Protect Her: Part 2 Page 2

  After Christopher had reintroduced himself to me as Benjamin, I didn't know what to think. I didn't know why he would hide something like that from me, when I obviously had no idea who he was to begin with, although I got the sense it must be someone important. I gathered little information about the dark underbelly wrapped around my world from the snippets that I allowed Riley to share with me, and it seemed that my former best friend was part of it too.

  “So all this time, you knew who I was and you never told me.” It was a phrase I had repeated several times since Benjamin convinced me to leave the coffee shop with him. I worried about that decision ever since I made it. If Riley came back for me, I wouldn’t be there. I told myself that he’d probably be relieved. He wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. I wasn’t sure why the thought that might be true bothered me.

  I met Riley the previous evening when he saved my life after I was bitten by a demon. Hours later, after he healed me, he saved me from another one. Before that, I had lived with blissful ignorance that demons didn’t exist. Now they seemed to be everywhere. Benjamin confirmed as much after he revealed that he had been interacting with me under the guise of an unassuming flower shop owner named Christopher. I thought that he was my best friend. Now I wondered about everything that I told him over the years. What secrets about my past life had he been looking for?

  “I’ve told you this already. You were so unhappy and lost when you came here,” Benjamin said. His voice was low and neutral, his eyes on the road. “I didn’t want to burden you unnecessarily. It was irrelevant at the time anyway. You were far safer here than anywhere else, especially since you were and are under my protection. I wanted peace for you.”

  “I trusted you,” I said, trying to keep the warble out of my voice. He was right. When I first moved to the island, I was a mess. The accident tore away all memories of who I was and where I came from. I was alone in a way that someone should never have to be alone. ‘Christopher’ offered me a job and a place to live on Calamata Island. I realized now that in my blind ignorance, I had fallen right into his hands. In this new light, his explanation about being concerned for my well-being felt thin and false.

  “You can still trust me,” Benjamin said. He reached out his hand to touch mine, but I moved it out of his reach. A look of chagrin crossed his face before he smoothed it away. “I am your friend, Paige. My only concern right now, as it has been all along, is simply keeping you out of harm’s way.”

  “You’ve done a bang up job of that then,” I said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm. “I was attacked last night. Bitten by a demon. If Riley hadn’t found me, I would have been taken away to who knows where and probably be dead by now. They’ve been chasing us ever since.”

  “I’ve told you for quite some time that running at night was dangerous.” Benjamin’s tone was reproachful.

  I was shocked. “Are you trying to tell me that the attack was my fault?”

  “Of course not. Only that I have tried to protect you, despite the fact that you have always done what you wanted to anyway. I’ve allowed you to do the things that you wanted to do because it wouldn’t have been right to rob you of your freedom. Calamata Island should have been a safe haven for you as long as you remained here.”

  “According to both you and Riley, I’m far from safe here now.”

  “And yet I found you sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of the night alone,” Benjamin said. He sounded annoyed. “You seem to have instilled quite a lot of confidence in Riley Stone.”

  “He saved my life. Twice,” I said, crossing my arms. “As opposed to my friend who has known all along that something like this would probably happen.”

  “Those who think they have the right to come here will be dealt with. That is a promise,” Benjamin said. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, Paige. I wanted this to be your home and for you to always feel safe here. I assumed that my presence here would keep them away, if nothing else.”

  “You know what they say about people who assume,” I said. I turned away from him, wondering if I had made a mistake leaving the coffee shop and going with him. I still had no idea who he was, but he seemed to have a high opinion of himself if he thought that the demons would be afraid of him. My thoughts turned back to Riley. I wondered if he would be upset that I left, or if he even intended to come back anyway. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace quiet.”

  I took note of where we were then, and I was fairly certain I knew where we were headed. I almost had to laugh. I had taken Riley to the same place earlier that day.

  “So we’re going to your fishing cabin,” I said. “I should have guessed that wasn’t the truth when I’ve never even seen you with a fishing pole.” It had been another lie.

  Benjamin winced and then shrugged. “It has always been a place of solitude and meditation for me. I actually think you were the one who called it my fishing cabin. I just never corrected you.”

  I didn’t know why I was even surprised. “Is there anything that you told me about yourself that is true? You didn’t even tell me your real name. Why? It’s not like I would have known the difference. Unless…”

  “I never met you before, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Benjamin replied. We had left the town proper driving further inland. His cabin was located on a remote lake about twenty minutes outside of town. “Think of it like ‘Christopher’ is my Clark Kent persona. That’s who almost everyone on the island knows me as anyway. Very few know who I really am.”

  My chuckle had a harsh quality to it. “Are you saying you’re Superman?”

  “Something like that,” he replied with a mysterious grin. “I will answer all of your questions once we’re somewhere safe.”

  “I can’t believe any of this is real.” I hadn’t meant the words to be said out loud. I suddenly felt bone weary.

  “Are you hurt?”

  A part of me wondered why he’d even care. “No. Riley gave me some kind of medicine that healed my shoulder where the demon bit me.”

