He looked at me nervously for a moment then said, "He doesn't have one. They won't give him another one unless you succeed."
I hit the steering wheel with my palm. "Shit! Are you kidding me? I'm all on my own in this. Don't they care about my soul?"
"They're punishing you for making that deal."
"He tricked me! Don't they take that into consideration?"
He nodded again. "They are allowing me to help you."
I leaned my elbow on the door then let my forehead fall on my palm. "Sweet Mary, mother of Jesus." I took a few breaths. "How the hell are we going to defeat this son of a bitch when we find Adam? I know he'll be there waiting to attack us. He isn't going to let me win without a fight. I can't fight a demon. Look at me, Rhyan."
He turned his gaze back to me and let his eyes sweep slowly down then back up my body again. He wet his lips then smiled at me when his eyes met mine. I scowled at him. "He can't make you do anything you don't want to. If he kills you before Friday, then he loses in a way, so I don't think he will go that route. He will most likely wait until Friday."
My eyes grew wide. "So how can I beat him?"
"Find Adam and make him choose you, but the only way you can truly win is for Adam to believe God is his savior. Just getting Adam back isn't good enough; he will still have to choose good over evil."
"Why isn't my guardian demon interfering?" I asked.
"Patrick isn't strong enough to come to earth. I am able to because you chose to be on the side of good, and Murry is strong enough because Adam turned his back on God. Unless you fail in this mission, you'll never have to meet Patrick. He's in the pits of Hell, and your decisions keep him there."
I nodded. "Good…good, because I don't think I can stand anything else working against me this week."
We drove through the city and Rhyan directed me to Mason's apartment. The building was equipped with a security system that required residents to buzz in visitors who didn't have a key. I didn't have a key and I wasn't a cop, so I'd pretty much run into a brick wall.
We stood in front of the apartment complex, and I noticed Rhyan looking around. "I'll go up and take a look around. When I return, you will be the only one who can see me, so be careful about talking out loud. You don't want someone hauling you off to a psych ward." he smiled then popped out of sight.
I didn't know when people could see him and when they couldn't. I could see him; shouldn't everyone else be able to?
"He isn't here, Kendra." Rhyan said.
"Well, buzz me up so I can look for clues." The buzzer went off, the door unlocked, and the brick wall tumbled down. Woot-Woot! "What apartment is his?"
"5B," he said, and I made my way to the second floor. I could hear heavy metal music playing and under that was a softer classical sound. Well, he hadn't been lying about his neighbors. I tried the knob on 5B, and it turned freely in my hand. Rhyan was waiting for me in the living room of the small apartment.
"You find anything?" I asked, and he shook his head. I looked all around then huffed. The apartment was neat and free of clutter. I sifted through some mail on his kitchen counter. "This looks like the apartment of a normal guy, not a demon."
"Looks can be deceiving, Kendra." he said.
"Tell me about it." I looked around for a few more minutes and came up with absolutely nothing. "Let's go to Adam's place. Maybe we'll find something there." I walked out of the apartment by myself. Rhyan was already sitting in my Land Rover when I got there. "Where to now?" I said as I buckled up and started the engine.
"Two blocks up; same side of the street." I nodded and we were off.
Back to contents
Chapter Thirty-one
The apartment complexes were much nicer on Adam's block. Mason's hadn't been a shit-hole, but these were clearly expensive. I would have been surprised to find anyone making less than a hundred grand a year living here. I had a feeling that wouldn't be a problem for Adam.
Rhyan popped out of sight again. "There's nobody here, Kendra." I started to say, "Buzz me in," but the buzzer sounded.
"Thank you," I said.
"No problem, his apartment is 12A."
All the way to the top, huh? I took the elevator instead of the stairs. I'd missed my run, but I didn't have time for exercise right now. It wouldn't do me any good to be in shape if I was just going to die on Friday.
