Even after death, Joanna couldn’t stop this overwhelming need to punish Stiles.
But that wasn’t the only thing that kept Dylan awake. She’d seen Wyatt in heaven. He wasn’t sure when or why, but he could feel the confusion—the love and grief and hurt—that it had caused Dylan. He could imagine how hard it was for her. If he was allowed into heaven and he saw Rebecca, he might have come away from it with the same list of emotions. It was hard enough missing someone who’d moved on. But to see them again and to know it was only a temporary reprieve? It was worse than never seeing them again because it just opened the door to possibility, allowing the opportunity of living with one foot in the past. It wasn’t healthy.
He couldn’t do it. And he knew it would eventually tear Dylan to pieces. The sooner she chose her soul mate and accepted her duties as the guardian of humanity the better. For her, and for everyone who loved and needed her.
Stiles stood and began to pace the small room. It bothered him, seeing Ellie in this place. There was something not right about it. He walked over to her and touched her hand as he had already done several times already. He felt what he expected to feel: her human form, her human skin and her human pulse. Under that, there was that throb of angel power that seemed to always be just below the surface, the power of the soul and the connection to heaven that was never truly absent. Touching Ellie was just as it should be; just as it would be if Stiles touched Raphael or one of his legion.
But there was something different about it, too. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was there nonetheless.
He hadn’t known Ellie well. He’d met her for the first time at the same moment Dylan had met her, while the wild pig was chasing after her and Sam. He knew she was different, but the fact that she came from Genero explained it well enough at the time. And her fascination with Wyatt was actually a relief to Stiles. It meant that Wyatt was less focused on Dylan, allowing Stiles to prepare her for what was coming next. But he should have seen what was coming sooner than he had. He knew Ellie worked with Davida, but he thought he could still trust Davida. It was he, after all, who’d placed Davida in Genero as Dylan’s guardian and it was he who’d arranged for her removal and placement in Jimmy’s camp when it had become clear that Dylan would need help on the outside. He’d thought Davida was trustworthy. He’d thought wrong. Davida was a loyal part of Luc’s army despite the help she’d offered Stiles when Joanna had left him for dead. She never changed her loyalty and never accepted the truth Stiles tried to show her. She’d simply waited until the time was right and then she turned on him, on Dylan, and on everything that had mattered. And she’d paid the ultimate price for it.
But Ellie…she, too, had joined Luc’s legion the moment she had the chance. She’d worked with Davida by staying close to Dylan and pretending to be a weak survivor of Genero, by manipulating everyone around her. But when push had come to shove, she tried to show Dylan the truth. That won Dylan over, but Stiles was still unsure of her loyalties. Was she really telling the truth now?
He didn’t like to do this, but he needed to know the truth.
Stiles sat on the side of the bed and pressed his hands to each side of Ellie’s head. He closed his eyes and opened his mental walls. Little images came through, nothing that made sense to Stiles. Then they grew, and became…more. There were jumbled images of her life and many, many decades of memories. The majority of them were set in heaven, but some took place on Earth. He saw himself through her eyes—an odd image—and he saw Dylan and Wyatt. There was a lot of Wyatt in there. He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised, but he was surprised to see how much Ellie actually had loved Wyatt. There was a shared kiss and some hand holding, nothing more than what he’d already known about or suspected. And then the moment he’d been searching for.
“You have to go,” Ellie said as blood began to drip from the corner of her mouth.
“I can heal you,” Dylan said as she tugged at the sword still embedded in Ellie’s chest.
“No.” Ellie laid a hand over Dylan’s. “You have to go. You can’t face them alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“I betrayed you. I betrayed Wyatt. I don’t deserve your compassion.” She caressed Dylan’s hand lightly one last time. “Just promise me you will end this.”
And then she shoved the sword as hard as she could, pushing it in deeper and up to the left, finishing what Joanna had started.
