He should leave, not continue his downward slide into the ravine, toward the wounded mortals, but he wanted… what? A bird’s-eye view of a different kind of death than the sort he dealt in? He had been the cause of it often enough to know with unfailing accuracy how those final living moments would play out.
He leaped the last several feet to the bottom and sucked in a reverent breath at the sight before him. A wavering aura bathed his bleak surroundings in sunset colors.
Homesickness speared through his chest.
Aeristitia.
Except that in Heaven’s first city, this sight would go unnoticed. When standing on streets constructed from flawless clouds set in gilded skies, even the shimmer of rainbow souls paled in comparison to their surroundings. Streets cobbled with golden pavers, houses erected of snowy marble, even the trees were frozen in eternal bloom. Aeristitia was called Paradise for a reason.
Nathaniel’s new existence was monochromatic by comparison. Here on Earth, everything seemed muted, darker, and hungrier. He’d grown used to it, though, and learned to thrive amid the mortal chaos. What that said about him, he didn’t want to know. What he did know was that he hadn’t seen anything so beautiful in an achingly long time.
Circling the van, he found the aura’s source lying in an ever-widening puddle of her own blood. The nape of his neck prickled and he returned his gaze skyward. He couldn’t be caught here. The loss of his shears would cripple him. Assuming his shears were all Delphi took from him. His life, well… he wasn’t worth much without those shears.
As he turned on his heel to go, the woman’s pained whimper froze him in place.
“Please… help.” Her chest rattled when she spoke.
Those two words shattered something in his chest. How easily he’d dismissed his mark’s pleas, but hers sank hooks into his heart and tugged. He glanced over his shoulder and found he couldn’t look away a second time. Approaching her with caution, Nathaniel gave himself time to reconsider. Dropping to his haunches, he stared at her aura’s unfamiliar spectrum. His job meant dealing with only the foulest offerings of mankind. Her purity of spirit humbled him.
The woman’s eyes blinked open. Her irises were the color of dark chocolate. “You’re… an angel?”
“Afraid not.” He hadn’t been one in too many of man’s ages to count.
She stared at him while disbelief furrowed her brow. His aura held golden traces of his prior calling, invisible to all but his kin and the dying.
He grimaced while she continued to appraise him with a mixture of hope and doubt.
The sharp burn of old shame made him reluctant to admit he’d once been the very being she called him, even if it might have comforted her. Better for them both if she spared her strength and her questions.
She reached for his knee. “Stay.” Her lips moved without making a sound before slacking as her eyes rolled back in her head.
He cupped her mouth with his palm, but no air stirred. As he searched for a pulse, her heartbeat vanished beneath his fingertips. A hard shudder racked her body, lolling her head and turning her face into his palm.
He caressed the frigid softness of her cheek, then removed the silver pendant from around his neck and deposited it into his pocket. His flesh dissolved into the fractured light of his spiritual form.
Reaching out a tentative hand, he caressed her soul, and its silken texture glided through his fingers. At his touch, her aura flickered, struggling in his grasp, trying to escape him. His fingers tightened and her light dimmed.
Intrigued by the odd behavior, he released his hold and its brilliance flared. He closed his hand around the column of spectral radiance and once again it dulled, writhing to be freed.
How could she have gone through life with such a vibrant soul and yet meet her end without a loving tie to another living person? He dealt with a lot of untethered souls, and hers was undeniably one of them. Even as feisty as her spirit seemed, the journey to Aeristitia was a long and merciless trek if made without a guide, and none seemed forthcoming.
His thumb stroked her soul until it grew complacent.
The bond of affection so many took for granted suffused their souls with a lustrous shine, and that light acted as a beacon to capture the attention of Heaven. Hers was resplendent, and it pained him to know there would be no warm welcome for her. No glowing acceptance or reunions with loved ones already passed. The best she could hope for was belated acceptance before the fabric of her being dissolved into the atmosphere of the holy city, or she was left alone to wander the Earth until it too ceased to exist.
Her soul—a vibrant and tangible reminder of her death—wilted in his hand. He searched the skies again and found them clear.
