Ascension: Sins of Eden Part 13

Elise looked triumphant. "It works," she hissed. "All of you Fates are going to f.u.c.king die."

The other wolves leaped, slamming into the Fate.

She fell under the a.s.sault. Her body vanished among snapping jaws and s.h.i.+mmering fur, but her scream was carried through the library on torrential winds from the sinkholes.

Elise flashed across the tower and wrenched James to his feet. She clutched his face in both of her hands, and the desperation in her expression sucked away what little breath remained. "Are you okay? Did Atropos hurt you?"

"Fine," he squeezed out. "But-your powers-"

She embraced him tightly for an instant, pressing her ear to his chest as if to listen to the beat of his heart. Her fingers clutched at his back so tightly that it hurt, even beyond the strength of her infernal power.

The demon called Atropos beat away the wolves. Smoke streamed from every wound. As James watched, the injuries struggled to heal slowly-so very slowly, for a creature like her.

The flesh had been completely stripped from her right arm. There was nothing but bone and ichor underneath.

"What in all the h.e.l.ls are you?" Atropos snarled, hand las.h.i.+ng out to seize one of the wolf spirits by the throat.

She could touch it as easily as it touched her. She ripped its throat away.

Elise smashed into the other demon. They pitched over the railing, tumbling toward the fires. The howl of the wolf spirits swirled through the tower as they chased Elise down.

Abel stood on the edge, hands gripping the rail. It didn't look like his mind was with his body-he stared blankly down into the thras.h.i.+ng darkness. Sweat soaked through the collar of his s.h.i.+rt.

James rubbed his throat, sore from the demon's grip, as he staggered toward the Alpha. "Abel? Are you all right?"

Darkness surged over the side of the mezzanine.

Atropos's face reared over James, too huge, her eyes vast pits and her mouth gaping. She had broken free of Elise and the wolves' a.s.sault. "Kill the witch!" she shrieked.

Her barely corporeal form smashed into him.

James choked on the anger. The thoughts that struck him weren't rational. Weren't even his thoughts.

But he couldn't stop thinking of how Elise was always f.u.c.king so many other people, trying to make him jealous. Malcolm. Anthony. Lincoln. It wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't worked, if she hadn't known how much it would hurt-and he would have to kill her for it.

He was going to kill her.

James stumbled backward, overwhelmed by the image of attacking Elise, hurting her, killing her.

No. It's the demon. It's just the demon.

He could see nothing but Atropos and Elise's swollen, bloodied face.

She deserved it. She deserved every ounce of pain.

James didn't even feel it when he stumbled through the sinkhole to Earth.

His feet slipped. The library vanished around him. His heart lifted into the back of his throat and he tumbled into the night, just like Benjamin had.

So many miles down.

As soon as James was on the Earth side of the sinkhole, Atropos's thrall lifted.

It was a long way down.

He had endless seconds to feel guilty for thinking violent thoughts about Elise. Long enough to realize that the burning coastline was rus.h.i.+ng up to meet him. Long enough to wonder if his dying thoughts would be anger at everything that happened in his life.

He couldn't seem to draw a full breath, so he didn't try. James closed his eyes so he wouldn't have to see the ground strike.

But darkness consumed him, and he never hit.

James landed safely amongst a torrent of papers from the Library. Not as hard as he would have landed if Elise hadn't caught him, but hard enough that the impact jolted through his spine like an iron spike.

The pain was good, in a way. It meant he was alive.

Small comfort.

"Good G.o.d," he groaned, rolling onto his back.

Elise and Abel's landings were far more graceful. The werewolf managed to stay on his feet, spinning with his teeth bared, searching for the Fate that they had left behind. "Where'd she go? Where's the b.i.t.c.h?"

"She's gone," Elise said curtly, grabbing James by the wrist and yanking him to his feet. "The whole Palace is gone."

She swung a kick at one of the books that she had carried out of Dis, sending it flying across the street. It almost hit Ace, but the dog was fast enough to dodge it.

James scanned the street for b.l.o.o.d.y remains. There was no sign that Benjamin had struck anywhere near them-thank G.o.d.

Beyond that, James wasn't entirely sure where they had ended up. It was some kind of coastal American city. He could smell the salty bite of the ocean. The empty street was buried under inches of muddy ash, most likely as a result of the Breaking.

There was newer damage, too. Fragments of ethereal architecture had crashed into the skysc.r.a.pers, pulverizing at least two structures that James could see. The streets were filled with rubble-some ordinary brick, some of it that white cobblestone. Two blocks down, James could see the glow of flowing magma.

The only reason that he had lived to make it back to that desolation was Abel's intervention.

"Thank you," James said, extending a hand toward Abel.

The Alpha grunted and walked away from them. When he pa.s.sed Ace, the dog growled and barked.

"Not now, boy," Elise said, dropping to a crouch with her head cradled in her hands. The pit bull trotted over and licked her. She didn't react, not to pull away or smile or even attempt to pet him.

James watched Abel's back retreat. He seemed so defeated, like he had somehow become physically diminished in the loss of his mate. When he shapes.h.i.+fted into his black wolf form, even that seemed smaller.

