Soul Whisperer

by Jenna Kernan

  “Do you have an image of his partner?” Bess asked.

  Jessie furrowed her brow. “I can get one, yes.”

  The Dream Walker retrieved her laptop as Nicholas cleared away Jessie’s place setting. She set the computer in the empty space and booted up, then entered a secure site.

  “This is our news source, though I’ve come to discover that it is highly censored. Our fight with Nagi’s ghosts wasn’t even mentioned. I hope it is only that they do not wish to cause panic among our kind or perhaps—”

  Nick interrupted. “Maybe now isn’t the time.”

  Jessie gave herself a little shake. “Oh, of course. Well.” She clicked some keys, then waited. A moment later she spun the laptop toward Bess. “That’s him.”

  Bess stared at the image in silence. All the blood seemed to sink to her feet. Her skin felt cold and tingly. The room disappeared until she could see nothing but the image of the face she had vowed never to forget.

  Someone was shaking her. She blinked up to see Nicholas’s face before her. He released her shoulder and she could hear him now, his voice sharp.

  “Bess, what?”

  She pointed at the photo of the man who had haunted her dreams for nearly a century. “He’s the one who came for my father.”

  Nicholas’s expression grew deadly. He knew how her father met his end and Bess thought he felt partly responsible, since it was Nicholas’s father who began the war that triggered the hunts following the Inanoka defeat.

  “That means,” said Nicholas, “this Soul Whisperer has avenged your father’s death.”

  Bess tried to take it all in. She rested an elbow on the table and a hand on her forehead as her vision swam. Dizzy. Nauseous. Bewildered. The search she had made her life’s mission was over. What should she do now? It felt as if she was flying through the darkest night, blind, exhausted and could find no place to land.

  Winter Elk had killed her father and Cesar had shot Winter Elk. Bess waited for the rush of satisfaction from the knowledge that justice had been done. Instead she felt hollow as a pumpkin after Halloween. She had searched her entire lifetime for a dead man.

  Her insides burned with an arctic cold, the kind that bites the bones and freezes the blood. She began to shake. Her trembling brought Jessie to her feet. A moment later she draped a crocheted blanket about Bess’s shoulders and offered a quick hug.

  Bess lifted her face to look at them, standing side by side.

  “He can’t hurt anyone else,” said Nicholas.

  “That’s right,” said Jessie.

  Bess opened her mouth but could not find her voice.

  Jessie clicked her laptop closed, removing the image from Bess’s sight. “To my knowledge, Cesar Garza only assists in difficult investigations, cases that would be unsolvable without his gifts. Because of Garza, the hunting of Skinwalkers ceased.”

  Bess needed to find some reason to reject him, for if she did not, then what would happen to her? She had always been the Niyanoka’s strongest detractor. She was the one who would never let bygones be bygones. If she let go of her hatred for Cesar’s kind, what would she have left?

  She stared at Nicholas, standing beside his mate. Could Bess be like him? No. She could not, for she was not like him. It did not matter that Winter Elk was dead when there were so many, just like him, to take his place.

  “Garza is hunting the children of Nagi.”

  Bess saw the shock register on Jessie’s face as her mouth dropped open in surprise. Beside her, Nicholas’s complexion grew dangerous and dark.

  “Hunting?” asked Jessie.

  It was on Bess’s tongue to say that Cesar meant to kill them when she paused at the recognition that, like Jessie, Cesar had urged caution.

  Bess was the one who called for the extermination of a race.

  The floor dropped out from under her. Had she not been sitting she would have fallen. Instead she tilted as the world seemed to stop on its axis.

  She was just like Winter Elk.

  Bess rose in horror and staggered, before Nicholas caught her, setting her right, dragging the chair behind her and pushing her back into it.

  “Bess? What’s wrong?”

  She judged without evidence. Was prepared to track and kill these creatures, solely because they were born of Nagi. She was no different than the vigilantes. And she would not listen when Cesar tried to explain. Why hadn’t she given him the chance to explain?

