Pearl was waiting by the horses when we returned. She’d removed my riding blanket and secured my transport saddle that had straps with a locking mechanism on it. I’d had the saddle made when I first started bounty hunting. I refused to get another horse to bring in my bounties. Another horse meant more money spent on boarding and feeding, and I didn’t want to waste my funds on anything outside of paying for my living expenses. Life on the road was hard, and not every town had a bank, so I had to be frugal where money was concerned.
I’d been thinking about what Covington said when we left the police department. As long as I’d been hunting them, no one else had referred to the Soulless Ones in the plural form. It was always ‘a Soulless One.’ But Covington had said Soulless Ones. Which meant there was more than one in New Orleans. And if there was more than five, we were screwed.
I wanted to question him now. But doing so in the middle of town was not a good idea. The serum had worn off and there was no telling if the people suddenly milling around, were friend or foe.
We stopped in front of Pearl, and I urged Covington forward. “Climb up on the horse,” I said, putting a little steel in my voice. I snuck a glance at Jackson. He was taking in the people surrounding us, a look of cold calculation on his face. He knew something wasn’t quite right. I could also feel the walls closing in.
“Didn’t you hear me!” Covington yelled, his eyes wild. “I can’t leave my cousin here.”
I sighed. I didn’t want to have this conversation out in the open. But unless I responded, he was going to make a scene. I leaned in and whispered, “We heard you. Now please get on the horse. The sooner we are out of town, the better.”
Jackson pulled a seven-inch round alloy disk out of his bag and tossed it on the ground. Gears ground as the disk expanded, enlarging to a forty-inch flat silver circle covering the ground. A metal cage shot up toward the sky, and spider legs dropped down, finally settling into a portable cage.
“Well, would you look at that,” Pearl said, eyes widening.
Jackson gave her a half smile. “Courtesy of the Marshal Service.”
I stared at the cage, then turned to Jackson, eyes narrowed. “So, you do plan on double crossing me.”
“What!” Pearl rounded on him. “Why you dirty, low-down—”
Jackson raised his hand, cutting her off. “We need to get out of town. Now,” he said, his jaw clenched. He walked over and none too nicely shoved Covington into the cage.
After climbing on his horse, he looked down at me. “How far?” he asked. I gave him a questioning look. “I know what you can do, Parasol. Now, how far?”
My jaw dropped. Jackson knew my secret. I wanted to stand there and try to figure out where I’d slipped. How he had figured it out. But we had gained an even larger audience. Some of the shop owners had wandered out into the open, seeming to close in on us.
“A mile,” I said, and climbed on Betsy.
Jackson pulled a small, round alloy coated object out of his pocket and pressed the single green button in the center. Steam erupted from a hole on the top of the cage, and the legs moved forward, rocking back and forth. Covington held on to the bars, staring out of them like a man who had nothing left.
I had no time to change out the saddle on Betsy, so I got on my horse and followed Jackson out of town. Pearl, not caring about the noise, paced beside me.
We stopped a mile and a half out on the bayou near a burned down farmhouse. Large cypress trees obscured most of the property. But from what I could see, the place had burned down some time recently. Its charred remains still had the scorch marks of the newly burned. A half decent barn sat next to the house, so I guided Betsy and Pearl to it with Jackson following close behind me. We hadn’t spoken since we left New Orleans. Which was fine with me. I was still trying to figure out how he knew about my ability to kill Soulless Ones. Sure, he hadn’t come out and said it, but I knew Jackson. Knew every look, and at times, could practically read his mind.
My sister had silenced her steps when we left New Orleans. She, too, had said nothing. Covington, however, had pleaded with us to take him back. It was only after Jackson threatened him a third time that he’d quieted down.
We started for the barn, but before we got close enough, both Betsy and Ol’ Nick bucked, pulling on their reins.
“Easy now,” Jackson said, rubbing Nick’s neck.
Betsy’s gears whirred and she switched from mammal to machine. I glanced at the barn, studying the darkness inside. A breeze blew through and carried the scent of feces and blood.
I climbed down and gave her a rub before I started for the barn. Jackson and Pearl followed. When we entered, I gasped. Blood and gore covered the walls.
“Whatever happened here, happened within the past few days,” I said. The woodchips and hay crunched beneath my boots as I moved farther into the space.
“You think this is the Cummings place?” Pearl asked.
“They didn’t say anything about burning the house down,” I said, thinking.
Jackson came to stand next to me. He surveyed the barn and then looked down at me. “You ready to talk?” he asked.
