by S. M. Reine
When he sat back on his heels, he realized that it wasn’t just any beach. It was King’s Beach up at Lake Tahoe.
James was so disoriented that he couldn’t remember how he got there, or why he was there, or what day it was.
The sound of the rushing waves drowned out everything else, even his thoughts, and he pressed his hands to his head to hold his thoughts together.
When his sandy feet pressed against his backside, he realized that he was naked. Where were his clothes? Or at least a swimsuit?
He scanned the beach around him but couldn’t see anything that suggested he had been spending the day at the lake. No towel, no umbrella, no picnic basket. In fact, the beach was completely empty. The weather was too poor for such a visit. The sky was black with clouds, even though a hint of sun along the horizon suggested that it was daytime.
James shivered as he stood, wrapping his arms around himself. It didn’t seem to help. His body didn’t feel like it was generating any heat to retain.
For that matter, he wasn’t cold on the outside. He could tell that the water was cold, and the sand under his feet was chilly from being soaked in it, but his skin wasn’t icy.
James spread his hands in front of him. His fingernails were black, and his skin was so pale that it was like he hadn’t seen the sun in years, much less been at the beach. His skin had never been that white. He also shouldn’t have been able to see so many pores and so few hairs. It was like he was made from detailed, polished marble.
His eyes felt open for the first time, truly open. He was seeing in more colors. He smelled scents for which he had no name. Everything he sensed was musky, complex, a little bit sweet. Human smells. “Oh no,” James said aloud. His voice sounded different too, deeper and more velvety.
He walked up the beach. The sand didn’t seem to give underneath his feet, almost like he was floating over it. Before long, he spotted a group of cabins. The coven often stayed at those cabins.
Hints of memory crept through him. His brain was creeping up on a revelation that he just couldn’t quite figure out.
A stream ran through the center of camp beside a campfire that had burned out. “Blood,” James said. He remembered that Elise had stepped into that stream, and her foot had come out drenched in blood.
All of the water had turned into blood.
He turned back to the lake again. The water was crystal clear, like a mirror of the sky. Several hundred yards out into the water, a building stood. It looked like a church. James had never seen such a thing near the cabins before. He got the feeling that it was a new arrival, a visitor as much as Lincoln and Sophie, but he wasn’t sure how that could be possible.
Lincoln and Sophie . James had no trouble summoning their faces.
Things were coming back. And the more he remembered, the more he wished that he didn’t.
The plagues. The attack on Motion and Dance. The Father of All Demons. And then Elise had learned James’s secrets.
The last thing that James remembered was standing on the rooftop of the condominium with Elise. The gargoyle who accompanied Lincoln had arrived, and then…
His hands went to his neck.
The memory of blinding pain and betrayal was mercifully faint.
Time had passed between Junior’s attack and waking up on the beach, but James wasn’t sure how long. He had died. Of this much, he was sure.
And he didn’t seem to be human.
He needed help.
If Elise thought James was dead, it was unlikely that she would remain in Reno for long. Soon, she would be hiding, impossible to find. He had to locate her first. He had to explain himself to her.
James headed for the nearest cabin, but the front door opened before he could reach the stairs. Morrighan emerged wearing pajamas. She carried a baseball bat and swung it in front of her. “This is private property! Get off!”
“Morrighan, it’s me,” James said.
Her jaw dropped at the sight of him.
The witch’s brain flooded with sensory information. James couldn’t put names to each of the different scents and flavors and textures, but her attraction resonated through his body as if the attraction were his own. His skin flushed with warmth. Blood flowed to his pelvis as his fingertips tingled with the urge to touch someone.
“James?” Morrighan stuttered. “Is that you?”
“I think so,” James said. It felt like a lie. He didn’t think it was him, but he didn’t know who else he could be.
“What are you doing back here?”
“Actually,” he said, “I was hoping I could borrow your motorcycle.”
The motorcycle quickly proved to be the fastest way to travel. The highway leading back to civilization was crammed with emergency vehicles, and he had to weave down the shoulder to get past stalled traffic. There were massive roadblocks at the limits of Reno itself. The entire city was quarantined.
