Unnatural Souls (16 page)

I FELT DRAINED
after the jump. Weak and cold, without any of the
warmth that usually came from my powers.

This was the end, I realized. All my
body wanted to do was sleep, but I forced my eyes to open. There
were things I had to do in here—including see my brother safe. And
I might be dying, but I couldn’t do it yet. I had to save Ash
first.

I had landed in the center aisle of
the auditorium, thirty rows away from the front of the room. The
seating area was almost completely lost in darkness, the only light
in the room coming from the few scattered bulbs that shone on the
stage. Ahead of me, Kali, the demon, and Ash were on that stage, as
if they were performing some sort of horrible play. Kali was being
held about ten feet away from my brother and the demon, fighting
against what I had to assume was the same barrier the creature had
used to hold me off. She clawed urgently against the air, throwing
herself against the wall, her eyes bright red and a snarl on her
face. Though she repeatedly slammed her body into the invisible
shield, though, she stayed exactly where she was. Leaving the demon
standing alone with my brother.

My slowing heartbeat skipped at the
sight. I didn’t know how he’d done it, but the demon had succeeded
in getting rid of both me and Kali. Now there was nothing standing
in his way as he cornered my brother, ready to collect on his debt
and take Ash’s soul straight to Hell.

No, no, no. This couldn’t
be happening. Kali was one of the original seven. She’d been
an
angel
, for
God’s sake, and was tougher than any other demon out there. This
monster shouldn’t be able to beat her, no matter how strong he was.
Surely there was a way for her to get through that barrier,
whatever it was. There had to be.

Fight harder,
I mentally urged her.
Please don’t let Ash die.
If he did,
then all of this would be for nothing. I was dying, and if Ash was
taken … then I wouldn’t have changed anything. I would have wasted
the last year of my life—and Ash’s—without finding any
solution.

I couldn’t stand the thought of
it.

She continued to struggle, though. She
backed up and ran full speed into the barrier, but bounced right
off it. Leaping right back to her feet, she threw a punch, slamming
her fist into it with a dull thud. Her features were pinched, and
she was flashing her teeth now as she roundhouse kicked the shield,
still with no success.

On the other side of the barrier, Ash
was alone with the demon, and the monster was moving quickly toward
my brother, closing the distance between them to grab Ash’s
shoulder. Ash tried to back away but the demon drew his arm back,
and though Ash put his hands up in defense, the demon’s fist flew
forward. Unstoppable. He slammed his hand right into Ash’s chest
and my brother gasped, grabbing the demon’s arm with one hand and
thrusting the other into the demon’s face, trying to push the
monster away.

The demon didn’t budge, and I watched
in horror as his hand disappeared into my brother’s
chest.

Ash’s eyes went wide. He threw a punch
at the demon, fighting to get out of his grasp, and then kicked out
at him, and finally dug his nails into the demon’s face, the
knuckles on the hand that grasped the demon’s arm going white with
pressure. But the demon didn’t release him.

I wanted to scream at him to keep
fighting, but his blows were already becoming slower. Most of them
were missing the monster altogether. His grasp on the demon’s arm
was loosening as well, two of his fingers slipping off like he was
having a hard time keeping hold of anything.

I wanted to run to him—to help—but my
body wouldn’t move. All I could do was watch my brother struggle
for his life. Already his body was growing limp, and glowing with a
strange redness. Then the crimson color intensified and began to
pulse. The monster dug his hand in deeper, part of his arm sinking
into my brother’s chest, and the aura around my brother … began to
move toward the demon. Began to manifest outside of his
body.

Oh God, it was his soul, I realized.
The glowing red light was an almost-transparent version of Ash. The
demon was ripping his soul right out of his body. Both of Ash’s
arms fell to his sides now, his fingers twitching, and his head
flopped listlessly forward. He was dying.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, I
thought, panicked. I had come so close. I’d mastered my abilities,
I had won the talisman. It was all supposed to be okay… But I had
failed him. My parents would have two dead children because of me,
and Ash was going to Hell and I was going to die despite his
deal.

I looked frantically back to Kali,
praying that she’d found a way to break through the barrier. If she
didn’t do something soon, my brother would be lost. His soul would
be sent to Hell, and he would die. She might still have time to end
it, though, if she did something right now.

But she had stopped fighting against
the barrier and was standing still, her eyes closed. What was she
doing? Ash was going to die and she was just standing there? Then a
familiar darkness began to cover her forearms. She was calling her
hellfire, I realized. That was it. I’d watched her blast through
walls and burn demons into ashes with this power. It was the
strongest thing I’d seen any demon do, and if anything could break
that barrier, her hellfire could do it.

A small bit of hope sprang
up inside of me.
Come on, Kali.
Her hellfire began flowing up her hands, then,
and the air around her seemed to vibrate. I could see a rippling in
front of her, like hot pavement on a sunny day. Could she blast
through the shield? It was the only thing keeping that monster
alive right now, I knew—and the only reason he was stealing my
brother’s soul. If she broke through his barrier, she could
dispatch the demon and save Ash.

