Soul Reaper

by Kate Keir

  The only thing that stopped me was the look on his face now. It wasn’t just grief; it was pain—real pain.

  “Finlay?” I whispered.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he sank to his knees with his hands clutching his head. As I watched, the skin of his hands started to bubble and crack almost as if it was being burned away.

  I dropped to my knees in front of him and reached out to grab his face. “Finlay, what can I do?”

  He lifted his head and tried to focus tortured eyes on my face. “It’s happening, Flor. I’ve been trying to fight it, but I can’t anymore.”

  In that moment, nothing mattered more than keeping his soul safe. I tightened my grip on his face. “Finlay, you need to get to the Everwood. If you don’t, you’ll be lost forever.”

  I grabbed hold of his hand and dragged him up and out of the library and down the stairs. I had to get him outside, or we had no chance of getting him to the Everwood.

  His eyes clouded over, and his head rolled back, almost as though he was losing consciousness. Panic flooded through me, but I kept dragging him along until we made our way outside into the castle garden. Finlay fell to his knees again, his head lolled back as though his neck were broken.

  I fell to the floor in front of him and gripped his face again with both hands.

  “Finlay!” I shouted, shaking him until his head fell toward me.

  He managed to meet my eyes for a brief moment. “It hurts, Flor.”

  Using my thumbs to gently stroke his cheeks while my other fingers fought to support his head, I smiled at him while my heart was breaking. “I know it does, but you just have to concentrate for a minute, Finlay. Please, please you need to get to the Everwood.”

  He gave a small nod. “Okay,” he whispered.

  Huffing with relief, I rested my forehead against his and began to describe the Everwood in detail, hoping that I might inspire his mind to remember where it needed to be.

  I had to fight against my own body’s desire to make its way to the Everwood as I used ever more descriptive words to try to conjure the image inside my best friend’s mind.

  Finally, he started to shimmer and fade. “That’s it, Finlay. You’re almost there.” As we both finally appeared in the Everwood, I sobbed with relief, knowing that his soul would be safe for now at least.

  Several rogue souls hovered menacingly above us, but one quick obliteration was enough to warn them to keep their distance.

  I was relieved when Finlay seemed to come around a little. His eyes lost their glazed look, and he reached forward to gently touch my cheek.

  “Thank you, Flor. What would I do without you?” He smiled at me as he spoke.

  “Let’s never find out,” I whispered.

  He looked sad. “I have to go you know?”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  He gasped and convulsed as another pain racked his body. I bit my lip feeling completely useless.

  “What can I do?” I asked him.

  “There is something,” he murmured.

  “What? Anything” I spoke quickly, knowing we didn’t have long.

  He smiled ruefully. “I’m pretty sure I’m never going to have a body again, Flor. It would be nice to kiss someone one last time, before that happens.”

  I only hesitated for a moment. I loved Lyall, and I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt him, but how could I say no to a last request from my best friend.

  I leaned forward, and closing my eyes, I pressed my own lips against the stranger’s mouth. He kissed me back eagerly, and I melted against him feeling so confused by the unfamiliar mouth and the touch of my best friend’s soul as our bodies merged.

  He pulled back a fraction and whispered, “I love you, Flora.”

  “I love you too,” I murmured against his mouth.

  Then suddenly he reared back from me, and with a heart-stopping howl of agony, I watched the bright white light force its way from the body that had been holding it. The Draugur’s shell fell lifelessly forward onto the grass before bursting into cold blue flames.

  The little white Finlay soul raced past me before disappearing into the trees.

  I’ll come back soon, Flor. Just give me a little time to readjust, please.

  Still kneeling, I touched my fingers to my mouth, remembering what was probably the final touch I would ever receive from my best friend. My eyes pooled with tears, and I made no attempt to stop them from falling.

  A sound caught my attention, and I lifted my head to see Lyall standing a few feet away, watching me with burning eyes.

  “Lyall,” I whispered.

  “I heard you shouting at the castle, so I followed you here thinking you were in trouble, but I guess I got that wrong.” He spoke coldly and made no move to approach me.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. He asked me to do it.” Fear washed through me. I couldn’t lose Lyall too.

  “It didn’t look like you needed much encouragement from where I was standing.” He started to fade from the Everwood.

  “Lyall it was the last kiss he’s ever going to get.” I felt anger bubbling now.

  “Maybe, but you didn’t have to enjoy it quite so much. Goodbye, Flora.” He disappeared completely.

  I had never felt so completely desolate than in that moment as I knelt on the floor of the Everwood. I dropped my head into my hands and let the grief wash over me, and as I did I was certain I could hear Sluag’s rasping laughter somewhere in the distance.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Two weeks had passed since Finlay’s soul broke out of the Draugur, and Lyall still refused to speak to me about what had happened. Each of us had been consumed by our own tasks, trying to prepare for the destruction of the veil.

