Wayward Souls

by Devon Monk

  “We’re done talking,” I said.

  “Brogan.” Lu’s voice was so slight, I almost didn’t hear her over the distant sound of the cars and trucks on the freeway. That softness, that worry, made me turn toward her. She reached out, her hand sliding into mine.

  I clasped her palm tightly, as I always did, and felt flesh, warm, textured with ridges and lines, bones strong beneath skin softer than silk.

  “Lu?” The world rocked under my feet, as I both tried to square myself steady to it and throw myself off it to reach for her.

  She flew into my arms, body tight against mine, warm, real. I pulled her tight, tighter, the scent of her perfume mixing with the dust and oil of the road, the fast flutter of her pulse against my lips as I kissed the edge of her neck driving me senseless, wild.

  “You’re here, you’re here, you’re here,” she whispered over and over as she clenched my shirt so hard she scratched the skin beneath. Welts were rising from her touch, but I didn’t care.

  I was solid, breathing. I could taste the sweat of her skin on my tongue, could feel the curves of her body, the hot wind curling between us like the sun itself was surprised to see us there, together.

  My head hurt and my knees were threatening to buckle, but I didn’t care. I was more alive than I’d been in years. Decades.

  “I love you, Lu,” I said. Just as I always said.

  “I love you, Brogan,” she replied. Just as she always did.

  “Brogan, Lula,” the god said, almost as if he regretted the interruption.

  We turned toward him, but did not let go of each other. It wasn’t the best defensive position to take in front of a god who could snap a person into and out of existence, but we’d been too many heartbeats apart.

  A soft jingle of metal reminded me there was one more person on the road with us: Lorde.

  “Stay, Lorde, stay,” I said, but she limped over to Lu and I and wagged her tail at us, black tongue sticking out as if nothing was unusual about being in the presence of a god.

  As if we weren’t in danger.

  Interesting.

  “Well, who’s this?” the god asked. “What’s your name, pretty?” He crouched down and held his fingers out toward Lorde and wiggled them at her.

  Lorde tipped her head one way, then the other, then limped over to him.

  “Lorde,” Lu said quietly, though whether a warning to the dog or answering the god’s question, I didn’t know.

  “Just call me Bo.” He produced a piece of bacon out of thin air, and Lorde immediately sat in anticipation of the treat.

  “No. Lorde is my shepherd,” Lu finished, dazed.

  Bo snickered. “Even without the joke, that’s a good name. Aren’t you a sweetheart? Here you go girl.” He offered the bacon. She took it daintily out of his hand and dropped it on the ground before eating it in small bites.

  “Healing isn’t my main power,” he said, still crouched down and petting the softest part of Lorde’s head right between her ears. “But if you’d let me, I could mend her leg.”

  Lu shook her head, but she clenched my shirt tighter, nails digging into my side. She was shaking, wound up so tight, I was afraid she’d fly to bits.

  This was all too much. Too confusing to be facing a god who was offering us these moments and what appeared to be kindness to our dog.

  We both knew it had to come at a cost too high for us to pay.

  “No.” I shifted my hold on Lu, wrapping an arm across her back and standing side-by-side with her against the god.

  Together. Always.

  The god stopped petting Lorde and stood, those endless eyes weighing our worth. “You want to know why. Why I’m stepping in. Why now. What I’m offering. What you’ll owe.”

  “That’d be a good start,” I said.

  He leaned back on his bike. It settled under his weight. Lorde watched him intently, wagging her tail. Then she sat, waiting for more bacon.

  He slipped her another piece.

  “I knew of you, both of you,” he said. “How could I not? The way your souls are broken and mended, your lives connected and destroyed. Those are things I know.”

  “You were there when that monster jumped us?” I asked.

  “No. Nowhere near you. I was in a little town near the ocean. Stepped away from the world for some time. But when I returned, I knew something terrible had happened to you. Just as many terrible things had happened to many, many people. Connection and destruction are powerful states of being, powerful events. It leaves a mark. And I feel them all.”

