Lost Eden (The Soulkeepers) (2 page)

“And then?” Lucifer prompted.

“We compete for the hearts of men,” God said.

Lucifer narrowed his eyes against her light. “Compete how?”

“You release six temptations unto the world, and I release six gifts.” She held out her hand toward the statue. “The scorekeeper will record human alignment with good or evil. When the last gift or temptation has come to pass, the challenge will be over and whomever has won the most souls will rule Earth.”

“And the other?”

“Banished from contact with humanity for one thousand years. Hark, Lucifer, there will be no cheating this banishment. Should you lose, you will be sealed within Hell for the entire epoch.”

Lucifer began to pace in front of the scorekeeper, checked her crystal, and then checked again. “It’s a trick. You would not risk so many souls.”

“No trick. Six temptations verses six gifts. You have the advantage. A few of your minions are already living among men, men they’ve influenced to do your will.”

“If the compact is dissolved, all of my Watchers can remain above ground?”

“Of course! If the compact is no more, they can journey wherever they wish.”

Lucifer tilted his chin up and smiled viciously. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch. But the Watchers are still bound by the natural order of things. The sun will dull their powers. The night will strengthen them.”

“They will kill to remain strong.”

“No compact. No rules.”

“Besides the natural laws,” Lucifer lamented.

“Yes. All humans have free will. Earth’s natural resources have limits. Sunlight gives my souls an advantage, darkness, yours. I can be everywhere at once; you can only be in one place at a time. This is how it has always been and always will be.”

Lucifer gave a small, almost imperceptible nod of agreement.

“And one more thing, humans must choose you of their free will. I know you’ve poisoned the water. Influenced humans are incapable of choosing. They are merely your puppets. If we are to do this, any souls you or your Watchers influence will be deemed neutral.”

Lucifer scowled. “Only six temptations and no influencing free will?
Bah.
”

“Only six gifts and you already have the advantage.”

While Fatima held her breath, Lucifer stared at the scales, slightly tipped in his favor. She couldn’t decide which was worse, a Fate chosen by Lucifer or the potential to have a world ruled by him. The devil seemed to be weighing his options.

“Are you afraid, Lucifer? Should I take your hesitation as an admission of my greater power?” God’s voice echoed with a deep hollow tenor that didn’t fit her current appearance.

Lucifer growled, his face reddened with anger. “I am the more powerful! I accept your challenge and claim the right to go first. Do you agree?”

God beamed, flooding the hillside with light. “I do agree.” She offered her right hand. “In the presence of these three witnesses, the challenge for human souls begins now. Winner take all for one thousand years.”

“Agreed.” Lucifer slapped his hand into God’s. The connection created a sonic boom that flattened Fatima and the other immortals to the grass. The sound rippled outward, visible in the blue sky of the In Between, and a shockwave plowed through the cells of her body.
No
, she thought,
not just my body but also my weaving
. The future had changed. The universe had changed. She was witness to an agreement that might end life as she knew it.

God retracted her hand. She turned toward the crystal Earth in the scorekeeper’s grip. “The world awaits you, Lucifer.”

He backed up a few steps, a wicked laugh bubbling from deep within. “This is going to be fun.” He came apart in a rush of black fog that passed over them and straight into the villa.
Where was he going?

Fatima jolted at a strange and painful sensation in her abdomen. A thread had been plucked from her body and her weaving. Frantically, she patted her stomach, retrieving her work from deep within. He’d taken something from her. When he’d blown out of the In Between, he’d taken
someone
. Yes, that was it. A soul was missing. But who? What human being was important enough to steal from the fabric of history?

“You know who,” God said, as she broke apart and blended into the light.

Fatima scrambled to her feet, Mara and Henry cursing at her side in their own pursuit of vertical. One by one they stepped to the scorekeeper and watched the light and the dark dance within the globe.

“Who did he take, Fatima?” Henry asked.

“I can’t be certain. There are so many souls.”

“You know,” Mara said. “She said you know.”

Fatima swallowed and raised a hand to the base of her neck. “There is only one person I can think of who is a constant reminder of Lucifer’s failures. She is the only one who has denied him time and time again. Her life is a testament to God’s grace and mercy.”

