Jivaja (Soul Cavern Series Book 1) Read online

  Jivaja

  A stolen soul, a civil war,

  a father’s secret.

  A woman hunted.

  Venessa Giunta

  https://www.VenessaGiunta.com

  Jivaja

  Copyright © 2018 by Venessa Giunta

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, printed or electronic, without prior written permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

  [email protected]

  This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-7326860-1-4

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9910778-9-2

  Cover Artist: The Book Brander

  Published in the United States of America by Fictionvale Publishing, LLC.

  This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  https://www.venessagiunta.com/

  Table of Contents

  Jivaja

  The Soul Cavern Series

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Mecca

  Chapter Two: Claude

  Chapter Three: Mecca

  Chapter Four: Mecca

  Chapter Five: David

  Chapter Six: Mecca

  Chapter Seven: David

  Chapter Eight: Mecca

  Chapter Nine: David

  Chapter Ten: Claude

  Chapter Eleven: David

  Chapter Twelve: Mecca

  Chapter Thirteen: Mecca

  Chapter Fourteen: David

  Chapter Fifteen: Mecca

  Chapter Sixteen: David

  Chapter Seventeen: Mecca & David

  Chapter Eighteen: David

  Chapter Nineteen: Mecca

  Chapter Twenty: Claude

  Chapter Twenty-One: Mecca

  Chapter Twenty-Two: David

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Mecca

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Claude

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Mecca

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Victoria

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Maze

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: David

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Mecca

  Chapter Thirty: Mecca

  Chapter Thirty-One: Mecca

  Sneak Peek: Blue-Edged Soul

  The Soul Cavern Series

  Venessa Giunta

  The Soul Cavern Series

  Jivaja

  Blue-Edged Soul

  Visci

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  Dedication

  For my husband, my muse.

  And all the things.

  Prologue

  “You have to be very careful when you touch people, Mecca,” her father murmurs as he kneels on the warm ground pulling weeds out of the flowerbed. He brushes the back of his glove-covered hand over his forehead, wiping away a faint gleam of sweat. “You’re still learning to use your Gift and you could hurt people.”

  She nods. The plastic beads on the ends of her braids click against each other with a muted sound. “That’s why you don’t want me to touch Mom.”

  He exhales and leans back on his ankles as he looks up at her. She wishes her eyes were like his. When he looks at her, his love shows in his bright, dark blue eyes.

  “Yes,” he says. “Mom is sick, and she needs all her energy. I know you’re careful, and I know you love her very much, but you can’t control it yet. You wouldn’t mean to but could accidentally make her worse. Do you understand what I mean?”

  Even at eleven, she gets how much it hurts him to forbid her to touch her mother. She understands why too, but she hates it. She hates it more than peas, more than cleaning her room, and more than cough medicine. And she hates herself for having the “Gift” that keeps her from her mom.

  “Yes, I understand,” she replies. “I get it. I wish — I just wish there was a way…”

  He grabs her arm and pulls her into a bear hug. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry. I hate doing this to you. When you’re older. When you learn more…”

  Her tears spill onto his thin white T-shirt as she wraps her arms around his neck and weeps into his shoulder. He smells of earth and sweat. She stays with him for a while after she stops crying. Watching him work in the earth, planting new flowers, she can pretend her life isn’t the freak show it really is. She can imagine running home and hugging her mom without having to make sure there is something between their skin. In her thoughts, in her wishes, skin to skin means nothing.

  Later, she wanders behind the house and down to the pond. It’s large enough to be home to many fish, birds and animals, but not so big that a bunch of people come to play in it. She never sees boats or even swimmers, here. That’s why she comes. It is quiet.

  An expanse of trees backs up along the pond’s bank, and she catches sight of a doe with her fawn just as they catch sight of her. They dart into the safety of the trees, leaving her behind. Where the pathway goes into the trees, she continues along the water’s edge, until she reaches the flat, smooth boulder at the water line.

  She loves this rock. Surrounded by trees and brush, this is her spot, her rock. She scrambles to the top and sits, her legs stretched in front of her. A magnificent bird swoops across the still water, looking for fish, she guesses. It had rained earlier and her Keds are dirty from the walk through the woods. With one finger, she flicks a spot of mud from her toe.

  “Stupid Gift. Why couldn’t it skip me like it did Dad?” A ladybug flutters past her nose and lands on the tip of her shoelace. It crawls along until it comes to the end where her lace leans against her ankle. The bug hesitates a moment and then creeps onto her soft brown skin, a tiny red spot moving along her leg.

  She watches and feels the tiny tickle from its movement. Her anger at her life still bubbles below the surface, but she is happy to watch this small, pretty thing living its life carefree, in a way hers would never be.

