Of Hearts and Souls

Of Hearts and Souls


Another hotel. Another mindless hunt. Another twenty-three-year-old hunter sitting on a double bed, surrounded by newspapers, books and pieces of white paper covered in some strange symbols at some ridiculous hour of the morning. Said hunter didn't even need to look at the alarm clock to know that she'd only have a couple of hours before it got light enough outside to go searching for more clues - it was a general rule of thumb that hunting in daylight was safer than doing so at night.

"Fuck this..." The young woman shoved the offending book off the edge of the bed, scowl deepening as it thudded onto the floor. "This makes no sense. First it's a ghost, now it's a demon... what the bloody hell does it want?"

She'd been directed to Small Town, Middle of Nowhere by a hunter she'd caught passing on the road. Apparently there was a big hunt occurring up North, one that Liza had no intention of involving herself in (not to mention she'd been told to stay away by three separate hunters) and the hunter on his way up there had asked her to take over the lead he'd caught on a being that was going from town to town, taking widows.

Why the hell some supernatural thing would want a widow was anybody's guess, but this hunter didn't try to linger on the 'why do they do it?' aspect of her cases when the 'how do I get rid of it?' angle was far, far more important.

"Could just be a demon trying to recruit," she murmured to herself, looking over yet another newspaper that had reported on the disappearance of two widowed sisters whose husbands had both drowned on a fishing trip. "'Sell your soul, we'll bring back your husband - just turn up here at this time.' Then they kill them? Drag them to Hell? Or they could --"

The alarm-radio on the bedside cabinet crackled into life, quietly playing some piss-poor excuse for a song by some group of teenagers who clearly had no idea of the horrors this hunter had been fighting since before she was out of high school.

'You cannot run and you cannot hide. Yeah, you gotta face it, baby, things go bump in the night.'

The hunter grimaced at the choice of song; she'd heard it on her car radio quite a few times on the way here and it never failed to piss her off. Glorifying bumps in the night? Yeah. Way to go and attract demons. She wouldn't be surprised if she ended up ganking the teenagers.

Her thoughts were disturbed by the television flickering in the corner.

"Are you shitting me?" It was a phrase often used by the hunter, especially when she came across new monsters. The more she met, the more difficult it became to fantasise about a world without any form of supernatural creature lurking in the shadows.

The hunter stood, intent on turning off both of the offending electronic noise-makers (distractions, just distractions) when a knock at her hotel door came.

Now that was not good. Retrieving the silver revolver she'd dumped on top of the jacket sitting on the tiny table in the corner, she slowly approached the door and, after twisting the key, pulled it open.

"Liza Covet?"

"Oh, motherfucker..."

"I'll take that as a yes, shall I?" The speaker was met with a face-full of revolver, the response to which was a mere twitch of an eyebrow above an unnaturally dark eye. "Are you really going to shoot me?"

"Yes." Covet seemed to have trouble speaking through clenched teeth.

"But I've such great news to tell you!"

"You're the one taking the widows."

"Well... have to make the trip up here worth my while now, don't I?" The man - at least, he looked like a perfectly average man - let himself into the room and took a seat on one of the two worn out chairs at the table. "Don't you want to hear my news, Liza?"

"Not particularly."

"Don't be a bitch. Take a seat."

"I'll stay standing, thanks," Covet sneered, an altogether distasteful look on her face. "You shouldn't be here."

"I shouldn't, you're right. The fact remains, however, that I am here. Someone down there has big plans for me, I think."

"Oh, Lucifer's interested in you, is he? Some bottom-level soul-stealer?"

"I prefer the term salesman."

"You trick innocent humans into selling their souls to you. You rarely give them what they ask for. Your contracts are loophole cities."

"Well, you would know all about that now, wouldn't you?" The man was smirking. Where his eyes had been dark, perhaps shaded by the darkness and dim lighting, they were now completely black - iris, whites and all. "Let me tell you something, Liza, then I promise I'll go back home."

"No more murders."

"They're not dead. Not... really dead, at any rate."

"Michael." The warning in her voice sat thick in the air.

