Torn by Fury

by S. M. Reine

  Voices broke through the windy howl. Abel led the half-shifted wolves jogging up the vertebrae, taking a set of precarious stairs that had been embedded in the bone. They had to leap to reach them. They had found their own way to stay warm in the frozen dimension without James’s magic.

  Rylie watched them go. She could easily pick Abel out from the rest of their new pack. He was more graceful, more confident—more human. The others had taken to their new wolf sides immediately.

  Guilt twisted inside of her. They would suffer the rest of their lives for this.

  “There,” Stephanie said. “This should be enough. My Sumerian is rusty, so you’ll want to make sure it looks right to you.”

  James glanced over at her notebook. “Why Sumerian? It’s not a magical language, and it’s so…obscure.”

  “There has always been magic, long before humans had language. The Phoenicians were the first to write spell books, but we lost those, and the Sumerians’ spells are the oldest we’ve recovered. Now that language is as close to the beginning as we can get. Hence, they’re the best we can do for gaean magic.”

  “How do you know?” Rylie asked.

  “Contrary to James’s belief, the White Ash Coven is not the end-all, be-all of arcane knowledge. The Apple knows things.” Stephanie’s lips twisted. “Cain knew things, to be exact. He passed it on without intending to, and where he learned it, we’ll never know.”

  Rylie’s hand with the marker stilled. She was helping them draw magic that Cain had brought to Stephanie?

  “Whatever the origin, I’m grateful for it,” James said. He was staring up at the jagged teeth fringing the fissure—or, actually, the woman who was still standing there. It looked like Elise still hadn’t moved.

  Stephanie slapped his wrist lightly. “You’re drawing the wrong line. Pay attention.”

  He jerked his hand away. “Don’t hit me.”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” she snapped.

  James ripped a crystal from his bag. “Right,” he said. “I’m going to do some magic…over there.” He stalked away from the site of the spell, leaving the warmth and light behind.

  Stephanie laughed bitterly at his back. “Men. Give them a gun and they’ll shoot another man’s brains out, but criticize them on something they care about…”

  Rylie couldn’t manage to smile. She felt something strange—something that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  A jerking low in her belly.

  She pressed a hand to her stomach. The baby was squirming wildly enough in her womb that her skin rippled underneath her sweater. “It’s moving,” she whispered.

  “It’s the least miserable part of being pregnant, isn’t it?” Stephanie asked. Her smile actually looked genuine. “Three months of intense sickness followed by extreme fatigue, weight gain, bloating, stretch marks… This is the only part I haven’t loathed.”

  “I think it’s all kind of great.”

  “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  Funny that she would say that. Rylie had spent her first pregnancy resenting every second, and she had ended up losing her children. “You just never know what’s going to happen.” She bit her bottom lip, pressing a hand against her navel. The baby kicked her solidly in the palm. “I’m going to appreciate every moment.”

  Stephanie sniffed. “Let me know how much you appreciate delivering a full-term infant.”

  Rylie didn’t bother arguing. Stephanie hadn’t suffered through Summer and Abram’s truncated childhoods—she just couldn’t understand.

  But the doctor suddenly grew more serious. She set the notebook aside. “Now that we’re alone, I wanted to tell you that I read about canid pregnancies. Apparently, it is indeed possible for a single litter to be fathered by multiple partners.”

  “Oh.” Rylie bit her bottom lip as her eyes flicked up, automatically seeking Abel. The werewolves were doing another lap. He probably wouldn’t be able to hear Stephanie over the wind. They were probably safe to talk about this. “What am I supposed to tell him?”

  “Who, Abel?” Stephanie inched closer to James’s warming rune. Its light flickered on the underside of her chin, her cheeks. It shadowed her eyes. “He’s an adult. Tell him the truth. Let him decide how he wants to react to it.”

  Wasn’t that pretty much the same advice Rylie had given to Elise about James? To just talk to him?

  “I’ll tell him,” she said, standing up.

