Lost Eden (The Soulkeepers) (10 page)

The housekeeper unwound the cord and lowered the prongs to plug it in. This was it. All Abigail had to do was slide her hand down to block the outlet, make the woman stab through her enchanted flesh and electrocute her. She stopped short of her goal. Could she do this? After all she’d gone through to become human, could she throw it all away? Ten thousand years she’d waited. What was a few more?

She pulled her hand away and began to weep silently. No, she would not take the easy way out. Starving or not, she’d accept her fate. Somewhere, deep inside, she hoped her suffering had purpose. In the past, her pain always had; even the self-sacrifice that made her human. Funny, she’d needed to die then. Now, her intuition told her she must live. There was a difference between self-sacrifice and personal escape.

Crumpling into a ball, she sat down and leaned against the wall.

“I knew you wouldn’t do it,” a soft voice said. “You’re stronger than that. Always have been.”

Abigail glanced up in surprise to find her reflection looking down at her from under the babushka. The housekeeper untied the headscarf and cast it aside, freeing a cascade of honey blond waves. Abigail looked at herself—the best version of herself—and her mouth dropped open.

“It’s you!” Abigail beamed. God came for her! She hoped desperately that the Lord wasn’t a figment of her imagination or her injured psyche.

“Yes. It is I.” God opened her arms. “I’m here for you Abigail.”

Abigail pushed herself from the floor and tossed her arms around her salvation’s neck, and for the first time in weeks could feel the result. She did not pass through. The warmth of the hug infused her, and bright light lifted her soul. But the best part was the love. Abigail lost herself in the all-encompassing love.

Too soon, God pulled away. “I’m sorry, I can’t stay long.”

Abigail sputtered, “You-you’re not taking me with you?”

“No. It’s not your time, and I need you here.”

A violent tremor rocked Abigail’s body. “No. Don’t leave me here.”

“I know this is difficult for you, but you have been chosen for this role because you are the strongest. The world needs you, Abigail. This trial you are suffering will come and go, but the gift you will give to the world will be eternal.”

Lowering her eyes, Abigail wept in earnest again. “I’m not strong enough,” she squeaked. “I can’t do this any longer.”

“You can. I know you can. Everything you need to survive is already inside of you.”

She shook her head. “No. There is nothing strong inside of me.”

A bright flash crossed the penthouse like a lightning strike. Abigail forced herself to look up into the light.

“Trust in my plan,” God said. “You’ve always known that life wasn’t about living forever. When you became human you accepted your inevitable death to be part of the greater good.”

“I did.” Abigail crossed her arms over her growling stomach.

“Then trust me. Wait on the plan. Keep your eyes and ears alert. I promise you, this is not your end.”

Abigail nodded slowly.

“Now, I have only a moment before the dark one arrives but I have a gift for you.”

“A gift?”

God reached into her cleaning cart and handed her a small snack box.

“Mixed nuts?” Abigail stared at the strange label. “To eat?”

“Yes. But only one per day. Try one now.”

God didn’t have to ask her twice. Abigail ripped into the box, selected one that reminded her of a walnut and popped it between her lips. As she chewed, the flavor of roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, and fresh asparagus worked through her mouth. When she swallowed, her stomach filled with the contentment of a square meal.

“Place the box in your pocket. He won’t see it there.”

She did. The same pocket in the same belted sweater-coat she’d worn the day she arrived. “Thank you. Thank you,” Abigail whispered.

“I must go. Be patient. I promise you, this is not the end.”

Abigail nodded. In the blink of an eye, God was gone, replaced by an old, wrinkled woman who promptly picked up her errant babushka and tied it around her head, then began to vacuum. The housekeeper passed right through her in her pursuit of cleanliness, moving from room to room while Abigail watched in her ghostly form. She finished in the kitchen just as Lucifer walked in the front door, bag in arms.

“Good evening, Mr. Blake. You’re home early today.”

Mr. Blake?
Abigail tucked the name away inside her mind. So Lucifer was posing as a human now. Interesting.

“Not so, Mrs. Bobik. You’re late to finish,” Lucifer snapped.

The old woman glanced at her watch. “Oh, how the time has flown tonight. I will finish up and get out of your hair.”

“Please.”

