Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (22 page)

Davithon of the House of Courevore wasn’t half-human, so Elise decided to worry about the surviving Gray later. A handful of their lives weren’t worth Jerica’s.

“I’m going down,” Elise said. “Guard the hall.”

Gratitude flashed over Gerard’s grizzled face. “Will do.”

He stepped out the double doors. Before they swung shut, another man stepped through. Lincoln had shrunk even since Elise had issued leather body armor to him, and the slacks hung low on his hips. His skin was gray.

“James?” she asked.

“He wanted to stay and read books. Azis is watching him.”

Good enough. The library was probably where he would be most useful anyway, whether to find a cure for anathema powder or puzzle out warlock magic. “Help Gerard guard the door.”

“No,” Lincoln said.

She didn’t bother arguing with him. They climbed down the ladder into the dungeons together. “Levi Riese has been in contact with one of my prisoners,” Elise explained as she moved down the rungs, hand over hand, boots clanging against the metal. “That prisoner seems to have supplied him with the poison.”

“How?”

“I couldn’t ask,” she said, dropping to the floor. “Everyone in Northgate has gone missing.”

Lincoln landed beside her, even paler than before. “You mean like Two Rivers?”

“Just like Two Rivers. This is all connected, deputy, and I would love to find out how.” She strode down the hallway to the door sealing Davithon’s cell. “What would you say if I told you that the pregnant women didn’t go missing like the others?”

Lincoln frowned deeply. “I’d say that doesn’t sound like something demons would do.”

“Ring any bells?”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, staring at his feet as he searched his thoughts. Elise could actually see him digging deep in memory and finding nothing. “I don’t get it.”

“Would you like answers?”

“Never wanted anything more in my life.”

Elise touched the lock on the cell. It swung open.

The smell of rot rolled out of the open door, slapping her in the face. She cursed under her breath as she stepped inside.

Davithon was dead, and he had passed away violently.

His corpse was contorted in bed, face frozen into a mask of pain. His eyes had sunken deep into his skull. His lips were puckered around bloodstained teeth. His stomach had caved in underneath his ribs, clearly visible under his crushed velvet suit, which looked like it had been eaten away by his sweat. Dried vomit tinged with ichor pooled on the floor underneath.

She stepped forward to get a closer look at the body.

“Careful,” Lincoln said, grabbing her arm.

She tilted her head to the side and saw a faint glimmer of magic in the bile. “Good eye,” Elise said. “He ate anathema powder.”

“Looks like it.” Lincoln wiped his hand over his forehead. He was suddenly sweating. “Jesus. That’s what it looks like. That’s how I’m going to die.”

If Elise had any words of comfort for him, she couldn’t think of them under the sudden crush of disappointment.

Davithon would have known how Levi had gotten the poison, who in the Palace was involved with the conspiracy, and maybe even where all of the missing people were going.

But he was dead, taking her answers with him.

“
Fuck
!”

She whirled and smashed her fist into the wall. The stone cracked under her knuckles, crumbling to dust.

“We just need someone else from his House, right?” Lincoln asked, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Jerica’s fear was hitting him. “We just need another guy from the House of Courevore.”

Except that there was nobody else from the House of Courevore. Elise had killed Courevore himself years ago when he had possessed a man on Earth, and they’d always been one of Dis’s smallest Houses. All that remained were fiends and slaves.

Nobody who would know anything useful.

“Elise.” A rasping voice echoed over the dungeons. She turned, looking for who had spoken to her, but the cell was empty. It didn’t sound like any of her prisoners, either. “Up here.”

Elise tipped her head back. Jerica’s cage was swaying. She could just make out bony, humanlike fingers curled around the bars, and a pale face peering down through the darkness.

“Let me out,” Jerica whispered. “I might know what you need.”

“I DON’T THINK
I’ve ever seen him before.”

Elise circled Rylie, watching her watch Jacobi Nowacki through the window of his cell. “Think harder.”

The cells concealed underneath the court were stiflingly hot—much stuffier than the dungeons where Jerica had been feeding. But they were as safe as any location in the Palace could be, unreachable for all but Elise’s trusted inner circle. The wards had been replaced after James broke out a few years earlier, and the stone fortified, so it may have been the safest place in the Palace.

