The Soul Keepers Series, Book 1

by Devon Taylor

  She ducked below Basil’s scythes as he swung them at her one after another, metal singing as it cut through the air above her, and then she shot back up and swung her foot around. It collided with the side of Basil’s head. He went down, scythes skittering away across the slick floor. And in the same fluid motion, Treeny turned, gripping the hilt of her knife in her fist, and got Mak right under her chin. Mak went down, too.

  Rhett was helpless. He couldn’t let Captain Trier fall.

  Treeny held the heart up. It flexed in her hand, squeezing itself, pumping its empty life force. Treeny wrapped her fingers around the dense red muscle. It pushed out against her grip, but she squeezed tighter … and tighter …

  When the heart broke, it turned to ash almost instantly. One second it was red and beating strongly. In the next second it fell apart into specks of black, as if it had only ever been an illusion.

  Rhett heard himself scream. He turned back to the captain, who had still been clinging to Rhett’s arm. But there was no weight there anymore. For a moment Rhett could still see the shape of the captain’s face, made of those same little particles of darkness. And then they were washed away by the rain and the wind. The captain’s hand disintegrated in Rhett’s, and soon there was nothing but the rain patting against his empty palm.

  The storm raged on around them.

  Mak fell to her knees, face buried in her hands. Basil was still down for the count, slumped in a heap over by the lantern, which was dark and useless. Rhett sank to the wet floor, dripping from head to toe and still being slapped with rain.

  “Treeny,” he said. “What did you do?”

  She turned to him, and there was a flicker of the old Treeny there—timid and nervous. Her eyes were red and leaking tears.

  “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Treeny asked, speaking directly to Rhett. For the first time, her voice was full and, in a strange way, lovely. “When she first came to me, I thought she was here to save me. From all … this.” She spat the last word, gesturing around her, at the ship, at her broken team. “But she didn’t care about me. She doesn’t care about anything.” Now she was openly weeping. Tears dripped from her eyes and plunked into the rainwater on the floor.

  “We … we can help you, Treeny,” Rhett said.

  She scoffed. “Don’t be so naive, Rhett. It’s not a good look for you.” She stopped. She was shaking. When she spoke again, her voice was soft, full of pain. “She makes you hurt. All the time she makes you hurt. She makes you remember things you want to forget and forget things you want to remember. She makes you afraid to eat, to sleep. So you just sit there and wait for her to come back. And every time you think she won’t, that maybe you’re finally rid of her, she turns up again. She makes you do shit like this.” She motioned around her again.

  “You’re a traitor,” Mak said from behind Treeny.

  “Right back at you,” Treeny said, turning around to face Mak, the pain suddenly absent from her voice, replaced by spit and fire. “You don’t care about this team, Mak. Not anymore. Oh, and for the record, psychons are definitely smart enough to operate my tablet. As long as I’ve disabled the self-destruct feature and left it behind for them. It’s got a navigation system that led them right to us.”

  She was talking about San Francisco, the Golden Gate. She had lost her tablet on purpose, and that’s how the psychons—and Urcena—found the Harbinger. Rhett suddenly wished that he’d left Treeny inside that car. It won’t be safe, she had said. She hadn’t been talking about safety for herself.

  While her back was turned to him, Rhett lunged, pulling his knuckle blade free of its holster. He kept his mouth shut to stifle the cry of rage that welled up in his throat, but his feet splashed in the puddle that had formed from the incoming rain. Treeny turned at the last second. Rhett had a brief image of her slicing his head off in one swift motion. But she couldn’t do that, could she? Not if she wanted him in one piece.

  He charged on, slamming into her tiny body with all the force he had. They hit the floor together and slid. Rhett climbed on top and pinned her, holding the pointed ends of the four blades that extended from his weapon just an inch from her throat.

