Protect Her: Part 4 Read online

  Bruno sighed. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Ms. Matthews. Let’s start here. May I have your permission to call you Paige?”

  “I have a feeling you will even if I tell you not to,” I retorted. I searched for that center of energy, but it wasn’t there anymore. I wanted to hit something hard I was so frustrated. It seemed as if Bruno had my number on that front. I could only gain access to the magic when I felt as if my life was in danger.

  Bruno leaned forward in his chair. “Paige, I’m not your enemy.”

  “You could have fooled me,” I said. I wondered where the dagger had gone. It had taken me a while to place it, but I realized that it was the blade that I had snagged from Sister Alice at the convent three years ago. That could work in my favor if I got my hands on it again.

  A glint caught my eye. I felt the breath skip in my chest. The Wiccan had the dagger in its hand.

  “I assume that you were wondering what happened to your blade.” Bruno knitted his hands together underneath his chin. “I admit that I was curious if it would have any affect on you given your heritage, but apparently not. Which is good for the both of us. I have been accused of being impulsive, and it wouldn’t have benefitted me to lose you just after I found you once again.”

  “What are you talking about my heritage? That knife kills most demons, at least the ones hijacking human vessels,” I muttered.

  “Surely you remember that the disciples of Eva co-mingled for generations with pure blood demons? It did make for quite a mudding of bloodlines, but everyone was just so eager for the future vessel to be produced that they were very open to…experimentation.”

  I felt my blood run cold. I remembered being small, before my parents left the commune where I was born. I didn’t pay much attention to the adults when they’d gather in small clusters and watch us children playing in the yard. They would whisper and point, but they generally left us alone. Then images rose in my mind that I had long forgotten.

  My friend Billy’s sixth birthday party. He blew out the candles on the cake, and every single one of the balloons popped in unison.

  Little Maggie Francis. She came to class one day with her homework filled out for the assignment that was going to be assigned the following week, but hadn’t been assigned yet.

  Johnny Wilson. He was a couple of years older than me, but whenever one of the members of the community misplaced something, and they couldn’t find it, they’d ask Johnny to find it. It never took more than five minutes for him to locate the missing item.

  The examples piled up in my mind. These weren’t even things that I remembered before I lost my identity. These were things that I had long buried away because to know them and accept them meant that I accepted that my life was different. My parents didn’t want me to be different. That’s why they took me away.

  I choked back a sob. All of those children. All of those people. It was nothing more than an elaborate breeding ground for one intention only. To bring Goddess Eva back to life. And somehow, someway, that incredible and terrible fate had fallen onto my shoulders.

  “It must have been terrible,” Bruno said, leaning forward in his chair. “Inhumane, actually.”

  “Why do you give a shit?” It wasn’t like me to curse. Or was it? I was too exhausted at this point to remember.

  “Paige. This is what I’ve been trying to explain to you. It’s why you misunderstood me during our last visit. You think that my end goal is to ensure that you become the reincarnated version of the Goddess, when in all actuality, that’s the very farthest thing that I wanted to happen.”

  That got my attention, and I was immediately suspicious. “You said that you kidnapped me three years ago so that you could be the first one to call upon the Goddess and set the possession ceremony in motion.”

  “No, you heard what you wanted to hear back then. I told you that I wanted to get to you first before anyone else could reach you and start the summoning process. That is true. But I tucked you away for safekeeping because I wanted to make sure that you didn’t fall into the wrong hands. I don’t want you to become Eva’s vessel, Paige.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” I felt my brow furrow.

  “If you have access to her magic, you can stop her,” Bruno said. “And I can show you how. I’ve already helped you with a taste of what you are capable of, Paige. You can stop her. I can help you.”

  “What’s in it for you?” There was always a catch.

  Bruno smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s just say that you’d owe me one.”

  That seemed like the worst possible deal in the century. I wasn’t that naïve. “An open favor that you can call in at any time that you’d want? I don’t think so.”

  Bruno shrugged. “If you don’t want my help, I can turn you over to any one of my colleagues. Or I can kill you. There is a binding spell, an ancient one that will cut you off from your magic. It’s a blood spell, so it’s potent enough to cut the tie to the pool of energy. We can have all kinds of fun then, and you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”

  There were far too many rules when it came to magic. I had rarely paid attention because I never thought that those rules would ever apply to me, and after we left the commune, I had apparently blocked it out altogether.

  “You said that there were others,” I said slowly. “That’s why you’re so willing to let me die. There are those other children that I grew up with in the compound. You think that one of them could be like me, and then you’d just make your deal with them.”

  “You aren’t quite a dime a dozen, but let’s just say that the Goddess wasn’t trying to leave anything to chance when it came to her reincarnation,” Bruno said. “But we don’t need to speak of such unpleasantness. You are here now. You have a taste of what you are capable of, and I’ve offered you a happy ending to your current situation. What could be holding you back from agreeing to my terms?”

  Riley’s face rose in my mind. I bit my tongue from asking for his safety in return for my cooperation. If I did that, I had no doubt that Bruno would find a way to strike at him anyway. This required a bit of finesse.

