Purpose (39 page)

Vanessa stood at the tip of the bow, ready to
jump. The adrenaline coursed through my veins and my heart picked
up speed.

“We’ll give it a try,” Tristan said as he
lifted me against his body. He spoke quickly while wading into the
water. “We’ll do both. I’ll hold you. You keep them back. When I
say, take a deep breath and I’ll flash.”

“Can you do it
with
me again?”
Flashing with someone was very different—and nearly impossible—than
leading someone, as we had practiced.

“I’ve done it twice now. We’re going to try.
Ready?”

“I’m not getting my pendant, am I?”

“Sorry, my love, but not this time. We
will
get it back, though. It can’t be in their hands.”

Vanessa jumped right for us. I shot an
electric bolt at her, sending her back to the other side of her
boat. Tristan held me and swam. Vanessa’s brother seemed to be
lost, his head swiveling between her in the water and us.

“Get them, you jack ass!” Vanessa
screeched.

Suddenly they were both in the air, about to
land on top of us. I started to reach my hand out, remembering at
the last second that I could move objects with my mind. But it was
already too late.

“Now!” Tristan bellowed. Forgetting my
necklace for now, I shot wildly at them while inhaling my last
breath.

We appeared in deep water, the light of the
sky far above us. I fought the natural urge to inhale after
flashing and continued to hold my breath while kicking upwards.

“Nice job,” Tristan said when we
surfaced.

I looked around as I tread water. “Are we
close?”

“Not really. We’ll have to swim from here,
though. And fast. I hear them coming.”

“
Alexis, I got them. You two get to
shore
.” Owen’s voice shouted in my head.

“No, it’s not them! It’s Owen! He’s going
after them.”

“Then swim!”

So I swam. The sea felt cold but it didn’t
bother me—my body adapted and maintained my normal temperature. We
swam fast and I didn’t tire at all, but it seemed to take a decade.
Especially after Tristan said we’d crossed the shield and were
safe, because then the excitement built up inside me. I was going
to my real home. I was about to see my baby. He was about to meet
his daddy. And I was about to finally learn the secrets kept from
me my entire life. My heart raced, not from exertion, but from
anticipation.

As soon as the water became shallow enough to
wade through and my feet touched the ground, an intense feeling of
power and magic overcame me. Tristan took me in his arms and kissed
me.

“Welcome home,” he murmured. We walked out of
the water hand-in-hand.

Mom and Rina stood on the beach waiting for
us with towels and robes, both smiling warmly. My wet skin chilled
in the cool breeze—a feeling I noticed, although it wasn’t exactly
uncomfortable, just there. Still, I welcomed the warmth of the
thick, soft robe. As I rubbed the towel around my hair, something
crashed through the trees lining the top of the beach. I expected
an elephant to break through.

“Mom!”

Dorian burst onto the beach, running full
speed. I ran to him and swept him into my arms, spinning around and
kissing him all over his sweet, little face.

“I missed you so much!” I said, squeezing him
tighter. I buried my face in the crook of his neck and inhaled his
tangy little-boy scent.

“Wow, Mom, you got strong!” Dorian mused. He
touched my face, then kissed my cheek. “And very beautiful.”

I laughed at his observations. “And I think
you got much bigger.”

I squeezed him tighter as I spun him around
again. I stopped us to face Tristan. He watched us, a mixed
expression of love and trepidation on his face. Dorian became quiet
and stared at him wide-eyed.

“That’s my dad,” Dorian whispered in my ear.
It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, it is, little man,” I whispered
back.

He sucked in his breath noisily. He looked at
me, his face lit with the brightest smile, and then jumped out of
my arms and ran as fast as he could into Tristan’s. A huge grin
spread across Tristan’s face as he scooped Dorian up and held him
tightly. I ran over and wrapped my arms around both of my guys. We
fell to the ground, all of us laughing and crying at the same
time.

At some point during all of this—I hadn’t
even noticed when—Owen returned and came to shore.

“Uncle Owen!” Dorian shouted, jumping to his
feet and running into Owen’s arms.

“Hey, little buddy.” Owen returned the bear
hug.

