Seize the Soul: Confessions of a Summoner Book 1
Page 8
“Andrea. Her name’s Andrea Mainiero, and I haven’t seen her in years.”
“Besides the point. Umara told me that night how dangerous a girl like you could be. Of course, I didn’t believe a lick of it, until I saw you laid up in that hospital bed. But like I told her, there ain’t nothin’ that’s too dangerous that’ll make me run away from you.”
“That’s sweet, Boyd.”
“Rebekah, we can’t go around keeping secrets from one another. I set the drugs aside, because I want us to have a future together…and I know that can’t happen if my head’s in the clouds,” he whispered, “or if I’ve got some mule runnin’ green up to the Virginia line.”
I cannot tell him about who I am, not after this. But I have to. He doesn’t want me lying. I could just tell him and get it over with. Yeah, right. That’d go over well.
“Boyd…” My voice was weak. “I have to tell you something.”
“Whatever it is, babe, I’m all ears.”
Chapter
TEN
Before you call me every name but my own, let me just admit to you that I did not let Boyd in on my secret, but it was for a good cause. I know, I know, I’m a loser; I’m such a bad person. It’s not what you think. Put yourself in my shoes. What if your boyfriend, one who rarely opened up about anything, just all of sudden started telling you how he was going to change his life because of how much he cared about you? What would you do in that situation? Spill the beans about all the paranormal things you can do and freak him out of his mind? Exactly. I didn’t think you’d pretend to be so noble with the tables turned. Keep in mind, that I do love the guy. But just like any other girl, I’ve got a few secrets.
Souls were hard to come by, unless I was willing to “live la vida loca” and put a bullet through someone’s brain. That wasn’t me though. So for those of us summoners who were less like assassins and more like vultures – searching for souls amongst those who’d already died, then I had to get my souls in other ways. Not by killing.
There was also my money shortage, and the obvious answer was that I had to have a job – a bona fide receptionist at a funeral home. Caulphon & Sons.
I’d of course heard all the jokes. “We’re in a dying business.” “You’re working your way to your grave.” “You’re making a living off of people dying.” None of them were particularly funny, but I always managed a fake laugh whenever one of my friends found the need to make the jest.
I wasn’t working today though. I figured I’d milk this gunshot wound for all it was worth, so I staggered up the stairs and entered the lobby which was donned with a crimson velvet carpet laced in a swirling gold floral arrangement. The owner, Richard Caulphon, gave me a sympathetic look, when he saw me.
Being that Richard was a hefty man, wide but strong, underneath the chunkiness there had to have been a mass of solid muscle. His face was red and oily, and he always looked like he’d showered two days prior.
You know what I mean – that greasy unfresh appearance. His face was meaty, but not sunk-in, and even though he was in his early fifties, he’d kept all his dirty blond hair free from any gray or silver.
“How’re you feeling?” he asked. “You seem to be up and running.”
“I’m up…not quite running.” I held my side and gave an agitated wince. I gotta’ sell this injury thing.
He smoothed down his navy blue tie and stared down his finger at me. “Good. I don’t want to see you rolling through those doors in a coffin. I heard it got pretty rough out there. You okay?”
“I’ve had better days.”
“How long do you need off? A week? Two? If you need longer, you just let me know, and I’ll hire a temp. I know you only work a few days of the week as it is, but your job is safe here.”
“Thanks, Richard. Let’s shoot for one more week. I’ll let you know if I need longer. I can’t say I’m comfortable with leaving you short-handed.”
“Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. What’s important is you getting better. You work hard when you’re here, and you’re always on-time. Not something I’ve been accustomed to with my part-timers in the past.” His hands found his hips, splaying out his blazer. “What’re you doing here anyway? You know you could have just called.”
“I need to get something out of the preparation room – I mean, uh, I need to check to see if I left it here.”
Richard thumbed back to the lady at the desk whose hair was down to her ears, hiding the temples of her skinny-rimmed eyeglasses that were about as thin as she was. “Tiffany cleaned up the prep room earlier this morning. Maybe she found it.” He turned to her. “Hey, Tiff, did you see a – what was it that you were looking for again?”
My face flushed hot, trying to think of the first thing that came to mind. “One of my earrings.” As the words came out, I knew immediately that I was about to face one of Richard’s infamous stare-downs.
