Protect Her: Part 11 (3 page)

What could I tell him that only he and I would know? Something that was so intimate and personal that it was something that could destroy me as surely as it would save me. My mind ran over all the possibilities even as I slipped to my knees.

Riley joined me on the ground staring at me with an intense look. He seemed fascinated by my pain. “Why do you stay here, demon? Leave my presence, and the wound will be gone.”

“I’m not going to leave you,” I managed to sputter. “I love you.”

He scoffed. “Love. What is that emotion anyway? One that is fleeting and fickle and causes the one in love nothing but agony and pain. When you love, you are weak.”

I shook my head. “No. When you love, you are strong. That’s why I won’t leave you. Kill me if you want, but you will watch a piece of yourself die.”

Riley’s eyes had that faraway look in them again. “Whatever part of me was capable of such an emotion is gone. I’ve snuffed it out, and it will never return. I will never be weak again.”

The sensations crossing my chest were alternating between hot flashes of pain and the tingles of icy electric pulses that seemed to converge over me. I choked as I felt the grip of them around my heart. “Don’t do this Riley. It’s me. I swear.”

His face loomed above me, but his features blurred. “If you are who you say you are, which you aren’t, then answer me a question.”

A shot of hope rose inside of me. “Anything.”

“If you are Paige, then you’ll know the name of the one who betrayed you. The one who made sure that you would become the vessel of Eva. The one who set you on the path to becoming the woman you are today. Who was it that did this despicable thing to you? Who was your betrayer?”

I felt my heart breaking.

“It was you, Riley. It was you.” Unconsciousness overtook me.

CHAPTER FIVE –
RILEY

I watched the unconscious woman crumple to the floor. Why I was affected by her words, I had no idea. Despite their truth, if a demon was trying to ingratiate itself into my favor, why would it say something to anger me? Why would it risk my wrath?

As her body began to convulse, I felt a tendril of something inside of me that I couldn’t recall feeling since I had been reborn. Uncertainty. Fear. I reached down and set my hand on her forehead. She thrashed underneath my touch as the poisonous venom from my earlier touch wracked her body. I knew from what others had told me that it was an incredibly painful way to die, and the thought should have made me happy. But there was something different about this interaction that I couldn’t quite put my finger on yet.

I waved my hand over her, and her movement stilled. Now, she was in a deep slumber. The forward progress of the poison stopped until I determined what I was going to do with her.

Hearing movement behind me, I sprang to my feet and spun around. Alice stood there with a tray of tea. I saw her eyes move from me to the woman at my feet. The slight widening of her eyes was the only thing that told me she was surprised or had any thought about the situation at all.

“Is she dead?” The question was asked casually, as if she were asking if I had picked up her dry cleaning or gotten the mail.

“No,” I said. “I should kill her. I don’t know why I haven’t.” It was an admission that I immediately wanted to take back. There were so many thoughts and emotions that battled for my attention these days. I wondered sometimes if I was going mad, but then I would see the world with such clarity that it would have been terrifying if it wasn’t useful. I had become incredibly productive in my work.

Alice moved into the room and set the tray down on the coffee table. I had to admire the woman’s guts. She should have been terrified of me, and yet she was treating me exactly the same as before. It was as if nothing had transpired between us. As if I didn’t know she was my mother who had abandoned me. As if she didn’t understand that I had finally embraced the being I was always meant to become.

I sat down on the couch as she poured the tea. She handed me the cup, and I took a long sip. I murmured my approval. “Still my favorite tea.”

“I’m glad that your taste buds have not changed as much as the rest of you,” Alice said as she poured her own. She sat down in the chair across from me. “Why are you here, Riley? What do you require of me?”

“A man can’t visit his mother without a question of his intent?” I asked slyly. Although I had tried lying to her many times, it was as if Alice was a human lie detector. I don’t know why I bothered other than I was curious to see if that had changed with my transformation. I had been experimenting with a lot of things on that front. The results so far had been…positive.

“The fact that you still claim a human as a parent at all is curious,” Alice said as she blew on her tea to cool it. “Given who you are now. Wouldn’t someone like me be a vulnerability for you if anyone was to discover the true nature of our relationship?”

“It’s funny that you mention that,” I said with a small nod. “I had been thinking about that, too. It seemed prudent that I remove all possible vulnerabilities in my life so that they couldn’t be used against me.” I let those words fill the air between us. Alice said nothing.

