him avoid objects. Jackal was in a drunken hurry, cheeks flushed red. Uncoordinated with his motions. They flew down the halls at top speed.

  More lights were on, though it mattered for neither. The repairs were just barely getting on. The easier things to fix were done first with teams full-time on priority repairs. Life support systems were down half through the ship. Their gardens were underpowered, causing many crops to fail.

  They rushed into the bridge through the open door. Jackal grabbed the back of Reaper's chair.

  "Captain?"

  "Jack? Is everything okay? Wait." Reaper eyed him from his seat. "Are you drunk?! It's fucking nine in the morning!" He turned to Fenris. "What the hell have you been doing?! You can't be letting hi--" he stopped talking. What did Fenris know about taking care of someone, especially a human?

  "Forget all of that." Jackal waved his hand. "I need to talk to you. It's important."

  "Private matter?"

  "Yeah. You have a minute right?"

  Reaper barely understood a word. Jackal's speech slurred every syllable. With a sigh, Reaper took his jacket off and hung it over Jackal's shoulders.

  "Put this on. You look cold."

  "Oh, did I leave it here? Weird…" He fit the jacket on without much more of a question about it.

  "Yeah." He looked up to Fenris.

  The creature gave a shrug.

  Jackal could barely dress himself. He didn't even have shoes on, or socks! Reaper was just happy he had pants on at the very least. He knew Jackal had a habit of stripping naked when he got too drunk.

  "Meet me in my office. I'll be there in five." Reaper said. He then smiled up to Fenris. "I've missed our nightly gaming session. I think I may have figured out a new trick."

  "Must show." The creature sounded pleased.

  Fenris gently tugged on Jackal's jacket to lead him to the Captain's office.

  When they left, Irzazee turned around. "Is this normal for him?"

  "No... Not really. It's getting there though."

  Irzazee hummed. "I wonder, why do humans turn to alcohol in times of boredom? Does it do for you what getting high does for verbenass?"

  "We use it to cope with change, or trauma. Some because it's the only way they can smile." He raised a brow. "What do you mean by high?"

  "On my home world, there are spiky urchins that use a toxin to catch prey. It doesn't affect us the same way it does their food. We get euphoric. Nothing better than floating in the shallows, basking in the starlight…." He sang.

  Reaper chuckled.

  "How are all the systems?"

  "Everything is operational. Barely. I'm pinging for our current location now."

  "Fantastic! We're getting somewhere!" He pushed up from his chair. "Let me know as soon as you figure it out. I'll be in my office for a while."

  "Yes, sir!"

  Reaper stopped on his way to get a fresh cup of coffee. That was his drug of choice. Sweet caffeine. It gave mankind the willpower to change anything. He would have never made it far without it. Too many sleepless nights while actively serving. He knew few people who disliked it.

  In his office, Jackal sat in a chair, feet kicked up on the desk. Fenris was standing, no, sitting in the corner. Ears folded back with a droop.

  He shut the door and locked it to keep anyone from poking their head inside. Once he was seated, he sipped the still piping hot coffee through the straw.

  "What's so important, Jack?"

  He seemed to be at a loss for words now that he could say them.

  "Jack?"

  No answer.

  "Liam!"

  He jumped and snorted. He wiped his mouth. "Huh? I'm here!"

  "Christ, did you really fall asleep?"

  "Haven't slept. Sorry."

  Reaper sighed. "What did you want to tell me?"

  "I found something out."

  "About?"

  Jackal's head turned away as he tried to come up with the words.

  "Fenris confess." Fenris cut in.

  "No! Wait!" Jackal piped up.

  "Can explain self." Fenris insisted.

  "Let me tell him. I can.. uh, word it better."

  "What the hell is going on? Fenris, just tell me." Reaper groaned.

  Just as Fenris went to explain, Jackal blurted it out.

  "He doesn't know how food is made here. He’s used to catching his own!" Reaper barely understood a word. It sounded like one long word instead of an entire sentence. "He, uh, got too hungry, you see. And he, uh, ate those panels and the cats... He may have been why the, uh…"

  Reaper sat back, whole face pinched in at the nose. He thought about what he was told. He was silent for a minute or two.

  "You... Ate the bodies of our dead?"

  Fenris' head dropped sharply. Reaper could tell it felt ashamed. He could see it and feel it. Fenris always stood proud, knowing it was in the right.

  "Hunger…" It grumbled.

  "I think he eats those monsters." Jackal suggested. "The ones on the Utopia."

  Reaper was quiet again. It was a lot to process. He was not ready to hear such awful things. Fenris tried to suppress its hunger by eating more harmless things. Panels that served the purpose of looking good. Cats because, well, frankly, it probably thought they were rodents. When its hunger got the better of it, it turned to the next best thing.

