Forfeit Souls (The Ennead Book 1) (15 page)

“Let’s go home,” Demetrius said, holding my hand and taking hold of the duffel’s straps.

I watched as he dissolved, but I didn’t think about going with him, I watched as his arm started to billow away and then my hand went with it. Soon the white that had surrounded me was gone and I was back in the dark paneled room. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Now you do,” he said with a smile and tossed me the bag.

I took it to the closet where I put the jeans in the bottom drawer of the dresser, hiding them under a folded up pair of flannel pajamas, an odd piece of attire for someone who didn’t need to sleep. I pulled the large, leather bound photo album – the brittle pages warped from water damage - out of the bag next and placed it gingerly on top of the dresser – I wasn’t strong enough to look through it yet – and I placed the bear on top of the album.

After I put away the few remaining articles of clothing I had liberated from my mortal closet, I dropped the bag on the floor next to the dresser so that it was hidden from view of anyone just peaking in, and returned to the room.

Demetrius was sitting at the desk, scratching away at a piece of paper, when I returned. He looked up for a brief moment to smile before returning to the page beneath his pen.

“What are you writing?” I asked, as I sat in the chair across the desk from him.

He looked up again briefly.  “I’m writing to Lilith to inform her of what happened to your family. She’ll need to know.”

“She’s not here?” I asked, looking toward the door, though I knew that I would not be able to determine anything by it.

“No. She and Father had to leave for a short time. They will be back tomorrow evening.” He spoke so calmly. I had to laugh.

“And you need to send them this message so urgently?” I smiled when he looked up at me. “It can’t wait until they return tomorrow.”

“The letter is why they’ll be returning tomorrow evening. If I don’t send it, I have no idea when they would return.” He held the letter into the air and I watched it dissolve in the same way that we did.

“That’s neat,” I said with a smile.

“And useful.” he agreed.

I looked at the clock. It had been the night of the previous day in the states, but it was still early morning here. “What else should we do with our unlimited existence?”

“We could play a game,” he suggested. “It’s one of the ways we stave off our boredom.”

“A game?” I thought back to Nate and Christi’s puzzle. “And what game do you suggest we play?”

“Checkers, chess…”

“I’m horrible at chess,” I interrupted. “But I guess there’s no time like the present to get better.”

“No, ‘no time’ is not something that is an issue for us.” He winked at me. “I’ll get Lizzie. She’s the Anatoly Karpov of our clan.”

“Is he some famous chess player?” I was guessing again.

He just smiled. “A world champion.”

“Let’s put the chess learning on hold, like you said we have all of the time in the world.” I said. I really wasn’t ready to be that embarrassed in front of the rest of the “family” quite yet.

“Good.” He smiled widely, “I have other plans.”

“Let’s go,” Demetrius said as he grabbed my hand and lead me down the hall.

As we walked, the walls began to dissolve and we walked into a bright patch of forest, the snow at our feet seemed out of place. As I walked through the fir trees that towered over my head, their branches creaking from the heavy burden of the snow on their boughs, I felt slightly more at home. I felt oddly warm as I walked through the forest.

The sun glittered across the snow and I saw a deer bounding away, leaving thin tracks in the deep snow. I noticed that I wasn’t knee deep in the snow as I ought to have been, and Demetrius must have noticed my confusion as well.

“One of the perks of being a hybrid,” he said with a smile. “We can choose our dominant element.”

“So if I were to think like an Asakku?” As I said it I thought of the fire element and found myself knee deep in melting snow, the patch of grass around me completely dry. “But because I think like a Lilitu...” The Air around me swelled up and I found my feet at the same level as the snow again, waking forward as though there were a thin barrier between the cold snowpack and myself.

I thought for a moment, about controlling water and I began to feel very fluid. I looked around me and realized that I had once again sank, but the snow did not feel like snow to me anymore. It was as though the snow was an illusion and I walked right through it. Thinking like an Utukku, and traveling with their traits was a little less stealthy than the Naidu’s. It was as though I was a me-sized boulder and the path I cleft through the snow left a lot to be desired if I was trying to travel incognito.

“That is very interesting and useful,” I said quietly, and idea forming in my mind. “But what are we doing here?”

“I thought I’d give you a chance to practice without interference.” As he said it he began to fade away. The last of his words was spoken by the wind.

Without interference
… I could deal with that.

I looked at the tree in front of me. It was small and scraggly. I doubted that it would make it through to the end of winter, so I did not feel too bad when I visualized it a blaze and it subsequently burst into flames. The bark of the tree was already beginning to turn black. My fire was somewhat more potent than normal fire. I slowly moved the fire up the tree. I positioned it in the crux of a branch and held it there, allowing it to burn from the one small branch while the rest of the tree smoked and steamed in the cold air. I formed a large ball of snow in my hand and held it up, letting it float toward the tree, I let it rest just above the fire. The flames licked upwards and caressed the snow that melted as though it was suspended in a glass bowl above the burning branches.

When it had completely melted, I let it go and watched the water sizzle on the open flame and nearly burnt-out branches. The forest was quiet now; the crackling of the branch was gone. The remaining pop of sap bubbles that continued to burst was the only sound in the clean white of my snowy surroundings. 

I knew that I had control over the air, fire and water portions of my abilities, but the earth qualities were not something I had yet tested with any real mettle.

I turned back to the tree, its blackened bark standing out clearly against the green and white of its December backdrop.  It looked sad in its desolation and I felt sadder still for leaving it in such a state. It was a proud tree, trying to hold on until the very end, even when annoying spirits like me tampered with it.

