Page 72 of The Fifth Soul

Black smoke envelops him and the book. The emerald stone glows a deep green. It gets so bright I almost have to shield my eyes, but then it all stops.

“Here.” He presses the stone to my chest.

I take it and examine it. Bianca moves closer to me, and I know what she’s asking with one look. I can sense the soul swimming in the jewel safely. I give her a reassuring smile I do not feel. Part of me senses she feels it, too. The extent of damage he received will remain unknown. We won’t know what Matias feels or knows until we speak to him.

Mel picks up a jar off his bookshelf. Inside swims five blackfish. They don’t look like normal fish found in the ocean, they look sinister. If the water imps looked creepy, these share a similar air.

“Are those the souls?” Bianca takes a step closer to see the fish.

Instantly, Mel moves the jar further away and gives her an annoyed look.

“I would have thought you had more than five at your disposal.” She crosses her arms, annoyed at his lack of partnership.

“He does,” Gabriel answers, completely undisturbed about the topic. Being brothers with a psychopath must mean he’s used to these topics. “Those are special.” He gestures to the jar. The lack of remorse tells me he knows exactly what these souls have done.

“You know them?” I eye him curiously.

For an angel, he seems to not have any problems with the use of black magic. I have no doubt he’s seen it happen in the hundreds of years he’s existed.

“Oh yeah,” he admits, but adds nothing else.

I don’t think he is willing to share more, so I don’t ask.

“Wait, what about the other three souls in the book?” Bianca points out. “Do they deserve to be stuck there forever?”

Mel ignores her as he proceeds until his brother nudges him. Reluctantly, the demon turns to Bianca. “There’s nothing left to save there. They’ve been inside the book for too long. That is how I easily knew your friend from the rest. He has humanity left inside his soul.”

He keeps quiet about the fact that the humanity in a soul dies over time when the soul is trapped. He doesn’t have to. It makes sense. What a horrible way to go.

“Okay.” She steps back to my side.

Mel places the book on his desk and plucks one fish out of the jar. He dangles it above the book for a second before letting it drop. A quiet, yet clear scream echoes in the room. It takes me a second to realize it’s coming from the fish. I shake my head. It’s not an actual fish, it’s a person’s soul.

“Don’t take your eyes off it.”

Mel’s words register as background noise as my eyes zeroed down on the second fish. His fingers are holding the tail of the thing, shaking above the book. His finger releases it like the first, and a scream echoes once again. The fish disappears into the markings on the book. It was as if the marking absorbed it into its ink. The markings glow for half a second before they disappear before our eyes.

“Is that it?”

The question comes from Bianca. While this entire thing happened, I didn’t notice her taking a few steps back.

I take the journal in my hands and examine the pages. Written like a diary, journal entries stare back at me with thoughts and opinions. I trace the lettering and signature at the end of each page. The research Lexi Blue and I had done regarding this book made it sound like we would find more spells and research than this. In reality, we found nothing concrete. Only observations and guesses from other sources, and the main reason opening the book was our last choice.

“It took five souls to open a fucking diary from god knows who?” I ask no one in particular.

Mel’s expression sobers as he looks over my shoulder at the journal. I hand it to him and try to read his expression. There is a glimpse of his eyes and slight tilt of his mouth.

“You know who that is?” I ask him.

Based on how old the book has to be, Mel might be one of the few creatures still walking the earth that could have known this person.

“The handwriting of Klause is unmistakable.” He taps the page like he finds something amusing written there.

“Friend of yours?” Bianca inquires.

Mel gives her a genuine smile. “In my line of work, there isn’t such a thing as friends, but there are respectable acquaintances.” He looks once more at the book. “Last I heard from Klause, he was helping eradicate the Red Book.”

His blunt statement freezes me in place. The missing puzzle piece finally sets into place. This makes the entire situation a lot more dire than I dreamed. Whoever’s been looking for this journal is seeking to know what this Klause person discovered regarding the state of the Red Book. But why, and at what cost?

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