His Soul To Keep (Dark Knights of Heaven Book 1) (22 page)

Chapter Forty

Lucifer bolted upright in bed, dislodging the two succubae curled around his body. One hit the floor with a hiss, but he ignored her. Throwing back the silk sheets, he stormed to his scrying glass hanging on the opposite wall.

Something was wrong—he felt it in his bones like the vibration of an impending earthquake.

To his surprise, the rippling liquid glass remained jet-black. An indication that the surge in energy had not occurred in the underworld or at any of the points he was connected to on Earth.

Which could only mean one thing.

"Damn it!" He brought a fist down on the small table in front of him, shattering it into splinters.

Unwilling to be the next target of his frustration and anger, the succubae ran from his quarters, not even bothering to gather their robes.

Lucifer paid them no notice until the door slammed shut in their wake.

Good riddance
.
They weren’t very imaginative for sex demons,
he mused sourly.

Logically, he knew he shouldn’t have wasted the time on them; there were more important things needing his attention. Although at the time he’d called the female demons to his quarters, he’d needed the distraction, however momentary, to clear is head.

His attempt to capture one of his enemies via a blood spell had failed miserably, leaving him exhausted and simmering with frustration. He had been so close, and then his prey was ripped from his grasp. Either there had not been enough blood on the sword to power the spell, or the twice-damned Knights had a greater anchor in the human world than he anticipated.

Damn them all.

To further emphasize his failure, the buzz in the back of his head was a near duplicate of the disturbance that caused the Knights to think he’d attacked them in their home.

Grumbling, he wandered around his quarters. Before he realized it, his path brought him to his library. He needed to find the prophecy. Resigned to his plight, he plunged back into his search.

He couldn’t decide which pissed him off more, the fact that the Seer wouldn’t tell him what she had written or that he couldn’t remember what he read all those ages ago. He remembered everything, yet this eluded him.

Maybe it was one of those
Universal Rules
the Seer had mentioned—a barrier to keep him from knowing exactly what to do to change things in his favor.

Another growl rumbled in his chest. His skin rippled on the verge of transformation. Lucifer took a deep breath to calm his anger. His nostrils filled with the scents of sex and blood. An idea struck him.

He took another deep breath, hoping to catch a remnant of the Seer's scent from among the relics he’d so carelessly tossed about during his search.

Nothing but the ambient smell of sex, sulfur, death, and decaying flesh mixed with urine and vomit greeted him. Then, a whiff as soft and warm as a summer breeze tinged with fresh apples caught his attention. Just a hint, like a teasing kiss, but it was there and close. A remembrance of Heaven.

He would wait to summon the Seer until after he’d gone through every last bit of paper, papyrus, clay, skin, and whatever else was in the library. He would find the prophecy and make the Seer eat her own words. Rules be damned.

Chapter Forty-One

Without a care for who might be watching, Cassidy sang along with her iPod as she set up her laptops. She had more energy today than she could contain—despite several rounds of glorious wakeup sex.

To add a cherry to her happiness sundae, she had a job. Such as it was. She was a grinning fool and didn’t care who knew it. While she appreciated all Rail had gone through to get her access to the computer lab and steal her files from her old employer, she was thrilled to have her own equipment again. There was something comforting in it.

Something normal.

Hacker's upbeat mood indicated he was thrilled too.

Cassidy gave a mental shrug. Maybe she had threatened irreparable harm to his "babies" one too many times.

"Need any help?" he called from across the room where he sat behind a bank of flat screens.

"Nope." Cassidy plugged in the last cord and hit the power button. Both laptops hummed to life. Just the idea of being able to get back to work made her hum too.

She had no doubts in her current endeavor—she was going to find the other
Aktura
and the missing Knights, but now she had a new project in mind.

Cassidy decided to face the daunting task of cross-referencing years of uncatalogued information with determination. The result would be a way to predict demon attacks, not just determine if an attack had already occurred. Somewhere in her files, she had an algorithm she’d borrowed from a co-worker last year, which forecasted potential hazards. She couldn’t wait to tweak it and bend it to her will. Instead of pointing to possible political upheavals due to economic and trade changes, it would point to activity signaling potential demon attacks.

Save lives.

The possibility made her a bit giddy.

Lost in thought, Cassidy jumped like a frog on a hot stone when Hacker tapped her on the shoulder.

"Guess you weren’t listening to me." He laughed.

