by S. M. Reine
Pain flared in her shoulder as a chunk of concrete struck it, and the ground rushed to meet her face. She rolled onto her back in time to see a steel I-beam fill her vision.
She flung her arms to shield her face from the blow—which never came.
Elise lowered her arms.
The debris was frozen, suspended in a black fog. It looked like Yatai had clenched the building in a massive fist of darkness. And with a single blow, she scattered it, leaving Elise and the entire basement vault bared to the open air.
Above, Elise could see the mirrored bank: only half of the building remained, which was twice as much as the building on the ground. Ash snowed on her, turning her bulletproof vest and braided hair a dull shade of gray.
Three fiends scrambled over the debris from the street. They ignored Elise’s army and plunged through the hole in the wall to vanish inside the vault.
Elise struggled to her feet. Her shoulder ached. She slipped.
A hand caught her elbow and helped her to her feet. Jerica’s face shone with tears, but her eyes blazed with hatred.
“Come on, Godslayer. Let’s get your angel.”
She gave Jerica a thin-lipped smile and clasped hands with her for an instant. Then she jumped through the vault’s door, and the nightmare darted after her.
Beyond what remained of the door, the vault was a huge, concrete room with shelves, smaller safes, and iron bars. It was big enough to fit an entire office inside. But ripping away the building hadn’t touched the reinforced walls of the vault, and it was too dark to see a few feet beyond the door. Elise could only hear the scrabbling of fiends’ feet and claws ringing flatly on the cement.
Jerica didn’t seem to have any trouble seeing through the gloom. She darted into the depths of the room, and Elise followed the dim glow of her skin.
They jogged down the hall and turned a corner. Pale light emanated from a cage at the end of the hallway, though it struggled against Yatai’s shadow to brighten the wall. The fiends pawed at the door, trying to melt away the bars.
Jerica flung her second butcher knife. It buried itself in the back of a fiend’s skull.
Elise attacked the other two, letting rage and instinct move her through the dance of flailing limbs.
Dull nails slashed through the air. She twisted and parried.
With a thrust, she impaled one of the survivors. It shrieked. Splattered. Jerica sidestepped the ichor that oozed forth.
An impact rocked through her side as the remaining fiend struck her in the small ribs. It felt like a knife to the kidneys, and it left behind a smear on her jacket.
Elise stripped it off and flung her coat in the fiend’s eyes.
Before it could see again, she buried the sword in its gut. She kicked her jacket to dislodge its corpse from her blade. “What in all the hells possessed these guys?” Jerica asked as Elise’s coat turned brittle and began to break apart.
“You don’t want to know.”
The answer seemed to satisfy her. The nightmare shielded her eyes with a hand, squinting into the glow through the bars of the cage. “The angel is in there, isn’t she?”
Elise responded by taking out her keys and unlocking the door. She and Nukha’il had been the only people with copies—even the owner of the vault, a cambion named Ricardo, hadn’t been able to get in.
She stepped inside.
Itra’il was stretched out on her stomach on a metal table, cheek resting on her folded arms and coppery hair spilling down her shoulders as she slept peacefully. Although she was naked, her long wings concealed everything to the ankles. A layer of downy feathers covered the floor around her. They radiated a dim golden glow.
Elise skirted around her. She was uncertain what might stir the angel—Nukha’il had been the one to help her sink into a restful coma, and now that he was dead, there was no way of telling what was keeping her there, if anything.
“What’s the plan? Are we going to move her?” Jerica asked.
She had shown mercy to an angel before. It hadn’t gone well.
Elise approached Itra’il and stood at her side, gazing down at her sleeping face. Nukha’il wouldn’t have wanted his lover slaughtered. He loved her with all of his heart, and hoped that she could heal and live out eternity with him.
But now he was dead. Itra’il had no future.
Elise swallowed hard and lifted the blade, heart thudding in her chest.
The angel’s eyes opened. They were a pale, crystalline shade of blue, with an internal light like sunshine. Her lips parted in a sigh.