The door's slid open on the top floor. Besides the elevator doors, there were only three others on the floor. Yeah, he definitely spent some money to live in this place. I turned left and made my way to the end of the hall. I turned the knob and walked into Adam's apartment. It was extravagant. Everything was glass, black or stainless, and screamed expensive. There was a five-foot by two-foot gas fireplace inserted into the only white wall in the whole apartment.
A huge black, white, and gray painting was hung high above the fireplace. It looked as though a first grader could have painted it, but then again, I wasn't big on contemporary art. I like to be able to see something real.
The floors were all done in shiny black marble, with little sparkly silver specks in it that looked like diamonds; hell, they may have been. He had glass coffee and end tables with stainless pedestals. I glanced at the kitchen; it was roomy with more stainless and black. Did the guy have a color theme going on here or what? I wanted to bring in a red vase and put it in the center of the room. It was nice, and clearly expensive, but it needed a little color.
I walked to his bedroom and Rhyan followed me. The bed was made, which seemed unusual for a man, let alone one living by himself. There were a few photos of his family on his nightstand. Something caught my attention beside one of the photos. It was a magazine opened and folded back to one of the articles that had featured me. I looked at the photo; I was smiling back at the camera. I didn't think he had bought the magazine after he left my house last night, so he must have bought it sometime before he went to work yesterday. He'd come to my house straight from work, or I thought he had. I shrugged my shoulders and laid it back on the nightstand.
"You didn't think I was going to make it this easy, did you, Kendra?" I jumped and let out a squeak. Murry was talking in my head, and by the look on Rhyan's face, he could hear him also.
"Where is he, you son of a bitch?" I said back to him.
"Awe, Kendra, how did you know my mother was a bitch?"
"Because if she hadn't been, you wouldn't have turned out as rotten as you are. Where is Adam, Murry?"
"I just knew you would address me as Mason." he said, faking a hurt ego.
I was getting nowhere with him, then I wondered something. Rhyan read my mind, and shrugged his shoulders with a blank look on his face. He didn't know either. Great. "How are you in my head? You aren't connected to me."
"On the contrary, Kendra, I am very much connected to you. You are Adam's soulmate, so I have access to your thoughts, as well as his."
"That's why you were angry at the restaurant. You knew all along I was trying to make Adam fall in love with me, and you got angry when he reacted to me. You were mad at yourself for not having a stronger hold on him. Am I right?" I said.
He laughed. "You catch on quickly, Kendra."
"Why didn't you just kill me that night?"
"What, and let you be with your precious Rhyan in Heaven? I don't think so. If I wait until Friday to kill you, I will have both of your souls."
"WHERE IS HE?! Give me a clue, damn you!" I shouted out loud.
"Hmm, let's see. You want a clue? How about...try looking where you would play."
And just like that, he was gone. I didn't feel the presence in my mind that I sometimes felt when Rhyan was talking to me through my mind. He was gone, but I had no doubt that he could still hear me.
Rhyan nodded. "I can't hear him anymore either."
"He said he could hear me because I was Adam's soulmate. Why can't you hear Adam?"
He shrugged. "I've never tried to hear him. I didn't know it was possible. I've only ever been able to he
ar your thoughts because you are my charge."
I put my hands on my hips and stared at him. "Well, can you try now, please?"
He jumped like I had poked him. "All right, all right, I'll try. Give me a minute." He closed his eyes for what seemed like an eternity. His mouth moved every so often like he was silently talking to someone, and then he opened his eyes and gave me a smile.
"You talked to him?" I said enthusiastically.
He nodded then his smile faded.
"What is it, Rhyan?"
"I asked him where he was. I told him that I was in his mind to help him. He kept asking me who I was. I finally got out of him where he thought he was located, but he kept asking me...so I told him. I told him that I was your guardian angel, and he became very angry. He told me to tell you to just leave him alone, that he would rather die there than ever see you again."
My smile faded. "I can't let that stop me. We knew he would be angry at me."
His eyebrows rose and he scratched his temple. "Well, you aren't the only one. He had a few choice words for me as well. I think he really loves you, but he is so hurt about seeing us…"
"Don't give up, Rhyan."
