The Soul Thief (12 page)

This had to be the same man who’d gone to see Beulah. Who’d stabbed Franklin.

But why was he raising an army of ghosts? What was his
intent
?

Franklin could only wait and watch.

Ξ

When the ground rumbled again, Franklin looked around, trying to see what the hell it was.

The ghosts of cannonballs flew through the air, raising from the valley up to the top of the hill.

Was the doctor gonna fight a war? Or was that the ghosts, trying to fight back?

But the cannonballs didn’t strike the doctor, or his table. They pounded the hill, causing the ground to shake.

Franklin sure was glad he’d never had to go to war. What little he was seeing was awful.

The howls of the dead grew louder, drowning out all the other sounds. Franklin weren’t sure if he called out to Julie if she’d hear him. She looked pale hanging there.

Franklin tried breaking himself free again, but he couldn’t get to her.

At least he weren’t holding her hand anymore. Maybe the screams weren’t as loud for her, piercing her soul, though from her face was crunched up together, he knew some of the terrible racket were getting through.

Finally, the doctor finished with his spell. The howls of the dead died down to just moaning on the wind, constantly sending chills down Franklin’s spine.

Franklin looked over to where Julie hung, also trapped in the trees. She was watching the doctor too. She glanced over at Franklin and said something.

Franklin couldn’t quite catch it, but if he was reading her lips right, she’d just said, “I know him.”

Julie knew the doctor? Had she worked with him? Did she still work with him?

“My brave soldiers!” the doctor called out, addressing the army of the dead before him.

The ghosts howled in reply.

“I know you bravely gave your lives once in the defense of this country,” the doctor continued once they died down. “Blue or gray, it doesn’t matter. However, I ask for your lives once again, in the service of our great people.”

The ghosts howled again, louder this time. Franklin felt himself trying to back away, though the trees held him fast.

It weren’t right, whatever the hell this doctor were about to do. And Franklin wanted no part of it.

“No death! No birth! Just life eternal!” the doctor called out.

What the hell did that mean?

The doctor held up the blade, though it weren’t happy with him, not one bit.

If the blade had any ability to move, it would have driven itself into the doctor, tried its darnedest to take his soul. Bit him.

But the blade was just a tool, and the doctor was much more powerful than it was.

The ghosts surged up the hill, so many bodies that they hid Franklin’s view of the doctor. The cold rolled out from them, making Franklin’s teeth chatter.

Then they started to thin. The wide river of ghosts became a stream, all flowing toward the doctor and the blade he had raised over his head.

What was the doctor doing? Why had he raised so many souls, just to take them again?

The blade started complaining. It weren’t made to take and hold so many souls, not all at once.

Suddenly, instead of everything rolling
in
, it all rolled
out
, like a mighty belch that the doctor couldn’t quite contain.

Heat blasted Franklin, baking his front. It was like suddenly stepping close to a camping fire. The warmth sunk deep into his skin, seeping into his bones.

The trees sighed in the wind, sagging, but not letting go.

Franklin felt as though all his muscles relaxed suddenly. His shoulder, where the thorn bush had impaled him, stopped hurting him. Hell, all the places where the thorns had bit him felt better.

What the hell was that doctor doing?

Even the wound from the knife felt better.

Was this what the doctor was raising souls for? Killing ghosts so he could heal the living?

It was a cheat, Franklin knew. But he could understand why the doctor was doing it, at least.

The doctor started chanting in that strange tongue of his, the words whipping the ghosts into shape, drawing them all in again. The howling of the ghosts thinned to a single wire of pain as they faded.

The knife grew more bloated, overly full and unhappy about it. It struggled to release the souls it had taken again, but the doctor held it firmly in his will.

Finally, the ghosts faded to nothing, the mist and the light dying.

The doctor sagged, but he still called out across the now empty hill, “Healed!”

He looked younger. The white fringes of his hair had red shot through it, now. Franklin hadn’t noticed the age spots dotting the doctor’s skull, not until they was all gone.

