Soulhunter Academy Read online

  Soulhunter Academy

  The Soulhunter Series

  L J Swallow

  Copyright © 2019 by L J Swallow

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  v.2

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part II

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Sneak Peek of Nephilim Hunted

  Other Books By LJ Swallow

  Books by Lisa Swallow

  About the Author

  Part One

  Chapter One

  I grip the paper in my hand and stare at my scrawled signature on the bottom of the contract. My future as a soulhunter is sealed, and my life with the Fated is over.

  Stomach lurching at the finality, I move to lean against the wall of the large hall and eye the others around. Not a big turnout—maybe half a dozen kids my age hang in corners or in front of the floor to ceiling windows.

  Each new arrival's shoes tap across the tiled floor and draw attention from those already waiting. The low turnout surprises me because a crapload of kids I knew at school insisted they would sign-up to become soulhunters. I recognise one or two, including a girl with long black hair staring at a window as if she might jump out and leave.

  I search my memory for the girl's name. Sarah? I remember her from school, but we rarely spoke—mostly because she's the quiet type, who blends into the background. I'm the exact opposite, and people kept away from me at school.

  We’re nineteen now, and the soulhunter academy isn't school. The training will be intense before we're sent out to assignments alone. I look away. Friends would be a handicap.

  The angel representative sits at a small desk covered in neat piles of paper. My turn comes, and I step up to the woman to hand over the forms I filled in to sign my life away. The woman's age is difficult to gauge. Her blonde hair is pulled tightly away from her face and she wears bright red lipstick. Beautiful. High angel? Probably not—this task would be too mundane for one of them.

  The woman arches one of her perfect brows, appraising my less-than-groomed appearance. I purse my lips and refuse to break her gaze.

  The woman widens her eyes, amused. "Name and family number?"

  "Ava. 13686."

  The woman writes the number in regimented letters on the paper in front of her and ticks some boxes. I attempt to read the words on the page, but I fail.

  "Over there." The woman points her pen, held by red nails matching her lipstick, towards a corner.

  "Is that it?" I expected more. Some pomp and ceremony—not a "your life belongs to us now, run along" attitude. Like we mean nothing. Oh, yeah, I forgot, we don't mean anything.

  The woman laughs. "Oh no, this is just the beginning. Good luck."

  The amusement in the woman's voice is tinged with something else—is she mocking me? Unease creeps in, and I glance through the window, back to the dull, shadowed world of the Fated. No, this is the right decision. I have to leave this place and seize my chance to live in the high angels’ world.

  When I was a child, I thought the high angels would select soulhunters by watching us fight to our death and take the strongest to their academy. Now I understand the high angels don't care how skilled we are in combat. The sole criterion for becoming a soulhunter is willingness—and a suicidal attitude to life.

  The metal door the woman indicated is closed. I grab my bag, yank down the handle, and storm through. The door slams into something.

  "Watch where you're bloody going," growls a male voice.

  I bristle. "Don't stand in front of the bloody door then!"

  A guy with close-cropped hair pulls a sour face and rubs his arm. I doubt the collision would hurt him, built the way he is—broad shoulders and big hands. At least I'm tall enough to meet him eye to eye, even if I'm a hell of a lot slimmer.

  Sarah glances over then averts her eyes when I look at her. I huff, then cross the room to sit on a black plastic chair lined up against a wall, and only when I sit on one do I notice name badges on them. This chair isn't for me. I sigh and locate the correct one. Slumping onto the seat, I stretch my legs in front.

  A towering figure plants himself next to me, and I glance from the corner of my eye. Great. Mr. Muscles. Tapping my teeth with my fingers, I ignore him.

  "That's annoying, stop it," he says.

  I remove my finger and turn to him, sucking my teeth. For a moment, we scrutinise each other.

  "You have no hair. That's odd," I reply.

  "And you look like someone could break your neck without any problem," he snaps back.

  A retort doesn't come quick enough, and I'm interrupted by the clicking footsteps of the blonde-haired woman. Her immaculate grooming extends to the clothes—a dress suit with a short grey skirt and a deep blue blouse accentuating her eyes.

  "Welcome. From this moment on, you have left the Fated. The next stage is your training, and from there, you will conduct missions to collect the souls stolen by demons until you have reached the requisite number. You have made a dangerous decision, but your reward will be great." She looks at her paper with disinterest as she speaks, flicking through the pages. "You will receive a precise brief in the morning, once you reach the training academy."

  With a tight smile, the woman clicks back out the door. That's the limit of our explanation? Wow. But I know my task once my training finishes: kill the demons and take the lost human souls back to the high angels.

