DARK SOULS (Angels and Demons Book 2)

by Brenda L. Harper

  “You are quite the celebrity up here, Dylan. You are something these souls have never seen and that is saying a lot, since most of them have been around since the beginning of time and they have seen everything.”

  “But I’m not. You keep calling me a savior and an archangel, but I’m not those things.”

  “You are.”

  Dylan turned and Rebecca, nothing more than a puff a smoke in the shape of her dear friend, smiled as she reached out a hand.

  Dylan rushed to her and somehow they were able to embrace, or maybe it was just a mingling of their souls. Either way, it was better than everything Dylan had felt in the previous room.

  “You’re okay,” Dylan said, stepping back. “We miss you so much.”

  Rebecca’s smile weakened slightly. “I’ve been watching. Harry’s doing so well. And my other children…”

  “Yes, your death was hard on them, especially Harry, but they’re adjusting.”

  “Harry blamed Stiles.”

  Dylan started to agree, but then there was a change in the light around Rebecca. Her smile completely disappeared and she moved closer to Dylan.

  “Stiles has struggled,” she said softly. “He is so filled with regrets that they color everything he sees, everything he does. He needs you to help him move past the things he’s done and help him look to the future, the future you both will build.”

  “Rebecca…”

  “You are my sister,” Rebecca said, her aura touching Dylan’s again. “I trust you to do what I no longer can.”

  “You know,” Dylan said, feeling something of a weight falling from her soul.

  “I know everything, now.” Rebecca smiled again, her glow turning a bright, beautiful pink. “I understand why Stiles did the things he did. I understand why things happened the way they did. They were all leading up to what comes next.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You,” she said softly, her tone colored with awe. “You are the savior, the one who will watch over all of humanity and keep them safe from whatever poses a danger, even they themselves.”

  Dylan began to object, but Rebecca stopped her with nothing more than the weight of her thoughts. And in them, Dylan heard things she couldn’t, or didn’t want, to understand. There were visions, too, visions of a future Dylan had glimpsed once and had tried to ignore. She wasn’t ready for the things Rebecca was telling her. But in them, there was a hint to what she had to do to stop the demons.

  She saw it. A new power she’d never thought she was capable of. But it was still beyond her grasp, it was beyond everything she was ready to accept. It was beyond her because it required her to give up what she held most dear.

  Wyatt.

  Dylan pulled away from Rebecca’s touch.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “You can.” Rebecca came to her and touched her again, but the weight of those thoughts was gone. Instead, all she felt was all the love and concern Rebecca felt for her. “I once thought I couldn’t survive without my father and that I wouldn’t want to live without Stiles. But I lost them both and I survived.”

  “But you found Stiles again. Once I let Wyatt go, that’ll be the end of it.”

  “But you forget that you still have a piece of him in Josephine and in Josephine’s descendants. As long as they live, he lives, too.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “No. But you had something that very few have ever experienced. You had a true soul mate. And it wasn’t just because of your angel nature. It was a true love match. Nothing will ever take that from you, but its usefulness in your life has ended. Wyatt is mortal and his time on Earth is coming to an end.”

  Dylan shook her head. If she’d been in her human form, tears would have fallen from her eyes. Even as she denied Wyatt’s mortality, she remembered the feel of the cancer she took from his belly. She knew it would be back—knew it would end his life eventually. But she couldn’t bear the idea of living in a world in which Wyatt did not exist.

  “Just as Stiles let me go, you have to let Wyatt go. He keeps you grounded to humanity, and that was necessary for a time. But now you must evolve beyond that life. You must accept that you are more than human, more than a wife and a mother. You have a destiny that will not be denied.”

  Raphael moved close again, the sensation of his soul mixing with Dylan’s alerted her that it was time to return to Earth. Dylan reached for Rebecca in her smoky form. They touched for a moment and the power of the three of them connected sent a jolt of electricity through Dylan, a jolt that was infused with things she couldn’t even begin to explain—love, power, acceptance, strength, courage—so many things—it was like a shot of adrenaline might feel in a human body. Then it was all gone and Dylan was standing in the middle of the street of Dytonia once again.

  She saw Raphael’s face, a warm, but concerned smile on his lips, and then she sank to the ground, unconscious.

  Chapter 19

  “You shouldn’t have done that. She’s not ready.”

  “You can’t keep protecting her, Stiles,” Rachel said, coming up behind him and laying a calming hand on his arm.

  “But it wasn’t his place to do this.” Stiles jabbed a finger at Raphael.

  Rachel tried to draw Stiles backward, but he jerked free of her touch. He marched to the bed where Dylan lay unconscious, his movements slowing as he settled down beside her. He pressed a hand to her forehead and visions of heaven immediately danced in his head as he did. They weren’t really dreams, but they weren’t memories, either. And then he saw Rebecca’s face.

  Stiles stiffened even as his eyes closed so that he could concentrate on that one image. She looked so happy, and young, like she’d been when he’d first met her. Her smile…it hurt to see that smile again, but it was good, too. It was good that she was in heaven and that she was okay—that she wasn’t one of the dark souls. Despite everything, he’d held on to that fear, afraid that she would be stuck here, in pain, and angry with him and the world at large.

