Protect Her: Part 3 Page 6

  “I don’t know that when the times comes if you have any choice in the matter, my dear.”

  I didn’t even know how to process Alice’s words, and I could tell that Paige didn’t either. As she looked across the room and our eyes locked, I saw the shimmer of tears there. I crossed the room and pulled her into my arms. She didn’t push me away. If anything, she sank deeper into my embrace even as I stroked the back of her head.

  “That doesn’t have to be the final answer,” I whispered. “There’s another way, and we’ll find it.”

  “It sounds like I tried that before, and look where that got me,” Paige said. Her voice was muffled against my shirt. I had to hand it to her. She might be scared as hell, but she was keeping it together. Barely.

  “Hey, last time you didn’t have me,” I said. I meant it as a joke, but when she pulled her face away and looked up at me, I knew that I was lost. Somewhere along the way, in between the demons and the angels and the death and blood, I had started to fall in love with Paige Matthews. And I would be damned if I lost her to anyone, least of all a cowardly goddess who no one had ever even heard of.

  “Thank you, Riley,” she said. Her small smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it was a start.

  I heard the soft chime of the clock over the mantle, and it caught my attention. We both looked at it, and I heard Paige’s small gasp. I knew that the time wasn’t right. It was just after eight pm when we arrived at the convent, but the clock on the mantle showed that it was three am.

  “Shadows follow her, Riley. They will consume her if she doesn’t follow through with her destiny,” Alice said. “You can’t fight fate. You would be a fool to try.”

  “Paige needs her rest, and so do I,” I said. “Are you going to let us stay here or not?”

  “It’s not condoned,” Alice said.

  “I could give a shit if the church approves or not,” I said. “We’ll leave in the morning and be out of your hair.”

  “The pastor keeps a cot in the sacristy,” Alice said. “You are welcome to it.”

  I remembered the pastor’s cot well, and I grimaced. But at least it was a place to rest and it put some distance between Alice and us. I kept my arm around Paige as I started to lead her out of the room.

  “I hope you know what you are doing, Riley. There will be no coming back into the fold if you go through with this.”

  “As if I ever wanted to,” I threw back at her. Pulling Paige closer to me, I felt more certain than I ever had in my life that I had everything I needed in the world. I just had to make sure to protect it. I led Paige through another door near the front door of the convent that delivered us into a long, narrow hallway. Here, small lights designed to look like old world lanterns lit the way before us. The end of the hallway was marked by another plain door.

  Once through it, we entered the church at the far end of the narthex. One more turn through the immense, open wood panel doors put us inside the sanctuary. Rows of pews stretched out in front of us leading up to the high altar at the front of the room. The long shadows that filled the huge room didn’t inspire any confidence that this place was safe.

  “I’ve never been in a church at night,” Paige said.

  “Creepy, isn’t it?” I tried to keep my tone light. Our voices echoed across the high ceilings of the room. It made me not want to talk anymore, and I sensed that Paige felt the same way.

  I took her hand and squeezed it. I knew that the small gesture wasn’t much in the way of reassurance, but it was a start. I pulled her toward the front and to the door that I knew led into the sacristy. I opened the door and flipped on the light. The room was small with a long closet along one side that filled the majority of the room. A table sat off to the side and next to it was a narrow cot.

  “That’s not going to fit both of us,” Paige said.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time I slept on the floor,” I said. “But I’m guessing it’ll be more comfortable than a cave wall by a mile.” I was rewarded by a small smile, and I felt a small measure of relief. She was still with me.

  When her hand left my grasp, I felt the emptiness of loss. She crossed the room and sat down on the cot facing me. Her eyes were haunted. “So, do you believe her?”

  “Alice is a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them,” I said. “I’ll talk to her in the morning, and get the full story on what you were looking for.”

  “And then what?” Paige sounded defeated.

  “Then we’re going to find it and take care of it.”

  “I can feel her, Riley.” Paige’s attention was drawn across the room. Her hand rose to the side of her head. Her fingertips buried into her hair, and I could tell that she was massaging her scalp. “I realize now that my dreams weren’t just the memories from before the accident. They are hers, and they keep trying to get out.”

  Paige’s confession scared the shit out of me. I crossed the room and knelt beside her brushing her hand away. “Hey. You’ve been through a lot, and it sounds like you’d been through a lot before you came here the first time. But you don’t have to do this alone. I’m with you every step of the way. We can do whatever you want, but I refuse to believe that whatever this is has to be inevitable. We’ll figure out a way to keep you together, just the way that you are now.”

  She took my hand in hers. “She’s right, Riley. I don’t even know who I am. I’ve been a pale shade of a person barely existing in this world as I waited for my past to be revealed to me. This person that I am isn’t worth the time that you are putting into saving her.”

  “Don’t say that,” I shook my head. “You’ve built a life from nothing. And despite the fact that you were having trouble sleeping, I got the feeling that you were happy with your life. You were content.”

  “No, I was a coward.” Her tone hardened. “I squirreled myself away on an island and tried to pretend that the rest of the world didn’t exist. I did that because I didn’t know how I fit into it anymore. Now, I’m not sure that I ever did.”

