Protect Her: Part 4 Read online

  I knelt down as I pulled the bouquet of flowers apart. I tossed one in each of the graves around me until they were gone. Then I opened up my mind and reached out. I felt them all one by one. They tried to move away from me, but I called out to them with my mind.

  “I’m not here to ask for anything else from you. I needed help, and you came to my aid. I sincerely apologize for disturbing your slumber. I just wanted to say Thank You.”

  The spirits paused. They didn’t answer me, but they weren’t trying to get away from me anymore either. I left the channel between us open for another few minutes, but it was as if we were at a stalemate. They weren’t going to forgive me. I didn’t really expect them to, but I still felt it was important to ask. I always made it a point, if possible, to thank those that I called into my service. In ten years, I had yet to be forgiven. I figured there was a first time for everything, and maybe someday it would happen. It wasn’t today.

  I stood up and turned to find Abigail behind me. She looked at me with open curiosity now. “Do you also ask forgiveness from those in the demon world that you torture and send away into the ether?”

  “You were about to tell me the significance of the symbol of the Protector of the Goddess,” I said, refusing to answer her question.

  “I wasn’t, at least not yet. I’d still like to know how you came across it. It’s very old, very rare, and there are probably only a handful of demons still in existence who would even be able to tell you what it was, which is no doubt why Alice called me.”

  “But you know what it is,” I said.

  “Of course,” Abigail said. “But that is because I am a disciple of the Goddess Eva, and was there the last time she existed on this plane and in this realm.”

  I struggled to keep the surprise off of my face. “Alice said that this Goddess was a myth.”

  “Have you ever met the Devil, Riley? Or God for that matter?” Abigail asked.

  “No,” I said. “But there seem to be a lot of other people running around who say that they have.”

  Abigail laughed. “And most of them haven’t, but know somebody who knows somebody, et cetera who supposedly met one of those deities, and yet everyone is confident that they exist. Goddess Eva’s myth was one of the most secret and terrible, and that is why it has slowly but surely disappeared over the centuries. Now, you’d ask most demons, and they’d have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “So Eva is a demon deity,” I said, trying to sort out everything that Abigail was saying. This had the potential to turn everything I knew about demon mythology on its head.”

  “God is God. Satan is one of God’s fallen angels. Think of Eva more like God’s distant cousin. She had no particular alliances, you see. She had no pony in the race when it came to God’s decision to throw Satan out of Heaven. She existed for one purpose only.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Eva was God’s Sheriff. She doled out punishment to angels and demons alike. Believe me, that wasn’t something that Satan liked at all. Demons were his children, and he wasn’t a fan of anyone associated with God feeling superior to him in any way.”

  “So at the end of the day, God’s still top dog, huh?” Riley said with a shake of his head. It was amusing to him how it all came back to politics. How this Eva tied in with Paige though, he still had no idea.

  “Eva’s mistake was that she not only questioned Satan, but she also questioned God,” Abigail said. “And that gave God and Satan a common goal once it was clear that Eva was making a nuisance of herself for both of them. You see, in everything there needs to be a balance. There needs to be a Switzerland, because no matter what anyone says, there is light in darkness and darkness in light. They co-exist together in sometimes the most twisted symbiotic relationship. Eva was the balance between the two realms.”

  “She had too much power,” I surmised. “So they banded together and took it away.”

  “Eva had prepared for such a possibility. Unlike God, who created humans or Satan who created demons, she created only one being who served her. The Protector. That man was imbued with special characteristics and was Eva’s bodyguard of sorts. In order to get to Eva, you had to go through the Protector.”

  I felt shock course through my body. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but for once, the words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I realized that Abigail was watching my reaction closely.

  “If the Protector has been reincarnated, then it is a sign that Eva has found a way to re-enter this plane as well.”

  I struggled to turn the conversation around. There was no way that I was going to let a pureblood demon know that I had that symbol on my back. I still had to figure out exactly what it meant myself.

  “You’re a demon. Why would you declare yourself for a minor deity who clearly got her ass handed to her by the big guys?” I asked.

  I could tell by Abigail’s narrowed eyes that I had hit on a nerve. “When they sent Eva into the ether, she laid down the words that spoke of a curse upon her enemies when she was resurrected. Eva was a just and righteous deity, but those that were jealous of her turned everything and everyone against her. When she exacts her revenge, it will be long and painful. She’s had a thousand years to plot it. Demons. Angels. Humans. It won’t matter.”

  I thought about what Paige had told me about her dreams. They were of terror and blood and death. That seemed in alignment with a pissed off deity’s idea of revenge. It also didn’t sound like anyone I had any desire to meet, or allow to possess the first person I’d found that I cared about since my family died.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay? There is nothing else that you want to know?”

  “It’s a start,” I said. “Wait. You said that Eva had a bodyguard and that anyone who tried to get to her had to go through him. If Eva got banished into the ether, it seems like something would to have happened to him.”

  “He disappeared,” Abigail said. “No one knows why. The last time that I saw Eva, shortly before the banishment came down, she asked me if I had seen him. I believe that the reason that those who were jealous of her abilities took full advantage of that fact that her Protector was gone. They were able to defeat her because her Protector failed in his responsibilities to her.”

