Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  Rylie took a tentative sniff of the air. Underneath the mothballs she smelled something rich and earthy, almost herbal. Incense? She stepped close to Josaiah and smelled the closet. It was definitely coming from inside, even though she couldn’t see anything that could cause it.

  He kneeled and rapped his knuckles on the floorboards.

  “It’s hollow,” Abram said.

  Josaiah ran a finger down a board until he caught a dent in the floor, then lifted.

  A trap door.

  “This model of house shouldn’t have a basement,” he said. “And it really shouldn’t have what we found under here.”

  Abram stepped forward, but Rylie stopped him with a hand on his elbow.

  “I’ll go,” she said.

  She dropped into the basement.

  The floor and walls were bare, unfinished. There was a low table against one wall covered in a purple cloth, two small statues, a bowl of salt, a stick of dusty incense. That was what Rylie had smelled, although it didn’t seem to have been burned in weeks.

  It was a witch’s ritual space.

  Abram jumped into the basement behind her, then turned to help Neuma and Isaiah down. “Is that an altar?” Abram asked.

  Isaiah nodded. “Weird, considering I hear that Northgate used to be really Christian.”

  “This house must have belonged to someone in the cult,” Rylie said. They had found a few homes with similar decorations hidden in bathrooms and crawl spaces. It was an unpleasant reminder of the secrets that Northgate had harbored before the Breaking.

  “A cult of witches? Makes sense,” Isaiah said. “Maybe one of them left this behind.” He swept a hand at the empty floor.

  Rylie could smell something very faintly in that empty space—something a little bit like the tang that followed lightning strikes. “What is ‘this?’”

  “It’s magic,” Josaiah said, staring fixedly at nothingness, “but I have no idea what kind. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I mean, it definitely feels like magic, but there’s no circle of power, no crystals, nothing to collect and store power. The magic’s just…sitting there.”

  Rylie didn’t know enough about magic to know what that meant. She turned to Abram, who looked just as confused.

  But Neuma didn’t. The succubus was pale. “You’re saying there are runes here.”

  “Yeah,” Josaiah said, “that’d be a good word for it. Runes. I can’t read any of this, but it has many of the colors I would expect from a spell to erase scent. It looks like it’s meant to conceal something, anyway. Hard to tell what. It’s far beyond me.”

  “You know anything about angel magic?” Neuma asked. “Is it kinda like that?”

  Josaiah scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “In theory, I suppose it’s like that, but there hasn’t been any magecraft for centuries. It must be something else.”

  “Magecraft? What does that mean?” Rylie asked.

  Neuma grimaced. “That means it’s time to summon Elise.”

  Rylie was the first to hear the screaming.

  She tore her gaze from the seemingly empty floor to stare up at the floorboards. The house was trembling above them. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

  Abram looked confused. “Hear what?”

  There was a moment of silence where everyone in the basement held their breath. Everything felt still—both underground and above. But then Rylie heard voices again, faint and distant, but with the unmistakable edge of panic.

  Rylie jumped up to grab the edge of the trap door and heaved herself onto the first floor, rolling onto the carpet.

  “Rylie!”

  She didn’t stop to see who was shouting at her. The screams were louder here, raking down the inside of her skull like silver nails. Rylie scrambled to her feet and bolted out the front door of the house.

  Black smoke plumed over the buildings nearer the town square, like a volcano had just erupted at the crux of the fissure.

  Abram reached her first.

  “What is that?” he asked, skidding to a stop at her side.

  Rylie sniffed the wind. It smelled like the worst of Hell—the fires and blood and meat. But it wasn’t coming from inside the fissure. It was on the Earth side.

  Something had broken through.

  Her bones ached as she sprinted toward the sound of screaming, brushing past a half-dozen men fleeing from Northgate’s town square. Her jaw felt like it wanted to unhinge. She tasted the copper tang of blood on her tongue, and her molars wiggled freely within their sockets. The mixture of adrenaline and screaming was too much for her.

  The wolf was ready for battle. But nothing could have prepared her for what had come through the fissure.

