Souljacker (19 page)

Iofiel comes jogging back a few minutes
later. “Nobody’s been here for awhile. The trailer’s abandoned and
the dog bowls were empty. I think he’s been drinking out of puddles
from the leaky faucet out back. We can’t leave him here.”

What happens when we run out of money? How
will we feed all of us, plus a dog? I sigh and lean down next to
the dog and he swipes his warm, purple-splotched tongue across my
cheek. I can’t help but smile. We’re making the right decision;
it’s not this guy’s fault that his owners suck. “Alright, he comes
with, but he needs a name.”

Iofiel’s lip quirks up at one corner. “What
about Chip? Like a computer chip, seeing as this is an android
junkyard.”

“I like it!” Caddie says. “Chippy, is that
your new name? Oh yes it is, yes it issss!” I groan as she
baby-talks the dog. He eats it up. She rubs him down with both
hands and I open the gate. We leave the junkyard and the dog
hesitantly follows. He looks back over his shoulder, as if he might
get beaten for leaving.

“C’mon, boy! Come on,” Caddie calls and he
trots over to her, his tail beginning to wag.

“Great. Now let’s get some food. For all of
us,” Iofiel says, catching my eye. He reaches his hand out and I
twine my fingers through his. He smiles. “Thank you, Lucy,” he says
softly, placing a gentle kiss on my cheek and I can’t help it—I’m
once again on cloud nine.

Chapter 22:

Iofiel

I know where I’m going—I just don’t know if
it’s such a smart idea.

When I was ten, my scanner went haywire and
malfunctioned. Not wanting to make Lylan mad, I tried to hide the
fact that it wasn’t working, but I ended up getting lost in the
woods during a hunt, trying to find the Pack without my GPS.

Lylan found me two days later, cold and
exhausted, and I tearfully told him what had happened. He frowned
in that way that made me swell with guilt and I asked if our queen
could fix it.

Lylan had laughed. “The queen doesn’t have
time for trivial matters like a malfunctioning Cyberhound.” Like I
should’ve known this. It only made my heart sink deeper into my
chest. Then he smiled and ruffled my hair in a sort of
almost-fatherly way that he stopped portraying once I’d hit my teen
years. “But I know of someone who does. Come on, Io, let’s get you
fixed up.”

Now it’s just a shot in the dark if the
oddball hermit who’d helped me before is still around. All I can do
is pray that she’s here…and that if she is, she won’t turn us
directly over to Lylan.

“Wow, what a train wreck,” Caddie says as the
little makeshift town of Polaris comes into view. She’s right, of
course—Polaris consists of a square of little brick buildings and
even tinier cracker boxes for houses. Most places have broken
windows, long since boarded up, and the doors look ready to fall
off their hinges. Rusty chain-link fencing surrounds the place and
the grass sticks up in wild sprouts here and there. If anything
else, it’s gone downhill in the seven years since I’ve been
here.

“I know, but be nice,” I tell her. We creep a
little closer and I stop, wishing desperately for my hound nose. I
feel a bump at my leg and Chip stares up at me, his ears flopping
into his face in a goofy manner. I reach down and scratch his neck,
looping my fingers around the orange nylon collar we bought him at
our last stop.

I turn to Caddie, offering the dog out to
her. He looks up at me with worried eyes. “Hold him, would you? I
don’t know what to expect and I want you guys to stay safe. If you
see me wave my arms like this,” I demonstrate and Lucy snorts,
“Then run like hell and don’t look back. Stay here, I’ll be back
soon.”

Caddie nods and kneels next to Chip and I
take off. It only takes two seconds for Lucy to thunder after me,
grab my arm, and haul me back around to face her. “Uh,
hell
no. You’re not walking into some deathtrap alone. I’m coming with
you.”

“Lucy.” I say her name on a sigh, but inside
I feel like grinning. She’s such a spitfire and I love her all the
more for that. She gives me a look and I shrug. “Alright, let’s
go.”

Sync floats off ahead of us with a beep. Lucy
hauls Sync’s new shell higher up on her shoulder, so that the
android’s ass is swaying in the air, and stalks after me. She’s
like a lioness…with blue hair. This time, I do grin and it must be
contagious, because Lucy’s lips twitch into the beginnings of a
smile as well.

