Soul
By: The BookWorm
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“Soul (sol), n.  1. The spiritual part of man regarded in its moral aspect, or as believed to survive death and be subject to happiness or misery in a life to come.  2. The emotional part of man’s nature, the seat of his feelings or sentiments.  3. High-mindedness; noble warmth of feeling, spirit or courage, etc.  4. The inspirer or moving spirit of some action, movement, etc.” 
The American College Dictionary 1969 edition.  p.1153.

“Soul - Spirit, character, heart, self, consciousness, mind, morality, humanity.”
Roget’s Pocket Thesaurus 1946 edition.  pp. 103, 122, 242.


This is a story about Edward.  Does he have a soul?  Is there anything he just can’t, or won’t do?  Anita is always saying that she has her limit, a point beyond which she won’t go; she just hasn’t found that point yet.  This is about Edward’s limit: his point of no return, the thin line that separates evil from everything else.  Will Edward cross that line… or is it too late already? 




ABOVE ALL SHADOWS RIDES THE SUN
- J.R.R. Tolkien



Veiled behind wisping clouds, the new moon barely glowed.  Like a Cheshire cat it grinned down on the man.  He crouched silently in the bougainvillea, a darker shadow among shadows.  Every line of his body tense yet at ease as if he were born alert, potential violence wrapped around him like a second skin.  The ultimate predator; he stalked his designated prey patiently, quietly, deadly.  Darkness his ally, he used infrared goggles to see.  A light would only have aided his prey.
The man was watching a house.  It looked as if it should be the setting for a massacre involving sociopathic killers, vampires, werewolves, and perhaps a ghost or two. He flashed a rare grin at the thought, more of a baring of teeth than an actual smile.  As the scent of hibiscus blossoms embraced the breeze he watched patiently, quietly, deadly.  Illuminated figures rushed past the windows.  Lights snapped on and off as fast as fireflies. 
  The cool autumn breeze attacked his bush, and soft night sounds paused expectantly.  The screen door eased open with a muted screech.  A male figure stood silhouetted in the doorway.  Light sparkled across the figure’s golden blond hair illuminating his head, making it glitter: a perfect target.  The man ignored this shot… not a challenge.  The silhouette scanned its yard but did not see the phantom concealed in the bushes.  It moved four hesitant steps away from the door, turned, and beckoned towards the house.
Donning his infrared goggles again the man saw it as a bluish human shaped figure, but he knew that it wasn’t human.  A human would show up red on his night vision.  This was a vampire, a hungry vampire.  It had not fed yet and was still cold. 
A second silhouette emerged from the house.  This new figure was female; it showed almost white through his goggles.  Well, what do you know, a lycanthrope.  Lycanthropes have a very high metabolism and therefore a higher body temperature.  The man adjusted his plans to deal with this new target.  The female figure took one impatient step away from the door.
“I don’t wan‘ta leave, Jarred.”  Her accent was a pure West Texas drawl.
“Ve have no choice Archer, he has hired an assassin ve have to go.  Ve should have left yesterday.  Ve have to leave now.”  Clearly male, the Vamp's accent was European, German or Austrian
“Don’t ya think you’re over reactin’?” she asked.
“It does not matter if I have. It vill be easy to come back if this is a false alarm.  Ve need to take it seriously,” he said.  “Besides, you have always vanted to take a holiday.  Just think of it as a family vacation.”
“If ya say so, I’ll get the bags,” She turned to go.
“Archer,” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Do not vake him yet, ve vill not have to vake him until the auto is loaded.”
“Good idea.”  Passing the doorway, she paused, “ya did get the Chee-tos, didn’t ya?”
“Of course, I vould never leave home vithout them.”
“Good.”  She squared her shoulders and walked inside.  Jarred proceeded to unlock a van sitting in the street and open it’s back. 
Then, the velvet breeze shifted slightly the man tensed the vamp stiffened.  Jarred turned slowly to face the bougainvillea where the man had been.  His eyes began to glow a pale electric orange.
“I can smell you,” the vamp said in a soft whisper that made you want to trust, to confide in him.  The man was now in front of the bougainvillea not twenty feet from Jarred gun already pointed, but not aimed.  “Who are you?” The vampire asked softly conspiratorially as if you could share all your secrets with him.  The man had removed his goggles.  He stood there calmly, pulse not even speeding and answered the vamp.