“Damn,” James breathed, planting a foot as the motorcycle idled. He was only a few hundred yards from the barrier on South Virginia Street, stuck behind abandoned cars as he watched law enforcement. They didn’t look to be letting anyone in or out for any reason. There was no lie that could get James into the city through them.
He abandoned the motorcycle far off the shoulder. He wasn’t the only one milling around. There were families waiting with chairs and blankets, hoping to get in touch with survivors. He heard them muttering about what had happened. Volcanoes seemed to be the popular theory. Their belief washed through James as strongly as Morrighan’s attraction.
There were too many voices. People in cars, people standing around, people in buildings nearby. So much life .
I need Elise .
It wasn’t hard to walk around the quarantine, and he switched back to main roads just two blocks down. Nobody tried to stop him. It was awful to see how different Reno looked in the daylight. Many fires were still burning. The brimstone had demolished entire blocks. There were bodies everywhere, and not all of them belonged to animals. The air was ripe with pus and rot.
James had to dodge a half-dozen more checkpoints in the city to reach Betty’s townhouse. Her home was, thankfully, neither burning nor significantly damaged. Her front windows were broken, but nothing had burned closer than the end of the street. She was much better off than most.
He could feel that Betty was inside the house. His new senses liked Betty’s presence, splashing bright over his mind like tangerine. She was familiar and comforting. James was almost as glad to feel Betty as he would’ve been Elise.
He knocked on the door. “Betty? Betty!”
Surprise tinted Betty’s emotional signals. It quickly turned to fear.
Of course she wasn’t expecting visitors.
“Don’t worry! It’s me, James!” he called through the door. “I’m just looking for you and Elise, and—well, I really need your help, Betty. Please open the door.”
Moments later, the door opened. Betty stood on the other side uninjured, wearing jeans with a University of Nevada T-shirt. Her hair was pulled into pigtails, and she looked completely astonished to see James.
He couldn’t blame her for that, either. He had seen his reflection on the motorcycle’s rearview mirror, and his face was as strange as the rest of him. His features seemed more symmetrical and hair flowed at his crown like shadows. Most jarring was the absence of his icy blue eyes. Instead, his irises were the same color as his pupils, so he had the monochromatic look of a demon.
But it was impossible for humans to become demons. There had to be another explanation.
“I know how this looks,” James said, “but it’s me. It’s really me.”
“Uh,” Betty said.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t remember what happened to me after an attack on Yatam’s condominium, right when that big asteroid struck. I need your help finding Elise. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” she said, only a few moments too late, like she was running at a slower tempo. “Um, James�
��”
“We have to move fast to find her,” he said.
“Yeah, I know,” Betty said. “I guess.”
“You guess? ” This wasn’t the Betty that James had come to know. She was a devoted friend who should have leaped to help him—or if not James, then at least Elise. But she mostly looked put off by the suggestion.
“That’s the thing,” Betty said. “I’m already working on finding Elise. With you.”
She stepped aside, opening the door the rest of the way.
A man stood behind Betty, staring back at James like a gold skinned reflection of himself. He was tall, just like James, and his hair was like a black bear’s fur resting across his forehead. His eyes were such a pale shade of blue that they almost looked white. He wore the clothes that James had been wearing when he died—a light sweater, khakis, loafers. But unlike when he died, this version of James had white-gold wings folded at his back, like some overgrown dove.
Somehow, James hadn’t just come back from the dead. He’d come back from the dead twice. Once as an angel, and once as a demon.
“Well,” said one James.
“Fascinating,” said the other.
Betty grinned weakly. “Surprise?”
Next book:
The Spellslinger
Book 4
About the Author
Hi! I’m Sara, a super-prolific author who publishes as SM Reine. I’ve put out over fifty titles, most of which are urban fantasy, and all of which serve as evidence of my nonexistent social life.
I’m a proud Nevadan, an enthusiastic mom-nerd, and animal hoarder in possession of cats, dogs, toads, bees, and little boys. I write gratuitous violence to balance out my real-life chill. I like kissing books and science fiction movies.
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smreine.com