Souled Out Read online

  The warmth exuding from his body clued me in that he had fed earlier. Also, that I was still touching him. Willing my cheeks to stop blushing, I removed my hand. He smiled like a man who knew he was attractive, but spoke like someone who held doubt.

  “I haven’t told you my name.”

  I breathed deep and released it. “That’s okay. I’ll just cry myself to sleep later when I think about the chance I just passed up.” With that, I rolled my eyes, turned my back, and walked away, saving at least a tidbit of self-respect.

  My exit would have been much sweeter if he hadn’t winked, effectually causing me to run into the door on my way out. That’ll teach me to look back. Aggravating as hell. More aggravating was my self-treachery for ever allowing myself to think he was something worth having.

  What a night. And it only promised to get worse.

  Chapter Three

  I worked from home. I didn’t have to but it turned out to be a personal advantage. It was better to be home when the supernatural festivities ended. I never let anyone stay because I didn’t want them to see what happened afterward. How I felt after a reading made me laugh. Not in a hardy way, but one of those sick laughs that creeps to the surface when you’re so depressed there isn’t anything left to do. It was disturbing, especially when I thought about how distinguished being a Cypher is supposed to be. I rarely felt distinguished in those moments, if ever.

  My consolation prize: physically, I would age slower than God. I only look twenty or so because that’s how I looked when I was sixteen. But my body will always be susceptible to the wild nature of the world, like lethal accidents or foul play. A vampire’s body is able to heal itself if the damage is not a killing blow, like a beheading or being torn into confetti. I will heal the same as long as there isn’t major damage. If I were in a nasty car accident, however, my chances might be the same as any human’s.

  I asked around. The oldest Cypher looked thirty-two. That’s a long time to live with memories and information that was never ours in the first place. I don’t know what this Cypher looked like, but she haunts me. Her age haunts me.

  That’s a long time to live without a soul.

  A person can never possess more than one soul at any given time, so the Cypher must be soulless. And since a soul is never exactly willing, it’s like one string remains attached; a kind of otherworldly equivalent to Silly Putty. It won’t give up completely, but the Cypher is allowed to borrow it with one string attached—ha, ha.

  So I borrow souls and take into myself their information, obtain their future possibilities, and give them back. The downside, other than being the equivalent to a karmic rat, is that it’s getting harder and harder to give their souls back, even tainted or vampire ones. And yes, contrary to popular belief, vampires and souls do mix. None of these souls, however, fit as well as my original because every soul is a personal puzzle piece. But I’ll be damned if I couldn’t feel my body trying to break the Silly Putty, remold every soul, cram it in, make it fit, call it my own. And it was time to go through the whole process all over again.

  They were due any minute.

  The evenings I saw Gabriel Vertiline were loathsome. That covered most nights of my life. Supposedly, Gabriel used to be feared by everyone, maybe even by the monsters. I only caught a glimpse of that vampire when I first started working with him. Now I was stuck with an upper-management, pessimistic, dead-and-hating-it vampire. His demeanor was as distasteful as the sound of a bug being squashed under the heel of a new shoe and as inviting as the idea of cleaning it up. Sometimes I thought I might prefer him evil rather than discouraged, but I didn’t get to choose. And if fashion were a sin, he was the devil’s idea of a businessman right down to the tippy-toes of his couture socks. If I dared look close enough, I’m sure the label would read ‘Evil Bastard’.

  I used more restraint when I dealt with the prospects. My dysfunctional relationship with Gabriel aside, the readings held a sense of professionalism as well as ritual. There was nothing more intimate than rolling a soul through my body and learning in a few seconds more than I could in fifty years of marriage. Admittedly, it was a spectacular rush, the power buzzing through me, the prospect, and the universe as it happened. It reminded me of a giant switchboard, temporarily connecting me to the world. I felt awake. Awake to so many emotions aside from sadness and pain. It forced me to remember that I was capable of so much more. And that, ironically, is what snared my heart, caging my happiness deep within.

