Empower

  “Isn’t there usually a doorman here?” he asked.

  “Yeah, there is.” She gave the area a quick scan but didn’t see anyone around.

  “Look at this,” he said as he walked up the steps. “It’s open.”

  “It’s open?”

  Dean looked at Melina as he placed his hand on the door and pushed it inward.

  She gave him a worried look and then rushed inside. Dean followed her to the elevator and soon they were up on the second floor where Lee’s apartment was. She hurried over to the door and knocked as loudly as she could.

  “Please be home. Please be home.”

  After several seconds of no response, Melina pulled out her phone and tried to call him. It went straight to voice mail. She let out a frustrated groan and knocked on the door again. Just like before there was no response.

  She was about to yell out his name when the door opened ever so slightly. With a confused look on her face she glanced at Dean then turned back to the door. She slowly pushed it inward and came face to face with Maura.

  She gasped and jumped backward, almost knocking Dean over. “What are you doing here?” Her body had become tense, making her voice sound strained.

  Maura gave her a devilish grin. “I was just checking in on Lee,” she said, twirling a lock of her long black hair around her finger.

  “What have you done to him?” Melina said through clenched teeth.

  Maura tilted her head to the side. “What makes you think I’ve done something to him?”

  Melina glared over at the demon. “Because you’re evil.”

  Maura let out a short laugh. “I won’t disagree with that,” she said as she flipped her strand of hair back over her shoulder.

  “Where is he?” Melina asked, her jaw tight.

  “Oh, I gave him some news that made him quite jealous and angry, and he left here in a hurry. I suspect he’s out joining in on the chaos.” She paused for a moment and placed her finger on her chin. “It’s funny, though, that he didn’t seem to know who I was. I mean, you would think that he would remember that I sucked out his soul and almost killed him.”

  Melina was seething as she squeezed her hands together into fists at her sides. As the fiery sensation started to race through her veins, a flaming white light began to shine out from her hands, gradually growing brighter and brighter.

  “Ooh, yes!” Maura said as her eyes grew big and a mischievous grin crossed her lips. “There it is. Get angry!”

  Melina gritted her teeth as she recalled in her mind what Walter had said to her. To truly embrace all of your powers you must accept the good aspects and the bad. Accept them and then control them. Feel all of the emotions then use them in a good way. Use them to empower yourself.

  She glanced over at Dean and motioned with her head for him to move back. He brought up his protective light shield and started backing away. Melina turned around to face Maura again and pulled up her own light shield.

  Maura laughed. “Do you want to fight me?”

  Without saying a word, Melina closed her eyes and focused on channeling all of her anger into her powers. When she opened her eyes, she looked straight at Maura and let out a fury-filled scream as she thrust both of her hands out in front of her. Her light shield pulsed and white flames exploded out around her.

  Caught off guard, Maura’s eyes grew wide as she went flying backward down the hall. Melina stepped through the doorway and headed straight for where Maura had landed. The demon sneered at her as she pushed herself up from the floor.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Maura snarled. She closed her eyes and called out in her foreign tongue.

  Melina knew all too well what that meant. More Noxin demons were on the way. “Dean!” She looked back over her shoulder to where he was still standing behind her. “Look out!”

  Within seconds, a handful of Noxin demons in their demonic forms appeared in the room beside Maura. Melina heard a loud shriek come from behind her, which meant there was at least one more demon out in the foyer area with Dean. Maura gave her a wicked grin as a smoky haze started to overtake her, and she morphed into her demonic form.

  With that many demons there, Melina knew it was bad, especially for Dean. She turned around and took off running back to him. Once she ran through the front door, she saw that the demon was relentlessly attacking Dean’s shield. More shrieks came from inside Lee’s apartment, and when Melina turned around, she saw Maura and the rest of the demons heading straight for them.

  Melina rushed over to Dean and stood as close to him as she could, hoping that having their shields together would strengthen them and make it harder for the demons to break them down. She thought back to when she had first absorbed angel powers and how at that time the Noxin demons wanted to be as far away from her light shield as possible. But now, they were so crazed with seeing their plan succeed that they didn’t care about the pain it caused them.

  Within seconds Maura and the other demons were on them, gnashing their teeth and clawing at their shields. Once again, Melina focused her emotions to amplify her powers, and as she thrust her hands out in front of her, her light shield pulsed, blasting the demons back away from them. Screeching in pain, they crashed into the walls then hit the floor hard.

  Maura lifted her head and glared up at Melina. “You’re going to have to do better than that,” she said in a raspy voice.

  Melina clenched her jaw. She knew that when she released a human soul from a Noxin demon it seemed to cause a lot more pain than her protective light shield did. And she knew these demons had stolen a human soul or two. She let out another angry scream and raised her hands up in front of her. Multiple beams of fiery white light shot out from her palms, each hitting a demon right in the chest.