  She didn’t get a chance to leave. James returned, and the crystal that he had taken away was now glowing with internal fire of its own. “Hold this,” he said, pushing it into Rylie’s hands. “When I tell you, place it at the center of the rune.”

  “But—”

  “Quiet, I need to focus.” James picked up the paper with the rewritten chant. Rylie stood by with the crystal as he marked off a couple of notes and then began to finish drawing the rune.

  He whispered the words under his breath. He spoke very quietly, but his voice still carried over the air, dragging through Rylie’s chest like fingers of magma. She didn’t understand anything he was saying. She didn’t think the specific meaning was all that important.

  The painted rune came to life as James closed the outer edge of the circle. Light raced along the swoops and curls of the design as though catching fire. It lifted from the ground, dissolving the ice underneath. Chilly water sloshed over the toes of Rylie’s boots.

  Where the water touched, grass sprouted. It was only an inch tall, but bright green and springy, like grass fed by spring melt. Tiny white blossoms dotted over it.

  Another hard blast of wind, and all of the grass began to freeze like emeralds in ice.

  Stephanie took a quick step back. Wonder filled her face, wiping away every hint of bitterness. “Impressive.”

  “Place the crystal,” James said.

  Rylie had forgotten for a moment that she was holding it. She leaned over and set the glowing crystal in the grass at the center of the rune. It was already taller than her ankles. When she released the crystal, flowers grew up its sides, consuming it within an instant.

  And then the portal opened, blooming like a lotus that had somehow buried its roots in the bone. The air that came out of it was so much warmer than Coccytus.

  The view wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the fissure, but it had its own kind of beauty. Rylie stared down into the tunnel. It looked like it was easily fifty feet long, and filled with water—not light. On the other side, she saw the wavering outline of a tree.

  “This is it,” she said. “Isn’t it? The garden that Elise talks about?”

  James didn’t look pleased with himself. His upper lip curled as he stared at that tree. “Yes. That’s the garden—Araboth.” He sighed. “It worked.”

  Eighteen

  JAMES REALIZED THAT something was wrong when Elise’s mind suddenly opened to him.

  He lost focus on the portal and turned to her. He could see through her eyes just as easily as he could see her back silhouetted against that light, hair flowing around her in the icy winds, hands limp at her sides. She was staring into the swirling fissure in Ba’al’s mouth.

  The hilt of the obsidian falchion jutted over one shoulder. Seth’s Beretta hung from the opposite hip. But even though she was heavily armed, she suddenly didn’t look threatening. There was something diminished in her stance, graceful but unguarded.

  James grimaced as her consciousness rolled over his. Her mind was far from Coccytus. She dreamed of raspberry bushes. He saw delicate, olive-skinned hands trimming the thorns from roses. He saw fingers glimmering with ornate gold rings unlike anything that Elise would ever wear.

  These were mundane, unremarkable memories of a peaceful life—but not Elise’s memories.

  “We should go,” Rylie said, and James realized belatedly that she must have repeated herself several times before he heard her.

  He tried to look down at the rune he had cast with Stephanie’s help. It was one of the more beautiful spells he had cast, but Elise�
�s thoughts made it impossible to focus on the portal glowing at his feet.

  “I’ll get her,” James said. “Stephanie, are you…?”

  “I won’t stay a moment longer than I need to.” She jerked her jacket around herself, lifting her chin almost regally. “And I won’t ask you if you want to come again.”

  Their argument in Northgate seemed so petty, so distant. Elise was swaying at the edge of Ba’al’s mouth to a silent tune he couldn’t hear.

  “Right,” he said distractedly, stepping away from Stephanie and Rylie.

  He heard a faint pop when the demon phased Stephanie back to Dis, but didn’t watch her go. The distance he had to cross on the skull to reach Elise seemed infinite. He moved slowly through the cold, fingers numb within his gloves.

  She was caught in the memory of chasing a man through dense trees, pushing aside vines and stumbling over roots. In her memory, she felt the weight of wings at her back.

  James was feeling sick now, too.

  “Elise,” he said.

  She didn’t react to her name.

