Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls) (2 page)

“Oh, ladies, trust me, you do not need sugar to draw any soul to the likes of either of you. Sisters, is that what you are?” Cowboy said with a puff on his pipe.

“What a charmer you are,” Mazing said with a wink, blatantly not answering his question, simply because it would confuse the old man.

Mazing was in a sense a child of mine, even though I had never carried a soul within my vessel. Never would.

I’m a sovereign. An original Escort of dark energy. When my energy is magnified, or should I say
was
magnified, it absorbs into the cosmos, and that energy is infused with souls that felt called to it. Sometime in their first life, their dreams call to me. That is when I pull them into my line. Mazing was the first. There were more than I could count after her, but she is one of only a few souls I’ve let get close to me. She was my first in command, closer than any sister, child, or best friend as far as I’m concerned. Proving that had landed us both here.

The cowboy opened his duster to reveal a set of steel guns. “I’m always up for defending a damsel in need.”

I smirked. “Not sure those weapons will do you much good here, Cowboy.”

“Thought I’d offer,” he said with a wink and another pull on his pipe.

I caught a glance from the Reaper. His eyes had the appearance of near pure light and appraised me as he offered a nod. He’d felt the pull in the air as well and was bidding us a good hunt.

Escorts pull energy, light, dark, both—energy is not their main course; it’s their only course of any real value, though. Skilled Escorts that had evolved through time could move through The Realm and find themselves in any period of time. When soldiers marched through this Cathedral, you could bet anything that an Escort was in tow, hoping that the mass would hide them long enough for them to seep through the cracks of The Fall, cracks that recently had allowed a few pure lights through. Well, a house, too, but that was forever ago. There was no telling where the war of light and dark was at this point. And I didn’t care.

I just wasn’t going to let any line past that Fall. Mine knew better, and the other seven had no right to pass as far as I was concerned.

“Bid you goodnight, Cowboy,” I said with a slight bow.

“Happy hunting, ladies,” he said with a pull of his pipe before leaning forward on the banister.

I offered Mazing a nod, then we both vanished from sight, only to manifest at the edge of the forest.

“Caramel,” Mazing said with disdain.

Every line had a distinct aroma to its energy. Ours was something like the smell of fresh, warm honey. Caramel belonged to the one line that had landed us here: Xavier’s. Mazing thought she and Xavier’s first in command had a fever, what we call a passion between Escorts. She was wrong about that. Very wrong. Disastrously wrong, in fact.

“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” she said under her breath as she rolled her neck and loosened her sleek shoulders.

No fury matched a woman that was scorned. I was all for a little action, but I could vow that caramel odor had a clean scent laced within it. One that brought back too many memories and killed any appetite I might have had. I’d let her feast first tonight.

We eased behind one of the large trees and stared into the darkness. For any Escort to make it this far, they had to be top level. Their energy was so powerful that nature would sway toward them, not by choice, but by the sheer pull of their essence.

I rubbed my hands together, feeling the chunks of salt that had settled there. I could almost see them. There were at least three approaching. At this point in the forest, you could see The Fall. I’m sure they thought they were home free, that a throne of their own was moments away. Wrong.

Mazing vanished in that instant. A second later, I heard a scream and saw black smoke rushing toward the sky. I vanished, too, and appeared right behind the strongest caramel scent of the three.

The Escort was at least six-three, almost a solid foot over me, and at least three times my width. The males were always built like warriors. Good for combat, not so awesome when it came to stealth maneuvers.

Before he even had a chance to sense me, I ran my arm through his back, easily piercing his flesh. He bellowed and fell to his knees as I gripped his soul. The salt was pure agony and left him powerless to retaliate in any form or shape. I could feel his energy pounding, seeping into his flesh, infecting his vessel with one of the most deadly emotions: fear.

“You’re a myth,” he breathed.

I leaned down, and next to his ear, after I let a sinful smile come to my lips, I whispered, “This myth,” I squeezed his soul, feeling his energy pulse against my skin, “is sending you back to The Realm.”

He exhaled, “Please.”

He knew that meant that his freedom to walk the Earth had now ended. That now he must beg and plead for nourishment. That he would be pieces, not a whole.

“I believe your master stated ‘this pleases me’ once in my direction. Who am I not to return the favor?” And with that, I pulled his soul through his vessel and watched the black smoke soar through the air of the Veil. Clearly, he was an addict. That is what black smoke meant. Our souls are made of light, our essence is, but when we walk with evil, when we forsake a sacred charge, our essence dims, becomes darker. Some even have a theory that it takes on its very own life form within you. There was no surprise that anyone from Xavier’s line would be infected. They were all addicts, taking more than they ever should from the souls we were designed to protect.

I had already heard the cry of the third Escort, so I was free to take my time and consume some much-needed nourishment. Nourishment that I despised but had to have.

I held my hand over the vessel and beckoned the remaining energy into my flesh. Within that essence, I tasted the one emotion Xavier’s line was known to invoke and meant to reprieve: shock. I could sense every soul that had provided for this Escort. I didn’t take it all. I never did. Those souls needed their energy just as much as, if not more than, I did. I let the rest seep into the air with a simple command for it to return to the souls that had blindly given it away. Once the energy took its course, I called upon the flames of power to diminish the rest of the vessel.

It always takes a second or two to feel the effects of the energy, which is why Escorts are known for taking more than their fair share. As the energy absorbed into the core of my soul, I seized. Something was wrong.

I realized that my senses never betrayed me, and they hadn’t failed me tonight. Beyond the caramel, there was the distinct aroma of mint. That cool, refreshing scent was too powerful to ever be masked. Especially to me.

