The Descent Series Complete Collection
Page 120
Touchstones that wouldn’t be expecting attack, just like Sohigian.
He strode out, leaving all the doors open behind him.
Isaac intended on confronting Metaraon immediately, but his feet had a mind of their own. While his brain was occupied with thoughts of his wife, he soon found himself at the doors of the library. He located Onoskelis at her table and dropped the ledger in front of her.
“Here,” he said. “I’ve found my answers.”
Onoskelis gestured at the opposite chair with her pen. “Set it aside. I’ll sort that later.”
The absence of gratitude filled him with heat, and Isaac slammed his hands onto the desk. “I brought your missing files to you, and you won’t even look at me?”
“They’re in my way.”
“You goddamn—”
He cut off when she looked up at him. Her oblong pupils glowed with internal fire. “Were the answers worth it?”
Isaac thought of what Belphegor had said about Ariane, and how much he was going to enjoy killing the judge’s replacement. “Yes,” he said. “Oh, fuck yes.”
Onoskelis’s eyelashes fluttered. Her lip peeled back and then relaxed. It was impossible to read the expressions of a goat, but he got the impression that she was silently laughing at him. “I hope you enjoy your truths,” she said, and she returned her attention to the ledger, writing a fresh line around the edge of the box without moving it.
“I plan on it,” Isaac said.
Ariane checked the clock on the wall. It was almost time for the high trial, and the judge had yet to arrive to greet the touchstones.
Light thrashed over the broad stone basin that formed the portal through which all visitors had to pass. It shot beams of white energy that arced from the domed ceiling of the portal room all the way to the floor. It occasionally crackled louder as a form stepped forth—someone from another dimension of Hell, or the planes of Earth—and Ariane had to look away to preserve her vision.
Since the portal room was the first impression all visitors would have of Dis, it was designed to instill something between a sense of grandeur and a sense of comfort. Wood had been imported from Earth so that there could be dark wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls. The chandeliers made it a little brighter than usual, and strips of red carpeting led to the doors. Ariane had always thought it resembled the lobby of a very eccentric, very expensive hotel.
A hotel that happened to be filled with armed guards in leather.
The leader of the guards, Veronika, didn’t waver when a stray arc of energy licked the floor near her foot. Her eyes were shielded by opaque sunglasses.
“Only three left,” Ariane said, making note on her ledger. “Have you heard from Judge Abraxas?”
Veronika shook her head without responding. Her primary job as head of Palace security was to look tough. Tough demons didn’t chat.
The portal brightened. Crackled louder. Another figure stepped through.
It was a dark-skinned woman whose scalp was covered in cascades of thin black braids. Ariane could almost see through the glamour if she tipped her head just the right way—this touchstone wasn’t human. It must have been Baphomet.
Ariane stepped forward and spread her dress in a curtsy.
“Welcome to Dis,” she said without rising. Baphomet was a goddess among her people, and such infernal creatures didn’t take kindly to eye contact. “You honor us with your presence.”
Baphomet brushed past her and out the doors.
“Maudite vache ,” Ariane said once the doors swung shut. She straightened and smoothed her skirts. “Two remaining. We should be able to begin the trial shortly.”
The doors opened again. Ariane faced them, relieved that Metaraon had finally arrived to do the judge’s duty.
It was not Metaraon who stepped through.
Isaac was in full uniform. Jacket, badge, leather slacks, boots, gloves. Even after so many years of marriage, he cut an imposing figure.
He didn’t speak when he entered. He beckoned Ariane toward him with two fingers. “I can’t right now, Isaac,” she said. “I’m welcoming visitors.”
“Now .” He bit out that one word in a way that left no room for argument.
Ariane took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her shoulders began to tremble.
She handed the ledger to Veronika and followed Isaac into the hall.
He took her outside, to a walkway between towers. Ariane tried to never step outside without full veils, and the heat of the wind shocked her with its cruelty. The black night bore down on her, heavy and dry. She could feel it creeping under the straps of her dress and irritating her wounds.