  He carefully stepped up beside her, trying not to startle her. If she moved an inch in the wrong direction, she could slip over the edge into Limbo. She felt dizzy, standing on the brink of that mouth, thinking about what waited beyond.

  She wanted to jump in. The fissure between worlds was singing to her.

  “Don’t,” James said.

  She heard that word. “I won’t jump.” It didn’t sound like she meant it. There wasn’t just a song down in Ba’al’s mouth. There were forgotten secrets waiting to be discovered.

  The fissure was growing brighter, sending light licking toward her feet.

  Something is going to come through.

  Her thought swept over him. Startled, he looked down into the mouth. It was more active than he remembered, and that often indicated someone passing through. There was no way that any company approaching from Limbo could be friendly.

  “Why don’t you come with me now?” He said it gently, still trying not to panic her as his adrenaline spiked. “The portal is ready.”

  That shocked her into facing him. Hadn’t the witches just begun working? She thought that they had, but now she couldn’t remember what, exactly, the witches had been working on—or even who the witches were. “That was fast.”

  Elise was looking at him, but she didn’t recognize him. She had lost herself staring into the fissure, and now she lost herself staring at him, trying to figure out who he was.

  “We’ve been working on that spell for over an hour,” James said. “It wasn’t all that quick.”

  Finally, recognition blossomed, though Elise thought that he didn’t look quite right. His face was long, his nose straight, skin strangely smooth. Why was his hair white? “What spell?” she asked, reaching up to brush her fingers through his hair. “Please don’t tell me that Lilith has talked you into some new scheme.”

  Lilith. It was exactly as he’d feared.

  She hadn’t regressed back to a time when Betty was alive—not this time. She’d gone further back. Much further.

  He caught her hand, gently lowering it from his face. “Elise. Look at me.”

  “I am looking at you.” She smiled like she thought he was teasing her. “Your hair has changed. Are you all right?”

  “I’m not Adam.” It hurt that he needed to say it. Elise’s responding confusion hurt even worse. “Lilith is dead. You’re not Eve. You’re just sick.”

  Fear lanced through the bond. Fear, and grief. “Wait, stop, what did you say? Lilith is dead?” Her voice sounded softer, like she was so terribly fragile.

  “Dammit, Elise, you should have fed. You should have…” He shook his head. It was too late to fix that particular mistake. “A healing spell. You must have something that will slow this down.” He tugged at the gloves on her hands, trying to bare her skin. He couldn’t use any of his ethereal healing spells on her, but he could force her to activate one of the warlock ones.

  She jerked herself free of his grip and backed away. Her heels teetered precariously over the edge of the fangs. “What are you talking about? How could Lilith have died? You’re scaring me, Adam!”

  The fissure erupted.

  Light arced over Ba’al’s mouth, flaring brightly in the darkness of the cavern, sparkling over the icy stalagmites ringing the base of the skull.

  Three angels appeared simultaneously, bodies elongated and wings strangely thin as they broke through the fissure. As soon as they broke free, three more followed. And then three more. All of them spiraled toward the roof of the cavern, gaining altitude on the rough winds with hard flaps of their massive wings.

  They had come to assassinate Elise.

  But this time, she was much weaker. She wasn’t herself. She wouldn’t be able to fight against them. “Damn it all,” he swore, yanking her away from the edge. There was no more time to be gentle.

  She shrieked. “Adam!”

  He shoved her in front of him, down the slope of the chin to the vertebra where the portal waited. Her boots slipped on ice. She fell to her knees, scraping her palms along the ground.

  “Come on!” He jerked her to her feet again. The angels spiraled down, slicing through the wind toward them. “Abel! Abel, where are you?” There was no sign of the werewolves at the edge of the portal—including Rylie.

  James dragged Elise to the rune that he had cast and she struggled weakly under his arm. It wasn’t just that Eve didn’t know how to fight against a man taller than she was; Elise’s jacket was pocked with holes from her sweat, and her skin had turned ashen gray. She didn’t have the strength to fight any harder.