  “Maybe something happened to him.” I didn’t know why I felt defensive of this phantom guard who lived centuries before me. “Maybe it wasn’t his fault.”

  “His sole reason for existence was to protect his Goddess. For his sake, I hope he died. If Eva finds out any different, then she will kill him herself.”

  Her words chilled me to the bone. I needed to find Paige. Every minute she wasn’t in my sight was another minute some psychotic deity had an opportunity to possess her.

  “I owe you a demon,” I said, changing the subject.

  “You do,” Abigail said. I saw the bright look flare in her eyes. Hope. It was an emotion that was so easily manipulated. God knows I had used it myself often enough.

  “Do you have something of his that I can use to find him? I’m sure you know that the more distance there is between us, the harder it is for me to pull his essence to me. A possession of his will anchor me to him.”

  Abigail pulled a small gold ring out of her pocket and handed it to me. “It was his wedding ring. He wore it for almost nine hundred years until he was taken from me.”

  I took the ring and let it settle on my palm. Then I closed my eyes and focused on the man who wore it. I felt the slightest tug at my conscious mind, and I followed it. Conjuring a spirit required a patient hand and a calm mind. It was too easy to leave the door to your mind too open, and let the essence of the spirit barge its way in. That’s when necromancy turned into possession. It was one of the first things that Alice taught me all those years ago.

  In this case, I needed to hook into Fernando’s essence and drag him back to this plane. With the ring, I could conjure him into his corporeal form. It was easier that he was
n’t a demon that required a vessel. I felt the whisper of recognition, and I latched onto it carefully, not unlike taking a child’s hand to coax him to follow you.

  I had crossed time and space in my mind, and yet my body was still standing in the cemetery with Abigail. You’d think that the demons would have a better security system in hell, but there were so few who could actually yank a spirit out that they didn’t really need it. And who wanted to sign on to root around in Hell anyway?

  Oh, yeah. Me.

  Even as I felt the narrowing of the bridge that told me I was approaching my body again, I sent a call back to my senses. I knew what happened then even though I wasn’t mentally present in my body. My hand opened, and the ring dropped to the ground. I slammed into my body and opened my eyes just as I threw the door to my mind closed to the essence following me back.

  Alice had already sprinkled her blood on the ground around it by the time I spoke the words that created a kind of vortex around it. That powerful pull of its center sucked the demon’s essence into it. I heard Abigail’s shout of surprise, and then I spoke the words that conjured up what I had dragged back from Hell.

  A bolt of blinding light caused me to throw up my arm. With demon conjuring, you were never sure if they were going to come back with a whimper or a roar. In Fernando’s case, it was a roar. As soon as the light evaporated, I opened my eyes again. My eyebrows rose.

  Abigail was engulfed in the embrace of a man who looked to be several decades her junior. The man looked up at me then. His red-rimmed brown eyes told me everything that I needed to know about his lineage. He was definitely a demon. I gave him a small salute.

  “Abigail,” I called out, uncomfortable with having to interrupt the strange reunion. “How do I find you if I have more questions?”

  I heard a small murmured reply, but since her face was pressed into the man’s chest, I didn’t understand a word of it. Fernando heard it though, and I saw the wrinkle of confusion on his face. Then he looked at me again.

  “She said that our paths will cross again. Soon.”

  Now it was my turn to look confused. Yet I knew that if push came to shove, Alice should be able to find them. Speaking of Alice, my mentor promised to help me find a way to link to Paige so that I could find her. Although I still didn’t understand my role in everything, I did know that the idea of her being alone with Bruno Proctor made my skin crawl. I was getting more and more agitated.

  “Okay, then,” I said under my breath as I turned to make my way back to the convent.

  “She needs you.” This time I heard Abigail loud and clear.

  I looked back over my shoulder. Her bright blue eyes bore into me, and I realized that she knew exactly why I wanted to know about the symbol of the Protector.

  “I know,” I said simply. Then I left. I had to find my Goddess.

  CHAPTER SIX - Paige

  I would never admit it to anyone, but the sight of blood makes me squeamish. It’s not as if I hadn’t seen plenty of it in my life, but that didn’t neutralize the feeling of rolling nausea that overwhelmed me when I saw it spurting from my leg.

  Bruno was gone. The Dark Wiccan had retreated to the far corner of the room once again. Apparently he was to act as my jailor. I didn’t know exactly what Bruno thought I was going to do. Even if I knew how leverage the conduit to the Goddess’s energy source, at the moment any magical ability I mustered would be effectively neutralized.

  Somehow, despite the fact that I had a wicked looking knife buried deep in my thigh, I managed not to pass out. When the invisible bindings that held me to the chair released, I pitched forward onto the floor. I cried out as the blade shoved deeper into my flesh before I could catch myself.

  Lying on the ground next to the fireplace, I rolled over onto my back and tried hard to hold back my tears. I was stronger than this. I knew that I was. I had survived on my own for four years after my parents’ murder, and somehow luck found me once again when I was dumped into the Bay for Bruno’s ‘safekeeping’. The last three years had been a blissful kind of reprieve.