“Death.”
Jarred lunged at him.  The man named Death aimed his gun and fired all in one smooth motion.  It’s sound was loud and unnatural in the stillness of the night, but not as loud as a gunshot should have been.  Death was using a silencer.  The vamp kept coming.  Death fired three more bullets into Jared’s head and one into his heart before the vamp could even reach him.  The vamp dropped dead, well and truly dead, at Death’s feet. 
“Jarred!”  A voice screamed.  It was the woman, Archer; she stood in the doorway taking in everything for a fraction of a second.  She screamed like her heart was being ripped apart.  Halfway through, the cry changed from human to something else, something angry.  She jumped at the man.  Despite the fact that she had been thirty feet away she got there fast enough to surprise him.  Death couldn’t even get his gun up in time. 
Archer tackled him, throwing him to the ground.  All the air left his lungs in a rush.  Her weight pressed down hard on his chest he couldn’t breathe.  She was trying to rip his throat out with her human teeth.  He could feel her beginning to shift on top of him.  Death decided he didn’t want to find out what variety of lycanthrope she was.  He’d dropped his gun in the initial rush; there was a spare on him, but it was now being ground into his spine.  If he lived it would make a killer bruise. 
Archer was insane with grief, but Death had an advantage over her, one that made up for her unnatural strength and then some.  Death kept his cool.  His left arm went up to protect his neck; his right grabbed a knife strapped to his leg, a knife with a very high silver content. 
Archer screamed as the knife ripped into her side.  She released him to clutch at the matte black hilt protruding from her abdomen.  Death stood smoothly, calmly, barely even staggering, as she sank slowly to her knees in front of him.  He drew the spare gun.  She glared, staring directly into his icy blue eyes.  In her expression was hatred and... Pity.  Death stared straight back into her eyes and shot her through the heart, not hesitating longer than it had taken him to draw his gun.  A deep forest green, the orbs widened slightly and questioned his empty face; desperately searching for the answer to some last mute question.  Then, beyond all caring, the final question both unasked and unanswered they glazed over.  He could almost see something leave them, her spirit, her consciousness, something.  She was dead. 
Death checked her pulse to make sure, then proceeded to cut off the vampire’s head and remove his heart.  It was very messy business.  Retrieving a plastic drop cloth, he covered the interior of the van with it.  Then he spent a good ten minutes loading the bodies and all traces of their death into it.  His instructions had been clear: the vamp should disappear, tonight, like he’d left town and never come back.  Those orders were a bit redundant considering he’d been fleeing anyway, but Death didn't care.  He certainly hadn't been hired to help get them to the airport.  He planned on driving the van to a very big city and dumping it unlocked.  It would be stolen or stripped in days.  He’d burn the vamp and were then scatter their ashes.  Death pulled the house keys out of the vampire’s pocket and walked up to the house whistling. 
He picked up the bags sitting inside the door and prepared to load those into the van too.  As he turned to leave he heard a slight sound behind him.
Dropping the bags, Death drew his Bretta as he whirled to aim it directly at the new threat, then slowly raised the gun.  There was a child standing there.  A little boy.  He was wearing blue footie pajamas with dinosaurs on them.  “Daddy?  You’re not Daddy.  Where’s Daddy?  I’m thirsty.” 
A rare emotion fluttered weakly in him but he identified it instantly softness, vulnerability, liability; he crushed it firmly between logic and apathy.  A new feeling suffused Death one even more rare than the previous; indecision.  His instructions had been quite clear: make the vamp disappear never to be seen again, death had been strongly implied.  They had not included this... complication, or the other for that matter.  Death spent a brief moment pondering weather or not his employer had known about the child and shifter before discarding the question as immaterial.  Had the child been listed he would have been ready.  He could have prepared himself to do what was necessary.  Finding the boy here, like this, was... unexpected.  He’d never encountered this situation before and was unsure of what to do. 