  “It can’t be open-ended,” I said, doggedly refusing to leave anything I could up to chance. “I won’t put myself or anyone I might care about at that point in time at risk.”

  “A woman who insists on negotiating even when she is in a weaker position. As I said before, you are fascinating, Ms. Matthews,” Bruno said. His mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “Fine. I will teach you how to harness and control your magic, which you are not allowed to use against me.” He raised his hand when he saw my reaction. “In return, you will owe me a favor that I can collect at my discretion that is bound only by the limitation that it does not put you or your loved ones at peril.”

  I thought over his words carefully. I couldn’t be sure, but I felt fairly certain that there was a loophole in there. I just couldn’t see it or hear it. I also knew that Bruno was correct in saying that I was negotiating from a weaker position. I should count myself fortunate that he was willing to negotiate at all.

  Once I found Riley again, we’d figure out a way out of this deal. He wasn’t going to be happy that I had made a deal with the demon who killed his family, but I’d have to cross that bridge once I got to it.

  “Deal,” I said.

  Bruno held out his hand. As I grasped it, I gasped at the sharp pain that dug into my palm. I yanked my hand back, and saw a small slit that oozed with blood. I felt a pit of dread in my stomach.

  “All our deals in Hell are done in blood,” Bruno said, the grin returning to his face. “It keeps all the liars from running amok and not holding up their end of the bargains. Good policy, don’t you think?”

  I smiled faintly. I had a feeling I had just exchanged one kind of brand for another.

  CHAPTER NINE – Riley

  I pretended to be asleep in the back of the car. Conversation was kept to a minimum even though Abigail had promised that w
e’d talk on our way. In all reality, I was fried, and keeping track of everything I had learned so far was difficult as I was running on next to no sleep. Ever since meeting Paige, I felt as if the only thing keeping me going was pure adrenaline.

  But bone-weary as I was, I couldn’t sleep. Paige was out there somewhere, and she needed me. I turned Alice’s words over and over in my mind. Paige’s locket nestled in my shirt pocket next to my heart. It was nothing close to having her in my arms, but it made me feel closer to her nonetheless.

  As I drifted in and out of semi-consciousness, I heard whispers in the front seat.

  “Are you sure about him?” That was Fernando.

  “You should have seen his face when I told him about the Protector disappearing. I’m sure it’s him.”

  “He doesn’t look anything like the last one.”

  “At the rate that Eva burned through them, I’d be amazed if any of them truly looked similar. It doesn’t matter. He’ll help us find the vessel.”

  “He won’t help us if he cares about the vessel.”

  “His destiny is linked to Eva. Once she is resurrected, he will fall into line.”

  It wasn’t as if I expected Fernando and Abigail to tell me the truth, but surely they had to know that with the short distance between us that I’d hear everything they said. I cracked my eyelids open. Both of the demons sat in the front seat looking straight ahead.

  “Are you sure he’s sleeping?”

  “If I were, do you think I’d be talking to you this way?”

  That didn’t make any sense. I kept my face smooth not wanting to give away that I was intently eavesdropping. Then I realized what had been wrong with the situation. The words I had heard them speaking weren’t being spoken out loud. The demons were using telepathy.

  I couldn’t stop the giveaway twitch. I tried to keep my breath even, but I knew that Abigail was looking at me in the rearview mirror. I felt the weight of her stare. So I opened my eyes and stretched. “I must have dozed off,” I said nonchalantly.

  “I saw the church. Looks like it was one hell of a fight,” Abigail said. Her tone was cautious.

  It took me a moment to grab onto the answer of why I could hear their silent conversation. Fernando was technically still dead. I had conjured up his physical form and plowed his essence back into it, but the binding of my magic was what was holding him in this world. And I could talk to the dead. Had they been so naïve as to have forgotten this?

  “It gave me a chance to kick some demon ass, which I haven’t been able to do in awhile. It felt good.” I was deliberately goading them, and I knew it, but I didn’t want them getting the sense that we were getting all cozy now that we were road trip buddies. There was still much to learn about the disciples of Eva, and knowing everything I could about them meant that I could steer Paige clear of any tricks.

  “Demon officials like Bruno Proctor give all of us a bad name,” she sniffed.

  “Right,” I said sarcastically as I looked out the window. Kansas City had already evaporated somewhere behind us in the night. It was a struggle not to feel as if I were moving further and further away from Paige. “The demon community is so misunderstood.”

  “Of all people, I would think that you would be able to see the subtle shades of gray when talking about the differences between Heaven and Hell, or the commonalities really. There is nothing black and white about good and evil, is there?”

  I wasn’t interested in getting into a philosophical debate with Abigail. “All I know is that I’m not running across any angels making a nice dinner of human blood and bones on a regular basis.”

  “A small subset of a much larger, more civilized society,” Abigail said. “Perhaps if humans who knew of us didn’t make such sweeping generalizations, we would all be in a safer position.

  “Look, I’m not a fan of angels and the great ‘all that is holy’ segment either. They might not be eating people, but they are also more than willing to turn a blind eye to what’s going on with the demons in pursuit of their own ambitions and goals. So while I agree with you that there are shades of gray, I’m not running out to team up with either side. I worry about my own hide, and that’s kept me alive for the last ten years. That’s good enough for me.”

