Part 2 Chapter 39
The impact of the soulless woman landing on Deception's wing threw him completely off balance. He tilted violently to the right, before spiraling into a nose dive. I held on for dear life while the earth rushed at us.
But even with my impending date with the ground, I still had a bigger problem. You see, the soulless woman was on top of me, and it had wrapped its cold, lifeless limbs around my back. I could feel its hot putrid breath on my neck as its teeth scraped my skin while it attempted to bite down.
The soulless woman broke most of the fall, and my ears were treated to the sound it's of shattering sounds. The soulless woman didn't release me though, and we rolled over one other, each taking turns on the bottom. The hard, rough, black surface, torn my at my skin.
We finally stopped rolling and came to a halt only because we crashed into a building and had ended up at the worst possible angle, at least for me.
The soulless woman had every advantage that she could have over me.
You see I had ended up with my belly pressed up again the building's exterior and the hand that was holding the channeling weapon was pressed up against the wall too.
I yelped in pain when its teeth finally cracked my flesh and pure agony bloomed throughout my body and canceled out the painful throbbing from the scrapes and bruises I received on my roll on the road were causing me.
The pain lit up every inch of my body until that was the only sensation my body burned with.
It felt like someone was trying to suck out my organs with a straw and my body began to seize. No, it wasn't trying to suck out my organs, it was trying to suck out my soul!
Before I had time to comprehend that I was about to lose my soul, the pain was gone and so was the weight of the soulless woman on top of me.
Once again I looked to see that I had again been saved from the clutches of the soulless by one of Arnold's dolls.
Its eyes glowed a hot white in the sunlight while it stared down at me.
It held the squirming dead women in its massive cracked stone hands.
I saw that the soulless women had long blonde hair and eyes that once could have been brown, but were covered by that same milky sheen.
I quickly got up and stabbed my channeling weapon into its side. It let out a loud streak, before going completely still. Arnold doll's let go of the broken body, and it fell to the ground with a loud thud.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around to see that Arnold was standing directly behind me.
His brown curl clumped together from what appeared to be blood, which had somehow ended all through it.
Actually, Arnold was covered head to toe in blood.
Everything from his gray shirt and black pants, to his old ratty boots and glasses, were splattered with the thick red liquid.
I wrinkled my nose at the metallic smell that was pouring off him and covered my mouth quickly when I felt bile beginning to rise in my throat.
He smelled exactly like death, a scent I should probably be used to by now seeing what I was, but I usually dealt with old death, not new death.
At least I didn't feel the final death of whoever's blood was covering Arnold.
My senses were certainly far more muted in this world than ours.
Arnold opened his mouth and began to speak "Most of the zombies stopped being zombies and things got really boring.
Thank you for being attacked and making things interesting," he said to me in his same dull, flat monotone voice.
He pointed to something, and I followed the direction of his finger until my eyes landed on Deception who was backed up against a building with his back arched all the way up, while Arnold's doll stood over him.
He was growling at the thing. His yellow eyes were wide with fear, and all his teeth were bared.
"You're welcome, but I wasn't trying to entertain you by nearly getting my soul sucked out of my body like a milkshake," I retorted and shook my head at him.
"Can you tell your doll to get away from my dragon?
" I asked him, and Arnold nodded and waved his hand, and the clay man stepped away from Deception.
The second the doll stepped back Deception darted away and jumped behind me. I spared a glance at him. He looked alright, except his splint was completely gone and that's when I felt despair slip under my skin.
Now what I do a dragon who couldn't fly. Great.
My guess is one of Arnold's dolls must have caught us before he had hit the ground, which had spared both of us from a nasty crash, but it had cost Deception his splint in the process.
"I have a question for you," I said to Arnold.
"No I didn't kill any of the people when they became non-zombies even though I wanted to," Arnold replied.
"No, that's what wasn't what I was going with that, but glad to hear. What I want to know is do your...um creations," I said and pointed to the clay dolls all around us, "do they have souls?"
Arnold paused and looked around thoughtfully at his creations with his dull brown eyes. I guess they have souls," he replied, "Or something close to a soul. I have to make it before they can come to life.
