by S. M. Reine
The path dipped below one of the roots, and faint light glimmered in the darkness below. Sparkling stars drifted through the air like flotsam on the surface of Mnemosyne.
She could see things in the darkness—screaming faces barely lit by the luminescent blossoms. It took Elise a few moments to realize that they weren’t a hallucination. There were oversized skulls beneath the roots, stripped bare of flesh and blood, with eternal grins. They were too big to be human. More likely dead gibborim, or even nephilim, from the time before the Treaty of Dis.
The pinpoint stars whirled around her legs as she continued to walk. Between two stones, she glimpsed the door waiting for her again—that ordinary, four-paneled, gold-handled door to James’s bedroom. Even under the Tree, it was waiting for her.
Elise didn’t look at it. She pushed on.
A woman appeared at the end of the tunnel. She rushed toward Elise, skirts gathered in her hands, her face pale. Even hurrying, she moved very slowly—the weight of her full-term belly was too much to run.
Ariane grabbed her daughter’s hands. “Elise!”
“What are you doing here? It’s not safe. You should be hiding.”
“But I need your help.” Tears clung to her eyelashes, and the whites of her eyes were red. Her palms were clammy. It wasn’t sweat on her hands—it was blood.
Elise’s alarm grew. “Are you going into labor?”
“No, it’s—Metaraon, he did something, and then he brought Nathaniel here, and I don’t know what happened—”
“Wait, stop,” she said. “Did you say Nathaniel?”
Ariane nodded. “He’s in the garden, and he’s dying.”
Ariane had been staying in an apartment within the trunk of the Tree. Windows had been carved into the trunk to allow her to see out onto the orchard below, and gray light streamed through filmy white curtains, casting the room in a perpetual early morning glow.
Ariane stepped aside to let Elise and Betty approach the side of the bed. Metaraon was already there, and he didn’t look happy to see them. “Are you insane, Ariane?” he asked.
“I had to do something,” she said.
Elise shoved Metaraon aside to see who was in the bed. Even though Ariane had already told her, she didn’t want to believe that it could be him—that he could have ended up in this gray hell with her.
It was Nathaniel Pritchard. James’s son.
The white bed sheets under him were stained with his blood. Elise pushed his jacket aside to find a bullet wound. It must have entered through the back and exited the chest, because it was almost big enough to fit her fist next to his heart.
Seeing the damage made it feel like she was the one who had been fatally wounded.
“What happened?” Elise asked.
“He was shot,” Metaraon said.
“No shit.”
Elise smoothed her hand over Nathaniel’s clammy brow. With his eyes closed, he looked like a much younger child. Elise found herself remembering a little girl that she had once exorcised—a five year old named Lucinde Ramirez.
She had failed to save that child, too.
“Mom, do you have any of your potions?” Elise asked. “We need to heal him.”
Ariane picked up a pair of glass phials from her dresser, and Betty took a sniff of one. “Yes, but I don’t have anything that could repair this kind of damage,” she said, fumbling to uncork them. “Cuts and scrapes, minor bruising—”
“The boy is too far gone to be healed. I have a more elegant solution,” Metaraon said.
The angel drew a long, silver knife from behind his back. The blade was almost as long as his forearm.
Betty had been about to take one of the phials to Nathaniel, but she stopped with a gasp when she saw the dagger.
Elise stood, blocking Metaraon’s access to the bed.
“Move aside, woman,” he said. “I’m going to spare his life.”
“With a dagger?”
“He is moments from death anyway. If I kill him with this weapon here, in the Tree, then Nathaniel’s soul will be transferred to a new body in the nursery below,” Metaraon said.
“But he will come back as an ethereal creature,” Ariane protested, setting down the phials. “And he will be bound to this place—and to the God you plan on killing!”
“Would you prefer that he die entirely? He still has utility.”
“There is another option,” Ariane said.
Both of them turned to Elise at the same time.
“What?” Betty asked. “What did I miss?”
