Soul Catcher

by Bridger, Leigh

  He sighed and went back to his hammering.

  I looked at the others, depressed. “You agree?”

  They nodded. “But we’re also part-angel,” Gigi said. “It’s all a matter of percentages.”

  I shoved my fists into my jeans’ back pockets. The Cherokee boy, Squirrel, was long dead, his descendents driven onto reservations, and the Carolina parakeets had been hunted to extinction because of human vanity and greed.

  Friends of a feather die together.

  I tried not to look at Gigi, Dante, Sarah and Charles. They’d forgiven me for trying to hit the highway on my own, but made me swear never to do it again. Not that they had to worry. I was under surveillance. Sheba had awakened Ian up and told him I’d gone. She’d snitched on me, and she’d promised to do it again.

  “That should finish the job,” Ian announced. Using a pair of tongs, he rammed the ax head into a bucket of water. Steam hissed upward and vanished in the suck of an exhaust fan. Ian laid the dripping ax head on a low iron ledge, next to four others just like it. “I’ll do the polishin’ and the sharpenin’, then add strong oak handles. But first . . . ” His grim eyes rose to mine. “Let’s have the calling for them, Livia, if you please.”

  The calling, as he termed it, was a kind of spell only a soul catcher could perform

  “If you please,” Ian said again, frowning at me gently.

  I unzipped a small leather portfolio and pulled out a sheet of heavy art paper. I’d printed the words the others had instructed me to use. Then I had written in flowing script, using a black calligraphy pen, I, Livia Belane, soul catcher, call all who are good of spirit to guide these weapons against all who are evil of spirit. May peace and kindness reign over chaos and cruelty.

  Sarah nodded. “That’s perfect. Place the paper on the axes.” I did as she said. “Charles, as the eldest among us, you go first.”

  He arched a jaunty brow at her as he stepped forward, then flicked ashes from his balding head. Ian handed him a pair of tongs. Charles picked up a glowing coal and laid it atop the papers and the ax heads. “Patience,” he said. He handed the tongs to Sarah.

  “Hope,” she said, and placed a second coal on the paper.

  I stared as the paper remained completely unscorched. The hot coals should have turned it into charred specks by now.

  Dante took the tongs next. “Courage,” he said.

  Gigi smiled as she laid a coal on the papers. “Faith.”

  She handed the tongs to Ian. He looked at me. “Love,” he said, and dropped a coal atop the others.

  He handed the tongs to me. I lifted a coal slowly. “Trust,” I said. Like a challenge.

  When my coal touched the pile, the papers ignited in a startling swoosh of blue-orange flame. Not even a wisp remained. The coals tumbled around the ax heads.

  The ax heads now bore engraved symbols.

  We gathered around to study them. From the looks the others traded I knew this was amazing, even to them. “I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Sarah whispered.

  “It’s not just a blessing, it’s a message,” Charles said.

  “Ay, but what message is there in these squiggles and lines?” Ian asked, scowling.

  Gigi and Dante traced them with their fingertips. They shook their heads.

  Dazed, I recovered enough to lift my arm. Everyone stared at the symbols tattooed on my wrist. The encryptions from the Talking Rock.

  *

  Ian and I sat cross-legged on the floor of an upstairs room of Sarah and Charles’ art gallery, looking at high walls filled with my quirky landscape paintings. They resembled the setting of my dream. We’d spent hours staring at the paintings, trying to connect any fragments of instinct or buried memories to the mysterious Talking Rock. Friendship had eased into the spaces between us, though still quiet and fragile.

  “When I visited the Talking Rock in my dream, the spirits there asked me if I was Mary or a name that sounded like this: May-lee. What does May-lee mean?”

  Ian looked at me carefully. “Your papa was an Ulsterman, like me, and so he gave you a good solid Presbyterian name, you ken? But your mam’s people couldn’t speak it; they didn’t have the right sounds. They said it like so: May-lee. And your papa wrote it like so.” Ian drew invisible letters on the floor. “Mele. So, Mary-Mele-Livia, that’s the name you dreamed of when you walked inside these pictures?”

