Page 13 of Deceiver (Soul Chasers #2)

“I understand,” he says softly. “What would you like to do?”

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“There’s one right there, attached to my room.”

“Oh, I thought that might be a closet.”

“No. I’ll be right here.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I climb out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom, thankful that it’s within the same room and I don’t have to go out exploring the house by myself.

While I’m in here taking care of my basic needs, snippets of my weird dream from last night flow back into my mind.

Had to be a dream, right? Nothing else makes any sense.

I saw my dad too clearly, heard him too clearly, for it to have been anything but a dream.

Maybe it was just my subconscious wishing that finally, after all these years, I could be important to my dad. That I could matter to him. Instead of comforting me though, it makes me think I might be delusional.

When I exit the bathroom, Wilder is sitting on the edge of his bed, scrolling through his phone. He glances up at me, and his expression softens.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

“Yes, fine. I was just checking some information. I’m going to have a friend come over later and work on the protection spell for the house.”

“A friend?”

“She’s a witch.”

“A witch. Right.”

Wilder chuckles. “You don’t believe in witches?”

I shrug. “I believe some people think they’re witches, but, like, magic isn’t real, right?”

He tilts his head and raises an eyebrow. “After everything you’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours, you don’t believe magic is real?”

“Well, I mean…” I pause. “Okay, you have a point.”

“Calliope is very helpful. She created several of the spells I use, as did her grandmother before her, and given what happened last night, I want to make sure we have the strongest protection in place so that you’re safe here.

I need to be able to go to your house to deal with what’s going on over there and know that you’re fine. ”

“You’re going to do it by yourself?”

He nods. “It’s my job.”

“You don't need me to help?”

“You can’t help.”

He stands, and my eyes follow the movement, taking him in from his bare feet to his chest to his gorgeous face. I clear my throat when I realize I’m staring at him, only to find him smiling.

“Listen, Keagan, you don’t have to worry. This is what I do. I’ve had difficult situations to deal with in the past, and I always handle them.”

“I’m not worried, not really. I guess I just thought I’d be with you for all of this. It’s my house, and my dad.”

“Given the circumstances, I think it would be safer if I kept you separated.”

“The circumstances?”

“You attract spirits, remember? Do you recall what happened last night?”

“I do. My thoughts are hazy, but there was this crazy feeling of being pinned down to the couch. Like, I couldn’t move at all, but I couldn’t see anything either. I was calling for you, but my voice wouldn’t come out. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever felt.”

Wilder nods. “Unfortunately, you really did have a spirit attacking you.”

My eyes go wide. “So it wasn’t my imagination playing tricks on me?”

“I’m afraid not. It was a low-level spirit, too.

It shouldn’t have even been able to get through any portals.

The only thing I can assume is that maybe it attached itself to another higher-level spirit and followed.

I’ve never known them to be so sentient, wanting to get out of the underworld, but I suppose it isn’t impossible. ”

It takes me a few seconds to process that. “What happened after that?”

“I sent it back.” His tone is casual, as if this sort of thing happens all the time.

“This is all really normal for you, isn’t it?”

Wilder nods, chuckling softly. “Very normal. Let’s go get that coffee, huh?”

“Sure.”

I follow Wilder down the stairs and into the kitchen, where I sit at a small table and watch him putz around the kitchen making coffee.

His kitchen is nice, but it feels old fashioned compared to the rest of the house.

Old fashioned in the sense that it hasn’t been remodeled since, I don’t know, maybe the nineties.

“Who takes care of your house for you?” I ask.

Wilder turns and looks at me. “What do you mean?”

“You mentioned a cleaning company, I think, but who maintains it?”

“I do.”

“This is a really big house. You take care of it all by yourself?”

“I do. I’m capable of it.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant, I don’t know, it seems like a lot. My house is way smaller than this, and sometimes it’s a little overwhelming for me.”

“I have an abundance of time.” Wilder smiles, glancing out at me from the corner of his eyes. “In between assignments, I have plenty of opportunity to work on my house, and as I said before, it’s a family home, so it does require maintenance.”

“How did you learn how to do that stuff? Did your dad teach you?”

Wilder scoffs, shaking his head.

“You have a dad, right?”

