Lost Souls: Imperfection – Episode 2 (10 page)

Scala smiled.  And beneath the coach’s smile she recognized the twisted lines of Scala’s morbid grin.  “I know you better than that.  You care for these humans.  That’s why you came up with that other way to kill us.  To save them.”

Sam held tight to the game.  She would never let him know how nervous she was.  “One more dead human isn’t going to matter.”

“No?”  He took a sharp dagger and ran it along Claire’s pale cheek.

As Claire screamed, and a thin line of red appeared along her cheek, Sam jerked forward.  “No!”  Sam grit her teeth and fazed to Scala.  She grabbed him by the neck and shoved him back into the wall.

“Called your bluff, didn’t I?” he whispered.

Her hand tightened around his throat.  She could kill him now, kill the coach and in turn Scala.  She lifted her sword.

“You’ll never find Ben.”

She froze.  She stared at him for a long moment trying to judge whether he was lying or not.  But in the end, Sam couldn’t risk it.  She lowered her sword.

~ ~ ~

Christian began to pace.  What the hell was taking so long?  Where was she?  He stopped and looked down at the hole in the floor.  She told him to wait there.  Something was wrong.  He could feel it.

He glanced back at the wooden doors.  He could get Eugene’s help.  He stood and squared his shoulders.  He had to prove he could do this.  He had to prove it to himself.  He had to prove it to Sam.  But he wasn’t going in there blind.

Christian fazed.

~ ~ ~

Ben traced the iron walls with his hands.  Nothing.  Not a damned thing.  Scala was ready for them, all right.  But what they didn’t realize was how ready he was.  Ben looked at the floor.  Iron walls all the way around.  Seamless.  No breaks between the floors and the walls, nor the walls and the ceiling.  The only way he was getting out was somehow back through the wall he was searching, through the wall that had slid open.

Even as he searched the bottom of the wall that had moved, running his fingers over the iron, he knew Scala wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

~ ~ ~

Sam held her hand at Scala/coach’s throat for a moment longer.  She considered blasting Scala anyway, just for the hell of it, but she knew she couldn’t do it alone.  Finally, she released him and stepped back.  She fazed to Claire’s side and unstrapped one of her wrists.

“Not yet,” Scala whispered.

A jolt speared through Sam.  She clutched the side of the table and turned to look at him.  He held a machine in his hand.  It looked like the machine Daniel had used on her, the one that sapped her energy.  Scala pressed it to her back and the sharp jolt shot through her, drawing her power from her body.

She fell to her knees, her sword clattering to the ground.

~ ~ ~

Ben cursed quietly.  There was no way out.  He stepped back from the iron wall.  He was trapped in an iron room that he could not faze through.  Just like they had trapped Scala so long ago.

Suddenly, a pinpoint hole simmered through the iron, the metal bubbling, the hole growing wider, a thin line of moisture slipping through.  Ben recognized the way the liquid ate at the iron.  Acid.  The kind he and Sam used.  Ben fazed into the hallway immediately.

Christian stood, holding an empty vial.

Ben had never been happier to see anyone before.  He noticed the growing holes that Christian had peppered in the iron walls around them.

“Where’s Sam?” Christian asked.

“I haven’t seen her.”

“She fazed down here to help you,” Christian explained.

“I never saw her.  I was trapped.”

“Where’s Scala?”

Ben shook his head, anxiety growing.  Sam was gone and Scala was nowhere to be found.

~ ~ ~

Sam clutched at the table, her head bowed.  How had Scala gotten the same machine Daniel had used?  She was eye level with Claire, staring at the girl’s wide blue eyes.

Claire didn’t see Sam.  She stared right through her at the coach.  The girl must really think the coach was mad, battling an unseen enemy with some bizarre gadget.

Come on, Claire, she mentally pleaded.  Get yourself out of here.

Claire lifted her one free hand and tore the gag from her mouth.  She screamed.

Scala frowned and took a dagger from the tray.  He stared at Sam in disapproval, keeping the energy weapon fixated on her, and lifted the weapon over his head.

~ ~ ~

The shrill scream echoed mutely through the iron hallway, through the holes that Christian had made when he had splashed the acid on them.

Ben whirled toward the scream, pointing.  “There!”  Ben fazed first and then Christian.