The demon cringed, frowning for the first time since arriving at the hunter's less than hospitable abode. "Do call me James instead, would you? That name makes my blood boil."

"Yeah, that's why I'm using it. For a demon, you're a bit of a wuss about your name."

"The angels share it."

"What angels? There are none!"

"Can't risk it - either way," his voice smothered the words in that cool indifference he had originally exuded, "we need to talk."

"Talk quickly or I'm sending you back the old-fashioned way."

"Fine. All of the hunters who went to the hunt they wouldn't let you go to? Dead. All of them. They have no hope of surviving."

Michael James had been a professional male escort - the kind that lonely old women could hire to have on their arm all night at extravagant parties and various ballroom events - for many years before his trip down to hell. The story came out painstakingly slowly over the few years that Liza had actually known James, though he seemed entirely gleeful to share it when he did start talking about his past. After a crossroads demon had come across him on his deathbed (some virus had caught hold of him and refused to let go, resulting in his being incapable to move from what was eventually his deathbed) and had offered him another year in exchange for his soul. James had always wanted a son and had apparently seen this as an opportunity to get just that. The plan, however, had backfired - the woman James wanted point-blank refused when the then human man had explained his situation, completely shunning the idea of being shunned herself for having a child on her own.

That hadn't stopped the demon coming back and moulding Michael James into the black-eyed creature that doggedly sold soul-binding contracts of his own, though.

"It's some blood-sucking, memory-robbing thing that my boss thought up and the chances of them figuring out that it's tied to a human's heart before it kills them all are very, very slim."

Liza visibly fought back the urge to plant a bullet in the demon's head. "And?"

"And... I need you to go kill it."

"Why?"

"Because you know how to."

"I don't. You do."

"I can't kill it. I'll be dragged back to Hell before I get near the thing and I have a quota to fill before I can let that happen."

"Souls?"

"Yup, you guessed it. Perfectly fair contracts this time, though... The boss-man wants to have an army of humans up here that he can control with a click of his fingers. You know as well as I do that it'll be easier for him if he's on good terms with them."

"The thing?"

"Child living in a house two blocks from the church - you'll know it when you see it, trust me. Its eyes are as unnatural as mine. Stab it in the heart. The thing'll collapse. You have to go stab it in the heart too."

"I have to kill a child?"

"You killed my last body, that didn't phase you. Don't over-think this."

"You were strangling me. This will be some innocent child who doesn't even realise what its done wrong! Someone who hasn't done anything at all, in fact!"

"And that monster that the child is linked to just killed eighteen hunters. Better hurry, Covet, otherwise you'll be the last clump of human flesh who knows that there are even demons walking the Earth! Though... what I wouldn't give to see you ripped to shreds --"

The bullet went straight into the wall.

"Fuck..."

It was dark. It was quiet. The only sound in the old Ford Mustang was that of Liza Covet snoring from beneath a duvet that she had pulled up over her head in the back seat.

Until the car jerked forward by several inches.

"Have a nice sleep, beautiful?"

"Johannes!" The ungodly shriek that came from the hunter (who was attempting to claw her way out of the footwells by this point) had the witch flinching away and holding his hands up in mock surrender. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I was on the other side of the planet and may have forgotten to change my watch. Time-zones are a bitch. Anyways, I was thinking about stuff and I thought I'd come see you."

"Johannes..." The short, seething tone that the woman used from her new upright position in the back seat was a familiar one to this particular witch. "I've got to be in Wisconsin by the day after tomorrow. You showing up in the middle of the night is not going to make that easy."

"Sorry. I just had to make sure you were okay," the witch admitted rather sheepishly. "That demon has been around you again, hasn't he?"

"Michael? How'd you figure?"

"Took me an extra five minutes to get into the car. Figured you might've upped your wards a bit. So, did you plant a bullet in his brain?" Johannes and Michael were not friendly if the hopeful glee in the former's voice was anything to judge by. "Soak him with holy water?"

"I'm not trying to gank him, Johannes. He's useful," Liza got out through a yawn. "He says he's making fair contracts now."

