Protect Her: Part 4

by Ivy Sinclair

  A month later, I woke up in a cell in some place that I had never seen before. Proctor had my mother and sister strung up outside. It was clear that while I had been resting in my beaten slumber, he had been having a bit too much fun with them.

  I confessed. I told him the whole sordid tale begging him not to hurt them anymore. Then he said words that I was all too familiar with, a spell that cast a soul into the ether with no hope of reincarnation, and then he slit their throats. They couldn’t even scream. The images of their mutilated bodies staring at me with flat, dead eyes would haunt me the rest of my life.

  Then a terrible idea blossomed in my mind. It couldn’t be, but then, maybe it could. And if it was, then Paige was in far more danger than I ever expected. The answer was so glaringly obvious that I had overlooked it.

  Bruno Proctor had never stopped looking for the compass.

  There was a myth about an ancient object being hidden on Calamata Island. Paige had been in search of it hoping that it would be the key in warding off the Goddess’s invasion of her body.

  What if the object that they both sought was one in the same?

  I knew that Benjamin had to have been lying when he told me that he had no idea what object Paige was looking for on Calamata Island. It made perfect sense that an object that was responsible for such terrible loss of life would have eventually made its way into the hands of the angels. God would have wanted such a thing kept far away from his precious humans.

  Ten years ago, Benjamin set up his form of a fort on Calamata Island. No one knew why. But I was fairly certain that I had just figured out the reason.

  I couldn’t believe that I had missed it. It was even more important than ever that I found Paige as quickly as possible. My head swung back to the company in the car. It was a delicate game that I was considering playing, but three heads were always far better than one, especially when all were equally motivated. I had Fernando’s number, so that meant that I only needed to worry about Abigail when the time came.

  “How much did you say you knew about Bruno Proctor?” I said, leaning forward in my seat and directing the question to Fernando.

  “I knew enough,” Fernando said as he slowly turned his head toward me.

  “So you’d probably know where he might take a prisoner of some significance to him?”

  “There are only a few places that he would think are safe enough,” Fernando agreed.

  “Abigail, find a place to pull over. We have work to do.”

  CHAPTER TEN – Paige

  I felt sweat trickling across my brow as I concentrated on trying to drum up some kind of energy inside my core.

  “You’re blocking it again.”

  “I am not. I’m opening myself up to it,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s just nothing is happening. There’s nothing there.”

  “There’s nothing there because you are essentially grabbing at air. You are trying to grab onto something that should flow to you naturally. Right now, you’re blocking it from coming to you.”

  My eyes flew open, and I glared at Bruno. “Are you going to stab me with a knife again to see if I let it flow naturally?”

  “That was meant to be simply an illustrative example that when properly motivated, you can find the ability to do what you need to do. What we need to help you discover is how to motivate yourself at your own free will as opposed to being under duress.”

  “Maybe if I wasn’t being held captive against my will, I wouldn’t feel as if I were under duress.”

  “No,” Bruno said with a slightly impatient smile. “This environment should be giving you more than enough motivation. Do you want to get home? Do you want to escape the grasp of the horrible demon official? Then prove it. Take yourself home.”

  “Pavla said that you’ve blocked this room with blood magic.”

  “But you could at least try,” Bruno said. “However you managed to put that blockage up would be a fascinating study. It’s one I am quite certain I’d find handy in other circumstances, but right now we quite frankly don’t have time for this.”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” I replied.

  “No, you’re not.” Bruno stepped away from me then. “Perhaps a little encouragement is necessary?”

  That idea made me break out in a cold sweat. “I’ll get it. No further motivation necessary.”

  “You know, you’re right. You’ve been cooped up in this room for too long. Let’s take a walk and stretch our legs.”

  If he let me out of the room, there was a chance that I could find another way to escape although I worried about the consequences of the deal that I had made with him. I couldn’t just run off half-cocked. There was only one way that I could take care of all of it. Before I made my escape, I’d have to kill him.

  I didn’t let my mind settle on that idea for too long. I would do whatever it was that I needed to do when I needed to do it. So I stood up. “I’d love to get out of this room.”

  Bruno waved for me to join him as the Dark Wiccan swept a hand over the door, and it opened in front of us. “There now, please, after you.”

