Soul Catcher

by Bridger, Leigh

  He smiled. “You’re an idealistic girl, I can tell.”

  “I . . . Detective, I swear to you, I don’t know a thing . . . ”

  He slapped a hand on the table. “Livia, do you see my face? See me gettin’ angry? Do you think I haven’t looked into your records? Holy crazy creepiness, girl. Nine years ago you set a fire that killed your mama and baby bubba, then you spent court-ordered time in a psych lock-up. What is it with you and fire?”

  “Coincidence?”

  He thumped a folder on his desk. “And the bunch you hang out with? Dante and that little pink-haired gal and those two old hippies? Every one of ’em has a criminal record. Every single one of ’em.”

  My skin prickled.

  He went on, “Livia, gal, give me a reason I can convince the Bowden’s lawyers not to crawl up your drainpipes and peer in your windows for the rest of your life, hon. Tell me you weren’t a bad influence on their son. Tell me his tox report is going to come back clean. Tell me I’m not gonna find out you deal drugs and he was your customer. Tell me!”

  The flies zoomed at his open mouth. He leaned back, waving at them. “Damn. I’m getting’ a fly swatter. I’ll be right back.” He stomped out of the room.

  The flies lit on the table by my fingertips. I stared at them. They stared back. I glanced up at the room’s security camera. I looked back at the flies, and shut my eyes. Thank you for helping me.

  One of the flies flicked its wings. A tiny voice, trilling and sweet, went through my mind. No problem. We’re trying to stall him until your lawyer gets here.

  The flies buzzed away. They settled high on the wall, in a corner.

  Sparkles crowded my vision. My stomach churned. I was talking to flies.

  And they were answering.

  Someone knocked on the door. An officer popped her head in. “Your lawyer’s walking up the hall.”

  Relief. Sarah and Charles had called a lawyer they knew. Lucille Hanson. Now I’d get out of this death chamber pronto.

  Greg Lindholm walked in.

  Wrong one, the flies said urgently.

  My chair hit the floor. I backed up until a wall stopped me. Oh my God. Oh my God. He smiled at me, then at the guard. “Thank you so much.”

  She smiled back, batting her eyelashes. “No problem.”

  I darted forward. “Don’t leave me here. He’s not—”

  The guard shut the door. Greg Lindholm’s eyes gleamed. “She sees what I want her to see. They all do. She doesn’t hear you, bitch.” He nodded at the overhead camera. “And nobody sees anything unusual now.” He cracked his knuckles. “And they won’t realize anything’s wrong until they find your body.”

  He threw the table against the hall and came at me with his hands rising toward my throat. He was fast, he was strong, and the room was too small for maneuvers. I grabbed my chair and held it in front of me like a barricade. He laughed as his hands latched onto the leg braces. When he threw the chair I held on and got thrown with it. I slammed the adjacent wall, hard. He ripped the chair out of my hands and slung it out of the way.

  Gasping, I tried to jam a knee into his stomach but he pushed me tight against the wall with his body. A rancid odor rose from his skin. His breath was hot and greasy. His thick fingers sank into my throat.

  “Die slowly, bitch,” he whispered. “I always like to watch you go.”

  I gagged and struggled, flailing. I’m not small, I’m not delicate, but he held me by the neck as if I were nothing. In another few seconds I would be nothing.

  Was it better to die with one demon smiling as he strangled me rather than risk inviting a second demon to help him? I’d be dead, either way.

  Ian. I need you. Please. You said you’d come if I asked.

  The air contracted and expanded as if a tornado had sucked the room into its vortex. Weird pressures squeezed me hard then let me go. I was free. Oxygen swirled down my throat. White energy—that’s the only way I can describe it, a pulse of whiteness—filled my mind. For a few seconds I couldn’t see or hear. I slid down the wall, dragging my fingers over my aching neck, feasting on the revival of life inside my lungs.

  Sound and sight rushed back. I stared at Greg Lindholm. He lay on the floor across from me, convulsing. His eyes rolled back, he flailed, he jerked. The sharp heels of his polished loafers rattled in an electrocution rhythm, making a grotesque staccato on the hard linoleum floor. His hands squeezed into white-knuckled fists. He grunted. A deep, enraged rumble came from his throat.

