Unnatural Souls

by Linda Foster

  Then I heard footsteps behind me. They were quick … but definitely real. And I hesitated, coming up short on my next step. Those weren’t the sound of ghosts walking—their footsteps were always faint, and sounded more like shuffling, as if their feet weren’t quite attached to the ground … to reality.

  These were definitely very solid footsteps. Someone was following me.

  NOW A NORMAL person would just think, Hey, someone’s walking behind me. But I wasn’t normal anymore. Nearly a year of paranoia kicked in, my heart rate spiked, and I took off running. I didn’t understand it, but something inside me knew I should run from the unknown person following me.

  Paranoia was right. The footsteps quickened with mine, closing in on me, and then I saw another flutter to my right—just as the last rays of the sun disappeared. The shadow picked up speed, then disappeared into the darkness of nightfall. It was gone.

  I let out a yelp when the mystery person dashed directly into my path and cut me off. He—it?—came to a sudden stop, but I kept running toward it at full speed, my brain not realizing what had happened. I was about to collide with it. It, because it definitely wasn’t human. This wasn’t a person. People didn’t blend into the night, and they didn’t move this quickly either. Fear gripped me, and my breath froze in my lungs as I screeched to a halt, catching the toe of my shoe on a crack. I fell to my knees, hitting the ground hard, and the force of it rocketed through me. My hands shot out and scraped across the cement, my left wrist twisting painfully.

  But I kept my eyes down, knowing that I didn’t want to see what was in front of me. I had a bad feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t explain … but then I realized that staring at the ground wouldn’t make it go away. So I lifted my head. And when I looked up, I swear my heart stopped.

  No.

  A scream caught in my lungs. Red eyes.

  Not a ghost. A woman with bright crimson eyes and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth was standing in front of me, grinning horribly. Oh, Grace, please don’t pass out. Because I wanted to. I could feel the numbness, the lightness in my head as it began to grow heavy. A demon. I could live millions of years, and I would never be able to wipe the red eyes from my mind. Because they were the same eyes that had stared my brother down nearly a year before.

  What horrific irony. Ash had sold his soul to a demon to save me, and here I was, about to be killed by a demon myself.

  I scrambled awkwardly backwards, but that just seemed to amuse the demon. Its smile widened, making it all the more terrifying. I had to get away—no doubt about it. I didn’t know what had drawn it, but I wasn’t about to ask. Maybe it had seen my Google search history at the library and thought it would save me the trouble of hunting it down. Maybe attracting evil things was a fun new power to add to my collection. Wouldn’t that be fan-freaking-tastic? How had I ever thought I could deal with summoning one of these things? This monster wasn’t like the guy Ash had encountered, who had seemed almost human. This demon looked more like a human and a wolf morphed together.

  And the way it was staring at me, I knew there would be no reasoning with it. There would be no conversation about breaking a deal with another demon. “Sorry, miss, I’m afraid you can’t kill me, as another demon actually gave me my life.”

  No. It was just going to end me and move on with its day. And I was going to die the same way I had lived the last year—alone.

  Sure, all of my problems would go away. I wouldn’t need to figure out how to control my powers to keep them from destroying my life. I wouldn’t be dealing with the guilt and loneliness. But feeling that was better than being dead. There was no way I’d be able to save my brother if I was gone, and in just a few short months, he would suffer the same fate. My parents couldn’t recover from both their children dying.

  No. I couldn’t let that happen. My life—his sacrifice—would literally have meant nothing. No. Somehow I had to live. I had to get away.

  As the demon inched closer, though, I wanted to laugh. I couldn’t help but remember the time I’d appeared in the bathroom stall before class, the time I was having a bad day and blinked only to find myself at Disneyland, and the hundreds of other times I had ended up somewhere I hadn’t ever meant to go. The one time the power of teleportation would help, and I couldn’t use it. I squeezed my eyes shut and sent out a little prayer … but to my dismay, nothing happened.