Elise buried the sword between her wings.
Itra’il jerked. Blood spilled over her lip.
She mouthed a name. Nukha’il.
“Sorry,” Elise said, even though she wasn’t sure she meant it. She definitely didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything.
She stabbed again, making certain to pulverize the chest cavity. Itra’il didn’t jump a second time. She deflated against the table, her wings sagged, and her eyes fell half-closed.
The light faded from her skin.
Jerica watched from the doorway. “You would have done well as a demon.”
Elise’s mouth twitched.
She ripped a page out of the Book of Shadows and laid it on Itra’il’s immobile body. Even when an angel was dead, their limbs had terrible powers. The marks on their wings could be used to operate ethereal objects. Their flesh and bones could be turned into artifacts themselves, like the gateways. She couldn’t risk Yatai retrieving her corpse.
Elise pulled off her ring. James must have still worn his—she couldn’t feel his thoughts, and was glad for it. The magic around the page brightened as soon as the metal left her finger.
She sought her core of strength and collected her energy.
Help me, James, she silently prayed.
And then she spoke a word of power. The chain of magic jerked under her ribs. Fire leaped out of the page.
It consumed Itra’il’s feathers, spreading over her back as quickly and surely as the ichor devoured the bodies of the possessed. It flared with heat that scorched Elise’s eyebrows.
She stepped back and sheathed her sword. It took two tries to get it in.
Watching the angel shrivel inside the flames, popping and twitching with the heat, jangled her nerves. And Nukha’il—what would Nukha’il have thought, if he’d seen it? “He wouldn’t want her to be alone,” Elise whispered, sliding the ring onto her thumb again.
“What did you say?” Jerica asked.
“Nothing.” She pulled out a box of cigarettes and extended one toward the pyre, catching the tip with the flames. “Want a smoke?”
The nightmare took a drag. “Thanks.”
The smell didn’t settle Elise the way it usually did, so she watched Itra’il smolder until her cigarette was burned down to the filter, and then flicked it at the charred remains.
“Let’s go,” she said.
Anthony walked for some time. Somehow, James’s neighborhood had turned into an empty highway, and then main street. He wasn’t sure how he got there—he guessed he must have walked all those miles.
He met nobody in the hallway of his apartment building, and his door was ajar when he arrived. The lock had been smashed, but nothing inside had been touched.
“I should wash my hands,” he told the darkened apartment.
He squirted a dollop of soap into his hands and used the back of his wrist to push the faucet into the hot position. Anthony massaged his left thumb with his right, scraping off blood he couldn’t remember bleeding. Brown clouds swirled down the drain.
He flipped his hand over. There was blood on the heel of his palm too, crusted around a deep slash and under his fingernails. There wasn’t much to do about that. If it hadn’t been blood, it would have been engine oil instead.
The scalding water sent ripples of half-pain, half-pleasure down his spine. It felt purifying in more ways than one.
Leaning down to bump the faucet off with his elbo
w, he flicked the water from his hands into the sink and grabbed a towel. Anthony’s hands were bright red, but clean. It felt good. Great, even.
Now the gun.
Anthony grabbed the Teflon oil and sat on the foot of the bed with his shotgun. He slid the action back, unscrewed the tubular chamber, and twisted off the barrel of the gun. He ran the rod through the barrel and pushed it out the other end. His motions were stiff, mechanical. He didn’t quite see the gun as he worked on it.
A woman sat beside him. Her weight didn’t make the bed sink.
Thank you for helping me, Anthony, she said. The knowledge you retrieved has told me so much. I know what to do next.
It felt like a hand had reached into his gut and clamped down on his stomach.
“Wait… what did I do?”
He almost put his finger on it—almost drew the memory of what he had done from the murky depths of his mind.
The woman rested her hand on his knee. A dark fog settled over his brain again.