  The demons howled and screamed in pain as they began thrashing around on the floor. Within a few seconds, soft white glows started to rise up from all of the demons, Maura included. Melina thought back to when she had released Lee’s soul from her, along with the soul that had given her guiding angel powers, so this new soul must be one that she had taken recently. That meant Maura wasn’t just overseeing the execution of her plan. She was also helping.

  When Melina had released the human souls, some of them split into multiple pieces, which meant that demon had more than one human soul. The soft lights hovered for a brief second, then flew out of the building and out of sight. Maura’s minions instantly teleported away, leaving Maura alone on the floor, surrounded by the smoky haze they left behind.

  She was breathing hard as she looked directly at Melina and bared her gray, jagged teeth. “You can’t save them, you know. Not Lee, not Gwen, and especially not Tessa.”

  Melina’s chest tightened as she sucked in a sharp breath. “What did you do to her?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Maura said. “She did.”

  “What? What do you mean she did?”

  “Just her being herself was all it took.” She let out a low chuckle then disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Melina stared at the spot where Maura had just been and then looked over at Dean, a worried expression on her face. “What was all that about?”

  Dean shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Was she trying to say that Tessa was going to die?” Melina asked, her eyes wide. “But Phinneas said that a human wouldn’t die just by having part of his soul taken.”

  “Yeah,” Dean said. “If that’s what was done to Tessa.”

  “You think they did something else to her?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “If they did something else to her to try to hurt me then why didn’t they do it to Lee and Gwen, too? Why just Tessa?”

  “Well,” he said. “You heard what Maura said about Tessa. So maybe whatever the demons did only worked on her for some reason.”

  Melina’s eyes started to water. “I wonder if this has to do with why Tessa doesn’t remember me.” She blinked her eyes a
few times to make the tears go away and then glanced around the room to see how much damage her pulsing light shield had done. The pictures from the walls lay broken on the sleek marble floor. One of the crystal chandeliers was left hanging in a crooked position, and the window was shattered into tiny little pieces. She sighed. She felt bad about the damage, but there wasn’t much she could do right now.

  “I need to talk to Walter and Phinneas,” she said. “If Tessa’s life is in danger…” She lowered her face into her hands and shook her head. “No, no,” she said as she raised her head. “I’m being hasty. Let’s check on Gwen first, then I’ll call to Walter.”

  Dean nodded, then they both headed toward the exit.

  About twenty minutes later, they pulled up in front of Gwen’s house. Just like the last time, the garage was closed, so she wasn’t able to tell if their cars were there or not. She walked up to the front door and knocked, hoping that at least Gwen was home.

  A few seconds later the door opened wide and there stood Archie. Melina’s breath hitched at the sight of him. His eyes were solid black.

  She swallowed and then finally found her voice. “Hi, Archie.”

  “Melina,” he said in a melancholy tone.

  Her eyes filled with concern. “Are you okay?”

  He shrugged but didn’t answer.

  “Um, is Gwen here?” she asked.

  Archie tilted his head back toward the house. “Come on in if you want.” He turned around and slowly walked back inside.

  Melina and Dean followed.

  “She’s up in the bedroom.” Archie motioned toward the stairs then walked into the living room and lay down on the couch.

  “Looks like he’s been taken over by sadness, too, just like Gwen,” Melina said. “Come on. Let’s check on her.”

  They made their way up the stairs and found Gwen asleep in her bed.

  Melina let out a sigh of relief. “Good,” she whispered. “At least she’s not out in all of the craziness.”

  Dean nodded. “Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that, at least in their case, those who are affected by sadness aren’t going to be contributing a whole lot to all of the disarray we saw in town.”

  “No,” Melina said, shaking her head.

  “So now what?” he asked as they both stepped away from the bedroom door. “Back to your place so you can call to Walter?”

  She shook her head again. “How do you feel about going back into town?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “You really want to go back into that madness?”

  “I’ve got to see how bad it is, to see what we’re up against.” She paused to swallow. “To see what I’m up against.”

  Dean opened his mouth to say something but then stopped himself and simply nodded at her.

  She gave him a grateful smile. She didn’t have to listen to his thoughts to know what he had been about to say. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to do it alone, and she knew that. But she also knew that if the Noxin demons really were stealing parts of people’s souls, then she was the only one who could restore them.

  “Are you ready?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Dean said. “Let’s go.”

  The closer they drove to the center of town, the more affected people they saw. Melina once again gazed around in astonishment. She still couldn’t believe that hundreds of people had been attacked and turned so quickly just since last night. When they finally reached the downtown area, she parked her Jeep and they both climbed out.

  “I want to see how many people are affected now and how many aren’t,” she said. “It’s not that cold out now. Are you all right with checking some of these stores and restaurants?”

  Dean gave her a nod and followed her down the sidewalk. The first place they went was a small café, but as they stepped up to the front door, Melina saw a sign that said it was closed. Melina frowned. She knew it was around lunchtime, so they should be open.

