Devoted (Book Two, Caylin's Story)

by S. J. West

  Mae.

  Mae is being held by one of the Watcher’s children who are already transformed by the rise of the moon into a werewolf. The wolf stands tall, well over six feet high, on its backward legs as the other four werewolves around him cower off to the side away from him and Mae. Mae is watching Uncle Malcolm fight and crying hysterically. I’m not completely sure if she’s crying because Uncle Malcolm is fighting or because she’s scared. But, the wolf holding her doesn’t seem to have any intentions of harming her, at least not yet. I assume it won’t do anything to her until it’s given the order to by its father.

  I can’t just phase over to her because I’m somewhere I’ve never been before. I have to make it through the line of Watchers to reach my sister, which seems to be the same dilemma Uncle Malcolm is facing.

  I pray the fight Uncle Malcolm is putting up is enough of a distraction to allow me to pass by unnoticed and get to Mae.

  As I try to sneak by, two of the Watchers abandon the fight with Uncle Malcolm to suddenly phase into my path, forcing me to stop dead in my tracks.

  “Get out of my way!” I tell them. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Neither man says a word. One phases in front of me and the other behind. Both lunge at me at the same time. My hands burst into blue flames, and I grab each of them by an arm, easily breaking their appendages at the elbows until their arms are bent completely backward and they cry out in pain.

  “Leave now,” I tell them both through clenched teeth, barely able to hold back the rage I feel towards them, “or I swear to God I will destroy you.”

  Both Watchers phase over to their children and grab them before they phase away from the fight.

  Seeing what I did causes one of the three Watchers Uncle Malcolm is still fighting to phase over to the wolf holding Mae.

  “Give the child to me!” the Watcher orders.

  I immediately assume the wolf holding Mae must be this Watcher’s child.

  I watch this interaction between the Watcher and his child because I know Uncle Malcolm has his fight well under control when I see two heads roll off to the side and the corresponding bodies crumple to the ground at his feet.

  “Rolph!” Uncle Malcolm says to the Watcher. “Leave her alone!”

  The Watcher ignores Uncle Malcolm almost completely as he continues to stare at cursed offspring.

  “Give me the girl, Tristan!” The Watcher demands.

  Mae has stopped crying now since Uncle Malcom’s fight is over. It’s then I know the fighting was the true cause of her distress, not the fact that a werewolf is holding her.

  Mae looks at the wolf and lifts one of her tiny hands to the top of his head. She begins to pet him between his eyes. The wolf looks startled when she first touches him like he isn’t used to being treated with such gentleness. But, as she continues to glide her little hand across the pale hairless skin covering his head, I can see a calm settle over the wolf as he begins to relax under her comforting caress.

  “Tristan!” The Watcher screams on the verge of hysteria. “Give her to me!”

  The wolf looks at its father, and I see a slow transformation take place as its eyebrows lower and it bares its teeth at the Watcher with a menacing growl. He brings Mae closer to his chest in a protective hold.

  Mae looks over at the Watcher and narrows her eyes at him as she says, “You are a bad man.”

  I almost want to laugh at the surprised look on the Watcher’s face at her admonishing words. Mae turns back to look at the wolf.

  “Come on, puppy,” Mae says. “I’ll take care of you.”

  And she phases.

  “What the hell….” Uncle Malcolm says, voicing exactly what I’m thinking.

  I can see where she’s phased to, our living room in Lakewood. I don’t worry too much about Mae because I know my mother can take care of the werewolf if it poses a threat back home.

  Rolph stands there in what appears to be stunned silence. Finally, he turns to face Uncle Malcolm.

  “How was she able to turn him against me?”

  Uncle Malcolm crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Maybe your hold over him wasn’t as strong as you thought,” he says. “What exactly was the purpose of this little attack, Rolph?”

  “I asked them to bring you here,” I hear a strange male voice say behind us.

  Uncle Malcolm is instantly by my side, and we face a man I’ve never seen before together.

