The Soul Thief (6 page)

“I know,” Franklin said. “And I wouldn’t ask you for it if I didn’t think I really needed it.”

“Needed it?” Darryl turned back to stare hard at Franklin. “Need it for what?”

“Ghosts been coming back. After they’ve passed,” Franklin finally admitted.

“So?” Darryl asked. “Help them pass again.”

“They’re not…they’re not like regular ghosts.”

“They tearing things up?” Darryl asked.

Franklin wondered what Darryl thought he could do about it. It weren’t like the ghosts were hiding somewhere and needed to be hunted down.

“A little,” Franklin said. “Mostly, they’s howling. Making an awful racket. Can’t sleep.”

“That’s why you’re so tired looking,” Darryl said, nodding. “I kept telling ’em that you’d been having too much fun with your girl.”

“Thanks,” Franklin said, though he weren’t sure being thought of as a hound dog was much better.

Darryl just grinned at Franklin, but didn’t say anything more.

“These ghosts—they can’t tell me their
intent
. They’re lost here. I don’t know how to help them pass. And I got to get some sleep,” Franklin said. “The neighbors are starting to complain. Plus, they scared Julie away the other night.”

“I see how it is,” Darryl said with a leer.

“Oh please,” Franklin said, rolling his eyes.

Darryl grew serious again. “I understand you need something. But ain’t there something else? You don’t know how that knife will twist your soul.”

“Did you use it?” Franklin asked, curious. Because Darryl hadn’t seemed like he’d changed at all.

“Nope. Not once,” Darryl said. “I did take it out with me, hunting, one time,” he said. “Now, you might accuse me of making stuff up. And hell, maybe it was all in my imagination. But that blade wanted blood. And pain. It ain’t good.”

“I know,” Franklin said. He still had to try it. He had to do
something
. “But I got to help these ghosts pass. It’s my duty. Even if they don’t know how to leave this world. I got to help them.”

“And you think the knife will do that? Force the ghosts into Heaven?” Darryl asked.

“Or something,” Franklin said, nodding.

Darryl sighed, took a long swig from his beer. “I don’t like this,” he said.

“I don’t like it either,” Franklin told him. But he was desperate tired. It was the only thing his poor brain could think of.

Darryl nodded. “Okay then. Let’s go get the knife. But you don’t have to keep it, if you don’t want to. Don’t have to use it.”

“Where is it?” Franklin asked. He’d assumed that Darryl would have kept it in the gun safe, locked away. “You didn’t give it to someone else to keep, did you?”

“Hell no,” Darryl said. He walked over to the side of the garage and tried to get down a shovel hanging there.

Franklin hurried over to help, taking the shovel in both hands.

“And can you grab those as well?” Darryl said, pointing at a set of long-handled clippers.

“Where the hell is the knife?” Franklin asked, perplexed.

“I couldn’t keep it out here. It…it…I could hear it, okay? And I was afraid of how it might influence the kids,” Darryl said, angry.

“You should have given it back to me then,” Franklin told him quietly. “I would have held it.”

Though Franklin had also found the knife disquieting. He’d thought Darryl, though, would have been immune to it.

Darryl shook his head. “You asked me to hold onto it for you. I figured it was louder for you. So I buried it. In the backyard.”

Franklin looked down at his good dress pants. Damn it. He wasn’t prepared to do some kind of yard work.

Darryl mutely pointed to a pair of overalls.

Franklin pulled them down, grumbling. He had a feeling that he wasn’t going to like this.

Not one bit.

Four

“WHAT ARE YOU two fools doing out there?” Georgia, Darryl’s wife, called from the back door.

“Franklin here’s gonna take care of that nasty thorn bush,” Darryl assured her.

“In the middle of the night?” she asked.

“No time like the present, ma’am,” Franklin replied respectfully.

“I don’t know what you two are up to. Just don’t hurt yourself,” she said, slamming the door shut.

Franklin looked dourly at the massive thorn bush. While he thought Georgia’s sentiment was good advice, he weren’t sure he could follow it.

The overgrown thorn bush lurked in the far corner of Darryl’s backyard. In the dim light, it reminded Franklin of the creature he’d fought the year before, massive and deadly, with nasty thorns hungry for his flesh.