You’ve been helping me, she said, her crimson lips curled into a smile that didn’t touch her empty eyes. Very bad men are coming after us. They’re not happy. They’re going to try to kill you.
That statement barely stirred him. He reassembled the shotgun. “Why?”
Because you tried to kill someone. And failed, I might add. He survived.
“Oh,” he said.
He jacked a round into the chamber.
They will be at your door soon. Don’t let them take you. I don’t want you to tell them anything—not when I’m so close to finishing here.
“What should I do?”
Kill them, she said. Or kill yourself. Whichever is more convenient. But don’t let them take you.
There was something wrong about that, but Anthony couldn’t think of what.
His finger slipped over the trigger.
“Kill myself,” he said, facing the woman at long last. He recognized her face, the blond hair bobbed around her chin, the joyful smile. “Betty… it’s you.”
Who is Betty? Do you love me?
A hot tear slid down his cheek. “I’ve missed you so much. It hasn’t been the same since you died.”
This seemed to amuse her. Am I so important to you?
“I killed him. The man who shot you—I shot him back.” Anthony reached out to touch her, to hug her, but the woman was suddenly out of his reach.
The men are here. It’s not too late for you to make amends. Protect me. Kill them.
“Kill them,” Anthony echoed.
Anger knotted inside of him. He marched into the living room with his gun at the ready, and the woman drifted behind him.
He heard footsteps thudding in the hallway an instant before the door slammed open.
Anthony shouldered the rifle and fired.
BLAM .
The shot rocked him back on his heels. The first man through the door took it in the chest.
Crimson misted the wall. People shouted.
“Man down!”
“He’s armed. Spread out!”
Too much motion. More gunshots.
Anthony took cover behind the wall. He pumped the shotgun. Stepped out. Fired again.
An elbow drove into his side, and he fell. “Get the gun!” someone yelled.
Pain flared in his temple, sudden and bright and sharp.
For an instant, Betty stood over him again, arms folded and face twisted into a scowl of displeasure.
Then he saw nothing at all.
15
Neuma was waiting outside the vault when Elise and Jerica emerged. She was picking through the rubble and tossing aside empty cases, as if searching for something valuable to pawn.
When Itra’il didn’t step outside with them, her stenciled eyebrows lifted.
Elise spoke before she could ask. “You don’t want to know.”
Her sentence was punctuated by a pulse of energy. A silent gong resonated through the city, shaking the buildings around them and making the debris jitter. The wards surrounding another gate fell with an eruption of light, and every gate blazed with angelfire as bright as daylight. It drove away all but the blackest of Yatai’s shadows.
Elise flung up a hand to shield her eyes, but by the time she reacted, it was already over.
Another gate exposed.
“She’s going to open them all and kill us, isn’t she?” Jerica asked, bracing a foot on a chunk of concrete to rip a piece of rebar free. She hefted it in her hand like a sword.
Elise shook her head. “Yatai needs two marks, and there are no angels left here. She can tear down the wards all she wants. She can’t get through the gates.”
“So what now?” Neuma asked.
“Now I’ve got to kill her before she thinks of a way around that.” And she had to do it before the city was destroyed by tanks. She could have strangled Malcolm. “Reconvene with the other demons in the Warrens. The Union’s not going to distinguish between Yatai’s legion and the two of you. If they catch you on the streets, you’ll get shot.”
As if on cue, a car rounded the end of the alley—a big black SUV with the windows rolled down.
“Get down!” Jerica shouted.
A gunshot cracked through the air. Something sledgehammered into Elise’s chest.
She staggered with a cry, and her foot slipped on a piece of cement. She tumbled. Hit pavement.
Oh God.
With a moan of pain, she rolled over, curling her knees into her chest. It was like being crushed underneath an anvil. The throbbing in her ribs and chest blinded her.
Her fingers traced over the place she had been hit. A flat metal disc was pressed into the bulletproof vest, and it scorched the tips of her fingers when she traced its edges.
The Union had shot her. They had fucking shot her.
