Protect Her: Part 11 (4 page)

“It’s been a week,” she said. She grimaced as she pulled out a larger piece of glass. I barely felt it.

A week. How could it have only been a week? “It feels like it’s been a lot longer than that.” My throat felt parched as if I had been screaming for a long time.

“I know the feeling,” Paige said. She looked into my eyes. “Riley, are you going to be okay?”

I put my hand over hers to stop it. I couldn’t help but tell her the truth. She deserved that much. “I don’t know.”

CHAPTER SIX –
PAIGE

His words were brutal. My dark angel was bloodied and broken in front of me, and I felt like weeping. The only thing I could do was focus on cleaning him up. I had a feeling that if I just left the wounds alone, they would heal on their own. But it gave me something to do.

I had been on death’s door yet again. However it had happened, I had gotten through to him. I cracked the black exterior around him and thankfully found him still inside. But I sensed from the moment he fell to his knees that we weren’t out of the woods yet. Not even close.

Looking back down at his knee, I saw a flicker of light beneath our hands. I pulled my hand away and gasped. There was unbroken, fresh skin beneath it. “Did you do that?” I asked.

Riley shook his head. “No, babe. I’m pretty sure that was all you.”

I stared at him. “It couldn’t have been me. I mean, I can’t do magic anymore. Not since…I came back.”

“I suspected this turn of events,” Viho’s voice boomed in the room. Klein appeared in the doorway and made quick work of the glass on the floor before Viho sat down in the seat that Alice had so recently vacated. I had been terrified that Riley was going to kill her. Thank God I was able to convince him not to.

“Where’s Alice?” Riley asked.

“I gave your mother some instructions that she is carrying out as we speak,” Viho said.

“In other words, you’re keeping her away from me,” Riley said with a frown.

“It would be better if we were all as far away from you as possible as you wrestle with your darkness,” Viho said. “But it is clear that Paige is your tether to this world and the sanity of your former self.”

I couldn’t help but smile at him triumphantly. “I told you I’d be able to bring him back.” It was juvenile, but I couldn’t help myself.

“You’ve found the man inside the monster, yes,” Viho said. “But Riley isn’t Riley alone anymore, are you?” The question was directed at Riley.

Riley grimaced before he put his hands on either side of his head and shook it. “I can feel something else slithering around inside of my head. It’s me, but it’s not. It’s increasingly difficult to shut it out, but I have done it for the time being at least.”

Alarmed, I turned back to Viho. “I healed him. You knew that I could still do that?”

“Magical power and energy takes many forms,” Viho said with a slow nod. “Once you are touched by it, it’s just a matter of understanding the ways it might manifest itself again. You are still sensitive to the beings that originate from the other side of the veil. You were touched by magical energy for your entire life. While it might not be the power of a goddess that you are left with, I would have been surprised to find you kept nothing from those experiences.”

“The power to heal,” I said in a wondering tone. I wrinkled my nose. “That was the first thing that Bruno made me do on my own when I started to learn how to consciously control my magic. I met a demon who told me that he couldn’t use his magic for healing, but I was able to do it.”

“That’s because the energy required for healing comes from the light,” Riley muttered. “That’s why I told you I couldn’t do it. If I would have given it time, though, my body would have healed itself.” He squinted at me. “You’re human.”

I shrugged. “I always was human, right? Now, I’m just plain ole vanilla human. Or, at least, I thought I was human before.”

“You said my spell brought you back. But you didn’t appear to me,” Riley said.

This was the part that I wasn’t thrilled about telling him. “I know. That’s because Benjamin intercepted my essence. He took me away and offered to take me to Heaven.”

Riley hissed, and I saw his face darken. I put my hand on his chest. “But he didn’t. When Eva died, I was made corporeal again. Benjamin didn’t know why. He brought me back to Slinky Pete’s, but by then it was too late. You were already gone.”

“Benjamin,” Riley muttered. “I have a bone to pick with that archangel.” It was clear that his thoughts had turned inward. I couldn’t let that happen, not as long as there was something else in his head that could turn him away from me again.