  But she knew and it shamed her. She needed Cesar to be guilty. If he was just like the rest of them, she wouldn’t have to face the fact that she had fallen in love with him.

  Bess pressed her hands to her burning cheeks.

  “I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Chapter 16

  Jessie told Nick to give them some privacy as she led Bess to the living room, seating them side by side on the big, comfortable, broken-down sofa.

  “I don’t think he’ll forgive me,” she whispered.

  Jessie wrapped an arm about Bess, drawing her in. Bess had not been kind to Jessie and still the Dream Child showed graciousness and love. It broke Bess’s defenses. A sob bubbled up in her throat, choking off her air until she released it in a long, low cry of agony. She had fallen in love with an enemy. Bess wept.

  For a time Jessie rocked her slowly as Bess sobbed. Since the change Bess could no longer produce tears, so her weeping was a dry, hoarse heaving that shamed and embarrassed her. Without tears, her pain burned like dry ice in her throat and it took some time to recover her voice.

  “I’m so afraid,” she whispered. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone and when he touches me, I swear I can feel what he is feeling.”

  Jessie drew back, her expression incredulous. “Do you mean you know what he is feeling?”

  Bess shook her head, the prickling unease creeping up the skin of her arms and reaching the hairs of her neck. “I experience it as if it was my own emotion.”

  Jessie’s face grew pale. “Can you hear his thoughts?”

  Bess stilled, recalling when she knew that Cesar thought she made love like an animal. “Why?”

  “Sebastian could read Michaela’s thoughts from the beginning, but she couldn’t read his until after her powers came. But for both Nick and I, it was just feeling the emotions at first, his pain when he was injured and our pleasure.” Jessie flushed, her face and neck turning pink.

  “What are you saying?” asked Bess, drawing back and pinning her gaze on Jessie, who now shifted uncomfortably and glanced toward the door as if wishing Nicholas had not left them as she had requested.

  “Nick?” she called toward the kitchen.

  Jessie gave one more anxious glance toward the empty doorway and then gave up, turning back to her guest. All her dithering made Bess more anxious.

  “Tell me,” she insisted.

  “Bess, I think, that is, I believe the connection you two are experiencing is called the soul-mate bond.”

  She sucked in her breath as if Jessie had slapped her and was on her feet a moment later, searching for an open window or door. This could not be.

  “No. Impossible.”

  “Then how do you explain it?”

  “I can’t but it is not possible that I should be linked to a Niyanoka.” She turned to Jessie. “Don’t you understand? The Niyanoka killed my father. Cesar’s partner killed him.”

  “And Nick’s father killed my grandparents and uncle. Perhaps that is exactly why we are connected, to make up for what happened to our families in the past.”

  Bess stared in shock. Nicholas had told Jessie, revealed the part of himself that shamed him most deeply and still she loved him.

  Bess covered her eyes. “No. It can’t be. I can’t.”

  Nicholas’s voice came from the other side of the room. “Jessie?”

  His Dream Walker tried to make her movements relaxed, but Bess noted the haste with which she went to him and the relief in her face at his appearance.

  “What?” he asked Bess. />
  “Your woman thinks that Cesar is my soul mate.”

  Nicholas’s eyes widened and he looked to Jessie for confirmation, as if not trusting Bess to tell him the truth. Jessie’s nod was barely perceptible.

  “My woman is also my fiancée and you will not use this tone of voice here.”

  Bess fumed.

  “Why do you choose to believe her over one of your own race?”

  “Because she is calm and thoughtful and you are acting crazy.” He drew Jessie to his side, holding her as if she were an extension of his own body. “This is my mate and I love her.”

  She looked at Nicholas, her eyes beseeching. “Nicholas, what if it’s true?”

  “You’ll accept it.”

  “Can I do something to break it? Anything?”

  He shook his head. “Bess, when I discovered our bond I was just as torn. So I know you think this is the worst thing that could happen, but you have to trust me. It’s not.”

