Mortal (29 page)

A hand was still wrapped tightly
around her arm, and Kara turned around to get a glimpse of her
savior.

"Careful there," said a smiling girl
with short purple hair and the most dazzling green eyes that Kara
had ever seen. She looked like a fairy soldier in a purple bomber
jacket with matching purple combat boots.

A shy looking teen boy with glasses
and dressed in the same military style helped Kara to steady
herself, "Yeah, you don’t want to be late for your big day," he
said.

Kara’s pulse raced. "Huh? How did you
know...?" She stared at the pair of them. It took her a moment to
compose herself. They both looked strangely familiar.

"Thank you—you saved my
life."

"No problem—it’s all part of the job,"
said the girl cheerfully. She shared a look with her
friend.

Kara couldn’t take her eyes off the
two strangers. It was the strangest thing, but she felt like she
already knew them. Even their voices sounded familiar to her
ears.

"You guys look familiar—have we met
before? Did we share a class or something?"

"Or something," said the girl. Her
green eyes glistened playfully in the sun.

"So we
have
met before?"

"In another life, perhaps," answered
the boy. "But not yet in this lifetime."

"Uh...you’ve completely lost me. What
does that mean?" Kara scrutinized the two of them. Their smiling
eyes gave them away. She could tell they were holding something
back.

"KARA!"

David tackled Kara in a hug
.
He squished the
air from her lungs and then released her. "Are you all right? You
almost got hit by that bus! What were you thinking—crossing without
looking?"

Kara felt stupid for being such a
klutz. "I know. I know. I was too absorbed with my presentation. I
should have been more careful. But I’m fine—thanks to
them."

She turned to introduce David to her
two rescuers.

"This is David, my..." Kara faltered.
They had never really talked about it. She felt his eyes on her,
but she couldn’t look at him.

"...boyfriend," finished David. He
stepped forward and shook their hands. "I’m her
boyfriend."

Kara’s heart did a jumbo pirouette,
and she forgot to breathe. She must have looked astonished because
the girl with the purple hair giggled. Kara couldn’t help but
laugh, too.

"Take care of yourself," said the
girl. "Until we meet again. Good luck."

And before Kara could reply, they
turned on their heels and walked away. She stared after them until
they disappeared into the crowd. She felt sad to see them go—there
was something about those two that she just couldn’t figure
out.

"You dropped this." David picked up
her portfolio, which miraculously wasn’t damaged. "Someone’s
definitely watching over you. You could have been killed today,
silly girl."

Strangely enough, Kara felt the same
way. She couldn’t describe it, but she did feel that something or
someone was watching over her. Were those two people involved
somehow?

But today was going to be a
good day; she felt it in her bones. David had just announced to the
world that they were an
item
, and she took courage from that.
She was ready to face anything.

David held out his hand. "Ready, hot
stuff?" His eyes sparkled like the sea.

Kara smiled warmly and interlaced her
fingers with his.

She squeezed his hand.
"Ready."

Kara took a deep breath. They crossed
the street together and disappeared through Ubisoft’s front
doors.

And now a sneak peek at the
next book in the Soul Guardians series

Chapter 1

The Deception

T
he sky outside the bookstore was blood-red. The hot air was
thick with electricity, the kind right before a thunderstorm, and
yet there were no storm clouds.

Kara moved from the window
and pushed off with one foot. The rolling library ladder sped
across the wood floors, which creaked and popped under her weight
like the rumbling of thunder. Using the ladder was her favorite
chore in the bookstore. She loved the way it made her feel like she
was almost flying. If only she had
wings.
She could fly up to the
highest bookshelf without a ladder and get her work done faster.
The sooner it was done, the sooner she could be with
David.

She missed him. She missed his voice,
his sense humor, and even his arrogance. Yes, he was insufferable
at times, but she could never stay angry with him for long. He
would always make her laugh in the end, no matter how much she
wanted to punch him in the face. It was in those moments in his
company that she came alive. When they were together, she could be
herself. It just felt right. They fit.

The ladder skidded gently to a stop
against a large bookshelf at the other end of the store.

"I’ll never understand why he puts the
cinematography books so high," she said, exasperated.

With the book
It’s only a movie: Alfred Hitchcock, A Personal
Biography
between her teeth, she climbed to
the top. She leaned out from the side of the ladder, suspending
herself dangerously from one foot, stretched out as far as she
could, and squeezed the book between
The
Making of Psycho
and
The Stanley Kubrick Archives
.

"One of these days you’re going to
fall and break your neck," warned Mr. Patterson as he polished a
crystal ball the size of a grapefruit.

Instead of his usual colorful Hawaiian
shirt and Bermuda shorts, he wore a brown plaid suit with a red
bowtie that looked like it had been in the back of his closet since
the 1970s. Kara could smell the mothball stench from the top of the
ladder. She wrinkled her nose and tried hard to keep a straight
face. His thin white hair was combed over awkwardly, as though he
had dressed in the dark. The only things that were not so out of
place were his bare feet. They poked from under his pants as usual.
Her boss never wore any shoes.