  “He is quite resourceful.” Benjamin’s tone didn’t match the compliment. “If you feel any further pain, I can help.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, touching my shoulder self-consciously. I still couldn’t believe that it looked and felt like brand new. The demon bite had been deep, and I lost a lot of blood. Riley watched over me while I healed and kept me safe. It was strange that with a man I just met, I felt safer than I did at that minute with someone that I had known, or at least thought I had known, for three years.

  “I’m worried about you. I am sure that this hasn’t been easy for you. The existence of those evil and vile things in our world is a lot to take in and process. This wasn’t how I wanted you to be introduced these things.”

  At that point, I tuned him out. The silence of the remainder of the ride was awkward and uncomfortable, and I felt worn out and unsettled. Two days ago, my life had been normal, or as normal as it can be for someone who rebuilt her entire life from scratch. Today, I was being chased by demons, and the person who had been the cornerstone of my new life was revealed as a fraud. The only person that I felt like I could count on was a man who was clearly hiding his own secrets, and probably had no desire to ever see me again.

  As Christopher...Benjamin, I corrected myself, pulled the car up to the cabin, I felt a fluttering feeling in my chest. It was more than ironic that I left this place just a couple of hours ago with Riley. I couldn’t help but wish that it were Riley I was returning with as well. Benjamin got out of the car, and I touched the phone in my pocket while he wasn’t looking. There was a voice nagging in my mind that said that I should call Riley just to let him know that I was okay. But the other part of me said that he was probably on his way back to the mainland by now saying good riddance to the whole thing.

  My door opened, and I gasped. I didn’t even see Benjamin cross to my side of the car. His hand extended into the car. “I know you’re upset
with me, but please come inside and let me explain.”

  Reluctantly, I put my hand in his and let him draw me out of the car. I saw an odd look cross his face as his eyes swung around the clearing and then settled back on me. “You’ve been here. Recently.”

  “I didn’t know where else to go after what happened last night,” I said. “This seemed as good a place as any for hiding out. Obviously you think so too.”

  “You brought Riley here?” His tone grew annoyed again.

  I wasn’t sure what it was about Riley that Benjamin didn’t like, but it was clear that my continual mentioning of him wasn’t sitting well with Benjamin. “I told you that he was helping me.”

  “That is unfortunate. We won’t be able to stay here long then. I’ll need to make some calls,” Benjamin said. “Then we’ll be on our way before your savior shows up.”

  My heart lifted at the idea that Riley would search me out. “He knows a lot about demons. He could be helpful.”

  “We don’t need the assistance of a necromancer,” Benjamin said heatedly. He took my elbow and propelled me forward to the cabin.

  I couldn’t help myself. He said the word earlier connected to Riley, but I didn't understand the meaning behind the disdain. “What is a necromancer?”

  Benjamin unlocked the door and not so gently pushed me inside. He seemed to sniff the air and then his eyes focused in on a faint semi-circle of red that outlined the fireplace on the far side of the room.

  “Black magic!” He hissed. I saw nothing but a streak of color and then he was kicking at the red marks breaking the circle.

  Riley made the marks with his blood, and I had questioned the act at the time. Benjamin turned on me, and I took a step backward. In the three years since I met him, I had never seen him like this.

  “You’ve tainted this holy place by bringing that filth here.”

  I took another step back. I wasn’t sure where I’d go if I could make it out the door, but I figured I’d hide in the woods and try to get in touch with Riley. “I don’t know what you are talking about. Riley said that would keep the demons from getting in through the chimney. What are you talking about? What holy place?” I didn’t even know that Benjamin was religious.

  Benjamin closed his eyes, and I watched his body shudder as he took an immensely deep breath. When he opened his eyes, it was as if he found some calming inner Buddha. “There are many things that we need to discuss, Paige, but we’re probably best served to get a rather unpleasant topic out of the way first.”

  I wasn’t an idiot. I was well aware that Benjamin had been harboring feelings for me that went beyond the friendly kind for some time. Of course, he’d want to tell me something bad about Riley. “What do you want to tell me about Riley?” Truth be told, I was insanely curious about the man.

  Benjamin made his way around the couch and sat down at the small table under the window. He gestured for me to do the same. “You asked me a question just before that I failed to answer for you.”

  “I asked you what a necromancer was,” I said. The seat I was offered was next to the door. I turned the chair so that the back was flat against the wall then sat down. If Benjamin noticed, he didn’t say anything. His attention was drawn back to the area of the destroyed semi-circle across the room.

  “Surely you’ve heard the word before,” Benjamin said.

  “In books,” I said with a nod of my head. “Fiction books. Or at least, what I thought were stories in fiction books. That line seems pretty blurry at the moment. A necromancer is someone who talks to dead people.”

