The Descent Series Complete Collection

by S. M. Reine

  He sat up as his aunt settled onto the grass beside him, and prepared to defend himself. He thought of what Ariane had told him—how it was his life to live, regardless of what the coven wanted—and he tried to summon the same conviction she had had when she’d said it.

  But Pamela didn’t let him speak. “Elise Kavanagh is going to begin visiting me for the summers,” she said.

  That hadn’t been what he had expected her to say at all. James was taken completely off-guard.

  “Oh,” he said, because he thought he probably wasn’t supposed to have already known that.

  “I want you to help me with her lessons.”

  “You’re going to try to teach her magic?” James asked, brow furrowing. “But she’s a kopis.”

  “No. No magic. That would be a waste of time. We’ll be studying demonology, angels, and history.” Pamela plucked a dandelion out of the earth, popped its bud off with her thumb, and began stripping open the stem. “I thought you would like to help me. I know you’ve been studying those things independently, and the breadth of your knowledge is probably greater than mine by now. I also thought you’d like to teach her how to dance.”

  James laughed. “Dance? Really?”

  “We don’t have any fighters in the coven. None of us can throw a punch, much less help the girl refine her skill with swords. But she’s still an athlete, and she’ll need exercise.”

  He had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling that this was one of the things the coven had been discussing while his back was turned. But why? What would any of them get from teaching some kid how to dance?

  “I’m too busy this summer,” he said. “Maybe next summer.”

  Pamela flicked the shredded stem into the grass again and stood up. “Next summer.” She smiled thinly. “I’ll hold you to that, James. Don’t forget.”

  June 1990

  James and Hannah quietly bought a condo in Boulder together. They didn’t have any real furniture, but they had a mattress and an altar, and that was all he really cared about. Their nights were spent tangled together, naked and sweaty. He didn’t sleep for months. They stayed awake, holding hands and talking about their future. Maybe marriage. Maybe children.

  And they tried to never talk about the coven.

  During the day, Hannah went to work. She had found a job as a legal assistant. It was barely enough to cover their bills, but the company had a retirement program, which they agreed was more important than the better-paying job that had been offered to her by the dance studio. They could always dance on the weekends.

  Except that James spent every day dancing and teaching dance. His skill improved. Hannah’s waned.

  And in the evenings, he studied magic—deeper and more arcane than anything the coven had studied before. He emerged sometimes to join the other witches and share what he had discovered. They started treating him like a king instead of a prince. They whispered about who would one day succeed Landon as high priest. And if they asked questions about James’s personal life, he told them that he was living in the city—alone—to be close to the dance studio.

  The accident happened later in the fall.

  Hannah had begun to attend twice the number of rehearsals in preparation for the holiday season. She practiced in the mornings before work and tried to join James on her lunch break, as well. She was improving again—she had always been so graceful, and so talented, but months of deskwork had made her slow. Her form wasn’t what it used to be.

  She attempted a jump that she had made a thousand times before, and slipped off the stage. Her ankle twisted. James heard her cry from the other side of the curtains.

  He rushed past the orchestra pit and jumped into the audience. He was the first to reach Hannah’s side, and he could immediately tell that it was bad. Her foot was twisted in the wrong direction, and the ankle was already purple. “It’s okay,” he said, shielding the injury with his body so that the rest of the company wouldn’t see the extent of the damage. He scooped Hannah up into his arms. “She’s fine. I think it’s just twisted.”

  He rushed her to the dressing rooms and set her down. Her breathing was staccato and hiccupping.

  “It’s over,” Hannah said, her forehead soaked with sweat.

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” James said. He found his jeans, pulled out a leather-bound notebook, and sat down at her side again. He was prepared for this. He had been making new healing spells just last weekend.

  But Hannah pushed him away. “Don’t. I don’t want your aunt’s witchcraft anywhere near me.”

  “This isn’t her magic; this is mine,” he said, stroking a hand down her knee. “I can save your ankle. Your career. I can do it—you know I can do it.”

  “Who am I kidding? I don’t have a career anymore,” she said, and only then did she begin to cry.

  She forced him to take her to the hospital. They said it would take months to heal. James gripped his Book of Shadows and tried not to yell at the doctors.

  Hannah went home in a cast that covered her leg from her knee to her toes.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said as he positioned her on the couch. “I’m more than powerful enough to fix this. I have to hide the kind of destruction I can wreak from the coven so that I don’t scare them. And you would rather heal for six months than let me fix you?”

  All she said was, “Fuck you, fuck the coven, and fuck your magic.”

  James danced with a new partner at the next performance. Hannah stayed home.

  It took almost six full months for Hannah to apologize. She showed her contrition by appearing at James’s spring performance with her cast removed, a dozen roses for his dance partner, and a guilty smile. “Don’t get too excited. These are for Monique,” Hannah said, pushing the flowers into his arms.

  He took them. “You hate Monique.”

  “I hate that Monique is dancing with you while I’m helping the Millers file divorce paperwork. She’s a lovely dancer.” Hannah’s smile grew chilly. “Not as lovely as I was, but…lovely.”