  Abigail watched me silently. I hadn’t meant to say so much or let the tirade get the better of me, but there was something about the old demon that agitated me.

  “You’ve made an interesting choice getting involved in anything that has to do with the Goddess then.”

  “I didn’t make a choice,” I said. She was fishing for information. She wasn’t asking questions, but just making subtle assumptions based on everything she had gleaned from me and Alice so far. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I have an interest in staying off the radar for a bit. Proctor promised that we weren’t through, which in all actuality is music to my ears, but I need some space to get my thoughts together. Getting out of the city in a hurry was the only reason that I got in this car.”

  “I heard more than my fair share of whispers about that demon official while I was in Hell.” It was the first time that Fernando had spoken out loud since I got into the car.

  “Like what?”

  “Like somehow he had amassed far greater power than anyone had ever seen before. No one knows how, but he’s been systematically working through bringing his competition in line. In terms of pecking order, only Satan himself sits higher right now.”

  Now that was news, and something I’d have to chew on further. Was Bruno making a play for Hell? What was his angle? Perhaps he figured with the Goddess on his side, he’d be able to overthrow Satan once and for all. But that didn’t quite feel right either.

  “In terms of ambition, I think that Bruno was born on the wrong side of the fence,” I said. “He should have been an angel with all his plotting and planning.”

  “And yet you have no qualms about making him your nemesis,” Abigail said.

  My jaw clenched. “I didn’t make it personal. He did.”

  She didn’t press, which was a good thing. My mood soured by the moment. I slipped Paige’s locket out of my pocket and held it tightly in my hand. My refusal to elaborate and further silence seemed to let the demons in the front seat know that I was done talking for the moment. I turned my gaze back to the window, but the scenery outside disappeared as another image took its place.

  It was the memory of that night five years ago. I wanted to turn it off like I always did, but I felt as if it were important that I examined it again. There was something about Proctor that I was missing, and there might be a clue hidden away in my memories. Stroking the locket calmed me, almost as if Paige was there was me. There was nothing else that could happen to my family that hadn’t already happened. Going back there, and remembering would only torture me, not them. Hopefully, they had found some form of peace.

  The memories grabbed hold of me and didn’t let go.

  I had gotten sloppy, and I knew it. Proctor hired me to procure him a certain ancient object of value, and somewhere along the way I got distracted. It might have been the booze or a broad, but it didn’t matter. This was before I cleaned up my act. I was making money hand over fist doing demon dirty work, and Proctor’s job had seemed relatively easy and innocent at first glance.

  Retrieve the item. Return it to him. Get paid. Easy enough.

  What Proctor didn’t tell me was that the tracking of the object would lead me on a cross-country goose chase punctuated by scenes of gruesome murder sprees. His knowledge on the last known whereabouts of the item was four hundred years ago, right after settlers arrived in Jamestown. It didn’t take me long to find out that the case wasn’t nearly as straightforward as I thought.

  The item in question was a small gold compass. A small and innocuous object when you thought about it, but I quickly learned that the compass had the same kind of reputation as the Hope diamond. Whoever possessed it fell under a curse. That curse involved a great deal of blood and mayhem. Then th
e compass disappeared once again.

  It surfaced during the Civil War in Atlanta. When I tracked it down to the ancestors of the man who tried to sell it during that time and then paid the man’s grave a visit. From the man’s ghost, I found out what happened. I discovered he had shown up at the local tavern, locked the patrons inside, and then set the place on fire. He thought that his actions were what prompted the Confederate Army to set ablaze the railroad boxcars of ammunition that eventually burned Atlanta. It was sickening to see how proud he was of that.

  After that, the compass went underground again for about sixty years until it surfaced again in 1912. A man was photographed with it on the deck of the Titanic. I managed to track down one of the survivors, who had long ago transpired, who remembered the man. She said that many of the survivors claimed that the man had been making his way through each of the decks knocking passengers unconscious or locking them in their rooms so that they couldn’t escape. He had ensured that the iceberg took as many lives as possible.

  That story I wasn’t able to confirm or corroborate with more than a few of the survivors. It seemed as if the panic and confusion muddled most of their memories, understandably. But the compass had been on the ship, and given its reputation, I had no doubt that it played a part in the deaths that ensued.

  By that point, I was troubled. I had a bit of a moral dilemma on my hands. Proctor wanted the object, and it made sense that someone with my unique skills was the perfect person to help him find it. It seemed that anyone who came into any kind of proximity with the compass ended up dead. But it was also obvious that death on a massive scale followed this compass wherever it went.

  The trail went cold after the Titanic. Either that or I stopped looking hard enough to find the next clue. I didn’t want to find the compass. But I had been hired to do a job, and there was a high cost when you failed. It wasn’t as if I were dealing with a human. I was in cahoots with a demon official up to my ears.

  So I did something stupid. That was the decision that cost me my family. I spent some money, called in a few favors, and had a replica of the compass made. That was what I gave to Proctor. Then I cheerfully collected my fee and went on my merry way feeling quite clever. I had been an idiot.