Authors: SM Reine
“No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“Well, I do. I’m almost forty. I can’t get back all those years I’ve lost. You don’t want a spouse? A home? Children? Fine. But most people don’t find comfort in a splatter of blood and the company of demons. Some of us need other people. Intimacy. A real life.” He waved a hand at the house surrounding them. “And while you’re seeking satisfaction at the end of a sword, I…” He finally noticed her expression and trailed off. “I’m sorry. I forgot you can’t—you know.”
Her mouth twisted. “Anthony asked me about…” Elise mulled the words over. Just thinking about it made her sick again. “Marriage. Kids.”
“After three months of dating? Ambitious.” He made it sound like a joke, but he wasn’t smiling. “Does he know?”
She washed her hands in the sink with soap and water, then swung her leg to test mobility. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. She couldn’t expect anything better. She also couldn’t seem to meet James’s gaze.
He stepped forward, reaching out to touch her shoulder, but changed his mind. He sagged against the counter beside her instead.
“Death’s Hand killed me, Elise. When I think back on that night—hell, on the thousands of nights like that one—I feel my age. You will not be able to save me every time. We were right to retire.”
She tipped her head back to study him in the mirror. His reflection wasn’t nearly as tired or aged as hers, even though she was twelve years younger. “You were the one who wanted to do it again.”
“Once. Just once. Only because we needed to.”
“Once for you, maybe. But that once was enough to ruin everything for me. I don’t have any choice now. Everyone knows where I am, and Mr. Black has taken everything.” She stuffed her hands under her arms, hugging her ribs tight. Her feet dangled over the side of the counter. “I can’t get out of this. Not anymore.”
“He hasn’t taken your friends. Or me.”
“No. You did that yourself.” James flinched as though she had punched him. A sick sense of satisfaction resonated through her. “So… does Stephanie make you happy? Really?”
“Yes.” He almost sounded sure of himself. “Yes. She does.” James brushed the braid over Elise’s shoulder, and his fingers paused on her skin. It looked like he wanted to say something else, but the sentiment stuck in his gaze without making it to his lips.
“Fine,” she said after a protracted silence. “Good. I’m happy for you.” She didn’t bother making it sound like she meant it.
“What is that, Elise?”
She had to twist around and look at her reflection to see what he meant. She had forgotten about the Night Hag’s brand on her shoulder. It had mostly healed and left a fresh pink circle marked with eight radiating lines.
She didn’t have time to answer. Someone knocked at the door, and James dropped his hand.
The door opened another few inches, and Anthony’s reflection joined theirs. “Betty’s awake,” he said. “We can go.”
Elise’s leg buckled under her when she jumped off the counter, but she ignored James’s attempt at giving her a hand. “Great. We’ll take the Jeep.”
“Family field trip,” James muttered. “What joy.”
G
etting into the
Warrens was the easy part. Craven’s was mostly empty in the afternoons other than the demon employees, who weren’t surprised to see four heavily-armed humans march through on a mission. They did, however, give them a very wide berth. Nobody tried to stop them as they ascended to David Nicholas’s former office.
His door placard was conspicuously missing, which left a blank beneath the “general manager” sign. Elise felt a faint twinge of guilt—but only a twinge. She made sure it was empty before letting everyone inside.
Where his office had once been filled with trash and bowls of masticated chewing tobacco, now it was nothing but a cavernous room overlooking the game floor. She found a light switch behind the desk. The overhead fluorescents cast the room in harsh blue light. “What is this place?” Betty asked. Going on the offensive had put a pink glow on her cheeks and a gleam in her eye.
“This is where the manager worked. There’s a back path down to the club here.”
Anthony cupped his hands around his eyes to peer at the tables on the floor. The dealers must have known David Nicholas was gone. They chatted and smoked around empty tables with their uniforms undone. “Where’s the manager now?”
Elise glanced at James. He was flipping through his Book of Shadows and pretending not to listen.
“I killed him.”
Betty’s mouth opened in an “o” of surprise.
