While the eighth death was nothing to write home about, it beat the hell out of bursting into flame, which heralded my descent into the death of the ninth Jezebel.
Things did not get better from there.
Beware twelve.
Back on the path, I ran a finger over the jagged, blood-encrusted letters on my arm, wondering about the importance of the word “Ash.” Faces flashed at me, swimming up as if from a dream. There was something so familiar about each of them: a pair of green eyes lit with laughter, a cocky grin and a flash of hair as black as raven’s wings. Even a puppy, its little tongue lolling out.
I teased out the knowledge. I am Ash. Maybe I needed the entire sentence on my arm. I tried to make another dagger, since I’d lost the one I’d had, but I was too weak and my blood had dried too much to write with.
I am Ash. I am Ash.
I stumbled, almost plunging headlong into the Repha’im, and only catching myself at the last second. I held my hand up to the side of the path. A Repha’im flowed up to meet my movements, close enough for me to feel the air vibrating between us.
I am Ash. I had the absurd desire to introduce myself to the Repha’im.
I kept walking, tricking myself into believing that moving forward was somehow accomplishing something.
Beware twelve. I turned the warning around and over in my sluggish brain, until the answer floated free. Twelve previous Jezebels, twelve deaths to relive.
The path still had no end, but at least the way out was clear. I’d have to relieve the deaths of the twelve Jezebels that came before me and if I survived, my identity intact, my reward would be a return to the land of the living. It had to be. I refused to entertain any other possibility. There was just the minor complication that after every death I experienced, I’d become more lost, forget who I was entirely and die anyway.
Nope, I had that covered with my handy name-engraved-in-flesh prompter. Skin. Was there anything it wasn’t good for?
Three more deaths to survive. Fail and I’d die again. For good.
The tenth death was pretty much everything you’d expect from being crushed under a ton of rocks.
After the eleventh death, I realized the joke was on me. There weren’t twelve deaths to relive before I either got out of here or experienced mine. There were thirteen. Gavriella had died twice, and I got to enjoy both.
The first one, when she was still Gracie, wasn’t so bad. An electric blast of magic sent my heart into convulsions and then quickly stopped it altogether. It was no picnic, but in the scheme of things, it was one of the milder ones.
I trudged along the path in Sheol, fuzzy once more on my name, and who or what awaited me at my destination. Wherever that was.
Black shadows flowed along either side of me. So pretty. I pushed my hand through some kind of invisible shield to poke one and the little fucker leeched onto me, sucking on my soul hard enough to make my eyeballs feel like they were going to implode.
I tried to dislodge it, but it had bellied up to the bar and wasn’t going anywhere. More shadows descended upon it. There was a tussle to drink me dry. Wow. I must be some kind of a saint with a primo soul.
The original shadow was dislodged and a fatter one took its place, crowding the rest out. Except I could taste this one. It was dusty, like everything else in this joint. If you’re gonna drink me, I’m gonna drink you back, suckah.
A silky red ribbon flew out of me and into the shadow. Red forked branches appeared, and beautiful white clusters exploded. Whoa. Cool.
The shadow disappeared. Not shadow. I furrowed my brow. Repha’im. And I am Ash… Someone. Madonna only had one name. Good enough.
Pain stabbed my chest. I sucked in a breath…
…bound by heavy chains to a chair. My ribs were cracked, blood caked my lashes, and my left arm hung at an awkward angle from the latest round of tortures. None of that compared to the stain on my soul. I, Gavriella Behar, had taken magic from innocents, used by Chariot to sow chaos, fear, and evil, and too cowardly to end my life and deny them this abhorrent act.
The chains loosened and I fell forward into someone’s arms. The woman’s features were blurred by the light shining behind her, like a halo, but my magic recognized hers and my breath caught. The missing Jezebel. She lived.
The world spun, my heart breaking.
Now I would condemn her to her fate. Another stain on my soul. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That the road ahead of her was hard and lonely and in the end I wasn’t sure we made any difference at all, but I was too weak. Or maybe too well trained.