  It was the size of the Goodyear blimp, but with tough black flesh and a semi-translucent underbelly. Slimy tentacles, each as thick around as Rylie’s hips, dangled from that turgid stomach. It was like a stubby centipede that struggled to gain altitude, lifting free of the fissure’s grip and belching smoke.

  The thing was moving. It was alive.

  She had seen it while in Hell. What had Neuma called it? A kibbeth?

  Both Rylie and the wolf were stunned into motionlessness. The Scions were not. They had already been armed to greet Neuma, and they hadn’t dispersed yet. They lifted their guns at the floating demon and opened fire.

  Gunshots cracked through the air, echoing through the trees and off the steel-gray clouds.

  If they hit their target, there was no way to tell. The kibbeth’s tentacles slithered out of the fissure and writhed under its stomach as it began to settle over the statue of Bain Marshall, wrapping most of its appendages around the uplifted arm.

  “It’s trying to break the statue!” Abram shouted. Rylie hadn’t even heard him coming up behind her.

  One of the men abandoned his rifle and sprinted across the lawn, drawing a dagger. He got as far as one of the bridge’s pylons. He slashed at a tentacle dangling beside the bridge.

  Another tentacle lashed out and wrapped around his skull.

  His screams were muffled as the demon lifted him off the ground, dragging him toward its underbelly.

  “Get away,” Rylie told Abram. “Don’t go near that thing.” By the last word, she couldn’t get the consonants out properly. Her front teeth had fallen onto her tongue. She spit them to the lawn and felt new teeth emerging, viciously sharp and lupine.

  Abram’s eyes widened as he recognized what she was doing. “Don’t,” he said.

  The wolf didn’t understand or care about that single word.

  There was something attacking its home, its family—some hideous foreign invader that didn’t belong. And the wolf was pissed.

  Rylie ripped her clothes away with a swipe of silver claws. Fire burned a path down her shoulders, her belly, and left glossy gold fur in its wake. She hit the ground on all fours and began to run even as her spine continued to pop. Vertebrae ground against each other as a tail erupted from her back.

  The change didn’t slow her down. Werewolves moved like lightning, and she was across the lawn in instants.

  The kibbeth seemed even bigger as she approached it. Rylie should have been daunted. She wasn’t. The wolf didn’t care if its prey was an elk thrice its body mass or a demon the size of a hill.

  She was out to kill.

  Another tentacle caught a Scion’s leg and dragged him across the grass. He screamed, clutching at the ground and finding no purchase. Rylie couldn’t save him—there were a dozen more appendages between them, and all of them were now swiping at her.

  Her paws connected with the base of Bain Marshall’s statue. She unleashed the energy coiled in her muscles and launched into the air.

  She soared over the swiping tentacles, paws extended, and caught the hard edge of the demon’s plated back.

  The silver claws immediately began to crack the exoskeleton. She scrabbled, kicked her hind legs, climbed onto the behemoth. Rylie found traction and stood on the flat surface of its back, paws braced u
nderneath her. The sulfurous wind of Hell beat at her fur.

  She had attacked thinking that there might be something vulnerable on its back, like eyes. Instead, she found a two-level structure built across the back of the kibbeth, anchored with spikes underneath the plates of its exoskeleton. The building had metal railings, sconces that held torches, and a hundred demons standing within the ring of light.

  Neither Rylie nor the wolf recognized the breed of creatures within the building. They had mouths in their chests, lolling tongues, muscular shoulders. Hideous things that stank of blood.

  Rylie felt a twinge of doubt. She couldn’t take down that many demons. She was just one girl—she couldn’t even decide if she should ask for help saving her mate or not, much less survive a fight against an entire troop transport.

  Her doubts were quelled under a surge of the wolf’s mind.

  Invaders. Kill.

  The first of the demons stepped out of the building, lifting a short-bladed sword that looked like it had been cut from a sheet of metal.

  The demon swung.

  She dodged then ripped off its arm.