  "Those creatures... They're called eos, aren't they?"

  Fenris' head rose.

  "Yes... Soul eaters." The words hung in the air like an everlasting echo.

  "What are they exactly? Are they like you?"

  "Valkyrie designed to destroy eos. They are food."

  Jackal perked up hearing that.

  "Hey, you could have told me that!"

  "Eos ravage lands. Gorge until nothing left. Hunger is eternal."

  "Why such a name? Do they actually eat souls?" Reaper inquired.

  "Yes."

  "So, the problem is deeper than we thought."

  "Wait, you're not mad?" Jackal put his feet down.

  "Disappointed." Reaper took a breath. "Fenris, you should have said something sooner. You have to eat to stay healthy, if you can't control your hunger then you could turn on us, right? Not just our dead?"

  Fenris gave a shrug.

  "Fenris sworn to protect humanity. Refuse to will wrath or hunger upon."

  "Fen, weren't you having a conversation with someone during the jump?"

  All eyes fell on Jackal.

  "You did mention it." Reaper agreed.

  "I saw you standing there talking."

  "Yes." Fenris answered. "Contacted by... Sibling."

  "What artifact?" Jackal shut his mouth quickly. Those were not his words. Not his voice. He barely remembered anything he saw and heard.

  "Wait, you woke up during the jump?"

  "Yeah. I heard a...howl. A wolf's howl. It woke me up, like it pulled me into reality."

  "So, the malfunctions started sooner than when we were knocked out."

  "I don't know. I just remembered staring into this shimmering white light. I saw Fenris there. Talking. He...looked angry." His lips pursed. "You were talking about an artifact."

  Fenris looked to Jackal curiously.

  "Well?" Reaper set his now empty cup down.

  "Yes. Search for artifact. Must retrieve."

  "Is it on B-58? What's it for?"

  "The eos." Fenris looked to Reaper now. "Know not what it does. Must be used against eos."

  "It must be vital."

  "Told may stop them."

  "Are they a threat to everyone, or is this just one area?"

  "Universe." It let the word sink into their minds. "Eat all things until nothing left."

  "Bible say anything about that?" Jackal crossed his arms over his chest.

  "No." Reaper shot a glare at him. "However this may be God's way of telling us what we must do."


  "How?"

  "Perhaps it is all a test. A lesson to be learned to prepare us for what is to come. It would explain why we found the Utopia and why Fenris has joined us."

  Jackal let out an obnoxious sigh. "We're the ones that found the signal and answered it. Fauriei insisted we take him in. I don't think this has anything to do with divine intervention."

  "What about your dreams?" Reaper questioned. "I've seen similar to what you've described. Fenris is clearly not...like any life we've yet to discover. The good book has always described angels as being horrific, cosmic beings incomprehensible to humans." He gestured towards the valkyrie.

  Fenris looked down at itself, a claw tapping on its chest. Horrific, it agreed with. Cosmic? A word it did not know. Angel? The last thing it could imagine being labeled.

  "I think you're making delusional connections." Jackal said matter-of-factly.

  "Brother Mimir said all things connect." Fenris stated. "Fate cannot escape."

  "Someone who sees things like I do!" Reaper smiled.

  "Ugh, I can't sit here and listen to this psychobabble." Jackal pushed himself up. "I'll be in my room if you need me."

  Fenris turned to follow him out the door, only for Reaper to stop it.

  "Fen! One second." Reaper got up from the seat. "This... Hunger thing. Will it be an issue? I don't know how long it'll be till we get to that planet of yours."

  "No."

  “One more thing. Keep the booze away from Jackal. No alcohol at all. Water is all he can have.”

  Fenris gave a nod of its head.

  EIGHTEEN

  Despite all of the troubles and the lack of materials, everything had been going as smooth as possible. The Syndicate was still dead in the water, or rather space, but progress had been made. Certain systems had been prioritized for repairs. They had to keep the life support running at max no matter the cost. Next was food. Crops failed due to the power outage duration, making a yield less than optimal. The synthesizer had blown all of its fuses and some of the pipes had even melted together due to a fire. A team of fifteen engineers were on the job 24/7 with little they could do. Luckily, the Syndicate kept a large stash of MREs as emergency rations for a situation such as this. Ideally, they would be docked at a station, or a colony. That luxury was out of the question. The engines were still down, the core unpowered until the repairs for the cooling system were fixed. Maintaining the backup generators was a full time job, requiring two shifts of personnel to cycle in and out perfectly. These generators were meant to run for a short duration, a couple of days, not weeks.