As we walk down the street, passing the rows
of houses, I feel a tickle at the nape of my neck. Like eyes,
watching my every move. I suppress a shiver and sidle a step closer
to Lucy. She looks at me, her lower lip drawn between her teeth,
nibbling gently, and I brush my hand against hers.
It will all
work out,
I want to tell her, but I can’t conjure up the words.
I just shrug instead.

Her head snaps up and I follow her stare to
where a couple of teenagers bolt out from behind a house, their
sneakers slapping pavement as they head into town. They freeze when
they see me and the boy lifts a lip in a sneer. He grabs the
brunette girl’s wrist and they hurry off. It’s my turn to chew on
the inside of my cheek: This isn’t a good sign.

But I hold my head high. I won’t be scared
off.

The Chopshop is exactly how I remember it as
a kid: A tiny brick building, glass store front with a long,
diagonal crack down the middle, taped over to keep it from
splitting. The sign for the place is sprayed in red paint across
the door, sloppy letters that don’t match one another.

I shoulder through the front door. Bells
chime to announce my arrival. Android and robot parts are strewn
across the counter, stacked up in boxes, and arranged on
bookshelves. A perfectly molded android hand points to the front of
the shop with a sign hanging off its wrist that simply says
“Assistance”.

Sync shrills in alarm and I turn to the front
counter—only to stare down the barrel of a sleek, black pistol. My
gut coils and I take a wary step back, holding my hands up in front
of me. I stumble into Lucy, who gasps.

The woman on the other end of the gun is tall
and slender with wild blue hair done up in spikes and curls, making
her look like a punked-out fairy godmother. She hasn’t changed a
bit in seven years—except for instead of the motherly smile I’d
been given as a kid, her lips form a hard sneer.

Shit. Maybe we were stupid to come here.

“I stopped working for your kind years ago.”
Her words are sharp. “Get out before I count to three. I won’t
regret pulling this trigger and exterminating you.”

What?
My mind blanks—I can’t think of
anything to say, grasping for words to hold on to, but they slide
away as if covered in grease. Lucy leaps to my rescue, dropping the
android shell to the ground and throwing her free arm out in front
of me, shielding me with her body.

I couldn’t live with myself if she got killed
because of me. I reach for her, but she shrugs me off. She’s bold,
fearless, maybe a little reckless. “He’s not even
with
the
cyberhounds anymore! They’re hunting us! We need help and—”

“One.” Diesel’s voice rings out, ominous.

I latch my hand onto Lucy’s shoulder, pulling
her out of the way of the gun. I look at Diesel, trying to plead
with my eyes, all those years of puppy-dog eyeing the girls around
town hopefully paying off.

They don’t. “Please, just listen to me. I
broke away from the Pack because they’re trying to hurt my friends.
Lylan implanted a Shockchip into my neck—it must’ve shorted out my
circuits when we fled. I don’t want any trouble, we just need help.
I have money.” I reach in my pocket to dig for the remaining
bills.

“Two.”

The bells chime again, followed by a yelp and
a growl. Chip bursts into the shop, his tail tucked between his
legs. He cowers behind Lucy, growling, and I hear Caddie’s
melodious voice shouting obscenities at the top of her lungs.

Diesel looks to them, lowering her gun a
notch, and I spin to see Caddie cornered by the two teens from
earlier. Their eyes are flashing, angry and unsettled, but
underneath it all, nervous. Uncertain. They don’t know what’s going
on any more than I do.

“I’m gonna burn your ass if you don’t get off
of me,” Caddie snarls, raising a hand. Heat billows off of her in
torrents and the teenagers jerk away, alarm on their faces. Lucy
grabs a hold of her friend’s arm and closes her eyes and I know
she’s pulling soul, trying to ease the burn.

Caddie’s brow is furrowed in concentration
and her hands clamp into fists at her sides. Her arms tremble with
the power roaring through her. Then she falls still and sighs.

Lucy lets her go and turns to Diesel. The gun
levels on her again and my pulse jumps. “Look,” she says with heat
to her tone. “We need help and we’re willing to pay extra. We’re on
the run from the Unseelie queen and the cyberhounds the bitch has
sicced on us, okay? We just need a few things and then we’ll be out
of your hair for good. You’ll never see us again.”

“Why does the dark queen want
you
?”
Diesel doesn’t even look surprised. Just thoughtful.