  It fell with a guttural roar, swinging harmlessly at her as she ripped its stomach open.

  And then there was another, and another. Instinct moved her through them. They seemed to react so slowly, clumsy in Earth’s thin air and struggling to keep up as the wolf darted between the demons with no mercy.

  Their flesh tasted like acid to her, but all it took to drop them was a single bite. She sank her jaws into the meat of their bodies and flung them off the side of the kibbeth.

  Rylie felt a blade slice open her flank, and the burn of healing immediately replaced the burn of the injury itself. They weren’t even carrying silver. They were nothing against her.

  She moved onto the first floor of the structure to find that the surviving demons had backed away, reevaluating this furred enemy that was as tall as they were, and far deadlier. They had wedged themselves against the opposite wall and lifted their clumsy swords in front of them. She snarled at the smells that poured off of them. Fear and submission. Weakness.

  The wolf would kill them all.

  But another cry caught her attention, punching through the hissing of steam and smoke from the fissure.

  That was Abram’s scream.

  She leaped to the edge of the kibbeth’s back to look down.

  Abram hadn’t retreated. He was assisting the Scions, all of who were hacking and slashing at attacks from the demon even as it continued to strain against the marble of Bain Marshall’s statue. And there was a tentacle wrapped around his chest.

  He couldn’t break free. He had buried a knife hilt-deep in the shimmering tentacle, but the kibbeth didn’t seem to care.

  Rylie glanced over her flank to see the demons circling around her again, preparing to attack her. They would surely drop into Northgate and complicate the battle soon if she didn’t kill them.

  But if she did, Abram could be lost.

  There was no debate.

  Rylie hurled herself off the side of the demon and soared toward the grass.

  She hit hard, absorbing the impact by bending her legs and rolling into the momentum. She didn’t have far to fall. The demon had lowered itself to sprawl over the top edge of the bridge, so it was no more than thirty or forty feet up now.

  On her feet in an instant, she lunged at Abram.

  Another tentacle hurtled toward her like a whip, but Rylie leaped nimbly over it, opening her mouth wide to catch the one wrapped around Abram. She sank her teeth into it just above his knife.

  Ichor exploded into her mouth. The smaller, neckless demons had tasted foul, but it was nothing like this. It flooded her throat, burned her skin, and coated her stomach in sour fluid.

  Rylie jerked her head right to left and ripped the tentacle free.

  Abram collapsed to the ground, kicking the remnants coiled around him. “Get—off—”

  The ragged edge of the tentacle whipped Rylie across the face. The concussion rocked down her spine. The world shuddered and swam.

  Hands caught her—Abram’s hands.

  “Look out!” he shouted.

  She tried to focus beyond him. It took a moment to orient herself, ground below and sky above, Bain Marshall to her right.

  The demons with the swords had jumped off of their transport too.

  And they were swarming.

  They cut down a Scion that had escaped a tentacle and she dropped dead on the lawn, severed into two pieces. The rich scent of blood gushed into the air.

  Rylie staggered to her feet, muzzle stinging with ichor from the demon. She felt sick and dizzy, but she put herself between them and Abram anyway, wobbling on her legs.

  A sword flashed through the night, swiping over Rylie’s back at Abram’s chest—

  And then everything was black.

  Complete disorientation struck Rylie. She had no body. No paws, no muzzle, no cramping muscles.

  Abram was gone, and so were the demons.

  The entire world was gone.

  She panicked, trying to thrash. There had to be something blinding her. Something over her eyes and ears. She couldn’t have just lost every sense like that. It was something the demons had done—they had killed her, she was dead…

  And then a calm, amused voice broke through the absolute darkness.

  We really need to stop meeting like this, Rylie.

  The wolf was too confused to recognize who was speaking. All it knew was that it couldn’t breathe or move, and it wanted to know what to bite to make that better. But deep in the mind of the beast, Rylie felt comforted.

  The darkness dispersed, and there was suddenly grass under her again. She barely managed to keep her footing.

  Abram dropped to his knees beside her, hands at his throat, gasping for air.