  He’s tall with shoulder length blonde hair and a short beard and mustache covering his face. His blue eyes practically glow in the dim light from the moon telling me I’m standing in the presence of someone powerful.

  The stranger looks at Rolph.

  “Leave us, but don’t go after your son…”

  “But…” Rolph begins to protest.

  “Do not argue with me!” The stranger orders. “Now leave!”

  Rolph grunts but phases as the stranger orders. The two remaining werewolves are in the process of placing their father’s heads back on their bodies. I’m not sure how long we have before the Watchers are able to regenerate, but I don’t intend to stay in the area long enough to find out.

  “Hello, Lucifer,” Uncle Malcolm says.

  I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end as I fully realize who is standing in front of me.

  “Malcolm,” Lucifer says before he directs his gaze to me. “Well, aren’t you just the spitting image of your mother when she was your age.”

  “What do you want, Lucifer?” Uncle Malcolm asks almost as if he’s bored with the conversation already. “I seriously doubt you brought us here for polite chit chat or to reminisce about all the times we’ve kicked your ass.”

  Lucifer looks back at Uncle Malcolm.

  “Well, I only intended to bring you here, Malcolm. I didn’t realize I would also gain the pleasure of having Ms. Cole present as well. But, since she’s here, I suppose I can deliver my message to her personally instead of using you as a little messenger boy.”

  “And what is it exactly that you want to tell me?” I ask, finding my voice but still hearing it tremble slightly. I just hope Lucifer doesn’t notice.

  He smiles indulgently at me, and I know he realizes how intimidated I feel in his presence. An advantage I definitely don’t want him to have over me.

  “I was going to tell your over protective uncle here to inform you that you’ve declared a war on us you will never win. You should stop now while you’re ahead. Levi is still trying to recover from losing the perfectly good body you destroyed. And I’m not sure what it is you’ve done to Belphagor, but I do know I can’t call him to my side anymore. That in itself tells me whatever you’re able to do must be very powerful. My brothers think you have an ability we don’t know about yet. But, I don’t share their suspicions. I think you’ve been given access to something by my father. Is my assumption correct, little monkey?”

  “What did you steal from Heaven?” I ask in return, hoping to turn the tables and unbalance him.

  My question seems to hit the desired nerve because Lucifer’s eyes widen in surprise.

  “So, He finally told you about that, did He?” He asks in a whisper.

  “What did you take Lucifer?” Uncle Malcolm asks. “What does our father want back from all of you?”

  “If He wanted you to know that I suppose He would have told you, Malcolm. But,” Lucifer’s brow wrinkles in confusion, “why only give you half the information? Why not tell you the whole story?”

  Apparently, none of us has the answer to that particular question and silence reigns supreme. Only the wind rustling through the leaves of the trees surrounding us breaks the quiet.

  “Are we done here then?” Uncle Malcolm asks. “I would really like to go wash the blood of your Watchers off of me as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, we’re through for now,” Lucifer says as he directs his gaze to me again. “I hope to not see you again, Ms. Cole.”

  “I guess we’ll just have to
see what the future holds for the both of us,” I tell him.

  Lucifer phases.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Uncle Malcolm says.

  “Don’t you mean terrifying?” I ask, still trying to shake off being in the presence of someone who just seemed to ooze pure hatred.

  “It’s been a long time since I felt any sort of intimidation in his presence,” Uncle Malcolm tells me. “I mostly just feel pity for him now.”

  “Why?” I ask, finding it hard to believe Uncle Malcolm could pity someone as formidable as Lucifer.

  “Jess almost got him to ask for our father’s forgiveness once,” Uncle Malcolm tells me. “She was so close, but he let his pride get in the way, as usual.”

  “Do you think he’ll ever be that close again?”

