Soul Catcher

by Bridger, Leigh

  “No problem.”

  “Do me a favor, Livia. Stop saying that.”

  “No . . . okay.”

  He clamped a hand gently on my right knee, then my left, and eased them apart as he moved in for the kill. That’s how I thought of it.

  “Livia, I know you do no’ want me rubbing your bits nor coaxing you with a finger, so you best tell me. Are you wet at all?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Goddammit, Livia. It matters to me.”

  “All right, I’m dead dry inside. But I don’t care. Just rub some spit on yourself and stick it in slowly. I’ll loosen up.”

  Still staring at the ceiling, I heard his huge, unhappy sigh. “So be it.” I heard him spit into one hand.

  Then I felt a large hand slowly, gently clasp the top of my left shoulder.

  It wasn’t his.

  I jerked my gaze from the ceiling and searched my side of the bed wildly. Nothing. No stranger had sneaked into the room. Yet the sensation was still there. A hand, a man’s hand, thick-fingered and rough-skinned, gently grasping the spot where my arm joined my body. The fingers flexed. The thumb rubbed a small circle on the tender skin just below my left collarbone.

  “There’s a hand on my shoulder,” I told Ian in a low tone. “And it’s not mine. And it’s not yours.”

  Ian instantly snatched me to his chest, wrapping his arms around me and twisting his body to shield me from the invisible visitor. The hand trailed away. I twisted my head to look over the muscled hummock of Ian’s shoulder. We both searched the darkness beside us.

  “Who’s there?” Ian demanded. “Speak your name, boon or bane or ghost or whatever you may be. Who are you?”

  A form began to grow in the darkness. It didn’t fully fill in; it was translucent, but still vivid. A man’s shape, tall and lean. Dressed in a thigh-length pale shirt with blousy sleeves, open down the front, and leather britches. The visitor had long, dark hair and eyes I would always remember. They showed blue, even in the shadows.

  Ian repeated grimly, not seeing him as well as I did, “Who the hell are you?”

  The ghost looked at Ian with a proud nod of his head, as if not the least bit surprised that he was giving himself hell for invading our privacy.

  “’Tis yourself you’re looking at,” he answered. “I’m you.”

  The air seemed to glow around him. My heart caught in my throat. Ian. And yet he wasn’t Ian. He was the previous Ian, just as Mary and Amabeth and Maratile weren’t me, just different facets on the same diamond of the soul we shared. But he was the image of Ian’s soul, the one I’d painted back at my studio, and that soul was inside Lindholm’s body. All I had to do was quit seeing the many different shells that encased it.

  In the meantime, the current Ian went silent, switching his frown from his ghost image to me and back again. His ghost looked at me possessively. My skin warmed. A flush of strange arousal began to burn in my nipples and between my legs. I lay there, naked except for the bra, being looked at by two men. One dead. One alive. Both Ian.

  The living Ian released me slowly, then uncurled his long legs and sat down between my knees, casually draping the end of his shirt over his still-hard cock. His throat worked. “I can no’ blame Livia for hating this body of mine,” he told his other self. “I want her to feel how much I love her. I want her to love me back, what she can see of me, the me that looks like yourself. Can you help us with that?”

  The ghost nodded. “Ay.” He looked at me tenderly. “You’re not my Mary on the outside. I don’t see her when I look at you. But I know she’s there. And I want so bad to touch her again.”

  “How can you . . . you’re not flesh. How does that work?”

  “It’s the wanting, Livia Belane. It’s me touching you in spirit, and you feeling it as if my hands were on your soul.”

  I looked from Ian’s ghost to Ian. His eyes were sad but resigned. I shook my head. “You don’t have to do this for me. I don’t want to treat you like a substitute.”

  “You need to be with him, Livia. And it’s me, all the same.”

  “No. It’s not.”

  Ian began to push himself off the side of the bed. “I’ll go out in the hall. Give you and . . . myself . . . some privacy.”

  “No.” I grabbed his hand. “This isn’t an orgy. It’s a . . . I don’t know what it is. But you’re part of it, and I don’t want you to go.”

