by S. M. Reine
“Help me,” he whispered in a barely-human voice.
She dropped to her knees. “Samael… what happened ?”
He shuddered. Pain wracked his features. “I fell.” The rain drummed against the tower, and the wind echoed softly within the bell. He snorted and huffed before speaking again. “It’s my punishment for helping you. For speaking to you. For rallying the cherubim…” Elise said nothing, but she felt like her feet had been kicked out from underneath her. “What year is it?”
She tried to speak, but her throat wouldn’t work. Elise swallowed hard. “Two thousand.”
“How long has it been?”
“Two… two years.”
He closed his eyes, and a line of red trickled down his cheek. “I’ve been killing them, Elise.” His lips, hardened into the shape of a beak, clacked when he spoke.
“No, you wouldn’t—”
“But I have!” He reached his hands for her, but hesitated. “I can’t stop. I try to eat animals… try to satisfy my urges with inhuman flesh, but…” His eyes opened again, and the irises were red. “I’m so hungry .”
“Infants, Samael?”
A ragged sob tore from his throat. “It’s my punishment,” he repeated. “The cravings. I think of nothing but children. No matter how hard I fight, no matter how fast I run, I always succumb. I am damned , Elise.” Even now, he spoke her name reverently. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “The others?”
“Dead. I’m the only one who survived the massacre to fall into hell. I just… I can’t …” He reached for her again, stretching his pale fingers toward her arm. “Mercy, Elise. Please . Can you heal me?”
She considered his plea, resting her fingers on her knife. Wouldn’t the greatest mercy be to kill him?
He hadn’t killed her when she asked for mercy in the garden.
Elise peeled one of her gloves off with her teeth. Samael flinched to see the mark on her palm. “I don’t know if I can heal you, but I can try.”
The gratitude etched upon his twisted features was sickening. He took her hands. Elise opened her mind to him.
And then she was gone.
February 2000
Elise reached consciousness slowly, painfully. It was like trying to climb out of a muddy grave. Each time she thought she had gained traction, she slipped again, pulled back under the crushing weight of the drugs.
A rhythmic beep pulsed. Hisses and sighs surrounded her—wind rustling through leaves.
Fear clenched low in her gut. Was she back in the garden? Had Samael somehow surrendered her?
Skin touched hers—the brush of a hand on her arm, gliding to her wrist. Fingers wrapped around her hand. “Elise…” The voice was a beacon in the shadowy gloom of her mind. Something to focus on, something to grip, something to bring her back to life. “Come on, Elise…”
She ached to respond. Her pulse sped, her skin warmed, and she sucked in a huge breath that hurt her lungs. It was like she had never breathed before.
Elise dragged herself to the surface, following the voice to the world of the living. Her eyelashes were glued together, but they opened after some effort.
She was in a hospital room. The signs on the wall were in French, so she must have still been in France. That was where she had been felled.
More importantly, she was on Earth.
She struggled to make her mouth move, but found no words. Took a long blink. Almost fell asleep again. It was so hard to keep her eyes open.
“Here,” someone said, and a cup touched her lips. Half of the water spilled over her chin, but she managed to get a few drops to slide over her tongue, bitter and sulfuric. She was so parched that the flavor was welcome.
She worked hard to swallow. Tubing rested on her upper lip. A cannula. It blew cool, dry air into her sinuses.
“Thank you,” she croaked out.
James set the cup down, leaned forward, and took her hand again.
Elise may have felt terrible, but he looked even worse. Dark shadows rimmed his eyes and lines framed his mouth. He was wearing the same clothes he had been when she had last seen him. Was that gray hair at his temple? “I thought you were gone, Elise.”
“The angel,” she said. His hand tightened, preventing her from speaking.
“I know.” His eyes searched her face. “It was my fault. If I had been there, I could have protected you from it.”
Her head shook. A fraction of a movement, but it was enough to drive a spike of pain into her brow. “Samael…”
Surprise registered in his face. “You knew it?”
“Him,” she said. The angel was the only reason she had escaped His grip, and he was not an “it”—even distorted, destroyed, and fallen. “Was he healed?”
“Healed? All I saw was a monster leaving the tower.”
Her heart fell. “I have to help him.”
James’s hand stroked her arm. “He nearly pulverized your mind, Elise. Many of the bodily functions your brain unconsciously controls, like blinking and your heartbeat and—and breathing —he turned those off when he attacked you. You’ve been on life support for a week.”
Her eyes rolled as she studied the room. The ward had three other beds, all of them empty. “I was trying to help him.”
“And I could have stopped him if I had been there. It’s my fault.” James’s fingers tightened.
“Not my aspis.”
It was hard to speak, but she didn’t need to elaborate. He understood.
Any witch could work alongside a kopis, but in order to fully protect them from metaphysical assault—especially the kind that an angel inflicted—they had to be bound.
He lifted her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them gently. “I could be.”
Even if Elise could have spoken, that would have stunned her into silence.
