Soul Intentions
Michael Cantwell
Soul Intentions is fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 Michael O' Lone Cantwell
KSM Publishing
michaelcantwellbooks.com
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 10: 0615725740
ISBN-13: 978-0615725741
DEDICATION
This is dedicated to everyone who has read my stories. Thank you. I am humbled. I would also like to give special thanks to all of you, who inspire me to create characters and continue to write stories.
For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul?
Jesus Christ
more titles
A Beautiful Song
Three Long Days
Soul Directive
Fortunate Soul
Presidential Shadows
Presidential Whispers
Presidential Blues
True Justice
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ChAPTER One
The granite steps were damp and cold from the drizzling rain falling on an early British afternoon. The time had come for me to return what was never mine. My subject sat with his hands covering his face, his shirt torn at the sleeve, his breaking point near. I cautiously sat on the same steps to his right knowing the time was now or never. It took nearly five minutes before Dylan James reacted to my presence.
“Your face seems familiar to me," he said. "People assume because I meet hundreds from around the world and I'm generally surrounded by bright lights and cameras, I wouldn't notice when someone is following me. I do. Who are you? Are you a fan looking for an autograph? Or do you want to sit here and pity me like so many others do now?”
“It is not important for you to know who I am, but only that you focus on what you believe is lost in your life. If you don’t, it will be impossible for me to give you back what you seek.”
My subject had been without his soul far too long. I do not know for sure what it must feel like to lose something so valuable, yet in watching my human targets struggle without them for several decades, it is not a feeling I want to know firsthand.
His tired face and frail body slumped even more at the shoulders. However, for the first time in months, I knew he was ready for me to restore his soul. He stared down into the cold grey steps where we were sitting.
“I know I'm lost," the rock and roll legend said. "My wife left me far too young. My ability to do the only thing in life I have ever loved was destroyed, yet you sit here, a total stranger and I feel like you know all this without me telling you, and I don’t know why. Did you do this to me? Did you take my most precious of gifts from me? If you are the one who is punishing me, please stop. My daughters need me. My band needs me. I need me. Please, I know you've been following me for several months and I don’t know why. But if you can help me, I beg you to release me from my misery!”
Maybe I did pity him to some degree. Here was someone who had everything most humans seek, yet because of one mishap in his life, he threw it all away.
“You did this to yourself fool, but I will try to repair the damage you have done. However, I cannot repair what is broken until you open your mind and body. Allow yourself to understand what it is you have lost. It is imperative you admit to yourself what you have done to your life."
Dylan frowned. I could tell he was still a non-believer, but I continued.
"Stop blaming your ills on everyone else and admit you are the one responsible, not me, not your family, and not your band mates. It will be in a single moment, a simple frame in your life, where I can offer back what was stolen from you because you stopped appreciating all which was given to you.”
He lifted his head. Our eyes met. I focused on his face and hit the shutter release. Mission complete. I noticed one small tear leaking from the corner of his left eye as he asked, “How long was I without it?”
The Council forbid me to be doing any of this, but I felt obligated to tell him. It seemed I had broken so many ancient laws already, what was one more? Choking back my own emotions, I could only respond, “Longer than I had anticipated, but let us both take comfort in knowing you are whole again.” After delivering my final remark, I could only hope he had found his long lost hopes and dreams and my Elders would not send me back on another mission to again steal what I had just returned.
Myself, I felt drained of life, yet somehow relieved. My subject was given a reprieve, something I had never before attempted. My body reacted in the opposite way to what it felt when I stole all the souls in my past. To return one was new to me, and expressly forbidden by the laws of our High Council.
A young woman, who recognized my subject, now sat to his left. She spoke to both of us, but with my senses dulled, I could barely speak. I was not sure I could stand and walk away, but I knew I had to try. My legs wobbled as I hobbled down the many steps of The Royal Albert Hall. For a few moments, I was not sure I would survive my last snap of the camera shutter. It was not until a tall stranger, clean-shaven and pale skinned with long flowing white hair, whispered for me to lean on him. When I did, instantly my abilities to function became normal.
Some cultures believe someone can steal your soul if you take their photograph or they see themselves in a mirror. Others believe you can lose part of your soul with the click of a shutter release and still others have no desire to seek the truth. Those who believe that such a force exists know the truth. How can I be so certain in my words?
I am one of the few remaining, who roam this earth, and are responsible for collecting broken souls. They are the damaged souls, ones in which my Elders have deemed far too ruined to deserve to remain within their earthly bodies. However, the time had come when my Elders had lost their way for not hearing my pleas. Anytime I talked of exploring it my way, I was branded a heretic and shame was brought to my family name.
