Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series)

by Reine, SM

  Then she faced the city and spread her arms wide as if to embrace it.

  She let her body dissolve into mist—not an intangible, invisible shadow, but a form between nothingness and her corporeal form. The same kind of smothering darkness that she had used to kill all of the brutes assaulting Northgate.

  McIntyre had tried to measure her natural size once and hadn’t found its limit. Much like water, Elise’s mist easily changed shapes to suit whatever vessel she was in, whether it be a hole in the ground or a bedroom or the trunk of Anthony’s car. In open air, her maximum volume was impressive. She could fill entire streets.

  But the plummeting fragment of Shamain was much, much larger than a single street.

  She stretched herself to her utmost limits, extending her shadow over the cornfield, toward the farmhouse, past the foothills. Elise was everywhere. She could see the beetles crawling through the stalks of dried corn. A snake in the grass. A farmer’s rotting skeleton behind his house. Expanding that far thinned her, left patches.

  Elise tried to make herself denser. She made herself immense.

  And then the city struck.

  Nineteen

  Abel regained consciousness hanging upside down. Blood thundered in his ears. He groaned and tried to grab his throbbing skull, but his arms wouldn’t move.

  What the hell had happened to him?

  His entire body was shaking with the healing fever. The amount of sweat drenching his hair suggested that he had been badly hurt. Very badly.

  He twisted, trying to see his body. All he could make out was a blank white plane. It was textured like rock, and it was crushing his chest.

  It was also moving.

  Abel looked up, focusing through the dizzying blur to see brass cogs underneath him—the clock in Eve’s temple. It was closer to the ground than he was. He had to be at least three or four stories up with nothing between him and falling but the clamp around his body.

  Then the clock swung out of view as he was lifted over a railing and placed onto one of the highest walkways in Eve’s temple. The stone grip released him. Abel sagged on floor—solid, safe floor—and looked up to see a massive hand pulling away.

  Belphegor had been holding him.

  Except that when Belphegor had first shown up in Heaven, he had been the size of a normal man. Now he was tall enough to stand in the foyer of Eve’s temple and touch the uppermost floors.

  Abel trembled as he got to his feet. His muscles were still cramping, his skin rippling. He was bloodied but whole now.

  They had somehow survived falling out of Heaven.

  Belphegor’s giant hand swept overhead again, momentarily shadowing where Abel stood. The demon set down Rylie and Summer simultaneously, and then he ducked down one more time. Abel caught Rylie when she stumbled.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She hugged him tightly. “No. Yes. I don’t know. Summer?”

  “Yes,” Summer said. “Kinda.”

  Then Belphegor dropped James on top of them. The witch didn’t have werewolf super-healing. He was bloodied and bruised and barely conscious.

  “There,” Belphegor said, prodding James in the back with a finger like they were toys to be rearranged. He seemed satisfied to have them all collected together.

  Summer helped James stand, pulling his arm over her shoulder. “You okay?” she whispered.

  “We survived?” James asked, dazed.

  “Momentarily,” Belphegor said. And then he was suddenly standing in front of them on the balcony, once more human-sized, his slim black suit covered in dust that smelled like graveyards. He brushed off his shoulders. He had the backpack of spell supplies in the crook of one arm, as casually as though he were carrying groceries. “Where is the fissure to Eden, witch?”

  James gingerly pulled away from Summer, stepping up to look Belphegor in the eye. “There is no fissure here.”

  “You must be lying, though you don’t register any of the physical signs of it. I have information that tells me there is a way to Eden in this temple. That is the sole reason I invaded. Also, you have brought supplies that would allow you to cast a spell using the blood of Adam, which suggests that you’re attempting to access Eden, too.”

  James hesitated a second too long. Belphegor backhanded him. The witch slammed into the wall and left a smear of blood where his head struck the mural.

  The wall cracked.

  “Ah,” Belphegor said.

  He kicked James aside and studied the damaged wall. The break in the mural paralleled the left side of a beautiful woman’s face, severing a detailed painting of a tree.