"I'm not, but I think Adam has." he said.
"Where is he?" I asked as I left Adam's room and started for the door.
"He said he was in a cave somewhere. He didn't know where exactly. He said he was there when he woke up."
I nodded as we got in the elevator. He rode down with me this time without popping to my Land Rover. "Murry gave me the hint to look where I play. I bet he means where I climb. There are a lot of caves outside of the city where my friends and I go sometimes, but there are so many of them. We'll never find him before Friday."
"Call your friends and ask them to help you. You don't have to tell them what happened, just that there is a man trapped in one of them, but you don't know which one."
My face lit up. "You're a genius, Rhyan. I would kiss you right now if I could."
He smiled. "I know you would."
Back to contents
Chapter Thirty-two
I pulled out my phone and started calling all of my friends. Most of them would be at work, but they would answer and help me when they got off. My dad would even help me and call a bunch of his buddies to help as well. A man lost down in one of the caves was a serious deal around here. I would tell everyone that he was the surgeon who had saved me, and I'd caught wind that he'd gone caving last night by himself and hadn't shown up for work today.
I dreaded calling Aven. He wouldn't want to help me because he was mad at me, but I thought he would in the end. I just dreaded the conversation. I decided to call him first to get it out of the way. He had a lot of friends that were into extreme hobbies as well.
The phone began to ring as I headed out of town. I had flashlights and my hiking boots in the back of my Land Rover, so I didn't have to worry about stopping off at home. Aven picked up on the fifth ring. "What do you want, Kendra?" he sounded grumpy. Oh well.
"Aven, I need your help. The surgeon that saved me went caving last night by himself. I don't know which cave, but he's missing now."
"He the guy you're seeing?" he said.
Shit! I couldn't lie to him; he would see right through it, and he was one of my closest friends. I didn't want to lie to him, but I didn't want to tell him the truth either. "Sort of,"
"What kind of dumbass would go caving alone, Kendra? You sure can pick 'em. I thought you said he was at your place last night. Did you piss him off, too?"
I huffed. "He was...yes, I mean sort of I guess...Aven, can you be mad at me later? My, I mean his, life is at stake here. Can you call your friends and help me or not?" I was getting flustered, and I hated being flustered.
I heard him sigh. "All right, but I ain't doing this for you. I just don't want some stupid motherfucker dying, knowing that I could have done something about it."
I smiled and closed my eyes briefly. "Thank you, Aven. You have a good guardian angel."
"Yeah, whatever that means. My group will take the west caves. Make sure you look somewhere else. I don't want to see you right now. I'll call you if we find anything."
I sighed into the phone. I hated that he was mad at me, but there was hardly anything I could do about it. "Okay. Aven…I'm truly sorry that I hurt you."
The line went dead, and I looked at my phone. He'd hung up on me again. I didn't have time to worry about our friendship falling apart right now; I had a lot of calls to make.
I really wished I had another phone so Rhyan could help me, but how would that go if I did, "Uh, hello, I'm Kendra's guardian angel, and we need help finding her soulmate, who is being held in a cave by his guardian demon. Will you help us find him?" Uh, no, that wasn't going to happen.
I saw Rhyan smile out of the corner of my eye as I dialed Kobhye's number. "Do you think it would work?"
He shook his head as he laughed. "No, I don't think it would work."
Kobhye picked up on the second ring. She wasn't mad at me. "Hey, do you remember the sexy ass surgeon who saved my life?" She did remember; I had no doubt she would. I told her what I had told Aven, and she agreed to call everyone she knew that would help. She didn't have any problem being in the same cave as me, so I told her I was going to the north caves. She even said she was leaving work right away, what a friend.
I hung up with Kobhye and called my dad. He was on board with helping, but it would be after four before he could get off work. He told me that he would ask all of his co-workers and friends to help, and that he would call me to see where I needed them when he got off. I told him that was fine and we hung up.
