All Souls: A Gatehouse Thriller

by Karin Kaufman

  As soon as Paige left the bay, Zack turned to me. “Did Kath know about this place?”

  “No one knows about it but me. Not Kath, Nathan, or Gatehouse.”

  “Then how’s Nathan going to find us?”

  “He isn’t.” I shot a glance at Hall, trying to determine whether that tidbit pleased or worried her. It scared Zack.

  “He has to find us. We need a porter to tell us what to do. What’s our plan? What if he’s at my house right now?”

  “He isn’t,” I said.

  “And you know this how?” Zack spread his hands, giving me his what-the-hell expression.

  I leaned against the SUV, taking a peek at the office door before going on. “Kath was cleared out, so by now he’s found out about her. Someone found the tattoo of her Sack name. He’s figured out that she signaled other Sacks every step of the way. Maybe going back to Santa Fe, but definitely from the gas station on.”

  “On up to my house,” Zack said, nodding in agreement. “But I didn’t have time to call for a clear-out there.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s kind of obvious we left.”

  He suddenly grimaced and threw his head back. “My house is going to stink like raw meat in a trash can.”

  I laughed, despite the image that came to mind—bodies swelling, skin stretched taut and turning as green as the tattoo on a Sack’s belly. I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I just needed to laugh. But Hall was staring at the floor without the trace of a smile on her lips, and looking at her, I felt a twinge of guilt. She didn’t know the dead Sacks personally, but she knew their names and maybe their friends or families. If she laughed about Kath the way I was laughing about Masticate and Taken Breath, I’d consider rearranging her teeth.

  “Anyway,” I began, running my hand over my face and literally wiping the grin from it, “I’ll find a way to let Nathan know where we are. As soon as we find out where he is.” I had an idea that Nathan knew me well enough to surmise I was in the Fort Collins–Loveland area. Home, familiar streets, friends to turn to for help. What I needed to do was figure out where he’d be, then go there. Lydia might know, but her whereabouts were a mystery to me and everyone else, just as Nathan wanted it.

  After pizza and coffee, I asked to see Hall’s flash drives, hoping to catch her off guard in a carbohydrate slump. She balked. Three she could show me, two belonged strictly to Gatehouse.

  “I need to see a list of Sacks in the Fort Collins–Loveland area,” I said, pulling up one of the metal chairs Paige had brought into the bay. “Whatever drive it’s on. It’s important.” I didn’t want to let on that the list would help me find Nathan, though the look Hall gave me, and the fact that she relented and handed me a drive, told me she knew that.

  I looked around for Zack so I could use his laptop and finally spotted him inside the business office gazing longingly toward the closed door of the employee lounge, the only barrier between him and the Overstreets’ Halloween party. He wanted to relax and be an average guy for one night, but we couldn’t let down our guard or involve Paige and Travis in any way with the world of Sacks. When he trudged back, laptop in his hands, I laid down the law.

  “These are my friends,” I began. “They’re at risk because we’re here. So we stay away from them and their party.” I stepped to the office door, shut it, and returned to my seat. “And we stick together, here in the bay. No one calls anyone, no one goes off alone.”

  “Fine with me,” Hall said, crossing her legs and giving her bangs a push to the side. She couldn’t argue with the logic of what I was saying, but at two decades my senior, she didn’t like me issuing her orders. It would lessen the friction between us if I acknowledged that her experience was valuable, and if she was in fact restored, she could teach me things about hunting Sacks that might save my life one day.

  “Have you hunted since joining Gatehouse?” I asked, making sure Zack’s laptop Internet connection was off before attaching the drive.

  “Six times.”

  My question was an ice breaker only. I would have sworn she was a passive hunter, passing along names but never doing the job herself. She saw the surprise on my face and continued.

  “If you’re wondering if it bothers me, it doesn’t. I know better than anyone what these people are capable of.”

  “Not better than anyone,” Zack said. “Ask any hunter.”

  “Hunters can be naïve,” Hall said.