  “Rule them all,” Lu said. “You rule them all. Make those connections and destructions happen.”

  Cupid tipped his head just a bit, considering her words. He nodded. “I make, allow, endure bindings and breakings. True. But I did not send your attackers. I was not a part of that event, that mark. Allowing this bond you carry, a soul for a soul,” he pointed a blunt, inked finger between us, “I was a part of that. Made, and allowed to endure. If not for my grace, neither of you would be alive.”

  Lu tensed even more.

  “If not for my grace,” Bo went on, “you wouldn’t have found that watch that gives you relief, moments when you can hear, see, feel each other.”

  “A woman named Rose gave us the watch,” Lu said.

  He smiled fondly. “Yes, she did. Insisted on it, until I agreed.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why were we attacked?”

  “I’ve asked myself that question for many years. And today... Well, today I have the beginning of an answer.”

  I braced myself, holding Lu closer. If this was the end, I would face it with her in my arms.

  Lorde whined, sensing our tension. She limped back to us and sat on the other side of Lu, leaning hard against her.

  “Lula,” Cupid said, “for some reason, you decided Jo and Calvin should find each other.” He wasn’t waiting for an answer, so neither of us spoke.

  “You did everything you could to make sure they spoke, connected. When they nearly ended that connection, you brought them back together, asked them to speak and find truth. That very much interests me, you doing my job.”

  Lu squeezed my side, bracing herself. “I didn’t do anything more than an online dating site would have done.”

  He smiled. It was wicked and pure. “Oh, I know exactly what you did. And if they are together, even for a little time….” His voice drifted off and his eyes flashed with galaxies—endless darkness, bolts of light—all in a moment, all gone too soon.

  Dangerous, this god. Powerful. But also melancholy. Hopeful.

  “What you’ve done, Lula,” he said, “is good. I’m impressed with your instincts and your skill. What I’m asking you—you and Brogan—are three things.

  “One: you work for me, bringing people together who belong together. Two: you find a few things I want. Three: you deliver a few items for me.”

  It was a lot. It was too much. Foolish, so foolish to tie ourselves to a god.

  I opened my mouth to say no, but before I could, Lu spoke over me.

  “For what? What do we get if we agree? If we do all that for you?”

  “Three things.” He held up two fingers and his thumb. “I mend Lorde’s leg. Good as new.” His middle finger bent down. “I help you find that book you’re carrying the key to.” Pointer finger dropped. “And I keep you this way, both of you solid, in this world, alive—well, as much as you have been—able to see each other, hear each other, touch each other.”

  Lu sucked in a gasp and held that breath.

  It was more than we could have hoped for. It was everything, this deal offered on the side of a rough and broken road. I should take it without question.

  But I was made to question.

  “We need more than that,” I said. “Some assurance we’re not just pawns you want to push around. We are in a position of weakness in this negotiation. We refuse to deal with gods when there’s no skin in the game for the deity.”

  Bo’s eyebrows sho
t up, sending wrinkles over his forehead. “You’ve bargained with gods before, have you?”

  “Once.”

  “Which god?” he asked, “No, I can see. It was Mithra, wasn’t it?”

  Neither of us spoke.

  “I see I haven’t given you reason to trust me, especially if Mithra is all you have to go on. So how about I put some skin in the game? What would you ask from me?”

  It was tempting, so tempting to ask for the monster who had done this to us. To have it sniveling at our feet, to have the thing—whatever weapon or spell that might be—to kill it. To pull that trigger, to recite those words.

  I looked at Lu. Her gaze was steady. The need for revenge was there, as clearly as if it were my own. She nodded.

  “We want a way to break the deal with you,” I said, and Lu’s eyes went wide. “We want your protection and will do what you ask of us for the benefits you have offered, but we want a way to break the agreement and walk away at any moment, at our discretion, with absolutely no repercussions from you.”

