by S. M. Reine
“Do you know what agreement he had with Abraxas?” Elise asked.
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Just that we sent him slaves for experimentation sometimes.” He was sweating. He tossed his cleaver to the floor and held up his empty hands. “I’m just a little guy. Nobody cares about me.”
She believed him.
Her hands were gloved with blood to the wrist, dripping with cherry-red gloss. She slashed her hands down the wall, as if to scrape the palms clean. The gesture left behind a large, bloody X in its wake.
She wasn’t done. She dipped her hands in the nightmare Gray’s blood once more and drew two slashes through each leg of the X, then finger-painted a few characters underneath. When she was done, she turned to look at the destruction—the body, the blood, the terrified slaves, and the nightmare that was still guarding them.
Elise caught the eye of the surviving Gray and pointed to the symbol she had drawn. “This lab belonged to Abraxas. It’s mine now. Tell your master. Tell everyone. Tell them the entire city will be mine, and I’ll do that to anyone that disagrees.” She pointed to the decapitated guard.
His mouth worked soundlessly.
She expected Gerard to be equally stunned, but once he had closed the front door, he shot a grin at her. Maybe being enslaved had left him crazy.
Gerard went to the humans to inspect the locks. “You okay?” he asked them.
A man on the end started screaming. Over and over, just a wordless scream, like he thought that whatever had held him before couldn’t be worse than what he had seen Elise do now.
She rolled her eyes and walked over to help break the chains. “Do you know what they wanted from you guys?” Elise asked, snapping the links between the first and second slaves.
“They hurt us,” said a woman. Her voice was lovely and deep, almost like she might sing. She twisted to show Elise her back. She had been lashed and cut. Blood had dried in streams down her back. Nightmares only fed off of fear, not pain—but if this woman feared pain, then that was exactly what Aquiel’s army would have done to ripen her for the eating.
Elise’s eyes tracked over the others. They weren’t visibly hurt. The nightmares must have found other fears to feed on.
“Where are you from?” Elise asked as she snapped the next chain.
The lashed woman looked surprised by the question. “Tacoma,” she said. “It’s—it’s near Seattle. They picked me up there during the Breaking.”
Anger surged in Elise. These were prisoners of war kept as food and labor. They had been taken from the fissures Abraxas had created—and that Elise had failed to close.
“Who did this to you, exactly?” Elise asked.
“All of them,” she said with a tremor in her lovely, warm voice. “Including that one.” She nodded to the last nightmare Gray.
He was taking her moment of distraction as an opportunity to escape. He sprinted for the door, flinging it open again and darting outside.
Elise had planned on letting him escape. She had thought that he would be useful to let everyone know that she was taking over. But now crimson fury blurred her vision.
Aquiel already knew she was there. She didn’t need a messenger.
Gerard took a step, but Elise stayed him with a hard look. “He’s mine,” she said.
The nightmare was already on the street when she caught him. He was fast, she had to give him that. But not fast enough.
Elise appeared in front of him. He skidded to a stop and tried to turn in the other direction. She seized him by the back of the neck and slammed her knee into his face once, twice, hard enough to make the blood flow. The third strike was hard enough to drop him.
“Don’t,” he cried, “please!”
Elise shoved him flat to the street when he tried to get up again.
The thing was, full-blooded nightmares that reached maturity in Hell could slip between corporeality and incorporeality like Elise, and were essentially untouchable.
Half-blood Gray were not.
Elise shoved the second nightmare’s face against the concrete, mouth stretched wide against the curb. His teeth gritted against the ground. He whimpered as he tried to speak, but no coherent sounds came out.
Her foot smashed into the back of his head.
Message delivered.
Elise tried to tune out all the crying as she hauled the slaves back to the House of Abraxas. Let Gerard worry about them—he was the one talking them down from the panic, trying to make them realize that Elise was different from the demons that had taken them in the first place. She didn’t have the patience for it.
Even as she drove away with a half-dozen slaves beside her, crammed into the seats of the Mack truck, her mind was back at the lab with Devadas’s body. The jagged J. The heart. The gashes meant to look like something had bitten him.
Aquiel wasn’t the murderer. It couldn’t be Belphegor.
It just didn’t make sense.
It was a short drive back to the House through empty streets. The gates of the House of Abraxas opened when Elise approached. The wards welcomed her with a warm ping and a hint of warning that made her feel like she was going to throw up. Something had changed while she was gone, although she couldn’t tell what at a glance.
“What happened?” she asked Jerica as soon as she dropped out of the truck.
The nightmare blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“The wards are registering an alarm.”
“Nothing happened while you were gone,” Jerica said. “Nothing bad, anyway.” She glanced back at the kennels.
Elise followed her gaze. Cold shock washed over her as she realized that she and Jerica weren’t alone in front of the House. There were dozens of wind-burned humans clustered in the door to the kennels as if afraid to emerge. They gazed at Elise with fright in their eyes.
“What are they doing?” she asked in a low voice.
“They’ve just started coming out,” Jerica said. Her lips barely moved when she spoke, as if afraid they would hear her. “Ever since Gerard moved a bunch of furniture in there, they’ve been roaming more, but staying in the kennels. This is the first time they’ve actually looked outside. Brave little gerbils.”