  Uncle Malcolm shrugs his shoulders. “Really not high on my list of priorities at the moment. But, this little meeting did tell me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That we’ve scared him,” Uncle Malcolm says. “Well, as scared as the devil himself can get anyway. If he didn’t think you presented a threat, he would have just left things alone, but he felt compelled to give you a warning instead.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “Good in a way,” Uncle Malcolm says, “and bad in others.”

  “That’s not very reassuring.”

  “No,” Uncle Malcolm agrees, “it isn’t. But, there’s not much else to be learned here now. Why don’t we go see if your mother has killed Mae’s new pet yet or not?”

  Uncle Malcolm and I both phase to my home and find a scene I don’t think either of us expected to be met with.

  Mae is sitting in the middle of the living room floor in my mother’s lap with the werewolf lying flat on his back in front of them. Mae is petting his head and singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

  “What the hell…” Uncle Malcolm says, repeating his exact same words when Mae first phased back home with her new pet in tow.

  “Why are you covered in blood, Uncle Malcolm?” Will asks, openly staring at the blood splatter on Uncle Malcolm’s body and clothing.

  “Just a little tussle with a few Watchers,” Uncle Malcolm tells him.

  My dad comes up to me and takes me into his arms, hugging me fiercely. I almost think he has his Watcher strength back his embrace is so strong.

  “Are you all right?” He asks, leaning away from me to look me over and make sure I don’t have any visible wounds.

  “I’m fine, Dad. I didn’t get hurt.”

  My dad looks over at Uncle Malcolm, taking in his appearance.

  “Why don’t you go shower and come back,” my dad suggests. “We’ve got things handled here for now.”

  “Do you want me to take him to the cell Sebastian used to stay in at my house?” Uncle Malcolm asks staring at the werewolf with complete distrust.

  “That won’t be necessary,” my mom tells him. “He won’t harm us.”

  Uncle Malcolm lifts a dubious eyebrow at the whole scene but doesn’t try to argue with my mother.

  “Well, I’ll make sure the door is locked down there just in case you need to phase him into it quickly, dearest.”

  My mother nods, letting Uncle Malcolm know she heard him, but from the look on her face, I can tell she’s convinced we won’t need to put the werewolf in the cell.

  After Uncle Malcolm phases home to wash up, I ask my dad, “So, what exactly are we supposed to do with him?”

  My dad shrugs. “Just keep him calm tonight, I think. When he transforms back into his human form in the morning, I guess we’ll ask him what it is he wants to do. So, what happened, Caylin? Where did the three of you go?”

  I tell my family exactly what transpired after Mae followed Uncle Malcolm’s phase trail.

  “I wish you’d had a dagger with you to stab that…” my mother pauses because I think she was about to say a term not suitable for the tender ears of young children, “person.”

  “Yeah,” I agree, “me too. That would have been a big one of the seven down.”

  “The most difficult one to find,” my father agrees as he watches Mae fall quiet in my mother’s arms and lay her small head against her shoulder. “Lilly, she needs to go to bed.”

  My mom gets up from the floor and the werewolf follows her with his eyes, keeping a watchful eye on Mae.

  “Come on,” my mother tells it before looking at my dad. “I’ll sleep in Mae’s room tonight. I’m pretty sure he’ll follow us up there and just sleep on the floor.”

  “I don’t like this, Lilly.”

  “It’ll be all right, Brand. Trust me.”

  “I always have.”

  “Then don’t worry,” she tells him. “I know what I’m doing.”

  My father sighs heavily but nods his agreement.

  “At least let me sit in there with my shot gun.”

  My mother smiles. “If that would make you feel better then do it. But, I don’t think it’s necessary.”

  “What’s not necessary?” Uncle Malcolm asks, phasing back to the house with wet hair and wearing a white silk pajama set with the shirt completely unbuttoned.

  My mother tells him the plan.

  “Well I’m sitting in there too,” Uncle Malcolm declares in a voice that says he isn’t going to accept any argument from my mother or father on this matter.

  “Fine,” my mom says in a resigned voice, “you two do what you want, but it isn’t necessary. He won’t harm us.”