  The muffled slamming of car doors let me know they had arrived. Every time I heard Gabriel’s footsteps in the gravel an overpowering olfactory memory of his cologne swept my nasal passages. I swear it had its own directive: seek and destroy all that is good. Gabriel reminded me of an overly ripe buffet. He needed a tattoo: “Surgeon General’s Warning: save the whales, save Easter, save the tatas. Run!”

  “We’re here, Peaches.” His voice could be so sweet it was in danger of drawing ants when he wanted it to. Not very flattering, however, since I had come to the conclusion he only used it to agitate me. And he only called me Peaches to irk the ever-loving hell out of me.

  “Come in!” Under my breath I added, “You son of a bitch.”

  Gabriel glided in. His six-foot-two frame always moved deliberate, calculating, giving the constant allusion of authority. He was accompanied by a brown-haired human and Ben, a Member-appointed bodyguard whose overly developed muscles left me cringing in revulsion. Ben was a dark-haired, blue-eyed version of what happens when frat boys and weight-lifters consort. Being a young vampire of only five years, which was like being a newborn baby in the nursery, meant he tried twice as hard to prove his worth.

  Ben had key goals from the start to maneuver his way into the Members’ graces, and I gave him kudos for his devotion, but something about his candid plan made me nervous. Every time I saw him I wanted to hold my breath and wait for some impending failure on his part that would destroy everything he had built. I hated to admit that, in a business capacity, he should have taken notes from Gabriel, who kept any career moves closer to his chest than a winning hand of poker. He could have been planning to breed alpacas for all I knew.

  Gabriel, unlike Ben, had striking shoulders that managed to be muscular, yet understated. Well proportioned—not that I made it a habit to ogle. His hair was midnight brown, like the darkest shadow in the deepest pit. However, in certain light it adopted the ghost of highlights that made me wonder how vivid they must have been when he was human. It was too long to stay out of his face completely and too short to successfully tame with a hair band. It didn’t detract from his emerald green eyes. His Italian mother and Irish father had done a good job. Not bad at all to look at, though useless for anything more due to my previous points, and because of his most important flaw: the man couldn’t stand me, either.

  His smile remained unmoved as he said, “I’ve missed the place.”

  Flatly, I noted, “You were here yesterday.”

  “And how are you?”

  “Asstastic. Thank you for inquiring.”

  Returning the tone, he looked around and said, “Every minute away from this oasis is like a year in purgatory.”

  “Really? I feel like that every minute you’re here.”

  Give a girl a break! My home wasn’t dirty, but far from ‘insert photo on cover of magazine.’ It maintained a playful balance between cleanliness and coziness. The only real eyesore was the pile of boxes becoming mutinous in the doorway between the living room and kitchen. Each vendor had taken care and forethought in the exterior wrapping, but clustered together they looked, well, muddled and possibly a little dispassionate about the products concealed within.

  I had started ordering products online a few months ago as a means to pass the time and it got a little out of hand. Too many late nights spent with overzealous infomercials and home shopping networks. It had been in my planner to stop, but once Gabriel began observing the growing pile with an air of distaste, I decided to not only keep my
new hobby but contribute more time to it, as well. Three more were scheduled to arrive by his next visit. It made my inner brat smile.

  Overall I liked my house, a modest two-bedroom ranch. The living room and kitchen were divided by one of those half-wall things with pretty rails up to the ceiling. It offered the illusion of privacy between rooms and left the space feeling open at the same time. A few colorful prints of fruit hung in the kitchen. A stressed brown tapestry hung on the wall to the right of the couch.

  The hallway to the left of the front door led to both bedrooms and a bathroom. And through the kitchen to the right was an inconspicuous door leading to a really big perk: the basement. At one time I had used it for the prospects, but the atmosphere seemed to freak people out. So I moved my computer and desk downstairs and cleared the spare room out so people would stop feeling like I was going to hack them up instead of read their souls. It wasn’t a bad exchange. The basement felt more private anyway—not that privacy was in short supply. None of my neighbors lived too close. I was on the edge of the city, so the lots were spacious.