  I couldn’t see anything on the other side of the threshold. It was nothing but pitch blackness. I took a deep breath, and then stepped through the doorway.

  On the other side, the first thing that assaulted my senses was the smell of heavy, coppery blood. I gagged as I put my hand over my nose.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Bruno said when he appeared next to me. “This is Hell after all.”

  “This is Hell?” To me, it looked like nothing more than a long hallway with no doors that stretched in either direction. The light out here was only slightly better than inside the room.

  “Everyone’s perception of Hell is a bit different,” Bruno said. “And Satan has quite a sense of humor. You’d be surprised how many people arrive here and then are left waiting in a line that never ends.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked, ignoring his comment. A moment later, the smell was gone. That was odd. It didn’t sit well with me that I might be getting used to being in Hell.

  Bruno took my arm. “I am curious to see how far your motivation extends. So far, we’ve been able to deduce that you have a strong survival instinct. So you’ll use your magic if you believe your life is in danger. You can also find the conduit to that energy if you feel that people you care about are in danger. We saw that example at the church.”

  “I don’t think that is that strange,” I said, trying to skirt the issue of Riley once again.

  “Do you consider yourself a good person, Paige?”

  “What?”

  “Think back on your life. Think about how you view yourself today. Do you consider yourself aligned with the forces of good? You lived with an archangel who apparently was so infatuated by you that he branded you as his mate. Surely he wouldn’t have done so if he sensed any darkness inside of you.”

  “That’s a stupid question,” I said evasively. “I don’t think about that kind of thing at all.”

  “So knowing that you are intended as the vessel of a Goddess and that you have abilities that extend far beyond your mortal shell, you don’t feel the slightest sense of do-gooderness?”

  “I’m not a freaking superhero,” I said. As we talked, Bruno had been leading me further and further down the hallway.

  “But you have a responsibility to help those less fortunate than you, do you not?”

  “What are you asking me?”

  Bruno stopped then. The Wiccan appeared behind us and then waved its hand against the blank wall. I jumped when a door appeared.

  “Here we are. You first, Ms. Matthews.”

  I had no idea what I was going to find on the other side of the door. I took the handle and then slowly pushed it open. Two pale, gaunt faces stared at me from the darkness inside the room. I heard their grunts as the light hit their red-rimmed eyes.

  Bruno pushed me on the back, and I stumbled into the room. “Paige, I’d like you to meet Joanna
and Gabrielle Stone. I believe you know one of their kin?”

  I gasped. Riley’s family was still alive.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – Riley

  “You should have just told me about the tattoo,” Abigail said. We stood in a small wooded clearing at the far end of a deserted rest area. “We could have done this hours ago.”

  “Needless to say, I don’t trust you,” I replied. Fernando was setting up a ring of small candles around me. I pulled my shirt up and off my head and handed it to Abigail. “You’re sure that this will work?”

  “It’s going to be different given that Eva still does not possess the vessel,” she said. “But since you have the personal object as well that is attached to the vessel, that will help strengthen the spell.”

  “Her name is Paige,” I interrupted. “You can stop calling her ‘the vessel.’ You are sure that this farm of yours is demon official proof?”

  “I am sure of nothing,” Abigail said. “But I am not afraid of any demon official. I have lived for many years and have seen many things. The tides are turning. You will be safe there for the time being.”

  “Why didn’t Alice tell me about this spell?”

  Abigail laughed. “I know that you think your mentor is all-knowing, Riley, but that is far from the truth. Sister Alice still lives and breathes tethered to the human world. That means that there are many things that are not safe for her to know, even if she could grasp them.”

  “I’m human,” I argued.

  “You are more than human, as is the case with the vessel. Paige.” Abigail caught my look of warning. “In any case, you are also not at full strength without Eva’s presence. So you need us to give you the required energy to pull this off. This isn’t something to be taken lightly, Riley. This is magic of the darkest kind. I know how you feel about demons. It’s important that you understand that harnessing this amount of energy will have consequences.”

  “That is the story of my life,” I said. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “Kneel down,” Abigail said. “Now the only thing that I want you to do is focus on the girl. Think about the most vivid, strong vision of her that you remember and keep that locked in your mind. When I tell you to, I want you to take every bit of energy that you can muster, and bring that memory forward.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said.

