Authors: SM Reine
He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her back. “But I would make the exact same choice again. I’d do it again a thousand times for you.” She allowed him to push her flat against the mattress, rolling his weight on top of hers. Elise looked slightly mollified. “Only you, though.”
“I’ve hated you for years.” She shoved a book out from underneath her head. “That’s a big sacrifice for someone who hates you. Almost makes me think that you did it because you want something in return.”
“If you think that I saved you because I wanted you to owe a debt to me,” he said, “then you’re delusional. I saved you because I love you. I never stopped loving you.” James propped himself on one elbow, catching a lock of Elise’s hair between two fingers, letting the silken strands fall to the bed in a shimmering wave.
“That’s pathetic.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
Elise shrugged, but she didn’t look annoyed anymore. “I don’t hate you right now.”
“Is that your way of saying that you love me, too?”
“No.” The corners of her lips drew down in a frown. “Everyone I love dies.”
James brushed a kiss over her chin, right where the edge of her mouth wrinkled slightly from her sadness. “I’m not dead yet.”
“Did you miss the part where I said I don’t love you?”
“You’re lying.” He didn’t manage much conviction when he said it. He’d assumed Elise loved him from the first time that she tried to kiss him, and the fact she’d let him live despite his numerous betrayals seemed to confirm that. But she didn’t look particularly loving at that moment. She’d definitely never said the words.
Elise shrugged again and left it at that. Instead, she let her hands do the talking, roaming up the muscles of his chest, scraping the white stubble that was beginning to grow on his neck.
Her knee slipped up his side, parting her thighs to make it easier for him to slide against her.
James pressed a hand to her hip to still her movements. “I hate to disappoint, but you’ve worn me out. My humanity comes with more than a lack of magic. It comes with a highly mortal, highly disappointing refractory period. It’s miraculous you didn’t kill me after the first three times.”
Elise lifted an eyebrow. “Now you sound as old as you look.”
“I am old,” James said, nuzzling her jawline.
“Not that old.” She trailed her fingernails down his back, sketching invisible lines along his spine. “I was taught how to use succubus powers by Neuma. I have tricks.”
“You should probably save all your demon tricks for Belphegor.”
“That’s repulsive, James.”
“I didn’t mean
those
ones. I’d prefer to keep those to myself, thank you.” It was becoming increasingly difficult to think again as she pushed him onto his back, moving her lips over his collarbone and down his chest. “You’ll need your strength.”
There was something a little bit mischievous to the glint in her eye as she licked a line down his body. Mischievous, and almost affectionate. “It’s not my strength you should be worried about, human.”
Elise was right about one thing. Neuma had taught her tricks. Several of them, in fact. And she didn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry to cast that gaean magic.
James could have stayed in bed with Elise for eternity, given the choice.
But they didn’t have the choice.
At some point, as though she had been waiting for a specific time, Elise finally got up to leave, suddenly serious again. She dressed in old clothing without looking at him. Her last kiss was brief and distracted.
It felt very much like a goodbye.
Anthony had found
cigarettes for Elise somewhere. She didn’t care where they had come from—only that there was a pack waiting for her when she finally got dressed and left James working in the bedroom.
“Thank fucking God,” she muttered, knowing that there were no gods worth thanking in Eden.
She snatched the cigarettes off of the box Anthony had left them sitting on—a box that was just a few feet away from Rylie’s shrouded body—and went outside.
Elise didn’t have a light, but she didn’t need it. There was still a fire rune on her hand. It was probably overkill to use it on one little cigarette, but she needed the smoke.
She stood atop the crevasse, looking down at Brianna and Anthony’s work, as she took a deep inhale of the cigarette.
The circle was almost done.
Elise couldn’t find any satisfaction in that, or the smoke filling her lungs.
Belphegor would be watching her, even now. He’d want to see how close Elise was to snapping. Maybe hoping she had already snapped. The fact that he wasn’t attacking only meant that he was waiting.
It didn’t matter how quickly they prepared to open that gate. They weren’t racing against Belphegor.
He was allowing them to do it.
