Soul to Shepherd

by Linda Lamberson

  “Dylan, can you feel Quinn’s heartbeat?” I asked anxiously. “Can you locate him?”

  “No,” Dylan said after a minute. “The demons must have taken him to the Underworld. What about you?”

  “I can sense he’s in pain, but I can’t tell where they’ve taken him.”

  “What about the Servants? Can you tell if any are still in the immediate area?” Minerva asked with a wrinkled nose. “Their trace is so strong, I’m having difficulty deciphering what’s an old stench and what’s new.”

  “None that I can sense,” I replied, scanning our surroundings.

  “Me neither,” Dylan responded.

  “Okay, let’s think about this for a minute,” Minerva said. “How did they plan their ambush so effectively? How did they know where we’d be?”

  “They must’ve overheard Quinn on his cell phone talking to Tommy,” I offered.

  “But for them to have been within earshot, they would’ve had to be close enough for us to sense them,” Dylan remarked. “We would’ve known they were there.”

  “But we didn’t,” I said.

  “So the question is: How did they manage to get by all three of us?” Minerva asked.

  “We must’ve missed something,” I said. “We should retrace our steps over the last thirty-six hours.”

  “Agreed. I’ll hit La Casa and the winter wonderland to see if I can find any evidence that we were followed.” Dylan paused. “I should also hit Michigan Avenue, a few flower wholesalers … and a couple spots in South America,” he added more sheepishly. Minerva and I stared at Dylan.

  “What?” he asked defensively. “The guy wanted lots of flowers.”

  Minerva just sighed in resignation. “I’ll go back to the Harrisons and scope out the surrounding areas. There has to be a traceable lead somewhere around there.”

  “Okay, great.” Despite my efforts to sound cool and collected, the stress in my voice rang loud and clear.

  “And where will you be going, K.C.?” Dylan eyed me suspiciously.

  Crap. How I hated some moments of truth. “I’m going to the Falls.”

  “What?” Dylan and Minerva exclaimed, both wide-eyed with mouths agape.

  “I was devastated when I found out what happened to Peter. I needed to go somewhere I knew I could be alone.”

  “And were you alone?” Dylan half-asked, half-demanded. “Could you sense anyone or anything else up there with you?”

  “No, but like I said, I was really upset, so I wasn’t paying all that much attention. An army could’ve probably marched past me without my knowing.”

  “Well, that’s a comforting thought,” Dylan remarked sarcastically.

  “That’s why I need to go back and check it out again,” I huffed. “So, can we get moving?”

  Dylan checked his watch. It’s one forty-five in the afternoon. Let’s all meet back in La Casa by four o’clock Central Standard Time.”

  “Four o’clock,” Minerva agreed.

  “Good luck, guys,” Dylan offered.

  “You, too.”

  22. k-2

  I materialized in the cave and looked around, hell bent on finding something to help us locate Quinn—his survival depended upon it. I scanned the ransacked sight before me and shook my head sadly. One of Quinn’s favorite t-shirts caught my eye, and I picked it up off the cavern floor and held it to my nose, inhaling his all-too familiar scent, and swallowed back my tears.

  “Hello, Eve,” Peter said as he walked out shadows.

  “Peter!” I exclaimed, startled. “You’re here! You’re okay!”

  “Yes, it would seem I am,” he replied.

  “Wait—what are you doing here?” I asked somewhat warily.

  “I have been biding my time until you arrived.”

  “Why?” I asked, confused. A million questions ran through my head. I wanted to know how he’d survived the explosion, if Teddy, Agnes, and Tara knew he was okay, whether the others were all right—but all those questions fell by the wayside when I saw the Journal in Peter’s hand.

  “Why do you have that?” I asked, already feeling sick to my stomach. I remembered Tara telling me Shepherds could fall from grace, how risking our souls could lead to our self-destruction. Peter already had lost part of his to save me. I knew he had a dark side. He was dishonest. He was coldhearted enough to allow his friends to think he’d been destroyed in the Amsterdam blast. And he was the one who had stolen the Journal.

  I looked at Peter—really looked at him—and saw his aura. It wasn’t as bright as it’d been when I first met him. It was somehow duller, tainted; it looked “like a full moon with its visible craters.” It was Peter’s aura Minerva had sensed snooping around the Harrisons.’ Quinn had been right about him all along.

  “Ugh! How could I have been so stupid?” I chastised myself.

  “Eve—”

  “It was you,” I cut Peter off. “You ransacked this place and took the Journal,” I accused.

  “I can always count on you to be direct.” That Peter didn’t deny my allegation was admission enough for me.

  “I can’t believe it. This whole time I thought we’d managed to put the past behind us. I started trusting you again. In fact, I even defended you to Quinn and Dylan and told them you had nothing to do with this. But you set this all up. You wanted us to fail!”

  “Eve—”

  “Did you take the Journal?” I demanded. “Well, did you?” I demanded again in the wake of his silence.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I have nothing more to say to you.” I shook my head in disgust and turned to march out of the cave.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Why?”

