DARK SOULS (Angels and Demons Book 2) (8 page)

Stiles was in New Jersey.

It all began here, it felt like it should all end here. He sat on a low wall that was the only thing left standing in Dr. Hatton’s backyard. This was where Davida had brought him when Joanna and Jophiel had left him for dead, where he recovered after he was told he had to survive, and where he was told he had to wait for a woman to come and tell him what his purpose would be. It was here where he began to walk down the path that would take him to Dylan.

And then he nearly killed her.

He heard his voice in his head and there was nothing he could do to block it out. He didn’t want to hear it; he didn’t want to know that he was letting her down. It was as if he had stepped back in time, as if he was leaving Rebecca—pregnant and alone—all over again. He wanted to be with her, he wanted to protect her from what was coming. But how could he do that when one of those dark souls could just look at him with fire in its eyes and turn him into a malicious ball of anger again.

“You need to get over yourself.”

The last person—or gargoyle—Stiles could ever want to see was suddenly standing in front of him with judgement in his voice.

“What do you know about it?”

“I know that she’s hanging out with me, pouting over you and struggling to figure out—
all alone
—what to do about these Nephilim souls.”

Stiles jumped to his feet and turned away from Wilhelm.

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“I heard what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Tell that to the bruises I left on her throat.”

“The two of you have to figure this out, Stiles. You’re the only ones who can fight these things without hurting the humans.”

Stiles just shook his head as he walked away, carefully stepping over the rubble hidden under the tall grass. Wilhelm followed, walking close to Stiles as though they were suddenly friends again.

“You were right, you know.”

“I’m always right.” Stiles glanced at him. “What was I right about this time?”

“What I did. The pact I made with Luc.”

“You were working on the wrong side.”

“And you set me up by making me kill that angel.”

Stiles shook his head. “Micah went back to heaven, which was where he wanted to be. I only expedited things for him.”

“But you convinced me he was the one Luc and Lily wanted, while you were planning on sneaking Jack James to the redcoats.”

“So Dylan could be conceived.”

“Yeah, well, we thought that was a bad idea at the time.”

Stiles stopped, crossing his arms over his chest as he faced Wilhelm. “What do you mean? Demetria didn’t know anything about Dylan until I told her. How could you have known about her?”

Wilhelm looked a little sheepish as he stared down at the ground. “We thought she was a danger to the humans. We were told she would make a choice that would give Earth to the angels.”

“Who told you?”

Wilhelm didn’t answer. But he looked up, a blush of shame coloring his throat and his pale features. Stiles shook his head as he slowly began to understand.

“You thought God told you. But it wasn’t God, was it?”

“My brother…he was naive.”

“Your brother?”

“Bartram. He was the one who told me, who heard the voice. He warned me; he told me we had to get rid of as many Nephilim as we could.”

“And you believed him.”

“He was my brother. I had no reason not to believe him.”

Stiles turned away. He wondered if he would have believed one of his brethren if they’d told him the same thing. He might have. There was so much chaos going on back then, so many with opinions of their own, and so many who thought they were fighting for the right side. But who was to say which side was the right side? Sometimes the right side is just the victorious side.

“You killed him, you know.”

Stiles glanced back at Wilhelm.

“I did?”

“Dylan told me. You and Wyatt killed him when he attacked her shortly after she left Genero.”

Stiles knew exactly what Wilhelm was talking about. He remembered the gargoyle who’d stalked Dylan from the moment she and Wyatt had entered some ruins on the road to Viti. It was before she knew who she was, and before she knew what she could do. The gargoyle attacked her in an abandoned apartment and had ripped the flesh on her side before Wyatt came to her rescue. And when he returned to her, when he saw that the wound had healed, he nearly abandoned her to the ruins.

Sometimes Stiles wondered what would have happened if he had.

“Now we’re even, don’t you think?” Wilhelm asked.

Stiles studied him for a minute. Then he held out his hand.

“We’re even.”

As they shook, Wilhelm did what Stiles might have done under similar circumstances, and transported him back to where he’d left Dylan. They arrived in the blink of an eye—gargoyle travel was not quite as seamless as angel travel, but it was good enough. Stiles stepped back, taking in the jail cells in the back of the musty room.

“This is where Demetria’s keeping them?”

“It’s the most secure place we could think of.”

“And Dylan?”

Wilhelm pointed toward a high window in the wall. “She’s out walking. She’s been doing it every afternoon for three days now.”

“Has she gone home?”

Wilhelm shook his head. “She says Wyatt’s gone, so she has nothing to go home for.”

Stiles walked to the jail cell closest to him and looked at the man huddled in the back corner. The man didn’t seem to see him and didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way. Stiles waited, a part of him expecting the man’s eyes to turn to fire again. But there was nothing. He couldn’t even sense a thought in the man’s head, an emotion in his soul that was anything more than the anger and hatred radiating from the dark soul.

“Weren’t there three?”

“Dylan did something to one of them and made her soul move on.”

Stiles looked back at him. “The soul moved on?”

“She took the darkness out of it. I’m not sure how. I don’t even think she knows how.”

Stiles turned back to the possessed and watched him a while longer. He didn’t understand what they were facing. He didn’t understand what had made these souls so powerful. Once the Nephilim were blessed, he’d assumed they had all ascended to heaven. It never occurred to him that the blessing didn’t extend to those who had already died. But for them to become so powerful sixty years later…what had they been waiting for? What had caused this change? Why now?

