Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (8 page)

There was other blood in the hall. Sweeter blood.

Mortal
blood.

Elise reached for the source, so very hungry, still starving for energy.

“Hey!” Gerard kicked at her as she snaked around his calf. “Watch it!”

His voice woke her up. These were her allies. She couldn’t eat them.

But they smelled so
good
.

She reformed into her corporeal form before the temptation could overtake her. Elise had devoured half the century in a few swift gestures, leaving the mortals standing agape. And she noticed, with no small amount of nausea, that she had sucked away the dead bodies of her guards, too.

Gerard reached for her. “Jeez, Elise, you okay?”

She looked down. Her shirt was drenched in her own blood.

The weight of consuming so many demons sickened her. She swayed on her feet. “Take me back to the Palace, Gerard,” Elise groaned. “But don’t—don’t let anyone see.”

Then she fell.

NORTHGATE HAD NEVER
really recovered from the fall of Shamain. The wind had been strong enough to knock over half of the buildings downtown, and there wasn’t enough scrap left to rebuild. It wasn’t the postcard town it used to be back when Abel and Rylie had first selected it as the location of their new werewolf sanctuary.

Worse, it was still occupied by the Apple. Their barricades stood strong around the statue of Bain Marshall. They’d added more fencing around the town’s perimeter, too.

They couldn’t rebuild the homes that had been lost, but they could add more fucking security to a town in the middle of mountainous nowhere that didn’t even belong to them.

Not that Abel was bitter or anything.

He shifted back into his human form just outside town, hanging back under the cover of trees. He skirted along the perimeter to watch the Apple’s patrols through the fence.

The cultists had stopped pretending to be the Union. They still drove the SUVs and carried the matte black guns, but they wore normal clothes. It was impossible to tell the difference between the Apple and the Scions. Or maybe there wasn’t
a difference anymore. They’d been coexisting in Northgate for so long that the lines separating them had become awful hazy.

Abel walked along the fence until he reached the backside of St. Philomene’s Cathedral. Pretty grand name for a ramshackle old church. The cross on its spire had been blown off during the fall of Shamain, and someone had thoughtfully jammed the base into the ground so that it stood like a sign by the front door.

Closing his eyes, Abel inhaled deeply, scenting all the layered odors new and old. He could smell Isaiah, the witch that used to live in St. Philomene’s, but that was one of the old smells. Isaiah had refused to work with the Apple and returned to Dis.

Levi Riese’s smell was a lot more recent.

Abel became aware of someone joining him and knew by the scent that it was his son, Abram. In a lot of ways, Abram smelled like Seth used to, always haloed by the tang of gun oil and leather. Seemed like he had been smelling more and more like that ever since Uncle Seth kicked the bucket, too.

“Surprised to see you in town,” Abram said, ever the man of minimal words.

Abel narrowed his eyes at the cathedral. He could see motion through the windows. Probably Levi walking around with some of his lackeys, plotting more cultish evil. Something to do with treating Heaven like a piñata or mixing up a special batch of Kool-Aid or something. “We’ve gotta do something about these people.”

“I agree.”

He turned to his son in surprise. “You do?”

“Yes,” Abram said, cracking his knuckles. “They’ve overstayed their welcome.” There was a threat in his rumbling baritone. He definitely looked a hell of a lot more threatening than Seth ever had. He was a big guy, Abram Gresham, and not a real emotional one. The stony-faced look made it impossible to tell what he was thinking, so it was easy to imagine he was plotting murder.

Abel approved.

“Rylie’s not going to want us to do anything.”

“Is that a problem?” Abram asked.

“Nope. Just telling you, Mama’s not gonna be happy when she finds out what we’re doing.” Abel hadn’t decided what they were going to do yet, exactly, but he knew that it was going to be something that Rylie didn’t like. Something violent. Something that would show the entire pack, the Apple, and the Scions who the real Alphas were.

“We’re not killing anyone,” Abram said.

“Not if there’s a better way.” He needed plausible deniability to keep Rylie from booting his ass to the couch. “I’m not ruling it out, though. Especially if they try to kill me first. ‘Course, the Apple has already tried to kill me more than once or twice. Maybe it’s already fair game.”

Abram didn’t argue. “We’ll see.”