Kara bit her lip and tried hard not to
laugh. He had obviously made an effort to make himself somewhat
presentable. But why?

Maybe Mr. Patterson had a
date later? Could there be a potential Mrs. Patterson in their
midst? But that didn’t make any sense. During all the months she’d
been helping him out at the bookstore, he had never mentioned any
female friends. Then again, he had never mentioned
any
friends. She always
thought of him as a loner, stuck in his old ways, like many older
folks. He kept to his shop.

"Don’t worry," said Kara after a
moment, "No one’s going to die today."

"You say it like you know for sure,
but you don’t."

Mr. Patterson spit on his crystal and
rubbed it gently, eyeballing it like it was a large precious
diamond.

"Mortals cannot foresee the
future. They don’t have the
acquired
skill and gift that
is
foresight
. Only
oracles—"

He caught himself and peered over at
Kara through his bushy white eyebrows. He watched her as though he
had said too much, as though he had revealed some great
secret.

Kara watched him with
increased interest. It wasn’t the first time she had heard Mr.
Patterson refer to himself as an
oracle
, whatever that was. She had
gotten used to the way he sometimes spoke in the third person. It
was almost as though he had a secret identity and lived two
different lives, like a spy.

It was a ridiculous notion
of course. He was just old and a little confused. Most likely, his
identity crisis was the result of spending night and day reading
books about clairvoyants and the great beyond. He was obsessed with
anything
supernatural
. Maybe he perceived himself as a connoisseur of the
paranormal, a modern-day Ghostbuster.

Kara smiled. She cared deeply for the
man. He was like the grandfather she had never known, and he felt
like family to her.

But there was something different in
the way he had just looked at her, as if he had gone too far this
time and had said too much and wished he could take it
back.

Mr. Patterson frowned and avoided her
eyes. He mumbled angrily to himself as he buffed the crystal ball
so vigorously that he looked as if he were trying to light a
fire.

"Keep her safe," Kara heard the old
man say. "That’s all I have to do. Well, easier said than done.
Thank you very much. If only they knew…"

Kara laughed uncomfortably. "Don’t
worry, nothing will happen to me. I know what I’m doing. It’s just
a ladder, no harm done."

"You kids these days," said Mr.
Patterson. Kara could see sweat on his forehead. "Always living on
the edge, always looking for new ways to hurt yourselves. Tell me,
why is that? Why are you all in such a hurry to kill
yourselves?"

"I don’t know," answered
Kara as she slid down the ladder and landed with a thud. "Guess we
feel our lives are
boring
. Maybe we’re looking for some
adventure to spice things up a bit. Weren’t you ever young? Don’t
you remember what it was like?"

"You think your life
is
boring
?" Mr.
Patterson looked up from his crystal ball.

Kara shrugged. "I don’t
know…maybe."

She looked into Mr. Patterson’s blue
eyes.

"Didn’t you ever get the
feeling that something was missing in your life? That strange empty
feeling, like you’re supposed to be doing something, but you just
don’t know what it is? Sometimes, well actually all the time, I get
this weird feeling that I was
meant
for something greater—like I have a purpose in
life, but I just can’t figure out what it is. Not yet, I guess. You
know what I mean?"

Mr. Patterson stopped polishing his
crystal and watched Kara with his mouth slightly open. He looked
worried, like she had discovered some dark secret. He frowned and
watched her without blinking. Kara could see fear flicker in his
eyes, as if he knew that something bad was going to happen to
her.

Kara squirmed uncomfortably under his
stare.

"Uh…so…what are you all dressed up
for?" she looked away, hoping to change the subject quickly before
Mr. Patterson burned a hole in her forehead with his laser-beam
eyes.

"Do you have a date or
something?"

Mr. Patterson looked at Kara for a
while before he answered.

"Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous."
He waddled over behind the counter and placed his crystal carefully
inside a glass case. "It’s the annual Festival of Spoken Word at
The Couch café. I’ve been invited to read my poetry—"

"You write poetry?" Kara smiled, glad
not to be the center of attention anymore. "I never knew that.
That’s awesome. Something tells me that you’re a fantastic writer.
Can you read me some?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because
I
said
so
, and don’t try to
change the subject."

Mr. Patterson looked at Kara with such
intensity that it forced her to look away.

"What did you mean by
saying you
feel
that you have some sort of greater purpose in life?" he
pressed. "What exactly is this
feeling
? Can you tell me more about
it? Can you describe it?"

Kara shrugged. She wasn’t sure why her
boss would be so interested in that. Didn’t everyone feel like
their lives were empty at some point? She was sure she’d read that
somewhere.

"I don’t know how to describe it. It’s
just a feeling I get sometimes. It’s just like I said."