Protect Her: Part 6

by Ivy Sinclair

  I couldn’t deny it any longer, and the truth cut at me deeper than any knife. It threatened to rip apart my soul. “As soon as I can move, I’m going to kill you,” I swore at Proctor. I saw the tears streaming down my mother’s face then as she looked me over from head to toe. She might look the same, but she had been changed, and so had I. Then I realized that it was possible that she didn’t think I was real. “It is okay, Mom. I’ll get you and Gabrielle out of this mess,” I said. “I’m so sorry I didn’t look for you. I thought you were dead.”

  My mother looked as if she wanted to say something then, but Proctor clucked his tongue. “Step back in line, Mrs. Stone. Don’t be afraid. In the interests of time, I’m going to ignore your son’s empty threat.” My mother scampered back to my sister. She wrapped my sister in her arms again. Her skin was so pale. She looked as if she had been suffering from a long illness. That was my fault. That was the fate I had left for them.

  Proctor stepped into my line of sight so that he blocked my family from view. “So I have my deal with the fair Ms. Matthews,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to pony up on yours.”

  “Paige said they were sick,” I said, ignoring his insistence on talking about the deal. I needed time to think. The entire game scape had changed now. I couldn’t risk doing anything that would compromise my family’s safety any more than it already was. I had to find a way to save them.

  “My business with you has nothing to do with that,” Proctor said as his eyes narrowed.

  “It has everything to do with it,” I said. “If you’ve put infested demons inside their bodies, then you might have given them a death sentence anyway.” My sister began to weep then against my mother’s chest, and I realized how harsh my words sounded. What if they hadn’t known? I was flying blind.

  “Are you saying that you would forfeit their lives then because they were…damaged?”

  The words seemed to float in the air between us.

  “Of course not!” Paige said. “Right, Riley?”

  The air around me seemed to swim, and for a moment I wondered if I was actually bobbing in some huge body of water and this was all some kind of sun-scorched dream. But then my eyes refocused on them.

  My mother.

  My sister.

  Alive, and hanging on by a thread. Waiting for the words I would say just like they waited five years ago for my words that I thought proved to be their death sentence.

  “Yes. I agree.” Three small words that held inconceivable consequences that I couldn’t even imagine yet. As soon as my agreement was certain, the invisible binding around me gave way.

  Proctor was in front of me in a flash with his hand extended. “You get me the relic, and you can have your family back. Simple.”

  “You will give them back to me alive and demon-free,” I countered. This was one deal that I needed to maintain as much control over as possible.

  Bruno lowered his head one single nod. I took his hand and felt the puncture of something sharp into my palm. I didn’t look down or waver from my glare into his eyes. I heard the noise of a tumble and then an unceremonious groan that indicated to me that Klein had been released.

  Bruno smiled. It was the kind of smile that gave children nightmares. “We’ll take our leave now. I’ll be back in touch. I wouldn’t tarry in finding that relic sooner rather than later. I can’t be held responsible if the demons inside your family die before you complete your mission and snuff their lives out at the same time.”

  I realized then the mis-step in my words. Bruno only had to accept that he wouldn’t kill them. It wouldn’t hold for anything else that happened to them not by his hand. It was neat loophole that he hadn’t corrected. But then again, why would he?

  I lunged at him, but he and my family were gone. There was only the echo of his bemused laughter left behind. I felt a touch on my shoulder. I looked down and found Paige looking up at me. Her eyes were sad.

  “I’m so sorry, Riley,” she said.

  I shook her hand away. I wasn’t ready to talk about anything yet. My mind still reeled from what I had just seen and learned. It wasn’t fully processing yet.

  “Hot damn! Look at that!” Klein’s excited yelp pulled my attention away from the hurt on Paige’s face. Then I saw what had the kid so excited.

  Our van sat on the road, bright, shiny, and looking brand-new. The way it looked now, it was as if the accident had never happened at all.

  CHAPTER FOUR – PAIGE

  The silence inside the van was deafening. Riley scooted all of us into the van as quickly as possible and seemed determined to put as much road as humanly possible in between us and the site of our disgrace. I knew that I shouldn’t take it personally that he had closed himself off from me again. I wanted to take some of his burden off his shoulders, but there was no way that I could. I had no idea how I’d cope with the idea if I had just found out that instead of my family being dead, they had been held captive by a demon official for the last five years. I knew that Riley must be devastated, and wrestling with conflicting emotions beyond anything that I could understand.

  That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be there for him though. I had tried to tell him about his family, but I understood why he didn’t want to believe. Sometimes fiction was easier to believe than reality. I sensed that he wasn’t ready to talk yet. I decided that was okay. I simply wanted to be close to him if he needed me. I didn’t look at him or demand that he talk to me. That wasn’t what he needed. He was an intensely private man whose world had been invaded in the worst possible way. I wouldn’t try to intrude on that before he was ready.

  “Hitchhiker.” Klein was driving again. Riley had started toward the driver’s seat when we arrived at the van, but I forced him to the back. He wasn’t in any condition to drive, and the last thing we needed was another accident; although the situation with Proctor had been deliberate. Surprisingly, he hadn’t put up much fuss at all after his initial expression of outrage.

