Soulhunter Academy

by L. J. Swallow

  “You’re a vampire?” asks Keir hoarsely, walking over to the stairs and slumping down. The other vampires were dressed to blend into the world, but Jack is a mess of dirty clothes and wild hair. Only his smooth, pale skin gives any indication he’s the same race.

  “Looks that way,” he says flatly.

  “You died. I saw you die,” Keir replies.

  Jack shakes his fringe from his face. “Apparently not.”

  “Oh, shit…” Keir covers his face with his palms.

  “Yeah. ‘Oh, shit’. That’s what I thought too. Oh no, wait. That’s not right. I thought: what the fuck just happened and why aren’t I dead?”

  I stay on the ground, stake still poised, and Jack scowls at me.

  “Jack… I didn’t know. When I arrived at the scene, you were already dead,” whispers Keir.

  “You couldn’t have stopped what happened to me.”

  “I tried…”

  “But you can kill me now,” hisses Jack, moving toward Keir. “Dahlia would want you to.”

  Keir shakes his head. “No. No. Don’t say that.”

  I watch the pair, shocked by Keir’s distress. This decision is bigger than the two of them—a third person is involved here. “We should tell Dahlia. If it was me, I’d want to know.”

  Both guys look around, as if they’d forgotten I’m here. They need to consider Dahlia. She gave up her angel soul and became human—she lives with the mortality and pain as her life ticks by. Dahlia gave up everything. I don’t like her, but if Dahlia chose something irreversible, because she loved this mess of a thing in front of me. She deserves to know the truth.

  The lines are already blurred between demon and angel, angel and human, so what difference does Jack’s form make?

  “I can’t see her again,” says Jack, voice breaking.

  “You have to, Jack,” I blurt.

  “Dahlia thinks Jack’s dead and he may as well be. After almost a year, Dahlia’s starting to accept his death. I’ve seen her taking steps toward moving on. Maybe we shouldn’t tell her he’s... this. We could let him go.”

  “Isn’t that Dahlia’s decision?” I ask.

  “No, it’s my decision,” replies Jack. “I can’t face Dahlia knowing I’m now something she hates.”

  “But you’re you, just in a different form. Like she is, now she’s human,” I press.

  “I kill people!” he yells, cold eyes filled with anger.

  I clamp my mouth shut. Whoever he was in his past, Jack’s a demon now. Keir’s right. I swallow down my natural inclination to retaliate.

  “I can’t kill you, Jack,” Keir says. “I’ll let you go, but I can’t end your life.”

  “And I won’t kill you,” I retort. “Tell Dahlia.”

  “I’m a human soul trapped in a demon’s body—killing me is what you fucking do! I’ve waited for this.” Jack pulls at his hair. “Keir, please.”

  I straighten as Keir steps toward Jack, who closes his eyes, tensing. Taller and broader than Jack, Keir looks down at him and digs fingernails into the stake.

  No way. I whip my phone out of my pocket and hit the screen, willing Keir to pause. “Dahlia?”

  “What are you doing?” yells Jack, pushing Keir to one side and reaching out for my phone. I snatch my hand away and shove him backwards.

  Dahlia answers. “Ava? Is everything okay?”

  Jack reaches out again, tears springing to his eyes. “Ava, don’t do this!”

  “What’s happening?” Dahlia’s confused voice sounds small. “Who’s with you?”

  “You need to come to the house. We’ve found Jack and—” My phone cuts out at the same time as Jack’s distressed scream fills the room. I land hard on the ground, banging my head as Jack catches me off-guard and throws me to the floor.

  “What have you done?” he yells.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I sit on the basement floor, nursing my arm. I landed awkwardly when Jack pushed me down, and I’m bloody tempted to hurt him back. But he probably wants me to.

  Keir waits upstairs for Dahlia. Jack’s asked him to intercept Dahlia and keep her out of the basement and away from him. Good luck to Keir holding back a determined Dahlia. I smile to myself. Yeah, the girl annoys the crap out of me, but at least she gives as good as she gets.