“You don’t want to start a war with the archangels,” I said. “You can all be on the same side.”

“We will never be on the same side,” Riley countered. “They think they are above the letter of what is right and wrong. They are mistaken.”

“It isn’t for us, any of us, to play the role of judge and jury for those other beings,” Viho said.

“Speak for yourself,” Riley said. “I have the power to take on a legion of angels.”

“With your legion of demons?” Viho asked.

It was a question that hung in the air between them. Riley’s face paled. “I’ve built an army of demons to do my biding.”

“We know,” I said gently. “We’ve been tracking you trying to find you.”

“You know, and you still can look at me like that?” Riley asked incredulously.

“You weren’t yourself,” I replied stubbornly. I got to my feet and put my hand on his shoulder. I looked at Viho and Klein. “We’re here because we want to help you get better.”

“But we can’t speak for the archangels,” Klein said.

Riley was on his feet in an instant; his wings spread out behind him as he growled. Klein backpedaled and even though my instinct was to do the same, I didn’t move. Riley was hurt and volatile, and to say that he was on edge would be an understatement.

“You need to keep your cool,” I said slowly. His eyes blazed as he glared at Klein. “Klein was just reminding me of something else I needed to tell you.” I wanted to kick Klein’s ass at that moment. We didn’t need to dive into all of this until we were sure that Riley was fully present with us.

“What else?” Riley asked tersely.

“Benjamin asked me to let him know when we found you,” I said rushing the words out. “It was a condition of letting me leave the other side of the veil with Viho and Klein. I agreed, but I know that we can work this out with him. No one wants a war here. No one.”

“You agreed to help the archangel against me?” The words were spoken in a voice closer to a growl.

“I did what was necessary to extract myself from a sticky situation.”

“You are fantastically good at that,” Riley said with a sneer.

I was losing him. The darkness was reeling him back in. I couldn’t let myself be hurt by his words. That’s what the darkness inside of him wanted. If it got rid of me, it could regain full control, and Riley would be lost forever. That was what he had told me earlier. He would be free. Riley didn’t want that, but the darkness inside of him did. I realized that no matter how much I trusted Riley, I was going to have to watch my back.

“We can’t have a war, Riley,” I said firmly. “All of the souls that you’ve conjured up for your army; you need to let them go. Let them find peace. The demons that you’ve put in human bodies. Send them back to Hell where they belong. Demonstrate your good faith so we have leverage when we talk to Benjamin.”

“That archangel is at the top of my shit list,” Riley said. He began to pace the room. Thankfully, his wings disappeared. He was calmer now.

“You don’t have to be BFFs,” Klein offered. He appeared to be trying to make himself part of the wall in the corner of the room. “That’s one person you don’t want as an enemy, though.”

“I don’t care if he’s an enemy or not. I don’t care if he’s in Heaven or here on earth squirrelled away on his island. I don’t care if he’s spent the last month taking in every lost puppy and kitten on the planet. He’s a menace who needs to be taken down about ten pegs,” Riley snarled.

“He’s been working with his brothers on a new plan for how they protect humans from now on,” I said. “The relic infected him just like it’s infected you. Now that he doesn’t have it in his possession to protect anymore, he’s able to think more clearly. He doesn’t want a confrontation that would result in a bloodshed. I don’t think you’d want that either.” I was just regurgitating what Benjamin had told me. I wasn’t sure if it was true. What I needed to hear was that Riley didn’t want any further bloodshed either. I had my doubts given what had gone on during the last week.

“No deal. No dice,” Riley said. He stared at me. “I won’t play nice with the person who made me into this, Paige. I am not going to forgive, and I certainly can’t fucking forget.”

“When the time comes, all I ask is that you talk to him. Calmly. Rationally.” I had to keep trying.

Alice appeared in the hallway. Her face was grim. “I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep them out. I checked the news. There’s a late breaking story about a massive disappearance of children in one of the outer ring suburbs.”

