SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) (2 page)

“But you were created.” Joanna stroked her cheek lightly. “Only God has the power to create. And he does not make abominations.”

Tears burned in the back of Dylan’s throat. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “All of this is too much. How could God have created me? Why? So that I could be caught in this tug of war?”

“So that you could make the choice that will end this war.”

“And if I make the wrong choice?”

Joanna stroked Dylan’s cheek again, the amusement gone from her eyes.

“Make sure you don’t.”

Despite everything Joanna did, she had been the first to reassure Dylan that she was a gift from God. Even Stiles had failed on that account. And it was something that Dylan had held close to her heart all these years despite her role in Joanna’s demise.

Stiles was glad that Joanna had been capable of that small gift because he could see now how important it was to Dylan.

Dylan continued down the short hallway that led to the two bedrooms at the back of the house. Stiles knew where she was going…she was going to the same room where Joanna had kept that mysterious box all those years ago. It must still be there, still hiding among Joanna’s things. It would make sense. This thing had powers even he didn’t completely understand. But it was clear that it had called out to Dylan, and it was possible it had something to do with the fact that this house looked as though Joanna had just stepped out moments ago instead of more than forty years ago.

Stiles stayed back, leaning against the wall at the entrance to the hallway as Dylan made her way toward the bedroom door. She glanced back at him, an uneasy look in her eyes. He nodded, encouraging her to continue. But then, as her hand brushed the doorknob, he felt a sudden uneasiness that forced him forward. He was behind Dylan before she even finished turning the knob, his hand on her hip to urge caution as the door swung inward.

The room was almost as it was in Dylan’s memories. The bed was still in the same place, the low dresser still near the windows. In fact, it looked much the same as it had the last time Stiles had seen it. The box itself sat on the dresser. It seemed to be vibrating, as though the item inside of it was getting ready to jump out. Dylan walked toward it as though it were calling to her.

“Dylan,” Stiles cautioned, that sense of uneasiness increasing the closer she got to it.

The moment her hand touched the top of the box, a dark form appeared behind her. A second later, Stiles’ sword was in his hand, but the blade went through the form as if it was nothing more than a whiff of smoke. It was a dark soul. The only weapon that had proven effective against them was a lasso Dylan had in her armory.

“Turn around.”

But Dylan was absorbed in the draw of the box. She ran her hand over the top of it like a lover caressing the face of her intended. She seemed oblivious to everything around her, as though just being near the box had transported her to another dimension.

The dark soul moved up behind her, little wisps of darkness reaching out to stroke the back of her neck, the curve of her shoulder. Stiles took another swing, hoping at the very least that his presence, that his movements would distract it from its intentions, whatever those might be. But it didn’t.

“Dylan, please turn around.”

As she ignored him a second time, desperation began to build inside of Stiles. He was not used to feeling helpless, especially when it came to Dylan. He charged toward her, planning to turn her physically away from that box, but the moment his hand came up against the dark soul, images filled his mind and he knew almost instantly what was happening. And that only made his sense of desperation rise to absolute terror.

Power. That was what Dylan felt the moment her fingers touched the countertop in the kitchen. She was drawn to it, like a cat to a dish of milk. She needed to be close to it, needed to touch it. It was for her that it existed. She wasn’t sure why she knew that, but she did. She knew it just as she knew she needed to breathe to live.

The box was beautiful: a small, wooden box with delicate designs along the top and sides. But she barely saw the physical box itself. There was something inside, something that glowed with an otherworldly light that she could see through the molecules that made up the soft wood. So many surreal things had happened to her since she’d learned she was an angel. But this…it was different from anything she knew. It was as though she finally understood who she was and what she was supposed to do.

As she ran her hand over the top of the wood, she saw a future that was different from other images she’d been given. This future was bright—a happy place where humans got along with one another. There were tensions, as she imagined there had been back when Lucifer decided he was done with humanity, but nothing that couldn’t be worked out one way or another. There was technology, medicine, people fighting to help humans live longer and more productive lives. There were leaders who truly understood what the people needed. There was no need, no desperation, and no pain. It was an ideal world, the kind of place she had always known humans were capable of if they were simply given the chance.

