Devil's Soul

Chapter 9 (chapter 8 continued)

Sorry I had to end that last chapter before I finished telling you what happened. This next part was really embarrassing for me, and I just wanted to take a breather before I shared it with you.

When I found Chung and Abhinav and told them that the mission was off, Abhinav was disappointed that we wouldn't get to have the drinking stake out he had envisioned. Chung wanted to know why I had determined that no sinning would occur tonight, and when I explained to him what had happened, he understood the situation immediately.

"Isn't Professor Belkin married?" I asked, flabbergasted by the idea that he could commit such a horrid act against her, against Christina, and against academia.

Abhinav and Chung nodded solemnly.

"We came here to stop Professor Belkin from committing sin, so I say we stop him!" I exclaimed with a sudden burst of motivation.

And that's how we ended up outside of Professor Belkin's window. Again.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to sit through another one of Professor Belkin's lectures," Abhinav said in horror, his eyes glued to the bedroom window. We couldn't see anything in there because the lights were off, but we could definitely hear the noises coming from behind it, and none of us could look away.

"I keep picturing it. I really don't want to, but the images keep invading my head," Chung said with a haunted tone to his voice.

"We have to do something to stop it," I said.

Abhinav and Chung made noises of affirmation.

None of us moved. We didn't know what to do.

"Can you see their souls through the wall?" Chung asked.

"I don't know. Let me check." I closed my eyes and tried to find my happy place. All I could hear were those noises pounding through my mind. "Ug, I can't focus with all that racket going on!" I cried.

"Sometimes, if you can't filter a noise out, it helps to focus on it," Abhinav said. This would have sounded like wise advice if we had been in a different situation. But we weren't.

I looked at him to see if he was serious. Yep. "I'm not doing that," I said.

Abhinav pulled his gaze from the window to look at me. "Mavis, we need to know if they're losing their souls," he reminded me gently but not without a sense of urgency. His baggy puppy-dog Indian eyes were begging me to help these people.

I sighed. "Okay, fine!" I closed my eyes and focused on the rhythmic squeaking of the bed and the moaning and gasping. The noises stirred around in my head, melding and mixing together, making me feel dirty, until they slowly began to lose meaning. Eventually they became just detached sounds. I focused in on those meaningless sounds and found my happy spot in the most unlikely of places. I willed my eyes to change to demonic vision. I opened them and squealed, immediately shifting my gaze to the dark street below the window.

"What is it?!" Abhinav asked. "Can you see them?"

"Oh, I can see them alright," I said, still trying to wipe the image from my memory, but it was seared there. Even though I couldn't actually see bodies, I had been able to see how their souls were melding together as they...copulated.

"That's awesome!" Abhinav celebrated. "It's kind of like you have infrared vision. Chung, my friend, we are acquainted with someone who can see through walls."

"It is not awesome!" I argued. "You don't know what it's like to see their souls mingling," I said with disgust.

"Hey, are there any other souls mingling here tonight?" Abhinav asked, glancing around at the other dark apartment buildings.