Dylan was curled up on a couch as she held the box between her hands, as if it was a normal thing for someone to be holding such a precious artifact in the middle of a human’s living room. Stiles watched her. He wanted to ask her to put it down or do something else with it, but he didn’t know what it was, exactly, he wanted her to do with it. So he kept his mouth shut, just watching her with an uneasiness he didn’t know what to do with.
“Some of us have work to do,” Wilhelm suddenly announced even as Donna—his lover—slapped his arm and whispered a harsh warning somewhere near his ear. “Can we get on with this little meeting?”
Stiles gave him a dirty look. He was not happy with Wilhelm. He didn’t understand why he even had to be there since this really had little to do with the dark souls. He hadn’t trusted Wilhelm since he’d betrayed the humans during the war. Stiles understood that Wilhelm was working under a misunderstanding, but that didn’t make what he’d done any less destructive. And it didn’t mean that he had to like being in the same room with him again.
“What is this all about?” Raphael asked, his gaze moving from Stiles to Dylan and the box in her hands.
“We have reason to believe we’ve found an orb of guardianship,” Stiles said.
The room fell silent. Raphael stood, crossing the room in two quick strides to come to stand in front of Dylan. Demetria and Wilhelm looked shocked. The others—except for Raphael’s angels—seemed lost.
“What is an orb of…?” Rachel asked.
“It is one of the most important artifacts an angel can take out of heaven,” Raphael said. “It’s a source of power. But more than that…it’s like having a little piece of God with you all the time.”
Raphael knelt in front of Dylan and held his hands just inches from the box, as though he wanted to touch it but was afraid to do so. Dylan smiled softly at him, more serene than Stiles could remember her looking since long before Wyatt’s death. In fact, he couldn’t remember for sure the last time she’d looked that relaxed. She was almost…happy.
“Where?” Raphael asked.
“In a house Joanna once lived in,” Dylan responded. “We think she brought it down with her when she fell.”
Raphael nodded, as though that was what he had suspected she would say. “There were rumors,” he said.
“Rumors?” Stiles asked.
Raphael nodded again, turning slowly on his heel to face Stiles. “I heard things. I wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t…but now, I suppose I do.”
Raphael took one last look at the box and then he sighed, rising to his feet with apparent reluctance. His eyes fell on Rachel for a long second, a need Stiles thought he recognized in his expression. Stiles suspected Raphael and Rachel had begun a quiet courtship, but he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t really his business. He tried to keep his nose out of things like that. Rebecca once told him that a woman’s heart was only for her to reveal, so he figured Rachel would talk to him about it when she was ready.
He just hoped that Raphael made her happy. Rachel deserved happiness.
Raphael turned toward Stiles, his handsome features clouded with concern. It felt like a confirmation of something Stiles had been unsure of. And he wasn’t sure he liked it.
“Joanna was to choose a new guardian of humanity,” Stiles said. “That’s why she fell to Earth, why she had this orb with her.”
“Yes,” Raphael confirmed. “Joanna was to choose from one of the archangels who were already here, preferably one of Lucifer’s legion. God felt that Lucifer’s time as the guardian had come to an end and it was time to bring in fresh eyes, someone who could come to the job with a better point of view.”
“He was going to replace Lucifer?” Demetria asked, her voice an uncharacteristic breathy whisper. “After all those millennia, he was letting him go home?”
Raphael nodded. “He’d served his purpose. It was time to go in a new direction.”
“But who?” Wilhelm asked.
“Jophiel,” Stiles said even as Raphael began to shrug, to deny knowing. “She was going to give it to Jophiel.”
“How do you know?” Rachel asked.
Stiles turned his back on the room, his thoughts storming through the past. He remembered the time he spent in Joanna and Jophiel’s company, the way she looked at him, the admiration in her voice. He knew she looked up to him—she had even before falling to Earth. Jophiel was a strong character, an angel who commanded respect even in the bodiless, joyful atmosphere of heaven. Stiles had been a little in awe of the angel himself for a long time…until he fell to Earth and discovered Jophiel had turned on the humans and his own kind. It was Jophiel who’d ordered Joanna to stab and leave Stiles to die on that long ago day.
“He was respected; a leader who could have corralled Lucifer’s legion even if Lucifer was no longer present. And he’d been here for a long time and knew the humans intimately. He even had a human wife,” Stiles said, his eyes falling on Rachel. “He would have been a strong guardian.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around her chest, the mention of her mother dropping a dark cloud over her shoulders. It was long ago and so much had happened since then, but the memory of that long ago barbecue stuck with Rachel’s brother, Jimmy. It was the day their parents died. It was the day Rachel died, too…Jimmy had grown up without her, without any family, recovering a small piece of the past when Dylan had pulled Rachel out of the past and gave them both a second chance.
“But something changed,” Demetria observed.
Raphael looked pointedly at Stiles. There was no need for words. Stiles knew what he was thinking—and then you fell.
“God changed his mind,” Dylan said.
