Prophecy Girl (The Five Orders Book 1)

by Holly Roberds

  The soul eater advanced though I knew it wasn’t coming for me. It wanted Emma. It coveted her soul. It would suck her up like sweet honey. Or that Travis guy, although I bet he wouldn’t be as delicious.

  “Laseto, reinetic, ioenai.”

  It let loose another high-pitched scream as light gathered between my hands with a comforting warmth. Fear for Emma made my throat squeeze tight. I refused to let anything happen to her, but gods I wished she had gotten out of here. I needed the whole of my focus on the soul eater.

  The light from my hands spread, pure rays stretching toward the evil spirit. Sweat broke on my brow as I felt the pushback of its’ dark power. I was almost there; my power had almost reached its peak. It was like a wave cresting, preparing to break in a heady rush to extinguish the dark being.

  Before my power could reach its zenith, the resistance of dark energy from the soul eater dissipated. I was awash in surprise, and my own unused forced back-splashed without a counterforce to focus it, in a sprinkle around me like sweet raindrops. It had never taken so little effort to banish a dark entity. Relaxing my hands and stance, I realized I hadn’t.

  The dark incorporeal form was still present, but it was changing, undergoing some kind of metamorphoses. The swirling mist solidified and from it stepped out a very real, very solid foot.

  I stared, incredulous. It wasn’t possible. Soul eaters couldn’t become solid, yet soon it had two legs and half a torso. Formed from mottled gray flesh, the limbs were abnormally long and stretched out. Tendons protruded out from its body in harsh contrast.

  Emma cried out from behind me. “What is that?”

  I didn’t have words as I watched it solidify up over two large arms then up over a head. The monster was now eight-feet tall. Where a face should have been, it was dark and fuzzy, like my eyes couldn’t focus. Putrid sulphur and heat pressed down on the store with unrelenting force. Chills wriggled down my spine like a waterfall of squirming maggots. Sweat poured down my face. I blinked. What I was witnessing was wholly impossible. To prove me wrong, the Soul Eater grabbed a rack of wine and hurled it at me.

  I dove out of the way just in time, only to hear the rack of bottles smash and shatter against a display against the wall in a tremendous explosion of glass. Shards sliced the flesh across the top of my hands where they covered my head. Something bit deeply into my calf, just above my boot where my pant leg had ridden up, but I didn’t cry out. Lifting my head and turning slightly, I saw a jagged piece of curved glass four inches long sticking out of my leg. On my feet again, I reached down and yanked the piece out. Warm blood trickled down into my boot. Back to my feet, I searched for Emma.

  “Emma?” So consumed with fear for her, I didn’t notice the soul eater upon me until the cold of its shadow fell over me. I whipped around, my head snapping back so I could look up into its hazy face. The dark sucking holes for eyes and a mouth appeared as it had when it was incorporeal.

  “Chevalier,” the creature hissed through a mouth never used before.

  “Soul eater,” I nodded back. I wanted it to believe I was still unafraid, but a soul eater becoming solid went against everything I’d ever been told. It had been a long time since fear had touched my heart.

  Reaching into my heavy coat, I pulled out an opalescent moonstone the size of my palm and brandished it out toward the soul eater – the only useful tool I could smuggle through the metal detector. Most people knew it as a symbol of peace and harmony, but I knew it to be an amplifier to my power. I yelled out to the soul eater, “Hominay, regeta, questano.”

  It threw back its massive head and let out a raspy chortle. Despite the light emanating from the moonstone reaching out toward the soul eater, the beast swept its massive arm, smacking me across the room, my body slammed into another rack of wine bottles. Bottles shattered under my weight. Corks popped with enthusiasm, followed by a hissing spray of liquid.

  The breath had been knocked out of me, but my armor-lined clothing protected me from any broken glass. Wine dripped down the back of my head as I sat, gathering my wits.

