Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (7 page)

At some point, Elise really wanted a man in her life that wasn’t so fucking complicated.

“I don’t want you,” she said again, more firmly than before.

“I don’t have anywhere to go. The world isn’t the way it was before I got possessed. It’s—it’s all ruined, Elise. And I have dreams. I can’t get away from the dreams.” He took her wrists. His hands burned hot. “Sometimes, when I wake up from those dreams, my bedroom is burning. I’m setting fires in my sleep.” His eyelid twitched. “It’s happened, Elise.”

Lincoln had feared the day his infernal powers would wake up. It was the reason he had worked for James. He had been desperate for salvation.

Now James was gone, and Lincoln didn’t look at Elise like she was the Devil anymore.

Now
she
was his salvation.

She turned his palms up to look at them. His skin danced with inner magic.

Dammit, Gerard
. He was too fucking good at his job. He had seen how Elise was struggling to figure out warlock magic and located someone else to work on it for her. It was a good idea. A great idea, actually. At least, it would have been if the warlock had been anyone but Deputy Lincoln Marshall, who deserved to be free of all of this.

Elise didn’t want to be Lincoln’s salvation.

Even though he might be hers.

She took a long look at his face, carved in lines of fear and exhaustion. Her initial impression of him had been wrong. He wasn’t the same pious deputy that she had met the previous year, and his soul wouldn’t magically heal if she pushed him away. He hadn’t been better off when Elise had left him to his own devices.

And Elise was surprised to realize that she had missed him.

One week working together—just one very long, very dark week—and Lincoln had left an imprint that hadn’t faded. Lincoln and his slices of cherry pie for breakfast.

Her hands slid in his grip until their fingers twined. Some tiny warm place inside of her liked that. She decided to blame it on Eve. “I’m not going to turn you away if you want help.”

“You’re the least of the evils left to me.” He gripped her hands tighter. “I’ve remembered some of what she did while she had me. I’m not gonna let those memories torture me—I’m determined to right those wrongs. I’m gonna prove that I’m better than the demon, even if I’ve got demon blood.”

The printer was done. She gathered the papers—a hefty stack that had nearly emptied Summer’s tray—and jammed them into the inner pocket of her jacket.

“Don’t worry, Lincoln,” Elise said, heading for the door. “You have nothing to prove to me.”

Gerard was inspecting
the thirtieth century when Elise rejoined him. They had moved this part of the army to the Butchers’ District, close to places an insurgent group had been spotted. The rebels had been attacking supply lines, committing acts of arson, that kind of thing. The thirtieth should have been able to suppress it.

But they hadn’t. Another warehouse had been burned down earlier that week.

It might have been coincidence that Sallosa, daughter of the House of Volac, had failed to protect supplies at the same time that Gremory was leading another centuria to her House, but Elise doubted it.

“What happened to the warehouse? Did Sallosa do it on purpose?” Elise asked when Gerard met her in the lobby of Sallosa’s apartment building. This part of the district resembled Columbia in architectural design; the high rise was brightly colored, with elegant lines and high fencing surrounding the exterior.

“Hard to say,” he said. “The centurion is saying everything I want to hear. They’re patrolling the neighborhood in shifts that last one day on Earth, swapping out teams so they’re always fresh, covering all the right ground.” Gerard showed her the rudimentary map that he had drawn of the district. Sallosa, the centurion, had added lines to indicate patrol routes. It looked comprehensive.

“Then how did we lose another warehouse?” Elise asked.

“That’s the question I can’t seem to get answered.”

She massaged her temples, fighting back a growing headache. She had forced herself to eat food and sleep before going topside to check her email, but ordinary mortal methods of replenishment weren’t enough to hold back her growing hunger. She needed to feed. Really feed.

“We were already low on food for the troops,” Elise said quietly, too quiet for any of Gerard’s guards to hear. He needed an entire squad to watch his back these days. The residents of Dis recognized him now, and he wasn’t popular. “If we lose another one…”

“I know,” Gerard said.

She was tempted to just kill the entire century. Slaughtering them was the likely outcome anyway—Elise was already prepared to believe that Sallosa had been conspiring with Gremory. And that would reduce their need for supplies by a hundred heads.

