by SM Reine
Elise glanced down a set of stairs leading to the subway and found the tunnel flooded with Belphegor’s magma.
His fist was clenching around the entire Earth.
And the sky was worst of all. The Palace of Dis hung inverted above the clouds, taunting her with the sight of where she had left behind Neuma, Jerica, and her loyal dog, Ace.
“What if I agreed to cooperate with you without hostages?” Elise asked. “What if I gave up now?”
“No. No, I don’t think that will do.” Belphegor slipped between two people trying to climb over a car that had been crushed by rubble. The woman’s mouth was open in a silent scream. Tears tracked her cheeks. “It’s not about hostages. It’s about your spirit, Godslayer. You’re too spirited to obey me. For now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Bring Nathaniel to me. Let that be your primary concern.”
“How?” she asked. “He’s a god now. I can’t control him.”
Belphegor’s chuckle was low and unpleasant. “You’re the Godslayer. Get creative.”
Elise took another step, and she was back in Russia.
None of the buildings were burning now. The hotel was safe, along with everyone inside.
Belphegor was gone from sight, but she understood now that he hadn’t really left. He was omnipotent. He was God.
There would be no escaping Belphegor anymore.
Five
Elise watched through the window as Nash began arranging to relocate the pack. He was pulling together a ragtag collection of vehicles: some flatbeds from the seventies, a few trucks that looked like they might optimistically have come from the year Elise was born, and several vans with company logos on the side.
“Any resistance?” she called.
Nash settled his wings as he approached the open window to answer. The red burns covering his face and neck still looked painful. Even though Elise had been the one to inflict the injuries, he hadn’t tried to confront her about it, remaining coolly professional.
“No troubles from the natives,” Nash said. “They’ve almost entirely left. However, most took their vehicles, and I believe this is now all that remains.”
She did a quick count. Thirteen. It would be enough to transport everyone. “Fuel?”
“I’m working on it.” He took flight again, dragging a little on one side. His wings were still damaged, too.
Elise closed the window, blocking out the cold air. Nearby, Anthony was bundled in a fur-lined jacket stolen from a hotel room. Thick gloves made him clumsy as he took a sip of a cup of tea. When Elise returned to his side, he offered it to her.
She accepted it with a nod of gratitude and took a long sip. Tea wasn’t as good as coffee, but “good enough” would be fine.
“The nearest gate to Eden is in the Himalayas,” James said, spreading a map over the table in the hotel lobby. Nobody had been able to focus with Rylie’s body on display, so she’d been moved upstairs, leaving plenty of room to plan. “It’s going to be a week of driving to reach it, depending on conditions.”
“Conditions like holes to other universes getting in the way,” Anthony said, taking the cup of tea back from Elise when she finished drinking.
The look that James gave him was distinctly unfriendly. “Yes, conditions like that.”
Elise paced by the wall, arms folded tightly. She would have given anything for a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.
“We’d be able to move faster with fewer people,” Anthony said. Elise realized that he was addressing her, and she forced herself to stop pacing. “Maybe just you, me, Brianna…”
“What about us?” Levi asked. He was standing next to Abram, who lurked in the corner of the room to avoid the cold leaking through the windows and the conversation at large.
Brianna grinned at the werewolf, wedged onto the couch between Anthony and the padded arm. It was a crazy expression that made her look like she wasn’t quite all there. “What about you?”
“You can’t tell me that you just want to ditch the werewolf pack in some shitty Russian border town.”
“No, the werewolves have to come,” Elise said distractedly. She would need the pack if she was taking Abram. They were his family; they would be most invested in his protection. They would make sure that his heart remained beating long enough to unlock Eden.
“The werewolves are fast, but they’ll still slow us down,” Anthony argued. “Their metabolism is ridiculous, so you have to feed them constantly, and all they eat is raw meat. It’ll take ages to get anywhere with them.”
“How do you know that?” Elise asked.
“Captivity with an Irish coven is boring. I was reading books.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “You were reading.”
“What? I dropped out of college. I have been known to read for fun and education.”
“We need the wolves,” Elise said again. “I also need you and Brianna. It’s not up for debate.” There were several requirements to open a gate to Eden, one of which was a bound kopis and aspis pair. Elise and James no longer fit that requirement. “But I don’t think the werewolves will slow us down as much as you think, Anthony. We’re about to cut their numbers down.”
Levi scoffed. “What, are you going to leave part of the pack behind?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Before she was murdered, Rylie asked me to exorcise the pack,” Elise said. “She intended it as an act of mercy, but I think it’s a better suggestion than she may have realized.”
“Exorcise werewolves?” Levi’s tone made it sound like she’d suggested giving each other piggyback rides to the Eden gate.
“I’ve done it before.”
“No way,” he said.
She wished that the werewolves had picked someone—anyone—other than Levi to represent the pack at their meeting while Abel was in mourning. Someone who was slightly less of an idiot. “Werewolves are the guardians of humanity, and their form should be purer while exorcised. They’ll be assets in the last battle.”