  When I opened my eyes again, the demon’s eyes had brightened to a glittering ruby red and it was reaching its clawed hands toward me. It was smiling, looking forward to what it was about to do, its eyes like those of a wild beast about to devour its meal.

  Surely there was something I could do to get away. I glanced furiously around, looking for anything I could use as a weapon, and saw a rock about ten feet to my left. Maybe I could bash its head and run. At least that would give me some time. The demon was so close I could see the drool between its pointy teeth, and I wasn’t going to get more than three steps in before it caught me, but I had to do something.

  Sitting on my butt was simply not an option.

  I turned and jumped to my feet, moving as quickly as I could, but I didn’t make it the three feet before the demon’s hand wrapped around my ankle and yanked me backwards.

  I twisted in its grip, turning my body toward it. “Let go!” I screamed, throwing my hand up in a knee-jerk reaction when I hit the ground. Even the demon laughed at that, and then…

  I heard something groan and snap behind me.

  I kept my eyes on the monster standing over me, my heart hammering in my chest. What had that been? Who else was here? Was someone watching? Were they going to just stand there while this demon ripped me to shreds?

  A second later, a light pole shot forward, bits of cement falling from it as it flew through the air. I threw my hand upward toward the demon … and the pole swung into its abdomen like a baseball bat. I saw a brief look of shock on the monster’s face, and then it was flying twenty feet backward, where it landed in a bush.

  The pole fell to the ground with a crash, but the light continued to glow, flickering slightly and casting light on the bush the demon had landed in. One foot stuck out, unmoving.

  I yanked my hand back to my chest, clenching it into a fist, and feeling dizzy from the blood rushing through my body, the adrenaline pumping through my veins. Everything on the street was still and quiet.

  Holy crap, did I do that? I couldn’t seem to close my mouth, the shock of what happened freezing my entire body. If I had, it was the first time the powers that had been cursing me had actually acted in my favor. It’d certainly have been the first time they saved my life. I would have preferred teleportation, but yeah … this worked, too. I pried my hand open and examined it. And suddenly I was filled with optimism, because on some level I had controlled the power inside me. Even if I had no idea how, this meant there was truly a possibility that I could learn. Hope flooded me, and a tiny bit of weight lifted off my shoulders.

  Then I heard rustling in the bushes where the demon had landed. Crap. Time to put hope on hold and run for my life.

  I leapt to my feet and took off running toward my house, forcing my legs to move me past house after house, everything blurring in my vision as I pushed myself faster and tears built in my eyes. But the slapping sound of my feet on the pavement was soon followed by a hissing noise not too far behind me. Angry demon—not good. And now I’d hit the dark stretch on my street, where there weren’t any streetlights. I just wanted to be home, away from the darkness, locked away in the safety of my room where I hid the craziness that had become my life. Was I really going to be able to outrun it?

  Suddenly, against my own will, I stopped. I could see the faint light of our front porch in the distance. Home … it was where every instinct told me to run.

  But that would mean leading the demon there, to my family. It wasn’t like my house had any real protection. Nothing more than the human instinct that it was safe. A warm light to scare the boogeyman away. But that warm
light wouldn’t protect my family when a demon followed me to the house. A lock on the door wasn’t going to stop this monster.

  I thought once again about how amazing it would be if that teleportation power kicked in about now. Take me far away—anywhere but here. Keep my family safe. Keep them out of this creature’s clutches.

  But a massive, clawed hand dug into my shoulder, breaking my thoughts, and I realized my hesitation had cost me any chance at fleeing. The demon twisted me around to face it and yanked me forward. I stared up, wanting to shrink back but incapable of doing anything. Its body was highlighted from behind by the streetlamp, and I could see the drool dripping down its fangs, and those angry red eyes staring down at me.

  I threw my hands up in a mixture of panic and hope, trying to imagine another streetlight uprooting itself, or a dumpster landing on top of the demon. How did it work? Did I just have to be desperate enough? Did I just have to think about something smashing the demon?

  Evidently not, because nothing happened. The monster raised its hand, ready to do whatever it was going to do, and though I kicked and fought to get out of its grasp, it was too strong.

