soul program 00.5 - first reaper Read online

  A cool touch alighted on his shoulder and he lifted his head to find her staring down at him. It was then that he noticed the buzz in his mind.

  He blinked trying to capture that buzz until he could hear the cool crystal sound of her voice in his mind.

  “Stop,” she said.

  He shook his head and pushed her away. Instinct kicked in and he tried to push the voice out.

  Cardinal spoke up this time. “No, if you want hear her you have to allow her in.”

  “I have to let her into my head?”

  “That is your choice but it will be the only way you can speak to her from now on.”

  “Forever?”

  “Yes, for as long as she lives.”

  “Which is how long?”

  Cardinal shook his head and turned away. “She is immortal. There are safe guards in place, of course, but as of today she will not die by a human’s hand.”

  He turned back to them. “Now, Doctor, it’s your turn.”

  That jolted him into action and he surged up from the floor, almost bumping into Ruby. Part of him wanted to comfort her in whatever conflict she was facing. But the other part of his mind went straight to work.

  “I arranged the chemicals as you asked and I just need that final symbol. I don’t even know what it is.”

  Cardinal stepped forward and drew a knife from a sheath hidden at his ankle. “That final ingredient is the blood of an angel.”

  Richard watched him and in the next second a light so bright he had to look away caused him to cover his face. He looked over at Ruby from the corner of his eye and she stood in that onslaught unflinching. She didn’t even blink against it.

  Once the light went away Richard glanced up again and on a petri dish sat three drops of blood. He swallowed and stepped up to the counter. He added the blood to the formula and then shook the vial. It mixed beautifully. He went to a cage in the corner, donned some gloves, and brought a sick rat from its confines to his counter. It didn’t move. This one was on the brink of death. He drew a small amount of the formula into a syringe and injected it into the rat.

  Cardinal moved for a better view. “It will work, Doctor.”

  “I don’t doubt you Cardinal but I have to show my work. Before I can test on humans I have to show that I tested on this poor sick creature.”

  Cardinal nodded but Richard wasn’t entirely sure he understood.

  The rat rolled over and in a few moments sat up and hopped along the table.

  Richard put himself at eye level with the rat and watched it walk across the counter. It grew more confident with every step.

  Finally, he took a deep breath then grabbed a new syringe, and drew out some of the formula. It took a moment for him to work up the courage to stick the needle into his upper arm. A chill raced through him, as if a window let in a cool breeze and then darkness took him under.

  Chapter Six

  Ruby watched Richard flop around on the floor like a fish out of water. Another day and she might have helped him. Today she barely had the presence to keep herself up right let alone help him along too. She didn’t feel entirely different. She couldn’t speak, and she knew something was going on with her eyes but she couldn’t figure that out. She didn’t have the courage to go there yet.

  Once Richard stopped moving she stepped forward but Cardinal held his hand out to stop her. “Just wait.”

  It took some time and Richard climbed to his feet. She hadn’t pegged him for having the cancer. He hadn’t seemed sick or even minorly ill. Maybe he recently contracted it. She watched him steady himself against the steel counter.

  Then it caught her eye. She watched a red mark bloom across his skin on his forearm below the elbow joint. It swirled and tracked sown to his wrist to encircle it there. Nine perfect circle patterns in swirls of color. As it finished she notice something else. She didn’t quite understand what.

  She reached out and touched the air. It moved around him, swirled around him as if an air current orbited him. As she moved to reach into the moving air Cardinal grabbed her hand. In her mind she could hear his voice.

  “This is your task, Ruby. You are the first of the reapers and you will be the control when the world seems to fall apart. There will be a war so devastating over half the population on this planet will perish. Land will be uninhabitable and people will scatter and die. But others will prosper and when that happens you will be on the side controlling this.”

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You can see his souls. He has nine, as will every human who is injected with this concoction. They will not know what to do with it and that uncertainty will cull Earth until only believers remain.”

  Richard stared down at his arm and looked up at them. “What is this?”

  “Congratulations, Richard, you are the first human on Earth to have nine lives.”

  “Nine?” he broke off and stared at his skin where the mark melded seamlessly around his muscles.

  Ruby wanted to comfort him. She could see the distress, most of all, she could hear it resounding in his mind as clearly as if he spoke it aloud.

  “Will this happen to everyone?” he asked.

  “For some it won’t work. If their soul is corrupt then there won’t be anything there for the injection to react to. It will kill those instantly. If they are sick it will heal them, restore them, and give them a second chance at living their life.”

  He gestured toward Ruby. “And what does she have to do with this?”

  “She is the Reaper. The keeper of those lost souls and the destruction to those who aren’t worthy to have the gift of life.”

  It seemed like a lot of responsibility to give a girl who had been on death row less than a day ago.

  Chapter Seven

  Ruby went back to Richard’s apartment. She had no where else to go and Richard couldn’t turn her out to the world with so much doubt waging in his mind. He’d had a hand in her fate and right now he didn’t know if he was on the right side or not. If this had been better for the world or worse. So many people were about to die. That didn’t sit well with him.

