Unnatural Souls

by Linda Foster

  I gripped the chair for dear life, praying the floor around me didn’t break, and more than a little bit terrified. I’d never seen Michael this angry, and the idea that it was directed at me … was suddenly horrifying.

  What exactly had I done?

  “Her soul is inside that talisman,” he continued, his voice becoming quiet now. “And the charm is meant for her, and her alone. I told you that. I didn’t even believe it when she called to me and told me what happened. I don’t know how you managed to combine the two, as it shouldn’t have been possible. And now you’ve nearly ruined everything. Her talisman is sealed until she completes her mission—but with Ash’s soul inside, the charm won’t be able to release hers without letting his out as well. Their souls are stuck together on a level that can’t be broken. Which means that even if she completes her mission, her soul is stuck to one that is destined for Hell. She’ll never be accepted into Heaven.” He glared at me, his eyes glowing a blue like I’d never seen before, and I shrank back.

  “If she doesn’t succeed, the other angels will never agree to my plan. No demon will ever be able to earn redemption, and the scales will continue to tip in Hell’s favor. You’ve put all my plans at risk, girl, along with the fate of Heaven and Earth!” He shouted the last words, and the thunder of his voice echoed through the room around us.

  I gulped. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t be in this position if he’d just been honest with me in the first place.

  “How can you know we can’t do anything?” I snapped. I wasn’t out for a fight, but I wasn’t going to back down or apologize for what I’d done. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

  He was, I thought, angry because I’d done something he didn’t think was possible. Well, he would just have to find a way around that.

  “You didn’t think anyone could combine the two in the first place, right? You didn’t know I was capable of that, so how can you be so sure I can’t reverse it? Or is it that you did know I could do that, and just didn’t bother to share that information with me? Do you know more than you’re telling me? Because it seems you haven’t been giving me the full truth.”

  “Excuse me?” Michael’s voice was quiet, but his eyes narrowed.

  I stared right back at him.

  “Even I can understand why Adrian’s demons are after me now,” I told him, my voice as dangerous as his. “I’m a threat. You should have been able to see that, and I’m sure you knew it all along. But you didn’t say anything to me. You said that I was special, but I’m not an ordinary angel, am I? You can’t tell me you didn’t know anything about my abilities. I can feel your power coming off you. You had to have known that I was powerful, too. You had to have felt it.”

  “I told you that you were different,” Michael replied, his voice still low. “You have power, more than a normal angel. You can do things even I can’t, but I couldn’t know exactly what you were capable of until you harnessed your full potential. Now I know. I never lied. And yes, demons are after you, but it could be to use your power. Or they could just want you dead. I don’t know yet, so why tell you what I don’t have an answer for?”

  “Lying by excluding all the facts is still a lie!” I exclaimed. “You did have an idea of what was going on, suspicions about what my powers might be. You must have! But you chose to leave that out, and now I can’t trust that you’re telling me everything. What else did you decide I didn’t need to know?”

  “Nothing,” Michael told me, looking dangerously calm now. “What good would any of that information have done you? You could be powerful, the demons might want you dead, or they might want to use you. But those aren’t answers, they are possibilities.”

  “I deserved to know them anyway!” I yelled. My fists were balled up and I was shaking. How could he not see how wrong he was to not tell me everything? Not answers, but possibilities? What did that even mean? Was this more angelic speak about higher truths and causes? Because I didn’t need that—I needed absolutes!

  I could feel my power pulsing near the surface, sensing my anger and expecting to be called. But I wasn’t going to fight Michael. I needed him, no matter how angry I was.

  Besides, I didn’t know what would happen if I fought him.

  “I didn’t see a need for it,” he said again. “The demons would have kept coming after you either way. You can defend yourself now, like I promised, and now that we know what your abilities are, we can use them. As we must. Because the fates of Heaven and Earth are at risk—thanks to you. My plans might fail, and your unreasonable anger will not help your brother. You are right, however. The impossible might just be the only way to undo what you did.”

  Was he freaking serious? He was just going pretend like this didn’t matter? How was I going to trust him? Sure, he hadn’t completely lied, but he should have told me everything. He did say I was special, but that was it. He should have told me what he meant by that, and that these powers made me a target for Hell even if he didn’t know what they wanted me for, exactly. Michael seemed less than angelic to me right now, and he definitely had an agenda. I felt like a pawn in a chess game.

  At least now I knew where I stood, and that I couldn’t trust him to keep my best interests at heart. It was his mission first, and I was just part of his plan. He didn’t seem to see past that, or understand what he had done wrong. But I would have to put that aside—for the moment. I had to save my brother, for good. So I was going to listen to his plan to reverse what I did. Because no matter how powerful I was, I still didn’t know what I was doing. Which meant I still needed Michael. For now.

  “There might be a way,” he continued, his voice still dangerously quiet. “I’ve never heard of it being done, and it shouldn’t be possible. If you pulled it off, it would be a miracle. You’ve already done things you shouldn’t be able to do, however, and there is a small chance that this will work. There is no guarantee. You will have to reverse the damage yourself.” He took a deep breath and turned his cold blue eyes on me.

  “But let’s be clear—you almost destroyed everything for one person. You’ve showed me that I can’t fully trust you.”

  That makes two of us, I thought back with fury. Because I still wasn’t giving up on that. He could have told me—he could have saved us all the trouble. And he hadn’t.

  “Test that trust again,” he said. “Do anything to endanger my mission to save Heaven and Earth. And I will send both you and your brother straight to Hell.”

  And with that he disappeared, leaving me to stare at the spot where he’d been, wondering what I was going to have to do—and whether it would save Ash and me from any of them at all … or see us winding up in Hell anyhow.

  Linda Foster was born and raised in Colorado, where she still lives with her (very patient) husband, two (very spoiled) ferrets and (equally spoiled) dog. Linda became an avid reading enthusiast the moment she picked up her first book, and has grown steadily worse. By the time she was fifteen years old, her library had become too big for her shelves, and she was forced to donate all her books to the local school, just to make room for new ones. She started writing short novellas for her friends in middle school, and expanded into full-length novels several years later.