I inspected the results in the mirror. Not exactly a supermodel, but not too shabby. It gave me a bit more confidence at the thought of facing Stephen and this mystery woman.
Bishop would likely be mad that I’d decided to go to Crave again, but what choice did I have? I wanted answers and I’d been given the opportunity to get more than I already had. I couldn’t say no to that.
Carly picked me up right at eight o’clock, and she looked hot, too, in a red dress that hugged her curvy body. Ten minutes later, we arrived at Crave.
As we walked toward the club from the parking lot, I noticed a man sitting on the curb with a cardboard box in front of him and a sign asking for spare change. His face was dirty, his black hair matted and messy, and his beard wasn’t much better. His fingernails were caked with grime. He watched me through pale eyes as Carly and I moved past him, close enough to see a handful of coins in the box.
“Greetings on this lovely evening, young ladies,” he said.
I felt an immediate surge of empathy for the guy. Some of the people I’d come across during my brief impersonation of a street kid were down on their luck like this and looking for a break or a kind word. Both, if they could get it.
After fumbling in my purse for a five-dollar bill, I dropped it into the box. He smiled as he watched it flutter to the bottom.
“Thank you.” His teeth were whiter than I would have expected, given his otherwise unkempt appearance. “Beauty bright like the stars above, it shines in her eyes. Eyes that have seen too much—more than they should. But she’s lost and can’t find her way. Who to trust…who to trust?”
His ramblings made me think of Bishop and my heart clenched.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “Go to the mission on Peterson. They’ll give you a good meal and some help if you need it. Although, you probably already know that.” This guy had to have been on the streets for years by the looks of it.
He crossed his legs, squinting up at me. “So many speak with forked tongues. But the moon is high in the sky and it won’t be long at all until the tides rush in and sweep everything away. Beware, for the time grows closer with every night that passes.”
“Um, Sam?” Carly looked uncomfortable. She teetered on her treacherously high heels. “Let’s go somewhere a bit saner, shall we?”
“Yeah, okay.” I began to move past the man, but his hand shot out to grab my wrist.
Electricity zapped up my arm and, with a yelp, I yanked my hand away from him.
His eyes were wide. “I’ve waited, watched…so many years. And here you are. Finally. Like a beautiful star sent to save us all.”
Save everyone? At the moment, I could barely save myself.
Carly took hold of my arm and began dragging me after her toward the entrance. I stared over my shoulder at the crazy homeless man who’d touched me. That felt a lot like the same electricity as when I touched Bishop.
Who was he?
“Okay, that was creepy,” Carly said after we entered through the main doors to Crave.
“Yeah.” My throat suddenly hurt and I felt sick inside. I’d felt sympathy for a homeless man who rambled about lies and tides and stars.
Was he like Bishop—an angel who’d been damaged from entering Trinity? But touching me hadn’t cleared his mind. I’d seen in his eyes that he’d felt the shock, too, but he hadn’t started speaking coherently afterward.
It was nothing. Some static electricity and an overactive imagination, that was all.
“You okay?” Carly asked, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I cleared my throat and tried to compose myself. “Other than being eternally cold and hungry, I’m just fine.”
“Talk first. Eat second.”
I nodded. Last night with Stephen, I’d had a feeling I’d be seeing him again soon. I just hadn’t known how soon it would be.
Carly led the way up the spiral staircase to the second floor lounge, not missing a step. Of the two of us, only I seemed nervous about this. I wished when Stephen had kissed me that he’d given me a little of the confidence he seemed to have given my best friend.
I expected that Stephen would look at me with anger or distaste after his standoff with Bishop last night, but the moment he saw me enter the lounge all he did was smile.
Smile. At me. And it was as amazing a smile as I’d ever seen on his face. One that once would have made my heart flip. But my heart only seemed to do flips for one guy now—and it sure wasn’t Stephen.
Still, it didn’t exactly set me at ease. I’d been lured off the dance floor last Friday night by a smile just like that.
He glanced warmly at Carly as he approached us. “Thanks for handling this. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.” She actually gave him a hug before looking at me. “I’ll let you two talk.”
“No, wait a minute—” I began.
But she’d already wandered off to join a couple of other kids sitting on a long red couch to the left of the stairway.
Stephen’s gaze moved to me again and his grin finally slipped a little. He actually looked awkward all of a sudden. “I’m really sorry about last night, Samantha.”
My brows went up. “You’re sorry?”
“Yeah. I handled it very badly.”
“Do you mean before or after you sucked the soul out of my best friend?” My words were cold as ice.