It was the best way to make sure that nobody reached Jacobi Nowacki for further conspiracy. It was also the best place to lock up a pair of Alpha werewolves that required protection.

Not that Rylie and Abel seemed all that thrilled about being kept in a prison cell.

Rylie shook her head. “I’m sorry. I never got to know Levi all that well. I really don’t recognize him.”

“Fine.” Elise stepped aside so that Rylie could return to her makeshift bedroom.

The staff had dragged furniture downstairs to make it as comfortable as possible for their visitors. They had a bed, a couch, and even a desk that had once belonged to Judge Abraxas. Neuma had also hung a large painting of demons silhouetted against the fires of Hell on one wall. It wasn’t the most comforting decoration, but better than most art in the Palace, and better than bare stone walls.

There was still no mistaking the room for anything but a windowless prison cell. Abel seemed incredibly annoyed to be in it, pacing from one wall to the other as if measuring its length with his footsteps.

When Rylie and Elise returned, he immediately pulled his mate to him. He had come into Hell naked and his condition hadn’t changed. That didn’t seem to bother him or Rylie.

Werewolves
, Elise thought with no small hint of annoyance.

“You smell like Northgate,” Abel said. “Did you kill Levi yet?”

“I didn’t get a chance. Every single person in town has gone missing without a trace. Everyone except Stephanie Whyte.” Elise couldn’t think of any other way to say it. Better to be blunt and get it over with.

“They left?” Rylie asked.

“I have reason to suspect they were taken. Thousands of people have been going missing. I think Levi, the Apple, and the pack are just the latest of the disappearances.”

Panic and shock washed over Rylie. “Abram.”

“He’s not dumb,” Abel said. “He would have left after we were kicked out. He wouldn’t have stuck around.”

“We don’t know that,” Rylie said, anxiety mounting in her voice. “What if he stayed to try to fight for us? What if he was there when they got taken to—” She cut off. Her eyebrows furrowed. “Where did they go? Who took them?”

“Aliens,” Abel guessed.

Elise felt the corner of her mouth twitch. There wasn’t a hint of worry in him. Rylie was horrified by the idea of everyone going missing, but her mate definitely was not. “Levi Riese is responsible for a recent attempt on my life. I think that the demon who gave him the poison is also making people disappear.”

Rylie’s distress spiked. She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, hands clutching her heart. “Levi wouldn’t do that.”

Lincoln edged into the cell, carrying a bundle of leather. “Gerard sent me down with these for the werewolf Alphas. We’re pretty sure they should fit you. Most of the staff isn’t so…big.”

Abel didn’t move to take the clothes from him. “What the fuck are you doing down here? You’re not possessed again, are you?”

The deputy tossed everything onto the couch. “I’m in full possession of my faculties, for your information.” Elise didn’t even need to be able to read his signals to know that he was pissed. A little bit of the Southern drawl had slipped into his voice, like it always did when he was mad.

“Growl at each other later,” Elise said. “Get dressed, Rylie. You have to go back to Earth.”

Abel lifted a couple pieces of leather. It was the same body armor Elise’s guards wore. “I’m not wearing your stupid uniform.”

“We don’t have enough street clothes to spare them for you. It’s either that or you keep walking around naked. Fine by me, but the winds of Dis aren’t much fun for mortal flesh, and the bridge to the fissure is long,” Elise said.

Rylie picked up a pair of trousers. “Thank you,” she mumbled, pulling them on underneath her nightgown. “Why are we rushing back to Earth? Do you think you know where everyone went?” The real question was unspoken, but obvious in her tone.
Do you know where my son is?

“I have a lead on the disappearances. Lincoln and I are going to search a site in Hell. You, however, are going to take Northgate from Stephanie, and this time, you’re going to fucking keep it.”

Rylie’s cheeks burned. “I see.”

“Don’t bother rushing to haul the pack’s asses back to Northgate,” Abel said. He followed Rylie’s example and hiked a pair of leather pants up his hips. “The Levi problem will take care of itself in a couple of days.”

“What do you mean?” Elise asked.

“Levi’s not an Alpha. You can’t just pass the title around like—I don’t know, being king or president or whatever. It’s bigger than that.” He smiled unpleasantly, stretching the scars around his mouth. “Full moon’s coming. You know what’s going to happen when a whole pack of werewolves without an Alpha shapeshifts together?”

