Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  He flashed through the night, guiding the blade in graceful swings and thrusts. Necks and bellies and other soft places met metal and gave no resistance. Nash didn’t look closely at the damage he wrought; he took no joy in cutting them down where they stood.

  Fiend limbs dropped on top of dead humans. A megaira crumpled.

  They couldn’t land a single blow, these tiny demons—he was swift, merciless death delivered with no emotion but regret. Nothing that a megaira could feed on.

  And in moments, the demons were dead.

  He stopped with his sword outstretched, still sizzling as it burned away the last of the blood on its edge. His wings were wide. He stood in front of the door, back to the gate, facing the humans that looked shocked to see the vehicle of their salvation.

  Nash sensed warmth at his back and turned.

  The gate glowed to see him.

  It filled the barn with pale blue light, much like that of Shamain. It had been constructed in the aisle between the stalls. The tack hanging on the walls looked so ordinary and clunky behind the elegant lines of the gate.

  The glow of Nash’s wings increased in response to the gate, too, until they glowed at the same vibrancy.

  Open me, it seemed to say.

  “Sir,” someone said, snapping him out of his reverie.

  Only then did he become aware of a stinging. He looked down to see a wound on his left thigh. Nash touched the injury and hissed—there was something hard lodged in the muscle. Someone had shot him during the fight.

  It wasn’t the first time that he had been shot that year, and the second time was as ineffective as the first. That didn’t mean that it wasn’t excruciatingly painful. Nash would have to remove it soon, but he couldn’t step away from the gate, not until it was secure.

  He turned to face the humans addressing him. The one with the UKA flak jacket had broken away from the others to approach. He appeared to be the leader.

  “Which one of you shot me?” Nash asked.

  The man had the decency to look embarrassed. “You surprised us.”

  “I saved your lives.”

  “That you did.” He set his gun down slowly then spread his fingers to show that he was unarmed. “Thanks for the assist.”

  Assist? More like rescue.

  “The name’s Yasir,” the mortal said, extending a hand. “Commander of Union Unit F9, and your new biggest fan.”

  Nash didn’t acknowledge the offer of a handshake. “What are you doing here?”

  “Securing the asset,” Yasir said.

  The gate.

  Nash’s feathers curled at the audacity of it. The implication that these mortals could possess ethereal artifacts rankled. “I’ll be taking the ‘asset’ to my city. The products of angelic craftsmanship are none of your concern.”

  “Problem is, the ethereal city isn’t safe anymore,” Yasir said. “You’re talking about Shamain, right?” Nash gave him a blank look. “We have reason to believe that the gate won’t be safe for you to store. Nothing’s safe in Shamain. You need to let us lock it away somewhere that nobody can access it.”

  “You mean to imply that it’s not safe among the angels who made it.”

  “No implications here. I’m saying it outright. If you trust us, then we can explain further on the way to the secure site—we’ve been watching the ethereal gates closely and seeing bad, bad patterns. But this needs to move before we can chat. It needs to be gone now.”

  Yasir looked like an honest man. Nash could usually tell when someone was telling the truth. But just because it was the only truth Yasir knew didn’t mean that it was fact—and there was no chance in any of the worlds above and below that Nash would allow these mortal men to take an ethereal gateway.

  A few of the soldiers began aiming their guns, as if such weapons could kill him. The muscles in his thigh cramped to remind him that non-fatal weapons could still be extremely irritating. Maybe even disabling.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Nash said softly.

  “We’re trying to save you guys,” Yasir said. “We’re trying to save us all.” He lifted his hands toward the surviving men. “We don’t want to fight—you need to listen to us.”

  Nash felt the growing warmth of approaching angels. Finally, Uriel was returning.

  “Leave our artifacts alone,” Nash said.

  The angels descended from above.

  He flung his wings wide, flaring them as bright as the midday sun.

  Yasir shouted. Guns fired. Feathers flew.