“We’ve only seen one exorcised wolf before, and it was fucked up,” Anthony said. “How do you know these ones will be any better?”
“I don’t, but angels and demons colluded to wipe shapeshifters off the face of the Earth for a reason.” Elise clenched her fists. “And Rylie would have wanted it like that. Any protests?”
“Yeah,” Levi said.
She turned to the others. “Any other protests?” That was mostly directed toward Abram.
He just shrugged.
“I’m going to bring my army from Dis to escort us to the gateway in the Himalayas,” Elise said. “Belphegor wants Earth to be like Hell? Great. My legions will be right at home. I’ll find the nearest sinkhole and meet you all on the way.”
“A thousand demons,” Anthony said.
“More than that.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “So you want a wolf-spirit army on top of your demon army, all to kill this one guy. Nobody does overkill like you do.”
“‘One guy’ who also happens to be a god,” James said. “There’s no such thing as overkill. If anything, it’s a waste of time and resources to attempt to move an entire army when Belphegor can wipe them out of existence with a thought. And this is assuming that we’ll even be able to confront him by going to the gate.”
“He’s not that powerful,” Elise said. “I don’t think he’ll reach his full abilities until the genesis. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a difficult fight, though. Belphegor still has the Fates and hybrids infected with my blood. We’ll need to be able to take them down.”
“Dangerous guesswork,” James said. “Too many assumptions.”
Elise wasn’t making assumptions, but she kept her mouth shut instead of correcting him. Nobody else knew everything she knew—that Abram’s blood could unlock the gates, that Belphegor wanted her to join him in Eden, that she was hunting for Nathaniel.
If she could get the army to the gate, she could bre
ak into Eden and kill Belphegor before he reached his full power, and before he had his hostages.
It was their only chance.
Elise headed for the stairs, signaling that she was done with the conversation. “Let the wolves know that they’ve got an exit from this ride if they want it. I’m going upstairs to prepare for the exorcism. Have the volunteers waiting for me when I get back.”
“Elise,” Levi said. When she didn’t turn around, he called again, “Hey! Elise! I’m still talking to you!”
Anthony’s response was quiet as she walked up the stairs. “And she’s obviously done with you, so shut your stupid face.”
She strode toward James’s room, leaving the others behind.
Someone waited for her in the hall.
He loomed behind a set of decorative medieval armor. He was such a big man that he never would have fit into it, but he didn’t look like he needed the protection anyway; the jacket and jeans he wore looked like they were about to rip just from the force of his muscles.
Abel had heard her talking downstairs. He must have—his hearing, as a werewolf, was incredibly acute.
He just glared at her without saying anything at all.
Would he take the chance to be changed into a human again, now that his mate was gone?
Elise didn’t ask him. She just met his gaze, waiting to see if he was going to attack or speak. Chances weren’t bad that he’d blame her for Rylie’s death. She was the reason they’d been in Coccytus when the angels attacked in the first place.
But Abel just turned and walked back into the room he’d been sitting in. Same room that Rylie’s body had been moved to. Elise understood that his silence was acquiescence to the pack’s exorcism, even if he wasn’t volunteering for the easy way out himself.
Maybe the pack wasn’t going to be screwed without Rylie after all.
The number of werewolves that gathered in the garden to be exorcised was surprisingly small. Elise counted them from a hotel room on the second floor as she designed the exorcism spell.
She was going to need less power than she’d expected. Elise had been worried that the fact she hadn’t made it down to Hell to retrieve her chain of charms would be a problem, but now she thought she could surely exorcise a group this size using nothing but rune magic.
It was going to have to be impressive rune magic, though. Twenty simultaneous exorcisms was close to breaking her own record.
James shifted uncomfortably beside her. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
She added a few final lines to her drawing then lifted the paper from the desk to show it to him. “Do I?”
He examined the rune she had drawn. It was very similar to the magic that James had once used to exorcise Elise, although she’d made a few modifications.
James barely even glanced at it before handing the paper back to her.
“It seems that you do. That’s impressive.”
“I remembered what you said about the gaean magic,” Elise said. “How it was made stronger by lacing together all three—”
“Yes, and you’ve added ethereal elements. Great. You’re also likely to injure yourself by invoking angel magic.”
“It’ll be fine this once. I need the boost in power.”
“I’m aware how tempting that is, but sometimes it’s better to risk a spell failing than chase power to its absolute end.” A snort escaped Elise. James looked startled. “What?”
“You reached this wisdom, what, yesterday? It’s pretty fucking rich coming from you, considering all you’ve done in pursuit of power.”
“I learned that lesson much earlier than yesterday,” James said, looking only slightly offended. “Days earlier, even.”
Elise smudged out one of the ethereal lines with her thumb so that it wouldn’t work. It had only been an amplifier anyway. She could make two runes and have just as much power without the risk. “Better?”
“Much.”
