The Soul Keepers Series, Book 1 Read online

  “I’m … actually here to see you,” Mak said, her voice low to keep from waking Basil and Theo, who was also turned over and snoring loudly.

  Rhett was sure that he couldn’t hide the surprise on his face, but he tried to play it cool.

  “Well then, by all means, step into my office,” he said.

  She picked up a chair and set it next to Rhett’s bed. She sat down with her elbows on her knees, as if she was about to give him some kind of pep talk. Maybe she was. He didn’t know. He was in uncharted territory.

  When she didn’t say anything for a while, he asked, “Is everything all right?”

  “I never thanked you,” she murmured.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I never thanked you for saving me. On the bridge.” She was staring at her hands fiddling with each other.

  “Oh. Well, you don’t have to thank me,” Rhett said. “It was a group effort, anyway.” He nodded toward Basil, a growling lump under the sheets across the room.

  “I know,” she replied. “I just … I was afraid. I didn’t realize I was stuck right away. Because at first I couldn’t move. As soon as I heard that there were psychons out there, I … I froze. I failed my team. Again.”

  Rhett was stunned. He was incapable of finding the words to fill the gap of silence that was stretching out between them.

  “Theo looks like crap,” she went on. “We almost lost Basil. I think Treeny is completely traumatized. And look at you.” She gestured to Rhett’s leg. She paused, then said, “You were braver than I was out there. You pulled me out of that car, and because of that, we saved everybody. So … thank you.”

  Mak stood, leaned over Rhett’s bed, and put her lips against his cheek. Without thinking, he switched his senses on. The pain in his leg was phenomenal, daggering into him with seething red blades. But the feeling of her kiss against his skin blew the pain right out of him. It wasn’t romantic—he wasn’t sure he could ever feel anything like that for Mak, especially after having compared her and Basil to his parents. It was the simple act of being soothed by another person that made the agony in his leg worth it. When she pulled away, he let his senses fade again.

  Rhett opened his mouth to tell her about what he’d seen in San Francisco, about the girl that had appeared to him and nearly ruined his mind with just her voice, about what she had said (I am the speaker of languages. You are the keeper of souls), about the fear that was burning a hole inside him. But what came out instead was “You don’t have to thank me, Mak. You’re part of my team, and you’re my friend. Even if you’re a little pushy sometimes.” She laughed quietly. “And you didn’t fail anybody. We might be dead, but we’re still mostly human. In fact, I think I feel more human now than I did when I was alive.”

  Mak sat back down, cocking her head in a silent question.

  “I just mean that before I died, I was so … disconnected. High school is … the literal worst sometimes. And everybody’s always so caught up in their own stuff. It was like being on a different planet from everyone else. Here … it feels like I’ve known you guys forever.” Now he was the one fidgeting.

  Mak was nodding, her head down.

  “Her name was Lana,” she said. Rhett looked up at her, startled by her words. “She was around Treeny’s age. They were really close. And she was like a little sister to the rest of us.” She looked around the room for a moment, seeming uncertain. But she went on. “We were in Austria, picking up the soul of this skier who’d gotten caught in an avalanche. It was taking too long. We all knew it. We were digging through the snow, trying to find the guy. I was about to just call it. Give up and let the psychons find him. I should have. But Lana wanted to keep going. She was never afraid, that kid. Never.” She swallowed. “The psychons showed up, of course. We tried to fight, but the snow was so deep and unsteady. They … they dragged Lana away. I couldn’t figure out why they would do that. But I saw the top half of the skier sticking out of the snow. He was long dead, and I could tell his soul was already gone.”

  “Jesus…,” Rhett whispered.

  “Those monsters ripped her apart. They opened her up and took the soul right out of her chest and then they … they smashed her heart. For fun, I guess. Or maybe because she got in their way. She was gone. Ghosted. Just like that. We were all broken for a long time. Treeny still is. She was never right after Lana. We fought—hard—to be a team again. That’s why when you showed up … I just couldn’t let history repeat itself.”