  James wanted to say, you could still be lovely , but it probably wouldn’t have been true. She didn’t want it badly enough anymore. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her. “How does the leg feel?”

  “Good,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t say what she was apologizing for, but he understood.

  “I love you,” James said.

  Hannah leaned close to his ear and lowered her voice. “And I love seeing you in a unitard. Keep it on under your jacket so I can take it off when we get home.” She kissed his neck, then sashayed away with only the smallest of limps.

  Good God, did James love that woman.

  April 1993

  Over time, James’s studies into magic became so involved that he required a dedicated ritual space, which his condo lacked. The coven was happy to finance a move into a bigger home. He told Hannah that he had inherited money from a distant relative and wanted to buy a house, and she agreed.

  So James and Hannah traded up from their cozy condo to a four-bedroom, two-bath cabin in the woods, at which point it became impossible to deny that they were still involved—especially since they hadn’t had dancing as an excuse to see each other for years.

  Nobody mentioned their relationship to his face, but Pamela’s attempts at matchmaking grew more insistent, and telling her “I’m already involved” didn’t do a damn bit of good.

  “She’s done trying to get me together with Beatrice and attempting to set me up with someone from international covens instead,” he told Hannah at dinner on their monthly date night. It was a quiet Italian restaurant that they had been to a dozen times—nothing special or exciting, but the food was reliably good. “She offered to bring in some fire witch from Florence. Florence! It’s like she thinks I just need to be tempted by someone more exotic.”

  Hannah pushed a piece of penne around her plate, chin propped on one hand. “They really want you married off, don’t they?”

  “They h
aven’t said it to my face, but—well, yes. They want me to marry and produce offspring, because apparently I’m lazy and selfish for failing to prioritize these things at twenty-three years old.”

  “It’s the unfortunate side-effect of being the focus of their clumsy attempts at Machiavellian scheming.” The corner of her mouth quirked into a half-smile. “Although, I have to say, it’s almost cute. The coven’s idea of scheming is remarkably similar to my great-aunt Rita’s scheming. She thinks the same thing about me. Twenty-five, unmarried, no babies? My womb will shrivel into a husk. But she’s only worried because some of the batty old women in her knitting circle are starting to have great-grandchildren, not because they think I’m Merlin and might produce the next king of the world.”

  “I’m not Merlin,” James said. “I think I’m a little more attractive than that.”

  She slid her foot up the inside of his leg under the table. “If they want your babies that badly, you could always jerk off into a jar and throw it through Landon’s window.”

  “I love it when you talk dirty.”

  “I’m just so tired of dating the entire coven,” Hannah said. “When I climb into bed with you at night, it feels like every single witch in Colorado is in there with us. And, frankly, I’m not all that into group sex. Maybe you should date one of these girls just to shut up Pamela for a few months.” She winced at the thought. “But don’t tell me about it, please.”

  “Not a chance,” James said, leaning over to fork a piece of her pasta into his mouth. “I can’t imagine keeping any secrets from you, anyway. I don’t want anything to be unsaid between us.”

  She attacked his fork with hers. “Hey, stick to your ravioli. Don’t steal my dinner.”

  “I’m not stealing; I’m trading.”

  Without any further preamble, he set a diamond ring on the table by her plate.

  Hannah arched an eyebrow. “I bet you that my pasta tastes a lot better than that ring.”

  James gave her his very best serious expression. “Sorry. Best I could do.”

  “Fine,” Hannah said, slipping it onto her ring finger. She looked like she was trying really hard not to smile, and failing. She stretched out her hand to study the diamonds sparkling on her finger. “I guess this means you’ll own fifty percent of all of my dinners, anyway.”

  “I’m cleverer than I look,” he said, taking one more bite of her pasta.

  He leaned across the table and kissed her. Even though she had been eating penne with béchamel sauce, she still tasted like strawberries—just the way he liked her.

  James and Hannah told no one about their plans to marry. They selected a date, picked their color theme—blue and gold, Hannah’s favorite—and acted like nothing had changed.

  Landon summoned James to his house a week later.

  The high priest kept an office in the back of his home, which was deep in the forest outside the city limits. His herb garden was unmatched. The greenhouse was almost bigger than the rest of the building.

  James got out of his car and rang the doorbell. It was answered by Landon’s wife—a plump, smiling woman who had no interest in witches or magic, though she had been watching children at esbats since possibly the dawn of time. Holly had even changed James’s diapers, and she never let him forget it. “Hello, dear,” she said cheerfully, stepping aside so that he could enter. “What a pleasant surprise! I wasn’t expecting a visit.”

  He kissed her cheek. She smelled like talcum powder. “Landon asked for me to come. I drove for over an hour to get here.”

  “Did he, now? And he didn’t warn me that you were on the way? That’s just asking for trouble! Good thing I have dinner in the oven.” She waved her hand through the air, as if wafting the odor of cooking meat and potatoes in his direction.

  “Yet another prize roast from Holly’s kitchen, I assume.”

  “None other.”