I felt hope rise inside me, "And did you notice if any of these zombies," I said using the word that Arnold had been calling the drooling people, " go after your dolls? Both the zombies from my world and yours are attracted to souls inside of a living thing."
Arnold shrugged, "They're soldiers, not dolls, and I guess a little bit," he replied, "But most were trying to get to me."
I nodded, "Okay, I see," I responded, "So your fake souls attracted them but not as much as a real soul. I guess we're going to have to go with quantity over quality."
"So you want me to create enough fake souls so it would be more tempting than the number of real souls of these people hiding in these buildings?" he asked.
"Yes!" I exclaimed and clapped my hands together, "Wow you caught on fast!"
He tilted his head up, and the light caught the reflection of his glasses, "Yes my IQ is 164, as soon as you said the zombies were attached to souls I knew exactly what you were thinking. When I'm old enough to have kids, I hope our baby gets my intelligence instead of yours."
I frown down at him while he stared back at me with his usual blank face "You mean the child that is never going to exist!" I snapped, now annoyed. Why did people always like taking jabs at my intelligence? "I mean come on! Your power is life, not predicting the future."
"I can't predict the future, but I can predict what life is going to be born. Can't you predict who death is coming to visit?"
"No, I don't know who's going to die, so I don't believe you know who's going to live in the future!" I spat.
"Well Neeva could, maybe you didn't inherit it."
"Just like you didn't inherit any people skills?" I grumbled before I took a deep breath, "Well since you guessed my plans can you guess the details of what comes along with them? I asked. To which he shook his head no.
Less than fifteen minutes later of walking we were back at the building I had left Amber, and we weren't the only ones that came.
There was a soulless woman outside the door, but this one was from the rebel side.
Her brown hair had at one point had been pulled up into an intricate braid, but now it was a ragged mess.
She sported a dirty gray shirt and dark blue pants.
One of Arnold's dolls quickly charge over and captured it by wrapping the thing's body in a bear hug. I hurried over quickly and ended the unnatural existence with a jab from my channeling spear between its ribs. It let out a single scream, before going still.
Arnold waited a couple of feet away; I walked over to the double doors with Deception following so close behind that he would accidentally bump his nose against my back every once in a while.
When I got to the door and saw it was covered in deep scratches and blood, and that's when I felt worried beginning to grow inside me.
I knocked on them once and waited. I heard the sound of movement behind them, then the furniture sliding across the floor, and finally Amber poked her brown head out.
"Did you find him?" she asked, and I nodded, and she bobbed her head in response and opened the door a little more so she could slip out. Once she was out, she followed behind me while I walked back over towards where Arnold stood.
Once there, I used my hand as a shield for the sun and pointed towards the flat roof above the store.
"We need to get up on the roof," I said to her, "The plan is Arnold is going to create as many creatures with souls as possible, which will hopefully lure the soulless here.
Then you and all of you," I said and pointed to all of Arnold's eight dolls that stood behind him and Amber, "All of you, are going subdue the soulless until I can jab them with my channeling weapon.
Amber mimicked me and shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up towards the sky at the roof too "Okay," she said, but how.
"But I'll be able to climb up there easily but how will you?
You don't exactly have that kind of climbing training.
..at least I don't think you do. And, Deception looks like he is in no shape to fly now.
"Don't worry, I have a way up I already talked with Arnold on the way here," I said and looked over towards Arnold, and he nodded.
He gestured at one of his dolls, and it started to walk towards me.
I stood with my back towards it and braced myself and when I felt its arms wrap around me.
I closed my eyes and had the sensation of being in the air instead of the ground, and when I opened my eyes, I was standing on the roof.
My eyes traveled downwards, and I saw that there was a little indent on the roof in the area surrounding our feet. The doll lowered me back to the ground. We were lucky that we hadn't caved in the roof
I turned my head when I heard something with claws being to scramble up the building to my right. I looked just in time to see Deception's black scaly head poke over the side. He was followed by a grunting Amber, who I lent my arm to help pull her the rest of the way up.
Arnold soon joined us the same way I had come up, via clay doll, until all four of us were standing on the roof. Amber and Arnold looked at me expectedly, and I realized they were waiting for me to speak.
I inhaled deeply and collected my thoughts, "Alright, here's what we're going to do," I began.