Rules Of Darkness Read online

  He smiled. “Your heart is very open at the moment,” he whispered. He cupped my chin and placed a searing kiss on my lips. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a grandchild to bring back for my parents?”

  The thought terrified me beyond words. I imagined a little girl with Stoyan’s hair and my gifts, her life forever in danger from ghosts and demons and—

  I wiggled out from under Stoyan. “No, no children.”

  “Katia, she would have a protector. It is something that comes with the gift. It will be predestined. Her protector will be the love of her life.”

  I jumped out of the bed and went to my dresser. “No, there are too few protectors left in the world.”

  Shit. I was stupid to think this would work out. Worse, we’d just had sex—without protection. I could already be pregnant.

  Pulling out my pj’s, I threw them on, never once glancing at Stoyan.

  “Wait, Katia. We need to talk.” Stoyan said, climbing out of bed and going to his suitcase.

  I could hear Charlie whining at the back door. Grateful for an excuse, I rushed from the bedroom.

  “Stop, Katia!” I heard Stoyan holler.

  “I’m just letting Charlie in,” I responded as I exited the hall.

  I came to an abrupt halt.

  Red.

  My walls had the words ‘Find Angel’ all over them, written in bright red.

  “Katia!”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Stoyan bolt out the bedroom and run toward me.

  Charlie’s ferocious barking filled my ears.

  I swung back around and found myself staring into black eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

  Chapter Eleven

  With one touch, I knew his whole life. Now I was to witness his death.

  I watched the ten year-old little girl washing dishes. Angel was daydreaming of better days, dreaming of the times her brother spoke of, when he would be sixteen and they would run away from home. Then, Jacob could quit school and be able to get a job to support them both.

  But Jacob had just turned fifteen. They still had a whole year to go.

  The soapy glass slid out of her hand, bounced on the edge of the counter, hit the dirty floor and shattered. She held her breath, hoping the incident went unheard.

  Fear filled her eyes as the stomping, booted feet entered the kitchen.

  “Stupid, fucking kid,” her drunken father roared, flinging little Angel into the kitchen table.

  Jacob ran in. “I got it, dad. I’ll clean it up,” he said, collecting the broom and dustpan from the corner.

  “Fucking kids! Useless. The both of you.”

  Angel whimpered. She was trying to remove the chunk of glass from her leg. It hurt and was bleeding everywhere.

  This enraged the drunken father. He didn’t like crying. It showed weakness. And he wasn’t going to raise wussy kids.

  Grabbing her by the hair, he dragged Angel across the glass-strewn floor. “Stop being a fucking baby,” he raged. “It only hurts if you let it.”

  Jacob jumped on his arm. “Stop dad! She’s wearing shorts, you’re cutting her more.”

  The father pushed Jacob off, sending him careening into the counter.

  “Then she won’t wear shorts again, will she?” he bellowed above Angel’s screaming, still sliding the child around.

  Jacob was on his feet and back at his father, pounding at the large man with his fists. “Let her go!”

  Angel was momentarily forgotten.

  I closed my eyes, I couldn’t watch.

  The sounds were bad enough.

  * * * *

  “You can open your eyes,” Jacob said quietly.

  I did so slowly, expecting to see the worse. Thankfully, we were no longer at his house. Jacob looked normal again. No more fangs or ink black eyes.

  We were on my back patio. Behind us was Charlie, standing on his hind legs with his paws on the door, his mouth opened in mid-bark. Charlie was moving so slowly, he might as well have been suspended in time.

  Looking though the clear plastic that covered the small windows of the French doors, I saw my body trapped in a seemingly perpetual, but definitely gradual fall.

  Shit.

  When my body hit the floor, I would probably be dead.

  It takes only a few seconds for the body to shut down when there is no life force present in it. Then I, my spirit self, standing on the patio now, would disappear, my soul lost forever.

  If it wasn’t for the kid’s intense power that allowed him to speed up time on his plane of existence, I’d probably already be gone. It was weird to be ten seconds from death on one plane of existence, and ten minutes from death on another.

  Stuck also in this near frozen world was Stoyan, his arm flung out as if to pull me back. I was just out of his reach, his fingers only inches away.

  My dear Stoyan… I would never see him again.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted to sit on that deck and bawl my eyes out… for Jacob and his loss… and for my own. I wanted to scream about the injustice of it all. I wanted to rage at the universe, at God, at everything.

  But I didn’t. It would have been a waste of what little time I had left.

  “I can’t find my sister. Can you help me?” Jacob asked.

  I exhaled a heavy breath. “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  I pointed to my body inside the kitchen. “You took my soul.”

  The kid looked down and wrinkled his brow.

  “I’m dying. Once I do, I will disappear.”

  “To where?” he asked.

  “Nowhere.”

  “You won’t go to heaven?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “There is no one around to lead me there,” I replied.

  “Why do you need someone to lead you?”

  How could I explain such complicated matters to a child? And should I bother?

  Fuck it, why not? It seemed I had nothing but time at the moment.