  I had dreaded this possibility when I wished to know about my past. Now, I didn’t want to go back to my old life. I wished for the amnesia once again so that I could forget this entire world existed. That’s what I wanted. But then that other part of my consciousness berated me for being weak. It was an argument that had long gone on in my head.

  “Such an interesting case.” The new voice brought me up into a sitting position, and I winced as another sharp dart of pain shot up my leg. There was no one else in the room except for the Dark Wiccan, who hadn’t moved. As far as I knew, they didn’t talk in any kind of normal way. I didn’t even think they had mouths.

  My hands moved to my leg, and my palms shook as they inched closer to the sides of the knife’s handle. I knew that I needed to pull it out, but I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. If I left it there, I didn’t think I’d bleed out. At least not right away. If I pulled it out, without any kind of medical attention, there was a good chance that I’d lose a lot more blood.

  But wasn’t that what I wanted? To Die?

  “What will you do? That is the question.”

  Trying my best not to bend my injured leg, I twisted to take in the rest of the room. “Who said that?” Giggles filled the room. The Wiccan hadn’t moved, but now I felt the presence of someone else even if I couldn’t see him.

  “Show yourself,” I said, hardening my voice. “Otherwise go away. I’m not in the mood.”

  There was a small silver poof of smoke, and then I saw a creature that I would have said was some kind of twisted leprechaun if I didn’t know any better. But I did. It was a Mypar demon. They were the cherub equivalents in Hell, essentially child demons.

  “So, you want to play a game?” He looked at me, and I think he smiled. It was hard to be sure.

  “I’m a little busy right now,” I said, keeping my tone neutral.

  The one thing that I did know about Mypar demons was that they were relatively harmless if such a thing was possible for demons. They were the eternal jokesters. Sometimes their games turned deadly, which was the reason that you never wanted to play a game with them. The general rule of thumb with pretty much any demon was ‘Don’t Engage.’

  “You don’t look that busy,” the demon said. I blinked, and found myself looking at the image of a young boy who, if I didn’t know better, I would have guessed was not even ten years old. He knelt down and began to inspect my leg. “That looks like it hurts.”

  I wanted to push him away, but that meant that I’d have to touch him. That was another general rule of thumb when it came to interacting with demons. Don’t touch. “It hurts a lot, yes,” I said through clenched teeth.

  “I’d just magic it away if I were you,” he said. He put a finger next to his mouth. “Seems pretty simple actually, especially if it hurts. I know a lot of demons enjoy feeling pain. It’s exciting for them.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “I’d rather not have the pain though.” I scooted a few inches closer to the fire trying to take my leg out of range in case the demon decided he wanted to play a game with the knife before taking it out of my leg.

  He looked confused, but then he shrugged. His expression was one of frank curiosity. “I’m Pavla. What’s your name?”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. Was this social hour in this unknown place where Bruno brought me? I had already made some assumptions about where I was. If he wanted to keep an eye on me, I didn’t think that he’d keep me in the human world. He’d squirrel me away to Hell. That train of thought didn’t sit well with me either, so I decided to leave that alone for the moment.

  First things first, I had to figure out how to get the knife out of my thigh and not bleed out. I realized with a start that my survival instinct was kicking in again. It was highly inconvenient because in theory I wanted to die, but it was far too strong to be ignored. Along with the desire to live came another emotion that I wasn’t rea
dy to deal with.

  Hope.

  “My name is Paige,” I said. I decided that for the moment it was better to treat Pavla like a nuisance that just needed to be ignored. I bent as close to the wound as I could to see if I could get an idea of how deep and wide the opening actually was.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Paige. Since we’re on friendly terms now, I’m telling you that you should just use your magic,” Pavla said.

  “See that thing over there, Pavla?” I said, jerking my thumb toward the Wiccan. “Even if I knew how to use this so called magic I possess, he’d cut me off from it. So it’s no use. I have to figure this out the old-fashioned way.”

  Pavla frowned again. “Wiccan can’t control things like us, Paige.” His tone was so matter of fact that my attention returned to him. The action made my head spin. That wasn’t a good sign.

  “I’m human, so I’m not like you,” I said.

  The child demon laughed. He laughed so hard that he fell backward and rolled on the floor. I had no idea what I said that was so hilarious, and I felt a bit chagrined. “Hey,” I said, snapping my fingers at him. “If you aren’t going to be useful, then scram. I’ve got bigger problems and having a demon sitting here laughing at me isn’t helping me one bit.”

  Pavla immediately sat back up. “Oh. Well, why didn’t you say so? I can be useful.”

  I realized my mistake in what I said too late. “I’m not playing a game with you.”

  He grinned. “If you get what you want, and I get what I want, why not make it fun in the process?”

  I had to admit that my options were limited at the moment. If I had access to my magic, then there was a chance that I could figure out how to use it. I dropped my voice to a low whisper. “You think you can distract him long enough to get him to drop the force field or whatever that is stopping me from accessing my magic?”