Elise thought she could imagine it. The werewolves were docile under Rylie’s control, but that wasn’t normal behavior. She’d been mauled by a werewolf when she was a child. She knew firsthand how brutal they could be.

Abel nodded at her expression. “Like I said. Wherever they are, the Levi problem won’t be a problem soon.”

“That’s why you just left, isn’t it?” Rylie asked, gazing up at Abel with horror. “Because you knew they’d just kill each other.”

Abel shrugged. “The assholes ditched us. Seems fair.”

Elise felt a hint of a smile creep over her lips. “The only problem is that they might be with more than three thousand other missing people.”

“Well, if you get a chance to conveniently leave the Apple and Levi somewhere alone with the pack…” Abel’s grin broadened. “Just saying.”

“Simple. Elegant,” Elise said. “I like it.”

“It’d be a bloodbath,” Rylie whispered.

That seemed fitting, considering that Elise and Lincoln had spent hours vomiting blood from Levi’s poison.

Lincoln wasn’t quite so pragmatic. “We can’t let the pack tear itself apart and take the Apple down with it. First of all, we wouldn’t get the chance to question them.”

A shame, but not necessarily a problem. “And?” Elise prompted.

“And it’s wrong,” Lincoln said. “There’s got to be a better way. We can bring these people to justice without being barbaric.”

“I don’t know how much you traveled in America during the last few months, Linc, but there’s no justice left in the world. It shattered with the fissure to Hell.”

“The world gone lawless doesn’t justify cruelty,” Lincoln said. “What we do in times like these is what sets us apart from evil. If you think you’re not a sinner, Elise, then you can’t make a sinner’s choices.” He gestured at the painting of the demons on Rylie and Abel’s wall. “You’ve got a Palace. I saw your dungeons. There’s a court, right? Guards? Pull together a jury, find a judge, seek out justice—handle this like civilized, Christian human beings.”

Appreciation flushed Rylie’s mind. Somehow, it didn’t surprise Elise that the Christian thing resonated with her. “He’s right,” Rylie said. “We don’t have to handle this like demons would. We’re not evil.”

Elise rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe I’m listening to this.”

“Even God flooded the Earth when humans acted like giant fucking dicks,” Abel said.

“I won’t let the pack tear itself apart if there are innocents in danger,” Elise said. “Happy?”

Rylie nodded, but she didn’t look happy.

“Gerard said he’d have a contingent of guards ready to escort the Alphas in about an hour,” Lincoln said, heading for the door. “Make sure you’re at the top of the tower before then.”

“We don’t need guards,” Abel said, pulling a jacket on over his bare shoulders. “Wasn’t it one of your people that just tried to kill you guys in the first place? I’m not letting any of them at my back.”

“Guards or not—I don’t care. It’s up to you. Get to Northgate,” Elise said. She caught Rylie’s eye. “You’ll keep it this time, right?”

Rylie bit her lip and nodded again.

Not the most inspiring response, but Elise didn’t have time to try to shake some confidence into the kid. She moved to follow Lincoln.

Rylie caught her arm, stopping her. “If you find out that Abram is with them…whatever else you do, make sure that he escapes,” she whispered urgently, pleading in her eyes. “Don’t leave him at the mercy of Levi. Don’t let the pack bite him.”

Elise’s heart fractured. She kept her expression blank. “I’ll do my best to bring him home safely if he’s with the abductees.”

“Thank you,” Rylie said. “I know he’s an adult, and a kopis, and…” She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth. Her mind was awash with pain, and even her posture made it look like she had been physically injured. “He’s still my baby.”

Nathaniel’s face flashed through Elise’s mind. She pushed it away.

“He’s not the only loved one gone missing,” Elise said. She surprised herself with how gently she said it. “My friend Anthony is gone, too. I don’t plan on letting the werewolf pack go wild. Okay?”

Rylie finally looked comforted. She released Elise’s arm.

Elise headed into the hall with Lincoln and headed up the iron stairs. “So where are we going?” he asked once they were out of earshot from Rylie and Abel.

Elise rubbed her upper arms, even though she wasn’t cold. She felt heavy with Rylie’s sadness. Eve’s sadness. The loss of Abram. Ridiculous. She needed to shake free of it all. “We’re going to the House of Volac. I think there’s something in the canyon on her property.”