Protect Her: Part 5 Page 8

  “Okay,” Klein said. “But then, in any other scenario, you’d have dumped that woman off at the closest hospital with some half-assed warning about keeping a look out for trouble. Let’s also remember that the woman you found was the woman you were hired to find when you went to the island in the first place. You’d have called your client on the way to the hospital and told them that if the Typhon came back that it was their problem. You’d have collected your cash and been on your way.” He looked pointedly at Paige. “It seems as if you went way off script with this one. Why?”

  I leaned back against the couch and ran a hand through my hair. My eyes made their way back to Paige. I knew how difficult it was for her to sleep, and yet at that moment she appeared to be sleeping as soundly as an infant. The frown lines that seemed to have become a permanent fixture on her forehead were smoothed away. Her chest rose and fell in a peaceful rhythm. My heart constricted in my chest. I cleared my throat. “I did what I felt was right. Something changed after I found her. I wasn’t just thinking about getting laid or fattening my bank account. The situation seemed bigger than me, and I wanted to help.”

  “That’s beautiful, man.”

  I rose up in my seat with my fists clenched.

  “Hey, hey, I’m on your side,” Klein said, holding up his hands as he laughed quietly. “It’s kind of nice to know you have a heart after all.”

  “I saved your ass, didn’t I?”

  “Occasionally, you do have your softer moments. In my case, my ass was more valuable alive than dead, and you have been the benefactor of that all this time,” Klein said with a grin. He held up the photograph that he took from me earlier. “I’m going to take this out to the van and run it through a program I wrote a few months back. It’ll compare the images against all known museum artifacts on record. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find it or another item like it that shows us the full story.”

  “That’s a good idea,” I said. I pointed at the stack of files at his feet. “I appreciate that Fernando had the foresight to keep such a detailed account of his search. I’ll keep going through this stuff and see if I can come up with anything.”

  Klein got to his feet and stretched. “If there’s anybody around that would be willing to brew up a pot of coffee that would be awesome. Oh, and something sweet. Like a piece of cake.” Klein had a gigantic sweet tooth. I had no idea how he managed to eat the piles of sweets that I saw him consume on a daily basis and still manage to be nothing much more than a living bean pole.

  “This isn’t Dunkin’ Donuts, Klein,” I said sarcastically.

  “Exactly,” Klein said, patting his stomach. “This is the kind of place where everything is homemade, fresh, and served straight from the oven. Even better.”

  I ignored him as he made his way out of the room. I heard the screen door open and close as he exited the house. I leaned over and pulled the stack of files toward me. I started flipping through them, but I couldn’t find anything that shed any light on what happened to the Protector. I was more certain than ever that the man died all those years ago.

  What I hadn’t verbalized yet though was if he was dead, that opened up a brand new angle of investigation. I was a Necromancer after all. If I knew where his final resting place was then I could call him forward and find out what he knew, and he’d have to tell me. Specifically, I’d ask him what he knew about the compass that Proctor was trying to find.

  Half an hour later, with the rising moon framed in the windows behind Paige’s chair, my eyes felt gritty and were starting to blur. “I’m getting too old for this shit,” I said out loud. The idea of coffee started sounding pretty good, and I remembered that I had seen a coffee maker in the kitchen earlier.

  I stood up and carefully made my way out of the room not wanting to disturb Paige’s slumber. The floor creaked several times as I walked to the kitchen, and I winced at each one. The kitchen was empty when I arrived. I flipped on the light so that I could see better. I thought it was odd that earlier the same room had been filled to the brim with bodies, and now there was no one but me. I spied the coffee pot on the counter by the sink, and I crossed the large space. I pulled the coffee pot forward on the counter and then opened the cabinet above it looking for the coffee and filters. Not seeing anything there, I moved to open the cabinet on the other side of the sink.

  As my eyes crossed the window, I realized that as the night firmly took hold outside there was something strange. I knew that there were at least half a dozen houses on this side of the main house, but I couldn’t see any of them because there were no lights on anywhere.

  “Odd,” I said with a frown. At dinner earlier, I counted at least a hundred people interspersed among the picnic tables on the lawn. That there would be no one up now seemed highly unlikely. It wasn’t that late.

  I walked to the back door and looked down the path that I knew led to more of the community’s houses. It was the same story. There was nothing but deep blackness further down the way.

  Opening the door, I stepped out on the back porch. Taking the steps two at a time, I was down on the lawn in seconds, and I cocked my ear up into the air. Everything was still. Something was definitely wrong. I had weapons in the van, and my feet automatically took me in that direction around the house toward the driveway. As I rounded the corner of the house, I saw a lump of clothing laying several feet away from the van.

  “Klein!” I broke into a sprint toward the still form. I scanned right and left, but didn’t see any other outward signs of danger. I skidded to my knees as I reached him. “Klein, can you hear me?” I pulled him up and heard his labored breathing. He was alive.

  In the dim light from the front porch light, I lifted my fingers up and saw the stain of blood on them. My hands ran over his head, and I found the lump on the back of his skull almost immediately. It was the size of a goose egg. Someone had ambushed him on his way to the van, but that had been almost an hour ago.