Cassidy popped her earbuds out. "No. Sorry. I was thinking."

"I asked if you wanted me to network your computers to our system."

"That would be great!" She clapped her hands, full of barely-contained excitement. "Your servers will give my poor little laptops a memory boost." She sobered quickly. "What about Kaz?"

"The way I see it, he already gave you access to our system, so don’t worry about it. Besides, you need access to all the stuff you already did, right?"

"True. Oh, wait. I was working on Rail's laptop too." She covered her mouth with both hands. "Whoops. I wasn’t supposed to tell."

"I promise not to tell. Anything else I should to know?" He crossed his arms over his chest and attempted to appear stern.

"I don’t think so," she answered innocently. "Does Rail sync his laptop to the system?"

"I don’t think so," Hacker stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, "but then, Rail is as much as a tech head as I am. He could be storing the stuff on the server and I’d never know without looking."

Cassidy blew out a long breath. "Well, we’ll need to do that or at least copy the files regarding the searches he’s been working on. I want to have access to them without bouncing back and forth between computers."

"Searches for what?"

"The searches he was doing to find your brothers and sisters." Cassidy gave him a
"
Duh
"
look.

"I thought he gave up on that." The Fallen Angel shrugged. "If you get him to bring me his laptop, I’ll copy over whatever you want."

"Oh I know where it is. I’ll go get—"

Hacker shook his head. "I am not getting my head chopped off for messing with his gear without him giving me permission. He may have private stuff on there, you know."

"
Please.
I’ve been using his laptop for a while. I’d know if he had porn on there." Cassidy scoffed. "Besides, what does he need with that now that he has me?" She winked. Hacker walked away with a "don’t go there"
look on his face.

"That’s not what I was suggesting," Hacker answered with a knowing grin.

"Sure, sure. But if you happen to find any porn on there while you’re working, don’t tell me. Of course, you could always delete it…" Replacing her earbuds, Cassidy turned back to the computers, laughing at Hacker’s mock look of horror at her request.

Chapter Forty-Two

"No." Rail walked away, leaving Cassidy fuming in the foyer.

"What’s the big deal? You just tell Hacker which files to copy. Hell, I’ll do it under his watch, and then you won’t have to worry about him doing anything you don’t want him to." Exasperated, she followed Rail into the courtyard. "Hello! Ignoring me is so childish."

"I thought you already went through my files," he grumbled.

"I did. The ones you hadn’t locked, anyway. But it would be so much easier to access the information if it were all together on the server." She handed Rail a printout she’d prepared for Kaz, explaining how she planned to predict demon attacks, allowing the Knights to prevent them.

"You really think you can do that?"

Relieved he was listening, Cassidy relaxed. "I don’t know, but I’m going to try."

"Fine." Rail huffed and abruptly stopped, catching Cassidy in his arms when she ran into him. "I’ll copy what you need from my computer to a flash drive."

"Thank you. That will work." She kissed his chin. "Will you tell me why you won’t let Hacker on your laptop or what those locked files are?"

"Hacker will try and hack the protected files. He won’t be able to resist the challenge."

Feigning outrage, Cassidy gasped and slapped him playfully on the chest. "You
do
have porn on there!"

"No, I don’t," Rail backpedaled, hands up to fend her off.

"I believe you," Cassidy laughed a little, "but you can’t blame me for being curious."

"They’re private journals. Stuff I’m not ready to share yet." He closed his eyes and ran both hands over his hair. "One day, I promise I’ll show you, but not yet. I’m not ready." Tipping her chin up, Rail kissed the corner of her mouth softly. "Do you trust me?"

"I suppose I’ll have to," she teased, following it with a kiss.

"Thank you."

"Question." Cassidy tilted her head to the side. "If you helped Hacker write the program to search for the animal attacks, why didn’t you add your other search stuff to the main system at the same time?"

Obviously frustrated, Rail snapped, "I told you. No one else cared about it so I decided I didn’t want to put it out there."

Cassidy stepped back, giving him a dismissive wave. "I heard you. I’m sure the whole island heard you. I just don’t understand why you didn’t push the issue. You don’t seem like the kind of person to back down from a challenge."

"I didn’t back down," Rail groused. "I just know when to pick my battles."

"Fine. Whatever." Cassidy put her hands in the air, surrendering the point. "But things have changed. For one, I’m here now and working on this. And you can now think about and discuss finding the other soul-keepers as well as the Knights. Lastly, well, we’ve been compromised. Lucifer had a spy here. We have to presume he knows about the prophecy and what we’ve become."