Caddie steps forwards with a massively
annoyed sigh and flicks her fingers. A tiny fireball explodes in
front of the two teens, whose jaws slack as they glance at each
other. The brunette girl touches her eyebrows, as if worried they
just got singed off by the heat.

The boy’s expression goes from skeptical to
impressed. “You’re Mithos.”

“I’m just another freak of nature,” Caddie
says with a shrug. “That’s all.”

But the boy grins, his expression lighting up
his dark features, and he claps his hands together. And then he
just disappears. One minute he’s here and the next…poof. The air
shimmers and, like a camera coming into focus, he reappears. His
form goes from blurry to clear and he juts his chin out with a
smirk that says, “Look what I can do!”

“Holy crap! You’re a freak too?” Caddie’s
eyes are wide. She turns on the girl, who ducks her head with a shy
smile. Then she blinks her eyes once and something clatters to the
floor from across the room.

Lucy spins on Diesel and I can nearly smell
her anxiety. “What the hell is going on?”

“Is everyone here supernaturally inclined?” I
ask, glancing between the two teens and the incredulous, but now
excited, Caddie. I touch Lucy’s hand and her fingers clasp around
mine, tightening quickly. I squeeze back.

Diesel shoves the gun into the holster at her
thigh and laughs, a husky sound. “Nothing supernatural about it.
We’re not mutants—we’re Mithos.”

Chapter 23:

Lucy

My world is spinning, a carnival ride gone
berserk. My hands clench into fists at my sides as I stare at the
gun-toting lady with hair the color of the ocean waves. There are
more people like us out there? And we have a name? We’re not just
freaks? Why didn’t anyone warn me of this—warn my mother of this
before I did what I did? I feel the hot swim of frustrated tears
behind my eyes and I shake my head to ward them off.

“What are Mithos?” Caddie blurts out, before
I can even open my mouth.

The woman smiles, spreading her arms wide.
“We’re Mithos. We’re special beings, blessed by the good Fae of the
Seelie Court. Every Mithos has a power, but it differs from person
to person. Lake can turn invisible.” She motions to the dark-haired
boy standing beside Caddie. He flashes a bright smile. “Fallon can
move things with her mind. Small things, to start with, but with
training, she’ll mature into her powers.”

The brunette girl blushes and ducks her head
again. “And you’re obviously a Firestarter,” she says, pointing to
Caddie with a small nod.

“I have a title? Sweet!” Caddie crows,
pumping a fist in the air.

I catch Iofiel’s eye roll just as I’m doing
the same. Our gazes lock and then he winks at me and slowly, my
world slows its rapid spin to something a little more tolerable. I
smile back, but it feels tight on my lips.

“I’ve gathered together the Mithos I’ve come
across, most of them children coming into their powers. I’ve spent
my life shunned by my family and even people who I thought were my
friends because of this gift…so I created a sanctuary, a home where
they were welcome without judgment, a place where they could be
themselves. Many of the people here are outcasts or runaways. Sure,
maybe a few of them are thieves, maybe a few of them have killed,
but
none
of them are monsters like they’ve been raised to
believe. They’re just different.”

“I’ve dedicated my life to protecting my
people, my family, from the dangers of the Unseelie Court.” She
sighs a little. “But ever since the dark queen got the idea that we
could become soldiers of a sort, she’s sent the cyberhounds upon
us. It’s been hard. We don’t want to leave our home behind, but the
Unseelie are relentless in their hunt. One of my newer girls,
Morana, was taken awhile back. She put up a fight, screaming for
help—her screams are powerful—but we couldn’t get there in time to
save her. The cyberhounds took her.”

Iofiel drops his head, looking stricken. “It
was my Pack who took the girl. I…wasn’t a part of it. She fought
out of terror, not out of malice.” He presses his eyes shut and I
reach for his hand. I squeeze it gently. “I don’t want to be a part
of the dark queen’s tyranny. I don’t want to be her puppet. I’ve
cut my strings.” He looks up, talking to the woman, but staring at
me. Straight through to my soul. “I want to help you in any way I
possibly can.”

The woman purses her lips for a moment,
glancing between Fallon and Lake. They both nod their heads
sharply, just once. She turns and looks at me and Caddie. Then
finally she rests her gaze on Iofiel. She softens. “I never thought
you were cut out for that line of work anyway, Iofiel.”