The Devil's Third (15 page)

“What are you talking about?” Tree looked at me like he didn’t have a clue.

“Just because you didn’t like the answer I gave earlier doesn’t mean it’s not the right one,” I said.

He made a face, which annoyed me. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hel-lo! The premonition I just had.”
Where was his head tonight?

In a fit of frustration, he jumped to his feet, towering over me. “Like I was supposed to know what you were talking about, Paige. I can’t read your
fucking
mind!”

My mouth dropped in surprise. Like Nathan, Tree rarely used the eff word, unless he was downright pissed or joking around. I knew then something was deeply disturbing him, and I was determined to draw it out of him so we could confront it and move on. We didn’t have the time or luxury to make mistakes or give ourselves a false sense of security. Tree needed to accept that, and if I had to drill it in his head for him to do so, I would.

“I know you can’t.” I kept the tone of my voice even, hoping it would siphon some of his frustration out. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t being clear, but we need to face the fact that part of my premonition means somebody is going to get hurt and possibly die. We just have to fig--”

“I can’t lose Carrie,” Tree blurted, moving about the room like a restless bear in a cage. “After you became immortal, Carrie and I were eager to help you because we thought we could handle the possibility of losing one another if it came down to it. And I know you’ve warned me about it . . . Paige”–he faced me. With wide, tearful eyes, he thumped his fingers against his chest–“I can’t lose Carrie. I can’t.” He hung his head and shook it. Tears rolled down his face, breaking my heart, causing my own eyes to well.

I hopped up and took his hand, towing him back to the couch. When we sat, I wrapped my arms around him. He was shaking.

“Carrie is going to be fine,” I reassured, trying to keep my voice steady, but he must have heard the sadness in it because he pulled back to look at me.

He frowned. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He wiped his face off with the palm of his hand.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. He looked down, as if in shame, so I continued. “I know how you feel, so don’t be embarrassed by it. I mean, I’m scared to death something is going to happen to either one of you. I understand and accept I’m going to outlive you two, but I don’t know what I’d do if one of you died young, especially by the hands of a dark spirit. You and Carrie are the only family I have.”

Tree lifted his eyes to mine. “I never really thought about that . . . us being your only family now.”

“It’s true,” I said. “That’s why I want to keep you out of danger.” I gripped his arm, and he started at the intensity of it. “We have to get through this
together
. Do you understand? I can’t have you falling apart on me. I understand your fear of losing Carrie, but she’ll be okay. I need you, though, to be clearheaded through this sticky situation we’re in with Bael.”

 “I know. I’m sorry for losing it.”

“Don’t be.” I took a deep, unsteady breath and dropped my voice to a bare whisper again. “Nobody can know about our bargain with Bael.” I pointed to the floor. “Nathan, especially, can’t know about it. Therefore, when the time comes, I’m going to need your help to make him believe I don’t want anything to do with him.” I could feel my eyes stinging and mentally hardened myself. Instantly, my vision cleared.

“You don’t have to--”

“Yeah. I do,” I said. “Otherwise, Nathan will do everything in his power to find me, and he can’t get in the middle of this. You’ll have to get him to believe . . . ” My voice cracked. I took a deep breath and cleared my throat. I attempted to turn off all heartbreaking emotions concerning Nathan again. A hardness grew inside me. It rose from the pit of my stomach to my face. “You’ll have to get him to believe I don’t want to be with him anymore.” There I said it. Then a thought came to me on what I could do that would leave no doubt in Nathan’s mind I didn’t want nothing to do with him.

“He’s not going to fall for it,” Tree said, unconvinced.

“After I’m done doing my part, he will,” I stated, hearing the determination in my voice.

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Right. You’re a terrible liar, and your face will totally give you away.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to handle it in a different way. Just be ready to do your part when he confronts you.”

Tree leaned forward, his expression poised for some juicy information, as if I were going to tell him aliens did exist, and the government was covering it up. I laughed. It was short and humorless, but it cracked a silly look on his face, and his forehead wrinkled.

“It’s better I don’t tell you, so your reaction will be genuine when Nathan confides in you about it,” I reasoned.

