by Reine, SM
She huffed again. “Then I’ll need a few supplies.”
“This way,” the nurse said, leading her away.
Malcolm peeked under Elise’s blanket. She kicked weakly at him. “You’ve had a fun night. Where was my invitation?”
“Thank you,” James said in the least grateful tone possible, which seemed to be all the cue the commander needed.
Malcolm winked at Elise. “Enjoy the party.” He followed another kopis out of the infirmary.
If nothing else, her annoyance at her ex-boyfriend was enough to briefly clear her head. She looked over at James. His face was bruised, his glasses were missing, and there were bloody handprints on his shirt. “What happened to you?”
“Anthony. He’s under Yatai’s influence.”
She craned her head around to get a better look at his wounds. “Possessed?”
“That’s my guess. Yatai wanted information from me, but to what purpose, I’m not certain.”
So that was where Yatai had learned to open Alain’s wards.
James’s girlfriend returned, and, with the help of the nurse, quickly prepared Elise for the transfusion. Stephanie had two bags of saline, an IV pole, and some tubing. “Are you sure you’re up for this, James?” she asked as she hung the saline from the pole.
“Always.”
“Well, in order to transfuse a unit of blood, which is all I dare to take, we’ll need seven or eight hours,” Stephanie said, tying a rubber tourniquet around Elise’s upper arm and swabbing the inside of her elbow with alcohol. “There’s no way to speed it up. You two better get comfortable. It would help to sleep through it.”
He adjusted himself so he was leaning against her gurney. Elise watched as Stephanie attached the saline, and then the other tube. James’s eyebrows furrowed as she inserted the needles.
Then it was Elise’s turn. The needle slid into her skin with an instant of pain, which was immediately lost among the mess of other aches and bruises. It was nothing in comparison to having Yatam drink her life out of her thigh.
She relaxed against the bed, the flow of saline cold against her arm.
Sharing James’s blood was enough to bypass the wards on their rings, but she was far too tired to worry about his thoughts, or what he might get from her. Words faded in and out of the back of her mind like trying to tune into a distant radio station.
So tired… city destroyed… Anthony… why her thigh? What’s she not telling me?
She wanted to tell him not to worry about it, but gravity was so heavy.
Exhaustion sucked her under.
Hours passed in the darkness.
Stephanie’s return was heralded by the swift patter of footsteps and the rattling of metal curtain rings.
Elise didn’t open her eyes. She felt much more alert as soon as consciousness hit—her head was clearer, thinking wasn’t so difficult, and she was aware enough to realize that she was mostly naked under the paper-thin blanket. But she remained still as Stephanie addressed James.
“How do you feel?”
“Thirsty,” he said. “Thank you for the water.”
“They’ve offered me a place on the next convoy out of here,” Stephanie whispered over crinkling paper. Plastic snapped. The tubing tugged against Elise’s arm. “They want my assistance providing medical care at the receiving area in Sacramento. Considering the situation here, I thought… maybe I should stay in California.”
James was quiet for a long time. “You mean, stay with your family.”
“Yes. I hoped you would come with me, but…” She sighed. “You won’t, will you?”
Cloth rustled against cloth. “I’m needed elsewhere, Stephanie.”
“Of course.” Elise opened her eyes to slits. Stephanie bent over James, giving him a long kiss. When she righted herself again, she was smiling and holding the bent needle that had been in his arm. “That’s the problem with trying to date a hero, isn’t it?”
He traced the line of her jaw, smiling sadly. “I’m not a hero.”
“Well, if things change, you’ll know where to find me. And I hope you will.”
She taped gauze to his arm. James rose to use the bathroom.
Elise finally opened her eyes when Stephanie’s blue-gloved hands touched her arm. “And how do you feel?” the doctor asked. The usual bite was missing from her tone.
“Like I could wrestle oxen,” Elise said. Her voice croaked from her dry throat.
“Done with angry badgers, hmm?” The needle pinched as Stephanie removed it and pressed gauze over the pinprick. “There. Leave that on for about ten minutes, please.”
She dropped everything in bag marked with a hazard symbol. Elise sat up, hugging the blanket to her bare chest to watch Stephanie tidy up. The doctor wore white sneakers and carried a duffel bag over one shoulder.
“Leaving?” Elise asked.
“Yes. In about an hour.” She glanced at the clock. “Well, half an hour. I should get going.” Stephanie paused with a hand on the curtain. “Malcolm brought your belongings, which they recovered from the scene of attack. He also dropped off fresh clothing for you. It’s all in the bag on the chair.”
“Thanks.”
The doctor gave her a final, appraising look. “Try not to kill James.”
Elise snorted. “It’s not in the plan.”
“Good.”
She departed, leaving the curtains open. Irritation spiked through Elise. She was only wearing underwear and the blanket—some privacy would have been nice.
Then a gurney passed the other side of her curtain, and her irritation quickly dissipated.
A man thrashed on it, strapped down at the shoulders, hips, and feet by rope. The muscles in his neck strained as he fought. His skin shone with sweat.
Anthony.
