Imperial (Insight #8)(54)
“You kinda cleared my calendar for the afternoon,” he said with a smirk.
“That power could be yours.”
“Tempting with power...tsk, tsk—that is clearly a trait of what evil does,” he said, moving his head from side to side in a sarcastically playful manner.
“No, evil tempts with fear.”
“True.”
“I did seek counseling about your rare hybrid of energy.”
“Is that what Escorts call it?” he said with another deep inhale.
“Do you need to be restrained in order to listen to me?”
“Not at all. I see now that a sense of humor is not afforded to real Escorts.”
“There is no precedence for you, but basic lore states that when you are risen into an Escort that your past lives are just that, in the past. Any debt you have to Charlie or those in the form of Witnesses will be null and void. They saved you, and I will repay them for that, but you are mine and it is time to come home.”
“I belong to my Creator, and my Creator alone,” he said, raising his brow.
“And He has placed you in my care.”
“Apparently, He took me out of your care,” he shot back.
“Are you seeking a compromise, telling me that you can remain as you are and discard your emotions for Charlie?”
“I told you before, our LOVE is a necessary evil.” I knew he meant that to be damning, or even sarcastic, but as soon as that sentence left his lips pain came to his eyes as he clenched his chest once more.
“What is wrong with you? What is this pain?”
Silas gasped as he breathed through it. “Oh, dear queen, this is not a new agony. But for some reason, your presence enhances it.”
“How is it not new?”
He had regained his composure once more and was standing tall. “I knew I was an Escort or something close to it before today.”
“I know that you did.”
“No, I knew.”
“Okay, then. How?”
“Where do you think that black smoke goes when I pull it from those evil bastards?”
“Home.”
“Evil has no home.”
I had to think for a second. I knew when I pulled blackened souls out of the Escorts that reached The Fall that they went home to The Realm, but those clones I saw Silas fighting—I wasn’t sure they had a soul; therefore, I wasn’t sure where their home was.
“Where does it go, Silas?” I said as I angled my head up at him and crossed my arms.
His fist hit his chest. “Right here.”
“You could not have possibly consumed that evil and still have the will to stand.”
“I do consume it, and I send it to its death.”
“Which is...?”
“The light.”
“You’re telling me that you pull this evil out, take it within you, and rise to some light and let it go?”
“You make it sound so simple. It doesn’t happen that way. Each one that I kill marks my soul, and when the marks tear at my armor I rise and the light cleanses me. It then pulls any remaining essence of that evil out of The Realm.”
“Is evil in you right now? How many battles do you live through before you need this release?” Maybe that was why he was so damn temperamental and stubborn; that darkness was in him.
He smirked. “In the past I could go years, decades; recently, more often than not.”
“And you think that is healthy? That your Creator designed you to be some kind of vacuum? A means to an end?”
“You’re the one that said you were designed for a means to an end.”
I guess I did say that. “We are above it; you are below it.”
“Well, then I guess the goal is to meet in the middle, huh?”
“There are more like you?”
He held out his powerful arms. “One of a kind.”
“You are not consuming evil anymore. That stops now, along with these emotions for this Charlie girl.” How could he want this for himself? I should have been a welcome sign of relief to him.
“Not a chance.”
“Listen to me. I can see into you. You can say whatever you want, declare whatever you want, but I know what is between you and her is not real.”
“Still love her.”
“Because it is necessary.”
“For me to exist, yeah, I have to feel it for someone.” With those words, he clenched his chest again. I knew he was in far more pain than what he was showing me.
“Perhaps someone else then, someone who is not firmly attached to a line that you cannot and will not bring down.”
“Sure, sure, girls that dig boys that can fight and consume evil and live for eternities at a time are easy to come by. I’ll ask one out to a show. Get right on that.”
“Are you always so sarcastic?”
“I’m always a bit of an ass, yes.”
That made me smile. I adored the fight in him.
“Come with me, fight evil the correct way.”
“No. I have a guard to keep,” he said, glancing at the broken chapel behind me.
“Memories. This place will be knocked down with the next swift wind. Nothing here for you.”
“You think I guard this building, that the Creator could find nothing better for me to care for?”