  And then he went limp.

  Good work, soul catcher, the flies chorused.

  I got to my feet, swaying. My chest heaved. I flattened myself against the wall and inched into a corner. I was afraid to take my eyes off Greg Lindholm’s unconscious body, but I stole quick glances around me.

  “Ian?” I whispered. As if he could be hiding beside me in a ten-foot-square room.

  Nothing. No answer.

  The security camera whirred back to life. My knees buckled. I grabbed a chair for support. The door burst open. Detective Beaumont rushed in. He knelt beside Lindholm, checked his pulse, poked a finger in his mouth to see if his tongue was choking him then looked at me. “Does he have a history of seizures? Is he epileptic?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t . . . know.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Greg Lindholm.”

  “Don’t worry, we got a couple of EMT’s hangin’ out in the lobby, flirtin’ with the dispatchers. You should have yelled for help when he started havin’ the seizure.”

  I stared at him. Maybe I’d appreciate the irony some day.

  The paramedics strode in. I remained flattened in the corner, my skull pressed into the hard angle, my eyes straining in my head. It was hard to see Greg Lindholm through the crowd of people squatting around him. My gaze shifted to the open door. I edged toward it. I’d rather be chased by the police than a demon.

  “Greg Lindholm? Mr. Lindholm?” one of the paramedics said loudly. He lightly slapped Greg Lindholm’s face. “Can you hear me, Mr. Lindholm?”

  “There he comes,” the detective said. “He’s blinking. He’s okay.”

  My blood turned to ice. The open door. Go for it. Now.

  I lurched forward just as the other paramedic stood up. We collided. He grabbed me by one arm. “You all right? You don’t look so good. Here, sit down. Sit. I’ll give you a whiff of oxygen and check your blood pressure.” He guided me into a chair. “Be right back with the oxygen tank.”

  He walked out and shut the door behind him. The lock clicked loudly. I stared at the huddled backs of the detective and first paramedic, still blocking my view of Greg Lindholm. One of his legs flexed and shifted, then slowly rose to a bent position.

  I stood. “Don’t let him up. Do not let him get up. You have no idea . . . ”

  “Calm down, hon,” Detective Beaumont said over one shoulder. “He seems fine now. Don’t you worry.” He looked back down at Lindholm. My pet flies dive-bombed Beaumont’s face. He swatted at them while peering closer at Lindholm. “Mr. Lindholm? Hi, there.”

  Both flies lit on the detective’s forehead. He slapped a hand there. They zoomed away a split-second ahead of it. “Goddamn flies,” he exploded. His face turned pink. “Sorry, hon.”

  “No problem.” I couldn’t see Lindholm’s face behind the detective and the paramedic.

  Detective Beaumont slapped Lindholm’s shoulder. “Awright, awright. Comeon, Mr. Lindholm, let’s get you out of this fly-infested jungle. If you want to go to the hospital for a quick check-up, say so. Otherwise, we’ll call it a day. I’ll have somebody drive you and Livia to your office.”

  I gagged. I was being handed over to the demon who’d smiled at the idea of watching me smother slowly inside the grip of his hands. I knotted my fist tighter and raised it. Lindholm would have to drag me out of there in a bloody heap.

  “She’s mine, then?” a deep voice said, lifting the sentence upward at its end. “That’s grand. I feel all the bett
er now, thank you indeed. I’ll be having a look at her, please.”

  “Sure, buddy,” the paramedic said.

  Beaumont nodded. “Yeah, let’s help you sit up. Let Livia get a look at you, too. So she can see that you’re back to normal.”

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. The voice that wanted a look at me wasn’t Greg Lindholm’s. Was I the only one hearing a stranger’s Irish-inflected baritone?

  Slowly, the man on the floor sat up. Beaumont clapped him on the shoulders again then scooted back so I could be reassured that my attorney was in the pink.

  Greg Lindholm’s gray eyes met mine. It was still him in the flesh—his body, his face, every physical feature that reminded me that he’d rammed himself into every hole of my body and twice tried to kill me.

  But in his eyes was a new expression, pained and urgent, studying me as if he’d waited a long time to see me again. The look in his eyes belonged to a different man. His throat worked. “’Tis good to be with you again, my . . . Livia.”