  I could tell that in her current state, we weren’t going to get anywhere. “Lay down. Get some rest. The morning will come soon enough and we can figure out the game plan from there.” I stood up and released her hand.

  She slipped off her shoes and then laid down on the cot. I took the folded blanket from the end and opened it up as I settled it around her. Then I leaned over and placed a gentle kiss against her temple. She looked like a little girl as her blue eyes peered over the edge of the blanket up at me.

  “You aren’t going to go anywhere, right?”

  “There’s nowhere else I want to be,” I said. “Sleep, Paige. I’ll keep the monsters away.”

  Her eyes closed and moments later I heard her breathing change. She was exhausted. I wasn’t far behind. As quietly as I could, I made my way over to the far set of doors. Inside the closet, I found another pillow and blanket. I wasn’t looking forward to spending the night on the floor, but the cot was nowhere near big enough for both of us. Plus, despite my feelings about the church, it would still be weird to sleep with someone else in one; even platonically.

  The knock on the door was barely loud enough to be called that. I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have the energy for any more of Alice’s preaching tonight.

  “Go away, Alice,” I said under my breath. “I’m not in the mood.”

  Alice had insanely good hearing. She didn’t like it when I used to compare it to a Typhon demon, which is usually why I did it. I waited but didn’t hear the knock again. I put the bedding on the table and then opened my kit. Although bone-weary, the last thing I was going to do was leave us unprotected, no matter what Alice said. She could deal with undoing the blood magic spell tomorrow. She’d be pissed that I did it inside the church, but I didn’t care.

  Taking the small vial of dust out of the kit, I used it to trace the outline of the door. Then I did it again around the window on the far side of the room. I pricked my finger and mixed blood with the dust and completed the spel
l. I didn’t know of a stronger barrier for keeping out demons. Earlier today I would have said that it was impenetrable, but after seeing the way that Benjamin was beaten, I had my doubts.

  I considered making my way back to Alice’s quarters and adding the barrier to Benjamin’s room, but then I realized that he was in the best hands possible. There was no way that Alice would let anything happen to the archangel. He was the closest thing she’d ever get to meeting her God.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN- PAIGE

  I didn’t expect to sleep. I think that’s why I thought I was still awake until I felt a cold, damp breeze sweep over my face. A strange sensation of a veil being opened allowed me access to another time and another place. I turned my face upwards and felt the sprinkling dance of light raindrops over my forehead and cheeks. The air held a sense of longing and expectation. Something was going to happen soon, although what that thing was escaped me at the moment.

  My gaze focused on the vast body of water in front of me. It surrounded me in all directions. I was standing on the bow of a boat as it sliced the water to an unknown destination. That was when it came to me that I was in a dream. It was clearer than I ever remembered. Then that thought was gone.

  I frowned. There was something that I was supposed to remember, but I couldn’t. My hands tightened on the boat’s railing. The waves were starting to rise a bit higher now.

  “Don’t worry, my lovely. I’m an expert sailor.”

  My attention was drawn behind me to a man standing in the cockpit of the boat. I knew him. Bob or Bill or something like that. He gazed adoringly at me, and I thought how awkward the ultimate break-up would be. He thought that I loved him, but I didn’t. He had proved useful so far as men of significant financial means always did in my world. It was stupidly simple to convince them that I was attracted to them. At least this one wasn’t so old that he looked like my grandfather. We still drew stares when we walked through the streets, but not as many as I was used to when I pillaged the geriatric crowd to find the men I needed.

  I waved up to him. If I thought hard about it, I would remember his name, but it felt like too much of a bother at the moment. My goal was to get to a small island called Calamata. It sat in the far northwest corner of the country off the Washington coast. Sailing up the coastline from California kept me off the radar of most of the demon officials who claimed territory up the Pacific Northwest corridor. It was a sneak play, because I knew that demons wouldn’t come close to any body of water if they could help it. I had a close call in Kansas City and had no interest in repeating that mistake.

  My fake boyfriend said we’d be in Calamata within the hour. I was practically bouncing on my heels in excitement. I intended to stay at the railing until we saw it. Finally, I’d be able to find the thing that would help me regain control of my future. I was tired of running. I was tired of fighting. The end to my journey was so close that I could almost taste it.

  I barely noticed as the stream of raindrops increased in intensity.

  “Why don’t you go down below, sweetheart? You don’t want to catch a cold,” the man called out to me. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”

  “I’m fine,” I called back to him. Everything I’d done and worked for was practically in my grasp. Just a little bit more patience and it would all be worth it. Every hurt I’d caused. Every lie I’d told. Every drop of blood that I had spilled. Everything.

  It was because I refused to leave my post that I spied the dark shadow detach itself from the grey rain cloud in the sky. At first, I blinked several times thinking it was my imagination, but as the dot grew in size, I felt a shiver run down my spine. Moments later, I could make out further details of the winged creature headed in my direction.

  It was a gargoyle.

