by Rain Oxford
Soul Guard
Elemental Book 5
Rain Oxford
Soul Guard © 2016 Rain Oxford
All Rights Reserved
Edited by Crystal Potts
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
About the Author
Prologue
I ignored the oppressive sense of death. The warm tingle in my palm reminded me that I had all the power I needed to free myself. At this point, I actually wanted to be purified by the fire elementals again so that the creatures of the black abyss couldn’t touch me. Or… at least they wouldn’t be able to touch me until I entered the shadow pass again.
Yeah, I didn’t think that one through.
I sensed them moving all around me, remembered the horror of their eye-less faces, and was glad there was no light. Hunt insisted I learned to use the shadow pass on my own and, unfortunately, he was a “sink or swim” person. With the wisdom of “feel where you want to go,” he dropped me into the darkness and vanished.
Although I knew I didn’t actually have to travel in the shadow pass to reach my destination, it made me feel more accomplished to walk. Well, stumble. It wasn’t easy to walk on soft, uneven ground in absolute darkness with extra gravity.
I focused on my uncle’s mind. Although it was usually blocked, I had been in his mind before, so I could do it again.
Or not.
I sensed it an instant before I hit the ground hard and light returned to the world. I dusted dirt off my jeans as I stood, then groaned. “What the hell am I doing here?” I asked aloud. I was standing before the tower. Light came from four torches surrounding the tower, which were always lit if I was correct.
And I was alone.
Why would I arrive here when I’m trying to find my uncle? A harsh yowl made me look down, where Ghost was glaring at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Instead of answering, he turned and vanished.
Chapter 1
“You don’t have to hit him right between the eyes. You don’t even have to make a kill shot. Almost every time, you can incapacitate your opponent without endangering anyone’s life, but if it comes down to you or him, do what you have to do.”
“How am I supposed to know whether to kill or maim him?”
“Use your instincts and don’t second guess yourself.” Not trusting my instincts was how I ended up falling into John’s trap in the first place. Of course, I never would have gotten involved with the paranormal world if it hadn’t been for him, either.
“I heard you should never aim a gun at someone unless you’re willing to shoot them.”
“That’s no6t always the case. Bluffing does wonders in this job. After three back-to-back cases, I stopped five armed bank robbers from a heist that took them a week to plan with not a single bullet on me.”
“You get hired to stop bank robbers?”
“Actually, no. I just happened to be there. Bluffing isn’t always about threatening; you have to know whether the person is the fight or flight type. Some people will back down if you appear tougher, while others will attack. I have prevented fights by being pretending to be harmless and clueless.”
“Well, you have your instincts to guide you.”
“Yes, and they saved my life numerous times before I knew I was a paranormal. The truth is, a gun can save your life or the life of someone else, but you can’t take back a bullet. This gun has slapped more people than it shot.”
“That explains the dents in it.”
“Actually, that’s because bashing the gun against padlocks is really effective.” It was my backup gun, so it wasn’t very beat-up. My preferred gun had vanished into thin air on Dothra in an impressive display of magic. The next time I saw Langril, I was going to make him teach me how to do it. “Now, don’t forget about the kickback. Focus.”
“I am focused,” he said. I stepped back and let him do it himself. Henry pulled the trigger and lowered the gun to examine his shot. “I missed.”
“By less than half an inch. For your first time using a gun, that’s pretty---”
He cut me off by raising the gun and firing again. This time, the bullet hit the dummy right between the eyes. He set the gun down and turned to me. “I understand how this is more efficient than shifting when humans are involved, but I would prefer not to use silver bullets.”
I nodded. “I only keep them on hand for vampires.” Besides, human witnesses were not my biggest concern in a situation that required silver bullets. “Let’s go pick up Scott.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until after your mother paints his nails pink and puts extensions in his hair?”
“Oh, she’s already done that by now. And it’s a wig.”
Henry sighed. “You do realize your mother wanted a daughter, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “No shit. She screamed when Joseph got me a haircut. I’ll pay for Scott’s therapy when the time comes.”
“I think he just enjoys the attention.”
We had just gotten out into the parking lot of the firing range when I felt a prickling sensation in the back of my mind, like I had forgotten something important. “Did we lock up the office? Go ahead and pick up Scott and some lunch while I go back to the office.” I checked my phone to see if I had missed any calls, but it didn’t show any notifications.
“Do you normally get work on your first work day back from Quintessence?” he asked.
“Normally, yes.” It was the first Monday after my fourth semester at Quintessence ended and I was ready to get back to my regular job, but I hadn’t informed anyone that I was back at work yet because I wanted to give Henry a chance to settle in. “I’m sure it’s fine.” I wasn’t sure it was fine. “I bet no one even knows I’m back.” I had a hunch that someone knew I was back and was waiting at the office.
