BROKEN ANGELS (Angels and Demons Book 1) (11 page)

It was a trivial thing. But it was important to her.

“Dylan with a y…”

When she heard those words, she quickly moved up behind Stiles. She touched his shoulder and he looked up, fear in his eyes. He grabbed her throat, pushing her backward.

“Who are you?”

She grabbed his wrist with both hands. “A friend,” she managed to choke out.

“I don’t know you.”

He tightened his hold on her throat, cutting off her air immediately. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t see any other way.

She pressed a hand to his chest and he suddenly flew away from her, slamming into the wall behind him. She coughed, her lungs burning from the lack of oxygen. There wasn’t time…she crawled to Dillon and pressed her hands to his abdomen. His eyes had closed and his breathing was almost nonexistent. But there was still a spark of life and that was enough.

Her touch healed his flesh. His back arched and he drew in a deep breath, much like the breaths she was sucking in herself. And then he opened his eyes.

“Who are you?”

She took his hands, closed her eyes, and pictured Stiles sitting under that tree.

Stiles could feel turmoil inside Dylan. A bruise formed, as though out of nowhere, on her throat. He touched it, but there was resistance. He couldn’t heal it as it was still forming.

He was beginning to think he’d made a mistake sending her to Dillon. Her body stiffened, the bruise widening on her throat. What if she’d gotten there too soon? What if Biel hurt her? Would he be able to heal her if he struck a mortal blow? Would he be able to save her if things went wrong?

Just as suddenly as her essence disappeared, it was back. She sat up, gasping for air, her hands clawing at her throat.

Stiles knelt behind her and pressed his hands to her throat. Her breathing eased, her breaths coming in deeper, stronger gulps.

“What happened? Are you okay?”

She twisted, her eyes meeting his.

“Remind me never to piss you off.”

“I did this?”

She touched his cheek lightly, but she didn’t answer his questions.

“Where am I?”

Dylan climbed to her feet and turned, facing the trees that were situated behind them. Then she laughed.

“It worked. I can’t believe it worked.”

Stiles stood, too, but then his head began to spin and new memories were suddenly just there. He saw himself choking Dylan; he saw the fear in her eyes as he demanded to know who she was. And then he was flying backward, his back slamming against the wall, knocking his senses out of him. He turned, reached out for Dylan, but she was already gone.

He’d broken her windpipe. If she’d been delayed, if her natural healing powers couldn’t work fast enough, or if he hadn’t been here…

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“You’re okay,” Dylan said, laughter still dancing in her voice. “You’re safe.”

“Where’s Stiles?”

Stiles felt sick to his stomach. He moved around the other side of the tree and vomited up what little he’d eaten in the last few days. Dylan must have heard him. She was there in seconds, her hands soothing as they came around his ribcage. But it didn’t take the edge off of his pain; it didn’t soothe the emotional turmoil that roiled inside of him.

“Stiles.”

He straightened into Dylan’s arms and let her hold him for longer than he had intended. Then he turned and found himself face to face with one of his deepest regrets.

“Dillon.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Dillon burst into the widest grin Stiles had ever seen on a human face, reaching out a hand in greeting. When Stiles took it, Dillon dragged him into his chest for one of those hugs that was more of a hard slap on the back than anything else.

“You got us out of there.”

“She did.”

Dillon looked over Stiles’ shoulder at Dylan. “Thanks,” he said, extending a hand to her.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said with a soft smile.

Dillon looked from Stiles to Dylan. Stiles could see confusion in his eyes. Confusion mixed with fear.

Stiles glanced at Dylan, and then told his friend, “You might want to sit down for this.”

Dillon crossed his arms over his chest, smearing the still wet blood on his shirt against his skin. “I think you should just tell me what’s going on.”

Dylan moved up beside Stiles and took his hand, the warmth of her touch soothing despite the ball of pain that still sat heavily in his chest. He studied Dillon, thrown a little by how much he looked like he did in Stiles’ memories. But, of course he did. He was a walking, talking memory.

“We need your help,” Stiles said. “Someone has altered the disease you made and we need to figure out how.”

“Not possible. I just completed it,” Dillon said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder as though the lab he’d just been rescued from was there behind him. “How could someone have gotten to it so quickly?”

Stiles glanced at Dylan. She offered a small smile as encouragement.

“Time has passed. Things have changed.”

Dillon shook his head. “Not possible. You look exactly as you did an hour ago.”

“For you, it was an hour. For me…sixty-five years have passed.”