Ariane took her daughter’s hand, clinging to it with wide eyes. “Your blood is special, ma fille, after everything that has happened to you. Perhaps if you fill him with your blood, he will heal.”
Elise shook her head slowly, stepping away from her mother.
Her blood did have unusual properties—but they were deathly, not healing. She had filled a god-like demon with her blood once. It had rendered him mortal and allowed him to be killed. “It doesn’t work like that,” Elise said.
But Metaraon nodded, tapping the point of the knife on his chin. “The boy is human. It may have a different effect.” He turned the dagger, offering her the handle. “You have moments to make your decision, Godslayer.”
Elise stared down at Nathaniel’s slack face.
Could she save him with her blood?
It would be no mercy to save him if it meant being captive in the garden. Elise had suffered the plans of angels for too long, and she couldn’t subject Nathaniel to that same fate.
Elise’s fist wrapped tight around the hilt of Metaraon’s dagger. The gleaming silver blade caught the light. Her mind was spinning.
She firmed her jaw as she thought back on their time in Hell together. She thought of Nathaniel’s determination, his refusal to be shoved aside, the way that he would do anything to protect his mother. He was a great kid. If he had been given enough time, he would have become a great man, too. Elise could imagine him in another world, at another time, becoming the kind of hero that would have made James proud.
Death was the least that Elise could do for him.
She attacked.
Metaraon didn’t see it coming, so he didn’t react in time. She whirled and sank the dagger into his chest.
It entered him with a solid thunk, like driving an axe into a wooden stump. Ariane screamed as Elise twisted the knife. Metal grated against bone.
Metaraon shoved her away. Elise landed on the bed beside Nathaniel. The angel wrenched the blade free of his chest and struck her across the face with the hilt. A bolt of pain erupted in her cheekbone.
Before she could get up, Metaraon pressed his weight into her throat. His nails dug into her neck, the heels of his palms weighed heavily against her esophagus, and one of his knees dug into her stomach. “You dare to turn on me?” he whispered. On the last word, he shook his arms, squeezing her throat shut. His blood dripped on her, silvery and hot, like molten mercury.
Metaraon lifted the knife, keeping the full weight of his body on Elise. Her vision was fading.
And then he drew the knife across Nathaniel’s throat.
A wide, gaping gash opened beneath Nathaniel’s jaw. He didn’t wake up, even as the blood poured from him, spurting in time with each pulse of his heart.
Elise couldn’t move. All she could do was watch as he brought the blade down one more time, driving the point into Nathaniel’s left pectoral.
Metaraon struck Elise across the face with the knife again, and she saw nothing else.
Cool water dripped over Elise’s forehead. Feminine voices talked in soft whispers. She picked up words here and there, through the haze of twilight sleep, but they didn’t make any sense to her. “James has a son? I didn’t know that,” said one voice. Another replied, “He didn’t know, either…”
When she managed to open her eyes again, she found herself in bed. But it wasn’t the illusion of James’s bedroom again. She was still in the apartment at the core of the Tree. A
riane sat beside her, wiping Elise’s forehead with a cool washcloth. Elise pushed her away and sat up.
“Elise!” Betty exclaimed. “You’re okay!”
She touched her neck to find the sensitive imprint of Metaraon’s fingers lingering. “Forget about me,” she said. The bedspread was sticky with Nathaniel’s blood, but he was gone—and so was Metaraon. “Where did they go?”
“Metaraon carried Nathaniel’s body under the Tree,” Ariane said.
Elise jumped out of bed. “Stay here,” she said. “Both of you.”
She didn’t wait to see if they would obey. Elise rushed through the doors to the outside of the Tree and spiraled down the platforms to the roots. Mnemosyne roared louder than ever, churning so quickly that it looked like nothing more than a red froth. The garden felt agitated—something was happening.
Elise dropped onto the path and headed under the Tree.
The surface of the amber lake roiled. One of the spheres near the bottom was glowing so brightly that it pierced through the fog like a beacon. Elise’s feet slapped against the rocks as she ran toward it.
