by Reine, SM
The buzzing faded quickly, but the ash kept blowing like an early snow on the hillside.
“I have a son,” James said aloud into the cold wind, just to test the sound of it.
He had never been so frustrated to be without a phone or internet in his life. The fact that he couldn’t see what the news reports said about the ethereal city didn’t bother him so much as his inability to call Hannah, or his parents, or the high priestess of the coven.
What was the child’s name? Was he a Faulkner or a Pritchard? Was he a witch, and was he powerful?
What about him made the Union think that he needed to die?
The questions he couldn’t ask overwhelmed James. He shivered and rubbed his hands together.
He went inside, which wasn’t much warmer without a functioning heater. He had set candles around the kitchen, and some of the tapers were burning to their final inches. If the power didn’t return soon, they would be without light and heat.
Elise stepped into the room, and her eyes met James’s from across the counter.
She looked as exhausted and emotionally destroyed as he felt. She set the toothbrush he had loaned her on the counter. Crossed her arms. So many unspoken things ran between them as she toyed with the ring on her thumb using her forefinger.
I have a son. The words were still on his lips.
He swallowed it down.
As if on some silent cue, Elise shed her jacket and pulled off her t-shirt to reveal the tank top underneath. Grief had burned away more of her body fat since the last time he saw her; she was wiry again, like she had been when they used to travel together. The lines of her bicep and shoulder were emphasized by the deep shadows of candlelight.
She turned one of the dining room chairs around, rested its back against the table, and straddled the seat. She propped her elbow on the agarwood-topped table.
James’s eyebrows lifted. “What are you doing?”
She held out a hand. “Don’t you want to know who’s stronger?”
If the situation hadn’t been so bleak, it might have been laughable. Elise and James had tried to arm wrestle once after a few too many drinks, more as a joke than anything. She had flattened his arm to the table with zero effort and left before he could think of words that might soothe his wounded pride.
He considered her outstretched arm, and finally unbuttoned his sleeve, rolled it above the elbow, and sat down. “Just remember that if you injure me, my chances of survival in the demon apocalypse aren’t going to be very good.”
Elise wrapped her gloved hand around his. She had traded the winter gloves for fingerless weightlifting gloves, and the matching rings glimmered on their fingers in the candlelight. “Then you’d better beat me.”
At his nod, they began.
Her chest and shoulder muscles tensed, her bicep flexed, and his hand strained against hers.
The corners of her mouth drew down into a tight line. James took a deep breath and let it out, focusing all his energy on their joined hands.
His arm trembled. Elise’s jaw tightened.
He slammed the back of her hand to the table. She grunted, like he had hurt her.
“You let me win,” he said.
“No.” She sat back, rubbing her arm, and she sounded as surprised as he felt. “I didn’t.”
He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons in his hand ripple. Unease crept through him. “What does that mean?”
“Not much. I couldn’t beat most kopides at arm wrestling. I’m strong—very strong, for a woman—but I’m small. Mass usually wins out.”
“You’re saying that I’m as strong as an average male kopis.”
“Possibly.” Her hand dropped. “If you’re not yet, it wouldn’t be hard for you to get there.”
“Hell,” he said. “Maybe that means you’ll be out-witching me in a few weeks.”
She stood without responding and stepped into the formal dining room. Elise looked shrunken amongst the darkness.
He heard a click and saw a brief flare of fire.
James pushed his chair back and followed her into the dining room. From the doorway he could see through to the den, where Yatam’s still-sleeping form lay. He hadn’t moved since they had put him there.
Elise was trying to make a silver Zippo lighter produce flame, but was only getting sparks. She swore as she flicked it again.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She flung the lighter to the table. “What does it look like?”
Elise took what remained of the Book of Shadows from the belt of her jeans. She flipped to a candlelight spell and ripped it out. He noticed a white box sticking out of her pocket, and James felt a small jolt when he recognized it as a box of cigarettes.
She waved the page through the air. “How do I make this work again?”
“Elise…”
She blew on it. James’s stomach lurched, and the corner ignited.
Before she could light a cigarette with it, he crossed the room, plucked the paper from her hand, and stomped it out on Stephanie’s bamboo flooring. “That’s not what magic should be used for.”
She scowled and popped the end of a cigarette into the corner of her lips. “Then do you have a lighter? Mine’s busted. Zippos are such pieces of shit.”
“Since when do you smoke?” She ripped a second spell out of the notebook, and he took that, too. Then he plucked the cigarette from her lips. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Elise?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’re my kopis. Everything you do is my business.” He grabbed her wrist when she took out the pack of cigarettes again. She smelled of stale tobacco. How hadn’t he noticed that earlier?
“Let go of me, James.”
His hand only tightened. “Why? So you can continue to act like—God, Elise, I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re drinking like Prohibition’s coming back, you’ve avoided me for weeks, and now you’re smoking, too?”
“Why do you get to judge me? You want me to perform exorcisms, but only when you ask. You want me to save the world, but only if it doesn’t mean helping demons. And now you won’t let me have a goddamn cigarette when I’m seriously on the verge of snapping.”
“I’m not judging—I’m trying to take care of you.”
