Soul Dealers Read online

  It wasn’t the first time they’d been attacked. Zach was not only a magnet for his female fans, but he also attracted supernatural disasters. The difference between the two of them was that Dan believed in and understood supernatural forces, and Zach didn’t.

  Zach had disappeared a few weeks ago. He often did that when he got an inspiration for his music. Then yesterday someone wanted to burn him to lure Zach into a trap. But a trap for what?

  Dan punched the wall but figured that, apart from hurting his knuckles, the action wasn’t going to get him out of the cell. He began to pace around the cell and think.

  The light beam grew wide and spun harder. Mya could feel the searing heat against her skin. Loose objects in the room were swept from where they rested and sent crashing to the floor. Then the heat subsided, and Mya felt a warm sensation blanket her body. She was lying on top of Zach, face down. She could see a rim of bright light around her. The energy was still vibrating. She wanted to look up, but she didn’t want to leave Zach. The light was merely warm on her body, but she wasn’t sure what effect it might have on him. She remembered that when they had been in the dungeon, the electric current had had no impact on her, but it had almost killed him.

  For a while, nothing happened. She turned her head to the side and glanced up. In the middle of the light beam, she saw a hologram of a beautiful woman. She had long white hair and striking blue eyes and wore a long white gown.

  She smiled at Mya. “Zach called for me. I’m here to help if you’ll let me take a look at him.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Ayana.”

  Mya recalled Zach calling out that name. She must be telling the truth. She rolled off of Zach.

  Serenely, the woman called Ayana walked out from the circle of light. Mya could feel her presence and the heat emitting from her body. She was sure the woman had just then turned from a hologram into a being with a solid body.

  The circle of light enlarged further, washing over Zach and Mya. She felt a warm current rush over her body and realized she was now inside the circle.

  Ayana kneeled down next to Zach. She pulled out a black wristband and snapped it on his right wrist. Within a few seconds, Zach stirred, opened his eyes. He was groggy at first, and he lay still on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Shortly, he registered what had just happened. He bolted up and grabbed Mya’s arms, looking up and down her body.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. But I should be asking you that question, Zach.”

  Ayana cast a warm glance at Mya. “What are you, beautiful girl?” Ayana asked.

  “Thank you for calling me beautiful. But I’m not sure how I should take the fact that you consider me a what instead of a who.”

  Ayana smiled. “Humans can’t handle the gate the way you do.”

  “What gate?” Mya asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Zach growled, “You could have killed her, Ayana. How am I supposed to live with that?”

  “You asked her, and she didn’t leave you, Zach.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have come out of the teleport!” Zach exclaimed.

  “It might have cost her life, but I had to save you.”

  “I’d rather die than—”

  “Be mindful, Zach,” Ayana cut in, her eyes darkening, “Think carefully before you finish that sentence. You are responsible for more than just your own life.”

  “Don’t try to manipulate me. I won’t do this if it costs a single soul. And especially not hers.” Zach pointed at Mya.

  “If you don’t want to be in such a position, then you shouldn’t be reckless in your actions. Her life is the same as others. Any war costs lives, Zach,” Ayana snarled.

  “Hey!” Mya waved her arm without success to get some attention.

  “Her life isn’t like others. No harm will come to my friends and family. You promised me that. Now Dan is missing, the Xiilok soldiers beat us here, and you’re saying I’m reckless.” Zach kept his voice down, but Mya could hear the anger boiling in it.

  “Are you sure?” Ayana frowned.

  “Xiilok!” Mya couldn’t stop the word from coming out of her mouth. Xiilok was the universe of the multiversal outlaws. No one could touch that universe, including her Goddess. Zach and Ayana looked at her. She shrugged. “I just wanted to get your attention. Dan might be okay right now, but someone has to save him or he’ll be dead soon. If you two are too busy bickering, I’ll have to save him myself.”

