Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (2 page)

On his way down the slope, smoke flashed in the corner of his vision.

Cornelius was not initially worried by the sight of it. The death of so many nightmares meant the rebirth of an almost equal number; he believed that glimpse of smoke to be another birth and nothing more. The wards were impenetrable, though. That soul would simply have to wait until the mob subsided to be released.

Climbing down to the Amniosium, he approached the brink of the pit, letting the fluid lap at his toes. It was pure, liquid fear cradled within a vat of bone. Every atom of sludge was a living creature. Truly, it was a single living creature—all nightmares sprouted from the same root. Even Cornelius had.

“We are well,” he called across the Amniosium to Rowland. “The gates are closed!”

Rowland didn’t
look
well. He was still shouting and flailing his bony arms. Cornelius couldn’t hear him, but the other nightmare seemed to be pointing at the hillside.

Cornelius turned and found with a sickening wash of disappointment that they had been invaded, but not by the army the rioters had feared. Not even close.

It was a pair of females.

They looked similar enough that they could have been sisters. Both were pale-skinned, black-haired and -eyed, and beautiful by mortal standards. Both wore the livery of the Palace of Dis’s new administration: leather body armor with red darts at the hips and shoulders. One of them was slight of figure and carried a whip coiled around one wrist, while the other stood as though she were ten feet tall with a holster under her arm.

When they spotted Cornelius, the second woman drew her handgun.

He stopped in mid-step, though he was entirely unconcerned by the unspoken threat. A gun couldn’t do anything to him.

“It’s a nightmare,” said the one with the whip, addressing her cohort. The speaker’s body armor was unzipped to her navel, baring ample swells of cleavage. Clearly a succubus. Dull creatures obsessed with pleasures of the flesh. “Birth attendant, I think.”

The other woman lowered her sidearm. Her eyes had bled to black, from her pupils all the way to the edge of the sclera. “Okay, birth attendant. I want you to pull a nightmare out of the pit for me.”

“No,” Cornelius said, punctuating it with a yawn.

“Let’s try it this way: Pull a nightmare out of the pit for me, or I will end your miserable existence.”

He remained unconcerned. The rioters above were far more a threat than these two scouts, and he had thwarted the chaff of Malebolge easily enough. He’d expected worse from the Father’s invading forces. “You intend to end me with what weapon, exactly?”

She responded by advancing on him until they stood nose-to-nose. She was not tall—she only came to his shoulder—but her power butted against his, surging and swelling and curving to surround him.

He ached at the force of it. Cornelius wavered, sinking to one knee in the mire.

But this was his domain. The place where he had originally spawned and now reigned as protector. He would not be cowed by an idiot with a gun, of all things.

Cornelius pushed back with all his will. Nightmare thrall usually wouldn’t work on other demons, but here, near the bottom of the borehole, standing on the brink of the Amniosium, he could have struck fear deep into the heart of a dumb rock if he wanted to.

This woman was
far
dumber than a rock for facing him here.

He thrust the power into her belly and watched hungrily for the fear to overtake her. Cornelius made images dance through her mind: the idea of burning to death, the choke of cloying smoke, the way that flesh peeled and melted from the immense heat. He summoned the images of fires more vast and terrifying than any that burned in Hell or on Earth, and he made his opponent see it all.

The woman’s eyebrows knitted. Lines bracketed either side of her mouth as she frowned, marring the smooth perfection of her skin. He felt a dent in her defenses and pushed at it, preparing to enter her mind to conjure darker fears.

Soon, the weeping would begin. And, soon after that, the begging.

Cornelius grinned.

But the woman flicked her hand, dismissing the images.

His thrall fragmented. Shriveled.

“Are you done?” she asked, and she shoved his power back at him.

The fires licked at his mind, consuming him with dreadful, immense heat. Worse, she had somehow changed the flavor of his fears, coloring them with images of the burning pits of Dis. She summoned the images as though she had deep, intimate knowledge of those fires, where many mortal souls burned.

Through it all he saw her eyes, black and all-consuming.

“No,” he whimpered. “Please.”