  I heard Peter’s footsteps approaching from behind. He stopped mere inches behind me. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck, making my skin crawl. “Remember what, and who, is at stake, here.” Not wanting Peter to think he was intimidating me, I turned around and looked directly into his eyes.

  “Where is he?” I seethed.

  “If you ever want to see your ‘true soul mate’ again, then I suggest you cooperate with me.” He smirked, knowing he had the upper hand.

  “I’m listening.” I crossed my arms in front of me and stood my ground.

  “Good girl,” Peter remarked, taking a few steps back towards the overturned mattress.

  “So, when did you and Mr. Harrison start coming here?” he asked, picking up a pillow and tossing it onto the mattress.

  “When did you start coming here?” I turned the question back around on him.

  “Ah, ah, ah, this is not a quid pro quo conversation.” Peter waved his index finger at me in a chiding manner. “So, when did you first bring Mr. Harrison here?”

  “You seem to know so much, why don’t you tell me?” I replied snidely.

  Anger flared in his eyes, making them appear black as night as he struggled to compose himself. “Humor me.” He picked a book up off the seat of a chair and tossed it on the floor. “Sit.” He pointed to the chair. “Sit!” he ordered more forcefully when I failed to comply, making me jump a little.

  “After he remembered me,” I replied promptly as I made my way to the chair and sat down.

  “So, you started coming here in January? February?”

  “Yes.” I had no idea where he was going with this, but I didn’t like it.

  “Which was it? January or February?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “I guess that all depends on whether you ever want to see Mr. Harrison alive again,” he replied coldly.

  “January.”

  “So taking into account the time you were up in the Archives after the Servants’ attack in April healing, thanks to me, that would be what, five months of coming up here? Five months of sharing his bed with no one the wiser.” Jealousy flashed in Peter’s eyes.

  “We haven’t been here since you tore the place apart.”

  “Your auras still
have a nasty habit of falling off the grid, which could only mean Dylan found you a new portal,” Peter concluded.

  I reinforced the mental fortress around my mind to keep Peter out of my head. The last thing I wanted was for him to discover La Casa.

  “So, did you find this place by following the breadcrumbs from when I brought Quinn back here in June?” I asked, hoping to distract Peter from trying to get more information from me.

  He chuckled arrogantly. “No, I found this place when I followed the breadcrumbs you left behind when you brought Mr. Harrison here last March.”

  “You’ve known about this place since last March?” I was utterly shocked. He’d probably been here dozens of times. Instinctively, I knew Peter was the one who’d forged the “disappearing” note from Quinn. He had wanted to sabotage Quinn’s and my relationship—our future together—from the beginning.

  “I like to keep close tabs on those who are important to me.”

  “And by ‘keep close tabs,’ you mean stalk,” I sneered.

  Peter narrowed his eyes. “I would be a little more considerate if I were you. Especially if you want to see your Mr. Harrison again—at least, in his human form.” He sighed melodramatically. “It is time for us to go.”

  “Go where?” I was hoping Peter would take me to Quinn, but I knew that was just wishful thinking on my part.

  Without responding, he grabbed my hand and suddenly we were in his frozen wasteland of a portal—his own personal K-2.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “In the Servants’ lair, no doubt,” he replied calmly.

  “I want to see him.”

  “At the moment, they are probably torturing Mr. Harrison within an inch of his life, and I do not believe they keep public viewing hours for that sort of thing,” he replied callously.

  Furious, I backhanded him.

  “Damn you!” Peter exclaimed as he felt his cheek and checked his hand for blood. He grabbed my hand and saw my engagement ring—along with my new wedding ring. Peter drew his hand back but stopped himself from hitting me. Instead, he took a deep breath, calmly reached into my back pocket, and grabbed my switchblade.

  “I think it’d be best if I held on to this,” he said, sticking the knife in his pocket.

  “Don’t think for a moment that knife will save you,” I said icily.

  “Go ahead,” Peter took a step back and held out his arms. “Strike me down and leave if you think you can,” he dared.

  I scanned the area and realized I had no idea where the portal door was located. I was trapped. Peter had effectively kidnapped me. Panic instantly stirred within me.

  “Take me the hell out of here,” I seethed.

  “Oh, I will,” he assured me. “In due time.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I implored. “Why aren’t you helping me find Quinn?”

  “Why do you continue to concern yourself with this mortal when he is not even yours to protect anymore?”

  “If you have to ask the question, then you’re a heartless ass, who couldn’t even begin to understand how I feel about him.”

  “Oh, trust me, I have more heart than any one of our kind,” Peter replied.

  “If that were true, you’d be helping me save Quinn right now.”

  “Save him?” he chuckled wryly. “His fate is sealed.”

  “You son of a bitch. You don’t even want to help me, do you? You want Quinn to be converted. You want him to become a demon.” My body began to tremble with rage. “You set this whole thing up. You took the Journal. You faked your own demise. And you told the demons where to find us today. You gave them Quinn.”

  “It is not that simple, Eve.”

  “Don’t!” I shouted. “Don’t even try to justify this like it’s some big philosophical dilemma. You’re a traitor. I can see it on your face.”

  I lunged for Peter, but he deflected me, turning me around and trapping me in a basket hold. I writhed and twisted, trying to break free from his grasp, but it was no use.