  Rhett let out a long, heavy breath. It hung there between them, like an invisible speech bubble waiting to be filled. Finally, he said, “How do you feel now?”

  Mak looked over at the spot where Basil’s chest was rising and falling, filling and emptying with the air he didn’t need to breathe. She turned back to Rhett and stared at him.

  “Now I feel like we’re lucky to have you,” she said.

  Rhett smiled. It was all he could do.

  “What about you?” Mak asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you still angry you got roped into all this?”

  He thought for a moment, listening to the give and take of Basil’s and Theo’s snores.

  “No,” Rhett said. “I’m not angry about being here. Sometimes I’m angry because I feel like I got yanked out of a life that I hadn’t even figured out yet. But if given the choice between being here or there…” He nodded at the tube of souls glowing in the middle of the room. “… I’d rather be here. With you. With them.” He looked around at where Basil and Theo continued to sleep soundly.

  It was Mak’s turn to smile.

  Rhett took her hand then, and she let him. And they were quiet for a while.

  * * *

  Basil and Rhett were released from the medical bay long before Theo, who continued to look like Frankenstein’s Mummy for a solid two weeks.

  Rhett and the others got back into the groove of things as best they could—training, gathering, working. Mak pushed the team harder than ever in the training room, including herself. Rhett caught her early one day, alone in a corner of the room, pummeling a rubber torso with her machete, slicing it into foamy wedges, her senses and emotions coursing through her so that she was dripping with sweat and tears. The handle of the machete was slick with blood from blisters on her palms. She may have finally told Rhett what happened to the fifth team member—Lana—but that didn’t mean that she had forgiven herself. He left her alone that day and decided not to mention it to anyone.

  The first time they had to go out and collect a soul without Theo was nothing short of tense and frightening. Rhett was glad to have a new knuckle blade to replace the one he’d lost on the Golden Gate, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  They found some poor guy who’d been on a hunting trip and had somehow been shot, either by his own bullet or someone else’s. The guy was bleeding out in the middle of a dense forest, where a pack of psychons could have rushed the team at any time, from any direction. They had all agreed ahead of time that Treeny would collect the soul, and Mak and Rhett and Basil would stand guard. But even with the three of them surrounding her, Treeny still seemed terrified as she pulled the hunter’s soul into her.

  They got out of there as quickly as they could.

  After that it was only slightly easier. Every new death brought with it its own set of risks, and without Theo, the team’s chance of survival against the psychons was severely damaged. Which is why they were all extremely happy to have him back when he was finally released from the med bay.

  And of course he was released on a working day, when the push was nowhere to be found and the five of them were down in one of the cargo holds, hauling crates of food up to the mess hall. Theo was with them, though, working as hard as ever, even with his face still yellow and swollen from the battle on the Golden Gate. Rhett was glad to see the big guy back on his feet, and he said so.

  “Thanks, stretch,” Theo replied, his New York accent like a kind of music. He tossed a crat
e of potatoes onto one of his massive shoulders and took a few stiff steps over to where they had a flatbed cart waiting. He set the crate down. “It’s good to be out of that stinkin’ ward. Never liked those kinds of places.”

  “Because you don’t like hospitals, or because you were such an outstanding citizen in your former life that you never had to visit one?” Basil asked. He and Rhett were in new clothes, pulled from a collection that had accumulated on board over the centuries. Rhett had really only needed some new jeans and found a decent pair right away. He had wanted to ask if there was some kind of Goodwill donation box for the afterlife. Basil, on the other hand, had searched high and low for a new blazer to replace the one that had been ruined by the psychons. Now his new blazer was hanging off the corner of one of the crates, and Blazer Guy himself was dragging crates across the floor to the cart, sleeves rolled up and his normally perfect hair dangling in his face.

  Theo only grinned in response to Basil’s jab.