Panic stripped him of all logical thoughts. Urgency pounded in his heart as adrenaline spiked in his veins. If he didn’t act now, her soul would be lost. His angelic kin wouldn’t
dream
of overstepping their bounds. No, this line was his to cross.
He clenched his jaw. “Damn me for a fool,” he muttered. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Gently, he coaxed her soul back down into the pain of her twisted shell and whispered promises of atonement. Crimson flecks speckled her cheeks while everything below her neck was saturated with blood. He peeled aside her sweater’s collar, exposing her left breast. A cylindrical pipe, no thicker than his thumb, speared through her chest.
A twist of his wrist freed the metal with a suctioned pop. He tossed it among the wreckage of fiberglass and steel littering this winter wasteland.
He could use his talent to spare her. He was the Weaver of Souls. He could be this woman’s savior. One time he could thwart his own nature and grant this single exception to Delphi’s rules.
While he lacked the innate healing ability of his angelic kin, he could manipulate her soul. It could be bound within her body, for a short while, and her healing could be left to other mortals.
His nose burned with the pungent stink of Dis, a sulfuric reminder of what eternity held for him if he got caught. Well, he reasoned, better damnation for a selfless act than his current state of purgatory for a lapse in judgment.
Nathaniel gritted his teeth and sank his fingers to the knuckle inside his insubstantial chest with agonizing precision. He gasped through the startling pain of it.
When his victims begged for mercy, he ignored them, always. Now the horrible pain shredding his soul had a plea perched on the tip of his tongue.
He swallowed the words, knowing anyone who answered his cry would drag him before Delphi for sentencing. He couldn’t let that happen.
Souls don’t rend, as a rule, and his was no exception. If he’d thought his shriveled soul would abandon him on principle, he’d been wrong. Damaged as his spirit was, it strived to remain whole. He resorted to freeing the shears at his hip and snipping a section free.
His frantic heart pounded as his vision wavered and his sight dimmed. Unimaginable pain ripped a stark growl from his throat. While panting through a moment’s break, he was struck by how much more like burlap his own essence seemed. How coarse and threadbare it shined in his hand.
Nathaniel laid the burned golden patch of his soul against the hole left from her impalement, then withdrew a hooked needle and threaded it from the copper spool in his pocket.
A few precious minutes were all she needed. If he trapped her soul in her body, mortals would come and resuscitation could begin.
His quick stitches secured her buoyant spirit. Even if it wanted to, it couldn’t wander away now.
Searching the clouds one last time, he noted her escorts still hadn’t arrived and their absence was telling. It proved she would have died alone and been lost. Now he hoped she would remedy her situation, reach out and forge ties of friendship… bonds of love.
Cries from a pair of motorists overhead drew his attention toward the forgotten guardrail and roadway beyond. In the distance, sirens wailed and horns blared.
His fingertips brushed the woman’s pale lips and they parted, exhaling warm breath across his palm. “Make better use of your time,
meira
. No one can know when it will end.”
His skin prickled with awareness as he sensed the belated approach of his angelic kin. He spared a glance at the forgotten truck. Waves of blue-green rippled around the cab. Despite the truck driver’s hand in this tragedy, his soul held a brilliant gleam. It was his light calling attention to their location, which meant Nathaniel’s time had run out.
They would overlook her soul in its untethered state and therefore his handiwork as well.
After all, choosing to spare a soul required independent thought. Not an angel’s strong suit.
He stood drunkenly and gasped through sharp pangs in his chest as his wound cauterized. Palming the shears, he slid his fingers into the familiar handles.
He lowered his gaze to the woman and felt a sharp stab of regret that he couldn’t lift her up and carry her with him, to heal her fully and make her realize her mistake. Laughter bubbled in his chest, a rough and bitter sound.
Humans weren’t meant for keeping. For culling and cultivating, yes. But to covet or care for one particular person… no reward could be worth that risk.
His shears opened wide, sinking their razor teeth into the air and biting down to slice open a rift. He stepped through the portal and straight into the void.