  Given my own decorated history with hitchhiking, I felt a strange affinity to people who were so desperate that they had to rely on the compassion of strangers. “Pull over,” I said.

  “No way,” Klein replied.

  “Pull over, Klein,” I said more sternly this time. I looked at Riley, but he was staring off into space as if he couldn’t hear a thing. “I’ll be right back,” I said to him. He gave no indication that he heard me. I sighed and pulled myself up into the passenger seat as Klein brought the van to a stop.

  The figure on the side of the road was small, and when it bent over, I jumped out of the van thinking that the person might be hurt. “Hey, are you okay?” I asked as I approached the figure. Then she stood straight up, and I saw her face fully. I felt my stomach sink.

  “Don’t cause a panic with those boys inside the van,” Abigail said calmly. “We need to have a chat. Just us girls.” She put her hands up. “I have no weapons. You would be able to tell if I was attempting to use magic. I mean you no harm.”

  “I’ve heard that one before,” I said as I started to backpedal.

  “Use your magic,” Abigail said. “You can tell if I’m telling the truth or not.”

  I felt my jaw tighten.

  “Paige?”

  I looked over my shoulder. Klein had rolled the driver’s window down and had his head poking out looking at me with concern.

  “He sees nothing but the image of a young woman who appears to be in slight distress,” Abigail said. “Please. Just a few minutes of your time.”

  The demon had to be crazy. She had just tried to kill me a few hours before, and there seemed to be a lot of that kind of thing going around. I wasn’t about to tell her that accessing my magic required Riley. I was on the road alone with her several feet away from the van. She had magic. If she wanted to harm me, she would have already. I had to believe that.

  “Be there in just a minute, Klein,” I called out. “I’m just making sure this young lady gets on her way. She’s lost.”

>   “You lie rather convincingly,” Abigail said.

  “So do you,” I countered. “I don’t have time for this. We are in a hurry and have someplace to be. What do you want?”

  “I want to make a deal for Fernando. Another one,” Abigail said simply. “I will do whatever Riley requires for him. Bondage, slavery, torture, whatever he sees fit. Just so long as Fernando is returned to me.”

  “I haven’t known him for long, Abigail, but I think that even if those kinds of things were appealing to him, it still isn’t a deal that he would make,” I said. “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t kill you.”

  Abigail grimaced. “I know that he feels betrayed, but I did help him rescue you. Fernando and I have been more than forthcoming with what we knew about Eva. We told him the truth about all of that. I did help him whether he wants to admit it or not.”

  “You lied,” I said quietly. I wanted to feel nothing for her dilemma. The Paige of old would have turned her back on the demon and not thought twice about it. But I had seen the looks that she and Fernando exchanged when they thought no one was looking. The look of adoration on Abigail’s face had been apparent as we all listened to Fernando’s story about his history with Eva and the Protector. Abigail might have lied about a great many things, but I had no doubt that she loved Fernando with all her heart. I was starting to understand the lengths one would go in that situation for the ones they loved.

  My gaze was drawn back to the van. I saw Klein’s pale, anxious face through the windshield. It didn’t appear as if Riley had even noticed that I was gone as he couldn’t be seen. Did I love him? I had made another blood pact with Bruno for Riley’s life. I hadn’t even thought twice about it. It felt like the right thing to do, so I had done it. Was that love? I had no idea. I hadn’t really been around anyone who had been that in love; not even my parents.

  “I’m sorry, Abigail. There’s nothing that I can do for you, even if I wanted to. And on that note, I really don’t. Not after what you did to me.” I straightened my stance and looked her dead in the eye. I had to trust that regardless of whether or not I could actually hold onto magic, she could sense that it was part of me. I didn’t want this to come down to another confrontation.

  “I’d say that I am sorry, but I’m not,” Abigail said. “I did what I felt was necessary.”

  “Wow, at least I give you points for honesty.”

  “There are many demons who depend on me. When Fernando was put down and locked away, all of those that followed him turned to me for answers. It was Fernando’s calling to tend to the flock of Eva, and it was one that he was more than willing to do for nine hundred years.” It was the first time that Abigail’s normally calm tone held a note of anxiety. “They all looked to me when he was gone, and I provided to the best of my abilities. Human. Demon. It didn’t matter. If they followed the calling, then they were Eva’s flock, and I was their shepherd.”

  I held up my hands. “Look, I could care less about how you came into whatever little cult following you have. But I’m not going to be part of it. Not now, not ever.”

  Abigail’s mouth twisted. “Because you have conceded to the temptations of the flesh. You have embraced mortality. You were never schooled in the old ways, so of course you wouldn’t understand your destiny and the importance that it has for all of us.”

  “I think you flatter your Goddess. You act as if she could care less if she has a flock or not. From everything you and your beloved Fernando told me, she cared only for one person above all others. She was tortured and torn apart for that devotion. She made her own bed. Now she can lie in it.” I turned on my heel.

  “You know of the sickness that plagues my kind.”

