by Ivy Sinclair
"He's leading them away from us," Riley answered my unspoken question. "I am sure he's got more than a few tricks up his sleeve that will buy us the time we need to get away from shore."
"I don't understand why he let us go instead of coming with us," I said.
Riley dropped my hand and burrowed into the brush next to the path. In no time at all, he uncovered the canoe hidden there. I had to give the guy credit. He was resourceful. I had to wonder when he found the time to locate it.
"He let us go because he knew that he was the only one strong enough to fend off Proctor, and somebody needed to stay with you to get you away from here. Believe me, he's less than thrilled about the situation."
I told Riley the situation between me and Benjamin already, but I felt it necessary to clarify it once again. "I'm grateful for what he's doing, but that doesn't change how I feel about him."
"It's a lot more complicated than that now," Riley growled. "It's not going to be as easy as you think to dismiss him. We need to hurry. He won't be able to distract them for long before they figure out you aren't there with him."
I wasn't sure what Riley was talking about that the situation with Benjamin was complicated. It wasn't complicated at all. He loved me, but I didn't love him. End of story. Plus, I wasn't even sure what it would mean to be in love with an angel.
Riley moved his backpack, the oars, and his shotgun to the edge of the dock. Then I watched the muscles of Riley's arms ripple as he hauled the canoe up over his head and then followed him down the dock again. He tipped it over gently into the water. Only the barest of splashes gave it away. I couldn't help but wonder then what falling in love with a necromancer would mean.
As soon as the canoe was in the water, Riley jumped inside. He held onto the end of the dock and pulled the shotgun and a pair of the oars inside. He was surprisingly agile for a man so large. Then he lifted his hand to help me, but I refused to take it. I might have to rely on him to guard me against demons, but I could get into a damn canoe by myself. I saw the corners of his mouth twitch as if he read my mind.
I took up the other set of oars from the dock as soon as I was inside the boat. "Let's go."
It took only a few moments for us to find a rhythm that seemed to satisfy Riley's desire to move quickly. I was grateful for the hours I put in at the gym on the rowing machine; otherwise I was certain that my shoulders would have ached after just a couple of minutes. The only light that we had to guide us was the half moon overhead, the stars obscured by the clouds.
I started to feel like everything was going to be okay. Then I let my eyes drift behind us as they fell back down to the shore, and I couldn't stop the gasp from my lips. At least it wasn't a scream, but I faltered in my stroke and then stopped altogether as I stared. Dozens of pairs of red beady eyes peered out at us from the tree line.
"Yes, they know we're out here," Riley said quietly. "Keep rowing. If we're lucky, they'll decide that their fear of water is greater than their desire to track you into it."
"They're afraid of water?"
"It takes a pretty big push to get them even to dip a toe into it," Riley replied. "Getting them on boats is slightly easier, but even then demons get squeamish."
I had another glimmer of a memory. It had to do with the water and demons, but then it was gone, sucked back into the black hole of my head. I saw lightning strike down into the forest behind the demons, but they didn't appear to be fazed by it.
"Is that Benjamin?"
"He's got Proctor's attention. We need to get to the other side before those two call a truce."
"Why would they do that?"
"Because it is highly unlikely that either of them could kill the other."
"I thought you said demons were weaker than angels." I was getting confused trying to keep my creatures straight.
"Most demons. Bruno Proctor holds a similar position to Benjamin in the demon realm. He's lived a long time and managed to get where he is for a reason. If the angels could have so easily taken him down, I think they would have done so a long time ago."
Bruno Proctor sounded like someone that I never wanted to meet.
"You know him." It wasn't a question, but a confirmation based on what Benjamin said.
"Yes."
I had hoped for a better answer, but it quickly became clear that the one-word syllable was all that I was going to get. I picked my oars back up and started to row again, acutely aware of the audience that watched us. It took another minute before a faint, yet recognizable noise reached my ears.
"Riley?"
"I know. Keep rowing," he replied tersely.
I looked back at the shore even as I forced my arms to move faster. Despite my inadvertent training, I could feel my shoulder blades starting to burn, but I didn't slow down. I couldn't, because the demons had followed us into the water.
CHAPTER SEVEN - RILEY
My mind refused to accept it, so I focused instead on the far shoreline that had to be coming up soon. Demons loathed water. It wasn't unlike soaking a cat in a bath. They studiously avoided the outdoors when it rained, and stepped around puddles in the street. It had been a brilliant move on Benjamin's part to set-up shop on an island all those years ago and eventually declared it a demon-free zone. Most demons wouldn't want to come over even if there was something more interesting than a whole lot of cemeteries and dead people.
Yet they proved again that they were willing to risk life, limb, and severe psychological trauma in their pursuit of Paige Matthews. It was unreal. To top it off, they were being led by the demon official responsible for wiping out my family. The uncanny set of coincidences that brought me to Calamata Island and set me squarely in Paige's path seemed a bit too much of a coincidence now to ignore. I needed to go back to the Sisters of St. Joseph's and find my mentor. She was the only one who could make sense of the chaos.
