Protect Her: Part 10 (6 page)

“No, Riley,” I said quietly. “Something changed. Who knows what other truths are out there for us to find? Don’t you think this was enough? There’s nothing about us that will end in a good situation for us. We are too similar to be good for each other. What we think we have will end badly.”

I saw the expression on his face. He was about to do something rash. I couldn’t let him do that either. Not now. I wasn’t sure how I knew to do it, but I pushed him away from me with all my might. He called out for me, and then he disappeared.

My mouth fell open. “What happened?”

“He was physically here in your mind. That is unnatural,” Eva replied. “You expelled him.”

My stomach twisted in a knot. I alternated between wanting to say goodbye, and thinking that this was the best way. No fuss. No drama. I just had to do what I was always meant to do, and then it would be over. Forever.

As I turned to Eva, I saw she had her arms open once again. She smiled at me, but it was held no warmth. “It is time, Paige.”

I hesitated for a brief moment, and then I had a flash of those last moments before my father’s body was dragged into a pit of nothingness. If they had just let me go, they’d probably still be alive today. No matter how betrayed I felt about what Riley had done, I wouldn’t let him put himself in harm’s way for me. This was what I had agreed to. It was inevitable. It was my end.

The tears streaked free flowing down my face as I stepped into Eva’s embrace. As her arms closed around me, the world faded away. I hated to admit there was a part of me that was happy about that.

CHAPTER SEVEN –
RILEY

“NOOOOOOO!” I roared. The whirling shifts of colors and waves stopped, and I found myself staring into Adam’s face. I was exactly where I didn’t want to be, back at Slinky Pete’s. Adam’s expression was grim. I stared down at Paige’s pale face. Her breath was shallow. I could hear her heartbeat. It slowed even as I listened to it.

“You failed,” Adam said.

“She won’t give in.” I was grasping at straws, and I think we both knew it. “She can’t.”

“She already has,” Adam said. He stepped away from Paige’s body. “There’s nothing else we can do but wait.”

“Wait for what?” My voice was hoarse as if I had been screaming for days.

“The inevitable. Eva’s rebirth into the world.”

I wanted to hurl something at the ground. Beat someone to a bloody pulp. But I wasn’t ready to admit defeat quite yet. I put my fingertips back on Paige’s temples.

“That’s not going to work,” Adam said. “Even as powerful as you are as a dark angel, you still needed the infusion of my energy to accomplish entering her mind. Your energy isn’t enough.”

“So help me get back in there,” I growled. “I can make her listen to me.”

“Can’t you feel it?” Adam said. “Her mind is as closed up as a lockbox, and the key has been thrown away. Eva is the one running the show now, and there’s no way she’ll let you back in.”

“Paige wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t leave me without saying goodbye,” I said. I closed my eyes and feverishly tried to retrieve a spell from my mind that would work. Maybe I couldn’t get back inside her head, but perhaps I could send her a message. I couldn’t let her go like this. I had just found her. After everything we had been through, this couldn’t be the end. I wouldn’t allow it.

Then I heard Paige’s sharp intake of breath. My hands flew away from her head. Then her breathing stopped altogether. I had a momentary lapse of all logic and thought. Somehow I recalled my CPR training from high school. I pushed on her chest with my closed fist.

Adam came forward then and shoved my hands away. “Stop.”

“Fuck you,” I said. I moved toward Paige’s body again, and then I flew backward and crashed into the myriad of liquor bottles behind me. There was a mirror on the wall behind the bottles, which shattered as my body hit it. The wall was the only thing that stopped my momentum. As I slid down it, I catapulted to my feet. There was glass everywhere, but I didn’t care.

“I said, stop.” Adam straightened to his full height.

“I heard you the first time.” I clenched my fists. Even as I felt the cuts on my skin, I knew that they were healing. A nice benefit of being an angel. It looked like there was a good chance I was going to get my fight on after all.

“Son, listen to him.” It took a moment for Viho’s voice to register in my consciousness.

“Son? What gives you the right to ever call me that?” I didn’t even look at the older man until he stepped into the space between me and Adam. He had to be certifiably insane. He was still human, and Adam and I were not. I wasn’t even quite sure exactly what kind of creature Adam was, but the hulking freakshow had been around for more than a thousand years.

