WeavingDestinyebook (24 page)

She reached behind her neck and unlatched her necklace. Leaning forward, she placed the red stone on the table between them. "You need this more than I do," she said.

"Why?" Dr. Silva asked.

"You'll know when the time is right."

Gideon looked at the stone and frowned.

Malini held her hand out to Jacob. "Come. There's nothing more we can do today. Let's go home."

She wasn't sure which home she was talking about, but it didn't matter. If he was with her, she was home.

* * * * *

In a place between places, Death jogged up the stone steps of his castle, hands full with his contraband. Through the door and down the hallway he strode, knowing that he kept a terrible secret. He'd broken the rules. It was only a matter of time before someone found out. And then, who knew? He had tampered with the very fabric of their world. But what punishment did you dole on Death?

Up the stairs and into the third room on the right, her beauty blew him away. Stretched out across the blood red sheets, she was a sleeping goddess, a latent power. He set the coffee and pastries on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. Stroking the hair back from her face, he leaned in to kiss her, knowing that the act was harmless now. She was already dead, although fully in her body. Undead might be the better word for it.

Their lips met and hers responded, her hand finding the back of his head, her mouth working on his as if she might consume him. Hungry. Wanting. He pulled back first.

"I brought you breakfast," Henry said.

Mara opened her eyes. "Later, Henry" she said.

She rolled her hands in his shirt and pulled him to her.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the following people for their help with Weaving Destiny.

Karly Kirkpatrick, Michelle Sussman, and Angela Carlie, you are more than co-workers, you are friends. Friends that feel like family. I'm serious when I say that knowing you has been a rocket launcher on the development of my writing.

To friends Michelle Moore, Michael Brennan, and Robin Brennan, thank you for reading Weaving Destiny when it was still a baby manuscript and helping it to grow with your wonderful suggestions.

Thank you to Dawn Malone who always brings a bit of cleverness to the manuscripts she critiques. I owe you big for helping me to see Weaving Destiny in a different light.

Thanks to Adam Bedore of Anjin Designs for the amazing cover art. I think it's the best out there.

To the readers, you are the best! And thank you to the book bloggers and reviewers who gave The Soulkeepers a chance.

Finally, thanks to the #fridayflash community, along with the other authors I've come to know on twitter and facebook, who have been so supportive of The Soulkeepers.

Available Now from DarkSide Publishing

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Bloody Little Secrets
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by Megg Jensen

Oubliette
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Sleepers
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Dream Smashers
by Angela Carlie

Land of Corn Chips
by Angela Carlie

Loramundi
by Angela Carlie

Coming Soon

Return to Eden (The Soulkeepers Book 3)
by G. P. Ching

The Green
by Karly Kirkpatrick

Severed
by Megg Jensen

Bloody Little Secrets (Excerpt)

Karly Kirkpatrick

Chapter 1

I never feared the dark, until I became part of it.

My eyes fluttered open; yet nothing seemed to change.  Inky blackness swirled around me.  A scream rose in my throat, but I quickly swallowed it.  I pressed my eyes closed, hoping that when I opened them again, I’d be able to see something, anything.       

Nothing.

I turned my head.  My neck moved in slow motion and creaked like a rusty hinge.  My hair rustled against some kind of fabric.  Beneath my fingers it stretched, silky and soft.  I ran my hands out to the side and above me.  More fabric.  Satin, I guessed.  The air was thick and stuffy, making it difficult to breathe.  My hands pressed harder and found resistance at every angle.

I was in a coffin.

I banged on the lid that was just a few inches above my nose and screamed for help, my muffled voice bouncing around me.  It didn’t budge.  I had to get out.  My breathing became more ragged.

“Relax, Vicky, relax.”  I rubbed my face.

I started pounding with all my power on the lid.  The wood cracked as my fist exploded through it, sending splinters and dirt onto my face.  I spit out a few clumps that landed in my mouth.  Nasty. 