He pauses for a moment before slowly taking mugs out of the cupboard.

“No, my father didn’t teach me.”

His guarded response pokes at me. “You’re keeping something from me, aren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Wilder says, glancing at me again. “We haven’t had much of a chance to talk yet. That’s all.”

“No, I guess we haven’t.”

The coffee machine finishes brewing, and Wilder offers me sugar and milk for my coffee. I fix up my drink, taking a seat at the table in the breakfast nook again.

“We have time to talk now.”

Wilder nods, sipping his coffee. “What do you want to know?” he asks, as if that’s not a loaded question.

“What do I want to know? How did you get into what you’re doing for a living? How did you find me? Why do you have so much time? Why do you act weird every time I bring up your family? I have, like, a million questions.”

He nods calmly, still sipping his coffee, then glances out the window past me.

“I was chosen for the job, but I had to die first.”

“What?”

“I had to die first,” he repeats. “That’s the only way you become a Soul Chaser.

There’s certain criteria, and I happened to fit it at the time.

When I died, I was given the opportunity to come back, but in doing so, I had to be committed to finding and capturing Horrors when they escape the Below. ”

I sit there stunned for a moment.

“Wait. You’re telling me you died and came back to life?”

“That’s correct.”

He says it so calmly, like this is an everyday conversation.

“How did you die?”

“I was trampled by a horse and carriage after church, saving somebody else who was in the way.”

“A horse and carriage.” I stare at him in disbelief. “How long ago was that?”

“A very long time ago. Two hundred and four years, to be exact.”

Now I have to wonder if I’m being pranked. I laugh, but Wilder doesn’t.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“Two hundred years ago?”

“I had just moved to Salem, actually. I was looking to start my life over because I had made a mistake where I previously lived in California.”

I’m still staring at him, I know, but I can’t believe what he’s saying to me. Based on how serious he looks, I’m thinking that he’s telling me the truth, or at least what he believes to be the truth.

“Okay, so you’re leaving church, and what happens?”

“There was a runaway horse and carriage. I was with a lady named Lucy, and I pushed her out of the way and became entangled in the event. My wounds were mortal, and I died. Then I met Farnsworth.”

“Farnsworth?”

“He’s the steward of the Soul Chasers.”

“Uh huh.”

“Because I had died an untimely death through no fault of my own, I was considered a decent person, and I have an affinity for animals, I was given the opportunity to return to this life and become a Soul Chaser.”

“I hear what you’re saying, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. It sounds like you’re describing a science fiction or horror movie.”

He chuckles, lifting his mug to his lips. “I suppose it does, but it’s real. It’s what happened to me. I accepted the offer simply because I wasn’t ready to die yet. I returned to life, and I continued what I was doing, except my existence took on a whole new meaning.”

I lean forward, hanging on his words.

“I had to leave Salem after a while, so as not to draw more attention to myself for the mere fact that I wasn’t aging, and my job required some strange behaviors on my part. Given the time period and the superstitions of the people, it really wasn’t safe for me or those I cared about.”

I notice how his voice deepens when he says that last part, and I sense there’s some pain there.

“Were you married?”

“Yes. To Lucy, in fact. But…” He pauses again, his gaze turning towards the window. “We had an understanding, me and Lucy. She had such a kind, compassionate heart. I wasn’t in love with her, but I was very fond of her.”

“Oh.”

“I was in love with someone else, a man, and Lucy knew this. We spent a lot of time with him, the three of us together, and he became a trusted friend and my lover. In fact, when I had to leave, I asked him to take my place, to take care of Lucy and the homestead. Maybe give her children, if she still wanted that.”

“Children? You didn’t have any with her?”

Wilder shakes his head. “I couldn’t. I don’t know why.

The science and medicine were not clear, not as evolved yet as they are now, but I seemed incapable of it.

” He frowns. “I couldn’t finish most of the time.

The few times I did, no pregnancy occurred.

” He shrugs. “I wanted to be attracted to her, but I wasn’t, and I couldn’t force myself. ”

“Dang.”

“That’s why I thought I was gay for the longest time. Lucy was lovely and sweet. I thought if I couldn’t find her attractive, it wasn’t there for me. I felt no attraction towards women until the 1950s.”

My head is spinning. “The fifties?”