A quick search of David Nicholas’s desk yielded a key ring and a dusty flashlight. She unlocked the door he used to get to Eloquent Blood, propped it open with her foot, and studied each of her friends as they passed through. They didn’t look like much of a team. Anthony was greasy and exhausted. Betty wheezed when she walked. And James was still pretending to be absorbed in his Book of Shadows. She wasn’t much better. She couldn’t put any weight on her bitten leg.
They made it halfway down the stairs to Blood without seeing anyone. When they passed the ground level, Neuma rushed toward them.
Her shorts and pink tank top were so different from her normal clothes that Elise didn’t recognize her until she smiled. She wasn’t even wearing makeup. “Elise!” The half-succubus suddenly noticed everyone else, and her smile faded. “What’s going on?”
In the corner of Elise’s vision, Anthony had gone rigid. Even in her lazy day clothes, Neuma’s sex appeal was enough to instantly decimate the brain cells of any red-blooded human in her vicinity. Fortunately, she didn’t have the charm turned on.
There was no point in lying. “I’m going to kill the Night Hag.”
Her face went slack with fear. “No—oh, no, you can’t do that!”
“I’ve got two swords, two witches, and a shotgun. I’m not feeling bad about my odds,” Elise said. Betty grinned at being included in the list of weapons.
“It’s not like that!” Neuma grabbed Elise’s hands and lowered her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “You’re
branded
.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Even if she doesn’t kill you on sight, which she totally can, the Night Hag owns
everything
in the city. You know what happens if she dies? Have you seen what happens in a territory without an overlord?”
She freed her hands. “Consider this fair warning. It’s about to get ugly. You can stick around to deal with the fallout, or you can run.”
The bartender glanced nervously at the others again. “Been nice knowing you, hot stuff.”
Anthony watched her ass as she fled up the stairs. Betty smacked him in the arm, and James coughed into his hand.
“Come on,” Elise said.
It wasn’t much farther to the club. There were no waitresses in sight to distract Anthony, and the cleaning crew was absent from the floor as well. Their shuffling footsteps echoed. “Nobody here? This will be easy,” Anthony said with a nervous chuckle.
Elise wasn’t as optimistic. They would only get as far as the Night Hag wanted them to go. She had to have realized her daimarachnid guard was dead and connected it with Nukha’il’s failure to return. If she was letting them pass unobstructed, it was because she wanted it that way. But she didn’t need to scare everyone by saying it.
“Stay close.”
The elevator into the Warrens stood open. The bulb had even been replaced. It didn’t flicker anymore.
“So what’s the plan?” Anthony asked as they approached it.
Elise blinked. “Plan?”
He gave that nervous laugh again. It was starting to get annoying. “It’s not like we’re going to walk into some demonic overlord’s evil underground lair and expect to kill it without a plan… right?”
“Actually…”
“Just a moment, please,” James said. He led Elise around the corner of the DJ booth. He glanced at the place the cage had stood the night before and pulled a face. “I know you didn’t want me to say that I told you so—”
“And I still don’t.”
He folded his arms tight across his chest. “I know what that scar on your shoulder means.” The brand ached as though it knew they were talking about it. “You can’t confront the Night Hag like that. She can kill you with a thought.”
“I know. That’s why I thought we would piggyback.”
“Are you certain that’s a good idea?”
They hadn’t joined in an active bond since the spring, when Elise used their shared power to exorcise a child. It made both of them stronger, but only briefly. And sharing their powers always came with the risk of burnout.
“I’m not sure it will even work when I’m branded,” she admitted. “But having an aspis is supposed to protect me from things like getting killed with a thought, so it’s all I have. If it doesn’t work, this could be a really short fight.”
“We don’t know if joining while you’re branded will make you impervious to her, or make her impervious to us.”
“I know.”
He grimaced. “Then I won’t do it.”
She massaged her temples. Pressure was gathering in her forehead, and she wasn’t sure if it was because they were so close to the Warrens or because James was stressing her out. “I know you’re mad at me…”
“That’s a word for it.”
“But what other choice do we have?”
Elise glanced around the corner. Betty and Anthony were just a few feet away, pretending not to listen. When they realized she saw them, they turned away with nearly identical expressions.
