Authors: SM Reine
Elise didn’t ask him. She just met his gaze, waiting to see if he was going to attack or speak. Chances weren’t bad that he’d blame her for Rylie’s death. She was the reason they’d been in Coccytus when the angels attacked in the first place.
But Abel just turned and walked back into the room he’d been sitting in. Same room that Rylie’s body had been moved to. Elise understood that his silence was acquiescence to the pack’s exorcism, even if he wasn’t volunteering for the easy way out himself.
Maybe the pack wasn’t going to be screwed without Rylie after all.
The number of
werewolves that gathered in the garden to be exorcised was surprisingly small. Elise counted them from a hotel room on the second floor as she designed the exorcism spell.
She was going to need less power than she’d expected. Elise had been worried that the fact she hadn’t made it down to Hell to retrieve her chain of charms would be a problem, but now she thought she could surely exorcise a group this size using nothing but rune magic.
It was going to have to be impressive rune magic, though. Twenty simultaneous exorcisms was close to breaking her own record.
James shifted uncomfortably beside her. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
She added a few final lines to her drawing then lifted the paper from the desk to show it to him. “Do I?”
He examined the rune she had drawn. It was very similar to the magic that James had once used to exorcise Elise, although she’d made a few modifications.
James barely even glanced at it before handing the paper back to her.
“It seems that you do. That’s impressive.”
“I remembered what you said about the gaean magic,” Elise said. “How it was made stronger by lacing together all three—”
“Yes, and you’ve added ethereal elements. Great. You’re also likely to injure yourself by invoking angel magic.”
“It’ll be fine this once. I need the boost in power.”
“I’m aware how tempting that is, but sometimes it’s better to risk a spell failing than chase power to its absolute end.” A snort escaped Elise. James looked startled. “What?”
“You reached this wisdom, what, yesterday? It’s pretty fucking rich coming from you, considering all you’ve done in pursuit of power.”
“I learned that lesson much earlier than yesterday,” James said, looking only slightly offended. “Days earlier, even.”
Elise smudged out one of the ethereal lines with her thumb so that it wouldn’t work. It had only been an amplifier anyway. She could make two runes and have just as much power without the risk. “Better?”
“Much.”
“So when did you, of all people, decide that infinite power wasn’t worth the cost? Was it about the time that we killed Seth and drove Brianna to insanity? Or how about when an entire piece of Heaven crashed into Earth so that you could open that gate to Eden? Or was it—”
“It was when I realized that no amount of power would heal what I did to you. When I realized that nothing would ever bring you back to me.”
James wasn’t watching her work. He was staring at the wolves.
Elise studied the line of his profile. He looked like he was in pain, even though her infernal senses could tell that there was nothing wrong with him. For a white-haired man in his forties who had just killed a hybrid, James was in excellent physical condition. Her healing spell had made sure of that.
His pain was of the kind that magic couldn’t heal.
Elise focused on her spell, whispering to activate the exorcism magic. The rune lifted off of the page and settled in her palm. It was larger than the others she carried, and easily duplicated once she had made the first of them.
With two exorcism runes, Elise felt very powerful. Orange light glowed from between her fingers so brightly that it looked like she clutched miniature suns.
James was watching her now, the spells reflecting in his pupils. The emotions that radiated from him made her hungry. Anger and jealousy were excellent demon fodder.
She tugged her gloves on to hide the runes, then pushed the notebook into his chest.
“Draw the spell,” Elise said.
“What spell?”
“The one that will make you immune to my powers. Take care of it now, while I’m handling the werewolves.” When James didn’t move to obey, she wedged the pencil between his fingers.
“I’m not sure I can design anything for you,” James said.
Elise squeezed his hand briefly—the only gesture of sympathy she could muster. James had done something insane to save her life. She understood that. But she didn’t have time to deal with his self-pity.
“You didn’t lobotomize yourself when you healed me. You still know how everything is done. Draw the spell and I’ll be back for you in a few minutes.”
Levi burst from
the back door of the hotel, storming into the walled garden where the werewolves were waiting to be exorcised. “What are you all doing out here?”
