As Loraine watched, the front door of the house banged open and Gabriel stepped forward onto the porch. His hands in his pockets, he looked left and right. Two thoughts occurred to her at once. The first was he seemed, to steal a phrase from him, damn tired, and the second was that he had no idea Sebastian waited out front.
Jumping up, she screamed Gabriel's name to get his attention. "Sebastian is right there. Right there."
She jumped up and down and Futon growled at her to hide. It was too late. She alerted Gabriel to Sebastian's whereabouts but now the demon knew where she was too.
Sebastian whirled around to look at her. In one split second, he saw her and glared at Futon.
"You," the demon's voice sounded more like a snake's hiss than human speech. Even through his bravado, Loraine made note that his initial reaction had been a widening of the eyes that made him look tentative, even scared. "You're supposed to be gone."
"Somehow I made it back here without your permission, demon spawn."
"It's too late, you've lost."
As he pointed his hand in the air, Loraine realized the demon intended to hit Gabriel with a power surge. She couldn't let him. No, she'd die before she let him hurt her man.
Without thought, as if she'd done it a thousand times, Loraine shifted into her wolf form and charged Sebastian. Futon called to her, his distress evident in his voice, but she didn't care what he wanted. No one hurt Gabriel. Fury filled her veins and her vision tunneled. There was only her and the demon.
Growling, she leaped on Sebastian from behind. Distantly, she thought she heard Gabriel call her name but she was so focused on the demon she didn't register it. She could tear at his human body. It was just a shell. It was fragile, like hers was.
Someone had to be able to kill it.
Hearing Gabriel speaking telepathically to her jarred her from her rage. "Don't do that. If you kill the vessel before we can contain the demon then you'll let it loose, and we'll never find it before it destroys everything in its path."
How did he know that?
Letting go of Sebastian, who she noted she had managed to knock him to the floor. Her body reacted instinctually. Head pointed downwards, ears back, she could feel the hair on her spine standing straight up. Her teeth bared, she could still attack if she needed to. Sebastian hadn't moved since she knocked him down. Maybe he'd hit his head.
Growling, she moved slowly backwards in Gabriel's direction. There was the instinct to kill. It was there, inside of her, and hard to resist. Still, she remembered what Gabriel had said and even though she could feel the slow aching burn of desire to end the demon's human life, she didn't give in to the primal call.
Gabriel squatted down and Futon ran to be next to her. Gently, her soul mate stroked her fur.
"I'm going to send you and Futon home to Maine."
She growled. "Not without you, you are not."
"I don't want to leave you either, especially after the demon wakes up and gets angry at you. I can move faster on my own."
"You can move fast enough with us too."
"Loraine…"
"Tell Gabriel he can travel through space too."
Futon interrupted whatever he was going to say and she watched Gabriel grimace. To him, the dog must have sounded just like loud barking.
All of the telepathic talking was going to give her a headache. Concentrating on her human image, the way Gabriel had seen her, she shifted into her human body. Standing up, she looked down to do a quick check of herself. All of her vital parts were covered in clothes.
Reaching out, she took Gabriel's hand. "Futon says you can move through space when you send us. We could all go together."
He shook his head. "I've never been able to accomplish that."
"He's opened up now. Whatever happened to him in the house has unleashed his powers, like yours must have been at some point while I was gone. Now he should be able to do it."
Loraine relayed Futon's message to Gabriel.
"To move you guys, all I have to do is picture you in my mind and then where I want to send you. Or I just think 'move' like I do when I fight the demon and it moves him. I can't do it for myself."
"He should be able to."
Loraine could hear the frustration in Futon's voice and decided to ignore it. She touched his chest. Something about this situation brought on déjà-vu. "Gabriel, maybe it's how you're picturing yourself."
He raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to tell me how you see me?"
"No." Loraine could see pain in his eyes and knew it would be hidden from most people's view. "I think you can see yourself physically just fine."
"Then I'm just a really bad Outsider who can't use my powers? Great."
"Don't get touchy and put words in my mouth." She knew they were out of time. Sebastian could wake up at any moment and she didn't want to be standing here on the street like a bunch of lambs led to the slaughter.
"I think it's probably more of a matter of you not knowing yourself very well. So I'm going to tell you who you are."
He ran a hand through his hair. "Loraine, please don't…"
"Don't what? Don't tell you that you have the deepest sense of right and wrong of any person I've ever known. Even when you did things you shouldn't have, you regretted it to such a degree that you've never forgiven yourself for doing what you had to in order to survive?"
"If you only knew…"
She wasn't going to let him interrupt her. "Don't tell you that you deserve the same kind of loyalty you give others? Don't tell you that your parents, if they'd lived, I'm sure would have adored you? Don't tell you that you do nothing but give and never take from anyone even as you think of yourself as selfish…"
"Loraine, I'm not that person."
"Listen to me." She was so upset she stomped her foot. "We have two choices. Sebastian is unconscious. We can try to drag him somewhere and imprison him. I somehow doubt we have the capabilities to do that right now. Or we can leave. Send us home. Send us all home."
