Soul Thief (Dark Souls) (2 page)

Bewilderment clouded her gaze, as did a potent dose of mistrust. “He shot you. I saw him shoot you. Why are you still standing?”

“Bulletproof vest. I never leave home without it,” he lied.

Accepting his reply as truth, she clutched her fancy purse to her chest, hugging it like a baby. She had no idea what the men really wanted from her. As far as Adrian could tell, she thought this was a run-of-the-mill mugging.

He opted not to correct her misconception. Even if he did, she probably wouldn’t believe him. “What do you have in there worth dying for? And why are you out wandering around the subway past midnight?”

“I’m on a humanitarian mission.”

He lifted a sardonic brow at her unexpected reply. “How’s that going for you?”

“Not so well.” She stared regretfully down at the body twisted at strange angles at her feet. The other lay about two meters away, just as ravaged.

Adrian shook his head in disbelief. The woman was feeling sorry for them. If she knew the monsters they really were, the potential for brutality that had existed within them, she wouldn’t be standing here mourning their passing.

She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the ugly sight of death. Or maybe it was him she feared looking at. When her lids sprang open again, her gaze held such disconcerting awe, he was tempted to reach out to her, to gather her close and reassure her she was safe with him.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Adrian.”

“Adrian who?”

“Just Adrian.”

Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I don’t know whether to thank you for saving my life or run away screaming.”

A dark current cleaved the atmosphere, warned him they were no longer alone. “Run.” He grabbed her by the arm and propelled her toward the stairs. “It’s not safe here.”

He was well aware how she’d interpret his warning. The fact that she’d assume he was the threat shouldn’t have bothered him. But it did. For some reason, the idea of this girl running from him left him feeling cold and hollow inside. But he had no choice. The evil she’d witnessed was nothing compared to the evil that approached.

Vaulting up the stairs, he half-pushed, half-dragged her toward the exit. With an unceremonious shove, he tossed her out the door. “Hurry. Get as far away from this place as you can.”

“Why?”

Adrian gazed deeply into her eyes, hoping his suggestion took root this time. “Because if you stay, you could lose more than your life. You could lose your soul.”

Angelica Paxton stumbled out of the subway station, her heart violently kicking her ribs, her sweaty palms clutching the stupid purse that had gotten her into this mess in the first place. She never should’ve brought it with her. Earlier today someone had called the hotline at Reach, where she volunteered daily. He’d told her about his fifteen-year-old brother, Ricky, a runaway living at the subway station at the corner of Lexington and 59th Street, begging her to find him and direct him to the halfway house Reach funded.

Angie had waited for nightfall, then had gotten right down to the business of locating the homeless boy. If he had the habit of sleeping in subway stations, the best time to track him down would be in the dead of night.

She hadn’t considered the possibility that the Gucci purse her mother had bought her last Christmas would paint a big red bull’s-eye on her forehead and make her a walking target for muggers looking for an easy mark. Assuming the purse was what the men who’d attacked her had been after. She’d caught a glint of something in the big guy’s eyes when he’d pinned her to the wall. Something that had made her skin crawl and an oily feeling gather deep in her gut. If Adrian hadn’t shown up when he did…

Angie chased the thought from her head. She couldn’t dwell on what-ifs. Nothing poisoned a person more than the bleak contemplation of a future that might never come to pass.

Turning the corner, she dove into the velvet blackness of night, embraced by shadows and the cool, damp kiss of a spring breeze. The sky was deep and opaque, with no stars and only a slice of moon to cleave the darkness. A few streetlamps and the headlights of passing cars lit her way, but the night seemed blacker than it had earlier, more sinister somehow. Tall buildings hemmed her in, kept her from seeing what lurked around each corner or watched her from behind darkened windows.

