The Soul Eaters (The Thin Hex Line Book 1) by Gwyndolyn Russell (100 best novels of all time .txt) 📗

"Grumpy bastard."

"What was that?" He stomped his tiny foot down onto the crate.

"I said shut your buck toothed mouth so I can get to work!"

He stared at me in silence. I was ready to dodge the wrench. Yet he laughed.

I got out of his way before he stopped laughing. Last time he was pissed off, he sealed someone inside of one of his tunnels. Not a prison I'd like to be in.

I dodged around the scurrying kotoli, doing my best to not step on any of them, and to stay out of their way. They were like tortoises. They had a chosen path and nothing would stop them. Worse than a tortoise, one should never interrupt a working kotoli. They had a bad temper.

The marks were easy to spot once I made it down to the exposed piping. Just like Reaper said, cuts etched into the pipe. Three, to be exact. Deep, but not deep enough to cause a water leak.

If it were a crime scene, it was already contaminated to hell. The rodents scurried over everything. I found nothing on the floor. No marks, no loose items.

Just above where the panel had disappeared that exposed the first set of marks was a set of four.

I lined my hand up with the cuts to better understand them. Definitely intentional. A hand. Or paw. Or something. Strange how the set on the pipe was three fingered, but on the wall it was four. The smallest mark was awfully close to the third mark, like it had a second claw on a finger.

Definitely not an anomaly. Well, not the mysterious space kind. Something ripped the panel off. Probably ripped off all the panels.

So, where were the panels disappearing to?

I gave a look around the core room. No sign of them anywhere. Vanished in thin air.

"Jack, meet me at landing platform 1. I already have Mjolnir, Ruby, and Sparrow down here." Reaper came in over the radio.

"Roger that. Be there shortly."

"Any luck?"

"They seem to be claw marks. Makes me think of the ones we saw on the Utopia."

"I see…."

On my way out of the core room, I spotted Fenris where he always was. Curled into a ball up against the protective wall of the core. Maybe he saw something?

"Hey, Fen." I said as I approached.

The cracks for eyes lit up. He looked right at me.

"You happen to see anything strange down here?"

No sign of a response.

"One of those monsters from the Utopia? Anything?"

He sat up, head tilted to the side.

I hummed to myself. Thought about it.

"We have a job. Gotta go planet side. Did you want to tag along? Sure, we could use a big guy like you. Those ravens really don't like us humans."

It stood, nodded.

Well, that was a good sign. Got something from it, at least. Maybe if we exercised some trust in it, it would trust us.

We headed to the exit. I stepped into the decontamination room that had been set up within the new makeshift wall that blocked the radiation from leaking out of the core room. Fenris just stared at me like I was stupid. I waved him in.

"You, too, buddy. It's safe. Just gonna scrub off the radiation so we don't get anyone sick."

He poked his head inside, ducking down to get a good view.

I could tell it had no trust. Maybe it had no idea what sort of chamber this was.

If it was anything like a dog, it acted as if it had been abused before. As if every human it came into contact with kicked it, or worse.

I hoped that wasn't the case. Nobody deserves that kind of treatment.

Fenris slowly floated inside. Watched me the whole while, even when the air nozzles sprayed us down. I was never a fan of this either. It was uncomfortable. Like being pelted in a sandstorm. I could imagine on its body how much it probably hurt.

When the room lit up green, the outer door unlocked and opened, letting us out.

I removed the hazmat suit and hung it up on the rack labeled 'out'. We headed down the hall to the shuttle bay. The whole way I couldn’t shake that feeling of impending doom. It felt like I was in an ocean of cold water lapping at the shore. I could feel my body being tugged gently down deeper.

I did my best to ignore the strange feeling. Hardly even looked back to make sure Fenris was keeping up. The shuttle door was still open. Everyone was sitting inside, chatting and throwing things around.

I pulled myself in halfway and gave a grin to everyone.

“Starting the party without me?”

“Damn, did you have to rub one out before getting here?” Ruby groaned.

“Oh, ho, damn right I did!” I floated inside.

Reaper bit back a chuckle, trying to keep up the serious captain appearance in front of the kids.

Everyone’s faces shifted from laughs and smiles to confusion and cynicism.

For a second I thought my zipper was down. A quick check confirmed it wasn’t.

It was Fenris. He hovered perfectly centered between all the walls, not touching a damned thing.

“You’re joining us?” Reaper crossed his arms over his chest. Strapped down to his seat, he had no worry of floating away.

“A good chance to get to know each other!” Mjolnir grinned.

“You’re really fucking creepy.” Sparrow slapped her hands to her mouth, shocked she said that aloud.

“You just need to get to know him. I’m sure he’s a wonderful... whatever he is.” Reaper said.

“It’s hard to trust something when you don’t know what it is.” Ruby grumbled.

The door to the shuttle lowered until it locked in place. Willis accelerated the shuttle out of the bay.

“If it’s a station, why don’t we dock the ship there?” Sparrow asked.

“The ravens have a habit of detaining whole human ships. It’s best we use the shuttle.” I told her.

Willis went through protocol, announcing his presence and following directions. Sure enough, there was an escort waiting for us. He docked. The door opened.

Three eldiravan towered over everyone