The Soul Keepers Series, Book 1

by Devon Taylor

  “When did you talk to the captain?”

  “Last night.” She had her hands behind her back, walking with the same impenetrable purpose. But her voice was softer, more casual.

  “It took you all day to warm up to me?” Rhett asked.

  She shrugged. “I needed to see you. Out there, I mean. Anyone can come onto this ship and claim to be okay with what goes on here. It takes a certain kind of person to be able to stomach the actual work.”

  “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly an easy sell.” In fact, he still wasn’t entirely convinced.

  “That’s what the captain said,” Mak replied. “I just needed to see you respect it.”

  “Respect what?”

  “The fact that it’s not a choice. It’s not a system. It’s random. And it’s cruel. That little kid back there … he probably just ate some random berry or something. Perfectly innocent. And that was all it took for his life to be over.” She was focusing hard on her feet as they moved below her, leading them out of the tunnel. “Us. You. Your parents. Nobody sees it coming.”

  Now Rhett reached out and stopped her, grabbing her forearm. He didn’t think she’d allow herself to be turned, but she surprised him. She spun, her eyes wide, not quite angry, not quite sad.

  “My parents?” Rhett said, his voice rough. He searched her eyes. “Which one did you bring back? My dad?”

  She broke his gaze and took a small step away from him, pointing herself back down the tunnel toward the steam room.

  “Theo got your dad,” she barely whispered.

  “So my mom, then. My mom…” He wanted to be angry. He wanted to scream and shake her. But she’d wanted this. She’d brought it up so that he would know. And somehow he was grateful. The image was just too much, though. “You watched her die,” he said. “You let it happen even though she wasn’t ready.”

  “That’s my point, Rhett. You heard Basil. It’s not up to us. None of us are ready. And that’s what I need you to understand.” She was still facing away from him, arms folded across her chest now.

  “Is that why you didn’t want me on the team?” Rhett said. “Or was it because of what happened to your old teammate?”

  Mak whirled around. She buried her gaze into him like a sword.

  “Don’t ask me that question again,” she said. “Ever.”

  Rhett nearly stumbled back. “O-okay. I’m sorry,” he stammered. She tried to step around him, but he blocked her. “And thank you,” he said quietly. “For taking care of my mom.”

  Mak stared back at him for the briefest of seconds and then gave him a stiff nod.

  With that she kept walking in silence, and Rhett had to collect himself before catching up.

  “I’m going back to my cabin,” she finally said, her voice rough and edgy again.

  “You’re not hungry?” he asked.

  “Are you?”

  Rhett thought about it, and of course he wasn’t hungry. Not in the way he used to be. But the night before and this morning he’d had a desire to eat. Just another formality of the living that helped give him a sense of normalcy. But tonight?

  “No,” he said. “I’m not. Can I walk you back to your room?”

  She looked at him sidelong, slitting her eyes. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know. I just … don’t want to be totally alone. Not yet.”

  After a pause, Mak nodded. “Just to my door.”

  They went on without speaking. There were a million questions that he could have asked. A million things to speculate on and comment on and wonder aloud about, just to get some kind of feedback. But he suspected that once he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He decided to let the silence be, a weird species of contentedness falling between them.

  Her room was down another hall opposite from where Rhett’s was. He followed her down it, surprised to see her hands fidgeting behind her back.

  Mak turned to say good-bye, reached behind her, and pushed her door open a crack. From within, a voice called out.

  “It’s about bloody time, love!” Basil said. “How long does it take to drop off a single soul?”

  Mak had her eyes shut, grimacing. Rhett was still struggling to comprehend.

  When Mak pushed the door open all the way, Rhett got a full view of Basil lying in her bunk, a blanket covering his lower half … and nothing covering the upper half. Basil and Rhett locked eyes.

  “Oh…’allo, mate!” Basil said, exaggerating his accent either on purpose or from his surprise.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhett said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mak cut in. “Just … don’t make a big deal. Okay? And keep it to yourself.”

  “I … yes, I can do that.” For one horrible second, Rhett thought he was going to pantomime locking his mouth shut and throwing away the key. He caught himself just in time.