I secured her promise to stop Chariot.
Poor girl.
Death reached its bony fingers toward me, cackling.
I came to on my knees in the dirt. The hands braced on the ground were mine, yet unfamiliar. Death surrounded me; I tasted it on my lips. So easy to stay here and fade away.
Ash.
The word carved into my flesh.
The woman who promised.
The Girl Who Lived.
Images assaulted me, my life rushing up to fill me with strength and power. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine.
I stood up. I might walk a path of darkness, but it wasn’t this one. Not now.
“I am Ashira Cohen.” I sounded like a rusty chicken, but I made noise and it was beautiful. Forgetting was death, but remembering was life. “In the name of Serach, Tehilla, Liya, Catriona, Atef, Vasilisa, Thea, Rachel, Nikolia, Freyja, Vishranti, and Gracie Gavriella, I claim my life.”
The Repha’im scattered, rising into the sky like a black funnel until they were lost to sight.
“In the name of the goddess Asherah, I demand passage back to the living.” Head high, I stepped off the path.
And when my next step took me to the almond tree, back in the grove, I started laughing. I used the ring to get out of there. Fun as it had been to fall through the void and almost be hit by a car that one time, I didn’t want to cheapen the experience by doing it too often.
Rafael dropped the book he was reading in the library. “Are—are you dead?”
“What? No, not currently, I think, though it’s been a little touch and go lately.” Granted my skin was bluer than it should have been, and I still bore traces of all the deaths I’d relived, but that was no reason to insult me. I picked at the scab on the “A” carved into my arm.
Rafael swallowed audibly. Heh.
“It bleeds. I’m alive. All good.” I peered at the letters. “Geez. I really did that? Nice penmanship considering.” The world went fuzzy, my legs gave out on me, and that was all she wrote.
When I woke up, I was lying on the library table, which had been cleared of all books and papers. Rafael wiped his brow. “Thank heavens. No. Give it a moment. I’ve healed you, but your injuries were extensive.”
He was pale but bore no signs of arousal. Whew. Thank goodness for regular old healing magic.
I checked myself over. “Not even a scar. Much appreciated. I wasn’t looking forward to going through life looking like Sally in Nightmare Before Christmas. You know, if she’d had a Thanksgiving mishap with a meat tenderizer and a carving knife.”
Rafael stared blankly at me. “Are you quite sure you’re all right?”
I shook my head. “We’ve really got to introduce you to our fine North American cinema, Rafael. There’s plenty of time before Halloween. It’ll be team-bonding.”
“Never mind that, where did you go?” he said. My almost-death had blown away any of his remaining anger. Good to know.
“Let’s just say if you’re considering various holiday hot spots, I’d skip Sheol. The food is non-existent and the housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired.” I brushed off some more dust.
“As in the Jewish underworld?”
“That’s the one. The land of death, silence, and forgetting. Hence the fleshy reminder. Also, I’ve made great leaps into my knowledge of all previous Jezebels seeing as I just relived every single one of their deaths.”
H
e blinked at me. “Aren’t you industrious?”
“Right? It was like It’s a Small World but replace the grand tour of countries with deaths. Also, less singing, because, silence. Long story short, the ride ended, I demanded passage back to the living, ended up in the grove where I’d first been tested as a Jezebel, and then it was a hop, skip, and a jump to the library.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Quite. Does anyone know I’m alive yet?”
“I called Priya, who was extremely distraught.”
“Disappearing in the presence of a known necromancer tends to have that effect on friends and loved ones.” I sat up, a little wobbly but mostly fine, and pulled out my phone. My call to Levi went straight to voicemail. I left him a brief “So that happened” message, hoping he’d call back soon. “If you don’t need me, I should check in with Miles that Jonah is secured. Thanks, Rafael.”
Then I was going straight to Levi.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “If you have any lingering symptoms, you know where to find me.”
“Will do. Any solution to my magic problem?
He shook his head.