* * *
I used to be a regular private investigator. I did my job discreetly and, although my number was hard to come by, I had plenty of business. Most of my work consisted of things like uncovering embezzlement in large corporations or spying on husbands of wealthy, spoiled wives. The clients who came to me did so because they wanted answers fast and quietly.
When I was eleven years old, I found out my best friend, Astrid, was a vampire who was being tormented by her grandfather. Instead of going to my parents and vampire-proofing my house, I invited her in and helped her. I woke up to find my father dead, my mother bleeding out, and Astrid sitting on the floor, covered in their blood, so I shunned the paranormal community altogether.
Then I took a case at a paranormal university called Quintessence, and I discovered that I would never live a normal life. I discovered that I was a wizard. As much as I wanted to get as far away from the paranormal world as I could, my two roommates, Henry and Darwin, taught me that they weren’t all killers.
Henry was a jaguar shifter, but not like any other. Although he was born here, his mother was from another world, where shifters ruled. Other than the fact that he could turn invisible, choose between being normal sized or the size of a horse, and regulate his own blood, Henry was a normal jaguar. He was also a trained thief, thanks to Luana and Matheus Lycosa, who kidnapped Henry from his real mother as an infant, exploited Henry his enti
re life, and kidnapped Henry’s son. Henry recently got his son back and cut Luana and Matheus out of his life.
Darwin was half fae, half wolf shifter, and all mouth. He was a genius, but he was nearly ten years younger than me and I couldn’t take more than a few hours of him at a time. His jokes were older than me, he was messy and forgetful, he took his pranks way too far, and his cheekiness was going to get him eaten. There was also the fact that if anyone touched his skin, it would hurt him and he would see the person’s death.
Soon after I learned that I was a wizard, I discovered that Joseph Sanders wasn’t my father. Instead, my father was an evil wizard named John Cross, who killed his own daughter because she wasn’t powerful enough for her to be useful to him. John had the ability to control minds, while his brother had the ability to see visions. To protect my friends, I killed him.
Except, nothing is that damn simple in the paranormal world.
Because John used his power to steal my mother away from his brother, Vincent might be my father instead. I had both John’s ability to control minds and Vincent’s ability to see visions, since they got the power from their father, Arthur. Fortunately, I inherited the one power of Arthur’s that they didn’t; instinct. Furthermore, the girl John killed wasn’t actually his daughter, but he had two twin boys he never knew about, and I knew at least one of the boys had mind control.
I also ended up with a mortal enemy, who was a wizard from another world. There was a tower far below the university that had four doors to four different worlds. Each of these worlds contained the pure ancestors of our paranormal factions: wizards, vampires, shifters, and fae.
These “pure” versions were also about a hundred times more dangerous than our “diluted” versions. Because the paranormals are so powerful, the doors need to be opened with a key. Logan Hunt, the headmaster of Quintessence, Vincent, and Keigan Langril, each had a key when I first learned about it. Langril was a quirky professor who happened to be a “pure” wizard from Dothra. He also trapped Astrid in Dothra and then told me she might not have been the one to kill Joseph and hurt my mother.
In fact, Astrid’s grandfather wasn’t related to her at all; he was the familiar of another wizard of Dothra, named Krechea. According to Langril, Krechea was as evil as they came. While Krechea hadn’t done anything to me personally, he did try to kill Langril’s daughter, and he had tried to train Astrid to be one of his warriors.
I recently attained the fourth key which, other than allowing me access to the shadow pass, didn’t seem to do a whole lot. I had been warned I would have to sacrifice what was most precious to me in order to get the key, but the alternative was letting Krechea have it or letting the boundaries between the worlds come undone. I still wasn’t entirely sure what I sacrificed.
Right after I got the fourth key, Krechea escaped to Earth, along with a number of his followers. While I wasn’t sure how many of them were here, I knew they were eager for more power and willing to kill anyone to get it. I had one of the four keys, so I was one of their targets. Because the keys fused into our magic as soon as we accepted them, the only way to get it from us was to kill us.
* * *
As I pulled into my normal spot, I saw a thin, tall woman with bleach-blond hair and dark brown roots. She was wearing a dark blue sundress and flip-flops. I got out, and looked around. Something was very off about this. Not dangerous, but definitely not right.
The woman was waiting for me outside, shaking in the warm summer weather, and studying the closed sign on my door. I was just glad I had a door. Not long before I started my fourth semester at the paranormal university, my office had been destroyed by a drug dealer who was trying to kill his own son. After Henry got the insurance worked out, I hired a crew to clean the place up and replace the windows and door. I didn’t see it again until I returned from Quintessence, but it looked just like it had before it was destroyed.
“Can I help you?” I asked. She was wearing a dark blue, fashionable sweater, jeans, and tan moccasins.
