Unnatural Souls

by Linda Foster

  Kali smiled. It was a creepy smile, but I knew it meant she was in.

  “Okay, but I have a new plan,” she said. She crossed her arms and looked at me like she was planning to torture me.

  I almost thought that would be okay.

  “What plan is that?” I asked.

  But she didn’t answer. Instead, she grabbed my arm, and I felt her power pulse through me. The next second, we were gone.

  WE APPEARED AGAIN on a street corner in a dingy, abandoned city. I could see hills in the distance, and a forest in the other direction. It was a very tiny town, I realized—more like a village than an actual city. There weren’t any signs on the stores, and there were no lights on. In fact, it didn’t look like anyone had lived there for decades. Wood was rotting away, bricks crumbling. In another decade, it all might just collapse in on itself—and I was pretty sure there was nothing alive or dead hanging out there in the meantime.

  And though it was just after five in the morning where I lived, it was still dark here. Pitch black, in fact.

  I looked at Kali, trying to figure out what was going on, and saw that she was smiling wickedly. “Time for some intensity training,” she said.

  I didn’t like the sound of that, and opened my mouth to question her, but she cut me off.

  “Maybe some pressure will help you work. Come on, it’s a classic training technique.”

  She took off down the street, and though this sounded like a truly horrible idea, I had a little over twelve hours left before my deadline. I was up for just about anything at this point.

  So I ran after her. I can do it this time, I told myself. I have to.

  Kali was quick, though, and had already made it around the next corner, disappearing from sight. Suddenly I was very aware that it was the dead of night in an abandoned village in who-knew-where, and pushed myself to sprint as fast as I could.

  Kali was there, I reminded myself as the fear began to run through me. Nothing bad was going to happen as long as she was around. She might be a pain, but she could also kick some serious butt. I might not like her, but I was safe with her. Nothing bad was going to happen to me. Well—nothing worse than what already had.

  Then I rounded the corner, and instantly regretted thinking anything nice about her.

  She was gone.

  I kept my eyes moving but saw nothing, the only sound my own heavy breathing and my heartbeat in my ears. There was no one here—and I wasn’t going to wait around all night for whatever plan Kali claimed she had. Honestly, I was starting to think she’d just ditched me here as a joke. Which I didn’t have time for. Maybe she’d just wanted to go hunting without me as dead weight.

  I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to stick around. I could teleport home, but I wasn’t going to.

  And my heart was racing at the idea of what I was about to do.

  Kali claimed she wanted to try intensity training, and I was scared as hell of it … but on board with the idea. I didn’t have much time left, and that meant only one thing: I was either going to call my angelic weapon, and save Ash, or die trying. It was time to push myself.

  And Kali wouldn’t be there to save me if I screwed up—because I was going to be on my own.

  Instead of staying in no man’s land, I mentally focused on a spot where we’d gone hunting before. I pulled the picture of the haunt in New York to my mind, and then concentrated on it with every ounce of my being. That was how I teleported—I had to imagine where I wanted to go, and pull at my power to take me there.

  As for the location I had in mind, it was a place I knew would have plenty of demon activity. If I was going to be left alone to hunt, I might as well find a location where I had a real shot at running into a demon. I had no clue if there were any in this abandoned town, and that wasn’t good enough. I needed guaranteed demon presence, to push myself. To see if I could do it. To call my weapon. Hunting on my own was going to be terrifying, but if I got in over my head I could just teleport my butt out of there, right?

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to initiate what I’d come to think of as the jump. Because a voice interrupted me almost immediately.

  “Going somewhere, sweetheart?”

  THE LOW, GROWLING voice came from my right, breaking my concentration and causing the image in my mind to slip away before I could call upon my power to teleport me. I flung myself in the opposite direction, up against the wall, and stared wild-eyed at the demon in front of me. For a moment, the glowing red eyes were all I could see, causing me to freeze in place. Well, crap. I’d thought I was alone.