  The cargo hold seemed to be as long as the Harbinger itself, stretching out under hanging yellow lights for as far as Rhett could see. The hold was overtaken by mountainous stacks of crates, which, according to Treeny, never diminished. There was always a supply of food on board, no matter how many syllektors there were or how many meals they ate. The five of them were deep in the labyrinth, schlepping crates onto the cart as quickly as they could, trying to be done with the day’s work.

  Mak and Treeny were mostly silent, each of them still harboring their guilt from what happened on the bridge in San Francisco. Rhett understood that. Every time he looked at Theo’s face he was reminded of all the things he could have done differently. But he’d helped to save Mak, and, in a way, he’d saved Treeny, too. If not for the other thing—the she-thing—he might have considered that day a victory.

  “Hey guys?” Rhett said suddenly, surprising even himself. He was going to tell them. The words were there on his tongue, waiting to burst out of him. The eyes of the girl-monster flickered in front of him.

  The other four stopped—Mak with a crate resting on her hip, Basil with his arms folded and leaning against one of the stacks, Treeny behind a crate as big as she was that she had been pushing toward the cart, and Theo with his muscular arms wrapped all the way around a crate marked WINE. They were all looking at Rhett, waiting, and he wished that he could pop open the crate Theo was holding and have a drink.

  “I just … wanted to say … thanks,” Rhett stammered, losing his nerve. “Thanks for taking me in.”

  They all smiled at him—even Mak—and for just a moment all thoughts of the she-thing were pushed from his mind. On the worst day of his life—at the end of his life—he had lost one family but gained another. They were all standing here in front of him. He trusted them and they trusted him and they were friends. More than that, they were a team. They had conquered the psychons once and, if they had to, they would do it again. But for now they were content to just be together, working, training, gathering. And that was happiness enough for all of them.

  “Don’t get all sappy on me, mate,” Basil said, winking.

  “Yeah, you’re not allowed to get soft,” Mak said playfully. “I need a human shield the next time we run into the psychos.”

  They all laughed, including Treeny, who shook quietly with giggles, covering her face.

  “Did Mak just make a joke?” Theo asked, his voice legitimately concerned. And they all cracked up again.

  When they had settled down a bit but still weren’t inclined to get any work done, Basil glanced over at Theo.

  “Here’s a thought,” he said.

  And then they really did crack open the wine. Rhett wasn’t sure if there was an age limit for alcohol aboard a ship of the dead, especially when the dead people in question could avoid the effects of getting drunk if they wanted to. But he gladly took a swig from the bottle when it was passed to him and allowed his senses to absorb the flavor—and the alcohol—as it went warm and heavy into his stomach.

  They sat among the crates, passing the bottle around, telling stories about life and afterlife and everything in between. When Mak mentioned Lana without any hesitation at one point, the others joined in, telling Rhett about her fearlessness, her passion. Rhett talked about his parents, their apartment in New York. He told them about his high school and the places he used to hang out at in the city.

  They ignored the work they were supposed to be doing, enjoying the rare time they had to relax and, who could have thought, just be teenagers. A couple of hours passed. Until they heard someone coming into the cargo hold, their hard-soled shoes clacking against the floor. The five of them scrambled to gather the wine bottles that they’d gone through and get them back into the crate. But Theo fumbled one and it shattered against the floor. Everyone cringed.

  Captain Trier stepped into their little alcove of stacked crates, hands behind his back as always. He stood there with one eyebrow cocked.

  “I started to get worried when I didn’t see any of you in the mess hall for dinner,” he said. “I obviously had nothing to worry about. Except maybe for that.” He dipped his head in the direction of the broken wine bottle.

  “Our apologies, Captain—” Mak started, but Trier cut her off, holding up a hand.

  He glanced around the hold with a look of pure interest. Rhett held his breath, waiting for whatever punishment was about to be doled out.

  Finally, with a smirk, the captain said, “Don’t drink all the wine.” And that was it. He turned and disappeared behind the crates, going out the way he had come in.