  Then there was the case of Ruby. Something about her seemed other worldly.

  “Stop,” she said clearly in his mind.

  “What?”

  “Thinking about me like some fragile broken thing. I agreed to this. I could have turned you away but I didn’t. I am here. It was a decision I made and I am okay with that.”

  He pulled his lip into his mouth and bit down as his mind continued its rampage of self pity. Then he remembered she could hear every word of it and he tried to clear his head.

  “You’ll have to practice,” she said, chuckling.

  He smiled and nodded. He still couldn’t meet her eyes but if he didn’t look at her she seemed almost like herself. She took off her jacket and tossed it across the same chair as earlier. It was then he noticed the tattoos, tracking across her skin from finger to collar bone.

  “What is that?” he asked, moving closer. He didn’t recognize a single symbol.

  “I don’t know. They were there when I woke up.”

  “Did it hurt?” he whispered, pushing some of her hair behind her ears. It was disheveled but she didn’t seem to care. He supposed she had more important things to worry about at this point.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Well, what happened?”

  She shook her head and captured his hand in her own. They still felt the same as they did only hours before.

  “I honestly don’t remember anything at all. I laid down where he told me to and then it was like the world shifted and I woke up like this.”

  “Do you feel any different?”

  “Other than seeing your souls you mean?” she smiled at him. It reached her eyes, the way they crinkled in the corner was the same but the blackness there was hard to look at. It felt as if she was peering inside him in and attempt to turn him inside out.

  He ran his hands up her arms. The same skin he
’d tasted hours before. The same woman and yet a new person. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her mouth. She melted into him the same way as she had before. So sweetly that for a moment they were right back there, in one another’s arms, giving themselves to each other.

  “I want you,” she said in his mind and somehow it had more of a gut punch than hearing it out loud. He realized he could feel the edge of her growing arousal. His own body reacted to it, growing hard. “I want you too.”

  He led her to the bed and she sat down on the still messed up covers. As he pulled her shirt off over her head he discovered the tattoos trailed all the way down her body to her pants. He didn’t mind them at all. It gave her more of an edge then she already had.

  He felt the uncertainty there in her mind but he pushed it back and let her see how beautiful he thought she was.

  She smiled and leaned up for his mouth. When he met her lips she delved her hand into his matted hair and pressed into him so hard his teeth bit into the back of his lips. There was a new sharpness to her he didn’t understand, but the arousal washed through him until his body waged in the same fire as hers.

  He frantically went for her belt and drew her pants and underwear down in one smooth swipe. Once she kicked them away she did the same to him as he removed his shirt. Finally, he lay on the bed and she straddled him pressing her wet heat across him to mirror that sensation in his mind. He didn’t understand it but he liked it. She leaned up so she could take his lips again and he wrapped his hands around to her ass feeling the weight of her hips in his palms. He’d only taken her virginity hours ago and he feared hurting her.

  “Stop,” she said, before grabbing his erection and rubbing the head of him along her wet seam. He dug his fingers into her ass to gain a measure of control and waited until she impaled herself on him.

  She sat there, still and silent, until she could move. He could feel that niggling pain at the corner of his mind. It was nothing compared to the torrential pleasure, both his and hers, mingling together.

  She rocked forward and then back down and soon found a rhythm. All he could do was hold on for the ride as she stole her pleasure from him. There was a desperation to her love making. One he both wanted to embrace and fight.

  Her body folded around and into his. They were one person and he felt the edge of her orgasm along with his own begin to creep up. He wanted to send her over first. He began to lift his hips to meet hers adding more pressure and more sensation. Between the two of them he could barely breathe through the pleasure coursing through every part of him.

  His heart hammered in his chest and he knew she’d have bruises from the indentation of his fingers into her ass. Something possessive clicked inside him at the thought of marking her as his own and in that moment he came. His body seized below hers and she rode him up and down before following him into the abyss.

  * * * *

  Ruby woke again to a knock at the door. For a moment she lay wrapped in Richard’s arms and came back to herself. The events of the night unfolded in her mind and she remembered everything. The church, the ritual, and the pain as her body and soul ripped apart.

  Cardinal separated her soul from her body. Where he put it, she had no idea, but it didn’t live inside her anymore.

  She didn’t think Richard needed to know that and she hoped he wouldn’t prod her for answers again. The mental connection they’d forged was strong. She couldn’t hide anything from his sharp interest.

  The knock came again and she struggled from the clamp of his arms to grab a robe and open the door. Cardinal stood on the other side.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  She blinked and spoke to him in the way he taught her. “Fine. I think.”

  “Good. You won’t have much to do at first but soon there will be others.”

  She moderated her tone, “more like me?”

  “Yes, but also different. They will come from the ranks of criminals. These guilty men are too horrible to redeem and too disgusting to only die with their crimes. This will be a punishment for them. In that way you are different.”

