The Devil's Soldier (11 page)

The moment she walked through the doors of the Deific, Lucien was there.

"Everything go okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "How's Charlie?"

"They took him off site for emergency care." A shadow passed over Lucien's face. "We need to talk."

"I know, but I can't. Not right now."

"Not about us."

Eve looked up at him, surprised. Was she that easy to read?

"As much as I want to," he said, "there are bigger things going on."

"What?"

"Walk with me." Lucien headed for the elevator. Once they were inside, he turned to her. "Alana found out that the Vice President is some kind of Supernatural. We are afraid something big and bad is about to happen."

Eve leaned back against the wall. "Boaz is moving fast."

"Boaz supported my brother's plan to kill millions. It's what he wanted.  Since that's no longer going to happen, he's found another way. I'm afraid the Vice President is part of his plan."

"Boaz has to be stopped." She said it more to herself than him.

The elevator doors opened. Lucien waited for her to go into the hallway first before following her out.

"So what's stopping us now?" Lucien asked. "We have the blood of all four original witch families. We need to do this right away, but for some reason Henry is stalling, and I can't fathom why."

He stopped at a door. "Dmitri's in here. Sounds like he's asleep. Liane's next door. Rick was with her up until ten minutes ago."

"Thank you for all of your help," she said, pausing long enough to touch Lucien on the arm. "Soon this will all be over. We'll stop Boaz. I'll talk to Henry tomorrow."

Lucien nodded, his body stiff. She knew he could sense something off with her, but she had to be careful what she told him.

She walked toward her door at the end of the hallway. Lucien followed next to her.

"Everything's okay, Lucien," she said. "Dmitri gave me a spell book of sorts that belonged to my mother's sister. I'm going to study it tonight to see if there's something in there that could help us against Boaz."

"Where has she been all of this time?"

"Six feet under. Boaz killed her several years ago."

Lucien straightened and cocked his head, as if listening to something far away. "Liane's waking up. Do you want me to go in there with you?"

"It's best if it's just me."

"Be careful," he said, his face creased with worry. "I'll be close by if you need me."

"I'll be fine." Eve opened the door and slipped inside. Before she closed it, she glanced back at Lucien but he was already walking back down the hall.

She pursed her lips. The space between them was growing.

"It really is you."

Eve spun around. Liane was sitting up on a couch in the apartment's small living room, a blanket at her feet.

"How are you feeling?" Eve asked, her voice steady.

Liane moaned and touched her forehead lightly. "Like I've been hit by a semi. The world has turned upside down, and I don't know how to make sense of it."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Eve asked. She sat on the couch next to her, close but not too close.

Liane fell back into the cushions and sunk deep. "It feels like decades ago, a whole other life. Sometimes I wonder if I made it all up."

"What?"

"Boaz." Liane swallowed. "My imprisonment. The things he made me do."

Eve's chest tightened. So much cruelty and violence surrounded that monster. It was nauseating to think that she had once been so blind to the evil that festered inside him.

"Boaz took me after you left," Liane said. "Or I should say after you 'died.' That's what he told me anyway—that your parents had killed you. I didn't believe him at first. He was acting really strange, almost frantic. He was going on and on about needing magic, especially now that you were gone."

A chill, slow and cold, worked its way up Eve's spine.

"I told him that I wanted to go home, but he wouldn't let me. He locked me in a room and every night he'd sneak in, taking more than just my magic." Her voice cracked, and tears spilled onto her cheeks.

"What about your parents? Or William? Didn't anyone look for you?"

Liane shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't had any contact with the outside world until two days ago."

"How did you escape?"

"Sheer luck. Boaz hadn't been to see me for many weeks. During this time, I was able to build up just enough magic to break the lock and sneak out. I was lucky he wasn't home. That's when I went for the monastery, having heard of it from William once."

"Why not your family?"

She dropped her head back into the plush of the sofa, her expression blank. "They're dead. I tried calling them after I escaped, but the number didn't work. After a few more calls, I finally got a hold of a distant cousin who told me the news."

"Oh, Liane," Eve said. "I'm so sorry! And William? Did you try and call him?"

