Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (10 page)

She took my coat and led me up the stairs to the main living portion of the house, where she introduced me to the five other guests that were already there. Mary and George were a middle aged couple that both had dark blonde hair that hid the beginnings of their greys quite well. Ingrid and Michael were a couple that were about my age, perhaps a few years older. She was ridiculously pregnant – I was worried they might have to call an ambulance for her at some point in the course of the evening – and he hung on her every word, ready to supply her with anything she could possibly want or need.

“And you remember Paul,” Edie said as she gestured to the only other solitary figure in the room.

Edith knew that I remembered Paul. It was a silly attempt to push us together again. Paul was Edith and Robert’s son. They had often conspired with my parents to attempt to get us together, but Paul and I never really seemed to click, so we had agreed to simply endure situations like these in the easiest manner possible, which generally meant that we would spend the entire night talking. It made the parents happy to think that their scheming had some chance of working.

“Of course, how are you Paul?” My smile was perhaps a bit too wide to be completely convincing.

“I’m doing well Ellie, how are you?” He was the only one who ever called me that, but his smile seemed sincere enough. He was better at acting like he thought of me as more than just a friend than I was. I noticed how quickly Edie pushed me toward him and retreated down the stairs.

“Good. London hasn’t been treating me poorly.” I noticed how very far away from the other two couples she had placed us. Edie was trying harder than usual, but it didn’t seem that Paul was fighting it as much as he usually did.

“I’m glad to hear that the rain hasn’t made you hate the country… or those who choose to live here,” he smiled as his sarcasm seeped through his words.

“I’ve never been averse to rain. You should know that.” I smiled at the thought. “But I hear you’ve just finished your studies at Oxford. That’s wonderful.”

“It is,” his eyes dropped to his drink. “I’m very glad to be done with it though, and I start at the museum next week.”

“That’s wonderful,” I repeated, and there was an awkward silence as I swirled the red wine around in the glass he had handed me. “Can you believe our parents are still doing this?” I asked with a smile. It was nice to joke about our parents antics. It was usually the only thing that got me through these awkward situations.

“Yeah,” he said absently. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Sure.” He wasn’t in as joking of a mood as usual. Perhaps his time at Oxford had stiffened him up. I was beginning to think that I was in for a long night.

We sat on the sofa in the middle of the room.

“How long until you’re due?” Mary was asking Ingrid.

“Oh, any day now.” Ingrid answered her with a shy smile.

“Do you think you’ll ever want to have kids?” Paul asked quietly.

I looked at him, surprised, and a bit amused by the question. “I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’ve ever really thought about it. I doubt that I’d be sad if I didn’t, but if I have them I’m sure that I’ll love them.”

He just looked at the floor sullenly. It wasn’t like Paul at all to be so dreary. The last time the family had visited we had had so much fun making a joke out of the whole thing. I guess that five years could change a lot. I didn’t think that our friendship would have been effected by the time though.

“How long have you two been together?” Ingrid asked us suddenly.

I stared at her for a moment, not understanding the major leap she had made and so I did not have time to answer her before Edie – who had made her way up the stairs with a new bottle of wine – was able to chime in.

“Oh, they’ve known each other since they were small children,” she said, a cheery tune to her voice. And then quietly – I suppose she thought I wouldn’t be able to hear her, or perhaps she wanted me to – she said, “we’re just waiting for the wedding announcement!”

I suddenly realized just how uncomfortable this evening was going to be. How had she made the leap that we would be getting married, and imposed that leap on a total stranger, when this was the first time that Paul and I had seen each other in five years? I was speechless, but with Edie around I didn’t need to speak, she told her guests whatever they wanted to know about me, sometimes she skewed the truth, sometimes it was a blatant fallacy.

I went through the rest of the evening in a bit of a daze. I wasn’t sure if I was more shocked or mad about the things that had happened. It wasn’t like Edie hadn’t done something similar to this before, but she was planning out my wedding with her dinner guests; a wedding that was never going to take place.

I was more than happy when the old grandfather clock in the hallway struck the ten o’clock hour. It was as though the soft chime brought me forth from my incoherent state.

“Well, I’m sorry to say that I have to be going,” I said as politely as possible. My exterior may have been composed, but inside I was beginning to fume about Edie’s presumptions. It was as though I had been on Novocain for the past several hours and its effects were just wearing off. But instead of pain, all that was coursing through my veins was a mixture of sheer embarrassment and anger. I highly doubted that I would ever find a good enough reason to enter this house again.

