Protect Her: Part 10 (7 page)

“You let go of my memory so easily that I’m surprised you even recognize me. I am disappointed that you didn’t think I could be as resourceful as you. But then again, you always did underestimate me. That is why you were the favored one.”

“I was the favored one because I didn’t murder all my siblings,” she said.

Holy shit. I realized that I might have just stumbled into a family that was more fucked up than mine.

“They were weak,” Adam said with a shrug. “You weren’t though.”

“No, I was strong,” Eva said. “You were too cowardly to come after me to my face, so I see now that you constructed this whole elaborate plan to get rid of me once and for all.”

Adam shrugged. “I’ve always said I don’t like competition. Our other siblings didn’t believe me. They paid the price.”

“You cursed me,” Eva said. “You took away my Protector and let that dark magic drive me mad. I killed…too many to count in my grief. Angels, demons, humans, it didn’t matter. My good judgment eroded into thoughts of jealousy, pain, and revenge. Then I was tortured and banished for a thousand years.”

“Yet here you stand,” Adam said. He shook his finger in her direction. “See, dear sister, I have never underestimated you. Not even for one second. I knew that someday, you’d find a way to come back. In fact, I’ve been counting on it. You needed some time away to gain some valuable perspective. What I did wasn’t curse you. I gave you everything you needed to have an epiphany like I did. What I gave you was a gift.”

I wasn’t sure what in the holy hell was happening, but it was pretty obvious that things were about to go sideways for me once again.

CHAPTER EIGHT –
PAIGE

Eva assured me that everything would be better once I relaxed and accepted her, and she was at least partly right. I was left to my own devices after that. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but it wasn’t the sense of floating nothingness that seemed to overtake all of my senses save for the part of my consciousness that still carried an awareness of myself.

I knew I wasn’t going anywhere else. There was no Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory decision point for me. In a way, I just ceased to exist to the outside world, but I wasn’t crossing over into death. It should have felt a lot scarier than it did, but after a lifetime on the run, I was ready to be in one place. I thought I might finally be able to be content.

There was a part of me that was a bit off-kilter though. That was until I found myself in a place where a rotation of images floated in front of me. I cast myself toward them. It wasn’t unlike walking toward a sparkle in a pane of glass that catches your eye, except I no longer had feet to take me there. I saw the colorful images and realized with delight that these were my memories presenting themselves back to me.

If I had a bucket of popcorn, I would have felt like I was at the movies. I settled into this place that I assumed was deep inside my mind and let the images slowly scroll past me. If this was my fate by being possessed by Eva, then perhaps it wasn’t so bad.

I had no idea how long I watched the images of my childhood flash before me. All of the happy memories of my youth had been retrieved and were on a feedback loop for my enjoyment.

That was when I saw an image of my first and only dog. I named her Ruby. She was a stray that wandered onto our porch in the first commune I was old enough to remember. Ruby was a beagle mix who had warm brown eyes that made me melt. She was super sweet and snuggled up with me in my bed every night. Ruby followed me all around the commune every day. We were inseparable.

When we moved away from that commune, Ruby hadn’t been able to come with me. I was inconsolable for days. I recalled hearing my dad tell my mom in hushed tones that under no uncertain circumstances would we ever have a pet again. That was that. My father decided, and everyone in the household fell in line.

That thought pulled me up short. I had been so focused on all of the happy memories of my childhood that it seemed like my mind had tripped up over the others. Another image flashed up in front of me then culled from my memory banks. I was five years old, and I sat on the porch step looking forlornly up at the night sky. I had a small bag sitting next to me. It was my old suitcase. It served me well as we moved from house to house, commune to commune and then into small towns. We were always moving.

I remembered that night because it was the first time Mom and Dad left me alone in the house. They told me they had an errand to run, and they’d be right back. I was to be a good little girl and wait for them. I wasn’t allowed off the porch. I was supposed to stay put.

My parents were true to their word. They came around the side of the porch a short time later. In little girl time though, it had felt as if they had been gone a lifetime. I started to run toward Mom to give her a hug, but Dad grabbed me and swept me up into his arms before I reached her.