“They’re trying to break the consecration spell,” I said. That thought gave me pause. I looked at Riley. “How were you able to get in here?”

“I’m not evil incarnate, no matter what some people think,” Riley replied. He stood straighter. “A dark angel has qualities of both the darkness and the light. It is just a matter of which is more dominant at any given time.”

“When you swallowed Eva’s cursed life force from the relic, you swung that balance to the darkness,” Viho said as he stood. “You’re lucky that there’s anything left of you and the light inside of that body. I would have thought that the darkness would have snuffed all of that out by now.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Riley said as he frowned. “There are demons outside.”

“Yes,” I said with a vigorous nod. “I barely managed to get here without them taking me. You need to call them off.”

“I can’t,” Riley said slowly. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. “I commanded all of them to follow Proctor’s orders and not mine. Just in case something like this happened.”

“Yeah, about that. What the fuck?” Klein piped up from his corner. “You turned that guy to ash and banished him to the ether.”

I saw Riley’s face blank, and I wondered where he had gone. He shuddered. “There are a lot of things that I can’t remember.”

“Can’t or don’t want to?” This was Viho.

“Does it matter?” Riley growled.

“Alice, you need to round up any of the humans here and get them out of this place before it’s too late,” I said. “Are there any other exits other than the front and back door? The cemetery behind the church is infested with demons.”

She gave a quick nod. “There is a tunnel beneath the convent. It was built back during the Second World War. It will take us several blocks away.”

“Good,” I said. I looked at Viho. “You can go with her if you want.”

Viho gave Alice a sad smile. “My place has always been in the thick of the fight, as we well know.”

“What has been always will be,” Alice said. She and Viho embraced again. There was a sadness about it that I felt even from ten feet away. Loss. Grief. Regret. That wasn’t what I wanted for my life.

My attention returned to my dark angel. Here was the wild card. “So you can’t tell them to stand down. You are sure?”

“Bruno has orders. He can’t do anything but obey them,” Riley said.

“But you could just tell him that you don’t want to fight anymore,” I argued. “If you are in control of him, you can send him back to the ether.”

“I wish it was that easy,” Riley said. “I also told him that he wasn’t to listen to anything I said unless I returned to him with specific proof.”

“What proof was that?” I asked feeling a pit of dread growing in my stomach.

“Alice’s head,” he replied.

I was right. I didn’t want to know. Then I had an idea. I whipped around to Viho. “We need a demon head, and we need one fast. Preferably a female. Do you think you can get one without being too obvious about it?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Viho said with a short nod. He motioned to Klein. “You’re with me.” I could tell that Klein was less than thrilled, but he followed Viho out of the room.

“You’re going to use a glamour spell,” I said to Riley. “As long as it holds long enough for you to give Bruno the command, then we can avoid any more bloodshed.”

Riley looked at me doubtfully. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

I barked a mirthless laugh. “You can rip your mother’s heart out and threaten to take her head as proof, but you don’t think you can cast a simple glamour spell?”

“It’s not that,” Riley said. “I don’t know if I can face Proctor without him knowing that I’m not all…there anymore.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I said. “For now, let’s move. We’ll go to the church. That way if they break in, it’ll hopefully still give Alice and the others a chance to escape.”

I motioned for Riley to follow me, but his feet seemed frozen to the ground. “What is it?”

“I feel something,” Riley said. “There a shift in the air. I don’t know what it means, but it doesn’t feel right.”

“Shit,” I said. I had an idea of what it meant. The spell for consecrated ground would keep the demons out for the time being. But it wouldn’t keep the angels out. It practically was their house after all. I broke into a trot. Riley was on my heels before I was even in the hallway that connected the convent to the church. I felt the strangest sense of déjà vu. Riley and I had done this before. We had gone to battle in this same church, but now things were so different. Now Riley was the one who was conflicted and had lost his way. I was the one who was going to have to protect him from the ones who wanted to harm him.