Elise climbed out of bed, finding her shirt in the black bag. It was bloodstained, but preferable to a Union polo shirt. They hadn’t given her what remained of her jeans, so she had no choice but to wear the cargo pants. They were loose and rode low on her hips.
James returned, holding a fresh glass of water. He seemed surprised to see her standing. “What are you doing? Be careful—you might still be weak.”
“They just dragged Anthony through here.”
His eyes widened, and he didn’t stop Elise when she hurried to follow the gurney in her bare feet.
She stopped when she stepped into the hall.
The door from the infirmary opened into a huge warehouse. She stepped up to the railing and found she was only on the third level—several more floors stretched above and below, and there was a garage at the bottom with more of those hulking black SUVs. The Union bustled around her. She had never seen so many kopides in one place before, even at the semi-centennial summit.
They had a base outside Reno. An actual outpost.
How the hell had the Union built such a thing without her noticing?
The gurney continued down the hall. Elise stepped back from the railing and followed.
Anthony was wheeled into an unmarked room, escorted by two kopides. The door swung shut behind them. She moved to open it.
Malcolm appeared seemingly from nowhere, blocking the door with his body. “Doesn’t anything keep you in bed? I thought you were supposed to be on the verge of death.”
“I got better. Let me in.”
“Why?”
“I know that guy.”
Malcolm laughed. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you know him. I can’t let you in there, though. For your information, ‘that guy’ blew away three other guys with a shotgun. You’re a tough bitch, but are you that tough?”
A chill washed down her spine. “Anthony killed three men? That has to be a mistake.”
“I’ll let you judge.”
He led her further down the hall, down a flight of stairs, and into a dark room with a bank of monitors. A witch sat in front of them, typing rapidly. Malcolm perched on the desk next to her.
“Cue up the arrest footage
we pulled off Jack’s camera, please?”
A low-resolution image appeared on the main monitor. There was no audio, and she could barely make out the eggshell walls. It wasn’t until she saw the darkened chandelier and the barred window at the end of the hall that she recognized the location.
It was her apartment building.
She watched with sick fascination as the swaying image approached her door. Another man moved into view to kick it open.
The camera went wild, and red mist sprayed. The man in front dropped.
Anthony stood in the apartment’s living room. He pumped his shotgun and stepped behind the wall.
The man with the camera entered the apartment, and Anthony faced him. His motions were mechanical as he stepped forward to fire again.
A rifle swung into view, held by the kopis with the head-mounted camera, but he didn’t get a chance to shoot.
The camera fell. It bounced off the floor.
Anthony’s feet took another step. Another body fell to the carpet.
Elise could only see them from below the knees as men swarmed him, slamming him to the ground. A woman delivered a few swift punches, and the sliver of Anthony’s face that was visible in the image didn’t seem to register pain.
“That’s good,” Malcolm said. “Thanks, Carradee.”
Elise watched the monitor for a few long seconds after the screen froze on a single frame—a shot of Anthony’s impassive face, and a bloody limb on the carpet. She wasn’t sure if it was an arm or a leg.
When James told her that Anthony had attacked him, she hadn’t imagined anything quite so… fatal.
“He’s been possessed,” she said. “There’s no other reason he would do that.”
“Psychotic break?”
“Anthony isn’t crazy.”
“He is definitely showing signs of possession,” Malcolm admitted. “We’re not equipped with an exorcist right now, though, so the best we can do is keep him from hurting anyone else. In case you’re worried, we have regulations for this. He won’t be punished for what he’s done under the influence.”
Elise traced a finger over Anthony’s face on the monitor. He must have been taken in the Warrens—and she thought he had been running away.
Another one of her friends’ lives destroyed by her decisions.
She sighed. “Don’t send him to a priest. Just get someone to bring my belongings to me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to exorcise him.”
Elise met James in a darkened observation room. She studied Anthony through a one-way mirror into Anthony’s cell. The Union had strapped him to a heavy wooden chair, and the only things holding him up were his bindings. He was slumped over with his head hanging from his shoulders. The ropes at his wrists had rubbed him raw and bloody.
“Can I get you anything else for the exorcism?” Malcolm asked as she took her belongings from James and pulled the spine scabbard on like a backpack. “Holy water? Bell, book, and candle? Young priest and an old priest?”
“Privacy,” she said.
“That’s a good one. You know the Union records everything, right?”
“Exactly. Turn off your cameras. Leave this room. Don’t watch us.”
“We have regulations against that.”
“Of course you do,” James muttered.
Elise caught the commander’s gaze. “Please.”
“Oh, bugger. Why not?” Malcolm pushed a chair into the corner, climbed onto it, and plucked wires out of the back of the camera that pointed at the window. “If I get demoted, I expect you to make room for me on your couch.”
She snorted. “You’ll have to buy me a couch first.”
Malcolm laughed and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “God, I don’t like you. I don’t think I’ve ever liked you. But you are fun as hell. Try not to kill this guy, all right?”
He left, and the door into the hall gave a solid, satisfying click as it closed behind him.
It left Elise with nothing but the door into Anthony’s room, a chain of golden charms, and a sick sense of inevitability.
“The sooner we do it, the better, I suppose,” James said, moving toward the cell.