This was a world she was meant to lead humanity toward. This was the world Lucifer was meant to create and had failed. She could even see where Lucifer had lost control, where he had become complacent and lazy, where he hadn’t interfered when he should have. She could even see that it wasn’t Lucifer’s mistake. It was God’s.

Lucifer was tasked with watching over humanity and keeping them on the path to contentment. He was to offer relief and guidance where needed, but not interfere with freewill. Humans had to choose for themselves what paths to take and what fate to follow. Lucifer couldn’t change that. But Lucifer didn’t have freewill. Each time he reached a crossroads in his guidance, it was God who guided him and instructed him on what he should do and how he should do it. It was God who chose not to interfere when humans began to fall off the path of contentment. It was God who directed his angels to allow humans to make their own choices. And it was God who realized that humans had wandered too far, and that they had made mistakes in their choices.

It suddenly made so much sense to her. She had always wondered how a group of angels without freewill could suddenly rebel against the one who controlled them, the one who told them how to think, how to act and how to be. And now she knew.

Lucifer never really chose to wage war against the humans. He was ordered to.

This was why—

Darkness suddenly invaded Dylan’s mind. She felt another presence. She felt the pressure, the anger and the hatred of a demon infuse itself inside of her; she felt it invade her soul. It wanted to hurt—to hurt her, to hurt humans and to hurt the angels. It wanted to make them all pay. It wanted it more than it wanted freedom from this world—more than it had ever wanted anything. And it was filled with a great intelligence, a logic that should have made it possible to overcome the insanity she felt controlling all its thought and emotion. This soul was in so much pain.

Tears filled Dylan’s eyes. Her heart broke for this demon.

No!

She ran her hands slowly over the box one last time, and then released it. She stepped back, vaguely aware of Stiles screaming something at her—of Stiles holding his sword high in the air, ready to strike.

She waved her hand and Stiles’ sword disappeared.

“We can help you,” she said, her eyes moving blindly around the room. “We can help you cross over and help you find the ones you love.”

No! You have to pay.

“It’s wrong, what’s happened to your soul. But it can be fixed.”

The only thing that can fix it is power. Only control of humanity can make this right.

“You don’t want that. I can feel your light. It’s still there, deep down, your humanity is still intact. You still believe in hope. You still believe in goodness.”

We believe in making all of you pay for what you did to us. It is because of you that we are stuck here and that we suffer every second of every minute. And you have to pay.

Dylan slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She closed her eyes and blew. The demon began to panic as its hold on her body began to give way. She felt him—she knew it was a man, a man called Jack James—grabbing on to anything and everything it could, like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, but failing to get a strong handhold. And then it was gone, like a puff of wind. Just gone.

When Dylan opened her eyes, Stiles was there, his hands on her face, her arms; his lovely gray eyes staring into hers.

“You okay?”

She moved into him, a coldness lingering inside of her that she knew his touch would soothe. He welcomed her, his arms moving around her and drawing her into a tight embrace. He felt so familiar—and he should, after all these years—the smell of him surrounding her and washing away the lingering stink of the broken soul. She pressed her face to his chest and took a deep breath, taking more than just comfort from her dear friend.

Dylan liked to think she was a strong woman. She had to be to play the role God had created for her. But, in moments like this, it was precious to her to know she could be weak and Stiles would prop her up.

He held her tightly, dropping a few kisses on the top of her head.

“I tried to warn you. I saw it and I knew what it wanted…”

“It’s okay,” she said, pulling back slightly so that she could see his face. “It was determined to possess me, but it couldn’t. There was something blocking it.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s my nature. Or maybe it was because I felt sorry for it. For him.”

“You knew who it was.”

Dylan reached up and stroked the side of Stiles’ face. “You did what you had to do.”

The stone wall that Stiles often wore on his face to hide the fact that he was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve crumbled. He bent his head, pressing his forehead to hers for a long moment. Dylan could feel his memories playing out in his mind. She even caught a few snippets here and there even though he fought to keep them from her. She knew the story of Jack James—it was something they’d discussed before. And she knew it hurt him to remember how he had betrayed Jack by turning him over to the Redcoats all those years ago. But if he hadn’t, Dylan wouldn’t be here.

Jack James—that demon that had just tried to possess Dylan so that he could use the object inside the box to control the humans—was Dylan’s father.