Elise’s cigarette tasted a little worse after that thought.
A soft noise drew her around the building to a set of stone steps, where a child was sitting in a bundle of furs. Dana McIntyre was alone. She must have escaped Summer’s smothering comfort, since Elise highly doubted that the shapeshifter would have allowed the child outside on her own.
Elise didn’t want to talk to Dana, but she felt words trapped in her throat and knew she needed to say
something
.
She sat down beside the girl and stubbed her cigarette out in the snow. The McIntyres had never let Elise smoke anywhere near their kids. They couldn’t yell at her for it now, and Dana’s chances of surviving long enough to develop lung cancer didn’t look great, but she still couldn’t bring herself to finish the cigarette.
“Everyone’s going to die,” Dana said. “Aren’t they?” She was looking up at the sky. Heaven was on the other side of those clouds—or something very much like it, perverted by Belphegor’s grasp.
“I’m trying to stop that,” Elise said.
Dana had a good grasp of what Elise, Anthony, and McIntyre had always done together. She’d also spent her entire life getting the “what happens once your dad dies” talk—same talk that Elise’s kopis father had given her in lieu of bedtime stories.
It was sad to see a mind drenched in such grief without a single tear on her cheek. The kid had already moved past crying.
“Mom,” Dana said. And then, “Deb.”
Elise swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
She didn’t know what else to say to help Dana. Elise hadn’t gotten a sibling until she was an adult, and she wasn’t sure that she would have ever been heartbroken over Ariane’s death. She was incapable of sympathizing.
But she thought of holding James back in that room. The way that her touch had slowed the racing of his heart, soothed the stress in his mind.
There were some things gestures could communicate that words never could.
She wrapped her arm around Dana’s shoulders. Elise had never tolerated the girls’ attempts to cuddle with her, but even though they had never really hugged before, Dana wasn’t all that much bigger than Marion. It didn’t feel all that strange to embrace her.
The strangest part was that holding her made Elise feel fractionally better, too.
Dana didn’t move until Nash approached them.
“I’m told the ritual is ready,” he said.
Elise released Dana. “Go inside,” she told the girl. “It’s warmer.” Not safer, but warmer. Nowhere was safe anymore.
Dana got to her feet, gathering the furs around her, and marched obediently through the snow.
Elise waited to speak again until she was gone. “You know what we need to do next.”
“Is Ariane ready?” Nash asked.
“Probably. She’s had enough time to do the two in Hell, and she should be about done with the third.”
Abram stepped up beside Nash and Elise, swathed in so many scarves that only his silver eyes were visible. “I’m ready,” he said, voice muffled.
“Good,” Elise said. “You know how to get there?”
“Get where?” That came from Abel. He stood just outside the resort, panting and steaming. The spirit wolves were just barely visible around him as shadows. They must have been running for a long time for Abel to seem so exhausted.
Elise didn’t respond. Nobody did.
“You’re getting ready to bleed him, aren’t you?” Abel asked. “So Belphegor’s going to try to kill him again.”
He knew.
Elise had expected a much more dramatic reaction when he learned that Seth was Abram’s father, but Abel only looked tired and frustrated.
“Levi will protect me,” Abram said. That was the plan, anyway: Levi and Nash would escort Abram to the circle and remain with him until the gates to Eden were opened. They didn’t have any better ideas.
Abel bristled. “Like hell he is. I’ll protect you.”
“I don’t care who does it, so long as it’s done,” Elise said, glancing up at the torn sky. She could smell brimstone again. “We have to do it now.”
Brianna began the
ritual. Elise felt the Fate approach immediately.
Right on time
.
Elise stood outside the circle with her twin falchions drawn. Even though she couldn’t see the demon coming through the overwhelming darkness of the cloudy sky, she felt it deep within using her kopis senses.
The Fate, infected with her blood, felt very much like a piece of herself. And a piece of Belphegor.
Which Fate would it be? Clotho was dead. McIntyre had made sure of that in the most devastating way possible. Atropos had barely survived their fight in the Palace, but she
had
survived, and there was no telling how quickly she would heal.