As far as I was concerned, Paul was as much at fault as his mother, he could have clarified the facts at any time without fault, whereas I would have been rude to contradict my host.  I was more than ready to leave. These had been the worst four hours of my life.

“Dear, you can stay here tonight if you’d like?” She smiled at me without a trace of guilt on her face. She didn’t seem to feel that she had done anything wrong. “I can make up the spare bedroom for you.”

“No, that’s quite alright. Mrs. Peppery will be upset if I don’t make it back tonight.” I wasn’t sure that Mrs. Peppery would find it at all odd if I wasn’t there, but I was certain that I would not stay in this house another ten minutes. “It was nice meeting you all,” I said to the two couples in the room.

“Alright then, if you insist,” she said, sounding defeated. “Paul, dear, walk her out and make sure that she gets a cab.”

I was already halfway down the stairs, making my escape. “Good Night, and thank you for dinner.”

I heard the faint murmurs from upstairs as I found my way down the stairs. “Are American’s always that rude?” one of the men asked. “She barely said two words all night.”

“Can you blame her? No one can get a word in edge-wise when Edie gets going. Paul didn’t say much either.” One of the women responded.

I didn’t care if they thought I was rude. I only wanted to be out of this house. I felt about ready to explode I was so upset. Paul followed me down the stairs and helped me into my jacket.

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly. “She’s gone a bit overboard tonight. If I’d had any idea….”

“A bit?” I hissed viciously. “A bit, would have been stopping at the suggestion of a wedding, not picking out colors and invitation wording.”

He lowered his eyes to the floor, “I am sorry.” He looked at me, hope welling in his eyes. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll be your tour guide for the rest of your stay here, let me buy you an enjoyable dinner while you’re here.”

I sighed and rubbed the outer corners of my eyes with my thumb and index finger. “I’m about ready to do something drastic, so I don’t think that it would be okay for me to answer that right now.”

“Let me at least call you a cab.” His voice sounded pleading now.

“No. I need to walk some of this..” I searched for the right word, but settled for a less severe one, “this anger off.”

“Ellie, it’s freezing outside.” He glanced down. “and you’re not exactly wearing sneakers.”

I looked at him icily and turned to open the door, but his hand was on it, keeping it shut. “Paul. I don’t want to make a scene in front of your guests – even if they already think I’m a rude American – please don’t make me.”

His hand moved away and I didn’t look back at him as I walked down the steps. I could tell that he was looking after me, but I refused to turn around. I honestly had no idea where I was going, but I didn’t care. I was walking to get rid of the anger that I had just had to stifle for four hours; it welled up within me in a cascade of salty tears.

I had been walking for the better part of fifteen minutes before I turned around. It was just a glance over my shoulder, but I saw the distinct outline of a man in the lamplight behind me. Paul no doubt, following me. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but that flared my anger, perhaps it was his disobedience. I had told him to stay. Or maybe it was because I was embarrassed by my anger. I didn’t know, but I kept walking haughtily down the sidewalk. I wanted to hit something.
Why couldn’t he and his meddling mother just leave well enough alone?
I looked behind me again, furious that he had followed me.

He was closer now, and I saw that it wasn’t Paul. Something heavy sunk in the pit of my stomach. The shadowed figure was much too large to be Paul. He stepped out from under the light and as the darkness enveloped him I saw the dull gleam of red eyes.

How could it be that the man from earlier had found me again? I quickened my pace. But when I turned again he was still gaining on me.  I noticed then the sheer darkness that lay behind him and the light he walked under now went out as he passed it.

I shivered – a reaction to the combination of the cold night and the feeling of being completely alone – my pea coat seemed too thin. I turned again and he was closer still. I felt like a small lamb that was being hunted by a bobcat.

I rifled through my purse looking for the pepper-spray I always carried with me. As my hand searched through my purse, I remembered that I hadn’t been able to bring it with me. Airport security had confiscated it before I had gotten on the plane. I was completely defenseless. I knew that even with the few self defense moves I knew, I wouldn’t stand a chance against the huge man that stalked me.

It was strange to me that the street was completely empty. I hadn’t seen anyone since I had left the Bennett’s, not even a car had driven down the road. I crossed over to the other side of the street, not waiting for an intersection, and stepping in an icy puddle on the curb, cursing the cold liquid that seeped into my shoe.

To my great relief when I turned back again, the man was on the other side of the street still. I was just being paranoid again.