It was so odd, having the knowledge. She’d grown content with the idea that she would never really understand her genetics and how she had come to be here. But now…she didn’t know how she felt knowing that the man who provided the genetic material that allowed her to exist was now her enemy.

Stiles drew her back into his arms and held her cradled against his chest for a long few minutes. She felt him offer her strength; she felt him supporting her with more than just friendship. That was one of the perks of being friends with an angel—his healing powers were infusing themselves in her, looking for damage lingering from Jack’s soul and easing the power of her emotions to take away the darkness that also continued to linger. She didn’t need his help to feel better…but she didn’t mind it.

There was a certain amount of pleasure that came from being so close to another living being. She felt like she hadn’t been this close to anyone in a long time.

But then he pulled away, dropping a kiss on her forehead as he did.

“We should take that thing and go back before something else happens.”

Dylan nodded, reluctantly agreeing. “We should call everyone together. I have a feeling this thing’s going to impact us all.”

They gathered in Rachel’s house. Raphael and several of his legion of angels, the gargoyles including Demetria, Wilhelm, and Dylan’s sister—sort of sister…they were raised together in Genero—Donna, and Rachel.

Dylan was curled up on a couch as she held the box between her hands, as if it was a normal thing for someone to be holding such a precious artifact in the middle of a human’s living room. Stiles watched her. He wanted to ask her to put it down or do something else with it, but he didn’t know what it was, exactly, he wanted her to do with it. So he kept his mouth shut, just watching her with an uneasiness he didn’t know what to do with.

“Some of us have work to do,” Wilhelm suddenly announced even as Donna—his lover—slapped his arm and whispered a harsh warning somewhere near his ear. “Can we get on with this little meeting?”

Stiles gave him a dirty look. He was not happy with Wilhelm. He didn’t understand why he even had to be there since this really had little to do with the dark souls. He hadn’t trusted Wilhelm since he’d betrayed the humans during the war. Stiles understood that Wilhelm was working under a misunderstanding, but that didn’t make what he’d done any less destructive. And it didn’t mean that he had to like being in the same room with him again.

“What is this all about?” Raphael asked, his gaze moving from Stiles to Dylan and the box in her hands.

“We have reason to believe we’ve found an orb of guardianship,” Stiles said.

The room fell silent. Raphael stood, crossing the room in two quick strides to come to stand in front of Dylan. Demetria and Wilhelm looked shocked. The others—except for Raphael’s angels—seemed lost.

“What is an orb of…?” Rachel asked.

“It is one of the most important artifacts an angel can take out of heaven,” Raphael said. “It’s a source of power. But more than that…it’s like having a little piece of God with you all the time.”

Raphael knelt in front of Dylan and held his hands just inches from the box, as though he wanted to touch it but was afraid to do so. Dylan smiled softly at him, more serene than Stiles could remember her looking since long before Wyatt’s death. In fact, he couldn’t remember for sure the last time she’d looked that relaxed. She was almost…happy.

“Where?” Raphael asked.

“In a house Joanna once lived in,” Dylan responded. “We think she brought it down with her when she fell.”

Raphael nodded, as though that was what he had suspected she would say. “There were rumors,” he said.

“Rumors?” Stiles asked.

Raphael nodded again, turning slowly on his heel to face Stiles. “I heard things. I wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t…but now, I suppose I do.”

Raphael took one last look at the box and then he sighed, rising to his feet with apparent reluctance. His eyes fell on Rachel for a long second, a need Stiles thought he recognized in his expression. Stiles suspected Raphael and Rachel had begun a quiet courtship, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t really his business. He tried to keep his nose out of things like that. Rebecca once told him that a woman’s heart was only for her to reveal, so he figured Rachel would talk to him about it when she was ready.

He just hoped that Raphael made her happy. Rachel deserved happiness.

Raphael turned toward Stiles, his handsome features clouded with concern. It felt like a confirmation of something Stiles had been unsure of. And he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Joanna was to choose a new guardian of humanity,” Stiles said. “That’s why she fell to Earth, why she had this orb with her.”

“Yes,” Raphael confirmed. “Joanna was to choose from one of the archangels who were already here, preferably one of Lucifer’s legion. God felt that Lucifer’s time as the guardian had come to an end and it was time to bring in fresh eyes, someone who could come to the job with a better point of view.”