She would wager that this one would be Lachesis. The one that had escaped after slaughtering Neuma and Gerard.
Elise twirled the falchions in both hands to give her body something to do. Belphegor knew that Elise had creatures that could kill his Fates. He wasn’t going to risk losing his forces in a fight against her. That meant that Belphegor would send more than a Fate to deliver his final blow.
Whatever was coming, it would be bad.
“Come on, you fucker,” she muttered. “I’m ready for you.”
“What’s that?” Anthony called from behind her. He was safe within the boundaries of the circle—“safe” being a relative term.
“We’re about to have company,” Elise said.
Her words were punctuated by the sound of flapping wings and heavy bodies thudding into the mountain around her.
She looked up to see hybrids landing on the lip of the crevasse. Five of them.
“I thought you swallowed all of those,” Anthony said. “Swallowing” was the unflattering term that Anthony and McIntyre had given Elise’s ability to consume her enemies in shadow.
“I thought so, too,” Elise muttered.
Even if she’d missed a few, it would take no time to swallow these, too. Belphegor had to know that.
Which was why he’d sent in someone special to occupy Elise’s time.
Lachesis descended at the mouth of the crevasse as Brianna’s magic surged, billowing like smoke without a fire. There was only a hint of female body within her shadowy form: a flash of bare breasts, slender limbs, an attractive oval face that was smooth below her eyes. She didn’t have a nose or mouth.
Her arm was no longer bloody from ripping Neuma’s heart out. She had found time to clean herself off.
Elise hated her for that.
She phased.
The hybrids dropped into the crevasse, just outside the boundaries of Brianna’s circle. Elise didn’t have time to mess around with them. She expanded her form to its maximum, wrapping around them in moments.
Lachesis was ready for it. She phased too, crowding Elise out before she could swallow the hybrids.
What’s your hurry?
Lachesis asked in a voice that was not a voice, speaking without a mouth.
Elise shoved back, but the Fate was strong. Lachesis pushed her away.
When Elise swallowed, she only managed to get one furred leg from a hybrid, cloven hoof and all, before Lachesis managed to force her to the mouth of the crevasse. The appendage settled within her incorporeal body with a sour twist. The hybrids had never tasted very good.
Lachesis shoved harder, and Elise was shocked to feel herself getting propelled away from the circle.
Through the darkness, she could see Brianna and Anthony wrapped within the warm light of the circle. The hybrids—including the new amputee—crowded against that light, crackling with power that was both infernal and ethereal, yet somehow neither. They pressed against Brianna’s wards, trying to break in.
Given enough time, they would probably succeed.
“We could use a little help!” Anthony shouted, holding his gun like he didn’t know whom he should aim it at. He stood above Brianna as she continued to cast, chanting under her breath.
His cry hadn’t been directed toward Elise.
Werewolf howls broke through the eternal night. An instant later, they were followed by the beating of wings.
Nash landed just outside the crevasse, jacket billowing around his knees.
“Sorry for the delay,” he said to nobody in particular, as though he knew Elise was watching.
He snapped his wings wide and they lit with angelfire.
It blasted into Elise just as much as Lachesis, driving all of the shadows away, leaving nothing but light in all the cracks of the mountain. His glow sparkled off of the ice.
Elise snapped back into her physical body, slamming into the ground a few feet down the mountain.
Lachesis landed beside her. The Fate didn’t have any real physical body to return to, so she formed a writhing puddle, thrashing within the glow of Nash’s glory. Her silent scream made Elise’s skull ache.
Two of the hybrids broke away from attacking the circle and rushed at Nash.
He leaped back before they could reach him, beating his wings hard to lift himself into the air. The flickering glow made more shadows. Enough that Elise could pull herself together and stand.
It hurt to be subjected to Nash’s glow, but not as much as it had before James had healed her. Elise didn’t have to fight to keep her skin on. She’d remained clothed. The swords were in her fists. It was a major improvement.
She swung at Lachesis before the Fate could fully reform. Her steel blade did nothing, but the obsidian sword connected with the body that wasn’t really there.