  “What did you do with my soul?” She asked it as if she were looking for the milk when someone moved it to the door where it didn't belong.

  “Your soul is safe and when it’s time for you to pass on you will have it back. I promise your sacrifice will not be in vain. You will cleanse the Earth and train the new ones that join you.”

  She nodded. “Was that it?”

  “No, I have something.” He reached behind him and pulled out a package wrapped in silver paper and handed it to her.

  “Open this with Richard. It’s for you both.”

  She nodded and he walked away, leaving her to shut the door on his shadow.

  She turned the gift over in her hands. She couldn’t recall the last time anyone had given her anything. There were few holidays left that gifts were a social norm. She walked over to Richard’s pitiful tree and clicked on the lights. The package fit perfectly below it. It looked nice sitting there as the lights twinkled across the shining surface.

  The air stirred and she felt Richard climb from the bed and seek her out. As he wrapped his hands around her waist he looked over her shoulder. “What’s that?”

  “A gift from Cardinal.”

  “I think I’m wary of anymore of his gifts.”

  “He doesn’t mean us any harm.”

  “Says the woman who is irreparably changed.”

  She squeezed hid hands. “Do you want to be the pot or the kettle?”

  He chuckled and planted a kiss on the curve of her neck where it met her shoulder. After a moment he bent down and retrieved the package from under the tree. “Can we open it.”

  She shrugged and he parted the paper where it had been carefully taped. Inside sat a book. He opened it to the first page to read: Dante’s Inferno.

  She squinted at the title. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never even heard of this one.”

  He opened the cover page to find a map and the realization smacked him in the face. “It’s a map of hell.”

  She shuddered in his arms. “Is that what it’s all about?”

  He nodded. “Some Christmas gift.”

  She took the book and the paper from his hands, and rewrapped the gift before placing it back under the tree. “I like it better that way,” she announced.

  “Whatever you want. Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. In fact she hadn’t felt hungry since the day before. If she couldn’t eat anymore she didn’t know if she would survive this whole reaper business. Food was the singular joy she’d ever had in her life. It was her only comfort. Tears pooled at her eyes.

  “What is it?” Richard asked, swiping at the corner of her eyes but not lingering with his gaze.

  “Nothing. I just…nothing.”

  But she knew he already knew. “We can try right? See what happens?”

  She nodded and followed him into the kitchen. A reaper and a man with nine lives enter a kitchen…it was the start of some sort of joke. Whether it would be funny Ruby couldn’t tell.

  Chapter Eight

  Cardinal sat on top of the church stretching his wings behind him. Keeping them confined so he could walk among the humans was uncomfortable. It was beginning to grate on his nerves. He’s put the plan in motion and now he had to sit back and supervise it to ensure it reached the desired outcome.

  A step sounded behind him and he felt the presence without even having to look. “Good evening, Bishop. How are you?”

  “Well, old friend.”

  The man clapped him on the shoulder around his wings and took a seat beside him to dangle his feet over the edge of the stone structure. The city stretched out before them bright and beautiful despite the hour. A city that would soon be razed to the ground and so many lives lost.

  “Do you think we are doing the right thing?” Bishop asked.

  “We are doing as we are told. What is this do
ubt? Is it a result of the ritual?”

  “I doubt nothing. I just hope the humans can live up to their potential.”

  Cardinal nodded at that. Despite the plan put into place humans still had free will. It was up to them to save themselves with the tools they provided.

  “And what of your doctor?”

  “What about him?” Cardinal asked.

  “Will he be able to handle this responsibility?”

  Cardinal thought about it for a moment. He honestly didn’t know. Richard was a compassionate person by nature and his response to Ruby’s transformation seemed to hit him hard. But Cardinal couldn’t be sure that was a general response or a result of the intimacy the pair shared.

  “I suppose we will find out.”

  Bishop nodded and they both stared out at the city. Once upon a time colored lights would have been twinkling, humans would be settling into mass before heading home to bed. This would the last Christmas for them all. No more magic, no more joy, at least not for a long time.

  Cardinal couldn’t see the future but he was good at predicting outcomes. Something he had to learn from watching human activity for so long.

  He'd known this assignment would take a massive toll on the human population. It didn’t bother him if it set them back on the right path. Loss of life wasn’t so much important to him as the quality of the lives they saved in the process.

  Bishop shifted and cast glances back over to Cardinal. He could tell he missed the sweep of his own wings in the wind. His brother had made the ultimate sacrifice for the humans. Becoming the guardian reaper for their souls. Now, he only monitored Ruby’s whose lay contently in purgatory. Soon others would come and those souls would be bound to hell and punished while they lived. A punishment severe enough to fit the crimes of a despicable people.

  “Merry Christmas, Cardinal.” Bishop said. The words battling with the wind.

  “Merry Christmas, Brother.” Cardinal responded, before reaching out to grasp Bishop’s hand. They stayed that way until the dawn broke and Cardinal could feel the sun’s heat against his outstretched wings.