  She sighs and then a sharp little tingle slips from that tiny bug’s spot and up through her body, a feeling that reminded her of putting her tongue on a nine volt battery. The tickle stops and she watches, wide-eyed as the ladybug slides down her leg, bounces off the tongue of her shoe and falls to the hard surface of the rock.

  It is dead.

  She clamps her palm over her mouth and cries into it. She scoots away on her backside, then draws her knees up to her chest, bends her head, and sobs.

  Chapter One: Mecca

  Darkness cloaked the back parking lot in Little Five Points. On the asphalt, the man shuddered and gasped, his dusky blue eyes wide in his confusion. Mecca Trenow, her fingers wrapped around his wrist, held her own fear at bay by the need for survival. A confused grimace transformed the man’s face into an ugly, alabaster mask.

  Mecca’s heart thumped hard against her breastbone. Everything had happened so fast! His attack. Her response. Now, crouched over him, she found the arm in her grasp thinning, becoming more frail, until she could feel the actual bone between her fingers. His dark hair greyed and then waf
ted to the concrete like so many delicate feathers.

  He withered.

  Superimposed over his form, like a double-exposed negative, the Cavern where his soul would have resided spread before her. It should have been bathed in golden light. Instead, a small ball of gold looked to be tethered to the walls with thick, silver-grey tendrils.

  She closed her eyes to block out the reality behind the image of the Cavern. She tugged at the golden life force within him. Its colored fringes had already washed out to a pale pink. The silver tethers which held it stretched and then popped, one by one. Mecca surrounded the sad little ball with her own energy, gold with blue fringes, as it began to come away.

  The captive energy swung free from its bonds, momentarily bathing the cold, dank Cavern in light. It hurled into Mecca. Her own life force, the little part of her soul she'd sent into him, crashed back to her, breaking her hold on his frail arm. She toppled onto her ass between the cars, sharp pain vibrating up her spine.

  Energy tore through her, mixing with her adrenaline. The red-hot spike shuddered through her body and along her limbs. It reached her toes and then bounced back and shot through her entire body again. Her skin tingled electric.

  She had no concept of how long she lay on the gravel lot. The acidic smell of piss coming from the ground made her queasy. The energy waned and ebbed until it settled into her and became familiar, became a part of her own soul. With a long, deep breath, she pulled herself up from between the cars, leaning against the cool door of a Toyota Camry.

  As the energy finally began to level out, she realized that she felt drunk. Her fuzzy brain had trouble registering things around her, or even thinking, for that matter. So it took a moment to realize that the blob she stared at now was actually a man. He stood near the Dumpster, across the parking lot.

  Tall, with dark, tousled hair, he watched her with wide eyes. What she’d done began to sink in. Panic edged her thoughts. She looked down at the withered corpse, at herself.

  Dark droplets dusted her blouse. She touched the side of her neck and her fingertips came away bloody. The thump-thump of her pulse pounded in her ears.

  At her feet, the shrunken carcass looked nothing like the sexy man in the coffee shop who'd approached her so many times over the last few weeks. His energy had been strange, which had kept her from engaging. But today, she’d said yes to a chat. And she’d ended up a murderer.

  She stared at the dead thing. The fear she'd been holding back crashed over her like a flood.

  She turned on her heel and ran.

  Chapter Two: Claude

  The young Visci half-breed male— smelling of a sweet, rotten scent, much like day-old milk — who showed Claude into Emilia’s quarters had been more interested in his telephone than in courtesy. But there was no accounting for manners.

  Emilia’s rooms encompassed half of the lowest level of the sub-basement in her compound. Situated at the end of an extended hallway, it would be defensible in case of a breach; Claude felt sure that Emilia had installed escape tunnels leading from her rooms to a safe location. He would have, in her shoes. Good defense means nothing if one is trapped like a rat in a corner.

  Claude crossed the threshold into Emilia’s quarters and the door closed behind him with a muted click. Rich moss-green carpet swallowed his footfalls as he made his way through the small ante-chamber to the main living area. The scent of cinnamon incense caressed him.

  Emilia’s love for all things aged and European showed in her design tastes. The Queen Anne style writing table that flanked him on the right held a pale cream colored porcelain pitcher beside a chipped washing basin, both settled on a lace table runner. A tapestry on the opposite wall displayed an English fox hunt with braying dogs, noblemen and pretty women riding side saddle. Claude had always found Emilia’s affection for European history charming.

  Through an open archway, he entered the sitting room. The green on the floor gave way to a thick, merlot carpet, which accented russet walls hung with various light colored paintings framed in dark woods. Emilia’s passion gave way to practicality with the smoke grey, leather sectional in the corner and the glass-topped desk which faced the room near the far wall, flanked by two ultra-modern chairs.