~ ~ ~

Sam reached out to stop Scala, but knew she wasn’t going to make it.

Scala brought the dagger down into Claire’s chest.

“No!” Sam screamed.

Ben materialized, immediately attacking, punching Scala in the chin.  Scala flew back against the wall, the energy machine skittering across the floor.  Ben fazed before Scala, and pushed him back against the wall, holding him there with a flat hand to his chest.

Christian helped Sam to her feet with a hand on her elbow and moved to Ben.  As Sam steadied herself on the table, Christian placed his hand on Ben’s shoulder.

Sam stepped up to them.  She was weak, but she damn well would send this son of a bitch into oblivion.  She put her hand on Christian’s back and pushed with all her power, surging her energy forward through Christian, into Ben and finally into Scala.

Scala’s eyes grew round as he stared into Ben’s eyes.

Sam pushed her power forward, through her arm, into her hand.  Christian and Ben acted as funnels, also aiming their power into Scala.

The lights around the room flickered and popped.

Claire groaned.

Sam looked over her shoulder.  Even in the dark, she could see the dagger’s handle sticking out of Claire’s chest.  She had promised the girl she wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

“Sam!  Don’t do it,” Ben warned.  “Concentrate.  Finish the job.”

Sam didn’t move; her gaze swept over Claire, her blonde hair spread over the thick metallic silver table.  She could save her, she was sure.  She had promised.  She had promised Claire nothing would happen to her.  Blood seeped out of the wound, soaking Claire’s chest in a widening circle, pooling over the table.

“Sam,” Ben called sternly.

Sam tore her gaze from Claire and pushed all her power forward.  The son of a bitch.

Scala’s eyes turned white.  His mouth formed an ‘o’ as the energy slammed into him, through him, filling him.

Sam grit her teeth and forced every last drop forward, into the killer, into the Changed.  She wanted Scala to explode.  She wanted him gone.  Forever.

Scala stiffened.  White light shot from his ears, his mouth, his eyes.

Suddenly, Damien appeared beside Scala.

Sam opened her mouth.

Damien plunged a knife into Scala’s chest, killing coach Fredericks.

A giant explosion of power and electricity threw them all back.  Ben knocked into Christian, who flew back into Sam.  The explosive white energy knocked over the iron table and Claire tumbled to the floor.

Then, everything was silent and still.  The white light vanished, leaving them in darkness.

Sam pushed Christian from her and squirmed from beneath him, looking for Damien.  Her gaze came to rest on Claire’s blonde hair draped over her face.  She hurried to Claire.  The girl lay on her side, the heavy table across her legs.  With a surge of energy, Sam grabbed the table and threw it across the room.  It crashed into the iron wall with a loud bang.

Sam bent beside the girl.  She didn’t know what to do, where to touch.  The dagger handle was sticking out of the center of Claire’s chest.  Right through the heart.  Sam felt a wrenching in her own chest.  She knew without touching her, without looking, Claire was dead.  No human could survive a blow to the heart like that.

Her hand shook as she reached out and brushed some of Claire’s dusty gold hair from her cheek.  She had not been able to protect her.  And she had promised.  Just like she had promised Cora.

“I told you not to blast him.”

Damien’s voice came to her, a reminder he remained in the room with them.  A reminder of what he had done.

She stood and whirled.  “So you killed him?”

“You don’t understand.”

“I understand all right.  I understand that my husband finds it easier to murder a human than to try to save him.”  Damien closed his mouth as she approached him with fists clenched.  “I understand that the man I loved would never have done that.”  She nodded.  “I understand quite clearly.”

He stared at her with emotionless black eyes.  “Can you kill me now?”

His statement startled and horrified her.

“I can,” Ben said and lifted his dagger.

“I know you,” a soft voice said.

Sam whirled to see Claire standing near the table.  For a very brief second, Sam thought she had somehow survived.  And a momentary jubilation filled her.  But then, she saw the paleness of her skin and knew the truth.  This was Claire’s Soul.  Sam glanced at the girl’s body lying on the floor just behind her Soul.  Still.  Lifeless.  It remained on the floor where she had died.  “Claire,” Sam whispered.

She nodded.  “Your voice.  I know your voice.  You spoke kind words to me.”

Sam scowled slightly.  How had she been able to hear her?  She nodded, not wanting to frighten the girl.  “Yes.  That was me.”