  Turned out I wasn’t that lucky.

  The monster was pale and wore a black cloak. He was silent now, just staring at me with a blank expression, but then he moved and his robe pulled back, revealing a thin, almost skeletal body. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of muscle or fat on him. I could see his bony fingers flexing, his almost translucent skin looking like it would tear off with every movement.

  I heard footsteps as he stepped forward, but his movement was so graceful that it looked like he was floating.

  What on earth was this thing?

  He drifted closer and I quickly moved sideways, adrenaline coursing through me. I was cornered, and definitely, really alone with a demon. Kali wasn’t here, and Michael wasn’t likely to pop up to save me like he’d done that first time. Unless Kali showed up at the last moment, I was up a creek without the proverbial paddle.

  I could protect myself with my other powers for a small amount of time, but I couldn’t kill him. I needed a real defense.

  Call your weapon, call your freaking weapon! I shouted at myself. Idiot! I reached down inside myself, the way I had to when I called my other powers, and tried to summon it. But I felt empty, like nothing was there. For whatever reason, now—when I really needed them—my powers had decided to vacate the premises. I wanted to scream in rage.

  So I turned around and took off running. I needed to calm down and focus—and that would take a second. I had to get to a place where I could stand still and breathe, and get my emotions in check. If I couldn’t do that then I wouldn’t be able to defend myself at all, or escape if I needed to, and I would have no chance at calling my weapon to me. I leapt over a trashcan near the end of the block, and rounded the corner to find myself in a dead end. Shoot. Turning, I prepared to run the other way, hoping to see a door, an opening—anything I could slip through.

  Instead, I ended up face to face with another demon. This one looked almost identical to the first, and for a second I thought the monster had just caught up to me. But then I saw that this one had a scar over its right eye. And just as I realized that, the first demon drifted around the corner, smiling.

  Suddenly the closest demon was moving in on me. I was surrounded by demons, and backed up in the dead end of an alley. Which meant the only way out was through them. Here went nothing. I tensed, took a deep breath, and leapt forward, dashing across over the two feet that separated me from the first demon. When I reached it, I rammed at it with every ounce of strength I had, hoping to shove past the thing, but it barely budged. It pushed me back like I weighed nothing, and I went flying backwards five feet, landing on my butt.

  Shit. I had to get away from them. I had to get home.

  Then things got even worse.

  “Come on, angel,” a third voice said from behind me.

  I leapt to my feet, sparing a quick glance backwards, and gulped. Three of them? Demons normally worked alone, from what I’d gathered on my missions with Kali. It was rare seeing two demons hunting together, but three? It was unheard of, as far as I knew. And of course I had the poor luck of running into the ones who—for some reason—were doing just that. I was dead. I couldn’t take on one demon by myself, and now I was surrounded by them. Alone. I wanted intensity training, right? Well, I certainly got what I asked for.

  And as terrified as I was, my blood began to boil. I was going to die and my brother was going to be taken to Hell, all because of Kal
i and my inability to call a stupid weapon to myself.

  Suddenly I saw Ash in my mind. My baby brother. I pictured his sweet smile, the blue eyes that crinkled when he laughed. Then the image of him in the clearing the night I almost died. The determination and desperation. There seemed to be no question that he would do anything and everything it took to bring me back to life, and he did. He didn’t let me die. If I were killed here, my death would seal his fate for good, and I couldn’t have that. I hadn’t worked this hard to be dispatched in some back alley by demons just because Kali decided to throw me to the wolves.

  No. I was going to make it through this. I was going to save him.

  But how? I couldn’t kill them, and unless I was able to focus long enough to use my powers of teleportation I wasn’t going to be able to flee, either. I stilled myself, trying to find the calmness deep down inside my soul. That was what I needed—that lack of emotion. After a split second, I felt it, just under the surface, and reached for it, hardly daring to breathe…

  There. The moment I came across the serenity, I grabbed at it and pulled it around myself like a blanket. I felt my power spark slightly, and my mind raced ahead of me, trying to form a plan. There was only one option: buy myself some time. Distract them long enough to call my weapon, or—more likely—escape.