  The pleased expression on his face, the warmth in his eyes, was not Lindholm, it was Ian. For just a second his eyes turned from gray to blue. My breath churned. “I do see you inside that body,” I whispered. I turned to the ghost. “I see the same man in both of you.”

  The ghost stretched out a hand. The backs of his fingers brushed my bare shoulder, then stroked lightly down the length of my arm. They left a heated sensation. My back arched.

  The living Ian touched me, too. My eyes met his. The blue in them grew brighter. I couldn’t look away. He slowly reached beneath me and unsnapped my bra. It hung loosely on my shoulders, still covering my breasts, but just barely. Ian drew a finger down my throat and into my cleavage. He hooked his fingertip into the centerpiece of the bra, then tugged just so.

  The bra slid gracefully down my arms. The ghost trailed his fingers back up my arm then curved them under my hair. When his fingertips massaged the base of my neck I thought my spine would collapse.

  I twined my fingers through Ian’s. We’re in this together. He nodded as if I’d said it out loud. We looked at his ghost.

  “Go ahead,” the living Ian said. “She and I want to be one with you and Mary.”

  The ghost eased closer, sitting beside me with his long thigh drawn up, his knee pressing gently into my bare hip. He drew his hand up the side of my face, outlining my cheekbones, my brows and my nose with the callused tip of his forefinger. He touched my lips, scrubbing them, making them swell. When I inhaled sharply he slid the tip of his finger inside my mouth. I sucked it.

  “That’s my Mary,” the ghost whispered, his voice, Ian’s voice, deep and aroused.

  The living Ian’s hand tightened around mine. His thumb rubbed a slow circle in my palm. Both Ians were good at that, the thumb caress. The ghost withdrew his finger. Whether real or an illusion, it was wet from my mouth. He stroked the moisture over my lips.

  His fingers trailed down the tip of my chin, then the center of my throat. He splayed his fingers over my neck, making a wide swath of rising heat as his flattened his hand on the swell of my breasts. His hand stopped over my heart, rising and falling with my fast breaths. Then he turned his hand over and stroked the backs of his fingers down the center of my left breast. He curved his hand under it then closed his thumb and forefinger around the nipple, squeezing carefully.

  Again my back arched.

  I felt the imaginary heat of his face and body as he bent over me. His mouth surrounded the nipple of my other breast. He sucked, moving the tip of his tongue over the nipple. I was writhing on the bed now, and I squeezed Ian’s hand hard. “That’s a girl, Livia,” he urged in a low, sodden voice.

  The ghost continued to suck my nipple as his hand moved down my stomach. He smoothed it over one thigh, inside and out, slowly, then back up to my stomach, then down the other thigh. Then he slid his hand deep between my thighs and stroked upward with the coarse tips of his fingers. Fire. A surge of damp electricity spread through my belly. Everything relaxed. I was throbbing. I shut my eyes.

  “I’m going into you now, Mary,” the ghost said against my nipple. He raised his head to my throat, kissing the side of my neck, sucking the skin between his lips. His hand, between my legs, unfurled its long middle finger against the mouth of my vagina. He circled that opening, massaging. I felt my silky juice spreading everywhere. His finger made a wet sound in the soaked folds of skin. He slid his finger inside me.

  My hips came off the bed. He slipped a second finger inside me, slowly thrusting. I was now gripping Ian’s hand so hard my knuckles ached. His ghost kept m
oving his fingers inside me as he kissed a line down my body. When he reached my thighs he pulled his fingers out of me, spread my folds wide, and nuzzled his tongue inside me.

  I came, groaning. I’d never had an orgasm like it before in my life. The squeeze and lift of pleasure, the transforming moment when something important and profound felt almost within reach, the sheer release of core energy that made every inch of my body aware of being alive.

  “Livia,” Ian groaned, “look at me, love.”

  I opened my eyes. He was over me, kneeling between my legs again, still holding my hand on one side but sliding his other hand up under my ass to tilt my pelvis up to his cock. As I stared at him in wonder his Lindholm eyes turned Ian-blue and the glow of his own ghost surrounded him. I watched as the image of the long-dead Ian merged with the body he lived in now. He was Ian, fully, no matter who he looked like in this life.

