whiskey witches 01 - whisky witches (38 page)

“The hunter comes.” Xael’s eyes went dead.

Paige touched her lips. Her mouth had gone numb. “Wha’ ‘id you ‘o to me?”

Xael’s bland expression folded in confused disgust. “You’ll be fine.”

Jackie’s wonderful rumble filled the air accompanied by the sound of flying gravel.

“I believe we owe them answers, Raphael.”

“We owe them nothing.” The archangel watched the car’s approach.

Dust rose in Jackie’s wake. Gravel crunched as Dexx put on the brakes. He flew out of the car and ran toward them. “Paige.”

She limped toward Dexx. First her mouth. Now her legs? The entire right side of her was numb. Had she suffered a stroke?

He wrapped her in his arms, putting his body between her and the angels. “What’s wrong? Why the limp?”

“My s’omach’s affecting my ‘egs.”

“And your mouth’s broke?”

“Her body will be fine,” Xael said. “Traveling with angels is somewhat discomforting to humans. Currently, her nervous system is not working properly. It will right itself.”

Dexx pulled away to give Paige an are-you-shitting-me look.

“Eventually.”

“We should not be here,” Raphael said.

“She’s your charge.” Xael walked toward Paige and Dexx. “Your job is to protect her—”

“As I was trying to do.”

“—not hide her.”

“Pro’ect me?” Paige raised her head. Her tongue felt as though it were three times its original size. “From wha’?”

Raphael’s lips tightened.

Xael sent him a suffering smile. “The child needs to know.”

“The child needs—”

“—instruction, like those before her.”

Raphael straightened, his angular face brightening. His jaw muscles ticked.

Dexx tightened his hold on her. “Neither one of you are making any sense. If you don’t have a point or purpose for being here, maybe you could leave. Leaving would be nice.”

Paige pushed out of Dexx’s arms and stumbled toward the inn. Her limbs were too heavy. It was exhausting to breathe. She needed a nap. A long one. “If what you have to say goes along something like, ‘You need to find your way back to the Lord,’ you can stuff it.” She nearly toppled over. “Hey, I can talk again.”

“Hey.” Dexx took her arm. “Congrats. Now, if your legs would work.”

“Shut up.”

“Stop,” Raphael commanded.

Paige was in no mood to be commanded. She’d just hared off in search of Sven, found Sven, and had been nearly overtaken by demons. She still had no idea where the frelling key. If that wasn’t bad enough, some monkey-jerk of an asshole angel had shoved his freaking hand into her chest to use her gift. She wasn’t in the fucking mood.

Xael released a long sigh.

Paige’s head smacked into an invisible wall, followed closely by her foot, then her entire body. “What the—”

Dexx used his fingers to test the limits of this new obstacle. His fingertips whitened as he pressed against it. “It’s solid.”

Paige stood up a little straighter and faced Xael. “All right. In 30 words or less. I need a nap.”

The angel stared at some point above her head with his pitch black eyes. “He created the demon talkers. It’s his job to keep you safe and to instruct you in the ways of the demon talkers. He—”

“Your thirty words are up,” Dexx interrupted.

Xael’s expression went flat. “I had six more.”

Paige held up her hand, staring at Raphael. “Hold up. You created demon summoners?”

The archangel gnashed his teeth, looking away. “Demon talkers. Never summoners.”

“Okay. Then if you created me, then why did the angels help my mother take Leah?”

“You misuse your gift,” Raphael said fiercely. “This is not what I created your line for.”

What a pompous . . . asshat! She crossed her arms over her chest. “I misused my gift? I misused my gift? Huh, right. Okay. Then what did you create us for?”

“You realize,” Dexx said, clenching his fist, his expression neutral, “that you’re inviting him into a conversation that’s well over thirty words long.”

She quirked her lips at him. What little patience she’d had was long gone. Her leg tingled with sensation. She applied full weight to it. Angel travel. Never again.