  I slowly lowered my fist.

  Some souls you recognize by sight. Others by instinct.

  And some, whether you admit it or not, come to you by deep and endless and tormented love.

  Ian was here.

  5

  The new stranger in Greg Lindholm’s body stood in the middle of the shabby-chic, old-hippy atmosphere of the Ablehorn Art Gallery. The massive building had been a weaving factory in the early 1900’s. The windows were enormous, built to let in light for the workers at their looms. The floor and walls were made of heavy beams, to hold the weight. Downstairs was Charles’ pottery studio and a large apartment where he and Sarah lived. It was a sanctuary, like the Harken Bible building.

  But now this stranger stood in the middle of that sacred place like a large, caged wolf impatiently waiting for us to flip the cage latch and let him taste our throats. Sarah, Charles, Gigi and Dante surrounded him, mainly to keep me away from him. I sat on a small couch in a corner, suspicious and wounded, nursing my bruised neck with an ice pack.

  “Livia,” he asked again. “How’s the neck? Better?”

  I stared at him, still not willing or able to form words. Fate? Destiny? Recognition? Soul mates? Lovers?

  Temporary Delusion. He’s a stranger. Now I look at him and only see Lindholm. And Pig Face.

  When I gave no answer, he shifted and shrugged his big shoulders against the tailored material of Lindholm’s dark, three-piece suit. He looked down at his polished loafers as if they felt funny, then frowned at the silk tie he clutched in one big hand. “Will I be needing to wear this leash?” he asked me.

  His eyes seemed more silver than gray now, with an unnerving edge of sadness in them. He turned his intense scrutiny on me at every chance. He kept ruffling a hand over Lindholm’s styled brown hair; which now swirled in uneven prongs. Somehow that salon haircut looked shaggy already, like a mink morphing into a wolverine. When I returned nothing but another locked-down stare, he patted his suit jacket until he found the pockets, then stuffed the tie in one of them.

  “Stick to the questions at hand,” Charlie told him.

  “Tell us what we want to know,” Dante added, one hand casually cupping a pistol.

  Ian nodded. “Ay, I ken.”

  “You set the demon loose?”

  “Ay. I evicted the bastard from Lindholm’s carcass. Being kicked out of a fine home weakens a demon considerable. It’ll take him some time to find such a brawny self as this one to use, but he will. And then there’ll be no way out but to kill the body and nab the soul.” He looked at me again. “That’s what you must be ready for. To see him as his real self, and capture him with your magic, and banish him. You have the way. But you have to be willing to fight. And you’ll need my help. A soul catcher must have a bodyguard to track demons and fend them off while the catcher goes about the banishing spell.”

  “We’re not a team,” I rasped.

  “Then you are a soul hunter?” Sarah asked, frowning.

  “Call it what you will, mum. I know it’s a wee bit notorious. Mainly, I’m here for Livia.” He looked over at me once more. Damn, he had such sad eyes. “You needed me. You asked me here. I’ve been looking for you forever it seems. You’ve been good at hiding yourself. You never wanted to need me again. I’m sorry I didn’t find you afore himself did. I’m sorry, love.”

  I worked my throat and finally rasped, “Don’t call me that.”

  “I’m sorry, Livia.”

  “Why shouldn’t I believe you’re not a demon, too?”

  “If I were, I’d have killed you where you stood. He meant to kill you for certain this time. I stopped him the only way I could. I took his body. Willing bodies are not so easy to procure. Perk up, Livia. Isn’t this one handsome?”

  I threw the ice pack at him. He caught it with one hand then let it fall to the gallery’s whitewashed floor. His eyes never left me. I got to my feet and started towards him. Gigi tried to block me. “Livia! We may not know exactly what this guy is here for, but the boons say he’s not a demon. I know it’s hard to look past Greg Lindholm’s face and body, but remember, it’s the soul that counts. Hey, this is like Terminator 2, right? Sarah Conner had to wrap her mind around Arnold turning into the good guy.”