“Why’d you bury the knife under this thing?” Franklin asked. The long-handled clippers would help, but he needed gloves lined with steel to protect his hands from those thorns.

“Didn’t,” Darryl said. “Bush grew up over the knife. Practically overnight. Never seen something grow so fast before. Not even your special popping corn.”

“Well, hell,” Franklin said.

“Trimmed it back regularly,” Darryl added. “Didn’t slow it down one bit. Even tried burning it, once. Damned branches are too green. Hot enough fire to take it out would also take out the fence.”

Franklin nodded. He’d bet that Darryl had wanted to try it anyway, and Gloria had told him just what kind of fool she thought he was. “You try sprinkling some holy water or something on it?” Franklin asked. The plant wasn’t necessarily evil. But it had an awareness that he didn’t like.

“No,” Darryl said slowly. “Do you think I should?”

Franklin shrugged, knowing the motion would be lost in the darkness. “Maybe after we pull it up.”

“You sure you want to dig up that blade?” Darryl asked.

Franklin sighed. He needed to do something about the ghosts haunting him. Plus, now he felt bad for asking Darryl to hold it for him.

“I’ll deal with it,” Franklin promised. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to try to give it back to Eddie after he finished using it. Or where he’d put it after he was done with it.

He sure didn’t want nasty vines like this taking over his fields.

But that was a problem for another day. Right now, he had enough of a fight ahead of him with the damned thorn bush.

When Darryl made to reach for the clippers, Franklin held them out of reach. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I was aiming to help,” Darryl said patiently, as though he was trying to explain something to May’s youngest.

“You’re already injured,” Franklin told him. “And while I wouldn’t care too much if you decided to be an idiot and hurt yourself again, I don’t need first Georgia, then May, tearing strips from
my
hide over it.”

They stood glaring at each other for a moment, before Darryl shrugged and said, “Have it your way, then.”

“Good,” Franklin said. “Now the way you can help is to shine that big ol’ flashlight of yours on the bush so I can see what I’m doing.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Darryl said.

Franklin ignored the insult. It was just Darryl being Darryl, calling him by a white man’s term.

Darryl’s light set the thorn bush into stark contrast. The branches stretched out on either side from the corner, like it was preparing for a deadly embrace. It looked frozen in time and space, like a criminal that had just been caught by a prison spotlight. It had an air to it, though, like it was just waiting for some fool to come along and challenge it.

Franklin gave a low whistle. The thorns was three inches long, with hundreds of shorter thorns circling each limb.

It didn’t shrink back as Franklin approached with the clippers. That was just his imagination.

Franklin took another step forward, reaching for one of the near branches.

“Watch it,” Darryl warned suddenly.

Franklin stepped back, out of reach as one of the branches suddenly whipped around, aiming for him.

“Did you see that?” Franklin asked, turning toward Darryl.

“It must have been the wind. Or something,” Darryl said, looking uncomfortable.

Franklin snorted. “Yeah. The wind.” The evening was completely still, without even the promise of a breeze to come.

Franklin hoisted his clippers in front of him, like a knight with a shield. Then he darted forward, clipping one branch and jumping back. Then the next. He danced away before he tried for a third, Darryl warning him again.

Slowly, Franklin sheared the bush of its deadly limbs, only getting caught once on the arm and once on the side. He knew both points were infected, and he’d need some kind of antibiotic gel on them before he went to bed.

Franklin realized, too late, that the limbs he’d trimmed from the bush now lay like their own barrier, a massive wall of thorny branches. Any time Franklin tried to pick one up, even with the leather gloves, the thorns reached through and pricked his hands.

He let Darryl help a little then, kicking the branches away enough until Franklin could finally get at the trunk of the bush.

The clippers Franklin was using weren’t wide enough—or sharp enough—to give him enough leverage to hack all the way through the trunk.

“Leave it,” Darryl said.

“You think it’ll just let me dig up its roots without falling over or trying to impale me?” Franklin asked, exasperated.

Then he stopped and looked at Darryl. Even in the dim light, and with Darryl’s dark skin, Franklin could still see how ragged he looked, his skin taking on a coating of ash.

