Sins of the Damned (Fallen Cities: Elisium Book 2)

by Elena Lawson

  He was quickly becoming more my cat than Kincaid. I felt a strange sort of responsibility for him. Or maybe ownership was the correct word.

  “If you’re done practicing, I need a snack.”

  “We literally just ate.”

  He shrugs. “So?”

  I set Casper down on the bed, and he hisses at Artemis, white tail twitching this way and that upon my weighted blanket like a pendulum of doom.

  “I think that thing is going to feast on my bones someday,” Artemis muses with a look of disgust on his angelic face. He’s really filled out over the past couple weeks. His cheeks are less sallow and his shoulders seem more broad. More aligned with the size a boy his age should be. Or what I think it should be. I don’t have much to compare it to.

  “Stop it, he’s fine. Who’s my good boy, Casper, hmmm?”

  He rolls to his belly, and I give him a quick rub. “There’s just one more thing I want to try, but if I’m understanding the text correctly, then it might wear you out.”

  His brows pinch. “Like, how?”

  “Like I need to pull from your spirit energy to be able to do it.”

  “Pull from Casper’s.”

  “He’s barely got any,” I reply, letting my eyes go unfocused so I can just make out the faintest green aura around Casper on the bed. “If I pull what he has it might kill the poor thing.”

  “What a shame that would be.”

  “Art!”

  “Fine, okay. Just do the thing, but can you please ask Kincaid to get one of his henchmen to volunteer for spirit lessons every once in a while?”

  “Why, do you have something better to do?”

  “Actually, yes. I do.”

  I don’t ask what that is. I don’t think I want to know what he does in his messy bedroom with all the shutters closed and the door locked.

  “Fine.”

  I take his hand and slump back down to the carpet. I have no intention of asking Kincaid for a guinea pig to practice on. Not because I wouldn’t rather drain the spirit energy from someone other than Art—because I would prefer that. No, because I don’t trust anyone else.

  Not how I trust Artemis.

  I need my full focus to be on the task to accomplish anything with this ability. I can’t focus if I don’t trust the person sitting opposite me.

  “Just relax,” I tell him, inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth, trying to find that center of being deep within that the text talks about. “I’ll draw only as much as I need.”

  This is what I read about earlier today. A way to shut out the voices in my head by ever so slightly detaching my own soul. I didn’t understand it well, and I blame the fact that half the page was in the runic demon language, but I think I got the gist.

  Just like I could feel Artemis’ soul beneath his skin, I could also feel my own when I tried. But when I used my power to work on his soul, I drew from my own spirit energy. Now, trying to accomplish something with my own soul, I needed to borrow the energy from Artemis.

  Or at least, I assume that’s what the complicated inked diagram on the page means.

  I envision Artemis’ spirit like it’s made of water and picture it flowing out from his palm and into mine. A slow, steady stream. I don’t want to drain him too much.

  It takes far longer than I care to admit, but after a time there’s a tingle in my palm and my fingers twitch against his wrist as a radiant warmth clambers from palm to wrist, wrist to elbow, and then settles somewhere in my center like a blanket for my soul.

  It’s comforting. Invigorating.

  I try to remember exactly what the text said and almost lose the budding spirit energy, having to claw it back.

  Crap.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I attempt to will my spirit to detach.

  Shut the voices up.

  Shut the voices up.

  Shut them out.

  I repeat the words like a mantra or a spell, trying to guide my spirit to detach the correct way in order to accomplish the end I desire. If I pull it back too far, I’m truly not sure what will happen.

  Like a valve bursting from too much pressure, the dam holding the voices back in my skull crumples. Distantly, I hear Artemis cry out, but I’m rushing to shove them back. Trying to find the seam of my soul to pull it back over the endless expanse of crowding dead.

  No!

  A cacophonous laugh crackles in my head, followed by a snap and hiss. The loudest of the voices grow in volume and intensity, and I buckle under their assault. They’re warring with one another, vying for command.