Was the doctor just trying to make himself young?

That didn’t seem right. He wouldn’t need a whole army of ghosts to do that.

Faster than Franklin would have thought, the doctor packed up. Franklin struggled with the trees again. They held fast, strong. Franklin turned to see Julie, who shook her head at him.

She didn’t want them to go confront the doctor? But why?

Did she really know him? Was he that dangerous?

Franklin waited until the doctor had disappeared down the far side of the hill before he pulled at the tree limbs holding him again.

The trees reluctantly loosened. Franklin pulled his arms away, his skin sticky with pine sap.

He ran over to Julie, helping her pull her second arm away, then he wrapped himself around her, holding her close to his chest.

She smelled good, womanly and woodsy. Franklin knew it weren’t appropriate, how much he wanted her, right then and there.

Julie seemed to realize, though, what he was feeling. Maybe she was feeling the same. She pulled him in for a long, deep kiss, before pushing him away.

“We need to get back into town,” she whispered against his lips.

Franklin immediately loosened his grip around her. “Okay,” he said. Disappointment filled him, but he understood.

The doctor had done something, something that weren’t natural. And something he hadn’t meant to do, with that burp of power. It was still affecting Franklin, in ways he didn’t know or trust.

“Do you know who he is?” Franklin asked as Julie took his hand and they started hurrying out of the battlefield, back toward the car.

“Maybe,” Julie said, nodding. “I want to look something up, first.”

“Okay,” Franklin said. He trusted her. They’d figure this out.

Then maybe take some time with each other.

Ξ

Franklin stood still, holding his shirt up around his chest while Julie examined him under the bright lights of his kitchen. It was late, and the ghosts that had been haunting Franklin had gone. Or at least, he didn’t hear them howling outside anymore.

He didn’t want to think about what the doctor had done to them, how he’d taken first their will, then possibly, their souls.

But at least the farm was quiet, just the cicadas and the crickets outside, the AC pumping cool air in the living room.

Franklin stretched, his muscles still loose. He should be tired, given the hour and what they’d been up to all day, but he wasn’t. Not at all.

In fact, he still wanted Julie. So much. It was getting uncomfortable.

“That’s what I thought,” Julie said after a moment. She turned his face to the side. “You’d started getting a few gray hairs along your temples, just here,” she added, lightly brushing her finger along his tightly kinky hair.

Franklin shivered at her gentle touch, closing his eyes.

“But it’s all gone now. And you said you’re mostly healed?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Franklin said. He was afraid to take off his shirt all the way off though, afraid that might just make it harder not to touch her.

“That’s what I thought,” Julie said, carelessly running her finger down from his temple to his neck.

“What?” Franklin asked. He couldn’t help himself. He caught her hand and kissed the back of it.

Now it was time for Julie to shiver.

“Come on,” Julie said, taking Franklin’s hand and squeezing it, leading him through the rest of the house, toward the bedroom.

“What?” Franklin asked. “I thought you wanted to look something up.” He’d assumed she meant on the internet. Which meant going someplace else, since he didn’t have no internet out at the farm. Hell, he barely got cell phone reception.

“That can wait until the morning,” Julie said with a lovely, inviting smile. “Right now, I think you need a more thorough examine.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Franklin said, returning her smile and not worrying again about the doctor or ghosts or anything else until the sun had long risen.

Ξ

Karl had already given Franklin the day off since he’d been stabbed, so Franklin wasn’t concerned about getting to the fruit and vegetable stand early the next morning.

He just wouldn’t tell Karl that he’d been miraculously healed, that the stitches had all dissolved, that all his bruises and aches and sores were already gone.

After breakfast, Julie insisted on stopping by the public library. She still needed to do some research on the internet.

The library was a newer building, built like Franklin’s 1950s rambler, all one story, made of brick. The inside was all white, freshly painted, with the AC cranked high. Skylights lit the front desk area, with white metal stacks to one side holding newspapers and trade magazines, while at the end of the room sat three computers.

