The Soul Summoner (The Soul Summoner Saga Book 1) (20 page)

I smiled and showed him the angel pin on my lapel. "The little girl I pulled out of that attic told me I was her angel." 

"Huh." He stood and tugged up his shirt and tank top, displaying the gun on his hip. He pushed his waistband down, and under the holster, tattooed on his side, was the word
Azrael
. 

Without thinking, my fingers traced the letters. I looked up at him. "The Angel of Death."

12.

WE LEFT MY car at the office for the evening and went straight back to my house. I unlocked the front door and we walked inside. "Home sweet home," I announced.

He stopped at the end of the foyer and looked across the room. "What happened to your back door?" 

 "That night when I had the migraine, the detective broke down the back door to get to me," I said. "He patched it up for now."

"I'll fix it before I leave," he said.

I tugged on his arm. "Come on, I'll show you to your room." He followed me toward the stairs.

At the top of the steps was a small hallway. I pointed to the right. "This is my room." I turned to the left. "And this is the guest room and bathroom." I flipped on the light to the small guest bedroom that I had decorated in pastel blues and greens. It reminded me of the beach.

He walked to the queen sized bed and put his tactical black bag on top of the seashell comforter. "It's a nice house," he said.

I leaned against the doorframe. "I like it. I've lived here for a couple of years now. It was the first thing I ever bought that made me feel like a grownup." I motioned toward my room. "I'm going to go change out of my work clothes. Do you think you might want to go out again tonight, or am I safe changing into my comfy clothes?"

He smiled at me. "I didn't come here to see the city, so I would be perfectly happy staying in tonight if that's what you want to do."

"Great." I backed out of the room and into the hallway. "Make yourself at home."

He nodded and I went to my room.

I kicked off my heels, stripped out of my slacks and sweater, and pulled on a pair of blue Victoria's Secret sweatpants, a sports bra, and a black tank top. I stopped in the bathroom to fix my ponytail and brush my teeth before going back downstairs. 

Warren was standing in front of my refrigerator laughing when I walked in. He looked back at me. "Your fridge looks like mine. Water, cheese, and beer."

"Don't tell my mom." I reached around him and retrieved a beer. 

He grabbed one too and followed me back to the living room. He nodded to the fireplace. "Want me to build a fire?" 

I hesitated. "Ehhh… I haven't used that thing since I moved in. It might burn the house down."

He laughed and picked up the couple of pieces of wood that I brought inside just for looks. "We'll call the fire department if we need to." 

I sat down on the sofa and watched him as I drank my beer. He had pulled his hair back and taken off the black shirt, but he was still in the same tank top and blue jeans. His shoulder tattoo apparently went down his arm and completely down his side. I could see a hint of black on his skin through his shirt. 

After a few minutes, a flicker of fire began to dance between the logs. He got up and dusted his hands off on his jeans. "See, that wasn't hard." He picked up his beer and joined me on the couch.

"Have you always had long hair?" I asked.

"Oh no. I had to keep it military reg for eight years." He gripped his ponytail. "I think this is just still out of rebellion."

I laughed. "Makes sense. I like it. It looks really good on you."

"Thanks." He tipped the beer bottle up to his lips then looked over at me. His face was serious. "Are you ready for the conversation to get heavy?"

I tucked my feet under me. "Yes."

"You're sure? He raised an eyebrow. "I've never told anyone what I'm about to tell you."

I swallowed hard but nodded with confidence. "I'm sure." A strange mix of fear and excitement seemed to bubble inside of me.

"And you promise what I say here doesn't leave this room?" he asked. "This is some really bad stuff that I'm getting ready to admit to."

I held out my little finger. "Pinky swear."

He hooked his little finger with mine, spurring another small electric shock. It made him jump a little and he laughed. "I'm not sure I'll ever get used to that." 

I rubbed my finger. "Me either."