“You deserve to be set apart,” I said quietly to the tree. I turned my hand over so that it was flat with the palm facing up, “let’s put you on a pedestal.” I raised my hand up and the tree, along with the ground – in a circle twelve feet in diameter – around it, lurched seven feet heaven ward, creating a pedestal like plateau in the midst of the forest.

“Much better,” I said quietly. I didn’t feel like I needed anymore practice, so I turned from the newly uplifted tree and walked into the forest.

Two steps later I stood in front of my parents’ and younger brother’s graves. It was raining again, but I didn’t care if I was soaked to the bone this time. I sank to the ground at the base of their stones.

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. “If I hadn’t gone into that coma-like state I could have protected you.”

I looked at the four head stones. They had died just two days before I woke up from my coma-like state. I didn’t move for close to an hour. The rain still fell and I became vaguely aware of another presence in the cemetery, but I didn’t look up to see who it was.

“Are you alright dear?” a high pitched woman’s voice asked from behind me.

She went to place her hand on my shoulder and I let it pass through me. The woman ran off screaming toward her car.

“That wasn’t the smartest thing to do, you know,” Demetrius whispered in my ear as he picked me up and turned me around. “I’m going to take you somewhere to help you cheer up.”

He took my hand and I watched as it dissolved with him and then I felt the disassembly of my body as it flew forth to wherever Demetrius was taking me.

China had not been the place that I had expected him to take me back to.  It was midnight. I’m not sure how I was so certain of the time difference, but the pitch black in front of me assured me that I was at least close to being right.

I looked in either direction and saw a dark line winding its way through the snow off toward the horizon, like a dark stone snake. It was the same structure I was standing on, the Great Wall. I looked down to the slightly uneven stones beneath me that were covered in snow and shook my head. “I highly doubt that we’re supposed to be here.”

“Who’s going to stop us?” he said with a smile as he picked up a handful of snow and threw it at a snowy owl that was sitting on the ledge off to his right. “Rules and laws of mortals are made for mortals,” he said as the now wet owl flew away with a short screech.

“But if we wish to live among them, we should follow their rules and obey their laws,” I whispered back to him. I had no idea how close we were to a guard shack or anything of the like.

“No one will hear us,” he laughed louder than I felt prudent. “This is a part of the wall that’s not open to the public.”

“All the more reason for us to not be here,” I sighed.

He laughed, “You know all of the things accredited to the Asakku. You might as well know that there are a few things that we’re credited with too.”

“What’s that? Hurricanes?” I asked sarcastically?

“Ghosts,” he said calmly, and then he allowed himself to go transparent.

It was easy to see, doubtless that was what the woman in the cemetery thought I had been when I didn’t allow her to touch me. Right now, Demetrius looked like most descriptions of a ghost that I had seen. How ironic that people would think we were ghosts. “I could understand that misconception,” I agreed as he regained his solidity. “But just because you can break the rules doesn’t mean that you should.”

“You should try breaking the rules,” he jumped up and stood on the ledge. “I think you’d enjoy it, besides, it’s not like they apply to you anymore.”

“If they don’t apply, then I can’t possibly break them.”

“I guess that’s true,” he took the hand that I was holding up to shade my eyes from the light of the moon above his head – it shone like the sun to me – and effortlessly pulled me up onto the wall with him. “So why are you still pretending that they do?”

I looked over the ledge that I stood on; the ground was so far below me. I smiled as a thought came to me and I turned around to look away from the edge. “Alright. They don’t apply.” I said to him and allowed myself to fall backwards.

I felt the gentle rush of the breeze as the cool night air passed me, and the springs of the mattress as I landed on the bed, giggling.

“You’re not that funny,” Metri said as he appeared in the chair at his desk.

“Oh please, I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said, pretending to be exasperated. “I was just having a little fun.”

“Fake suicide is fun?”

“No. Falling is fun. You said yourself that the rules no longer apply. I wouldn’t have died if I had landed in the snowpack. I wouldn’t have died if I had landed in a pit of spikes.” I looked at him in a mock condescending way. “Suicide is a mortal action. It no longer applies.”

He just shook his head at me.

I read the titles on his novels from the bed and found one that sounded interesting. I had a theory that I was going to test. I reached my hand out toward the shelf and watched as just my hand dissipated into smoke and reformed next to the shelf where I removed the book from its place on the shelf and then my hand returned to my arm.

“It took me several months to even think of trying that.” Demetrius said without looking up from what he was writing. “You have quite the imagination.”

I smiled. My overly vivid imagination was the reason horror films had been hard for me to watch in my life. It was just too easy for me to imagine that the scenarios and monsters of the screen would jump into real life and find me. How ironic that I had found my death by a monster that was worthy of Craven or Carpenter.

I flipped open the book and began reading. It was a story of a girl’s inner turmoil, of hurting the ones she loved and of making the right choices. I was amazed when I finished it. I had been a fast reader in my life, but I had never finished a twenty-two chapter novel in one night.

I looked at the clock. Ten-thirty, Six months and five days ago I had been leaving a dinner party to walk to my death. Now I was sitting in the lap of luxury, though I was dead, so I wasn’t ready to consider this in the win column.

I watched Demetrius as my hand left me in a stream of smoke to put the book away. He was the kind of man that I had hoped to find in my life: strong, kind, intelligent, compassionate, and a bit old-fashioned, and I would be a fool if I tried to convince myself that he wasn’t sickeningly handsome. And he chose to spend his time with me. So why couldn’t I see him as more than a mentor or friend?

He looked up at me and I quickly dropped my eyes to my hands. When I looked up again he wasn’t there.