  “Paige!”

  A crashing sound beyond the blackness of my vision is followed by the rain of plaster on hardwood.

  “What’s happening?” Kincaid thunders. “Let go of her.”

  “No,” I howl. I need Artemis’ energy to seal it back up. To undo whatever the hell I’ve just horribly messed up, but I can’t say that. If I speak again, I’ll lose the tenuous grip I still have and there’ll be a spiritual free-for-all in my fucking head.

  Kincaid grips my chin and I lose it.

  The control slips through my fingers, and I feel it. I feel him battle to the surface. He slides into me like a knife slides through flesh. With a little resistance at first, and then nothing to stop him.

  I fall back. There, but not there.

  My body slumps. Heavy. All bones and blood with no idea how the parts work together anymore.

  And then nothing.

  I feel nothing.

  I am nothing.

  Just a bystander as my hand comes free from Artemis’ and he falls unconscious to the floor. Forced to watch as my body, no longer my own, gets unsteadily to its feet. The world tipping and turning through the shared vision of my eyes.

  Reflected in Kincaid’s horror-stricken gaze, I do not see myself. I see the rugged, beard coated jawline of a man. His short hair and hooked nose.

  His stubby fingers and deep blue eyes.

  He I stagger forward, arms outstretched for Kincaid’s throat, a strangled cry lodged in my throat. I’m powerless to stop it, screaming inside as Kincaid dodges the attack, sweeping my legs out from under my body. I don’t feel pain as my hip connects with the wooden floor.

  I can see Kincaid. I can hear him grunting. I can smell his hickory and musk scent as he climbs on top of my body and pins my arms and legs to the floor. I can taste blood in my mouth.

  But I feel nothing.

  “Paige!” Kincaid demands, his eyes wild as he struggles against the inhuman strength of my his defense.

  “Come back to me!”

  “Fuck you!” The words are from my own lips, but I didn’t speak them.

  “Send him back!” Kincaid demands again, getting a stronger hold on my lurching, bucking hips with his groin pressed firmly down against my waist. “Do it now!”

  I can’t, I cry inside; panic makes doing anything other than watching impossible.

  Calm down—I need to calm down.

  One…

  Let the fear in.

  Two…

  Deep breath. Am I even the one breathing?

  Three…

  Push him the fuck out.

  “Get out of her, or I will drag your soul to Hell and see to your torture personally, you worthless scum,” Kincaid grinds out, his horns protruding from his skull as his demon form finishes taking over.

  The transformation gives me the opportunity I need. My body has stopped fighting. The spirit in my mind, a man so vile I can feel the stain of his soul leaving marks on my own, has lost his foothold. Kincaid’s demon form has startled him enough that I can feel my mistake.

  A gap in an otherwise solid tapestry.

  The slit in my soul it got through.

  It takes all of my energy to will it shut. To will the bastard out and refill the gap. When it’s done, I’m left staring up into twin suns.

  The weight of myself is so much that I’m afraid I might break right through the floor and keep falling. Pain sizzles in
my wrists and across my hip bones. My head feels like it’s been hollowed out with a spoon, and I just want everything to stop.

  A moment later, it does. I hear the reassuring whisper of a demon at my ear and the press of a warm forehead against mine as I drift away.

  Their raised voices wake me, and I want to cover my ears but moving my hands feels like moving cinder blocks, so instead I hiss, “Stop shouting,” though admittedly it sounds more like an unintelligible mumble, my tongue lazy and lips refusing to open.

  “She’s awake!”

  “You…okay?” I ask, trying to find the seam of my eyelids in the broken neuro pathways of my mind to open them. I remember how he fell. How his eyes rolled back in his head when I finally let go, having used up all the spirit energy he could give.

  “Me? Are you fucking serious?”

  “Don’t…curse.”

  “Is she for real?”

  “Na’vazēm?” Kincaid croons, and I find the will to open my eyes, searching in the clouded space to my right for his face.