  The high angels. Their rule over my people, the Fated, is distant and absolute. I know little about our joint history, because most detail is wiped out of existence. I do know that the high angels with their power and privilege once coexisted with ordinary angels. But the growing numbers threatened peace. The heavenly cities became overcrowded and resources depleted. Disagreements started, and the lesser angels wanted more input into the control of the world we shared.

  They learned a hard lesson.

  The high angels seized control. They blindsided the lesser angels and those who realised what was happening and tried to fight back paid with their lives. The high angels took away the others' powers and created a new world for these new half-angel Fated to live — a world where the Fated work for the high angels and do as they say.

  There're two ways to escape this Fated world: by becoming a soulhunter—or death.

  I chose soulhunter because once I’ve collected enough, I am free of the Fated and able to live in the high angels’ world. I’m willing to risk my life for my freedom.

  I sit on my hands and glance around t
he room. Some of the others aren't as good as I am at hiding emotions. A small girl a few seats away fidgets and stares at the exit. I swear she's about to run back to our old world

  A blond man walks through the opposite door. Tall, rivalling farmer boy for muscles and dressed in a well-cut suit. In a low voice, he calls our numbers. One by one, the new soulhunters pass through the door he came through.

  I catch sight of myself mirrored in the window. My bright pink hair hangs to my shoulders, untamed. Pale green eyes full of trepidation look back. People at school avoided me, once they realised I'm stronger than I seem. Other kids' parents didn't want me persuading their kid to become a soulhunter and lead them down my path towards death. I gradually achieved a reputation for not taking bullshit from anyone. And using my fists.

  They don't know me, the hidden girl who's terrified but determined.

  Weakness belongs in the world outside the door I shut behind me.

  The old Ava stays with the Fated.

  I will be free.

  Chapter Two

  I'm queasy after my journey through the portal. Even though the action felt like stepping through a door, my body feels the after-effects of being sucked through a black hole into the brightest place I've laid eyes on.

  The portal exit is located inside a room inside the soulhunter academy, and we file into the hallway. The bright lights bounce off the pristine white walls and dazzle me. At home, we had simple houses built for us by high angels centuries ago, filled with greys and browns to match the sky and earth outside.

  I squint as I adjust my eyes to this light. Even the floor tiles are a surgical white, which stretches along the hallway as far as I can see. We queue in single file, and our rough clothes and unkempt appearance turn us into stains on this perfect environment.

  The man and woman who processed the recruits now stand at the front of the short line. I crane my neck to see. They're talking to two others, another man and woman. All have shining blond hair, and are tall and slender, dressed as if they work in an office.

  I take a shaky breath but fight the weakness in my unsteady legs. The frightened girl from before staggers and a guy beside her lends a helping hand before she falls. The girl smiles, gratefully.

  Do they know each other? I feel a pang of loss. Derrin should be with me. My best friend since childhood always swore we'd become soulhunters together. Instead, the stupid bastard fell in love and left me to train alone.

  The new man clears his throat, and the sound amplifies as it echoes down the hallway.

  "Welcome to the rest of your life," he announces.

  The woman beside him titters and he grins as if this is a private joke.

  "Welcome to the soulhunter academy. As applicants to the soulhunter program, you will train until we believe you are fit to join the ranks. Those who fail will return to the Fated."

  A murmur ripples through the recruits. Nobody mentioned failure. Is our application not a guarantee we're accepted? I've never known a soulhunter trainee return to the Fated.

  "Aurelia will direct you to your rooms where you will find your uniforms and a timetable. Then you may gather in the dining area for one hour before returning to study the training books in your room. Lights out occurs an hour later, and we will wake you once the day begins."

  I scratch my nose and exchange a glance with a tall girl beside me. She gives a hesitant smile, and I shrug. At least we're not sharing rooms.

  The woman, Aurelia, stalks ahead and we follow like a row of ducklings awed by their new world and occasionally bumping into each other. The academy appears to be single storey, and every inch is uniform in appearance. I swear I'll get lost.

  Most doors we pass are closed, but when we pause for Aurelia to talk to another woman, we wait by one half-open. I catch sight of a large room with a polished wooden floor, pale walls and bright strip lights lights but no window. I don't have a chance to see what's hung on the wall opposite because a man strides over to push the door closed, obscuring my view.

  He pauses in the doorway to study the recruits passing by, and the way he appraises me puts me on alert. He isn’t much older than I am, and he’s more attractive than the choice of recruits around me, but the shiver tripping along my spine is for a different reason. This guy sizes me up in the way I've seen farmers decide which cattle they'd like to buy.