  “Arnold wasn’t programmed to use rape as a weapon.” I shoved past her and got into the stranger’s all-too-familiar face. He didn’t move, didn’t even blink. Just looked down at me with that quiet misery of his. “Why did you pick Lindholm’s body? You could have taken the detective’s, or a police officer’s. You had plenty of choices. If you’d chosen one of the other men, you’d have been armed with their guns. Then you could have killed this . . . this . . . ” my throat worked as I raked his body with disgust . . . “this piece of garbage. Then the demon would have been freed, and I’d have gotten a detailed look at him again, and I could have drawn . . . ”

  “That’s a lot of ‘coulds,’ Livia.”

  “Why did you pick this body?” I repeated. My voice rose. “Unless you like what this body is capable of doing to me?”

  He flinched as if I’d slapped him. “Livia, I’d as soon cut off my hands as do—”

  “You were there, that night. You, not just him. You watched him rape me. You killed his . . . his eight-toed pimp with your hatchet, didn’t you? Then why couldn’t you help me or warn me or stop Pig Face from what he did?”

  “I could not see anything clear from where I was, Livia. No more than you can see everything clear in other heavens, no more than you can make out more’n just shapes on a misty night. Being out there—” he waved a big hand toward the ether, then froze when I flinched at the aggressive gesture—“Out in the yon, Livia, it’s not like here, not like you’re thinkin’ in the same way as a flesh and blood body, makin’ choices from this place—“he pointed carefully at his head—“but from yon—” he made a large circle with his arms, watching me carefully in case I spooked.

  “Stop.” I shook my head.

  His arms sank. “I’m no good with words.”

  “Excuse me,” Sarah put in gently. “What he’s saying, Livia, it that our souls make their decisions based on a purity of purpose we cannot comprehend. When we’re in that realm, our souls know precisely what’s best for us. What they do, how they decide our future, is a mystery we’re not capable of understanding. They choose our way with the infinite grace and purpose of the Holy Spirit. They are listening to God.”

  “Or to His opposite,” I countered.

  The melancholy deepened in Ian’s eyes. I knew I was being a bitch, but he, or his body, had tried to kill me again, just a few hours ago. I wanted to rip his skin off and find the Ian I’d painted. That soul was trapped behind Greg Lindholm’s face, and God help me, but I would always see the hatred and lust in Lindholm’s eyes. And worse—I would see the grotesque creature from my painting.

  “Do no’ look at me that way,” Ian rasped. “Tell me what I can do to convince you I’m a fair and able and decent man, not
a beast of Hell.”

  I shook my head again, backing away from him. “Nothing. Just keep your distance from me. I’m sorry, but just stay away.”

  “Livia. My ken of this body is naught. It’s a cipher to me. I haven’t even yet taken a look. I’ve got no pretty words to heal you, Livia; it was always you with the education, not myself. So I can only put it so: Your jabs, your arse, your gee and all the giblets from minge to hoop are like my own flesh to me, and I will protect them against all who’d try to hurt you.”

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “All your tender parts are like my own. You want to have a look at me? Well, then. Have at it.” He nodded to the others. “All of you.” Then, to me: “Let’s you and me both see what reeking monster I’ve brought into your midst.”

  He kicked off his shoes. His feet were bare. He shrugged out of his jacket then dropped it in a heap. The air off his body was clean and warm. He fumbled with the small buttons of his vest, flung it aside, then worked at the buttons of his shirt. My mind reeled. The shirt came off in rustle of fine cloth. Suddenly I was gazing at the center of his bare chest.

  He flexed his thickly muscled arms and scowled down at himself. He prodded the spot where his tanned belly disappeared into his pants without the softness of a single body hair. Lindholm had been a waxer and a tanning bed enthusiast. “Hah. What’s this bare pelt? This man has no more fur than a babe. But ’tis clear he’s spent time working hard under a hot sun, so that’s good.”

  He pulled a slender leather belt free then struggled with the pants’ button and snap fastener. Finally he tore the snap off. The rip of the cloth made my spine twitch. He shoved his pants down and kicked them off. He stood still, grimacing down at himself.

  No underwear. I believe he was as surprised as the rest of us.

  In the tense silence I heard my own sharp breath and the muffled sounds of Gigi’s shocked snort plus a gasp from Sarah. Charles and Dante struggled manfully to show no emotion. Why should I feel shy? Why should I care? But I kept my eyes on his chest, refusing to look down after my first startled glance.