A warm, humming sensation reached through every shred of my soul, causing a sigh that had not left my lips in an eternity. A flash of fever raced across my skin before I could tell myself to be furious and demand that my soul despise the sensation it was greedily absorbing as if it were the essence of life itself.

Mazing manifested at my side right then.

“Glory,” she said quietly, looking into my wide eyes. I’m sure they were a mix of colors right now; a deep auburn with a ring of emerald green, and of course a warm glow of honey behind them. Each color represented a sensation. The auburn was the base, the green was a sign of rest or peace, and the glow was a reflection of being fed. Surely, the green was confusing her. I hadn’t felt peace in eons.

“Why?” I swallowed. “They are crossing lines.”

She inhaled deeply, trying to see what had left me bothered. Nothing ever left me this twisted. Well, one person did. And he was the source of my fading trepidation.

Mazing flushed with anger. “If that is not the lowest of all lows. Ass. That’s what he is: an Ass. The whole stock of em.”

“I dare him,” I seethed as my soul finally decided to listen to me and back out of its euphoric state.

All sovereigns could sense their lines at all times. Wherever Xavier was right now, he knew he’d lost a few of his warriors. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that the sovereign that carried the aroma of mint now
also
knew this Escort had perished. And he knew exactly who could have accomplished a task such as this with little to no effort, which also meant he now knew exactly where I was. Not good.

Chapter Two

Every soul has a beginning. A creator. Beyond the one that created us all. My Creator found me on my deathbed. A deathbed that I laid in at the human age of eighteen.

My mother was insane. I never knew my father. My mother had said that I didn’t know him because an evil spirit had left her with his seed, which in turn bore me. And because of that, she was beyond crazy. I doubted she ever adored me or even wanted me. More than once, she tried to drown me when I was too young to fight back. Something always stopped her. When I became ill, no medicine was ever given to my vessel. Food itself was rarely given to me. My mother stayed in a constant state of fast and believed I should, too, so I could repent for my birth.

My world was dying, as they all do from time to time. War had pushed both humanity and nature into nothingness. Disease was rampant. Almost as if the divine had planned such a thing, I became ill. Very ill.

Camps were set up to heal those that they could. Vaccines were given, and the strongest managed to live to die another day.

My mother refused to take me to any healer. She said the evil I was had brought our world to the brink of its demise. I knew if I did not flee from her that her insane mind would convince her to kill me before long.

I all but crawled to the camp that was three miles from our home; shack, rather.

Healers found me at their doorstep in the middle of a raging storm. I passed out before they were able to pull me in.

When I woke on a pallet of blankets on the floor, I saw a beautiful man above me. His eyes looked like the ocean, with white clouds passing within their refection. His skin was so pure. Even though it was clear he was aged he seemed flawless, perfect.

He was not who had captured my gaze, though. It was the boy that was my age behind him that had Jet-black hair and eyes that were like diamonds were fixed on me. Power and strength emanated through every inch of his body. From his broad shoulders to his lean warrior stance, there was a presence about him that refused to be ignored. The world vanished as I gazed into his being. The sweet, clean, powerful aroma of mint flooded through my soul, allowing me to feel the true desire for life for the first time ever.

I don’t know how long we stared at each other—it felt like an eternity. All I remember is my mother charging into the healer’s camp with a man she worshiped with. She had him carry me away, and as she did the image of the man and the boy vanished, leaving me to believe that they were an illusion of my sickness.

My mother cursed my very soul as we left, and the haunting alarms of our world rang out. We were being invaded. Our end was imminent, but she did not care to let me die without hearing her scorning words once more. She told me the end was my fault. That children and men alike would now perish because I had forsaken her.

They carried me to the nearest hilltop. Night was born in the core of the day. My mother lay behind me, chanting a prayer, offering me up as a sacrifice to the doom that was lurking.

She told me over and over to repent. To clear my mind and ask to be forgiven for my birth.

I did no such thing. Instead, I thought of those eyes that were a deep metallic grey with shards of light piercing through them. Those lips that curved into a disbelieving smile as his gaze took away all my pain. I imagined how they would feel against mine, how his arms would feel around me. I imagined a life where my mother's insanity could not reach me, could no longer cause me harm. With my last breath, my mind committed sins that would have surely put my mother in her grave if she had heard them. Yet, that is where we are all headed anyway.

A blinding light broke through the horizon and everything it touched absorbed into the great cosmos.

The next thing I remember was the Creator. He was there when I awoke. He was at my side for days, maybe years to come, silently teaching me.

When my hate for my mother was a distant memory, I met the seven sovereigns, all male.

The Earth provides everything that a soul needs, and sometimes more. Their purpose was to hinder the emotions that weaken the soul. It was an honorable purpose that never should have been challenged, but obviously an eternity of peace and equality was far too boring for the seven at my side.

By mere accident, one of the seven pulled too much energy one fateful day and when he did, he felt a rush of power. He felt knowledge. He decided that he didn’t want to be equal with anyone, not even our Creator. The war was born then. The death of our reality began. Instead of taking what was overwhelming for the souls to feel, we took more than our share.

Seven deadly emotions belong to the reign of the sovereigns: anger, grief, fear, shock, trepidation, obsessiveness, and exaltation. I know exaltation seems odd, it’s not the ‘Oh, I’m so happy emotion;’ it’s the winning the lottery emotion. Sounds great, doesn’t it? But what is not great is the fall once that emotion leaves. The soul is an instant addict and will search endlessly for it once more. Not finding it sends the soul plummeting into despair. Whoever said that there was no such thing as too much of a good thing had clearly never felt that emotion. Souls mistake exaltation for bliss, the one emotion we were all meant to feel constantly but rarely do.