Paul Kohler - The Borrowed Souls, A Novel

“You son of a bitch. You… you used me as bait?”

I nodded slowly, feeling Penny’s piercing eyes upon me. “I am sorry, Penny. I really did want to save your soul. But my superiors agreed that capturing Enoch was a priority, and when I suggested this plan—”

“This was all your harebrained idea?”

I nodded again. “With any luck, Hauser has Enoch tagged as we speak.”

“Then what? Are you still going to take my soul? What if I don’t want to kill myself after all?”

“Penny, that’s wonderful to hear. I’ll do everything in my power to save you, but right now I have to go.”

“So, what? Do I just sit here and wait?” Penny asked.

“Yes. I don’t think Enoch knows about this place, and this park doesn’t get a lot of visitors. You should be safe here until I return.”

I stood to leave, but Penny launched herself from the bench and hugged me tightly. “Please. Don’t go. I’m so scared,” she said, trembling in my arms.

“I promise, Penny. I’ll be right back. I just need to go help Hauser for a bit,” I said, patting her back. “The sooner I go, the sooner I’ll be back. Then we’ll figure out how you can be saved.”

Penny released her hug and slunk back to the bench. “Please hurry.”

Strangely, I landed back in the forest, right where Penny and I had left just moments before, and not at all where I’d thought—at the cabin. Frustrated at the confusion, I ran toward my cabin. Just as I broke through the canopy, I heard the first of several gunshots, firing in quick succession.

I ran faster. As I leaped onto the porch of the cabin, I saw the silhouettes of two men struggling just inside the window. Then a blinding flash of light shot out through the windows, followed by a blast so strong my body flew backward through the air a dozen yards.

My cabin exploded into flames, burning timbers flying in all directions. My body and soul stopped suddenly as my head cracked on a boulder protruding from the ground. I tried to stand, to save Hauser, but my vision blurred and darkness fell upon me.

I removed the coin from my hand and slipped it into my pocket. When I looked up at Wilson’s troubled eyes, fear and confusion danced freely in the blue-grey of his irises.

“I… I just don’t know what to say,” Wilson said. “I had no idea Enoch was so dangerous.”

“So you knew of none of that?” I asked.

“No, not entirely. We were only aware of some of the incidents that have occurred. Our only way to truly find out what had happened was to find you, and re-experience your last forty-eight hours.”

“If you knew some of what happened, why be so coy? Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?”

“Well, Jack, we wanted to have you experience everything as fresh as possible. This really isn’t an exact science, and we were unsure whether or not your mind could influence your own past experiences.”

“Regardless of what we just witnessed, I’m still filled with questions.”

“As are we, Jack,” Wilson said. “You are not alone.”

“What about Hauser? Enoch? Did either of them make it out of my cabin before it… exploded?” I asked, replaying that horrific catastrophe over in my mind.

“Nobody at the Sentinel has heard from either of them, although we have reason to believe that Hauser may have survived.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked. “Is there a way to track him?”

“Unfortunately, no, not at this moment. When the two of you came to the Sentinel to report Enoch’s situation, we removed his current soul collection chamber from his possession so that he could devote 100 percent of his time to aid in capturing Enoch. And I’m not sure if you know how it all works yet, but we can only track the collection chamber and not the collector. Right now, he’s lost in the wind.”

“Then why do you think he’s alive?”

“Because, Jack, you are here, and you are alive.”

“Of course I am. We just witnessed me not being blown to bits along with my cabin.”

“Yes, but when you blacked out, you were in the clearing in front of your cabin. Did you wake yourself up and bring yourself to that bench in Denver? No, that wasn’t present in your memories. We assume that Hauser brought you here.”

“Okay, I’ll go along with that. Then if Hauser is alive, what’s our next step?” I asked.

“Slow down, Jack. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For all we know they both might have succumbed to the fire in the cabin, and you got here some other way entirely. It is only an assumption that Hauser made it out. At this point, that’s just a theory.”

“That’s easy. Let’s go take a look at the cabin site right now. Maybe we can find a body or two, or none at all.”

“Several members of the high council have already been to the site—”

“So you did know about this?” I demanded.

“Relax, Jack. As soon as Hauser failed to make his scheduled check-in, we sent several collectors to New York to track the two of you down. We found Penny wandering through the city alone. We were able to determine that neither of you were in her vicinity. Then we began to track down your soul box. That’s when we found you here in Denver. Before that point, the Sentinel members visited your cabin and investigated the debris. The site was so severely burned they couldn’t determine whether human remains were inside.”

“But, like you said, how else could I have gotten here? It had to have been Hauser. I’m willing to stake my life on it.”

“That’s neither here nor there, Jack. Right now the Sentinel has ruled that the crisis is over and you will return to your soul collection abilities, with your last assignment still a priority. You need to collect Penelope’s soul.”

“I’m sorry, but I think I just heard you say that I still need to collect Penny’s soul?” I said.

“That’s right, Jack. Penny’s fate is sealed. You must follow through with your initial order. We know that you still have her soul box, and your last known location of her was on the very same park bench where I gave you this incredible opportunity. I believe, however, that she has moved on from that location.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said angrily. “They want me to forget everything that we’ve been through? Forget about Hauser? They just want me to take Penny’s soul after everything that she’s just gone through? Don’t you think they could cut her a little slack, give her a second chance or something? Consider it reparation for being our bait?”

“The decision is not up to me, Jack. Believe it or not, I’m on your side on this. I lobbied for operational forgiveness on your behalf, but a number of the council members did not see the hardship as I did.”

“But that’s not fair,” I protested. “You all agreed that I should persuade her not to kill herself, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. Talk about bait and switch.”

“There’s no arguing that fact, Jack. That was the plan, and you seem to have executed it wonderfully. And this wouldn’t be such a difficult situation if you hadn’t divulged so much information about the Sentinel and the afterlife.”

As we sat staring silently at one another, I tried to think of a scenario where everyone could win. Obviously the Sentinel was unwavering in their demands to collect her soul. I, on the other hand, wanted to save her, but at what cost? If Hauser were only here, maybe he would have some words of advice.

Then it hit me— my God, I can’t believe Hauser is gone . I started to wonder if this was the Sentinel’s plan all along, to distract me from Hauser’s death with the unrealistic demand that I take Penny’s soul anyway. After everything that I’d been through in this godforsaken afterlife, I truly did not know what to do.