"Not what I heard," Johannes retorted immediately. "I heard that he bought a little girl's soul from up north and attached her to some lost spirit as a 'friend'."

It took a good twenty seconds for the significance of the witch's growled statement to click as 'bad news' in Liza's mind. "How far up north?"

"What?"

"How. Far. Up. North?"

"Uuh, I dunno. I didn't ask specifics. Minnesota, I think." Liza's expression darkened. "What's wrong?"

"That black-eyed son of a bitch tricked me."

"Told you he was bad news," Johannes cooed triumphantly, turning to sit on his knees and lean in closer to Liza. He dropped his voice to a conspirational whisper. "You summon him, I'll get the holy oil and demon trap ready, right? We can get the exorcism all done with and then we can go up north together --"

"Look, I know you really want to send him back to hell or wherever it is they go when we exorcise them, but I can't. Not yet."

"Not yet?"

"Not yet. Were you planning on getting a motel room nearby? There's a town forty miles or so up ahead. We need to get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."

"Wisconsin?"

"Much, much better," Liza promised, handing over her car keys and twining her bedding around herself with a rather smug smile. "Tomorrow we're going to find out exactly what Michael's playing with."



"So what web did Michael weave for you?" Johannes asked around a mouthful of pancake.

"He said that Satan had created some monster and tied it to the little girl's heart. He unfortunately missed out the part where the monster was a spirit and the tie was to her soul, not to her heart," came Liza's grumbled reply. "The bastard was trying to get me to finish off his contract. He just wants that girl's soul. Knowing Michael, he's probably been going around that town buying souls in exchange for protection from the monster, too."

"He sent you to kill the little girl and kill a spirit?" The witch wrinkled his nose. "I don't get why he didn't just have her fall into a well or something. That's how he usually works. 'Accidents' left, right and centre when he's been in a town 'doing business'."

"He says that Satan's been trying to get the humans on his side. Made him draw up fairer contracts or something. That'll be the ounce of truth he added to his lies to make him seem credible. He can't kill them, accidentally-on-purpose or not, without breaking the contract and losing the soul to a reaper."

Johannes mopped up the last of the syrup on his plate with a piece of dreadfully soggy pancake and stuck said breakfast food into his mouth. He chewed with a deep consideration before gesturing at the hunter with his fork.

"I feel like I'm playing devil's advocate here... but there isn't a chance that he really is being fair and true to his contracts and this is all Lucifer's fault, is there?"

Liza raised one dark eyebrow.

"No, you're right. Stupid idea. This is Michael James we're talking about. The demon who casually shags and strangles before heading out the door to make a deal at the crossroads. What was I thinking?"

Liza nudged the syrup bottle further away from Johannes. "I think you've had too much sugar too early in the morning. Let's finish our coffee; we need to get out of here and find somewhere secluded."

It was Johannes' turn to raise an eyebrow this time.

"If you'd rather we summoned the demon in a playground, be my guest. Idiot..."

"This... really wasn't what I had in mind when you said 'secluded place. I mean..." The man of the couple huddled in a broken shed gestured half-heartedly at their rotten-wood surroundings. "I figured maybe a large warehouse. An empty field."

"Ever tried drawing a fucking demon trap on grass? It's hard. One little blade of grass out of place and that demon just strolls right on out." Liza didn't even want to think about the situation that had lead to this revelation. "Besides, this is good. No sign that kids have been crowding in here and drinking, no homeless guy to accidentally kill. It's perfect."

"It smells."

"Shame," Covet drawled, stooped over the strange, almost foreign symbols on the dirty floor. "Does this look complete to you?"

"It looks like you cut your hand open and just went nuts," Johannes answered honestly. "If it helps, I recognise two symbols and they're pretty damn good for being drawn with a finger smeared in blood."

"I'll take that as a compliment, shall I? You ready to get busy? You've done fuck all since we arrived so I think I'm perfectly justified in telling you to do the summons yourself. It's easier for you anyway. Creepy witch." The hunter had wrapped her hand quickly during her speech, small squares of gauze daubed across the wound and deposited in a bucket before a fresh piece was covered with bandage that was, for once, clean.