  I nodded. “That’s what the giant snake and the midget fairy called me.” I didn’t mean any disrespect, I just wasn’t sure how else to describe them.

  “You’re sure they lived at the Talking Rock?”

  “Yes. But that place name means nothing at all to me. To you?”

  “No ken of it. I remember parts of our life, but other parts are lost. Tell me more about your dream.”

  “I felt I’d known the snake and the little woman a long time, and that I’d been to the Talking Rock many times before. They asked me about you. They said you must be a brave man to marry a woman like me—a soul catcher. I said you didn’t really understand what the spirit world was all about. That you didn’t really believe there were demons among us.”

  “Hmmm. Sorry. I had a lot to learn back then.”

  “But I told them . . . ” I halted. I told them I loved you dearly anyway, I almost added.

  He bent his head closer to mine, studying me with soulful eyes. It helped that a three-day beard stubble now covered his lower face. “Speak on,” he coaxed.

  I shrugged. “They said we should build our home near the Talking Rock. That a powerful spirit lived there and we’d be safe as long as we were under its protection.” I held up both hands. “That’s all I know. Then I woke up and Dolly was standing beside me—” I gestured—“over there by the window, warning me that a bane was trying to get in.”

  He looked disappointed. “You’ve got no more ken of our life together than that one dream?”

  “No. I’m sorry.” I tilted my face up to his, searching his eyes and wishing I could see deeper inside him. How could I believe we were soul mates, lovers in multiple lives, plus husband and wife in at least one of those lives, yet cringe at the thought of him touching me in this life? “Was Mary a good wife?” I asked gruffly.

  His face lit up. The tenderness, the pleasure of my small question made him happier than I’d ever seen before. I had so much power over him. It shook me up. I’d never let a man be responsible for my happiness and I’d sure never tried to be make a man happy just because I liked seeing him smile.

  “You were full of great ponderings and smart notions and laughs and lust, good sweet lust, that is, oh, Mary, when we . . . when you reached for me, when I laid myself on you at your calling, it was, Mary, Livia . . . ”

  He reached out, I flinched, and he quickly lowered his arms. He took a second to subdue himself, then exhaled and said simply, “Ay. I could happily live a lifetime in every day and every night we spent together.”

  “Do you think we died in some really fucked up, horrible way? You definitely believe Pig Face was responsible?”

  His throat worked. He tapped his chest. “Here, in my heart, I know this much: the pain was so great I’ve n’er forgotten it and you’ve n’er forgiven it. So what we went through must have been terrible. And ay, I believe the pig-faced fecker was there.”

  I groaned. “It’s my fault he’s here again. He came through my painting. He found us all again that way.”

  “You’ve been under powerful protection from the boons and angels and such, or he’d have found you long before now, Livia. That demon that took over your mam’s body was linked to Pig Face, you betcha, but your guards kept her from doin’ his full bidding. Or him finding you hisself.”

  “Were you one of my guardians?”

  “I dunno. What happens in the other realm is a fog, and once a soul comes back here, the memories fade right away.” He paused. “But I do myself believe that I was out yon, workin’ to protect you. I know it’s what I’ve always done, not that it appears
with much success, I’m sorry to say.”

  “I don’t look at it that way.” I glanced away from him to hide my emotions. “I’m betting you’re one of the main reasons I’ve survived this long.”

  “We’ll make it this time, Mary-Livia. I promise you.”

  “I’ve been sucked in by Pig Face’s tricks in every life I’ve lived . . . ”

  “Now, now, don’t be hard on yourself. He and his ilk have been dueling for control of this world since forever began, dueling with the angels and their tribes—the boons and the pogs. You’re still able to kick their arses straight back to whatever hell that spawned them.” He looked at me earnestly. “I’m proud of you.”

  Goosebumps frosted my arms. “Why was I given this . . . talent . . . if I’m not very good at it?”

  “You’re a very fine soul catcher, who’s just had a run of bad luck for the past couple hundred years.”

  On that note, I looked up at him with the breath tight in my throat. “When Ian and Mary were together . . . can you remember any specific events in their lives?”

