Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  “We don’t need to panic yet,” Abram said, careful not to show his concern. He was a leader for the moment, like it or not, and leaders didn’t worry. “We have the wards on the sanctuary. We have enough supplies to support everyone, human and pack, for at least a few days.”

  “Except that Abel broke the wards,” Trevin said softly.

  Abram had forgotten that part. Damn it.

  He drew his gun. Seth had left him with silver bullets, but he only had ordinary rounds on him. He didn’t know if either would work on demons. “We’ll have to investigate,” Abram said, “but be careful. We’re scouts. Just scouts. We’ll call in the Scions before we…” Abram turned—and found a woman standing behind Trevin.

  She was petite and slender with feathery black hair chopped short at the ears. The bangs were far too short for the length of her face, which looked like it had been sculpted from clay. Her facial features were nearly flat, like a mask. Her chin extended into a sharp point.

  Her mouth was fixed in a broad grin, and Abram realized with a lurch of his stomach that the corners of her mouth almost reached her ears.

  That wasn’t a mask. It was her face, her real face, no matter how rubbery and frozen.

  And her eyes were blank white.

  Abram needed to warn Trevin. Tell him to turn, see what had sneaked up behind them, try to run away before her bony hands reached out to cut them open. But Abram suddenly couldn’t speak, move, or even breathe. His lungs had atrophied at the sight of her.

  There was no longer a gun in his hands. It had fallen to the snow at his feet.

  Abram watched helplessly as Trevin registered that something was wrong and began to move too slowly.

  A needle-sharp pain pricked at Abram’s forehead.

  “Abram,” she said without moving her mouth, as though she had just pulled his name out of his thoughts and wanted to try it on for size, just as she was trying on a face that didn’t quite fit her. “Abram, Abram, Abram…” Her voice slowed with every repeat, dropping an octave, extending into infinity.

  Abram…

  She knew his name. She knew who he was.

  She would always be able to find him.

  Trevin’s mouth opened in a silent shout of horror, arms lifting to shield himself. But even as he moved, he faded, puddling into nothing. Leaving Abram alone.

  Abram dropped to the snow. He was sinking into immense, untouchable darkness. A place where there was no light, and never had been light before.

  The woman appeared above him. He sensed rather than saw her. She wasn’t just a grotesquely deformed woman; she was the point in space that all the fear bent around, curving toward her, sucked into her black heart.

  She was kneeling on him. There were hands sliding up his chest underneath his shirt, and Abram felt them like razors slicing through the muscles of his abs. The blades were as thin as an atom. They slid between the individual fibers and cut right through his blood.

  Images flashed through his mind. Blood clouding in a warm tub. Drizzling down the walls of the bathroom. Swirling around a drain. Memories, not nightmares. Something he had seen before and tried to forget.

  Blood like rain, blood like acid.

  Abram…

  It felt like the fear was a physical chain coiled around his heart, and this woman was dragging it out of him through his ribs. The links squeezing through him made his bones shake.

  She was eating the fear.

  She was eating him.

  A roar shattered the visions of blood, and honey-gold fur flashed in front of him.

  A werewolf tackled the demon and they fell off the edge of the ridge together.

  The woman, and all of her darkness, was gone. Abram could breathe.

  He was only peripherally aware of the fact that a wolf had just attacked her. The fear was still gagging him. He needed to get away from it. He scrambled onto all fours in the snow, struggling to get upright through the weight of the fear.

  Hands seized his shirt.

  “Move, move, move!”

  It was Trevin. He was still alive.

  Abram’s vision cleared as Trevin hauled him away, dragging him toward the fence and the wards and what little safety they could provide.

  It didn’t matter—she had looked into him and seen his fear with that mindless grin of hers, and she knew him.

  She would be back.

  “Did you kill her?” Abram gasped, clutching his heart, feeling for wounds. His muscles felt bruised but there was no blood.

  “Me? No,” Trevin said, jumping over the fence.

  Abram followed. “But the wolf—”

  “That wasn’t me,” he said. “I don’t shift like that.”