  From my new angle I could see Emma flattened against the floor behind a rack. Her eyes trained on me with a mixture of fear and wonder. Travis was crouched over her. He began to pull her up and toward the back exit, but they were too slow. The soul eater advanced on them. I tried to yell for them to look out, but the words came out as a wheeze after my hard impact. The soul eater hovered over them now. Travis’s body trembled, warring with its own fight or flight instinct. Glasses askew, Emma blinked up at the cloud as if she weren’t quite sure she could believe her eyes and was trying to wake herself up from a dream.

  “Propheros,” the soul eater hissed at Travis.

  Holy gods of creation. The soul eater just named the Propheros, which could only mean one thing: the time of darkness was almost upon us.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It felt like I’d swallowed the moonstone and it had dropped down to the pit of my stomach with a sickening thud. It couldn’t be. The Propheros? Here?

  Launching myself from the broken racks, I pulled out my moonstone again.

  “Illiamos,” I shouted, throwing it up toward the creature. The spirit made flesh turned to see the moonstone just as it exploded into pure white light. It wailed as its form exploded with the light of my will, amplified by the moonstone. I shut my eyes against the blast, throwing up an arm to brace against the rush of energy.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw it had returned to its incorporeal form. Again, I struggled to comprehend what was happening. If my Masters were here, they could instruct me what to do.

  I already felt the dark mist straining to regain its solid form, and without another moonstone I was out of options. Racing to Travis and Emma, I yanked them by their arms to their feet, then ushered them out the back door.

  “What in the hell was that?” Travis’s voice broke. He kept pace with me but tugged his arm from my grip once we were outside in the frosty glare of midafternoon light.

  The pine trees surrounding the liquor store glistened with a layer of frost, their needles tinkling against each other in glassy laughter. The wine coating the back of my head instantly froze, but I ignored the unpleasant sensation. I continued pulling Emma forward as she stumbled. Her panting emitted white puffs in the cold.

  “Seconded.” Emma lips trembled. “What in the hell was that?”

  Her face was now almost as white and clear as the eggs I used to pick out from under the chickens we kept at the Temple. Fear radiated off her. Mindfully, I pushed away her fearful energies away from me. Never before had I been in danger of allowing such pollution to enter my will, but standing in front of Emma, my defenses were weakened. How could she have such an effect on me?

  “It’s a soul eater,” I said. “Come on, we must get you both to safety.”

  “A soul eater?” Travis screeched. His sweat-soaked hair lay plastered against the sickly pallor of his face. “What the fuck is a soul eater?”

  Emma found her footing and kept pace enough that I could release my grip on her. “Pretty much says it in the name, doesn’t it, Travis?”

  I tried to cover the smile that sprang to my lips as I directed them to the edge of the forest. That’s my girl.

  I corrected myself, no, not my girl.

  Travis stopped short of the forest’s edge and shook his head while pushing his hair back. “Oh no no no, there’s no way, man. I’m not going in there with you.”

  Emma covered her torso with her arms, now shivering in the bitter cold of ten-degrees. Under her plaid-shirt, Emma’s white tank top was darkened with sweat stains and bordering on transparent, her hair stringy and wet at her brow and neck. She was probably terrified, yet I still found her to be some beautiful, unearthly creature.

  “Travis,” she said. “Follow the guy who just saved our asses from the big scary dark mist monster, otherwise you’ll end up like every hysterical twenty-something dude in a horror movie.”

  Travis’s posture remained ri
gid, unmoving.

  “You are more than invited to stay and chat with the beast,” I offered, though I had no intention of leaving him to the soul eater. Especially not after learning Travis was the Propheros.

  Travis paused then said, “I have my truck here. I can just drive away. Way smarter than on foot. Plus my phone is in there, and I can call for help.”

  “My phone is smashed to bits inside,” Emma said quietly, now biting her lip.

  I shook my head. “I have a place we can go. It is safe and close by. If you leave my side, it will discover and destroy you.”

  His back stiffened. “What happens if it gets me?”