Abigail cringed, hoping Lucifer wouldn’t be suspicious of the woman’s lateness. But then, the devil was too proud to suspect God could get the best of him. She could always trust in his arrogance.

Mrs. Bobik finished and left in record time.

The old woman was barely out the door when Lucifer fixed his acidic blue eyes on Abigail. “Enjoy your day?”

She didn’t justify his greeting with a response but turned toward the window.

He laughed deeply and used the remote control on the wall to fill the room with dark opera music. She didn’t have to turn back around to know the
plunk
on the counter was a white, waxed cube half-full of Korean porridge. She could smell it.

“Bon appetit!” the devil drawled.

Abigail turned in time to see him disappear into his office, laughing. She approached the carton, determined not to waste food even though she was no longer hungry. But when she looked into the take-out container, her stomach rolled. The contents swarmed with maggots. The food was spoiled.

Gagging, she closed the container and placed it back inside the paper bag. She would have liked to put the whole thing in the garbage under the sink, but Lucifer’s enchantment only allowed her to touch the food and packaging. With her hand resting on the box in her pocket, she returned to her place by the window and waited for God’s promise to unfold.

Harrington Enterprises

“T
he street is blocked. You’ll have to go on foot.” The cab driver pulled over at the edge of the burgeoning crowd, scratching the stubble on his chin as if the people in front of his cab were a mystery to him.

“There must be a thousand people on this street,” Bonnie said, handing the driver a twenty. “What’s going on?” She opened the door and let Ghost and Samantha out while the driver made change.

“Are all these people shoppers?” Ghost asked, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder, heavy with weapons from Eden.

“Nah. These guys are picketing that, er, pharma company. All bullshit. These hipster tree huggers think Harrington created that bird flu goin’ round in order to sell the cure.” He handed her eight dollars change.

Bonnie pocketed the five and handed him back the three singles. “You don’t think Harrington’s behind the bird flu?”

“Listen, girly, I don’t know nothin’ about these conspiracy theories but when I got sick, I took the Elysium and now I’m better. Thank you, Harrington.” He made a rough salute with his meaty hand.

A sharp tug on her elbow reminded Bonnie they needed to keep moving. “Right,” she said to the cabbie. “Glad you’re feeling better.”

The driver nodded and pulled back into traffic.

“Looks like Harrington is in deep doo-doo over Elysium,” Samantha said, eyeing the picketers as she blended into the crowd.

“Well, you heard Mom; that’s why we’re here,” Bonnie whispered. “Malini suspects there are Watchers behind this, and we know Lucifer’s behind the Watchers. We gotta try to find the source. If we can kill the Watchers influencing the executives at Harrington, we might get a foothold in this war.”

The woman next to her thrust her sign in the air and shouted, “Elysium is poison! Elysium is poison!” Her sign had a giant “E” with a red slash through it and smaller letters that said
Elysium is more addictive than heroin, cocaine, and meth combined.

Ghost leaned in and whispered into Bonnie’s ear. “I’m going to blip to the front and see what I can see. I’ll text you.”

She nodded, as did her sister on his other side. Then he was gone. The crowd pressed in around them. Slowly, they snaked through the mass of chanting bodies and bouncing signs toward the front of the building.

“I’m scared, Bon.” Sam squeezed her hand, muscling her way through the throngs of people. “These people look really angry.”

“They’re not angry at us,” Bonnie said.

Sam paused in the crowd and cocked her head to the side, meeting her sister’s gaze.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, Sam.”

Jolting, Sam fumbled for the phone vibrating in her pocket. “Jesse says there are cops upfront enforcing a barricade so that workers can come and go from the building. They are verifying everyone. The lower levels aren’t even Harrington-owned, but everyone who gets in has to show credentials.”

“Oh,” Bonnie said. “So how do we know who to look like to get in?

Sam shrugged.

They reached Ghost at the front of the crowd and pressed against the barricade. “I could blink inside the building,” he murmured.

“Don’t be stupid,” Bonnie whispered in his ear. “If Sam and I go and get into trouble, you can always blink in to help us. Unfortunately, that scenario doesn’t work the other way around. You’ve got to be our backup, Jesse.”

Slap
. Sam’s hand smacked Bonnie’s arm.