I had reached eight other people before Rhyan and I got to the cave. I put my vehicle in park and shut off the engine. Some of the people I'd called couldn't make it until four or five, but several were already on their way to help. Aven said he was taking the west caves. I was taking the north with Rhyan and some of my friends. I sent my friends that lived or worked closer to the south side of town to the south caves, and there weren't any caves east of town that I knew of. We would search the cave from top to bottom, and if there was no Adam, we'd move on to the next.
There were about five caves to the west, but they were big. The north had about ten mostly small caves, but one of them was the biggest of all the caves around the city. There were only three that I knew of to the south. We hardly ever went south, but Murry may have, so I didn't want to exclude them.
I had called Kobhye a few minutes before I arrived at the first cave to tell her which cave we were searching first. She had figured as much, and was only a few minutes away. She'd gotten a hold of six people who were meeting us, including two friends who had been there Saturday when I'd fallen. Marc was leading his crew through the south caves.
I hoped Murry wouldn't hurt anyone who was looking for Adam. It was hard for me to think of him as evil. He'd been so nice when we'd first met. I guess the old saying, "don't judge a book by its cover" was true. It's hard to tell who you can trust in this crazy world. Adam had thought that Mason was his best friend for the last six years. In a way, I hated to be the one to break the bad news to him. He'd lost his family, then his best friend, and now he didn't want a damn thing to do with me; though his rejection wasn't going to stop me from trying to save our souls. I had to try.
I saw a cloud of dust billowing up behind Kobhye's truck as she sped up the gravel road toward us. There were two other vehicles following a little ways behind her. She was dusting them out, but they all knew their way.
Rhyan didn't have to ask who it was; he was picking it right out of my brain.
Kobhye jumped out of her four-wheel drive Ford. Her family owned a ranch a few miles out of the city, and fancy cars just weren't her thing. They showed horses, and even had a couple racing horses. I'd gone on a few trail rides with her, but it wasn't interesting enough for me. I needed more risk. Although, I'd rather go trail riding than go up against Murry any day.
I wasn't lookin
g forward to the look in Adam's eyes when he saw me. If he had of stayed another minute or two last night, he would've seen the same look in mine. He'd broken my heart last night, but I had already forgiven him for it. Considering the circumstances, I wasn't so sure he would be as forgiving.
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Chapter Thirty-three
We turned on our flashlights before entering the cave. There were bats and other creepy animals that weren't so nice that lurked behind the sharp twists and turns of the cave walls. Some of the caves around the city went deep underground; you could actually drive a big truck through some of them. This one was a little of both. It was the largest cave in the area and it went on for a mile or two, with many different paths to take. If you didn't know where you were going, you could slip right off into a deep ravine; some of them were twenty or more feet deep. It wouldn't surprise any of us if an inexperienced caver got lost. I had, on more than one occasion. It really sucks when you drop your last water bottle in one of those ravines six hours before you smell fresh air. I wondered if Murry had been cruel enough to have not given Adam any water.
"Would I do that to my friend, Kendra?" Murry said in my head.
I gritted my teeth. "You aren't his friend. Don't pretend to be. He knows the truth about you now. Do you actually think he will choose you?"
He laughed. "I only have to keep him from choosing you until Friday."
"Get out of my head, asshole."
"What?" Kobhye said then shined her light in my eyes.
I shook my head. "Nothing." With Murry laughing and talking so calmly to me, I had a feeling that I was in the wrong cave. He may know that there were more friends of mine in the other caves looking for Adam, but I didn't think he could read their minds. I looked at Rhyan. He'd stayed visible so everyone could see him. I'd told them that he was a friend of Adam's. Now, wasn't that a big ass lie?
We searched for hours. I knew everyone was tired and hungry, but mostly everyone just needed water. Kobhye had brought along three bottles, but with nine of us sharing them, they hadn't lasted long. I knew we were going to have to take a break, and we were close to the mouth of the cave. We had taken so many twists and turns and tunnels that we'd ended up back near our starting point.
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