  And when it came to distractions, I had just the thing.

  I did the only thing I really knew how to do—the moment I had my power in my hands, I called every object on the small, dead end street to me. Every brick, bottle, and trashcan. I focused all my power on becoming a magnet to any movable item, and within minutes the debris began to fly around me. I welcomed the growing craznado with a smile and turned my attention from the arsenal of objects around me to the monsters in front of me.

  When I saw them, my smile grew wider. The sight of the craznado had been enough to make them pause, and the two furthest from me had even taken a few steps backwards. The one closest to me was staring up at the craznado in what I hoped was horror. At that moment, I willed the objects toward them, throwing them with my mind. And they flew forward just as I’d imagined, blasting toward the demons as quickly as bullets from a gun. In the blink of an eye, the demons were barraged, the objects exploding into them before they could move. A number of bottles smashed when they struck the demons, shattering into glass shards and drawing blood, and the bricks I’d conjured hit them with such force that they stumbled backwards. The trashcan flew directly into one of the demon’s knees, sending him to his face, and every one of the monsters threw their hands up, trying to protect themselves from the assault.

  And while they were distracted, busy battering away the objects of my craznado, I took off running.

  I wanted to teleport back home. And though the sane part of me told me that was my only option … a bigger part of me didn’t want to leave. That bigger part was absolutely crazy. I could die if I stayed, and I had no defense left—the craznado wouldn’t work a second time, I didn’t think. But this could be my best chance at mastering the final power. And if I didn’t take it, I wouldn’t have any way of saving Ash. I didn’t have all night—I had to master the power, then get to the meeting place with Michael, and then get to Ash. Before the demon did.

  So while my feet were working to put distance between myself and the monsters, my mind was working overtime, trying to decide my next course of action.

  Good decisions were never made in a moment of panic, I knew that. It was how Ash had ended up in his current predicament. Hopefully, my risk would pay off better than his did.

  I skidded to a stop, terrified that this wasn’t going to work, and almost as scared that it would. I had to let my fear go. I needed to focus. Kali and Michael had made it clear that my powers were affected by emotions, so I needed to get mine in check. I had maybe thirty seconds before the demons caught up to me. My chest felt tight, and I could feel tears building up, but I tried to tell myself to calm down. The serenity. I had to find the serenity. I took deep breaths and started searching for the calmness inside myself, but all I could imagine was Ash having his soul ripped away by the demon because I couldn’t save him.

  Panicked, I tried to think of something besides the intensity building inside my chest. My weapon. I needed my weapon. I replayed every lecture, all of the demonstrations Kali had given, trying to remember how to do it. But she hadn’t been able to explain it clearly. I just had to find my power, she’d said. I could call objects to me, I could summon my power to teleport myself anywhere in the world, and it all had the same premise—focus on what you want, feel the power inside, and call it to yourself.

  I could feel my power, so why couldn’t I materialize a simple weapon?

  Suddenly I heard movement not too far behind me, and my heart rate picked up. They were closing in on me. But I could do this. I had to do it.

  The tightness in my chest grew until it felt like a rubber band constricting inside of me, wrapping around my heart. Damn it. I would not die here. My brother was not going to lose his soul. I wouldn’t allow it. The knot in my chest squeezed until I felt like I was having a panic attack, and the more I freaked out, the tighter the feeling inside me became, desperation mixed with fear. But I reached down into myself until I could feel my power, and mentally focused on it, the warmth of it like the summer sunshine. I let myself be surrounded by the feeling, but it was slipping away. There were moments of cold overpowering the warmth. Was it my doubt of my abilities? Fear that I would let my brother down?