I had been distracted back then, but my adult eyes now caught something I didn’t remember seeing or even registering then. My mom followed a short distance behind my father. Her face and clothes were dirty as if she had been rolling in dirt and mud. Her hair was disheveled, and I could see small splatters of something red decorating the front of her blouse.

The image started up and came to life as if it truly were a movie in my mind.

“Daddy! Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” Even at five years old, I was a precocious child. I repeated the phrase I had often heard from my mother’s lips.

Dad chuckled. “We told you we had an errand to run before we could go to our new home. It’s all done now.”

“Why’s Mommy carrying a shovel? Did you plant some new vegetables in the garden?”

“We did have something to tend to in the garden. You are exactly right, sweetie.” My dad kissed my forehead as we moved into the house. Mom followed us a few minutes later.

As I stared back at this scene seventeen years later, I started to think about some of the odd things that always happened before we moved on from a place. We moved a lot, and there was a pattern if one knew to look for it.

We’d settle into our new home. My parents would join the local church. For a few months, maybe even a year, life would be normal. But always, things turned dark. I’d hear whispers around me. The stares in my direction grew longer. People would ask me strange questions, like what my name was even though they had met me before.

Then my mom would pack our suitcases. I’d pout and say I didn’t want to go. My parents would leave to ‘run an errand’ which I always assumed meant they needed to empty the bank accounts or get gas for the car. When they returned, it was a quick jump into the car, and then we left. It was always the same.

Only that one time, when I was five years old, did I see them immediately upon their return from their errand. If I was corporeal, I thought I would have shivered. My parents had been eliminating threats. I was sure of it. It’s what I would have done if I had been in their position.

Another scene flipped in front of me. It was of my room on Calamata Island where I lived for the three years after my accident in the bay. That place had been my refuge after I left the hospital and accepted the fact I might have amnesia for a lot longer than anyone anticipated. I filled the room with things that I thought I loved in my previous life. As I looked at it now, I saw so many things that conflicted with who I had been before.

One of the most glaring was the stacks of romance novels on the bookshelves. They were my guilty pleasure. I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but I secretly wanted to be a princess in another time and place and have my Prince Charming come and save me. I realized with a start that my real life had taken a similar track even though I wasn’t a princess and didn’t live in a faraway land.

Prince Charming arrived in my life in the form of Riley Stone. He saved me from a demon bounty hunter and took me in. He promised to help me find out who I was. Although he didn’t directly do that, it was during the fight with Bruno Proctor in the church with him that my memory came back, and I knew who, or what, I was.

Bruno took me prisoner in Hell. Riley found a way to jump through time and space from the other side, and he pulled me out. When we took refuge in the commune with Abigail and Fernando and the other Disciples of Eva, they tried to call Eva forth to possess me. Riley stepped in and brought me back to reality before I accepted her.

After that, it was as if our roles reversed for a while. I became a bit of a modern day kick-ass female hero. When Riley went to Hell, I brought him back to life. He became a dark angel then, but he lived. He saved me once and for all from Bruno Proctor. In the process, he finally had his revenge on the demon official who had made a game out of messing with Riley’s head, but he almost lost himself in the process. I was the one who kept him from giving in to his darkest instincts.

That was when the shortsightedness of what I had done truly hit me. My parents hadn’t been saints. I was fairly certain they had killed more than one person to protect me. Even if Riley had a moral compass back then, he wouldn’t have known the reason behind my parents’ actions. To him, they would have looked like nothing more than common murderers who didn’t deserve any special treatment for their actions. Without the context, they were.

Riley had done so much for me. I was the reason that he was able to keep the darkness from taking over his soul. Without me, he would be rudderless. I thought I had given in to Eva to protect him, but it was also to avoid having to deal with all of the hurt and pain of our shared pasts. I knew now that I had also damned him as well. If Riley went dark, there wasn’t a single thing in the world that would be able to pull him back. He had the potential to be far worse than Eva if the archangels were to be believed.

I was the only one who could save him from himself. .

With that thought, I felt my mind begin to stretch. But all too soon, it was as if I hit a brick wall. My consciousness beat against it. I knew what it was. Eva was blocking me from getting out.

