Torn by Fury Read online

  Five

  THE SKY DARKENED rapidly as they prepared a house for the ritual. Rylie had directed Elise to the bigger homes on the affluent west side of town—affluent in the sense that these people had lived in recent stick-built constructions rather than mobile homes—and she and Abel hauled all of the furniture out of the basement.

  “Watch the sky for me,” Elise told Rylie, using a Sharpie to draw symbols on the floor surrounding Lincoln’s body. Now that she had seen James cast the spell once, she was almost as quick to draw as her aspis was.

  “What am I watching for?” Rylie asked.

  The fading memory of white fire crashing into Dis flashed through Elise’s mind. Her Sharpie hesitated, leaving a circle of ink she hadn’t intended. “Angels,” Elise said, scrubbing the ink away before it could dry.

  Rylie nodded, rushing up the stairs.

  “Wait, wait, stop,” James said, grabbing Elise’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” He had been working on the outside edge of the circle and must have just noticed that she was helping.

  “You can’t draw the circle fast enough on your own.” She shook him off so she could keep drawing. She had only looked at James’s circle in Dis briefly before time flipped, but that part of her memory wasn’t blurring.

  James dropped to his knees beside her. “But you’re…” He compared the notebook cradled in his left hand to what Elise was drawing. “Did you get into my notebooks? How do you know what to draw?”

  Because I’ve already lived today once.

  “I’ll try to explain later,” she said. “We don’t have time to discuss this now.”

  “Lincoln’s stable for the moment,” James said.

  “He’s not. He’ll die in less than an hour, and it won’t be pretty.” It might be faster this time, since she hadn’t gotten an opportunity to feed him.

  James picked up his own Sharpie again. The ink made the air smell sour even though they’d opened all the basement windows to the rainy evening.

  “Something happened at the House of Abraxas, didn’t it?” James asked as he drew. “Something that I somehow missed, even though I was beside you the entire time.”

  “Not exactly,” Elise said.

  She encircled Lincoln in loops and spirals, kicking his ankles together so that she could draw where his leg had been resting.

  “Then what, exactly, happened?” James asked. “You didn’t have anything to do with my research in the Palace.”

  Elise opened her mouth to argue, but another woman spoke first.

  “Well, this is interesting.” Stephanie stood on the basement stairs, hands resting on her curved belly. She was wearing an empire-waisted shirt that displayed her pregnancy, rather than trying to hide it. James’s eyes widened in shock.

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Elise said.

  Stephanie arched an eyebrow. “When you’re doing gaean magic? I don’t think so. I can help you.”

  It took James a moment to tear his eyes from her stomach and catch up with the conversation. “What did you say? What kind of magic?”

  “Gaean magic,” Stephanie said patiently. “That’s what you’re trying to do here, I see. Terrible idea for an angel and a demon to attempt it, by the way. The way you’re doing it is more likely to kill you than accomplish anything constructive. At the very least, you’ll kill this man.”

  “Gaean,” James echoed.

  “You don’t know.” She rolled her eyes. “Get me a pen. I’ll fix your circle so you don’t blow yourselves up.”

  James glanced over his handiwork. Elise could feel how insulted he was by the implication that he was creating flawed magic, though he must have known there was a problem trying to mix disciplines. “Gaean magic doesn’t exist. I’ve never heard of it.”

  Stephanie took the pen from his hand. “There are a few people in the world who know things that you don’t.” She sniffed. “I know you’ve always considered yourself superior to the witches you pretended to have relationships with, and while I’m sure that’s wonderful food for your ego, it’s also terribly wrong.”

  Rage rippled over James. She bent to start drawing and he stepped in her way. “Don’t touch my damn circle.”

  Elise finished the mark she had been drawing. “Let Stephanie do it.”

  “What?”

  “Let her help,” she said again. Benjamin had said they needed help. He must have meant this.