  “They have Theo,” Treeny said at once, before Rhett could even begin to think about cutting into her. Rhett’s face must have melted from fury into surprise, because Treeny gave him a smile that made her face look all wrong. “You didn’t think I’d just come up here and ghost the captain without having a decent escape plan, did you?” And when Rhett didn’t reply, she said, “You really are as ignorant as Mak says you are.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rhett caught movement—Basil, crawling for the lantern.

  Distracted, Rhett felt Treeny get her feet under him. She kicked out. He tumbled backward, splashing back into the puddle. She was a lot stronger than she looked. But maybe she was getting help.

  Treeny was on her feet between blinks, diving for the flameless lantern. But Basil was quicker. He reached up, grabbed it off its pedestal, and sent it skidding across the floor toward Mak. It rattled and sparked but made it all the way. Mak reached for it, yanking on its thin metal handle, and tossed it over her head. It was like some bizarre basketball game. The lantern bounced off the floor once with a harsh metallic scrape and then fell down the spiral staircase to the main deck. The stairs shook, clanging over and over. Then they went still.

  Mak gave Treeny a satisfied grin, knowing that Treeny would have to fight her way through all of them to get down the steps. Treeny sneered back at her.

  “It doesn’t make any difference,” she growled. “Urcena isn’t after the lantern. When Rhett is ours, we’ll have control of something much more valuable than a glorified paperweight.” She glared at Rhett, backing up toward the shattered opening in the window. “Keep your friends away, Soul Keeper,” she said, and there was a touch of the she-thing in her voice now. Treeny was not entirely Treeny anymore. “You were warned. Defiance will end in disaster. When the time comes, you will give yourself up. Or be taken along with your precious cargo.”

  She fell silent, turning away. She broke into a run, took three long strides, and jumped through the opening and into the downpour. Her body fell away, disappearing into the shroud of rain.

  Rhett and Mak ran to the window, where thunder and lightning were warring for control of the sky and thick droplets of rain wept from the sharp points of broken glass. They peered over the edge, trying to glimpse any sign of Treeny. It wasn’t a terribly far drop but enough that someone’s legs would probably be broken from the impact. The shadows cast by the storm clouds were too dense, though, and the light was too chaotic. If she was down there, she was well hidden.

  Basil lumbered up behind them, and they all three stared out across the acres-long bow of the ship, toward the spot where something was emerging from the strings of unyielding rain, something almost as big as the Harbinger, something dark and jagged and ferocious-looking.

  “Is that…?” Rhett breathed.

  “Yeah,” Mak replied. “The psychons’ ship.”

  It really was an abomination.

  Like the Harbinger, the psychons’ ship appeared to be made up of several different sailing vessels that had probably been brought together over the course of centuries. Unlike the Harbinger, the psychons’ ship had no rhyme or reason to the way it was constructed. It was lopsided, angled strangely, with ships and boats jutting out of it from all directions. In the unkind light, it looked more like a malformed geode. Rhett could see the bows of ships hanging over the waves, propellers spinning in the open air, several wooden masts poking out of one side like an array of toothpicks, torn and blackened sails shaking in the wind. There was a collection of smokestacks all shoved together into one area, making them look like organ pipes that spewed an acrid, lightless fog of smoke. He could see smears of black ooze streaked across the sides like rogue paint strokes. Whole skeletons dangled from ropes tied to poles and wooden crossbeams and propeller shafts. Rhett didn’t think that what he was lo
oking at could even be called a ship. It was more like a raft, composed of various salvaged wrecks from a millennium of sailing through this world.

  As it got closer, Rhett noticed the angular front end of a smaller ship sticking straight up out of a confusion of other parts. There was a single word printed high up on the starboard side: CYCLOPS.

  “What do we do?” Rhett asked, practically yelling against the static torrent of the rain.

  Nobody spoke.

  From somewhere aboard the Harbinger, a siren began to wail.

  THIRTEEN

  “Welp,” Basil said. “I say we just call it. What do you think? We knock off for the day and start over fresh tomorrow?”

  From deep within the ship, the siren continued to cry out. Mak had turned her back to the psychons’ ship—what Rhett now thought of as the Cyclops. She had her head down, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  “You heard Treeny,” Rhett said. “I have to give myself up.”