  “That is a very dangerous accusation to make,” he stated, loosening his grip and turning me around to face him. “But I will not deny that I have spent centuries being one kind of a servant or another. The Order wraps the gift of immortality in a pretty package, complete with alluring new powers and parlor tricks, while saddling us with restrictive Rules to make us believe we no longer have free will. But we still do.”

  “And you chose to act on your free will by siding with the Servants?” I exclaimed in utter shock.

  “Don’t think for one moment that I want the Servants to come out ahead in the end. Immortality is hardly tolerable with Othniel in charge, but it would be simply unbearable with Mathius holding the reins. But that’s where the Order comes into the picture—always ready and willing to play their part to protect their positions of power. They will never let Mr. Harrison become a Servant. They’ll kill him before that happens. But timing is everything, and I’d bet money the Order won’t intervene in time to prevent Mathius and his cronies from doing irreparable damage to your true love’s soul.”

  “You’re wrong,” I asserted defensively. Visions of me beating Peter within an inch of consciousness danced dangerously in my mind, and I had to take a deep breath to calm myself.

  “Accept it, Eve, he is nothing but a sacrificial lamb. The truth is, the Order couldn’t care less about Mr. Harrison, or you. They only care about one thing—their own survival. And to survive, they need only protect one thing.”

  “The Consecrated Key,” I said under my breath.

  “Yes.” Peter seemed surprised I knew about it. “The Consecrated Key is what is most important—the soul to which it is tagged can easily be replaced.”

  “If Quinn and I can’t stop the Servants, if we have no real purpose, then why would the Order go through all the trouble of making us true soul mates in the first place?” I challenged.

  “Oh, you have a purpose. You are a necessary distraction.”

  “What are you saying? That Quinn and I are decoys?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Ultimately, yes,” Peter said frankly.

  “Well, if the Servants are so worried about me and Quinn, then maybe you’re wrong. Maybe we play a bigger role in this than you think,” I asserted. Peter was singlehandedly trying to unravel my world and make me question my purpose in it, but I wasn’t going to let him.

  “Eve, do you honestly think the Order would leave the fate of all Realms in the hands of two children?” Peter scoffed. “Is that what your friend Ronald led you to believe? Ah, yes, I can just hear it now,” he continued in a mocking tone of voice. “His colorful tale of how Othniel directed the Three Sisters to weave their threads of fate and create a pair of true soul mates—and not just any true soul mates, but true soul mates with the power to save the world. Sound familiar?” he asked smugly.

  “I haven’t caught Ronald in a single lie. The same can’t be said of you, though, can it?” I shot back.

  “Trust me, Eve, the members of the Order would strike both Mr. Harrison and you down in the blink of an eye to save themselves. All the Order wants to do is maintain control. It’s all they have ever wanted. And now the Order fears their control is being challenged, and they don’t like that—in fact, they want to avoid it at all costs. So the Order has come up with its own plan. And the more time Mathius and his clan ‘worry’ about you and Mr. Harrison, the less likely they will notice what the Order is doing.”

  “And what is the Order doing?”

  “There are two ways for the Order to secure their control over the Realms. First, they can steal the souls Mathius has held hostage in the Underworld ever since he was cast out—however, Hell is heavily guarded and practically impossible to penetrate, unlike Heaven or Purgatory once you have one of the Keys.

  “So,” Peter continued, “the Order’s other option is to destroy Mathius. For as long as Mathius continues to exist, so does the constant threat of a war.”

  “But Mathius is one of the or
iginal members of the Order,” I stated. “How can he be destroyed?”

  “Just because Mathius was one of the Founders doesn’t mean he’s invincible,” Peter replied. “Each of the original Founders, Mathius included, is protected by their own personal arsenal of sorcery that spans the ages—spells, rituals, potions, incantations, voodoo, amulets, cloaks, various talismans. If you can name it, chances are one or more Founders have invoked it in the past.

  “And,” Peter continued, “while each Founder may tweak their arsenal from time to time, the crucial elements, the core of their enchanted shields, rarely, if ever, changes.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because to do so, they must make themselves as vulnerable as you or me in the process.”

  “And the Order has figured out the elements of Mathius’s ‘core’ shield?”

  “Most of it.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  Peter’s eyes shifted to the ground momentarily. “Research.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  This time Peter looked me straight in the eye. “Because it is the truth.”

  “And what about Quinn? Where does he factor into all of this?”

  “He doesn’t,” Peter said matter-of-factly.

  “He has to. Quinn is as much a part of me as the blood that courses through me. And if his soul is destroyed, it’ll destroy me.”

  “You would be amazed at what you can survive,” he said dispassionately.

  “Like you have without Madeleine?”

  “Don’t talk about her,” Peter snapped.

  “Why, because you loved her? Because you couldn’t save her in the end and it still eats you up inside?”

  “No,” Peter snapped. “Because you have no idea what I went through, what I still go through every single day, because of her. I did my best to protect her, but there was a point where I realized that nothing I did—nothing I could do—was enough. I realized saving Madeleine was completely out of my hands—just like saving Mr. Harrison is completely out of yours.”