The Lost Souls

by Madeline Sheehan

  The Lost Souls

  (A Holy Trinity Novella)

  by

  Madeline Sheehan

  Edited by Pam Berehulke

  Cover by Meredith Blair

  Copyright © 2013 by Madeline Sheehan

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Visit my website at http://www.madelinesheehan.com

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Note to Readers

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Glossary

  The Families

  Sneak Peek: My Heart and Soul

  Sneak Peek: Dark Light by S.L. Jennings

  Sneak Peek: The Devil’s Reprise by Karina Halle

  Dedication

  For Virginia and Courtney

  Note to Readers

  Due to the numerous instances of Romanian and Slovenian language references in this story, an interactive glossary is provided at the end of the book. These terms will be underlined the first time they appear in the manuscript, and when clicked, will take you to the glossary where the term will be explained. Click on the term again in the glossary, and you will be returned to where you can resume your reading.

  Also included at the end of the book is a list of the various families and their family members.

  “Not all those who wander are lost…”

  —J. R. R. Tolkien

  Prologue

  What is fate? Or destiny?

  Do we each have a predestined plan—a path mapped out long before we were born to lead us on our journey? Does someone, something, somewhere already know what is yet to come?

  Are words such as chance, fortune, and luck just words?

  Are we all just pawns in a game being played by a force of power much bigger than us, a force so great, so unfathomably paramount that we, as mere humans, simply do not have the ability to comprehend it?

  What if the answer is yes?

  What if every step we’ve taken—every choice, every mistake, every success, every sad or happy moment in our lives, every person we’ve met, every emotion we’ve experienced, every single breath from our first to our last, every single second of our lives…

  No matter who we are—poor or wealthy, loved or hated, legitimate or criminal…

  What if all of it was, is, and will always be an inevitability or a foreordination utterly uncontrollable by us?

  Would life still be worth it?

  Chapter One

  Summer

  “There they are.”

  Stefan “Hockey” Sava Jr. glanced to where Mihai Asenov was pointing, and watched as Xan Deleanu and Punka Moldoveanu exited a nearby pharmacy. Their arms were full of duffel bags overloaded with food, clothing, and medical supplies. They’d hit the jackpot in whatever shithole town this was. Most of the shops had still been intact, and the goods inside had not yet been picked over.

  After an apocalyptic plague had turned most of humanity into flesh-eating monsters, this was what civilization had been reduced to if they wanted to survive. But his Gypsy clan had one thing others didn’t. Magic. And because of their powers, they’d lost very few people. Judging by the empty town, a mirror image of every other town they’d come across, nobody else had been as lucky as they had.

  Looking around, he scanned the deserted street, seeking threats. Finding none, he sat down on the tailgate of Xan’s truck.

  Xan, a fellow clan member and friend, took a seat beside him and lit up a cigarette. “No one else came back yet, huh?”

  Looking away, he shook his head, wishing Xan would stop watching him.

  Damn, he hated when people stared at him.

  “What’s the matter, frate? You worried about Becki and the baby?”

  Turning toward Xan, he said quietly, “It’s not my baby.”

  But more than likely, knowing Xan was tight with Tobar, frate had already knew that.

  God, it pissed him off how many people knew his wife had been in bed with Tobar. And now, they were well aware it was Tobar’s baby she was pregnant with. Not his.

  He’d only been married a short time when he’d left on this supply raid. But before his marriage, he’d been celibate for twenty-five years—mostly due to his mamă’s influence. She had drilled into him that when a man and woman came together, they should be pure in every way.

  Becki was far from pure, and Hockey had married her to put a stop to it. Discovering she was pregnant had come as an unexpected shock, but as usual when it came to Becki, he rolled with the punches. He had taken responsibility for the baby because one, he was her husband, and two, he loved her. Only lately, he was starting to feel like the joke was on him.

  Xan took a long drag of his cigarette and blew out a dual stream of smoke through his nostrils. “She’s your wife, right? And you love her, right?”

  Hockey nodded.

  Sniffing, Xan pointed his cigarette at him. “Then, frate, that’s your baby.”

  Hockey wasn’t so sure about that.

  “Xan, what if Tobar decides he wants the kid? Fuck, what if he decides he wants Becki? He’s already stolen her from me once.”

  “Tobar’s not gonna come knocking. He had his chance to claim the kid, and he didn’t. Becki and the contents of her belly are legally bound to you now. Even as the future baró, he can’t do shit about it.”