Everyone looked at her, some noticing her for the first time. She stared down at the box, her hands still caressing it like it was the most precious object she’d ever come into contact with. She was chewing on her lower lip, as though she was mulling over something of great importance in that amazingly witty mind of hers. And then she looked up, her eyes lingering on Stiles for just a moment, but that look spoke volumes to him.
She understood now. And she was okay with it all.
“Things were getting out of control,” she said softly. “God had allowed the humans too much space, too much freedom to make their own choices and to create their own fate. But, like most children, you give them an inch and they take a mile. He thought he could bring them back into the fold with the war, with the threat of violence. But the humans had already seen too much death and destruction. It didn’t matter to them anymore.”
Dylan ran her fingers through her hair, brushing the short, fine blond strands away from her eyes. She looked around the room, her eyes lingering on Rachel, Demetria and Donna before they turned back to Stiles.
“He knew he had to do something bigger, something that would shake everything up. He had to start over.”
“No,” Rachel said, shaking her head with as much wonder as disillusionment. “I can’t believe God would do that.”
Raphael went to her, sitting beside her in the low, straight-back chair where she was perched on the edge, wrapping his arms around her even as she continued to hold herself. He whispered something in her ear that Stiles couldn’t hear, but imagined were words of affection and support. The same words he might have whispered to Dylan if given the chance.
“You’re saying that God decided to allow Lucifer to start his war?” Demetria asked. “You’re saying that God wanted all of that to happen?”
“Lucifer didn’t have freewill, Demetria. None of the angels did.”
“But they turned on the humans—”
“Because God knew that he had a plan. He knew he was going to fix everything.”
Again, the room fell silent. Stiles watched realization dawn on the faces of the people around him—angels, humans, and gargoyles. None of them truly wanted to believe it even though the truth had always been right there in front of them.
“No angel acts without God’s permission,” Sti
les said. “Not Lucifer, not Lily…not me.”
Dylan studied his face for a moment. “No angel—except for me.”
Wilhelm jumped to his feet, suddenly agitated enough that Stiles could hear the creak of his gargoyle joints coming to life even though his façade remained human. He paced in front of the couch where Dylan sat, his hands balled into tight fists. Stiles watched him closely, ready in case he suddenly turned on her.
“Joanna came to Earth to appoint a new guardian of humanity. But God decided that it was too late for new blood, that the humans had moved too far off the path they were supposed to follow. So he ordered the angels to wage a war that would result in the deaths of all pure blood humans so that this one could make a choice—could choose between humanity and the angels? So that the angels could get their hopes up that they might use Earth as their personal paradise and so all the humans would disappear and become this new group of—not quite Nephilim, but not quite humans?”
“Essentially.”
“Why?”
“Do you not see?” Raphael asked. “It is quite obvious.”
Wilhelm spun around, but Demetria caught his arm before he could do anything he would regret. She pulled him back and urged him to retake his seat. If not for Donna watching the whole thing with wide, concerned eyes, Stiles wasn’t sure he would have done as she wanted. But he did, settling on the edge of the small loveseat and relaxing only when Donna took his hand.
Rachel shook her head when things had settled down, her eyes moving from Dylan to Raphael. “I don’t get it,” she said. “Why would God allow all those people to die? Why would he allow the angels to commit all the atrocities they committed? Why was my mother murdered? My father…?”
“For me,” Dylan said softly.
Something about the way she said it made Stiles look at her sharply. This orb…it had changed something inside of her. She was different. It wasn’t just the happiness that seemed to radiate from her even now, even when it seemed almost inappropriate, but something else. She was no longer the Dylan he had known for more than sixty years. She was…more.
“For you?” Rachel asked, still so confused that Stiles almost felt sorry for her.
“For me.” Dylan ran her hand slowly over the top of the box. “God realized that it wasn’t enough to have one of his angels here, watching over humanity. He needed more control. He needed a guardian who could make decisions on the fly, who didn’t have to wait for Him to give instructions. He needed a guardian with freewill.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Wilhelm said. “What difference would it make to God if his angels had freewill or not? And why didn’t he just give freewill to Lucifer if it was that important? Why didn’t he just instruct Lucifer and his legion to do what needed to be done to get humans back in line? Why did he need to go through all of this, to destroy so much of what he’d built?”
“Why did he flood the world and allow only those on Noah’s Ark to survive?” Raphael asked. “Why did strike down the Tower of Babel? Why did he allow the humans to crucify one of our own?”
“Things had to happen in a specific order,” Dylan said. “Stiles had to fall. He had to get to know the humans—to love them—so that he would want to fight for them. He had to love Rebecca and betray Jack and meet me; he had to help me realize my destiny…it all had to happen in the right order. If it didn’t, things could have turned out very differently.”
“And now?” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest as he studied Dylan. “What happens now?”
“I choose my soul mate and together we become the guardians of humanity.”
Stiles inclined his head slightly. He’d already suspected that. But there was something about the way she said it that concerned him.
He’d chosen Dylan as his soul mate long ago, when she was still happily together with Wyatt, when he knew it would be some time before she would come to him. But she was free now, her soul mate connection with Wyatt broken years ago and, with his death, she was free to come to him. But he still felt reluctance on her part. She said she needed space and he was willing to give it to her. His patience, however, was quickly growing thin.