“How about cracking the codename?”
Rafael made a discouraged face.
“Better and better. Want me to help with the second one after I check in with the others?”
“Thank you, but no. A cup of tea and some fresh air should be all I need.”
“Good luck.”
This time the ring took me home. Priya and Mrs. Hudson rushed me, Priya squeezing me tight.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Actual, full-stop sorry. I hurt you and then I doubled down with the dog. I apologize.”
“Forgiven and forgotten.”
When Mrs. Hudson nipped at my pant leg, I crouched down. “Who’s a good girl? Who did mommy miss? Yes, she did.” I gave the dog nose-to-nose kisses.
“Mommy, huh?”
“I’m keeping her. Yes, exactly like you said I would. Be smug at your peril because I will hurt you,” I said in a cutesy voice to the puppy, who pranced in a circle around me, her sandy-colored tail wagging. “Who loves me more than the cow?”
Her ears perked up and she ran off in search of her true love.
“If I have to use the C-word, it better not be to describe a cow!” I yelled after the pug. I sat down on the couch. “I have a lot to tell you. Levi and I are a thing now. Yes, I owe you twenty bucks. Good luck trying to collect. Also, my father is definitively dead. Bummer, huh.” I twisted my hands in my lap, kind of wanting another hug.
She didn’t disappoint.
“I also have to tell you something.” Priya bit her lip.
“Did Jonah get away?”
“No.” She swore softly and made a phone call. “Miles, she’s here.”
Suddenly an unfamiliar woman stood in our living room, wearing the House security uniform. “Come with me, please,” she said.
Dread snaked through me. “What’s wrong? Priya?”
She dropped her gaze to her feet.
“Miles will fill you in.” The woman took my arm and we disappeared, reappearing on the floor in House HQ where the isolation cell was located.
“We teleported?” I said and grabbed her arm. “Are the wards down?”
She shook her head. “I have clearance as a member of Levi’s team. Miles?”
Miles blinked at her words like he’d been jolted out of a reverie, but he didn’t stop pacing in front of the security room, a bleak look on his face.
“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded.
“Jonah told us he’d sent you to Sheol.”
“I swear to God, Miles, tell me what’s happened or I will rip this place apart.”
“We thought you were dead. Levi went ballistic. He’s locked himself in the isolation wing with Jonah.” If Miles rubbed his hand over his sleeve any faster, he’d be going at warp speed.
“You’re worried he hurt Jonah? Killed him in retaliation?” Levi wouldn’t regret his actions if I was dead, except they could cost him everything: his position, his freedom. The horrible irony was it would be for nothing, because I was alive.
“I don’t give a fuck about that scum,” Miles said. “Levi’s torturing him with illusion magic. You know how he hurts himself when he overloads on his powers.”
The hair on the back of my neck lifted and a shiver ran down my spine. “You think he’s gone blind?”
“We’ll be lucky if that’s all that’s happened. We can’t get to him to help. Arkady tried. He lasted all of three seconds before the doors blew open. From the glimpse I saw? It’s… madness in there. You promised me once that you’d save him from himself. Please, Ash.” His voice cracked. “Save him.”
Chapter 27
“Madness” could have meant a lot of things: Levi might have illusioned a pack of wild animals to rip Jonah apart or an ax-wielding clown to chase him.
My first clue that it was so much worse was when the woman with the Transporter magic put on a blindfold and industrial ear protectors before jumping us into the sealed-off wing.
“Good luck,” she said and transported out.
I stood alone on a desolate moor. The moss, so dark green it was almost black, lay boggy beneath my feet, and fog striped the world like wraiths. A craggy rock face made up of jagged black boulders sticking up like crooked teeth barred my way to the right.
Deep red eyes borne of unspeakable evil moved across the crags as if tracking me, and an eerie howl rose in the distance.
I fell to my knees under the weight of a vast inconsolable loss and reached for my blood armor, but I no longer had magic. I was an insignificant speck and I was going to die here.