  “When you are dying, your soul sends out a kind of cosmic call saying, ‘come get me’. If you are meant to go to heaven, someone from there will come to collect you. Usually, it’s a dead relative or an angel. If you are going to hell, a demon will come. If you are going someplace else or being reincarnated, some other being will come collect you and lead you to where you need to be.”

  “No one came to get me. My mom died when Angel was born.”

  My life was like a broken record—his mother, my mother, my mother’s mother. “I know. I saw that when you touched me. I’m sorry.”

  Though he tried to keep a brave face, I could see the worry in his eyes.

  “Why didn’t my mom come? Or an angel?”

  “Sometimes the call is delayed because of a deed undone, or an issue unresolved. Once you’ve found your sister, your soul will send the call out and you’ll move on.”

  His relief was evident.

  “Why is it different for you?” he asked.

  “Normally, you have to be dying for the call to go out. You took my soul before I was dying.”

  “Why won’t the call sound later for you like it will for me?”

  “There is no need for a call to go out. My soul has been collected.”

  “By who?”

  “By you.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Yeah, I knew how he felt. I sat down on my patio chair, trying to remember the way my grandma explained it to me when I was young.

  “Usually, a soul is attached to a body. The soul cannot leave the body unless the body is dying. When the body is dying, the soul sends out a call. This call is not like an intercom call going out everywhere to everyone; it is more like a telephone call. This cosmic call goes to the specific being in charge of collecting your soul.”

  I stopped my explanation and made a sign toward the other chair. Jacob sat down in it.

  “When the call is received, that specific being comes and leads the soul away. This all happens in the matter of secon
ds. By the time the body is actually dead, the soul is already where it needs to be. Are you still with me?”

  The kid nodded.

  “I’m different because my soul is free. My soul can leave my body without me being in the throes of death. Because you are a spirit, you are technically a soul collector. You touched me and collected my soul. But since I wasn’t dying when you touched me, my soul never sent out the call to the being that would have normally collected my soul. So you still have possession of my soul. Do you follow?”

  He nodded again.

  I don’t think Jacob really understood what I was saying. I mean, I had just told a fifteen year-old kid that he had possession of my soul, and he nodded like it was no big deal.

  I pressed on, “Now, the difference between you and me is this: You fall under a cosmic loop hole. You were dying, but your soul did not send out a call, so it was not collected. So it went into the spirit world. However, your soul is still unbound—not collected. When it finds peace, it will send out a call and you will be collected and led to wherever. However, I was not dying. My soul did not send out a call. But my soul was still collected—by you. Soul collectors only have limited time to lead the soul to where it needs to be and drop it off.”

  “How much time is that?” Jacob asked

  “The amount of time between dying and actual death…or the amount of time between soul collection and the body’s death. Even if the body is healthy, without the soul in it, the body dies. The soul can live without a body, but a body cannot live without a soul.”

  “So what’s going to happen to you?”

  Just as I witnessed your death, you will witness mine. “As my body dies, my soul will be lost and fade away into nothing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have collected my soul, led me through your life, and then dropped me here on my back porch. But my back porch is not a place that holds souls. Heaven, hell, living bodies, these are soul receptacles. If my body dies, and you have not dropped me off to a place that holds souls, then my soul will be taken away from you. The universe will absorb my soul into itself and I will cease to exist.”

  I saw the realization dawn in his eyes.

  Jacob shot up from the chair. “I didn’t know you would die if I touched you. I only wanted your help. You were the only person that could see me and I just want to find my sister and you wouldn’t help me. So I found a way in—”

  “I know, Jacob. It’s okay. I don’t blame you for anything.”

  He paced the patio, still clearly agitated by the situation he had inadvertently put me in.

  I suddenly felt horrible. It wasn’t my intention to make him feel guilty.

  Having been a witness to his life, I knew Jacob really wasn’t a bad kid. When he was alive, his peers were wary of him. He was quick to anger, picked fights, seemed fearless. But what no one realized was that he actually had a soft heart, one that made him want to protect those weaker than him, like his sister. No one ever noticed that he only picked fights with bullies, usually to stop them from tormenting some other poor kid.

  Jacob never preyed on those weaker than him. He didn’t believe in that. That was what his father did. And he didn’t want to be like his father.

  He loved animals, and he loved his mother very much. He kept a picture of her hidden in his room. When he was alone, he would pull it out and talk to her.

  I shrugged and forced a smile. “Look, Jacob. It’s fine. I’ll be okay, really. Being absorbed into the universe is not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, I’m kind of excited about embarking on a new adventure.”

  Okay, it was a cheesy lie. And the skeptical look he gave me said he knew I was full of shit.

  The kid went back to the patio door and gazed longingly inside. “I’m really sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. Even when I did all those things with your car and the dog, it was on accident. It was weird, I would think something and it would happen, even if I didn’t mean for it to, but was just thinking it because I was mad that you wouldn’t help me. And then that guy kept sending me away.”