But that wasn’t what caused her heart to flutter or her throat to clog. It was the unsettling feeling that she had just witnessed something extraordinary that played havoc with her nervous system. She wasn’t sure what that was, why it had caused her skin to come alive and her pores to hum. Why her gut remained tangled in a painful snarl and her pulse refused to reclaim its steady beat. She knew only that it had something to do with the mysterious man who’d come to her rescue.

Adrian.

Adrian, with his ink-black hair and his penetrating navy-blue stare. Adrian who’d somehow instigated the murder-suicide she’d witnessed.

The man was a walking contradiction. He had the face of a saint and yet he possessed the quiet confidence of a seasoned assassin. Hypnotic qualities aside, no ordinary person could’ve dealt with her attackers with such cool efficiency. Not once did she catch a flicker of anxiety or fear in his eyes. He’d even taken a bullet point-blank to the chest without so much as flinching. Bulletproof vest or not, getting shot at such close range had to sting.

But that wasn’t what held her enthralled and compelled her to return to him. What fascinated her most was the broken quality she’d sensed in him. For some crazy reason, she was convinced he needed her.

Why would she entertain such a notion, when
he
was the one who’d saved
her
?

And yet she did. She felt it deep down in her bones.

Angie reached the intersection and halted. Several yellow cabs shuffled along Lexington. All she had to do was raise her arm and one would stop. Within minutes, she could be home, safe in her bed. Still, she hesitated, tossing a furtive glance over her shoulder at the gloomy road unfurling behind her. Biting her lower lip, she dug her hand into her purse and pulled out a Reach brochure.

True, Adrian wasn’t a troubled youth. He had to be twenty-five at least, maybe older, a full-grown man by anyone’s standards. But he was definitely troubled. Hadn’t she sworn to help those in need, to offer guidance and support? What kind of person would she be if she walked away from the man who’d selflessly come to her aid? She had an obligation to reach out to him, the way she reached out to countless others day after day.

Dispelling her fears, ignoring the garbled warning her mind issued, Angie spun on her heels and retraced her steps, heading back to the very place her rescuer had urged her to flee.

Chapter Three

They were coming for him. They always did. What Adrian didn’t know was which of the two armies that hunted him had found him tonight, the Kleptopsychs or the Watchers. Given a choice, he would’ve opted for the Watchers because they were the more merciful of the two.

Both wanted him dead, for different reasons. The Kleptopsychs pursued him because they knew the soul he no longer possessed still lived, which meant he ran the risk of being recruited by the Watchers. The Watchers hunted him because they thought his soul had died the day his uncle snapped his neck, barely five hours after he’d released his birth cry.

For a Hybrid, death was nothing but a rite of passage. Dying had merely freed Adrian’s soul from his body, allowing the dark energy crouching inside him to spread and take him over. In essence he’d been reborn, stronger, invulnerable and blessed with abilities humans only dreamed of.

Because he chose to live as an outcast among his race, they called him a Rogue, a loose cannon, a threat to mankind. Adrian simply saw himself as free. He followed no one’s rule. Fought no one’s war. All he wanted was for everyone to leave him the goddamn hell alone.

No such luck.

A horde of Kleptopsychs spilled into the subway station, led by none other than his murderous uncle, Kyros. By narrowing his vision, Adrian gazed past wood, brick and mortar to carefully monitor their advance.

It was obvious that Kyros had latched on to his signature and was steadily closing in on him. Every creature left a signature behind, a unique trail of energy certain gifted individuals could sense and track. Kyros wasn’t as talented a tracker as Adrian, but he was able to read energy patterns, which meant he had the ability to follow his trail.

Adrian wouldn’t be able to outrun his uncle or his army—wherever he went, they’d tail him. He had no choice. He had to fight his way out. Fortunately, the station was deserted, so their battle wouldn’t draw a crowd. Some things were best kept secret, and their existence was one of them.

Stepping out of the shadows, Adrian faced his pursuers. “Greetings, Uncle. We really have to stop meeting this way.”