  James moved back, allowing Stephanie to kneel awkwardly. She wasn’t graceful with a belly in her way. She had to take off her jacket and tuck it under her knees for padding before she could work.

  The look that James gave her was a combination of anger and disdain, as if he couldn’t believe Stephanie would have had the nerve to go and get pregnant. Elise wondered what they had thought about children when they were dating, sleeping together, buying a house together. She probably didn’t want to know.

  Elise tried to go back to drawing the next layer of the circle around Lincoln, like the rings of an onion, but James grabbed her. He took Elise to the corner, holding her shoulders, lowering his voice to a whisper. “This is a terrible idea. Stephanie’s with the Apple.”

  “And the Apple knows something we don’t,” Elise said, capping the marker. “This spell isn’t going to work, James. Not if we don’t do it differently this time. We need what Stephanie knows.”

  “It’s impossible for her to know anything helpful. I’ve researched all of this exhaustively.” Darkness flashed through his eyes, the corners of his mouth tipping down into a frown. “And I don’t consider myself superior to my girlfriends.”

  Elise’s head was aching now. “You do have a habit of hooking up with women who need you a hell of a lot more than you need them.”

  “You don’t need me more than I need you. I’m not sure you need me at all.”

  “We’re also not together.”

  “That’s your choice,” James said.

  “We’re not talking about this right now.” Why the hell couldn’t James focus on impending horrible death instead of jabbing at their shitty relationship? “Stephanie’s going to fix the spell for us, and then she can explain this…gaean magic thing, whatever it is.”

  “Every word out of her mouth is a goddamn lie.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen James this angry, quivering all over.

  “She’s right about a couple of things.” She shoved her pen into his hand. “The clock’s ticking, James, and second chances are fucking rare. Get the circle ready. Heal Lincoln.”

  What happened to you? The strain of his thoughts broke through the bond. You’re talking like we’ve done this before.

  Elise sighed. It’s about Benjamin Flynn. She thought the name forcefully enough that she knew he’d be able to hear it, too.

  He woke up? He spoke to you?

  Dim light spilled over the stairs of the basement and the sound of raining intensified.

  Rylie had flung the door wide open. There was a black wolf looming behind her. Abel had already shifted shapes—never a good sign. “There’s something in the sky,” she said. “They’re coming this way.”

  Elise stood on the edge of the fissure, watching as the past unfolded in front of her all over again. There were only three lights in the sky right now—three tiny lights that could have easily passed for airplanes, had there been any air traffic in United States airspace anymore. To detect them at such a distance, Rylie’s sense of smell must have been incredible.

  The clouds churned as the angels dropped, wings lighting up the night sky. Elise jerked the obsidian falchion out of her spine scabbard, swinging it in a figure eight to loosen her muscles. She was wound tightly and she needed to be limber for the fight to come.

  This time, she couldn’t let the angels reach the City of Dis.

  A large, warm body moved alongside hers. She could see black fur out of the corner of her eye. Abel was looking up at the sky, too. “They’re going to try to burn the city,” she said. “There are still innocents down
there. Humans I haven’t liberated. Humans who enlisted in my army.”

  He huffed a breath out of his nose as if to tell her to shut up. Abel already knew what was at stake.

  “We only need to keep one alive for questioning,” Elise said. “With the rest—do whatever you have to do.”

  The werewolf Alpha trotted away from her, taking position higher up the fissure. Elise put its heat and light at her back so that it would be easier to see the descending angels.

  They were moving faster now. Picking up speed. And there were four—no, five of them.

  There would be more coming. A lot more.

  Elise peeked at the satellite phone in her pocket. It was an incredibly basic device. All it did was make phone calls to one number—the McIntyres’ phone in France—and tell the time. It was almost ten o’clock on Earth. What was the equivalent time in Hell? Would Terah have mobilized the seventeenth centuria yet? They had to be coming up the bridge soon.

  Not soon enough.

  The first angel shot ahead of the others as a ray of light. Elise phased and moved to intercept him in midair.

