Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series) (38 page)

She looked like a nightmare.

“Get the sword, James,” she said. Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere.

His hand closed around the hilt even as his sluggish heart beat more slowly.

“Watch the kopis,” Elise said.

She wanted him to cover Stephanie’s companion. James wasn’t sure he could move.

He stood slowly, struggling against the weight of his memories.

Somehow, he managed to stand over the man, aim the sword at his throat.

And then the fear was gone.

Elise had boxed up her demon powers just as quickly as she released them. James hadn’t been sure she would be capable of stopping, but she had. She was even stronger than he had given her credit for.

He drew in a breath that was a thousand times easier than it had been moments before. The Union man moved to escape and James pressed the point of the falchion into his throat. “I have him,” he said, and he was shocked that it came out coherent.

“Good,” Elise said, turning on Stephanie. She jammed the gun harder into the doctor’s forehead. “Give me one good reason not to kill you.”

Stephanie set her shoulders, hands balling into fists at her sides. “That doesn’t matter now. Let my husband get what we came for and leave. Spare him, at least.”

“Husband?” James asked.

“Name’s Yasir,” said the man currently at the end of the falchion. “Former Union commander. Stephanie’s kopis and spouse. Nice to meet you.” His voice was incredibly dry. At another time, James would have found that kind of humor appealing. Now it just rankled. Yasir obviously hadn’t been adequately traumatized by Elise’s momentary feeding—probably because he and Stephanie had bonded to each other. They were partially immune to demon attacks.

“That’s another thing you would have known if you had answered the phone, James,” Stephanie added, strangely calm with a gun in her face. Tears streaked her cheeks, but she wasn’t crying anymore. “Or checked your mailbox for the wedding invitation. Or read any of my emails. Anything but doggedly avoiding me, really.”

He had no reason to be jealous of Stephanie after all these years. He thought he might have even been happy for her in another situation. But this was a man from the Apple, for fuck’s sake.

“You married someone from the cult that held you captive,” James said. “How very Stockholm of you.”

“And Sophie told me that you’re fucking the kopis you always told me was ‘just a friend,’” Stephanie said blandly. “We’ve both been busy, haven’t we?” She turned back to Elise without waiting for James’s reaction. “If you don’t let me get the root before Shamain falls, we’re all in trouble. Maybe you don’t care about saving the world anymore—”

“What root?” Elise interrupted.

Stephanie pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolded it. “‘The eternal entrance to Eden is in Shamain, wrapped in Eve’s embrace, and in the center of Eve’s fruit rests a root from the Tree of Life.’ Hardly poetry, but I expect that the original
vo-ani
rhymes somewhat better. I wouldn’t know. I can’t read it.”

Elise jerked the paper out of Stephanie’s hand without lowering the gun. She skimmed it quickly, recognition brightening her eyes. “This was ripped from one of Vassago’s books,” she said. James gave her a questioning look. “He was a record-keeper for the Palace of Dis. He’s dead. Who gave this to you, Stephanie?”

“My sources are anonymous,” she said.

“I could shoot you.”

“It would only prove you’re exactly who I think you are.”

“Big words from you,” Elise said. “It’s your fault that Shamain is falling.”

“That was a terrible accident. We were only opening a path to Shamain. We had no way to know that demons had attacked internally at the same time and tore its moorings loose.”

A clap of thunder shook the room. A wind blew harder outside, and Eve’s temple swayed.

Elise backed away from Stephanie, keeping the Beretta aimed.

“In the center of Eve’s fruit,” she muttered, eyes sweeping the room.

She kicked James’s ritual rug away. The ground underneath was smooth.

Elise punched an arm through the floor.

Her hand emerged from the rubble holding a small wooden cube with gold accents. A jewelry box.

Yasir took a step forward at the sight of it, and James pressed the sharp edge of the blade into his throat. A line of blood lifted where the metal touched him.

“Give that to me,” Stephanie said. “Please.”

Elise ignored her and opened the box. There was only a single sliver of wood inside, almost the exact same color as her skin. Small as it was, James could sense its potential power. It took his mind back to the vast garden, the river Mnemosyne, and the taste of juicy red apples.

It was a piece of the Tree of Life.