Abram immediately moved to position himself between Levi and the pack.
“Hang on. Calm down.”
The fact that he’d jumped to “calm down” before Levi actually lost his temper seemed to make it worse. The werewolf was immediately on guard, hackles up, eyes blazing. He pushed Abram aside to see who had volunteered for exorcism.
Some of them weren’t surprising at all, but there were a few that Abram never would have expected. Paetrick, who had been with the pack longer than Abram had been alive. Devon, Brandon, Pyper. Aniruddha, who had been one of the most enthusiastic new volunteers, and Chantal, who had been one of the less enthusiastic ones.
All in all, twenty-two werewolves were presenting themselves to be exorcised. A full half of the current pack.
If the exorcism didn’t yield the wolf spirits that Elise claimed it would, the pack would be crippled.
“What the hell, Paetrick?” Levi asked. “And Brandon? Really?”
“It’s their choice,” Abram said.
The werewolf rounded on him. “Are you telling me that you’re encouraging this?”
“Their lives, their choices. Rylie wanted it this way.”
Anger flashed over Levi’s face. “Rylie’s not the Alpha anymore.”
“So fucking what?” Abram asked.
Levi opened his mouth to keep arguing, but nothing ever came out.
Elise had appeared behind him, looming and pale-skinned and dark around the edges, like she was fading into the surrounding night. Her hands glowed orange with magic. “Is there a problem?” she asked. Her tone was mild, considering the way she glared at Levi.
He attempted to stare her down like he wasn’t afraid. It was more than Abram would have dared to do. “I thought we decided that we weren’t going to exorcise the werewolves. Any of them.”
Elise ignored him.
She glided forward to address the members of the pack sitting on benches around the garden, most bundled in furs and scarves, some with blankets from the hotel.
“This is your cure.” She held her hands out, uncurled her fingers. Runes slithered over her palms. “If you don’t want to have the wolf spirit exorcised from your body, leave right now.”
“Elise—” Levi stepped toward her.
She turned her empty black gaze on him. The pupils had grown to consume the entirety of the eyeball. “Yes?”
Abram clapped a hand on Levi’s collar. “Let’s go.”
He dragged him inside the hotel, where it was warmer and Levi was less likely to get killed. From the rear window, they could only see Elise’s back, her misted hair, the umbra of her power. Everyone beyond was hazy. They could barely see the werewolves kneeling at her feet.
It looked like Levi was going to have an aneurysm, judging by the way his face purpled and that vein in his forehead bulged. “How can they do this?” he hissed at Abram. “After everything we’ve done—after all that we suffered?”
“The suffering’s why they deserve it,” Abram said.
“There are so few of us left now. Why don’t they care?”
Abram wrapped his arm around Levi’s shoulder. “They care. They’re just doing what they have to do for themselves.”
The glass and walls muffled Elise’s voice, but Abram felt the words inside of him, and the strength of the spellcasting closed around him.
Crux sacra sit mihi lux…
Magic flared so brightly that it seared Abram’s retinas. He shaded his eyes, but it didn’t help. The power penetrated everything.
Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana…
Elise’s spell built and built. Abram’s head felt like it was going to collapse as her magic flowed around the pack. People cried out, falling to their knees, writhing on the ground like they were in the middle of transforming.
Paetrick crumpled, and a moment later, there was something standing on his chest—something with huge paws, bright eyes, and white fur. Elise’s magic curved around it. Paetrick’s mouth opened in a scream. His back arched.
The wolf ripped free.
He slumped on the dirt, still human.
Elise’s magic surged again. A second wave crashed into the pack, illuminating the night with orange fire. Her voice kept echoing.
Ipse venena bibas
…
The floorboards creaked behind them. Abram released Levi just in time to see Abel rounding the corner. He didn’t seem to have seen them holding each other—he was staring out the window at Elise, his golden eyes very bright, expression inscrutable.
And then the light cut off.
It took time for Abram’s eyes to adjust to the return of darkness. By the time he could see again, people were struggling to stand with trembling legs. Nobody had died under the crush of Elise’s power. That alone seemed like a small miracle.