Elise snorted. “I hope we have room for a few more,” she said dryly, rounding the Mack truck to open the passenger side door.
Gerard helped the slaves that they had rescued climb down. They were in comparatively better condition than the ones that had been in the kennels; their hair hadn’t been encrusted with the wasteland’s dust yet, and they didn’t look quite as haunted. “Oh my God,” a woman whispered at the sight of the main entrance to the house with its toothed archway.
“It’s all right,” Gerard said, taking her shoulders. “You’re safe here.”
Elise almost laughed at that. Safe. It wasn’t a word that she would use for the situation.
“Where is this?” asked another of the new slaves. The fact that he could speak so clearly meant that he must have been a very recent acquisition; most of the humans that had been around longer than a few days all spoke as though they had smoked a pack a day for thirty years.
“The House of the Father,” Gerard said.
Elise’s eyelid twitched. “Get them settled,” she said, rubbing a hand down her face.
“Kennels?” he asked. “Staff quarters?”
“Dealer’s choice,” she said. She leaned in close to his ear so that the humans wouldn’t be able to hear them. “But for fuck’s sake, keep them out of my way.” She straightened. “Jerica, follow me.”
They strode toward the doors of the main house. Elise could feel the eyes of the slaves tracking her path. They couldn’t seem to tear their gazes from her.
Neuma met them at the front door of the house. She was holding a cloth bag in her hands, and her grimace faded only momentarily when she saw that Elise had returned, alive and mostly unharmed.
“I think I know how someone got into the House to let Belphegor out,” Neuma said. “Look what
I found ditched outside the north gates.”
She opened the bag and turned it upside down.
One of Devadas’s severed hands splattered to the ground.
Nine
Neuma followed Elise back to Abraxas’s room. “What do you want?” Elise asked, glancing at Neuma over her shoulder as she unlocked the door.
“Do I gotta want anything? It’s my room, too.” Neuma bumped the door open with her hip and stepped through. She stripped off her body armor as she walked toward the bed, dropping it on the floor piece by piece.
Annoyance knotted in Elise’s chest. Knowing that whoever had killed Devadas was the same person that had freed Belphegor wasn’t doing anything for her mood. The fact that Neuma had only found one of Devadas’s hands outside the House wall—meaning that one of his hands was still unaccounted for—also wasn’t helping. And now she was going to have to sneak into the Palace in disguise to figure out what the fuck Vassago’s murderer, Belphegor, and Aquiel had to do with each other.
That meant she needed a disguise—a glamor, with James’s help—and contacting James willingly was the cherry on top of Elise’s bad mood sundae. She didn’t necessarily need privacy to work with James, but there was something very intimate about getting into his head and letting him into hers. Elise didn’t want a spectator.
“I told you, I want you to keep watch on the wall,” she said. “I’m leaving the House again in an hour, and we’re vulnerable to another attack until I find Devadas’s other hand.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve been running hard since I got here. Baby needs rest once in a while.” She pushed through the office doors to the bedroom and left it open as she crawled onto the bed.
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Neuma.”
“And you’re not my boss, Elise,” she said with a sharp edge to her voice. “Lighten the fuck up. I found a hand today, I’ve been carrying furniture to the kennels, and I’m tired. Unlike you, I’m still halfway human. I can’t go without sleep unless I’m feeding a ton. And I’m in the middle of a heckuva dry spell.”
“So feed,” Elise said.
Neuma smiled coyly. “Is that an offer?”
She had made it clear on numerous occasions that she would be happy to feed off of Elise. But unlike with Elise, swapping blood wouldn’t be enough to cut it—Neuma was a half-succubus. She needed sex.
Elise ignored her seductive sprawl and searched Abraxas’s shelves for paper and pencil. “Go feed somewhere else.”
She turned and was shocked to see Neuma right behind her. But she wasn’t looking at Elise. Her attention was on the desk. Neuma picked up the envelope of money with two fingers, sighing heavily. “Elise…”
“Don’t you dare start with me,” Elise said.
“I’m just disappointed, is all.”
“I have much bigger things to worry about than playing mailman.”
Neuma dropped the envelope. “This isn’t about the money at all, is it? This is about your issues.”
“Yes, it’s about my ‘issues,’” Elise said, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “I’m trying to save the world from war, and my issues don’t have time for your issues.”
“Look, I know you think you gotta push me away or something, but you don’t,” Neuma said. “I was a bartender a long time before I was a stripper. Long time. I know what misery looks like on a woman. You’re punishing yourself for sins I bet you didn’t commit.”
She was too close to the mark on that one. “You’re wasting my time.”
“Don’t bullshit me.” Neuma’s black eyes were earnest. “We were friends when you were still all squishy and pink and human. I remember when you thought that getting your CPA license was the coolest shit ever. I know you, I know people, and—”
Sudden rage gripped Elise. She grabbed Neuma by the neck and shoved her against the wall hard enough to make her head bounce. “You don’t know me,” Elise hissed, shaking her hard. “You need to lose this idea that we’re friends, that there’s something special between us, just because I need your help to save the world. Do you understand?”