Henry glanced at Mara, who looked off into space as if reading the stars. The immortals said the name together, in perfect unison. “Abigail.”

Abigail

D
r. Abigail Silva-Newman tried to be careful. After all, the people of Paris believed her to be in California, not emerging from a trap door in the backroom of the Laudners’ flower shop. She listened for any sign of activity above her before turning the crank to open the passageway and slipping silently onto the marble floor. As she resealed the entryway to Eden, she heard voices out front, John Laudner and Stephanie Westcott, something about flowers for a barn dance.

Hastily, she tiptoed to the delivery entrance, peering out the small square window in the door to check that the alley was clear. With no one in sight, she cracked the door and stealthily crept behind the delivery van and then the dumpster. Curse this human form, so vulnerable. In her days as a fallen angel, she would simply twist into shadow and deliver herself where she wanted to go through a channel of darkness. Getting there one step at a time was nothing short of tedious. Still, she wouldn’t have given up her humanity for any price. Not after waiting ten thousand years to obtain it.

But she had to go. Malini needed her. All of the Soulkeepers needed her. When Jacob said Malini and Dane were back from Nod but needed help, she’d assumed the mission to Arizona to bring them home would be quick work. With hardly a word of explanation, all of the Soulkeepers had left Eden to assist. Only, Malini’s call to Abigail over Warwick’s blue stone seemed desperate. Something had gone horribly wrong with the rescue mission, and Abigail was the only one left to save them. Well, aside from Gideon, and she wasn’t about to place her beloved’s life at risk.

On her toes, Abigail rounded the corner of the building, and thanked the heavens for what she saw. Parked on the corner of Asher and Main Street, Stephanie Westcott’s scooter waited unattended, keys in the ignition. In any other city, the arrangement would have invited a theft, but as far as Abigail was aware, there’d never been a vehicle stolen in Paris despite the population’s regular habit of leaving car doors unlocked with the keys inside. Who would steal it? Everyone trusted everyone else. They left the keys on purpose, in case some other citizen might need them in an emergency. Well, as a former citizen of Paris, she accepted Stephanie’s hospitality.

Abigail tossed a leg over the seat and turned the key. The small motor revved to life and she pulled away from the curb, heading up Asher in the opposite direction of Main Street, a roundabout detour to Rural Route 1.

“Hey!” Stephanie yelled from behind her.

She glanced back to see the girl whose life she once saved standing on the corner, waving her arms. Abigail did not stop. She prayed that speed and distance would conceal her identity. Certainly, she was dressed differently than Stephanie would remember: blond hair in a ponytail, yoga pants, T-shirt, and an oversized belted sweater-coat that barely defended her against the fall chill. She’d return Stephanie’s scooter eventually, but right now Abigail needed it more.

After an uneventful cruise up the rural road she once traveled regularly, Abigail abandoned the scooter at the edge of the maple grove that used to be hers. Across the street, the Laudners’ cheery yellow Cape Cod hadn’t changed since her days living here, but where her dark Victorian once stood rose a repainted version in pale tones with brightly colored flowers blooming in baskets outside the windows. The house was a bed and breakfast now.

Jogging into the trees, over the gently sloping terrain toward the place her back garden used to be, Abigail had a moment to think. Anxiety over the mission to Nod had left her careless, reactionary. Why had Malini wanted to meet
here
of all places? Surely if the Healer could come this far, she could make it to Eden. Much more likely this was a trap. Perhaps Lucifer had already captured the Soulkeepers and was luring her to her doom.

She halted, placed her hands on her hips, and tipped her face to take in the blazing red of the maple leaves above her. Rushing into this was a mistake. She needed a plan. Bending, she touched the hilt of the knife in her boot, the one weapon she’d brought from Eden. Would she be strong enough, fast enough, to face a Watcher in her human form?

Curse this mortal body, she would not. She should have thought this through before she left Eden, but her desire to help—no, to be
useful—
drove her toward impulsive behavior. Lucky for her, it wasn’t too late to err on the side of caution. She turned, and strode back toward the road and the scooter. She’d go back to Eden, get Gideon, and make a plan for recovering the Soulkeepers. There had to be a better way.