“We need that to heal the fissure to Hell,” Stephanie said, softly pleading. “It’s the world’s best hope.”

James and Elise’s eyes met. “It can heal a fissure,” he repeated softly.

“Shamain,” Elise said.

He nodded.

She gazed at him for a long moment, as if weighing her options. James caught flickers of her thoughts. She was thinking about revenge against him, revenge against Stephanie and Yasir, blood in her mouth and his body against hers. Confused thoughts. Miserable thoughts.

“Hurry,” he said.

Elise tucked the box under her arm. “I don’t care what you do to them, James,” she said, “but whatever you do, make sure they don’t fuck with me again.” Her thoughts followed silently an instant later.
And the same goes for you
.

She meant that to be a goodbye.

James didn’t get a chance to reply before she vanished.

Elise soared through
the night and entered Shamain for the first time. The sight of the arched white buildings and swaying trees should have been unfamiliar to her, but they stirred Eve’s deepest memories in the same way that entering the temple had. Images of a city under construction flashed through her—foundations, stones and mortar, glossy white cages of bone.

The memories faded before she could figure out why the sight of the city pierced her with deep sadness.

The edge of Shamain bulged through the fissure. It was slipping. The streets were tilting as it fell. There were only minutes before the rest of Shamain met the same fate as Eve’s temple.

It wasn’t difficult to find the origin of the damage at the center of the city, where all of the canals converged. It was dark in the streets surrounding the memorial of Adam and Eve, so much darker than Heaven had any right to be, and Elise knew that it was where Shamain needed healing most desperately.

Elise climbed down the stairs toward the collapsed cavern underneath the statues. Water drizzled on her shoulders, plastering her hair to her neck.

The bottommost steps were submerged. Elise waded into the flooded cavern with the jewelry box lifted to keep it dry. She sank in the water until it was waist-deep.

She could feel the broken fissures inside the cavern. If she only looked out of the corner of her eye, she could almost see where the fabric of the universes had torn, leaving Shamain vulnerable. The most striking thing was the silence. It shouldn’t have been quiet in that space underneath the city’s streets. Elise wasn’t sure how she knew it, but the quiet filled her with sadness.

Surrounded by Shamain’s waters, Elise couldn’t help but reconsider what she was about to do. She only had one sliver of the Tree. Maybe Stephanie was right—maybe the best thing to do with it would be to heal Hell.

But how would Elise free the slaves still locked in Dis if she couldn’t get them up the bridge to Earth?

This was the only thing she could do. The right thing.

Even if it meant saving a city that filled Eve with sadness.

A breeze stirred, carrying the scent of apples to her. Elise turned to see angels folding back their wings to set down on the stairs above her. Three of them, in fact: Michael, Yemiel, and Uriel, the third of which was heavily bandaged and pale. They were all armed. They were ready to fight her.

Elise drew the Beretta. The idea of fighting the angels was sickening. Not because Elise didn’t have the stomach for killing, but because she remembered, very faintly, all three of these men being born into Eve’s arms.

“What are you doing here?” Michael asked, hand on the pommel of his saber.

“I’m saving the city,” Elise said. “I recovered part of the Tree of Life. It can heal Shamain before it falls.”

Michael’s gaze sharpened. “The Tree? How?”

“It was in my temple all along.” She caught herself. Rephrased it. “Eve’s temple.”

Her slip hadn’t gone unnoticed. The angels exchanged looks.

“Step aside,” Yemiel said.

“Not until I’m done.”

“Haven’t you bitches done enough damage?” Uriel asked. “It was your damned sisters that did this to us in the first place!”

“They’re not my sisters,” Elise said. And Belphegor wasn’t her ally. She wasn’t enemies with the angels. They weren’t waging war. If she kept telling herself that, it would have to be true.

Elise crouched slowly, keeping her gun aimed, and submerged the jewelry box in the water. The latch fell open.

The splinter glowed. Tendrils of light blossomed from its core and flooded the shadowy pit with a warm gray glow. Every stone it touched lit up.

A swarm of silvery fireflies swirled out of the collapse and lifted toward the sky, cartwheeling above the trees, taking position where the stars had been. A rising note lifted with them. It sounded like a distant choir, a cello played with light fingers, a song that Elise had once known by heart yet had somehow forgotten.