  “Now I see you,” I whispered.

  He smiled and groaned as I pulled him inside me.

  *

  And the most amazing thing was, Ian’s eyes stayed blue.

  “You’ve changed,” I told him in the first pink light of dawn, as I sat on top of him.

  He smiled up at me, his face flushed, his blue eyes heavy-lidded, his beard still wet from an earlier encounter with my thighs. “Have I, love? I think that’s just your fancy talking.”

  “I don’t care if it’s an illusion. I like it.”

  He raised his hands to my face, cupped it between them, and stroked my long hair back in shaggy, damp clumps. “Livia Belane, I find you so fecking beautiful you make my heart ache. From the first moment I saw you at the jail, fully and completely and no longer through a mist of the other worlds, from that very moment I was taken with you. It took me awhile to make peace with it.”

  “To make peace with it?”

  “I felt like I was two-timing Mary. Even though you’re her.”

  “I’m jealous of her. Even though she’s me.”

  “Ock. I was jealous of my own ghost earlier this night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But watching you come off the bed for him, for my own self, ghost or not, was a grand sight.” His body twitched at the thought. I pressed myself down on him.

  Ian made a low sound in his throat. He stroked his hands down my shoulders. “I was a little worried you wouldna ever get past the loathin’ of Lindholm’s body.”

  “Only about a half-dozen fecking times,” I intoned, trying to mimic his brogue.

  He grinned. “Ay. I’ve got no worries now.”

  I slid down beside him, and we arranged Mary and Ian’s covers over ourselves. We spooned, his arms around me from behind, holding me tight. I tucked my hands inside his. It was impossibly sweet and tender and intimate. I didn’t want to think about our future. Ever. Didn’t want to wonder when and where Pig Face would find us and what would happen then.

  We slept.

  *

  We sat outside on the cabin’s stone steps, trying to get back to reality such as we knew it.

  Ian looked at me. Time had run out. Or the time had come. Time to go back to Asheville, we agreed.

  Two sets of hooves rustled in the loam at the forest’s edge. We looked over to find our familiar boons waiting.

  “We’re ready to take you,” the horses said.

  16

  By mid-afternoon we reached the site of Crow Walker’s shanty on the Cherokee reservation, where we’d left the big cycle. It was speckled with spring pollen but otherwise untouched; we were too far off even a back road for any wandering hikers or local residents to find it.

  We stood in the meadow wearily, fiddling with the helmets, watching the horses disappear into the woods. Really disappear. They ambled a few yards back up the narrow deer trail then evaporated.

  “I’ve gotten used to a lot of strange shit,” I said dully. “That didn’t even make me blink.”

  “Ay.” Ian’s face was grim. We both glanced at the grassy clearing where we’d looked into Crow Walker’s memory pool. “Feels like we’ve lived a lot of years in just the past couple of days.”

  “Ay,” I mimicked gently.

  He brightened as he gazed at me. “Some of that living was very, very good, love.” He couldn’t resist a jaunty smile.

  I looked up at him quietly. Those blue eyes. “I’m more worried than before. You’ve given me something to look forward to. I don’t want to lose it.”

  He took even that small confession as a big victory. He wagged a finger at me. “Now look what you’ve done. Even with the fate of all that’s hanging over our heads, you’ve made me go and kiss you.”

  He dropped his helmet, quickly cupped my face between his hands and kissed me. His tongue was sweet on mine; his beard tickled. I gently bit his lower lip as he drew back to let me breathe. He bent his forehead to mine, chuckling darkly. We were both scared and worried and trying not to show it. “Livia, are you trying to put your mark on me?”

  “Maybe,” I whispered.

  “Could you just do it with words? Could you just say so?”

  Three words I never thought I’d speak out loud to him or anyone else crept up my throat. I love you. He wanted to hear it. He needed to hear it. I needed to say it. I swallowed hard, trying to give the words room to pass. Dammit, I’d get them out, no matter how long it took.

  Suddenly, shrieks filled the sky above us and large things with heavy paws rushed our way through the forest.