  “Hold on.” I stopped clicking on folders and looked over at Hall. “How many hunters do you know?”

  “Enough. How many Elations and Festals do you know?”

  She had me there. Except for Masticate, the reckless Festal I’d shot in Zack’s hallway, I’d never even killed an upper-level Sack.

  “What’s to know?” Zack asked. “They’re evil.”

  Hall shook her head. “Ninety percent are evil. Ten percent are evil beyond your comprehension. Far beyond what you think you understand now.”

  “What percentage are restored?” I asked.

  Hall’s mouth tightened.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I have no idea. You’re the only restored Sack I’ve ever heard about by name. Others are just rumors.”

  “Maybe a tenth of one percent.”

  Zack snorted and I turned his way. “That’s not a small number, Zack.”

  “A tenth of—”

  “That’s fifteen hundred out of a million and a half. Imagine if they each brought down just fifty Sacks.”

  “Many of them are Desires, without much information to offer,” Hall said.

  “Has an Embodiment ever been restored?” Zack asked.

  “No.”

  “Other Elations?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  No wonder Hall was icy cold. As far as she knew, she was the only one of her kind, an alien being. “That’s why you’re such a high-profile target,” I said.

  “They have to crush as quickly as possible what is for now only a rumor—that an Elation turned traitor.”

  If Sacks on all levels discovered the rumor was true, morale would be dealt a blow. Hall as a symbol, as a clarion call to turn back, was more powerful than any information she could offer Gatehouse. Once again I turned my attention to Zack’s laptop, finding in the third folder I opened the information I needed. The highest level Sack in the area was a Festal named Hollow, a hashish lover who lived on South Loomis Avenue, a handy two blocks west of downtown Fort Collins. He was in his late twenties, his photo showing a thin man with a large, prominent forehead, dyed blue-black hair, and light brown eyes. And he’d been made a Festal only three weeks earlier.

  Zack leaned forward in his chair to get a better look at the screen, and I briefly scrolled through more photos on the off chance I’d see the Sack who had killed Emily. I was always looking, hoping.

  “What does someone have to do to become a Festal in his late twenties?” I asked Hall.

  “Kill porters and children under the age of twelve,” she answered without pause.

  “Jesus,” Zack said, eyeing Hall with disgust. “Why?”

  “Children, because it shows they’re more than willing, porters, because killing them is useful. It’s not the only way to become a Festal, but it’s the fastest way to come to the attention of an Elation who can boost them to the next level.”

  My thoughts sped to Nathan. A porter and a lightning rod for Sacks, he was alone out there, without a single hunter watching his back. “I think Nathan took off because of us,” I said.

  “Partly, I’m sure,” Hall said.

  “What if Sacks found him?” Zack asked.

  “Then they toyed with him,” Hall said. “Probably for a long time.”

  She sounded like she was ordering a latte. I was sick with fear at what might be happening to Nathan, and again I wanted to hit her. My hands curled into fists.

  She frowned, confused by my reaction. “I’m telling you the unvarnished truth. I thought you wanted that. You said hunters aren’t naïve.”


  Her voice was gentler now, neither flat nor contemptuous, but her presumption that my reaction was a result of naïveté was flat-out wrong. I’d already thought about what they might do to Nathan if they found him. “And you told me Nathan was your only friend.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So don’t talk about him being tortured as if you’re discussing the weather.” I shut Zack’s laptop and handed it to him.

  Nathan had always said that hunting Festals and Elations bore the best results. Return them, and you break the spirit of the lower levels, especially when those lower levels were depending on direction from the higher-ups. He would remember telling me that, and he would know I’d make a connection. I had a good idea where he would be tonight. Hollow was still a young man, though pathetically trying to look ten years younger with that blue-black hair, and my bet was he’d be throwing a feral Halloween party at his house on Loomis. He was a brand-new Festal, after all. If Nathan didn’t already know who Hollow was and where he lived, he would find out from Gatehouse.

  “You misunderstand,” Hall said as she watched me load a pellet into my umbrella.

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “Where are you off to?” Zack asked.

