The Soul Defenders
The Soul Defenders
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SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
People are disappearing, and Piper is sure a sinister, otherworldly force is at play. Add to that ghosts who show up out of thin air, warning her of a danger she won’t be able to outrun, and a freaking bevy of supernatural creatures hiding in the background, and Piper suddenly has her hands full. Especially when the new creatures aren’t demons or ghosts, and she has no idea how to deal with them. Or whether or not they be good little monsters or bad.
There is one man who has the knowledge she needs to survive, but she can’t even count on him. Why? The bastard left town. One thing is certain: a big bad demon’s come to town and Piper has to stop him—but she needs help to do it. If only she could figure out whom to trust…
Just when I start to accept my new role as a demon slayer, a fresh threat arises.
The second book in the Soul Keepers series.
Chapter One Look Inside
Chapter One Look Inside
“I hate doing these at night,” I mumbled as I looped my messenger bag—full of ghost-hunting supplies and demon-killing daggers—over my head, letting it settle on my right hip.
My friend Rhys chuckled. “A ghost hunter who’s afraid of hunting ghosts at night. I’d say that should be your new catchphrase, but it’s not much of a selling point.”
The dark look I shot her only made her laugh more.
“That glare might work on Hudson, but I learned long ago your bark is worse than your bite.” She grabbed her own bag, then shut the trunk lid. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Light poured from every window in the two-story house, but it did nothing to ease my mind. I wouldn’t be here right now if the homeowner hadn’t been so frantic, insisting this was an emergency. From what she’d gotten across through her hysterical crying, objects and furniture were being moved and violently thrown around, which sounded a lot like a poltergeist. Oh, yay.
I couldn’t help wishing Jack were here. But Jack, an Episcopal priest who had helped me evict one poltergeist and who knew more about demons than I did, was in Charlotte, considering his appointment to a new church. Not that he’d told me face-to-face or even over a phone call. Over the past two weeks, he’d limited our contact to texts only.
I hurried up to the door, eager to get this over with.
A young woman answered, her eyes wide with fear. I almost asked her why she was still in the house if she was so terrified, but sometimes people did inexplicable things. While there was a chance she was lying, and this was some elaborate ruse to catch me making a fool of myself, the frenzied look in her eyes suggested otherwise.
“Beth?” I asked, half hoping she’d tell me no.
She nodded. “Are you Piper?”
“That’s me,” I said with a forced smile, then pointed over my shoulder. “This is Rhys. She’s here to help.”
“Thank God. That thing is upstairs.”
Better there than in the kitchen, with all the knives and glass. “You said it’s been throwing things around?”
She lifted her shaking hand to her mouth and nodded.
I raised my gaze to the second-floor windows. As if sensing my attention, whatever was up there made a loud banging noise. “Why don’t you come outside, and we’ll talk out here?”
She started to cry. “I can’t.”
I gave Rhys a we’re going to have to baby this one look, then turned back to Beth. “It’s okay. You can hang out in my car if you like. Or you can go somewhere else, and I’ll let you know when we’re done.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I can’t walk through the doorway. Something is holding me back.”
Oh. Shit.
I was supremely unqualified for this job. Sure, I’d been a ghost whisperer for the past six and a half months, but up until two and a half weeks ago, I’d been faking it. I wasn’t proud of it, but at least I’d helped many of my clients move on from the loss of a loved one. I hadn’t charged people, but I hadn’t been opposed to accepting tips—which sometimes involved cash, sometimes a case of homemade strawberry jam. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. Then, two weeks ago, Kieran Abel had blown into my life.
My abilities had begun to manifest before Abel showed up—I’d started hearing whispers from ghosts, something I’d written off as a brain glitch—but the necklace he’d given me had opened the floodgates. Within days, I could not only see ghosts, but could also see and feel nearby demons.
Not a skill I was excited to possess.
But my new ability and my recently discovered demon-killing daggers had not come with the special knowledge of what I was dealing with or how to get rid of demons. Jack had become my go-to resource for that. And now he was two hours away.
I had no idea how to get Beth out. I had no idea how to get rid of the thing going bump in the night upstairs. But I was still her best hope, and that meant I couldn’t just walk away.
“Okay,” I said, surprised at how calm I sounded. “I’m going to have a little chat with Rhys. Then we’ll tell you what we’re going to do.”
“Okay,” Beth said with a hopeful look in her eyes.
I grabbed Rhys’s arm and dragged her to the middle of the front yard. “I don’t know what I’m dealing with here. I need help.”
You need Abel.
Despite myself, I was drawn to the irritating and dangerous Kieran Abel. One scorching kiss and suddenly I was obsessed with the guy, although, to be fair, supernaturally feeling his presence every second of the day for nearly the past two weeks hadn’t helped. Who would have guessed exchanging a blood oath would bind our souls? But it wasn’t the oath that had linked us. It was our exchange of blood—he’d licked the blood from my palm after the oath, then fed me his blood to save me from bleeding to death. He’d done it only so that I could fulfill my side of the oath I’d blindly agreed to. He’d saved me so that I could kill him.
Kieran Abel was one complicated man.
But more to the point in this situation: Abel wasn’t here either. He was, in fact, on the other side of the world, though he hadn’t bothered to let me know first. The day after Abel had saved my life, he’d texted me to tell me only that he was turning my training over to two of his guys, then left me to figure out he was gone through our bond. Rhys couldn’t do much more than offer moral support, which meant I was essentially on my own.
Surprisingly, Rhys didn’t look all that worried. “So what are you going to do?”
“I think I need to prioritize things. Most important is to get Beth out, but I have no idea how to do that. I suspect the only way to free her is to get rid of whatever’s upstairs.”
“What do you think is upstairs?”
That was the question of the hour. “My gut says a mischievous ghost, but I can’t rule out a demon.”
Rhys’s eyes grew wide. “Demon? Wouldn’t we have heard if more demons had made their way down Beaucatcher Mountain? Surely we’d have encountered some during our ghost appointments.”
I shrugged, trying to look more nonchalant than I felt. “The demons might have purposely kept quiet to hide.”
Suddenly, Rhys didn’t look as excited as she had when we’d first gotten here. “Maybe you should see if Jack can come help.”
“And leave Beth inside? Even if he agreed to come, he’s two hours away. I can’t wait that long.”
“But what if you get stuck in there too?”
Rhys had a great point. “Then I guess I’ll have to make sure I deal with whatever’s up there.”