Soul Catchers

by Carrie Pulkinen

  “Sorry,” Seth says. “I’ll tell you I’m sorry a million times if it will make you believe me.”

  “It won’t.”

  He sighs and pulls the gun by his side, still pointing it at me. “I never meant for it to get this out of hand. I didn’t think things through . . . I never do. I just wanted to save my sister.”

  “Your sister wouldn’t need saving if it weren’t for you.”

  “I’ve made mistakes.”

  I laugh dryly. “Tell me about it.”

  Liam takes my hand. “We all have, haven’t we?”

  As we turn the corner, a massive lead-coated iron gate blocks our path. Seth turns a few knobs, punches in the code, and a booming clunk echoes through the corridor as the latch disengages. He swings the heavy door aside and motions for us to enter.

  “Do your thing. I’m going to go check on Dr. Crane.”

  “You mean you’re going to go try to butter up Mr. Solis and get a job in Washington?”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “The lock on this door is automatic, so I’ll leave it open. If anything . . . happens, get out and close the gate. It’ll lock behind you.”

  “Good to know,” Liam says. He takes both my hands as Seth trots down the hall. “Are you ready for this?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  We start down the corridor, peering into the prisoners’ cells. The insides of the rooms are similar to my cell, with nothing more than a cot, a toilet, and a camera embedded in the ceiling. In the first cell, a man in his thirties sits with his back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest. His head rests on his thin, folded arms, and his curly black hair glistens in the harsh fluorescent light. He’s dressed in green scrubs, and as I approach, he lifts his chin to reveal tear-stained cheeks and blood-shot eyes.

  “Please help me. I never signed up for this.” His gaze is wild, his movements frantic as he jumps from his cot and darts to the gate. “Please. I’m not even infected.”

  “He doesn’t have the Sense,” I say sideways to Liam.

  “Only the original hosts had shape-shifting powers. After the wolves were created, anybody who killed one could become cursed.”

  “I didn’t kill no one. I’m here just in case one of them . . .” He makes a cutting motion across his throat.

  “If someone committed suicide, the wolf spirit would attach itself to the nearest living human,” Liam says.

  It makes sense. Tethered to the earth like they are, the wolf spirit would have to enter another host. And if the person who killed it were already dead, the next-closest human would be possessed.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask.

  “Six weeks since the last guy did himself in. Bart, next door, inherited the curse then. I’m next if you don’t get me out of here.”

  “We’re going to get you all out of here.”

  I step to the next cell, where Bart sits perched on the edge of his cot, chewing his fingernails. Tangled blond hair hangs down to his ears, hiding his eyes. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks. “I was an enforcer. Sarge never liked me much, I reckon. They always keep someone un-infected here in the wing, ever since the first suicide ten years ago.”

  “That’s awful.” I focus on his soul, the golden light that fills his body, and there it is. A silver glow at the base of his skull—a wolf. My stomach churns. I narrowly escaped this fate myself. “How long have you been locked up?”

  “Two years. Six weeks with the wolf.”

  “I’m so sorry. I only just met Michael, but he’s my father, so I feel like I should apologize for what he’s done to you.”

  “You mean Dr. Crane?” He finally raises his head and looks at me with piercing blue eyes. “Don’t apologize for him, ma’am. He’s been trying to help.”

  “But he keeps you locked up. He made you become the wolf.” How can this man be defending the very person who turned him into a monster?

  Bart shrugs. “Sarge chooses who gets to room with the wolves. Dr. Crane tries to help us. He’s been trying to find a cure for as long as I’ve been here.”

  “Well, good news.” Liam rests his hands on my shoulders. “Your cure has arrived.”

  I turn a circle to get a view of the other prisoners. They all wear the same green scrubs, but in various stages of repair. Some people appear calm, their hair combed, faces washed, with serene expressions as if they’ve accepted their fates. Others appear lost, with frantic eyes, wrinkled clothes, and messy hair. They all have one thing in common—their faces are devoid of hope. The air hangs thick with despair so palpable it weights my lungs as I breathe.