  “Training tomorrow,” she said. “Someone has to teach you how to use that ridiculous thing.” She gestured to Rhett’s thigh, where the knuckle blade had rested in its holster all day, unused.

  Mak backed into her room, with Basil still looking wide-eyed behind her, and shut the door without another word.

  “Good night,” Rhett said to no one.

  SIX

  “Mate, are you sure you don’t want to pick something else out?” Basil said. He was referring, again, to Rhett’s choice in weaponry.

  They were split off into pairs, with Theo and Mak sparring in a far corner of the training room, another wide chamber with high ceilings, padded walls, and big lamps strung up by chains that lit the room with a glow that was almost too warm for the nature of its purpose. They were here to learn to fight. At least, Rhett was. The rest of them all appeared to be able to hold their own, even little Treeny, who was launching her throwing knives into a rubber torso that had seen better days, occasionally having to stop and push her glasses back up onto her nose.

  Basil was with Rhett, trying to show him a few basic self-defense moves. Rhett had assumed that Mak would be the one to teach him, but she had avoided him, busying herself with polishing her machete in the corner of the room. And when Rhett was left with the choice of either Basil or Theo to train with, he went with the option that was less likely to leave him maimed.

  But they kept coming back to the knuckle blade.

  “No,” Rhett said. He had the blade in his hand, standing with his feet apart and his arms up, looking like a boxer. He had been practicing with a rubber torso of his own and had gotten the blade lodged in its thick padding no less than five times. “Nobody judges you for your stupid scythes.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” Basil cried, throwing his hands up. “First of all … my scythes are cool.”

  “Not really.” That was Treeny, of all people, still homing in on the battered, pockmarked abs of her “sparring partner.” Rhett couldn’t help but admire Treeny’s choice in weaponry. The throwing knives kept her as far away from the enemy as possible. His knuckle blade, on the other hand …

  He wouldn’t back down, though. He’d made his choice. And he still liked the way the blade felt gripped in his hand. He liked the heft of it. Even though he had never been in a fight in his life, he could imagine throwing a few pretty nasty uppercuts with the blade.

  Basil rolled his eyes at Treeny.

  “Yes. They are,” he repeated. “But Jack the Ripper over here would look less silly if he was using a toothpick.”

  Rhett heard Mak snort from across the room.

  “Can we please just drop it?” he said. “I need to know how to fight. With this. Will you show me or not?”

  “Ugh. Fine,” Basil groaned. He was already holding on to one of the twin scythes, spinning it on his fingers absentmindedly. He beckoned for Rhett to join him in the middle of a wide, padded ring.

  Rhett gave him a skeptical look but took up a place on the other side of the ring. Treeny had suddenly lost interest in her target, which was now impaled in several places by her knives, lik
e an oversize pincushion. Through the corner of his eye, Rhett could see Mak glancing in their direction also, taking quick peeks in between dodging Theo’s swipes with his battle-ax.

  “Okay,” Basil said, getting into position and finally unsheathing his other blade. He gave them both a quick twirl, and for the first time Rhett noticed how fearsome Basil could really look. “The first thing you need to understand is that the psychons don’t care if you’re new. They care that they’re hungry, and they care that you’re in their way. Period.”

  “So … treat them the same way that I would … treat a bear?” Rhett said, trying to be funny.

  But Basil leveled one of the scythes at him and said, “Exactly! They’re animals. Plain and simple.”

  “Okay,” Rhett said. “But to be fair, I’d run away from a bear, not try to have a duel with it.”

  Treeny actually giggled, still standing beside the ring, watching intently.

  “Even if the bear was going to eat your parents?” Basil asked.

  Rhett had no response but felt a dark look pass over his face, and he cast it in Mak’s direction. She must have heard it, too, because their eyes met for a split second, and she nearly lost her head to another one of Theo’s attacks. But she ducked out of the way, rolled, kicked off a nearby support pillar, and slammed her feet into the backs of Theo’s knees. He crumpled, losing hold of his ax, and Mak put her machete to his neck, victorious. But she looked frustrated.