  Belphegor slammed his fist into the crack and shoved.

  A door that Abel hadn’t noticed opened with a groan, revealing a short passage on the other side.

  “Get in,” Belphegor said. It almost sounded like a request.

  When James didn’t immediately stand, the demon seized him by the collar, jerked him to his feet, and tossed him bodily down the passage.

  Belphegor reached for Rylie to throw her inside as well, but she sidestepped his hand. “Don’t touch me,” she said. Abel was proud of how fierce she sounded, disgust curling her upper lip. Rylie stayed out of his reach as she followed James inside.

  The demon walked behind them all, herding them into the silent depths of Eve’s temple.

  Abel caught Rylie’s hand. She squeezed it tightly then stretched up to whisper in his ear. “If we all attacked at the same time…”

  It was a seriously tempting thought. They had three werewolves and an angel-witch-thing. Belphegor might have been a demon, but there was just one of him.

  Abel glanced over his shoulder. The demon was watching them.

  “Wait,” he said. Shifting shapes would take precious seconds—seconds in which Belphegor could squeeze them into jelly.

  The hall slanted under their feet, sloping upward toward the end of one of the temple’s branches. The room on the other end of the passage was a large octagon. It had broken during the fall from Heaven; a chunk of roof had fallen onto the floor, baring a gray sky beyond that was beginning to snow.

  A statue of a woman stood in the center of the room. She wasn’t anyone Abel recognized. Of course, all marble statues looked pretty much the same to him.

  “Eve,” James breathed.

  Belphegor dropped the bag of magical supplies next to him. “I see,” he mused. “This isn’t a fissure at all. This is Eve’s private passage to Eden, is it not?” Apparently the question was rhetorical. He didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “Metaraon must have locked it so that only he could access it. Which is why you are here, witch. It all makes sense.”

  “Good thing it does to you,” Summer muttered.

  The demon didn’t look at her.

  “Cast the spell,” Belphegor commanded.

  James wiped his hand over his lip, smearing the blood trickling out of his right nostril. “What spell?”

  “Don’t insult me. The spell that will allow us into Eden.”

  “This isn’t a door,” James said. “This is just one of Metaraon’s many locks. What you’re asking—it won’t help you with whatever you’re trying to do.”

  Black fog was gathering behind Belphegor where he stood in the doorway making his pale flesh look unusually vibrant, like bones floating atop a tar pit. “Metaraon did always enjoy his games,” Belphegor said, “and now he’s dead for it. That angel was not as clever as he believed himself to be, nor was he as powerful as I am. Open this gate. I will rip open all of Metaraon’s locks and we’ll enter Eden together.”

  Adrenaline surged in Abel. They could open Eden now—not after visiting four more gates, but now.

  But they’d have to do it for a demon from Hell, who was very likely to kill them all as soon as the spell was finished.

  Abel and James’s eyes met. James’s gaze flicked to Belphegor, back to Abel, and then to the demon again. He was trying to communicate something.

  “The fog,” James
mouthed silently.

  Abel frowned. What about the fog? Belphegor was a demon. Shadow followed those guys everywhere.

  He didn’t get a chance to figure out what James was trying to say. Patience gone, Belphegor seized Summer’s arm. “I don’t have to kill anyone to coerce you, witch,” he said. “I can simply skin this one.”

  “Like fuck you can,” Summer said. “Eat kneecap, douchebag!”

  She kneed him savagely in the crotch. Hard enough that Abel flinched. Even in human form, a werewolf was strong enough to turn testicles to Jell-O.

  But Belphegor just stared at her.

  Her moment of spirit defused instantly as her jaw dropped. “Crap,” she said.

  “Yes,” Belphegor said, as if to himself, “I’ll skin this one.” There was a knife in his free hand now, carved from white bone with gold accents. Abel hadn’t seen him draw it.

  The blade flashed through the air.

  He never reached Summer.