Tree sat back and draped his arm off the couch. “What a gyp.” He looked away, acting all disgusted.

I shoved his knee a couple times until he looked at me. He gave me the stink eye, and I narrowed my gaze in return. He didn’t waver–just kept staring. I continued to do the same but then pretended to pick my nose, flinging an imaginary booger at him. His gaze shifted to the peaked ceiling. Dramatically, he made a repulsive sound, wiping an imaginary booger off his face.

“You got me,” is all he said. Then he became serious, and our short playful mood was over. “Don’t worry about me. Okay? I promise you I’ll do my part. But we need to start getting busy on finding those incantations, so we can be done with this.”

“Carrie is going to be okay,” I reassured him again, squeezing his knee. “If I know two things about Bael, it’s he likes Carrie and keeps his word. As long as I keep my end of the deal, he’ll keep his. So Carrie will stay alive and so will you.” I noticed the sadness in his eyes when I mentioned Carrie. “All right?”

“Yeah. I hear ya. I’m fine.” He scooted to the edge of the couch and picked up Nathan’s laptop. “Now, let’s see if we can find any information on that cave.”

I rose from the couch and headed toward the stairs. “I’ll go get Nathan.”

“Hey, Paige.”

I half turned, alarmed at the somberness in his voice. Could he still be upset about Carrie?

“I’m sorry about Nathan. I know how much he means to you.” He took a deep breath and continued. “I feel like shit for you giving him up to keep me alive.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, “and who knows? Maybe when this is all over, Nathan will understand why I did what I did.” I turned on my heel and descended the stairs, wondering if in the end, Nathan would ever trust me again.

Chapter Fifteen

Nathan

When Paige came downstairs to let me know she finished talking with Tree, I’d just got off the phone with Pip. It was perfect timing, although he wanted to visit with Paige. She intrigued him with her abilities, and knowing Pip, he’d want her to give him a detailed explanation of her journey, merely to quench his curiosities and feed his scientific mind. But he’d have to wait for another time, possibly when we were able to call on him in England. Right now we needed to funnel our energy into finding those incantations before things got ugly with Bael.

I noticed the sullen expression on Paige’s face when she entered the room. Our eyes met, but then she glanced away as if she couldn’t bear the sight of me, yet she leaned toward me like she wanted to be in my arms. Dread stirred in my gut again. “What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to beat off the sickening feeling I might be losing her. Paige and I were good, I told myself. I knew she was in love with me. It was ridiculous to speculate otherwise. So I chalked it up to insecurity and left it alone.

She shifted her gaze to me and bit her lip, attempting to compose herself. I could see the emotional distress in her eyes. “Tree is still afraid he’s going to lose Carrie and is having a hard time,” she said, the raspy part of her voice cracking. “I’ve never seen him upset like this before.”

Now her mood made sense, and I was secretly relieved it had nothing to do with us. I’ve had over a century of keeping my emotions in check when I wanted to, hidden from those who’d use them as tools for their own gain. So I made sure not to display the relief I felt, because I didn’t want to appear insensitive to what Tree was going through. “Is there anything I can do?”

She ran her fingers through her hair. The dark red color caught the light just so, to where it shined like glossy paint on a hot rod. I had a quick mental visual of it hanging around my face, being surrounded by the smell of peaches and desire. I averted my eyes before racier thoughts took hold.

“He’s okay now,” she answered. “I think it would do him some good if you did some training with him. It would make him feel more confident and distract his mind for a while by focusing on that instead.”

“You’re right,” I agreed and laced my arms around her when she stepped into them. She hugged me tighter than normal and felt cold. “Are you all right?” Her head moved up and down on my chest.

“I’m okay.” Her voice sounded distant, but then it shifted into a perkier tone. “I made coffee for us, and Tree is looking online to see if there are any caves in Africa resembling the one I saw.”

“Good. We should get busy, then. But we still need to talk about your premonition,” I said, pulling back so I could look at her. “Don’t you think?”

“I know what it means, Nathan,” she said, her tone exasperated. “At least, I think I do.”

“What?”