  “I don’t think it’s that easy, mate,” Basil replied, seriousness deflating his sarcasm.

  “He’s right,” Mak said. “Why would they be threatening an attack if all they want is you?”

  Rhett finally tore his eyes away from the tangle of maimed and butchered ships that made up the Cyclops. For probably the millionth time, he thought about what Urcena had said to him on the Golden Gate: Find your power.

  He closed his eyes and saw the purple fire and the color returning to the girl’s cheeks back at the apartment building. Was that really all Urcena was after? Did she want him to use his “power,” which he had only just discovered and had absolutely zero control over, to heal her somehow? To give her life? He didn’t even really know what Urcena was, but he was sure that she had never truly been alive. If not that, then what?

  “They could have taken you any time,” Mak went on. “In San Francisco. Today, in that building. Why did they go through so much trouble to find the Harbinger if they just wanted you? Treeny even left the lantern behind. Why?”

  “Because they’re out of their bloody fucking minds, that’s why!” Basil cried.

  Rhett saw the hallway, broiling in the flames, and the electric sparks dancing in the air as the girl’s life siphoned back into her. He opened his eyes.

  “The souls,” he said as it hit him. What he could do. What he could create.

  “What?” Mak and Basil said at the same time.

  “She wants the souls, too. The tank in the steam room. She must think that I can bring them all back to life or something.”

  “Can you?” Mak asked.

  “I … I don’t know. She already has an army of psychons. But maybe she wants an army of the living, too.” Rhett thought it sounded ridiculous even to himself. But he could think of no other conclusion.

  “Why would she want an army of living people?” Basil asked.

  “Why would anybody?” Rhett responded. “Leverage. Power. She could use the souls that we have to get control of somebody who’s still alive, somebody she can’t touch. Government officials, presidents, kings. And think about how many souls are in that tank. If I’m able to bring one back, I’m probably able to bring them all back. She’d have an army of the resurrected. An army that could die and come back to life over and over again. They’d be unstoppable.”

  “You seem to have thought a lot about this.” Mak folded her arms.

  “Oh Jesus, will you give it a rest already?” Rhett yelled. She took an involuntary step back. He realized that he had never yelled at her before. “I don’t know what’s going on! I don’t know what this is inside me. What I did back there to that girl … it was unbelievable. But I swear to you that I had no idea until then that I could even do it.”

  “So then why didn’t you tell us when you saw Urcena in San Francisco?” she spat back.

  “Because I could have just been losing my mind! You have no idea how fucking stressful all this is. I may not always be able to feel anything here”—he pointed to his chest—“but it’s always, always up here.” He pointed at his head.

  “I have no idea how stressful this is?” Mak roared. “You haven’t even been here a year. Do you know what it’s like to stand in the middle of a battlefield and take the souls of an entire squadron of soldiers? Do you know what it’s like to watch towers fall with thousands of people inside them and then have to bring those souls back with you, one at a time, and stuff them into a giant fish bowl? There are no words that make those moments easier. Nothing we say or do is going to fix the hurt and the loss. And yeah, sure, some of them get turned because the trauma is too much. You, me, Basil, Treeny, Theo”—her voice broke slightly as she said that last name—“everyone on this ship. We have to carry that trauma with us and then we get to add to it. Over and over and over—” She cut herself off, turning away. When she turned back, she had composed herself somewhat. “Then one day the pieces fall apart,” she whispered. “And you end up like that.” She pointed out through the hole in the window. Rhett didn’t have to hear it to understand that she was talking about Treeny.

  “I’m sorry,” Rhett said with a sigh. “You’re right. I don’t know what any of that is like. But I do know what it’s like to watch my friends get taken, just like you watched Lana get taken. I know that I’m telling the truth. And I know that I want to help you stop whatever it is that’s about to happen.”

  Basil stepped up and put a hand on Rhett’s shoulder.

  “Mak,” he said. “I believe him.”