Damp air rushed in through the hole.  My arm burned as I pulled it back through, ripping my skin on the jagged pieces.  Blood dripped down it, pooling in the crook of my elbow.  Tears trickled down my face. 

With just a little moonlight coming through the hole, I saw my surroundings.  White satin crowded around me.  I glanced down, forced to twist my head at an uncomfortable angle, and discovered someone had dressed me in my Homecoming dress.  What the hell?  Somebody would have some explaining to do.

The burning in my arm had stopped.  Maybe it had just gone numb.  Whatever.  I had to get out of here.  I could get it stitched up later.

Two more loud cracks sounded as my fists burst through the lid again, clearing a much larger space.  The thick wood pieces offered little resistance as I pushed them to the side.  Blood oozed down my arms, both shredded from the splinters.  I had enough space now to at least get my head and shoulders through.  Reaching out of the coffin, I dragged myself out, sliding across the top.  I slipped in the light layer of dirt on the lid. 

I was thankful whoever had locked me in there hadn’t gone so far as to bury me.  I mean, I remember the time my friends had locked a sleeping Pete Stevenson in Jenna Gorski’s trunk after Homecoming, but that was a joke, and someone was waiting to let him out.  They’d gone too far this time.

Something stabbed me in the knee.  The dusty petals of wilted roses littered the top of the coffin.  I picked one up and brushed it off.  It matched the pink of my dress.

I was at the bottom of a grave, about six feet down.  No one had bothered to leave me a rope or anything.  Fear melted into anger.  My breath hung in the air in front of me, yet I couldn’t feel the chill.  Time to do some climbing.  The same dumbass responsible for this sick joke also had the wise idea of locking me in there in nothing more than a pair of pink high heels.  I kicked them off and stood on the lid of the coffin.  

The earthen walls were as smooth and hard as stone.  My fingers searched the dirt for leverage.  There were few options.  With one swift motion, I slammed the pink spiked heel into the hard-packed earth.  I dug my bare toes into the makeshift ladder.  The shoes held my weight and after a minute I was able to pull myself over the edge.

I rolled onto my back and let an exasperated breath out toward the night sky.  It was dark here, and the stars were bright.  I sat up and my fingers explored the spattered and dirt-streaked fabric.  I attempted to brush the same filth from my arms and legs with no success.

“What the heck?”  I ran my fingers down my forearms.  The deep wounds were gone and the dried blood made my skin feel stiff.

Whoa.  This was not normal.

A handmade white wooden cross marked the head of the grave.  I crawled over and ran my fingers along the handwritten black letters.

Victoria Ann Hernandez. 

It looked like my dad’s handwriting.  My senior picture was stapled at the intersection of the two pieces of wood.  My long, dark hair was straight and expertly placed around my face.  Head tilted, I flashed a winning smile at the camera.  Straight teeth, dimple in my cheek, my skin dark and smooth.  A date ran down the vertical portion of the cross. 

June 14, 1993–October 27, 2010. 

What? 

This wasn’t possible. 

I was dead.

But I didn’t look dead, or at least I didn’t think so.  My skin, apart from being bloody and dirty, didn’t appear to be rotting.  I sniffed my arm.  It smelled earthy from my surroundings, but not dead.  I felt my face, my hair.  Same thing.  Everything seemed one hundred percent intact. 

This had to be a joke. 

“Very funny.  You can come out now.”  I scoured the graveyard for any sight or sound that might give my friends away.  This was far from funny.  It was a shitty thing to do.  And when I found out who did it, I was going to show them just how unfunny it was.

A branch snapped in the woods twenty feet in front of me with a loud crack.  The dark trunks stood dead quiet and imposing at the edge of the graveyard.  I jumped to my feet.  My eyes swung across the rows of headstones before me which, despite the faint moonlight, seemed clear as day.  I couldn’t see anyone, but I heard breathing.

