Soul Bringer

Chapter 1

I opened my eyes, for a moment the light was blinding. I blinked past the fog as I looked around the room I was in. A window to the left, a door to the right. A machine beeped next to me, the sound slightly increasing. I glanced towards my feet, realizing I was in a hospital bed. I knew what this place was, but I had never been to one before.

I attempted to sit up, but searing pain made its way down my back. It felt as if I had broken all the bones in my body. I glanced at the bandages on my arms, they were both wrapped in a thick white gauze. I knew what would be hidden beneath those bandages.

Claw marks.

All thanks to Daddy's pet, Sylvie, the worst of the worst from his collection of beasts. I was pleased I had been able to kill her once we entered the human realm. I had feared the worse when Dad sent her after me. I could still hear her howls as they kissed the hairs on the back of my neck.

The door burst open and in walked two men in police uniforms.

"Hello ma'am." The younger one with blonde hair said with a kind smile. He pulled up a chair and sat next to me. "My name is Matthews, this here is Barry. We are here to ask you a few questions."

I looked at the other policeman, Barry, as he stood at the front of my hospital bed. He clasped his hands in front of him. Barry was older, near fifty, and he looked as if he carried a heavy burden. I could see the strain in his eyes. He hadn't slept all night.

"Alright." I said as I turned to look at Matthews.

"Can you tell us your name?" Matthews asked. My gaze dropped from his.

"Lee."

"Do you have a last name?"

"Just call me Lee."

The two cops shared a look. I felt unease settle in the pit of my stomach. Part of me felt guilty, not complying with the kind policeman, but telling them anything more could bring my father and his collection of dark creatures to this hospital. They would kill anything in their path to get to me.

And the last thing I wanted was for my father to find me.

"Last night there was a disturbance call out at the country club near Hayden Lake, a few blocks from where someone had found you on the street and called 911. What were you doing near Hayden Lake?"

"I was out for a walk." I responded.

No, I was passing between realms and was attacked by Sylvie. Of course, I couldn't tell them that.

"So late in the evening?" Barry asked, skeptical. I ignored his question.

"Where are your parents? Do you live nearby?" Matthews asked.

Sure. Dad lives just on the other side of the Echo.

"I don't have any parents." Their stares were making me feel uncomfortable. I pulled my gaze away from them and glanced at the window. I never knew my mother. I didn't know if she had left me. I didn't know if she had died. Father never spoke of her, and I learned at a real young age not to ask my father too many questions.

"And no, I don't live nearby."

"Where do you live then Lee?"

If I told them what the Echo was they wouldn't understand. If I told them I lived in a shadow land named Remna they would think I was delirious.

"I don't know." I said through my teeth. I could feel the scrutiny of the officers as they considered me, like they could pluck the answers from me with mere words. I wouldn't be persuaded so easily. Humans would never fathom the world I had known.

The Echo was a barrier between this world and ours. It reflected the world around it, like a mirror image. It was the boundary that kept the dark creatures of night just behind this world's reach. It was a place my father liked to call Remna. A shadow world that was a mere glimpse of the human realm.

"Do you remember what happened last night? We were told you were attacked by an animal, is that true?"

I shook my head, refusing to answer. If I had told them the size of Sylvie, or what precisely that beast had looked like, it would be all over the news. Father must not know where I was.

Thankfully Sylvie's body disappeared like mist when I had stabbed her with my father's blade. Though he would know soon enough that I had killed her, and come for me himself.

I couldn't be here when he comes searching.

Both the police officers looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to talk. If I wasn't bound in this form, then I could have swiped their minds, easily. I could have bent them to my will. Sylvie may have been the worst of my father's monsters, but I surely was the cleverest and my powers made it easy to extract what I needed most from my victims. My father had also told me what the risks would be if I ever entered the human realm. To take on a human body meant I would lose my precious abilities.

But after that last fateful night helping him, they were powers I willingly gave up to be free from his terrifying reign.

I could still hear my victims screams as I ripped their souls from their bodies and handed them to my father, his eyes filled with greed. Thousands of souls I had reaped for him, for I was his Soul Singer, a nickname he had given me. And he was the devil that made deals with the most abhorrent of the living so he could collect as many souls as he could. Only instead of keeping them in his dark hell, he devoured them. The souls gave him unfathomable power and fuel for his everlasting eternal life.

Sometimes I wondered if he had ever been human.

"Lee, we want to help you, but we can't unless you answer our questions." I folded my arms across my chest and looked down at the floor. "Well, if you can think of anything..." Matthews trailed off as he held out a card for me. When I didn't grab it, he set it on the table next to the bed.

As Matthews and Barry left, I caught Barry's soft but insistent voice. "I told you she wouldn't talk. But she knows what happened to Glen and Marty, I'm sure of it. They said an animal attacked her. She knows something Mathews."

Glen and Marty.

Their names reached out me like a cold, whispering death.

Had father sent another dark creature through the barrier? Is that how the blade had disappeared? There was only one of his beasts that could become invisible like that. I shoved the image of his small creature far from my mind. Worrying about the blade did little to help me now, though the object was truly uncanny.

When I had left my father's lair I had stolen his blade of realms. It possessed the power to cut through the barriers of worlds, allowing me to step into the human world with a human body, and not as what I had been before. Prior to my emergence in the human realm, I had been a silent cry, the rustling wind, and darkness in the night. I had a form, a shape like the one I possessed now, but it wasn't solid. I could grasp items from that shadow realm, but my sense of touch didn't exist. I had felt nothing but the cold darkness of that world. I had practically been a ghost my entire life.

I glanced down at my new form, relishing the sensations I was feeling. I felt warmth and I felt pain, but I felt alive for the very first time in a hundred years.

And one thing was for certain. I was done bringing my father souls.