  “Focus, mate,” Basil said. “Psychons equal wild, unpredictable, unhinged animals. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Rhett said. He shook his head to clear it.

  “You have to respect that. You and I can practice combat until our legs give out. But psychons aren’t going to fight you. They’re going to destroy you.”

  “Don’t you guys have, like, a simulation or something?” Rhett asked. “A hologram, maybe? Just so I can get a grasp on what I’m supposed to be dealing with here?”

  “Does this look like the fucking starship Enterprise?” Basil cried. And then, without any sort of pause, Basil swiped at Rhett with one of his scythes.

  Rhett leaped back, sucking in his gut. Basil’s blade passed through the air less than an inch from Rhett’s stomach, so close that Rhett could see his own shocked reflection in the polished blade.

  “You have to let your instincts take over!” Basil yelled. He swung at Rhett again.

  Rhett stumbled back, coming to the edge of the ring, with Basil still advancing. Behind Basil, Rhett could see Mak and Theo, no longer sparring with each other but watching this fight instead. Rhett decided he could learn something from Mak after all.

  As Basil brought another scythe down over Rhett’s head, Rhett jumped forward, under Basil’s arm, and rolled. For just a second he was sure that he was going to stab himself with his own blade. But then he came out of the roll, unharmed, and spun just in time to see Basil coming around with yet another swipe.

  Instincts, Basil had said.

  Rhett swung his fist, clutching the knuckle blade, upward. The two blades connected with a sharp krrang and a spray of glowing sparks. But Basil lost his momentum, and Rhett shot up before he could come in with the other scythe. Rhett stuck his foot out, kicking Basil square in the chest. Basil went sprawling back, nearly losing his footing … and stepped outside the ring.

  Treeny was applauding, clapping her hands together like the giddy, excited kid she was supposed to be. Even Theo, with his ax tucked under one enormous arm, was clapping. Mak simply stood there, but there was a satisfied look on her face, a look that suggested she might be rethinking her opinions about Rhett. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

  Basil was grinning. And Rhett was full-on laughing. He couldn’t help himself. He was doubled over, cracking up.

  “Listen, mate, that was one go-around,” Basil said. “Don’t get cocky on me yet.”

  Rhett was still laughing.

  “It’s not that,” he wheezed. “It’s just that I had you pegged as a Doctor Who guy.”

  Basil looked confused, but then understanding spread across his face.

  “Oh, just because I’ve got an accent?” he said. “Don’t hurt yourself, mate.” But he was laughing now, too. Along with Treeny and Theo. And even Mak couldn’t fight the miniscule grin on her lips.

  When they’d composed themselves, Rhett and Basil reset in the ring.

  “Let’s try that again,” Basil said.

  They kept going.

  Eventually Mak and Theo were in the ring with Basil and Rhett, offering their own pointers, suggesting different techniques. Rhett gleaned what he could from them, and at some point, the knuckle blade started to feel comfortable in his hand, an extension of his fist as he swung it through the air. He knew that if he switched on his senses, opened his mind and nerves to the exertion he was forcing on his body, he’d probably collapse. But it felt good to know that he was keeping up, that even though he was still very far off from where the others were, he could stand and fight with them if he had to.

  As the day went on, Rhett kept expecting the push to interrupt them. He waited to feel it pulsing in his head, guiding him away from the training room and down to the doors, off the ship and into the living world.

  But it never came.

  For a few minutes around lunchtime, the five of them sat sprawled out on the pads, weapons strewn nearby, not catching their breath (because, really, there was no breath to catch) but taking a mental break. Rhett decided to ask about the push.

  “We can’t do that every day,” Mak responded. “Nobody can.”

  Treeny had a far-off look in her eyes, her excitement from earlier now long gone.

  “We have to keep a certain balance,” Basil offered. “Every few days or so, a handful of teams, they … get a break, so to speak. From soul-gathering, anyway. And we use those days for training and to take our turns with our ‘chores.’” He put his fingers up in air quotes.