Or was I
? I glanced back again, and he was gone. My eyes swiveled directly behind me and involuntarily sucked in a ragged breath. He was right behind me, maybe three steps behind. I broke into a run, at this point I was scared enough that I didn’t care if I looked like an idiot.

I ran and ran, but every time I turned to look behind me, he was still mere steps behind me. But he wasn’t running. It was like I was on an invisible treadmill, running like a madwoman, but getting nowhere. The fear that seeped through me tingled coldly through my every fiber.

I saw two people ahead of me turn down a side street, and when I reached it I turned down it also, hoping that I would find help down this street.

I ran headlong into a brick wall.

I got up from the ground where I had landed after ricocheting off of the brick barrier. The two people that I had seen were nowhere; the only other presence was the hulking shadow that blocked my escape. I banged wildly on the door next to me, frantically hoping that someone would hear me. That someone could save me. I was too frightened to even scream.

The menacing figure simply stood in the open end of the short alley. Waiting, but for what? He pulled the hood that had covered his face back and I saw the same red eyes I had seen before, but they were now on the face of a jackal.

He stood leering at me, saliva dripping from his exposed fangs, his lips curled back in a snarl, and all I could do was stare at him through puffs of warm breath that escaped my lips as I shivered in the dank, dead end of the alley.

I heard the low rumble of his breath as he stood staring at me. I could only guess that he was waiting for me to try to run past him.

“Jo!” I heard the muffled voice in the distance. It was too far away for the person to be of any help to me. I suddenly wished that I hadn’t let my anger get the better of me, that I had just accepted that stupid cab.

But the sound of another person let me find my voice again, “HELP!” I shouted, even though I knew that it would do no good.

The jackal’s ears flattened backwards, the person looking for me must have annoyed him. I heard the feral snarl just before he lunged toward me and I felt his teeth rip into my neck, and I realized that I was going to die.

There was a brilliant flash of red light and then darkness.

-Paul-

I stalked down the mirror-like corridor toward the cavernous space that Jack had made his room. I had been in this area of our underground lair several times, but I had never before felt this edgy. I was about to crawl out of my skin, which was entirely possible for all I knew.

I could have blinked and been there, but there was an unspoken rule about that sort of thing. I couldn’t fault any of them for wanting their privacy. Didn’t I want the same thing? I knew the answer to that was yes.

Jack was lying on his shelf-like sleeping platform – the glassy stone of our home’s walls and floors was as comfortable as any feather bed to us – throwing a football into the air above his head. The ball looked like it was older than I was; it was made of worn black and white leather pieces that had been sewn together. Not the plastic and rubber concoctions that factories now pumped out.

“What brings you this way, Pup?” he asked as he sat up, catching the ball behind his back and placing it on the platform next to him. He really was like the movie stereotype of the older jock brother.

“I have a question,” I hoped that I seemed calm. I didn’t need to get razzed about showing emotion over a dead human. “I thought you might be able to answer it.”

“Alright kid, shoot,” Jack said with a shrug. He seemed un-phased by my sudden somber nature. I knew that I wasn’t hiding the fact that I was upset very well, the anger that bristled through me was very tangible now. It wanted to escape from the tightly bound space I was confining it to.

“It’s about the night I was brought to the Asakku,” I said hoping that simple explanation would prepare him for my question. “A girl died that same night. Would you know who collected her if I gave you a name?” I hoped that Jack wouldn’t need much more, I was already mad enough that I was contemplating the ways that I could attack him… they were irrational thoughts, but right now, I didn’t care.

Jack’s brow furrowed slightly as he thought. “A name… probably not.” He seemed to be fidgeting; I could tell that he was hiding something. “If you had a picture, maybe we could check with the other guys if I didn’t know her. Why? What’s up?”

I looked at him appraisingly, trying to gauge his response as I spoke. “My friend Ellie died the night I was… recruited. She was in London, visiting, and I was just wondering if, or rather, which one of us collected her.”

Jack’s face was barely concealing his surprise and relief. It was as though he had expected to recognize the name I was going to say, and had thought it would be someone else.

“I’m pretty sure that I didn’t collect anyone named Ellie that night.” His left eye squinted as he continued. “I only collected one soul that night. I don’t remember her name off hand, but I know it wasn’t Ellie, and it was a botched collection anyway.” He seemed to be gauging my reaction too.

“Botched?” I asked, trying to make it appear that my only interest was in how one could botch a collection.