He exhaled a loud breath and opened his arms. She automatically stepped into them. "Come on, Futon. Come join us."
Futon ran forward and placed himself up against her legs.
"If this doesn't work, I'm going to send just the two of you."
"That's not…"
She never got a chance to say what she wanted to because one second she was standing on the sidewalk and the next she was moving through space with the familiar tingling sensation Gabriel's transportation power had on her. With a humph, she hit the floor. Gabriel and Futon toppled down next to her.
"See, Gabriel, I told you earlier you could move yourself too. You should listen to me."
Gabriel lifted his head and looked around. "Well, that was abrupt."
She nodded. "Always is. Try doing it when you're not expecting to have it happen to you. Suddenly you're just landing somewhere."
His smile made her heart flutter. "I'm not going to apologize for transporting you when you get into trouble."
"I have a feeling we're going to be having this argument for some time to come."
He shrugged as he stood and extended a hand to help her. "It's not an argument since I'm right."
"We knew you two would be a good match. So many lifetimes and you're still fighting like newly joined souls."
Loraine closed her mouth on whatever she was going to say and glared at her dog.
Gabriel pulled her into his arms and kissed her nose. "What's the dog bitching about? And while you're talking to him let him know that I will not be walking him or picking up his poop."
"If I could roll my eyes, I would."
"Um, Gabriel, I think I need to speak to Futon for a few minutes."
Gabriel ran a hand through his long hair. "Seriously? Are you kicking me out of the room so you can talk to the dog?"
"Just for a minute. If you don't mind."
For a second, it seemed as if Gabriel was going to argue with her. Then, he turned around to look at the dog. "Do
n't think this is normal. I am not going to spend my fucking life leaving a room so you two can talk."
With that said he stormed from the room. She spun around, having not spent a lot of time focused on where they landed. She'd not been in this room before at the Outsider complex. It was empty but it had a great view of the ocean from windows that decorated nearly every wall.
"Why did you kick him out? He can't understand me."
"No, but he can understand me and I think you have some explaining to do that might go over better outside of Gabriel's protective ears."
"There are things I shouldn't explain."
"At least you've moved on from can't to shouldn't." She sighed and walked to one of the windows. Staring down, she was impressed with the beauty of the rocky, white beach below.
"You've changed. Just in the few days I was gone. Gotten stronger, more sure of yourself, more connected to your destiny. It's a good thing."
She raised an eyebrow and wanted to laugh. "I might think that a strange comment if you didn't help raise me."
"You want me to tell you what I am and explain to you why the demon reacted to me the way it did."
Turning around, she glared at her dog. "For a start."
"All right, here's the deal. Things went awry for all of you thirty years ago. Abraxas, your former leader, his intentions were good but he bumbled the attempt and sent all of you into the world without so much as a clue where most of you would end up."
She'd never heard the story in its completion but she knew that was essentially how they had all been divided. It was a spell meant to save all of them from the demon that went wrong in unexpected ways. In her case, it had landed her in Tucson and Gabriel in New Orleans.
"What does this have to do with you? It was thirty years ago?"
"We were the reason you all made it out alive. You and the demon are not the only forces involved here. Some of us who should remain neutral, who shouldn't be involved, couldn't let you all die. So we interfered where we shouldn't."
She nodded as she tried to digest this. "And that was you? You were involved in that?"
"I was. Once we'd gone that far, we decided that since we'd already gone past what we should, we might as well find other ways to help. And I was sent down to monitor you because you were so important. You're all vital."
"But why me? What made me needier of help than the others?" It seemed bizarre to her. She'd had her grandmother. Gabriel and Alexa had been left on the street. Certainly, they could have used Futon's help more than she did.
"Your powers are delicate. Outsiders used to be lost to them. Some might decide to stay forever in their animal shapes. Your father disappeared for a year as lion. We knew that, left alone, you would be in bad shape."
"So why not send me down with Kal, Charma, and Leonardo? Why put me on my own at all?"
"That wasn't my decision. I really am just a dog. An angelic dog but a dog nonetheless. They said go to you and I went. I was glad to." She could hear the smile in his voice. "You were a joy to be around. Now I'll stay with you until this is settled. However, my role will have to be limited. Now that the demon knows we're involved, he's likely to bring his own side to the party."
"Why are there rules at all? Who decided this?"
Futon sighed. "That's above even my knowledge."
"Where did Sebastian send you?"
"Away. To another place. That, I'm not going to tell you."
Loraine walked forward and patted Futon on the head. "You'll stay until we win?"
"Loraine, I will stay until the end."
"Are you deliberately leaving out the word win?"
"With the way things are going, I'm not sure we're going to get there. But I won't leave you—any of you—until it is over."
She swallowed that news. It couldn't be a good thing when an angel dog thought there was a chance they'd lose a war against a demon.
"Then I guess we're going to need to find a way to turn the tide of this."
"Let's hope you can."
