The Soul Collector

Prologue

Galloway tugged at the scarf covering her face and hair as she wound her way through the dark streets of Kabul, the heat of Afghanistan slowly fading as night began to fall. The calls for evening prayer blasted from the mosques, floating through the air, eerie and beautiful. 

She wasn't wearing the scarf because she was afraid. It was laughable to think she had anything to be worried about from any mortal she might run into—no matter how dangerous the streets she traveled were.

No. She was wearing the scarf to avoid drawing attention to herself. Blonde hair wouldn't really blend in with the locals and this wasn't exactly a friendly neighborhood. Galloway would get in trouble if she had any... altercations with anyone other than her target.

There wasn't anything she could do to hide her winter grey eyes though. Not that it matters, Galloway thought. Hardly anyone noticed her anyway. She continued sliding through the less crowded back streets and cramped, crooked alleyways, silent as a shadow, trying to track her prey.

Her fingers brushed along the rough stone walls of the buildings, counting bullet holes as she walked along. She turned her face away when she passed others, people who were just as eager to go unnoticed as she was.  

Galloway could barely feel the tug of the Debt and had to stop every three or four yards to close her eyes and refocus, trying to find him in this tangled mess of a city. She suppressed a sigh. She knew it would be easier to do her job if she had a Hound to sniff out the Debts for her.

She rolled her eyes at the thought. She knew it might make her job easier, but it would make her life infinitely harder. The last thing she needed was another pair of eyes watching her every move.

Galloway felt a sudden thrill go through her body as she finally caught sight of her target—as the part of her that was a Collector recognized that its objective was nearby. The  man looked to his left, then his right before stealing out of the dark doorway, into the night.

She grimaced under the scarf, trying to hurry after him without drawing his attention. It was hard enough to keep track of where she was in Afghanistan's capital, the last thing she needed was to lose sight of this guy again. 

This part of the world was always a busy place. Deals were struck here with the regularity of a well-wound clock. 

She hated it.

Not just because of the heat, but because to her, it smelled like desperation. Like human pain and suffering.

Of course it was popular with Crossroads Demons. They could make all sorts of Deals. Everyone here was desperate for something. Survival. Peace. The well of hope had dried up a long time ago, so they bought it. Even when it cost them their Souls and an eternity of damnation.

Galloway truly hated it. All of it. She hated the Deals. She hated the Crossroads Demons that made the Deals. She hated the fact that the world was such a desperate, hateful, hopeless place that people were willing to make them.

Most of all, she hated having to collect the Debts.

But that was her job.

Today, she was collecting an extremist who had sold his Soul for the promise of pulling off a successful attack. Galloway hadn't cared why he'd done it, she rarely looked at the details of a collection. All she cared about here was the fact that children had died when a nearby orphanage had been destroyed. 

It hadn't been the target, but you didn't see the guy crying over collateral damage.

He'd gotten what he paid for and spent the last twenty-five years as a big hero.

Galloway really hoped he thought he was going to paradise, then smiled at that thought. She'd been where he was headed, and it was literally as far from Heaven as a human Soul could get.

Shadowing him through the twisted, narrow streets, her smile turned into a full blown grin though she could feel its savage edge. She had something special for this guy.

And far be it from her not to enjoy something like this. She so rarely felt good about what she did.

But these were the calls she didn't mind. The collections she actually let herself enjoy. 

They weren't always this good. Didn't always make her feel quite so righteous.

It was about sixty-forty, Galloway mused, weaving carefully through the people still out and about. Sixty percent of people sold their Soul to do something bad. Forty to do something good. She'd done the math years ago.

The forty percent who did it for a good reason really killed her.

This guy though, he fell firmly into the sixty percent and Galloway smiled as he finally turned onto an empty street.