Tristan and I stood up and brushed ourselves
off, then Tristan took my hand and pulled me close to him.

“Uncle Owen, my dad’s here!” Dorian flew back
to Tristan, who scooped him up in his free arm. Dorian wrapped his
arms around Tristan’s neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. Tristan
squeezed my hand and I could feel his joy. My heart would explode
if it grew any bigger.

“Hey, Alexis?” Owen said.

I tilted my head. “Yeah?”

He looked at Tristan and back at me. “We
always
win.”

He stood with Mom and Rina and they all
grinned and nodded. I looked at Tristan and Dorian and they beamed,
too. And I realized this was my family—Owen, Rina, Mom and my two
men. The people I loved. And I was finally Real Alexis, with my
Real Tristan. We had suffered through the darkness and emerged into
the light, our lives drastically changed forever. But we were all
together. Finally.

We
did
win.

Silence filled the Amadis mansion as Tristan
and I headed downstairs after changing into dry clothes. It felt
like a museum at night. Well, an ancient museum—the two-story foyer
was dark, with the only light coming from torches on the stone
walls.

Mom?
I didn’t know where to find Mom
and Rina and I didn’t think calling her name aloud would be
appropriate. She appeared in one of the three arched doorways off
the foyer. Tristan and I followed her into a stately sitting room,
where Rina waited for us, holding two leather-bound books in her
lap. We sat on a brown leather couch in front of the fireplace
while Mom sat on another couch next to Rina.

Mom and Rina both smiled warmly at me and
Rina began.

“We start with ancient history. As your
mother has taught you, in the very beginning, there was rebellion
in Heaven. God permanently cast the archangel Lucifer and a third
of the angels out of Heaven, sentencing them to Earth and Hell.
There has been spiritual warfare waging ever since.

“The outcast angels, now called demons, take
many forms and most take no form at all, but are evil spirits. The
spirits frighten humans, plant evil thoughts in their minds, tempt
them with immorality and sometimes even possess the human body to
do their evil deeds. Their goal is to bring human souls to Satan
and Hell. God and the angels work through priests, ministers and
counselors to cast these demons out and keep them away.” Rina
sighed. “Sadly, most humans do not realize there is this ongoing
battle for their souls.”

She paused and closed her eyes. I wondered if
she prayed for those souls.

After a couple of moments, she continued. “A
much smaller number of demons take some kind of human or animal
form, such as mages, vampires and shape-shifters. These are the
Daemoni. Their purpose is to harm or kill humans, disregarding
their souls. They continuously seek more power and, therefore, more
members. Growing their army requires human sacrifice—the humans may
not actually die, but their lives are forever changed and their
souls are at risk.

“Those created demons are the souls the
Amadis are responsible for. We cannot do anything about the
original demons, the Ancients, but we can still win over the souls
of the rest of the Daemoni. We show them how to live responsibly
with their abilities and powers and how to control their desires
without hurting humans. We bring the goodness out of them and,
hopefully, we can lead them to the decision to ultimately save
their souls, giving them true immortality. And I believe you know
how that is accomplished?”

I nodded. “But how did this become our
responsibility? I mean, why us? Who are we?”

“In short, we come from Angels. We are the
result of the Daemoni infecting a half-Angel and half-human woman
named Cassandra. Although infected, she still only knew love and
goodness and she started the Amadis at the direction of the
Heavenly Host of Angels.”

“So, we are Angels, but we are also
essentially Daemoni?”

Rina shook her head. “Not exactly. There are
the Angels, including the original Daemoni, and there are offspring
of Angels. We are the offspring. We have Angel blood and we have
Daemoni powers. But we are their exact opposites. We are inherently
good
.”

“And we can bring goodness out of them,” I
said, glancing at Tristan.

“Yes, if there is any soul left, we can
affect them,” Rina answered.

“And…if there is no soul left?” I asked. I
wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.

Rina sighed.

“If they are a threat to humans or
ourselves…well, sometimes we have to kill them, honey,” Mom
answered.

