by S. M. Reine
He almost ran into Elise. She had stopped on the other side of the shed.
The fallen angel was at the corner of the roof, crouched on the ledge like a massive, gothic grotesque. His back muscles twisted. The stumps of his wings twitched. A low moan rose from his throat, more like a sob than a growl. He cupped the infant between his clawed hands—a tiny bundle of striped blankets that wasn’t moving. It was too dark to tell if it was alive, but the silence made James’s heart plummet.
“Samael!” she called. “Put the infant down!”
He looked over his shoulder, and hope sparked in his eyes. “Elise. You’re alive.” His wing stumps twitched again. He pulled the baby closer to his chest. “I was so sure that I killed you.”
“I’m fine. Put it down .”
He teetered on the edge of the roof, and James stepped forward. Elise barred him with her arm.
“I’m hungry,” the fallen angel whispered. It should have been impossible to hear him over the blasting wind, but his voice drove through James’s mind like a spike of ice. “Maybe—maybe this will be the last one. If I can’t satisfy this gnawing need …”
“No, Samael,” she said. He lifted the baby. “Wait!”
She stripped one of her gloves off with her teeth and held it out. The fallen angel froze, staring hungrily at her palm.
“You couldn’t help me before,” he said.
“But I can now. I promise.”
He swayed. Hugged the infant tightly. Elise moved to his side, adjusted her grip on the sword, and took a deep breath. He gazed at her with wide, trusting eyes. Her attention was locked on the baby.
She buried the blade in his back.
Joining with him, flesh to flesh with a bridge of steel, made ethereal power explode over Elise and James. The fallen angel screamed. His mind beat uselessly against them, and James could feel Samael slip against the barrier of their fresh bond, slipping and sliding away.
He unbalanced.
The angel dropped from the side of the roof.
“No!” Elise shouted, flattening her belly to the concrete barrier and flinging out a hand.
She over-balanced. Her fingers snagged Samael’s tattered sleeve, and her hips began to slip over the side, too.
James grabbed the back of her jacket.
The combined weight of the kopis and the angel was almost too much, and his feet slipped on the ice. But then his knees hit the wall, his feet found traction, and he dragged her back with a groan.
Elise’s hand remained tight on the angel. She hauled Samael back onto the roof and dropped him. He was still twitching, still shaking, still not quite dead.
And his arms were locked around the bundle of blankets.
She sheathed her sword and pulled the baby free. She lifted it awkwardly—mostly because it was squirming, crying, and alive . Its face was purple. Its chin trembled with the strength of its screams.
“Shh.” She bounced it gently with one hand under its neck and the other under its legs as though it were a football. “You’re okay. Stop crying.” She turned panicked eyes on James. “Is it okay? Is it hurt? What’s wrong?”
He took the baby and held it against his chest. A tiny pink cap had fallen to the roof. A girl, then—not an “it.”
“I think she’s just startled.” He offered his pinky to the infant, and she closed her toothless mouth around it. She fell silent and began to suck. He couldn’t help but smile. “There we go.”
Elise climbed to her feet, legs shaking. “What did you do to it? Is it dead?”
Her gums pressed into his knuckle. Her face scrunched. Fairly typical baby business. “She’s just fine.”
Satisfied, Elise turned to study Samael. He twitched on the ice. Blood bubbled over his lips. “Mercy,” he whispered.
“Mercy,” Elise agreed.
She stabbed him again—through the eye, this time.
He stopped twitching.
James felt a surge of vindication as he bounced and swayed over the body of the fallen angel, cradling the last baby Samael would ever try to kill. It didn’t bring back all the children who had died in Africa, Egypt, or France. But for the parents who would get to take their child home that day, everything was going to be just fine.
“We need to get rid of him,” Elise said.
He had a spell for that, but James’s hands were still occupied, and the little girl didn’t seem to show any inclination to release his finger. “Book of Shadows. Front jacket pocket.”
Elise tugged it out. He directed her to remove a page about halfway through and hand it to him. The infant didn’t stir when he whispered a word of power and carefully flicked the spell at Samael.
His feathers caught fire, and the flames crept over his flesh, which dried and curled like flakes of paper.
“Close the piggyback,” Elise said.
He silently terminated the bond, severing his thoughts and emotions from hers.
It was a relief—the burning of her palms immediately vanished, and so did her rage. He felt empty, and was glad for it.
She bowed her head over the smoldering remains of the fallen angel. Her expression didn’t change, but she closed her eyes and rested her chin on her hands as though in prayer.
He waited until the baby began to fuss, grunting and kicking her legs, and then he said, “We should go.”
Elise straightened. Her cheeks were dry, and Samael was nothing but cinders.
She went to Malcolm and slapped his cheeks a few times. It didn’t wake him up, but he was breathing. She pulled him over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “What’s the baby doing?” she asked, hefting Malcolm’s limp body.
“Judging by those noises? Probably trying to fill her diaper.”
Elise gave him a very, very wide berth as they headed downstairs.
They turned the infant over to the nurse. Karolina wept to see her unharmed, and then gave them a private room for Malcolm to recover in. He snored softly as Elise dropped him on the hospital bed.