I had no idea how fast a demon could swim, but if it was comparable to their running or flying abilities, it was fast. It wasn't lost on me that we had the slightest advantage that no matter what, demons could not fly over water. I was wholly grateful at that moment to whoever designed that little failsafe in demon DNA. Despite knowing that angels existed, I still wasn't sure that I believed in the great All Mighty. Maybe this was the time.
Starting to feel the dredge from the front of the canoe, I realized that Paige was getting tired. She hadn't said a single word of protest, but our ever-decreasing speed was evidence of it.
"Take a break for a minute," I called out to her. It was pointless to try keeping quiet. The demons would track the water's ripple tide following behind the canoe. Our only option was to get to shore before they did and find a place to hide.
"Not a chance," she called back to me. "I know a place where we can go if we can get enough of a head start."
"I'm all ears," I replied. Paige's knowledge of the island so far had been invaluable.
"Cut to your left," she said. "But be careful. As we get closer to this side of the shore, there are a lot more rocks hiding beneath the surface. They'll rip out the bottom of this canoe in no time flat."
More bad news. I could just make out the approaching shoreline, and with Paige's warning in my mind, I forced myself to slow the small canoe almost to a crawl. "How the hell are we supposed to navigate this in the dark?"
Paige turned her cheek to me. "Trust me."
Then she reached over the side of the canoe and dragged her fingers in the water. "Keep going straight."
I dipped the oar in the water and pushed us forward. A demon's howl that was too close for comfort caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.
"Slow down and pull to the right," Paige said.
I had no idea how she was figuring out how to guide me, but it wasn't the time to question things. I had seen enough strange and unusual behavior in the last ten years since I straddled the human and supernatural worlds that very little surprised me anymore. Still, Paige's clear and confident commands were eerie.
Following her
instructions to the letter, I pulled the canoe to a complete stop when she directed me to do so. "Paige?" If we weren't moving, we were sitting ducks. "Do you know where we're going?"
"Quiet," she hissed. Her hand dipped deeper into the water, and I sensed frustration in her voice. "The water's unsettled. I can't get a clear read."
Feeling a shot of adrenaline up my spine, I slammed the oar back into the water. The only reason that the water would be unsettled was because the demons were close. Too close.
Paige's surprised cry went up, and I saw her head whip around. Her eyes widened as they focused over my shoulder. "Riley!"
I barely had time to bring the oar up over my head before I felt the slam of another body pummeling down on me and pushing me forward toward the center of the boat. I managed to gain the slightest leverage with the oar to turn the body over and flip it underneath me into the boat. A man, or what used to be a man, stared back at me and landed a hard kick on the side of my face. It occurred to me then that I knew how Bruno was forcing the demons across the water. He was using possessed human bodies as his personal army.
Whenever possible, I didn't kill the host of a demon possession. I did have some morals on the subject. But when it came down to it, I wasn't about to sacrifice my life or Paige's for some idiot who had been dumb enough to play around with dark magic.
The canoe wobbled severely as the demon kicked and hit at me. I needed to get the canoe rebalanced before it dumped all of us back into the lake. Not hesitating then, I reached down and grabbed the man's head before I twisted it violently to the side. I was rewarded by a sickening crack, and then his body went slack.
Paige half-stood in the canoe and brought the back of her hand to her mouth. She looked ill. "Why did you do that?"
"You need to sit down," I said. "We're getting out of here." I unceremoniously dumped the body over the side.
For a moment, I thought she was going to pass out. Then she pointed behind me. "Riley, I think it's too late."
I didn't want to look over my shoulder, but I couldn't help myself. The scene behind me stopped me cold. Beneath the depths of the water, I could see the red eyes getting closer to the canoe. There were far too many of them to fight. I was good, but even I knew that I wasn't that good.
"Paige, you need to get out and make a run for it. We must be close enough to shore that you can get there quickly. I'll hold them off."
"No, I'm not leaving you," she said.
The words should have warmed me, but there were too many other things that I was worried about. I could stop enough of them to give her a chance. This was a good way to end it, doing something good. Going out in a blaze of glory. My mentor would be proud of me.
"You'll die," Paige hissed. "There's too many of them."
"Go, now," I growled back. "You're not dying tonight."
The alarm and fear on her face were evident on her face. When it was clear that she didn’t intending to move by herself, I started to make my way to the front of the canoe. I'd find a way to bodily toss her out myself if she didn’t listen.
When her face went blank, I assumed that she'd gone into shock. That's when I felt the first thud against the bottom of the canoe and saw a pair of hands grab onto the back.
"Paige, you need to go!"
"You're not dying tonight either." Her voice sounded different and strange, which was the reason that I turned back to her despite the fact that I needed to prepare myself to deal with the threat that was going to surround the canoe at any moment. She sank down to her knees and dropped her hand back into the water.
I reached for her again just as a cacophony of screams filled the air. I whirled around and saw the water all around us violently rippling as a multitude of mouths ripped through to the surface. They were the source of the screams. I could barely process the fact that there was steam rising off the water and then just as quickly as they started, the screams stopped and turned into blubbers of pain. Moments later, there was silence.
