Heart and Soul

Her eyes widened with shock as she stared. My prize waited patiently for me right there, a little to the left of her pupil. That light, the one that locked all that passionate power behind her vibrant green eyes, slowly floated toward the center of her pupil. The process normally took up to five minutes. Two minutes for human souls, three to four minutes on fairy souls depending on their power, and five minutes on witches. Three witches’ souls belonged to me, and four more had my name on their files in the boss’s file cabinet. The process seemed normal. Two minutes passed beautifully as she lay frozen on her bed. Suddenly, my prize snatched away from me. She blinked rapidly seven times. The rumble of annoyance echoed through my chest. This removal would not be messed up by me; I never screwed up before. I grasped the back of her neck tighter, tilting her head back, to draw my prize back.

‘Stop fighting,’ I thought while concentrating harder on the floating silvery green light. She tried to close her eyes before another rougher growl left my snarling lips. Her muscles loosened. I nodded in approval. Three minutes into the process her soul began playing tug-a-war again. Playing this game bored me. I tried to speed up the process.

Her skin paled while sweat beaded on her forehead. She managed to wrap her hands around my arm. I unraveled my fingers from her hair before prying my arm loose. My knees slid over her palms before I tangled my fingers back into place. Her back arched weakly underneath my weight. I shoved her back down. “Stop fighting!” I gritted my teeth while I slapped myself mentally.

She shouldn’t hear me. Four minutes. The light bucked. I snatched. Four minutes, twenty three seconds. I reeled harder. Four minutes, forty five seconds. The light loosened. ‘Good girl.’ Four minutes, fifty seven seconds. It bucked again, and fell back. ‘Shit!”

Nine minutes and thirty one seconds later, I released her. She looked peaked, and she would for a few days. Someone like me with eyes, teeth, and skin like mine can’t be real in her mind. Tomorrow she’ll wake with flu like symptoms and the memory of a horrible nightmare. Death would find her a few days after that; the doctors will say she died from influenza. I stood from her bed and tried to smile, but it was seeped in venom instead, as my smiles always were.

Twelve steps from her bed to the end of the hall would get me back to the stairs. I made it six steps before my left leg went numb. She moaned. “What the hell have you done?” I drug my leg across the floor. Her moans echoed down the hall. She shouldn’t be that awake! I slapped my leg, and it began to tingle. Eight stairs until the first floor where I could take a right into the kitchen. I made two steps before my right leg began tingling. The floor rushed to meet my chest. “Damn it! This is the last job; I need a fucking vacation!” I shoved myself off the floor just before pain shot through my right leg. Hissing to myself, I thought ‘this has to be hunger pains.’

I pulled my right leg over to the window I’d come through. The glass frame slipped while I was upstairs. Glass littered the floor in front of the window. I hit my leg a few times causing the pain to worsen until it stopped. My left leg slipped out first followed by my left arm and then my right leg. At the last second, I lost control of my arm. It slammed to the top of the frame catching fragments of glass before it met the sharp shard gripping the bottom of the glass. Blood flowed freely, and I knew. “Trouble is coming,” I whispered to the night air as I ran through the streets, hiding in the shadows, before I made my way home.