Calculating interest sparked in Kyros’s pale blue eyes. “There is only one way to put our battle to rest. Come back with me, return to the catacombs. To your family. You know that is where you belong.”

“No, thanks. I’ve seen what you do to
family.
” If he returned, Kyros would escort him straight to the tanks, which was how the Kleptopsychs disposed of pesky little problems like him.

“So this is how you choose to live instead? As a common Rogue? A pathetic creature with no loyalties, no purpose?”

“I have a purpose.”

“And what is that? To save the humans from themselves?” Kyros released a mocking laugh. “That’s not a purpose. That’s a waste of time. Humans were created to sustain us. They’re food. Nothing more. If you were born soulless as you were meant to be, you’d know that. You were conceived to help destroy the Watchers, not join them.”

Kyros would never forgive Adrian for being born a Hybrid. From the moment Adrian took his first breath, he’d been a constant disappointment to his uncle, who’d hoped his sister would spawn the perfect tracker—a creature without a conscience that Kyros could add to his impressive army.

“I have no intention of joining the Watchers,” Adrian reassured him. “In case you haven’t noticed, they want me dead, too.”

“I don’t want you dead. It’s not you I seek to destroy, it’s your soul.”

Kyros firmly believed that if he extinguished Adrian’s soul—the task he’d failed to accomplish when he’d murdered Adrian in his crib—he would have the dedicated soldier he’d always envisioned. So, never one to accept defeat, he’d spent the better part of nearly two centuries searching for it.

“Well, good luck finding it,” Adrian growled, tamping down his growing impatience. Having recently ingested two unstable life-forces, he wasn’t as coolheaded as he would’ve liked. “It’s probably been born several times over by now.” He skewered his uncle with a meaningful glare. “And as long as the damn thing remains in circulation, you can forget about controlling me like you do them.” He gestured to the assembly of mindless foot soldiers surrounding him.
 

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His uncle took a predatory step forward.

Kyros’s troops followed suit, dutifully advancing to form a barricade around their leader. Each and every one of these soldiers was ready to die at Kyros’s command.

Adrian would’ve liked nothing better than to accommodate them, but the jackknife in his pocket wasn’t coated with angel’s blood, and apart from the puddle steadily pooling in the distance, there was no water within which to drown them. Regular blades and bullets were useless against these creatures. Other than angel’s blood, drowning was the only way to kill his kind.

The fluorescent tubes overhead continued to drone ominously. The
drip, drip, drip
of water pooling in the corner grew unnaturally loud. Somewhere in the vast night, familiar footsteps echoed, briskly approaching.

Adrian’s stomach folded as a cloud of familiar energy wafted toward him. The senseless woman had come back, was even now headed his way.

He had to act. Now.

With his ear trained on her progress, he raised an invisible wall between him and his attackers. Matter was nothing but energy. With the right amount of focus, atoms could be manipulated and controlled.

The wall wouldn’t stand for long. Kyros would quickly dismantle it. But it would give Adrian a small head start. Lunging past the Kleptopsychs, he raced toward the footsteps. He had to reach the woman and get her to safety before his uncle sensed her.

Adrian rounded the corner and plowed right into her. She gasped, stumbled back. “I thought I told you to get out of here.”

“There’s something—”

She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. He hauled her over his shoulder and sprinted down the corridor.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“We need to hurry,” he mumbled. “It won’t hold them for long.”

“What won’t hold them? Put me down! I’ve got legs.”

“You’re not fast enough.” He picked up speed, well aware that he might give his secret away. But he had no choice. He couldn’t let Kyros see her. He didn’t understand the sense of urgency that seized him, the certainty that all would be lost if his uncle discovered her.

Then it struck him, and his blood ran cold. He knew the precise reason this woman affected him so profoundly, why she reached deep inside him and awakened his long-lost humanity. There was only one thing in the world that could do that. The very thing Kyros hunted and was hell-bent on destroying.