  They were the right-hand henchmen of only the highest-level demon officials because they were erratic and difficult to control. The creatures were exceedingly clever and took great latitude in how they went about following through with their orders. That was code for they enjoyed inflicting pain on their targets even more than the most vicious of their brethren. Unlike the rest of the demon population, they had no problems with crossing water. I realized that I hadn’t been as sneaky as I thought even as it became clear that whoever was after me was extremely high up in the demon pecking order.

  I had never seen a gargoyle in person. The fact that I saw one now was an extremely bad omen for me. Someone, or more appropriately something, had no intention of letting me reach Calamata Island.

  “Can we get more speed on this thing, Francis?” I yelled. I almost chuckled that this moment of panic brought about the completely irrelevant detail of my companion’s name into my mind.

  “We’re headed straight into a storm, and you want to go faster?”

  “Yes.” Lucky for him, Francis likely couldn’t see the gargoyle. Unless they wanted to be seen, they were visible only to their prey. That’s how I knew that it was there for me. I thought that I had been clever in keeping a low profile since escaping the demon bounty hunter in Kansas City, but obviously I had been wrong.

  I took a step backwards steeling my mind to keep my feet planted on the deck. I needed to think. I was on a boat in the Pacific Ocean miles off shore. I didn’t have anywhere to hide. I tried to remember my research on gargoyles. Information on defending against them was thin, mostly because people who saw gargoyles simply didn’t live to tell the tale. If the gargoyles didn’t dispose of them, their handlers did.

  Pulling a knife from the back of my waistband, I allowed my feet to move backwards until I felt the forward wall of the boat’s cabin behind me. I had no choice but to fight, and I was woefully underprepared. The knife in my hand had proved effective against regular demons, but those were the ones infesting human bodies. A gargoyle didn’t hide its true form because it was at full strength in its natural state. Plus seeing them sparked fear, which was one thing that gargoyles fed on with their victims.

  I lifted the knife from the collections cabinet in the nun’s office. Her general reluctance to help me, when that’s what she was supposed to do, further served to amplify my distrust of humans in general. At least with demons, what you see is what you get. With humans, the lines between good and evil are frequently blurred.

  She had told me that the knife was a relic from the early thirteenth century. It was imbued with a lethal toxin that caused a demon to release its grasp on its human host and sent it back to the underworld. Unfortunately for the host, it was also lethal for them. That was the reason that the good sister thought it better to keep the knife locked up as a curious artifact rather than allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

  It had come in handy as I crossed the country making my way slowly but surely to Calamata Island. I heard rumors that the island was supposed to be a demon-free zone. It was a double bonus for me then. It had the benefit of being the hiding place of the artifact that I needed and a place where I might be able to take a breather. I’d been running from demons since I was fourteen. By all accounts, I should have been dead, yet here I was. Still alive and still kicking.

  As I watched the gargoyle approach though, I had a feeling that what little luck I had been able to muster up had finally run out. It was only forty yards or so away when I saw it open its mouth and heard its shriek of anticipation that caused me to whimper despite my bravado. I swept my arm up so that the knife was in front of me. I wasn’t going to let it see how terrified I was.

  “What the hell is that?”

  For a moment, I felt a swell of relief. I thought that I had been wrong. If Francis could see the gargoyle, I might not be the target after all. Then the shrewd voice of logic invaded my mind.

  It is allowing Francis to see it because Francis is going to die too.

  I probably should have felt bad about the fact that it was my fault that Francis was about to exit the world in one of the worst ways imaginable, but I didn’t. There was no time for guilt. In my war of self-preservation, there were always casualties.<
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  The gargoyle landed on the top rung of the railing and drew its wings down so that it perched there not unlike a bird on a limb. My heart raced as I saw its glowing red eyes move up and down my still form. As it snorted, a puff of white air erupted from its nostrils. Its grey mottled skin was wrinkled all over its powerful chest and limbs. As it turned its face to the side to look out at the water off the port side, I saw the wickedly sharp horn that grew out of its nose. I had no doubt that horn could slice a hole straight through me.

  Still, I kept the knife up in the air between us. I heard the stomping of feet behind me and then Francis appeared at my side, but I didn’t look at him. I didn’t dare look away from the monstrosity in front of me.

  “I expect the other fifty percent of my payment will be in my bank account within the hour,” Francis said flatly.

  My mouth fell open, and I swung my head toward him. The laid back, friendly demeanor that I had come to expect from him had disappeared. Instead, he looked down at me with distaste.

  “What are you talking about?” I don’t know why I even bothered to ask the question. It was obvious. I had been set-up, and I had played right into one of the demon official’s hands.

  “It was fun while it lasted, doll. But I’ve got bills to pay.” He looked back at the gargoyle. “She’s all yours.”

  The flutter of wings was the only warning I had before the gargoyle swept over me. One claw wrapped around my wrist and squeezed. My hand popped open, and the knife dropped to the deck. I stared into its swirling red eyes, and then everything went dark.

  CHAPTER TWELVE – RILEY

  Paige’s soft cries woke me from an uneasy slumber. I bolted to her side and shook her gently. I was already wiping the tear streaks off her cheeks when her eyes opened, and she stared at me as if she didn’t see me at all.