“He was going to replace Lucifer?” Demetria asked, her voice an uncharacteristic breathy whisper. “After all those millennia, he was letting him go home?”

Raphael nodded. “He’d served his purpose. It was time to go in a new direction.”

“But who?” Wilhelm asked.

“Jophiel,” Stiles said even as Raphael began to shrug, to deny knowing. “She was going to give it to Jophiel.”

“How do you know?” Rachel asked.

Stiles turned his back on the room, his thoughts storming through the past. He remembered the time he spent in Joanna and Jophiel’s company, the way she looked at him, the admiration in her voice. He knew she looked up to him—she had even before falling to Earth. Jophiel was a strong character, an angel who commanded respect even in the bodiless, joyful atmosphere of heaven. Stiles had been a little in awe of the angel himself for a long time…until he fell to Earth and discovered Jophiel had turned on the humans and his own kind. It was Jophiel who’d ordered Joanna to stab and leave Stiles to die on that long ago day.

“He was respected; a leader who could have corralled Lucifer’s legion even if Lucifer was no longer present. And he’d been here for a long time and knew the humans intimately. He even had a human wife,” Stiles said, his eyes falling on Rachel. “He would have been a strong guardian.”

Rachel wrapped her arms around her chest, the mention of her mother dropping a dark cloud over her shoulders. It was long ago and so much had happened since then, but the memory of that long ago barbecue stuck with Rachel’s brother, Jimmy. It was the day their parents died. It was the day Rachel died, too…Jimmy had grown up without her, without any family, recovering a small piece of the past when Dylan had pulled Rachel out of the past and gave them both a second chance.

“But something changed,” Demetria observed.

Raphael looked pointedly at Stiles. There was no need for words. Stiles knew what he was thinking—
and then you fell.

“God changed his mind,” Dylan said.

Everyone looked at her, some noticing her for the first time. She stared down at the box, her hands still caressing it like it was the most precious object she’d ever come into contact with. She was chewing on her lower lip, as though she was mulling over something of great importance in that amazingly witty mind of hers. And then she looked up, her eyes lingering on Stiles for just a moment, but that look spoke volumes to him.

She understood now. And she was okay with it all.

“Things were getting out of control,” she said softly. “God had allowed the humans too much space, too much freedom to make their own choices and to create their own fate. But, like most children, you give them an inch and they take a mile. He thought he could bring them back into the fold with the war, with the threat of violence. But the humans had already seen too much death and destruction. It didn’t matter to them anymore.”

Dylan ran her fingers through her hair, brushing the short, fine blond strands away from her eyes. She looked around the room, her eyes lingering on Rachel, Demetria and Donna before they turned back to Stiles.

“He knew he had to do something bigger, something that would shake everything up. He had to start over.”

“No,” Rachel said, shaking her head with as much wonder as disillusionment. “I can’t believe God would do that.”

Raphael went to her, sitting beside her in the low, straight-back chair where she was perched on the edge, wrapping his arms around her even as she continued to hold herself. He whispered something in her ear that Stiles couldn’t hear, but imagined were words of affection and support. The same words he might have whispered to Dylan if given the chance.

“You’re saying that God decided to allow Lucifer to start his war?” Demetria asked. “You’re saying that God wanted all of that to happen?”

“Lucifer didn’t have freewill, Demetria. None of the angels did.”

“But they turned on the humans—”

“Because God knew that he had a plan. He knew he was going to fix everything.”

Again, the room fell silent. Stiles watched realization dawn on the faces of the people around him—angels, humans, and gargoyles. None of them truly wanted to believe it even though the truth had always been right there in front of them.

“No angel acts without God’s permission,” Stiles said. “Not Lucifer, not Lily…not me.”

Dylan studied his face for a moment. “No angel—except for me.”

Wilhelm jumped to his feet, suddenly agitated enough that Stiles could hear the creak of his gargoyle joints coming to life even though his façade remained human. He paced in front of the couch where Dylan sat, his hands balled into tight fists. Stiles watched him closely, ready in case he suddenly turned on her.