“Also ,” Dexx continued, “that tone of voice? Danger, Will Robinson. Tread carefully.”

Thunder rolled over Raphael’s angular features. “I created you to control the demons, not to summon them. Not to let them lose. They are to be punished and used as I will it.”

A chuckle burst out of her. She twisted away, letting her arms fall to her sides. “Oh. Oh. Oof. Oh. Oh, man. Wow. Shit. Wow.” Laughter bubbled forth as she rounded on him. “As—oh-ho. As he wills it. Oh, man. So, I’m a shovel.”

Dexx took a step back, raising a finger at Raphael. “I warned you.”

“But she laughs.” Xael’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“False advertisement. Trust me. She’s pissed. Pissed. Stop saying stupid things.”

“Why?” Raphael flexed his shoulders, shadows of his wings popping into existence. “She is a woman. I fear no one.”

Dexx took another step back. “Your death wish, dude.”

Paige ran her tongue in her cheek, allowing Dexx’s banter to continue, to buy her time to figure out what she needed to say. What did she need to know? This entire time, her entire life, she thought she was a by-product of demony stuff, but now? A tool for the angels? Really? She opened her mouth, pinching the corners together with her thumb and forefinger, before releasing them with a pop. “You mean my great grandmother was a spy for the angels? Is that why she went insane?”

“It is not easy to be the demon talker,” Raphael said. “It was never meant to be.”

Paige’s lips rounded.

“Each time a demon talker came into existence,” Xael said, crossing his arms over his chest, “he would send one of us to instruct. Usually me.”

Paige shook her head. “So why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you tea—”

“I did,” Raphael said through gritted teeth.

“I think I’d remember.”

“Why do you question me?”

“Why?” The question exploded from her chest. “Why? My life was ruined because of you, because of your stupid need to fuck with my life, because I wasn’t good enough—”

“You are not.”

Paige stopped in shocked surprise.

Dexx’s lip curled. “You want to repeat that?”

“You became an agent of the enemy,” the archangel said, his voice calm. “You sided with them, worked with them. Gabriel and the Lady Rachel are well within their right to protect Leah.”

“To destroy my life because you failed me?”

The archangel flinched.

“Why? How?”

“Why?” Xael asked. “Why did we decide to use humans who are obviously inferior?”

That wasn’t the why she’d asked, but it was a good one anyway. She balled her anger in her fists and ground her teeth.

“Demons use the pathway to the soul,” Xael said.

Dexx raised his eyebrows. “And, what, you can’t?”

“We can.” Xael ran his tongue along his lower lip. “We usually destroy the soul when we do.”

“Wow.” Paige bared her teeth and concentrated on the lake behind the angels. “Now I see why you’re so jealous of the demons.”

Xael smiled in surprise. “Jealous?”

“Humans are weak.” Raphael’s eyes flared, a golden light shining through for a single moment. “We have other agents inside. Having a human demon talker is merely convenient. As long as she remains convenient.”

Paige didn’t miss the gender emphasis. “What made grandma go insane?”

“As with your grandmother and her grandmother before her.” Raphael clasped his hands in front of him. “We give you a choice. Seek redemption for your defects by working for us, or suffer the consequences.”

Paige choked on her own spit. “Defects?”

Raphael’s lip curled in disgust. “Why do you think you were chosen? You, child, were born wrong.”

P
AIGE’S EYEBROWS JUMPED.
“Born wrong? In which way? The fact I was born human? Or the fact I was born a woman? Or are you talking about my gift?” Her voice rose along with her anger at each question mark. “Like the one you gave me?”

Raphael stumbled a half-step backward as though slammed by an invisible force. His calm veneer didn’t alter.

Xael gave the archangel a look of supreme serenity. “The hunter warned you.”

The archangel narrowed his eyes.

Paige’s hands shook with rage. “I want you gone. Now. I can’t—” She pressed her fist to her lips.

Dexx touched her shoulder. “Pea—”

She threw him off with a feral growl. “Everything that’s happened to me is your fault.”