He could feel the fires. They had never burned him before, but now he was smothering, scorching,
melting
…

“Do you obey the Father?” Her voice broke through the illusion, making his bones vibrate.

Only then did he realize that he had made a horrible mistake.

It was
her
.

Cornelius had come face-to-face with the woman who had almost singlehandedly toppled Dis. Who had slaughtered both Abraxas and Aquiel, ancient and noble demons, in order to take their Palace. The woman who had forbidden slavery of mortals, enforcing her insane laws with cunning that few could comprehend. She was so very strong—much stronger than he had expected to see from someone naïve enough to carry a handgun into Hell.

He did not obey the Father. He had not sworn allegiance to her. But he wasn’t foolish enough to defy a demon-god to her face. Not if he expected to survive.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, crossing his arms over his chest, forming the X that was her icon.

Her gloved hand rested on his forehead. The touch was light, but it made him tremble. She could have probably plucked the brain from his skull with as little effort as she had dismissed his thrall. “I have no interest in dispensing forgiveness. I just want a nightmare dredged from the pits.”

“It’s not possible. They emerge of their own volition when they’re ready.”

“This one is ready,” the Father said. “I’ll make
her ready, dammit.”

The sound of footsteps slapping against the ground drew his attention to the shore of the pit.

Cornelius realized Rowland was attacking only a split-second before the other nightmare hurtled out of the mist, screaming a battle cry. He held a cleaver over his head.

“Rowland, no!”

The Father moved swiftly. She jerked a black box out of her boot. Her thumb depressed the button on the side. She drove it into Rowland’s gut.

Blue lightning arced over his breastbone, wrapping him in wicked fingers of light.

His cleaver sank into her shoulder—a final act of revenge.

She had brought electricity to the Amniosium.

Hot tears streaked down Cornelius’s cheeks.

The Father ignored him, swearing under her breath. She reached back to touch the injury. “Dammit, Neuma!”

Her succubus companion reached up to jerk the blade free. Sludgy amber blood oozed down the Father’s shoulder. “It’s okay, doll. He didn’t cut deep, and it’s only steel. You’ll be okay.”

“I know,” the Father said. “But the bleeding—I can’t afford that, not if I end up having to use the runes.”

“It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” It sounded as though Neuma were trying to convince herself.

Cornelius barely registered the conversation the women were having above him. He stared at the place Rowland had been standing. The tang of electricity lingered in the air.

The Father had used a mortal weapon to kill a nightmare. Now Rowland’s essence wisped down the hill, melding with the bubbling vat that cradled the monoentity of his brethren.

He would be back. The nightmares always came back. But it wouldn’t be the same, this new life—rebirth changed a creature.

Though Cornelius didn’t consider himself sentimental, his heart clenched at the idea that he had lost his long-time companion. “How dare you, Father?” he whispered.

“I am a vengeful god,” she said dryly. She licked her own blood off the fingers of her gloves. The wound had already closed. “He attacked me and got what he deserved. The nightmare I want back—she didn’t deserve this. Will you help me retrieve her from the vat?”

“It’s impossible,” Cornelius said.

Neuma paced, twisting the whip in her fists. “He might be right. I don’t know, doll. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

The Father was glaring hard at the Amniosium as Rowland settled into it, making the surface of the fluid roil anew, unsettling the balance. His death was one more of too many.

“It’s calling to me,” the Father said.

Neuma stopped pacing. “What do you mean, calling to you?”

“I’m going in to get her.”

“Elise, wait!”

But the Father didn’t listen to her companion. She handed the gun and the Taser to Neuma, unzipped her leather body armor, and stepped out of it. She stripped off her underwear as well. The near-flawless body underneath was lean and lightly muscled. A long scar glistened on the inside of one forearm and a tattoo marked the same palm.

She stood on the brink of the vat wearing nothing but a gold ring, hair blown out of her face by Malebolge’s wheezing winds.

“What are you doing?” Cornelius asked, struggling to his feet.

She swan-dived into the Amniosium and vanished.

Neuma braced herself
for terror as Elise plunged into the pit of seething nightmares.