The glare lasted for no more than ten seconds in real time. But in “scolding” time, I’m sure he’d bored holes through my head. The muscle in his jaw tightened, and I steadied myself for the tidal wave. When it didn’t come, I figured it was because he was still stranded somewhere in his compassion.
All he said was, “I hope we didn’t lose it in one of the bodies.”
I noticed he said, “We” – his way of not hammering all the blame on me. Even if I had lost the earring in one of the bodies, there was no way anyone would ever find out. But it wasn’t about anyone finding out. Richard was very respectful of the dead. I guess he and I had that in common.
“I just want to take a quick peek down there. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Well, hurry back,” he said quickly, taking a glance at both my ears to see if I was foolish enough to make the same mistake twice of going to the preparation room with my earrings in. When he saw that my ears were without any diamond studs, he nodded slowly, so I hurried past him and started down the stairs, making sure I kept a hand over the wound to keep up with the façade.
The prep room didn’t have the ornate appeal of the lobby. The red carpet was now a dusty tile floor. The brass lamps and chandeliers were the standard T12 overhead incandescents that flicked when I turned them on, and the walls suffered from being dirty and unkempt, void of any decorations except for chipped cream paint or empty nail holes. On top of that, the entire dungeon smelled like formaldehyde.
There were a few “residents” in the room – bodies that had been delivered last Thursday and had been rolled into the stainless steel, ceiling-high refrigerators. Hesitantly, I peeked up the stairs to make sure no one had followed me and I opened three of the five refrigerators, namely the ones that had been labeled occupied.
Cooling mist wafted into the room as the refrigerators breathed their cool air. The three bodies lay in blue bags atop stainless steel tables. Carefully, I unzipped each bag to see the faces of those who’d died had been painted with a deathly winter blue as if their blood had chilled from a warm red.
One was an older woman whose skin was wrinkled and pale. One of her eyes had been left open, while the other was shut. Her thin lips were slightly parted like she was near to speaking, but the words had vanished somewhere between life and death.
The next was a young Hispanic boy of about five or six years old whose face was puffed and swollen, and the third was a man – a man who no doubt had nearly fifty years with stationary brown hair – his leathery skin covered in blisters and boils.
Choosing a soul was simple – just grab it with a command and go. Choosing a soul for my obelisk was different. Whatever soul I chose would be able to communicate with me on the summoners’ wavelength.
There were only three to choose from, and I had to choose fast before Tiffany or Richard moseyed their way on down here. Souls were finicky things. All were inherently strong, but after years of abuse, they tended to get a bit tender. The tender ones were fine for use, but created some disadvantages down the line, since they had to be remolded and reformed to
get back their tautness and strength.
It was just easier to find a soul that was already firm. That way I didn’t have to prime it and coerce and tussle against it. Firm souls, the ones who were strong-willed and good-natured, in the end they were just easier to deal with.
I examined each of the dead bodies, unzipping their bags down to their chests to see if their soul had clung to them. Most souls had a tendency to just leave, especially if its host was a pain in the you-know-what.
The elderly woman’s soul had left her some time ago. I couldn’t really tell why, only that her body was empty, so I moved on to the Hispanic boy. His swollen face made me look away, and since I didn’t see a soul, I kept on towards the man with boils on his skin, though I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure no one was coming.
Nothing. All three bodies were empty, their souls gone to the nether. I zipped the man back up and did the same for the boy. That was when I noticed a rosy light shimmer from within the boy’s bag.
It’s still here, clinging to him. Quickly, I pulled the zipper back and stood next to his table. My hand reached into my coat pocket and turned my obelisk between two fingers. My palm warmed as I kept my mind fixed on the boy’s bright pink orb.
The key to inviting a soul into an obelisk is not to rush it, but to let the soul feel relaxed, deciding on its own to make the obelisk its new home, though the transition from soul to stone is hardly ever that smooth.
This was always the difficult part. Souls like his liked their bodies. They liked living. But when released, the souls would sometimes have an impossible adjustment understanding the disconnect. It was similar to explaining to a tadpole that one day he’d be able to hop on land.
A wise summoner knew what to hide and what to reveal, or else the soul could panic and could even enter a volatile state. That was where all the hauntings and bumps in the night came from – some soul that couldn’t handle that it was now a land-loving frog.
The pink orb hovered up and down, looking one way or the other.
The orb perked up.
I could feel is aura waning, wanting to drift away from me. I had to crank it up a notch. Not too much, but just enough to get his attention.
The orb hesitated, bobbing up and down.
