The Soulkeepers (29 page)

"I don't understand. Why would you be
captured? I thought you were one of them?"

She laughed mockingly. "Malini if I was like
them, you would already be dead or taken. It's true I fell from
grace. But I changed. I want to be a Helper, a Soulkeeper. I
regretted following Lucifer from the very beginning. I've been
living among humans ever since."

"But how do I know you're not deceiving me
right now? If you're a Watcher, that's your strongest power."
Malini pressed her back against the door.

Dr. Silva didn't answer but got out and
started walking toward the house. Malini sat in the car for a
moment and then sprinted after her. If Dr. Silva wasn't telling the
truth, there was no way she would have left her in the car alone.
When they reached the door, Dr. Silva stopped and met Malini's
eyes.

"The hardest thing you will ever do in life
is to know for sure what is true. Where we are going is a place
ruled by illusion. Saving Jacob will be difficult and terrifying. I
don't recommend you come with me."

Malini had always done the right thing, the
safe thing. But the thought of Jacob with Auriel ignited fervor
deep within her. Whether it was a sense of possession, jealousy, or
old-fashioned loyalty, Malini's jaw hardened and at that moment she
would have walked through fire for Jacob.

"I'm going. I'm not going to let that evil
bitch steal my best friend!" Malini spit the words out like they
tasted bad.

"Alright then, come with me. We need to pack
some things before we go."

They entered the house and Dr. Silva began
filling an old leather bag with things from her cupboards. Malini
was fascinated by the odd combination of items she grabbed.

"…salt, for clarity, flowers, for beauty,
water for Jacob, and finally, light." She grabbed a candle from a
wooden box on the mantel. As she placed it in the bag, Malini
glimpsed a name in its wax—Abigail Drake.

"What is that Dr. Silva?"

"My baptism candle." She threw the pack over
her shoulder.

"You were baptized?"

"Later. We have to go. Gideon!" Dr. Silva
called. The largest red cat Malini had ever seen ran into the
kitchen. "It's important Gid. Will you come with us?"

Malini watched as the cat nodded. She tried
not to let her mouth fall open.

They raced out the back door and into the
orchard, through the gate and down to the meadow, up the hill and
finally into the cactus maze.

"You never finished telling me," Malini
questioned as they walked toward the tree, "How did the serpent get
into the garden?"

"The fallen ones are not of this Earth,
Malini…they are under it. They live in a land of illusions, a land
that is not with God but is a spiritual realm bound forever to this
Earth. They live in a land where God sent Cain when he cursed him
to wander. They live in Nod. They are connected to all living
things through their wrongdoings. Sin attracts them. Why was the
serpent in the garden? The woman brought him there. She was already
thinking about taking the fruit; angry with God for the rules he
had given Adam. Her pride opened the portal in the tree. She
invited the serpent in."

They were standing in front of the tree now,
Dr. Silva's hand hovering inches above the gnarly bark. "Are you
ready?"

Malini's face was ashen. She remembered
vividly the bark crawling up Jacob's arm. All of the same questions
plagued her. What would this do to her body? What would it do to
her soul? The difference was that this time Jacob was on the other
side, the Jacob she loved, her best friend and the person who
needed her. Regardless of the question, Jacob was the only answer
that mattered.

"I'm ready." She held out her hand.

Into the Dark

Darkness is a relative term. There is the
darkness of an evening with a full moon, or of a candlelit room.
There is the inky blackness of a bedroom at midnight where the only
light comes between shadows that dance in the space beneath the
door. But the darkness that Jacob experienced as he followed his
captor, hitched to her wings with sweaty palms, was not like that
at all. It was a darkness that had perhaps never experienced real
light, a black hole absorbing any flicker into its depths. It was
the darkness of the bottom of the ocean, or the cold blackness of a
grave. Jacob hoped it would not be his grave.

While the outline of the garden in which
he'd arrived had been visible, he could see nothing now. He
followed Auriel by touch, holding on to the feathers of her wings
as she walked. She seemed unaffected by the lack of light and moved
quickly. Jacob didn't try to get away. Where would he go? He was
helpless here, completely dependant on her.

