Forgotten Souls (The Saving Angels 2)

Taking his words to heart, we decided the next best thing would be for them to follow us in.

The tent was noisy when we entered, with different groups of attendees scattered about chatting amongst each themselves. Mark and I separated from Sam and Shawn once we got inside, deciding each of us would take a different direction. Mark and I approached a lone girl standing just inside the entrance of the tent. She was dressed in all black and had dyed her cropped hair orange. She had a tattered knapsack slung onto her back and clutched a Monster energy drink in her left hand while her right kept the straps of her bag from slipping. The despair she felt was tangible, to the point that I felt like I could taste it. The images began flooding my mind as I attempted to make a connection with her. It took every bit of concentration I had to filter the negative emotions I was now feeling. She was obviously a runaway as I sensed a heavy feeling of homesickness. Suddenly, I was no longer in the revival tent, but what seemed like an abandoned building with boarded up windows. The smell of urine was overwhelming as rats scurried across the trash-covered floors. There she was, frightened and huddled in a dark corner. I could feel her every emotion as if we were sharing the same mind. She was afraid to fall asleep and starved from not eating for days. I trusted the weeks of training with Haniel, embracing the horrific images and replacing them with my own.

All of a sudden we were no longer in the abandoned building. I stood in front of a woman, maybe in her thirties at most. She was wearing an apron, pulling fresh baked pies out of the oven. The kitchen windows were open to let the cool autumn breeze find its way inside. A little girl ran into the bright room, dragging a doll with tattered hair across the floor. The woman turned, smiling, to pick up the girl with outstretched arms and covered her neck with kisses, making the young child squeal with delight. Suddenly the image blurred and I began to once again hear the rumblings of several conversations at once. I felt Mark grab my arm to hold me up.

"Krista, are you okay? You looked like you were losing your balance," he asked concerned.

"I'm fine, but that felt like it took forever. Is she still here?" I asked, regaining my focus.

"She's over there. What do you mean it felt like forever? Your eyes were only closed for a few seconds."

I found myself more concerned with the girl than what Mark telling me. I looked to my right to see her quietly exit through the open tent flap.

"Did you see that?" I asked Mark enthusiastically. "Come on."

I made my way over to the two guys standing a couple feet away. Mark instantly engaged one of them in a conversation while I worked my magic on the other. His emotions were different than the girl I had left, and the animosity he emitted was warranted as his images flashed in front of me. Once again, I took them in, filtering them with the happy ones while washing away all the ill feelings that were attached to them. Mark stopped midsentence as I turned to his friend and started the process again. It amazed me how readily my soul embraced the images and emotions that it had shied away from the last week. I felt jubilant as I moved on. I had previously perceived the emotions as heavy and draining, but instead, they acted like an energy source that propelled me forward.

I lost track of time as we made our way around the tent doing the job we were created for. I was so focused on the task at hand that Mark had to tug on my arm to get my attention.

"Krista, we gotta go. The revival will be starting any minute."

"Just a few more, please," I begged, looking around at the few remaining forgotten souls on our side of the tent I hadn’t gotten to yet. "I haven’t found the girl market yet and I don't know if Sam or Lynn have either," I whispered, looking around at a tent that was now emptier than it was earlier.

"Krista, they're already outside waiting for us," Mark said, grabbing onto my hand and dragging me toward the exit.

I looked behind me helplessly, feeling awful for the few souls I had been unable to save. Haniel had warned us that we couldn’t save everyone and that even one soul saved was better than none.

We were almost to the exit when I heard Alan's voice behind us encouraging the few followers we had left behind us to find seats. We picked up our pace and reached the exit with a sigh of relief.

"Not leaving so soon are you?" A voice boomed across the tent as a huge body stopped in front of us, blocking the exit. I recognized him instantly as the guy who had watched us so intently the week before.

"Of course not," Mark said. "Misty just remembered she left her purse in the car," he added, nodding toward me, acting like he was aggravated for my negligence. Taking Mark's words as a sign, I closed my eyes and reached out to embrace the hatred that was flowing freely around the man in front of us.

The images that greeted me swept all air from my lungs as I realized my mistake instantly. He was not a forgotten soul. He was something else entirely. My own emotions burned inside me, leaving me disoriented. Allowing him inside and getting a glimpse of the darkness that resided in him had robbed me of all the energy I had gained just moments before. His soul wasn't dark like I would have expected in someone that evil, it was just simply gone.

He was soulless.

Chapter 11

"Come on Misty, let's go get your purse," Mark said, tugging me close so that my depleted body could lean heavily on his.

"I believe Alan might want a few words with you first," the soulless creature said in front of us.

Focusing all my attention on keeping my emotions at bay, I felt Mark shifting our bodies slightly so that we faced the man at the front of the tent.

"Ah, I see we have a traitor in our midst," Alan said in a dry tone, addressing the small group of people that remained. Because the mass exodus of the tent was now so evident, I could clearly tell who the last of the forgotten souls were and who were soulless Demons.

"Do you know the best way to flush out a traitor?" Alan asked, breaking into my thoughts. "Live bait," he said, dragging the girl I had been looking for by the hair to his side. I watched in horror as he tightened his hand in her hair and pulled a small handgun out of the waistband of his jeans.

I went to take a step toward her, but Mark had me anchored firmly against him.

"No!" he whispered, pushing me behind him through the narrow opening in the tent wall that was still exposed. "Run and get the guys and don't come back," he said, propelling me out the opening.

I turned and fled in one movement, feeling the monster behind me grasping at the thin air I left behind as I raced toward the others.

"Get her!" Alan screamed as panic erupted inside the tent. My legs propelled me across the dirt lot faster than I had ever moved. In the blink of an eye, I was at my friends' sides shouting at Shawn and Robert to help Mark.

I watched as Shawn and Robert headed back toward the tent at what seemed like a turtles pace after my own sprint. I turned and glanced into the worried eyes of my friends as a gunshot rang out through the night.