by Reine, SM
“So James is in the city?” Nathaniel asked once they were a safe distance from Isaac. “How do we find him?”
“The same way you find anything else: you search,” Elise said.
She turned the corner, preparing to phase Nathaniel over the wall again.
And she came face-to-face with her mother.
X
Ariane Kavanagh hadn’t aged a day since the last time Elise had spoken to her. Her hair was still chestnut brown, and she didn’t have a single new wrinkle. She could have passed for the same age that Elise had been when she died. “The courtyard is meant to be off-limits until I finish restoring the wards. What are you doing here?”
Elise’s mouth worked silently.
Her mother’s head was a buzz of white noise with the volume turned low, but she showed no indication of recognizing her own daughter. Not after fifteen years of aging, a rebirth, and new clothing.
Elise couldn’t feel her hands. Couldn’t think. Could barely breathe.
“We’re just looking around,” Nathaniel said finally when Elise was silent for too long.
Worry darkened Ariane’s eyes. “You are a human boy.”
“I’m visiting.”
“I wasn’t told of any children visiting,” Ariane said. “Children don’t visit the Palace.”
His brain sparked as he searched for a lie. “Uh…”
“I’m searching for Hannah Pritchard,” Elise said suddenly.
Ariane paled. She glanced around the corner where Elise had last seen Isaac. “Where did you hear that name?”
“She was recently brought to Hell. I think she should be in the Palace,” Elise said, speaking a little too quickly, her words a jumble.
The witch picked up a collection of bottles she had set on the ground, tucked them in her bodice, and pushed her hair out of her face. “We can’t talk here.”
She waved her wrist over the nearby tower door and led them inside. Nathaniel stayed glued to Elise’s side as they navigated dark, narrow corridors. “Hannah—” Elise began again.
Ariane cut her off. “Wait.”
When the elevator stopped on the ninth floor, she opened the cage and strode ahead.
Nathaniel hung back with Elise. “Who is that?”
“That’s my mother.” She clenched her jaw. “She doesn’t know who I am.”
They followed her to private quarters in a hallway on the east side of the tower. The rooms were large, but modest, and Elise recognized the battle-axes mounted on the wall as her father’s. He had almost cut off one of her fingers when he’d trained her to use them at eight years old. The axes were the only way that her parents had personalized the sitting room—that, and the family photo in a wooden frame on the table by the door.
Elise studied it as Ariane shut the door behind them. Her father was young and handsome. Ariane, mostly unchanged, had her arm around the shoulders of a little girl with auburn hair, freckled skin, and a big smile.
Ariane flitted around the room, flicking her fingers at totems on each wall. Magic flashed in the corners of Elise’s vision and a cool mist washed down her arms. Nathaniel watched the wards fall into place with great interest.
“Who are you?” Ariane asked as soon as she was done. “How do you know Hannah?”
“She’s my mom,” Nathaniel said.
Even through the buzz of Ariane’s protected mind, the flare of shock was impossible to miss. “Mon dieu.”
“I’ve brought Nathaniel to Hell so that we can get her back,” Elise said. “We need to find her as soon as possible. If you deal with all of the humans in Hell…”
“Let’s speak privately,” she told Elise.
Her mother led her into the next room—a kitchen—while Nathaniel continued to wander around the foyer to examine Ariane’s totems.
There were a lot of normal human supplies in the kitchen: a block of knives that Elise thought had probably been ordered off of the Home Shopping Network, nonstick skillets hanging on the wall, a basket of plastic measuring cups. But there was no toaster, no coffee machine, no refrigerator. Nothing that required electricity.
Ariane stopped in the middle of the floor, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Betty,” Elise said. “My name is Betty.”
Her mother tipped her head to the side. “Betty?” It was an awfully cute name for a demon. But Elise set her jaw and met her mother’s gaze. “You’re a fool for bringing Hannah’s son to Hell, Betty, no matter how pure your motivation. This is no place for normal adults, much less a child.”
Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, really?”
“And the boy is wearing fiend leather. Hardly appropriate.” Ariane puffed air through her lips. “I didn’t know Hannah had a son. The father—where is he?”
Elise’s responding silence was enough of an answer for Ariane. The buzz of white noise in her head increased in intensity, and then she answered her own question.
“James.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine, like she was gathering her strength. “I can tell you where Hannah is, but I can’t let you take Nathaniel to her. I’ll watch him here.” She faced the counter and began writing on a piece of paper. “There is a demon named Abraxas who is serving as judge for the Council. Though he has rooms in the Palace, he also keeps a property in the mountain district. Matters of the household are attended to by mortal slaves. Hannah is among them.”
Elise took the paper. It was a rudimentary map of the city of Dis, with the Palace marked on one side of the page, and a box on the other labeled “The House of Abraxas.” A word was written at the top of the paper as well: “Belphegor.”
“What’s Belphegor?” Elise asked.
“That’s the name of Abraxas’s steward. Watch for him—he will kill you and Hannah and every other slave if he feels it’s necessary to protect Abraxas’s interests.” Ariane peered around the corner of the kitchen door. Nathaniel was probing one of the animal skull totems with his fingertip.