  Emma stamped her feet in the inch of snow to keep warm, then turned her head in the direction I was originally leading them. “He called it the soul eater, Travis, what do you think? It dines on pizza and donuts?”

  “Why aren’t you freaking out?” he screamed at Emma.

  She dropped her arms to her sides and screamed back. “Because you’re doing it enough for both of us. Plus, apparently I have survival skills you freakin’ lack.”

  Travis recoiled as if she hit him, stunned into silence.

  Prepared to knock the belligerent man over the head and throw him over my shoulder if need be, I counted to five while he looked back and forth between the forest and his car, mulling over his nonexistent options.

  With tight lips, Travis finally nodded when I got to four and followed after Emma. Quickly catching up to Emma, who seemed to instinctually know where I was leading them, I took of my coat and threw it over her shaking shoulders. I was left in a long sleeve shirt that was also armored but not to the same extent as the coat. I already felt better with Emma engulfed in some amount of protection and warmth.

  She looked up as if she was about to protest, but then seemed to think better of it and mumbled a begrudging, “Thank you.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and her avoidance gave me a funny twinge in my stomach, reminding me of what it felt like to eat worms.

  I’d had to eat them to survive when I was ten-years-old, undergoing the Trials. Even hours after I’d digested the slimy critters, I swore I could still feel them protesting, wriggling around in my belly.

  People typically didn’t make eye contact if they were afraid of you and the way Emma’s gaze only darted to my chest, arms, and stomach – anywhere but my face – meant she must be terrified of me, but she kept in step.

  “Glad you two are getting cozy,” Travis groused behind us.

  Remembering the soul eater had pronounced Travis the Propheros, I dropped back to pace him in case anything should materialize and try to snatch him.

  “We are almost there,” I assured him, and directed Emma which way to lead us until we reached the small, abandoned church. The crumbling structure probably only accommodated forty parishioners back when it was an active house of worship.

  “This looks like it’s chock-full of building code violations,” Travis said, digging his heels in against going inside.

  “Building code violations?” I asked.

  Emma gave me a strange look. “Like the building is unsafe and could come down on us if we go inside.”

  I nodded, understanding. “The structure is sound.”

  “Who are you?” Travis sputtered, still not willing to enter.

  I looked around, wondering how far behind the soul eater was. “Someone who is trying to save you. Now get inside.”

  He snorted. “It wouldn’t even work if we did. I’m Jewish. No Christian church is going to save me.”

  “We don’t have time to argue. We must get inside.” I could have explained that any place of worship would ward against the dark, but I had a feeling Travis was looking for any reason to dismiss my help.

  Already, I missed being the normal nobody who popped into Smoky Badger for a bottle of wine every afternoon as I scoped out the grounds, waiting for the soul eater. I liked being that guy. Now I was back to protector and it was difficult when people didn’t want to be protected, which was surprisingly often.

  Travis crossed his arms. “No dude, this is ridiculous. I’m going back to my car. I’m not staying in a place where I’ll be buried in rubble. You can count me out.”

  A whisper through the trees spoke to me of flesh being torn from bone. It was a warning, and I knew I was left with no other choice but to use force.

  Before I could do anything, Emma stepped up and slugged Travis in the face knocking him out cold to the ground. An impressive feat considering she was five inches shorter than him. She immediately bent over and pulled at his legs to drag him inside the church. She paused to look up at me. “Are you going help or just watch me do all the work?”

  An invisible hand squeezed my heart with rapid succession, but I ignored it, scooped Travis up, and took him inside. Emma closed the door behind us.

  No sooner was it shut and bolted when a heavy bang bang bang rattled the door in its frame.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Is it the soul eater?” Emma asked just barely above a whisper.

  Depositing Travis onto a rotting pew that looked like one of the few that wouldn’t fall apart on contact, I straightened, closed my eyes, and listened. Not just with my ears but I reached out to listen with the whole of my senses, gently probing at the energy outside the door.