“Ow!” Bonnie turned toward her sister, who was sniffing the air like a dog. “What’s your problem?”

“Do you smell that?”

All three turned their heads toward the front doors to the Harrington skyscraper. A security guard held the door open for an important-looking man exiting the building. The man paused outside and said, “Thank you, Fredrick,” in an entitled and condescending tone that didn’t match the words spoken. Bonnie watched his straight white teeth flash with every word. The man smoothed the silky fabric of his double-breasted navy suit arrogantly, and the professional cut of his black hair didn’t move, even when the wind came off the lake and blew Bonnie’s red locks back. That breeze carried with it what her sister had smelled, the scent of Watcher.

Bonnie locked onto the man, scanning him from head to toe and elbowing Sam to do the same. Six-foot-four, broad shoulders, narrow hips, chiseled jaw. She gagged on the stench of the black-skinned snake underneath and unconsciously toyed with the red stone necklace through the collar of her coat. She noticed Ghost adjust the backpack of weapons on his shoulder and cover his nose with his hand.

The Watcher pulled a pair of sunglasses from his pocket, unfolding them with a quick snap of his wrist. A gold lion’s head ring glinted from his right index finger. As he raised the glasses to his face, Bonnie was afforded a straight on view. His dark blue eyes shone almost purple, an impossible color for humans unless they were sporting contacts.

The wind shifted, her long red hair floating forward over her shoulder. Those purple eyes locked onto hers. The smile faded from the man’s face, and he slid the sunglasses on. One step, then another. He was coming for her.

“He saw me,” Bonnie whispered, but she needn’t have said anything. Sam was already pulling her back into the crowd, and Ghost was blinking in and out of sight, searching for a good place to hide and regroup.

“This way,” Sam said, eyeing her phone. “Jesse says there’s an alley.”

Holding hands, Bonnie allowed Sam to pull her through the crowd, snaking in and out of the protesters. Again and again, Bonnie looked over her shoulder, searching for the Watcher, but the mass of people had closed in behind them. The man was gone.

The crowd began to thin as they reached Ghost two blocks from Harrington. Two dumpsters obscured the entrance to the narrow, brick-lined alley where he waited.

“Squeeze through,” Ghost said from the other side.

Bonnie looked at Sam, who nodded and checked to make sure no one was watching. Bonnie slipped through first, her mass shifting down her leg until an abnormally large foot landed on the other side. She slimmed her body to slide through the gap, sending her extra inches to her foot, then her leg, her hip, and so on. When she was completely on the other side, she pulled Sam through, incorporating her extra mass so that she could fit.

“That was definitely a Watcher,” Sam said, when she’d resumed her natural form and shape.

“Definitely. And he saw us. Do you think we lost him?” Bonnie looked through the gap in the dumpsters for any sign of the beast.

“I think so,” Ghost replied. “I hate to be the one to state the obvious, but one of you needs to become that guy. That’s our way in.”

Bonnie widened her eyes at Samantha. It made sense, but the thought was terrifying. They’d have to separate. Only one of them could go because the man’s form could not contain both of their mass. But who would go and who would stay? Bonnie watched her sister swallow, her twin’s eyes shifting to Ghost who looked like he might cry.

No words had to be said. And while she knew that Sam would argue with the notion, her sister needed to stay with Ghost. The two were an item, and separating them could cause a distraction they didn’t need.

“I’ll go,” Bonnie said.

“No,” Sam protested. “We should draw straws.”

Bonnie rolled her eyes. How predictable. “Sam …” Her sister’s eyes darted away. Enough said. “I’ll go.”

“Hmm, so that’s settled, then,” Ghost muttered, shaking his head.

Grasping her sister’s hand, Bonnie melded with her twin, concentrating on the Watcher’s illusion and the sound of his voice. Her body changed, absorbing the parts of her sister she needed, growing taller and more muscular. Her long red hair retracted into her head and her face morphed. When she’d replicated the Watcher she’d seen, Bonnie pulled away, detaching from her sister.

“Is it right?” she asked the now smaller version of Sam. Her sister looked about twelve.

“Perfect. You even remembered the ring,” Sam said.

Bonnie looked down at the lion’s head ring and nodded. “How’s the voice?” she asked.