  *

  I picked off as many banes as I could while Ian burst others into dark flecks with his axes. A multitude of boons appeared to fight on our side. They came in the shape of birds mostly, similar to the big hawk I’d seen at the studio that day. But there were stark white bears too, and a huge buck deer with blood-red antlers, and other boons that took no shape I can easily describe—glittering, winged and clawed, ferocious.

  Right makes might. Boons don’t have to be sweet little angels, I realized then.

  But in the end the banes overwhelmed us. Slapping, clawing, pinning us down. One of them puffed something into my eyes, and everything went black.

  “I’m blind,” I called to Ian. “I can’t see to banish them!”

  “Do no’ give up,” he ordered.

  They trussed us with ice-cold ropes of some kind. We were bound hands to feet. They dragged us away.

  *

  We lay in a small cave somewhere. Dark, moldy, damp. I didn’t have to see it to feel it. Ian, whose eyes they’d left alone since he couldn’t banish them on sight, tried to talk to me in between banes shoving him to keep quiet. “We’re no’ far from the cycle. I can see the cave opening just up yon. We can get out of this, Livia.”

  The banes cackled. At least one of them could talk. It hunched beside me, lightly slapping my face with a scaled, claw-like hand. “Escape,” it hissed, chuckling. “There is no escape this time, soul catcher. You can’t see us, so we’re safe from you. All we have to do is keep you here until our master comes. He’s on his way. He’s found another strong body to use. When he gets here, he’ll do much worse to you than you can ever imagine. Much, much worse than he did the last time. He’ll make you listen to your man scream and beg. And then he’ll cut you to pieces, little by little, just like before, only slower.”

  “Do no’ answer him, Livia,” Ian called. “Ignore the bastard.”

  Of course I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “I’m going to pop you like a fucking water balloon,” I said to the bane. “And all your fucking ugly little friends, too.”

  The bane growled. He pinched my jaw open and jabbed his knuckles deep into my mouth. “Try to talk some more, soul catcher.”

  I strangled and kicked. I heard Ian struggling, cursing the banes who leapt on him and held him down. The bane’s foul knuckle made me gag. He unfurled a claw and poked my tongue. I tasted blood.

  I yelled an order inside myself. I’m a Soul Catcher. I want to see these banes.

  My vision returned. I saw the nasty fucker squatting over
me, saw his red eyes and the hump of his scaled wrist protruding from my mouth. I couldn’t get the words out but I formed them in my throat.

  I see you. Die, you fecker.

  He jerked his hand out of my mouth. His red eyes went wide. He screamed.

  He exploded.

  The other banes went ape shit.

  I rolled upright, watching them scatter. Ian lay on the cave floor, scratched and scraped but watching me with a smile growing on his face. A small bane squatted on his belly with its claw posed over his groin. It stared at me in alarm.

  “His body belongs to me,” I said. “Feck off.”

  It exploded.

  I whipped toward the others, who were running for the arch of light at the cave’s opening. “You can’t run fast enough,” I yelled. “I see you. I banish you. All of you, you feckers.”

  A dozen banes exploded at once.

  Silence. Stillness. My chest heaving, I scooted toward Ian. He managed to sit up. Our hands were still tied to our feet. The cord was very real and very tight. Ian jerked at the binding. “Ock. It just gets tighter.”

  I jerked at mine. Tighter, yes. Fuck. We’d offed the banes but we’d still be laying here helpless when Pig Face showed up.

  I saw a flash of movement from the corner of one eye.

  A small bane, no bigger than a rat, was trying to creep away.

  “Stop right there if you don’t want your ass turned inside out,” I said. It shrieked and hunched down, quivering.

  Demons don’t respond to mercy. And neither do banes.

  But mercy can be traded for help.

  “I’ll spare you if you set us free. You have my word.”

  The little bane leapt to work. It gnawed Ian’s bonds in two first, then quickly chewed through mine. Ian vaulted up, grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me to my feet. The rat-like bane scurried away.

  “He’ll tell Pig Face what happened,” Ian said. His eyes widened. He looked around quickly. “My axes!”

  We ran outside and searched the area of the fight. Ian found his empty backpack. But no axes. His shoulders slumped. “The feckers stole them.”