A hand seized her arm. “Elise!” Through the haze of pain, she recognized Neuma’s touch and voice.
She pushed the bartender away and struggled to her feet. “Run!”
Neuma and Jerica bolted. Gunshots sprayed through the alley, smacking into brick and pinging into the van.
She took the distraction of the other women fleeing to move into the spotlight and reveal her branded ballistics jacket. Elise lifted her hands over her head. “Don’t shoot!” she yelled. “I’m human!”
A masculine voice responded. “Witch on the ground! Stop shooting!” She jogged to the SUV unharmed. “Who are you?” asked the driver, lowering his gun. He had been steering with one hand and popping off shots with the other.
Elise reached through his window and jerked him halfway out of the SUV. “You shot me. You asshole !”
He kicked and struggled as she hauled him to the pavement. Supporting his weight hurt her bruised ribs, but his exclamation was satisfying enough to make up for it.
The backdoor opened, and a familiar woman with red hair and broad shoulders jumped out: Allyson Whatley. She was Gary Zettel’s aspis, and was equally intimidating without her partner present.
She leveled a pistol at Elise. “Watch yourself.”
Elise didn’t drop the driver, though he beat against her arms. She shook him by the coat. “You guys can’t blow through here shooting at everything that moves. You’re going to kill the wrong demons!”
“We’ve got orders to secure the area for the safety of the citizens,” Allyson said.
Elise tossed the driver to the ground. He rolled. “These are citizens!”
“I’d heard the rumors, but I didn’t think it would actually be true. You’re with the demons now.” Allyson holstered her gun and took handcuffs off her belt. “I’m going to have to take you into custody.”
“Like hell you are. Malcolm sent me back into the city,” Elise said. Allyson faltered. Doubt flashed across her face. “Check with him.”
The witch turned away, putting two fingers to her earpiece. “Malcolm?” She lowered her voice so Elise couldn’t hear her. The driver scrambled into the open door of the SUV.
After conferrin
g with Malcolm, Allyson faced her again. Her mouth twisted like she had gotten shit on her tongue. “I’m under orders to give you any… assistance … you might want.”
Elise shielded her eyes, seeking the remaining gates warded in the city above. The ones Yatai had exposed were rapidly darkening, but a glow emanated from the north, where one of the casino gates would still be standing. “I need an escort to that gate.” She pointed. “I have to get to the roof.”
Allyson climbed in the driver’s seat. “Walk. I’ll follow you.”
Elise jogged down the street with her path illuminated by flashes of lightning and the SUV’s headlights. Another one of those black tanks blew past a block away. Distant thuds suggested another blasting its cannon to the south.
There was no sign of the demons Elise had taken from Craven’s, but as they approached the casino with one of the remaining gates, signs of Yatai’s other demons quickly began to appear. The sidewalks were black with ichor.
She passed a hole in the ground where a pawnshop used to stand, and recognized it as one of the Night Hag’s businesses.
The fiends themselves were destroying a casino.
They climbed the outside of the hotel tower, claws digging into the walls and leaving ichor in their wake. It began to crumble in the same way that the mirrored casino had, and as Elise watched, a fragment the size of a car broke off near the roof and tumbled toward Earth. It bounced off the side of the building, struck a fiend, and dislodged its claws. The demon fell with a shriek to splatter on the sidewalk.
Above, the white gate pulsed with light as a thick shadow serpent whirled around it.
“I’m going in,” Elise told Allyson through the window. “Careful where you shoot. I’m going to be pissed if I get hit again.”
The witch immediately peeled off, circling around the street.
Elise moved for the entrance, skirting a patch of ichor on the sidewalk.
The automatic doors didn’t react to her approach. She wiggled her fingers into the crack between them and tried to force them apart.
The gate pulsed with energy. Sparks showered around her as the wards opened.
Burning ribbons drifted to the street as Elise watched. The symbols stitched into the cloth were aflame as the spells unraveled.