  Suddenly the creature slashed down with its claws, and I instinctively closed my eyes tight and held my breath, bracing myself for the agonizing pain. Instead, something yanked me away—from behind. The demon’s claws ripped into my skin … and then were torn free of my arm.

  I screamed in unison with the demon as a flash of purest white light burst into life behind my closed lids, accompanied by popping sounds. Too quiet to be gunshots—light bulbs, maybe? Another light pole? Had I succeeded after all? Had I thrown something at it that tore the monster away from me? My shoulder felt wet, and a terrible pain was pulsing down my arm. But the demon’s grip was … gone.

  I slowly forced myself to open my eyes. Every streetlight in the neighborhood was dark, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I saw a figure in front of me, illuminated by the soft glow of the moon. There was another figure at its feet. The new figure was … a beautiful man with giant golden wings. Freaking wings! An angel? The feathers shimmered in the moonlight with every tiny movement, every breath he took, and it was mesmerizing. I forced myself to look away from the wings to see that he was a tall man with dark hair, though it was difficult to see anything else in the dark. His eyes, though, shone like sapphires, lit up in stark contrast to the demon’s red.

  The demon was the figure in front of the man… And it was hissing in anger. Or fear. Perhaps both.

  That man thing had saved me. Why? Why would an angel care about what happened to me? My life had only been tainted by darkness, death, and demons. I’d never actually prayed to angels or anything—aside from when I’d tried to summon one to save my brother. I was just a meaningless human.

  Just then, the demon bared its fangs at the man and jumped forward, claws out, but before it got very far the angel blurred, then reappeared, a flaming sword in his hands. A blue flaming sword. The monster’s eyes grew wide, and even I could see the fear in its expression.

  Whatever that blue sword was, the demon didn’t want anything to do with it.

  It tried to stop, to turn away, but it was too late—the angel brought the weapon whistling down toward the demon, and within moments it had sliced neatly into the monster’s abdomen. The sword flared brighter then, its blue flames reaching out to engulf the demon’s body.

  The monster reached down to grab the place where the sword had run it through, and stumbled backwards. No blood though, I noticed suddenly. Had the guy missed? He was only feet away, but if he’d missed, he’d be done for—the demon could lunge forward with its claws and slash him to pieces. And I would be next.

  Suddenly, though, the demon screamed in agony—a horrid, high-pitched wail—and collapsed into itself. I watched, frozen in horror and confusion as it turned to ashes.

  Relief coursed through me, but it was short lived, because the moment the blue light dimmed I was reminded I wasn’t alone. The man—angel?—might have just saved my life, but I still had no idea who he was. He focused his intense stare on me and turned in my direction, his wings shimmering with his movements, the intensity of his blue eyes matching the glow from his sword.

  I just stared, mesmerized, and gulped.

  He took two quick steps toward me, then abruptly stopped, his head tilted and his eyes roaming over me. Assessing me? His brows pulled together and he lifted his hands up in a motion of surrender, which was even more confusing—this guy had just killed a demon with a magical sword, and now he was looking at me as if I was a threat, and one he didn’t want to fight. I held back the inappropriate giggle that I could feel building inside me.

  I wasn’t sure if angels had a sense of humor, and considering how easily he’d killed the demon, I didn’t want to find out the hard way by offending him. It was still funny, though.

  Then I heard a familiar whooshing sound. I growled in frustration and glanced upward. Ah, the craznado. How I didn’t miss you. Above me, I saw an entire bush, three tree branches, and hundreds of leafs and rocks swirling around above my head. I narrowed my eyes and cursed at the objects in my mind.

  “Grace?” the man asked, snapping my attention back to him. His eyes were racing between me and the cyclone of objects. “It’s okay. My name is Michael. I’m here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  My mouth popped open in shock. Oh my God, even the angel thought I was crazy. That was the look he was giving me, and it made me furious. The whirlwind seemed to quicken with my irritation, more objects being pulled in by the force of it. A bike came flying from across the street and a sign ripped off the pole next to me. The whooshing sound grew to a dull roar and my hair began to whip around in the wind, but this angel just continued to watch me with fear in his glowing blue eyes.