“I could be killed for sharing this information.”
“Then why did you tell me?” Elise asked.
“I didn’t know that Hannah and James had a son,” she said simply. “Be swift. Be watchful. Be safe.”
Elise remembered Ariane telling her father the same thing: to be swift, watchful, and safe. There was power in the wish, traces of magic that Elise had never been able to see before. She had never realized that her mother was blessing her father every time he went out to hunt.
“Thank you,” Elise said, and she meant it. It was the most meaningful conversation she had shared with her mother in over fifteen years. Maybe in her entire life.
Ariane didn’t respond except to open the door.
Elise moved for the exit. When Nathaniel tried to follow, Ariane grabbed his shoulder. “You’re staying here with me,” she said in a falsely upbeat voice. “Don’t worry. Betty will be back soon.”
Nathaniel looked so shocked by the idea of getting left behind that he didn’t even react to the fake name. “Where are you going?”
There was no point in lying. He was a child, not an idiot. “Hannah’s being kept in the House of Abraxas. I’m going to get her back. It’ll be faster if you stay here.”
“Abraxas,” Nathaniel echoed.
“Yeah. Big, bad demon. Don’t worry about it; I’ve killed worse.”
He grabbed Elise’s hand, and his desperation swelled, crashing over her and making her skin rise in goosebumps. “But I need to come with you. I can help.”
She tugged free of his grip. Elise was prepared to tell him the truth—that he was just a child, useless in a fight, and a huge liability. But as Nathaniel’s thoughts fuzzed in and out of her head, she picked up a few images. He was imagining his mother in peril. Being helpless to save her. Elise had never had the luxury of worrying about her parents like that.
So instead of telling him that he was useless, Elise stooped a few inches so that their faces were level.
“You’re too important to risk. I promise that I will bring your mother back to you. Do you trust me?”
Nathaniel hung his head, but he nodded.
“I trust you.”
“Good,” she said. She squeezed his shoulders. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Elise opened the door and phased into shadow.
As soon as the door closed, Nathaniel faced Ariane. “I’m hungry,” he said. “And thirsty.”
She gave him a kind smile and ruffled his hair. “They’ll start serving dinner in a few hours. I’ll be happy to bring you something.”
“But I’m hungry now. I’ve been running around Hell for a while, and there’s nothing to eat.”
Ariane’s mouth drew downward in a frown. “I don’t have anything here.”
“Oh.” He sat down hard on one of the couches, doing his very best impression of sullen and miserable.
“Would you like to help me with a potion to restore the wards on the outer wall? I have just one or two more things to do, but I would appreciate the help.”
Nathaniel brightened at that. “Sure.”
She led him through a narrow door and into her ritual space, which was little bigger than a closet. There was a table on the wall opposite the altar, where she had a collection of bowls and jars. “You’re Hannah’s son, so you’ve grown up with the coven in Colorado, haven’t you?” Ariane asked. He nodded. “Did you know that I used to be with that coven, as well? I joined when I was just a little older than you.”
“I’ve never heard about you,” he said.
She started opening jars. “I suppose they don’t talk about me anymore. That’s probably for the best.”
“What’s a touchstone?” Nathaniel asked. “I’ve heard people talking about it.”
Ariane’s hands stilled. “Touchstones are people, not objects. It’s…an elected position, so to speak.” She tipped her head to the side to study him. “Have you discussed soul links with Landon?”
He nodded, even though he had actually only read about them in Landon’s journals. The coven didn’t want him to know about that kind of magic. “It’s a way to enchant something using your soul as a battery. So people who become touchstones are used for big spells, like the Palace wards?”
“No, it isn’t always for mere enchantments. The soul of one man or demon is linked to each principle of the Treaty of Dis, such as the law of blood, or the law of order. As long as that man lives, that law is as firmly entrenched in the fabric of existence as the laws of physics.” Ariane held out a hand. “Dragon’s blood, please.”
Nathaniel handed her a bag of red powder. “I don’t understand.”
“When the Treaty was established, it required immense power to enact. Angels and demons walked on every plane, and forcing these creatures to their individual realms was a challenge.” She drizzled oil on top of her herbs and began to mix. “The first touchstones were gods.”
“And now?”
“Gods have better things to do. The honor is bestowed upon the mightiest of heroes, instead.” Ariane gave a wan smile. “Such as my husband.”
“Wow. Which precept does he uphold?”
“Nobody knows—not even Isaac. Keeping such things secret is meant to help protect the touchstones from assassination attempts.” She slid the bowl across the table. “Give this your blessing.”
She was testing him, in much the same way that Nathaniel had tested Elise. But he didn’t want Ariane to know what he could do. He didn’t want anyone to know what he could do.
He blinked innocently. “Blessing?”
“Never mind.” Ariane etched the symbols in the air over the bowl with her fingertips. There was a pop, and the air smelled like gunpowder. “I’m ready to restore the wards, I think. You must stay in the room while I work. If you’re discovered… I can’t imagine your mother would be happy if I let you get killed, would she?”
“I won’t go anywhere,” Nathaniel promised.
“Good boy.”