“Yeah, I was about to take her, when Adam intervened. Blasted wind demons.” He muttered a few other curses before continuing. “The wind demons have no respect for the dying. Every so often they will try to intervene during a collection and take the individual that we were supposed to collect. They turn them into wind demons too.”

“And wind demons are bad?” I asked. “Well, worse than us?”

“The wind demons are a terrible lot... they have no issue stealing a soul that is destined for the afterlife. They swoop in and steal them and convert them to doing their sinister deeds, namely the misdirection of souls, but the wind demons are hell-bent on the extermination of our kind.”

“So they took this girl who was just supposed to die?” I asked. His story now and the one that I’d overheard him tell Carlo were not meshing. “That seems strange; why risk their own demise by challenging you to take the soul of one feeble girl.”

Jack looked at me oddly, my repetition of the words he had spoken earlier must have him thinking, and he replied, “It wasn’t much of a risk,..” he seemed uncomfortable now, my words had shaken him. That made me smile as he continued, “Adam was the one who came for the girl. A single Asakku poses no risk to him.”

“Is Adam a special type of wind demon?” I asked with a small scoff.

“He is.” The solemnity of Jack’s tone made me stop for a moment. “Like Gallu, the wind demons have a master. Her name is Lilith and Adam is her mate.”

“And as her mate he’s stronger?” I found this interesting.

“He’s almost impervious to us. It would take all of us to be rid of him, and that is a situation he’s not likely to put himself in.” Jack said the words with a grimace. I could hear the hate in his words. “You’ll know him by the medallion he wears. It will look like a large ruby to you, but it shines like a brilliant light.”

What a curious piece of jewelry, though I suppose that any jewelry on an demon would have surprised me. “And that medallion is…”

“It’s her heart.” He said spitefully. “That’s what gives him his special imperviousness.” The last word he said with a sneer.

“He wears her heart on a chain around his neck.” I laughed, it was a bit of a play on the “heart on your sleeve”, but immediately cut the noise off, as I saw Jack’s face darken.

“That blasted pendant acts as a sort of shield for him. He could pop into this room, right now, stick his tongue out at us and make lewd gestures and there’s nothing we could do about it.”  He said with a tired laugh. “But if he was fool enough to show up here, he’d probably kill us both…. It would definitely be a fool’s errand.”

As far as Adam was concerned, I was fairly certain that Jack was telling the truth about the wind demon mate, or at least he honestly believed everything he had told me about him. But I knew he was lying about the girl. He knew it was the same girl that I had asked about, he was simply unwilling or unable to tell me. He hadn’t just been out to collect her soul; Gallu had wanted her as one of the Asakku, and I had been retrieved in lieu of her. Was I even supposed to be here? Was there actually some master plan behind whose souls they collected? I doubted that I would find any truth here, and the deceit was reflected from the mirror-like walls.

“I’ll be sure to watch out for Adam,” I said as I turned to leave.

“You might ask Gallu about your friend. She might know who collected her.” Jack said, as I walked down the corridor away from his room. I just grimaced, unimpressed with his faked concern. “But anyone will tell you, it’s better to forget about the living. We’re not really a part of their world anymore.”

“If Ellie was still living…,” I said under my breath, “we wouldn’t have a problem.”

I needed to get away from this place. It was all together too depressing. I kept walking as I thought of my parents and, in a step, I burst into flames and snuffed out as my foot landed on the hard pavement of snow covered London. I quickly ducked behind a garden fence as a group of carolers bustled past. They were all bundled tightly in their heavy coats with thick wool scarves and mittens.

I looked quite out of place in the frosty night air, wearing nothing but my black trousers. It wasn’t any less conspicuous that the snow around my feet was quickly melting into a puddle, and evaporating in steam.

One quick burst and I could melt all of the snow around me… but the house behind and the fence in front of me probably wouldn’t fare so well. The thought of destruction was oddly calming, and I toyed with the idea of it for a moment. I shook my head, those were the kind of thoughts that would leave a family homeless for the holidays.

Where am I?
I looked to the street sign at the end of the lane. I was about two blocks from my parent’s home. They were probably at a friend’s house for a holiday party. It was night, thankfully, and I could stick to the shadows. My skin no longer glowed like an ember, so I had no need to worry about that. I could hoof it over there… but why should I bother? They would be out for a while. Which would be good. I quickly thought of their home and found myself inside my old room.