None of it made sense.

“I’m gonna go to Demetria. I want to see if she’s made any progress with this.”

“The progress is here. Demetria and the others are simply monitoring the situation.”

“Yeah, well…”

Stiles started to morph into his ethereal form. He wanted to get away from there. He didn’t want to see Dylan. He didn’t want to be in a position to hurt her again. But the moment his form began to drift toward the ceiling, he felt her come into the room and felt her aura mix with his. She knew he was there and she wasn’t going to let him leave.

Stiles had melded with other angels before, when their wispy, smoky ethereal form was the only form angels took. In heaven, angels were not restricted by human forms—by arms and legs and wings. They were just souls that floated around together, exploring knowledge and each other and the world they watched over below them. And it was a peaceful form, an experience that couldn’t be expressed in simple words.

But when Dylan’s aura mixed with his, it was something more than even heaven. It was a feeling that was so wrapped up in so many emotions that he couldn’t even begin to express them all. It was beyond the human experience, but he was still on Earth and still felt human emotions, so it was a combination of experiences, a feeling that was bigger and brighter than anything he had ever known.

She was his soul mate and, in that moment, he knew it more concretely than he ever had before. And, from the way her aura lingered, he was sure she felt it too.

“Why did you leave?”

They stood in a clearing outside the building where Wilhelm was observing the possessed. They were back in their human forms and staring at each other like two lost and angry teenagers.

“I hurt you.”

“It wasn’t you. It was those things.”

Stiles shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It was still my hands that were around your throat.”

Dylan approached him, but seemed to think better of touching him; her hand was raised, but then fell with a slap against her upper thigh.

“You can’t abandon me now, Stiles. These things…I don’t know how to stop them. I need your help figuring this out.”

“I don’t know any more than you do.”

“But you have a connection to heaven. Maybe somebody up there could tell you?”

Stiles leaned back against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest. “My connection to heaven has been restricted since I returned.”

“Restricted?” Dylan’s eyes narrowed in that way they do when she’s angry. “What do you mean, restricted?”

“I mean, God was not pleased with some of the things I did while I was down here during the war. I made mistakes, I hurt people. And my punishment was that I was cut off from heaven, restricted to only the occasional communication via the garden.”

“The garden?”

“You know the garden. You’ve been there a few times.”

She cocked her head slightly as a memory danced across her mind’s eye. “So you can’t ask for help?”

“I’ve been hearing their voices again, but they’re faint.”

“And that means?” she asked, clearly growing impatient.

“It means that the connection is rebuilding itself, but it’s a slow process. I don’t know how long it’ll be before it’s fully functional.”

“Great.”

Dylan turned away, her arms wrapped so tightly around herself that he could see her knuckles turning white where she pressed them into the soft flesh of her upper arms. There was a darkness in her aura, a tension that was deeper than even the darkness and fear he saw in her during the war. He wanted to go to her, but he was afraid that if he touched her, if he felt that connection they’d shared just moments ago, that he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

“You should be inside with Wilhelm, figuring these things out. And I should be with Demetria, watching over the people.”

“No.” She turned to him again, anger flashing brightly in her aura. “You won’t leave me again. I need you here.”

“Why?”

“I need you to help me figure out what to do, what I can do to fix this.”

“It’s not just on your shoulders, Dylan.”

“But I’m the one with these powers, the one who can do things that other angels can’t. I’m the one that has to find a way to fix this. I have to send those souls to heaven; I have to make them see that holding on to all this anger isn’t what God intended.”

“Why is it all up to you?”

“Because no one else can do it.”

He did go to her then. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly. “You are special,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean that you are the only one fighting this particular war. You are not alone.”

“Then why do I feel like it’s all on my shoulders?”

Tears started to spill from the corners of her eyes. He brushed at them with his thumb as one hand sank itself in her hair and the other drew her closer with a soft touch on the back of her shoulder.

“God never intended for you to fight alone, Dylan. Why do you think he sent you to me? Why do you think he gave you Jimmy and Wyatt and Josephine? Those things were not accidents. He gave you what you needed right when you needed it. And now…things are changing. But that doesn’t mean you’re alone.”

He pressed his forehead to hers as he brushed away yet more tears. She leaned toward him; she probably only wanted to move into his embrace. But their lips touched and that magic he’d felt when their aura’s melded washed over him and he couldn’t pull away. He couldn’t be the gentleman she needed him to be. He couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel this growing connection between them. Whether she liked it or not, their souls were destined to be tethered. And the closer they got to that moment, the more intense the need grew in him.

He pulled her closer to him and tasted her, and was pleased when she opened to him. He’d never felt this with Joanna—never came close. When she kissed him, it conjured a physical reaction, not an emotional one. The closest he’d ever come to this kind of pleasure was when he touched Rebecca. But even that, as wonderful as it always was, was nothing compared to this.

He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in her for the rest of eternity. But, of course, that couldn’t be.

“They’re attacking in Dytonia,” Wilhelm said, suddenly arriving beside them.

Stiles had the same thought as Dylan as she jerked away from him, her fingers pressed against her lips.

Rachel.