Without replying (though he shot a disgruntled look at the woman), Johannes stepped gingerly into the circle of blood, attempting not to accidentally break the seal that would keep their unwilling guest exactly where they wanted him. After a moment of simply breathing, Johannes closed his eyes and, just mere seconds later, hopped hurriedly from the enclosure.

"Holy shit," the witch huffed, breathless despite the brief, bare movement. "First time I've done that with a black-eye."

"Only time, if you're lucky." Liza stood at that point, casually glancing over her shoulder to the pile of weapons and fail-safes sitting in a small case before turning to face the curly-haired man. "How much longer?"

"Half a minute. Minute, minute and a half at the most. He seemed pretty damn invested in what he was doing. Took me too long to get to him to begin with."

"As long as it's soon. If we spend too long harassing him instead of getting the information we need, he'll end up calling some friends and then we'll be ripped to shreds."

"You'll be ripped to shreds," Johannes corrected, smiling wryly. "I'll disappear." He probably would, too.

Covet merely shook her head, eyes focussed on the demon trap. If this plan went well, a little girl would have her soul back for the rest of her life. If it didn't go as planned, they'd have to go kill a spirit and attract a reaper to take care of the little girl. If it went completely off-kilter and something went terribly wrong, well... At least Michael had no claim over either of their souls.

"-- if you'll just seal the... oh. It's you." Michael James, crossroads demon extraordinaire, was in a dingy, run-down shed in his perfectly tailored suit and expensive loafers. "What on earth have you summoned me for -- aaah..."

"Clicked, has it?" Johannes sneered, retreating back to the case of assorted weaponry.

"Well this is not the welcome I thought I might receive at all, Covet!" Michael smiled, cool and comfortable amusement seeping into his voice and dripping from the words as they rolled from his tongue. "Are you quite sure you've summoned the right man?"

Johannes snorted from behind Liza, who didn't appear to share either of the two males' glee at the situation. "I'm afraid that some information has come to light that may make the job you've given me difficult, Michael James."

"Oh?" The demon, whose dark brown irises were now drowned out by complete blackness, was smirking. He was all too aware of the mistakes.

"When were you going to tell me that you just wanted her soul?"

"The plan was to do that right after I'd dragged it down to hell," Michael stated, tone suggesting that his intentions had been plotted before Liza was even aware of the hunt up North. "I didn't include arrangements for your poodle, however," he added, limply gesturing at Johannes. "Shouldn't he have been neutered by now?"

Johannes' response was to splash the demon with a bottle of holy water, to which both Michael and Liza shrieked in response.

"You idiot, what are you doing?" Liza yelled over the demon's howling-turned-laughter. "You're going to break the seal and then we'll never get another chance at this!"

"Sorry! You heard what he said!"

"Keep your pride out of this, Johannes, for any sake..."

"Yes, Johannes, keep your 'pride' out of this. Wouldn't want you to injure yourself --"

"And you, be quiet," Covet snapped, turning to look at the damp man once again. "You have two choices here. One: you release that kid from her contract and you get rid of that spirit, or two: I leave you here and destory the spirit myself."

"You know I can't release someone from a contract, Covet. I don't have that luxury," Michael sighed, a faux expression of sadness washing over his face. "I could take the spirit downstairs, if I must, but... It seems like so much work when you can do it for me."

Behind Liza, Johannes raised a hand to his throat. "Liza?" His voice sounded rough, as if someone was pressing down just ever so slightly on his windpipe. "Liza."

The woman turned, frowning at the interruption only to find Johannes visibly struggling against an invisible something else. "Shit." He'd broken the seal. The water had diluted the blood and the seal...

"And considering that your pet poodle here failed ever so miserably at keeping me all locked up in your little blood drawing... well..." Michael strolled out of the circle with a spring in his step. "I'll put it out of its misery for you, shall I?"

A thump told Liza that Johannes had fallen back against the wooden wall whilst a guttering, gargling attempt at breathing told her that Michael James was no longer playing games.