“Joanna came to Earth to appoint a new guardian of humanity. But God decided that it was too late for new blood, that the humans had moved too far off the path they were supposed to follow. So he ordered the angels to wage a war that would result in the deaths of all pure blood humans so that this one could make a choice—could choose between humanity and the angels? So that the angels could get their hopes up that they might use Earth as their personal paradise and so all the humans would disappear and become this new group of—not quite Nephilim, but not quite humans?”

“Essentially.”

“Why?”

“Do you not see?” Raphael asked. “It is quite obvious.”

Wilhelm spun around, but Demetria caught his arm before he could do anything he would regret. She pulled him back and urged him to retake his seat. If not for Donna watching the whole thing with wide, concerned eyes, Stiles wasn’t sure he would have done as she wanted. But he did, settling on the edge of the small loveseat and relaxing only when Donna took his hand.

Rachel shook her head when things had settled down, her eyes moving from Dylan to Raphael. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why would God allow all those people to die? Why would he allow the angels to commit all the atrocities they committed? Why was my mother murdered? My father…?”

“For me,” Dylan said softly.

Something about the way she said it made Stiles look at her sharply. This orb…it had changed something inside of her. She was different. It wasn’t just the happiness that seemed to radiate from her even now, even when it seemed almost inappropriate, but something else. She was no longer the Dylan he had known for more than sixty years. She was…more.

“For you?” Rachel asked, still so confused that Stiles almost felt sorry for her.

“For me.” Dylan ran her hand slowly over the top of the box. “God realized that it wasn’t enough to have one of his angels here, watching over humanity. He needed more control. He needed a guardian who could make decisions on the fly, who didn’t have to wait for Him to give instructions. He needed a guardian with freewill.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Wilhelm said. “What difference would it make to God if his angels had freewill or not? And why didn’t he just give freewill to Lucifer if it was that important? Why didn’t he just instruct Lucifer and his legion to do what needed to be done to get humans back in line? Why did he need to go through all of this, to destroy so much of what he’d built?”

“Why did he flood the world and allow only those on Noah’s Ark to survive?” Raphael asked. “Why did strike down the Tower of Babel? Why did he allow the humans to crucify one of our own?”

“Things had to happen in a specific order,” Dylan said. “Stiles had to fall. He had to get to know the humans—to love them—so that he would want to fight for them. He had to love Rebecca and betray Jack and meet me; he had to help me realize my destiny…it all had to happen in the right order. If it didn’t, things could have turned out very differently.”

“And now?” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest as he studied Dylan. “What happens now?”

“I choose my soul mate and together we become the guardians of humanity.”

Stiles inclined his head slightly. He’d already suspected that. But there was something about the way she said it that concerned him.

He’d chosen Dylan as his soul mate long ago, when she was still happily together with Wyatt, when he knew it would be some time before she would come to him. But she was free now, her soul mate connection with Wyatt broken years ago and, with his death, she was free to come to him. But he still felt reluctance on her part. She said she needed space and he was willing to give it to her. His patience, however, was quickly growing thin.

“It’s not that simple,” Raphael said. “There is more to it than that. Dylan has to give up her right to return to heaven and live among her own kind. She has to accept that, as guardian of humanity, her place is here on Earth and nowhere else. She will, largely, be on her own when it comes to answering the prayers of lost souls. Her soul mate will provide strength and companionship, but the burden will rest with her alone.”

“It already does,” Rachel said softly. “To a certain degree.”

“And she won’t be completely alone,” Demetria said, Donna nodding her head vigorously in agreement. “She’ll always have the gargoyles to back her up.”

Raphael inclined his head slightly, almost bowing. “She will also have my legion.”

Stiles studied the familiar faces of the people in the room, listened to their words as the meaning slowly sank in. They were pledging loyalty to their accepted leader. And that was a big deal.

Ever since the war grew and it became clear that it was Lucifer and his legion against everyone else, they fell into something of a free fall, every man for himself. The gargoyles worked alone—sometimes as a fractured unit—and the angels still loyal to the humans worked separately to do what they believed they had to do to stop their brethren. And that sense of separation continued even after Dylan rose as the savior and even after she’d sent Lucifer and his legion back to heaven and she ended the war. Even after she made her choice, everyone continued to work apart, doing what they needed to do for the common cause, but doing it under their own rules. But now…now, they were pulling together again, promising to follow one leader.