I heard a low moan from the floor. The woman was sleeping. I knew that. But her forehead wrinkled, and it appeared as if she might be in the throes of a nightmare. Paige had suffered from terrible nightmares. But this woman wasn’t Paige. I had to keep reminding myself of that. Paige died with Eva. Still, there was something about her that stilled my hand from ripping out her heart for showing up here wearing Paige’s face.

“Get on with it then,” Alice finally said. She set her teacup down on the small table next her and turned to face me fully. There was no fear in her eyes. “If you’re here to kill me, then do it. I am not afraid to die.”

Mystified by her reaction, I stood. “All right, if you are so eager to meet your maker, I’ll get this over with. It’s better for both of us this way.” I moved to stand next to her chair. I let my hand move into the air in front of her chest. She didn’t look up me. She didn’t even flinch. Instead, she stared straight ahead. “Any last words?”

There was a short pause. “I have many regrets, but I will settle those with God when the time is right. My last words, therefore, are only my wish for you. May you find peace someday, Riley.” Her eyes closed, and I watched as her lips began to move. She was praying.

That made me angry. I was the one she should have been focused on for all those years. Instead, she turned to God and buried herself in books of mysticism and theology looking for answers where none existed. She said that she cared for me, but it had always been at a distance. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be when you brought a child into the world. She had failed me, just like so many others.

“Riley, don’t.” The cracked voice was low and filled with pain.

“I will make it quick,” I promised.

“You’ll regret it forever.” The woman pretending to be Paige stood behind the chair looking like an angel from Heaven.

“You argue for the life of a human?”

“Take mine instead,” she said. She reached out her hand. Her hair streamed wildly around her shoulders. Her blue eyes searched mine with an intense urgency that confused me. “Finish what you started with me. But leave her alone.”

Then it was as if something cracked inside of me. I felt it even as another part of me warred to stop the gap before it could get any wider. I had spent the last ten years around demons. There was one thing they wouldn’t do. They wouldn’t sacrifice their life for another; especially not a human. It wasn’t part of their DNA. This woman wasn’t a demon. And if she wasn’t a demon…

“Paige?” The whispered question fell from my lips.

She gave me a relieved, tearful smile. She nodded. “Yes, Riley. It’s me.”

“How?”

“Take your hand away from Alice’s chest, and I’ll tell you what I know,” she said.

I looked down and then whipped my hand away. I stared at it and felt the power coursing through it. The magic that had been seconds away from ripping out Alice’s heart.
Would I really have done it? Would I have followed through with my threat to kill my own mother?

I stumbled backward, and the backs of my knees hit the coffee table upending the tray of tea. I heard the sounds of glass shattering as the teapot and cups hit the floor, but they barely registered. Instead, I stared at my hands as unbidden images started to fill my mind.

Faces. Too many faces. Their expressions were of pain and horror, anger, lust. These were all memories. Memories of people I’d seen, and then the litany of what I’d done began to run through my mind. I moaned even as I slid to the floor. The shards of glass split open my pants and the skin of my knees, but I didn’t care. I welcomed the pain.

“Riley!” I heard Paige’s exclamation, and then the sound of her feet moving toward me.

“Stop,” Alice’s voice boomed around my ears, and I reached up to cover them. “Move back.”

“He needs help!”

“We will give it to him, but first we have to move out of the line of fire,” Alice said.

I barely noticed that Alice dragged Paige backward into the hallway; Paige protesting the whole time. I didn’t know what Alice was talking about. Line of fire?

What the fuck was going on?

Come back.
The gurgling voice emerged from deep in the recesses of my mind.

“Fuck!” I slammed my hands against the sides of my head harder. “Who said that?”

You belong with us. Come back.

“Riley!” I heard Paige’s voice calling out to me. “Riley, I’m right here. Stay with me!"

There was the sound of a tussle, and then the heavy footsteps pounded on the floorboards again pressing the shards of glass deeper into my knees. In a way, I welcomed it because it felt as if my world had gone off kilter in the deep end of the pool.

I felt cool hands on the sides of my face. “Riley. Look at me.” I opened my eyes to her, my beautiful blue-eyed angel. She gasped, but she didn’t let go of me. “Who are you talking to, Riley?”

“I don’t know who it is,” I whispered.

Yes, you do.
Could she hear the voice too?

