by SM Reine
“Get to the shelter,” Elise said.
She smashed her fist into Brianna’s altar, shattering it down the center. The wards broke.
Elise phased into shadow, rushing toward the building where she had been caged.
She couldn’t enter the walls without turning herself corporeal again. James’s old magic was far too strong. Giving herself a body again and running into the atrium only added a few seconds to her search, but it was a few seconds too long.
“James!” Elise called, standing on the threshold of the atrium.
Summer had remained to guard him—but apparently, she’d been left alone. The shifter woman was slumped on the floor among the boxes, just a few feet away from Rylie’s body.
Elise leaped across the atrium to the bedroom door where she had left James. It was locked. She kicked it open, shattering the doorjamb, and pushed the pieces apart to enter.
The sheets were on the floor. Books were scattered everywhere. James had finished his spell, and by all appearances, he had also attempted to activate it, since the salt circle was closed and oil was smeared on the floor.
He was nowhere in sight.
She didn’t need to search for evidence to know what had become of him. Her hands clenched into fists at her side.
“Belphegor,” she growled, trying to summon him the same way that she had at Hannah’s grave.
He didn’t respond.
Elise only distantly registered that the werewolves were filling the atrium behind her, sniffing around Summer’s unconscious body. She moved to the end of the bed. The fitted sheet was rumpled. Everything smelled of James’s sweat.
She could think of a thousand things that Belphegor could do to her former aspis, but she didn’t think he had done any of them yet—not until it would hurt her the most. He would probably drag her to Eden first and make her watch whatever he did to James.
So why wasn’t Belphegor coming?
Elise fisted the sheets in her hands so hard that they began to rip. “Belphegor!” she screamed.
But still, the god didn’t appear.
Benjamin Flynn stepped out of the bathroom. “I don’t think he’s paying attention.”
He’d picked a bad time to emerge again, right when Elise’s frustrations were peaking. She bore down on him with her power, thrusting every ounce of her demonic abilities into him. The fear, the anger, the sickening lust. “How the hell do I get into Eden?” Elise demanded.
The force of her abilities staggered him. Benjamin grabbed the desk to steady himself. “Stop,” he gasped.
She flashed across the room to seize his collar in her fist. “Let me into Eden!”
“I can’t if you’re doing that to me,” Benjamin said, bowing under her anger, yet unable to tear his eyes away. He was getting that glazed look. “But there’s a way in. Marion’s on her way to open it now. There’s a way, if you let me.”
That name was the magic button to defuse Elise’s temper immediately.
“Marion?”
“When you opened the locks, she escaped from Eden.” Benjamin’s voice was tiny and hoarse. “Your efforts with Abram weren’t completely in vain. She couldn’t get out until you made a crack.”
“You took my sister to Eden?”
“It was the only place that I knew she could hide from Belphegor! He didn’t find her, did he? He didn’t manage to kill her, right? It was where she needed to be to prevent the other future that I saw.”
Elise stared at him, trying to understand. His mind was such a confusing tangle of thoughts. “Are you telling me that you had a vision of Marion getting killed?”
“Belphegor was going to save her murder for last in order to ruin you,” Benjamin said. “She was going to be his leverage. But he couldn’t find her. He’s been ripping apart the dimensions to search, but he couldn’t find her.” There was something a little insane in his triumphant laugh.
“That can’t be right. He told me she was in Eden the last time I saw him. When he took Nathaniel.”
“Sure, he figured out where I’d put her. I mean…he’s God now. He knows a lot of things. But Eden’s big and Marion’s small. She hid. I showed her a few tricks.” He smiled weakly. “Not the worst plan, right?”
Elise’s anger surged again. She shook him hard. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I couldn’t remember! There’s too much up here.” He rubbed his knuckles against his temple. “Not just my life, but Nathaniel’s life, and all these futures…” He shook his head as if to clear it. “But we’re almost at the end. You’re about to destroy the world. No more visions after that. It’s about to get so quiet.”
“What?”
“Don’t you want to get into Eden?” Benjamin asked.
Elise thought that she should have felt less confused after finally getting answers about Marion, but instead, she felt like her thoughts were getting to be just as much of a tangle as his. Her head was throbbing.
So she distilled it down to what mattered: Her sister was freed from Eden. Benjamin knew where she was, and also how to get Elise into Eden, where James was held by Belphegor.
“Yes,” Elise said. “Take me. What do we have to do?”
He lifted a fist. “All we have to do is knock.”
Seventeen
Eden was much darker than James had imagined.
He had only seen it from the perspective of the gates before, which gave an aerial view of the garden from above the dense canopy.
From the ground level, there was no blue sky and summery breeze. There were only tall trees, tangled vines dangling from their branches, and moist air so heavy that it felt like breathing water.
James could almost make out the remnants of what had once been a city underneath the trees, though it had long rotted away. He stood on the rim of what he thought might have been a fountain, broad and shallow. A few pieces of white stone jutted from the nearby roots of a tree, like bone peeking from within the bark.
Other than those few landmarks, Eden looked like an untouched wilderness. Not a piece of Heaven, but something far older.
James felt tiny inside of it.
“Where’s my son?” he asked.