Nathaniel’s body had been placed on a slab near the glowing stone in much the same way that James’s body had. He had been stripped of his harpy wool shirt and pants, exposing the gaping throat wound to the moist air of the cavern underneath the Tree.
Elise pressed a hand to his cold cheek. His skin was yellow in the glow from the sphere beside him. The gaping wound at his throat looked black in the darkness.
So Nathaniel had died, after all.
A pang of sadness struck her, looking at his innocent face—but it was quickly overwhelmed by relief. “At least it’s over for you,” Elise said softly.
There was something too familiar about the way that Nathaniel looked on that slab. In fact, Elise had seen those identical injuries before. Somewhere else in the cavern, James’s body also had a slit throat and stab wound on his left pectoral.
What had Metaraon and Ariane said—that the dagger would bind Nathaniel to the garden, and that he would be reborn in a new body?
But what did that mean about James?
A thumping noise caught Elise’s attention. It was coming from the glowing sphere beside Nathaniel’s slab.
Tentatively, Elise pressed a palm to it. It was warm, and pulsed with an inner rhythm like a heartbeat.
Thud.
Something had struck against her hand from the inside of the rock.
She stepped back, alarmed. But the thudding continued, one beat after another.
The stone cracked, forming a line in the shape of a lightning bolt. The sight filled her with anticipation—a feeling that didn’t belong to Elise at all.
Another thud, and the crack spread.
She knew what to do, because Eve knew what to do. Elise wedged her fingers into it, ripping a chunk of stone free that was the size of her palm. Amber-colored fluid oozed from the hole it made.
Slick fingers wiggled through the cracks from the other side. Elise touched them. “I’ve got you,” she said.
Elise broke away more pieces of the stone. Sticky sap drew long lines down the outside of the egg, coating Elise to her elbows as she reached in to grab a pair of arms.
A body spilled from the depths of the egg. Elise barely caught him before it hit the ground.
She pulled him across her lap…and gazed down into Nathaniel’s face.
Shocked, she looked up at the slab again. His body was still there. But this was unmistakably the same person in her arms. His throat was undamaged, but there was a bleeding wound on the left side of his chest—just where Metaraon had stabbed him.
Elise wiped the amber fluid off of his eyelids. His shaggy black hair was drenched, sticking to his cheeks and forehead, and she pushed that away too. His skin was flushed. When she wiped strings of sap out of his nose, breath rasped through his sinuses.
When Nathaniel’s eyes finally opened, they were blue.
James ran for a lifetime.
The fissure must have been miles away, if such measurements could have any meaning in a place outside time and space. But he didn’t grow tired in Limbo, and running felt no different than walking, so he pushed on without stopping.
Gradually, he approached the fissure. When the light was close enough to hear the energy radiating from the juncture between universes, like a morose tune muffled by blankets, James realized that there was something between him and the fissure.
He slowed to a stop, shielding his eyes with a hand. A faint silhouette sat on the ground in front of the writhing ball of light. Even seated, it was almost as tall as he was, and there were wings behind each shoulder.
James edged closer, watching to see if it would move. He got close enough to make out ruddy skin, silken black hair, and clawed hands the size of Christmas hams. Its face was humanlike, not quite angel or demon.
A hybrid.
It was unmoving, like a statue. Maybe hibernating. It must have been waiting for James for a long time, waiting to see if he would actually find his way through, and prevent his escape. Metaraon’s hidden outpost in the wastelands of Malebolge had been riddled with them. The fact that it was here now could be no coincidence.
Metaraon was taking no chances that James would show up in Araboth and break Elise free. A single hybrid was far more than enough, since James had no weapons.
If the hybrid woke up and attacked, he was dead.
He kept the hybrid in the corner of his vision as he gave it a wide berth. The fissure was close enough now that he could feel its warmth on his skin—actual warmth, like the sun on the Earth. It hummed deep in his bones.