  Emilia sat at the desk, glow from the LCD computer monitor highlighting her almond skin tone. When she looked up at him, Claude saw the girl he’d taken from a battlefield in what is now Cambodia. Her face, her expression when she smiled, those were the same. But her eyes had changed. Darker now. Harder, perhaps. Claude supposed he’d done that to her.

  “Thank you for coming,” Emilia said as she rose, a smile spread across her face. “Things have gotten complicated and I am eager to have your counsel, if you would stay for a bit.”

  Claude affected a short bow. “I am happy to assist.” The conflict between the pure blood Visci and the half-breeds roiled below the surface of every interaction these days, in every city he’d visited, so Atlanta seemed no different. It had only been a matter of time.

  Commotion just outside the arched doorway caught both their attention. A tall, thin man bustled through, followed directly by the rotten-milk half-breed, who sputtered apologies to Emilia.

  “What is going on?” she said, moving from behind her desk. “James?” She stared the new arrival down, but to his credit, he did not fluster under her gaze.

  “My apologies for bursting in,” James said, tilting a nod in Claude’s direction.

  Claude could detect no scent coming from him, though he was a distance away. Pure blood? Interesting.

  “You need to hear what happened to Hayden.”

  Emilia waved a hand of dismissal to the half-breed from the doorway and he stepped back, a scowl on his face.

  “All right,” Emilia said as she leaned against the desk. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who did Hayden kill this time?”

  Claude didn’t know who this Hayden was, but listened with interest. James shook his head, but seemed unable to talk for a moment. When he finally did speak, it came out all in a rush, with barely any breath between words.

  “He didn’t kill anyone. Someone killed him.”

  “What?” Emilia rarely showed excessive emotion, but the surprise traveled across her features for a moment before she regained control. “Was it Visci? A pure blood killed him?”

  James shook his head. “I don’t know what she is. But she isn’t Visci.”

  This conversation had gotten exponentially more interesting.

  “Then how?” Emilia asked.

  “He was at the college campus, down at Little Five Points. He hunts — hunted there pretty often. He liked the college kids.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.” Emilia waved her hand. “Go on.”

  “He was in the coffee shop and had zeroed in on one girl. He’d targeted her before, several times, actually, but she always shut him down.”

  “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. She’s a student — she’s always in one of the coffee shops, working on things — light-skinned, African-American, young. I’ve been in the same room with her too and I get why he wanted her. She pulled at me, but I have no idea why. I suppose that’s why he kept going back to her every time he saw her.”

  “But this time, she accepted him.” Emilia’s jaw had tightened and set in a hard line.

  “She let him walk her to her car but then… Then…” James looked down and Claude realized suddenly that although James might have been a full blood Visci, he was very young. That made him wonder who the boy’s parents were. Who had been lucky enough to procreate without a human? Claude would have to make inquiries.

  “Enough with the theatrics,” Emilia said. “What happened?”

  “He went to feed from her and when he leaned in, he died.”

  Emilia caught Claude’s gaze for a moment and the exasperation evident in her tone flashed through her eyes. She looked back to the young Visci in front of her. “James, I swear to you, if you don’t tell me what happened, you’re g
oing to be an offering in the Maze Gathering, rather than a potential contestant.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. When he went to feed, she grabbed his arm and he just suddenly started withering. He tried to pull away, but not until he was too weak to do it. It’s like she was sucking everything out of his body and he just shriveled up and died.”

  Something in the back recesses of Claude’s mind pinged on James’s words, but he set aside the strange memory-like feeling for now. He’d search his past later. Now, he wanted more information, and he hoped Emilia would ask the questions he wanted answers to.

  “I don’t understand,” Emilia said. “What actually killed him?”

  James shook his head, but didn’t respond immediately. Claude wondered whether James feared for his own safety because he was unable to answer. When James did find his voice again, he said, “I don’t know how she killed him. There was no blood, and I saw no injury when I retrieved his body.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “It’s still in my car. I thought you would want to see it.”

  “Yes. Take it to the medical suite and we’ll see what we can make of things.” Emilia moved behind her desk again. “You can go. You did well, James. Thank you.”

  James furrowed his brow and shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again. “There’s something else.”

  Emilia looked up from the paper she’d lifted and begun to study. “What?”

  “She saw me.”

  Claude could all but feel Emilia’s temper, though her face remained stoic. She’d always been hot-headed, but it seemed she’d finally learned to control her immediate outbursts. Likely a skill learned as she solidified her hold over Atlanta. It’s difficult to govern Visci effectively without a huge measure of self-control.