  Jack paces around, stopping to glower at me or to pull at his hair or double over. I shudder at each inhuman noise, wishing Keir hadn’t left me alone with him. I have nothing to say and don’t want to be trapped in this stinking room with a vampire. Did I do the right thing in telling Dahlia? What if she didn’t want to know?

  Too late now.

  The front door slams upstairs.

  “Where is he?”

  Dahlia.

  Keir’s low voice replies, followed by scuffling, and raised voices above us. Jack freezes and backs into a corner.

  Omigod. I do not want to be here and witness this.

  Dahlia stumbles into the basement, wide eyes frantically searching the dim room until she catches sight of Jack. His straggly hair hangs over his face as he stares at the floor.

  Dahlia shivers and her face pales as she takes a tentative step toward him. “Jack?”

  “Please make her go away,” Jack says hoarsely, not looking up.

  Dahlia falters. “No, you don’t mean that. Look at me, Jack.”

  Jack pulls his fingers down his face and the preternatural noise assaults me again.

  “Please, Jack, I don’t care what you are, just that you’re here.” Dahlia’s voice cracks.

  I really, really need to leave but can’t get past Dahlia. Keir appears on the stairs behind Dahlia and puts a hand on her shoulder. She shrugs him off and crosses her arms tightly around herself.

  “I’m a fucking vampire, Dahlia. A demon. I should be dead.”

  “I don’t care. You’re Jack.”

  Jack’s head snaps up. “No, I’m not. I’ve killed people. What if I kill you?” He turns away from her to Keir. “This has to end. I shouldn’t be here. I should’ve died last year.”

  Vampires. Yeah, I’d heard of them and their human forms, and this guy looks like one from a picture I’ve seen. A pale, scruffy human in need of a change of clothes and a shower, but human form. But Jack’s eyes are different to most demons, closer to a natural colour and nothing malicious in them.

  “I stayed for you Jack. I gave up everything. You don’t know what it’s been like for me since you… left. If it wasn’t for Keir, I don’t know what I’d have done,” says Dahlia hoarsely.

  Keir tenses. “If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be alive.”

  “No. You did what you could. We weren’t expecting them.” Dahlia turns to place a hand on Keir’s face.

  Keir pulls her hand away. “Don’t be kind about what happened.”

  Something connects these people that has nothing to do with me, and my discomfort grows. I shouldn’t interfere when I don’t have all the facts.

  Jack slumps to the floor, hiding his head beneath folded arms. Dahlia approaches, kneels in front of him and stretches out a tentative arm.

  “Ava,” whispers Keir. He inclines his head to the door at the top of the stairs. With relief, I follow him, leaving Dahlia and Jack together.

  “Is she safe?” I ask, as we sit next to each other against the cool wall upstairs, outside the basement door.

  “I don’t think Jack would harm her.”

  I stretch my legs out and tap the toes of my boots together. “Jack thought he might.”

  “No, I think they’re soul tied.”

  “They’re what?”

  Keir’s hand folds around mine. “You haven’t heard of that? You, the girl who knows so much about souls?” he teases.

  “Everything I know about souls is wrong, remember?” I snap.

  Keir places his head against the wall. “Sorry. Okay. Originally, some souls were tied to each other, almost part of each other. When they were free. Before”—he wrinkles his nose—“the war began. T
ied souls were parted by the chaos, parted for thousands of years, and sometimes they find each other again. It’s rare, but when these souls finally find each other, they don’t want to be apart. Ever. The souls don’t care if they are contained within beings who are enemies—they transcend that.”

  I blink back at him. Why has he never told me this?

  “Which is how a soulhunter fell in love with a human, and how I think they will love each other no matter what. Jack has the same soul as when he was human, even with a different physical form.”

  My heart flips. “That’s really beautiful. And so sad if it’s true.”

  “Free souls search each other out,” he says quietly. “They belong together, which is another reason I want to free as many as I can.”

  I stroke his face. “You’re a good person. I don’t know how I ever believed you could be a demon.”

  Keir’s jaw clenches. “I’m half-demon. Don’t forget that—ever. I’m capable of as much evil as a demon, and I have a lot to atone for.”