Except that the House of Volac was one of Dis’s oldest families. Killing Sallosa would mean that Volac would never release the one hundred and seventy-six mortal slaves kenneled on her property. Volac also owned all of the flesh farms in the city—the only way to grow food without slaughtering humans—and her House was critical to Elise’s plan for a murder-free Dis.

If Volac was allied with Belphegor, Elise had bigger problems than a lost warehouse. The whole city might starve.

That meant she couldn’t kill Sallosa. She needed to win her over.

Easier said than done.

“I’ll talk to the centurion. But first…” She gave Gerard the stack of paper that she had printed from Summer’s computer. “I want you to disseminate this list of names among the former slaves. If anyone recognizes a name on it, I want them sent to me immediately.”

Gerard rubbed a thumb along his eyebrow as he took a quick look over the list. “Lots of names.”

“Yes. Thousands.”

“Who are they?”

“That’s what I need to know,” Elise said. “I suspect they might be humans that were brought down to Hell for slavery, food, or…” Maybe something worse. Demons were creative. “Just make sure everyone reads the list.”

“Consider it done, ma’am,” Gerard said.

She took a step toward the stairs, and then paused. “Why did you contact Lincoln without asking me?”

His eyes widened. “Neuma asked me to do it. I thought it came from you.”

So it hadn’t been a stroke of Gerard’s brilliance after all. “Forget about it.” She’d ask Neuma about it later, when she wasn’t preoccupied.

He swept a hand toward the stairs. “Want to talk with Sallosa?”

There were few things that Elise wanted to do less right at that moment. “Lead the way.”

The centurion had taken the entire top floor of the building as her quarters. Her furniture all looked like Walmart specials—a couple of fake potted plants, a tacky leather sofa, that kind of thing.

Sallosa herself didn’t suit the setting. She was a full head taller than Elise, ripped with muscle, red-skinned, and hoofed. She looked elegant in a linen shift. A pile of plate armor had been arranged on the floor nearby by a servant, who was tying the back of Sallosa’s dress.

“Father,” Sallosa said, bowing briefly. Her servant kneeled to place the shin guards over her furry legs. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

“The warehouse. I need to know how the insurgents burned it when I’ve ordered double patrols around all supply stores.”

“I’ve already spoken to Gerard,” Sallosa said.

Elise had left him outside the door with his squad, just in case it got ugly with Sallosa. She didn’t want to have to worry about accidentally devouring the wrong people. “I want to hear it from your mouth.”

Sallosa spat. “Waste of my time.”

“Tell me.”

She huffed as the servant wrapped a heavy belt around her waist, strapping the cuisses into place. “As I told Gerard, the insurgents have simply become more cunning. We have patrolled as ordered. My men are doing exactly as they should. How they slipped past us remains a mystery, but it’s not because of a flaw in methodology on my part.”

Elise disagreed. However the supplies had been lost, it most definitely was Sallosa’s fault. The scent of a lie rolled off of her.

“We caught Gremory attempting to take a centuria to the House of Volac,” Elise said. “Do you know if Belphegor’s been in contact with your family?”

Sallosa had the nerve to look offended. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Belphegor and the House of Volac haven’t been allied since Aquiel ruled the Palace. We have major philosophical differences.”

The headache throbbed in Elise’s temples. “Whatever he’s offered you guys, let me counter it. I can do better. Is he giving you more farmland? Artifacts? Slaves?”

“You offend me,” Sallosa hissed.

So much for trying to win her over.

Elise couldn’t focus through the pain stabbing into her skull over and over. She needed someone smarter, someone charming, someone who could figure out what Sallosa wanted and promise it to her. Someone like James.

Since that wasn’t going to happen, Elise would just have to deal with what she had. Not charm, but brutality. “I’m going to remove your century from this part of the city. I’ve sent the twenty-sixth into the wastelands, and I want you to accompany them.”

“The wastelands?” Sallosa scoffed. “You can’t send us into the wastelands.”

“Afraid?” Elise asked.

“You insult me. You insult my family and my honor.”

Sallosa wasn’t done talking, but Elise was done listening. Her head was throbbing double time now. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to make it all the way back to the Palace to feed if she didn’t head back soon.