  “Oh, please don’t tell me that this will all work out.”

  “But it can,” said Jessie. “With him you have a chance for true love and happiness.”

  Not if he won’t take me back, she thought.

  Nagi swept through the old-growth forest, searching for his children. As he billowed along, he glowed with both pride and anticipation. He had done it, created living children, the first of a new Halfling race, combining his power with human flesh. The prospect was so new and so full of promise he tingled with hope as his mind raced with possibilities. Would they recognize him instantly and rush to him or would they fall in awe at his feet? He would teach them how to be mighty, but what exactly should he say?

  He knew Niyan, the prissy guardian of man, had composed a wordy book for his people, while Tob Tob, always lazy and more informal, had gathered his first children and told them the law, which was passed from one generation to the next. But some of Tob Tob’s instructions must have been lost, because he seriously doubted that he had ever told his children to exterminate the human race to protect The Balance. Yet that was how Fleetfoot had interpreted Tob Tob’s teaching in the edict beginning the war.

  Nagi caught the scent of fresh blood and headed in that direction, spotting the carcass of a mule deer. He had only paused an instant when he heard the snarling and snapping. He looked in the direction of the disturbance and saw them.

  There was no mistaking the pair—twins. They had his lovely eyes and their coloring matched his. But there the resemblance ended.

  His smile faded as he noticed the strange pointed ears that resembled a wolf’s. Their bodies were mostly hairless except for the strange thick silver-blond threads upon their heads.

  His offspring hesitated, drawing up to stare at him, an odd expression of bewilderment wrinkling their new tender living skin.

  The female was already developing breasts and both had a nest of curling silver-blond hair at their sex. How could they grow so quickly when they were said to be less than a month old?

  The female snarled, showing a hideous mouthful of spiny teeth that reminded him of a barracuda. She hissed and snapped while the male remained immobile. She tugged at him, trying to urge him forward, but he moved only to try to haul her in the opposite direction. They tumbled over each other, wrestling, kicking and biting like two vicious little animals. The female, clamped her teeth onto the male’s ear, triggering her release. He growled at her and then retreated behind the closest tree trunk. Nagi billowed in displeasure at the cowardly display by his offspring. This was not how he had pictured their first meeting.

  His offspring were not handsome as he had hoped and seemed wild as wolves. The female remained where she was, on her hind legs now, her arms before her and her hands relaxed, but showing the vicious-looking claws that would have made a grizzly bear tremble.

  He moved forward, past the carcass and closer to his little girl, extending his appendages in greeting.

  “I’m your father, little one. I’ve come to teach you your place in this world.”

  She showed her fangs in a hideous smile and then ran full speed in his direction. It was another moment before he recognized that she was not rushing into his arms in greeting but attacking him. He was so appalled, he made no effort to defend or evade, but stared in shock. Fortunately his body was so ethereal that she simply darted right through him, falling over the deer. There she turned, placing herself between the kill and him. She slashed at the air, growling and barking like a dog.

  Nagi was horrified at this wild thing he had sired. It seemed to have no intelligence or understanding and acted as the merest brute. Hideous, he thought as he slid away. One was a vicious little killer and the other a sniveling little coward.

  Nagi did not remain long with his dreadful progeny, but slunk away. What was he to do with them if they would not obey? He had not anticipated that they would be unable to comprehend him or fail to fall gratefully before him to absorb his teachings. It was a problem.

  And it could become much worse if the other Spirits discovered what he had done. He recalled that Tob Tob was the first to sire Halflings and the first to receive his directive to take charge of them.

  Nagi had anticipated the process of instructing his creations, but now that he had seen them, he wanted nothing to do with them. Thank the Great Spirit they were mortal and would eventually die.

  He stilled. They would die and walk the Way of Souls and their souls would be judged by Hihankara. The old crone would know instantly what they were. Nagi turned back toward the twins, then stopped. If he killed them they would arrive sooner, rather than later. But if they lived, they might breed. His dozen or so twins could multiply like the little animals they were.