  Keir doesn’t elaborate, and I refuse to push him, scared of what he might say. But there’s one thing, I need to know. “What happened to Jack? Can you tell me?”

  Keir pinches the bridge of his nose and I don’t think he’ll answer. He huffs. “Dahlia killed a vampire when she was a soulhunter. They wanted revenge and discovered she wasn’t a soulhunter anymore—that she was weak. I heard about the plans to kill Dahlia and tried to warn her.” Keir pauses and his face is strained. “When the vampires came for Dahlia, Jack was with her. I suppose they saw taking someone she loved as a bigger punishment than killing her. I arrived. Tried to protect Jack, to kill the vampires first, but they attacked him.” Keir rakes a hand through his hair. “Jack was dead when the vampires took him.”

  “But why do you feel responsible? You tried to help.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. You don’t need to know the details.” He clamps his mouth shut.

  I came into these people’s lives to kill one of them and leave again. Now, weeks later, I’m part of those lives and learning their secrets. I don’t belong, however much I fool myself that I can be part of their lives.

  Keir’s explanation of soul ties is freaking weird, and adds another layer of confusion. I know nothing. Is this what pushed Dahlia to choose this fate for herself? Dahlia trapped herself in this world for another soul because hers and Jack’s are tied?

  What of mine and Keir’s true connection? A soulhunter and a nephilim is as improbable as a soulhunter and a human, but we can’t be soul tied. We’re moulded by a similar past, where we were controlled by others, and made the choice to escape evils we no longer want to be part of. This journey to personal freedom has joined our lives.

  Not a soul tie.

  If there was one, I could consider making the sacrifice Dahlia did. But I can’t. If my choice were becoming human or returning to my old life, I’d leave. Keir or no Keir, this world isn’t for me. I hardly know him.

  I ignore my heart as it tries to change my stubborn mind.

  Tonight is another reminder of the distance between me and the peoples’ lives I’m entangled in. Tonight I have a new understanding of Keir and Dahlia’s relationship, the reason they live in each other’s pockets.

  They share a bond, connected through Jack’s death, Keir’s guilt, and Dahlia’s grief.

  I’m not part of them.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  What the hell do we do with Jack? His time living in a nest of vampires, isolated from the real world is a problem—an undead, bloodsucking creature problem. Dahlia fixates on solving Jack, treating him like a cross between a science experiment and a toddler. He barely communicates for several days, as Dahlia constantly tries to coax him back to reality.

  Jack remains in the derelict house while Keir and Dahlia decide what to do. Contact between Jack and humans poses problems, so taking him to a college campus isn’t an option. Dahlia stays with him for the rest of the night, and most of the following day, in the stinking basement before persuading him upstairs into the house.

  Keir finds a cheap hotel in a dingier area of the town and they take Jack there the following night, choosing to arrive late in order to avoid others as much as possible.

  I retreat to the edge of their lives.

  A week later, Keir confides in me that Jack hasn’t fed in the week since we found him. I don’t need to ask why this makes Keir uneasy—human Dahlia alone with vampire Jack. Leaving them together never made sense to me, but I keep my mouth shut. What if his blood lust is more powerful than a soul tie? If Dahlia dies, I’ll be the one responsible. I’m the person who insisted we tell her about Jack and put Dahlia in this position.

  I return to campus with Keir. Every evening Keir visits Dahlia and Jack, and relieves Dahlia of her duty for a few hours so she can sleep. I stay away. I’m always somewhere public if I’m alone—always wary. The three friends have their enormous events to deal with. I still have the threat of Darius’s retaliation over my head.

  Time alone with Keir is the only thing that sweeps everything from my mind, as my anxiety evaporates in the times we’re alone. This is all new to me. Dragging myself from the Fated at nineteen, straight into servitude as a soulhunter, deprived me of contact with anyone but the demons I killed.

  Until Keir, I never noticed the emptiness, too fixated on the task at hand, covering my loneliness with a facade. Then Keir kissed me, the sensation taking hold of and shaking me, until everything floated around inside, like flakes in a snow globe. Is this what love feels like? Love or not, this is what Keir feels like.