“Tell me what it’s saying,” she said. “Tell me what it wants you to do.”

Kill her. Kill them all. Remember how good it feels? Remember the taste of blood in your mouth when you rip out their hearts and feast on their flesh?

I moaned. At the mention of blood, I tasted the rusty metallic taste on my tongue. Had I really eaten the hearts of my victims? It was a horrible realization to think that maybe I had.

“It wants me to kill you,” I said. I didn’t have the strength of will to lie or beat around the bush.

Her eyes widened, but she didn’t move. “Do you want to kill me?”

I barely shook my head. “No. I would never hurt you.”

She smiled at me, although her lips trembled. “That’s good because I would never hurt you either. You have to close that voice out. You can’t listen to it anymore. Do you understand?”

I did understand, but such a thing was easier said than done. I didn’t know where I ended, and the voice began. Because despite everything it was telling me to do, it was my voice. That was the most terrifying part of all.

“Stay with me,” Paige repeated. Her hands slid down to my shoulders. She moved closer to me. “Please, Riley. Don’t leave me again.” Then she wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into her embrace.

I shuddered as the war in my mind waged on, but as I dared to reach my arms up to encircle her waist, I felt the loosening of the other’s hold on my mind. I pushed it back with all my might as I heard Paige’s words murmured in my ear.

She told me loved me. She apologized for ever doubting me and pushing me away. She forgave me for everything in the past. She had faith that I would be able to choose the right path forward. She wanted to be with me forever.

A future. A future with Paige that didn’t involve death, darkness, and pain. It was my dream. The dream that I thought was ripped away from me when I watched Adam kill Eva. But it wasn’t the end, because Paige was here. I was wrapped in her arms. She had found me.

I let out a low sigh of release as I finally felt the other recede. I slammed the door on it in my mind and locked it away. When I opened my eyes, I looked over Paige’s shoulder into the hallway. Alice stood there, and then I saw two figures step up behind her. It was Klein and Viho.

“I’m okay,” I finally managed to say. “I’m okay.”

Paige gently loosened her hold on me and pushed backward. Her eyes examined my face as if trying to determine if I was telling the truth. I could hardly blame her. Ten minutes ago, I had tried to kill her. I brushed my hand across her cheek and down her hair. She was real. The time that had passed without her had been a nightmare.

She smiled at me and then leaned forward to brush her lips against mine. “I’ve missed you,” she said.

“And I you,” I said. I watched as she slowly got to her feet, and I saw the rips in her jeans. Her knees were bloody. “You’re hurt.”

“Nothing a few bandages and some antiseptic won’t take care of,” she said. She held her hands down to me. I took them and slowly got to my feet. I wobbled, and she put her shoulder under my arm. “Easy does it,” she said. She propelled me to the couch and eased me down onto it. “I’m not the only one with a pair of bloody knees.”

I looked down and saw my own wounds. “I’d heal them, but that’s not a power I possess,” I said. I realized that I had no idea what powers I did or didn’t possess at the moment. Had my beating back of the darkness inside of me diminished any of my abilities? It would remain to be seen.

Klein, looking more worse for wear than usual, moved into the room and handed Paige a first aid kit from his backpack. “Here. I brought one just in case.”

Paige took it and smiled at him. “Thanks, Klein.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’m glad you two are okay. I suspect that you and Alice might want to go somewhere and have a chat.”

I looked at my two parents. Both of them in the same room at the same time. It was another first in my life. It was the first time I had ever seen tears in Alice’s eyes. She and Viho embraced. Then she nodded to the three of us and beckoned Viho toward the kitchen. I suspected there would be more tea in my future.

“Why don’t you look for a broom and dustpan to clean up this mess while I take care of Riley?” Paige directed Klein.

“Sure,” he said. I could tell by his expression that he knew the real reason for his errand was to get him out of the room. I was okay with that. I wanted to soak in the lovely image of the woman in front of me. Alive. And smiling at me as if I was the only person in the world.

I leaned forward even as she began the work of pulling the tiny shards of glass out of my knees. I twisted a piece of her long blonde hair into my fingers. “How?”

She frowned as she worked, and I wasn’t sure if it was because of the glass or my question. “Well, that spell you used to conjure me up from my body? It worked.”

I remembered the spell. It seemed like that had all happened a lifetime ago. “How long?” My voice was hoarse.