“I’ll do my best to shield you, but it’s too dangerous to piggyback. I’m sorry, Elise.” James marched toward the elevator. She had no choice but to follow him.
Fitting four adults into a small metal cage was cozier than Elise liked to get, but with awkward maneuvering, they managed to shut the door and flip the lever.
Something hard and intangible pushed against the back of her skull as they descended. Even the Percocet haze couldn’t block it out. A sense of unease crept upon her. The pressure in her skull was growing stronger, and she thought she recognized it now.
It wasn’t the feeling of a powerful infernal presence—it was ethereal.
The silence in the elevator was unnerving. Even Betty seemed to have run out of things to say. She gave an occasional cough that rang out in the too-quiet air, but she wasn’t smiling anymore. Anthony gazed at the darkness above the cage. They could only see the walls a few feet above them before they were swallowed by shadow.
“So… demons use mining shafts. Why am I not surprised?”
Nobody responded. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at his feet.
When the elevator finally reached the bottom, Elise held up a hand to indicate that they should wait. A soft hum filled the hall. Betty shone the flashlight around the rock walls, but there was nothing to see.
“Maybe the Night Hag isn’t down here. It’s awfully empty,” Betty said.
Elise shook her head. “She’s here.”
They walked down the long, empty hallway. Nothing was guarding the entrance into the chamber where the gate had been constructed.
Elise edged around the door. The gate had been finished, the empty crates had been carried away, and the working demons were nowhere in sight. Only a single figure stood in front of the door in a long black gown. It looked like the Night Hag was taking a solitary vigil.
“That’s the overlord—the old woman by the gate,” Elise said, pointing into the cavern. “I don’t know where Thom is, but he has to be around. Watch for him. They say he’s a witch, but he’s much more powerful than that.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Like a supermodel. You’ll recognize him if you see him.”
She took another long moment to study the cavern and the gate. Instead of having the bowl fragments at the capstone, the Night Hag had redesigned it so that it was at the base instead. It wouldn’t require wings to open the gate. Elise could walk down, touch the stone, and pass through to the ethereal ruins… if she wanted to. But she didn’t plan on letting it get that far.
Elise gestured. They edged down the path with their backs against the wall.
She didn’t make it six feet before the Night Hag looked up. Betty gasped.
The overlord wasn’t alone after all.
Nukha’il knelt on the floor on the other side of the gate, hidden by its shadow. He glared at Elise with bitter fury. His face was swollen and bruised from a thorough beating, and chains at his wrists pinned him to the floor.
“This is a trap, isn’t it?” Anthony asked.
An instant later, something massive dropped from the ceiling and pinned her to the ground.
Her injured leg couldn’t take the impact. Her body struck dirt, and Anthony jumped back with a shout. A daimarachnid reared over her.
Elise drew her sword ly. One of its legs crushed her arm to the dirt.
It didn’t try to bite her. Instead, its mouth descended on her throat and snagged the chain of charms almost delicately.
The spider broke the chain and jumped off the ramp.
James grabbed for the charms and missed.
“No!” Elise shouted, scrambling on her knees to the edge, but it was already gone. It took the charms to the Night Hag like a dog fetching a bone.
“You have been very helpful!” called the overlord as she picked out the bowl fragment and threw the rest of the charms aside. “Shame that you should bite the hand that feeds. You are an incredible weapon. I would have loved to wield you.”
She extended a pale, slender hand and inserted the pebble into the crack.
Elise felt like she had just jumped off a bridge. Her pulse thrilled. Her stomach leaped into her throat. Sudden wind whipped her hair around her face, battering her body, and all she could do was dig her fingers into the ground to keep from getting ripped off the side.
The gate was complete.
“Bring them down!” ordered the Night Hag.
A dozen more daimarachnids emerged from the other side of the cavern and scuttled toward the ramp.
Elise tried to get to her feet, but her leg completely gave out. She struck the ground on one knee. Pain arced from hip to shoulder, and spots of blood dotted the bandages.
“James!”
He was beside her in an instant. “We should run—”
The spider-demons were rushed toward them. Every rustling motion echoed off the high cave walls. She grabbed his arm, dragging his face down to her level.