  Shadow connected with ethereal light, shocking her with pain. She had expected that. Planned on it. His glow punched through her, burned away the shadows, and forced her to turn corporeal.

  She was still hundreds of feet off the ground. She began to fall.

  But not before she hooked her left arm around the angel’s neck.

  He cried out in shock. “Release me!”

  It was Ezekiel. He was as beautiful as any of her children, with long, curly hair that he had tied into a knot. He only wore a sweater and jeans. Angelic arrogance. Who needed armor when you believed that there was no way any demon would ever be able to touch you?

  Yet here Elise was, locked around him as her flesh seared in his light. She bared her teeth at him as they fell faster under her weight.

  “Stay out of my city,” she hissed.

  She tried to plunge her falchion into his side. It was a short blade, much shorter than the angels’ sabers, and she should have moved fast enough to put it between his ribs. Yet he was faster still, even while tumbling. He deflected her arm. The point thrust into empty air.

  Elise twisted her wrist and cut upward as his wings flapped down. She felt it bite into flesh.

  Ezekiel’s scream made her sick. She couldn’t look at the damage she had caused, knowing that Lilith’s ichor would be spreading, poisoning the wing.

  Instead, she dug her fingernails into his shoulder, making sure he couldn’t drop her as she swung the sword again, grazing his other wing. Feathers fluttered into the air.

  His limb stiffened. His flapping grew clumsy.

  The ground became huge.

  They struck.

  Elise plowed into the earth, and she couldn’t phase to escape the full brunt of the blow. Ezekiel’s weight sledgehammered into her body. The dry grass and soil ripped open under them as they slid, flopping over each other. Elise finally lost her grip on his shoulder and tore free.

  She rolled over and over, the world flipping around her, and came to a stop at the feet of Bain Marshall.

  It had been a long time since she had fallen ten feet, much less a hundred. It hurt. She hadn’t been sure that her bones could break until that moment, but when she tried to stand, pain scythed down her spine and into her legs.

  Ezekiel had bounced a couple yards away. He was in even worse condition. He tried to push himself onto all fours, but couldn’t lift himself under the dead weight of his wings. And “dead” was the only accurate word for what had become of them—blackened, stiff, with shriveled feathers.

  As Elise struggled to her feet, a second angel slammed into the ground between her and Ezekiel with gold-feathered wings spread wide.

  “Godslayer,” he growled at the sight of her. It was Yemiel. Her traitorous heart skittered in her chest.

  Elise gripped the hilt of her obsidian falchion. She was standing, but she wasn’t confident in her ability to fight yet. Not when the angels glowed so damn brightly and her body was pulling together so slowly.

  “Come over here so I can kill you,” she said. “Or count to twenty and I’ll just come get you myself.”

  Yemiel pressed his sword to the side of her neck.

  But he didn’t cut.

  Confusion crimped his eyebrows together. “Godslayer,” he said again.

  “Mother,” Elise said to remind him. But that didn’t help her. Not this time. His confusion shifted to anger.

  “They warned me about that. I won’t fall for it. I won’t.” He swung his arm back, prepared to cut.

  A black shape hurtled out of the smoke to the right. Abel hit Yemiel in the side and sent him flying into one of the bridge’s pylons. Yemiel gave a shout of pain. His wings dimmed.

  Abel pinned the angel to the ground under his hefty paws, and he growled as he sank his teeth into the throat of his prey.

  Elise had been on the receiving end of a werewolf’s bite. Her neck throbbed in sympathetic pain.

  She wouldn’t need to worry about that angel again.

  Instead, Elise rounded on Ezekiel. His wings had gone entirely black and stone-shiny, though it hadn’t spread to his body. He glared up at her from underneath them. “Kill me,” Ezekiel said. “You might as well do it. I’d rather die than live life without my wings.”

  “Okay.” She hadn’t planned on giving him any alternatives anyway.

  Elise cut his head off.

  Eve only whimpered a little.