“I have seen ten lifetimes of violence,” Viho said. He put his hands up palms facing me. “I was young and hot-headed like you once. I couldn’t be bothered to think about if using my fists and magic weren’t the best way to resolve my conflicts. I acted first and thought about the consequences later. Your mother taught me discipline and the necessity of thinking with a clear mind.”

“Yeah, she tried to teach me that crap too,” I said sarcastically. “You know where that got me? Nowhere. In fact, because I was so anti-thinking with a clear head, I made a lot of really dumb decisions over the years, including outing Paige’s parents to the demons that killed them.” The guilt washed over me. I hadn’t meant to spill my guts like that, but I couldn’t hold the words back.

“She expelled you because of that then,” Viho said with a long sigh.

“No, she expelled me because she thought she was protecting me from a fight I couldn’t win,” I said with a mirthless laugh. Paige could read me like a book. She knew that if I couldn’t talk some sense into her, I would have gone after Eva. “You’re right. Eva is a master manipulator, and Paige played right into her hands. She agreed to become Eva’s puppet to save her life three years ago. She thought she didn’t have a choice. She agreed now because she thought she had agreed before.”

“Acceptance cannot be coerced,” Viho said. “The natural order of things strictly prohibits it.”

“Tell that to Paige,” I said. “Funny how there’s always a loophole in every contract and every supposed truth or fact can be proven false as long as you are willing to look for it.”

I returned to my place next to Paige’s body. She appeared dead, and I understood why. As part of a possession, the consciousness is packed away into the deepest recesses of the mind. Then the new entity has to have time to set up shop. It requires an enormous expenditure of energy, so all ‘non-essential’ functions are shut down. Heartbeat, breath, all of the normal human body processes are put on pause until the new entity is settled and gives the body a jump start.

Then I had an idea. I might not be able to reach Paige the way Adam showed me, but maybe I could reach her my way.

“Where’s my kit?” I asked, looking wildly around the bar. “Didn’t I bring a kit here with me?”

“I brought an extra.” Klein appeared from the back of the room. He cast sidelong glances at Adam and Viho that told me he would gladly be anywhere else right now. He moved around to the other end of the bar and picked up a small black bag. He tossed it to me.

“You’re a lifesaver as always, Klein.” I picked up Paige’s body and carried her around the bar. I moved toward the dance floor where Paige and I had just had our first dance. We had more dances in our future. I was certain of it, which is why I wasn’t going to stop.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Viho asked.

“Her essence is locked away somewhere. I’m going to pull it out,” I said.

“You can’t do that, Riley. She’s not dead. Your methods will not work.”

“Same difference,” I said. “Her mind is dead or pushed off to the side to make room for Eva’s. I just need to find a way to talk to her, and this can work.”

As I gently laid her down in the middle of the dance floor and brushed the hair out of her eyes, I felt Adam’s lumbering presence heading in my direction. I wasn’t sure what I did, but I lashed out at him with my energy. I heard the swish of air and then a heavy grunt as he was knocked backward. “See how you like it,” I said under my breath.

Viho slipped up to kneel next to me. “You are playing with forces that you don’t even understand. If you left her alone, you might be able to eventually find a way to reverse the possession. But you can’t go ransacking your way into her soul, especially when her body still lives. It’s dangerous and unnatural. You might destroy what is left of her as opposed to saving her.”

“I appreciate the advice, but I’m doing this,” I said. “Paige didn’t want this. She was hurt and confused, and Eva took advantage of that to get her way. I’ll be damned if I let her get away with it.”

“I’m not saying I agree one-hundred percent with old man Viho here, Riley, but you might want to take a few minutes and think this one through.” Klein moved from his post at the end of the bar a few steps closer to us. “Acting before thinking never really works out well for you.”

“Haven’t I fired you already?” I wasn’t listening to what they had to say anymore. I didn’t care. What did surprise me was that Adam didn’t attempt to approach me again. I looked up and saw the man had pulled the cowl back up to cover his face. He stood at the back of the room. “Aren’t you going to try to stop me too?”

“You amuse me,” Adam said. His tone didn’t hold any notes of amusement, but I couldn’t have cared less if he thought I was going to get up and dance a jig for him. As long as he stayed out of my way and kept his dark magic to himself, we’d be fine.

“Fine. Stay in your corner then, and watch to your black heart’s content,” I said. I pulled the herbs and salts that I needed from the satchel. It was barely enough to make the spell work, but it would do. I began to sprinkle them in a large circle around Paige’s still form.