“Are you an angel?”

Sam almost laughed.  She was no angel.  “No.”

“Then who are you?”

Ben gasped and Sam glanced at him.  He was looking past Claire, past her body into the corner of the room.  Sam followed his gaze and froze.  An agonizing longing filled her as she saw the woman there.  Her golden hair waved in an invisible breeze.  Her white dress shimmered around her body.

Claire followed their gaze and looked at the woman too.  She stepped away from her, closer to Sam.

No, Sam thought.  No.  She stepped up to Claire’s side.  “Go with her,” she urged.

“I want to stay with you,” Claire said.

Sam shook her head.  She would not be the cause of someone else’s inability to pass.  Not again.  “She’s come for you.  She’ll take you…”  Sam looked at the beautiful woman.  “…somewhere wonderful.”

Still Claire resisted, shaking her head.  “It was your voice I heard.  You watched over me.  You protected me.”

Disgust filled Sam.  Some protector.  How could Claire say that when she was lying dead not two feet from her?  “Claire, listen to me.  You are dead.”  Claire’s eyes rounded and she began to shake her head.  “If you stay here, you’ll be stuck here forever.  Like me.  You’ll never be able to cross.  You have to go now.”

Claire glanced at her body, withdrawing from the sight fearfully.

“It will be all right,” Sam assured her.  Then an idea struck her.  And she hated herself for saying it, but she had to get Claire to go.  “Ryan is there.  He’s waiting for you.”

Claire’s face brightened.  She glanced at the woman in the corner again.  “Really?”

Sam nodded, hating herself as she did.  She knew full well Ryan was gone forever, that Scala had killed him and destroyed his soul for all eternity.

Claire hesitated for a moment more before walking forward.  The angel woman smiled at Claire and reached for her hand.  Claire stretched out her hand and grasped the ethereal woman’s limb.  Together, they turned.

Claire stopped and turned to Sam.  “Thank you.”

Sam nodded, feeling strangely numb.

Hand in hand, the two of them faded as they moved away, becoming lighter and lighter, until they were gone.

Sam stood absolutely still.  The longing was still there.  A deep ache within her.  She wanted to go with them.

Ben stepped up beside her.  “You did a good thing, Sam.”

“How can you say that?  Claire is dead.”

“You can’t save every human.”

Sam looked at the coach where he lay slumped against the wall, a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth.  She couldn’t help feeling they had lost this one.  It seemed like they hadn’t saved anyone.  Suddenly, she searched the room.  “Where’s Damien?”  The room was empty.  She glanced at Ben.  “You didn’t –”

Ben shook his head.  “I wanted to.  But I didn’t.  He disappeared when the angel appeared.”

“Is that what she is?”

Ben shrugged.  “What else could she be?”

Sam gazed at the coach slumped at the bottom of the wall.  They would find him here.  With Claire.  In a destroyed torture chamber of death.  What would the cops think?  What would the humans think?  And more importantly…  “Did we do it?  Is Scala gone?”

“One way or the other.”

“Did we blast him or did Damien kill him?”

“I saw the same signs I saw when we blasted the Changed in Christian’s daughter.  The white eyes, the light from his nose and mouth.  But I can’t say for sure that Damien didn’t get there first.  Does it matter?  He’s gone.”

Sam stared at the body of the coach.  It made no sense.  “Why would Damien have killed the coach?  We were almost done.  We could have saved him.”

“I don’t pretend to know the minds of the Changed.  They are evil, Sam.  Just plain evil.  That’s what Damien is now.”

Maybe, Sam thought.  Could Damien have had the same moral dilemma they had?  Was he saving the coach’s family from scandal?  There would still be scandal, but it would be very short-lived with the coach now dead.  That’s what Sam chose to believe.  Whether it was true or not.

Christian approached them, holding some sort of machine in his hand.  “What the hell is this?”

“Scala was using that thing to zap my strength.  It was sucking my power from me,” Sam said and looked at Ben.  “It’s exactly like the one Daniel used.  Exactly.”

“Where’d Scala get it?” Christian wondered, flipping the machine over in his hand.  “Do you think he made it?”

“Scala wasn’t that smart,” Ben said.

“That leaves only one question.  Who did he get it from?  And is it the same Soul who gave it to Daniel?” Sam said.