Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  Beck regarded her, and nodded. “It sounds like she saved all your hides on that op. Why the sudden need for me?”

  “After she” – bodily threw a possessed man into a hole in the ground and sealed it up – “did that, she passed out, and didn’t wake up for a week,” Lance explained. “I had to carry her out of there. Someone had managed to unrig our bomb and take the bikes. We were on foot. It was – ugly, getting out of the city.”

  He still had flashes of it in nightmares: the choking stink of ash and charred wood, trying to cradle Morgan in one arm and wield his gun with the other. Gavin had been set upon, his legs burned; his screams still haunted Lance’s memory. Morgan had healed him, finally, when she’d been awake for a few weeks – she’d eased some of the worst damage, at least, though he still carried scars all down his thighs and calves, and limped, sometimes, when the weather was especially humid.

  By the time they’d gotten across the bridge, they’d all been stumbling, shivering wrecks. They’d holed up in an abandoned house with its entire rear façade blown out, and called in for an evac. Lance had slept face-down in his bunk, still in his soot-smeared fatigues, for fifteen hours, his boots hanging off the end.

  “It’s a miracle we all made it out,” he said. “I’m still not sure how we managed.”

  “You have the conduit still?”

  “Yeah, but – you know conduits.” Lance tried and failed to tamp down a mounting impatience. It felt like Beck was being dense on purpose. “They do their magic tricks, and then they pass out. If they aren’t draining the life out of people on the regular, they have to take breaks, or risk burning up the body they’re inside.”

  “Yes.” Beck’s gaze sharpened; his tail twitched. “Were you hoping to summon a pet demon, then, when you sent Derfel to fetch me?”

  “No. But we thought you might know something about fighting them. We can handle one or two individually, but clearing out the city is going to take a helluva lot more firepower than what we can muster.”

  “And you need to clear out the city why?”

  Lance huffed in annoyance.

  Rose said, “Three months ago, two companies went out on what they thought was a regular op. All of them were killed. The conduit who did it left a calling card.” She produced her phone, and showed its screen to Beck.

  Lance remembered all too well the great glowing S that had been stamped in the pavement, visible from the air as they’d leaned out of the helo, its edges faintly smoking.

  “Shubert’s war with Lassiter is expanding. The city keeps boiling over, and now Shubert’s putting hits out on our companies in other cities. This isn’t just a case of isolated incidents anymore: this is orchestrated, calculated terror and slaughter. We have to end it now, and it has to start in New York.”

  Beck’s lips spread in what wasn’t a smile, teeth glinting. “I’m flattered you think I’m so powerful.”

  Lance felt the urge to bare his own teeth in return; to lift his hackles and deepen his stance as he was examined by a predator.

  “Believe me,” he said, “I wish I didn’t.”

  ELEVEN

  Before

  Rose had just finished taping her knuckles when Lance walked into the training room.

  No, not walked. Slouched. He looked beaten-down and exhausted, his shoulders slumped, his eyes pouched with sleepless bags.

  He’d taken the lost companies hard, even though he hadn’t been their commander, and hadn’t been the one to send them into action. He was wallowing, and she thought a distraction would do him some good.

  “I was going to hit the bag,” she said, “but we can spar if you’re up for it.”

  He’d been in the process of sitting down on one of the benches against the wall, and paused, hovering – she would have laughed at the picture he made at another time.

  “I’ll go easy on you,” she teased, and even managed a smile. Despite the pall that had fallen over the base – all bases – in the past few days, she found it easier and easier to smile these days. To laugh at a joke Gavin told, to give Gallo an encouraging grin. To offer a bit of softness to Lance, who trusted her judgement, and didn’t shy away from her fierceness, and who could make her feel good in a way she hadn’t thought would be possible again, after Beck.

  He lowered the last bit, and sat, and offered her a sad attempt at a smile in return. “Not sure how much fun I’d be, in this state.”