  Liam rests his hand on the small of my back. “We’re running out of time.”

  “Right.” I focus on Bart.

  “Cut, catch, cut. That’s the plan, right?” Liam says.

  “Yeah. Are you ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The fingers of my mind slide across the silver spirit in Bart’s skull, massaging the tendrils that expand from the ball of light. One of these cords connects the soul to the body while the others are the means of communication with the brain. I used these strings to control Makka when we were in wolf form.

  One strand is thicker than the others and is firmly planted in his spine. I tug on the cord, dissolving it with my mind. The wolf spirit floats free. It swirls around the room, first trying to escape through the ceiling, but a thick gray cord binds it to the earth.

  The silver mist swoops toward me, and I hold my breath, remembering the piercing pain of Makka entering me, my mother dying on the ground beside me.

  “Got it,” Liam says.

  This tether is thicker, much harder to sever, but as I focus my energy on the cord, it snaps in two. Liam lets go, and the spirit dissolves into the next plane.

  “It’s gone.” Bart feels his head with his hands. “Holy cow, it’s gone! How’d you do that?”

  “No time to explain.” I rush to the next cell and free the spirit. The clock winds down as we run from cell to cell, cutting, catching, and releasing each wolf from its host. A woman drops to her knees in prayer. Tears streak an elderly man’s cheeks as he whispers, “Thank you.” Others shout for joy at their newfound freedom. Commotion ensues as the cured celebrate and those still afflicted beg for release.

  Down one side of the hall and up the other we run, the process quickening with each release. We have twenty souls left to free when the sound of boots marching in the corridor catches our attention. We freeze. An anticipatory hush falls over the wing as we hold a collective breath, waiting to be caught.

  “I suppose your dad’s stalled all he can,” Liam says. “We’d better get out of here.”

  “We can’t leave them. We have to finish helping them.”

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and stares into my eyes. “Wren, we’re no good to them dead, and we can’t help them if we’re locked up in the president’s house. We need to get out of here now.” He looks at the open gate. The footsteps grow louder. “We’ll come back for them later.”

  “I can’t.” I finally understand my mom’s conviction. She was born to heal, so that’s what she did, regardless of the consequences she might face. I’m a Soul Catcher. It’s my calling, and I’ll fight to my last breath to help everyone I can. “I won’t leave them.”

  The corner of his mouth curves into a smile. “Well, all right then. We’ll free them until they stop us or we die trying.”

  “Or you could hide.” Bart’s slow drawl makes it sound like hiding is the obvious solution. “There’s a ventilation shaft that runs the length of the building. You could climb up there. Save them from above. Probably escape that way too, once you’re done.” He points to the ceiling. Easily removable tiles separate the hallway from the space between floors. “Only the cells have solid ceilings.”

  Liam laces his hands together, forming a cradle for my foot, and boosts me into the ceiling. Lying on my stomach on a beam, I reach my hand down to help him up. He uses a horizon
tal slat on the cell door as a step and hoists himself in.

  “How do you know all this?” he asks Bart as he clambers into the ceiling.

  “I worked security. It was my job to know this place inside and out. There’s a motor pool fifty yards behind this building. When you get to the surface, head there. I’m sure you can find yourselves a vehicle to commandeer and get the heck out of this place.”

  “Thanks, man,” Liam says.

  “It’s the least I could do. Good luck.”

  I catch a glimpse of my father followed by a solid man with dark hair and a scar on his upper lip. Liam slides the tile in place, blocking them from view. Pale light seeps in from the fixtures below us, illuminating the crawl space. A series of perpendicular beams run the length and width of the floor, and a rectangular silver tubing system, barely big enough for a person to fit in, cuts through the center, disappearing through the far wall. We lie utterly still while the men storm into the corridor.