  Her arm was wrenched from his grip as Belphegor slammed into the ground flat on his face.

  Summer leaped back with a shout, hands flying to her mouth. Rylie grabbed her. There wasn’t any point in trying to protect Summer now—Belphegor had hit the floor hard and couldn’t seem to get up again. The black mist now filled the doorway.

  He glared up at them with shock and fury, as if he thought that one of them had somehow attacked him without his noticing. But they were all standing beyond arm’s reach. None of them had touched Belphegor.

  A pair of hands had coalesced from the gathering mist and wrapped around Belphegor’s ankles.

  The fog, Abel realized.

  Belphegor was jerked back six feet in one hard pull. His roar of fury shook the walls of the temple, fingertips carving deep furrows into the stone as he tried to hold himself in place. He failed.

  He vanished into the darkness.

  For a stunned second, everyone stared at the place that Belphegor had been standing. The fog whipped away and carried Belphegor’s shouts with it. His cries echoed as he was pulled into the main body of the temple, past the clock, and then outside.

  Abel got his senses back first. He whirled on James.

  “Cast that fucking spell,” he said. “Now.”

  Belphegor finally broke free of Elise’s grip on the lawn of Eve’s temple. She was disappointed he hadn’t lasted a little longer. She had been planning to drop him from cruising altitude to see if terminal velocity would be enough to kill him.

  Elise coalesced into her corporeal form. The cobblestone under her feet had been completely pulverized. An old tree had fallen across the road nearby. It seemed to have exploded when it hit, sending emerald leaves scattering over the ground. Blossoms still fluttered through the air with the smoke.

  She had caught the district and set it down as gently as possible, which wasn’t gentle at all. The streets were wrecked.

  “You,” Belphegor said, stumbling free of her mist.

  “Me,” she said.

  Elise phased across the space between them. She rematerialized at his three o’clock.

  She swung a punch at him and he moved to catch it. She accelerated, adjusted the trajectory, sent it flying past him in a feint that made him sidestep.

  Her opposite elbow was waiting for him when he moved. It sank into his gut.

  Belphegor doubled over. She slammed the bridge of her forehead into his nose, but she might as well have rammed her face into an iron bar for all that it did to him. Pain swarmed through her skull, shooting white-hot electricity down her spine.

  He twisted her arm behind her back hard enough that, if she had still been human, her elbow would have broken. He held her tightly, but not painfully. “I have no interest in fighting you, Godslayer.”

  “Too bad,” she said.

  She threw her head backward to try to head-butt him again. But he released her before they could connect.

  James’s magic built inside. Its power cascaded through her veins. Elise could feel him drawing off of her kopis energy, the combined power of the binding, and knew that he was opening the gate inside.

  Belphegor sensed it, too. He drew back, darted for the door of the temple.

  Elise flung out a hand.

  “Stop,” she said, and she activated the warding runes clustered on her shoulder.

  Fire flushed her skin. Hunger made her stomach cramp.

  Belphegor struck an invisible wall and couldn’t enter the temple.

  He whirled on her, annoyance twisting his features. “They can’t get to Eden,” Belphegor said. “Not without me.”

  She tackled him to the ground. He didn’t even flinch as she rained blows across his face, snapping punches into his cheekbones, his jaw, his throat.

  He shoved her off of him like she was no more than a kitten.

  “An amusing distraction,” he said, “but I have an appointment with the Origin.”

  “It’s canceled,” Elise said.

  Without even getting up, she forced the remaining runes up her body and into her hands. It felt like sinking into magma. Elise’s vision blurred as the ethereal runes coursed over her.

  James had only surrounded her cage in wards and other passive magic, but it was still agony for her to hold so much ethereal power. And she knew that stuffing Belphegor full of that passive magic could only hurt him, too.

  She gripped his torn shirt in both hands and shoved the runes into him.

  The blaze of magic was like a fireball between them, brightening Belphegor’s features and leeching the color from his clothes. He seized her wrists.