  I had been back to the Everwood a few times to check on Finlay, and the amount of rogue souls I encountered while I was there was terrifying. I had tried banishing them to the Endwood over and over again, but they just kept coming back—it was a pointless endeavour.

  Pen and Leah had worked hard on understanding Leah’s visions, but they were no closer to unravelling whether the prophecy would be fulfilled by my death or betrayal.

  Logically, I just had to avoid going to Sluag’s realm at all costs, but I knew that it was never going to be quite that simple. I should probably have been a little more upset by discussions surrounding my impending death, but I had so many other things to be miserable about, it didn’t seem as worrying as it once had.

  Enid and Bear continued to practise their combat skills with Artair and Freya. Bear was determined to break Freya’s barriers down and get her to agree to go on a date. Freya confided in me that would only ever happen, “Over her dead body,” although I wasn’t entirely convinced.

  It was nice to see Artair doing so much better than he had since he had lost Mara. One of the biggest shocks for us all, was to find out that Enid had actually been seventeen when we picked her up at the zoo. We only discovered it when we celebrated her eighteenth birthday a few days ago. She just looked really young for her age.

  I had noticed a certain chemistry had developed between Enid and Artair, and I was pretty sure that once they were good and ready, they would announce to us they were a couple.

  I was currently sitting on the shore of Loch Ness, thinking through the events of the last few weeks. I hadn’t been summoned by Sluag in all of this time, which almost certainly meant that my blood had worked in preventing him from being able to kidnap me in my dreams. This seemed like such a small victory after everything else that had happened, though.

  My mind kept tormenting me by going back to Lyall.

  I completely understood why he was so angry and upset; if I had watched him kiss another girl, then I would have been devastated. But at the same time, I didn’t get how he couldn’t understand why I did what I did for Finlay.

  I wasn’t sorry for what I had done, and that was the main reason I hadn’t hunted Lyall down and apologised to him. I wasn’t sure what I would actually say.

 
I’m not sorry I kissed my best friend who has always had a thing for me. Oh, and if I’m being totally honest, I actually enjoyed it.

  I growled in frustration as I watched fire spread across the surface of the loch. The sun was setting and it was truly beautiful, but I couldn’t really appreciate it because of everything that was going on inside my head. Everything felt even more broken than it had been before—something I wouldn’t have thought possible.

  A sound behind me made my head snap around. Freya was jogging down the hill toward me.

  “Flora?” she shouted.

  I stood up, disturbing Achilles, who had been curled up on my knee. He gave a hiss of annoyance and disappeared into the undergrowth.

  Freya reached me, and the grim set of her beautiful features made me want to turn away from her and run until I was at least a thousand miles away. No one ever brought good news with a look on their face like that.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

  Freya shook her head. “Pen has asked that we all meet in the great hall. It’s probably best if she explains it to you.”

  Sighing deeply, I gave one last glance at the beauty of the setting sun over the water. I had been about as much at peace as I ever got these days, and I suspected that was all about to change once Pen told us her news.

  I followed Freya in silence, wondering what had happened. We had lived under the threat of the veil giving way for weeks, so it was likely that it was something to do with that.

  As we reached the castle and walked into the great hall, my eyes met Lyall’s amber orbs. He was already sitting at the large wooden table, and he immediately looked away toward the window when his eyes met mine.

  I wanted to react but I didn’t. We had been playing this game for weeks, and I strongly suspected we would be playing it for a while longer, yet.

  Pen was also sitting at the table, and she nodded her head as Leah and Enid walked into the room completing our group.

  “Thank you all for coming.” Pen’s voice was strained, and the creases at the sides of her eyes looked deeper than ever before.

  “Whatever it is, it’s bad isn’t it?” Artair was unsmiling as he spoke.

  “Yes, it is.” Pen nodded.

  “Is it the veil?” I asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

  In response, Pen crossed the room to the light switches and dimmed them down. She had a remote control in her hands, and she pressed a button that made a large TV screen flare into life on one of the stone walls.

  Pen spoke as the opening credits for the news appeared on the screen. “This is a recording of a news report that went live earlier today.”

  We all watched and listened as a news reader told us three people had gone missing in the last week. Initially, it seemed as though the people had literally disappeared from the face of the planet without any reason why.

  The news reporter now told the viewers that CCTV footage had emerged of the moment the third person, a woman named Michelle Thomas, had disappeared. The reporter then told us they were going to play the CCTV footage and warned that some viewers may find the scenes distressing.

  We all watched in silence as a grainy image of a woman appeared on the screen. She was walking down a corridor in some sort of office building when a tiny orb appeared at the other end of the corridor.