  “Where are they, Crane?” The booming voice must belong to Solis.

  “I . . . I swear they were here,” my father says. “My daughter had this crazy notion she could save these people. I knew it wasn’t possible, so I let her try . . . to keep her occupied until you arrived. I’d never allow her to actually save them, of course, since President Martin wants them to remain wolves, and I’d never go against the president’s orders.”

  Shut up. He’s talking so fast, I want to scream at him. If this Solis guy has half a brain, he’ll see right through the lies.

  Liam nudges me, reminding me we’ve got work to do. I slide myself along the beam, closer to the people I need to free. I’d like to say that releasing the wolves has gotten so easy I can do it with my eyes closed, but I’m not certain I can do it blind. With the others, I could see the souls with my actual eyes. Now I’ll have to do it using my mind’s eye.

  I focus my energy, sending my Sense into the cell, feeling, searching for the conjoined souls. This time I sense, rather than see, their energy. Two life forces, equally strong, pulsate in unison. “What if I cut the wrong one?” My whisper is barely audible, but Liam can sense my fear.

  “You won’t.”

  “But I can’t tell them apart.”

  “Try again. The wolf’s soul has a lower vibration. You can sense it, can’t you?”

  My father is still chatting away, and it’s hard to focus my attention on the invisible souls, but I try. I reach out with my mind, tuning out the fear and the voices below, and concentrate on the souls’ vibrations. But they’re blurred, meshed together in an undulating swirl of energy.

  Liam rests his hand on my arm, and a wave of calming energy washes over me, bringing everything into focus. I can sense it now. I feel the difference and sever the wolf’s soul without hesitation. Liam catches the spirit, and I set it free.

  Below, a woman gasps. “I’m saved.”

  That shuts my father up.

  “What do you mean you’re saved?” Solis says.

  “She . . . I . . .”

  “Let us out!” a prisoner shouts, and commotion ensues. The captives yell, and the enforcers yell back, slamming against the metal gates to try and quiet them.

  Liam and I return to our duty, releasing spirit after spirit through the commotion. I sense one wolf left, but the cell is too far away for my energy to reach. I have to get closer. I push myself onto my hands and knees and crawl across the beam. My hand lands in something squishy and wet, and my stomach churns as I realize I’ve been lying in rat droppings the entire time.

  I show Liam my hand, and he chuckles. “Believe it or not, this isn’t my first roll in poo. Let’s finish this.”

  “Quiet! All of you.” Solis’s voice is like a sonic boom, echoing through hall, silencing the racket. “What do you mean you’re saved? Who saved you? The Soul Catchers? Where are they?”

  I don’t hear the woman respond, but I do hear her cell door creak open and a body thud on the floor. Frantic scrambling. The slap of a fist connecting with skin. Her garbled cry.

  “I asked you a question, woman. Where are they?”

  “Go to hell.” Her voice seethes with venom.

  Boots stomping. Kicks connecting. The woman crying.

  They’re going to kill her.

  I’m trying to give these people their lives back. I can’t let the president’s brutes take them away. Like it or not, I was put on this planet for a reason. I was born to help people, and that’s what I’ll do . . . even if it means my capture. We release the last wolf, and I position myself for the fall.

  Liam grabs my arm. “What are you doing?”

  “I have to stop them. I’m going down.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you stay here. Get these people out while I keep Mr. Solis occupied.”

  He looks like he wants to argue, but he presses his lips together and nods. “I’ll come back for you. I’ll swim through a sea of poop if I have to.”

  “That’s so romantic.” I pull him close and kiss him, and that connecting energy I felt earlier pulses between us. He reaches for me, holding me tight. A flicker of fear that this kiss could be our last lights inside my heart, and I know he feels it too.

  He puts his hands on my shoulders and holds my gaze. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I nod. With one swift kick, I break a ceiling tile in two and drop to the floor. The nine-foot fall jars my bones, and my teeth bite into my tongue. Coppery blood pools in my mouth, making my stomach turn as I swallow it down.