  He’d never felt relief quite like he felt in that moment. It was okay now. He could let her go now.

  Stiles opened his eyes and smoothed the hair away from Dylan’s forehead. The visions streaming from her mind to his shifted. She was slipping into dreams—dreams of Wyatt and Josephine, of the children in the classes she taught, of Stiles and Rebecca, and of the people in the city where they lived. There was distress in her dreams, a fear he didn’t quite understand. He tried to wipe it away with his healing touch, but it only dulled it momentarily and then it returned at higher level than before.

  “You have to let her do this,” Raphael said, coming up behind Stiles and laying a hand on his shoulder. “Her soul needs to process.”

  Stiles jerked out from under Raphael’s touch. “Don’t help anymore.”

  “Stiles.”

  There was warning in Rachel’s voice, but he didn’t care. He wanted them to leave; he wanted to be alone with Dylan. He never should have allowed this to happen; he never should have let her go off with Raphael. He never should have allowed Raphael to enter their radar. Once again, this was his fault and Dylan was paying the price.

  “I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere,” he said, glancing back at Raphael, his gaze falling over Rachel, too. “I’ve got this.”

  Raphael immediately backed away. Rachel hesitated, but then Raphael offered her his hand and she took it quite willingly. Stiles thought he saw a bit of a crush developing there. He hoped Rachel knew what she was getting herself into.

  Stiles pulled a chair close to the bed and settled back, watching over Dylan as she slept. He’d done this so many times in the past that he could hardly recall how many. When she was an infant, she was a foreign thing, a ball of screams and needs. When she was a little older, she was lightening in a small, cute human being. And then she was a grown woman, the same age as Rebecca when he first set eyes on her, full of wonder and excitement. She was a beautiful girl who only wanted to be normal, but she di
dn’t even know how to define normal.

  He wanted so much to help her. He knew the woman she’d become, he’d met her once years before her birth. He didn’t know then what kind of impact she’d have on his life. He was too busy trying to destroy Joanna for hurting Rebecca. But, if he had known, he didn’t think it would have changed anything. He would have walked the same path and would have loved the same women. He would have given up everything for her all over again.

  Dylan was too important to the world for him not to sacrifice himself for her. And, if it came to that, to that ultimate sacrifice, he would do it in an instant.

  He’d never felt that way for Joanna.

  It was…foggy, his memories of those moments before he fell to Earth. He remembered a deep need to stop Joanna and to take her back to heaven, to once again be whole with his soul mate. But he couldn’t remember who told him, or why. He couldn’t remember the exact instructions, just the impression of them. It had never seemed to matter before. But now, with everything Dylan was beginning to understand about her own existence, about her actions from the moment she’d left the domed city, he was beginning to wonder if there was a reason why he didn’t remember.

  Why was it so important for him to retrieve Joanna? Soul mates often lived millennia apart, one serving heaven while the other served the humans. His situation with Joanna was not unusual. And she hadn’t been gone long. A few human years, just minutes in heaven time. It shouldn’t have been that important that she return to heaven, but it suddenly had been. Why?

  He ran his hand over the back of Dylan’s hand. Not that it mattered, really. If he hadn’t fallen, he never would have met Dylan. She might still have existed, and might still have saved humanity, but he wouldn’t have been at her side to watch. He would not have had the chance to love her as a friend, and then…

  She was dreaming of Wyatt again. It hurt more now than it had before. Before he chose her to be his soul mate, he didn’t like to see her with Wyatt, but he’d learned to accept it. When he found his way back to Rebecca, it was even easier to see them share kisses and hold hands. But then their connection broke. Wyatt could no longer heal her and he could no longer hear her thoughts or feel her emotions the way he had before. And those things grew between Stiles and Dylan. He could heal her quicker, more efficiently than he had before. He heard her voice in his head more often, even at times when she thought she was blocking him out. And he felt every one of her emotions, and knew how hurt she was by Wyatt’s actions these last weeks, how afraid she was that she would never figure out how to stop the dark souls.

  Their souls were connecting. They weren’t tethered yet. But it was beginning.

  ***

  Stiles fell asleep. So much time passed. Dylan shifted between nightmares and visions of heaven, almost as though her brain was a computer attempting to compute everything she knew, everything she had seen and felt in heaven. He tried to keep the darkness to a minimum, but his interference only seemed to make it harder on her, so he backed off and watched from his chair and had fallen asleep.

  He had dreams that were nearly as wild as hers were—dreams of people screaming for his help, people in dire situations, crying in pain, in grief, and in anger. He couldn’t separate one voice from another; he couldn’t understand what it was they wanted him to do. And then he heard laughter and it was a voice he knew.

  Jack.

  “You can never help them all,” he said. “You can try, but you’ll never be able to stop us all, and you’ll never be able to save them all.”

  “Don’t you remember,” Stiles asked, “how you helped the people? How you worked so hard to make sure Rebecca would have a peaceful world in which she could build her family?”

  “I remember how you turned me over to the Redcoats. I remember how they tortured me, forcing me to lay in that domed city and suffer the most excruciating pain. I remember they took things from me that I could never get back.”

