Soulstice

  Copyright

  Text Copyright © 2009 by Star Farm Productions, LLC

  Smoke images by Yamada Taro/Riser/Getty Images, and Don Farrall/ Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

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  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: September 2009

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Based upon an original idea by Mark Allen Smith.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-07141-3

  Contents

  Copyright

  Also in The Devourig series

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  EPILOGUE

  THE DEVOURING

  Also in the DEVOURING series:

  The Devouring (Book 1)

  TO RIVER, AND TO JON.

  PROLOGUE

  I kept my eyes closed, smelling the buttered popcorn and cotton candy, hearing the ding-dings of the Midway games, feeling the warm sun on my skin. I breathed in and opened my eyes, smiling in readiness for the fun day ahead.

  But with my eyes open I saw that the carnival was empty. The smells, the sounds were all there, but no people to enjoy it. I was standing on the platform of the Ferris wheel, and the cars rounded their wide, crayon-box arc through the sky, but there wasn’t an operator tending to the ride.

  The blue car was descending onto the platform, and I saw that on the seat was a rose, and tied to the rose was a card, and written on the card was my name. I dashed forward, light with glee, and grabbed up both the rose and the card. The flower was pungent, but when I opened the envelope I cut my finger on the paper, and it bled onto the ground. My finger stung, and then, to my horror, leeches crawled up through the sand and sucked up the blood. They made slurping sounds and left a trail of black sludge behind them. I felt something pinch my shoulder and cringed; one of them clung to me, its mouth suctioned to my skin, sucking my blood out of my veins. Disgusted, I swatted it away and stomped on it, but it left black crisscrosses on my arm. I examined them, but they weren’t painful, so I turned back to the card.

  “Meet me at the Love Boat,” it read, and my heart soared. I clapped my hands in anticipation and hurried across the fairgrounds.

  The Love Boat was a two-person skiff that floated down an underground river, though really the “river” was just a man-made canal built inside one of the carnival houses. But it was dark, and it was quiet, and it was perfect for kissing. And he wanted to meet me there.

  The boat was waiting at the quay. It was empty, except for another note sitting on the seat.

  “Set sail, I’ll soon be with you,” it said, so I did. I pushed off and settled in, and the boat drifted into the darkness of a steel cave.

  Pink spotlights dappled off the water ahead, and the place was filled with the scent of roses. I looked over the side of the boat and saw the water filled with rose petals—he’d left them for me! I dipped my hand into the water, scooped them up, and pressed them against my nose…

  And screamed. They were not rose petals at all, but dismembered ears, colored red with blood. My screams echoed through the cavern, but I could not go back, only forward through a listening sea.

  The river rounded a bend in front of me, disappearing into the black. I called out his name, but there was no answer. The boat drifted forward, and the air grew blisteringly cold. I could see my breath, and the river began to freeze over. Fear sprouted inside me, but there was nothing I could do but float and wait for whatever was coming. I heard the noise of running water ahead, and suddenly my boat tipped, and I was shrieking and falling, falling, down an icy waterfall.

  The boat crashed when it hit the waves below, but I just sank beneath them, as if I had stones tied to my ankles. Down and down I floated, the frigid water curdling my skin and freezing my organs.

  Finally I reached the bottom, and there was my love, tangled in algae, his skin whiter than snow, his lips bluer than sky, his eyes opened wide and blacker than space. His dark curls wafted to and fro about his once-perfect face. He stared, unseeing, ahead, and then a crab crawled out between his lips. I tried to swim up to the surface, but he grabbed my foot and would not let go, his grip so tight it bore into my bone, and I was stuck there until the fish came to gnaw at my skin and devour my eyes.

  Reggie sat up in bed, gasping for breath.

  “Just the dream, just the dream,” she muttered to herself. She sat still, trying to calm her breathing and push the restlessness from her body. The details of the dream sometimes varied, but the end was always the same.

  She rubbed her eyes, tired and frustrated. She didn’t know how to make it go away. Reaching over, she turned on her bedside lamp and took a sip of water. Her glance fell on her history notebook on the night table. Impulsively, she ripped a sheet of paper out of it, clicked open a pen, and scribbled out what she had just dreamt.

  A noise in her doorway made her look up.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s just me,” said her brother, Henry, and he stepped into the room. “I had a nightmare.”

  “They must be going around,” Reggie replied. “Come on, hop in.”

  Henry dove onto her bed and snuggled with her, and soon he was fast asleep again. But Reggie lay awake long after, wondering if the nightmares would ever stop.

  1

  Six months, Reggie Halloway thought Friday morning as the hot water from the shower poured down her chilled flesh. Six months since Quinn Waters, town golden boy and the object of her foolish infatuation, had revealed himself as a Vour. Six months since he tried to destroy her and later drowned in Cutter’s Lake while Reggie’s psyche battled for Henry’s soul inside the fearscape.

  Six months since she’d encountered a Vour at all.