“Soon you’ll realize that all of this is for the best,” he said. “But I understand why you’re upset. Like I said, I handled things badly. I try to be confident, always have, but despite my best efforts, sometimes I come off like I’m a total…”
“Dick?” I finished for him. “I’m just randomly picking words out of the air. Tell me if you think I’m close.”
Despite how blasé everyone was being about this life-changing experience, I harbored a high level of rage over what he’d done to both me and Carly. It would take a whole lot of convincing to make me see it any differently.
“Yeah.” A grin played at his lips. “I was a total, unforgivable dick to you. Carly let me know in no uncertain terms that my behavior Friday night was unacceptable. She’s very protective of you.”
“The feeling’s mutual.” I couldn’t keep looking at him—it was making me ill. “She said there was supposed to be someone else here tonight. Someone who might be more open with the truth than you’ve been. That’s the only reason I came back—because trust me, it wasn’t to see you again. When do I get to meet this person?”
“How about right now?” someone else said. There was a beautiful girl near the glass barrier overlooking the rest of the club, watching our uncomfortable exchange. She looked about the same age as Stephen, nineteen or so, and had dark hair and brown eyes.
If she was the one Bishop was looking for—the Source—she could be a demon who was able to devour souls. An anomaly, he’d said. One who was now able to create more who could do the same thing and had gotten Heaven’s and Hell’s attention in so big a way they’d slapped a quarantine over this entire city and sent a team of angels and demons to find her.
She approached and extended her hand to me. “Samantha Day. I’m very glad to finally meet you.”
I eyed her hand with trepidation, but made no move to shake it. I wasn’t feeling much like being polite tonight. “Who are you?”
“A friend.”
Terrific. Yet another person who liked to avoid direct questions. Finally, I forced myself to shake her hand. No spark, no electricity, nothing there but a normal handshake. I met her gaze, trying to at least appear to be brave right now. There was something about her eyes—she seemed kind of familiar to me.
With the way my week had been going, maybe I’d had a vision about her, too, and I just couldn’t remember it.
“Do I know you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “We’ve never met before. My name is Natalie.”
“So you’re the one with all the answers?”
“First, I wanted to apologize for how things h
ave gone so far. Stephen has been…” She glanced at Stephen, who stood next to Natalie with his arms crossed over his chest, looking more uncomfortable with every moment that passed. “Like you already said, a total dick.”
I stifled a nervous laugh at that before sobering immediately. A chill moved down my spine. “You were the one—the one who asked him to do that to me on Friday night, weren’t you?”
Natalie held my gaze. “Yes, I asked him to kiss you.”
Fear slithered through me, and I took an involuntary step back from her. At first glance, she looked so normal, so pretty…so harmless. But she wasn’t. “I—I don’t understand. Why me?”
She glanced around at the half dozen other kids up here, minding their own business. Except for Carly, who cast curious glances over her shoulder every few seconds.
“There was no other choice.”
“He stole my soul.” Anger bubbled up in my voice, even though I was trying very hard to remain calm.
She shook her head. “It might be hard for you to believe, but he actually set you free from it.”
“No, he took it without asking. That’s stealing. And now I’m cold and hungry all the time and I can’t get it back. Explain to me how that’s so damn freeing.”
She wasn’t giving me the same shiny “this is awesome, trust me!” look Stephen had given me last night. She observed my stress and anger and recognized it, rather than dismissing it. “Please hear me out, Samantha. That’s why I hoped Carly could convince you to come back, despite your previous problems with Stephen. This is difficult for you, I know that. And I completely understand why you’re so upset.” She nodded at a nearby table. “Let’s have a seat. Stephen, give us some privacy please.”
Stephen nodded and wandered off without any argument.
Another surprise. Before, I’d thought Stephen was the one in control here. Now I clearly saw that it was Natalie—a girl who looked like a pretty, dark-haired college student wearing a tight black dress and four-inch designer heels.
I’d give her a chance. One chance, that’s all.
I tried to summon up some of Carly’s newfound confidence and took a seat across from her.
“Ask me anything you want to know,” she said.
I exhaled shakily. “Why me? Why did you ask Stephen to kiss me on Friday night?”
She didn’t shift her attention away from me for a moment. “Because you’re special, Samantha.”
I made a sound then that sounded like half hiccup, half hysterical snort. “So I’ve been told this week. I don’t feel that special.”
“But you are.”
“Why? What makes me so special that I got tagged to become a gray?”
She looked at me with a sliver of amusement in her brown eyes. “A gray? Is that what they’ve termed it? How…dull. Literally.”