It was starting to drizzle. Rain pattered on the leaves above them. Abel’s skin was still hot from the change back from wolf to man, so it didn’t chill him, but Abram zipped his jacket shut.

Hunting was always harder when it rained. It washed away the scents. Made it tougher to distinguish old and new.

Could make it more fun, too.

The door to the church opened and a young man stepped out. He was thin, bronzed by frequent runs through the wilderness in nothing but his skin. He was already shirtless and unbuckling his pants.

Abel felt a growl rising in his chest. That curly-haired fucker was Levi—the would-be Alpha himself. He was about to change into his wolf form, judging by the striptease.

He’d be vulnerable while shifting, but Abel would have to move fast to use that advantage. He took two steps before Abram caught him.

“I’ll take care of Levi,” Abram said.

Abel frowned. “You sure? He’s big game.”

“Not that big.”

That was fine. The open door of the church had wafted the smell of even bigger game out into the forest—the scent of the woman, a strawberry-blond witch, who shouldn’t have been in town. Stephanie Whyte had returned to Half Moon Bay weeks ago.

Yet she was back again. And she, as high priestess in charge of this branch of the Apple, was the biggest game of all.

“Fine,” Abel said. “I’ll see what I can do about the others.”

Abram nodded once and melted into the forest, disappearing as smoothly as any one of the wolves. Though he couldn’t change into an animal, he still had a few tricks of his own. He’d need a lot of them if he thought he could get Levi out of the way. It’d been a long time since a Wilder had needed to hunt a werewolf, and it had never been easy.

Almost made Abel warm with fatherly pride to think of his son putting a bullet in that wolf’s skull.

The cathedral’s door shut again. He hadn’t seen who’d closed it. Stephanie must have still been inside, but now she didn’t have her pet dog.

The fence was twelve feet tall and topped with barbed wire, but that wasn’t anything to deter a determined Alpha. Abel jumped up, grabbed a branch, hauled himself into the top of a tree. He leaped over to the other side without even scraping himself.

He landed in wet grass that squished underneath him.

And then he heard a very distinctive
click
, like the hammer on a gun being cocked.

Exactly like the hammer on a gun, actually.

Abel froze.

The smell of silver followed that sound a moment later. Its distinctively sour stench burned in his sinuses. Whoever had come up behind him was prepared.

“Turn around,” said a man. “Slowly.”

Abel twisted, tension coiled in his muscles. It was Seth’s former best friend, Yasir. He was a tough-looking guy with scarred skin and thick eyebrows. He’d only gotten tougher in the last few years. That said a lot, considering the former Marine hadn’t ever been marshmallowy soft.

Stephanie Whyte stood beyond him with a disapproving frown, arms folded. It pissed Abel off to realize she wasn’t even armed. Couldn’t do the dirty work herself.

“We have these fences up for a reason,” Stephanie said.

He tried to say, “Can’t imagine why.” All that came out was a growl. He was pulling a Rylie, on the verge of shapeshifting.

“Yes, fascinating, thank you,” Stephanie said. “I take it you didn’t come here to open discussions as Levi requested.” He couldn’t manage an articulate response, and he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of growling again. She arched an eyebrow. “Well, best to make lemonade. Darling, could you please bring the Alpha into the cathedral? It’s obviously time that he and I had a talk.”

The Apple’s stench
was all over St. Philomene’s Cathedral, with all their guns and body armor and rubber and artifice. Abel couldn’t help but curl his lip at it.

He was in the belly of the enemy. Even if it looked like a pretty nice church.

Until occupation by the Apple, St. Philomene’s had been used by the Scions as a home base, so it had been filled with equipment to the rafters. Now it had been converted into a home. There were couches and a coffee table in the nave. The pillows had Bekah Riese written all over them—Levi’s sister loved things all bright and fluffy. It was a little rustic, very mismatched, and not exactly what Abel would have expected from an evil cult.

Stephanie sat on one of the couches, moving gingerly, as though in pain. “Can I get you anything?” she asked Abel, gesturing to the opposite couch to indicate that he should sit.

He didn’t move. “You can have your husband get the gun out of my back.”

“Yasir, if you don’t mind,” Stephanie said. The man lowered his gun, but didn’t holster it. “Now, would you please sit?”

“Awfully nice of you to ask, considering you’ve got me kidnapped,” Abel said.