He sat back, and she realized that he had spread pages from his Book of Shadows across the side of her bed and the table on which her lamp rested. “I’m going to let you sleep for a few more hours. I have a lot more work to do before you’re well enough to be released, and we can’t afford to be in the hospital much longer. Do you understand?”
She gave another dry swallow before nodding.
“James,” she said as he selected a page from his Book. The spell was filled with looping lines, crisscrossing from one corner of the page to the next.
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
A smile ghosted across his mouth. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, and then he gently blew on the page. The tip of it smoldered.
Sleep sucked her into its warm embrace.
The doctors, amazed by Elise’s rapid recovery, allowed her to be discharged the next day. They attempted to discuss her prognosis with James, who barely understood three words of French, while a nurse disconnected her from the equipment.
There weren’t any translators on the weekend in their hospital, which meant that communicating with James was mostly done via elaborate hand gestures.
“It’s impossible,” the doctor said with an exasperated sigh when she got tired of waving her arms around. “Three days ago, the girl had a concussion and a cranial hemorrhage. Now she’s in perfect health. How is it possible?”
He gave them his best clueless face, smiled, and nodded.
Elise’s mother had spoken to her in nothing but French when she was a child, so she understood perfectly. Medical terminology had been on the lesson plan because Ariane liked to describe battle injuries. But Elise didn’t reveal her comprehension. When they spoke to her, she did the same as James—she looked confused and nodded.
“Cranial hemorrhaging?” she asked James as they sneaked out of the hospital that evening. They weren’t supposed to leave without completing her paperwork, but they wanted to avoid the inevitable questions that would be posed once the hospital’s translator arrived. “You didn’t mention that part.”
James shrugged. “I didn’t know. I’m not a doctor; I’m a wi
tch. I attempted to heal your entire body. Apparently it worked.”
“Humble talk from someone who saved my life.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t take much credit for that.” He yawned, and his foot caught on a rock sticking out of the street. He tripped.
Elise steadied him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m tired. Too much magic and not enough sleep.”
She didn’t let go of his arm. “What’s happened with the killings? Have any other bodies been found?”
“It’s moved north again. Malcolm is tracking it. Don’t worry; I gave him the number for your answering service when he visited in the hospital, and he promised to send updates.”
She blinked. “He visited me?”
“Professional courtesy, I’m sure.” His voice was very dry.
They returned to their hostel, and James slept for two days straight.
Elise tried to do the same, but she slept fitfully without the assistance of his magic. Dreams of Samael, beautiful and radiant in His garden, were interspersed with the Samael she had seen in the church, fallen and wretched. She kept waking up in a feverish, frightened haze.
When she awoke for the fourth time, she gave up and decided to call her answering machine.
Malcolm had indeed left them several messages. He had tracked Samael out of Brittany, north into Belgium, and now over to Denmark. Samael must have been moving quickly.
Each of Malcolm’s updates was punctuated with the reminder that Elise owed him a drink.
She stared at the phone in her hand. What was wrong with this guy?
Elise glanced at James where he slept in the bottom bunk. Their room at the hostel was intended to sleep four travelers, but they bought out all the beds, which gave them a door that locked and plenty of space. His feet hung off the end of the bunk. One arm was flung across his eyes, and he snored.
Elise wondered if his offer to do the binding ritual had been a dream.
Her father had always made it clear that he didn’t want her to have an aspis, and he hadn’t trained her in strategies with the help of a witch. Elise wouldn’t have known what to do with one. She also assumed that James was still waiting for the opportunity to leave. He had never really behaved that way, but that was what she expected.
In reality, he had been dogged in staying close to her side. But binding constituted a promise that they would run together for the rest of their lives. She had heard her mother say it once: more permanent than marriage, more fatal than family, and closer than the oldest of friends.
It wasn’t a vow. It was a warning. A binding gone sour could kill both kopis and aspis. Trying to separate was impossible—until one of them died.
James mumbled in his sleep and rolled over, pressing his face into his pillow. He was still wearing that jacket. It didn’t look comfortable.
She shifted him to peel off his coat and hang it from the chair. He didn’t stir.
James had a life, didn’t he? Didn’t he ever want to go back to the coven, his family, his friends? He had already spent two years following Elise around. Did he plan on doing that until she died?
She rubbed her fingers over her gloved knuckles, pondering the new gray hairs on his temples.
And what did it mean if James wanted to bind?
Elise didn’t get any more sleep after that. She took to the fenced courtyard behind the hostel and exercised, though it was the middle of night and the air was heavy with damp fog that rolled off the ocean.
After limbering her body, which had been in repose for days, she found herself in relatively good condition. Her punches were swift and her kicks were still powerful. Once she warmed up, her muscles responded as though she hadn’t been damaged at all.
James had healed her well. Very well. And healing magic was among the most difficult.
A nagging voice spoke from the back of her mind. What kopis would be crazy enough to refuse the partnership of such a powerful witch?
When she finished, she took a knife into the bathroom and trimmed her hair, leaving the curls longer than normal. Then Elise sharpened her swords, ran around the village, and repeated the process until James woke up.