She yawned, stepped away from me and headed up the stairs. “It means somebody is going to die, and Bael and Aosoth are going to be teaming up again.”

Taken aback by her revelation, I followed without saying a word, wondering if she was right. I wasn’t sure because Bael had betrayed Aosoth, and it didn’t make sense she would hook up with him again. Not to mention it would take her a while to regain her energy after what I done to her. But still, I grew curious to know why Paige would think so since she was getting better at interpreting her premonitions. “Why do think Bael and Aosoth are working together again?” I asked as I poured coffee into three mugs.

“Think about it,” she said, getting the milk from the refrigerator. “An unlikely pair reunites in treachery and affection. Bael doesn’t like Aosoth, but Aosoth has the hots for him.”

“He betrayed her,” I countered.

She shrugged. “So? She’s in love with him; thus it doesn’t matter.”

“He
betrayed
her,” I repeated firmly, “so it has to matter.”

She looked away, carefully handling two full coffee mugs in her hands. She walked out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there, staring after her, wondering if I said something wrong.

***

The next day, in my makeshift gym below my kitchen, I trained Tree more on hand to hand combat, how to think strategically out of tight situations and knife throwing, at which Tree excelled.

In close quarters fighting, I taught him not only to use his fists but the heels and edges of his hands, even fingers, were also viable weapons against the enemy. Wrists and forearms made important defensive tools, and the elbows delivered deadly blunt force trauma, as did driving in forcefully with his shoulders. Afterwards, we went down to his hips, legs, knees, and feet used as bludgeons. Then I instructed the target areas to immediately cripple his opponents: temples, ears, eyes, nose, jaw, neck, and its Adam’s apple and cervical vertebrae. We went over how to stand properly to balance his body while executing unarmed battle techniques and follow up with blocking and counter punching.

“Show him the hand knife,” Paige said, straddling the balancing beam, swinging her feet back and forth. Despite us not finding anything about the cave, she looked like she was enjoying herself.

“What’s the hand knife?” Tree wondered.

“It’s the cutting edge of your hand I taught earlier.” I lifted my hand with the fingers together, facing the meaty side, below the pinky, toward him. I thrust it forward and stopped when my hand reached his neck. He jerked his head back in response, his eyes wide.

“Cool,” he said, impressed.

“Now I’m going to throw a punch at you,” I told him, “and I want you to show me what you’d do.”

“Okay.” Tree positioned his body in a fighting stance, getting into an offensive position.

“That’s good, Tree,” Paige said, lending her encouragement.

I threw a punch at Tree. He stepped forward, raised his left arm and deflected it with his forearm.

“Excellent,” I said, pleased he seemed to have a knack for this stuff. “Now, let’s practice the turning throw.”

I stepped closer to Tree in a threatening manner. He grabbed my right wrist with his left hand and stepped forward with his right foot. Placing it outside my right foot, he pivoted on his back heel. He then hooked my right arm with his, and pinched his arm between my biceps and forearm. Pulling my wrist downward, he pivoted to the left, rotating it outward, throwing me off balance.

I fell to the floor.

“Yay!” Paige clapped. She swung her legs around and hopped off the balancing beam. Taking my hand, she pulled me up.

“Very good,” I said to him.

“Yeah,” Tree said, grinning. “I think all those Power Ranger moves I done as a kid”–he twirled around and threw kicks in the air– “are resurfacing.”

Paige laughed. “You’re such a dork. What Nathan is teaching you has nothing to do with Power Ranger moves.”

Tree rolled his eyes, looking indignant. “You have a short memory. They totally did blocking moves and elbow strikes.”

“It’s not that I have a short memory,” Paige said, making a face. “I just never watched the show because of how lame it was.”

“Well, then, you shouldn’t be opening your mouth about stuff you don’t even know about,” Tree responded defensively.

“Whatever.” Paige sighed.

I was beginning to feel like the only adult in the room, and found myself making allowances for it. Maybe it had to do with the stress of everything going on causing them to behave in this manner toward each other. It was almost comical, though, and reminded me of when my older brother Jeremiah and I used to bicker back and forth like this.