A/N: With Samantha now part of the family, and Tim determined to marry her, Jason and Dick have taken it upon themselves to teach Tim how to please a woman without Bruce knowing about it. Something powerful happens and two brothers are in hot water with their father. Dick and Jason decide they had better keep out of Bruce's way for a while by taking a case that leads them out of Gotham. The case, however, has to be interrupted when word reaches them that Tim has a life threatening illness . . . or is it? And has that case actually come to Gotham?

New Life, Death, and Soul Easters

by

AJRedRobin and JasonToddLover

Part 15: Research Into the Unknown

Damian went into the Manor's library. His father did have an extensive collection of books. He started searching on the shelves for any books on the occult. Damian pulled one of the books from one shelf and opened it. He scanned through the pages, but didn't find what he was looking for so he put the book back and pulled another book. He looked through that one as well.

'This one won't help me either,' Damian thought.

Damian looked through two more books, reading passages and checking table of contents only to dismiss them. None of the books had what he was searching for. He was about to give up when he spied a small volume wedged behind other books. Damian pulled it out and discovered it was the book he was looking for. Damian flipped through the pages. He stopped on a page that had an image with a description. He read the following notation.

"A soul eater is a creature that can eat or suck the soul out of a living being."

That first line in the passage that he found seemed to describe what Grayson and Todd had said they had witnessed in Drake's room. Damian read the next two lines that described the creature's appearance.

"They wear tattered robes that are solid black and maybe to make it more interesting have chains on their shriveled up wrists. Their skin is grayish and cracked, bony."

Dick or Jason didn't mention about the creature's appearance so much. Todd said that Grayson had stopped the creature from feeding on Drake and the creature had escaped out the window. If that was the case, there was a possibility the creature could come back. There's got to be a way to defeat it. The next line in the text sent shivers down Damian's spine when he realized what he read.

'Them?' he read. 'There could be more of these things?'

He had to read the line a second time.

"One way to defeat them is pure light or maybe fire?"

The way the line was written the author of the text sounded like he wasn't sure. Which was it, light or fire?

That didn't help them if the creature decided to come back and even decided to bring friends. Why did it latch itself onto Drake anyway? And how in the hell did those things get around. As if by magic the answer was right under his nose, or more likely written in black and white.

"They float around and latch onto weak beings whose spirit is either deteriorating or broken."

That didn't sound much like Drake, not since Samantha had entered their lives. Even so, Drake had suffered at the hands of Devlin and that Succubus. That Succubus did more damage than any physical wound could. Damian recalled the haunted and exhausted look in Drake's eyes when that Succubus clung to him and pulled him away toward a different part of the Manor. She had taken the form of Drake's old girlfriend Adriana. She had wormed her way into the house, enticing Drake. She had used the sent of strawberries, but what Damian had smelled that day was rotting meat and decay. She had not fooled him for a moment. The thing obviously had been draining Drake's life force. And because of that, Drake's spirit was more broken than anyone realized. Despite Samantha being able to heal, Drake's spirit must still be weak, weaker than he should be after all this time.

'The creature must have been able to sense that,' Damian speculated.

Even so, how were they going to fight against a being that obviously wasn't human. This being was some kind of creature that resided in the dark. And if the author was unsure on how to defeat them, they were going to have a problem. There just had to be more information out there other than this one small paragraph. Damian vowed that he wouldn't stop until he found what he was looking for. Damian pulled the rest of his father's books on the occult off the shelves and settled down on one of the chairs and began to read. There just had to be more out there. What he would end up finding was a lot more than he bargained for. Now he just had to convince his father and brothers that the precautions they were going to have to make weren't exactly conventional by any stretch of the imagination. He just hoped they don't dismiss him too soon, or none of them were going to be left alive to keep those things from coming back and reclaiming Drake's soul.

DTDDTDDTD

Dick didn't care what it looked like. He carried Tim up to his own room and settled him in bed.

"You're going to sleep here," Dick said.

"I'm not tired," Tim argued. He really wasn't. After Samantha had put him back in his body, she had restored his energy if not his health. Tim still looked too thin.

"Don't argue with your big brother," Dick said in a mocking tone that sounded a little like Bruce's voice.

"But I'm not," Tim whined and his aura spiked a little.

Dick was taken aback a little. "Timothy Jackson Drake Grayson Wayne, don't you flash that at me."

"Flash what?"

"Your aura."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," Tim said.

"What do you mean you're not doing it on purpose? I felt heat coming from you, but it was different."

"Different, how?"

"I don't know. It wasn't like the last time you and Samantha . . . "

"Dick, why don't you just call her Sammie," Tim interrupted. "Everyone else does."

"All right," Dick conceded. "Now if you let me explain before you interrupt me again . . . "

"Sorry."

"I don't know exactly how your aura felt different. It . . . " Dick looked up and his face went pale. Floating outside the locked window was the creature that he had pushed off Tim. It was hovering there glaring back. It's black tattered robes blocked out any possible light coming in from the window. It's claw like hands were digging into the wooden frame of the window as if it was trying to rip through the wood to get at them.

"What is it?" Tim asked concerned when he saw Dick's face.

"N-n-nothing," Dick answered, his voice now a little shaky.

"It can't be nothing," Tim turned around to see what Dick was staring at, his eyes growing wide with shock. "Ahhh!" Without warning Tim's aura flared and shot out at the creature even through the thick panes of glass.

"EEEEAAAHHH!" The creature screamed then was engulfed in flames. Both Dick and Tim stared in awe at what just happened.

"What the hell . . . " Dick was at a loss for words. He turned and stared at Tim as if he didn't even know him. Something had changed with Tim as well since coming back from the dead. There was a power there that Tim now had access to, or did he have it all along and he just did not notice. Whatever it was, Tim just destroyed that creature like it was nothing. Dick went to the window and looked down. The creature was a smoldering pile of ash.

"Uuh."

"Tim?" Dick turned see Tim lie back down. "Are you okay?"

"That took a lot out of me and I . . . I don't know how I even did that."

"We'll find out for sure. Why don't you close your eyes."

"Okay."

This time Tim didn't argue. He did as Dick suggested and promptly fell asleep. Once Dick knew that his baby brother was asleep, he got up and shut the curtains then he quietly snuck out of the room to talk to Bruce and find some answers of his own.

Continues with Part 16