  “I’ll be back in an hour or two. Sorry.” Despite his reproachful look, I couldn’t tell him my plans. Though I now leaned toward believing Hall was restored, I wasn’t there yet and I preferred to keep her in the dark for as long as possible—which meant doing the same to Zack.

  I was about to hop into the rental car when I had an idea, a way to blend in and maybe even join the party on Loomis. Five minutes later I exited the Overstreets’ employee lounge wearing cat whiskers and a cat nose courtesy of Paige’s makeup bag. I held up a forefinger as I walked by Zack, who was failing miserably at stifling a laugh and, in the process, sounding asthmatic.

  He strode to the car and held open the door after I hoisted myself into the rental SUV. “Be careful,” he said, keeping his voice low. “He’s not just a Festal, he’s a man, and you can’t fight him head on. It’s that upper body strength thing.”

  “I’m well aware I’m not superwoman.”

  “You’re not hunting, so you can’t take him by surprise.”

  “You know what I’m doing?”

  “Looking for Nathan.”

  “Keep it quiet. And don’t trust Hall.”

  “Got my burner?”

  “Yup.”

  “Honk three times for the door.”

  It took little more than five minutes to find Hollow’s house, a small bungalow with a double-long driveway on which partygoers had sardined a dozen cars. The house’s gutters were strung with orange lights, and a cottonwood tree in the front yard was strung with three leaf-stuffed bodies on nooses. I crept by my first time around the block, trying to gauge how many people were at the party. There were seven or eight people on the front porch alone—the dislodged overflow—and judging by the silhouettes thrown on the front drapes, many more inside.

  A block from Hollow’s house, I pulled into the first vacant parking spot I could find, checked my umbrella and gun one last time, and got out of the car. On the sidewalk, I stood under a cottonwood and watched trick-or-treaters dash up front walks and steps, ring doorbells, then dash back to the sidewalk. Hollow’s house was ahead, and no doubt children, attracted by party sights and sounds, were ringing his doorbell too. The parents of the younger children probably waited for them on the sidewalk outside the house, unaware that a monster lived behind the door.

  Nathan was here somewhere, I knew it. On the sidewalk, standing and watching like me, or sitting in a car, observing Hollow’s house and party guests. He knew how my mind worked, how I made connections, and he knew, like I did, that Halloween at a Festal’s house was our best shot to find each other. I refused to believe he’d been caught by a Sack, or even two working together, as seemed to be happening more and more.

  I strolled toward the house, running my eyes over the parked cars on both sides of the street, looking for adults without children on the sidewalks. Half a block from Hollow’s house I heard music, laughter and shouts, and a car alarm going off. No one was going to notice me ambling up the street—or think much about me if they did notice.

  I began to think of ways to use my umbrella on Hollow, walking through his front door like I belonged there, finding him, circling him, then giving him a jab in the leg as I cut a path back to the door. By the time he hit the floor I’d be halfway there.

  Two houses away from Hollow’s bungalow, the headlights on a car across the street flashed once. I froze momentarily then sidled up to a cottonwood trunk, leaning on it, pretending to check a wristwatch I didn’t have, and trying to look nonchalant as I strained to see who was behind the wheel. It appeared to be a man, but it was impossible to tell for certain from where I was standing. I unzipped my jacket so I could more easily reach my gun and headed up the street, my eyes on the car. It was a black SUV, I now saw, but not an Explorer.

  The headlights flashed again, one quick on-off. It had to be Nathan. There wasn’t a single Sack who knew I was here. Hall had no way of contacting Hollow even if she wanted to, and Kath was gone. I picked up my pace until I stood at the curb directly across from the SUV. When I stopped, Nathan bent low, showing his face in the passenger window. I darted for the car, utterly disregarding my training and not caring. Nathan popped open the door and I hauled myself up to the seat, grinning wildly. “Thank God you’re safe,” I said. “Where the hell have you been?”

  He did his best to keep a straight face as he pivoted in his seat and got a good look at my cat makeup. “You fit in with the party theme,” he said, “but that jacket and the way you checked out the cars gave you away.”