  Benjamin’s eyes returned to mine. “A necromancer can to speak to the dead because he calls their spirit back to their flesh, and then they rise under his command. I’m not sure what he told you, but it is common knowledge that Riley Stone tortures his victims during the interrogations and then burns the spirit whole so that it can never be returned to the Other Side to be reincarnated. It is an incredibly painful process. The spirit feels everything. The worst part is that he completely violates and destroys what is supposed to be someone’s peaceful afterlife. Humans or demons, it doesn’t matter. Whoever is willing to pay handsomely for information from the dead eventually finds their way to him, and he delivers it.”

  I stared at him trying to process everything that he told me. Riley had been cagey in the details of his work and alluded to it being related to ‘information hacking.’ I felt sick when I tied it to what Benjamin had just described. Riley hadn’t lied, but he had gone far afield of telling me the actual truth. I could tell that Benjamin was watching my reaction carefully.

  “People like Riley Stone can’t be trusted, Paige. I’m telling you this because it’s important that you understand the predicament that you’re in. He works with demons. Why do you think he knows so much about them? He’s probably called every demon official in his rolodex and offered to hand you over to the highest bidder. That’s why I have to find somewhere to keep you, and that’s why it is truly unfortunate that he knows about this place. You’ve put your faith in the wrong person.”

  I felt a flash of anger then. I stood up and glared at him. “It seems to be a mistake that I’ve been making all along. Don’t you dare follow me!”

  Then I grabbed the door handle and yanked the door open. The slam as it closed behind me offered little satisfaction though.

  CHAPTER THREE – RILEY

  It was significantly harder navigating the darkened roads outside of town at night than it had been during the day. Luckily, I still had full signal strength on my phone and so the GPS signal guided me along the way. As I drove, I tried to reason out what I was going to say to Paige when I found her again.

  I was going to have to control the caveman urge to throw her over my shoulder and drag her back to the mainland with me. I reminded myself that so far she had reluctantly accepted my help, despite my best efforts to show her and tell her that she was in danger. As long as she was in one piece, I needed to keep my cool. Going in like a bull in a china shop wasn’t the right way to figure out what was going on.

  It seemed to take forever to reach the road that took me deeper into the woods. Christopher’s cabin was definitely isolated. For some reason, that felt like a dangerous thing at the moment. Knowing that I wasn’t an invited guest this time around, I pulled off the road into a small clearing and shifted the SUV into park. Drumming my fingertips on the wheel, I considered my next move.

  It was possible that I was completely overreacting to the situation. I was putting my nose where it didn’t belong. Again. I couldn’t help but feel slighted though. I had saved Paige’s life. Twice. Surely that warranted a friendly phone call to tell me that she was all right, didn’t it? Why hadn’t she called?

  I kept coming back to one of two reasons. The first was that she had been kidnapped. But there was nothing at the coffee shop that suggested she hadn’t left of her own volition. So the second reason seemed much more likely. She didn’t want my help any longer. It seemed massively shortsighted, but I recalled the conversation earlier in the day when she tried to cut me loose. She said she could figure out a way to handle whatever happened on her own, and that I was free to go. I thought I had talked her out of that nonsense, but it seemed as if Paige had taken matters into her own hands once again.

  The woman was infuriating.

  Still, I wasn’t just going to show up unannounced. I didn’t want her to know how much it cut at me that she didn’t trust me. I was supposed to be the one sidestepping any further involvement with her, and it surely seemed to be what she expected me to do. It’s what anybody who knew me would have expected me to do.

  So why wasn’t I taking the hint and cutting out?

  It was a question I wasn’t ready to answer, but there was no way I was leaving. Not without checking in and making sure that all was well first. She seemed confident that Christopher’s cabin was an appropriate safe house for the time being, and it was secluded. I’d just take a peek, and then I’d go.

  Fe
eling better on having decided on a course of action, I got out of the truck. The stillness of the air was unnerving. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. There was a little trick that my mentor showed me years ago, and it required a little patience and an empty mind. I took another deep breath and forced the tension from my face, neck, and shoulders. I let my arms hang to the sides of my body as I slowly lowered myself to my knees. I swept at the ground with my fingers as I loosened the hold on my mind and let my energy fly freely out of my body.

  It was as if the trees around me lit up and then those tendrils of energy wound around them and out further into the night. I turned my face toward the night sky but didn’t open my eyes. Breathing in deeply, I smelled the air and let my mind drift this way and that spiraling through the tree limbs.

  I sensed the nightlife of the forest, and it sensed me. I heard several hoots from owls above my head, and felt the tiniest waves of the air from the other creatures who lurked all around me. They continued on their business as if I wasn’t even there. After several long minutes, I was satisfied that I was alone. I sighed and pulled each tendril of energy back to me, and then I opened my eyes. The darkness was almost wholly complete around me, but there was nothing to fear in it. At least, not at that moment.

  I was a necromancer and not a warlock, but my mentor said that my talents were closely aligned with that kind of magic. It allowed me to channel some of the nature’s energies and use them for my purposes. But she also spoke to me of the danger of using too much of that power. It was a constant risk for those who dappled with magic. She said that kind of energy in untrained, unskilled hands was almost always going to end in disaster. God knows that I had enough potential disaster on my hands with the necromancy without adding in the things I wasn’t supposed to be messing with.