She turned to me. Her cheeks were pink and her blue eyes were puffy from crying, but they were dry. “I really hope so. Are you Mr. Sanders?”
“I am.” I unlocked the door and held it open for her. “Are you cold?”
She went inside, shaking her head furiously, and sat down. “My husband is missing,” she said frantically.
“Okay. Have you contacted the police and how long has he been missing?”
“They won’t even talk to me. And I don’t know that he’s missing. Maybe I’m the one who’s missing.” She lowered her gaze a little, not willing to look me in the eyes. It was most likely that she subconsciously sensed my power.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He was working late at the office and I called him. We argued. I wanted him to come home and I accused him of something. I don’t remember what. I got in the car and drove to see him, but it was raining really hard. I was apparently in an accident because I woke up in the hospital four days ago with no memory of what happened. The doctor said I should recover completely. The problem is, I can’t remember my name, my husband’s name, or my address. I snuck out of the hospital when I remembered my husband and he’s got to be so worried about me.”
“Hang on, the doctor told you that you would be fine, but he didn’t tell you your name or notify your next of kin?”
She frowned as if it hurt her to think. “I think he was distracted or something.”
“What was the doctor’s name?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember. Everything is still blurry.”
“Maybe you should go back to the---”
“No! I need to find my husband! Please just help me find him.”
“I can help you, but I need something to go on. You can recall the night before the accident, right?”
“A little bit.”
“Okay. Close your eyes and go as far back as you can remember. Tell me every detail you can remember. Every color, street name, anything you might have passed.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. As she did, I released my magic to seep into her mind. I wasn’t trying to control her; I just wanted to see what she could remember. It felt extremely foggy.
As her memories unfolded, I saw her getting into a blue Cadillac. It was night and heavy rain prevented me from seeing any street signs. She was driving through a four-way when movement caught her eye. A large black car sped towards her, gaining speed instead of losing it. The woman tried to turn out of the way, which was when I saw a street sign.
She opened her eyes and I released her mind. “I don’t remember anything. Not even what color my car is.”
“I don’t think it was your car,” I said.
She frowned. “How do you know? And why would I get in someone else’s car?”
“It was the only car in your driveway and you had a key, which is the why. There was a crumpled cigarette in the ashtray and you have no stains on your teeth, so I’m betting it wasn’t yours.” I pulled my phone from the clip on my belt and called Darwin.
The ringing went on for more than a minute before it was finally picked up. “Yo. Hang on. The alarm is gonna go off as soon as you open it, so do that last. You remember the code? Great. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. Sorry, bro, I’m back.”
“What the hell are you getting up to?”
“Oh… um… I’m just running a quest in a RPG. D’you need something?”
“I need you to get hospital records of an accident that happened at the intersection of Laura Street and Hamilton Street in the last week. It was a blue Cadillac. The only passenger was a woman, about mid-thirties, blond, blue eyes, thin, with memory loss.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Can you get to them on your computer?”
“I’m not at my computer. Like I said, give me a minute.” I was put on hold. A few minutes later, he picked it back up. “Okay, so not a minute. There’s been no accident on either street involving any vehicle in th
e last week.”
“Okay, maybe she was in there for a while. Go back about a---”
“Yeah, did that, too. There was nothing matching that description in the last month. However… there was a car crash two years ago involving thirty-four-year-old Julia Emerson in a car matching your description. She was the victim of a hit-and-run on that intersection, but…”
“What’s wrong?” And why does that name sound so familiar?
“That was two years ago, but other than that, everything about her condition is missing.”
“Missing as in the staff was struck with a critical fit of laziness and forgot to update their records?”
“No, missing as in wiped on purpose.”
Figures. I lowered the phone. “Does the name Julia Emerson mean anything to you?” I asked. She shook her head. I put the phone back to my ear, thought about it, and lowered it again. “How did you find me?”
“Oh…” she quickly pulled a folded note out of her pocket. “This is the only thing I had on me.” She unfolded it and laid it on my desk. On it was an old phone number and my office address.
I put the phone back to my ear and asked which hospital. Fortunately, I had a contact at the hospital she had been admitted to. “Do you have any information about her husband?”
“Nothing. I even checked her out. No criminal activity or even a citation. There’s nothing to find about her.”
“Who paid for her hospital bills?”
“That’s also missing.”
“Thanks for your help, Darwin. If you’re working something involving a theft, call Henry and get his input.”
“Ha ha, theft… that’s funny. You’re funny, bro. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up.
I set my phone down. The hit-and-run could have been an accident, but no one erased hospital records on accident. Furthermore, I remembered where I recognized her name from. She had called me up and asked for an appointment, which she never showed for. That was a few months before I ever started at Quintessence.