  I thought again of my brother, and then the demons came into view. This was it. My time was up.

  The pressure in my chest clamped down so hard I screamed out. The terror that had been building inside of me reached its limit, and I desperately made one last attempt to call my weapon. I reached deep down, clinging to the warmth of my power with everything I had, and, pleading for help from Heaven, called for my weapon once more, my mental shout hoarse with need.

  That’s when it happened.

  I felt a stronger pulse of power than I ever had before. And then the heat intensified tenfold. In the next moment, the tightness in my chest snapped, like a bolt of lightning had just hit me square in the chest. And then the pressure was gone. There was no pain, just a buzzing of electricity, of power that shot outwards.

  A brilliant blue light illuminated the entire street for a split second before fading into a soft glow. A glow that covered my hands.

  None of this had slowed the demons down, though, and when I looked up, I saw snarling faces and grasping hands. They weren’t going to let me get away. They were on me. And before I could move, one of them reached out, grabbing my arm.

  I swung out at him without thinking, my hands still glowing.

  As my fist flew forward, I felt an object materializing inside it. Then a second object appeared in my other hand. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to think—I just grasped hold of them. When I did, I felt my power coursing through my hands … and then through the weapons themselves. Suddenly I could see them, the moonlight glinting across a shining blue blade, and what I’d originally meant to be a punch to the demon’s gut ended up being much more.

  A blade, driven right into its belly.

  Shock rocked through me and time seemed to slow, my heavy breathing deafening in the now silent alley. All the demons had stopped in their tracks.

  The monster in front of me looked down to where my hand was. I ripped the blade from his gut and he glanced back up, his eyes and mouth going wide. A moment later, he turned to dust. Just like when Kali hit a demon with her hellfire—or when Michael slashed at a demon with his blade.

  The other two demons were still frozen in place, staring at where their friend had once stood.

  I just gasped and stared at the blades in my hands with awe. This was it. I’d actually succeeded. My weapons. My angelic weapons were here … and they were glorious. I wanted to scream, to run to Michael and demand that he save Ash immediately. Three months, but I had done it in the
end. I’d achieved all my powers, and I’d finished in time. My heart was overcome with joy.

  The sound of footsteps broke me out of my excited stupor, though, and I remembered that as thrilled as I was, I still had two demons left. And they clearly had no intention of letting me go. They were no longer looking at where their dead friend lay, ashes on the street. They were looking at me. And running full speed toward me.

  ALSO, THEY APPEARED to be pissed.

  “You’re going to pay for that,” the first one growled.

  When it darted toward me, all of the training Kali had given me rushed to the front of my mind. Thank goodness she hadn’t waited for me to be able to call a weapon to myself before teaching me how to use one. We had practiced hand-to-hand combat, and we had practiced with blades, too. Those lessons were second nature, now, and I hurled myself into a fight I knew with every ounce of my being that I could win.

  He threw a punch at my face, but I ducked to the side, tucking one blade into my belt as I went. When I stood up, I grabbed his arm and dodged his next blow, then yanked him past me with the hold I had on his arm. The momentum of his body caused him to stumble off balance, swaying forward, and I quickly swung my free blade around, bringing it down in the middle of his back. There was a sickening sound, the feeling of driving a knife through a body, but I pushed past my revulsion of stabbing something—even if it wasn’t human. This was for my life, I reminded myself. This was for Ash.

  I could hear the demon gag, blood coming out of his mouth and splashing onto the pavement. Within seconds, though, he was dust.

  I made a mistake then, and paused with my back to the last threat, both shocked and elated at this quick success. So I wasn’t ready when the third demon tackled me from behind. We went flying forward, toward the wall of the alley. I instinctively released the blade in my hand, knowing that if I fell on it I’d be done for, and it went soaring down the street into the shadows, the clinking of metal on asphalt echoing into the darkness a moment later. Then we were on the ground, rolling together to break the fall.