“No,” Raphael said. “It is yours.”

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

“If you had followed the way of the Lord, then none of this would have happened.”

She shook her head, staring at him dumbly.

“You had to have known the path you chose was wrong.”

“All I know,” Paige said, her body quivering, “is that this moment feels wrong.”

“It is because of the guilt. Repent, and you may live within the grace of God.”

“Repent? For what? For loving my daughter?” She took a step toward the angels.

Raphael staggered a step backward.

“For having morals?”

He raised his chin, losing more ground.

“For trying to use my gift for good?”

Raphael held up an open palm and surged forward. “As soon as you learned they were demons, you should have known you were wrong.”

“Bullshit,” Paige shouted, advancing another half-step. “They make more sense than you!”

“Of course they do.” Raphael flicked his hand.

An outside force swept across Paige’s mind like a blanket of calm. Was he seriously trying to pull some sort of angel magick crap on her right now?

Raphael’s eyes widened minutely as he studied her, realization dawning along his features. “Demons are charming to sway you. That is what makes them so dangerous.”

“Demons do—”

“Did the Bible tell you nothing?”

“How much stock should I put—” Two more steps. “—in the mangled word of Man?”

The archangel raised his head as though he’d been slapped.

“Where’s God’s word in that? How many times has it been twisted to suit the needs of the power hungry? Where are the original texts? How do we even know what the Bible originally said?”

“We gave Man those words to—”

“—to seek power for yourselves,” Paige finished.

“We warned Man not to worship us.”

“That’s not what this conversation sounds like to me.”

“We’ve got company.” Xael straightened, his arms falling to his sides.

Paige twisted around. Lucius and Balnore stood on the other side of the invisible wall.

“It would do you well to leave us, vermin,” Raphael said.

“You’d do well to leave,” Balnore said. A cold smile slid across his face. “Unless you like it when I send you back.”

Xael folded his arms over his chest. “He’s the one who stopped you?”

Balnore’s smile widened and he flicked his dark eyebrows.

Xael stared at the demon with something akin to wonder. “Who are you?”

“I am her protector.”

“Interesting.”

The archangel flexed his shoulders. “You cannot send us back.”

“Give me one reason why—”

Raphael cut the demon off. “We are the only ones who can truly protect her.”

Balnore’s beady black gaze settled on Paige.

“She is broken and of no use to you.”

Paige glared at Balnore and shook her head.

His hands opened at his side, his eyes flaring.

“She is, however,” Raphael continued, “of use to us.”

Balnore turned his cold gaze to the archangel, standing at his full height.

“She cannot be around a lesser demon without sucking them into her body for possession.” Raphael clicked his tongue. “How many times do you think she can survive that?”

“As many as she has to.”

“I can protect her.” Lucius stepped forward. “Now, get out of here before I command my brethren to send you back.”

Raphael grinned lopsidedly. “What brethren? They’re all gone.”

“Found ’em.” Lucius gave the angel a smug look.

The archangel focused on Paige, his expression sliding into disgust. “Repent.”

She released an explosive breath. “Like hell.”

“Repent and all will be forgiven.”

The nerve of this guy. “I don’t like your god if He even exists.”

“Leave.” Balnore lowered his chin, his expression darkening. “Now.”

“If you change your mind, sinner,” the archangel said, “pray. We will arrive.”

“Pray to who?” Paige asked.

“To God. Who else?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’d rather spend an eternity in Hell.”

Xael’s mouth quirked.

The invisible field around them disappeared. As did the angels.

Paige released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and clasped Dexx’s arms.

“We have a problem,” Balnore said.

Dexx snorted. “And the understatement award of the year goes to?”

The demon glared at the hunter.

Dexx sent him a cheeky grin. “So what’s the issue now?”

“Sven,” Lucius said, his mouth twisting.

Balnore rolled his eyes. “He’s been among the humans too long. He’s half human now.”