It was crammed full of boxes. My things from my apartment, I assumed correctly. I guess they weren’t ready to get rid of me yet. It would be good to get some things out of the boxes. Even in death I needed a few things. I pulled the first box down and opened it. The entire thing was full of pictures. It looked like my mother had torn down every picture of me that their flat held and thrown it in this box. Grief did strange things to my mother. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had completely removed all traces of me from the entire house, other than what was in this room, and locked it all away in here.

The picture on top was of me in the cowboy Halloween costume I wore when I was eight. My mother was so proud of it. It was the first, and last, costume she ever made for me. Thinking back, it was possibly my favorite Halloween costume from my child hood. I discarded the picture and the thought quickly, looking through the box for the picture I wanted most.

The print I sought was toward the bottom of the box, it wasn’t framed and one of the corners was bent, but it was the one I was looking for; a picture that had been taken of Ellie and I the night we both died. She looked happy, even though I knew she had been fuming at my mother’s presumptions in strange company.

I should have said something.
Maybe if she hadn’t left mad, we wouldn’t be where we are today.... I shook the thoughts from my mind. Jack was right, there was no point in dwelling on the past, I needed to focus on the present. And I would. I would focus all of my rage on Ellie’s present state.

I placed that picture with a picture I had found of my parents and me from a few years earlier. That was all I really needed from that box. The next one was full of things from my childhood, and I moved past it, I set aside the boxes of things from my school days and dug a trench through the boxes to the closet that had once housed my clothes.

I found a few things hanging up when I managed to wrench the door open. I pulled out a shirt and sweater, quickly putting them on, and then stuffed several other sets of clothing into my old duffel bag. The others may have gotten comfortable with walking about bare-chested, but it certainly wasn’t an appealing style choice for me.

I restacked the boxes as neatly as possible and flashed out to the hall, and then downstairs to the kitchen. There was a notepad on the kitchen counter like always, and I quickly scrawled out a message to my parents, flashing upstairs to my father’s study where I placed the note in an envelope and then back to my old room where I placed the sealed envelope on top of the first box that my mother would see when she walked back into the room. I knew it wouldn’t be for several years, but that didn’t bother me.

A sudden noise in the kitchen however did. It sounded as though an entire cupboard full of pots and pans had fallen to the floor. I flashed down to the kitchen and stood eye to eye with Carlo.

“It’s not good to come back to your home after you’ve died.” Carlo said absently as he pulled all of the serving dishes from the cupboard above the sink.

“What are you doing?” I asked, completely taken aback by his actions.

“I’m not doing anything,” he said with a toothy leer, “he is.”

I followed his extended dragon claw toward a plump raccoon that was cowering in the corner and I turned to the forked tongue that was inches from my face. “You do know that the common raccoon is not native to England, right?” I asked, still a bit perturbed by my mother’s disheveled kitchen.

“No, but I liberated this lovely little boy from the zoo not an hour ago.” His needle like teeth were parted in an enormous smile.

“Lovely.” I said as I looked at the scared creature that had soiled on my mother’s checkered tile floor. “Did you at least make Whisker’s escape look convincing?”

“It can all be blamed on the groundskeeper… silly man left the gate open when he fell asleep on the job.” His words held their snake-like hiss as he emptied another cupboard before finding the food, which he unceremoniously threw to the floor also. A jar of tuna broke as it landed on the hard tile, causing the raccoon to jump. Then he cautiously wobbled toward the fish that was spilled on the floor.

“Are you quite finished?” I asked, bored with his destruction now.

“I think the question is, are you?” He smirked, “let’s get out of here, kid. Your parents are bound to show up any time, and the sight of you would probably send dear ol’ Mum into cardiac arrest.”

“If you knew my mother, you’d know that what you’re leaving for her will probably bring her just as close.” I looked back at the utter mess in the kitchen and shook my head.

“That wasn’t me!” he said in falsetto tone, “that was little Whiskers back there.” He smiled like the school yard bully who got away with his crimes. “Oh and that letter… don’t expect her to get it.”

I could easily imagine the envelope going up in a quick burst of flames, and a pile of ashes lying on top of the box where it had sat. I clenched my teeth. I was rather annoyed that I had been “fetched” by Carlo. Being a demon was a bit more restrictive than I might have thought.

“Why are you here anyway?” I asked sourly.

“Because you aren’t supposed to be.” He laughed like he was explaining simple math to a child. But I knew what two plus two was, and I could easily see that this so called afterlife wasn’t adding up.

“I made sure that no one was home.” I said acidly. “I don’t see what the problem was.”