“Caeles our mission is clear and concise, the longer you deny our truths the more you damage all of our kind,” I would hear from the leader of the High Council on a regular basis.
In Latin, they call it “anima furtim,” to steal one’s soul. However, over time I began to develop my own plan, my own system. Unfortunately, my first attempt made me weak and disoriented. The system needed work before I would try again. Despite my Elders objections and threats, there will be a next time.
Many of my superiors had lost faith in my judgments. I was now being tracked in the same manner I would track my own subjects. Once word spread I had returned a soul, the Elders were furious with me. What else was new? I had again over stepped my limits and used my powers with little regard for our laws. The Elders were furious that I restored a soul years after I had stolen it from the original owner.
“We ordered you before our Council yet again because our powers are to take, never to return," Elder Orcus said with a puffy red face. "Our mission is not to offer hope to the hopeless or restore what has been deemed forever broken. These people we send to you as subjects, they don't deserve to keep their most precious of all gifts and you know this Caeles. You've been taught this since you could barely read and write, yet you insist on disobeying us, even with our most sacred law! Have you nothing to say to defend your actions?”
What could I say? It was true in all my years of reading the ancient scrolls, nowhere did it read where our kind could or should restore souls our kind had already stolen. Our mission on earth has always been to steal from humans, who no longer appreciated their blessings on earth.
Yet as I stood before the six dying men, who com
prised our highest Council, the Elders who would decide my fate, I felt confused. I recognized our powers grew stronger the more we stole. This was not my opinion or a lesson taught to me. It was physical. I could feel all my senses explode with energy every time I ripped a soul from my intended target.
I could feel it when others of our kind stole as well. I knew it was very important for our own survival to continue to steal. However, after I restored my first soul, and discovered respite on another’s shoulder, I felt a moment of peace in my own soul, never realized in my past.
“No, Elder Orcus, I cannot defend my actions before the High Council," I said staring at all six men on the dais. "I only beg that before you hand down your ruling you seek to understand the power of healing can be a powerful source of energy, possibly more than destruction.”
"Damn you Caeles. Have you not listened to a word I've told you today, or the last time you stood before this Council? We've shown you mercy in the past, yet you continue to develop powers not permitted by our laws. Do you not realize I have the power to destroy your soul as you stand in front of me?"
My powers grew stronger each day. I peered at the three hundred year old men deciding my fate. Any one of them could have removed my soul with a flick of a finger. However, I refused to believe that I had to answer to any one of them for my actions.
“Caeles, I can see into your soul as I can anyone else’s here on earth," Orcus said. "I see confusion and murkiness that was not there the last time you stood before this Council. Our entire survival depends on thieves like you to be strong and vigilant. As you are aware, our numbers have diminished in recent years. We once numbered in the thousands across the globe with the power to steal. Now we are but a small number who still possess the sacred power granted centuries ago."
I stood defiantly listening as he rambled.
"If you insist on returning souls, I don’t know what will become of our kind. You must know all of us felt the same weakness when you restored that pitiful man’s soul. That includes your own family. This Council cannot and will not tolerate your reckless behavior in restoring what is broken and jeopardizing our people’s existence here on earth. Rules have been in place for centuries and will exist long after your time on earth has expired.”
As Charon Orcus, the highest of our Elders, sat staring down at me with his piercing black eyes and long grey hair, again scolding me for my actions, I knew I was at a point of no return. My previous penalty for disobedience disallowed me stealing souls for a year. That might seem like a holiday for many, but for every year we cannot steal, we lose years from our time here on earth.
Our powers thrive from thieving. He understood by denying me the right to steal, it not only weakened my body, but also disoriented my mind to the point of permanent dementia. However, the longer he kept me from thievery, the longer there was one less on earth collecting broken souls. We cannot survive as a species without collecting and feeding off broken souls.
Orcus conferred with the others, before announcing, “This Council will no longer tolerate you developing new powers. Do not dare to believe that your newfound skills can save you should you attempt your foolishness again. I can assure you the Council of Elders will have no mercy on you. Your punishment will be harsh, swift, but just. You cannot continue to behave so poorly by ignoring our decrees and customs. Should you break any law or attempt to take another soul before my ruling; your fate will be death. Now retire to your home and await your punishment.”
With his decree, I knew of only three words, which would allow me to leave with my soul and possibly my life, “Yes, Elder Orcus.”
The Council placed themselves with a difficult decision. Remove me from the ranks of the few remaining soul stealers and slowly watch our kind suffer, or go beyond their archaic beliefs and listen to my plea that healing souls can nourish us as well. I held out little optimism they would hear my plea.
CHAPTER Two