My Soul to Keep

CHAPTER 9



If the neighborhood wasn’t full of kids and other teens, I would have gone all Fallen and flown home. After meeting Mr. James, I wanted to hide and immerse myself in some serious PlayStation therapy. My parents always said video games are not the answer to everything.

They lied about other things, too.

The revving of an engine and a sharp honk behind me caused me to trip and fall to my knee. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a very familiar pink bug with a laughing blonde driver behind the wheel. I flicked her off over my shoulder and looked down to what I was sure would be a bloody mess, torn jeans, and a good deal of pain. I put my hands down and lifted my knee off the already cracked sidewalk and winced. My jeans had a huge rip where my knee met the concrete, but I didn’t see any blood. I didn’t even see a scratch, nor did I feel any pain. I shook my knee to test it and stood, finally noticing the knee shaped, crushed section of sidewalk.

“Cool,” I said and turned to give Claire a stern talking to.

“Come on, worm! We have work to do.”

I walked around to the passenger door and lifted the handle on the little Bug. She hadn’t unlocked the door and she sat there staring at me. “Come on Clari…Claire. Unlock the door.”

“What do you say?”

I knew she wanted a please. I would rather have my lower extremities dragged naked over a five mile stretch of fish tank pebbles than give it to her.

In a tiny fit of anger I pulled with everything I had. The tiny Bug slid the remaining six inches to the curb and the door pulled off the hinges with a groan and a snap. Holding up the door and looking at Clarisse through the rolled up window I watched as her face went from teasing, to rabid raccoon, and on to crazed sociopath. I dropped the door and ran.

I heard her door open and slam close. Yup, she wanted to kick my ass. I dipped off the sidewalk and ran past two kids with matching backpacks who seemed to be standing still. The rapid clip, clop of Clarisse’s undoubtedly designer shoes hitting the concrete not far behind me told me she was gaining.

The houses on the other side of the street backed up against woods, separating the mall from the residential areas. I figured that would be my best hope. I leapt over the tiny grassy patch separating the sidewalk from the street, bolted across the road, and ducked between two houses. I passed a man grilling hamburgers in the back yard, but he didn’t even look up as I ran past into the trees. I mistakenly assumed the trees meant safety.

As soon as I crossed the line between grass and the brown leaf and pine needle covered ground of the woods a rock obliterated the tree to my right. Splinters flew from the gaping hole and hit me in the face as I sped by. I spit out a hunk of bark and started weaving for my life. I should have saved the zigzag pattern for an alligator attack. Clarisse caught up quickly and kicked my legs out from underneath me. I spun a full circle before crashing against a medium sized oak.

In a daze I saw her sprout wings, her eyes started to glow, and she reached down and picked me up by my shirt collar.

“Stupid, worm,” she spat and threw me headfirst at a larger, sturdier looking specimen of a North American deciduous tree. I brought up my arms to stop my face from becoming one with the bark. The tree snapped as I hit it, and I prayed my arms didn’t do the same thing. I landed in a pissed off heap at the base of the tree.

Her hand closed on the back of my neck as she tried to lift me from my comfortable spot on the ground. A surge of anger flowed through me. My wings snapped into being and I turned around to see a look of surprise fill her face.

The thought of hitting a girl truly sickened my stomach, but Clarisse just threw me headfirst into a tree. I pulled my knee up and kicked out to the side, catching her in the stomach and launching her up into the highest branches of the trees behind her. I smiled, rolled over on my stomach and picked myself up off the ground. Hearing a cracking noise behind me, I turned to see what caused it. I caught the foot thick tree trunk Clarisse used like a bat right in the chest. I hit the tree behind me with my back, and the forest dimmed in my vision.

A set of claws grabbed my shirt and pinned me to the tree, stopping me from sliding completely down to the ground again. When did she get those?

The impact seriously rattled my brain. I could taste blood in my mouth and the only thing I could see was Clarisse’s face filling my vision.

“Not bad, worm. Not bad at all,” she said and let go.

I slid down the tree and grabbed onto her hips with my legs, turning to face the ground as I fell. The scissor spin flung her down to the ground on her side and trapped her between my legs. She grabbed my knee with her talons and squeezed with everything she had. He nails pierced my flesh and muscle. I had no choice but to let go. As soon as I did, she scrambled to her feet and up a tree.

I tried to follow her movements, but my vision was still cloudy from my lumber shattering impact. I gasped for breath and looked around for her. I could hear several snaps of tiny tree limbs all around me as she circled, looking for an opening to attack.