Rylie had made him stronger. Now he was weak.

Abel raced away. Neither Elise nor James tried to stop him.

James started picking up books and stray papers. It looked like Elise had grabbed everything off of his worktable before chasing him down, but it was scattered over the entire block. "Are you all right?" It felt like a strange question to ask, considering that he'd been the one a few seconds from pancaking on the ground.

"No," she said.

He gave Elise a real look for the first time since they'd landed. She was barefoot. Her leather pants were slashed open, her s.h.i.+rt filled with holes, like it had been melted away. And even though James could tell that she was as strong as ever, she was completely beyond self-control. Her hair streamed into the darkness. Her eyes were pits.

"Good Lord," James said. "What happened to you?"

She laughed bitterly. "What happened to me?"

"It's the army, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it's the army. Belphegor turned them around on me and slaughtered almost every single person that I tried to save. For all I f.u.c.king know, he did kill them all."

"You left in the middle of a battle?" James asked.

"For f.u.c.k's sake, someone had to save you," Elise said. "I had to be able to save someone from Belphegor." It came out ragged, almost like a sob, even though her cheeks were completely dry.

"Why would Belphegor want to kill me?" James asked. "I can't do anything for you anymore. I'm not even your aspis."

"But he wants me to be less spirited. That's what he said. I'm too spirited. He's going to kill everything and everyone on Earth if that's what it takes." Her aura lashed out strongly, dragging her anger through him as painfully as knives.

"Wait." He hesitated, and then touched her arm.

"Don't touch me," Elise said, jerking away from his grip.

He wished he could. It was sensory overload just looking at her; the actual contact of skin on skin was like giving her a direct line to his emotions. Now, especially, her anger was toxic. It felt like he could drown in it.

But that was neither her fault nor her choice. He forced himself to touch her again, and this time, he didn't let her pull away.

She finally stopped pacing. Elise's shoulders sagged.

"He killed her, James," she whispered.

"Who?"

"Neuma. She's dead."

James was surprised by how hard that news. .h.i.t him. He'd never liked the half-succubus, but she'd been around ever since he and Elise had retired in Reno.

Neuma was one of Elise's oldest friends. More remarkably, Neuma was the only half-demon Gray to have ever held a territory as overlord. He wouldn't have been surprised to learn she was immortal.

If she had become a fixture to James, he could only begin to imagine what Elise was feeling.

He didn't really need to imagine. Her grief was making the air around her into acid almost as surely as the sinkholes were.

Elise wrenched away from him, spinning to punch the wall of a bank. Her fist went all the way through. She ripped it free and took half of the drywall with it.

He scratched the back of his neck. "Were you two...ah..."

"We used to have s.e.x, if that's what you're asking," Elise said a little too harshly, as if she expected him to be disgusted by the news.

James hadn't been asking that specifically, but he had seen them kiss and wondered. He waited for a pang of jealousy that he never felt. "Ah. I understand."

"No. You don't understand. You can't f.u.c.king understand. I was starving, and she fed me. I felt guilty, and she made it okay. She was..." Elise smothered her face in both hands as emotion rippled over her, and James smothered with her, carried on the current of her emotion.

He had to take several deep breaths before he was capable of speaking again.

"You loved her," James managed to choke out.

Elise sat down on the curb and didn't look up. Ace pushed his head into her lap, whining softly. "Who cares? She's dead."

James didn't have a response for that.

He sat beside her on the curb, just far enough away that they didn't touch. He took a half-drawn rune and pen from his pocket, and he finished drawing it in silence. "Here," James said. "I'm not sure how well it will work, considering I haven't been able to test it, but I think...everything should be in order."

She stared blankly at the paper he offered her, as though she didn't quite see it.

"It's the spell you requested," he added. "The dampening spell to make it easier for us to be around each other."

Finally, Elise looked it over. "This will only work on a mortal."

He was surprised that she'd noticed. It hadn't been easy to come up with a marking for that. "You need to apply the rune to me. It'll make me numb to most of your, ah, pa.s.sive influences. I thought that we couldn't risk reducing your powers; only my reaction to them."

Elise folded the paper into quarters and tucked it into her pocket. What little of her pocket remained. "Thanks."

A howl echoed through the eternal night, drifting between the buildings so faintly that it almost could have been the wind. That one wolf voice was soon joined by a second, a third, a whole pack's worth of voices.

When the sounds died off, James said, "I think I know where Nathaniel is."

"Where?" she asked.

"We don't have a way to stop him," James said. "It's better to focus on Belphegor and-"

"Where?" Elise repeated, her voice low and dangerous.

"I think..." James swallowed hard. "I think he's gone to Hannah's grave."

Alarm flared from Elise. "His mother? His dead mother?"

"What harm can an angry, confused G.o.d-child do at the grave of a dead woman?" James asked.

They both knew the answer to that wasn't good.

Abel came loping around the corner, tailed by the wolves. He wasn't returning of his own will. The street beyond him was glowing red. More magma floes had appeared around the corner, and the air smelled sour. Their momentary peace was being shattered under Belphegor's fist, just like the rest of the world.

"Then let's find Nathaniel," Elise said.

Nine.