“It’s not that simple,” Raphael said. “There is more to it than that. Dylan has to give up her right to return to heaven and live among her own kind. She has to accept that, as guardian of humanity, her place is here on Earth and nowhere else. She will, largely, be on her own when it comes to answering the prayers of lost souls. Her soul mate will provide strength and companionship, but the burden will rest with her alone.”
“It already does,” Rachel said softly. “To a certain degree.”
“And she won’t be completely alone,” Demetria said, Donna nodding her head vigorously in agreement. “She’ll always have the gargoyles to back her up.”
Raphael inclined his head slightly, almost bowing. “She will also have my legion.”
Stiles studied the familiar faces of the people in the room, listened to their words as the meaning slowly sank in. They were pledging loyalty to their accepted leader. And that was a big deal.
Ever since the war grew and it became clear that it was Lucifer and his legion against everyone else, they fell into something of a free fall, every man for himself. The gargoyles worked alone—sometimes as a fractured unit—and the angels still loyal to the humans worked separately to do what they believed they had to do to stop their brethren. And that sense of separation continued even after Dylan rose as the savior and even after she’d sent Lucifer and his legion back to heaven and she ended the war. Even after she made her choice, everyone continued to work apart, doing what they needed to do for the common cause, but doing it under their own rules. But now…now, they were pulling together again, promising to follow one leader.
That hadn’t happened since the fall of the tower when God had appointed Lucifer the first guardian of humanity. They were coming full circle. And Stiles couldn’t have been happier to see it happen.
Chapter 5
Dylan handed the wooden box to Rachel and watched as she placed it inside a metal box that she called a safe. “It’ll be impossible for anyone to get it from here,” she assured Dylan.
“Stiles thinks that Jack James wanted to possess me so that he could have control over it. He says that only angels can benefit from its power, so Jack would have to possess an archangel to control it.”
“And you were the most logical choice.”
Dylan shrugged as she curled up in a low loveseat shoved against a back wall of Rachel’s private office. “Joanna likely told him I was the one it was meant to belong to.”
“You think so?”
When Dylan was in Joanna’s house, she remembered details about that visit she’d shared with her there all those years ago—back when she thought Joanna was on the right side and wanted only to guide her—and she knew now that she’d seen that box then. Joanna took the box out from under her bed and held it out to Dylan. But then she panicked—or changed her mind—and dropped it. Dylan wondered if Joanna had intended to give her the orb then, but decided, or was told, that Dylan was not yet ready for it.
Dylan wasn’t sure if she was ready for it now.
Rachel settled beside her on the loveseat and took her hand lovingly in her own.
“How are you?”
Dylan shrugged. “I’ve been better.”
“Have you seen him? Since he passed?”
Raphael had shown Dylan heaven a few weeks ago. He’d taken her there so that she could experience what it was like to be in that place most angels take for granted. Since then, he’d taught her a few things about her own powers, including her ability to move back and forth from one realm to the other. But she hadn’t gone back to heaven since Wyatt’s death. A part of her was afraid to see him there, afraid to see that he was happier in that otherworldly place than he’d ever been here on Earth with her.
She shook her head as she pulled her hand from Rachel grip. She dragged the fingers of both hands through her short hair,
a weariness that seemed to always be with her these days settled heavily on her shoulders.
“I think about him more than I should. When I lay in bed at night, I relive moments we shared over the years. Sometimes stupid moments—like this fight we had once when Josephine was a teenager and she wanted to cut her hair. Wyatt thought it would look odd on her face, but I was offended because I thought shorter hair would make her look more like me and he should see that.” Dylan shook her head. “It was a stupid fight that we should have forgotten the moment it was over. But, for some reason, it’s come back to me after all these years.”
“You know what I thought about after Jimmy died?” She didn’t wait for Dylan to answer. “I thought about all the times when I was younger—after you brought me into this time—when he denied me something I thought I desperately had to have. There was this time when I wanted to stay up late and watch you signing in the Outlanders. You were pregnant with Josephine at the time. You looked absolutely miserable, and I wanted to be there in case you needed something. But he wouldn’t let me and I was so angry.” She chuckled. “I know now that he was just watching out for me, but I was so mad back then that I wouldn’t talk to him for a week!”
Dylan pulled her legs up underneath her, curling up into herself in a gesture of comfort. But she found no comfort in her position or anything else these days. She missed the life she’d had, the companionship she’d shared with Wyatt—the joys of being a mother, the security of being a part of a community. She felt lost now. Even though she knew what her future was supposed to be, and even though she knew her fate, she still felt as though she were a ship that had suddenly become unanchored. She was blind and floating along on the whims of someone else’s current. And she didn’t like it.
“How am I supposed to do this?” she asked. “How am I supposed to be this great guardian when I don’t even know how to stop the demons?”
“How did you make the angels leave the Earth so that humanity could have a fighting chance? How did you make the choice that ensured our safety from Joanna and any other creature that decided to test our vulnerabilities?”
SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) Page 3