“So the ones at Tristan’s house in Cape Heron
that one day, during the storm, you wanted to kill them. They had
no souls left?”

“No. Unfortunately, Edmund had given his soul
to the Daemoni and they completely destroyed it,” Mom said, her
voice heavy with grief.

“Remember when we discussed the rogues back
then?” Tristan asked. I nodded, though I barely remembered. “The
rogues usually have destroyed souls, which is why they can’t be
controlled.”

“So how do you know if they still have a
soul?”

“You will learn to sense it,” Rina answered.
“If you can feel any love or compassion toward them, they can be
saved.”

“And if they show anything like mercy or
love, there is hope,” Mom added. “Like Vanessa. She showed feelings
for Tristan.”

“Hmph,” Tristan grunted.

“I think that’s lust,” I muttered.

“I don’t know about that. She has a desire to
be with someone else, so she still has a soul,” Mom replied.

“And the vampire that threatened me…since he
showed mercy, he still has a soul?”

“Yes,” Mom answered. “That’s also why he left
when he sensed me and then Owen. He didn’t want to take the chance
of us converting him.”

“He brings me to the subject of my books.
What is their purpose?”

“Ah, good question,” Rina said. “We will
start with more history. You see, up through the eighteen-hundreds,
the Daemoni ran rampantly in the human world and humans were very
aware and fearful of them. This fear strengthened their faith and
helped protect them from being lured into the evil world.
Unfortunately, however, the humans killed many innocent people who
were not evil or possessed at all. Even those who were real Daemoni
were not usually rogues. They still had hope. You would be most
familiar with the Salem witches, no?”

I nodded.

“There were many similar incidents around the
world. Heaven lost innocent humans, the Amadis lost the ability to
convert the souls and the Daemoni lost many of their soldiers. The
Daemoni decided to become more covert then. We have an obligation
to keep the existence of our people secret, which means keeping the
Daemoni secret, too.”

“So what changed? Why did you decide to break
that obligation?” I asked.

Rina shook her head. “We have not broken the
obligation. We have not revealed their existence. When the Daemoni
went underground, humans felt safer and became complacent. We have
just reminded humans there could be a
possibility
of their
existence. You see, over the last century, with advances in
science, humans have lost their belief in, and therefore, their
fear of the creatures we know as the Daemoni and evil in general.
They only see evil in each other, perpetuating wars among
themselves. With this loss of fear has also come a loss of
faith.”

Rina stopped and looked again as though she
worried for humans.

“You’re an excellent writer and your readers
want to believe your characters are real,” Mom said, picking up for
Rina. “For them to believe the good ones are real, they must also
believe the bad ones are, too. You’ve made humans more aware of the
possibility
of their existence. They can better protect
themselves, by increasing their faith.”

“You see,” Rina said, “the Daemoni truly
desire to take control of the world and rule over humans. They are
growing restless and angry with their limitations and are preparing
to fight. The union of you and Tristan has exacerbated their anger.
We believe you have changed over so soon—so young—because we will
need as many generations of Amadis daughters as possible. The
Angels are preparing for major war. Our hope…our plan…has been that
your books will help prepare the humans. The humans will need their
faith and knowledge of how to protect themselves as spiritual
warfare will re-enter their realm in the near future.”

“Why don’t I just write our story—mine and
Tristan’s—then,” I muttered. I meant it rhetorically, not at all
desiring to tell the whole world about us.

“I hoped you would say that,” Rina said,
smiling. “You, of all people, could write it so people think the
story is fiction, but it seems like it could be very real.”

I stared at her in disbelief. Out of the
corner of my eye, I could see Tristan shaking his head slowly.

“I wasn’t serious!”

“But it is something to think about,” Rina
said, a gleam in her eye.

“I think I’ve done enough damage already. It
was risky to write those stories. Now the Daemoni feel justified in
killing us.”

“Any risk is worth saving humans,” Rina said
pointedly. “But the Daemoni really do not have Provocation because
we did not break the obligation. We did not really expose them.
And, now that we know Tristan escaped, we believe they used
Provocation as an excuse to come after you. If they could get you,
they could get Tristan back.”