He blew out a deep breath. "OK. Here goes," he said. "When I was eight, I was in the foster system. Me and this other girl who was seven were living with a couple in the suburbs of Chicago. The woman was all right, but the man gave me nightmares. Just evil at the core. You know what I'm talking about."

I nodded and shivered with familiarity. "Yes."

"The little girl's name was Alice. She and I were in the system together for a while. She was a little slow and had a speech impediment, but she was really nice to me when a lot of the other kids weren't. After we had been there for about a month, the man started picking us up from school. We would go back to the house and he would take her into his room," he said.

I put my hand over my mouth and closed my eyes. 

"Well, you can guess," he said. "I didn't know what was happening, but I knew this guy was a monster. Alice began to shut down. She cried a lot and wouldn't talk to me or play with me anymore."

My heart was pounding, and my stomach churned with nausea.

"One day, we came home from school, and he started to take her to his room. She started crying. I yelled and told him to stop. He said that he might have to make me come too. I started crying. Alice was sobbing. And I just knew, even at eight, that he shouldn't be allowed to be alive. I screamed, and there was a crack that reverberated around the room. It sounded like lightning striking a tree. The guy just fell to his knees and face-planted on the carpet. I took Alice by the hand and we ran to the neighbor's house." He paused and took a deep breath.

"And he was dead?" I asked.

He nodded. "His heart just stopped."

I sat back and rolled my head against the cushion. "That's horrific." 

"And I knew, even then, I had done it," he said. "I even tried to tell my caseworker that I had done it, but of course he didn't believe me."

"Of course," I said.

"After that, Alice and I were split up and sent to different foster homes and eventually, when I was fourteen, I was sent to a group home in the city," he said. "No families ever kept me for longer than six months because everyone seemed to be afraid of me."

I rested my head on my hand. "That must have been traumatic."

He nodded. "In a way. But there was this huge part of me that was so fiercely protective of other people. I knew I wasn't a bad person. I never felt like a bad kid." He took another long sip from the bottle. "Then, when I was sixteen, me and a couple of the other boys from the group home went to the movies. They were true kids of the system. Smoking, drinking, drugs, gangs… all of the horror stories you hear about system kids. But they were the only people that didn't seem to mind being around me. 

"After the movie was over, we were supposed to walk home, but they decided to follow this girl who had left alone. I think she must have lived close by. They cornered her in this alley. I grabbed one of them, this kid named Rex, by his hair and threw him backward. The other guy, Travis, lunged at the girl and shoved her into the corner of this dumpster. It split her head open pretty bad. Travis jumped on top of her and just pounded her in the face. Rex had me by the back of the shirt, but I was focused on Travis. He was going to kill that girl if I didn't stop him. And then there was another crack like lightning."

"And it stopped his heart," I said.

He nodded. "Rex was so shocked that he backed off. When I turned toward him, he just took off running."

"What happened to the girl?" I asked.

"I picked her up and carried her to the gas station around the corner. They called 911, and I took off into the streets before the police arrived. I'm pretty sure she lived though," he said.

I rubbed my hands over my face. "Wow."

He finished his beer and placed the empty bottle on the floor beside him. "I made it on the streets till I turned eighteen and could join the military. That was my only way out."

"And you became a sniper," I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I was already a killer."

I shook my head. "No you weren't. You were a savior." 

He turned his palms up. "It doesn't feel that way when you know you've stopped a beating heart."

I let out a long puff of air. "How many times have you done it?"

"Nine times," he said. "Three of them at once in Iraq in 2006."

"I guess that ability comes in handy during wartime," I said.

He nodded. "Yes, it does." 

"How does it work? Can you do it at will now?" I asked.

"I wouldn't say 'at will' exactly, but I can do it when I have no other choice," he said. 

"Whatever happened to Alice?" I asked.

He took a deep breath and leaned his head back on the couch. After a moment of awkward silence it became clear that he didn't want to talk about her. 

I put my hand on his. "It's OK. You don't have to tell me."

He sighed and shook his head. "No, I need to tell you," he said. "Alice is dead."