The light faded from Ellie’s eyes. Dylan cried as she pressed a kiss to Ellie’s cheek before she stood and reluctantly left the auditorium. But Ellie wasn’t gone just yet. Despite the fact that her human body was no longer breathing, her soul lingered inside. And someone else in the room could feel it.
Joanna dropped down from the ceiling, her soul already swirling with darkness. She reached inside Ellie’s human form and grabbed her soul, tossing it aside as she attempted to heal the body and take Ellie’s place. But something wasn’t right. She couldn’t attach herself no matter how long she tried. When she finally gave up, Ellie’s soul was beginning to wake, preparing for its journey to wherever angel souls that have been destroyed by an angel’s sword go. Just as Ellie’s soul was beginning to break down into energy, Joanna grabbed it and infused some of her own darkness into it.
But that wasn’t all she did. Something about the way Joanna touched Ellie anchored her. It made her soul more concrete and unable to pass into energy. She was unable to move on to the next level. Ellie tried. She moved away from Joanna and tried to move on and frustration grew inside of her until her soul was a mass of undulating darkness. She tried to return to her human form, tried to leave the building, and tried everything to get away from Joanna. But each time, Joanna’s soul pulled her back, as though what Joanna had done to her tethered them together.
“You,” Joanna said with a dark laugh, “are now mine. You will be my first general.”
Stiles pulled away from Ellie. He frowned as he studied her. She hadn’t lied about what Joanna had done. And…it frightened Stiles a little to think that a dark soul could so easily tether another soul to itself. If Joanna could do that, could Jack do it, too? And, if he could, what does that mean? Might he be stronger?
He also had to wonder what had happened to Ellie once Joanna disappeared after Dylan made her choice. Was she set free? If so, why didn’t she ascend to heaven? Was she simply too confused? Or was there another reason?
Whatever…Stiles didn’t trust Ellie. He’d made the mistake of underestimating her once before. He wouldn’t do it again.
Raphael relieved Stiles a few hours later. He went for a walk to clear his head and found himself standing in the same clearing where he’d once come upon Dylan practicing her angel skills. He half expected to find her there again, and was not disappointed.
She was sitting in the center of the clearing, her legs crisscrossed, her back straight and her eyes closed. He thought for a moment she was visiting heaven, but then she opened her eyes and nodded to him.
“I was just trying to clear my head.”
“Me too.”
She dragged her fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her forehead. “Is she still resting?”
“Yeah. Probably will for a while longer. She’s pretty weak.”
Dylan stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned over them, touching her toes briefly before she climbed gracefully to her feet.
“Do you think there are others?”
“It’s likely,” Stiles said. “A dozen or so angels died of the disease long before you gave it to Joanna. If the same thing that happened to her soul happened to them, then they’re probably out there somewhere.”
“What about angels like Ellie?”
Stiles shook his head. “They left not an hour after she died, remember? Joanna never had a chance to take another angel soul.”
“Good.”
Dylan turned to leave. Stiles stopped her with a comment.
“I don’t trust her.”
“
Because of what happened all those years ago?” she asked, turning to look at him.
“Yes. And no. There’s something not right about her.”
Dylan sighed, but it wasn’t the kind of sigh that suggested she didn’t believe him. It was the kind of sigh that told him she already had her own suspicions about Ellie and was sad to have someone else confirm them.
“I’ve already talked to Raphael about keeping someone with her at all times. And we won’t be taking her back to Dytonia with us. I think it would be better if she stayed with Wilhelm, if he has a chance to talk to her about her time as a demon maybe we can learn something useful.”
Stiles turned slightly, his own sigh escaping his lips. “I’m beginning to think you don’t need me around anymore.”
“You’ve taught me well, Stiles.”
“You certainly aren’t that little girl who needed to be guided and manipulated into accepting her true nature.”
“I never was. I was just a girl who needed someone strong enough to tell her the truth.”