  If she couldn’t force James to let go of her, there really wasn’t a chance she’d survive against the angels.

  “Don’t move,” James said, turning to face the angels as they approached. He gathered his magic in his fists.

  She grabbed his arm, dragging it down. “Don’t hurt them! What are you doing?”

  He tried to ignore her as he tracked the paths of the angels through the sky. Their movements were erratic—a mixture of evasive flight and struggling to stay aloft in Coccytus.

  But they didn’t move closer. They were diving toward one of the higher vertebra.

  It was only then that James realized that this wasn’t an assassination attempt against Elise at all.

  They were going for the werewolves.

  Abel’s distant shouts reached Rylie. She turned from the warmth of James’s rune, stepped around a spur of bone that sheltered her from the wind, and searched for the source of his yelling. He was racing toward her at top speed with the rest of the pack behind him.

  Beyond their silhouettes, she could see flashes of brilliant white light that didn’t belong in Coccytus. They looked like meteors streaking from the sky.

  Angels.

  Her jaw dropped open. How? She turned to look for James, but her vision was burning from the sudden brightness of the angels’ wings, and she couldn’t make out anything. She rubbed the heels of her palms against her eyes.

  She couldn’t see, but she could hear. “Rylie, run!” Abel roared in a barely-human voice.

  Rylie hesitated for a moment too long. There was a sliver of orange sky at the top of the spine staircase that heralded Malebolge’s relative safety, where angels might not be able to touch her—but it would mean leaving her mate alone.

  Wet screams tore through the night. Through the burning brightness of angel wings, Rylie saw Abel in his wolf form, jaws were buried in an angel’s throat. Another pack member had the angel by the arm, twisting it back, rendering the saber useless.

  Rylie whirled to run up the spine.

  Another two angels stood behind her.

  She skidded to a halt, just barely keeping her footing on the ice. Her wolf erupted inside of her without warning. Her ribs strained at the pressure of it. She nearly gave in—almost let the beast take her—and it was only by sheer force of will that she isolated the change to her hands and
jaws. Bones popped. Her teeth loosened. The taste of blood was harsh on her tongue.

  The nearest angel swung his sword at her. She leaped back. Slipped. Landed hard on her butt. The blade whistled over her head.

  She grabbed his arm, used it to pull herself to her feet, and sank her werewolf fangs into his shoulder.

  His scream was sickening, not satisfying. “Makael! Help!” At least, that’s what she thought he’d said. It was hard to tell. She bit again, this time on his throat, and yanked.

  His blood froze before it even hit the ground.

  The other angel, Makael, wrenched Rylie off of her victim and threw her. She soared through the air for an instant, then hit the stairs—exactly where she wanted to be.

  Rylie scrambled onto all fours and climbed.

  The stairs were steep and Malebolge was so far away. She should have been fast enough to make the climb in minutes, but werewolf speed didn’t mean anything when she had no grip.

  The shifting air warned her that an angel had landed behind her. On instinct, Rylie rolled to the side.

  A flaming saber sank into the bone where she had been crouching.

  Pulse pounding, Rylie began climbing again, straight into the wind, praying that Makael wouldn’t be able to fly into the wind and catch her.

  But then another angel landed in front of her—Uriel. He looked so strange outside of his usual hipster clothing. He looked like an actual angel in the white robes. His wings were crusted with ice, the feathers growing heavy.

  Pain etched his features. “I’m sorry, Rylie. I tried to talk them out of it. I know Eve would never approve.”

  Rylie couldn’t reply with a mouth filled by fangs. Her entire skull felt like it was about to erupt.

  She turned to drop down to the lower vertebra again, but Makael was there, wings folded back as he climbed into the wind.

  Angels on both sides. The pack was fighting far below. She was alone.

  Makael slammed her to the ground. She kicked her feet into his gut, and Rylie noticed with the detached calm of the wolf that her feet had begun shifting too. Silver claws jutted from the toes of her expensive leather boots. The sharp tips tore through Makael’s chest and stomach. Blood, so much hotter than the surrounding air, washed over her legs.