Elise stepped in front of the door. “Actually, I wanted total privacy.” When he only looked at her blankly, she added, “Including from you.”
“But we’ve always piggybacked before you performed an exorcism.”
“I know.”
“That means I would see everything that happens in that room anyway.” James dropped his warding ring onto the table and waited expectantly.
She sighed and twisted the ring off her thumb.
The magic wore off, and Elise’s mind blossomed like a flower facing the sun. His thoughts and senses washed over her. There was magic threaded through the fiber of the room, from the wards on Anthony’s chair to the light hanging from the ceiling. It dazzled with crystalline energy.
Elise didn’t really want to see herself through James’s eyes, but she had little choice. She always looked awful, and that day was worse than usual. A unit of James’s blood hadn’t completely restored her color, and it had done nothing for her shadowed eyes and bandaged shoulder.
After a minute of deep, controlled breathing, she was back in her own head again. She entered the cell before his emotions could hit.
Anthony didn’t react to their presence, but Yatai’s energy was palpable in the room. It made the air feel thick, as though she had to swim to Anthony’s chair. James felt it, too, but he wasn’t as accustomed to forcing his way past infernal energy. He hesitated to cross the threshold.
Elise kneeled in front of Anthony, getting low enough to see his face underneath the veil of his bangs. His eyes were closed. His skin was soaked with sweat. She reached up to smooth the hair out of his face.
Anthony’s eyes opened.
He grimaced with pain and lifted his head. “Oh man, my neck hurts,” he groaned. His fingers twitched, like he was going to try to rub away the aches, but he could barely jiggle his arm within the restraints. Anthony’s eyes fell on the ropes.
Panic flashed over his face. He shook his seat, making the legs scrape against the floor.
“Relax,” she said. “Don’t fight. You’ll hurt yourself.”
His eyes flicked from Elise, to James, to the door, to the mirrored wall. “Where am I?”
“We’re in a Union warehouse.”
“Why am I…?” He pulled on his wrists again. Fresh blood welled under the ropes, and he hissed.
Elise glanced at James, uncertain of what she should tell him. There usually wasn’t much point in talking to someone who was possessed. If they were conscious enough to understand, they wouldn’t believe it. And once the demon took over, it didn’t matter, anyway.
“We’re trying to help you,” James said.
Anthony gave a harsh laugh. “Help me? By tying me to a chair? Let me go, guys.” Elise looped the chain of charms around her fist. He froze. “What are you doing with those?”
She circled the chair silently. It was James who responded. “Remember that we’re your friends. We aren’t trying to hurt you, and this will be over quickly.”
“What is ‘this’? Elise?” He craned around, trying to see behind him. “Elise!”
“Crux sacra sit mihi lux.”
The chain of charms flared with power. And just as they had during Zohak’s exorcism, they immediately grew warm. She focused on the strength she shared with James.
“You can’t exorcise me,” Anthony said. “I’m not possessed!”
“Non draco sit mihi dux.”
His mirthless laughter turned to panting, and then small cries. He twisted his fists.
A ragged cry ripped from his throat.
“Elise!”
“Vade retro, Satana,” she went on in a low voice as the chain grew hotter.
James’s thoughts ran underneath hers—what is she doing, she isn’t focusing her energy at all, this isn’t going to work—and she
pushed it away.
Elise’s spoke softer than before. “Nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas—”
Anthony screamed. He flung his head back, smacking it against the back of the chair, and his biceps strained as he tried to lift his hips. The harder he fought, the brighter the warding symbols on the wood burned.
“—ipse venena bibas,” she finished.
He stopped fighting. Anthony slumped again, his head hanging over his shoulders as he sagged.
Elise flung the burning charms to the ground. Heat turned the metal molten white.
“That can’t be it,” James said.
She stepped back. “It’s not.”
The demonic energy hadn’t left Anthony. In fact, using the prayer of St. Benedict had only intensified the fire burning over his skin. The tension in the room heightened. Her blood felt slow in its veins.
Anthony’s head lifted again.
This time, he didn’t struggle. His face was slack, his mouth hung open, and his drooping eyes were no longer brown—the irises had turned as black as the abyss that Yatai had tunneled through the earth, except that she had burrowed through his mind.
The lone light bulb in the center of the ceiling flickered.
Yatai had come.
Shadows slithered from Anthony, extending tendrils to each corner of the room. The eggshell white walls dimmed. Trying to exorcise me again? I thought you would have learned that it’s impossible by now.
“I did.”
Then you waste your time as well as mine.
“Not exactly. I thought you might let him go.”
Her chuckle was identical to Yatam’s. It poured over her skin like a cold kiss and stirred deep within her belly. Why would I do that?
“Because I can give you what you want.” She struggled to take a deep breath in the thick air, steeling herself. “I can kill you.” James’s gaze fell on her. She felt his silent incredulity, and ignored it. “You don’t have to destroy the entire city to die. There are other ways.”
Yatai was silent for so long that if Anthony’s eyes hadn’t been so dark, she might have been certain the demon was gone.
When she spoke again, she wasn’t quite so confident.
I am eternal.
“And I’m the Godslayer.”