Soul Stealer (43 page)

The man rose to his considerable height. She wasn’t scared, she just looked up at him.

“We will be looking out for you, Patrice. It’s the least we can do. If anything happened to you, Raphael would be in absolute pieces.”

Her heart swelled, she knew it was all true. She had fallen in love, and no matter what else the man was, she loved him as an extension of her own soul.

“He’s your friend,” she realized suddenly, blurting it out. “You care about him, too.”

The man smiled at her, and she felt her chest loosen up slightly. His eyes were purple, she realized. His face was very pleasant when he was smiling. “Yeah. It hurts to admit it. But I really do care about that fucker.”

She was startled. “So you’re not an angel, are you?”

He laughed at that, a full-bellied, head-thrown-back guffaw. “No, no Patrice. I’m no angel. And thank you for noticing.”

As she watched, another question on her lips, the man blipped out of her living room, disappearing as though she had dreamed it.

Patrice, for the first time in about a week, was convinced she wasn’t completely
crazy. Not nuts or loony. Just loved.

Anael watched the human woman, Claudia, as she slept. The
jinn
’s other half was in his front room, his morning prayer a low, comforting chant. Quite beautiful, actually. She had always loved the chanting of Islam. And the man’s voice was so deep, so pure, it made her feel more and more comfortable, despite the fact she was trespassing.

There was no doubt this
jinn
slumbering here was born of her flesh. Not because she resembled Anael, because she certainly didn’t. She was darker, wilder, and far more sensual in her appearance than Anael was.

It pained her heart. No other angel knew the agony of giving up a child. At least Anael could comfort herself and see that the child she had left behind had to have been healthy enough to produce offspring. She hoped the girl had been well taken care of, because, it shamed her to admit, she couldn’t bring herself to check in on her daughter. Jehoel likely had done so for her, but she’d never asked for an update.

The child hadn’t wept as Anael had tucked her into a basket, taking care to protect her young skin from the woven edges with a soft blanket. She had grabbed onto Anael’s finger with one chubby hand, smiling up at her with such trust and unconcerned love.

It was a betrayal. Such a betrayal of innocence.

Jehoel held her while she wept, and young Aralim’s smile faded as though Anael’s weeping foretold of difficult events yet to come. Her bright green eyes were wide, eyebrows coming together to give her the appearance of grave concern.

A hundred years and Anael could remember the smell of her hair and skin as she kissed Aralim’s head before Jehoel took her away, quietly in the night, not a word spoken between them.

She also remembered the day the Sin Eater
laqeous
trap worked on Tentatio-Onis. Jehoel had chaperoned the
frustro
and
decipio
that time. He came to her in her chambers and told her the Sin Eater was gone, banished to the back of the rotation. And they weren’t reinstating them as quickly as they had before, either. So she could theoretically have centuries of peace now.

Anael hadn’t needed to be told he was dead. That very night she’d dreamt she saw him, back on that lonely, dusty summer road, dressed as he had been the night she’d given in to him.

He was walking away from her, his stride long and proud. A shooting star crossed the navy expanse overhead and she stopped to watch it, smiling at that fleeting beauty. When she looked back for Onis he was nowhere to be seen. She panicked, turning in a circle to find him. Not from fear, from worry.

Anael,
the voice sounded from inside her own mind.
I am here. Shh, worry not.

She had to close her eyes from the erotic heat that rose in her centre just at the sound of his voice. She’d swear it was like having every erogenous zone caressed at once by a thoughtful and experienced lover.

My beautiful Anael. You can feel that it’s not the end, can’t you? It will never be over, my love. You will always have me at your mercy. I promise.

She opened her eyes, having closed them as that consuming memory flooded through her. This woman, who must have been her great-great-grandchild, was a new source of comfort and pride. It made sense she would be
jinn
, having been descended from both darkness and light. She was made up purely of the two sides of free will, the understanding of right and wrong.

The reality of her bloodline made Anael feel as though she wasn’t alone anymore. She now had a comrade of her own. She had someone to love.

Denouement

Saleem rose at sunrise for prayer, and afterwards when he slipped into the shower it woke Claudia up early enough to share breakfast with him before heading back to her apartment. There she had a shower and some more coffee before going to work.

In her small kitchen she drained the last of her coffee, set the mug down and was turning for the door, grabbing the handle of the bag that held her uniform when she stopped, crying out and putting a hand to her chest.

Damien – shit, Voro ¬
was in the hallway entry, hands in the belt loops of his jeans, watching her. She even dropped her bag she was so startled.

“Christ,” she muttered, picking it up again. “What do you want?”

He checked out his feet as he spoke. “I wanted to apologize for not explaining things to you better. You deserved to know more and I never told you.”

Claudia fought the urge to cross her arms like a petulant teenager. “Like what? How I was going to pull out some metaphysical acrobatics to save the world from a dark overlord?”

He shook his head. “When I first met you, I didn’t know you weren’t just human. I thought you were attractive as hell. I liked how tough you were. But mostly I was using you to get close to Iola.”

She frowned. He was opening up on a grand scale here, and she could tell by his tone he had likely never done this before. She didn’t stop him, she let him go on.