  Mya turned on her heel and walked straight into the wall of light surrounding her. She hit the wall so hard that she bounced back a few steps and saw stars. She was still standing in the light circle and couldn’t walk through it even though it looked transparent.

  “Ouch.” She rubbed her forehead. Then she whirled around and snarled at Ayana, “Let me go.”

  “How do you know Dan isn’t dead?” Ayana asked.

  “She’s a psychic,” Zach responded.

  “I can speak for myself,” Mya protested.

  Ayana looked at Zach. “Are you sure about the soldiers?”

  He nodded. “They sent Xiilok fighters. I saw them.”

  The color drained out of Ayana’s face, “You can’t fight them on your own. I’ll have to consult the council and get back to you. But before then, take no action. You know how many lives we’re responsible for. If you fail, all of those souls will be lost. Don’t be reckless, Zach.”

  Ayana nodded a goodbye to Mya. With a gracious whirl, she disappeared as smoothly as she had come. The light circle disappeared with her.

  Chapter 17

  The room returned to its normal lighting and temperature. Zach approached Mya and gently lifted her chin to check the bruise on her forehead. His green eyes locked intensely on the faint mark as if he could wipe it away using his willpower.

  “Are you some kind of warrior from another planet?” Mya asked.

  “What does your psychic mind tell you?”

  “I can’t read your mind.”

  “Are you sure about Dan being okay?”

  She nodded. Her deity mode was still on, and she had just checked. Dan was fine. She was waiting for the next signal from her network of his whereabouts. “Yes, I’m sure he’s okay. I have my sources, and they told me he’s alive. They’ll let me know of his location soon. My sources have supernatural power if that makes you feel any more confident.”

  Zach nodded. “Do you have supernatural power, too?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you. At least for now because I’m unsure of the consequences.”

  Zach gazed at her for a short moment, then he smiled. “I’m not a warrior of any kind. But I have the ability to send a sort of sound wave into people’s heads. For the most part, I’ve just used it to annoy people since I was a kid. But in a universe that’s far from here, they recognized my ability as a talent. That universe is called Eudaiz.” He paused there and said, “How am I doing?”

  Mya nodded. “So far, so good.”

  “Eudaiz is governed by a council of nine, including eight councillors and a king. The councillors, or Sciphils in their terms, govern their own districts. Ayana Dee, the woman you just saw, is Sciphil Two. She recruited me as her successor a few months ago. As a successor, my body was transformed. I can heal quickly from ordinary wounds. But I’m not invincible. My body is very sensitive to extraterrestrial frequencies.”

  “The currents that hit you in the dungeon?”

  He nodded. “And I have only a limited amount of the special energy—that’s the silver substance you saw leaking out from my gash earlier.” Zach looked at Mya, gauging his progress.

  She nodded. “And I’m guessing your energy is rechargeable. That’s what Ayana just did.”

  Zach chuckled. “Not exactly, but close. They call it healing. And it can only be done in Eudaiz. What Ayana gave me was a quick fix so that I can get back there.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “So if you’re injured again before you go back…”
>
  He shook his head. “I’ll try my best to avoid that. This isn’t a birthmark. It’s a seal where the energy was originally injected into me.” He pointed to the mark on his right arm and grinned.

  She nodded. “Ayana said you’re in charge of a lot of people. How many people, exactly?”

  “The last record showed our district accommodates more than ninety-five billion.”

  So much for counting my scorecard trying to make it to a thousand, she thought.

  “There’s a district in need of a councillor, and Dan is designated for the position.”

  “Does he know this? Did he agree to it? He didn’t sound like he knew.”

  Zach shook his head and smiled. “I’ll talk to him. I know him. He’ll agree. But the job isn’t easy. Eudaiz is at war, so it’s dangerous. After we get Dan, and I take him back to Eudaiz, I wish you wouldn’t get any further involved in this mess. You see, I couldn’t protect you before.”