Dillon shook his head again, so vigorously he drove his entire body backward, stepping back until he ran into a tree. “I don’t…”

“I know it’s hard to wrap your mind around,” Dylan said, approaching him the way someone might a wild, unpredictable animal. “But it’s the truth.”

“How?”

Dylan glanced at Stiles for reassurance. “I’m different.”

“You’re an angel. Like him.”

Dylan inclined her head slightly. “Something like that, yes.”

“And you brought me here to help you?”

“Yes.”

“The war.” He stepped around Dylan and charged toward Stiles. He grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed him backward. “Tell me you haven’t switched sides. Tell me you aren’t working with them now.”

“I’m not, Dillon. The war is over.”

“But you’re still here.”

“You don’t understand.” Stiles relaxed his body and held his hands at his sides, to show Dillon he meant him no harm. “The angels we were fighting, they’re gone. Dylan and I are the last.”

“They’re gone?”

“Yes,” Dylan said, coming up behind him. “We sent them home thirty-seven years ago.”

“How?” He twisted his head around to look at Dylan while still holding Stiles.

Dylan shrugged. “I’m different. I can do things that other angels can’t.”

“Like?”

“Like pulling you out of your time.”

“Prove it.”

Dylan shot Stiles a look. He didn’t know what to tell her. He wasn’t sure what it would take to convince a man who was lying on a dirty floor moments ago, seconds from death, that she had not only healed him, but also brought him from his time to hers.

But Dylan clearly had ideas.

She burst into her ethereal form, her aura breathtaking in the late afternoon sun, and hovered beside them for a moment. Then she lowered herself over Dillon, her aura engulfing him, the combination changing the color to something deeper and more intense. Dillon’s body stiffened, his grip releasing on Stiles. His head rolled back, his eyes rolling back into his head. It was as if he was having a seizure, but there wasn’t that jerky movement of his body. He was stiff and perfectly still after those initial seconds.

When she pulled away, Dillon fell to his knees. Stiles leaned over him and searched for signs of injury. But there was nothing wrong with him…physically. Emotionally was another story.

“What did you do?”

Dylan reappeared in her human form behind them. “I showed him.”

“Showed him what?”

“Everything.”

Dillon lay down, flat on his back with an arm tossed over his eyes.

“It’s all gone,” he said softly.

“The war we fought ended,” Stiles said. “The angels drove the people underground. But they kept fighting; they stayed alive until Dylan…until she came of age. She changed everything.”

Dillon let his arm slide to the ground beside him. “Dylan.”

“With a y.”

He smiled that smile that was so familiar to Stiles. “You kept your promise.”

“I did.”

Dillon sat up and studied Dylan for a minute. “She doesn’t look much like you.”

Dylan began to laugh. She shook her head, pointing at Stiles. “I’ll let you explain this one.”

Dillon looked at Stiles, confusion again in his eyes.

“She’s not my daughter,” Stiles explained. “I have a kid, but he’s a man and he’s a doctor back in our city.”

“Then…?”

Stiles looked over at Dylan. “It’s complicated,” he finally said. She seemed to approve, inclining her head slightly to acknowledge him.

Dillon didn’t seem to want more. He stood up and dusted himself off. “Family often is very complicated. Speaking of which, I don’t suppose Sara…I don’t suppose she’s still around.”

“No,” Stiles said, unable to hide the sadness in his voice. “She died long ago.”

“And Rhonda?”

Stiles shook his head. “She died a few weeks before the Battle of Genero. It was an accident, a fire left unattended.”

Sadness made Dillon’s shoulders sag slightly. “Anna?”

“She’s still alive, living in a city not far from here.”

Dillon nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “She’s had a good life?”

“Yes. She married, has had three kids. She has several grandchildren, a few great-grandchildren, too.”

That seemed to throw Dillon a little. “She’d be…what, seventy-two, seventy-three now?”

Images of a small, laughing child burst through Stiles’ mind. They slowly faded into a small, white-haired woman; a woman who has seen too much, but is content in the life she has.

He just nodded.

Dillon rubbed his face, pressing his knuckles into his eyes. He sighed heavily before dropping his hands and looking from Dylan to Stiles.

“Okay,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”

It was late when they arrived back in the city. Everyone was asleep, except those standing vigil at the hospital. They debated whether or not to take Dillon straight to the hospital, finally deciding it would be best to let him get some sleep before introducing him to Harry. They stood in the middle of Dylan’s living room, Dillon a little disoriented from the ethereal travel.

