Council of Souls

by Jen Printy

  “You’re a softy. Who knew?”

  “Shhh. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation.”

  I glance at my closed bedroom door. “Well, thank you. I haven’t heard Leah laugh like that in a while. Good call.”

  “Praise? I bet that hurt.” He takes another puff on his cigarette.

  “More than Artagan’s Puppet Theater.”

  “Now, about you tagging along.” He raises a hand to cut off my protest before I can even start. “Let me finish. I’m fine with it on two conditions. No interference. No commentary. Those are my rules. One misstep, you’re out.”

  I twist two pinched fingers over my lips and toss the imaginary key over my shoulder. “Now, if I can just get Leah to agree. I brought up the idea this morning. It didn’t go so well. She’s afraid I’m going to see her as a monster. I told her I never could, but…” I sigh.

  “Good luck with that.” Artagan laughs and then grows serious. “Well, if you ever convince her, understand that when it’s time for the other council members to train her, you won’t be allowed to go. Rules and such. The only reason I can let you accompany us is that you’re my descendant.”

  I keep my voice as even as possible. “The others will be involved in Leah’s training?”

  “Oh, yes. Death’s orders. I assumed Leah told you. Death would have filled her in on all these details the first night.”

  “No, she didn’t say a word.” My eyes wander to the closed door again. “All of them, huh? Even Vita’s twin? And Muan?”

  “From what I understand, Domitilla has received a pass. But yes to Muan. Only because he insisted upon it. He hates being left out. To be honest, I’m not sure what Muan and his brothers can teach Leah besides brutality. Unfortunately, it’s not my call.”

  “Brothers? How many are there?”

  “Thanatos claims there were nine at the beginning, but now there are six. Muan, then there’s Izel, Pacal, Acan, Tepeu—now, he’s a strange one.” Artagan chuckles. “He hasn’t been able to look me straight in the eye since I stumbled in on him a few years back. He was stark naked, his whole body painted blue, mumbling some incoherent chant. Trying to relive the good old days, I guess.”

  “That, or preparing for an audition with the Blue Man Group,” I say, trying to look serious.

  “Or that.” He chuckles. “Whatever the reason, there are images a man can never burn from his memory no matter how hard he tries. And that is one of them.” Still smiling, he shudders. “The last brother is Hachäk’yum. I call him Yum for short. As you can imagine, he hates that.”

  “And you keep right on calling him it.”

  “You know me too well.” He takes a quick haul on his cigarette. “Kemisi believes the Soulless are the sons of Ammit, an ancient female demon from the Egyptian religion known as the Eater of Hearts. A few of the council members think they’re soul eaters.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  “Slapping a label on them doesn’t change what they are. Nothing can kill them. That’s for damn certain. Not poison, nor blade. You name it, they’re immune, like mutant cockroaches. And they’re a secretive bunch.”

  “So I take it you’ve tried to kill them?”

  “Not myself, no, but some of the council have. Otmar said in the beginning even Death gave it a go, to no avail. The Soulless are a pestilence. It’s the one thing we all agree upon.” Artagan grins. “If Thanatos’s stories are true, a Mayan king created them in secret to cheat Death.”

  “But now they work for him?”

  “Just Muan, really. The others aren’t official council members. It was a deal Death made with them. Power for loyalty. I think it scares Death to have something wandering this earth that he can’t control. But this all happened well before my time. If you want all the gory details, you must ask Thanatos. What I know for sure is the Soulless are impulsive, lack empathy and shame, and have a grandiose sense of self. And those are their best traits. The only talent any of us are sure Death gifted them was shadow walking. Allegedly, they burn paper dipped in their victims’ blood, sometimes even removing their hearts. Besides bloodlust, I’m not sure why they would do this. The world would be a much better place if none of them existed.”

  “So the missing brothers, what happened to them?”

  “No one knows.” Artagan’s forehead wrinkles for an instant, and he sinks into his thoughts, puffing on his cigarette.

  Quiet moments pass until Leah’s return.