“Hello, Abigail.” The velvet smooth voice lassoed her shoulders, stopping her short.

She turned to face her enemy. At first the man’s attire, a double-breasted suit with Italian loafers, threw her.
Very human
. Then she noticed his eyes matched the deep navy blue, almost purple color of his tie. A Watcher, for sure. Human beings didn’t have eyes that color or noses that straight. He twisted the gold, lion’s head ring on his manicured finger.

Lucifer was the Lord of Illusions, and his followers boasted similar talents, but under it all, Abigail knew the Watcher’s skin and blood were black as tar. “How is your illusion so strong during the day?” she spat nervously. Distraction was her only hope.

“Well fed.”

“Who are you? I deserve to know who Lucifer sent for me.”

“You don’t remember me, Abigail? That hurts. We were once very close.”

A deadly smile crossed his full lips, and he smoothed a hand over his meticulously styled black hair. Abigail tried to place his voice, but in her human form, all she could sense was the illusion. Worse, the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls had filled the maple grove. His sorcery drew her in, a fly to the spider’s web. The smell triggered a memory of a long ago day, before Lucifer had become jealous of God and led the Watchers to fall from grace.

This Watcher had chosen an illusion not far from his appearance as an angel. Abigail shook her head. Lucifer must be serious about her capture to send his right hand man. “Cord.”

He took a step closer. “Good girl. I see your senses haven’t completely dulled with your humanity. Now come. Lucifer is waiting.”

Abigail took a step back, dropping into the fighting stance Lillian had taught her. She wasn’t completely defenseless. She’d learned the martial arts basics Lillian insisted all of them learn. Cord took another step toward her, and she whipped her knife from her boot. “I think it’s you who have lost your senses, Cord, if you think for a second I’m coming with you willingly.”

Straightening his shirt at the cufflinks, he stepped even closer, so that her blade was mere inches from his chest. He arched a brow and looked down at her pitifully. “A knife, Abigail?” He chuckled.

She didn’t waste time defending the virtues of the knife. With everything she had, she attempted to use the element of surprise to her advantage and stabbed underhanded at his gut. The knife cut through the suit jacket, but Cord’s hand snatched her wrist before the blade could penetrate his flesh. Still, the point smoked ominously against his black skin.

“Ah!” Abigail squirmed under the pressure on her wrist bones. She kicked and clawed, pounded on Cords arms and chest. An attempt to sweep his legs at the knee failed miserably. Recovering, she kicked him as hard as she could in the balls.

He extended his arm. She was a moth dangling from his fingers by the wing. “From Eden I presume,” he growled, staring at her useless knife. “This might have done some real damage if you weren’t so humanly slow. Is that any way to treat an old friend?”

Harder. Tighter. Abigail was sure he was crushing her bones. She cried out, and the knife tumbled into the fallen leaves at her feet.

“That’s better. Looks like our kitten has been declawed.” By her aching wrist, he yanked her forward into his chest, gripping the back of her neck and lifting until her feet dangled above the ground.

She whimpered and struggled against him, but understood the effort was in vain. She had no power against Cord. Lucifer set a trap, and she in her haste and frustration walked right into it.

Cord pressed his face close to hers. “I’m supposed to take you straight back to Lucifer. I wonder if he would notice or care if I made a snack of you first.” He ran his lips up the length of her neck. “A bite of flesh or two probably wouldn’t kill you.”

Abigail swallowed. Eyes shut tight, she braced herself for the strike.

With a deep inhale, he paused, fangs pressed against her skin. “Better not. I wouldn’t be able to stop. The smell of fear coming off you is …” He sniffed her neck again. “Delectable.” Abruptly, he glanced at his watch. “Out of time for games.” He tangled his arms and legs around her body in a serpentine fashion.

“What are you doing?” Abigail asked.

“Taking you to Lucifer.”

Abigail’s spine snapped as he twisted into shadow. Her cells yanked apart, swept away by Cord’s sorcery. She again traveled by darkness, just as she had before she’d become mortal. Only, this ride would take her to Hell. Between chastising herself for her stupidity and preparing for the worst, she prayed that this trap had been meant for her and her alone, and that somewhere, somehow, Malini, Jacob, and the others were safe.