  “You will,” Abigail said. “Kneel.”

  I had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, but I didn’t feel as if I had any choice. If I could use Abigail and Fernando to reach Paige, that was all that mattered.

  I knelt down, and I felt Abigail move to stand behind me.

  “Are you ready, Fernando?”

  I saw the man move to my side. “Yes, Abigail. I am ready.”

  There was a short pause. Then the candles around us flared up. I cupped Paige’s locket in my hands. I pictured being with her inside the caves before Benjamin found us. For a few hours, she and I had found a bit of peace. She slept in my arms, and I remembered the smell of her hair in my nostrils. It had been easy to imagine for that short time that she belonged to me.

  “That’s good, Riley. I can see her. She’s a pretty girl.”

  I pushed Abigail’s words away. I didn’t want the demon’s taint to touch this memory. In these quiet moments, Paige and I had been able to forget the crazy world around us. We had existed as just two people. There was no one else in the world. That was the first time I could recall since my family died that I felt the desire to be a better man, for her.

  Unfamiliar words reached my ears as Abigail began her spell. I did what she told me to do though, and stayed focused on this memory of Paige. I didn’t understand the full mechanics of what Abigail and Fernando were doing, but I knew it involved two very important ingredients.

  Demon blood and my tattoo.

  So when the palm of Abigail’s slick hand made contact with the middle of my back, I felt a searing bolt of pain. Then the memory in my mind crystallized in a surreal kind of 3D reality. It was as if I was kneeling in the clearing and yet still back in the cave with Paige in my arms at the same time. I didn’t understand it, but I felt the weight of her body pressed against me as if she were there.

  “Hold onto her, Riley!” Abigail’s words intruded in my mind.

  I crushed Paige against me and whispered into her ear that everything was going to be all right. I felt her fingers dig into my shoulders as if she were clinging to me for dear life. Then there was a strobe of red bursts of light in my mind. My eyes flew open, and for a moment, I couldn’t see anything.

  “Riley?”

  I looked down, and my eyes widened. I had Paige cradled in my arms. She looked tired and terrified, but she was there.

  “You did it.” Abigail’s voice held a heavy note of satisfaction. “What did I tell you, Fernando? He is her Protector.”

  “What did you do?” Paige asked me.

  “I found a way to bring you back to me,” I whispered as I kissed her forehead and pulled her tightly to me. I didn’t care that the two demons watched us. I was just so desperately thankful that she was alive and in one piece. “I wasn’t going to leave you with that monster. Are you okay?”

  My eyes zeroed in on a gaping hole on the thigh of her jeans. Although I could see that her flesh was whole underneath it, there were heavy bloodstains all around it.

  “I’m fine,” she said. Her arms wrapped around my neck. “Thank you, Riley. Thank you for coming to get me. I still don’t understand how you did it, but thank you.”

  Slowly, I made my way to my feet pulling her with me. I touched her hair and her cheek and inspected the rest of her body. Satisfied that she was truly intact and in one piece, I kissed her temple again. “We have to go. There is someplace where we can talk, but first I have to make sure that Proctor can’t find you again.”

  “Riley, stop,” Paige said, taking my arm. “There’s something that you need to know first.”

  “We can talk about it on the way,” I said, trying to pull her toward the parking lot. I was worried that Proctor would find a way to follow her.

  “No, Riley, wait.” Paige planted her feet. “I need to tell you this now. It’s about your mother and sister.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. “What about them?”

  “They’re alive, Riley. But they’re sick. I was just about to heal them when you saved me.”

  To be continued…

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  About Ivy Sinclair

  Ivy Sinclair cut her romance teeth on classics like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember, and Sabrina. She is a firm believer in true love, a happily ever after ending, and the medicinal use of chocolate to cure any ailment of the heart. Ivy's guilty pleasures include sushi, endless Starbucks lattes, and wine. Readers of Ivy's stories can expect smoldering sweet stories of romance that tug at the heartstrings.

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  Other titles by Ivy Sinclar:

  Where My Heart Breaks

  Bittersweet Junction

  Grounded By You

  Protect Her: Part One

  Protect Her: Part Two

  Protect Her: Part Three