  The monsters were the essence of fear, and they took over people’s bodies on Sorry Night, the night of the winter solstice. They sent human souls to personal hells called fearscapes and lived out the lives their victims should have had. Reggie had first read about the Vours in an old journal, stories of ancient and evil creatures who saw human beings either as hosts to their essences or playthings to torment. She had thought them the delusions of a madwoman, Macie Canfield, but then one had gotten to Reggie’s brother. She had learned how to defeat it and had brought her brother back.

  At first she had suspected every person on the street of being a Vour, scoured every feature and action for the telltale signs. Vours blended in seamlessly, with few giveaways. They hated the cold and couldn’t cry, and would sometimes manifest as smoke when they were i
njured or leaving a body. Or when they telepathically sent horrific visions to other humans, which they often did just for fun. But she had seen nothing, not since January.

  Perhaps they’d decided to leave her alone. Perhaps her fluke power to enter and destroy the hellish fearscape had shown them something they’d never encountered. Perhaps she had scared them away.

  “Come on, Reg!” Dad rapped on the bathroom door. “Let’s move it. Out the door in ten!”

  “Almost done!”

  She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair. It hung just below her chin now; she had had to cut much of it off after she’d singed it away in Macie’s burning basement. But it was growing back, healthy, strong, and curiously, a shade darker.

  It wasn’t the only thing that was darker, Reggie mused. A slow dread continued to creep like black moss across the heart of Cutter’s Wedge, and the town remained on edge.

  Quinn Waters was seventeen and Cutter’s Wedge’s favorite son. The dimpled boy next door and the star quarterback since his sophomore year, he passed and ran a primrose path to Division A ball. His academic record wasn’t stellar, but it would have been strong enough to earn options and scholarships to top programs around the country. No one suspected what he really was. How could they? He was perfect. Charismatic, charming, gentlemanly, and seriously cute, Quinn had everyone under his spell. And then he had disappeared.

  Though few spoke it aloud, most of the town believed that their young hero had met with foul play. And no one would rest until answers—and a body—were unearthed. Reggie, along with her best friend, Aaron Cole, and former mentor, Eben Bloch, knew the boy’s body was at the bottom of the lake, but this was a dark secret all three planned to take to their graves.

  A homicide detective from Wennemack had descended on Cutter’s Wedge in late February, two months after the disappearance, and had been lurking around ever since. After four months of investigation, which involved dozens of interviews with students and faculty at Cutter High, the detective and the local police had made little progress, and neither Quinn nor his red Mustang had been found. In all that time, nobody had ever interviewed Reggie or Aaron.

  And why would they? Reggie had often asked herself. She and Aaron hadn’t exactly traveled in Quinn’s circle. Nothing connected them to Quinn. Nothing except that car…

  “Reggie!” Dad’s voice now boomed from the kitchen below. “Let’s go!”

  Reggie pulled on her army-green Chucks, already tied, and jogged down the stairs dressed in jeans and a plain white tee. Henry stood at the front door, a faded red cap pulled down over his ears.

  “Might hit ninety-five today.” Reggie gently patted him on the head. “Little hot for that, don’t you think?”

  Henry shrugged.

  “If anyone says anything, you tell them—”

  “I tell them I lost my ear in a tragic circus accident involving a mountain lion and a renegade trapeze artist, I know,” Henry said. “It doesn’t help, Reggie.”

  “Henry, screw Billy Persons and anyone else that stupid. If he teases you again, you tell him his mother is a raging alcoholic.”

  “You will say no such thing.” Dad emerged from the kitchen, his tool belt slung over his shoulder. “Henry, do me a favor and grab the paper from the end of the driveway?”

  “Can’t you just get it on your way to work?”

  “Henry.”

  “Fine.”

  The boy stomped out of the front door. Thom Halloway dropped a heavy, calloused palm on his daughter’s shoulder.

  “Reggie.”

  “What.”

  “Don’t be reckless. Not with him. Please.”

  Reggie shook off her father’s hand.

  “I’m trying to help.”

  “By encouraging him to slur another kid’s mother?”

  “By helping him fight back, Dad!”

  “That’s not your job. Let the doctor do the helping.”

  “Yeah.” Reggie walked out toward the street.

  “Reggie, I’m not—”

  “Have a nice day, Dad.”

  Reggie and Henry met up with Aaron two blocks from the unified school campus. At fifteen, Aaron had sprouted up several inches in the past year, and his gawky stride suggested that his body didn’t quite know how to handle the spurt. His large hands and feet, coupled with a T-shirt and cords that hung from his thin frame, gave him the look of a puppy still growing into its skin.

  It was already hot and sticky, and the promise of another sweltering day rose from the asphalt. Heavy spring rains had caused flooding around the county and a lot of standing water remained. Mosquitoes staked an early claim to ponds and puddles all over town on a relentless search for blood.

  “Last week before finals, Reg. You ready?”

  “Not even close.”