  The longer he stared, the angrier I became.

  That was the same look, the same judgment, I had been trying to avoid from my family and friends. Now I was getting it from an angel?

  He took a step backwards and lifted his hands up, palms facing me, like he was trying to signal peace. “I’m not here to hurt you. You don’t need to defend yourself against me. Please, Grace,” he pled, taking another step away from me. “Calm down.”

  “I can’t control it,” I ground out through my teeth. To insinuate that I had any control over this chaos was ridiculous … and only angered me further. I would have liked to stop it—believe me—but I couldn’t, and as my frustration grew, so did the craznado. A large branch splintered off a tree, pulled into the wind, and three rocks the size of my head suddenly flew up from the ground and began spinning through the cyclone of rubble. Small pebbles shot in and out of the whirlwind, and I could hear them dinking off cars and the ground like pieces of hail in a storm.

  Michael’s focus shot from me to the whirlwind of chaos that hovered above, and then back. I bit my lower lip and glanced upward again.

  I hated this. My life for the past eight months had been consumed by events like these, which left me a shaken mess—nothing like what I used to be. And now a freaking angel had showed up and started lecturing me about it all. A demon, and then an angel. I wanted to cry. I wanted it to stop.

  “It’s not my fault.” My voice cracked on the last word, and I fought back the tears that stung my eyes.

  Michael took a hesitant step forward, and then another, keeping eye contact with me and—every once in a while—sneaking a glance above us. When nothing happened, he took another step, to come face to face with me. He extended a hand but stopped short, and I stared at him in confusion.

  “Take my hand,” he said.

  I hesitated. I didn’t know this man, and my first instinct was to pull away. He had just impaled someone right in front of me with a magical blue sword. Sure, it was a monstrous demon, but he had still killed it. And I was having trouble fighting the initial urge to run—as quickly as I could—from someone capable of doing that.

  Then I rea
lized that I wasn’t actually scared of him. Not deep down. He had saved my life, after all, because that demon was going to kill me if Michael hadn’t stepped in. And now he was extending a hand to me.

  A simple gesture to offer support. And despite the fact that I didn’t know him, I found that I wanted to reach out to him.

  When I looked from his hand to his eyes, I saw compassion there. He wasn’t looking at me like I was a freak. He didn’t seem frightened of me. Concerned, yes, but not scared. Not like I would have expected. He just looked like he wanted to help me. I could see sadness that mirrored my own, and it was that look that made me reach out to him in the end.

  I hesitantly placed my hand on top of his, and flinched when I felt something pulse through me. It was a strange sensation, like I was being shocked for a moment—but without any pain. I swear my heart skipped. The feeling rocked my entire body from head to toe … but lasted only a fraction of a second. When it passed, his hand and my hand—the connection between the two—had started to take on a blue glow.

  The same glow his sword had worn a moment before.

  “Just breathe,” he said.

  I hadn’t realized I had stopped, and took a deep breath. Above us, I sensed the debris losing momentum, the sound of the howling wind growing quieter with each moment. Another pulse shot through me … and a calmness that echoed down to my very core followed that.

  Suddenly my frustration drifted away, replaced by the warmth of whatever Michael was doing. For the first time since the accident, I felt … at peace.

  ONE BY ONE, the objects fell to the ground around us. And for a moment I didn’t care. I didn’t focus on the tree limb that almost landed on me, or the large rock that could have killed us both. I held on tight—almost desperately—to that sense of tranquility. I wanted more than anything to keep that sensation. For nine months I had cried myself to sleep as I silently endured the craziness that had become my world. I’d feared exposure and the judgment of my friends and family. I’d spent months feeling lost and alone in my life—one that had effectively stopped the day I died, regardless of the fact that I’d kept on living. I’d pulled away from everyone I loved, to protect them. And I’d never told Ash, the one person I always confided in before, about what was going on … because I didn’t want to hurt him.