The instant her pale toes disappeared, slipping under the surface with barely a ripple, her protective aura vanished, too. Neuma was only a half-succubus, meaning that the other half of her was human. She was susceptible to most of the same things humans were. That included nightmare thrall.

And now she was alone in the place where nightmares were born.

She clenched her fist around the handle of the whip as terror clawed up the back of her skull, gaining traction on her mind.

“No!” shouted the birthing attendant, flinging a hand at the ripple left behind by Elise’s dive. He stumbled for the pit.

Neuma introduced the braided end of the whip to his ankles with a snap of her wrist. It lashed around him. She jerked him off of his feet, and he gave an extremely satisfying grunt as he hit the ground.

“Don’t you dare screw with her,” Neuma said, planting a boot on his chest.

He gazed up at her with desperate eyes. “She will unbalance everything. She could destroy the Amniosium.” His supplication was gratifying. He didn’t know that Neuma was a flickering candle in comparison to Elise’s bonfire, and he feared her even as his fear sucked the breath out of her lungs.

Neuma did well enough in the City of Dis, but Malebolge was much wilder. To the locals, half-blooded Gray were no better than mortals. As long as nobody realized what she was—or, more precisely, what she wasn’t—she enjoyed some vicarious benefits as Elise’s right hand. Demons seemed to regard them as nearly equal.

She couldn’t show the fear. She had to remain in control.

Disturbing mental images penetrated her resolve. She thought of dark rooms that smelled of feces and a woman screaming shrilly. A woman who needed her, a woman who Neuma simultaneously wished would die and hoped would never leave her.

It’s just the thrall
. She pushed it away.

“Please,” the birth attendant said, drawing her attention to him again. “Malebolge is already struggling. The pit’s status is…tenuous.”

Neuma leaned her weight harder on him, digging her spiked heel into his spongy flesh. “Shut your face. It’s done. She’s in there. Just gotta wait for her to come out on her own now.”

And wait they did.

She stood on the birth attendant for several minutes without any sign of Elise within the pit. Not so much as an air bubble broke the surface. The entire time, Neuma struggled against the choking fear, overwhelmed by horrible thoughts that pushed back when she tried to dismiss them.

It didn’t help that she could hear the rioters outside the gate. Elise had made the mistake of phasing them into the market, claiming that nobody would recognize them, or at least, that nobody would care.

She had been wrong. Everyone had known who they were. One glance at the livery and everything had gone fucking insane.

Dis wasn’t happy to have Elise residing in the Palace, but Malebolge was furious she even dared to exist.

It wouldn’t matter soon. Bringing Malebolge to heel wasn’t on the to-do list—not with so much left to do in Dis. Once they had what they wanted from the Amniosium, Neuma and Elise could phase away and forget this hideous, stinking place existed.

Elise just needed to come out now. If she didn’t, then how would Neuma get back to Dis?

“Please come out,” Neuma whispered, trying not to follow her spiraling thoughts down to their dark conclusion—the idea that Elise might never return.

“There!” said the nightmare suddenly.

Elise’s head broke the surface. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks, forehead, shoulders; the primordial soup of nightmares drizzled from the tip of her nose.

Neuma darted to the edge, heart fluttering wildly, but stopped on the brink.

Another handful of staggering steps, and Elise’s chest emerged. A head rested against her breasts.

Not a head—a skull.

“Babe,” Neuma whimpered.

Step by torturous step, Elise rose from the pit. A body dangled in her arms, little more than a collection of bones and connective tissue, lacking enough flesh to be obviously male or female—barely even humanoid. The bones looked to be molding, but Neuma knew it was the growth of new flesh.

The sight cracked Neuma’s heart in half. She wanted to plunge into the surf to help, but didn’t dare. Elise had the power of the father of all demons woven into the fiber of her being. Neuma was just a really ambitious bartender. She wasn’t sure she’d survive the skinny-dip.

She grabbed Elise the instant that she reached the edge of the pit. “That was insane!”

Elise collapsed to her knees, holding the pieces of the nightmare to her heart. “I’m going to drop her,” she said, voice ragged. “Help me.”

Neuma quickly moved to take the fragile bones of the nightmare into her own arms.