  “It’s always fun to kick your ass.”

  He snorted, and reached for the roll of tape.

  Rose worked through her stretches and light warmup while he taped his hands: jumping jacks, squats, planking. Just enough to get her loose and hyped, but not overtaxed. A routine as familiar as breathing by this point. She jogged in place while Lance went through a halfhearted sequence of stretches. He truly was in a state, if the heaviness of his movements were any indication.

  When he finally settled into a ready stance across from her on the mat, she felt a stab of doubt. “We really don’t have to if you aren’t up for it. I can–”

  He sent a jab at her face. That was that, then.

  They fell into a familiar dance, and she watched the heaviness lift off him like steam as their skin began to glow with sweat, and they circled one another with increasing energy. They traded jabs, easily dodged. Traded feints.

  Then Rose hit a glancing blow off his ribs, and they closed in: time for the real tangle.

  He never pummeled her like he would a true opponent, but he didn’t go easy on her, either; forced her to dodge, and duck, grunting, falling back and catching herself on the mats with a hand before she sprung back up. She met him strike for strike, hitting his shoulders, his ribs, his stomach.

  She leaped, launched off with a foot on top of his thigh as he lunged toward her, braced a hand on his shoulder, and ended up on his back, a strangling arm hooked around his throat.

  He didn’t try to pry her loose: dropped, tucked, and rolled, flattening her beneath his back in one quick, panic-inducing moment. When her elbow collided with the floor, it jarred her grip loose, numbed her arm, and she lost her chokehold on him. By the time he rolled upright again, he had the upper hand; pinned her down by both wrists, braced above her.

  “Yield,” he suggested. There was something almost like his usual mischievous glint winking in his eyes.

  She kneed him in the balls – tried to. Wound up catching him on the inner thigh, hard enough to have him grunting, his grip loosening just enough that she could wriggle loose.

  She was grinning, heart pounding, thrilled, as she flipped onto her stomach and scrambled to her feet again. They faced off once more, hands at the ready.

  “Getting tired, old man?” she asked.

  His answer was a fast flash of teeth, and a lunge.

  A feint, she realized, too late, shocked at her own lapse in judgment.

  He got an arm around her waist, and dragged her in close; crushed her against his chest. She swung at his face, but he turned his head, and her blow skimmed past his ear. His free hand caught her wrist, after, pinching in just the right place, twisting – and she was forced to twist with it, or risk a dislocation or break. Had she been fighting a conduit, she would have let it break her wrist while she stabbed it with her other hand. But in Lance’s grip, she whirled around, put her back to him – and let him crowd up against her, the arm around her waist shifting so his hand was spread flat over her stomach.

  His hips tucked forward, and she could feel his erection brushing at the small of her back. His face dropped, so he nosed at her ear, his breath rushing quick and warm across it.

  She shivered.

  “You are the most infuriating person I have ever met,” he whispered, “and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  She shivered again – and leaned back into him.

  The door on the training room didn’t lock, but it was late, and they were alone, and would probably stay that way.

  When she pulled loose, he let her go, so she could s
pin, stand up on her toes, throw her arms around his neck and kiss him.

  They stripped off sweaty training clothes, hands sliding and skidding over slick skin, and crashed together in passion just as they’d crashed together in their match – a different, but equally fierce kind of violence. She started out on top, but then he flipped them, gleaming muscles flexed and straining, and pinned her like he had before, between her legs this time, hips driving, until she came with a cry she muffled around her bitten palm, and felt him shuddering through his own release above her.

  They lay slumped and tangled, after, skin gluing together, and to the mat. The competing push-pull of their breathing echoed off the concrete walls.

  Eventually, he took a huge breath and said, voice full of doubt, and even fear, she thought, “We’ve called it a war this whole time. Through two Rifts. And in a lot of ways it’s felt like one. But I don’t think it’s actually been one until now.”