I thought about it. Was I ready to tell Jackson all my secrets? I glanced up at him, searching his eyes. If he had kept such a big secret from me, I would have been hurt. Hell, I would have been pissed. But Jackson looked at me the same way he always did, as if I meant the world to him. And if I was honest, a glimmer of those same feelings were probably reflected in my eyes as well. So, I looked away.
I glanced outside. Covington had slid down, his knees pressed into his chest, with his head resting in his hands. “Might want to let him out first.”
“You trust him?” Jackson said, pulling the remote from his pocket and walking back outside.
“Yeah. He has nowhere to go.”
The cage door rattled open, and Covington looked up. After a brief hesitation, he eased up and stepped out. “Why are we at the Cummings’ house?” he asked.
Well, that answered one question. “Do you know what happened here?”
Covington nodded. “Mr. Cummings and his family were killed. They burned the house with them inside yesterday. Lionel said he helped.” They were covering up the crime.
“Tell me about your cousin,” I said, pulling my canteen out of my bag and handing it to him.
He took a long sip and handed it back. “Thank you.” He pulled in a breath and let it out slowly. “I came to New Orleans because Lionel sent word that one of the relics I was searching for was in town. And I also needed a place to lie low. No one knew about Lionel, since we had been estranged for years. So, I figured it would be safe. At least until my former boss gave up looking for me.”
“Did you know he put a bounty out on you?”
Covington shook his head. “I figured he’d come after me himself.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a Soulless One.”
“How do you know?” Jackson asked, his eyes narrowing.
Covington shivered. “Because I caught him feeding. He didn’t know I was there. But . . . ” He looked away. “I thought for sure he had heard me come in. The woman he was feeding from was still alive while he tore into her stomach. The sounds she made…” He closed his eyes and rubbed his arms. “I didn’t think anyone could ever make those sounds. When I was finally able to move, I started to run out and saw the money on his desk. I didn’t think. Just grabbed it and ran.”
“Why take the money?” I asked. “And why are you buying relics from the past?”
“Because my boss was also looking for items that belonged to Sophia MacDougall. Duncan MacDougall’s great granddaughter. He was trying to find her journal.”
Pearl gasped.
My grandfather had searched for the same journal when he was looking for a way to kill the Soulless Ones. He hadn’t been able to find it.
Duncan MacDougall had been the first person to attempt to weigh the human soul. Some believed he was looking for a way to identify the Soulless Ones. Others believed he was a fraud and reduced his twenty-one-gram theory to mere pulp fiction. Sophia, however, knew her great grandfather’s experiment was real, and it was rumored that she had found the way to identify and even kill the Soulless Ones. Some believed all her research had been lost when the world changed. But others believed the information had survived.
“Did you find it?” Pearl asked when I continued to stare at the man.
“At first all I was able to find were family heirlooms and old medical devices.”
“Doesn’t explain why you’re looking for them,” Jackson added. I had told him the story about the MacDougall bloodline a while ago.
“Because. I need to find a way to protect myself.”
That would make sense. However, it didn’t explain why his boss would be looking for the items too. “Did your boss ever tell you why he wanted to find Sophia’s journal?”
“He said he would be able to save the world. I assumed if I could find it first, I would be able to instead.”
Something about his story was off. Since his former boss was a Soulless One. One who, according to Covington, killed the innocent, his pursuits of trying to save the world didn’t make sense. And why would Covington, who was trying to hide from his boss, set out to do the same? I studied him for a moment, noting the absence of sweat on him. An alarm ran through me. He caught me staring and turned away.
“How many Soulless Ones are in town?” I moved in, getting in his face. “And how do you know?” There was no way in hell he had caught a Soulless One feeding a second time. And I still didn’t believe he’d caught his boss feeding either. He would have been killed.
“Three, at least.” He turned, still refusing to look at me.
He was lying.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him in close. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to lie to me.”
He swallowed, his eyes wide. He turned and took in Pearl and Jackson, who stood by, letting me do what I did best.
“Seven. At least seven.”
“Why lie about the number?” Jackson bit out.
Covington tried to pull away. I held firm. “Please. My cousin has been able to keep himself under control. He shouldn’t . . . ” I shoved him away and walked over to my saddle bag. Pausing for a moment, I gave myself time to think. Seven meant I didn’t have enough ammo to kill all of them. And if what I was thinking was true, then we were already in a great deal of danger.
“Pearl,” I said.
She nodded, then got my black case out and retrieved my already loaded gun.
A cold resolve washed over me, and I pulled a vial of the red gold serum from my bag and downed the contents. Once it had worked its way through my system, Pearl handed me my gun, and I turned and looked at Covington.
A stolen soul rested inside of him.