  There was only one personalized touch to my entire house: my junior class photo. My last photo. It hung behind my bedroom door, out of sight to visitors. At any time, I could inspect my white, strained smile. I could count the different hues of blond that made my long hair look dusty. I could recall my worry that the concealer would fail, the imperfections frozen in time for all my classmates to point out. I could see how my cyan blue eyes were haunting next to the listless gray shirt I wore. Gray has always been my favorite color, which accounts for my twilight wardrobe. And I could laugh at the bad tan my sister made me get, which had long since faded, leaving my naturally rosy skin exposed. Most importantly, it was a reminder that my life before this did exist. I had a family. Once.

  I needed to focus. It was time to repress my baggage and be the Cypher.

  I let my line of vision rest on the guy standing in front of me. He looked pale but unmistakably human. Hey, I liked knowing what I was getting. Vampires have souls, but they’re kind of encrypted to not show up on supernatural radar, and they feel different because of that. I wondered if they could feel their souls and just didn’t recognize them. Probably not, which is where the whole “no soul” myth came from. How could you argue with an accuser if you weren’t sure the person was wrong? But their souls are there, although the vampires thought I used the body to hone in on the soul in question and pull it from wherever it resided, like hell, or purgatory or an elephant’s ass. Vampires just assume they’ve flown away somewhere, gone because they’re legally dead. Not so, but why be the myth-buster? Not in my job description.

  Focus. The guy had a geeky air about him from the institutional haircut and manicured hands to reasonably branded office suit, though he seemed as if he had enough will to hold his own if forced. He looked close in age to Gabriel, who died when he was twenty-three, but Gabriel towered over the poor guy, who was five-eight at most. Truthfully, in any other setting I would never have noticed the prospect because next to Gabriel, he wouldn’t have had a chance. And not just because of Gabriel’s looks.

  Gabriel was dressed in relaxed, indiscriminate black slacks, his favorite blue-collared shirt, and shiny black slip-ons. In dress alone, he appeared more professional than almost every person in Mission. But what did it really matter? We weren’t there to size each other up. We were there to analyze a soul.

  Gabriel snapped his fingers in my face. “I have other things to do tonight besides watch you daydream.”

  Ignoring him, I tried to seem amiable as I asked the prospect, “Are you ready?”

  The guy looked like he could readily pass out or throw up. Or both. He was seriously scared. I guess it didn’t help that there were so many horrid rumors about the Cypher. Started by people who had never met me, no doubt. Rude. Or maybe some of the past Cyphers were extreme bitches. Thanks ladies.

  I could hardly hear him mumble, “I guess.”

  “Okay, then. It won’t be unpleasant, no matter what people have told you. It’s like being placed in a type of sleepy, suspended animation. You won’t feel it. You won’t know it’s even happening. Cool?”

  He looked a little less like vomiting. An improvement, I guess: somber, but not fatal to my carpet.

  “Uh, cool.” I could tell he didn’t use slang very often.

  “Good. Let’s move to the back room.”

  Once there I told him to sit in the baroque chocolate armchair covered in an electric blue leaf pattern positioned in the middle of the room. The chair was a leftover from my sister. Her affection for all things baroque knew no bounds.

  “Sorry about the choice in furniture.”

  He shrugged. “It reminds me of home.”

  Scrunching my eyebrows together, I decided not to ask who his decorator was.

  I purposely had as few pieces of furniture in the room as possible. Didn’t want it to look like a junk room—plus I used a lot of incense, so fire safety was always in the forefront. There was a long wooden side table that held incense and a lighter. The incense wasn’t an official part of the reading. I just thought it was soothing and added a nice touch to the ambiance. A small hunter green lamp with a dim bulb sat next to it. Matching green curtains with chocolate accents hung on the single window, masking the outside world. The soft material looked nice against the eggshell walls. I chose that color paint because it reminded me of my grandmother’s house, which always felt calm and free from the boundaries of time.