  “Klein, can you hear me? Who did this to you?”

  Klein’s breath turned wheezy, and then I heard a sharp hitch. His face scrunched up as he came back to consciousness. “Fuckin’ A. My head hurts.”

  “Who did this?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know. I was on my way to the van. Now I’m waking up with the worst headache in the world. That’s all I remember.”

  Then I heard a distant sound that sent chills down my spine. Paige was screaming.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN – PAIGE

  When I opened my eyes, for a moment I thought that I was still asleep and in my dreams. I felt the heat of a fire near my body. All I could hear was a low, hushed chanting. But I wasn’t ensconced in a cushioned chair. I was laying on the hard, cold ground.

  “It’s okay, Paige. In a few moments, everything is going to look so much better.” Abigail’s face came into view above me.

  Panic set in, and I reached for the magic that I knew was there. If being held by Bruno Proctor taught me anything, it was that fear for my life brought about my ability to access Eva’s magic.

  Abigail put her hand on my chest over the pendant. “There’s nothing to get so excited about, Paige. Everything is fine. You are among friends, remember?”

  Suddenly, I didn’t know why I had been so afraid. Abigail was right. I was safe and among friends. “I must have been having a nightmare,” I said.

  Abigail smiled. “It happens. Here, let me help you sit up.” She took my elbow as I slowly bent forward into a sitting position. Now that I could see more of the view around me, the fire that I had felt but couldn’t see before was burning about ten feet off to my left. But it wasn’t the fire that caught my attention. It was the circle of people that I saw standing around me. I felt the sharp tendril of fear strike in my mind again.

  “They’re all here to see you,” Abigail said as if she was reading my mind. “I’ve told them all about you for so long. They are so happy you are finally here. It is easy when you are human to become impatient, but now the time has finally come for you
to take your rightful place. “

  “What are you talking about?” My head felt as if it were stuffed with cotton. “I told you that I’m not going to accept Eva.”

  “I know, dear, but we’ll talk about that some more now. I was hoping that we’d have time for you to come to that conclusion all on your own, but I’m afraid that too many of those that I promised to care for are at risk now. We’ve run out of time.”

  Abigail helped me to my feet, but she didn’t let go of my elbow. I thought that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I was dizzy, and I thought there was a good chance that I would fall down without her support. “I don’t understand.”

  “All of this time, you’ve thought it was me and those that were like me who were your enemies. That simply isn’t true. We wanted the same thing that everyone wants. A home. A simple life. A chance for peace. There is someone out there who threatens all of that, and that person is systematically trying to wipe out all of us. We can’t let that happen, Paige. You have the power to turn the tides for us. You can find the one responsible and make sure this stops, and they face the punishment they deserve.”

  “That’s not what I do,” I said, shaking my head. My thoughts were spinning as I tried to understand what was happening.

  “That’s why you have to accept Eva into your body and your soul.” Abigail’s tone had turned to one of pleading. “Eva is the one who holds the key to our salvation. She can save us all.”

  “No,” I said stubbornly. “I won’t.”

  I heard a child crying then. My eyes blurred and then refocused on the source of the sound. I found Eleanor facing me in the front row just on the other side of the circle. She had tears streaming down her face. A wall of guilt slammed into me even as Abigail touched my pendant again.

  “Paige, you aren’t listening to me. Our numbers have already dwindled to a dangerous low. That’s why I had to make a choice that brings me great pain. I hope that once Eva returns, she can remedy it, because if she can’t it will haunt me forever.”

  I started to ask her what she meant when I saw that the darkness above our heads shimmered as if it were alive. “What the?”

  “It is time.” Abigail waved her hand in the air.

  It was as if all the sound around me snuffed out into nothingness. My eyes locked on Eleanor’s, and I saw the inky black shape above her head merge with her body. Her eyes closed, and when they sprung open, they shone a ruby shade of red.

  “Demons,” I hissed. “You’ve given the humans here over to the demons for possession. They trusted you.”

  “These are demons loyal to Eva,” Abigail said. Her voice was sad. “I was left to lead all of those loyal to her, not just the humans. Possession of a human vessel seems to slow the spread of the disease. Fernando and I can only hope that Eva can tell us the cure. You must accept her.”

  My emotions waffled between being completely fine with the idea to panic as I realized the precariousness of my position. I was in the center of a summoning circle surrounded by a posse of demons. My mind wiggled again toward trying to reach for any shred of magic.

  “Where is Riley?” I asked.

  “You can imagine my surprise when I realized that the Protector had already found you,” Abigail said. “He doesn’t remember his true purpose yet. It is just a matter of time. He will ensure that you succeed where previously Eva failed. It is a great blessing to have been chosen. Now, accept your destiny.”

  Fernando stepped into the circle, and I started to backpedal, but he slit his hand even as he moved toward me, and Abigail held me still. She was much stronger than she looked. “Fernando’s magic has returned. He is older than I am, so he will do what must be done.”

  “It doesn’t work if it’s not real!” I cried out.

  “What makes you think it won’t be real?” Abigail whispered ominously.

  Fernando’s hand slammed against my chest, and my back arched as I felt the force of his will take over mine.