The monster’s head whipped to the
side, his eyes on Kali, his arm still embedded deep in my brother’s
chest. His muscles flexed and he continued to pull as he watched
Kali, but it seemed like he was having trouble now. Every part of
his body was rigid, and sweat was dripping down his
face.

Maybe Ash was still fighting inside of
himself, trying to hold onto his soul.

Hurry up,
I begged, my eyes moving frantically between Kali
and my brother. He didn’t look very good, and I worried that his
soul would come bursting completely out of his body at any moment,
and we’d be too late. The monster was focusing more and more on
Kali by the moment, though, and Ash’s soul wasn’t moving anymore.
The demon seemed to have loosened his grip on it.

Kali must be doing something right,
because the demon looked furious, and suddenly wrenched his hand
out of my brother’s chest, his attention completely turned toward
her.

The moment the demon released his
grip, Ash fell to the ground with a thud. His soul followed his
body toward the ground and hovered nearby, but didn’t go back into
him—if that was even possible. Ash’s arms and legs landed
awkwardly, and then … he didn’t move. He hadn’t put a hand out to
break his fall. He’d just collapsed. And there was no reaction to
having hit the stage that hard. Was he even still
breathing?

I strained to see if his
chest was moving, but my sight was becoming unfocused now, to the
point that Ash looked pale—almost grayish. It reminded me of the
way I’d looked in my hospital bed—for those few minutes when I
hovered above myself, staring at my own dying body.
Ash’s red soul was hovering over his body, just
like mine had. Completely outside of it, now. It was still there,
though—that had to be a good sign, right? If the demon had finished
detaching his soul from his body it would be in Hell now …
right?

No, he was still hanging
on.
I had to believe he was still alive
and could still be saved … and that Kali might be able to do it. We
just needed to get his soul back into his body, and if anyone would
know how to do that, surely it would be her. It was difficult to
tear my eyes away from my brother, but I forced myself to look up.
Kali needed to break through the monster’s barrier, and kill it
quickly. She was his only chance.

The demon walked cautiously toward
Kali, as if he wanted to keep his distance, and stopped a few feet
from her. His facial expression and body language were tense as he
watched her fire building, traveling her arms, over her chest, and
down her legs. Soon her entire body was covered in
hellfire.

And at that, the demon’s eyes widened
and he began to retreat backwards. For the first time, he seemed
truly scared that his shield might not hold.

Kali took one look at his retreat,
grinned horrifically, and released her hellfire, which shot out in
a wave larger than anything I had seen her do before. I heard a
loud crack, and the sensation of heat reached even me, lying on the
ground in the back of the auditorium, and forced me to slam my eyes
shut against the brightness of the fire. Had she done it? Had she
actually broken through his barrier?

I opened my eyes only when the heat
was gone, and saw that the flames had died down. Her fires had
receded back toward to her wrists, and a wicked smile was plastered
across her lips. She now faced the demon without the force field in
between them—I could see that the shimmering wall was gone—and he’d
gone as pale as my brother. Kali was going to win, I thought with a
glimmer of hope. The demon didn’t stand a chance against a force of
nature like her. Not with his barrier gone.

And at that, my focus went
back to my brother. I wasn’t worried about the demon anymore; he
would be dust at Kali’s feet in a few moments. I just hoped Kali
could do it in time to save Ash. His
skin
was completely gray now, his lips blue, and his eyes were barely
open. His unruly brown hair hung over his face and his body was
limp. If only I could go to him. I didn’t know how I could help,
but my heart ached and I wanted to be with him. Maybe I could push
his soul back into him, somehow, or at least keep it there until
Kali arrived.

I had no idea how I’d do
any of that, but I needed to try
something
.

And I might be able to pull it off, I
realized. I’d thought my power was tapped out, but I could feel it
pulsing faintly under my skin as my desperation grew. The sensation
continued to build, until something inside of my body snapped with
need. Then warmth flooded through my body … and away from
me.

It was my power and it was
flowing
out
of
me.

I looked to my chest, where I could
feel my power pouring out of my body, and was shocked to see a ball
of blue light there, in the center of my ribcage. Right where the
stab wound was. My vision began to blur, but I could see the ball
of light growing until it was brighter than Michael’s sword. It was
my power. I could feel the warmth of it. Was it embracing me in the
end? Welcoming me to my death?

All I knew for sure was that it was
materializing outside of my body. It had never done that before.
Why it was doing so now, I didn’t know. The lack of oxygen was too
much, though; the effort of staying awake to fight becoming
impossible. And before I could grasp onto that thought, the fatigue
took ahold of me, the darkness surrounding me. But the blue light
continued to shine. And the pain was disappearing. At least I had
that in my final moments.

I looked back to my brother, just a
blurry thing on the ground, right before my eyes closed.

“
Save … Ash…” I gasped out
in near silence before everything went dark.