  “Yeah? Why?” she asked. She was trying to sound accusatory again, but the fight had gone out of her.

  “Because Captain Trier sent me to collect him. And I trusted the captain to the end.”

  Rhett looked at Basil, shocked. Mak stared, her eyes curious.

  “What are you talking about?” Rhett asked.

  “It’s my job to collect new syllektors in the first place,” Basil explained. “But the captain knew something was going to go down in New York the night of your … well, you know.” Rhett nodded. “So he sent me to check it out. But he wouldn’t tell me what was going to happen. Maybe because he didn’t know. That’s why we had to go through the back door. To stay undetected by prying eyes.” He nodded out at the dark shape of the Cyclops as it moved ever closer. Then he turned to Mak. “And why I couldn’t tell you where I was going, love.”

  “So, when you collected me … you didn’t think anything was strange?” Rhett asked.

  Basil turned back. “I thought it was strange that the captain wanted to be so secretive about it. But otherwise … no. When I saw you just sitting there in the middle of the road, staring at your own corpse, I knew what I had to do. The captain knew there was something important about you. I just don’t think anyone understood what it was until today.”

  They were quiet. Rhett turned back to the storm. The Cyclops was right on top of them now, its crooked, pointing shadow falling onto the hull of the Harbinger.

  From behind him, Mak sighed.

  “Okay,” she said. “Fine. If you believe him, then … I guess I believe him, too. But what now?”

  Rhett bent down and picked up his weapon, fitting the knuckle blade onto his hand and closing his fist around the grip. He turned back to the other two.

  “If Urcena wants me and the souls together, she’s going to attack the ship no matter what,” he said.

  “I always did peg you as a glass-half-full kind of guy,” Basil murmured through the corner of his mouth.

  “The only thing we can do now,” Rhett continued, “is fight. It doesn’t matter if they take me. We just have to keep the souls safe.” The memory of his parents’ faint, echoing whispers coming out of the tank in the steam room filled his ears. They were in there, too.

  But he had to let the words settle in. What was he suggesting? A fight to the … ghost? How many other syllektors would suffer that fate by the time the fight was done?

  “All right, mate,” Basil said. “I’m with you. Together, remember? What’s the plan?”
/>   Rhett blinked at him. “Um … well, I … uh…”

  “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you haven’t got a plan. You just dumped a truckload of all this heavy shit on us and you don’t even have a plan?”

  “Oh … well, I thought…” Rhett turned to Mak.

  “Don’t look at me,” she said. For the first time since that morning in the mess hall, the flicker of a smile danced across her lips. “This is your rodeo, cowboy.”

  The spiral staircase rattled angrily. Mak and Basil grabbed their weapons off the floor, and all three of them stood ready, unsure of what was coming up the steps.

  A bald head appeared out of the floor. It was Henry. They let out a sigh.

  Rhett stiffened again when Henry fully emerged from the staircase and saw the mess. He was holding the fallen lantern in one of his hands.

  “I think you … lost … something,” Henry said slowly, eyeing the room.

  Mak went over and took the lantern. She slipped the handle under the strap for her machete sheath and attached it. It dangled from her side.

  “Henry, listen to me,” she said. “Captain Trier has been … ghosted.”

  Henry’s face drew out in shock. “What? What happened? I was gone for ten minutes!”

  “I know. Just pay attention, okay? Treeny ghosted the captain. She might still be on board somewhere.”

  Henry looked around at them, disbelief flooding his features.

  “Treeny?” he said. “Are … are you sure?”

  The three of them exchanged glances.

  “We’re sure,” Basil said.

  “I’ll … gather a search party—” Henry started.

  Mak grabbed him by the shoulders and held him where he was.

  “No, Henry,” she said, trying to be gentle but failing. “You’re the Harbinger’s first mate. That makes you in charge of the crew now. We have to focus on the attack. Look.”

  She turned Henry to face out the shattered window, where the Cyclops had all but consumed the view with its ugly, pointed features. Henry’s eyes got wide.