Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

"What?" Jack said.

"The soul is retreating."

"I can't see it."

"You can't see souls."

"Unfortunately."

I flicked him a glance. "There's nothing unfortunate about it, trust me."

He gave me a wry sort of smile, though his attention was still on the husband. "We've had this argument before."

"Yeah, and your reasons for thinking it's fantastic still suck."

The soul had pulled almost all the way out of the flesh. The feel of him, so thick with evil and the need to destroy, crawled across my senses.

This soul wasn't sane.

Not now, and probably not in life.

If it had ever actually lived, that was.

I rubbed my arms, smearing blood up my forearm from the cut on my palm.

"What is it doing?" Jack asked, as sweat began to bead his bald cranium and forehead.

"Nothing." There seemed to be a slight pulsating through its opaque form, as if a heart beat deep within the darkness. But I felt no sense of energy, no gathering of power that had been so event in the other souls who'd talked to me.

For that, I could only be grateful. There was nothing this hateful soul could say that I'd really want to hear.

"So it's just sitting there, above the man's body?"

"Yeah."

"Want to try talking to it?"

"I have a feeling opening my shields to this thing could be a very bad idea."

"Bad as in, oops, it's possessed me?"

"Yeah." I paused. "So you really have no idea how to contain a soul?"

"As I said, no fucking idea at all. I came here prepared to save my investment, not to play with spirits."

I grinned. "Your investment thanks you for caring."

The last tendril of smoke pulled itself free of the husband's flesh. The pulsing within the sould got stronger, and a sense of power caressed the air. It began to rotate - slowly at first, then faster, until the sheer weight of energy caressing the air had the hairs on my arms standing.

Then it lunged forward, a face forming out of the darkness, the mouth wide open, teeth bared. It screamed - no earthly sound, harsh and powerful enough to set teeth on edge. I yelped and jumped back, but it didn't follow. Simply hissed then flicked away, its snakelike form slithering across the floor and out the window.

"Our dark soul just left the building."

"You might want to check that it's not taking over the woman."

"It wants revenge, not death," I said, "And I can't fed its presence anymore."

But even so, I spun on my heels and ran out the front door. The sense of evil no longer rode the cool night air. I took a deep breath, washing the foulness of that spirit from my lungs, then glanced down the street. Mary Jamieson sat in the driver's side of ray car, her hands clenched around the steering wheel, face pale and swollen under the harsh street lighting. Jack's car was parked right behind mine, lights still flashing and driver's door open. He really had hurried.