The Paladin's Redemption (The Keepers of White Book 3) Read online

  “There was a time when I stopped using these gifts I have, but I guess I eventually got it into my head that they shouldn’t be buried. I was taught them for a reason. At least that’s how I justified my decision to retrain myself to use them.”

  “Even though you knew you would put other loved ones at risk,” she added. “It must have been a hard decision.”

  Michael’s full voice returned momentarily. “Like I said, threatening us by using our loved ones as leverage is sort of their M.O. Their message is simple: each time we interfere, more and more people we care about would suffer. Me? I answered them, letting them know that the more the people I care about suffer, the more dangerous I would become. I figured that would throw them for a loop, you know? Maybe they wouldn’t know what to do with that.”

  Megan said nothing. She admired his supposedly amazing will to remain steadfast in the face of such evil.

  “I want them to know that I’m not going to stop interfering, and that going after my family and friends won’t change that. That way, logically, they would have no reason to target them, once they see it wouldn’t do them any good. It was the only method I could think of that would allow me to continue doing what I believed I was called to do, and still keep everyone else safe.”

  The silence that followed was such a paradox from the one before. As defeated as Michael appeared, she could feel the undying strength within him. There may be times, as she witnessed, when the brightness in his eyes might fade, but they would always return to their natural color of power, once he got back on his feet. And she believed he would, if she could only find a way to help him.

  But the hard truth had to come out as well: “You also did it out of revenge. For whatever it is they did to you. For whoever they tortured and murdered in front of you.”

  Still facing away from her, he nodded in confirmation.

  “Michael,” she began, “So here’s where I’m going with this. Whatever they did to you three years ago, it obviously affected you harshly. But you didn’t lose your gifts after all this time. Surely, watching that terrible video would have broken your… inner peace… as you called it?”

  “It’s true,” he answered. “I never found peace again.” For a moment, silence followed again, but within seconds he cleared his throat and spoke in a slightly stronger volume. “But I spent day after day, for uncountable hours, meditating. Going deep in my own solitude, working tirelessly to reconnect with the Alpha Magic. It took forever, but I slowly found it again. Little by little I grew stronger with my abilities.

  “Though I could never harness them the way I once could… before everything. That, I’ve known. It may have seemed pretty impressive to you, the things you saw tonight, but from my own point of view, it’s not what it used to be.”

  “Okay, and yes; very impressive from my point of view. And don’t you see? The fact that you were able to get this magic back at all says something, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said. “Sometimes I still don’t get it. Based on what I know, I never should have been able to harness them again, not without complete focus and serenity. Somehow, I did anyway, so I didn’t question it. Just went with it. But now, I’ve shown that I’m able to allow my selfish ambition to drive my use of these gifts, which in turn makes me unworthy of it.”

  “Selfish ambition,” she repeated. “You mean vengeance.”

  Michael didn’t reply.

  “I’m pretty sure you’ve had revenge in your heart for the past three years, Michael. You’ve been using this Alpha Magic in spite of that. Even after you killed those monsters. You used it on Detective Harrison, which was after you took your revenge. If you can still do all those things, then logically, you should still be able to use the Alpha Magic to get rid of this vision inside me.”

  He didn’t reply. Doubt still lingered in him, she could tell.

  “Turn around… and look at me,” she managed more forcefully. She had worked it out in her own mind, and took the time explaining what she believed he should have already concluded. And at this point she had little room left for anything but bluntness.

  Once again he brought his eyes to meet hers.

  “You took your revenge, Michael Messenger,” she finally said, “then you promised to keep me safe. Why? If all you cared about was making them pay, then why make that promise?”

  “I never wanted any of these things to happen to you, Megan,” he answered with the same sorrow in his voice. “I would never completely abandon my code. Keeping you safe is my priority. It just wasn’t my highest priority.”

  “Michael,” she said with a correcting tone, “if you had followed your code, it’s true that I would not have gone through those terrible things. Ben and Ryleigh might still be alive. But we can play the ‘What If’ game until the fucking sun comes up. It won’t get us anywhere, will it? Because if you did things by this… ridiculous, official book of the Keepers of White, then Father Paul and all the others would still be alive too. And how many more people would die in the future because of it? Sure, you stopped this… Dark Year… or Cycle… whatever you call it, but they would be up and running, ready to start over when the next one comes. What’s to say you didn’t prevent them from even trying to complete the next one, now that most of them are dead? How many more innocent women have you saved, as a result of your actions?”

  “Megan,” Michael said softly, “even so, that was not the purpose that fueled my actions these past couple of weeks. Saving future Virgin Selects wasn’t the reason for what I did.”

  “It’s still a result of them,” Megan countered. “If you’re going to condemn yourself for the pain and death you may have caused indirectly, then you should also commend yourself for all the pain and death you prevented… indirectly. And this is coming from me. Someone who went through that pain. If I had to go through two weeks of hell in order for you to find those bastards and put an end to their terrible crimes, then it was worth it.”