  “And created a child who made all your dreams for the world come true.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I don’t care about the humans anymore.”

  Just as the words were out and spinning around in Stiles’ head, he felt an overwhelming anger and fear that wasn’t coming from him or Jack. It was so intense that it pulled him out of his dreams.

  He sat up, disoriented for a minute. And then, all he was aware of was Dylan, of the sobs slipping from between her lips. He climbed back onto the bed and pulled her against his chest.

  “It was only a dream,” he said, smoothing her hair over the back of her head. “It was only your imagination.”

  “No, not this time.” She curled into him in a way she wouldn’t have done if she wasn’t so upset. “They’ve done it. They’ve decided to banish us.”

  “Oh, Dylan…” He pulled her closer, raining kisses over her head. “I’m sorry.”

  He held her for a long time and listened to her sobs crescendo and then fall. He felt her struggle to find reason in what the humans had done. She felt betrayed, and he couldn’t blame her. She’d done everything for humanity. She’d saved them from Luc and Lily, and they were rewarding her by sending her away from the only home she had known.

  Her sobs turned into hiccups, and her pain began to dull as she drifted back into a light sleep. But then the door burst open and Rachel rushed inside.

  “They’re back.”

  Chapter 20

  Her senses should have been dulled from the lingering effects of sleep, but they weren’t. Dylan felt stronger and more aware than she ever had. She could see them now; she could see the darkness of the demons weaving around the purer souls of the people they possessed. She could feel the anger and hatred that seeped from their darkness. She could feel their pain. It was as if it were her pain, too, as if their hurts were amplifying her own.

  She held a sword in her hand. She clutched it like it was a lifeline that was the only thing capable of saving her from this pain. But she knew she couldn’t use it, that it wasn’t necessary.

  Raphael and his legion stood behind her. Stiles stood beside her. They watched as more than a dozen possessed humans walked toward them. They weren’t just men this time, but men and women and children. One of the women smiled at Stiles and then her eyes began to glow with fire. She felt the fear slice through Stiles and saw the memory in a flash of a second. This was what the child who had infected him, who had turned him into a killing machine, had done.

  She raised her hand, intent only on offering some sort of protection—or maybe just consolation—to her friend. Instead, the demon suddenly began to unfurl itself from around the possessed soul. There was confusion in the eyes as the fire disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

  Dylan wiggled her fingers and the soul leapt from the woman’s body and she collapsed. The men behind her stomped on her fingers and ankles as they stormed over her. The soul lingered over them, its anger tripled as it focused on Dylan.

  “Go home,” she said softly.

  And it did. The darkness wrung itself free from the soul, dripping down on the people below like tea from a washrag. The soul, growing lighter the higher it climbed, returned to heaven as the other—Hailey—had done.

  “How…?” Stiles began to ask, but then the others reached their column.

  Stiles stepped forward and, like before, used the hilt of his sword to fight off the possessed. They were vicious in their attack, grabbing at him with their hands and slashing out with their teeth, fighting him with everything they had. Dylan had never seen such viciousness in a battle, not even during the war.

  But, the thing was, the possessed were moving around her like she was inconsequential. As if she weren’t even there.

  She closed her eyes and she could still feel them. She could still see their dark souls writhing around the pure souls of the possessed like spiders building a spider web. Just the vision of them made her feel sick. It made her want to rub at her flesh to remove the stickiness of their touch—and they weren’t even touching her.
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  There was something else she saw when she closed her eyes. She saw not only the pain that spurred these souls on, not just the anger that made them listen to whoever was telling them to fight, but she saw a spark of something beautiful that they were trying to snuff out. It wasn’t just the possession that turned these things on. It was the chance to snuff out this spark of beauty inside of these humans that drove them.

  But she could see it in them, too.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said so quietly that she didn’t expect anyone or anything to hear her. “You don’t have to snuff out their light. You can nurse your own. You can make it whole again.”

  Silence fell around Dylan. Without opening her eyes, she relinquished her sword and traded it for a warm bud of light that she could see through her eyelids. It lit and grew on her fingertips, filling her hands with a glow that was so golden and so bright that the humans had to turn away as it continued to grow. When she tossed it into the crowd of the possessed, she saw—her eyes still closed—the demons immediately let go of the beauty they were trying to control inside of the possessed, and saw their own beauty grow as the darkness slipped away.

  It didn’t happen to all of them, but it happened to enough of them that the possessed army fell to just three.

  When Dylan opened her eyes, she had something else in her hand—an object that resembled an old-fashioned lasso that Wyatt had once shown her in one of his many books. She snapped it and then shot it out toward one of the still-standing possessed. The moment the thing touched the human’s flesh, the soul began to scream. And then it slipped out of the human’s body, releasing that ball of beauty, and was trapped in the golden length of the lasso.

  Stiles stared at Dylan almost as though he had never seen her before. She offered a slight shrug, a proud smile sliding across her lips before she realized what she was doing. Then she offered the free end of the lasso to him. Before Stiles could respond, Raphael took it.

  Dylan pulled another lasso from her otherworldly arsenal and snagged the remaining two demons.