  It wasn’t a question. If I didn’t know for a fact that Riley’s family was infected with demons who carried the same mysterious plague, my feet would have kept moving to the van. I would have left Abigail on the side of the road without a second thought. But there was something we were all missing there.

  Abigail read my pause, and I found her beside me. She didn’t touch me but hovered near my arm nonetheless. “Angels, demons, and humans have lived side by side for more than a thousand years. But now, reasons seem to be popping up from all corners of the realms that turn them all on each other. Even the humans, who are mostly ignorant of our existence and our ways, are being brought into the crossfire. It all started with the demon illness.”

  She had my attention, and she knew it.

  Dammit.

  “What of it?” I deliberately acted stupid. “So there’s a plague that wipes out demons. I’m not really understanding why I should care about that. Seems like that’s a good thing for all of us humans.” I couldn’t resist the urge to drive home the point that I would never willingly consent to be Eva’s host.

  “You should care because it didn’t take long for the demon officials to figure out that by leveraging human bodies, the demons were able to dramatically slow the effects of the illness. The demons can’t stay in their normal bodies. As long as their essence inhabits a human host, they can sustain their lives indefinitely. There is no way for me to know if something similar is happening among the angels, but even if it isn’t, this puts the demons at direct odds with God. He will not stand for it. The archangels will retaliate on his behalf.”

  “I still don’t see how that’s my problem,” I said stubbornly. The whole idea of an outright angel and demon war scared the shit out of me.

  “That is everyone’s problem,” Abigail persisted. “That is why Eva’s return is so important. She is the only one who can turn the tide and restore peace between the species. She holds the key for the cure. She can set things right before it’s too late. You must understand that. That is why I was willing to do what I did.”

  “Including sacrificing all of those humans who lived on the farm,” I said quietly. I couldn’t keep the contempt out of my voice. “It seems as if the most bloodshed always occurs at the hands of those who consider themselves the most righteous.”

  “The situation is temporary,” Abigail said. “Besides, despite the fact that you think I am some kind of ogre, all of those who lived on the farm understood that at some point they might be called on to be of service to the cause, whatever shape or form that might be.”

  I gaped at her in horror. “Are you saying that you honestly believe they offered you their consent to being possessed? What about Eleanor? She was ten years old. You can say what you like, but I refuse to believe that was the life that little girl chose.”

  “I understand that you don’t agree with the methods, but I wouldn’t have ever let my comrades possess unwilling hosts,” Abigail said. She took a step back from me. “I might be a demon, but I am not a monster. My intentions are pure.”

  “That’s what they always say.”

  I let out a breath that I didn’t even realize that I had been holding. Somewhere along the way of the discussion, Riley had emerged from the van. He was standing beside me. He had his hands on his hips, but I saw a wicked looking knife resting against his side in one hand. It looked vaguely familiar, and that’s when I realized that I had seen one like it before the night that I first met him.

  Plythen steel. My mind, the old memories and the new ones, connected. Plythen steel was dangerous to demons. It severely wounded certain demon types at worst, and outright killed others at best.

  Abigail didn’t move. “I have no quarrel with you. I only came to speak with Paige.”

  “Alice taught me a little spell years ago that allowed me to see around the bending of light that you demons like to use to appear human,” Riley said. “I’ve seen your true form since the moment that I met you. You have a lot of nerve coming after us. I’ve had one hell of a shitty day, which you more than contributed to if I recall correctly. I suggest you be on your way before I decide to do something…impulsive.”

  He tapped the knife against his hip. There was no mistaking the message behind his words.

  “I am not the one who is the
threat. Do you really think that I’m the one that you need to be concerned about? There is someone out there who is pitting all of us against each other. The only way that we are going to be able to overcome them is to work together.”

  “I tried it your way,” Riley said. “Turns out, demons lie even when they think they are telling you the truth. And quite frankly, I’m sick of that shit. The world is a better place with less demons in it.”

  I realized what was going to happen a split second too late. “Riley!”

  Abigail’s mouth formed a large “O” even as the bloodstain appeared around the blade stuck in her heart. Her small body trembled and then convulsed. White foam dribbled down the corners of her mouth, and then her body flopped over backward onto the ground.

  I ran to her side and knelt down beside her. My first inclination was to find the magic hold that would save her. I felt Riley’s presence beside me. “You will not heal her.”

  Tears slipped down my cheeks as I watched the demon’s death tremors overtake her, and then her body was still. The air was quiet once again. There was nothing moving anywhere. It was as if time stood still.

  “Why?” I whispered. “She just wanted to talk to me. I had it under control.”

  I felt his hand catch my elbow and drag me upward even as I tried to fight against him. His face was stony even as his chest bore the brunt of my fists. It was as if I was nothing more than a gnat to him.

  “Paige,” he finally said. “Look around you.”

  That’s when I heard the first shuffle behind me. I whirled around. Twenty-five paces away, I saw a man standing there. He looked familiar. Beside him, I saw a child. That face I did know. Eleanor. As I slowly did a half-circle turn, I realized that there were at least a dozen more people standing in the shadows of the clearing of trees. All of their eyes shone a bright, blood red.