  He was right. Trevin didn’t have that much control. As far as Abram knew, only Alphas and his shapeshifter sister could change on command. But Rylie, Abel, and Summer were all gone, and it was still days from the next moon. “Then who was that?” Abram asked, shooting a look over his shoulder. They were already halfway down the hill again. He couldn’t see the makeshift shack or the demon that had attacked him.

  “I was too busy running to look,” Trevin said. “We’ve got to warn everyone. We are in so much trouble.”

  Abram couldn’t argue with that.

  A thumping noise swelled around him, and after a moment he realized it wasn’t a hallucination or the sound of his heart. He was hearing helicopter rotors.

  A spotlight punched through the branches of the trees, beaming down on the snow. Abram flung his hand up to shield his eyes. He couldn’t see through the light. It was impossibly bright, brighter than any normal spotlight he had ever seen. So bright that it actually felt hot on his skin.

  He didn’t need to be able to see to realize that nobody in Northgate had a helicopter like that. They weren’t being saved by allies.

  The Union had arrived.

  Crystal was waiting for Trevin and Abram among the cottages, looking uncharacteristically serious. “We have visitors.”

  Trevin and Abram looked like shit after the fight in the mountains, bruised and scraped from running as fast as their human legs could carry them. The fact that these “visitors” took priority above asking them what was wrong? Not a good sign.

  “Union?” Trevin asked.

  “You read my mind,” she said. “They’re holding steady outside Northgate. It’s like they’re waiting for us to come out.”

  Abram cursed under his breath. This was exactly the kind of leader bullshit that he shouldn’t have been doing.

  “This isn’t the only problem,” he said, shucking his jacket and taking the shoulder holsters that Crystal offered him. He left his pistol in his belt as he strapped the two new guns under each arm, situated for a cross-draw. “There are demons outside the wards. It’s no coincidence. The war’s come to us.”

  His dismay must have been obvious. Crystal looked pitying. “We’ve got your back, Abram. You’re not alone here,” she said, rubbing her hand between his shoulder blades.

  It actually helped. Almost. His muscles didn’t loosen at all, but he managed a small, brief smile. “Get everyone on high alert. All werewolves need to be ready to fight.”

  Crystal nodded and left to alert the pack.

  “We can’t change without Rylie,” Trevin muttered, picking up his pace to keep alongside Abram as he sprinted for the parking lot. “We can’t fight like this.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We don’t have a choice.”

  They took the first pickup they reached—a red beast with four tires in the rear and enough horsepower to drag a small planet in its wake—and Abram tore down the mountain into Northgate.

  He parked it on top of the hill on the east side of Northgate to watch the Union vehicles approach. High winds had blown away all the smoke and clouds, so they could see all the way to the opposite side of the valley, where the SUVs were crawling along the highway in two columns. They couldn’t have been going faster than fifteen, maybe twenty miles an hour.

  Abram lowered th
e binoculars that he had taken from the box under the seat. Trevin took them and peered through.

  “Why are they going so slowly?” Trevin asked.

  The only thing that Abram could think was that they were searching for the demon from the mountain. Whatever the reason, they were going to find out in a few minutes. They were only a few miles out now.

  Abram jumped out of the pickup. “Let’s ask.”

  The two of them spread across the highway, Abram at the left and Trevin on his right. One werewolf and a kopis versus a dozen SUVs. The odds still felt better than they had against that ugly, grinning thing.

  Fortunately, the SUVs didn’t try to pass the small human barricade. They stopped at the bottom of the hill.

  Abram braced himself for the worst. The Office of Preternatural Affairs had to know by now that Northgate had become a stronghold for werewolves, and the OPA wasn’t a werewolf-friendly organization.

  But the man who finally stepped out of the front SUV had bushy eyebrows, dark skin, military-short hair. He wasn’t armed or wearing body armor. Just a black shirt, black slacks. Still very much Union.

  He walked forward with his hands lifted to his shoulders.

