Soul Sucker by Kate Pearce

just wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.”
    “And you didn’t. She’s dead and something liquefied her brain.”
    She winced as she opened the door. “Thanks for the visual.”
    He followed her out into the main hallway and almost bumped into her as her steps slowed.
    “What’s up now?”
    She appeared to be listening to something. “This place needs help.”
    He barely repressed a shiver. “I know.”
    Her interested gaze swung back to his. “What do you feel?”
    “What do you feel? You’re the expert,” he countered.
    “Trapped souls screaming in torment, and magic gone awry.”
    “Can you fix it?”
    “Why, does it bother you?”
    He started walking again. “Not particularly.”
    “Liar. If you feel it, it bothers you.”
    “I can live with it. The question is, can you?”
    She cocked her head to one side and wrinkled her nose. “Nope.”
    He watched, fascinated as she drew a deep breath and closed her eyes. Time seemed to stop, his heartbeat slowed and he couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to. She raised her hands and held them palm up as if she was begging.
    “ Come to me .”
    Her lips didn’t move. He realized the words were resonating through his skull and the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. Around her swirled things and emotions he couldn’t quite identify and didn’t want to. She took another deep breath. The swirling turned into the roar of a tornado, which seemed to coil tighter and tighter and disappeared into her hands.
    He felt a visceral tug deep inside his chest and resisted an urge to wrap his arms around himself and curl up into a little ball. No wonder they were called the gatekeepers. He’d never witnessed an empath channeling lost souls back to Otherworld and he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to again. When he opened his eyes Ella was on the move, her smile in place. “That’s better. Thanks for reminding me. I meant to come down here last week and see to it, but I forgot.”
    And it was better. The polluted atmosphere he’d sensed had disappeared.
    He found he could move again, and hurried after her. Feehan waited for them by the main door still chatting to Dr. Clegg. He didn’t look bothered, so the extraordinary incident Vadim had witnessed hadn’t taken much time or been noticed by anyone else.
    “Excuse me, guys.”
    Just before she reached Mr. Feehan, Ella veered off course and headed into the bathroom. She emerged a couple of minutes later, looking even greener than she had before.
    Vadim held the outer door open for her. “Are you all right?”
    “Sure.” Her grin wasn’t good enough to fool him.
    “Do you need to lie down or something?”
    “I’m fine. What I need is half a dozen iced donuts and a chocolate milkshake. I’ll be good to go then.”
    Vadim held open the elevator door. “You’d be better off having some protein and complex carbs.”
    “You sound like my mother.”
    “I’m just saying...” Vadim didn’t get to finish his sentence as Ella stormed off to take the stairs. He sighed as the doors started to close and her untidy yellow braid disappeared around the corner.
    “Don’t worry yourself, Vadim. She’s like that with everyone these days.”
    He turned to find Feehan watching him and tried to think of something neutral to say. He didn’t want to give the impression that he wasn’t a good team player, or he might get sent back to Russia. He decided to focus on the obvious.
    “She doesn’t eat very healthy stuff.”
    Feehan snorted. “She lives on the kind of junk food that would send most people to the hospital. I tried to talk to her about her diet when I first arrived here.”
    “I assume she didn’t listen?”
    “She informed me that she wasn’t planning on living past twenty-seven, so she’d decided to eat whatever she damned well liked.” Feehan paused. “I shut up after that.”
    “She doesn’t plan on taking an OCOS mate?”
    “She says not. Although, a lot of empaths change