  When he was gone, Rhett and Basil broke down into hysterical laughter, uncontrollable, and the other three joined in, holding on to the edges of crates to keep from falling over.

  “We just got straight-up busted,” Basil said, nearly weeping.

  “Worth it,” Rhett replied.

  They sat and drank and talked until the Harbinger went quiet for the night, their voices echoing above them in the massive hold, replaying the sounds of their laughter.

  ELEVEN

  He tried to fend off his fear, but it was no use. His mind was still more powerful than he was, and it delivered its messages in the only way it knew how: through his nightmares.

  Of psychons swooping down from the tumultuous sky and tearing into him, pulling him apart as he watched, until there was nothing left but a few scraps of flesh and his still-beating heart, whump-whumping on the floor.

  Of the she-thing that had come to him with her threats and her warnings, promising vengeance if he defied her. He could hear the water dripping on the floor, could see her black eyes boring into him.

  Of his parents, caught in a violent freeze-frame, with the disintegrating car around them, the world outside turned upside down, their eyes squeezed shut, mouths dropped open in screams. And then his father, in that same still-shot, staring at him, his face perfectly calm, saying, You did this. You did this.

  Of the girl in Arizona, the waitress who had died too young, standing behind the bar at the diner, the pot of coffee in her hand, turning to him and saying, You did this, too. You did this to us.

  They were swift and vicious. They were the cruelest kind of guilt, the kind that he could not control or stifle or smother. He could have told anyone about the girl from the bridge. He could have told Captain Trier, Basil, Mak. All he had to do was open his mouth. But every time he did, a jolt of fear would rocket through him, paralyzing every empty nerve and muting every imagined sensation.

  If you fight me, you will fall.

  And he believed her. He didn’t want to. But in just hearing her voice, he knew how powerful she was. She would destroy them all if it came down to that. And he was not going to put everyone on the Harbinger, and the souls that powered it, in the path of destruction. If there was some kind of power in him that she wanted, she could have it.

  The power just needed to show itself.

  * * *

  Basil and Mak sat across from Rhett in the mess hall, their shoulder
s touching. Mak was trying to look stiff and stubborn as usual, but Basil kept nudging her with his elbow, bumping the food off her fork. Rhett kept waiting for her to get angry, but she kept laughing instead.

  Rhett was poking at his lunch, decidedly not hungry after days of keeping what he knew from the others. That, paired with nights of terrifying dreams. He didn’t even want to pretend to be hungry, just for the sake of eating—normalcy had lost its glamor, it seemed.

  The three of them were sitting there, waiting on Theo and Treeny, when the push slammed into them, hard, threatening to literally drag Rhett down the stairs to where the room of doors waited.

  “Whoa,” he said, letting his fork clatter onto his plate, knowing all too well what that massive whump of the push meant.

  Across the table, Mak and Basil exchanged a look. Their touchy-feeliness had vanished in an instant.

  “Mass casualties,” Mak said, her voice low. “Multiple souls.” She stood up, her worried eyes darting around the mess hall. She was looking for something, and she found it over the top of Rhett’s head, locking on to it and nodding.

  Rhett turned and saw two other groups of syllektors on the other side of the hall that had stood up, rising above the gathered mass. He counted the heads of the syllektors that were now standing—nine in total—all of them waiting while the rest of the crew continued their meal. From the first group, a tallish man with piercing eyes and a baseball cap made out of completely blacked-out fabric nodded in response to Mak. From the other group, a woman who appeared to be about Rhett’s mother’s age, her blond hair cut short and hanging down to her chin, did the same thing. Then both teams began making their way out of the mess hall.

  When Rhett swiveled back around, Mak was already moving around the table to leave as well. She stopped and turned back to him and Basil.

  “You guys coming?” she said matter-of-factly, even though her face was scrunched with anxiety.

  The boys nodded.

  The three of them, plus the two additional teams, moved down to the armory, where they met Treeny and Theo. Treeny looked more shaken than ever, as if she had just seen a psychon in the hall on the way over.