Franklin sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs next to the desk (it was too soft) and read about crop rotation while Julie pecked at the computer.

She looked lovely in a white T-shirt that showed off her curves and jeans that hung down low on her hips. Despite being up most of the night, she didn’t look tired at all. Her soft brown hair had a nice curl in it, as though she’d spent hours futzing with it, though all she’d done was wash it and brush it out.

They both felt younger, healthy, well.

Was that the doctor’s plan?

Finally, Julie called Franklin over to the terminal. A white teenager sat sullenly paging through some comic on one side, while the other side was open. Franklin borrowed that chair and pulled it up close to Julie.

The teenager glanced over, rolled his eyes, then determinedly looked at his screen again.

Julie mutely pointed to the page she’d pulled up.

The date on the article was three years old.

Franklin recognized the picture of the doctor right away, though it was a grainy photo, and the doctor had been ducking his head, as if trying to hide.

Underneath the picture listed his name.

Doctor Lamont Traeger. On his way to trial.

Where had Franklin heard that name before? He could swear it was familiar.

Franklin read through the article.

The doctor had been raised in Wesley county. Local boy done good. Gone off to medical school, promising surgeon.

Then tragedy had struck. First his wife had died, killed by a fast cancer that they’d discovered too late. Then his son had been killed in a pileup on the interstate, flattened between two semi’s.

Franklin shook his head. Pure shame. He suspected that the doctor was the kind who wouldn’t have had cousins and brothers and sisters to help him pull through. When he’d lost his wife and son, he’d really lost his whole family.

Dr. Traeger had kept working, though. Trying to heal others, despite how broken he was himself.

The newspaper story Julie had pulled up was all about a trial. The hospital where Dr. Traeger had been working accused him of “helping” a patient along. Labeled him an “Angel of Mercy.”

Dr. Traeger maintained his innocence.

“So what happened?” Franklin asked Julie when he got to the end of the article. It had been written during the trial, not after the case had been settled.

The teenager glared at them and Franklin lowered his voice. “Was he found guilty?”

Julie shook her head, frowning. “I can’t find anything about it. It’s like the articles got all taken down. But I don’t think he was found guilty. If I’m remembering right, he was just forced to retire. Claimed it was politics that got to him. But there was talk at the nurse’s station, one night. They all thought he was guilty as sin. Not just helping patients who needed help, but ones that weren’t ready yet.”

Franklin nodded, not surprised. Most doctors seemed to think they knew better than everyone.

“I know that name from someplace,” Franklin said as he followed Julie out of the library. “Dr. Lamont Traeger.”

“From the trial?” Julie asked.

Franklin shook his head. “No. Recent like. I just can’t remember when.”

“It’ll come to you,” Julie told him, taking his hand.

Franklin opened his mouth to say something to her, something about her, about them, but then closed it again. It wasn’t the right time or place.

He knew he was stalling.

But maybe later that night…

“So what’s the plan?” Franklin asked as he got into Julie’s car.

“I’m gonna drop you back off at the farm, then go in to work,” Julie said. “I’ll try and talk with some of the older nurses, see if I can find out anything.”

“You coming by later tonight?” Franklin asked, trying to hide his disappointment. He’d hoped they’d be able to spend the day together.

“I should probably get some sleep tonight,” Julie said.

“Oh,” Franklin said. He thought a moment, then still decided to ask his question. “Are you feeling tired?”

“Not really,” Julie admitted. “But after work there are still a few things I want to check.”

“All right,” Franklin said. They rode in silence back to the farm, comfortable with each other. “What’s your schedule like the rest of the week?”

“Working mainly afternoons,” Julie told him. “So maybe I can come over tomorrow night.”

“It’s a date,” Franklin told her, drawing her over for a sweet goodbye kiss that quickly got out of hand.

When they finally pulled back, Franklin was aching for Julie like he’d never felt before.

“Do you think that’s part of what Dr. Traeger did? To make us so horny?” Julie asked.