  A wet splattering sound told her when Abel was done with Yemiel. She stood over him as he gnawed the angel’s neck, crushing the vertebrae in his jaws. The angel’s pale eyes were empty. Lifeless.

  “Nicely done,” Elise said.

  Abel whirled on her, baring his fangs. She stepped back and lifted her hands defensively.

  Recognition settled over him and his lip fell. He licked his chops.

  “I don’t know who trained you Wilder boys or where you came from, but you’re damn good to have around,” Elise said.

  A sudden, brilliant light reminded her that there had been more than those two angels. The third didn’t bother attacking Elise—he hurtled straight into the fissure, distorting as he passed through the barrier between dimensions.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Elise hissed, spinning to look for the next angel.

  The fourth shot past her so fast that the blaze of light didn’t register as pain on her skin. She ran to the edge of the bridge, torn between staying to defend the outside and following them in.

  The night brightened as the fifth angel approached. Elise tried to gather her strength enough to phase to him like she had with Ezekiel, but his light had drained her. She was slow to react.

  Abel leaped first.

  A werewolf’s haunches were as powerful as his bite. He soared through the air, paws outstretched, and connected with the fifth angel before it could hit the fissure.

  Their momentum sent both of them flying into the buildings across the street. They crashed through the wall. Dust blasted out of the ruins of what had once been a lawyer’s office, and they disappeared.

  Elise’s moment of satisfaction was smothered when she realized that the night still wasn’t getting darker.

  Six more angels had emerged from the clouds, wings blazing.

  They were moving fast.

  Elise might have saved Lincoln—maybe—but the City of Dis was still screwed.

  Then the fissure shifted behind her. Feverish winds carried the smell of home to Elise: cooked flesh, churning factories, and endless wasteland. There were dark shapes at the top of the bridge, just on the other side of the barrier between universes.

  Terah was right on time.

  The seventeenth centuria poured through the fissure, bodies rippling as if they were emerging from a pool of water. Their armor was still so hot that they steamed when they hit the cool, damp air of Earth.

  The centurion herself erupted onto the lawn, leaping over the fron
t ranks on her fell beast. It landed in front of Elise.

  “Funny meeting you here,” Terah said cheerfully. Shriveled wings unfolded from her mount’s flanks, stretching out wide.

  “Six angels overhead,” Elise said. “More incoming.”

  The fell beast shook its wings out as Terah studied the sky. Thin leather stretched between the bones, like a horrifyingly large bat. “Excellent.”

  Terah’s mount launched into the air to meet them. The army spread out.

  The angels hit a moment later.

  There was screaming outside the basement—none of it, James thought, coming from Elise. These were new voices. Possibly angels. Possibly something else. He thought that he sensed demons. It was likely that backup had arrived.

  Hopefully, the backup was for their side, not more angels.

  “James,” Stephanie snapped, drawing his attention back to Lincoln. Her fingers were pressed to his throat. “His heart rate is dropping.”

  He was tempted to abandon the spell and go outside to help Elise, but she wouldn’t be grateful for his intervention. Instead, he refocused on the magic at hand, dipping his fingers into the essential oil and anointing Lincoln’s face with it. The man’s skin was slimy with gray-tinted sweat. His cheeks were colorless.

  “How can I help?” Rylie asked, hovering nearby with her hands twisting together. “How can I make this go faster?”

  James shot her a look as he continued anointing Lincoln. As a werewolf, Rylie would have been most helpful upstairs, fighting alongside Elise and Abel. He didn’t think the girl was weak or a coward, exactly—he’d seen her running a ranch, seen her face the Union, and lead a werewolf pack. But here she was, hiding out in the basement, nestled within the relative safety of Stephanie’s hastily erected wards.

  “There’s an altar diagram on the first page of my notebook,” James said. “Make sure everything is arranged properly.”

  She hurried to obey, shuffling around the candles and bowls. She even moved the huge glass ball one-handed as if it weighed nothing.