  Lu nodded slightly. This would give us more than the monster. Our chances of surviving once we got our hands on it were fifty-fifty. We might kill it, it might kill us. There was no telling what would happen after that. Would Lu and I remain unalive and together, but apart? Would our souls return to our own bodies? Would we die?

  No, this deal, this condition with this god, gave us something better than revenge.

  It gave us time.

  Together. Always.

  “You asked for two things, Brogan Gauge,” Bo said. “My protection and a way to break the agreement.”

  “Those are our terms,” Lula said.

  In that moment, I couldn’t have been prouder to be her husband.

  The god studied us. I could not read his expression.

  “All right,” he said, slowly, as if he were about to take a shot of a drink he’d never tried before. His boots crunched in the dirt and gravel as he crossed the short distance to us. He held out his right hand, Gold tattooed across the knuckles, the dove shifting in flight, feathers liquid silver and melted sunlight.

  “You have my word.”

  Just that—his agreement—rolled through me like an earthquake.

  Lu and I both reached out at the same time, my palm against the back of her hand, our fingers slotted.

  Together.

  “You have my word,” Lu said.

  “And mine,” I added. My heart was beating fast—too fast. If we did this, everything would change.

  But if we didn’t…nothing would change.

  Our flesh touched his, and he felt warm, human, but with something more, something like sunlit laughter and moonlight dreams right there in our hands.

  Something like love.

  “Oh,” I said, as Lu exhaled a soft sound.

  “Good.” Bo grasped our hands, firm and real and kind. “This is good. I’m already pleased. With the deal. With the two of you.”

  Lorde lifted her head and bopped her nose on our still-grasped hands.

  Bo chuckled. “The three of you. I wouldn’t forget you, Lorde. You’re a part of this. Of them. Of us.”

  And when he looked into my eyes, such relief rushed through me, cool water, a river endless with life, filling the dry, hopeless canyon of my mind, my heart. He was a breeze softly blowing, the soothing brush of a hand on skin fevered and stinging.

  Then. Right then. Just to feel alive again. Just to feel Lu again. Just to know we were not alone. It was more than I’d hoped for.

  My throat tightened as I choked back a sob. Tears prickled at the edges of my eyes. I exhaled, shaky, grateful.

  Relief. Solace. Succor.

  Lu leaned her head into my shoulder, blinking back tears.

  The comfort of his presence flowed over us, holding, soothing, keeping. Neither of us wanted to let go of his hand, held now safe, finally safe in his protection.

  “I think,” Bo said, as the world went on around us, buzzing and busy and beautiful, “this might be the beginning of something unforgettable.”

  “Magic,” Lu said.

  “Better than that,” he promised, and I could tell he meant it, could feel the ties between us and him strengthening with every passing moment, every beat of my heart.

  “Now it’s time to begin.” He stepped back, his fingers dragging across ours before he let go, and knelt in front of Lorde again. “Let’s start with your leg, sweet girl. After that, there’s a book I need you to find.” He glanced up at us. “You might have seen it recently buried beneath a broken shack.”

  Lu’s free hand—the one not clasped with mine, because she could not let go, I could not let go if I tried—drifted up to the feather key hanging on the chain with the watch.

  “That’s the one.” Bo wrapped his hand around Lorde’s leg. The power that rolled through him, through us, was a zing of sound and color and gold, gold, gold.

  “I might have a town you should go to, a rabbit you should find. Well, as much a rabbit as anything else. You’ll know her when you see her.” He petted Lorde’s head again, running his fingers up her ears.

  Then he stood and planted his fists on his hips. “How’s that sound?”

  Lorde walked over to us, tail wagging, her black tongue happy. No limp. Not even a slight hesitation in her gait.

  I nodded, squeezing Lu’s hand as she scrubbed Lorde’s fuzzy head. “That sounds like a good start.”

  And it was.

  Epilogue

  Lu wanted me.

  It was in the sparkle of her eyes as she walked backward from the truck door, the keys dangling on one finger in front of her, as if those keys were what drew me to her, as if that truck, that ridiculous silver pile of junk, was what I wanted.