  “Hm,” she hummed. “The conduits from the First Rift wanted to exterminate humanity. Punish us for our sins.”

  “But we were like roaches to them. They blindly destroyed whatever fell into their paths.”

  “Except Gabriel.”

  “Except Gabriel,” he agreed. “Working with Castor the way he did didn’t fit the mold. And this time around, conduits are gangsters themselves – and they’re targeting our military people, and then bragging about it afterward. That’s war in the literal sense: sending your best fighters after ours, rather than merely targeting humanity itself.”

  “Shubert and his conduit are sharing the body. They’re working together.”

  “So it makes sense some of Shubert’s plans and ideals will rub off on the angel. Jesus.” He rubbed at his eyes, and when he pulled his hand back, his expression was writ with a dozen kinds of worry, and the sort of fatigue that sent people into nervous breakdowns. “We can’t keep doing things the way we always have. We have to step up our game. Now we’ve got angels and demons to fight, and one conduit to our name, who passes out for a week after fighting one hell beast.”

  Rose stroked his chest, soothing up-and-down drags of her nails. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I didn’t realize you were an optimist.”

  “Hm.”

  She wasn’t and didn’t think she ever would be – but innovation had always been fueled by vengeance, for her, and she wanted another crack at Shubert. Even worse: she wanted to understand how it was possible for a human and angel to share the host body equally, and speak through the mouth with two separate voices.

  Morgan seemed equally baffled the next day, when Rose went to have lunch with her.

  The conduit still looked too-pale and unsteady, and she only picked at her food, though Rose had brought all her favorites: pudding, cake, French fries. “I’ve not ever seen the like,” she said, shaking her head, dragging a lone fry listlessly through a ketchup puddle. “But the line between possible and impossible is flexible and inconstant for my kind.”

  “Is that what was happening? Could you tell? That they were sharing the body?”

  “Yes, I believe so. A true symbiotic relationship.” She frowned, the grave expression at odds with her young face. “I did not recognize the angel in residence.”

  “Not one of the big ones, huh?” Rose asked, half-teasing.

  But Morgan shook her head, still coldly serious. “No.”

  Huh.

  “That hell beast,” Rose started.

  Morgan set the fry down and gave over her full attention.

  “What did you do to him, exactly?”

  “I sent him to hell.”

  “Body and all?”

  “Extracting the demon and preserving the conduit takes time and a great amount of energy – energy I did not possess at the time, after having dealt with the guards.”

  Rose let out a breath. “Right. Well. I’m not criticizing.” The girl’s gaze was fixed on her, so blue and deep and inhuman. The prickling buzz of awareness on the back of Rose’s neck had never been the needling of other conduits; never felt like a threat. Carefully, she said, “Are you sure you don’t want to tell me your real name? It can be just a secret between us. I don’t have to tell Lance and the others.”

  But Morgan shook her head, and picked up the cake.

  Rose spent the next few days throwing herself at the treadmill and various training dummies – and at the problem at hand. Bedlam had been in constant contact with the higher-ups, and there was lots of noise about needing to ramp up the war effort. They needed new weapons, new tech, new armor, new troops, new ideas.

  One came to Rose one evening on the treadmill, and she nearly fell off.

  Several attempts had been made over the last few years to capture and interrogate a hell beast conduit. It had never ended well, and nothing had been learned. Heavenly conduits saw humans as beneath notice, but weren’t shy about sharing their plans for humanity: namely, extermination. But Beck had always thought that hell was the key – his pet hell theory, as Kay had called it. They needed angels fighting demons, instead of people, and she’d always had the impression he thought hell was, somehow, more easily understood.

  Humans were no strangers to sin, after all.

  What they needed was a window to hell. An informant. Someone who could prove to be an ally. But where would that lead? Not all demons were created equal; how could they choose a likely, and reliable hell ally?

  She did know one person in hell.

  It hit her like a slap. Or like a truck.