  With Mae cradled in her arms, my mom heads up the stairs with the werewolf following close behind.

  My father walks to his study to get his shotgun out of the safe, and Uncle Malcolm follows behind the werewolf up the stairs.

  Will and I soon find our own beds. No matter what might have happened this evening, we both still have school tomorrow.

  It’s not until I crawl into bed that I see the ten missed messages from Aiden on my phone.

  I take a deep breath and text him back.

  Hi

  He answers back immediately like he had his phone in his hands just waiting for me to text him.

  Is everything all right?? I almost came over but didn’t want to look like a psycho boyfriend who needed you to answer every text I sent. Are you safe?

  I’m fine. Uncle Malcolm and I just had a little adventure is all.

  Why do I get the feeling this little adventure wasn’t of the fun variety?

  Because you are very intuitive where I’m concerned.

  What happened?

  I hesitate to reply back. I have a feeling Aiden might go ballistic when he learns what happened. But, we promised each other that we wouldn’t keep secrets from one another, and I’m not about to be the first one who breaks that pact.

  I met Lucifer tonight.

  Where are you now?

  My bedroom.

  Before I know it, Aiden is standing beside my bed.

  “What happened?” He asks, sitting on the side of my bed and bringing me into his arms.

  His hug rivals my father’s in intensity.

  “I’m fine,” I reassure him. “I wasn’t hurt.”

  Aiden just holds me for a moment longer before letting me go so he can look me in the eyes.

  “Caylin, what happened?”

  I go on to tell Aiden exactly what happened.

  “I don’t like it,” Aiden says, standing from the side of my bed as he starts to pace back and forth. “Lucifer wouldn’t waste his time unless he thought you were a real threat. He’s basically placed a bull’s-eye on your forehead, Caylin. And you can bet every minion under his control will be targeting you now, if not under his direct order than to prove themselves to him.”

  “It’ll be all right, Aiden. I’m not scared.”

  Aiden stops pacing and stands there staring down at me.

  “You should be,” he tells me. “You should be very scared, Caylin. I’m not sure what it is Jess might have seen in him to think he could change, but I’ve only ever seen pu
re evil from Lucifer. In the war in Heaven, he was the most vicious of us. The most ruthless. And his hatred for humans is what fuels his power here on Earth. It sounds like you‘ve just reached the top of his hit list. That isn’t a spot you want to occupy.”

  “I’m not going to say I’m not scared by him,” I admit. “But I’m not going to let my fear of him control me either. If I did, he would definitely win, Aiden. And I refuse to go down without a fight.”

  Aiden comes to sit back down on the side of my bed. He takes one of my hands into one of his.

  “Please,” he almost begs, “promise me you won’t take any unnecessary chances.”

  “I promise not to take any unnecessary chances.”

  “And promise me you won’t run off like that again without taking back up with you. You were so lucky tonight, Caylin. You could have been seriously hurt.”

  “I had to go,” I say, not understanding why he doesn’t understand that. “Mae could have been in danger. I didn’t have time to gather up a cavalry.”

  “A couple of minutes wouldn’t have made much of a difference,” Aiden argues.

  “It only takes a second to break a neck,” I tell him, hoping he understands the reality of the situation I faced. “Are you seriously telling me you wouldn’t have done the exact same thing I did?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It’s exactly the point. You’re going to have to get over your fear of me getting hurt, Aiden. I’m strong. You know that. I’m even stronger than you are.”

  “But you’re also human,” he argues. “You can die. You don’t have our regenerative powers. I have had my head ripped off but still managed to come back after the damage healed itself. You can’t do that, Caylin. Yes, you’re stronger. Yes, you’re just as powerful as your mother, but you’re also human. You’re mortal. And I can’t lose you,” he says, squeezing my hand.

  I lose some of my growing irritation because the look in Aiden’s eyes breaks my heart. Just the thought of losing me dims the light in them.

  I squeeze his hand back.