Make a decision!  Any decision is better than standing here staring.  Before he made his choice one more question ran through his mind.  It was answered instantly by the cold inner logic he possessed, which dealt so well in actions but failed horribly when forced to analyze motivations.  He listened to the answer, and his decision made, he acted.
Silently Death closed the door behind him and put the gun away.   In the kitchen he began opening cabinets until he found the glasses.  Then he jerkily filled a glass at the sink, handed it to the child and collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table.  The boy had watched all this with innocent eyes, no fear at all.  Seeming not to notice the blood stains, strange equipment, or the latex gloves the man wore he gravely accepted the glass and clamored into the chair opposite the man.  Instinctively the man reached out to steady the child’s glass as he climbed.  “Where’s mommy?”  The boy’s voice held nothing but curiosity.
“They went on a trip.” 
“I want them.  I had a bad dream.”  The boy confided.  Then his eyes widened “They left me?”
“Yes.”
“I want mommy.”  The child’s mouth began to twitch.  “I want mommy now.”  The boy turned his head away and began to cry almost silently then louder as he stopped getting enough air, deep gulping sobs that only young children can manage.  “Mommy! Daddy!”  The boy was confused; they had always come before, always.  Death raised one hand then dropped it unsure of what to do.
“Stop crying.”  He just couldn’t, he could not shoot the little boy.  The thought amazed him.  Death had found his limit.  He’d thought he could do anything but apparently, he couldn’t.  Damn.  Wait, he was being paid to make the vampire disappear.  To make it seem as though the vamp had just left town.  He obviously couldn’t leave the kid here.  The vamp wouldn’t have left town without his... son?  Therefore, the kid must disappear. 
Death reached over and pulled the child to him, held him close.  He lifted up the rock of apathy just a crack to let that fluttery feeling out.  He didn’t want to completely kill it, not now, not tonight.  Slowly the cries diminished in volume.  The boy didn’t seem to care that the arms holding him were trembling.
“What’s your name?”  This distracted the child for a moment.
“Duncan. I’m four.” the boy held up three fingers and a thumb.
“All right Duncan, do you want to go on a trip?  You can have Chee-tos.” 
“To see Mommy and Daddy?”  Death hesitated for another long moment before answering.
“No, Duncan.  This is a different trip.  You can ride on an airplane up in the sky.”
“But I’m sleepy.”
“Take a nap, it’s ok, I’ll wake you when we get to the plane.”  When Duncan had fallen back to sleep he carried the kid out to his car which was parked at the end of the road.  Then he went back and dug around in the bags he had tossed into the van on top of the bodies, opening and closing them.  It was hell to do with only the dim door lights, but he found the child’s bag.  Once he saw the teddy bear it was easy to identify.  The bag didn’t have much blood on it, but he’d get Duncan a new one anyway.  Then he went back through the house making sure that he’d taken care of everything.  Death hesitated for a long moment in the hall before reaching out and taking a picture of the vamp and shifter off the sideboard.  He tucked it into the child’s duffel.
Death drove the van to where he’d parked his car and left it there; taking the bag with him he got into his rental and drove away.  The plastic he’d put over his seat crinkled with every move he made, but Duncan slept peacefully in the back seat.
Death carried the still sleeping child up to his hotel room and laid him gently on the foot of his bed.  He carried in the small suitcase, placed it in the tub where the blood could easily be cleared away, and hesitatingly tucked Duncan in.  While watching the little boy sleep he captured the fluttering that had gotten loose inside him.  It had grown stronger like a butterfly; no not a butterfly a moth gray and ugly, escaping from its chrysalis and drying its wings, ready to fly.  Even letting it out that long had made it bigger, harder than ever to crush and hide in the dark.  Out of sight, out of danger in hibernation until the next time he needed it or it escaped. 
He returned to the house and finished the job he’d started.  After all, that was one of his prime rules: always finish the job.  He had to settle for torching the van then dumping it into the Rio Grande.  He torched the vamp and shifter at the same time.  The next day he ordered some better than genuine ids from a contact in El Paso.  He didn’t know what he should do in a situation like this.  But he knew who would….