  “What—how—?”

  Rylie turned to look for the person that she knew must have arrived.

  The lawn surrounding Bain Marshall was empty. All of the neckless demons that had attacked her—gone. Nothing remained but piles of armor and blunted swords. The Scions that were caught in the tentacles were still trapped, still struggling against the giant demon crouched over the fissure, but the rest of the invading force was gone. So were all of the bodies of the humans that had already died. They and their blood had vanished.

  Devoured by the woman standing in front of Rylie.

  In jeans and a baggy tunic, Elise Kavanagh looked like a woman prepared for a casual day at home—aside from the fact that she had a spot of demon ichor on the side of her mouth and her bare arms writhed with brilliant, burning symbols. They illuminated her colorless flesh like flames clutched in her fists. She trembled with the force of it, fingers twitching and biceps seizing.

  That wasn’t a demon power. That was magic.

  But Rylie had never seen Elise with so many spells before. A few little ones under her gloves, sure, but these slithered all the way up to her shoulders. The air around her vibrated.

  She gave Rylie an annoyed look. “You’re alive?”

  Rylie couldn’t speak to reply, but Abram said, “What the fuck did you just do?”

  Elise turned from him without responding. “Hey! Kibbeth!” she shouted, lifting her twitching hands. “Over here!”

  The tentacles dropped the humans they still held and rushed toward Elise.

  Her lips moved with a single syllable.

  Magic exploded.

  The fire wrapped around her arms erupted from her fists, pouring over the massive demon. Its tentacles vaporized where the spells contacted them. Ichor splashed over the grass.

  But that wasn’t where it stopped. The fire continued to climb, surging over the exoskeleton, lighting up its shiny black carapace as though it were suddenly full daylight. Elise was screaming even as the magic poured out of her, skin turning transparent, her bones visible as black lines under the surface.

  Flames consumed the kibbeth. Its belly popped from the heat. Yellow fluid gus
hed over the bridge and Bain Marshall, hissing where it hit the fissure.

  The rest of it dissolved rapidly, breaking down into ashen fragments that smelled like rotten meat seared on a grill.

  In seconds, it was gone.

  The magic on Elise’s arms was gone too. She stood still for a long moment, hands outstretched, chest heaving.

  Then she collapsed.

  “Holy shit,” Abram said.

  Rylie ran to her side, sticking her muzzle in Elise’s face. The woman was breathing. She was conscious. But she did not look happy.

  “I’ve had better ideas than that,” she groaned, rolling onto her side. “Fuck, that hurt.”

  “Elise!” Neuma rushed from one of the side streets, teetering on her too-tall boots.

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” Elise said, standing on her own.

  “You have perfect timing, doll,” Neuma said, ignoring Elise’s protests. She looped her arms around Elise’s neck and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek, leaving a lipstick smear.

  Elise grabbed Neuma by the wrist. “I need to feed.”

  The half-succubus looked startled. “You just ate.”

  “Palace. Now.” Elise cast a glare at Rylie. “And when I come back, you’d better have a good fucking reason for summoning me.”

  Rylie could have lived the rest of her life without returning to the Palace of Dis. She hadn’t wanted to walk down the bridge the first time, much less a second. But Elise had retreated down the fissure the instant that she returned, and Rylie didn’t know how else to get her attention.

  Of course, following the demons into the Palace hadn’t worked, either. Elise and Neuma had vanished into a bedroom and Rylie still hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to them.

  All she could do was wait in the antechamber and worry about Abel.

  She paced in front of one of the windows, gnawing on her thumbnail as she stared at her shuffling feet. She wanted to believe that it was silly to be so worried about a six-foot-tall bodybuilder that could change into a monstrous beast at will. Very, very few people could contain an Alpha werewolf.

  But “very few” didn’t mean that there was nobody that could contain him—or worse, kill him.

  Rylie rubbed her hands over her face, trying to force away mental images of Abel dying at her feet the same way that Seth had. She glared at the door to Elise’s bedroom instead.