Amusement touched her eyes. “Kidnapped?”

“Uh, yeah. Held at gunpoint.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Abel. You’re not being held captive. If you don’t want to be here, then go. We won’t stop you.”

“Fine,” he said. “Maybe I will.”

He walked out the front door of the cathedral, moving briskly, shoulders and neck tense. He expected Yasir to fire on him at any moment.

There was no gunshot. No attempt to stop him at all.

Abel was all the way down the stairs and two steps from the road by the time he realized Stephanie and Yasir really weren’t going to follow. He turned back to the cathedral, gaping at the front door. Rain collected in the gutters and drizzled off the corners of the roof.

“What the hell?” he asked the front of the building.

That wasn’t how the Apple worked. They weren’t friendly. They didn’t let people just
leave
.

He hesitated.

Then he climbed the stairs, pushed open the door, and went back inside.

Stephanie and Yasir hadn’t moved. Damn the woman—she still looked like she was quietly laughing at him.

Stiffly, Abel stood beside the other couch.

“You want clothes?” Yasir asked. “I’ve got a couple things that might fit you.” There was kindness in the way he spoke. Gun aside, this was the guy who had been best man at Seth’s doomed wedding.

Abel glanced down at himself. He’d forgotten that he was still naked. It was easy to forget, hanging out in the sanctuary—lots of the werewolves didn’t ever bother getting dressed, so long as the weather was good. “No. I’m fine.”

Yasir tossed a blanket at him anyway.

“What are you doing here, doc?” Abel asked, chucking the blanket over the back of the couch without even looking at it.

Stephanie registered mild surprise. “She hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what?” Abel asked. “Who are you talking about?”

The doctor smoothed her features. “Hmm. Well, I’m here to check on Levi and the status of the fissure.”

“It’s still open,” he said. “Thanks for the visit. See you later.”

“Yes, I didn’t think you would have any interest in my agenda. We won’t waste time discussing it. That’s not why Levi has had an open invitation for you and Rylie to come speak to him—which has been roundly ignored, I’ll note. However, I believe you might be interested in learning more about your brother’s agenda.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Cain, that is. The last person to attempt to lead the Apple on a crusade.”

Anger rippled through Abel. “Don’t want to talk about him, either. I want to talk about you people leaving here.”

“Please, Abel,” Stephanie said. “Be reasonable.”

“I’m feeling real fucking reasonable just by keeping my teeth away from your throats right now.”

Yasir lifted the gun again, aiming it squarely at Abel’s face. The Alpha coiled. Prepared to launch.

Stephanie shoved herself to her feet. “Stop it. Both of you. We’re all friends here.”

Friends?
Friends
?

“Your friend here just about ripped Heaven out of the sky and dumped it on my town!” Abel snapped.

“That wasn’t what we intended to do,” Yasir said. “It would have gone better if Seth’d been here, like we expected. All we were trying to do was fix the fissure. Cut off Hell.”

“And cut off the only route to getting all the human slaves out of Hell while you’re at it.” Abel shocked himself with how fiercely he said it.

He hadn’t started out a fan of Elise and Rylie’s plan to save the humans in Hell. Abel had thought all those people were as good as dead anyway. But they’d saved hundreds of people now, and Abel would have been a cold bastard not to know how much good they were doing. He’d seen the gratitude in the eyes of the Scions himself.

“I’ll have to beg to differ on the intent of that bridge,” Stephanie said. “Again, I’m not going to try to change your mind about that. We need to talk about Cain and the Apple. That’s all I want.”

“Fine,” Abel said without relaxing. “Talk.”

Stephanie sighed. Lowered herself to the couch again. “You’ll recall that my father, Scott Whyte, betrayed the pack a couple of years ago because of Cain’s demands.” She pulled a blanket across her lap and smoothed it over her thighs. “I was angry. We all were, at the time. I couldn’t understand how he could have aligned himself with a cult that stood in direct opposition to our family’s best interests—a cult that hurt people.”

“Because he was a fucking weasel.”

“Hmm. Well, that may have been a factor. Scott wasn’t without his flaws. However, when he originally joined the Apple, it was not within Cain’s control. Your brother was a smart man. A man with a vision. He stumbled upon the cult, discovered it lacked leadership, and took charge to pursue his own goals.”