I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to say anything that might turn attention toward Bishop. “I don’t know.”
“You can’t feel how special you are? You can’t feel that you have something inside you that no one else here has? I knew it from the moment I first saw you here on Friday night. It’s what makes you stronger than all the others.”
I looked at her with shock. “Wait a minute. You saw me on Friday? Have you been watching me?”
“Take it as a compliment, Samantha, not something nefarious. I had to know for sure you were the right one. And you are.”
My head began to spin. More double-talk. “I just want my soul back. I don’t care about anything else.”
“You’d be wise to accept this and make the most of it. You have no idea how incredible this opportunity is for you.”
She actually didn’t sound cocky when she said it, like Stephen would have. She sounded sincere and matter-of-fact. So much so, I almost believed her.
Almost.
“Stephen told me about your friend Bishop,” Natalie continued. “What exactly does he want? Why is he here?”
I couldn’t tell if she was a demon. I didn’t get any sort of supernatural vibe off her at all at first glance—just like I couldn’t immediately tell with the others. I looked into her eyes and tried my best to focus, but didn’t sense anything. I couldn’t read her mind.
“Samantha,” Natalie prompted. “Please tell me what you know about him. He knows about us—about me—doesn’t he? He thinks I’m a threat.”
She knew quite a bit without me saying a word, which made me nervous. All she was looking for was confirmation and some extra details.
“He’s a friend of mine,” I finally said. “He saw Stephen manhandling me last night and came to my rescue.”
“Your knight in shining armor.”
“Something like that.”
“You don’t know who to trust, do you? Him or us?” She gave me a look of concern. “I didn’t realize how hard this would be for you. So much has been presented to you in only a few days and you’re so young. You’re still just a kid.”
Stephen had called me a kid, too. The word seemed insultingly dismissive. I didn’t feel like a kid after everything I’d been through.
“I trust Bishop.”
She shook her head. “If you did, you wouldn’t have come here again tonight seeking more answers—answers he’s unable or unwilling to give you. But that’s smart, Samantha. You shouldn’t trust anyone but yourself. Your heart and your gut. They won’t lie to you.”
“I agree.”
“What does your gut tell you about me now that we’ve met?”
I studied her, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to remain calm and controlled. “I don’t know yet. You tell me I’m special, but you want me to take that at face value. I have nothing but words right now, no hard proof.”
“Words can be both powerful and dangerous. Not as dangerous as a golden dagger, though, are they?”
“Depends on the words, I guess.” I chewed my bottom lip, tasting my lip gloss I’d applied earlier. “I want my soul back, Natalie—and Carly’s, too. It’s all I want.”
“Can I tell you the truth about a human soul, Samantha? Will you listen to me before you make any firm judgments about me—about all of this?”
I studied her, trying to see if she was mocking me or humoring me. She seemed sincere, but I wasn’t sure. Finally, I nodded. I’d hear her out.
“A soul exists inside a human while they live out their allotted years of life,” she began. “When they die, that soul is judged and sent to either Heaven or Hell.”
My throat felt tight. “I already know this.”
“What you might not know is that a soul, at its very essence, is not actually the spark of humanity. Not the essence of a human’s life. Not something immortal that is either rewarded or punished upon death. Not completely, anyway.”
I frowned. “What is it, then?”
“At its base level, a soul is the fuel that powers Heaven and Hell and helps them keep their universal balance. Without a steady stream of human souls, both would soon wither and die. Humans wonder why it seems as if they’re always left to their own devices—war, famine, destruction, sickness—and no omnipotent supernatural being steps in to help save humans from their own poor decisions and bad luck. The answer to that is simple. It’s not human lives that keep Heaven and Hell in existence, but human deaths. Death frees the soul to be sent to one of these places to keep the balance of the universe.”
What a horrible idea—a soul as nothing more than fuel. I felt sick with every word she spoke.
“You’re lying,” I said shakily. I bit my tongue to keep from saying anything that might show how freaked out I was getting.
Natalie’s expression was tense, serious, but then a smile spread across her face, which helped her look much less grim, given the subject matter. “I know it’s a lot to accept. And I am simplifying it a lot. But the bottom line is, without your soul, you’re no longer just an energy source required by Heaven or Hell. For the first time in your life, you’re free from those chains.”
My
stomach twisted. I didn’t like what I was hearing at all, but I wanted to learn more. I’d sift through it to see if there was any truth that could help me.
I wrung my hands together on my lap. My palms felt damp with sweat. “How did you learn all of this?”