The hunter stooped to pick up one of the two shotguns that she had taken out of the case. Pausing to consider her options for a split-second, she raised the shotgun only to have it torn from her fingers by tendrils of power she couldn't even fathom.

"No, no. Don't be rash now, Liza!" Michael grinned, blacked-out eyes shifting between the witch and the woman as the shotgun clattered against the wall opposite the pair. "He broke the seal, you can't do --"

Once again, the demon was stopped in his tracks when something was thrown in his face. This time, however, he stumbled back, clawing at his eyes and screaming obscenities at the salt burning into his skin. Johannes frantically drew in air, gulping down what could only be described as stale, sawdusty oxygen.

By the time Liza had retrieved the second shotgun, Michael had disappeared, leaving the two humans alone with the bloody, damp and salty floor.

"You brought salt?" the man rasped, gingerly touching the already reddening skin at his throat. "In your pocket?"

"It worked, didn't it? You and your fucking pride, Johannes! We're going to have to go and do that hunt ourselves now! Do you realise what that means? That little girl's soul might tear apart."

He pulled himself upright, unwilling or unable to respond with anything worthwhile in the face of Covet's righteous anger.

"We don't have a choice any more," she stated sullenly. "We need to leave. Tomorrow morning."

Whooo! I loved it!

It was like reading a Buffy short story but without Buffy and all the other things that made it such a horrible show! No offense to all you Buffy fans, of course. I'm just not a fan.

Anyways! The way you started it off was absolutely brilliant! It sucked me in right away and the next thing I know I'm finishing it up and just begging for Michael James to be blown apart by Liza's silver revolver! The way you presented Michael James as a bit of a wuss (even having Liza straight call him such) and then showing his true bad-assery at the end was something that I may have been expecting but was no less thrilled at when it happened.

You even kept me hanging when Liza exclaimed that there were no angels left. It made me ask questions (which is something that I think every great story teller should make their readers do) such as, "With no angels is it only up to a select few humans (hunters?) to defend themselves and their world against these demons? What happened to the angels? Are the angels truly dead and gone or are they just plotting their next move in secret?

Now leaving such questions utterly unanswered can be upsetting to many readers but this is obviously not a novel-length post and so I was not expecting all of my questions to be answered right off the bat. However, these unanswered questions and your talented writing style have left me craving for more (I was directed here from Room 344 and shall be reading that as soon as I post this) so this can only be a good thing!


However, I am a firm believer that no justly earned praise can be given without at least some criticism as even the most talented writers have room for improvement in at least one person's eyes.

While I don't mind using parenthesis in normal text (as I am sure I have proven), I find that using them in a story really takes the reader out of the world that you as the writer want them to lose themselves in. It is as if the author threw it in as an afterthought and I often find myself reading it as such when I come across them and so I suspect that many other readers do the same.

The only other critique I have is found in the following sections (forgive my C&P as I am still trying to figure out how the "Quote" button works):

""Another hotel. Another mindless hunt. Another twenty-three-year-old hunter sitting on a double bed, surrounded by newspapers, books and pieces of white paper covered in some strange symbols at some ridiculous hour of the morning. Said hunter didn't even need to look at the alarm clock to know that she'd only have a couple of hours before it got light enough outside to go searching for more clues - it was a general rule of thumb that hunting in daylight was safer than doing so at night.""

-and-

""Johannes mopped up the last of the syrup on his plate with a piece of dreadfully soggy pancake and stuck said breakfast food into his mouth. He chewed with a deep consideration before gesturing at the hunter with his fork. ""


My problem with these two posts are the terms "Said hunter" and "said breakfast". I am ignorant of what such a style or term would be called but I hope I am making myself clear enough. I have always found that it reads very awkwardly and can often make the rest of a paragraph very ugly in terms of writing style. This is just a personal opinion, of course as I am sure some people will be looking at my comment and wondering, "What is YOUR problem?"

Anywho! I am off to read Room 344 and am quite excited for it. Unfortunately for you I will probably be leaving a comment there, too but I promise to not make it nearly as long. :)

Thanks for the wonderful piece!

-RogueMinstrel