Winning Souls Read Online Free Page A

was best that she kept in mind the sheer difference in location that would kick in the moment they left Nurmegar. She worked in the Alliance, he worked in the Imperium, and they were quite the distance apart. It was best that she kept it in mind. Even if she chose him to father her one child, she would never be able to make the commute before her short season was over. This was a one-time thing.
    When he returned with the caf, he paused. “What is that expression?”
    She smiled and took the cup from him. “Just filing a few things in their proper places.”
    Enher sipped at the caf and all traces of soft pink vanished from her skin.
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    Going to the museum might have seemed boring, but Ulises made it fun. It wasn’t he precisely, but the expressions on the women’s faces as he moved through the museum and pointed to the different displays.
    His enthusiasm for history was contagious. She trailed after him and watched him play the enthralled tourist while she enjoyed the spectacle.
    The meteor strike was particularly interesting. The vid records were blurred, but the energy discharge in the oceans, the mountains and the plains was obvious. Power had broken, and if it was a large-enough chunk to leave ten-kilometre-wide craters, it might have been a piece of a broken sentient world or even a star.
    To her surprise, the outbreak of coma patients then began on Nurmegar. They had a record of the outbreak and a note on the memorial that the patients aged to death and their physical forms passed on.
    She stared at the records, and a sick horror ran through her as she realised that twenty thousand local lives had been given to this strange power and no one had done anything. It had spanned generations, but now, there were only two hospitals dedicated to the maintenance of those who had been taken from their bodies. Five hundred locals were slowly dying and no one had found a cure. As far as the reports indicated, no one was even looking for a cure.
    Ulises was onto the next display while Enher’s mind whirled. The souls were not removed at once. There had to be a connection that allowed whatever was using them to grab them after the fact.
    “Enher, come see this. It is a record of the first tourist attraction on Nurmegar.” He grinned and beckoned her over.
    She wandered over, and he pulled her against his side, putting his wing over her back. “What was it?”
    “The first attraction was a brothel, but they soon replaced it with a casino, and after that, it was the nature tours.” He smiled, but his eyes were conveying that this information was important.
    “So, lust then excitement and finally relaxed enjoyment. It was quite the evolution in tourism.” She nodded; she looked up at him. “I wonder what it would take to stop the loss of souls.”
    He grimaced. “I am wondering the same thing.”
    They walked together through the memorial walls that were reflections of the memorials all over the world. Entire villages had been lost to this outbreak of theft, and no one had bothered looking for the thief. That was the mystery here. They had a killer among them, and no one was looking for it.
    It was a conspiracy of secrecy, and they were paving the road with strangers who were only coming for fun, sex or relaxation. If it was a hunger, it needed to be satisfied; if it was lonely, volunteers could be acquired.
    Enher knew that there was a fit volunteer for any project. She was the perfect example, and those who were injured or in agony would welcome the opportunity to leave their bodies behind.
    Taking those who did not wish to die in such a way was cruel to them and their families. Pleasure was not a fair trade.
    Enher paused and turned back to the original display of the meteors. The three sites that they had visited the previous day were in the strike zones.
    There were nine others, and Enher knew she needed to see them all.
    She returned to Ulises’s side, and they walked through the rest of the