by Ching, G. P.
"I'm really drained guys. I've got to sit down," Mara said. Her words came out slurred.
They carried her to Jacob's truck and propped her up in the passenger seat. Without warning, an explosion flattened them against the rusted blue exterior. Lucifer sauntered from the flames and twisted metal that were once the doors to Paris High School and pointed at Malini. "I tried to be reasonable. I tried to work with you but you're not worthy of me." He held up his hands toward the night sky. "Take them! Take them all!"
Black smoke erupted in a great circle around the parking lot. When the smoke cleared, Watchers surrounded them. Malini turned, panic seizing her by the throat. People screamed, diving into the closest vehicle and locking the doors behind them. If only a simple door lock would be enough. There were twelve Watchers in all and they hadn't even bothered to disguise themselves. They stretched their bat-like wings and surveyed the chaos with yellow snake eyes.
A rush of water flew past her into Jacob's palm. He circled his arm, the broadsword forming in his hand as he rushed the nearest one. Malini turned frightened eyes toward Mara. Behind the windshield, her pale body slumped in the seat, her eyes focused downward toward her lap. Could she heal her? Malini looked at her left hand, flexed the fingers. There wasn't enough time.
Dane had made it to his truck but Instead of locking himself in, he pulled a length of chain from the back. As the Watcher to her left attacked Malini, Dane leapt forward and swung that chain into the side of its reptilian head.
As scared as she was, she couldn't run and leave Dane, who wasn't even a Soulkeeper, bravely fighting her battle. Black blood oozed down the Watcher's temple. The creature snatched up the end of chain and yanked Dane forward into its talons. He screamed and that's when Malini moved in.
Left hand extended, she closed the space between them, landing her healing palm over the creature's face. The burning was instantaneous but she held it firm, willing the thing dead. It hissed and clawed at her wrist. It was enough for Dane to get free. Blood dripped from the back of her arm where the talons dug in. It was her blood that saved her. A drip fell on the creature's chest and the Watcher dissolved into a rancid fog.
She turned back toward Dane. He'd taken on another Watcher. Jacob was fighting three more. And to her relief, Gideon, Dr. Silva, and Lillian had arrived and were holding off the other seven. But they were tiring, and her wrist had already healed itself. Besides, she could only bleed on one at a time and her healing hand was scorched. She needed help and she knew just where to get it.
Digging her fingers into her elbow, she peeled back the glove from her right hand. She extended her skeletal hand in front of her, reaching out with that new part of herself that felt each corpse buried beneath the earth. There was a cemetery less than a mile from the school. She could feel it.
Here power hooked in and she retracted her fingers, pleading, beckoning the dead to come to her aid. They responded, their plodding pace drawing nearer as she pulled-pulled with her bone fingers.
Jacob's sword sliced the neck of a Watcher to her right, but she did not lose focus. Sweat dripped down her face and her gut cramped as the heat of her power flamed within her. Still she pulled. And then they arrived.
The dead of Paris were in various states of decay. Some were skeletons, held together by her magic and nothing more. Some looked freshly dead except for a dangling eyeball, or an ear dripping maggots. But it was the ones in the middle that were terrifying. Half decomposed, they dragged their decaying flesh toward the Watchers, pawing, clawing at the black flesh. The Watchers were stronger, tossing the zombies aside easily, but the dead were many and they kept coming.
Malini fell to her knees in the parking lot, the red dress ripping against the pavement. She was soaked in sweat, panting with the effort. And she was burning alive. Blisters bubbled up from her right arm, across her chest and neck and down her left.
She watched a dead man sink its teeth into a scaly black neck. Jacob took advantage of the distraction. One-two-three heads rolled past her. Dr. Silva landed a ball of fiery energy in another and it dissolved in the purple magic. Gideon plowed a fist into yet another. The effect was the same as her blood, the Watcher evaporated. The parking lot filled with the smell of rotting, burning flesh.
Burning flesh...her flesh. Malini collapsed to the concrete and watched her zombies succeed in pulling apart two more Watchers. And just as she was about to lose consciousness, she heard Lillian's war cry, and watched her knife sail into the last Watcher's head.
The last thing she heard before she released the dead was Jacob's scream. "NOOOO!"
Then everything went dark.
Chapter 29
Sacrifice
Mara's arms were useless weights in her lap. At least she'd succeeded in texting Dr. Silva for help. She'd seen them arrive: Dr. Silva in a pillar of smoke, Gideon in a ray of light, and Lillian with her staff.
Crap! What was Malini doing? The bones of her right hand bent at the fingers. Was she gesturing for Mara to come? She couldn't. She was too weak.
Mara sank deeper into the seat when she saw them come. The zombies were something out of a nightmare. Decaying flesh fell from the bones as they plodded toward the Watchers. Holy shit, that hand of Malini's could raise the dead!
Sweat cascaded down Malini's skin. She'd raised an army. Over thirty zombies had descended on the parking lot. But the battle was taking time, time that bubbled in second and third degree burns on Malini's flesh. She couldn't keep this up for long.