  “Lucky for you. I mean it, Nathan, where have you been? So much has happened. Kath...”

  The last hint of a smile was gone. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “She passed up a chance to kill me. I think she got me on the list somehow then decided it was more fun to scare the crap out of me than to kill me.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I figured I’d find you hanging around the highest level Sack in town.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “Hall’s with us now.”

  He nodded slowly. “I know it was difficult to take her with you. How is Zack?”

  “He’s fine, aside from having two dead Sacks in his house.”

  “They’ve been cleared out.”

  In reply to my questioning look, he told me that as soon as he’d heard about the clear-out at Hall’s house, he’d contacted Zack’s porter, telling him to send hunters. By the time they got there, the Sacks were dead and we had left.

  “That’s probably because Kath called the Sacks in before she even hit Hall’s house,” I said.

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “In the mountains west of Colorado Springs meeting with Gatehouse, and a couple hours ago, in Boulder to talk to a porter I know.”

  “Talking to a porter you know? While we’re dodging Sacks in body armor?” After fearing he’d been caught by Sacks, I’d been so overjoyed to see Nathan that I’d swallowed my anger over his disappearing act, even if he’d left to draw fire away from me and Zack. After all, it hadn’t worked. My anger was rising again.

  “Gatehouse had reason to believe he—”

  “We could have been killed. The precious Hall too. We needed your—”

  “The porter in Boulder is dead. And earlier today Hollow and two Resolutes broke into the home of a Fort Collins porter and kidnapped him. We know because they left a message in his blood. They’re toying with him now, and they’ll kill him before the night’s over.”

  I shut my eyes, trying to erase the image that already was forming in my mind. “I hate these bastards.”

  “I’m here to have a conversation with Hollow.”

  His voice was so calm it sent shivers up my spine. I opened my eyes.

  “You’re n
ot planning to go in there,” I said. “He’ll spot you in a second. For crying out loud, you’re forty-six years old and you’re wearing a suit.”

  “Have you been looking at this?” He tipped his head toward the house. “No one’s sober enough to notice me.”

  I looked out the window toward Hollow’s house. “Know what? I’m all dressed up for a party.”

  “You’re not going anywhere. You can help by keeping an eye on the house.”

  “And another thing,” I said, ignoring his protestations and lining up my arguments. “Hollow might be expecting porters, even you personally. He’ll be looking for someone who’s out of place, and he’s probably not the only Sack at the party.”

  “I’m sure he isn’t.”

  “But they don’t know me. I’m Hollow’s age. I’ll be invisible.”

  “He’s a Festal, and I don’t want to return him, I want to grab him.”

  “What are you going to do, make a swap?”

  “First I’m going to talk to him.”

  “And I know a safe place you can do that.” I told him about the Overstreets’ business and that Zack and Hall were waiting in a car bay for me to return. He agreed we should transport Hollow there, but he wasn’t backing down on going in alone. “Nathan, I’m a hunter, for God’s sake, not a helpless child. You trained me.”

  “You’ve never dealt with a Festal.”

  “I shot one in Zack’s house.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Did you hunt him or wait for him to break in?”

  I didn’t reply. I got his point and he knew it.

  When he reached for the door handle, I told him to stop. “Listen to me. This lousy hunter has an idea.”

  Chapter 14

  As I made my way up the concrete walk to Hollow’s front door, I reminded myself that most of the partygoers were average people who lived outside the Sack world and that Hollow had no desire to blow his cover in their presence. That, along with my anonymity, would form my safety net.

  Nathan had to admit that my plan could work. Although simple, it posed little risk for me and greatly lessened the chance that he’d find himself sitting in some basement alongside the Fort Collins porter. My task was to find Hollow and lure him—with the promise of cheap, high-grade bubble hash—out the back door, where Nathan would take him down hard and fast, before the bong-head could react. If we were lucky, Hollow would already have smoked something or other, dulling his judgment and slowing his reactions.