  Henry walked ahead, jumping over sidewalk cracks, the red cap still tugged over his ears. Aaron saw the expression of concern on Reggie’s face but did not ask.

  “So.” Aaron smacked a mosquito on his neck. “Bio.”

  “Ugh. Don’t.”

  “Let’s hear it. Wasp. Phylum?”

  Reggie sighed. “Phylum arthropod. Subphylum myriapod. Class insect.”

  “Close. Subphylum hexapod.”

  “Damn.”

  “You’ll do fine.” Aaron slapped another bug off his arm.

  “I’ve resigned myself to the sea of mediocrity that is the 3.6 GPA. Enjoy the thin air of your 4.0 peak.”

  “4.2, actually. You know, with the weighted classes.” Aaron paused, embarrassed. “I’ll stop now.”

  “No, don’t. You should be proud. Besides, plenty of people have lived happy, fruitful lives thinking a hexapod is a curse on peas, right?”

  “This is a fact.”

  They reached the corner of the block, and Henry stopped on the edge of the vast elementary school lawn. He gazed out at the gaggle of small children playing in front of the main entrance to Cutter’s Wedge Elementary. There was yelling and laughter, but something kept Henry from joining in the fun. Something other than the worries about his ear. Reggie eyed him—it had been like this since he’d come back from the fearscape.

  Reggie knelt down and gave him a little squeeze.

  “You have a good day, okay, Hen? Go play.”

  Henry’s frame went rigid. Reggie looked up and saw a hefty, carrot-haired boy chasing a couple of smaller boys. He tackled one of them and pinned him down.

  It didn’t look like play to Reggie.

  “I want to break his legs so he can’t do that,” Henry said in a low voice.

  Reggie pulled away, startled.

  “You don’t mean that. Look, Billy Persons is a chubby snot-nosed brat.”

  Aaron leaned in. “And he smells like cabbage. Just like his big brother.”

  Henry let out a little laugh.

  Reggie squeezed harder. “You won’t let him get to you, right?”

  “Yeah.” Henry kicked at the ground. “Is Dad picking me up?”

  “No, he’s at a Wennemack site on Fridays for a while. That’s why you had your appointment yesterday, remember?” Reggie stroked her brother’s hand. “But I’ll be right here after school.”

  Henry hugged her. “See you.”

  “See you.”

  Reggie watched him walk into the schoolyard. Then she and Aaron headed across the drive that separated the elementary school from Cutter High.

  “How are his sessions with Dr. Unger going?” Aaron asked.

  “Pretty well, I think. I haven’t met him yet, but Henry likes him, anyway.”

  So far, Henry hadn’t remembered anything about being taken over by a Vour, or about spending several hellish days in his fearscape. But he had been having terrible nightmares since March, which Dad and the doctors chalked up to stress from Mom leaving, hence the weekly therapy sessions.

  “Good. Unger is the best child trauma therapist in the state. My mom swears by him. He’ll help Henry get better, Reggie. And he will get better.”

&n
bsp; “I know.” Reggie breathed deep and ran her fingers through her hair. “So, just one more week, right?”

  “Yep. One more week, and then we can spend our days lying by the pool sipping lemonade. You know, if one of us had a pool.”

  “And if I didn’t need a job.”

  “There might be work at the bookstore. I can ask Eben—”

  “No,” Reggie said flatly. She hadn’t seen Eben Bloch since January when she’d quit her job at his shop and Aaron had taken over.

  “Reg, you know Eben isn’t exactly the Dr. Phil sharing type. But I can tell he misses you. I think he feels like he’s lost a daughter. You’re his only family.”

  “Families don’t lie to each other.”

  “Really? You haven’t been straight with your dad about what happened. Not that I blame you. He’d put you away. But Eben has his reasons why he didn’t tell you he had a history with the Vours. He was trying to protect you.”

  Reggie wiped sweat from her brow.

  “Remind me again how not telling me pertinent information is protecting me.”

  They headed across the quad. Normally, students would chat under trees or up against the bike racks until the last possible moment, but the oppressive humidity had driven even the laziest kids into the building prior to the bell. Reggie noticed a patrol car and a black sedan with tinted windows in the parking lot.

  “Cops again,” she said. “When will they stop?”

  “When Quinn’s case goes cold.” Aaron opened the door for Reggie and glanced nervously at the vehicles. “Or when they make an arrest.”

  They both stepped into the school entrance hall as distant thunder rumbled in the darkening sky.

  2

  Reggie slid into her English class desk, her back and neck already sweaty and gross. She pulled her damp ponytail up again, but the rubber band snapped and her hair unraveled in a mess of frizz.

  The rest of the students filed into the classroom as the bell sounded. Despite the continued presence of police at the school, there was an air of excitement. Kids chatted and laughed as if, for at least a little while, they’d moved past the anxiety and gloom brought on by Quinn’s bizarre and sudden disappearance. Summer vacation was almost here, and everyone felt it.