“I’m still hungry, though.”
Ariane gathered her supplies. “Very well. I’ll bring something back for you to eat.” He smiled and nodded. She stepped out of the room, and the door shut behind her.
Nathaniel counted to twenty, just to be certain that she was gone, and then he left, too.
James’s suspicion had been correct. Wearing the dead apothecary’s shroud was very effective at making him look like a demon. Unfortunately, he also smelled like a demon: bloody, stale, and a little sour.
He used a bottle of liquor to scrub the blood off of his face and clean his wounds, then bandaged his arm. He pulled the shroud over his head and took one more look at himself in the shard of mirror. He didn’t even recognize himself. He tucked a knife with a broad, triangular blade into his robes and ventured into Dis.
James kept his head down and moved quickly. He wasn’t the only human walking the streets, but he was the only one that wasn’t escorted. Even sheltered by the robes, he felt like he was being watched.
Dis was an immense patchwork of strange places. He crossed through the area that resembled Dubai, and then through the street that was like Chicago again, and a few other blocks where he couldn’t determine the influence. The Palace loomed in his periphery, and it felt like the grand tower was watching him, too.
The slave market was one of the oldest parts of the city, and there was nothing human about the buildings surrounding the square. They were made of black stone and jagged spires, like the Earth’s teeth biting at the dark sky. Independent security teams armed with swords and guns scrutinized everyone entering the district, so James hunched over, tucked his bandaged arm inside the apothecary’s robes, and kept his head down as he entered the slave market.
Demons were milling about as they waited for the next auction to begin. The hand on the clock at the head of the square was inching toward Saturday, and he tried to remember what day of the week it had been on Earth when he and Hannah were taken. Wednesday? But that gave him no context for how much time had passed. The clocks only marked the days passing on Earth, not the weeks.
James found a spot toward the back of the square and examined the iron structure that everyone was watching. It resembled a sleek metal gallows, but silver hooks hung from the bar over the stage instead of nooses.
A line of humans mounted the steps. Their wrists were jerked over their head by a brute, one by one, and they were suspended from the hooks. Another brute cranked a wheel, and the slaves were lifted off their toes. The man on the end was crying. His belly jiggled every time he sobbed.
“Help me,” moaned another man. “Please—someone help me!”
They were all in good condition, physically speaking. None of them had so much as a scrape on their bodies. For now.
Demons near the front of the crowd whooped and waved, but the ones toward the back seemed to be those actually looking to purchase; they were obviously the cream of Dis’s society, and they held signs with numbers on them, like James had seen at art auctions. They were all nightmares, incubi, mara—the beautiful, rich, and most human-like demons that could afford to cross between Earth and Hell and make a profit from it.
One succubus wore an A-line skirt, a white blouse, and a tan blazer. Aside from her four-inch heels and vivid red lipstick, she looked like she was more prepared to trade stocks than buy a slave. But when the robed creature on the stage called for initial bids, she was the first to raise her sign.
Each slave was sold quickly, one at a time. Within minutes, they were removed from the hooks, marched off the stage, and replaced with new slaves. The humans that had been sold were marched past a desk before disappearing behind the stage. James crept over to see why.
The desk was manned by an orange-robed creature with a muzzle like a goat. It was obviously employed at the Palace—the gold cord at its waist matched those he had seen on the judge and jury at his initial trial.
He glanced at the book it was writing in as he passed. James was better with written vo-
ani than the spoken language, so all it took was a glimpse to realize that the goat demon was recording the buyers’ names. Or, more specifically, the sole buyer’s name.
More than a dozen humans were listed, and every single one had been taken to the House of Abraxas.
James waited behind the gallows for the next auction to complete, and then watched as the three slaves were received by a slender, colorless demon that wore a black suit and a house insignia on his breast pocket. The supervisor counted out cash—Earth cash, probably Euros—and handed it to a waiting nightmare.
Then he waved to a group of fiends, which led the new slaves down the street. Two of them were sobbing. One of them seemed to have lost the ability to cry.
James followed.
The slave market wasn’t far from their destination. They were taken to gates marked by the same insignia that had been on the supervising demon’s breast: the House of Abraxas. He could barely make out the vast, sprawling property beyond the sleek black walls.
He stepped behind the corner of a building to watch the slaves get lined up. He knew that he needed to go with them if he wanted to find Hannah, but the human slaves were being transported naked. None of them would have been permitted to wear James’s robes. He could deal with a few more hours of exposure, but the new slaves were also in good physical condition, and James was not. His left arm still had to be completely bandaged if he wanted to spare the wounds from infection. He was bruised, scraped, and dirty. He might pass as a slave that had already been put to use, but a new purchase?
Fortunately for James, when the gates to the House of Abraxas opened to let in the new arrivals, a few humans came out, as well. They were escorted by more fiends, and looked a lot like James. Dirty. Exhausted. Scared.
The slaves were taken away for a few minutes, and then returned sweatier and even more tired than when they had left. They were being exercised like a family dog, and the guarding fiends were obviously bored by it.
The next group of slaves taken out for their run was bigger than the last. Almost a dozen of them.