  “I’ll let you drive,” she crooned as she ran one hand along the length of the truck, pausing to cup the fuel cap before dragging her full palm against the long bed.

  “Damn right, I’ll drive,” I growled.

  Back, back, back, she walked, slowly, as if hypnotized. Her pupils were already blown, her breathing fast.

  I was in no better shape, breathing too hard, heart pumping like an engine, sweat—actual sweat—prickling at the back of my neck, at my temples, cooling under the lick of a breeze.

  I followed her, step-for-step, as if we were built in the rhythm of each other, as if we were locked into the metronome tick, tick, tick of fate, of love.

  “You like the truck,” she teased, her fingers dancing across the corner of the tailgate. “You might even love it a little.”

  “Not even a little,” I said, closing the distance, easing closer to her, so close she had to press her shoulder blades to the tailgate and lean back.

  We were not touching, not yet.

  The ache, the torture of it, burned sublime.

  We’d watched the god ride away on his motorcycle. Stared after him as he faded in the distance, moving north, down Route 66.

  The ties between us were there, but less noticeable, the intensity of the connection easing.

  We couldn’t hear his thoughts, feel his emotions, or sense his power around us.

  If not for Lorde’s healed leg and my return to physicality, it might have been as if the god of connections and destruction had never waited for us on a dirt pullout north of Lawndale, the Kickapoo Creek slinking quiet and green beneath the Mother Road.

  Since the god had driven north, Lu turned the truck south, one hand locked on top of mine resting upon her thigh.

  We didn’t speak.

  We didn’t turn on the radio.

  We drove. Lincoln, Broadwell, Elkhart, Williamsville, Sherman. The rumble of the truck beneath us, Lorde sticking her head out the passenger window to warm her face in the sun and sniff the summer breeze.

  Lu turned the truck down a road gone to grass and weeds, bright yellow coneflowers on either side of the lane, random as tossed confetti. The brush grew taller. White oak and ash trees gave glimpses of sky between branches as they lined then crowded the ro
ad.

  We’d been here by the Sangamon River before, Lu and I. This little forgotten turnoff hidden in the parkland where old trees offered shade and the drone and click of insects flickering in the tall grass was its own music.

  Here, the highway was gone, all sounds of the modern world swallowed up.

  “Since you don’t like this truck,” Lu said, as I pinned her in place by locking my arms on either side of her shoulders, “not even a little, I’m thinking we’d better go find us a hotel room somewhere. Some soft bed. Shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to find one not so filled with ghosts it would drive you out of your mind.”

  I growled, the sound primal and deep in my chest.

  She ducked and spun, escaping my arms, making a dash for the driver’s door, her laughter lifting bright and high.

  She didn’t get three steps before I caught her, my arms around her waist. She lunged, and I lifted, bringing her just off her feet as I pulled her back, until she was pressed fully against me.

  “No hotels,” I rumbled against the side of her neck.

  “But the truck is—”

  “Fine. The truck is fine. And it’s going to be even better when you’re in it.” I lifted her again, up to her tiptoes. She made a soft sound that sent a shiver through me as she relaxed and molded her body against mine.

  Her hands fell on my arms, tapping, asking, squeezing, and I released my hold.

  She spun and draped her arms around my neck. “Promises, promises.”

  “I am a man of my word, Mrs. Gauge.”

  I bent until my forehead was resting against hers. “I love you.”

  “I love you,” she said. “And if you don’t get in the back of that truck right this second, I am going to drag you there.”

  I huffed out a laugh, my fingers sliding down into the back pockets of her jeans. “I was trying to take it slow.”

  “Don’t need slow. Don’t want slow. I want you. Now. So get your fine ass up into that truck, and be a man of your word, Mr. Gauge.”

  I pulled my hands out of her pockets, planted my palms on her hips, and guided her back to the tailgate. She pulled the latch and opened it. I absently noted the beautiful strips of dark wood planks held in place by low-set metal dividers that made up the truck bed before I scooped Lu up off her feet.