  Nash moved faster than the humans did, darting into the barn with four of his newly arrived brethren at his side, and his hands encircled the pillar of the gate. Each of the angels touched it. Their minds joined in a moment of brilliant unity.

  And then the angels and the gate were gone.

  Three

  Abram awoke to the sound of someone pounding at the church office’s door. It beat a panicked tattoo as urgent as war drums.

  He sat up with a groan, rubbing a hand down his face. The cot shoved into the corner of the priest’s office creaked dangerously under his weight.

  The priest’s office in St. Philomene’s Cathedral had been converted to a bedroom in anticipation of Stephanie Whyte’s return. She was a doctor and the high priestess of the Half Moon Bay Coven, and she had reluctantly agreed to help with Northgate’s rehabilitation efforts. Until she returned, though, the office served as guest quarters for visitors from the sanctuary.

  The two guest beds had been fit under a stained glass window of an apple in a leafy garden, which cast dappled green and blue light where he had been lying—bright enough that he thought there had to be sunlight, actual sunlight, on the other side. Neither the light nor the sound bothered Summer, who was out cold on a mattress against the other wall. One arm was flung over her face. She was snoring.

  They had spent most of the night trading with the people who lived in Northgate—a lengthy affair that involved a lot of good-natured arguing and, inevitably, breaking into the alcohol reserves. Abram didn’t participate, but Summer loved drinking half of the town’s residents under the table with the help of her werewolf metabolism. If he left her alone, she would be out for hours.

  “Hey,” he grumbled. “Someone’s here.”

  She didn’t even twitch.

  The knocking grew more insistent. Abram pushed to his feet and stumbled for the door, snagging a shirt off of the desk as he went. It was too damn early in the morning for something urgent to be happening. If demons were invading Northgate, he was just going to have to roll over and let it happen. Let them eat him. At least he could keep sleeping.

  More knocking.

  He jerked his shirt over his head.

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said.

  As he shuffled toward the door, he realized that knocking wasn’t the only sound he heard. There were voices beyond the walls of the cathedral. People were on the lawn between the office and the trailers where the priests used to live. It couldn’t have been long after sunrise, but it sounded like the entire town was already awake.

  The knocking persisted. Abram hiked up his sweats, made sure that all of his parts and pieces were covered, then opened the door.

  It was Josaiah, the witch that ran the base of operations at St. Philomene’s Cathedral. “Ready?”

  Abram rubbed his bleary eyes. “For what?”

  “It’s homecoming day,” Josaiah said.

  Crap. Homecoming day. Between trying to keep Summer from giving herself alcohol poisoning and loading everything they had traded into the pickup, Abram had forgotten that they had a second, more important, reason for visiting Northgate. “What time is it?”

  “Almost noon. They’ll be here within the hour.”

  Double crap.

  “We’ll be out in a second,” Summer mumbled without sitting up. Her head was hidden under her pillow.

  Abram snorted. “Yeah. What she said.”

  He shut the door on Josaiah and locked it.
r />   Northgate was no longer populated by the God-fearing families that had been there for generations; they had evacuated after the fissure split the streets and been replaced by former slaves liberated from Dis. Those who remained were the ones that had no surviving families or were too broken to return to them.

  The new residents of Northgate were mostly good men. Better still, they were properly respectful of the werewolves, and they’d been able to form a symbiotic relationship. The humans guarded the bridge. The werewolves guarded the humans. They traded, cooperated, and generally recognized Rylie and Abel’s Alpha leadership.

  Abram was still extremely cautious when they visited, keeping all doors locked and a constant eye on his sister. Some of the people had come back from Hell…wrong. There had been mental breakdowns. Random acts of violence. Even good people could do bad things after years of being tortured by demons.

  That was also why he needed to be there when the liberated slaves came through the fissure. Rylie trusted him to keep everyone in line.

  He dressed quickly, tossing clothes at Summer in bed.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Her hand flopped over the side table. “Glass of water.”