Her eyes flicked to his hand. “You’re hurting me.”
James released her. His fingers had left red imprints on her forearm. “Stephanie is in danger,” he said with forced calm, flattening his hand at his side. He wasn’t used to being that strong. “We should return to Reno, find her and Anthony, and get them to safety.”
He watched helplessly as she pulled out another cigarette. “We can’t leave before Yatam wakes.”
“Don’t you care about what happens to Anthony?”
“No.” Her brow furrowed. The candlelight spell in James’s hand ignited. The tip of her cigarette flared, and she put it to her lips, taking a long draw before speaking again. “I left him.” Smoke curled out of the corner of her mouth.
“You left him? As in…”
“I broke up with Anthony.” She held up a hand to keep him from speaking, the cigarette trapped between the first two fingers of her hand. “He can take care of himself. But I have other business to take care of in the city. We do need to head back—once Yatam wakes up.”
James’s lip curled. “I don’t want you smoking in my house.”
She brought the cigarette to her lips again, sucked on it hard, and blew the smoke in his face. He coughed and waved his hand to clear the air. “Fine.” She tried to put the Zippo back in her pocket, but met resistance. There was already something there.
Elise pulled out a photograph. It was of Betty when she was young and smiling and newly married. Elise hesitated, thumb tracing over the bouquet. “You know, Betty thought I was a good person. She trusted me to be a hero and make the right decisions. What she saw in me…” Elise put the photo back in her pocket. “I wish I was that person, James.”
“You are. You can be.”
She gave him a look that clearly said she disagreed. He didn’t need to break through the bond to know it.
“I’ll be outside,” she said, and she left.
Elise finished her cigarette on the patio. Clouds were gathering beyond the haze drifting off the ethereal city—real clouds—and their gray weight hinted at oncoming snow. She twisted the cigarette in her fingers and watched the smoldering tip crumble onto the step. It tasted horrible, but the smell was so relaxing.
Elise.
The voice whispered around her, and for a heartbeat, she thought Yatai had arrived. But it sounded a little deeper and more masculine. Yatam must have been awake.
She ground the cigarette butt into the cement and headed inside. A few of the candles had gone out, leaving the entryway gloomy and dim. She would have given the rest of her cigarettes for a working light bulb.
Elise stepped through the archway to James and Stephanie’s den… and found herself in the middle of a throne room.
A hot wind blew through open windows, blasting dust over a floor hewn from sandstone. Silken curtains hanging from the ceiling fluttered. A potted frond swayed beside a tall, bejeweled chair. Elise spun, seeking the entryway behind her. It was gone, replaced by an arched doorway.
If the throne room was an illusion, it was a convincing one. She smelled incense and oils. The wind was as hot as the worst day in Nevada’s summer. She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sand as she stepped cautiously to the window. There was more sand beyond the wall—endless, waving stretches of it, sculpted into peaks and valleys by the wind. Directly below the window sprawled a small town built of sandstone and clay. Elise’s vantage point towered over them.
“It certainly is desolate,” said Yatam from behind her. “But an impressive sight nonetheless.” He sat where the throne had been empty before. He wore a woven wig, a necklace of gold and gems, and held a wand in one hand and a hook in the other. Kohl rimmed his eyes. He looked like the painting of a pharaoh come to life.
“This is a dream, isn’t it?” Elise asked.
“It’s a memory. My memory.”
“You were never a pharaoh.”
Yatam stretched out, throwing a leg over one side of his throne. He seemed as comfortable on it as he would have been on a couch. “No?”
“I went to college. I’ve read history books. There was no King Yatam.”
“Of course not.” He lifted his arm to study it. The sight of it seemed to satisfy him. “You healed me, and for that, you are likely due thanks. But it was wholly unnecessary. I would have survived.”
“Then you do a really good impression of someone who’s dying.”
“The body would have died,” he agreed, “but the soul cannot. As you can see, I have lived for a long time. I am cursed with the gift of eternal life—I would have been reborn elsewhere, somewhat weaker than before, but otherwise unharmed. I have died hundreds of times. Thousands. Yet I always return.”
Elise folded her arms. “Weaker, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Then you still owe us thanks. I need you to be strong if we’re going to kill Yatai together.”
“She is the same as I am—eternal. She cannot be killed.” Yatam inclined his head. “And she is insane.”
“Great,” Elise muttered. She glanced around the throne room again. It was as tangible as it had been when she first arrived.
But there was one other thing she hadn’t noticed: the statue of a woman whose body was a serpent’s, with her long tail curled under her and a benevolent smile as she extended her hands over a basin of clay. She was veiled behind filmy white curtains. It was the same statue Yatam kept in his condo.
“Who is she?” Elise asked, brushing aside a curtain.
“Her name is Nügua.” Yatam almost sounded wistful. “Her hands sculpted the clay that became my form. She is my mother, and as such, is the grandmother of all demons.”
She traced her eyes over the serpent’s body. “The mother of both you and Yatai? You’re siblings, aren’t you?”
“Indeed.”
“Your sister is still out there.” Elise let the curtain fall. “She’s going to try again, and we have to stop her. If you really are the most powerful demon—”
“Second most powerful,” he corrected. “My sister is stronger.”