The garden was so much more crowded than it had been a few minutes earlier. Wolves milled among the humans, greeting each other by licking each others’ faces and swishing their tails. They were smaller than werewolves became on the full moon, more like the actual animal. Abram would have believed that they were the real thing if they hadn’t been semi-translucent.
Whenever a human bumped against a wolf—or whenever they
should
have bumped against a wolf—their arms or knees went right through them, like they weren’t even there.
The wolves were nothing but spirits. Barely more than ghosts.
Levi’s jaw dropped open. “Oh my God.”
Abel stepped outside and Abram followed him. They stood among the garden’s shriveled bushes as still as the decorative statues while wolf spirits gamboled around them. Abel watched the wolves playing with a weird expression. Not like he was angry, or upset, but almost…guilty.
“Before I ever got bit, me’n Seth killed over a dozen werewolves,” Abel said.
Abram understood. He’d seen werewolves outside of Rylie’s control once or twice. They’d always been crazed, vicious—downright
mean
. It was easy to imagine hunting and slaughtering them.
There was no hint of meanness in these animals.
He stepped aside when one of the wolf spirits rushed between his legs. The wolf chasing it passed right through his knee. Their soft huffing noises as they ran echoed through the garden.
Elise approached the men. She looked even more bemused by the exorcised wolves than Abel did. “I didn’t expect that.”
“What did you expect?” Abram asked.
“I thought they would have been more violent, like werewolves on a full moon.” She sidestepped in time for another wolf to run past her. “Angels and demons have committed a lot of sins. What happened to werewolves might have been the biggest of them. I think this is what they should have been like all along.”
Happy goddamn
puppies
?
Summer would have loved it. Abram was tempted to go upstairs and grab her just so that she could see.
“Thanks,” Abel said stiffly.
Elise pulled her gloves back on. When she spoke, her voice was strained. “It’s for her.”
A shudder rippled through Abel’s shoulders. “Yeah.”
“Take them. They’re yours now,” she said. When he started to move away, though, she grabbed his elbow. “Use them to protect Abram.”
It was a dangerously stern order. Abel had never taken orders well, not when they had come from his mate and definitely not coming from a demon. Abram braced himself for a fight.
But Abel just said, “Yeah.”
His agreement seemed to relax Elise, and she released him.
When Abel stepped into the middle of the garden, the wolves all stopped moving.
Luminous silver eyes turned to focus on him.
Abel didn’t speak to them. But one by one, they sank onto their forelegs, displaying submission.
The corner of Elise’s mouth lifted in a smirk. She headed toward the back door, leaving her strange and surreal work behind her.
Abram followed. Several of the wolves broke away, winding around his legs. He could almost feel their furry flanks brushing against his knees. “Why do you want the wolves to protect me?” he asked Elise’s back.
“You know why,” she said without looking back.
So she knew what the attack from the hybrids had meant. His heart sank. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’m going to use your blood,” Elise said. His hand twitched for his gun. “Don’t bother drawing that. I won’t kill you, and you can do whatever you want once I’ve opened the gates to Eden.”
“You really think you can kill Belphegor?”
“If I can’t, nobody can.” It wasn’t exactly a motivational speech.
“Hope you’ve got a better plan than that.”
A ghost of a smile moved over her lips. “I hope so, too. The wolves are the beginning of it.” She opened the hotel’s rear door. “If we survive this, remind me. You’re a kopis. I can teach you to perform exorcisms, too.”
He was startled. “Why?”
“Why not?” she asked, standing aside to let him into Gora Hotel. “We might need more of this in the future.”
Abram didn’t understand what she was talking about yet, but she did seem to have a plan for the future. The fact that she even thought there might be a future—any future at all, much less one that needed another exorcist—was weirdly comforting.
For the first time since leaving New Eden, ever since the sky had broken and the world began to burn, he felt a touch of hope.
Elise held her
composure all the way down the hall and up the stairs, while she felt Abram’s eyes on her. It wasn’t until she was alone on the second floor that she stopped to stare at her hands.