* * * *
Loraine walked around in circles inside the Outsider house for a while before she found where she had to go. It had to be the hugest structure she'd ever visited that wasn't a museum or an airport. She supposed she could use her telepathic abilities to get Gabriel to direct her but she wasn't sure if he was angry with her, and she didn't feel like hearing his 'tone' if she contacted him.
Someone was going to have to explain to her how the house got built in the first place.
Finally, she moved into a room with a large thin dining room table. Gabriel stood at the end of the table next to Leonardo and the others, with the exception of Kal and Isabelle, surrounded it. The books Gabriel had sent back from Sebastian's were open.
Gabriel looked up as she walked in. "Done with the dog?"
She nodded as she approached him. "For now. Mad at me?"
He laughed. "No, I just wish I could understand Futon so I could give him a piece of my mind."
"I think he knows exactly how you feel about it." She grabbed his arm and leaned against him loving the smell of him, loving the closeness. "What are we doing here?"
Leonardo looked up at that. "These books you and Gabe rescued…"
"Just Gabe, I didn't do anything."
Gabriel shook his head. "Not true, sweetheart, you identified the room was filled with them and refused to leave."
"Fine. That was my job." She shook her head in amusement. "Go on, Leonardo."
"They're priceless. Some of them I can't read and I'm a classics and history professor. Someone somewhere can, and I will find him or her. But most of them, I can. This one here…" He held up a book as he spoke.
Loraine thought he looked like a kid receiving his first bike. It was clearly a joyful day for Leonardo.
"It has a list of all the powers we should have. Abraxas was amazing. He knew we were the prophesied children. He wrote down our parents and all we should do. It's amazing. And this book here…" Leonardo pounded on the book. "This is filled with magic we can learn. It's what Sebastian used against us. It's what we should have always been taught and were not."
Loraine swallowed, Futon's words still fresh in her ears. "Maybe this will turn the tide of our war. Maybe we'll be able to win this."
Jason, who had stood at the other end of the table, spoke. "What is this maybe stuff? Of course, we're going to win."
Gabriel looked at her and smiled. She spoke into his head telepathically.
"We've spent a lot more time with Sebastian than the others have. You lived with him for years. I think that's why we're feeling so pessimistic about this."
He stroked her hand gently. "Don't get pessimistic on me now, darling. I think we are going to win."
They'd been quiet for too long. Finally, Loraine spoke. "All right, Leonardo, give me a book. Let's start compiling some research. I worked for a summer as an assistant to a professor in college. I know how to compile notes."
If that was what she needed to, she would do it. She would do whatever it took until they had all the knowledge they needed to defeat the demon.
Chapter Eighteen
Leonardo walked through the dark corridor into the kitchen. He badly needed some liquid refreshment, preferably one with alcohol in it. His mind was filled with numbers, data, and reading material that would keep him awake for weeks. This was what he missed from his job. Finally, something was happening in his life that he could really get behind. He could make things better for all of them.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn't even notice Marina in the room until he'd practically collided with her.
"Sorry." She laughed and set her coffee cup on the table. "I guess you must be pretty involved in your mind right now."
He smiled. Marina did know him as well as anyone did. "Absolutely lost." He cleared his throat. Truth was he'd been pretty awful to her prior to leaving for New Orleans. Maybe his feelings on the matter had changed since he'd been hung from his wrists from the ceiling by a demon but he f
elt really badly about some of his behavior lately.
Leonardo could have groaned at the thought. Damn Isabelle and her meddling ways. He so didn't want to start concerning himself with day-to-day niceties and relationship building.
"I heard that Drew came here for less than a day while I was gone."
Marina picked up her drink and took a sip. She looked out the window as if she could see anything in the dark. "He did. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to make him stay."
It was past time for him to come clean on this subject. "Look, I think we left my soul mate down there in New Orleans. She's living with the demon. I never saw her but I've always had a feeling my other half is coated in evil."
Marina stared at him. She worried on her lower lip. "Why would you leave her?"
"Gabriel tried to get her to come. They've known each other since they were babies. She wouldn't and I'm such a coward, I didn't even try."
The words burned on his tongue as he spoke them but they were the truth. He couldn't expect more from Marina than he did from himself.
Her smile surprised him. She reached out and took his hand. The day Veli rescued her from the orphanage where she'd lived in Russia had been a great day. It was one of the few good memories he had from his childhood. As if they'd always known each other, she'd become as much family to him as Kal or Charma.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Drew says we all have our chapters to write in this story or something like that. I don't know if that's true. Drew says a lot of things. As for me, I'm tired of waiting for him. I'm not going to do it anymore."
Marina let go of Leonardo's hand and stepped back. She set down her drink and raised her arms like she wanted to fly. "I'm just going to let the universe guide me where I'm supposed to go."
"That's very profound of you, 'Rina."
She laughed, a loud jolt of a sound. "If there was anything I picked up in those books in there, it was that there is so much going on here I can't possibly hope to control any of it."
Love Beyond Loyalty Page 17