  “Huh.” She took a step back and looked down the sidewalk. “Let’s keep going.”

  As she and Dean continued to walk around, she noticed that none of the affected people were even paying any attention to them. They all seemed to be taking their emotions out on other affected people. She guessed it was because she and Dean weren’t threatening or interacting with them.

  The next place they stopped was a local clothing store. There was no sign up saying they were closed, but when Melina pulled on the door handle, she found that it was locked. As she peered through the window, she saw that only half of the lights had been shut off, and she could hear the faint sound of music coming from inside. It appeared that the store had been shut down in haste.

  Melina turned and gazed around at the stores across the street. Almost all of them had Closed signs hanging up in their front windows. Had the demons really gotten to that many people just since last night?

  “I think we should…” Her voice trailed off as she stared over at the alley across the street. She could’ve sworn that she just saw something black and billowy over there.

  “What’s wrong?” Dean asked.

  “I saw something go down that alley,” she said as she gestured over to it. “I think it might be a Noxin demon.”

  “Do you want to check it out?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I think we should.” She looked both ways and hurried across the street with Dean following close behind.

  When she made her way into the alley, she instantly started to look around for the demon. At first she didn’t see anything, but as she crept farther down she saw a black cloud swirl around the corner.

  Melina picked up her pace, and as she turned the corner she came face to face with Adelia. She gasped and immediately stopped in her tracks, causing Dean to run into her back.

  Adelia glared at her. “What do you want?”

  Melina hesitated as she remembered what Helene had asked her to do. After taking a few seconds to collect her thoughts she said, “I want to help you.”

  Adelia let out a hearty chuckle. “You are stubborn, aren't you?”

  Melina just looked at her.

  “I thought we had established yesterday that not only do I not want to be helped, but I can’t be helped!”

  Melina shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

  “But why?” screamed Adelia. “Why do you insist on having hope for me?”

  Melina took a step back as she tried to think of the best thing to say. Helene had asked her to try to make Adelia remember what she once was. To bring her back to the light. And then suddenly it hit her.

  “Because you’re torn, just like I was when the evil in me tried to take over. And I know that since you were good before you were evil, the good in you will always remain dominant unless you allow the evil in you to fully take over.” Melina paused for a moment and then said, “You may be a Fallen, but you haven’t allowed the evil to take control of you. Not completely.”

  Adelia scowled at her but didn’t say anything.

  “I think you’ve tried so hard to be evil,” Melina said, “but something in you is keeping the light in you alive. Even if it’s only a tiny sliver, it’s still there.”

  Adelia laughed. “You think you know so much, don’t you?”

  “No,” Melina said. “There’s a lot that I still have to learn. But I know what it’s like to have a battle going on inside you between good and evil, and for me, what kept the good in me alive was my desire to help people. No matter how strong the evil in me became, that desire remained.” She paused for a moment and then said, “So what is it for you? Is it that you still have a desire to help people, too?”

  Adelia’s hard stare softened a bit as her face took on a pained expression.

  Melina tilted her head to the side, examining the fallen angel. Helene’s words came to mind again, and she remembered how the elder had said that it seemed as if Adelia was coming to Melina for help. She looked back at Adelia and her troubled expression and couldn’t help but think… “It’s regret, i
sn't it?”

  Adelia’s face hardened again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Melina’s eyes widened. “It is regret. You feel bad for your role in helping the Noxin demons, don’t you? That’s why you’ve been coming to me for help.”

  “I haven’t been coming to you for help.” Adelia sneered.

  “I think you have been,” Melina said. “And it’s why you were following us just now.”

  “I wasn’t following you.”

  “Then what were you doing?” Melina asked. “There aren’t any demons around for you to be helping.”

  Adelia stared at Melina, then turned her gaze to Dean. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  Dean’s eyebrows drew together in confusion.

  “I thought you had turned on your powers and wanted to forget them,” Adelia said.

  “How do you—”

  “I know a lot more than you think,” Adelia said, cutting him off. “What changed your mind?”

  “Melina,” he said. “She didn’t give up on me, and her determination reminded me that it’s a gift to be able to help those in need.”

  Adelia didn’t say anything, so Melina seized the opportunity. “You had that gift once, Adelia. You still have it. You just need to reconnect with it. And you can do that by helping us.”

  As Adelia glanced between Melina and Dean, a single tear slid down her cheek. “It’s too late,” she said in a low voice.

  Melina opened her mouth to tell her she was wrong, but before she could say anything, Adelia teleported away, leaving only a swirl of black mist in her place.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Melina looked over at Dean, who was staring with big, round eyes at the spot where Adelia had stood. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I… I just,” he stammered. “I didn’t think I’d ever see Adelia, let alone talk to her.” He paused for a moment then turned to look at Melina. “The way she looks, all dark and ragged. It’s hard to believe that she used to be an elder guiding angel.”

  Melina nodded. “I know. But hopefully what I said to her helped to remind her of that.”