"Where are you taking me?" His voice was
shaking more than he wanted it to. He was trying to be brave but
truthfully he felt there was little hope. An hour ago he would not
have believed that this place existed. No one would know where to
look for him, if they looked for him at all. The others probably
didn't even realize he was gone yet. When they did, what could they
do? The only person who could follow through the tree was Dr. Silva
and she would have to know where he was to get here. That was, if
she even cared to save him.

"We are going to see my father. He'll be
very interested in adding you to our collection. You're a rare
breed, Jacob. Maybe, if you are lucky, he'll put you on display.
Look, we are almost there."

Jacob could barely make out a bluish
fluorescent glow ahead of him. As he drew closer, he realized it
was a city. A series of steel boxes of various heights appeared on
the horizon, illuminated by humming artificial light. He thought of
a skyline as he looked at it but there was no artistry to it, no
architecture, no art of any kind, just the monotony of box after
box. It was simply, stone and steel.

Auriel approached the gate and it opened
before her. They joined a bustling city both beautiful and
disturbing. Creatures with wings walked up and down the streets,
each one more beautiful than the next. Jacob knew they weren't
angels; they were Watchers, fallen angels. They were thin, tall,
and muscular with perfect hair and features that would put a
supermodel to shame. But as he watched them he had the undeniable
sense they were too perfect. It was like seeing a football field
full of plastic surgery recipients. The eye knew that it was
unnatural, somehow wrong.

More disturbing still were the people. The
city was filled with people just like him, serving the Watchers in
every capacity. Some were chained to wagons like horses, pulling
Watchers around the city. Some were on their hands and knees on the
sidewalk cleaning the Watcher's shoes as they walked by. Some were
picking up the trash that the Watchers arbitrarily flung into the
street. Some were on leashes being dragged around by the neck. All
of the humans were dirty, dressed in rags, and treated like
dogs.

A chill crawled up Jacob's spine. Wherever
or whatever Nod was, it was not a place that valued human life. As
he looked around, the people would not meet his eyes. They hung
their heads with vacant expressions, empty shells responding only
to the kicks and screams of their captors.

"In here." Auriel held open a door and
pushed Jacob through it. As he stumbled over the threshold, it was
like walking into the atrium of any office building. A Watcher sat
behind a circular desk, her light blue wings in sharp contrast with
the dark mahogany of the wood. Beyond the desk was a set of
elevators.

"Depositing," Auriel said. The blue winged
Watcher did not look up from filing her nails but nodded her head
in response.

"This way." Auriel shoved him toward the
open elevator doors and pushed a button at the top of the panel. He
was startled when he felt the elevator drop instead of rise. It
dropped floor by floor before arriving at the thirty-sixth floor
below the atrium. When the doors opened, Aurial led him to a
stainless steel room with an examination table over an ominously
large drain in the floor.

"Sit here." Auriel pointed toward the cold
steel table. Jacob began to walk toward it, noticing he had to peel
his feet from the floor with every step, as if he were walking down
the soda-drenched row of a movie theatre. Looking at the pattern on
the floor, he tried to think what might be sticking to his shoes.
As he neared the table, he discovering to his horror that the floor
was not patterned at all but peppered with drops of drying blood.
The table was similarly filthy.

"No," he stated firmly, turning to face
Auriel. "Take me home."

"It will not speak!" a male voice boomed
from behind him. A huge Watcher with shiny black wings entered the
room. This one had wavy blonde hair, perfect teeth and wore a tight
black t-shirt with khaki pants. Spreading his monstrous black
wings, he coasted across the room in one powerful motion. His eyes
were solid black, as dark as coal and not reflective as a human
eye. Instead the dark irises were black holes absorbing all.
Looking into them, Jacob felt like he was falling hopelessly into
nothing.

The Watcher kissed Auriel. "Hello, Father,"
she responded. "I've brought you a gift." Jacob was confused
because the male Watcher looked barely older then Auriel but he was
beginning to understand that things were not as they seemed in
Nod.

