Soul Snatcher (14 page)

“
To level this one sided exposure, enlighten me as to
how you feel towards me?” She asked feeling marginally
bolder.

“
I believe the question that is fair to ask, in
conjunction with your previous wording, is how
should
I
feel towards you?” He clarified.

Without
warning he stepped away from her and into the open space of the
room. Somehow she felt colder with him further away. He looked
around the room as if he could care less about his feelings towards
her.

“
I think I have nothing to fear from you,” he
commented. “You are a fledgling, unassuming and obviously naïve.
You are not a threat in any capacity.” He did not look at her once
when he listed his observations.

His words
hurt her and she almost felt like she could cry from them, which
was strange because she usually didn’t cry at anything. Suddenly
the cold became too much and she walked across the room to the
unlit fireplace. His eyes remained on her the whole time. She took
some small logs from her reserve of wood and aggressively threw
them into the barren fireplace. After her kindling and tinder were
in place she used her flint to start the fire. She had done it
before many times for Miss Danes and found it to be no trouble. She
used the excuse of lighting the fire as a reason not to acknowledge
Baden at all. She stood there looking into the flames, holding back
her tears.

Annie turned
without looking in his direction to retrieve a rug from the bed but
he was right behind her. He was so close she could only just stop
herself from running into him. She moved to get around him but he
stepped in her way. She moved again and he did the same. This time
she used her body to try and barge past him but he simply put his
arms around her and held her in place. She struggled against him
but he held her tighter.

“
You are upset,” he said. She looked up to him, shocked
at how unfazed he seemed by that.

“
And you are callous.” She spoke from her hurt without
thinking and looked away from him when he seemed to become uneasy.
Why should she feel bad after what he had said to her?

“
I am sorry that I hurt you.” He sounded so genuine she
looked up at him to see if he was being sincere. His face was that
of earnest regret and something else, she could only recognise it
as pain. Seeing how he had hurt her soul made him ache and he was
almost desperate to comfort her.

“
Then next time you should aspire to think before you
speak. It will save you the trouble of apologising,” she advised
trying not to let him think he could treat her harshly then get
away with it just by apologising.

“
My words were meant to make you want to guard yourself
from me but instead they made you more vulnerable,” he explained.
He was trying to do the right thing and warn her to stay away from
him because he knew that deep inside he wouldn’t be able to keep
himself away from her.

“
From what you say, it seems that you would prefer not
to keep my company. If so then why do you continue to return?”
Annie wanted him to keep coming back more than she had ever wanted
anything in her life but not if he didn’t want to.

Just when she
thought he was about to say something that would change everything
between them, he slowly dropped his arms and stood back. Without
another word he walked to the window and with one glance back
towards her, he left. This time the tears spilled onto her cheeks
and she didn’t know why. Everything he had said was true, he was a
stranger that did enter her room uninvited and she should be afraid
but she wasn’t. She walked over to the window and looked out to the
empty landscape. Empty not because there were no trees or hedges or
flower beds but empty because he was not there.

Baden watched
from the trees as Annie moved away from the window and out of view.
When she walked away it felt as if something else walked away with
her but he wasn’t quite sure what that was.

CHAPTER
11

Annie walked
over to the seat to get the book Baden had put there but when she
looked it was gone. She searched the rest of the room until all she
could deduce was that he either took it or hid it. Why would he do
that? Deciding there was no use in trying to understand him she
went back down to the library to find another.

There Annie
waited all day and night for Eli to come back. She was concerned
that he was out there chasing a dangerous snatcher and would get
himself killed. She took her meals in there and only left the room
when nature called. She waited until eventually she fell into an
exhausted sleep on the multi-purpose day bed.

When Eli came
in that night Garrick met him at the door.

“
Sir, Miss Belle has fallen asleep in the library. I
believe she has been waiting for you,” he informed. Eli shrugged
off his coat and handed it to Garrick.

“
Thank you.” With that Eli went to the library and
found Annie asleep. He bent down beside her and looked at her face
for a moment.

She looked so
peaceful just laying there, so vulnerable. His desire to protect
her grew inside of him as he watched her
, he promised himself that he would do anything to
keep her from harm. He would be anything she needed. He gently
brushed a stray curl off her face and her breath fluttered in her
sleep. He smiled to himself at how lovely she was.

V
ery carefully he
picked her up and carried her through the house, up the stairs to
her room. His heart did strange things from having her so close to
him. He laid her down on the bed and pulled the covers over her.
For another stolen moment he took the time to look at her and
before he could help himself he lightly brushed his hand along her
cheek and down her neck. She stirred slightly and before he could
disturb her anymore he left her to her rest.

The next
morning Annie woke up late into the day. She washed with her
bedside basin and readied herself by throwing on a light pink day
dress, rushing down stairs when she was done. In her hurried state
she turned at the end of the stairs towards the kitchen and ran
right into Eli. She crashed solidly into him but he managed to keep
her from falling backwards. In fact she had run into him so hard
that her arm felt a little sore from the collision.

“
Needing to be somewhere?” Eli asked with his friendly
smile. She took a step back and he hesitantly let her go. She
rubbed her arm trying to rid it of the ache caused by their
crash.