End Part 1

Part 2

Chapter II:
Disclaimer:  I own nothing save the plot and Duncan.  All else is the intellectual property of Laurell K. Hamilton and whomever else she deems worthy of it.




ABOVE ALL SHADOWS RIDES THE SUN- J.R.R. Tolkien




I knew something was wrong the moment I pulled into the driveway.  My living room lights were on.  I backed out and drove on, as if I had just meant to turn around there in the first place.  About a quarter mile down the road I stopped and got out.  This may seem paranoid, but for me it was just good survival thinking.  The hike to my house wasn’t long, but I didn’t use the road, so it was through scrub and trees.  The fact that I’d worn a path through the woods doing this should have scared me.
The lights were still on when I got there.  I pulled out my key making sure to muffle its noise and unlocked the back door.  None of my doors squeal if I don't want them to.  There were voices coming from my living room.  The first was high and childlike I couldn’t make out the words.  The second was cool and even, I recognized it, but I didn’t put the gun away.  Maybe, just maybe I could get the drop on him this time.  As I neared the living room Edward’s voice called out. 
“I know you’re there Anita.  Don’t shoot.”  I gave it up and walked normally through the door.  I kept my gun pointed at the floor, but didn’t put it away.
“Why?  Why cant I, just once…” My voice trailed off as I took in the sight before my eyes.  Edward was sitting on my couch a gun in his relaxed hand and a child on his lap.  The little boy was smiling and looking at me curiously.  He was blond; green eyed, and couldn’t be more than five.  Edward had his secretive smile on; like he knew something I didn’t and found it hilarious.  I just stood there, like an idiot, for I’m not sure how long until Edward couldn’t hold it in any more.  He laughed.  It was a genuine expression of emotion from a more innocent, more human Edward.  I think I’m the only one who can get that sound from him.  Sometimes that makes me sad, but most of the time it just scares me.  His laugh set the child off and the boy’s giggle was like a bucket of ice water.  What on God’s green earth was Edward, Edward doing in my living room with a preschooler?  Where had he gotten him?  How soon could he put him back?  Finally Edward spoke.
“Duncan this is Anita, Anita Duncan.”
I was still too shocked to speak so I just held out my hand.  The boy Duncan shook it like a miniature grown up, then looked at Edward.  “When are Mommy and Daddy coming back?”  His voice was strangely compelling, with an accent that I just couldn’t place.
“You need to go to bed now Duncan.” Edward said.
“But I want a story.”
“Anita will tell you one after you get in bed.”  Edward shot me a smug grin.
“Ok,” said Duncan.
“Anita do you have a spare room where Duncan can sleep?”  He knew I did.  I wanted to talk to Edward.  But any child, and most adults should not hear the words I was planning to use.  So I said yes and led them both to the spare bedroom.  Edward actually tucked the kid in.  I was angry and getting madder by the second.   Duncan and Edward looked at me expectantly.  I remembered the story. 
Sitting on the edge of the bed I couldn't remember a single bedtime story except for the three little pigs.  So I began that one.  He interrupted me immediately.
“I already know that one.”
“Really?” I said.
“Yeah, Ted told me it already.”
“He did, did he?” I shot a glare at Edward who had his blank face on clear and uninformative.  But I thought I could detect the barest hint of embarrassment beneath that mask.  Was I just projecting my feelings onto Edward or could I actually read him that well?  I wasn't sure I wanted to know.  “Well you haven’t heard this one.”
“Really?” he asked interested
“Really.” I promised.  Then I told him the three little pigs but changed it so that the big bad wolf was a vampire.  The first pig looked out the window and was caught by the vampire’s eyes, the second pig refused to let the vampire in but let the first pig in who then invited the vampire in, the third little pig blew them all away with silver bullets.  After I was done Duncan wanted another but Edward said no and told him to go to bed. 
As we stepped out of the room I was ready to explode, but Edward left the door open so I didn’t talk until we'd made it to the living room.  Edward slumped down on the couch, perfectly at ease, no matter where he was.  I counted to ten, slowly.