She shut her eyes and let the silent music cascade through her.

The splinter from the Tree had worked. The world was healing. But the trio of angels didn’t look happy about it. Uriel glared at her, leaned on his brother’s shoulder. “It seems we owe you a debt of gratitude, Godslayer.”

Belphegor’s warnings oozed through her like mold dripping down the wall of a sewer. The claim that Elise was going to invade and seize Heaven for herself.

Her moment of warmth faded.

“You don’t owe me anything,” Elise said. It came out more harshly than she intended. “But I do want one more thing from you.”

“It seems we don’t have any option but to abide,” Michael said. “What do you want?”

“Point me to Leliel.”

The fissure began
to heal rapidly, even as Elise soared through the brightening night. She could feel the walls between universes knitting. Once that closed, she would become trapped in a world of burning ethereal light with no easy way to return. She shouldn’t have risked even a few more minutes there.

But Belphegor had said Leliel had answers, and Elise wasn’t going anywhere until she had them.

The foothills of the city were darker than a moonless night on Earth. Elise filled the empty streets, stretching herself thin in search of Leliel and the property that Michael had said she was inhabiting. Elise found the angel in a manor at the center of vast gardens. The fountains were dry, the trees bore no fruit, and the windows were open.

Elise reformed on a balcony, pushed the curtains aside, and stepped into Leliel’s bedroom.

There were almost a dozen beds in the room now, each occupied by a different angel. Leliel was at the center. Nash was in the bed to her left, bleeding silvery-red blood onto the sheets.

Raphael was guarding the door. He drew his saber when he saw Elise.

“Godslayer,” he said with no hint of friendliness. He would be overcome by love for her soon—no angel could resist it—but now, he only showed hate. Nash wasn’t the only one to harbor feelings of loyalty toward Adam.

“I’m just here for answers,” Elise said. “I’ll be gone before you know it.”

“We have nothing for you,” he said. But his eyes were already softening.

Elise crouched on the chair beside Leliel’s bed and gazed down at her sleeping face. Raphael didn’t move to stop her.

Leliel was beautiful, even for an angel. Her features were classic. Her coloring was similar to Eve’s, olive skin and chestnut hair. Angels weren’t the only ones susceptible to unnatural affections. Elise’s chest warmed at the sight of her.

She stomped out Eve’s growing feelings of favoritism and reached two fingers toward Leliel’s forehead.

Cold metal touched Elise’s throat. “Leave now,” the angel said. He had slipped up behind her when she wasn’t looking and pressed his sword against her neck.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Raphael.”

She could see his knuckles tense in her periphery. He was surprised that she knew his name.

“Let her go,” said another voice. Nash had stirred in the bed beside Leliel. He winced as he sat up, hands pressed to his messily bandaged side.

“She’ll kill Leliel,” Raphael said.

Elise rolled her eyes. “It’s not in the plan.”

At a nod from Nash, Raphael withdrew. “My blessings,” he said, shooting Elise a nasty look before leaving the room.

Nash struggled out of bed, leaning his weight on Leliel’s bedpost. “Raphael told me what you did down there, the way that you caught Eve’s temple. My brethren were watching you.”

Elise cocked an eyebrow. “You want it back?”

“It’s too late for that,” Nash said. “In any case, it’s time that we all stopped dwelling in the past.” His fingers brushed the back of Leliel’s hand. “She won’t be a part of the city’s restoration. We can’t trust her now.”

“I need to know why she let Belphegor into Shamain.”

Nash sank to the bed beside Leliel. Standing was too hard for him, even now. “She wanted to strike a bargain with him.” He hesitated before continuing reluctantly. “She was going to offer to take the Palace of Dis from you and surrender it to Belphegor in return for a truce.”

Annoying as that would have been, it wasn’t the kind of thing that would inspire Elise to retaliate in kind. She might have killed the angels, but it wouldn’t drive her and an army into Shamain. “Was that all? She was just going to team up against me?”

“It was all I saw when I looked into her mind.”

“Look again.”

A frown carved Nash’s face into severe furrows. “What does it matter? She’ll go to trial if she awakens and be permanently restrained. She won’t cause you trouble—I won’t allow it.”