I crept closer to the trees and shrubs that formed a wall around me and jumped from grave to grave.  I hid behind the large marble headstones.  A blur caught my eye as something ran through the woods in a completely I’m-not-a-prankster-but-a-rapist kind of way.  I dropped down behind an ornate headstone of an angel, its white arms raised to the sky.  Maybe I had the wrong idea.  Why go towards a strange noise in the woods?  The smart thing to do would be to run the other way. 

Glancing back the way I’d come, I could make out some lights in the distance.  A house sat on a hill, maybe a half mile away.  I needed to get help.  I stepped into the shadows of the trees, opposite the area where I’d heard the noise.  The most direct route to the house would take me straight through the forest.  I hoped whatever I’d heard wasn’t interested in following me. 

Sprinting this fast should have been difficult without shoes, but I wove quickly between the trees.  A few night creatures roamed as I sped by.  A possum rummaged in some bushes and a family of raccoons scurried towards a bubbling stream.  They took no notice of me.

Dodging a particularly large tree, I slowed to gauge my distance from the house.  It sat just above the tree line.  Almost there.  The tree branches creaked and something much larger than a raccoon dropped to the ground in front of me.

I shrieked and skidded to a stop. 

“There you are. You move pretty fast, you know.”  He chuckled.  His black leather jacket shined in the moonlight. 

A shiver slithered down my spine.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

He moved forward much faster than anyone I’d ever seen before and grabbed my arm.  “Why so rude?  You could at least thank me for digging you up.”

I wrenched away, darting back into the woods.  His feet trampled right behind me, gaining.  I skidded, sliding around a large oak and going in yet another direction.  I had no idea where the house was now, but I didn’t care.  I just had to get away from him.  I couldn’t hear his footsteps any longer and dove behind the thick trunk of the nearest tree. 

I was breathing hard now, more out of fear than from running.  I peeked out from behind the tree, taking in the shadows of the trees around me.  It was quiet.  Too quiet.

From nowhere, I felt arms slide around me.  I smelled leather. 

“Ha.  Gotcha.”

On reflex I threw my arms wide and tossed the man off of me.  I spun around.  He flailed and flew backward across the small clearing.  A loud crunch echoed through the air, bouncing off the dark trees.  A large tree branch erupted from his chest, bursting through the leather jacket.  Blood poured from the wound and pooled at his feet.  He gulped air, his eyes wild as they locked on mine.  A faint scent of rotting garbage floated from his open chest. 

His face, hands, and feet crumpled before me, collapsing into a pile of dust underneath the clothing.  I tiptoed over to the pile.  The branch stuck through the leather coat right where the man’s heart should’ve been.

I tripped over a tree branch as I backed away and landed hard on the ground.  A sob escaped my lips.  This wasn’t right.  People just didn’t turn into piles of dust.  I had to get away from here before anyone noticed what I’d done.  I pulled myself up, straining to see above the tree line to the house on the hill.  I’d run a bit out of the way, but because of either the adrenaline or the weirdness of the night, I closed the space quickly.

What was that guy?

I climbed the hill, nearing the house, still glancing behind occasionally.  Nothing moved.  I breathed a sigh of relief as I hit the driveway.  House, driveway, garage.  No imploding rapists here.  The light was on in the garage, spilling onto the driveway through one of the open doors in a giant yellow square.

I padded on bare feet across the concrete drive towards the open door. Something smelled delicious, like all my favorite meals rolled into one.  Pizza, cake, mashed potatoes.  My stomach growled and my mouth watered.   I spotted a man working at a bench along the back wall of the garage.  I crept closer, trying not to make a sound, the smell still driving me crazy.  The pieces of a small engine were spread out on the workbench.  The man cleaned a metal cylinder with a rag.  The scent of oil and grease mingled with the pizza and mashed potatoes smell.  I tripped over something metal, which clanged and rang through the still air.

“Damn.” I grabbed my toe.

The man jumped and turned around, clutching his chest.  He wore blue jean overalls and a white tee shirt.  Wisps of gray hair stuck out from under a dirty baseball cap on his head.