“I don’t think he’s even unconscious,” James said, exasperated. He shoved the kopis’s legs onto the bed. “I think he saw Samael and fell asleep.” Elise flopped into the chair by the door and covered her face with her hands. He hesitated, wondering if he should try to comfort her, or apologize, or say anything at all. “Samael…”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She rubbed a hand over her bandaged forearm. Seeing her scratch at the new scar made James’s itch, too. “It’s too late to change your mind now, you know.”
“I wouldn’t, even if I could.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, Elise. About the beach. I hope you don’t… well. You know. It’s not you.” She didn’t say anything. After an awkward moment, he repeated, “Sorry.”
She gave him a steady stare that told him nothing about what she was thinking.
That was the closest thing they would have to a discussion on the subject for quite a few years.
VI
Godslayer
11
November 2009
The ethereal city hung suspended over Reno, defying gravity and common sense. James could see it from the hill behind his house. A helicopter buzzed through the ash-fogged sky, and he shielded his eyes against the sting of dust to watch it approach the city.
The buzzing faded quickly, but the ash kept blowing like an early snow on the hillside.
“I have a son,” James said aloud into the cold wind, just to test the sound of it.
He had never been so frustrated to be without a phone or internet in his life. The fact that he couldn’t see what the news reports said about the ethereal city didn’t bother him so much as his inability to call Hannah, or his parents, or the high priestess of the coven.
What was the child’s name? Was he a Faulkner or a Pritchard? Was he a witch, and was he powerful?
What about him made the Union think that he needed to die?
The questions he couldn’t ask ov
erwhelmed James. He shivered and rubbed his hands together.
He went inside, which wasn’t much warmer without a functioning heater. He had set candles around the kitchen, and some of the tapers were burning to their final inches. If the power didn’t return soon, they would be without light and heat.
Elise stepped into the room, and her eyes met James’s from across the counter.
She looked as exhausted and emotionally destroyed as he felt. She set the toothbrush he had loaned her on the counter. Crossed her arms. So many unspoken things ran between them as she toyed with the ring on her thumb using her forefinger.
I have a son . The words were still on his lips.
He swallowed it down.
As if on some silent cue, Elise shed her jacket and pulled off her t-shirt to reveal the tank top underneath. Grief had burned away more of her body fat since the last time he saw her; she was wiry again, like she had been when they used to travel together. The lines of her bicep and shoulder were emphasized by the deep shadows of candlelight.
She turned one of the dining room chairs around, rested its back against the table, and straddled the seat. She propped her elbow on the agarwood-topped table.
James’s eyebrows lifted. “What are you doing?”
She held out a hand. “Don’t you want to know who’s stronger?”
If the situation hadn’t been so bleak, it might have been laughable. Elise and James had tried to arm wrestle once after a few too many drinks, more as a joke than anything. She had flattened his arm to the table with zero effort and left before he could think of words that might soothe his wounded pride.
He considered her outstretched arm, and finally unbuttoned his sleeve, rolled it above the elbow, and sat down. “Just remember that if you injure me, my chances of survival in the demon apocalypse aren’t going to be very good.”
Elise wrapped her gloved hand around his. She had traded the winter gloves for fingerless weightlifting gloves, and the matching rings glimmered on their fingers in the candlelight. “Then you’d better beat me.”
At his nod, they began.
Her chest and shoulder muscles tensed, her bicep flexed, and his hand strained against hers.
The corners of her mouth drew down into a tight line. James took a deep breath and let it out, focusing all his energy on their joined hands.
His arm trembled. Elise’s jaw tightened.
He slammed the back of her hand to the table. She grunted, like he had hurt her.
“You let me win,” he said.
“No.” She sat back, rubbing her arm, and she sounded as surprised as he felt. “I didn’t.”
He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons in his hand ripple. Unease crept through him. “What does that mean?”
“Not much. I couldn’t beat most kopides at arm wrestling. I’m strong—very strong, for a woman—but I’m small. Mass usually wins out.”
“You’re saying that I’m as strong as an average male kopis.”
“Possibly.” Her hand dropped. “If you’re not yet, it wouldn’t be hard for you to get there.”
“Hell,” he said. “Maybe that means you’ll be out-witching me in a few weeks.”
She stood without responding and stepped into the formal dining room. Elise looked shrunken amongst the darkness.
He heard a click and saw a brief flare of fire.
James pushed his chair back and followed her into the dining room. From the doorway he could see through to the den, where Yatam’s still-sleeping form lay. He hadn’t moved since they had put him there.
Elise was trying to make a silver Zippo lighter produce flame, but was only getting sparks. She swore as she flicked it again.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She flung the lighter to the table. “What does it look like?”
Elise took what remained of the Book of Shadows from the belt of her jeans. She flipped to a candlelight spell and ripped it out. He noticed a white box sticking out of her pocket, and James felt a small jolt when he recognized it as a box of cigarettes.
She waved the page through the air. “How do I make this work again?”
“Elise…”
She blew on it. James’s stomach lurched, and the corner ignited.