“I used to work for the bad guys. The other side.” He stomped his foot. “The powers down below. They call us Sin Eaters, but the truth is we separate bad people from their sins and let the evil stick around. Humans can’t grant forgiveness. Only divinity can. We just get in the way.” He sighed and straightened up more, stretching his back. He really was incredibly uncomfortable, but she didn’t want him to sit. “Heaven came up with a way to trick us. Since we’re so primitive in nature, they set bait in the form of a human we can’t possibly resist. For me, it was Iola. Then they set up a slayer, someone that can kill us. Again, for me it was Jasper McKay. The scenario is that those two in close quarters with me become almost super-human in nature. I’m unable to stop what’s happening. Apparently killing myself saves them from a nasty chapter where they both go crazy and die. And it sends me upwards.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He sighed deep and finally met her gaze. His eyes were still such a knock-out to her, and she hid a sigh of regret. She couldn’t help but remember how fantastic he’d been in bed. The things he’d done to her there were momentous and earth-shattering. He still looked at her with the exact same hunger now but his eyes seemed sadder somehow.

“You were never a pawn in the plot for me. I care about you. I’ll always look out for you. I don’t want anything to hurt you.”

She swallowed, not wanting to get all watery. She remembered the agony of him walking away from her. That had hurt enough to get her falling off a cliff of sobriety and weeping all over Saleem. “Why did you leave the other night?”

He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. I never should have started anything. If I’m slowly becoming an angel, we can’t touch humans without them going insane.”

She hadn’t expected anything like that, and now she was waiting to wake up because this was crazy. “I could go mental just from touching you?”

He nodded. “It was too big a risk.” He gave a rueful smile. “Would you feel better knowing that I’m dying to get you naked and horizontal right now?”

She had to smile back. “It helps a little.”

He nodded, looking her up and down and sending a thrill through her again. “Take care, Claudia. If you need anything, anytime, I’ll be here.”

Claudia believed him and the feeling of calm and serenity returned. She nodded her thanks. When she blinked he was gone. It stole air from her, and she leaned against the bottom cupboard of the kitchen to wait for a moment of dizziness to pass.

She wasn’t worried. She wasn’t scared. She had about two and a half hours of sleep and her theory of life and death and wrong and right had been goosed in a major way, yet she felt absolutely
marvelous, like a fully-charged battery.

She was also going to be late for work if she didn’t get her ass in gear.

Vance noticed her first as she approached her desk, and maybe she looked different now because he was staring.

“What?” She asked, tone defensive.

“You look … strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Happy. Glowy.”

Claudia frowned. “What do I normally look like?”

Vance shrugged. “No, you usually look good or whatever. But now you’re brighter. Shinier.”

“Is my forehead greasy?” she wiped at it and he sighed.

“I’m married; you’d think I’d know better than making a statement like that.”

Claudia looked around, saw that their coworkers were occupied, then dropped her tone and asked, “So what’s the word on what happened last night?”

Vance shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Claudia frowned. “You didn’t find a body in a parking garage last night?”

Vance gave her a look that projected proceed with caution. “Oh yeah – that guy attacked this nice couple out for a stroll. The man, a doctor, was able to wrestle away a sword and tried to fend the guy off. He accidentally cut the man’s head off instead.” Vance raised eyebrows, wanting to know what she thought of that load of pucky.

“Interesting. Any charges pending?”

“Oh, absolutely not. Those two are upstanding citizens. Beyond reproach.”

Claudia nodded and sunk into her office chair. “Good. Open and shut.”

“Yes. Terribly tidy.” Vance rolled his desk chair closer. “So … what can you even tell me about what happened?”

“You want conjecture or what I actually know to be certain?”

Vance sighed. “Fair enough. I have a feeling it’s better not to know everything.”

Claudia left it at that. She looked at her empty desktop, trying to find another subject to broach when the door to the bullpen swung open loudly. Detective Nailor strode in, making a beeline for Claudia’s desk.

“Bauer, you’re with me.”

She got to her feet. “Sorry?”

“Homicide called in. Female, dismembered. Signs of some kind of occult activity.”

Claudia blinked at Vance and he just shrugged.

“How – how would you like me to help, Detective?”

“I want you on the scene to assist me.”

Claudia knew her eyes got wide and she tried not to smile. “Absolutely, Detective.”

They snagged an unmarked patrol car from the motor pool, and as Nailor was putting the car in gear he paused. “I’m not going to try and understand last night. I’m going to assume the bad guys were the ones that bit it. Am I right?”

After a shocked pause Claudia nodded.

“And that includes the sick fucker that was chewing on people, right?”

Claudia recalled the sound of that beast popping out of existence. The smell, like burning, decades-old garbage. The dust that fell over them then dissipated.

“Yeah. We shouldn’t have to worry about him again.”

Nailor nodded, satisfied. He slammed the transmission into gear and pointed to a file folder on the dashboard. “Now read to me as we drive. That’s the responding officer’s initial report. It sounds almost as fucked up as all the shit you get yourself into.”

Claudia let a laugh escape, surprising herself. She flipped over the manila folder’s cover and began to read the gory details as Nailor drove them to the crime scene.

Maybe she’d changed more than she knew after recent events. Maybe her new glow was just the beginning.

###

About C.D. Breadner:

C.D. Breadner is a self-pu
blished author. Her first novel,
Sin Eater,
was the beginning of The Sin Eater series and she looks to branch into other genres since there are many kinds of creative juices following through her.

Recently she was christened a contributing author to The Freak Circle; a collective of amazing and supportive writers. She lives in a cozy home in the woods with her wonderful husband and two German Shepherds.