“We have a spare bedroom,” she said, moving around Dillon and Stiles to take some fresh linens out of the hall closet. “The bathroom is down the hall here.”

“It’s just like the house Sara and I had,” Dillon said, moving around the room, his fingers touching the furniture. “But this…this isn’t wood.”

“Some of it is. Some is stone, broken concrete, whatever else we were able to salvage out of the ruins.”

Dillon shook his head as he turned around again. “I guess it’s true, what they say. We will forever be doomed to repeat ourselves.”

“Civilization is inevitable. Rebuilding the cities was inevitable.”

He nodded. “Let’s just hope we don’t travel the same road and end up the same as before.”

Dylan dropped the linens on the end of the couch. “I hope not. I don’t think I could handle having to make another choice for humanity.”

She meant it as a joke, but it fell flat. Stiles shot her a look before he directed Dillon down the hall. Dylan followed, said a quick goodnight, and slipped into her own bedroom. She could see Wyatt’s shape under the thin blankets. She tried to move quietly as she undressed, tried not to wake him. But he woke anyway, sitting up and turning on the bedside lamp just as she pulled a nightshirt over her head.

“Where have you been all day?”

“Following up on Rachel’s lead.”

“Alone?”

“With Stiles.”

She felt the tension without having to see it. Wyatt climbed out of bed and moved up behind her, gripping her arm a little too hard as he turned her around. He touched her face and then her throat, looking for injuries.

That seemed to be the primary concern of all the men in her life.

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling away. She gathered her dirty clothes and shoved them into a bag hanging from the closet door, noting that it was time to send them to the ladies who handled laundry detail.

“Did you find him?”

“He was dead.”

Wyatt grunted—a sound that suggested he wasn’t exactly surprised. He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Another dead end.”

“Not exactly. We got his notes.”

“Did you show them to Harry?”

“No.” She went to sit beside him, sliding her hand into his as she did. “But we brought someone who understands them and can probably figure out what this Freddie did to alter the disease.”

“And who’s that?”

She hesitated, aware that Wyatt was often wary of Stiles’ schemes. She laid her head on his shoulder for a minute, enjoying a moment of peace.

“Dylan?”

“I went into the past and brought back the scientist who created the disease in the first place.”

Wyatt immediately pulled away, rearing back as though she were a snake poised to bite him. “You did what?” he asked, his words slow and deliberate.

“He’s the only one who can really do anything about this. He’s the only one who can figure out why it’s affecting the humans and what we can do to fix it.”

“But he’s from the past. From…how far back?”

“Sixty-five years.”

“Oh, Dylan…”

Wyatt stood up and began to pace. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You could have altered something about the past; you could have changed the way the war ended. What if angels suddenly reappear? Or the gargoyles turn on us because of something you did?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“How do you know that?”

In truth, she didn’t. Logically, he was right; she could have altered something that could be disastrous for them. But, instinctively, she knew that hadn’t happened.

“He is the only one who can fix this, Wyatt.” She went to him and took his arms in her hands. “He can save these people. He can save Rachel.”

He shook his head, stepping back far enough to break contact. “Or he’ll kill her. You don’t know.”

“Stiles trusts him.”

That didn’t have the desired effect. Anger burned in Wyatt’s eyes. He stepped back even further, putting as much physical distance between them as emotional.

“The blood is working,” he said. “You didn’t even bother to ask, but the blood is working. The symptoms are improving.”

“Good.”

He stared at her, his eyes once again moving slowly over the length of her. When their eyes met again, anger still danced in his. But it had softened slightly.

“If this doesn’t work, what do you plan to do with this scientist?”

Dylan suddenly felt incredibly weary. She moved back to the bed, sinking down into its soft layers. She curled up, pulling the blanket up around her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” she said for what felt like the millionth time that day. “He was dying. He has nothing to go back to.”

Wyatt climbed onto the bed behind her and wrapped his arms around her, his presence enough to soothe her troubled soul. She lifted one of his hands and kissed his palm lightly.

“I wish you wouldn’t go running of with Stiles without telling me,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

He kissed her temple. “I love you.”

She turned into him and buried her face against his chest in answer. He ran his hand gently down her back, again his touch soothing the emotional ache that needed the balm of his presence. But, even as exhausted as she was, she didn’t miss the fact that the warming heat of his healing touch was missing. Completely.

Their soul mate connection was gone.