“Nathaniel sleeps,” Belphegor said, gesturing through the wood.
James pushed through the branches to find a small clearing lit by dim white light, which emanated between the roots of a tree. He was searching for Nathaniel, so at first, he didn’t consider what that light must indicate—not until he walked past it and saw it flicker strangely out of the corner of his eye.
He stopped. Turned back to the light.
Although James couldn’t see over the massive white root to the source of the glow, he could see the rippling patterns it cast on the trunk. It exuded rays toward the canopy like sunlight through clouds. The clearing was utterly silent in its proximity, even though James’s feet against the springy undergrowth should have made a sound.
Without asking permission, he scaled the root to look over the edge. The root was warm underneath him, shifting softly. It felt like the tree was breathing.
His gasp didn’t make a sound, either.
It wasn’t quite water sheltered underneath the tree. In fact, James wasn’t sure that it was any substance he’d seen before in his life. Nothing flowed like that, neither fluid nor gaseous, swirling without any outside influence.
His gaze tracked up the bark to the trunk and the branches above. This tree wasn’t quite as tall as the other trees in Eden. In fact, it didn’t look like it was even the same species. Its leaves were narrow, green, and plump; each twig had a cluster of five-petaled blossoms at the end. It was a very young tree transplanted from somewhere else.
James had seen it in his dreams before when it had been a sapling. There shouldn’t have been time for it to grow so tall.
He was kneeling on the reborn Tree of Life, and the light it cradled was the Origin.
“My Lord,” he whispered.
James contemplated jumping in.
A hand closed
on his ankle and pulled him back down.
“Enough of that,” Belphegor said. “See? Your son is waiting for you.” He pointed.
Nathaniel was sleeping beyond the Origin, sprawled on his back with one hand by his head. The downy blanket of his wings sprawled around him.
A lump formed in James’s throat. Nathaniel’s true body only barely resembled the young man that he’d seen on Earth. He was much thinner, gaunt face shadowed by illness. He looked older, too. James barely recognized him at all.
He didn’t approach his son.
“Why is he unconscious?”
“Did you want him to return to Earth to continue wreaking hormonal havoc?” Belphegor asked. “He can’t be caged. Awake, he will be destructive, and nobody can contain him.”
The havoc Nathaniel wrought couldn’t be much worse than Belphegor’s.
James stood beside the roots of the Tree, wondering if he could reach the Origin before Belphegor could stop him. It was the only way he might be able to fight back. Given the power of a god, he could face Belphegor on equal footing, sparing Elise the fight.
He would also trigger genesis and the death of everything that remained on Earth if he did it.
No. It wasn’t worth the cost. There had to be another way to—
Sudden pain blazed through James. He looked down to see blood where he expected to find skin. It looked like raw, shiny meat. His hands slicked over it and he was surprised to find that it hurt.
Belphegor stepped back, forefinger still bloody from where he had cut a wound into James from navel to chest. It was straight and deep and exposed the organs underneath.
White noise filled James’s head as his heart began to beat harder.
“I’m tired of waiting for genesis,” Belphegor said by way of explanation.
James sank to his knees, warm blood pouring through his fingers. He was faintly surprised to see that there was a touch of a silvery tint to it, like angel blood that had been watered down by a human’s. Severing himself from the magic and powers of the Gray didn’t seem to have altered that particular physical property.
He thought that was sort of interesting. He had lost the eyes, but not the color of the blood. No ability to cast spells, no passion for studying books, yet his hair remained white.
The fact that he found it interesting at all probably meant he was in shock.
It hadn’t really sunk in that he was dying.
“I would suggest you pray,” Belphegor said as James fell to the grass, “but I’ll save you the effort by telling you that it will do no good.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Not until the Godslayer enters the Origin and becomes vassal to my demands. For your sake, I hope she finds your impending death…motivational.”
Unfortunately, James imagined that she would.
It didn’t take long for Atropos and the army to follow Marion into Hell.
“Can’t you close the goddamn doors, too?” Abel asked the girl jostling in his arms as he raced down the magma tube. It was hot in the tunnel she had opened, so stiflingly close that he could barely breathe, but Marion seemed content in his arms.
She also didn’t speak English, so she didn’t know that he was complaining. She only smiled.
Kinda creepy how much the kid looked like a tinier, cuter Elise.
She wasn’t as creepy as the sounds coming from behind them, though. They had only a small head start on Atropos, and shutting the door behind them had slowed her down, but not stopped her.
Now the Fate was catching up to them, and she had Belphegor’s demon army at her rear. It was impossible to tell how close they were. The scraping and jangling of metal echoed strangely off the walls of the black tunnel. They could have been anywhere.
“We’re not moving fast enough,” Levi said. “Hey, lady. Hold on tight.” He grabbed Ariane and tossed her over his shoulder. She made an offended sound, but Levi was a hell of a lot faster than a human woman wearing a skirt, and he quickly pulled ahead.
Abel slowed to grab Abram too, but the younger man moved out of reach.
“I can keep up,” Abram panted.
But for how long? The army was getting louder, and Abel was pretty sure that meant they were gaining.