  Abram sighed and put a water bottle within reach of her grasping fingers. The fact that she burned her way through alcohol so quickly didn’t mean that she couldn’t get hangovers—just that it was well deserved when she did.

  It took him all of twenty seconds to get dressed, and he waited in the nave as Summer followed suit. The pews had been removed to make room for meeting tables. The basement, which used to be occupied by a cult, was now a storeroom. Josaiah was hauling boxes out of storage and loading them onto a cart. “Help?” he asked.

  Abram lifted one of the heavier boxes for him and peeked inside. It was a standard care package—blankets, donated jackets, water bottles. “How many are we expecting today?”

  “No idea,” Josaiah said. “Neuma didn’t have a number.”

  Summer emerged from the office looking bright-eyed and fresh. There was no way to tell that she had spent the night drinking and had woken up late aside from the fact she had pulled her normally wild curls into a ponytail rather than styling them. “You guys still here? What’s taking so long? Let’s get going!”

  Josaiah rolled his eyes behind her back.

  Half of the town was waiting for them outside, prepared to follow them to the bridge at the center of town. Summer waved at them when she stepped out onto the stairs like she thought she was Eva Perón. “Don’t encourage them,” Abram muttered.

  She socked him in the arm. “Don’t be a grouch. They’re excited.”

  The hundred or so humans at their backs didn’t look excited. They looked worried, resolved, suspenseful. But definitely not happy.

  Homecoming was never all that happy.

  Bain Marshall towered over the center of town, hand outstretched, eyes lifted to the sky. The base of the statue was scorched and ash-caked and wouldn’t stay clean no matter how often they scrubbed it. Above the shoulders, he glowed brighter than the hazy winter sky. Below the knees, he might as well have been carved from lava rock.

  The fissure into Dis hadn’t widened lately, but it was already broader than the length of a limousine, so it didn’t really need to grow to look like a hideous scar gouging the face of Northgate. It always felt like the hottest days of midsummer near the fissure. And every gust of wind beat the smoke away so that Abram could glimpse Dis below. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to that.

  As they approached, he caught a glimpse of Summer toying with her engagement ring out of the corner of his eye, lost deep in thought.

  “Abel’s a dick,” he said. “Don’t let it get to you.”

  She looked startled. “He’s not a dick.”

  “He’s being a dick about your wedding. I’d say that makes him a dick.”

  “He isn’t being a—look, stop saying the word ‘dick.’ He’s just worrying about me.” She quickly amended it to, “He’s worrying about us. That’s his job. He’s our father, after all.”

  Abram snorted. “Since when?”

  She poked him in the ear. He swatted her hand away.

  “I’m worried about him, too. Did he seem weird to you yesterday?” Summer asked.

  “Being a dick isn’t weird for him.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, apparently we’re not having adult conversations today. Forget about it. I trust that he doesn’t intend to be mean about the wedding.” But she was still toying with her ring as they approached the fissure. Her face melted into a smile when they entered the square. “Cute,” she said, “really cute.”

  Abram followed her gaze to the pylons marking the edge of the bridge. They were decorated with Christmas garlands. It must have been recent, because the tacky silver plastic hadn’t been caked in smoke yet. Red bows had been tied around the tops of the pylons.

  “Cute,” Abram echoed. More like freaking weird. It was a bridge to Hell. Even if they had an alliance with the current demon in charge, for however long that lasted, it was still a goddamn bridge to Hell. No amount of holiday cheer would change that.

  It must have been the Scions who put up the decorations. That was what the informal coalition that guarded the bridge called themselves. They weren’t anyone special, no soldiers or battle-capable witches—just a few humans with guns and a determination to keep the bridge safe. Abram didn’t think a couple dozen guys would stand a chance against the hordes if the bridge were breached, but it seemed to make everyone feel better.

  Three Scions were watching the bridge that day. There were always at least three. They saluted Summer and Abram on approach.

  She waved to the guards. “Hey, guys! How’s it hanging?”