  “Sorry, that took longer than expected,” she says. “My mom was just being my mom.”

  “It’s getting late. I should be going.” Artagan stands. “Jack.” He nods in my direction. “Leah, it was a distinct pleasure.” He takes Leah’s hand and, with a dramatic bow, kisses the back of it. “We will resume our training tomorrow night. Eight sharp,” he says over his shoulder, walking toward the door. Then he leaves.

  The remnants of a blush still staining her cheeks, Leah glances at me. “Remind me to keep him away from Rachel.”

  In the weeks that follow, life develops a new rhythm. Wake, work, training. Wake, work, training. I make Leah practice mind control every spare moment in accordance with Artagan’s instructions. Now that I’ve found a way to help keep her safe—in some sense of the word—I’m obsessed. Artagan spends most evenings at my apartment, teaching Leah the finer points of mind control, and makes no mention of another gathering. Leah’s abilities grow by the day, accompanied by her confidence. In this I find solace. Although it’s not the future we wished or planned for, we both have fallen into its tempo.

  Until one morning I wake, and Leah is gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Gone to think. Love, L.

  I stare at the neon-orange Post-it stuck on the refrigerator and run my fingertips over the curved indents of her rushed handwriting.

  Over the last few nights, Leah’s dreams have returned, haunting her sleep. She hasn’t confided in me yet. From her restless nights, I know the dreams aren’t happy ones. So before I found the note, I assumed Artagan fetched her for a gathering. Without me, of course. Seems Leah has yet to agree to let me accompany them.

  I know I should leave her alone about the subject. No means no. But something deep inside of me, a fear I don’t even understand, won’t let me drop it. Although I’ve broached the topic several times, all attempts went as well as the first, none earning me the reply I’d hoped for. Leah’s response has been that she’ll think about it. Desperate, I came close to telling her about my involvement with Hake and his murder, hoping she’d see she isn’t the monster in this duo, but I lost my nerve at the last moment when I couldn’t find the words. Too many regrets revolve around my time spent with that man, most of my darkest sins committed that year. Although the majority of the details from that year are fuzzy or forgotten, every moment of the night I killed Hake is burned into my memory.

  Richard Hake had figured out my secret and threatened to tell all. To silence him, I beat him and left him bloodied and unrecognizable, and very dead. Similar to Artagan’s story of Lieutenant Labonte, I’d shown Hake no mercy, even when he begged. However, no one had ordered me to do it. Nausea rolls through me with the memory of Hake’s life withering in my grasp, and the euphoria that whirled in afterward. And Leah thinks she’s a monster. Ha!

  It’s easy to see my lapses in judgment now—being pummeled nightly at the fight house, only to return the next day healed and ready for more, was a dead giveaway that I was different. But I fell too deep in sorrow and flew too high on drugs to consider the ramifications. Back then, my only happiness came from a small brown bottle labeled laudanum.

  The other obstacle to telling Leah is that the admission is bound to lead to questions about guilt and shame. Even now, confessing the remorse that shadows my actions would do her no good. I suppose I could tell her that after Hake’s murder I never thought of him again and that his pale, bloodied fa
ce never haunted my dreams. But that would be a lie. Instead, I chose a different truth. I told her I could never see her as anything besides a strong, compassionate woman, beautiful inside and out.

  I dress and get as far as the staircase before changing my mind. Charging out after her will only make Leah more adamant. No one likes being strong-armed into doing something they don’t want to do.

  After I return to my apartment, I make a pot of coffee and try to keep my mind occupied. Then, slumping into a chair at the cramped dinette table, I drum my fingers on the Formica tabletop while I wait for the coffee to brew. The silence, once my norm, feels stifling. I’ve grown accustomed to Leah’s morning routine, and without her cheerful chatter, it’s too quiet.

  A neighbor’s footfalls thud from the outer hallway, resonating through the paper-thin walls. They’re far too heavy for Leah, but the noise still draws my eyes to the door. Her blue parka with a fur-lined hood hangs abandoned on a coat hook. I glance at the window. Dense clouds suffocate the sun, threatening an impending storm. As if a sign, icy pellets make a soft pinging sound against the windowpane. My eyes return to her parka.