  “Stop right there,” Abram said.

  The Union officer did. “My name is Yasir, commander of Union Unit F9,” he said, loudly enough that his voice echoed through the trees. He squinted against the sun in his face. “Who’s that I see? Is Seth with you?”

  Abram stared. “What? No. Seth isn’t here.”

  “My pilot spotted a kopis fighting with a nightmare demon,” Yasir said, pointing at the air. The helicopter was nowhere in sight. “I assumed it was Seth. You’re with the pack, right?”

  Trevin and Abram exchanged looks. “Right,” Abram said after a moment’s hesitation.

  “I’m representing the Office of Preternatural Affairs today as we hunt down a segment of Belphegor’s army that’s moved in this direction,” he said. “I need to talk to Rylie and Seth—or whoever’s in charge now.”

  Abram would have known what to do if the Union attacked him. He wasn’t sure what to do about someone asking to see his absentee mother who said her name, and Seth’s, like they had once been friends. “You can talk to me,” he said.

  Yasir shielded his eyes. “Who are you?”

  Someone who would really rather be painting a fat, unconscious cat right about now. “I’m the guy in charge.”

  “All right,” Yasir said. “All right. Can we come in?” Abram was aware of how polite the question was—the helicopter was already over the sanctuary, meaning that the wards were weak enough that it could enter their airspace. The whole group could probably roll in without permission.

  “What’s all that behind you?” Abram asked.

  “Armed escort, food and medical supplies, traveling armory. We just came off of a mission in Mexico. We’ve been diverted here to assist you. Can we pass?”

  Abram needed to sound smart, self-assured, like he actually knew what the fuck was happening. Would someone in control say yes? Or could he exert force, make the Union play by his rules? “You can come in,” he said. “Just you, Commander. We’ll talk in Northgate.”

  Yasir put two fingers to his ear as if listening to someone on a headset. The sound of helicopter rotors approached. A black shape moved against the clouds, flying low enough that Abram could make out the white “UKA” written on its side.

  After a moment, Yasir said, “Okay.”

  A man jogged out of the forest to the right. Abram was shocked to see that he was wearing a white leather jacket with jeans and a designer tee—all way too bright for a Union uniform. He had a hooked nose and honey-brown hair cut into short curls.

  “I said just you, Commander,” Abram said to Yasir, ignoring the other guy. “The rest of your unit needs to stay here for now.”

  The look that the man in the leather jacket gave Abram was of outright disgust. The sheer hostility of it was like a slap in the face. “I’m not Union,” he said coldly.

  His shoulder slammed into Abram’s as he passed. The contact was hard enough to make Abram stumble, even though this other guy was smaller than him, skinnier than him, and shouldn’t have been able to make Abram sway, much less take a step.

  He stopped in front of Trevin, gripped his fist, slammed a hand on his back. “Been a long time,” Trevin said, giving him that half-embrace that men too manly for real hugs exchanged. “Thought I recognized the fur.”

  He knew this asshole?

  Wait—he’d said fur. Was this the werewolf that had saved Abram from the nightmare demon?

  “You’re welcome for the save,” the guy in white said.

  Yasir came up beside Abram. “His name’s Levi,” he muttered by way of explanation.

  Only then did Abram realize that he knew Levi, too. He had only ever seen him once before. He was a former member of the werewolf pack. Abram vaguely remembered seeing Levi in mourning, red-eyed and miserable, the night that he and Summer had returned from the Haven. Now Levi was swaggering and obnoxious—virtually unrecognizable.

  He stared after Levi as he walked away talking with Trevin. What was a former pack member doing with the Union?

  Yasir jerked a thumb down the road. “Let’s talk, huh?”

  Abram took Yasir to St. Philomene’s. The commander stopped near the church’s confessional, lingering over the long table of weapons that they had pulled together.

  “Nice collection,” Yasir said, running his finger along the butt of a rifle.

  It was a nice collection, mostly salvaged from the abandoned homes around Northgate. There had been lots of hunters in town before the fissure forced the evacuation. But they weren’t exactly there to talk about their guns.