  His eyes softened. “I remember one day like my own name. We were married in the springtime, under the open sky near your papa’s trading post. Words were spoken by an old shaman, and then your papa read from his Bible. Your mam’s people put a blanket around our shoulders. One blanket shared by two souls. Your papa wrote the date in his Bible. The third of June, seventeen and seventy-five.”

  Seventeen seventy-five. He said it so calmly. Over two hundred and thirty years ago. If the twenty-fifth anniversary gift is silver and fiftieth is gold, what would our number two thirty be—a keepsake photo of Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson downing brandy shooters at our wedding reception?

  Ian straightened grimly. “No need to look as though you’ve been bogged by a kick to the head. ’Tis not as if you were sentenced to eternity in debtor’s prison.” He got to his feet and headed toward a door.

  “You’re telling me we lived during the Revolutionary War,” I called.

  “What’s that?” he asked, not looking back.

  “The war between the colonial settlers and the British. Do you remember whether or not you enlisted in the colonial army?” An unspoken accusation simmered under those words, then boiled out. “Did you disregard the haven we were given at the Talking Rock? Did you leave me knowing it would doom us?”

  He whirled about. “I probably did, Mary-Livia. I’ve never let other men fight my fight for me. And like most any soul born in the Irish lands, I was none too fond of the fecking English. So go ahead and have a say at me. Ay, I probably went off to war . . . I probably left you to some terrible fate, and thus brought us to misery and ruin.” He curled a fist to his stomach. “It boils my guts to wonder how many times you’ve died hating me.”

  “I didn’t die hating you, I’m sure of that.”

  I blurted out those words as if I knew them for a fact.

  Ian’s eyes widened. “Mary-Livia, do you ken of a sudden?”

  I shook my head. “I just . . . I don’t believe I hated you.”

  We gazed at each other sadly. His throat worked. “Mary-Livia, we are meant to be married, be it for two hundred and thirty-some years or yesterday.”

  “Only until death do us part,” I said hoarsely. “We’ve done a lot of dying since then.”

  He scowled. “Oh, so you think? Dead’s just a state of mind, but married is a sacred bond. Do I look dead? Do you? We’re standing here plain as day, alive and together. And so I pronounce us still married.” His voice tightened. “Even if you n’er love me again.”

  Before I could tell him that it wasn’t a matter of loving him again, but of never sacrificing him again, we heard a commotion downstairs.

  “Livia, Ian,” Charles called. “Come down quick. There’s trouble.”

  *

  Leonidas’s lean, jaunty face filled the screen on Charles’ office computer. Leo was, after all, a techie boon who loved the camera. “Hello, Kittycat. It’s time for you and Ian to exit through the third-level escape portal. The ogres are headed your way.”

  I hunched close to the screen. Charles, Sarah, Gigi, Dante and Ian closed in behind me, their eyes riveted to his not-quite-real-looking face. “Don’t be coy, Leo. What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Detective Beaumont is coming for Ian, Kittycat. Well, not for Ian, but for Greg Lindholm. I like to browse the computers at the Asheville police department. It’s like listening to police radio calls, only way heavier. They’ve pegged Lindholm as a suspect in his wife and kid’s deaths.”

  “Wait a minute. They died in a car wreck.”

  “Not so fast, Kittycat. The wife’s family says Mr. All American Good Guy liked to slap his wife around. She was planning to leave him. Her family’s found evidence he rigged the brakes on the family SUV. That’s kickin’ it old school. Beaumont’s gonna pick Lindholm up today then cart him back to Minnesota.”

  “Where would this ‘Minnesota’ be?” Ian asked grimly.

  “Frontier territory,” Dante explained. “West of the Mississippi.”

  Leonidas went on, gazing straight at me. “And they really, really want to know what you have to do with all this, Kittycat. Like, you know, how come Greg Lindholm left Minnesota six months after his wife and kid died and showed up here as your lawyer.”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered.

  Leonidas shook his head and tsk-tsked. “I’ll see what I do to help on my end, but next time, Ian, do a better background check before you pull a transformer routine on a new I.D, all right?”