Before she could light a cigarette with it, he crossed the room, plucked the paper from her hand, and stomped it out on Stephanie’s bamboo flooring. “That’s not what magic should be used for.”
She scowled and popped the end of a cigarette into the corner of her lips. “Then do you have a lighter? Mine’s busted. Zippos are such pieces of shit.”
“Since when do you smoke?” She ripped a second spell out of the notebook, and he took that, too. Then he plucked the cigarette from her lips. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Elise?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’re my kopis. Everything you do is my business.” He grabbed her wrist when she took out the pack of cigarettes again. She smelled of stale tobacco. How hadn’t he noticed that earlier?
“Let go of me, James.”
His hand only tightened. “Why? So you can continue to act like—God, Elise, I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re drinking like Prohibition’s coming back, you’ve avoided me for weeks, and now you’re smoking, too?”
“Why do you get to judge me? You want me to perform exorcisms, but only when you ask. You want me to save the world, but only if it doesn’t mean helping demons. And now you won’t let me have a goddamn cigarette when I’m seriously on the verge of snapping.”
“I’m not judging—I’m trying to take care of you.”
Her eyes flicked to his hand. “You’re hurting me.”
James released her. His fingers had left red imprints on her forearm. “Stephanie is in danger,” he said with forced calm, flattening his hand at his side. He wasn’t used to being that strong. “We should return to Reno, find her and Anthony, and get them to safety.”
He watched helplessly as she pulled out another cigarette. “We can’t leave before Yatam wakes.”
“Don’t you care about what happens to Anthony?”
“No.” Her brow furrowed. The candlelight spell in James’s hand ignited. The tip of her cigarette flared, and she put it to her lips, taking a long draw before speaking again. “I left him.” Smoke curled out of the corner of her mouth.
“You left him? As in…”
“I broke up with Anthony.” She held up a hand to keep him from speaking, the cigarette trapped between the first two fingers of her hand. “He can take care of himself. But I have other business to take care of in the city. We do need to head back—once Yatam wakes up.”
James’s lip curled. “I don’t want you smoking in my house.”
She brought the cigarette to her lips again, sucked on it hard, and blew the smoke in his face. He coughed and waved his hand to clear the air. “Fine.” She tried to put the Zippo back in her pocket, but met resistance. There was already something there.
Elise pulled out a photograph. It was of Betty when she was young and smiling and newly married. Elise hesitated, thumb tracing over the bouquet. “You know, Betty thought I was a good person. She trusted me to be a hero and make the right decisions. What she saw in me…” Elise put the photo back in her pocket. “I wish I was that person, James.”
“You are. You can be.”
She gave him a look that clearly said she disagreed. He didn’t need to break through the bond to know it.
“I’ll be outside,” she said, and she left.
Elise finished her cigarette on the patio. Clouds were gathering beyond the haze drifting off the ethereal city—real clouds—and their gray weight hinted at oncoming snow. She twisted the cigarette in her fingers and watched the smoldering tip crumble onto the step. It tasted horrible, but the smell was so relaxing.
Elise .
The voice whispered around her, and for a heartbeat, she thought Yatai had arrived. But it sounded a little deeper and more masculin
e. Yatam must have been awake.
She ground the cigarette butt into the cement and headed inside. A few of the candles had gone out, leaving the entryway gloomy and dim. She would have given the rest of her cigarettes for a working light bulb.
Elise stepped through the archway to James and Stephanie’s den… and found herself in the middle of a throne room.
A hot wind blew through open windows, blasting dust over a floor hewn from sandstone. Silken curtains hanging from the ceiling fluttered. A potted frond swayed beside a tall, bejeweled chair. Elise spun, seeking the entryway behind her. It was gone, replaced by an arched doorway.
If the throne room was an illusion, it was a convincing one. She smelled incense and oils. The wind was as hot as the worst day in Nevada’s summer. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sand as she stepped cautiously to the window. There was more sand beyond the wall—endless, waving stretches of it, sculpted into peaks and valleys by the wind. Directly below the window sprawled a small town built of sandstone and clay. Elise’s vantage point towered over them.
“It certainly is desolate,” said Yatam from behind her. “But an impressive sight nonetheless.” He sat where the throne had been empty before. He wore a woven wig, a necklace of gold and gems, and held a wand in one hand and a hook in the other. Kohl rimmed his eyes. He looked like the painting of a pharaoh come to life.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Elise asked.
“It’s a memory. My memory.”
“You were never a pharaoh.”
Yatam stretched out, throwing a leg over one side of his throne. He seemed as comfortable on it as he would have been on a couch. “No?”
“I went to college. I’ve read history books. There was no King Yatam.”
“Of course not.” He lifted his arm to study it. The sight of it seemed to satisfy him. “You healed me, and for that, you are likely due thanks. But it was wholly unnecessary. I would have survived.”
“Then you do a really good impression of someone who’s dying.”
“The body would have died,” he agreed, “but the soul cannot. As you can see, I have lived for a long time. I am cursed with the gift of eternal life—I would have been reborn elsewhere, somewhat weaker than before, but otherwise unharmed. I have died hundreds of times. Thousands. Yet I always return.”