  The guy’s physique is as perfect as the angels’, only he wears a grey t-shirt and dark jeans not a suit, revealing bare arms corded with muscle and crisscrossed by silver scars.

  But his clothes aren’t the most unusual thing about him. This man has dark brown hair and amber-flecked green eyes—every other person working here has blonde hair and blue eyes.

  “Nice hair,” he says and closes the door.

  This guy is the first person I've seen at the academy who isn't an angel.

  If he isn't a recruit, who is he?

  Chapter Three

  My windowless room could double as a cell. Single, narrow bed shoved against the wall, with a folded grey blanket and pillow resting on the bottom. A smooth white desk on metal legs contains a closed book. There's barely room to move between the desk chair and a small set of shelves. On the bottom shelf, somebody has left folded clothes.

  I drop my bag of meagre possessions on the bed and take hold of the T-shirt on top. Black. Underneath are black jeans and a pair of heavy black boots. I hold the shirt against myself. I'm a jeans and T-shirt girl, and black's my colour, but I don't go for scoop necked tight ones like this.

  Grimacing, I drop the clothes on the bed and pick up the book. I'm not much of a scholar, but the illustrated images of combat moves interest me, but not as much as the photographs of weapons halfway through the book.

  I trace a finger across a picture of a sharp dagger with a symbol carved into the hilt. I recognise the shield and wings symbol from the top of the papers I signed. I was right when I presumed that represented the soulhunter academy.

  How long before I get one of these babies in my hands?

  The mattress feels hard beneath my backside as I sit and continue to leaf through. The thick book would take days to read—how long will I be here? Nobody ever told us.

  The day's stress finally catches up as I hug the book to my chest and fight the sensation that the walls are closing in on me.

  But I refuse to cry for what I left behind.

  I'm lost in my thoughts as a loud voice calls something I can't make out, the words joined by the sound of a fist banging on doors along the hallway. The fist and voice owner reaches my room and hammers.

  "Dining room."

  I rub my tired eyes and jump to my feet, eager to escape the cell-like room. I don't want to miss where to go and run through my door to join the footsteps clomping by. I scout the hallway for a familiar face but only see scowling farmer boy and a squat girl he appears to have made friends with. No Sarah. I tiptoe and spot her closer to the front. Barging past those between us, without apologising to the tutting reaction, I catch her.

  "Hey."

  Sarah looks around as I tap her on the shoulder. "Uh. Hi."

  "I'm Ava."

  She half-smiles. "I know."

  "Keep moving!" calls a stern voice, and I pick up the pace.

  "I didn't realise I was famous."

  "Infamous is the word," she replies. "I'm Sarah, in case you don't know."

  "Yeah, I do. You were in my friend's Math class. Derrin?"

  "I know Derrin. Did your boyfriend not come with you?"

  "He's not my boyfriend," I reply tersely, words I've used a thousand times.

  We reach double doors to a large room where the smell of soup or stew drifts out. I salivate as my stomach reminds me of how long it's been since I ate. But how long? In this enclosed environment, it's impossible to tell.

  The man with the loud voice and hammering fist ushers us inside, and we file in to take our places at a long table. Metal benches are attached, and we slide along them until we all have a space to eat. As with ev
erywhere else, the sterile surroundings are white and spotless.

  "I wonder what's on the menu?" I whisper to Sarah as she sits beside me.

  "The same as every day," says a small, uniformed woman who sets a tray in front of us. "Sustenance."

  The tray contains a bread roll and a bowl of indistinguishable, brown soup. I tentatively sniff. Smells better than it looks; hopefully tastes better too. I tear a piece of the roll and dip it in.

  As I gaze around while I eat, something strikes me. I look down at my pink hair against my grey T-shirt in the sea of grey and black.

  Crap.

  Everybody else changed into the soulhunter uniform. Not me. Aurelia and another staff member appear to discuss this, heads together as they talk and look at me.

  "Uh." I stand. "I forgot to change. I'll change now."

  But the metal doors are closed, and a burly man in the same grey and black uniform all academy staff wear stands in front.

  "Nobody leaves until the hour is finished," retorts Aurelia. She holds a flat rectangular item in her hands, which she taps with a finger and asks, "What is your name, recruit?"

  "Ava."

  "Well, Ava, it appears you like to stand out from the crowd." She studies my hair. "However, all recruits must be in uniform when in public."

  I nod, mouth drying — not a good start.