  “Stoyan. My husband.”

  “He can see me?”

  “Um… I don’t think so. Not the way I can. I think he sees your presence. I think he sees you like a blob of light, or a white shapeless cloud or something. I’m not sure.”

  Funny. Stoyan never did discuss the situation about the kid with me. I guess with everything else going on, we just never got around to talking about it.

  Jacob turned back, his eyes wide. “Hey! Can I lead you to heaven?”

  Poor kid, he sounded so hopeful.

  I pretended to consider the possibility. I shrugged. “Do you know how to get there?”

  His face fell. “No.”

  “It’s okay. But thanks for thinking of me.”

  His face brightened again. “You said that your soul could go into a living body? Your body is still alive, right? Can I take you back to your body?”

  It was a feasible idea, but…

  “We can’t get into the house. The doors are locked.”

  Jacob actually beamed with pride. “I can walk through doors now. That’s how I got in earlier.”

  I had to smile. Yes, even on verge on death and nonexistence, I was actually having a good time talking to the kid.

  “And do you remember how hard that was? How much power and concentration it took for you to go through the door?”

  He nodded.

  “Now imagine double the effort. You would have to drag me with you.”

  “Why can’t you go through the door yourself?” he asked.

  “I have no power in this state. I’m attached to you, sharing your plane of existence.”

  “Why are the doors so hard to go through?”

  “By nature, locked doors have magical properties. Spirits usually can’t pass through them, hence the reason they feel compelled to knock. Once in a while, a spirit will have enough power to pass through a locked door, but that’s very rare.”

  “Why can’t we go through windows? Or break down walls and go in that way?”

  “Because that is not what windows and walls are made for. Spirits have to follow different rules than they did in life. If the spirit has the power to do so, it may destroy anything it is inclined to, like you did with my SUV. But spirits still cannot enter a place unless through a door.”

  Jacob got all excited. “I think I can break down the door. I almost did the last times I tried. I should have enough power to do that.”

  He turned, picked up Charlie and propped him against the patio railing. Returning to the door, he stood in front of it, focusing hard.

  I leaned back in my chair and watched, trying not to get my hopes up, telling myself that it didn’t matter one way or another if the kid was successful.

  Three unseen knocks echoed off the door.

  The blows against the wood sounded normal here, nothing like the resonant booming that emerged in the physical world.

  Thump, thump, thump.

  Strange the way things are perceived when experiencing it from another plane of existence. It was as if sight and sound became distorted when it crossed over dimensional boundaries.

  “Jacob, when we first met, I spoke to you. Could you hear me?”

  Thump, thump, thump.

  “It was muffled, like I had earplugs in. You said you couldn’t help me.”

  “Just wondering. You know, I can’t hear you.”

  Thump, thump, thump.

  “I figured that out. Sorry I wrote all over your walls. I didn’t know how else to ask for your help.”

  “No problem. It’s only paint, right?” Please let it have been red paint.

  “Yeah. If I get you back to your body, will you try to help me find my sister?”

  “Of course.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  My answer must have excited him. The knocking became faster in succession.

  …thump, thump, thump…
/>   …thump, thump, thump…

  My heart leapt with joy when the door started giving way under Jacob’s incessant beating. This plan might actually work.

  …thump, thump, thump…

  …thump, thump, thump…

  The door’s hinges were loosening.

  Suddenly, a strange sensation filled me. I looked down, only to see that my legs had turned translucent. I could see the chair beneath my lap.

  Fuck! I was starting to fade. We were running out of time.

  “Jacob! Hurry!”

  He looked over his shoulder, his eyes going wide with fear. “I’m trying! Don’t go! I’m almost through!”

  …thump, thump, thump…

  …thump, thump, thump…

  Don’t go? What did the kid want me to do? I couldn’t stop something like this.

  …thump, thump, thump…

  There was a flash of light.

  Stoyan stood beside me.

  He grabbed my arm.

  Chapter Twelve

  I was yanked up before I hit the floor.

  A loud crack reverberated through the roaring wind and whirling debris.

  Stoyan pulled me against his chest and covered my head with his hand. He chanted foreign words in rhythmic commands

  There was an explosion near where we stood.

  A burst of energy shot from Stoyan, encompassing the room in a flash of white light.

  The wind suddenly died, followed by the shattering of windborne objects crashing to the floor. An eerie silence descended around us.

  What the hell had just happened?

  Insistent barking filled the air.

  I pulled out of Stoyan’s embrace and raised my head. My patio doors were obliterated.

  I scanned the room. “Where’s the kid?”

  “I banished him,” Stoyan replied.

  “Shit!” I tried to run to the patio, but Stoyan captured my hand.

  “No, Katia. The glass… you have no shoes on.”

  Fuck. Destruction was everywhere. And poor Charlie was barking his head off before the doorway, desperately wanting to enter the house, but waiting for permission.

  I ran into the bedroom. Lifting the blinds, I searched the back yard, hoping to see Jacob lingering outside the barrier somewhere.