She rolled her eyes. “If that’s true, then why pretend to be a human witch? Why save me from the ethereal city and fight Yatai?”
“You want to know?” He gave a small smile. “Very well. Watch.”
The sun sank lower to the horizon, and for an instant, the wind blew hotter. When it faded, a new man strolled into the throne room.
His confidence was that of a king, but his clothing was nothing more than plain white linen. He had a long beard, brown curls, and a hooked nose, but his lips were as full as a woman’s, and his eyes were a paler shade of blue than the sky itself.
The newcomer surveyed the throne room with obvious disdain. He didn’t look at Elise even once, but he did look at Yatam, and it wasn’t with a friendly expression.
“Do you like my humble home?” Yatam asked, addressing the man directly.
“No,” he responded. “It sickens me to think of you so deeply enmeshed in the affairs of mortals.” The motions of his mouth didn’t match the sounds Elise heard. It was like watching an interview on the news that had been dubbed over.
Yatam studied the wand in his hand. “I am wounded by failing to meet your approval. Truly.”
Elise stepped forward. “What’s going on?”
Neither of the men acknowledged her.
“What brings you here, my friend?” Yatam asked.
“An utter lack of remaining alternatives, believe me. We’re lost as to what comes next.”
“And so you desire my counsel? The angels attempting to appeal to the better nature of a demon. I am charmed.”
An angel? Elise tried to see the man with fresh eyes, but he didn’t make her palms itch, and she couldn’t sense him at all the way she could Yatam. He wasn’t there—not really. A memory. “I don’t need your counsel. I need a favor,” said the angel.
“Oh?”
He paced, linens fluttering around his ankles. “You must know by now that He’s gone mad. The things He’s done—it’s sheer insanity. He has no regard for the lives of the humans descended from Him. He has no regard for the Treaty. His interference worsens by the day.”
Yatam twirled the wand over his fingers, apparently unconcerned by this pronouncement. But his voice was hard. “I would take care speaking of your Heavenly Father in such a fashion.”
“He is no Father of mine,” the man snapped. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not even listening. That’s part of the problem!”
“Then perhaps you should pray,” Yatam said.
He scoffed. “We need to kill Him.” Elise felt a dull jolt of shock, which was echoed in the way that Yatam arched an elegant eyebrow. “My brothers and I are helpless against him, but we can’t allow His behavior to continue unchecked. You are the most powerful that Hell has to offer now. Rally your children. March upon the garden and take what remains of His sanity and life!”
“You want me to commit an act of deicide,” Yatam said.
“Essentially, yes.” He spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “What else are we to do? No angel or mortal can harm Him.”
Yatam pushed off of the throne, strolling across the floor with his wand tucked under one arm. “I find it fascinating that the first solution that comes to your mind is one involving bloodshed, Metaraon.”
Elise recognized that name. He was the highest of angels—the voice of God on Earth. Immensely powerful, absolutely terrifying, and talking about killing his master.
Metaraon followed Yatam as he walked to the window. “It’s not our first solution. It’s far from our first. But it’s our best.”
“Pathetic,” Yatam said, and he winked at Elise.
&nb
sp; Metaraon’s fists clenched. “And you have a better suggestion?”
“Indeed I do. The solution is simple: You must fascinate Him. Give Him reason to live, and live well.” Yatam snapped his fingers. The doors beyond his throne opened. A bald man shuffled in, eyes on his feet. “Bring the women.”
The slave left.
“What in the world could fascinate someone as mad as He has become?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Yatam slunk toward the angel with a seductive slant to his shoulders, and Metaraon stepped back, lip curled. “Give Him a wife.”
Elise tensed.
Metaraon frowned, oblivious to her anger. “A wife?”
“Indeed. How long has it been since Eve died?”
“Thousands of years. Millions. Damnation if anyone knows—I can never be certain of how time flows on the planes of Earth.”
“A mortal mind in an immortal body is unprepared to accept the rigors of eternity. A man needs love to survive.” Yatam’s lips curled, catlike and smug. “Angels are born immortal—cold and without mercy—so you will have to take my word on that.”
The slave returned with a line of five women. Three of them wore beaded dresses made of fishnet with their lips painted red and tattoos on their breasts; the other two were utterly naked aside from their golden sweat. All of them stared at the floor.
Metaraon lifted his chin to survey them with cold disdain, but Yatam trailed his wand over their backs as he circled the room.
“Take one of mine. They are all beautiful and worthy of being adored. Put her in the garden and see how quickly your problems subside.”
“A human woman? She wouldn’t last long. Even drinking the waters of Mnemosyne—even with the strange way that time flows—she will eventually die. And then we will have a God who grieves for His wife, as well as a mad one.”
“Then when she dies, replace her. There is no shortage of them. Humans love to breed.”
Metaraon considered the suggestion. “It would save us a lot of trouble,” he said after a long moment. “And it would be much easier than killing Him.”
“Take one. Take them all.”
Still, the women did not react. They remained frozen until Metaraon strode up to the one in the center. He rested his hand on her bare shoulder.