The sensation was so novel that he had to pause to savor it. He only stopped for an instant. It was an instant too long.
The hybrid’s black eyes flashed open and focused on James.
He bolted.
James thought that he had been running as quickly as he could earlier, but now he all but flew, arms pumping and chest heaving and feet flashing underneath him. The image of Elise hung in the back of his mind—braid hanging over one shoulder, arms folded, a skeptical look in her eyes.
So close. I’m almost there.
Wings flapped, making the warm air lash around him. James jabbed an elbow behind him without looking. It connected with something hard—the hybrid’s face.
A clawed hand raked hot fire down his back. James stumbled. The hybrid descended upon him.
He reacted without thinking.
Slapping one of the spells tattooed on his thigh, he pointed at the hybrid and cast.
His leg erupted with fire. The energy was sapped directly from within, making his intestines knot, his blood boil.
His magic billowed through the air like an electrical fog, diffusing in the energy of the fissure.
The creature flared its wings wide to slow its descent toward James, but it didn’t react quickly enough. It plunged into the haze of magic. The fog clung to its arms and wings. When it opened its mouth to scream, electricity arced between its teeth.
James scrambled to his feet and ran again.
The fissure grew. Energy whipped around him in cold ropes as the light became brighter and brighter. When the hybrid shrieked, the shrill noise warped, extended, throbbed through his ears. He couldn’t tell if it was right behind him or farther away—he wasn’t going to stop to look again.
James reached his arms toward the light as if to embrace it, but the fissure embraced him first.
The light burned his eyes. The taste of apples flooded his tongue.
Limbo disappeared.
XI
The village was mobilized before Anthony got a chance to warn them. People poured out of the houses to fill the street, as much as it could be filled in such a small town—a handful of families had emerged to stand on one corner, as if prepared for just such an occasion. And they were all carrying guns.
Anthony jogged to them. “Hey!” he shouted, waving his arms over his head. “Get inside! You’re going to be—”
He didn’t get to finish the sentence.
A huge projectile struck the street beside the cluster of families, knocking Anthony to the ground. Fragments of pavement peppered his arms.
A hybrid reared inside the crater, throwing its head back to roar. It was towering, ruddy-skinned, and long-haired. It had a chest like a barrel and serrated claws. It wore only a strip of leather hanging around its waist, and feet like giant eagle talons gripped the earth. Its landing had created a crater the size of a car.
Anthony was gaping at it for so long that he forgot to fire until it wrapped its meaty fingers around a woman’s waist, easily lifting her into the air.
One of her arms was pinned to her side, but the other was still free to lift her rifle. She fired a shot straight into its face. It threw its head back and roared.
Then it ripped her in half.
Anthony fired at its back with a shout. The hybrid flung aside the pieces of the woman as it turned, black wings flaring to catch the wind. “Over here!” Anthony shouted. “Chase me!”
But he wasn’t the only one shooting. The other families had opened fire, and Anthony was invisible to the hybrid.
It reached into the crowd and twisted off a teenage boy’s head.
A sense of calm built within Anthony, growing to a numbing roar. He saw everything with crystal clarity—the hybrid’s attack, the anger in the eyes of the families, the spray of blood on the wall of a nearby trailer.
Another woman appeared on the sidewalk. What had Malcolm said her name was—Alsu? She shouted at the others. Anthony didn’t understand Russian, but he assumed that she was telling them to run.
Everyone scattered. The hybrid seized another woman before she could escape, dragging her by the hair.
There was no room inside Anthony for fear. His vision had narrowed down to the length of the hybrid’s arm, the muscles rippling underneath its skin, the place where it tapered at the elbow.
He fired.
The pellets ripped through the hybrid’s inner arm, shredding the skin.
It dropped the woman, and she fled. But now there was nobody to distract the hybrid but Anthony. He fired again and watched tiny holes appear in the hybrid’s chest, splattering blood, and immediately heal. He might as well have been flinging paper airplanes at it.