  “Commander,” Abram prompted.

  Yasir glanced around the cathedral, up at the rafters, scanning the windows. “Shame what’s happened to towns like this. This is one of the lucky ones, you know—aside from the fissure. A lot of places have been infested by demons and we don’t have the manpower to clear them out. Too many higher priority points of conflict.”

  “What happened out there?” Abram pointed at the wall of the church, indicating the forest beyond and the demon that he had fought.

  “Her name is Clotho,” Yasir said. “She’s one of Belphegor’s three Fates. They’re something we’ve classed as super-demons—entities that have been given the blood of another demon to augment their powers. We’ve been tracking her since she escaped OPA custody two weeks ago.” He tapped his earpiece, a Bluetooth headset the size of a pinkie finger. “The helicopter’s sweeping for her now.”

  If she had already escaped them once, then Abram wasn’t going to expect them to find her again. She was still out there, carrying his name on her lips. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Same thing we are,” Yasir said. He took an empty magazine off the table and fiddled with it. “Like I said, my unit just came out of Mexico. We’ve been securing gateways all across the country, including artifacts like the Bain Marshall statue that can form different portals depending on conditions. Belphegor’s been making a concerted effort to seize gateways that lead to Heaven.”

  Abram frowned. “You want to keep him out of Heaven.”

  Yasir set the magazine down. “What happens in Heaven is beyond our control—for now. But the gateways on Earth are in our jurisdiction, and whatever Belphegor does with them can only be a threat to America’s security. We believe that Clotho is now moving to secure Bain Marshall’s statue.”

  Belphegor must have sent her when the kibbeth failed to take the statue. Dammit, Rylie…

  “How much do you know about what’s going on in Dis?” Abram asked.

  “We know that it’s the source of most attacks on Earth and that there has been civil unrest. Intel is unclear otherwise.”

  “We’re in control of the Bain Marshall statue,” he said. “On both sides.”

  He took a moment to let that sink in with Yasir. The commander looked surprised,
impressed, and worried all at once. “Do you think the werewolves can hold Northgate against an army of demons?” Yasir asked.

  Abram didn’t even have to consider it. There was no way that they could hang onto that segment of the fissure if there was a concerted attack. The kibbeth had shown him exactly how ill prepared the Scions had been. The werewolves were strong and healed fast, sure, but they were normal people—not fighters. And they couldn’t even change without Rylie.

  The idea of fighting Clotho again was sickening. Fighting Clotho and Belphegor’s army was unthinkable.

  Yasir lowered his voice. “This isn’t the conversation I was expecting to have when I came here, to tell you the truth. I expected to be meeting friends—with all due respect. Where’s Seth?”

  Abram ducked his head, stared hard at the corner of the nearest pew without seeing it. “Seth’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Died in the Breaking,” Abram said. The commander looked much more bothered by this news than he expected. Grief was etched all over Yasir’s face. “How do you even know him?”

  “I was friends with him,” Yasir said. He swallowed hard, the knot in his throat bobbing. “Actually, I was the best man at his wedding.” He visibly gathered himself, wiping the grief off of his features. “I’m sorry to hear what happened to him. He was a good kid.” He looked at Abram again, as if seeing him for the first time. “What are you, his cousin? You’ve got the Wilder look.”

  “Nephew,” Abram said.

  “Huh,” Yasir said. “Nephew. You’re not Cain’s kid, are you?” He tossed it out there casually, like it would be no big deal if Abram were the offspring of the oldest of the three brothers. But his eyes were sharp. Suspicious.

  Cain had wielded a cult of witches as a weapon to try to kill Seth, Abel, and Rylie. He had been dead for months, and the world was better for it.

  “Not Cain’s kid, no,” Abram said curtly. Yasir obviously wanted an explanation, but Abram wasn’t going to attempt to explain his strange family tree. They had bigger issues at hand. “Okay. Belphegor’s demons are coming here. Where does the Union fit in?”