My head snapped back with surprise. "How?"

He was silent again. He looked down at his hands and then back up at me. There were tears brimming just along the edges of his dark eyes. "I killed her."

I swallowed hard, but didn't let go of his hand. "How did it happen?"

"I didn't see her again until after I ran away from the group home. When I found her, she was holed up in a crack house on the wrong side of the city. I stayed with her for a while and tried to help get her cleaned up, but one night I came back from buying us food and she was overdosing on something. I still don't know what she took." He dropped his head.

His hand was sweaty in mine.

"She was choking to death on her own vomit and convulsing. I tried to clear her airway, but there was just too much," he said. "I could feel her slipping away, and I knew she was in pain. I didn't have a phone to call for help. No one else was there. So I just stopped it."

I put my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me. I didn't know if he was crying, but his breaths were rapid and shallow. Uncontrollable tears were dripping off my cheeks. "You didn't kill her." I shook my head. "You helped her find peace. No one should die in that much pain."

He didn't move for the longest time. Neither did I. I just raked my nails through his hair, till his breathing returned to normal. He was just a kid when Alice died. She had been his only semblance of family. Suddenly, I felt guilty for having such a charmed life growing up. Warren and I may have had our similarities, but he had lived through things worse than anything I could even imagine.

Finally, he straightened and wiped at his eyes. "She was the one I told about what I could do. She was the only person until now who ever knew."

I tucked his hair behind his ear. "Warren, I'm so sorry."

He nodded. "I am too. I've always felt so responsible for her. I should've protected her when we were in that awful house together. I should've been able to save her when she died." He sniffed.

I shook my head. "It wasn't your responsibility."

"Wasn't it?" he asked, his voice full of sincere doubt.

"No," I said. "You were a kid. No kid should carry that much."

He nodded, but he wasn't convinced. Perhaps he never would be. 

After a while, his shoulders seemed to relax. "Wow, I've never told that stuff to anyone."

"It will never leave this room," I promised. 

He smiled. "I know." He stared at me for a minute. "All this time, I thought I was all alone. I thought I would always be alone, carrying this shit around with me."

I tangled my fingers with his and remembered the sting of my face being split open on the third grade play ground. I kissed his knuckles and whispered, "Never again."

Our conversation took a lighter turn after that and I told him about growing up in Asheville and about college at UNC. I told him about Ms. Claybrooks at the jail and about wishing syphilis on Nathan's girlfriend. We laughed and talked until almost two in the morning. 

Finally, he yawned and he shook his head. "I don't want to, but I have to go to bed. I've been up since four this morning." He looked down at the large black watch encircling his wrist. "That's almost twenty-four hours ago."

"You're right. I don't want to sleep the day away tomorrow," I said.

He stood up and offered me his hand. "What's on the agenda for tomorrow?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe matching tattoos or running away to Mexico."

He laughed and pulled me to my feet. "I would go with you to Mexico."

I smiled and he followed me upstairs. When we reached the top, I turned toward him. "Well, goodnight, Warren."

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Goodnight, Sloan."

I went to my room and left the door cracked open. I brushed my teeth and climbed under the sheets and the down blanket. My brain was spinning, sleep nowhere to be found. My body twisted under the covers. I hugged my pillow and pushed it aside. I rolled to the other side of the mattress. I kicked my blanket off only to wrap it around my legs again.

My Xanax was in my purse downstairs. A full tablet would lull me into a coma. As I contemplated the hangover it would cause the next morning, my bedroom door creaked open, and Warren crept inside.

"You OK?" I asked across the moonlit room.

"Yeah." He was slowly walking toward me. "I'm coming to ask your forgiveness."

I watched over my shoulder as he stopped at the edge of my bed. "Ask my forgiveness for what?" 

He lifted the covers and lay down behind me. His arm slipped around my waist, and he rested his head on my pillow. "You're going to have to forgive me for climbing into your bed," he whispered. He pulled me tight against his body, making the bed hum with electricity.