  “Accept your destiny as the vessel,” he demanded. “Submit.”

  I didn’t even try to stop the scream that escaped my lips. It felt as if a torch of fire ran through my body, and it decimated every ounce of resistance that I felt. As soon as I could feel my wits returning, I straightened once again. Now Fernando moved to my side. That was when I saw her.

  At first, it was nothing more than a suggestion of a female form shimmering in a cloudy vapor of air in front of me. Part of my brain rebelled against what I was seeing, but the other part felt as if a great weight was finally being lifted off my shoulders. As her form solidified into a translucent image, I knew that I knew her as if I knew myself.

  Eva was here standing in front me.

  Her hair was a raven’s black and fell in waves down her back. She was shorter than I was but held her back ramrod straight as if she were a queen. I guessed that royalty wasn’t that far removed from being a deity. All around me, the demon possessed humans fell to their knees. Beside me, Fernando and Abigail bowed low. I was the only one left standing.

  After all of this time, I felt curiosity bubbling in my chest. This was the person I had been running from all this time. I felt like she regarded me with equal curiosity. I wondered what she might be thinking about what she saw in front of her.

  I was a twenty-two-year-old hitchhiking con artist with a passion for floral arrangements. I watched my father die in front of me. I had used my body as leverage to get men to buy me things that I needed to survive. More than once, I had killed someone to keep my location secret from those who sought me out. I had nearly died three years ago, and then magic, her magic, saved me.

  I wasn’t worthy to be a vessel for a Goddess. I barely thought that I was worthy of being alive at all. That was my truth. So when she brought her hand up to broach the distance between us, I felt my feet propel me forward.

  A gentle smile crossed her face. It was as if she was telling me that everything would be okay, and I believed her. I don’t know why I thought for a moment that this merge would be a bad thing. It was the end to my suffering and loss. It was the end to everyone’s suffering and loss. I had been selfish to put my own needs above the needs of our species.

  “Paige! You need to stop!”

  I knew that voice. I swung my face to the side, and I saw a man standing there. I knew him, but it took me a moment to place his name. Riley. Riley Stone.

  “It’s okay, Riley. I know what I’m doing.” Was that my voice? The high-pitched singsong lilt was strangely off-putting.

  “Keep him outside of the circle!” I heard Fernando’s voice cut through the fuzziness of my mind. The image in front of me wavered. “Paige, you must connect with Eva now. Invite her into you. Accept her.”

  “Paige, don’t listen to him. You need to listen to me. This isn’t what you want. I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but you don’t want this. You want to be your own person. You want your own life. You need to stay away from her.”

  My eyes were drawn back to his. They were such a lovely shade of green. “Trust me, Riley.”

  “Demon mitto vos de quo egressus es!” Riley shouted. “Demon, I send you back from whence you came!” my brain translated. I had no idea that I knew Latin, but apparently I did. I heard Fernando’s roar and then Abigail’s cry.

  I looked back over my shoulder. Abigail was tearing at the ground where Fernando had just stood. She whipped around and glared at Riley. “You took him away from me!”

  “You broke our bargain. Not me,” Riley said. “You said full disclosure, and I’m pretty sure not telling me that you had every intention of making Paige accept the Goddess the first chance you got counts as going against that. I wouldn’t have been able to reverse the conjuring spell if you hadn’t broken your end of the bargain.”

  All of this confusion was starting to make me feel unsettled. That’s when I saw Eva had focused on someone else as well. She was staring at Riley. I saw her mouth moving, but I heard nothing.

  Riley’s eyes closed though,
and his head jerked to the side. When his eyes opened again, I saw a glow of red that was gone before I almost even registered it. Then he burst through the crowd and crossed into the circle.

  A small scream filled my ears. Riley yanked the pendant off my neck, and suddenly everything that had been dulled with my emotions spun back into sharp focus.

  It all happened at once.

  “NO!” I yelled as I stepped back from Eva’s outstretched hand.

  I felt a hard shove behind me that immediately changed the course of my body’s direction propelling me forward toward Eva’s waiting arms. At the last moment, Riley’s hands gripped my arm and yanked me into his chest.

  Another shriek filled my mind, and then Eva’s image rippled and was gone.

  Riley swept me up into his arms. “You will stay back,” he called out grimly as he spun his body around. As my arm curled around his back, I felt something. My fingers dug into his shoulder blades. Something called to me there. That’s when my body began to glow.

  “Paige?”

  “It’s all right,” I said. My voice was hoarse. “They can’t hurt us. I am connected to her magic. My magic. Whatever. I can feel it when I touch you.”

  “I hope that’s not all you feel.”

  “Get me out of here, Riley.”

  “Gladly,” he whispered. His long legs carried me up the hill away from the field. I could see now that Abigail had set up the summoning circle in the field far away from the house. I couldn’t stop myself from looking over Riley’s shoulder. Dozens of silent, white faces watched us, their red eyes glowing in the darkness. That sight would give me nightmares for weeks.

  Klein leaned against the van with a compress pressed against the back of his head. He stood up straight as he saw me and Riley approaching.

  “Light it up, Klein. We’re out of here.”