  Leo’s image began to fade, then brightened again. “Oh by the way, Kittycat, I convinced the APD pog—she’s one stern butch dyke, if you ask me—to pinch something of yours out of the police evidence lockers. I had a little birdie drop it off. It’s in Sarah’s big clay flower pot by the main door. Good luck to you and Ian. Play to win this time, Kittycat.”

  The screen went blank.

  I ran outside, with everyone close behind me.

  Nahjee lay atop the flowers, a squiggle of purple wooden happiness against the red blooms of impatiens.

  Oh, I missed you, she said, as I grabbed her in grateful hands.

  Right back atcha. I cuddled the amulet, and its tiny boon, to my heart.

  *

  Dante held out a set of keys. “You can take one of my cycles. Head into the mountains. See what you can find out about the Talking Rock. We know Ian and Mary lived among the Cherokee. Go to the reservation and see what kind of vibes you pick up. Stay at campsites. Don’t use your cell phone. Beaumont can track it.”

  “How are we going to fix these charges against Ian’s body?”

  “I don’t know. But we’ll think of something.”

  “I’m worried about leaving you guys here alone. What if Pig—”

  “We’ve got your back, Livia. That’s our job.” He put a hand on my shoulder.

  I’d worked as his bartender for several years; wrestled him over knives and nunchucks in his classes, and come to depend on him more than I ever realized. I brushed a hand over my eyes.

  He shoved me lightly, a gentle gesture of rebuke. “You’re not going to get all soft and girly on me, are you?”

  I shook my head. “Fuck, no.”

  “Good girl. Now go.”

  Ian stepped up behind us. Dante held out a hand. “Take care of her, soul hunter. She’s not as tough as she sounds.”

  “Ay, she’s a pearl in an oyster shell.”

  Wise-ass. They shook hands.

  “One second,” Gigi said. She pulled a wad of beaded necklace from her overalls. “Extra protection. Boons love shiny beads.” She handed one to Ian as well.

  He nodded gently then scowled as he looked down at the delicate jewelry in his thick hands. “What kind o’ man was Lindholm? To beat and kill his wife with these hands, to kill her along with their own son! How much meanness is in this body?” He pivoted toward me. Anguish radiated from him.

  I shook my head. “For all we know,
these charges are a scam to find you quicker. I’d bet money Pig Face is behind this.,”

  “What if he’s not? I’ll be a marked man as long as I’m in this shell o’ Greg Lindholm’s, and the more I learn about him—” his eyes rested on me—“I cannot blame you for seeing naught but him, instead of me, who I was.”

  “I saw you. That day at the forge. For just a minute, I saw you as you were in the old life.”

  His face lit up. “You did, gal? So you can say how handsome and fine I was?”

  “If I liked sweat and soot, maybe.”

  He smiled at my effort to avoid confession. I slipped the necklace over my head, and he placed his over his own head.

  Sarah and Charles scurried off to collect camping gear. Dante put a pistol and a box of bullets into a backpack. Gigi dabbed me with protective herbal oils and told me how to identify helpful boons, pogs and angels. Ian slid his finished axes head-down into a second backpack, leaving only the handles to protrude. We said our goodbyes. I tried not to hyperventilate, since the others looked perfectly calm.

  I made them promise to stay safe.

  “Let go of your fear,” Sarah counseled gently. “The more you trust yourself, the more you’ll see what you need to see, and you’ll understand how you and Ian can fight back.”

  “Couldn’t I just text-message the demons?”

  She sighed at my joke.

  Suddenly, Sheba’s soft, hissing voice filled my mind. “I will give you directions to a safe place for tonight. The pog there is an old friend. Take care, little girl.”

  “Hugs,” I told her. “Hugs to my gold lame’ dragon.”

  “Hugs,” Sheba hissed gently, in return.

  A few minutes later Ian and I left the haven of the gallery, the familiar isolation of the haunted river valley below the spirit-filled city on the hill, and the comfort of the friends we had known and died alongside in every other lifetime.

  We were armed, alone, and on the run.

  9

  Other bikers looked at us and laughed, especially the hard-ass dudes who wore do-rags instead of helmets—the type who leaned back fearlessly on their vintage hogs, sans mufflers, zooming past us at ninety mph with their tiny balls hidden inside their jeans and their caveman brains set on permanent sneer.