  “Why are you saying this to me? Why don’t you hate me? My choices got you hurt, Megan. I have to answer for that.”

  “And you have, dummy,” she replied, fresh tears yet again starting to form. She was almost annoyed with his persistence with beating up on himself. “You answered to me, the one you should answer to. And you know what? I forgive you.”

  Michael blinked with surprise. She thought his mouth might drop open. She thought he might push more protests at her, but he only stared at her, seemingly paralyzed by her decree.

  “I forgive you,” she repeated, grabbing both of his hands, not stopping the tear drops from running down her face.

  To her surprise, for the first time, she saw his own tears form in his sapphire eyes. Then they closed as he breathed out shakily, lowering his head. Megan reacted by pulling him close, allowing him to rest his head on her shoulder. For several minutes she held him as he did not weep, but breathed heavily as if to stop himself from doing so. When the moment seemed right, she spoke again. “Michael, I think you need to do something now. You need to forgive yourself.”

  Time passed slowly, with neither saying another word. But little by little, a calming overtook them both. It started as a subtle feeling, but eventually grew to replace all of his shame, and all of her anger.

  He lifted his head from her shoulder, opening his eyes, still moist from his inner struggle to release the guilt that hindered the strong composure with which he usually carried himself. Then, inhaling fresh air, he nodded as if to say that he was alright. Yet a strange, pensive look possessed his eyes.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I just… I’m thinking how different this might be if it took me longer to carry out my plan, and I wasn’t able to stop them until the next ritual. As I said, I wasn’t able to get to them in time to save the four women before you. It took a while to gather the information I needed. What if it took me a little longer?”

  “Why does that come to mind?” she wondered.

  “I’m thinking,” he explai
ned, “that my plan would probably carry out in the same manner, but I wonder if it were a different woman I was with, like the following Virgin Select, would she have been able to forgive me as quickly as you have? Or at all?”

  She offered a half-smile. “Still playing the ‘What If’ game? You’ll never know the answer to that.”

  “Still, I don’t think they would. I’m somewhat in shock that you’re so quick to forgive something like this. I’m completely humbled, Megan Panco.”

  “Well you should be, Michael Messenger. I guess we’re both lucky you got what you needed in time to save me.”

  His hunched figure straightened as he faced her. “There’s no such thing as luck,” he professed.

  Another silence fell between them. This one sounded of mystery and mysticism. As if the magic he tried to explain to her were a tangible, living entity that had suddenly invited itself as a third occupant of the hotel room.

  “So,” Megan began minutes into the silence, only to quell the awkwardness of the feeling, “we good?”

  He gently gripped her arms, which were still partially wrapped around him, and guided them off of him. “Not quite,” he answered as he rose from his sitting position and stepped toward the white candle on the night stand. He blew a short burst toward the wick, lighting it as he had done before. “We still have a curse to lift,” he proclaimed, standing tall before her.

  Not blinking, eyes fixed on his, she rose and stood before him, as if something else controlled her. Once again, she was staring at the same man who had burst into the altar room beneath the abandoned schoolhouse with an unyielding sense of purpose. She was more than ready to take his hands again, but before she could move further, he turned and reached for his katana leaning against the wall nearby, and used a leather strap attached to its sheath to sling it over his shoulder, tightening a harness so that it pressed firmly against his back, with the hilt protruding above the back of his shoulder.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry,” he answered confidently. “I know what to do now. Going in, guns blazing this time.”

  He reached his hands to her, but before she took his, a thought came to her:

  “Why did you kiss me?” she heard herself ask, to her own surprise. “Last time?”

  “You noticed,” he said, a little flushed by her abrupt question. “I thought it might help. It’s supposed to establish a stronger connection sometimes.”

  “I think it almost worked,” she said with a rather embarrassed smile.

  “Almost,” he repeated. “But you know what they say. Horseshoes and hand grenades.”

  “And government work,” she added as she lifted her hands, allowing him to take her by the wrists. “So… if you were trying to remove a spell from another guy… would you have to do that?”

  He tilted his head at her with a strange look on his face. “Your sense of humor is quite interesting, Megan. You definitely use it to keep your spirits up when you have to.” She gave him a smirk and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, you do what you have to. “But to answer your question, no. If I were gay, it could work, but since I’m not, doing that would create an unpleasant sensation, which would weaken the connection instead of strengthening it.”

  “Is that so?” she teased. “Or do you tell yourself that to avoid an awkward situation?”

  He shook his head with a smirk as if to tell her she was too much again. “If you wanted to strengthen a connection with your father, would you kiss him like that? It’s kind of the same thing.”

  She smiled at first but suddenly turned from him. “If I wanted to strengthen a connection with my father, he’d have to pick up the phone first.”

  She felt his grip begin to tighten gently. “Your father loves you more than you realize, Megan. He’s just been lost for some time.”

  “If you don’t mind,” she spoke above a whisper, “I’d like to focus on one issue at a time; particularly the one we’re dealing with now.” She in turn, closed her hands around his wrists as well.