Glittery dust motes coalesced above Chloe in a darting swarm of fractured light. Gold spots swarmed her vision. Pain seared her chest as the dots gathered and crushed downward with brutal force.
She lashed out, stirring the air with flailing hands and displacing the solidifying mass. Faster and faster the glitter swirled, taking on a masculine form.
His hard eyes bored into hers. His full lips curled with disgust.
Her reality slipped as she found herself drawn into the hateful gaze of the insubstantial man looming over her. She reached out to touch him, and his cold eyes narrowed to thin slits. Glaring at her outstretched hand, the terrible pressure he exuded lessened.
Her skin met his… and passed through. He chuckled darkly and reapplied his bruising strength to the valley between her breasts. He was killing her, and she would die staring at the twisted smile on his face.
His deep voice rolled through her head.
“You’ve taken an innocent life.”
“No.” She planted her palms where his chest should be, but they met with open air. “Please don’t do this.”
She begged for mercy he never granted. Her pulse roared in her ears. Her limbs grew too heavy to lift. His hand plunged inside her chest and she screamed….
Chloe jackknifed off the couch and hit the floor. The book she’d fallen asleep reading thumped onto the carpet beside her. She lifted a hand to her burning throat and licked her cracked lips.
A dream. He was only a dream. One that ten months of therapy hadn’t been able to erase. No matter what she tried, he kept coming back.
She trailed her fingers down her neck, past her collarbone, and into the loose top of her nightgown. Tracing the circular scar over her heart, she smoothed the puckered outline from where the pipe had punctured her.
I’m lucky to be alive
, she reminded herself. The other driver hadn’t been so fortunate.
She glanced around. Everything was as it should be.
Her book lay open-faced on the carpet. She picked up the paperback and lovingly smoothed the pages before placing it on her coffee table. Her night-light flickered and died as the rising sun bathed the room in a golden glow. The television blared infomercials, but she had no neighbors to care. She had no one at all really.
Chloe hadn’t always been so alone. The nightmares just made it seem that way. She remembered a time when this apartment had hosted family dinners. When Dad could always be found reading by the fireplace before bed while Mom worked on her latest quilting project in her craft room. They had both passed on now, and their absence left her locked in familiar patterns and surroundings.
When her breaths came easier and her pulse became less frantic, she rose from the floor and headed for the bathroom.
She curled her toes as her bare feet crossed from the plush carpet to chill tile. Gooseflesh dotted her arms, but she couldn’t blame the cold for those.
Her medicine cabinet held a cheery assortment of prescription drug bottles. Her fingertip skipped along the white caps until she found the one she needed and dumped a half dose into her palm.
Her eyes closed as she swallowed the pill dry, her nose wrinkling at the bitter taste, but already she imagined her hands steadier.
She would get used to the lower dosage. The key was consistency. Weaning herself from the pharmaceutical crutch wouldn’t be easy, she knew, but she refused to be medicated for the rest of her life. She’d witnessed Mom’s decline after Dad’s death and had no desire to follow in her footsteps.
With some fortification from her pills, Chloe shrugged off the past eight hours. Once she was dressed in a crisp button-down shirt and khakis, she headed downstairs to open her store.
Bookcases loomed in shadow as soft morning light crept through the windows. She inhaled the welcome scent of old books on her way to the front door and frowned as a long silhouette slanted across the small outside porch.
Early-bird customers were a rarity she didn’t mind. Hers must be the only bookstore left that sold more books than coffee, and she planned to keep it that way. She flipped the sign and the lock. An expectant face stared back at her through the glass panel.
Oh, snap.
She’d forgotten she had an interview scheduled for today. Chloe’s hand froze on the doorknob as she made eye contact with the woman. Her interviewee was here. She couldn’t turn back now.
When her parents had been alive, the three of them ran McCrea Books together. Now Chloe was the lone employee, and it was past time to lighten her burden.
The store could support another worker comfortably, but the idea of replacing her parents hadn’t appealed to her. It still didn’t, actually. For three generations, McCrea Books had employed only McCreas. Now the paycheck she endorsed would go to someone who wasn’t a blood relative.