  No questions. No sales job. The coat. That’s all, I convince myself.

  Out on the sidewalk, her jacket in hand, sleet stings my cheeks like icy pins and needles. The wind off the sea chills me to the bone. I tug the leather collar around my neck, a weak defense against the cold, and head toward the waterfront on a hunch. Leah once mentioned that the sound of the waves helped her think.

  I take a shortcut down a damp, crooked alley leading to the bay in the distance. The sheltered space provides a reprieve from the weather. By the time I emerge onto the adjacent street, the sleet has stopped. I veer down Custom House Wharf—a working dock lined with warehouses on one side and lopsided wooden buildings on the other, which offer some protection from the relentless wind. If she went to the waterfront as I suspect, this is as good a place to begin my search as any other.

  Luck is on my side this morning. I find Leah at the edge of the pier, sitting on a row of stacked crates, her knees pulled up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her slender frame. Strands of hair yanked and pulled by the gusts of briny sea air whirl out from under the hood of her sweatshirt. My pace slows as I approach. Lacking an invitation, I suddenly feel like an intruder. I debate whether I should just go.

  Leah sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  Wrestling the awkwardness, I walk to her side and lean on the crate next to hers. Not looking in her direction, I set her parka atop the weatherworn box and then retrieve my handkerchief, yellowed by age and a little frayed around the edges, from the pocket of my jacket and lay it on the coat. I tuck my hands under my armpits to escape the frigid chill and stare out at the bay. In spite of the wail of the wind and the sloshing of the waves, an unmistakable silence hangs between us. With a sidelong glance, I attempt to read Leah’s thoughts through her facial expressions, but years of hiding her thoughts and dreams, first from her mother then her brother, has taught her how to conceal her real emotions well. The only hint of what she’s feeling comes from the set of her jaw. She’s determined. Of that, I’m sure.

  Leah picks up the handkerchief. After ironing out the piece of linen between her hands, she runs her pointer finger over the hand-embroidered JFH.

  “F? I don’t even know your middle name.”

  When I give no response, Leah smiles. “That bad, huh?”

  I shrug.

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  “You once mentioned walking down by the wharfs helped you think.”

  “And you, being you, remembered that.” The corner of her mouth curls upward.

  “Here.” I hold out her parka by the collar. “You must be freezing.”

  Leah uncoils her legs and slides her arms into the sleeves. I pull the coat over her shoulders, tugging it around her.

  “Thank you,” she says, and then her gaze slips away back to the choppy waves.

  “You okay? More dreams?”

  Leah lifts her shoulders and lets them drop.

  “I should go back,” I say, pushing off the crates. “I just thought you might need your coat.”

  “No, stay. I was coming back soon, anyway.” Her hushed words come out with a solemn inflection. She glances away. “We need to talk.”

  My stomach gives an uneasy flip. In my experience, nothing happy ever follows those four simple words.

  She looks at me and smiles. It’s a melancholy, but still breathtaking, expression. “I’ve never told you about my cancer, have I? Not the details.”

  I shake my head.

  “It was a miracle I survived. I had Ewing sarcoma, stage four, to be exact. By the time they found it, it was already in my lymph nodes. So yeah, not a hopeful diagnosis. Life seemed grim back then.” Her expression turns solemn as she speaks.

  I slide closer, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.

  “At first, I felt guilty about being sick. My family had just started recovering from my dad’s death, and then my body had the audacity to come down with some rare form of cancer. I know, stupid, right? But it was the way I felt. The battle ensued. Surgery, chemo, radiation, the whole enchilada. It worked at first, then not so much. By that point, I should’ve been pissed or scared. I mean, when you’re thirteen, the biggest worry you should have is what to wear to the middle-school dance. That night I almost died, I felt peaceful. I had come to grips with the fact I would die—almost looking forward to it. I guess I was tired of fighting. And just as I thought I was slipping away, you happened, or at least the dream of you did. After that, something inside me changed, and I knew I’d live, that everything would be okay. Familiar, huh?”