She was waiting for him in the opposite bunk, cross-legged and jiggling one foot, when he finally opened one eye to a slit. He didn’t seem startled to find her staring at him.
“Good morning, Elise. You look… fresh.”
“It’s evening. And I’ve been awake for a while.” She couldn’t hold back the question that had been bothering her for thirty-two hours. “Did you really suggest binding as my aspis?”
He scrubbed a hand down his face, then through his hair, and rolled over to check his watch. His eyebrows lifted. “What day is it?”
“Wednesday.”
“Hold that thought.” He gathered the blankets around him and stumbled into the hall to use the bathroom.
Elise waited as patiently as she could. Her toes drummed against the bedpost.
When he returned, he had splashed water on his face, and the three days of beard growth shadowing his jaw was damp.
James sank to the bed across from her and rubbed the scruff on his chin. “Binding is a serious decision, Elise. I did suggest it, and it’s something I’ve been considering for some time, but you shouldn’t feel pressured to—”
“Okay.”
He blinked. It took him a moment to catch up. “Okay?”
“Let’s do it.”
His puffy eyes narrowed, and a knot gathered in her stomach, along with a powerful certainty that he was about to change his mind.
Then he smiled. As exhausted and haggard as he looked, it brightened his face, and the tension was instantly gone. “Great,” he said with a laugh. “That’s, uh… great. Excellent, actually.”
She grinned, but tried to hide it by ducking her head. “Yeah.”
“When do you want to…?”
“As soon as possible,” she said. “Before I find Samael again.”
“Very well. Then I suppose we have some work to do.”
IV
Open Borders
5
November 2009
The red strobes in Eloquent Blood pulsed like a heartbeat, enveloping Elise and reducing the motions of the clubbers to a jerky, stop-motion play. Bass throbbed through the floor and the metal railings encircling the walkway overlooking the dance floor.
She shoved past the sulfur-crusted tables and leaped over the bar, tripping the stripper that whirled around the pole.
“Hey!” Andrea protested, barely catching her balance on six-inch heels. Then she saw who had struck her. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely intelligible over the music’s volume.
Elise ignored her and kept going. Anthony and Nukha’il were already in the hallway behind the bar.
She stripped off her jacket and tossed it into her boyfriend’s arms. “I need you to run to the manager’s office. Get your shotgun and my charms out of the closet.” She faced Nukha’il without waiting to see if Anthony would obey. “Get behind the DJ booth and block the elevator. Nothing goes down without me—and don’t let anything up, either.”
Nukha’il swept off to follow her orders, but Anthony hesitated. “What happened under Rick’s Drugstore after I left?”
“Nothing.” She snapped her fingers. “Shotgun. Charms. Go.”
Anthony’s mouth drew down at the corners. “I’m not a soldier for you to order around, you know.”
Elise slammed into the dressing room.
Neuma had become used to having Elise barge in on her and barely registered surprise at her entrance. She twisted her arms around to hook her leather bra.
“Water,” Elise said.
“Just a sec.”
“Now .”
Neuma rolled her eyes, dropped the bra, and poured a glass at the bathroom faucet. Elise swirled it around in her mouth and spat it out. The taste of ash was still thick in the back of her throat.
“You okay, doll?” Neuma asked.
“Someon
e’s in the Warrens.”
What little color was left in the bartender’s porcelain skin drained to gray. “How?”
“I’m about to find that out.”
The phone on the wall rang, and Neuma answered it as Elise dropped all the climbing equipment in the closet. It was impossible to tell the difference between Elise’s rigging and the bondage gear that the half-succubus wore onstage.
She limbered her muscles, stretching her arms over her head and then touching her toes. Then she washed her hands in the sink and took another drink of water.
Neither action helped. After walking through the caverns under Rick’s, she still felt… slimy.
“You got a visitor, Elise,” Neuma said, hanging up the phone.
“I don’t have time for a visitor. Get me a knife—any knife, I don’t care.” The bartender tossed her a dagger from the dressing table, and Elise rucked up her jeans to tuck it into her boot.
“You’ve got time for this one. I already told Cass to send him down.”
“You did what ?”
Neuma’s mouth stretched into an expression that could have been a smile or grimace. “Sorry.”
“Goddamn it, Neuma, I have to get down to the Warrens now , I can’t—”
The door opened. Music from the club spilled into the dressing room.
Elise knew, an instant before she saw him, whom Neuma had decided was important enough to bring downstairs. She probably would have felt him coming much earlier if she hadn’t been so distracted. Instead, James’s presence rolled over her like a heat wave coming off pavement, and it shocked her into silence.
He edged into the room and shut the door again. She stopped in the middle of tucking the knife into her boot.
James seemed uncomfortable in a club filled with flowing alcohol, pulsing music, and sweaty bodies, and he wore his composure like a shield. In a white button-down shirt and dove-gray slacks, he looked professorial, which was entirely too tasteful for somewhere like Eloquent Blood.