  “I understand,” he replied empathetically. “Okay. One more time. Close your eyes and…”

  “Are you going to kiss me this time?” she asked suddenly, somewhat teasingly, somewhat hopefully.

  “I should have warned you about that before,” he answered half-apologetically, half sheepishly, “but I only remembered that trick while we were midway through the vision.” Then he cleared his throat, speaking more in a business-like manner. “I don’t think it will be necessary this time around, but just so you don’t get caught off guard, if the moment calls for it… well… be ready for it. Just in case the connection needs…”

  “Guns blazing, Michael,” she interrupted. She quickly took her right hand from his left, placed it on the back of his neck and pulled herself to him, planting her lips on his with fiery passion as she closed her eyes.

  Though it was he who was caught off guard, he was only a second or two after her before his stunned eyes followed hers and shut tight. Soon after, as their kiss fortified into what felt like their two souls interlocking, the material world dissipated as they saw themselves, hand in hand, facing the terror of the vision.

  Part II

  Home Plate

  Chapter I

  Sonny Williams, now going by Sonny Matthews, ended the call and locked the screen on his phone. He had awoken earlier than he would have preferred, to the annoyance of the thing beckoning him through its tiny speaker; tiny, yet strong enough to disturb his sleep, with a familiar ringtone he had designated specifically for the woman he both loved and hated to talk to, depending on the subject of conversation. As Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman” had killed the silence in the bedroom of his new, fully furnished, one-bedroom apartment just outside the city limits of Des Moines, he had already gotten the sense that this would be a call he would have rather ignored.

  “You’re up early,” he had used as his greeting when answering the call. “It must’ve been a late night for you and your clique. Very flattered you thought to call little ol’ me after all the celebrating you must have…”

  “We have a problem,” Diana’s voice had cut in with a tone that more than suggested she wasn’t up for playful banter.

  The remnants of sleepiness had immediately dissolved upon hearing her words, as he had lifted himself from his bed into a sitting position. “What problem?”

  She had been rather brief, but Diana had filled him in on the gist of their unfortunate failure last night. There had been an intrusion on their ritual. A Keeper of White had sought them out and left all but herself and Madsen dead before the Cycle could transpire. In other words, they had fucked up. Again.

  “That’s rather uncharacteristic for a Keeper of White to come after us so rashly,” he had commented, almost amused by the unexpected turn of events, “and so violently.”

  “Quite,” Diana had agreed, “which changes the game drastically.”

  “How was one man able to overtake ten agents? All from the two highest circles?”

  “It’s not a matter to discuss at this time,” she had denied him. “Right now, you just need to focus on what’s next for you.”

  Not that Sonny cared for a thorough report, but he felt contempt in knowing that she perceived him to be on a “Need-to-Know-Basis” kind of level. He was her subordinate. She had no obligation to give him any more information than she felt necessary. Her short and shallow recount of last night’s events reflected his level of worth in her eyes. Though the information she had revealed to him was important indeed, all he got out of it was how little respect she truly had for him. She probably would’ve told him even less if he hadn’t satisfied her carnal desires so often. Fucking women.

  “You realize this wouldn’t have happened if you had let me stay and watch like I wanted,” he had remarked snidely.

  “Or you would be dead right now, like all the others,” she had retorted. “You should probably be thanking me.”

  Sonny had squeeze
d the phone in his hand, ready to crush the device. She doubted him. Discredited his abilities. “You insult me,” he had almost growled.

  “It’s your ego that’s insulted,” she had countered. “Anyway, it wasn’t your call to make. Or mine. Paul was always one to stick to the rules.”

  “How’d that work out for him?”

  “Sonny,” Diana had replied with an impatient, raised voice, “I don’t have time for this. I have new instructions for you, and that’s all you need to concern yourself with.”

  With reluctance he had listened carefully as Diana had relayed his updated mission, first given to her by Madsen. It was simple enough: hang tight and lay low. He would be called upon again in the near future.

  “So I’m being given an involuntary vacation then,” he pouted once she had finished.

  “You can use the time to improve on what I’ve taught you,” Diana had suggested, “as long as you don’t bring attention to yourself in the process.”

  “And what about August?”

  “What about her?”

  “I’ve already taken certain actions to ensure that we bumped into each other and started a flirtatious conversation,” he had replied. “The nearby grocery store, of all places. It even led to a nice lunch date shortly afterwards. Nice girl. Not much of a looker, but I’ve gotten her quite interested in me.”

  “I’m sure you performed your job quite admirably,” Diana had commented in a tone more businesslike than before, “but unfortunately it’s a moot point since the Cycle has been broken. We’ve no need for her anymore.”

  “Which means her purity, or her safety, is no longer a priority.”

  Diana had remained silent for a moment. Sonny could only imagine what nerves he might have plucked, which pleased him, but when she had finally spoke, her “strictly business” manner had not faltered in the least. “Nevertheless, she’s off limits. Period. Along with anyone else you’d contemplate having your kind of fun with.”

  “What difference does it make what… or who I do on my off time?” he had almost teased.