Page 109 of Souls We Rip

It didn’t work. I tried again and again and again.

Not one image.

I squeezed it hard in my palm, the crimson liquid falling to my wrists.

It had to be the Elk who came. No one else could overpower Tiberius. No one else wanted him gone from this Earth.

My feet rushed to the horse, my body passing through something goo-like. When I turned my head, I saw Andrei floating in the hall, his eyes rolling in his head.

“Andrei!” I shouted, his body stopped moving, and his eyes focused on me.

“Woman! Oh, I am so glad you are here!” he whined, grabbing my arms and squeezing them hard.

Ignoring the pain and the slimy sensation, I hardened my eyes. “Are they alive?” I asked, my voice wobbling.

“Yes.”

“Then it is time to collect my tenth soul,” I stated, my shoulders straightening.

Just to confirm my suspicions, I took my Mirror and tapped once. The Elk's skull appeared, overlooking the vast lands his family had. All because of some piece of dirt which nobody will ever take care of.

I threw the Mirror away, the sound of it breaking echoing on the walls. My feet rushed to the stallion, and I climbed it, praying that we would succeed.

Calling my skull to me, I bent over to the horse’s ears.

“Take me to your master! Go as the wind so you can save him one more time.”

It rushed through mud and snow, through forest and wind, through dirt and dust to get to the Goat Man. Its hooves hit the broken branches as if they were nothing but air, my pulse jumping in the same tune. The birds flew from their nests, announcing death, feathers falling from their tiny bodies.

“Be careful, Ana! You need to surprise him! The whisperers who tell him everything; they roam in the walls and floors. Their voice is heard by him at any second. And if something is off, they will alert him,” Andrei warned.

I slid down the horse, eyeing the cave. “And how could we go inside if they are everywhere?”

The second I mouthed the words, the stallion strutted to me.

“Thank you for helping my family and me. Thank you for easing this journey in this world.” It snorted once in response.

Its dark eyes looked as if they wanted to speak. My hand stretched and touched its mane. After leaving my hand stranded in the air, the stallion galloped to the wall of the cave and started pounding his back hooves on it. Without a last look at me or the ghost, it darted into the forest.

The slams rattled the cave. Shadow figures broke the rock and followed the stallion into the dark forest.

Inky shadows flew past us, ignoring me and the ghost, breaking the tall trees into splinters, mixing with dead leaves and small animals, leaving mayhem behind.

“Well… looks like this horse isn’t just a beast,” the ghost whispered.

Murky clouds covered the sky as another wave of snow fell. The wind started to break through, and the splinters lifted by it. A chill ripped through my body. The garments I wore were thick enough, but the breeze turned into a full storm.

I tried to listen to any other sound, searching for the neigh of the fearless stallion. But instead of that, hooves clacked in the distance. My eyes found it at the end of the forest. Its body relaxed and slumped in the snow. Waiting.

“I’m going to save our family,” I whispered in the wind, but more to myself.

The Goat Man

The tenth soul

I held the child in my arms as he slept. He was restless in his sleep, whispers calling for his mother, begging her to leave him alone. Eugen jerked his head as if he had been slapped, breaking my mind, and the wish to kill that woman myself slipped into my veins.

Placing his head on my lap, I did something I never did, not even when I was human.