Chapter 13
Dylan spent more and more time wandering the silent countryside that lay outside the town limits of Dytonia. In the weeks after they’d found Ellie, things seemed to settle down for a time. Ellie was still recovering from her ordeal, as well as the shock of coming back into herself forty-five years after her last, concrete memory. It was a difficult situation for anyone, but particularly for Ellie, as Wilhelm was not always patient in his attempt to get answers out of her. But, so far, they had not learned anything new.
She was walking now and her thoughts were something of a jumble. One of Raphael’s men was walking behind her, at a respectful distance but close enough to protect her if something were to come out of thin air. She’d freaked out one of his other legion members a week ago when she disappeared right in front of him. But she’d only used the same gargoyle trick Stiles used to use with her when they’d first met. It came in handy when the enemy was human. But not with an enemy that could possess human bodies and move silently in and out of invisibility itself.
The trick was breaking through the lies Joanna had told Jack. Dylan knew Joanna. She knew she could weave lies like magic, making them seem so believable and so perfect that even God might believe them. She couldn’t think of anything that might convince Jack that they were lies, except bombarding him with the truth. But she was so clever, even that probably wouldn’t work.
Dylan walked for a while, and then she burst into the air, spreading her wings with such suddenness that she didn’t hear wings behind her for several minutes. It was sort of reassuring to know someone was watching over her, but it was a little annoying, too. The only person she wanted watching over her was Stiles and that was because she was used to him, used to his rhythms, and used to the steadiness of his presence. She didn’t want to be alone. But she didn’t want to be followed all the time, either.
She flew north, headed almost by instinct to the city where her daughter lived. Josephine was doing well with tiny Rhonda, enjoying the little joys of motherhood while stressing over the bigger questions. Dylan liked to peek in on her from time to time, happy to see her doing so much better than Dylan herself had done the first few months of Josephine’s life. But Josephine was older and better prepared. They were sleeping now, mother and child, napping in the middle of the long afternoon. Dylan touched the baby’s forehead and encouraged her to be kind to her mother. Then she left her with a grandmother’s soft kiss.
Dylan found herself in a familiar place a while later. The river where she’d met Wyatt still looked surprisingly as it had the first time she’d stumbled across it. She had been dehydrated then and on the verge of death. The water saved her life, as did the angel who had guided her to it. But she didn’t know that at the time; she didn’t appreciate the true importance of it at the time. Just as she didn’t appreciate how her life would change the next morning when she met Wyatt.
She was naked, having removed her clothes to allow them to dry. She was perched at the edge of the water, filling one of the water bottles the people of Genero had seen fit to provide her with when they’d abandoned her to the heat of the desert. She’d never seen a man before. He was amused by her fascination, aware immediately by her naivety where she was from.
She’d come here when he died. And, sometimes, she still felt closest to him here.
She knelt by the edge of the water and ran her fingers through the cool fluid, remembering how good it had felt on her burned, sore body that first night. She wasn’t sure whom she thought of more each time she came here: Stiles or Wyatt. Somehow they were both so completely interwoven in her memories that she couldn’t always separate one from the other.
“It’s a beautiful day.”
Dylan turned, expecting to find Raphael’s man standing behind her. Instead, she found another man watching her. He was tall and strong, the kind of man she could look at and just know he was an angel. His hair was like a halo of gold around his head and a little on the long side and curly, like the pictures of cherubs Dylan had seen in Rachel’s books about angels. His eyes were a steel blue, as different from Wyatt’s as they were similar. And he had this smile that just made her bones want to melt.
“It is,” she said, standing slowly. “Getting a little late, though.”
He glanced up at the sky. “I suppose by human standards, it is.”
“Who are you?”
He stepped forward and held out a hand. “Gabriel,” he said as his smile widened. “I guess I should have started with that. I’m afraid my social skills are still a little rusty. It’s been many millennia since I’ve come to Earth.”