I barely noticed Paige pull her hand from the water and sit back down primly in the front of the boat. All I could see were the still bodies that began to emerge just on the surface of the water all around us. I lost count at twenty. Some of the bodies were face up, but most were face down. Those that were face up were horrifying to look at. The skin of their faces was red and covered in blisters. It was as if their bodies had been dumped into a pot of boiling water.
Unable to resist, I crouched low in the boat and gingerly let my fingers down the side of the canoe. I barely brushed the surface of the water. It felt warm, but nowhere near the temperature required to do the damage that I saw all around me. The back of my throat felt dry, and my breath scrapped against it almost painfully.
I should be dead. We should be dead. But we weren't.
Slowly, I turned in the canoe and faced Paige. Her face was serene, but her eyes were empty.
"Paige?"
There could be little doubt of what I had just witnessed, but it didn't make sense. I couldn't process that Paige had been responsible for the scene of death. I didn’t think there was a violent bone in her body. The question that I couldn't help but ask anymore vibrated through my mind.
Who the hell was Paige Matthews?
CHAPTER EIGHT - PAIGE
The last thing that I remembered was a flood of panic to my senses when I realized that Riley and I were about to be overwhelmed by demons. Demons with human faces. It terrified me the way that Riley so calmly broke the neck of the demon that managed to get onto the canoe. Logically, I knew that it was necessary. The rage and cunningness on the man's face told me everything I needed to know. He would kill me without a second thought. Riley just got to him first. Still, I never saw a man killed in front of me before, at least I didn't think I had, and I felt a little bit of my mind break at the harsh reality carried out. I realized that I had to try to hold it together; otherwise I thought that I might shatter into pieces.
All of the chaos was because of me. I couldn't fathom what it was about me that the creatures wanted so badly. I was a nobody. A nobody that seemed to be very clearly somebody in this supernatural realm. I needed to remember, and I cursed my mind for keeping those memories from me. It should realize that the longer I stayed in the dark, the more dangerous life became not only for me, but those around me. People like Riley.
Something stirred deeply in me then as his eyes found mine. There was no apology in them for what he had just done. In fact, he looked almost defiant. He expected me to pass judgment on him. There was so much that I didn't know about him. This was one of the darker facets to be sure, but I found that I couldn't muster up the required negativity that he expected from me. Benjamin tried to cast doubt on Riley's intentions toward me, but so far the only thing I saw was a man who continued to put himself in harm's way to save my life.
How could I possibly judge him harshly for that?
A splash in the water drew my attention. That's when I saw the gleaming red-eyed faces rising up in the water, murderous intent visible as their gaze swept over Riley's large form. Several pairs of eyes though were focused on me with something akin to desire that made me certain that in this new world that I found myself, there were things that could happen to me that were far worse than death. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it would mean to be taken prisoner by a demon.
Riley kept insisting that I try to escape and leave him, but there was no way that I was going to let him sacrifice himself for me. How could I ask him to fight for me when he didn't even know me? How could I ask him to fight for me when I cared about him as much as I did? It was that thought that drew me short. I cared for Riley Stone. I couldn't remember ever feeling about anyone the way that I already felt about him, and at that moment, I knew that my decision was made.
I would fight, no matter what happened, and I'd be damned if I let some demon hurt someone I cared about. Those people were too few and far between in my life, and I needed to protect them the way that they had protected me. Something
spun up inside of me then. I couldn't describe it even if I tried. It was as if my mind whirled away, and I gave myself over to the feeling that I could do anything that I wanted to do. As long as I was calm and in control, nothing would hurt me. All of my senses shut off, and I focused on that one single idea.
Keep Riley safe.
Nothing else but that one idea existed in the quiet, white world where my mind retreated. It wasn't a conscious effort at all. I was sucked in and gently held there, but I felt safe. A tiny voice whispered to me that everything would be okay, and I believed it.
The first indication that those gentle binds had loosened around my mind was when I heard Riley's voice, and then I felt a hard shake. I had no idea how much time had passed. It was a startling thought, but I had forgotten that I existed in the physical realm at all.
"Paige! Paige! Are you with me?"
Of course, I was with him. I would always be with him.
I wondered where that thought came from even as I blinked rapidly. The white walls around my senses evaporated completely then, and I found myself looking into Riley's face directly in front of me. His look of wild concern brought a momentary burst of anxiety, but it was followed quickly by a huge rush of relief. He was safe, just like the voice told me.
"Riley? What happened?"
A quick scan of my surroundings revealed the wooded tree line that I assumed was the opposite shore. I was sitting on a rocky beach next to the water, the sharp edges of the pebbles pressing almost painfully into the palms of my hands. Riley hovered above me, and appeared uncertain about what to do next.
Now my mind registered small details that I hadn't noticed before. For one thing, I was soaking wet. My clothes clung to me, and as I reached up, I felt the straggly tendrils of my hair. Automatically I wrapped the ends around my fist and squeezed the excess water out. As my gaze took in the rest of Riley's form, I saw that he was equally wet. The drops of water falling onto his cheeks from the ends of his curly hair made me want to reach over and wipe them away. I barely stopped myself before my fingers followed my thoughts. Our adventure getting from canoe to shore had obviously involved a dip in the lake.