Predestined (Existence Trilogy #2)(38)
“So, I come here to check on you and low and behold you’re here. I wasted an entire night in Miranda’s backyard when I could’ve been eating food in your kitchen and watching the bad ass Chuck Bass on the television screen.” She smiled amused with herself. “I rhymed. Bad ass Chuck Bass.”
Rolling my eyes I stood up and walked over to my closet to grab a sweater. If Gee was here then we could go get that stuffed puppy out of my attic.
“Where ya going? I just got here.” Gee grumbled.
“We’re going to the attic. I have a stuffed puppy up there given to me by Leif I need to get out.”
“What?”
“Just come on Gee, I’ll explain while we’re looking for it.”
Dank
“Dankmar, I need to speak with you.” Dank stopped outside Pagan’s house and turned to see Jasyln. The anxiety on her face was alarming. Transporters typically had no real problems. Gee was an exception because she’d befriended a human. Jasyln was a typical transporter. Her only purpose was to handle souls.
“What is it Jaslyn? I haven’t got much time.”
“I realize that sir, but you need to hear what I have to say or um... explain, actually,” she glanced nervously back at the house. “It has to do with your um... the soul you, uh...”
“It has to do with Pagan, the girl I love,” I finished for her. She hadn’t been sure of the terminology since she’d never felt emotion.
“Yes, Pagan. You see...” the nervous twisting of her hands was beginning to annoy me.
“Spit it out, Jasyln. If this is about Pagan then I need to know now.”
Nodding briskly like a disobedient child who’d just been scolded she stared down at the ground. “You see sir, the boy whose soul I transported. The one that Pagan knew. He, uh, he wasn’t supposed to die. That was not his fate. I didn’t get very far before his soul was taken from me--”
“WHAT do you mean he wasn’t supposed to die? His body was no longer usable. I was drawn there. His soul was barely hanging on to the body awaiting my arrival. And do you mean to tell me you LOST his soul?” I couldn’t help the roar that left my body. This was not making any sense. Had Jasyln gone crazy?
“Yes, I know sir, I was drawn there too. But something happened. Another power took him. The power had the right due to a... a restitution.”
Ice filled my hollow shell as understanding dawned on me. The restitution had taken a soul for a soul. One that would strike close to Pagan’s heart. “No,” I snapped stalking away from the door I’d been going to enter only minutes before. This could not be happening. Wyatt could not have lost his soul to Ghede because of Pagan. She’d never be able to live with herself if she knew. Yet could I keep this from her? I needed to get Wyatt’s soul back. He might not be able to return to this life but his soul belonged to the Creator. Wyatt had done no wrong. He’d never sold himself to Ghede.
“Dankmar, sir, that isn’t all,” Jaslyn’s soft whisper raked over me like razors. This could not get any worse.
“What?” I hissed glaring back at her.
“The Creator. He wants to see you. Now.”
Chapter Sixteen
Pagan
“I think I may expire from inhalation of dust,” Gee grumbled as she shifted another box off the piles of cardboard boxes my mother had placed up here over the years.
“Oh, stop being dramatic. What’s a little dust? You’ve been in burning buildings.”
“Yeah, well, I have to go into those. It’s my job. However, my job does not say I have to do manual labor in an attic with a human.”
Laughing to myself, I opened the box she’d just gotten down from the rather dangerously tall stack my mother had made. I mean, I get that she was trying to preserve space in here but a stack of boxes that almost touched the ceiling wasn’t exactly a smart move.
“Do you want me to look in this one?” Gee asked as she got the next box down.
“Yes, please.”
“And it’s a white stuffed puppy right?”
“Yep... well, maybe not exactly white anymore. It was well loved so the fur may be a little discolored now.”
Gee grumbled to herself as she began rummaging through her box.
I shifted through the items I’d packed away only eight years ago because I’d been unable to haul them off to the local Goodwill. A small purse with sequined letters that said Las Vegas made me smile. My mother had taken me on a writer’s convention with her there once. It had been one of the last times she’d taken me with her. I always got bored but on the Las Vegas trip I’d found a friend... I think. Shaking my head I pushed it aside and found a Backstreet Boys t-shirt I’d gotten for Christmas one year. God, I’d been such a dork. A shoebox greeted me next that I knew without looking held all the letters I’d written back and forth with Miranda during school. They were full of insightful things such as “Do you think Kyle likes me?” or “Did you see the way Ashley’s butt looks in those jeans, she needs to go on a diet,” or my favorite, “Do you think Mrs. Nordman has a new chin hair today?” Yep, that shoebox was priceless. Unfortunately there was no stuffed puppy dog. Frustrated, I closed the box up and shoved it to the side.
“Well that one was a bust--” I slammed my hand over my mouth to keep from hooting with laughter. Gee was posing in front of the tall mirror that had once been in my ‘princess’ bedroom. But that wasn’t the funny part. Gee had found my dress up clothes I’d not wanted to part with back when I was ten but didn’t want in my room anymore either. She’d put on my Tinkerbell dress with a pair of Snow White plastic heels that her foot didn’t come anywhere near fitting into. On her head she was wearing the veil headpiece that had gone with my Jasmine costume.