“Who is his mother?  Where is she?”  He looked at me as if he couldn't understand what I was saying, and then realization set in.  With shock in his eyes he shook his head emphatically.
“No!  God No!  Is that what you were thinking?  Hell no.”  It was the most reaction I'd ever caused in Edward.  Apparently, he was not the boy's father.  I don't know why, but I felt as if a weight had been lifted off me.  He recovered then and gave me a blank look, one that even I couldn’t decipher.  I didn’t try.  If Edward wanted to give me this, fine.
“Donna’s one thing, Edward; Peter, even Becka I can understand!  Where the hell did you get him?  If you aren’t his Dad then where are his parents?”  His blank face flickered just barely, it was enough, I jumped on it.  “You killed them!”  I collapsed into a chair across from him.  I rubbed my eyes; it was too early to deal with this sort of thing, too damn early.
“I would have thought you’d be proud of me, Anita.”  His voice was soft, emotionless.  The hand fell from my eyes and they grew wide.
“You don’t mean... you can’t mean?”  He just nodded, not looking at me.  I sat there thinking, putting it all together.  “You were hired to kill him?  A child?”  The disbelief in my voice turned to wonder. “And you didn’t!”  He let out a laugh, a short bitter sound
“I couldn’t.  I mean I could, but... I just couldn’t, not cold, not without preparing myself.  I was hired to make a vamp disappear.  No body, just disappear.  A shifter was with the vamp.  His parents.  They were packed, ready to leave.  The kid was in the house, asleep.  The whole time.”  His blue eyes searched my face uncertainly, not something I saw often with Edward.  I don’t know what he was looking for, but he found it.  His entire body relaxed.  I hadn’t realized until then how tense it had been. I could actually see his equilibrium being restored.
My next words were cruel and sarcastic.  “I thought it didn’t bother you to see dead children, Edward.”  Somehow, he knew I didn’t mean it.  Whatever he had seen in my face told him more than any of my words ever could.  He simply ignored it face blank, waiting.  I gave it up; it was like an atheist waving a cross at a vampire, being sarcastic to Edward.  He knew me too well, knew that sarcasm is my way of hiding strong emotions.  “I am proud of you, Edward, but you did it yourself.  Are you proud of yourself?”  I was serious; I wanted to know.
“I’m... disappointed.”  And that was all I could get out of him.
Suddenly I was struck with a thought, an epiphany.  “What are you going to do with him?  If you were hired to make them disappear...  Where are you going to dump him?”  Edward grinned, wide and canary eating.  Oh shit…  He couldn’t, he wouldn’t!
I jumped to my feet.  His hand went instinctively to his gun but didn’t draw.  I ignored it, for once, consumed by a burning suspicion.  “No.  Hell no!  Non-negotiable.  It isn’t going to happen!  There is absolutely NO WAY!  I MEAN NO FUCKING WAY that I am going to do this!”
He just sat there for the next half-hour, listening to my tirade with that condescending half grin of his.  I got pretty creative towards the end; using some French phrases I had picked up from Jean Claude and Asher when they hadn’t known I was listening.
“…Son-of-a coffin-bait, inbred, drug-addict, whore and the drunk incubus she met in the ally behind the VD clinic!”
“You’re repeating yourself Anita.”  He finally interrupted.  After a deep breath he continued in his calmest, deadliest monotone, “I’m not going to ask you to do this as a favor.  Either you will or you won’t.  What is it going to be?”
When he put it that way there was only one answer.  I didn’t know what Edward would do with Duncan if I didn’t take him, but I suspected.  He knew me too well, better than anyone else ever has.  Like he said once, we’re soul mates.  He had always known what my answer would be.  “Of course I’ll do it Edward.  But could you at least owe me half a favor?”
He smirked at that.  “Do you mind if I…” Edward made a sweeping gesture indicating the couch.
“No go ahead.  You can stay the night.”  I headed towards my room but turned back and took in his deceptively relaxed form, “Don’t kill anyone in my house.  And don’t drink coffee on my couch tomorrow… today.”  He waved a hand at me, rolled over and was probably asleep by the time I had finished preparing for bed.  The bastard.
As I suspected he was gone in the morning.

End Part 2

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