"What breed is it, Auriel?"

"A rare breed, a Horseman of mixed blood. He
is half blood from the east, Chinese, and half blood from the west,
German. Does he not have fine features and so young?"

"Yes. I am pleased. Do you know what its
gifts are?" he asked Auriel.

"No. He did not fight. I could find no one
that had seen him train."

Jacob silently thanked Dane for being too
proud to admit how he'd kicked his ass in Westcott's parking lot.
The less Auriel knew the better.

Auriel's father pointed a manicured finger
at him. "It will tell me what its gifts are."

"Gifts? I don't know what you're talking
about." Jacob tried his best to lie convincingly. Keeping his
abilities secret seemed like his only hope.

"Auriel, perhaps you took this one before he
was told. Very good! One less to kill later."

The dark angel squinted at him. "It will
undress now."

"Excuse me," he said, shivering in the cold
room.

"Jacob, you must put this on." Auriel threw
him a rag sack with holes for his head and arms.

"Why do you talk to it like that, Auriel? It
will learn soon enough its place here. Why prolong the
process?"

"Just avoiding any need to damage it before
it reaches the display case," she answered.

"Very well. I must go. You will deal with it
then?"

"Yes Father."

The Watcher left the room in a movement so
fast Jacob didn't see it. The woosh of air was the only way his
senses could perceive the thing had flown away.

"Auriel, can I ask you something?"

"Quickly, human."

"I heard Dane say that you've been asking to
meet me all year. Why didn't you come after me yourself,
sooner?"

"You have no idea how difficult it is for us
to stay above ground. It would have been so much easier if you had
just gone with Dane. But you're too hardheaded for that. Without a
portal like Oswald, we must return through the same tree as we
arrive through while the string is still open. We are flesh eaters.
If we stay above ground for too long, our powers fade and we lose
our illusions…until we eat flesh. Eating flesh usually means
killing and if we kill, the Soulkeepers come. They always feel the
kill. I couldn't risk leaving my tree, so I sent that idiot Dane
after you. Of course, once I knew who you were, I thought I would
capture you using Oswald. That would've been the easiest way. You
know, I almost had you. Twice."

"Twice?"

"Your first time through the tree, I was
there, in the garden. You don't recognize my voice? If it weren't
for Gideon keeping me away, I would have had you then. Before that,
I knew a Horseman had come to Paris, but I didn't know who it was.
That day, when I saw you navigate the garden, I knew you were the
one I was after."

So, it was her voice he'd heard in the
garden.

"I heard you again, with Malini," she
continued. "Yes. I was there, hoping for a two-for- one deal,
actually," Auriel snorted. "I was inside the tree, waiting. Had you
manned up and forced Malini through, you two would have traveled
straight to Nod. But then you had to go and do the self-sacrificing
thing and help her back to the gate. There's nothing more repelling
than self-sacrifice."

"So, then, why did you risk coming after me
now?"

"After Malini let me through the gate, I had
free access to the portal. I knew the two of you had been fighting.
The anger in the air was yummy. I thought it would be easy to prey
on your loneliness, to lead you back here. It would have been so
much easier if I could have posed as your girlfriend and convinced
you to show me the garden. But then that girl had to go and forgive
you. And Dane," she shook her head, "I came awfully close to
alerting the Soulkeepers with that one. That's when I knew I had to
do things the hard way and take you."

The weight of despair that settled on his
shoulders was intolerable. He'd brought this upon himself. This
whole time he'd been playing with forces he didn't understand. Dr.
Silva had tried, in her way, to warn him. This was his fault.

"Enough. Change now," Auriel demanded.

Jacob did as he was told. He took off his
favorite shirt, the black turtleneck, the blue jeans and his hiking
boots and donned the smelly rag. He was freezing now and crossed
his arms over his chest shivering.

"Let's go." Auriel grabbed his bare arm.

A rush of adrenaline coursed through his
body and Jacob tried to twist away. The extension of her white wing
swept him like a piece of dust to the floor. His hands caught his
fall, landing in the tacky half-dried blood of the humans who had
been there before him.