Rail spun away from her. "So what? He can’t get to us here. He can’t follow us when we leave. Without his spy he doesn’t know where we’re going. And he can’t keep up with us because we never stay in any one place for more than a couple days."

"But he can set traps. He can make more
skratars
or send other demons to track you down. Then, bam!" She slapped her hands together for emphasis. "He has you where
he
wants you."

"So? He can’t permanently kill us."

"Maybe not, but he can keep you trapped. Did you think about that? Not only would we be without protection, but he’d probably do terrible things to you." A quaver crept into her voice. "I don’t think I could stay here if that happened to you."

Rail melted in the face of her fear. "You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing, sweetheart. That’s not going to happen."

"You’re the one who’s worked up! We’re supposed to be a team, a partnership, but you’re hiding things from me."

"I am not—"

"Yes you are. It’s more than the computer files. I can tell something else is bothering you. Spill it." When he turned to face her anger, Cassidy stared him down, unyielding.

"Cassie—"

"Don’t
Cassie
me!" She clenched her hands at her side. "I am not a child. I’m…" Her voice softened as she let out a breath and relaxed her hands. "I’m part of you. Whatever you think you need to hide from me, you don’t."

"I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m just not ready yet." His voice was no more than a whisper.

In that moment, Cassidy saw the pain and loneliness Rail had suffered, compounded over thousands of years of existence. Outcast from Heaven, separate from humanity, an immortal lost in a sea of short lives. There was no question he cared for her, but there was something holding him back—fear. In her parent’s garage, Rail told her he’d vowed to never care again, yet he’d thrown himself into this relationship headfirst. He’d told her he loved her. So, where was the fear coming from?

Cassidy kicked herself for not noticing it before. Rail was afraid of losing her. Not because of the soul bond, but because he truly loved her deeply. It scared him too.

Reining in her emotions, Cassidy took in the exotic floral scents and hum of nearby bees mixed with birdsong. It made sense why Kaz chose the location to build the Knight’s base. There was so much life; the island hummed with energy.

"I’m sorry." She pulled him into a hug. "I guess I’m picking up on your temper." She tried to keep her laugh natural, but it came out forced.

"Is this normal?" Rail breathed into her hair.

"What?"

"Arguing about nothing. I don’t even know why I got so mad."

Cassidy leaned back to look up at him. "It’s not nothing. Anything that concerns us is
something
." She sighed. "And yes, it’s normal."

"I don’t like arguing with you. It hurts." Absentmindedly, Rail slipped a hand between them and rubbed the center of his chest.

"Couples argue. It should hurt you, somewhat." She shrugged. "That’s part of being in love. Don’t worry. If you really hurt me, I mean really hurt me, I’ll let you know." Cassidy tapped his nose. "And if that happens, I will expect great amounts of groveling and heaps of gifts in apology."

"Don’t even joke about that, Cassidy." Wrapping an arm around her waist, Rail pulled her closer. "If I hurt you that much—"

"Oh, I’m not joking." She swept her hands across his chest to rest them on his biceps. "Okay, yes, I’d prefer we didn’t fight, ever, but that’s unrealistic. So, if we fight, it better be over something
real,
not silly, or we really will have a fight." She patted his cheek lovingly, smiling when he leaned into her touch.

Rail caught her hand and brought it his lips. "Define real and silly."

"Real would be something like my involvement in the war with the demons. Silly? Well, if we had a normal life, I’d say whose responsibility it was to take out the trash or empty the dishwasher." She tapped her chin with her free hand. "But in this case, I’d say your obsession with wearing black."

He laughed. "That would be a silly reason to start a fight."

"But couples do fight about silly things, including clothing choices, especially when moving in together." She gave him a quick kiss. "That’s caused many a fight by itself."

"Are you worried I won’t like you moving in to my quarters?"

"No. I’m not worried about that. Everything will be fine after I knock down the adjoining wall and start redecorating…" Cassidy doubled over in laughter at Rail's panicked expression "I’m kidding!"

Rail relaxed and wrapped his arms around her. "You’re evil."

"You’re easy," Cassidy whispered seductively. She ran her fingers through his hair, enjoying the warmth of the silky strands against her skin and the way it curled ever so slightly where the ends brushed his shoulders. "See? We worked everything out. No more arguing."