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Zach. I come and go as I please. And because I didn’t do what you wanted me to do, I saved your ass in the dungeon. You might think you’re a superhero, but do you really think you could have driven home after the gunfight with four bullets in your body? And did you think I was going to leave you to bleed your silver blood out all over the pavement while—”

  Zach locked his lips on hers, stopping the flow of her eloquent speech. Then he pushed her against the wall and knocked the mighty deity breath out of her. His kiss was meant to conquer and possess. There was no nipping, testing, or gradual attempt at penetration. He asked for no permission.

  His hands slid beneath her shirt, searching for her skin. His fingers pressed against her sensitive nerves, causing her system to explode wildly beyond what a thousand years’ worth of being a deity could contain. He pressed his body against hers so hard that she could feel every muscle in his body quivering.

  She reached her arms around him, and he hitched her hips up so that she could wrap her long legs around his waist. She received, she responded, and she was ready to give back.

  Then suddenly, he eased away from her and put her back down on the floor. Kissing her cheek and stepping back, he left her leaning against the wall, panting and gasping for breath. Her lips were swollen, and her eyes watered.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a jerk.”

  “For what you just did, yes you are.”

  His phone buzzed on the table, and he absently snatched it up and answered it, his eyes still locked with Mya’s.

  “Yeah.”

  Zach snapped back to reality when he heard Chloe’s voice on the phone. “Chloe,” he muttered and sat down on the sofa.

  Mya rolled her eyes. She knew she was no competition for Chloe. She shouldn’t be in a relationship anyway. She was a good deity, and she had a job to do. It was her duty to protect Zach, and she should have kept the relationship at an acquaintance level.

  She tidied her shirt and grabbed her bag.

  “Yes, a couple of days,” Zach said on the phone as his eyes followed Mya.

  She went to the bathroom to collect her belongings. She had only stayed here one night, but she could see her marks already—some hair on the floor, a splotch of her night cream on the vanity bench, the faint sense of her perfume. She cleaned up as much as she could and went back to the living room.

  “No, Chloe. We talked about this. You have to move on.”

  Mya nodded a goodbye to Zach and headed toward the door.

  “Yes, that was part of the reason.” He still talked on the phone, but he raced toward the door before Mya got there to block her way out. Mya stared at him, appalled at his nerve.

  “Chloe, if you don’t move on, I will… I’m seeing someone else.” Zach stared back at Mya.

  Mya walked around him to get to the door. He grabbed her elbow.

  “That would be best. Bye, Chloe.”

  Zach pulled Mya back into the apartment and slammed the door shut. She glared at him. He stared back.

  “What do you want, Zach?”

  “Don’t you have to slap me in the face first?”

  “That’s what ordinary girls do. I’m not ordinary.” She stared into his eyes and saw pain. “Let me go, Zach. This isn’t going to work.” Her throat burned as she said it. She sidestepped Zach to get to the door. He grabbed her arms.

  “I know you’re not an ordinary girl. I’ve spilled my secrets to you. Now it’s your turn.”

  “I didn’t promise to tell you anything.”

  “You promised to help me get Dan back.”

  She paused. He’s right. He nudged her back inside and pushed her backward, sitting her down on the sofa.

  He sat down on the coffee table and held her hands, more to ensure she couldn’t bolt for the door than as any kind of sentimental gesture.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m fooling around with you and Chloe. A few weeks ago, I broke up with her before I took a trip that I had no clue if I would return from. She heard I was back, so she called.”

  “If your trip was the reason you broke up with her, then she has every right to contact you now that you’re back.”

  Zach shook his head. “I’m not back for good, Mya. I have to take Dan to Eudaiz. And that universe is at war.”

  “So you’re asking him to go there to die. And you’ll go back there to die, too?”

  He shook his head. “No. We’ll win this war. But as in any battle, there will be sacrifices. If the sacrifice is my life, so be it.”

  “You’d die for strangers?”