The spirit wolves were still nudging at the back of his mind, but they’d already been weakened against Atropos. He wasn’t sure they’d survive if he sent them after her again.
They were out of weapons.
“There better be a bomb shelter at the end of this tunnel,” Abel told Marion, who still only smiled in response. Her curls bounced on every step. Her fingers grabbed his beard, tugging hard. The little monster wasn’t afraid of him at all.
“I found a door!” Levi shouted from ahead.
By the time Abel caught up, Levi had dropped Ariane and managed to open the door, which wasn’t really a door so much as a giant rock on rusty iron hinges. The surface was engraved with ancient symbols that had been worn almost smooth by time.
The room beyond that slab was dark—not much of a change from the rest of the tunnel. Abel couldn’t see what was waiting for them.
Couldn’t be any worse than what was on its way.
He shoved Marion at Abram. Let her pull on someone else’s chin for a while.
“Get in,” he said.
Abel and Levi threw their weight against the door. It groaned as it scraped shut with a heavy, satisfying thud.
They were locked in.
A few seconds later, something slammed into the other side of the door. The whole tunnel shuddered.
Atropos and the army really had been right behind them.
“Good timing,” Abel muttered.
They were safe for the moment, but not for long. If there was anything that could find its way through darkness, it was a demon like Atropos—and it was incredibly dark in that room where they had found themselves, darker even than the magma tube they’d been running down. The shadow was almost tangible, like velvet draped over Abel.
He could only hear the others in the room with him, and their movements echoed. Wherever they were, it felt big. Like they were standing on the edge of a precipice. Abel feared that if he took too many steps forward, he was going to fall over the side into infinite nothingness.
“Did everyone make it?” Levi asked from somewhere ahead.
“Yeah, we’re all here,” Abram said. He came more from the right. He was shuffling something around—probably handing the kid off to her mom.
More rustling noises. “Here,” Ariane said after a moment.
Dim light flared. She held a potion bottle aloft, cupped in the palm of her hand, and the phosphorescent blue fluid inside was just enough to brighten the walls of the narrow room.
It wasn’t as big as Abel had imagined. It felt big, but the dimensions were no larger than a singlewide trailer, with no sign of the precipice he had sensed. There was certainly no second tunnel leading out.
They were locked away from the army, sure, but they were also trapped.
“Mère,” Marion said, crouching by the wall in her dirty skirts. Even soiled, her ruffled pink dress was strangely bright against the wall of volcanic rock.
The adults moved over to look at what she was doing. She’d found water bubbling out of a crack in the ground that trickled along the edge of the small cavern and vanished against the other wall.
“What is that?” Abel asked. “A hot spring?”
Ariane dipped her hand into the water. She looked pleasantly surprised. “No, it’s only a stream of ordinary water. Quite cool, in fact.” She addressed her daughter in French, listened to her response, and then added, “She says this water flows from Eden.”
Abel was startled. “But we’re in Dis.”
“This is Dis? How can you tell?” Abram asked.
“I spent days chasing down angels in this damn city. Trust me, I know the stench of it.” In fact, Abel was willing to bet they were deep underneath one of those big black mountains that had watched him from the horizon the whole time he was in th
e city.
Marion cupped her hand in the water and took a sip.
“Non, ma fille,” Ariane said, grabbing her wrist.
It was too late. The little girl had already drunk, and the remaining droplets shivered on her chin. She grinned at her mother again. A big, unabashed smile.
She didn’t explode into smoke or anything, so apparently the water running from Eden wasn’t dangerous. The kid had been in the garden for a while. She’d probably done a lot more than just drink the water.
“Do you hear that?” Levi asked suddenly.
Abel didn’t hear anything, but he smelled a demon—and it was in the room with them.
He whirled with a snarl.
Elise Kavanagh stepped out of a door in the wall, accompanied by a skinny black kid that Abel didn’t recognize. She looked exhausted and bloody, hilts of her sheathed swords jutting over each shoulder like she was the centerpiece of a strange skull and crossbones.
Her face brightened when she saw Marion. Abel hadn’t even known she could smile like that.
Elise dropped to one knee and opened her arms. The little girl immediately scrambled up onto her hip. “At least you weren’t lying about one thing,” Elise told her male companion as Marion snuggled against her side.
“I never lie,” he said. “I just get confused sometimes.” He rubbed his forehead, shoulders twitching. “I get confused a lot.”
Marion waved at him. “Salut.”
“Bonjour,” he replied with a terrible accent, giving her a weak smile. That expression looked familiar for some reason. Abel felt like he’d seen this guy once before, but not in many years.
The newcomer kicked the door shut behind them, and it immediately melted into the wall, vanishing completely. Dread lurched through Abel’s stomach. He’d assumed that this was a rescue, but the door was gone in a flash.
Ariane gathered her skirts and stood to confront the young man. “You’re the one who took her. Aren’t you?”
“Get angry later,” Elise interrupted. “What are we doing here? What is ‘here’?”
“Apparently, we’re in Dis,” Abram said.
She swiped a finger under Marion’s chin, gathering a few of the lingering drops. “Water in Dis,” Elise said softly. She turned to the young man she’d brought with her. “How?”