  Because I had just started using the room full time, the carpet was still a crisp creamy hue. I suppose it would have to be changed when the traffic started crumpling the fibers, leaving pathways through the room. At the increasing speed people were being brought over, I would have to invest in new carpet sooner than later. There was an absolute urgency in the air lately. I would find out why soon enough, so I felt no desire to ask Gabriel about it.

  Ben, who had recently started accompanying Gabriel everywhere like a good bodyguard posing as a lesser evil, helped the guy find his seat. After looming for a second, I asked both men to leave. Voyeurs have never been favored in my book. They weren’t a distraction to me, but they had a knack for making the person in the chair very tense. It took longer to read a soul when there were spectators causing fear. Cooperation wasn’t necessary, just a means for it to be over quicker for everyone involved.

  Gabriel smirked, pausing at the door after Ben left. “Always wanting to be alone with them. Makes me wonder what else goes on in this room.”

  I scowled. He got the message and left, shutting the door with a pleased expression. Bastard.

  Offhandedly, I said, “Ignore him. He’s just hurt because no one’s cared enough to stake him yet.” Recapturing his attention with a smile, I asked, “Are you ready?”

  Chapter Four

  Funny, Gabriel was sort of right. I always found myself alone with a stranger. In a nutshell, my life was one long line of strangers. I had no friends, only countless lifetimes of unfamiliar people in my future.

  If I ever decided to be social again, to have close friends, I didn’t think I could maintain relationships with regular humans. They would just die, leaving me alone and depressed. Again. That left vampires, since there couldn’t be more than one Cypher on each continent at any given time. That was a pity, both because the vampires hadn’t proven to be very chummy, and because another Cypher could have been a healing presence. Someone to count on, even.

  I had a best friend once. We had such a bond. I was always happy, even when bad things happened. And we always had secrets to tell each other. Granted, we were just kids. The secrets were not that important. The point was having someone to tell anything to and knowing no one else was allowed in on it. She was gone now, and I was left with one very big, looming secret with no one to tell, to trust.

  Back to business.

  My thoughts and hurt feelings shed away as I focused on my job. “Calm down. I didn’t lie to you. This will not hurt.”

>   I gave him credit for trying to relax. The lines smoothed around his shallow brown eyes. He leaned against the chair back and stopped gripping the arm rests. He even did that neat speaking trick. “Do a lot of people who come to see you end up dead? Are they going to kill me?” Spoken by a nameless stranger seeking comfort from the axe man—err,—woman.

  “No. They just want to know what kind of person you are, if you’re someone they can trust, I guess.”

  “And you’re going to tell them to trust me or not?”

  “I’m going to tell them what your soul tells me. If it’s not what they want to hear, they’ll leave you alone.”

  He smiled nervously and whispered, “Then I hope it’s not what they want to hear.”

  All I could do was shake my head to show I was listening and that I understood. I could have kept talking. I could have tried to tell him that even if they wanted to turn him into a vamp, he’d probably love it. Right now he was just ignorant and scared. Being a vampire wasn’t that bad for most. There was the whole “what am I supposed to do for eternity?” dilemma most vampires faced once turned. However, very few strolled into the sun for an afternoon suicide.

  He shook his head as if to relay that he had found strength in some inner corner of his mind and was ready to proceed.

  Finding a soft spot in my armor, I offered one bit of advice. “There’s no point in worrying yourself over things that haven’t come to pass yet, or might never.” The words made sense, but that familiar twinge of guilt had already begun winding inside me. No matter how I justified this with strangers, at the end of the day, the blind eye to good and evil bugged me. Sometimes I wanted to tell the prospects how lucky they should feel, or ask if their mothers would approve, or tell them to run as fast as they had ever run away from a bad, bad future. But I was reduced to clinching my jaw shut like a trap.