“The wastelands,” she said firmly. End of subject.

The door behind her opened.

Elise didn’t turn quickly enough.

Metal prongs dug into her back. Electricity followed an instant later.

It coursed through her body, blanking her mind, crowding her vision with stars. Her teeth felt like they were about to pop free of her skull. And her hands—she could see the bones through her skin.

Sallosa moved swiftly, drawing her flamberge. “It was never about those fucking supplies. It was about getting you alone, away from the Palace.”

And she shoved the blade through Elise’s chest.

At another time, when she hadn’t been forced to resort to using ethereal magic, a little electricity and a sword to the heart would have barely staggered her.

She was already hungry. Weak.

Elise fell under Sallosa, out of mind, riding on a flaming ocean of agony.

She heard something wet and meaty. Her corporeal body jerked. Sallosa was stabbing her, trying to pulverize her organs, doing her damnedest to kill a demon that couldn’t die.

It wasn’t working, but it didn’t feel good, either.

Elise’s muscles burned as her skin faded away. She was peeling inside out. Losing her body.

As she faded, her warding ring fell from her shriveled hand. Clattered to the floor. Her mind opened wide.

Elise…

She glimpsed a mirrored hall, wooden floors. The black and white keys of a piano. Long fingers poised to play.

James’s presence brushed against her skull. It was a bad time for the fissure’s currents to open enough for them to make contact through the bond.
Don’t look
, she told him.

Of course he pushed against her harder, trying to see.
Why
?

Trust me. Don’t.

Then she let herself go.

Elise relinquished her physical form, succumbing to the shadows.
 

She filled the room with herself—not deliberately, but because she was incapable of doing anything else. Elise was the flood. She occupied every inch of air and light and drew it within her.

Elise felt her incorporeal form being sucked deeper into Hell. She was too weak to remain in Dis, and if she didn’t act fast, she was going to fall into Hell’s darker pits. Maybe to Malebolge, where nightmares were formed. Maybe somewhere else she hadn’t yet seen.

Maybe nowhere at all.

No
. Elise railed against it. Fought to stay in the room.

But she was weak. She couldn’t fight for long.

Sallosa nearly killed me
.

The fury gave her enough strength to wrap around the centurion of the thirtieth century, slither down her throat, and engulf her body in darkness. Sallosa tried to scream, but choked on the smoke.

She kept growing. She seized Sallosa’s servant.

Once they were tangled inside of Elise, she inhaled.

For the briefest moment, Elise could feel the other demons writhing, silently screaming their anger. Then Sallosa and her servant died within her body and went limp.

Eating them was almost as good as devouring mortal life—not quite, but almost. It was enough for her to draw her body in on itself, withdrawing her tendrils from the corners of the room, allowing the hazy red light of the desert to reappear. With concentration, she reformed her limbs, and then her core.

Her hands flew to her breast. The first stab wound wasn’t gone. Sludgy amber blood oozed down her stomach.

“Fuck,” Elise whispered, lifting her eyes to the room.

Sallosa’s bloodied sword was at her feet on top of a pile of plate armor. There was no hint of any bodies. She had consumed every last atom of them. Still not enough to heal herself.

Elise pulled her clothes back on, shoving the warding ring into place before James could try to look in on her again. She winced at every movement. Blood began seeping through her shirt.

The assassination attempt had done much more damage than it should have. She couldn’t let anyone see her like this: truly wounded, unable to heal.

People were screaming out in the hallway. The sound settled over her slowly, taking almost a full minute to penetrate her consciousness after the haze of darkness.

Those were mortal screams. An attack.

Seizing Sallosa’s abandoned sword, Elise pressed her fist against her chest wound to stem the flow of blood and flung the apartment’s door wide open.

Gerard and his squad were cornered by members of Sallosa’s century in the hallway outside. Two were dead. Elise’s livery was smeared with cherry-red blood.

Rebellion.

Sallosa’s soldiers turned at the sound of the door opening, but before anyone could so much as look at her, Elise was smoke again. Sallosa had primarily controlled lesser demons—nothing that could fight back against her. She filled herself with their blood. She consumed their flesh. It was good, but not enough.