She turned her head toward Eve, her bottom lip trembling. "I don't know if I want to go back to my life with him. The world was so dark then, so—"

Her shoulders shook, and the tears fell more freely. Eve took her in her arms and let Liane cry on her shoulder. Eve knew what she was feeling. All the horrible guilt, the shame of past deeds. Eve vowed right then and there to take care of Liane, to protect her from Boaz.

After several minutes, Liane's tears subsided. She pulled away from Eve, and asked, "Is it okay if I stay here for a while? I have nowhere else to go. Plus, I'm afraid Boaz is searching for me. I can't go back to him. Ever. I'd rather die."

Eve clasped Liane's hands. "You are welcome here for as long as you want. As for Boaz, you won't have to worry about him for long. I'm going to eliminate him once and for all."

17

Minutes passed by. Lucien was painfully aware of each one that Eve was with Liane. He didn't trust that witch. There was something in her eyes, a light missing, perhaps. Maybe her captivity by Boaz's hands had caused this. That's what Eve would say, but Lucien wasn't so sure.

Charlie cried out from the medical room next door. Lucien leaned forward from his chair in the small office and peered through the open door. A doctor was applying bandages to Charlie's face.

Charlie growled. "That hurts."

"Good," the doctor said. "Maybe next time you won't page me in the middle of the night. I have a life outside of here, you know. Now hold still."

Ten minutes later, the gray-haired doctor, who was in sweats and t-shirt, walked out. "If you plan on more injuries like that in the future, then you need to stock that room better."

"Thanks for your help tonight," Lucien said. "We'll try not to bother you again."

The doctor mumbled something and walked away.

"Aren't you going to come in?" Charlie called to him.

"Depends. How bad is your face?"

"Some might say it's an improvement."

Lucien chuckled and stood. Charlie was sitting up on an old hospital bed. Bandages covered half of his face and over his left eye.

"Where's Eve?" he asked.

"Upstairs with Liane," Lucien said. "What do you think of this new witch?"

Charlie reached under the lower part of the bandage and scratched his cheek. "I'm not sure. I tried reading her at the library, but got nothing."

"Like she's blocking you?" Lucien asked, hopeful. If she had something to hide, then maybe he could convince Eve to be more careful around her.

"I wouldn't say that quite yet. I'll visit with her later to see if I can sense anything." Charlie paused. "Eve seemed eager to help her. Does that bother you?"

"Eve has a big heart. I'm afraid it might blind her to Liane's true motives." Lucien crossed the room. "But that's not what's really bothering me."

Charlie swung his legs over the bed and sat up, swaying slightly. "You're wondering what's going on between Henry and Eve. I noticed it, too. There's something they aren't telling us."

"And whatever it is, it's stopping us from going after Boaz."

Charlie lowered to his feet and slowly stood. "Well, we can't keep waiting. We need to take action, whether it’s against the VP or Boaz."

"Are you prepared to kill the Vice President of the country if necessary?"

Charlie sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. "I'll need to speak to him first. Maybe none of this has been his choice, and he's a pawn like so many others of Boaz's acquaintances. But if he's on Boaz's side, I'll take him out myself."

"Good. He'll need to be dealt with either way, but that's only a temporary solution. We need to kill Boaz."

"I agree. Give me a few hours of sleep, and then we'll make Henry and Eve tell us what's going on." Charlie opened the door. "I'll be on the couch in my office if you need me. Are you going to see Eve?"

"She's with Liane, but I'll be close." He followed Charlie to his office. "Do you have
headphones
I can borrow?"

"Sure." Charlie rummaged through a drawer in his desk until he removed a pair of white ear buds. He handed them to Lucien. "Don't trust yourself not to eavesdrop?"

Lucien grabbed them and stuffed them into his pocket. "Something like that."

He headed back upstairs, stopping in his apartment only long enough to grab a folding chair. He placed it next to Eve's door and sat down. Now that they had captured Eve's mother, there was a very good chance that Boaz would believe Sable and think Eve was alive. He could come for her at any moment.

Eve's voice was easy to hear just beyond the door. She was talking with Liane about her aunt's spell book. There was an edge to her voice, the same sharpness that has been there since she had returned.