“So when did you, of all people, decide that infinite power wasn’t worth the cost? Was it about the time that we killed Seth and drove Brianna to insanity? Or how about when an entire piece of Heaven crashed into Earth so that you could open that gate to Eden? Or was it—”
“It was when I realized that no amount of power would heal what I did to you. When I realized that nothing would ever bring you back to me.”
James wasn’t watching her work. He was staring at the wolves.
Elise studied the line of his profile. He looked like he was in pain, even though her infernal senses could tell that there was nothing wrong with him. For a white-haired man in his forties who had just killed a hybrid, James was in excellent physical condition. Her healing spell had made sure of that.
His pain was of the kind that magic couldn’t heal.
Elise focused on her spell, whispering to activate the exorcism magic. The rune lifted off of the page and settled in her palm. It was larger than the others she carried, and easily duplicated once she had made the first of them.
With two exorcism runes, Elise felt very powerful. Orange light glowed from between her fingers so brightly that it looked like she clutched miniature suns.
James was watching her now, the spells reflecting in his pupils. The emotions that radiated from him made her hungry. Anger and jealousy were excellent demon fodder.
She tugged her gloves on to hide the runes, then pushed the notebook into his chest.
“Draw the spell,” Elise said.
“What spell?”
“The one that will make you immune to my powers. Take care of it now, while I’m handling the werewolves.” When James didn’t move to obey, she wedged the pencil between his fingers.
“I’m not sure I can design anything for you,” James said.
Elise squeezed his hand briefly—the only gesture of sympathy she could muster. James had done something insane to save her life. She understood that. But she didn’t have time to deal with his self-pity.
“You didn’t lobotomize yourself when you healed me. You still know how everything is done. Draw the spell and I’ll be back for you in a few minutes.”
Levi burst from the back door of the hotel, storming into the walled garden where the werewolves were waiting to be exorcised. “What are you all doing out here?”
Abram immediately moved to position himself between Levi and the pack.
“Hang on. Calm down.”
The fact that he’d jumped to “calm down” before Levi actually lost his temper seemed to make it worse. The werewolf was immediately on guard, hackles up, eyes blazing. He pushed Abram aside to see who had volunteered for exorcism.
Some of them weren’t surprising at all, but there were a few that Abram never would have expected. Paetrick, who had been with the pack longer than Abram had been alive. Devon, Brandon, Pyper. Aniruddha, who had been one of the most enthusiastic new volunteers, and Chantal, who had been one of the less enthusiastic ones.
All in all, twenty-two werewolves were presenting themselves to be exorcised. A full half of the current pack.
If the exorcism didn’t yield the wolf spirits that Elise claimed it would, the pack would be crippled.
“What the hell, Paetrick?” Levi asked. “And Brandon? Really?”
“It’s their choice,” Abram said.
The werewolf rounded on him. “Are you telling me that you’re encouraging this?”
“Their lives, their choices. Rylie wanted it this way.”
Anger flashed over Levi’s face. “Rylie’s not the Alpha anymore.”
“So fucking what?” Abram asked.
Levi opened his mouth to keep arguing, but nothing ever came out.
Elise had appeared behind him, looming and pale-skinned and dark around the edges, like she was fading into the surrounding night. Her hands glowed orange with magic. “Is there a problem?” she asked. Her tone was mild, considering the way she glared at Levi.
He attempted to stare her down like he wasn’t afraid. It was more than Abram would hav
e dared to do. “I thought we decided that we weren’t going to exorcise the werewolves. Any of them.”
Elise ignored him.
She glided forward to address the members of the pack sitting on benches around the garden, most bundled in furs and scarves, some with blankets from the hotel.
“This is your cure.” She held her hands out, uncurled her fingers. Runes slithered over her palms. “If you don’t want to have the wolf spirit exorcised from your body, leave right now.”
“Elise—” Levi stepped toward her.
She turned her empty black gaze on him. The pupils had grown to consume the entirety of the eyeball. “Yes?”
Abram clapped a hand on Levi’s collar. “Let’s go.”
He dragged him inside the hotel, where it was warmer and Levi was less likely to get killed. From the rear window, they could only see Elise’s back, her misted hair, the umbra of her power. Everyone beyond was hazy. They could barely see the werewolves kneeling at her feet.
It looked like Levi was going to have an aneurysm, judging by the way his face purpled and that vein in his forehead bulged. “How can they do this?” he hissed at Abram. “After everything we’ve done—after all that we suffered?”
“The suffering’s why they deserve it,” Abram said.
“There are so few of us left now. Why don’t they care?”
Abram wrapped his arm around Levi’s shoulder. “They care. They’re just doing what they have to do for themselves.”
The glass and walls muffled Elise’s voice, but Abram felt the words inside of him, and the strength of the spellcasting closed around him.
Crux sacra sit mihi lux…
Magic flared so brightly that it seared Abram’s retinas. He shaded his eyes, but it didn’t help. The power penetrated everything.
Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana…
Elise’s spell built and built. Abram’s head felt like it was going to collapse as her magic flowed around the pack. People cried out, falling to their knees, writhing on the ground like they were in the middle of transforming.