  When he isn’t around, I drift into memories of Keir’s gentle strength and hard kisses. Keir, my home, my safe place.

  The banks of the lake at the edge of the campus become our place, a quiet spot away from the hubbub of college where we sit amongst the tall trees, hidden from the world. Winter takes hold, and the ground hardens. Wrapped against the cold, we snuggle together on a blanket.

  The lake shines, ripples reflecting the late afternoon sun and waterbirds cautiously approach the shore for food. Keir shadows the sun as he bends over and kisses my eyelids before lying beside me and sighing.

  I sit. “What’s the matter?”

  “This. Dahlia. Lots of things.” He stares upwards, watching the clouds trace along the sky.

  “Have you spoken to Dahlia today?” I pick a stray leaf from his hair.

  He catches my hand and blows the leaf. “Yes.”

  “How’s Jack?”

  “Slightly better. Beginning to forgive us.”

  “I did do the right thing, didn’t I?”

  “If it was wrong, I was wrong too. I could’ve released his trapped soul, but…”

  “Dahlia.” The quiet girl who’d held a sadness in her eyes I never took the time to notice.

  “I helped her through the pain. My heart broke—she’d given up her life for him, literally.” My heart swells at his empathy. How can anything demonic exist inside Keir? “I couldn’t persuade Dahlia to do anything for months her grief drowned her. Eventually I coaxed Dahlia into helping me track demons, to get her revenge on those who’d ended Jack’s life. With her help, I tracked and killed more than I could alone. We’ve saved a lot more souls.”

  He pauses, twisting a strand of my hair around his finger. “Then the soulhunters came to stop me.”

  “And she helped you kill them too?”

  “Yes.”

  A bird flies over, skimming down to pull a wriggling fish from the dark waters, and I watch for a moment before looking back to Keir. “Dahlia wanted you to kill me, didn’t she?”

  “Of course. I wanted to kill you too.” His words slap the truth into me. “Why look so shocked? Of course, I’d kill someone sent to steal my soul. That’s why you came into my life, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  I stare at the ground in silence until Keir sits and wraps an arm around me. “Until I realised you were different, Ava.”

  I p
ull his head to me and playfully bite his lip, silencing the words. Keir curls an arm around my waist, tips me into the leaves, and covers my mouth with insistent kisses. I drape my arms around his neck, returning them.

  Keir shifts his weight from me and he explores my face with his fingers. “I mean it. You’re different. We’re different. People like us, we can come between their war and interrupt their plans. We don’t care about the past—we want to change the future.”

  Keir evades my questions about his past. Always. He talks about what the future holds—an unknown place I don’t want to focus on. Here. Now. Keir. That’s what I want, thinking beyond us frightens me.

  “I don’t understand everything you tell me about this war.”

  “In time I can tell you,” he says.

  I shift away from him. “In time? Are you hiding something from me?”

  “No, the people I work with want secrets kept. I have to respect that and—”

  “And I’m a soulhunter?”

  “No, you’re Ava. Dahlia doesn’t know everything. All she cares about in life is slaughtering as many demons as we can.”

  “Apart from Jack.”

  “Yes. She wants to help him. Their soul tie is what’s keeping them together, but he’s fighting against her. In his mind, Jack doesn’t believe he has any humanity left, but I’ve seen a change in him. Jack’s responding to her now.”

  I pick up a brittle leaf from the ground and crumble it between my fingers. “I wish I’d been kinder to her.”

  “The animosity was mutual, don’t feel bad. I was the one getting the brunt of her anger when I let you live.” A small crease forms along his brow. “I do wonder…,” he starts.

  “Wonder, what?”

  Keir shakes his head, dislodging a thought. “Nothing.” He stands and pulls me to my feet. “Look at you, like a woodland fae with leaves in your hair.”

  His smile stops time and turns the brightness of my world up ten notches, because I created the smile. I draw him close to kiss the smile from his lips so I can hold onto it forever.