  “That sucked.”

  He barks a laugh, but I can see how it doesn’t reach his eyes as mine begin to clear and the feeling returns to the lower half of my body.

  Artemis gives me a knowing look. “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drain you.”

  “Are you in danger now?” Kincaid asks, his eyes fixated on my own, as though through sheer force of will he can make me give him the answer he craves.

  I give my head a little shake. “No, I don’t think so. The spirits are back to being annoying flies on the wall.”

  I try to sit up and fall back down. Artemis mutters that I should rest because he doesn’t have the energy to heal me yet, but Kincaid slides a hand under my back, pressing up between my shoulder blades to help me to sitting.

  My head spins, but otherwise, I can already feel the weighted, icky feeling sloughing away.

  Kincaid’s fingers curve on my back, and I resist the urge to press harder into them. The way they whisper against my skin is doing all kinds of things to my belly that I just can’t handle right now.

  “We’re going to need to do something about your abilities.”

  “What?” Artemis asks, surprising me with how at ease he seems at the moment. Separated from Kincaid by only me and a small channel of mattress where I lie propped by Kincaid on my bed.

  I wonder if my offer to set him free has anything to do with it. Kincaid was prepared to let him go and Artemis made the conscious decision to remain. And Kincaid let him. He’s no longer just a purchased piece of property, but something more.

  I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a guest, but we’re getting there.

  “Her power is growing too rapidly, and she needs to know how to control it,” Kincaid continues. “I think I have an idea, but it may not work.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t seem to like whatever he was thinking of to solve this little problem either.

  “How soon will you be able to heal her?” he asks Art. “We’ll need to make a little trip to The Freakshow tonight.”

  Artemis startles as though struck. “Um,” he mumbles. “If I get some food and water, maybe like an hour?”

  “Good.”

  The Freakshow? I knew that name. Where had I heard it before?

  “Do you want to come with us?” I ask Artemis, and by the way he stills, I already know his answer.

  He shakes his head and stands, rushing to get off the bed on shaky limbs. “Hard pass.”

  He leaves, and I hear the thuds as he stomps down the stairs outside.

  “It’s where my men found him,” Kincaid tells me in a low voice. “They were using him to heal the wounded in one of the fighting pits. He was unconscious in the mud when they purchased him from the Old Crones.”

  A furious heat unspools in my belly, and I clench my teeth. I wonder if they are still there, but I don’t ask. I’m afraid of what I’ll do with the information. A chant of murderous intent plays on a reel in the background of my thoughts, and I just know that if I let myself go there, I won’t be able to come back.

  “You’re certain the spirits are held at bay?” Kincaid asks for a second time, and I offer him a small half-grin.

  “I’m sure.” I pause, fiddling with the edge of my blanket, gathering up the courage to ask what I’ve been afraid to for days now. “What happened at Ford’s house…what you saw down there, I just want you to know that I am not weak. I tried to escape.”

  The words come out in a flood now, and I can’t seem to dam them.

  “I tried so many times and every time I failed, and I—”

  “Don’t,” he cautions and shame heats my face.

  Kincaid’s hand falls from my back, and I shiver, suddenly cold.

  “I couldn’t understand it,” he says, and it’s clear it pains him to tell me this. I almost want to cover my ears to keep from hearing it, knowing he has the power to undo me more than Ford ever did. I learned to barricade my heart away from the things Ford said. The things he did.

  My heart isn’t barricaded anymore, not against Kincaid. The carefully crafted ironwork built up over the twenty-two years of my life has been destroyed. I try to rebuild it day by day, but the work is half-hearted, and it shows.

  “Couldn’t understand what?”

  “Your shame,” he says, and my brows draw together. “I’ve done terrible things, Paige. Things you couldn’t even imagine.”

  He’s stoic as he tells me this. No trace of shame or regret for his crimes. Just a reluctant acceptance of them.

