Devil's Soul

Chapter 36 (yet another very normal pit stop)

"Well, I've got to admire you for being so chipper, given your circumstances," John commented, watching the mountainous landscape drift by. "It's kind of unnerving, actually."

I aimed my smile at him for half a second, before turning my attention back to the road. I was riding on the high of fresh soul fragments, and I was finally starting to feel comfortable with this whole driving thing. With a life this hectic, I had to be happy with the little things. "How about you tell me your real name," I suggested.

He half-grunted, half-laughed. "If you don't know it already, then you're out of luck. My lips are sealed." This, coming from a man that just spent the last fifteen minutes monologing about refrigerating bananas. The man liked to talk.

"If I guess it, will you tell me I'm right?"

"No."

It didn't matter. I would know if he was lying. I didn't really care what his real name was, but I needed a way to pass the time. Now that I had soul fragments, multitasking was much more doable. "Daniel."

"No."

"Caleb."

"No."

"Heath."

"Nope," he said. He seemed to be enjoying the game, judging by his smug tone.

"Hmm," I said, trying to use my psychic ability to sense his name from the spiritual realm. "Nate."

"No." He shot me down without mercy.

"Sasha," I guessed, trying to not think so hard this time.

"Do I look like a Sasha to you?"

"Rumpelstiltskin! Ha! I win!" I declared.

"Should I even dignify that with an answer?"

I shook my head. "Nope because it doesn't matter. If you're not going to tell me your name, then that's what I'm going to call you."

"You're going to call me Rumpelstiltskin?" He asked, not sounding too thrilled about the idea.

"Hmm, you're right. It's too much of a mouthful." I thought, for a moment, about the best way to modify his new name. "Aha! I'll call you Rumpels!"

"You will not call me Rumpels." He seemed to cringe as the name crawled out of his mouth.

"It's either that or your real name."

"Fine. My real name's Phil."

"Wrong! Rumpels it is." I grinned. He was making this way too much fun. I was getting bonus soul fragments in the process!

"How do you know that's wrong?" he asked, clearly getting frustrated by the emerging truth that he would have to start responding to "Rumpels."

"Because I can tell you're lying."

"The only way you'd be able to tell is if you know what my real name is, which means you really are working for them."

"Nope. I'm just good at reading you. You're like an open book."

"Ha! I wouldn't have been able to stay hidden this long if I were an open book. I'm a master of disguise."

"Uh-huh," I said. The poor guy actually thought he was telling the truth, which meant no souls for me. I wondered if I was starting to take this soul-sucking thing a little too lightly (okay, maybe I didn't, but, looking back, I now realize this would have been an appropriate moment to wonder such a thing, so let's pretend I did).

"Oh, hey! Did you see that moose?!" Rumpels exclaimed.

"A real moose?" I asked, trying to crane my neck back to see, but we had just gone around a curve, so if it was there, I wouldn't be able to see it anymore.