  He was about to abandon them when he sensed another powerful entity approaching. No, not approaching, hunting. A Niyanoka came this way. Nagi read his thoughts. He was tracking the blood trail of the deer, hoping to find Nagi’s children.

  A moment earlier Nagi had been ready to cut and run, but this Halfling threatened his brood and so he turned on instinct to defend his young.

  Cesar found the deer, its neck stretched half over the walking path. Blood congealed beneath the body and clung to the fur. He paused at the edge of the trail. The thick carpet of ferns covered the rest of the body. Where were the flies?

  Cesar glanced about. Something felt very wrong. Gone was the usual birdsong and the air grew still and fetid as the inside of a predator’s den. His instincts kicked in and he began to back away. The last time he had faced Nagi’s children he felt no sense of foreboding.

  Then he saw movement. A head popped from the ferns to stare directly at him. The male, he realized, the one who had watched him before, but he was much larger already. He stared with his strange, glassy, unblinking bulbous yellow eyes. His ashy skin had grown more opalescent, almost the color of a morning fog and his hair grew thick and silver-blond in a shaggy mass that nearly reached his eyes. But his ears and wicked teeth still made him hideous in Cesar’s opinion. Where was his sister?

  As if summoned, he saw her just a few feet from her kill, her head down, her fangs bared. She did not seem to be watching him, but stared in the other direction. The hairs on Cesar’s neck rose as he turned.

  Before him, hovering several feet above the forest floor, billowed a gray mass that was roughly shaped like a man. Its eyes glowed yellow and round as the caution lights used by road crews at night and it focused on Cesar.

  He did not need to ask who this was. He knew. This was no Skinwalker, not even a Supernatural. No, this was a true Spirit, the very first he had seen. Nagi. The collector of evil ghosts and the ruler of the Circle. “Soul Whisperer.”

  The voice was a hissing, rasping sound that reminded him of a pneumonia patient gasping his last breath.

  “You cannot even see souls, yet they call you this.”

  “Because my work helps find the evil ones who still live and sends them for justice.”

  “The justice of the living. But none escape my justice. And you are
not here to read a corpse but to create one.” Nagi’s voice held scorn.

  “I’m trying to discover what they are.”

  “You already know. They are my children.”

  Cesar began backing up. Bess had been right.

  Nagi’s form began to shimmer, as if his body were a cloud blocking some unseen sun.

  “You will not harm them, Soul Whisperer. Not you, not the raven.”

  Cesar raised his hands in surrender. No mortal could win a fight with a true Spirit.

  “Death is coming. Do you sense them? My ghosts are hunting you both.”

  Cesar cocked his head, listening as he caught the sound of feet pounding along the ground. But you could not hear ghosts.

  Ghosts were soundless, which meant that the things that were coming for him were alive. Human, but…possessed by Nagi’s evil ghosts. Once possessed, the living creatures were slaves and would remained puppets until the ghosts chose to leave them, their host died or they were exorcised by the Seer of Souls.

  He did not wait, but ran in the opposite direction, back down the trail that led to his car, praying as he charged through the undergrowth. Please don’t make me have to shoot innocent humans who are being used by ghosts.

  Nagi’s voice trailed him, as if the Spirit sped along beside him. “Run and hide, Whisperer. Still they will find you and the raven. But fear not. If you have walked the Red Road, you will not join my Circle.”

  Cesar glanced back and saw three hikers, holding their long redwood walking sticks like clubs as they charged after him. He vaulted over the guardrail and hit the release for his driver-side door, gaining a few seconds as his attackers climbed over the obstacle.

  He slipped into his car and hit the lock as the three reached him, pounding the hood, roof and driver’s window. He started the car. The windshield cracked. Another blow and the windshield exploded but remained in place, a huge circular ring of shatterproof glass now held by only the film coating. He had his pistol, but he did not want to take the lives of innocents, so he threw the car into Reverse and gunned the engine.