  “But being forced to see what was done to you—and then to know that you somehow blame yourself for it…I didn’t understand. I still don’t. How could you feel shame for something that was inflicted on you? For something you were unwillingly forced to endure?”

  “I…” I don’t know what to say.

  Kincaid brushes a thumb over my jaw, and I press my cheek into his warm palm, feeling stripped bare to the bone under the microscope of his stare.

  “You didn’t deserve the life you lived before you came here.”

  “And the people you did bad things to—they did deserve it?”

  His hand falls. “Yes.”

  He lifts a glass of water from the bedside table and presses it into my hand. At the same time, Casper jumps up onto the bed with a stuttering yowl and comes to nudge his horned head against my arm. He must’ve left with all the commotion and only just come back.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you’re so angry about me naming the cat?”

  Kincaid glares at the cat, his jaw flexing.

  It stares right back with an almost knowing expression on its feline face. It’s unsettling, even more so as his tail stills.

  “It isn’t a cat, Na’vazēm.”

  “I know, it’s demonic.”

  Kincaid gives his head a small shake. “It’s chosen that form. It has another.”

  My skin bristles where Casper still touches me, and when I look at him, I find he’s also looking up at me, tail twitching against the blanket again.

  “It’s a demon, Paige. A powerful one. Which is the only reason I’ve allowed it to remain here in the house. As a sort of insurance, should I ever need it.”

  “I’m not following.”

  Kincaid licks his lips, and if he didn’t just tell me the harmless looking kitty pawing my arm was a powerful demon, my panties would be melting.

  “It’s chosen this house as it’s home in the mortal world. It will defend it against attack. It’s why I knew you would be safe here even when I was not.”

  His gaze darkens.

  “The whole of Elisium knows it’s here.”

  A cold nose presses to my knuckles, and I shudder, lifting my hands out of Casper’s reach.

  “What kind of demon is it, exactly?”

  “An ancient one. Older than me. Older than Lucifer. It resided in the bowels of Hell long before God cast his golden son from the
heavens and forced him into a seat of power in the underworld.”

  I can’t breathe.

  “And in naming it.” He pauses, and I want to shake him to make him finish speaking. Danger pulses in my chest. A staccato rhythm that makes stars explode at the edges of my vision and my hands tremble. “You’ve bound it to you.”

  “Bound it to me? What do you mean?”

  Kincaid’s fists clench on his lap, black to the knuckles.

  “In exchange for your soul, it will do your bidding. If near, it will protect you from harm. And you may draw power from it. A great deal of power. But each time you do, it will consume a small piece of your soul…until there is nothing left.”

  7

  “It’s simple then,” I rush to say as Kincaid and I pile into the driver’s and passenger seat of his car later that night. “I just won’t draw any power from it.”

  Kincaid gives me a sad smile but nods. “That would be wise.”

  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  He pulls out of the driveway and onto the main road, dodging a newly fallen branch.

  “You shouldn’t have been able to bind it. The soul of a Diablim isn’t strong enough. And even if it were, it wouldn’t be enough to tempt the demon into accepting the bargain.”

  “But I didn’t even know I was binding it to me when I named it. Isn’t that, like, force majeure, or something? Can’t I get out of this bargain?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  I groan inwardly and settle back into my seat, rolling the window down for some air. “Wait…I’m a Necromancer. So my type of magic deals with souls. What if I can take whatever part of my soul it has back and break the bond?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to find more information on,” Kincaid admits. “It’s why my men have been stopping by the house, and it’s why I’m taking you to The Freakshow. I don’t think you will be able to break the bond, but you may be able to make it work to your advantage instead of the demon’s.”

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Or we could just kill it.”

  I hate how that makes my stomach sour. No matter what creature lurks beneath the surface of Casper’s fur-coated skin, he’s still an adorable cat. One that has kept me company at night while I slept and lent me comfort while Kincaid was gone and I didn’t know if he would return.