Respecting her privacy, Lucien slipped the headphones into his ears and cranked the volume on his phone. The orchestral music playing was filled with percussion and stirring melodies, infused with Gregorian chant style vocals. It reminded him of Ireland. The music took him to another place and gave him a temporary respite from his worry for Eve.

His eyes closed. He didn't dream, but he did remember long ago memories, and not the bad ones that involved his father's obsessive and cruel demands or his brother Aiden's sadistic experiments. These memories were of his mother. When he was little, he would help her in the forest gathering berries or mushrooms. She would often tell him stories of great warriors who feared nothing in the face of evil.

A soft caress brushed over his lips, warming him from the inside out. He opened his eyes.

Eve was kneeling in front of him, smiling big. She kissed him again, long and hard. He ran his fingers up through her long hair and pulled her closer to him so she was straddling him on the chair. All of him tingled and hummed with an intense heat that he was afraid might consume him.

He gently pushed her back. "What is going on?"

"I did it, Lucien. I found a way to get rid of Boaz." Her smile grew.

"How?"

She spoke fast. "There was a spell at the end of Ellenore's book that will put Boaz into an eternal sleep. It's complicated, but with your and Henry's help, I think we can do it. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but Liane recognized the spell. She even helped me finish it. I think that's what Ellenore was working on just before Boaz killed her. He must've known."

"Whoa! Slow down," he said. "You want to put Boaz to sleep? Why don't we just kill him?"

The smile on her face disappeared and she stood, leaving Lucien's lap cold. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Is this the secret you and Henry have been keeping?"

She nodded and walked a few steps down the hall before turning back around. "When I confronted Sable the other day, she confirmed something Anne had said about Boaz."

"What?"

"Boaz can't be killed until he's made whole." Speaking those words hurt her mouth.

Lucien stood up next to her. "What does that mean?"

"The necklace he made me wear. It holds all his powers, a piece of him. And as long as it exists, Boaz can't die."

"Then we'll destroy the necklace."

"I already tried many times, but it's indestructible."

Lucien paced the hall, thinking hard, but his thoughts refused to go where Eve was trying to guide them.

"What are you saying?" he asked, at length.

Eve took hold of his hand as he walked past. "Boaz will need that trapped part of him restored before anyone could ever kill him, and the only way for that to happen is for a powerful witch to wear the necklace, access those powers, and return them back to Boaz."

His legs nearly buckled. "But for that to happen, that would mean—"

"I would have to be that witch," Eve whispered.

He grabbed her arms fiercely. "You can't! That's your greatest fear, giving up your agency."

"And that's why I've been avoiding you." She looked up at him, her eyes pleading. "If it meant saving lives, then I'd have to go to Boaz and restore his powers. My only hope was that you and Henry would then be able to save me and together we could kill Boaz."

She took a deep breath. "I knew you would never let me do this, so I kept the secret from you. But things have changed now. We don't need to kill Boaz, just put him to sleep, then bury him for eternity or something. It will work. It has to!"

Lucien stared down at her, breathing hard. He could've lost her again. He pulled her into a tight embrace. She was right. He would never have let her go.

"Are you sure about this spell?" Lucien asked.

"Yes. It really is good. We'll need some supplies, like the untainted blood from a few animals, but those shouldn't be too hard to obtain. The hardest part of all of this will be convincing Henry that it will work."

Lucien's whole body tensed when he thought of Henry, and how he had kept this information from him. But even worse was the fact that he'd actually let Eve go to Boaz. He and Henry were going to have to come to an understanding.

Eve reached up and touched his cheek with her warm palm. His eyes went to hers. "We can do this. I promise, and once it's over, there will be nothing left between us. We can live our lives. Go anywhere we want. Do anything."

"Let's go find Henry and convince him right now."

Eve lifted on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly. "We can do that in a while. Let's take some time, just you and me. I've missed your touch so much."

Lucien's mouth pressed upon hers, deeply, lovingly. His whole world was right here in his arms, fragile and yet unbreakable. There was nothing in this world he wouldn't do for this woman. He scooped her up and carried her to his apartment down the hall. For right now, in this moment, it was just them.

Tomorrow they would take on Boaz.