  I give her a half-hearted smirk.

  “Everything around me screamed my belief was wrong, from my disease-riddled body to the solemn expression on everyone’s faces when they thought I wasn’t looking. Nurses whispered the word denial a lot. If you haven’t noticed, I can be just a teensy-weensy bit headstrong.”

  “You don’t say?”

  “You can’t say anything. I don’t care what Artagan says. You’re just as stubborn as I am.”

  “Nonsense. I’m as flexible as a contortionist,” I tease.

  “More like a lead pipe.” Leah laughs, bumping me with her elbow. “You pretty much know the rest. A handful of tests and a couple MRIs later, the doctors discovered the tumor was shrinking, and after a few weeks, they declared me cancer free. They called it a miracle. But I’ve told you what I felt that night.”

  She breaks eye contact. “In the countless support groups my mom forced me to go to, they talked about acknowledging your illness and how that would lead to peace. I call it peace, but what I felt that night was far different from anything described in those meetings. It felt hot like someone had lit hundreds of sparklers inside me. The feeling then exploded and spread throughout my whole body, consuming me. I never linked it to my healing. At the time, I credited it to one of the experimental drugs they pumped into my system by the truckload. Since then, I’ve felt a similar feeling, except the sensation’s much tamer and not painful. More like a warm, enduring peace. Whenever that feeling comes, I know I’m on the right path, like I have a compass inside me, pointing me where to go.”

  “Have you ever felt the first feeling again? The internal sparklers?”

  “It’s the only thing I remember from the coma. Then I woke up,” she says.

  “What can that mean?” I ask, more to myself.

  “I don’t know. But I mentioned it to Artagan. He had no idea. Whatever it is, I know I need to listen to it and follow my gut, even when it flies in the face of what others think I should do.” Leah presses her lips together so hard their color changes to white.

  “There’s more.”

  Leah stares and then nods her head. “I’m quitting school.”

  My
eyes narrow in disbelief. This is the very thing Artagan warned us about. Has she forgotten? “No, you can’t. Please be logical.”

  “When we ran to England, before I knew why, I felt that same warm, enduring peace again. It’s why I went with you so easily, even though your lie was lame.” Leah shakes her head. “It seemed crazy, but it was the right thing to do. If I had refused to go, you would have stayed, and Vita would have killed you. I know that now, but back then it was just a feeling.”

  “You cannot base every decision on a feeling, especially when you don’t even know what it means yet.”

  “I’ll call my mom this afternoon and let her know,” she says as if I haven’t said a word.

  “Leah, please listen!”

  “Grady will have a conniption and say I’m crazy.” She rolls her eyes. “Thank goodness he’s planning on spending Christmas break with Charlotte and her family. I don’t think I could take him and Mom ganging up on me. Mom by herself will be hard enough.”

  “And I thought you were out here deciding whether you’d let me escort you on gatherings. But this? Your brother will be right!” The instant the words leave my mouth, I regret them.

  A look of betrayal flashes in her eyes. “I’ve heard it all before, Jack Hammond. Certifiable, delusional, unreasonable—those words don’t faze me anymore. I have to follow what I know is right, no matter what people think. And that includes you.” She pulls away.

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”

  “It’s not Grady’s decision. Or yours. It’s mine, and I’ve made it. Like it or not, being a member of the Concilium Animarum is my life now. To keep you, Grady, and my mom safe, it needs to be my focus. Quitting school is the right decision. I know it in here.” She points at her chest, right above her heart.

  My mind spins in a thousand directions like a hummingbird in flight, never settling in one spot. “Of course, you have to do this job, and do it well. I get that. However, you cannot give up everything you’ve always wanted because of it. None of us would want you to do that. No matter the price. You are an artist, an ability ingrained in your heart and soul. It’s part of who you are. You couldn’t paint as you do if it weren’t. And what about Artagan’s warning? Who benefits if you forget who you are? I can only think of one.”