  “Unfortunately, I have to get back to Hannah soon.” James raised his voice, even though there was no sign of Landon in their foyer. “You know, Hannah . My fiancée. I don’t think I can stay for dinner—but it’s okay, I had a big lunch.” He added the last part when he saw the unmistakable expression of a woman about to attempt to force-feed him leftovers.

  She squeezed his arm. “Nonsense. I have to send some home with you to share with Hannah, if nothing else. You love my roasts. I used to cook them while you played in a bouncer in the kitchen, you know!” Holly waddled toward the kitchen. “Landon’s in his office.”

  James sighed and headed toward the back of the house. He was definitely going to get roped into staying for dinner.

  The high priest was hanging herbs to dry in his office when James entered. “There you are,” Landon said. “You’re tall—hang this rosemary above the top shelf, on that hook over there.”

  He did as he was told. “Is this why I just drove sixty miles to your house?”

  “No, I wanted to talk you out of your impending nuptials.”

  And so there it was, laid out in the open without any attempt at deceit.

  “I love Hannah,” James said. “I’m going to marry her. We’ve already picked a date next summer. I know that the coven had other hopes, but that’s just how it is.”

  Landon sighed as he hung another bundle of herbs. They were so fresh that his fingers were stained green. “Pamela would lecture you on responsibility, but I’m not Pamela. I’m not going to appeal to your sense of duty. I know why you initiated—I know that you’re hungry for information.”

  “Which you’ve never given me.”

  He wiped his hands clean on his slacks. “You’re right. And it’s time for you to know the truth, James. Once you know the whole story, I’ll let you choose whether or not you want to do as the coven asks.”

  That sounded much too easy. James folded his arms. “And when I decide that I’m going to marry Hannah anyway…”

  “If that’s your decision, I’ll respect it. And I’ll make sure that Pamela does, too.” Landon moved around his desk and parted the curtain on the wall behind it. There was a hallway beyond it. James had been to the house hundreds of times before and had never realized there was anything he hadn’t seen. It must have extended into the cliff backing his house.

  And inside that hallway loomed mystery, knowledge—answers.

  He followed Landon, and the curtain swung shut behind them.

  The hallway sloped down into the earth. The air cooled, and the building grew silent, until he was certain that they had to be deep underground. They walked for almost a full minute before Landon spoke again. “Watch your step. There are stairs here.”

  The descent was steep, and every inch made James a little colder.

  Finally, the high priest touched his shoulder to stop him. They stood in front of a door with a sliver of gray light rimming the edge. The floor and walls hummed faintly.

  “Where are we?” James asked.

  “This is my private ritual space. Generations of akashic witches in your family and mine have used it to cast their most powerful spells. To be frank, I don’t use it. I can’t . Some things skip generations, and I just don’t have the right stuff. But you do.” The silver light etched the side of Landon’s face, highlighting the wrinkles at the corners of his mouth and the brush of white hair falling over his ears. “Once you see what’s beyond this door, everything is going to change. Everything.”

  It wasn’t a warning—not really—because Landon knew that there was no way James would be able to resist finding out what waited on the other side.

  Even so, James hesitated, scanning what little he could see of the door in the darkness. It was much, much older than the house above. Much older than any building he had ever seen in any part of America. It was hewn from white stone, almost like marble, with black marks marching up the frame.

  In all of James’s studies, he had never seen such runes. They reminded him of some of the arcane infernal spells that he had found in ancient books, but there was a more elegant slant to the
lines, more swirls and swoops. Whatever it was, it hadn’t come from Hell. There must have been so many secrets locked inside of those icons.

  “I’m ready,” James said, his heart speeding with excitement. “I’ve been ready for years.”

  Landon patted him on the shoulder. “Of course you have.”

  The high priest stepped back, and made no move to follow when James approached the door. The humming intensified with every step he took toward it.

  James lifted his hand. Rested it on the silver-wrought doorknob.

  He opened the door, and he saw .

  May 1993

  It was an eternity before James went home to Hannah.

  He found her sleeping in bed with a pillow hugged to her chest and another wedged between her knees. James bent down to kiss her forehead. She stirred. Opened her eyes to slits. As soon as she saw that he was there, her eyes shot open the rest of the way.

  “James?” She grabbed his hand. “What the hell? Where have you been?”

  He sat beside her and stroked the silvery-blond hair away from her forehead. The gesture was meant to comfort him more than it was meant to comfort her. “Landon should have told you that I was on a trip for the coven. Just taking care of some business as a favor to my aunt.”

  “Yeah, he told me that, but you didn’t tell me that you were going on a business trip. It’s been two weeks! You never even called me!”

  “I’m sorry,” James said. “I was busy, and I didn’t have access to any phones.”

  “For two weeks?”

  “I was distracted by studying some very special magic. I’m sorry. You know how I get.”

  She snorted, blowing hair out of her face. “That’s not an excuse. What were you doing? What’s wrong with your eyes? You look different.”

  James turned his head away and focused on the window. “I can’t tell you what I’ve been doing,” he said, massaging two fingers against the left side of his chest. “Coven business. They invited me into the inner circle.”