  Seth points his gun at the woman’s head while an enforcer draws his arm back for another punch. Is Seth just playing along, or does he really intend to shoot her? His eyes grow wide when he sees me, his gaze darting about like he’s trying to formulate a plan.

  “Stop,” I say. “You wanted a Soul Catcher. Here I am. Leave her alone.”

  Solis considers me, his beady eyes raking over my body skeptically. He nods to his men, and Seth helps the soldier drag the bloodied woman into her cell.

  “Where’s the other one? You’re supposed to be a pair,” Solis says.

  “He escaped. You’ll have to settle for me.”

  “I never settle. We will find him.” He turns to a soldier. “Cuff her.”

  Seth and my father exchange terrified looks as a man binds my hands with a zip tie. He pulls a plastic-coated blanket from a duffel bag and wraps it around my shoulders. The weighted fabric hangs heavy, making it hard to move.

  “Lead to restrain your unnatural powers,” Solis says. “We wouldn’t want you releasing any of our souls, now would we?”

  The heavy thud of his boots on the tile echoes through the building as a heavy sack covers my head, plunging me into darkness.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Liam

  What am I going to do with that girl? She can’t go throwing herself into the arms of the enemy without some kind of plan. Of course, I suppose her plan was to get them to stop beating up that poor woman, and that she did. But what now?

  I’m going to get her back, that’s what. No doubt about it, I can’t live without her. And she needs me as much as I need her; I felt it when she kissed me in her dad’s office. When her emotions swirled together with mine, I almost cried all over again . . . but out of happiness rather than fear that time. It was intense to say the least.

  Now I have to figure out how to get to her without getting myself caught in the process. Seems impossible, but that’s okay. Honestly, I’d rather be captured right along with her than spend the rest of my life without her.

  I’ve managed to creep across these beams without falling through the ceiling, and I can just fit through the hole where the ventilation shaft enters the next room. I could easily slip out and go for help, but I don’t think I’d find much assistance on the outside. I sure as heck can’t go to the police—there’s plenty of them inside already, and they’re on the wrong side of this debacle.

  The only people who’d be willing to help us out of this fiasco are in that room
, locked behind lead doors, so they couldn’t use the Sense even if they had it. And that’s a problem, ain’t it? Even if I could get them out of their cells, they’d be unarmed and possibly powerless. Those soldiers could spray a round of bullets and take us all out in seconds. Unless they think all the prisoners still possess the wolf spirits. Then they’d be afraid to kill them. Enforcers follow orders, but the human self-preservation instinct is stronger than any command they’d receive.

  All right then. This is a terrible plan, but it’s the best one I’ve got, so it’s gonna have to do.

  I shimmy through the opening into the next room and crack open a ceiling tile to have a look. I’ve made it out of the cellblock into what appears to be a supply closet. Green scrubs—prisoners’ uniforms—lie neatly stacked on shelves along with rolls of toilet paper and scratchy-looking blankets. All the luxuries an inmate could ever need.

  I lower myself into the room and scan the shelves for something useful, like a machine gun or a magic teleporting device, but I don’t find anything. Unless I actually do have to swim through a sea of poop to save Wren. Then the toilet paper might come in handy.

  Cracking open the door, I peek into the hallway.

  Solis stands about five inches shorter than me, but he’s probably twenty pounds heavier. This is the guy we’re supposed to be afraid of? His arms are so thick they don’t cross over his chest right, but I can’t tell whether it’s from fat or muscle. Maybe a little of both. His eyes seem too small for his round head, and his gaze darts around the corridor like a falcon searching for prey. Sharp. Calculating.

  He’s smart, but he also looks like the kind of guy who likes to give orders and let everyone else do the heavy lifting. If it weren’t for the gun on his hip and his band of bodyguards, I could take him. I could definitely outrun him.