That was when I heard the whisper of familiar words.

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.

Those were the words that Riley used to summon spirits from the dead. I felt myself grow excited. Even though I had forcibly removed him from my life, he still hadn’t given up on me.

I tried to call out to him. “I’m here! I’m here!”

There was nothing. Nothing happened. I wasn’t sure if the same rules applied for pulling someone out of a living body as when you pulled their essences back from heaven or hell. I beat harder against my prison walls.

I heard Riley’s chant once again.

This time, I felt my consciousness swirl, and it was as if I were sucked through a doorway by a tornado. When I came to, I found myself staring at a ceiling that I definitely did not expect to see. It had stars on it. It was also painted bright orange. This was because once upon a time, I had convinced myself that if I woke up staring at such a bright, cheerful color to start my day, nothing bad that could happen to me.

There was a lot of psychobabble I used to tell myself while I lived under the fog of amnesia. Where I found myself now was in the room that I had just seen in my memory. I sat up. The room itself was dim. I expected to see Riley sitting across the room from me. I wasn’t alone, but the man waiting for me wasn’t Riley.

I skittered across the bed and ran for the door. My mind bent in on itself when I swiped at the doorknob, and my hand went right through it.

“You can’t leave this room until I permit it.” Benjamin’s chilly voice caused me to spin around.

“So you’re kidnapping me now too? Another wonderful addition to the long line of crap you’ve done to me over the years.” I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I brought my hand up to my face. It was gauzy, and I could see through it to the other side. I looked backward at the bed.

“Your essence was floating above it. I’m not surprised you didn’t realize it. Your mind will try to make sense of your current form, and so will put you in familiar positions to when you had a corporeal form.”

“So I’m a freaking ghost?” My voice sounded slightly muffled. It took more effort than I expected to talk.

“You are alive,” Benjamin said. “And for the moment out from under the thumb of Eva.”

“She’s in my body,” I said. I was stunned. “I heard Riley’s summoning spell. Is that how I’m here?”

“Yes,” Benjamin said. He frowned. “I wasn’t sure the necromancer could pull off this kind of feat, but the man constantly surprises me. I intercepted the exit of your soul from your body and brought you here. He might think souls are his domain, but they belong to the angels first.”

“That necromancer is also a dark angel,” I said. “He’s going to kick your ass the next time he sees you. I’d kick your ass right now if I were corporeal. You tried to kill me! You did kill him.”

“A necessary evil,” Benjamin said. He sighed. “I am a soldier of God first in all things. If there is one thing that my brothers have done a fantastic job of recently, it’s reminding me that I have a duty to attend to. Giving myself over to human emotions and desires has done nothing but distract me from my true work.”

That emotion he claimed to be such a distraction was falling in love with me. “I can’t believe after all we’d been through you would do that to me,” I said. I hated that I even wanted an explanation. “I stuck up for you every time Riley said anything negative about you. We were friends, best friends. I know it hurt you when I didn’t share the same feelings, but that didn’t change the way that I felt about you. I trusted you, and, in return, you tried to stick a knife in my gut.” It was a bitter pill to swallow.

“It was a rash decision on my part, I’ll admit. Fortunately for both of us, that action didn’t result in what I attempted to do,” Benjamin said. “Unfortunately for the world, by putting himself between us, Riley Stone was given the genetic key to unlock his transformation into an abomination.”

“That’s a bit dramatic,” I said. I wasn’t sure on Riley’s status with the world, but I knew that it could be bad. Really bad. I had seen a side of him when he dealt the death blow to Bruno Proctor’s vessel that had been truly terrifying. That had been one demon official in a specific encounter where the situation was easily contained. If it was possible for Riley to do such a thing on a grander scale, it was a sobering thought.

“No, it’s not. What is reality is that we now have an original brother and sister on our hands as well as a dark angel to contend with.”

“What’s an original brother and sister?” I asked.

“Your lover’s new friend,” Benjamin said. “Do you think he managed to get inside of your head on his own? Oh no. He had help from the one who has been stalking the vessel of Eva for a thousand years.”

I felt a shot of fear through my non-corporeal bones. “You mean the one who killed the Protector.”