Lillian slid her knife into the last Watcher's head and Mara thought that it was over. But then two things happened at once. Lucifer, who had disappeared after calling in the Watchers, reappeared, grabbed Dane, and dematerialized in a puff of black smoke. And Malini, who had fallen to the concrete moments before, stopped breathing.
"NOOOO!" Jacob yelled.
The zombies retreated back to their graves as Malini lay limp. The skin of her arms, shoulders, and torso was black and peeling, her hair wet from her own sweat. But she was dead. Mara knew it as much as she knew her own heart was still beating. Her body was too still.
Jacob fell on his knees next to her, feeling for her pulse. "She doesn't have one," Mara said to the windshield.
He started CPR. Two breaths, thirty chest compressions, two breaths, thirty chest compressions. The other Soulkeepers had formed a half-circle around them, hands folded helplessly as they wondered if the last Healer was dead. And Mara knew she was.
From the west, Henry appeared, pupils red with burning flames. He walked hesitantly toward Malini, and Mara knew what he would do. He was there to take her soul, to move her on to heaven or hell. That is what Death did. Mara looked at her bell. Death stopped for no one. Her Soulkeeper power couldn't delay the inevitable.
Jacob breathed into Malini again. He needed more time. Until Death took her soul there was still a chance they could revive her.
Mara opened the car door, sliding out of the passenger's seat and onto shaky legs. She had to do something. And the only other power Mara ever had to wield had nothing to do with being Soulkeeper.
With what little energy she could muster, she ran to Henry, thrusting herself in front of that fiery gaze and throwing her arms around his neck. She ignored his look of surprise and planted her lips on his, pressing her body against him. She ran her nails through the back of his hair, licked her tongue across the crack of his lips, and pressed her hips against his.
Henry responded, his arms circling her waist. And when he did, she could feel the death creep into her. The coldness seeped into her lips first, then down her torso, her legs, her toes. She was dying. But what a way to die! She'd never felt this passion, this want for anyone. In the back of her mind she knew that what she had done was suicide, but it was more important that Malini live. There were other Horsemen, but only one Healer.
The icy death filled her and then she was falling, slipping away into black nothingness in the arms of Death himself.
* * * * *
Jacob was running out of air. Part of the problem was he'd started crying which distracted him from the CPR. He couldn't lose her. He knew the world needed Malini; she was the last Healer. But he needed her more. He was her other half and no matter what she said about him having a choice, it didn't seem so. If he lost her, he'd lose himself. He knew that now.
He was faintly aware of Mara running past him. Counting, he pressed his hands into Malini's chest and tried to ignore the way the burnt skin shifted under the pressure. One of his tears fell from his face and landed on her chest. He didn't care if anyone saw him cry. This was the absolute worst thing that could ever happen.
Where the tear fell, the blackened skin faded to gray. Another tear dropped and then another. The spot turn pink. Jacob stared at that pink spot. More tears fell: more pink spots. Of course! Water healed her!
With everything he had he called it from the ground, scooping her into his arms as springs gushed from cracks in the pavement and washed over him. He rocked her gently. The water flowed, washing away the black, and then the gray, and then the pink, until they were soaked to the bone and Malini was whole again. And then, as the water receded to its place in the ground, she gasped.
Jacob had never heard a more beautiful sound than the air rushing into her lungs. He pulled her into his chest. He should've been embarrassed that he was weeping like a baby, but for some reason it didn't seem to matter at all. Pulling back, he ran his hand over her dripping hair and met her wide, golden stare.
"Are they gone?" she stammered.
"Yes," Jacob said, "You did it. You killed them all."
She licked her lips, seeming to notice for the first time that she was wet and in Jacob's arms.
"Malini, you said that I wasn't your purpose. You're wrong. I know we have a choice. I don't think a person's destiny is forced on them. But you are my destiny, Malini, because I choose you. And not just because we can heal each other, or because of some symbol on a strip of paper. I choose you because every part of me knows that it's right that we're together. It's not how it HAS to be, but it's how it's supposed to be."
She raised her left hand and placed it on his cheek. "And so it will be," she said. "Because I choose you, too."
His lips met hers. For some reason, at that moment, Jacob had a vision of a dark haired woman in front of a loom. She was tying a knot in the cloth she was weaving. By the way the thread was wrapped and pulled, he knew this knot could never be undone.
Epilogue
When the Paris Daily newspaper came out after prom, the headline read School Bombed: One Missing. An unidentified man had held a student hostage and bombed the school before fleeing. The students, who were hysterical and dressed like angels and demons, had varying, although equally confusing, stories about what had happened. Police blamed their fuzzy memories on the stress of the event.
In a gothic Victorian home on rural route one, five Soulkeepers sat around a coffee table knowing the truth. The real reason for the memory gaps was Dr. Silva's tea, administered to each student before they were allowed to leave. Dane Michaels wasn't simply missing; he was taken. And a girl named Mara, who none of the students had ever heard of, had given her life to give the world a chance.
"We never found her body," Lillian said, hopefully.
Gideon shook his head. "Mara is dead, Lillian, Death took her. You don't come back from Death's hand."