Dylan approached him cautiously, trying to figure out what had happened to her escort. She took his hand and squeezed it lightly, sensing something inside of him that should have sent her soaring for home. But she remembered what Wyatt had said to her all those weeks ago, about how she would meet a man who would be dangerous, but who would have information she needed.
Was this that man?
“When did you fall?”
He glanced up at the sky, then back at her. “I’d say about twenty minutes ago by human time.”
“Why here?”
“I knew you would be here.”
“You’ve come for me.”
“I’ve come to offer you my help. I’m an archangel. I can help you fight the demons.”
“Well, unless you know how to stop them, I think we have all the help we need at the moment.”
Dylan turned away, moving back to the water’s edge. She could feel Raphael’s man nearby and could feel that he was safe. She didn’t understand why he wasn’t alarmed by Gabriel’s sudden appearance.
“He doesn’t realize I’m here. I’ve blocked his perception of me.”
Dylan glanced over her shoulder. “Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to talk to you alone.”
Dylan studied him again, her eyes lingering on his perfect head of hair, his handsome features, and the muscles that bulged out of the arms of the thin t-shirt he was wearing. He was a perfect specimen of masculinity. The girls back at Dytonia were going to be quite pleased to meet him.
“So talk,” she said.
He tilted his head, his smile never wavering. “They were right about you. You are quite stubborn.”
“Who was right about me?”
Gabriel gestured toward the sky. “All the souls in heaven who know you. They gave me all kinds of advice on how to approach you.”
“Did you listen to any of it?”
He laughed and the sound was like a soothing balm on a terrible burn. She didn’t want to like this angel; she didn’t want him here in this place that meant so much to her. But she was drawn to him just the same. There was darkness in his soul, but there was also an amazing light that she couldn’t ignore, a beauty that just seemed to be exactly what she needed at this moment in her life.
Dylan studied him, wondering what he could possibly have to share with her that she
could use in this fight against the demons. It had to him that Wyatt was talking about, right? His mysterious warning that a dangerous man was going to come into her life with knowledge she needed? She’d thought about it a lot since that night, but no answers had miraculously appeared. Even angels had to be patient and wait for what they desired.
“Why fall here? Why not fall in Dytonia where all the others are?”
“I wanted to meet the great savior first.”
Dylan shook her head, turning slightly. “If you’re trying to flatter me, that’s the worst way to go about it.”
“You should embrace who you are. God would not have made you the savior if he did not know that you would rise to the challenges he presents to you.”
“God didn’t make me. Scientists in a lab made me.”
“Yes, but God has a hand in all creation.”
“I’ve heard that.” Dylan gestured toward the trees that surrounded this section of the river. “You should probably unblock Raphael’s man now so we can go. I’m expected back in Dytonia.”
Gabriel inclined his head and, almost instantly, Raphael’s man burst through the trees. He had his sword in his hand, raised to shoulder height, prepared to defend Dylan’s honor just a little too late.
Dylan lifted her hand just as the sword was to make contact with Gabriel’s back and the sword disappeared.
“He’s one of us,” she said.
The man was not pleased with the situation, but he stepped back with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes watchful. He’d been ordered to obey Dylan. She couldn’t have a bunch of gung-ho angels following her around, beating up anyone she came into contact with.
“Let’s go.” Her wings unfurled from her back and spread out, flexing enough to kick up some of the loose soil under feet. “You do know where Dytonia is, don’t you?”
Gabriel didn’t answer. He simply unfurled his own wings—beautiful, silky gold wings like his hair—and burst into the air. Dylan followed and found herself laughing as he rolled around her and took off, challenging her to a race. She followed, catching up and quickly passing him, laughing again at the look of surprise in those bluer than blue eyes. She could get lost in those eyes, if she wasn’t careful. God was a complicated entity, but he certainly knew what beauty was and he’d never held back when it came to his angels.
SOUL MATES (Angels and Demons Book 3) Page 8