“Dude. Go to bed. I got this,” Franklin assured his cousin, walking over to him and taking the flashlight from his hands.

Darryl shook his head. “No, no. I can do this.”

“You got a broken arm. We’re through the worst of it. All I got to do now is dig,” Franklin pointed out. “You don’t need to stay here. You can go to bed. Get some rest. Get yourself out of pain. Before Georgia, and then May, come and yell at me.”

Darryl gave Franklin a weak grin. “They would yell at you too, wouldn’t they?”

“That they would, Cuz,” Franklin said solemnly.

“It don’t feel right, leaving you to fight this thing on your own,” Darryl said.

“It ain’t got much fight left in it,” Franklin assured him, though he was afraid the bush was playing possum again.

“You sure?” Darryl asked, swaying as he stood.

“I’m sure,” Franklin said firmly. “Go to bed.”

“You just holler, you need anything,” Darryl said, turning and yawning hugely.

Franklin nodded, though he was determined not to ask for more help.

He could fight this damned thorn bush on his own.

How bad could it be?

Ξ

Franklin had been right. The bush
had
been playing possum. As soon as he shone the light on it, he realized there were more branches, hidden in the back.

He was exposing himself by getting close enough to trim them. They’d whip around for certain, lash his back, maybe his face.

Instead of continuing with his front attack, Franklin cleared out one of the sides and started attacking from there. Though the branches tried to slide out of the way, he kept attacking the main stalk, until it was bare.

But not defenseless.

Franklin took the shovel next. He stood still for a moment, feeling the full night wrapping around him. It wasn’t as peaceful here. Neighbors sat on the other side of the fence. But Georgia wouldn’t let Darryl move them all the way out of town—she wanted a safer place for the kids to play, and not as long of a trek to their schools.

It wasn’t that the neighbors were making noise. But Franklin still knew they were there. He shook his head. They weren’t taking his air. It just kind of felt like that sometimes, in closed-in spaces. But his frustration was building, tearing apart the peace that normally filled Franklin.

Damn it. He needed that knife. And then he needed to sleep for a month.

With a silent scream, Franklin hefted the shovel and brought it down, bashing the side of the thorn bush.

He could almost
feel
the bush’s surprise. It hadn’t been expecting that at all.

Franklin went to the other side and bashed it as well, breaking off the thorns still bristling from the trunk.

It weren’t enough to merely bend them down. The bush was wily. It could make those thorns spring up again.

But Franklin breaking them fully off—well, it would take some time for the bush to recover from that.

Time Franklin didn’t intend to give it.

Finally, Franklin had pushed enough of the vines out of the way, bashed off enough of the thorns, that he felt like he could start digging.

Of course, the roots of the thorn bush were prickled with thorns as well. Not as sharp as the ones above ground. But the roots wove together in a hard thorny ball, making it difficult for Franklin to break the ground and really dig in.

He wouldn’t be denied, though. He wished he had his digging pole. He should have asked Darryl for one.

But wishes weren’t fishes…something Mama used to say.

Franklin kept digging, jumping out of the way when the branches above him creaked.

Damned bush was trying to make another attack. Franklin bashed it with his shovel, panting and sweating hard in the cool evening.

He might have to call Karl and take Monday off, at this rate.

Finally, Franklin dug down deep enough to see the blade, glittering darkly at the heart of the root ball.

Franklin reached out with his hands, then hesitated.

Too many thorns.

But he couldn’t break the root ball apart with his shovel. It was too springy. The blade of the shovel just bounced off

Franklin stepped back, considering. Maybe he could clip at the roots with the clipper, but that would take forever. And the root mass was more likely to grow back together, and the bush itself was poised for another attack.

What could he use instead?

Franklin raised the flashlight, turning and looking through the yard. What else was there? What could he use?

On the far side of the yard, on its back with the wheels up in the air, was the culprit of Darryl’s injury, the new mountain bike.

Sorry, Darryl
, Franklin whispered as he stalked across the yard.

The bike chain came off easily enough, particularly when Franklin popped one of the link pins. The front tire came off as well, merely clipped on, a modern design that Franklin didn’t approve of.