I felt it more than heard it. A shifting of the air behind me and I knew she would be closing in for the kill. I didn’t turn until the very last second, and then I did a spinning roundhouse kick just like I'd seen in every kung-fu movie I ever watched. My foot connected with her jaw before I even saw her. The impact sent her flying away from me and she landed on her back, twenty yards away. Not wasting any time I scrambled over and pinned her down on the ground.

She looked up at me and scrunched her eyes like she was having trouble seeing. When I pinned her wrists above her head she didn’t struggle.

“If I let you go, is this over?”

She nodded and I let her hands loose. Immediately they wrapped around my throat and she flipped me off of her and onto my back. I should have known. I didn’t struggle. I just lie there as she pinned me in the exact position I had her in moments before.

“Don’t you ever kick me in the face again,” she snarled. Then she bent low and locked her lips onto mine.

I'd always pictured my first kiss being a little…different.

* * *

We drove in silence to the entrance of the Cedar Hills Mall. After the kiss, she’d let me go, stood up, and waved her hands, cleaning all remnants of battle from our clothes and skin. She did the same to her Volkswagen Beetle while I held the door in place. The silence in the tiny car seemed deafening and the awkward feeling in the pit of my stomach threatened to curb my appetite. Thoughts of salty soft pretzels drifted away with a curl of my lip.

“Why are we going to the mall?” I didn’t even look at her as I asked. Every time I did, I blushed. I stared out the window instead.

“Training,” came her predictable response.

“Training for what?”

“You are one of the Fallen now. You have duties you need to know how to do. I’m going to show you.”

We pulled into a spot right in front. I'd been to the mall a hundred times in my short life, and I could have sworn the spot she pulled into was a handicapped space yesterday. For all I knew, it could have been.

We made our way into the warmer interior of the mall. Auntie Annie’s whispered my name sweetly, but I ignored her twisted, salty temptations and followed Clarisse to the center courtyard where she turned left and headed toward the food court. I caught myself staring at the designer logo on the back pocket of her jeans and quickly focused on her hair instead. If she turned around and caught me looking at her butt, there wouldn’t be any trees to soften the ass whipping that would be sure to follow.

I, for some reason, thought that Clarisse wanted to eat and that's why we were at the food court.

Apparently I was wrong.

Instead of ordering pizza, Chinese, or even a hamburger, she sat at a table near the entrance to the movie theater. I sat down across from her and stared at her while she looked around the mall. Her eyes settled off to the right and I turned to look at what she saw. A geekier looking guy than me sat alone, reading a book with a large cup of some sort of coffee beverage. My eyes slid over the paper cup with black lid. There were tiny boxes with checkmarks in sharpie on one side. I looked closer and saw a bunch of words that looked like gibberish. Somehow, I knew, without a doubt, he had a caramel macchiato, extra-shot, with low fat milk, and extra caramel. I shook my head to clear it and focused on him instead. He had shoulder length curly black hair, a bad complexion, and wore a black hoodie with jeans. He was reading a book by an author I'd never heard of, but made out the title Origins on the front cover.

“We have a vampire lover,” Clarisse said and kicked me lightly under the table.

“How do you know?” I sat there, beyond confused.

“From the book. It’s all about vampires. Look into his head. See how he’s hanging on every word? What do you feel?”

I ignored her and focused on the mop of unruly hair around his head. It took a second, but I could hear his thoughts. He wanted to be like the characters in the book. His name was Brett, and Brett wanted to be a vampire. “I can feel it.”

“Yup, he’s perfect. Now do what I tell you. Focus in on his thoughts again, but whisper the words to the ritual, the ritual with the candle. Don’t leave anything out, whisper it exactly as you remember it. The words burned themselves into your soul.”

I started whispering under my breath. The mall fell silent and the words beat with the thrum of their own power. I could feel them travelling across the mall and settling on his skin like Mr. James’ strange words had on mine earlier.

“Now picture the candle being black and lit while you say the words. Add that to your spell," Clarisse hissed across the table.

The whole thing felt very, very wrong, but I found myself doing exactly as she said. I even pictured one of the few places in town where he could buy a black candle. “Now with the last line of the ritual, promise him he can be a vampire.”

I finished the last line and promised him he could be a vampire and with a final thrum of power. All the sound and movement around us continued.

“Whoa,” I said exhausted.

“Good job, worm.”

“What now?”

“We wait for the call.”

“What call?”

“You’ll know it when you hear it. Trust me.”