An enormous ghostly face appeared in the burning sky. It rushed toward me and I ducked, screaming. The face swirled around me, ice crystals forming on my skin, and my teeth chattered.
It fired inside me like a spear, lifting me off my feet. I hovered in mid-air, impaled and shrieking. Suddenly, it jerked with an anguished cry and deposited me very gently on the ground. The specter swam around me again, but its touch reminded me of Mrs. Hudson seeking affection.
I swatted at it. I mean, I’d just survived Repha’im and my quota on all things ghostly were full up. “What do you want?”
The face hovered, two burning blue eyes trained on me.
My breath caught. Levi. With that thought, I pierced the illusion. No, that hadn’t been me. I couldn’t see through illusions, especially not one created by a level five Houdini. Levi had recognized me. He wanted me to find him. “It’s me. Ash. I’m alive. Show yourself. Please,” I added, because he was very fond of his precious etiquette.
The face disappeared.
“No! Come back. Show me where you are.” Now that I was aware this was an illusion, I could use my powers. I sent my magic into the rocks, but it bounced harmlessly off.
Another howl rent the air, this one close enough to lift the hairs on the back of my neck. I spun around, certain of a hot breath of foul air and nip of fangs at my back.
“You asshole! Don’t you dare Hounds of Baskerville me.” It was kind of sweet in its own incredibly fucked-up way.
More sets of devilish red eyes blinked open in the rocks.
Think logically. I wasn’t in a Sherlockian nightmare. I was in the corridor with the jail cell that nulled magic. Levi was here, but what stood between us?
I fingered the wooden ring on the chain. I could get out of here and wait for him to either black out and end this or come to his senses, but what if he was already out cold and that face was his unconscious cry for help? What condition was he in now?
“I’m coming,” I called out.
The ground rumbled, knocking me to my knees.
More howls shivered through the fog, coming at me from my left.
I eyed the crag face—my only way out. I had to go through the boulders, but I couldn’t make my feet move. Ninety-nine percent of me was positive they were illusion, but that other one percent was very insi
stent otherwise.
“We’re going to have a little talk about waiting a suitable period of time to verify I’m actually dead before going all crazypants.”
Calling up my blood armor, I marched determinedly up to and through a boulder.
That was the plan anyway, executed admirably except for the part where I bounced off the damn rock hard enough to crash onto my ass.
The ground rumbled again, a chasm splitting the rocks at my feet.
“You say I’m defensive?” I stomped my boot. “I swear to God, you are the most emotionally guarded man alive. Especially for someone who constantly puts himself out to protect other people. I’m trying to help you and you’re so determined to be locked into your misery—a misery which is totally unfounded since I’m alive, by the way—that you’re fighting me.”
The world stilled into a watchful silence.
“Did you know you always touch me when you sleep, even if it’s just my arm? And though you spent years on your pathetic need to one-up me, you let those old guys cheat if it earned them a point. Your love of anchovies on pizza is abhorrent, and I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you. So, fine, you big baby. I won’t use my magic again, but I’m still coming for you, because you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
Eyes closed, I rushed the closest boulder. Like Harry Potter, I escaped facial carnage, though there was no magical train waiting on the other side.
Arms askew, I skittered to a stop on a slippery rock ledge, knocking pebbles into the waterfall that fell from above me. They immediately burned up, as things do when the waterfall is made of spitting and hissing orange-red corrosive lava. My eyes watered from the stench of brimstone and hate.
It was the Reichenbach Falls on a bad acid trip.
“You. Need. Therapy!” I yelled into the wind that whistled like a tortured scream. I tapped my foot, seeking any other way possible to keep moving forward and get to my stupid boyfriend. There wasn’t one.
“Damage me and you are paying for very expensive reconstructive surgery and a fuckton of drugs.” Edging forward, I peered over the edge. My foot slipped on a wet patch and with a screech, I hit the rock on one knee, my other leg dangling over the chasm. I grabbed an outcropping of rock to keep from falling backwards.
Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3) Page 27