  The malevolent presence was almost overwhelming, yet I knew it would not be able to pass the threshold. Then again, the soul eater had already done one impossible thing today. Looking back at Emma I nodded. “Do not go near the windows or doors. It’s trying to scare us out into the open. We will wait until its power has dissipated. It cannot stay on this plane for long. Already its energy is ebbing.”

  Much of my energy had been expended as well, but I pressed on.

  Emma shivered despite being engulfed in my warm coat. “Good thing Travis is out cold then. I doubt his anxiety could handle the stress. He’d be running up and out the chimney if it was his only exit.”

  There wasn’t a chimney in the small church. It was one large room with boarded-up windows. Golden light from the late afternoon sun seeped through cracks in the boards illuminating dust particles dancing angrily in the air at our disturbance. The banging echoed throughout the room like thunder, as if it were a sound chamber meant to amplify the knocks. The church smelled like rotted wood, along with the slight vanilla scent of the aging pages of books, reminding me of the Temple. Trash and pine needles littered the floor. Over by the pulpit, an oil drum lay on its side along with an abandoned, gray, tattered blanket. Vagrants had squatted here before.

  I glanced down at Travis, the Propheros. If he knew the whole truth of what he was, he’d probably try more than climbing out of a chimney to escape his fate. The Propheros is the true savior, it is foretold that he shall rise to banish the coming darkness. As a Chevalier, I was bound to protect him with my life until he made the ultimate sacrifice.

  “What’s a Chevalier?” Emma asked in a low voice, sitting on the edge of the rotting pew across from where I deposited Travis.

  A jolt of surprise went through me. Could she hear my thoughts?

  The heavy bang bang bang came again. Emma jerked and closed her eyes against the assault, her hands disappearing into the coat sleeves.

  It took a moment to remember she couldn’t read my mind despite her bewitching presence. She must have heard the soul eater call me that.

  “You’re sure it can’t get in?” There was a plea in Emma’s eyes, begging me for assurance.

  I’d do anything to make her feel safe. After watching her for a week, the fantasy life I’d built around her was utterly out of hand. Also, I liked the way she looked bundled up in my coat far too much.

  “Yes, I am sure.” I nodded. Then to assure her further I walked to the half-broken podium at the front of the church and reaching into its base, pulled out my broadsword. It was best to prepare any potential safe houses near the vicinity of the hunt.

  Her lips formed an ‘o’ as she assessed my blade.


  “A Chevalier is a servant to the Light.” I wanted to tell her more, but I stopped myself.

  I must remember, as a servant, I am of no consequence to anyone and can never be so until I have atoned.

  “So you are like super strong?” Her eyes swept up and down my body with interest. My body temperature rose several degrees.

  “My physical strength is derived from the same means as a civilian. I train my body every day with the dawn. I have no abnormal physical ability.”

  Her mouth twisted in displeasure. “While I can’t even manage to get my ass to Zumba classes.”

  I didn’t understand to what she was speaking of, but she seemed to say it more to herself anyway.

  “But you can do magic?”

  The woman was a veritable fountain of questions.

  “That is a word for it, but it is the power of my will that held the Soul Eater at bay.”

  “So I could just will things away if I tried hard enough?” She held her hands up, trying to mimic my earlier movements. I suppressed a smile.

  “No. I have been fashioned since birth to be a force of will. I am shaped by belief and with that strong, unerring belief, I can wield great power.”

  Her eyes grew round and hungry. “You’re like some kind of mega manifestor, then. I read the Secret once, so sometimes I try to manifest parking spaces.” Her words weren’t making sense to me, once again. “How many people can do it like you?”

  My heart became leaden. I was not a person, and her referring to me as such caused pangs to shoot through my heart.

  “There are very few,” I said, trying to keep any emotion from touching my face. “Others who are strong in their beliefs can sometimes use certain objects or passages from a sacred text to generate power that is similar to but not as powerful as a Chevalier. Even then, the believer must be strong indeed. It takes tremendous focus and fortitude to expend the necessary energy.”