  She managed to switch the treadmill off with shaking fingers, stagger off of it, and go sit down against the wall, all but falling the last few inches. She pressed her face into her hands, heedless of the Knight from Blue Company asking if she was alright.

  She’d joined the military with the intent of using it. She’d not come to it like a lamb to slaughter; she’d not been aimless, and searching for an outlet. The military had what she hadn’t, then: resources. Resources she could use to figure out how to go down to hell and fetch Beck. A fire that had burned in her for months and months…until she’d banked it. Until the missions had become too dangerous and time-consuming to be brushed off as inconveniences to her research. She’d thrown herself at her work, because she’d had to – and then she’d been so good at it that it had started to become a kind of outlet for her grief and rage. She’d been swept up in a tide of busyness; the Companies’ goals of stemming the war had become her own.

  And then she’d gotten swept up in Lance.

  She felt sick and dizzy, as she stared down at the rubber mat between her sneakers, heart squeezing. When she thought of Beck now, it was with an ache, and a clench, and a grief mellowed by time and new experience. But she’d lost the fervor of trying to find him.

  She’d all but abandoned him. While she fought monsters, and worked alongside a conduit, and fucked another man.

  When she could, she stood, and walked straight to the library – a sad name for the concrete-walled space with the harsh lights; where metal shelves held some books, but mostly files, and metal tables offered uninviting places to sit and pore over them. A few computers sat along a bank on the far wall, and that was where she went.

  Between possibly illegal searches on conjuring spells, pentagrams, and hell portals, she was slapped full in the face with a memory: Beck’s warm and woodsy library, a fire crackling in the hearth, ink-scented books spread out before her.

  King Arthur. His knights. His legacy. His saints.

  She sucked in a breath, and typed Saint Derfel into the search bar.

  She spent three days researching, and then she took her findings to Captain Bedlam.

  Who arched a single brow and sat back in her chair, absently clicking the top on a pen with a raised hand. “A saint? In Wales? King Arthur?”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Rose said, hyper-aware of Lance’s gaze pinned sharply to the side of her face. She ignored him. “But it’s something he told me about before the Second Rift – a the
ory that he, and others, had even then. And according to what I discovered in the chat rooms–”

  “You want me to send you to Wales based on what you found in chat rooms?”

  “No, ma’am,” she said, undeterred, chin lifting to a stubborn angle. “I want you to send me to Wales because there aren’t any other immediate options for advancing this war, and because, chat rooms or not, this is the first new idea anyone’s brought you.”

  Her look plainly said watch it. “Why Becket? He wasn’t military. In fact, he was a goddamn criminal, if I’m reading this report right.”

  “Never officially charged, only suspected,” Rose said, and earned an eye twitch and another warning glance. No verbal reprimand, though. “And Beck is the right choice because I know him. Very well. It takes a strong, personal connection to bring someone back like this. A great force of will.”

  Bedlam snorted. “I can’t argue with your will, at least. But what’s to ensure he isn’t another conduit, same as all the rest?”

  This was the part she was still uncertain of; an uncertainty she wouldn’t betray, not to anyone, not if it meant the chance to try. She said, “He wasn’t dead when he went down, ma’am. He didn’t die.”

  Her face went momentarily blank. “He’s alive down there? That’s possible?”

  She didn’t know. Perhaps being sucked through the portal would kill him; perhaps Derfel – if he could even be compelled to stir at all – would bring back a ghost, one in need of a vessel. But, again, she poured on the bravado and said, “Yes. And, let me say: I know he isn’t military, but Beck is a better, smarter fighter, and better-versed in killing conduits than anyone I’ve met in my time here.”

  She heard Lance take a sharp breath in through his nose beside her, and pointedly didn’t look at him.

  “Better than anyone,” Bedlam echoed, expression verging toward offended. “Well. I guess we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

  Rose went on to explain some of Beck’s research, what she could remember: explained his hell theory.