  “But how?” Rhett asked. “Is there some kind of master switch or something? Because I don’t remember turning it off this morning.”

  “We’re not the ones who turn it off,” Mak said. She was sitting at the very edge of the ring, her back leaning against a support pillar. She had her machete laid across her lap, its smooth blade reflecting the soft glow from the lamps up onto her face. She could have been lit by the sun. “Remember when I said the souls helped to power the ship and us?” she asked.

  Rhett nodded.

  “Well, the ship controls when we feel the push and when we don’t.” Mak leaned her head back against the pillar almost lovingly. “The Harbinger just knows.”

  Suddenly Rhett had the unnerving sensation that they were sitting inside the belly of something powerful and alive, something that was using them. Were they really serving a higher purpose? Or were they like tiny fish, picking at the scraps caught in the baleen of a whale’s mouth?

  He decided to change the subject.

  “So, what kind of chores are we talking about?” he asked, mostly kidding.

  Theo, who had been suspiciously quiet, piped up.

  “You’ve got your kitchen-cleaning and your cooking and your coal-shoveling…” he said in his thick accent. “And your floor-mopping and your weapons-cleaning.” He paused, considering something, then went on. “I like peeling potatoes the best.”

  Mak, Basil, and Treeny couldn’t contain their laughter, and Theo just smiled sheepishly.

  “Theo enjoys doing chores,” Basil said.

  “Reminds me of my nana’s house,” Theo was still holding on to his grin. “That woman…” He looked around at them all, eyes wide, as if he were about to tell a deep, dark secret even though his mouth was spread in a huge, goofy smile. “She ran a tight ship.” And then he waggled his eyebrows.

  “Pffffft!” Basil lost it, tipping over onto his side.

  Meanwhile Mak and Treeny just rolled their eyes, groaning.

  Rhett couldn’t help but chuckle along with Basil.

  “Maybe you shou
ld let me crack the jokes, eh, Theo?” Basil said, fighting against the laughter that was still bubbling up out of him.

  “How about nobody makes any jokes?” Mak said. She was standing, gripping her machete again. With the smallest tilt of a smile on her lips, it made her look just a touch maniacal. “Let’s get back to work.”

  Treeny hopped up willingly and resumed her knife-throwing. The silly, almost childlike way that Theo had been smiling dropped away and was replaced by the stoic, unreadable exterior again. Basil just hung his head and sighed. He stared at the floor for a moment as if trying to decide if he really wanted to continue.

  Rhett was about to stand when Theo surprised him—he came over and stuck his hand out. Rhett took it, and Theo helped him to his feet. The brute’s grip was so strong that he stopped just short of throwing Rhett across the room.

  “Uh … thanks,” Rhett said.

  Theo only nodded, but it was the first time that Rhett didn’t feel like a parasite, latching on to the team and dangling there, holding on for the ride.

  For the breadth of a single moment, he felt like part of the team.

  SEVEN

  After dinner that night, Mak, Theo, and Treeny wandered off to bed, leaving Rhett and Basil in the mess hall. Basil had a cup of coffee and a piece of blueberry pie in front of him. Rhett thought it looked delicious, but he didn’t want to risk opening himself up to the exhaustion that his body was surely feeling after ten hours of training. He hadn’t eaten much dinner, either. And what he did eat, he hadn’t tasted. If he could keep the pain of his sore muscles and weary bones at bay, he was going to do it.

  So he just sat there while Basil picked at his pie in a relaxed sort of silence.

  “Mak told you about your parents?” Basil asked suddenly, staring down at his plate. “About how she and Theo—”

  “Yeah,” Rhett said quickly, stopping him. “Yeah.”

  Basil nodded. “Good. I didn’t want you to go too long without knowing. Wouldn’t have been right.”

  Rhett didn’t respond, just stared out the big portholes at the blanket of gray clouds rolling across the sky.

  A little while later, they were coming off the stairs to the crew quarters. Rhett was absentmindedly walking beside Basil, following him almost, until he realized he was going the wrong way—his room was in the other direction. And he already knew where Basil was headed.