  As soon as I saw the orb, I knew what was going to happen next.

  The light stalked after the woman, floating along the corridor behind her. She seemed to have no idea at all that it was there. Suddenly, the orb made a beeline for the woman’s chest and began forcing its way first through the fabric of her dress and then actually into the flesh beneath.

  Although there was no sound on the footage, you could see her mouth open in a silent scream of agony as the rogue soul burned through her chest until it found its way completely inside.

  At the exact moment the rogue lodged itself in its new home, another light was forced out of the woman’s chest. This light burnt with a very pale light and it performed two sluggish loop-the-loops before disappearing unsteadily along the corridor.

  Even though this was only a recording, I could feel the anguish of the pure soul as it was separated from the body that had been its home. My breath caught in my throat as I felt the soul fade and fade into a lost eternity on the mortal plane, and I felt sick with despair.

  The woman who was now inhabited by the rogue soul turned toward the CCTV camera and approached it slowly. She kept getting closer until all you could see was her face on the screen, and then she stopped walking and grinned at the camera.

  Her face contorted in the way I was used to seeing with Sluag’s Draugur. There was a ghostly shade on the woman’s face of a rotten and ghoulish creature with yellowed teeth that dripped with saliva.

  The video cut off at this point, and the screen returned to the newsreader asking for anyone with any information as to the whereabouts of any of the missing people to call the number on the bottom of the screen.

  There was a momentary silence in the great hall as we all tried to process what we had seen.

  I was the first to break the silence. “That rogue kicked out the woman’s pure soul and stole her body.”

  Pen nodded gravely. “Rogues are crossing from the Endwood into the mortal world. They can then become Draugur by simply invading the bodies of people with pure souls.”

  “Then the veil has been destroyed?” Artair asked quietly.

  “No. If the veil was destroyed, then Sluag would be here to attack us personally. It is only torn, for now.”

  Lyall shifted in his seat, and my heart ached for me to go to him. “You say only torn, Pen, but rogues are actually breaking into the mortal world and kicking other souls out of their bodies. That’s pretty bad.”

  “It is. Sluag must have created more Super Draugur using Finlay’s blood,” Pen agreed.

  “Bloody Finlay,” Lyall growled to himself.

  I frowned before speaking. “Pen, Sluag has an almost endless supply of rogues in the Endwood. He could practically repopulate the world with Draugur.”

  Pen stood up. “Don’t worry just yet. If Sluag could send all of his rogues at once, he would have already done it. I’m convinced the tear is so small, they can only pass through intermittently.”

  “I second that. I have seen it in a vision,” Leah agreed.

  “That’s helpful but what do we do to stop him?” Artair asked.

  Freya stood up to speak. “We can kill the Draugur as they are created, as long as we can hunt them down. That will keep their numbers to a minimum.”

  “Apart from that, we need to find a way to destroy those Super Draugur and stop Sluag from opening the veil any farther,” Pen offered.

  “We also need to destroy Sluag.” Lyall’s voice was hard.

  “So not very much then, really,” I said bitterly.

  Pen frowned at me. “Now isn’t the time to be despondent, Flora.”

  “I’m sorry, Pen. You’re right but we have got a hell of a lot to do. We should probably get started,” I suggested.

  She looked around the table at each of us in turn. Her face was strong and determined.

  “Yes, we should get started. For we must prepare for war.”

  To be continued…

  Thank You

  A thousand thank yous’ to anybody who chose to pick up Soul Reaper, and read it. I am honoured that you gave me the opportunity to bring you along for the next part of Flora’s journey. I hope you enjoyed it enough to want to follow the story through to its conclusion in Soul Eternal.

  Reviews are the life-blood of any Indie author, and I remain eternally grateful to those who leave a review for Soul Reaper after reading it. If you enjoyed the book, I’d be thrilled to know, and if not then please tell me what I could have done better. Feedback from readers is the best way for me to improve and grow as a writer.

  Much love to you all. See you at the end for Soul Eternal xxx

  Please reach out to me. I love to hea
r from readers, and will always reply.

  Facebook & Twitter: @AuthorKateKeir

  Website: www.katekeir.com

  Acknowledgements

  A huge thanks to Katrina at Crimson Phoenix Creations for designing my beautiful book covers for all three books in the trilogy. You are so talented lady!

  Thank you to my favourite ladies for reading the first draft of babble that I created, and telling me when I had got it right or wrong.

  Thank you to my wonderful editor Lia. I can’t believe you came back to edit three more of my books after the lengthy job you had with my debut. I would like to think I’ve improved a little since then, but thank you for polishing my manuscript up to publication standard.

  To my long-suffering hubby, who had to endure writer’s widowhood for six months while I wrote all three books, thank you for your unwavering support. I love you xxx