“Riley. I must insist you stop this madness! Eva is in Paige’s body transforming every part of her as we speak. You are going to interfere with something that is far larger than you or me or anyone in this world. Our best course of action is to fall back, regroup, and try to find a way to keep Eva from wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting human race when she comes to.”

“You go do that, Viho. You might as well give your archangel buddies a heads up while you’re at it,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m going to do this and try to stop all of it before it starts. If I can get to Paige and have her rescind the agreement, she might still be able to stop Eva.”

“What do you know of possession?” Viho asked. It was a stupid question, but I humored him as I continued tracing Paige’s body with the herbal chalk outline.

“I know what everyone knows about possession,” I said. “There’s forced and then there’s tacit. Forced means that the entity took over the one inside without the other’s knowledge or agreement. It’s like a leech or parasite. The host is helpless to do anything about it. In tacit possession, the host invites the entity in. They throw down the welcome mat and bake cookies. It’s the most fucked up version of free will at its finest. But even in that situation, you can kick them out if you decide they’ve fucked up your house. You have to be willing to try.”

“How often do you think that happens?” Viho asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said.

“It does matter. Because in tacit possession the host wanted the result of the possession. So what would happen to make them change their minds? They’ve gotten their sincerest wish. It came true. That is why tacit possessions are the most dangerous and diabolical and are the archangel’s preference when they take a vessel. You can guarantee that Eva isn’t going to let you anywhere near Paige now that she has Paige’s agreement.”

“I’m not after her consciousness. I’m going after her soul,” I said. The outline complete, I dug out a small candle from the bag. “I don’t give two shits about what Eva thinks is hers or not. Paige was manipulated into giving over her body under false pretenses. I’m going to fix that.”

Viho backed away even as I set the candle on the floor in front of me as the flame sprang to life. I didn’t really need it to do what I was about to do, but I found that in tense moments focusing on the flame kept me centered. I bowed my head and began to recite the words that had been blazoned on my brain.

Hear me, the one whose essence and soul I seek. Obey my command, and come to me. Do not hold back for I will find you. Do not shy away because you are the one I seek. Come to me now.

Nothing happened. I knew the sensations I was looking for. It would feel as if threads of string reached out from me and connected to the essence of the one I wanted to summon. It didn’t matter how near or far away in time and space they were from me. My spell always found them and brought them to me.

“What the hell?” I murmured.

“This is one thing that you can’t undo, and you can’t fix,” Viho said flatly. “You will only do more damage.”

“Shut up, old man,” I growled. I closed my eyes and said the words again. I should have felt the connection almost instantly. But again, I felt nothing. It was strangely empty on the other side of the void I tried to breach.

“This isn’t as interesting as I hoped,” Adam said from across the room.

“You’re welcome to come over here and give me a little boost of that magical dark junkie juice,” I said.

“I am here only to ensure that my sister never sees the light of day when she arises. If I were you, I’d take your father’s advice and leave before it’s too late.”

It was as if the words were said at just the right moment. Paige’s eyes opened, but I knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. It went beyond the fact that Paige’s eyes were blue, and the eyes that stared up at me were so dark they were almost black. As she sat up, I saw her hair darken even as I watched. It wasn’t the raven black that I knew was Eva’s hair color, but an odd hue of silver gray that seemed to be a hybrid blend between Paige’s blonde locks and Eva’s dark tones.

“Hello, Riley.” It was Paige’s voice, but I knew this wasn’t Paige.

“Eva,” I said evenly.

I heard Klein’s heavy gulp. I was amazed the kid had made it this long without finding the nearest exit or passing out. Viho stood a few feet behind me. Eva’s gaze swept around the room before coming to rest on Adam’s still form. He said nothing when her eyes found him.

She sprang to her feet in a catlike flip that would put a gymnast to shame. “Brother. How?”

How?
Why was that the first question she’d have for him?

Viho tugged on my arm. I shifted up onto my heels and got to my feet as quietly as I could. I felt a keening sense of loss. Eva was transforming my love before my eyes. I had missed my opportunity to find her and convince her she had made a mistake. Now there was Eva to get through to get to her. I flexed my fists and steeled my mind. I would have to keep Adam from destroying her. If he did that, he’d kill Paige’s essence that was locked away in her body in the process. I couldn’t have that.