"Do you remember what we were arguing about?" he asked, slipping the neck of her shirt to the side before nipping her collarbone.

"Oh, something about you being stubborn and secretive, but I forgive you." With a quick smile and flip of her hair, Cassidy swung out of his arms and sauntered back to the villa, confident there would be no more fights about the computers.

* * *

Confused, but feeling better, Rail shook his head and ran his hands through his hair.

Cassidy’s joking attitude was a front—their bond told him the truth. There had been a moment when he’d felt her reach out to him in a way he never thought possible. Somehow, Cassidy "hugged" his soul. It shocked Rail to discover they were bonded so tightly. Such a thing being possible staggered him.

Oh,
logically
he’d known their connection had deepened since Cassidy’s death and resurrection, but to actually feel it scared him shitless.

Sooner or later, she would break down the last of his barriers. She would shine the light of her love into all of his dark corners. Rail wasn’t sure he’d be able to face her when that time came. He’d been ignoring those dark places for so long, the thought of letting those memories out, having to admit the things he’d done in the past, left him feeling cold.

What would she think about the ramblings and confessions in his journals? Over the past dozen years or so, he’d laid out his darkest fears on his laptop. Would she think he was weak?

He gave himself a mental slap. There was no sense in worrying about it now. What would be, would be. For now, he’d ignore the worries and “what ifs” and focus on Cassidy’s needs and dreams—focus on their future.

Her project would save them all. And damn it, it was about time he forced the rest of the Knights to recognize what the program would do for them.

* * *

Cassidy ignored the cold lump in her stomach as she walked away from Rail, leaving him to face his secret concerns on his own. She hadn’t meant to press his buttons and then make light of the situation. She’d meant to distract him. Rail's emotional pain pulsed through their bond. Like most men, he couldn’t express what he was feeling or why. She let a tired sigh escape. Eventually, they’d have to address what he was hiding in those journals—what he was hiding from his past. She just had to give him time.

A cold darkness settled over their bond and the waves of pain abruptly stopped.

Rail was blocking her.

Turning her thoughts inward even further, Cassidy followed the shimmering threads connecting her to Rail. They skirted around a dark place in his soul she suspected was where his demon half-slept and ended at what she thought of as his heart.

His heart was full of quiet fear. Fear she was going to die—permanently—in seventy years or so of old age, leaving Rail alone and freeing his soul to move on to another person.

With a hand on the computer lab door, Cassidy froze. She hadn’t considered that before. What kind of affect would her death have, not just on Rail, but on the new soul-keeper? Would the experiences she and Rail shared transfer to this person? Would they grow up with a hunger for knowledge they didn’t understand? Maybe an obsession for Biblical history?

It was too much to take in. The very idea that she could somehow stain an innocent and yet unborn soul made her sick.

"You okay?"

Rail's velvety voice caressed her. His hands slipped around her waist, coming to rest on her abdomen.

Cassidy jumped, so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t realized he’d followed her.

"Sure," she lied, hoping Rail wouldn’t pick up on her tangled emotions. "I was just considering asking Margarite to help me with the data entry."

"Why Margarite? I would think you would want Seraphina to help. She’s better educated and seems to have a greater grasp of the situation."

Cassidy blew a loose strand of hair from her eyes before turning to face Rail. "Exactly. Seraphina is doing a phenomenal job in the library; even though it’s taking her hours to translate each passage using the Internet, and she has no real idea what she’s reading. I don’t want to pull her off of that. She’s actually enjoying herself. Besides, well, Gina barely has a seventh grade reading level, and Margarite needs something worthwhile to do."

"Are you saying neither one is helping search for the prophecy?" There was a touch of accusation in his voice.

Cassidy bristled. "I didn’t say that," she snapped, pinning him with her gaze. "Gina helps where she can, bringing food and drinks, helping us organize things. She can read some and follow directions, just not do the heavy research. And Margarite, well, she’s still not comfortable with her looks. Sitting in that room with everyone, wondering if they’re staring, is hard on her."

Rail softened. The realization he’d been a jerk flashed across his face. "She told you this?"

"Not in so many words, but yes. Did you know she’d been an aspiring model? Her looks were the focus of her whole life." Cassidy looped her arms around his neck. "I want to show her that she has more to offer. She’s smarter than she gives herself credit for."

"I’ll talk to Kaz—"

"No. Have Tam do it."

An eyebrow arched in confusion. "Why Tam?"