  He pushed against the runes, straining them to their limits.

  Elise tried to pull away too late. He grabbed her arms and held her stationary.

  Her energy began to drain rapidly as the spells battered uselessly against Belphegor. The hunger came over her as a pounding headache, a racing heart, clammy flesh. All of her muscles trembled. And still he clung to her, glaring at her, making the passive spells overload.

  His power was immense. So much bigger than hers.

  The runes were draining both of them, but the depth of Elise’s power was a tall glass of water in comparison to the vastness of Belphegor’s ocean.

  Elise had ridden high on the knowledge that the father of all demons had given her his power. She had believed she was the strongest demon, untouchable by her enemies, only equaled by James and his damn spells—spells that she had begun figuring out how to conquer, without realizing that they were conquering her.

  She had killed God. Other demons worshiped her. She was the darkness.

  She was nothing compared to Belphegor.

  “You’ve made a serious mistake, Godslayer,” he said, his voice so calm through the crashing hurricane of energy that was pushing Elise toward oblivion. “I was a warlock longer than the demon that changed you ever existed. If you want to pit your stolen magic directly against me, you will always fail. Always.”

  The pain faded as Elise’s flesh did. She teetered on the brink of the abyss.

  And then the runes ran out.

  Everything went dark. She collapsed to the ground at Belphegor’s feet, a boneless mass of barely corporeal flesh.

  Elise knew she was hungry, but she could barely feel it. She could barely manage to keep herself from sinking into nothingness.

  He wiped his hands off on his slacks calmly.

  Belphegor turned to face the temple—which was when the spell that James had been casting inside stopped dead. There was no great explosion of energy, no sense of Eden. It simply cut off. And as soon as it did, Belphegor stopped walking.

  “Oh,” he said. When he faced her again, he almost looked disappointed. “Well. In that case, we’ll need to discuss what comes next as soon as possible. Accessing Eden will require a different plan of attack. I’m willing to convene on your terms at the Palace for the conversation.”

  His tone was all wrong—not the aggressive taunt of an enemy that had just defeated her. He almost sounded…friendly.r />
  Elise struggled to put herself together enough to sit up. When she failed at that, she settled for giving herself the ability to speak. “Discuss what? Where?” Her voice was thready.

  Belphegor repeated himself patiently. “Eden. At the Palace. You may select the time. I will be there, alone, and you may have all the guards you need to feel safe for the conversation. You can bring the entire army with you if that’s what you desire.”

  Was that meant to be a threat? “I’m not going to let you inside the wards. You can’t have the Palace back.”

  “I don’t want it,” he said. “I want you there, ruling over Hell, where you belong.”

  “Why did you leave the army outside my walls if you don’t want Dis?”

  “You fail to recognize a gift,” Belphegor said. “The army is yours. You’ll need them when you lay siege to Heaven.”

  Elise wrapped her arms around herself, squeezing tightly to remind herself that she was still there. Her ribs felt spongy. Her skin was slick with rot. “What the fuck did I just miss? When did you decide you’re my ally?”

  The tilt of his lips was deeply unsettling. It almost looked like he was smiling. “You’ve bested me twice before. Weak as you are, Godslayer, you are the only one suitable to be with me at the end of all things—you and I and the third, all of us in Eden together.”

  “I don’t want to get to Eden.”

  “Yet,” he said.

  He was completely insane.

  Belphegor crouched beside her. “You’ll need more than my army soon. You’ll also need my guidance when you lay siege to Heaven, and you will have both.”

  “I’m not at war with the angels,” Elise groaned. “I’m not on your side.”

  “Yet,” Belphegor said again, and the surety with which he said it was enough to sicken her. “If Leliel ever awakens, ask her why she invited me into Shamain. Ask her about the deal she wanted to cut.”

  He drew a knife. When the blade sliced through the air, she twitched. But he wasn’t aiming for her.

  There was a wet slap as flesh hit the ground. His bone was suddenly exposed near the thumb, spraying blood over his wrist.