"What about Dane? Do you think Lucifer took him to Nod? Should we go after him?" Jacob asked.
"I doubt it. Lucifer knows Dane is special to you. He wants to use him as bait. It's you he wants, Malini," Gideon said.
Malini flexed her right hand within her flesh glove. She looked at them with resolve. "I know what needs to be done," she said. The entire morning she'd sifted through miles of fabric on the other side. The woven choices running through her fingers, the past and present laid out for her to see. Panctu spoke the truth. She could see the future, or several possible futures in their strands.
She stood, rubbing her hands together in front of her chest. It wasn't logical that she should be their leader. She had the least experience of anyone. But she'd been born for this. "We need to reopen the school in Eden. Lucifer will be back and he will be stronger than ever. He'll find a way to translate the list. We need to find the other Soulkeepers for their protection and for ours. The school will be a safe place to get organized until we know what we're up against."
"I can't go there," Dr. Silva said, sadly. "Neither can Gideon. Eden is for humans only."
"I need you here," Malini said. "Working to find out more about what Lucifer is planning and how we can rescue Dane. Lillian will lead the revival of the school."
"Me?" Lillian asked. "I'm not a teacher!"
"You will be," Malini said, hoping to sound reassuring.
"Jacob and I, we'll find the others. We'll bring them to Eden to train and when Lucifer strikes, so will we." She brought her right fist down on the table so hard she could feel the vibration through the floor.
Gideon looked at the side of Dr. Silva's head scornfully. The distance between them was noticeable and Malini got the sense that he hadn't quite spoken his piece about her conjuring the list. They had a long way to go to find their way back to each other.
She reached behind her neck and unlatched her necklace. Leaning forward, she placed the red stone on the table between them. "You need this more than I do," she said.
"Why?" Dr. Silva asked.
"You'll know when the time is right."
Gideon looked at the stone and frowned.
Malini held her hand out to Jacob. "Come. There's nothing more we can do today. Let's go home."
She wasn't sure which home she was talking about, but it didn't matter. If he was with her, she was home.
* * * * *
In a place between places, Death jogged up the stone steps of his castle, hands full with his contraband. Through the door and down the hallway he strode, knowing that he kept a terrible secret. He'd broken the rules. It was only a matter of time before someone found out. And then, who knew? He had tampered with the very fabric of their world. But what punishment did you dole on Death?
Up the stairs and into the third room on the right, her beauty blew him away. Stretched out across the blood red sheets, she was a sleeping goddess, a latent power. He set the coffee and pastries on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. Stroking the hair back from her face, he leaned in to kiss her, knowing that the act was harmless now. She was already dead, although fully in her body. Undead might be the better word for it.
Their lips met and hers responded, her hand finding the back of his head, her mouth working on his as if she might consume him. Hungry. Wanting. He pulled back first.
"I brought you breakfast," Henry said.
Mara opened her eyes. "Later, Henry" she said.
She rolled her hands in his shirt and pulled him to her.
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to the following people for their help with Weaving Destiny.
Karly Kirkpatrick, Michelle Sussman, and Angela Carlie, you are more than co-workers, you are friends. Friends that feel like family. I'm serious when I say that knowing you has been a rocket launcher on the development of my writing.
To friends Michelle Moore, Michael Brennan, and Robin Brennan, thank you for reading Weaving Destiny when it was still a baby manuscript and helping it to grow with your wonderful suggestions.
Thank you to Dawn Malone who always brings a bit of cleverness to the manuscripts she critiques. I owe you big for helping me to see Weaving Destiny in a different light.
Thanks to Adam Bedore of Anjin Designs for the amazing cover art. I think it's the best out there.
To the readers, you are the best! And thank you to the book bloggers and reviewers who gave The Soulkeepers a chance.
Finally, thanks to the #fridayflash community, along with the other authors I've come to know on twitter and facebook, who have been so supportive of The Soulkeepers.
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br /> Available Now from DarkSide Publishing
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Return to Eden (The Soulkeepers Book 3) by G. P. Ching
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Bloody Little Secrets (Excerpt)
Karly Kirkpatrick
Chapter 1
I never feared the dark, until I became part of it.
My eyes fluttered open; yet nothing seemed to change. Inky blackness swirled around me. A scream rose in my throat, but I quickly swallowed it. I pressed my eyes closed, hoping that when I opened them again, I’d be able to see something, anything.
Nothing.
I turned my head. My neck moved in slow motion and creaked like a rusty hinge. My hair rustled against some kind of fabric. Beneath my fingers it stretched, silky and soft. I ran my hands out to the side and above me. More fabric. Satin, I guessed. The air was thick and stuffy, making it difficult to breathe. My hands pressed harder and found resistance at every angle.
I was in a coffin.
I banged on the lid that was just a few inches above my nose and screamed for help, my muffled voice bouncing around me. It didn’t budge. I had to get out. My breathing became more ragged.
“Relax, Vicky, relax.” I rubbed my face.
I started pounding with all my power on the lid. The wood cracked as my fist exploded through it, sending splinters and dirt onto my face. I spit out a few clumps that landed in my mouth. Nasty.