  “Tucked in my sock,” said a blond Scion who couldn’t have been older than seventeen. He snickered when he added, “Ma’am.”

  Abram bristled, but Summer was laughing. “In your sock? I somehow doubt that.”

  “I believe that’s called a burn, son,” said another Scion, an older man with a hunting rifle. The kid elbowed him and blushed furiously.

  The people that had followed them from the cathedral spread around the fissure, murmuring among themselves. The Scions parted to allow Summer and Abram to stand at the top of the bridge, looking down on the crystalline path and trying not to gag on smoke.

  Abram hated everything about homecoming days. He especially dreaded the arrival of the messenger that notified them of an impending homecoming since it was that succubus, Neuma, nine times out of ten. He could never guess what kind of ridiculous outfit she would be wearing. If it weren’t a metal bikini, it would be an elaborate costume made from demon bone and feathers, or sometimes full armor with the banner of the Palace trailing behind her.

  She’d tried to seduce Abram twice, too. Wasn’t even subtle about how much she wanted his cock—her words, not his. It made his skin crawl.

  Each time she climbed up the bridge, Neuma made a big presentation out of announcing that more slaves had been freed and would soon be coming “home,” all thanks to the glory of the Godslayer: father of all demons, ruler of the Palace of Dis, liberator of oppressed mortals.

  Abram appreciated what the so-called “liberator” was doing. He had fought alongside Elise Kavanagh and knew she was the real deal. The terrifying-as-fuck, I-hope-I-never-have-to-fight-you real deal. But Neuma’s announcements always felt like a sales pitch, and Abram wasn’t much for the emotional manipulation. The fact that it so thoroughly awed the human inhabitants of Northgate just made it more annoying.

  And the days that the humans actually arrived—it was even worse.

  Summer spoke suddenly. “I see them. Hey, Josaiah? Bring the blankets over here.”

  The witch dragged the cart to her side. She handed a blanket to Abram then picked up an armful for herself. They were woolen and itchy. Nothing fancy, but very warm.

  A woman shouted from behind them. “Here they come!”

  Abram returned hi
s attention to the fissure. Human silhouettes were almost to the top of the crystal bridge, figures distorted as they passed between dimensions. They began to stagger as they broke through. Everything about Earth and Hell was different—the gravity, the light, the atmosphere, even the speed at which time passed. It was enough to put a lot of people into shock.

  The first person to reach Earth’s soil hit her knees with a ragged sob. Her head had been shaved bald. There were visible sores on her cheeks and her palms were raw. Her left foot was missing. She walked on a stump wrapped in bandages.

  Summer let out an oh of pain, as if she were the one covered in lesions. She kneeled beside the woman and wrapped her in a blanket. It wasn’t fast enough—the liberated slave was already shaking hard from the change in temperature.

  “It’s okay,” Summer murmured, hugging the blanket around her shoulders, “you’re home now. You’re home.”

  The woman just clutched Summer and sobbed.

  Northgate’s inhabitants moved in as more people emerged from the smoke. Everyone had blankets and words of kindness. Worse, all of them had knowing expressions—because they’d all been there, suffered the same things, and knew what it was to be free.

  Some voices rose in joy. Most were crying because it hurt. Everything hurt.

  This part—this was the worst part. Not Neuma’s grandstanding and come-ons. The pain, the crying, having to see the evidence of what the demons were doing in Hell.

  Abram’s shoulders were knotted with tension. His motions were stiff and mechanical as he caught an old woman who almost collapsed.

  “I’ve got you,” he said gruffly.

  She stared at him, eyes wide but unseeing. “Who are you?” she asked, fingers traveling over his face. He almost pulled away until he realized that her gaze wasn’t blank with shock. She had been blinded in Hell.

  “I’m Abram,” he said. “I’m here to help.”

  “Abram.” She echoed it like a prayer.

  There was a tractor with a flatbed nearby that would transport the liberated to the cathedral. Abram lifted the old woman onto it.

  “I have kids,” she told him. “I need to find them.”