Lost Souls

Chapter 7

"A Soul Eater," Rene said, pondering the concept as she locked the door of her shop and flipped the sign in her window to the side that indicated that she was closed for business. Her client had vacated the shop very quickly after giving Rene a few crumpled up bills as a tip. Throwing them on the table rather than handing them to her. She left with a sense of fear and enlightenment dripping off of her. "How do we kill it before it grows in strength?"

"I guess we can write something," John said. "A spell or ritual to dispose of it."

"And if we can't kill it, there is another possibility. Since we were probably the ones that summoned it here, we might be able to just reverse that action," Bethany added. "Sending it back to Hell as an alternative."

"When we summoned Esmeralda, we were blindly reaching into Hell. I'm not surprised something else latched on and hitched a ride," John said, with a clenched jaw. "I should have been smarter than that."

Esmeralda couldn't help but feel guilty. If it wasn't for her, this might not be happening. It made her want to fix this even more. She didn't want to cause any more pain. She did enough of that in her living life. She was a high school mean girl, who only cared about her social circles and a boy who was never going to see her the way she wanted him too. So, naturally she didn't care about the feelings of others. She crushed people in a misguided attempt to keep her status and chase the boy. She wanted to do things differently in her afterlife. She wanted to leave a mark of goodness. She wanted to prove that she didn't belong down there. She wanted the universe to know without a doubt that she belonged in a better place. She knew that correcting this supernatural mayhem would outweigh any damage she did as a high school bully.

"You were just helping your sister," Rene said with compassion. She placed a hand on John's shoulder. "Saving Esmeralda was important to her, and I'm sure that's all you were thinking. You had nothing but good intentions."

"I still should have thought this through," he insisted. "Actions have consequences. Especially with magic."

"I wish Grandma was here," Bethany said. "She'd know how to fix this."

"Could you talk to her?" Esmeralda asked Rene. It seemed like such a simple solution. It slapped her right in the face and she was shocked it took this long for it to hit her.

Bethany looked at Rene with wide eyed wonder.

"Possibly," Rene answered. "But I'm quite drained from that last conversation with the other side."

"That would be amazing," Bethany said. "She's miles away from that crone Delphine."

"That does sound helpful," Rene said. "I'll need some things to strengthen that connection. But we can explore that later. For currently, I'm more concerned with things we can do right now."

"Can you track this thing?" John asked her. "You mentioned being able to sense it."

"I can sense it when it... I don't know what to call it. When it feeds? I can feel the spirits suffering," she explained. "I didn't know what was happening at first. But now I know."

"Well, then that's what we should do first," John said. "We should find a way to track it. Because we'd want to find it before it... feeds."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Bethany asked. "We aren't exactly master witches."

"Well," John said with a long dramatic sigh. "Maybe we just need to feed too. Ya know? Fuel our brains."

Bethany looked at him with her hands on her hips and eyes narrowed. "Really? Any excuse to go there, huh?"

"Go where?" Esmeralda asked her.

John turned to Rene and gave her a wicked smile. "Have you eaten breakfast yet?"

Rene's light brown cheeks turned a shade of orange, which made her silver hair look even more out of place. "I haven't," she told him.