The orb tilted forward, a sign that he was staring at the ground.
Alex’s soul began to soften, which was just another way that I could tell his resistance against me was melting, and he was gradually starting to trust me. My next invitation to him had to be gentle, gracious. With my hand in my pocket, I focused on the obelisk, my palm warming again as I attached my mind to it.
With a thought, I beckoned Alex to attach to my right brain, the part of my mind that could more easily connect with his thoughts. With a fusion as gentle as pouring water from a kettle, I merged Alex’s soul with the obelisk, a pink light spilling out of my pocket and making streams through the fabric of my coat.
“What’s taking you so long?” Richard was making his way down into the prep room, his voice calm but suspicious.
All I could think of was how I was going to get the bodies back into the refrigerators without him knowing. I wasn’t concerned about him seeing the pink orb since those who weren’t summoners couldn’t see the souls, though I’m sure he saw the flashes of light.
I thought to zip up the bags and fling the bodies back into the cooler, but that was wrong on so many levels. So my only response was to freeze in place, indecisive.
“Did you find it? You were down here a long…” Richard beamed at me when he came into the room. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Nothing in me moved.
“Rebekah,” he said again, crossing his arms, one brow higher than the other. “Why are these bodies out of the refrigerators?”
“I…I…”
“Don’t just stand there; put’em back in!” He flung his hand up and hurried over beside me to push the man with the boils back into the cooler, then closed the stainless steel door.
I still couldn’t move, so he zipped up the boy and the woman and closed them back in their refrigerators also.
“I thought you said you came down here looking for an earring? Why in god’s name are going through the bodies? I don’t have a lot of rules around here, but my number one is to respect the deceased.”
“Rebekah, are you listening to me?” Richard had his arms crossed again, giving me one of his stare-downs.
All I did was nod blankly.
“Why were you looking in the bags?” Richard asked again.
“To see if I mistakenly dropped the earring in one of them when I was here last week. I don’t think it’s down here.” I ducked past Richard before he could ice me any longer with his glare.
“Rebekah,” Richard called after me.
I cringed.
“What was that pink light coming from your pocket?”
I didn’t know how else to respond, so all I said was, “Nothing.”
Chapter
ELEVEN
Now that I’d acquired a soul and was headed to Lyle’s apartment on Gorman Street, I could walk with a little more pep, a little more confidence. I’d gotten Alex to come along with me, but I knew that to fully earn his trust would take some patience.
Countless debates had I been in with Lyle about the ethics of storing a soul in my gem. He thought it was cr
uel not to let the dead just be dead. After going back and forth with him a few rounds, I let him have his peace, myself knowing that when it came to the afterlife, he was clueless.
Consider this, if you’re inclined to stay on that side of the fence. You’ve never seen a soul, heard its pleas, nor have you had the slightest unction of the challenges a soul feels when freed from its body.
Death is an eternal eviction notice. And souls always seek for a second chance – a chance to be fulfilled, sometimes for the very first time. Summoners give them that chance, just like I was giving that chance to Alex. Because without me, he would probably never see his mother again, and that was why I was going to do what I could to help him find her – a last goodbye that would give him the strength to accept his new life.
Bear in mind that some souls are just plain afraid of the afterlife. They believe if they pass over fully, they might not like the what that waits for them on the other side…or the who.
The Gorman Street apartments, where Lyle lived, thought it aesthetically appealing to paint the doors of the apartments a deep-sea blue to match the brick red exterior. Even though I lived a block or two away at Kensington Park, his apartments only reminded me how much I wanted to stop renting and actually get a mortgage payment. But what bank would ever approve a part-timer like me?
Careful not to beckon Lyle’s roommate Carter, I knocked on the blue door softly, hoping that Lyle would be the one to answer and that Carter was strung out over his bed in an ocean of trash and filth, as was usually the case.
Not this time though. The slob of a vampire opened the door, the hinges screeching as the wrecking ball of a man eclipsed the doorway. His fat belly hung over a loosely tied leather belt that lassoed about his waist, holding his baggy jeans just underneath his muffin top.
His skin was albino white, but his scruffy hair, oiled and tangled, twisted in every direction – a rage against the machine appeal. Of course he wore a black hoody that draped off of him with the “V” from V for Vendetta. His beard was unkempt and thick enough to hide my fist in, and he glared at me with onyx corneas, his pupils hidden in a permanent abyss of blackness.