Neuma should have gotten angry. She should have fought back and told Elise to go screw herself and stormed away. But she still looked so fucking earnest. She rested her hands over Elise’s. Neuma’s long, lacquered nails left slight indentations in Elise’s skin.
“I get it,” Neuma said softly. “You were retired when we started hanging out. Not just human. You were done with this. You didn’t ask to be made a demon, you didn’t ask to be in charge of stopping a war. It’s okay that you’re pissed. I’d be pissed, too. You’ve gotta take it out on someone, and I’m in arm’s reach.”
Elise drew back a fist. The mental image of punching Neuma was so clear—unleashing all of her frustrations across a face so similar to her own.
Neuma didn’t flinch. She stared at Elise unafraid. “Go for it. I’ve been hit by bigger bitches than you and liked it.”
Elise’s fist slowly unclenched. She dropped her arm to her side.
“I’m not delivering your money,” she said.
Neuma pretended not to hear her. She peered closely at Elise’s eyes and gave her cheek a hard pinch. “I’m not the only one that’s gone too long without feeding. You’re looking drained.”
She was right about that. Casting spells, being zapped with a Taser, the intermittent exposure to sunlight through the fissure—her skin was losing its glow. It wouldn’t be long before she needed to eat again.
“Your temper’s gonna get worse the hungrier you get.” Neuma had dropped the sympathetic tone and gone for matter-of-fact, more like the way she used to talk to her employees. “You’ve gotta address the hunger, Elise. You gotta find a way to eat that you can live with. Dimension hopping to do me a favor ain’t the problem here, although it’s gonna become one.”
“Jumping to Earth and back would use a lot of energy, and I’ll need to figure out how to feed sooner,” she said. “This isn’t the time for that. I have to prioritize.”
“Your priorities are fucked up,” Neuma said.
“Out of the room. Now.”
Neuma grabbed her clothes off the floor. “If you want my help knocking over the Palace, you’ll deliver that money. I don’t need you as much as you need me. Maybe you should think about that before you try to shove me out of your life.”
She left and slammed the door behind her.
Elise gathered everything she would need to cast the spell and spread it out on Abraxas’s desk: a large sheet of paper, a charcoal pencil, and one of the bottles of whiskey. Elise filled a tall glass and drank half of it before sitting down.
She gazed into the amber depths of the whiskey, enjoying the bitter burn on her tongue as much as she could. It was hard when she could see Seth’s shrouded body on the other side, distorted by the curve of the glass, and Neuma’s envelope on the corner of the desk. Abraxas’s office had become the worst place for her to hide from that which annoyed her.
The clock chimed, stirring her from her thoughts.
Elise took another drink of whiskey and let her eyes fall shut.
She didn’t have to concentrate. She only had to relax for the vision to come over her.
The darkness behind her eyelids began as senseless noise swaying from side to side, almost like waves—no, exactly like waves. Their white peaks became clearer. As soon as she realized what she was seeing, she could hear the rush of wind, too, and the water slopping on the side of the carrier. It was a foggy night, but the moon peeked through the clouds, radiating pale rays through the mist.
James was still on the ship, but the shore was visible as a murky black line. The carrier skirted along it, heading south to their destination.
She knew that James would be standing beside her before she looked over her shoulder. Either he had dropped his glamor or Elise could see right through it, because he was completely white-haired with a strangely smooth face. The backs of his wrists were marked with faint brown lines of tattoos. He wore a c
able knit sweater and dark slacks.
Elise felt like she was standing beside him on the deck, because, in a way, she was. The fissure was only growing wider and their bond was growing stronger. Without the warding ring to protect her, there was nothing between her mind and his but distance.
Chills rolled down her shoulders. She moved to rub her arms, then realized she was holding the charcoal pencil in the dream, just as she was in reality.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” James said. He was holding a pencil and notebook, too.
“I need the glamor. I have no choice.”
He made a noncommittal noise. “We should have ample privacy. Let’s sit.”
James led her to a bench that was marked with warning signs and bright orange safety stickers. There were, apparently, twelve adult life vests inside the bench. It was more than wide enough for Elise to settle on top of it, legs folded under her, paper in her lap. The wall of the bridge sheltered them from the wind.
“Did the destruction spell work?” he asked as he sat beside her, much closer than she would have liked. His warmth was distracting.
“I haven’t tried it yet. I can’t find Belphegor to test it out. So let’s do this glamor and make it fast,” Elise said.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You can’t rush magic. You’re just fortunate that my studies have advanced to the degree that you don’t need to cast a circle of power every time.”
“I don’t care if it used to be harder. Every second I waste now is seven seconds wasted on Earth.”
“I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” James said. “How long has it been since we last spoke?”
Elise thought back to the clock on Abraxas’s office wall. “A day in Hell, I suppose.”
“It’s only been three days for me.” His brow creased. “Time is equalizing. I’m afraid that’s a side effect of the fissure spreading. Hell and Earth are leaking into each other. It’s only going to get worse.”
“Especially if you open any more doors and break down walls,” Elise said.
“Do you want to spend your precious time discussing that?”