  “You can’t fight a battle on that scale with such a mentality, Mya. I took on that responsibility, and I will follow through with it. There are millions of people and families who rely on me to make it back to Eudaiz with Dan. They expect us to protect them because we are their councillors. I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman who might need protection?”

  He gazed deeply into her eyes. She had known him forever, but he had hardly had a chance to know her. She raised an eyebrow in challenge and met his gaze.

  “I did something in the past that I’m not proud of, Mya. For years, I lived in guilt, and in those dark years, Chloe was always there for me. I didn’t rely on her for emotional comfort. But she was too innocent to bear a broken heart. So I let it slide. I let the boundary between us blur. And that was a mistake.”

  She nodded.

  “When Ayana offered me a chance to go to Eudaiz to serve a greater cause, I took it. The trip was dangerous, and I thought I would never come back, so I broke up with her before that.”

  “When did I come in?”

  He smiled. “You didn’t just come into to my life. You stormed in and robbed me of my heart. And don’t worry, I’m not going to write a song about it.”

  He held her hands and looked into her eyes. “The night you walked into my club, I knew I was in trouble. Something about you brought out the beast in me. I desired you. I couldn’t get you out of my head. But I’d promised Ayana to go to Eudaiz, so I did my best to keep my distance from you. But every ounce of my body hurt just thinking about it.”

  “Now that you’ve told me, what will you do next?”

  He grabbed his jacket and stood up.

  “I just want you to know that I’m not fooling around with you. Our king in Eudaiz is going through the coronation process, and it’s more dangerous than ever. I don’t want you to get involved in any way.” He strode toward the door.

  She talked to his back. “You think you might die during this fight, and you’re willing to accept that?”

  He turned. “Great victory has a price, Mya. If the price for Eudaiz’s peace is my life, then it’s a bargain. But trust me, I’ll try my best not to die.”

  “Don’t you want me to help you find Dan anymore?” she asked as he walked toward the door.

  He smiled at her. “I can handle this. Stay here and be safe.” Then he walked away.

  She didn’t realize it, but a tear had roll
ed down her face.

  Chapter 18

  Zach parked his motorbike at the corner of a back street. He checked his wrist unit again and saw that the confirmation of Dan’s location had been sent to him. He had asked for help from his friend in the Daimon Gate, and this information was from a wicked multiversal spy system called the EYE. Normally, he wouldn’t ask because retrieving information across dimensions was not only illegal but also dangerous. But he needed the information. Zach didn’t have many close friends, but in situations like this, his few friendships always worked out for the best.

  Zach hid a distance away behind a light pole that faced the building. It was an abandoned industrial area where endless blocks of warehouses provided a haven for criminal activities. The building where Dan was being held was a large, rusty wool store.

  He didn’t know exactly where the room or cell where they held Dan was, nor did he know how many goons were inside the building. He needed to rescue Dan, and he needed to do it fast. If he failed to take him back to Eudaiz at the designated time, millions of lives would be lost. He didn’t want that weighing on his shoulders.

  The front door opened, and Lucas came out. Once he had left the building, Zach made his way to the warehouse. He tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. He slipped inside, crouched low, and looked around.

  There was a staircase to his right leading up and a long hallway off to his left. Zach doubted they’d be keeping a prisoner upstairs, so he started down the long hall to his left. He kept going until the hallway ended at another staircase. This one went down to another closed door.

  Taking out his daggers, he descended the stairs slowly, wincing each time one creaked. Finally reaching the door, he turned the knob and pushed it open. The door opened up into a large cement chamber. It looked empty from where Zach stood, but he knew it could just be another illusion. He stepped in cautiously, and within seconds, he was surrounded by at least eight of Lucas’s men.

  They were Xiilok soldiers, Zach was sure of it. Xiilok was a land of no return for ordinary humans and creatures. When creatures joined Xiilok, they turned into entities invisible to technology in any other universe. When they died, they melted into puddles of worms. Zach had heard of Xiilok, but he had never been to Xiilok before, nor did he have any intention of doing so.