  Xan was right. Even if Tobar were to become baró in the near future, a divorce could only be legally granted if the husband requested one. A Romani woman had no rights when it came to marriage, or otherwise. In the eyes of Romani culture, she was essentially property, the same as a horse or a trailer. But Hockey knew Tobar, and if the man wanted to, he would bend the law to his own will. And then there was Becki…

  “She fucked him, Xan,” he said, his voice cracking. “She snuck around behind my back. Why? Because I’d taken a vow to wait? She knew that when we started seeing each other. And now I don’t trust her.”

  “Are you fucking her now?”

  Hockey glowered at Xan. “Yes.”

  “Does she like it?”

  “Yes,” he growled, feeling embarrassed. He wasn’t used to this. Guy talk wasn’t something he did. Actually, talking wasn’t something he did unless he had something he absolutely needed to say. And he needed to say this. For a good long time now, he’d needed to talk about this crap going on with Becki; he just hadn’t known who to go to and how to go about it.

  Xan clapped him on the back. “There you go. Keep up the good work, and you’ll be fine. She liked you before the sex when she could have dumped your ass, and now she likes you and the sex.
I’m thinking you’re all set.”

  Hockey started laughing. Leave it to Xan to base everything on sex. “You know,” he said with a grin, “waiting used to drive me crazy. It was all I could think about as a teenager. But waiting for her was worth it. Personally, I’m glad I haven’t been with anyone else. I couldn’t give her very much, but I could give her me, all of me.”

  Xan didn’t respond, and Hockey watched curiously as the guy stared sadly down at his cigarette. What was wrong with him?

  “Heads up!” Mihai suddenly shouted from behind them.

  Instantly, they scrambled to their feet, searching out the threat, and—

  Oh, Jesus. No.

  Gunnar, Shandor, and Marko were running full speed toward them…with Skin Eaters on their tails.

  “Fuck!” Xan bellowed, pumping his shotgun.

  They let loose a flurry of bullets but the Skins were too fast, easily dodging their bullets.

  “We’re not close enough!” Hockey roared.

  Hockey jumped off the truck bed and went running down the street, toward his friends. He heard the shouts from behind him, his clan members calling him back, but screw it, someone had to do something. And that something had to be done quickly.

  But instead of barreling straight into the fray, he made a calculated right turn down a side street. His plan was to circle around and take the Skins from behind, using the surprise-you’re-dead kind of strategy. Instead, he came skidding to a stop in front of a chain-link fence with a brick wall behind it. Dead end.

  In the background, bullets were still cracking through the air, people were shouting…and then suddenly there was a moment of silence. Fear trickled down his spine as he paused, his ears straining, his heart racing. At any second, Skins could come tearing down this alley, and if enough of them came at him all at once, even the power he derived from his affinity for fire wouldn’t be strong enough to save him.

  He waited.

  And waited.

  An engine roared to life.

  Cursing, Hockey realized he was about to get left behind and immediately bolted back down the alleyway, already aware he was too far from the trucks, and more than likely he wasn’t going to make it back in time. But he still had to try.

  As he cleared the sidewalk, he slowed to a jog before stopping dead in the middle of the quiet street. Doing a three-sixty turn, he stared wide-eyed at the carnage that lay strewn around him. Dead Skin Eaters littered the street, and there was blood everywhere. It was as if this small town had been bathed in it.

  Glancing down the street, he found two out of the three trucks and the supply van they’d brought were still here, yet there was no sign of his clan.

  But someone must have gotten away, taken the third truck, and fled.

  Movement. His eyes snapped left, and his throat closed up. Shandor. Shandor’s body was lying limp on the sidewalk.

  No, not limp. His arm was twitching. Was he still alive?

  Hockey scanned the wounds on his friend’s body, stopping on the large chunk of skin and muscle missing from his leg.

  No…Shandor wasn’t alive. He must be turning—

  Shit, oh God. Please, no…

  Shandor’s body began violently jerking, flopping like a fish out of water. Screaming through what sounded like unfathomable amounts of pain, Shandor shuddered and his eyes flew open. His red eyes.

  Hockey didn’t think. He ran.

  He ran fast and far.

  Chapter Two

  Fall

  “You really don’t want to do this,” the young woman repeated, her bright green eyes fixed on the shotgun barrel Carrie was aiming at her chest.

  Carrie laughed. She laughed because the woman was right. She didn’t want to be doing this—any of it. She didn’t want to be holding anyone at gunpoint. She didn’t want to be starving. And she definitely didn’t want to be living through hell on earth.

  “Where are the keys, bitch?” Jason yelled, whipping the woman’s duffel bag across the room.

  Jason, her big brother, had recently lost his mind. The constant stress that bombarded them—the lack of food and other necessities of life, as well as constantly being afraid—had taken its toll, and Carrie knew he was going to kill this woman just for a set of car keys.