“
I was coming to find you,” she said as she inspected
her arm. Eli found her very distracting as he took in her attire
and his mind started to wander to other things. He realised he was
staring so he snapped himself out of it before she could
notice.

 
“
Splendid because I am
guilty of the same. Shall we continue our talk from yesterday?” He
offered.

“
That is exactly what I was going to suggest,” she
said, relieved he was so willing to be open with her.

“
To the library then, I have tea and treats waiting for
us.” He held out his arm and she took it without hesitation. “Are
you hurt?” He asked noticing the way she was looking at her arm.
She stopped concentrating on it to assure him she was
unharmed.

“
No, it is fine,” she lied. As they walked she wondered
who had made their tea. “Did you make the refreshments?” She asked,
noticing that he had come from the kitchen.

“
Uh, why yes,” he answered. “The help come and do their
chores in the morning then leave. I pay them a higher rate to
reside off the premises so I can maintain my needed privacy and
keep them out of the house.”

They headed
silently to the library after that and he let her enter the room
before him. She took a seat on a brown, leather reading chair near
where the morning tea was set on a little table. Eli took the
dagger he had removed the previous day and replaced it in its
notch.

“
How did yesterday’s events…conclude?” Annie asked
cautiously. How was she meant to feel at the fact her old employer
was a snatcher and her current provider went to ‘rid the world’ of
her? He took a seat across from her and started pouring some
tea.

“
Not as well as intended,” he informed. “She seemed to
have left on that trip a little earlier than expected. But I will
complete my task as soon as she returns or as soon as I can locate
where she is.” He said it so easily you would think he was talking
about the weather rather than killing a mythological
creature.

“
Forgive me if I sound rude but how is it that you dare
to rival against a being that is much stronger and faster than
yourself?” He passed the tea to her and started laughing. She took
the cup and saucer he offered but couldn’t help feeling a little
demeaned.

“
Excuse my laughter. I overlooked the fact that you
still do not know what I am.” She froze at his words.
What
he was? Was he not human? She felt fear start to creep up
inside of her at what he might be. He saw her qualms and
immediately started his explanation.

“
I am a tracker. I am designed to eliminate soul
snatchers,” he stated as if it made perfect sense.

“
Come again?” Annie asked as she calmly stirred her
tea. Her actions were so contrary to her surprised expression that
he smiled to himself as he served himself tea.

“
Trackers are a group of men that are different in the
way they are designed, you could say. We sleep and eat just as
humans do but we are different. We heal quickly and are not easily
killed. Our senses may not be as powerful as what snatcher’s have
but we are strong, fast and resilient. We are strong enough to
defeat snatchers,” he explained further. Annie was
astonished.

“
How did you become ‘different’?” She asked, curiosity
obvious in her voice. Eli hesitated before he answered. Everything
he had told her so far was meant to be kept a secret but he had
disclosed it anyway. But he figured there wasn’t really much left
to tell and his position amongst the tracker hierarchy allowed him
more flexibility in what he was permitted to do.

“
I can only repeat the things I have heard,” he advised
before he started into his explanation. “Not long after snatchers
began to grow in numbers their myth also started to grow and a
group of men decided to do something about them. They were no
different from any other, perhaps stronger than the average man but
human none the less. One night a man in the group was bitten during
a brawl with a snatcher. The group took him back and locked him
away, trying to determine what to do with him. They did not want to
kill him so they tried to find remedies.”

“
How gracious of them,” Annie said sarcastically not
knowing how she felt about a group that could very well turn on one
another.

“
In any case, after being locked away in solitude for
days he came out different…subdued. He was different to other
snatchers they had previously encountered and from him we were
created. He had a son and his son had one and so on.”

“
We?” Annie asked.

“
When I say ‘we’, I am referring to the other trackers.
We keep in touch and monitor and record whatever we can. There are
quite a few and more are coming about,” Eli explained. When she
seemed satisfied he continued. “They found he could reproduce and
he…has not yet perished.” Annie looked blankly at him.

“
He is still alive?” She clarified. He simply nodded.
“Where is he now?”

“
He contacts us. No one has ever met him in person but
he helps with our research,” he informed.

“
How old are you?” She asked trying not to look him up
and down. He laughed at the expression on her face.

“
I am as old as I seem. I was born in seventeen-eighty
but I will look like this forever.” He watched her as she took it
all in.

“
So I am assuming that because you were born like this
then your father or possibly mother was one?” She
deduced.

“
My father was. He and my mother were killed by a
snatcher when I was a young boy and Garrick took over guardianship.
The only reason why my father died was because it was at the hand
of a snatcher, that is the only way any of us can die.” He pushed
away the hurt he had spent so much time hiding.

“
Eli, I am so sorry. I…”

“
You were not to know,” he said. She still felt awful
and considered her next words carefully.

“
If trackers live forever…well…what about their wives?”
Annie could feel the sadness in Eli before he answered.

“
That is the problem. Having an enemy that in effect
created us and lives forever means we do too. So the person we
chose will eventually…” He let the sentence hang.