  • • •

  Caroline “Carrie” Andrews had been fifteen when the disaster struck. During her spring break from school, her entire family was at their church’s annual barbeque. Actually, the entire town of Elderton, Pennsylvania, was at the church barbeque. Elderton had a population of around three hundred and fifty people, so small that when a public event was held, absolutely everyone attended.

  It was a town where everyone knew one another. No one locked their doors, and pets roamed free without problem. No one drove over twenty miles an hour through the town streets; everyone smiled and waved, and always attended church on Sunday. All four of her grandparents, along with every single one of her aunts and uncles and all fourteen of her cousins, lived in Elderton.

  Most people who were born in Elderton died in Elderton. But Carrie had never wanted to be one of those people, so she studied like crazy, got straight As in school, and joined every possible after-school activity and club available to her. She wanted the biggest and best—to go to college in New York City and then travel all around the world. She wanted adventure and intrigue and romance. But mostly, and more realistically, she just wanted out of Elderton.

  During the barbeque, she snuck away with her boyfriend, Kris, and once inside the church, safely ensconced in a confessional, they began making out.

  She’d started dating Kris when she was fourteen, a little over a year ago. They were official and exclusive, and all of her friends had decided she should have sex with him already since it was obvious they would get married one day. This had revolted Carrie. It wasn’t Kris that disgusted her, he was attractive in an all-American way with sandy-blond hair and pretty blue eyes. No, it was marriage that repulsed her. Even more so than marriage, it was that marriage to Kris would mean she was never going to leave Elderton. In Elderton, high school sweethearts ended up married either directly after high school or right after college, and college to an Elderton native meant the community college two towns over.

  And since she had no plans to remain in Elderton, she had no plans to have premarital sex with anyone from Elderton and accidentally get pregnant with an Elderton baby and be forced to marry an Elderton resident because of it. So, no sex. She would remain a virgin until she could get out of this town. In fact, she would remain a virgin until she met a dark, exotic stranger with a ripped abdomen, who rode a motorcycle, and could bench press her, her brother, and their Doberman all at the same time.

  So, inside the confessional, when Kris’s hand started inching its way up her skirt, she had immediately slapped it away. Kris had been about to let loose a litany of his usual protests when the screaming began. Startled, they jumped apart.

  “CARRIE!”

  Jason?

  “Jason!” she cried, wrenching the door open.

  Her eighteen-year-old brother was standing between pews, breathing hard as he scanned the inside of the church.

  “I’m here!” she yelled, rushing toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  That was when she noticed the blood. His shirt and jeans were covered with it.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked. “Are you hurt?”

  Reaching out, he grabbed hold of her wrist and yanked her forward. “I’m fine,” he hissed, looking around. “But we’ve got to get out of here!”

  Just then, the church’s double doors burst open and Mr. Habermen, the town pharmacist, fell through them, drenched in blood. Two people were right behind him; they jumped on top of him and…

  Her stomach lurching, her vision blurring, she swayed backward. They were eating Mr. Habermen. Eating him. Literally.

  Things got fuzzy after that. Kris was screaming, and Jason was yelling, but none of it was making any sense. She remembered blood, so much blo
od, and so much screaming, familiar voices screaming in agony and fear.

  But she remembered her mother. She’d never forget.

  She remembered her mother running beside them.

  And then she remembered her father jumping in front of them and her mother throwing herself at him and the look in her father’s eyes…

  His red eyes.

  That was where the memories went from vague to completely blank.

  Then her memories started up again locked inside the food pantry in their basement where Jason had hidden them for several days.

  Jason had been fiddling with a radio, curled up in a corner with their dog, Tex.

  The first thing he had told Carrie was the world had ended. The second was that their father had gone crazy, turned into a monster, and killed their mother. And the third was that they were going to die.

  For the remainder of spring and all summer long, they continued living in their home. They raided the local grocery store and the homes of friends and neighbors. But out of fear, fear of what was happening outside of their now deserted town, they never strayed too far from home, and eventually they ran out of gas for the car. By fall, they ran out of food, and had to kill Tex. It was Jason who shot him, skinned him, and cooked him.

  After that, Jason…well, Jason’s mind began to deteriorate. At first, it was his temper. It had always been bad, but it was out of control now. He began talking to himself, fighting with himself.

  Then one night, he kissed her—not a chaste kiss between brother and sister but an honest-to-God kiss with tongue and groping hands. Carrie screamed and slapped at him until he reluctantly let her go. Grabbing hold of her throat, he told her he would leave her alone…for now, but eventually she would need to accept their fate, that she should stop fighting the inevitable because they were the last two people on Earth, and he had needs.

  That was when she started cuddling with her dad’s shotgun, and stopped sleeping altogether. She didn’t want to kill her brother, but she would if she needed to. And things continued on the same as before.