Only when they stood in the center of the walkway, totally alone, did Isaac face her again.
Ariane could tell instantly that he knew. He knew everything .
“Isaac,” she began.
He silenced her with the back of his hand. The blow connected with her cheek so hard that she staggered.
Ariane’s fingers flew to her face reflexively, but she didn’t otherwise react. She didn’t cry out. She didn’t even flinch. She knew better than to make a show of her pain—Isaac’s anger would only get worse.
“You disrespect me,” he said.
“Let me explain.”
“Explain what? That you’re a whore?”
He hit her again, and Ariane heard the ringing in her ears before she even felt the crack of his knuckles on her jaw.
When Metaraon made love to Ariane, he might have wounded her, but he took care not to leave injuries where people would see them and become suspicious. Isaac had no such concerns. He was the Inquisitor, and pain was his profession as well as his passion; it wouldn’t be the first time that Ariane had walked the halls of the Palace with a black eye. He struck her again and again. When she finally faltered, staggering against the railing, he grabbed a fistful of hair and slammed her head into the iron bars.
Dust stung her temple as it split open. A hot trickle of blood slid down her cheek.
That was usually the end of it. Ariane’s only comfort when she was subject to Isaac’s intentions was the knowledge that he was seeking a specific outcome—a certain level of pain to soothe the balm of his wounded pride.
But there was no end to his anger this time. The blood wasn’t enough to satiate him.
“How long?” Isaac hissed, grabbing the collar of her dress and jerking Ariane to her knees. She remained limp and silent in his grip.
He slammed her head into the railing again, and her vision sparked with stars.
Isaac’s voice rose to a roar. “How long, Ariane?”
This time, he didn’t give her the chance to respond. He grabbed fistfuls of her dress, hauled her to her feet, and shoved her against the low rail.
Ariane shrieked as she unbalanced, her head tipping backwards over the side. Only Isaac’s grip and his weight pressed against her legs kept her from falling. The Palace grounds and city spun beneath her, a dizzying whirl of red and gray and gold. Smoke burned her eyes.
“Isaac! Isaac, please!” she cried. She wasn’t sure that he could hear her. It was so loud. Her heart was pounding.
He was going to kill her.
A deep, resonant voice broke through the night. “Put her down.”
The blood rushed through her head as Isaac dragged her upright again and shoved her to the walkway. Ariane fell on her side. She cried out.
A red-robed figure stood a few feet away. Though Ariane couldn’t see his face, she could see anger in the way he held his arms and shoulders. The silence was as black as night.
“Judge,” Isaac said in greeting, irony dripping from that single word.
Metaraon lowered his hood. His features were always too beautiful, too perfect, for all the trappings of Dis. He was almost too painfully perfect to look upon. “You weren’t given a bride so that you could kill her.”
“You’ve been fucking my wife.”
Metaraon moved too quickly for Ariane to see him.
Metaraon crouched over Isaac. Though Ariane couldn’t see very well around the wind-whipped robes of the judge, she was sure that Isaac must have done his best to fight back; he always fought back. But all she heard were grunts, meaty strikes, and then Metaraon was shoving Isaac’s cheek to the floor with one hand.
“How did you even get into Hell?” Isaac croaked, trying to focus through the ruined mess that was the right side of his face.
Ariane had wondered the same thing when she had first encountered Metaraon in Hell, and asked him, “How did you fall?” It was the only way an angel could enter Hell—to become a demon. Yet he lacked the distorted, bestial limbs of a fallen angel, and Ariane had been afraid that she knew his response before he said it.
He had gently touched her chin as he said, “I didn’t have to.”
The implications were just as chilling now as they were then.
Metaraon didn’t give any such answer to Isaac.
The angel punched him. Once, twice, three times. Ariane quickly lost count. He only stopped hitting when his fist was drenched, Isaac’s face was covered in blood, and the man was no longer moving.
Or breathing.
Metaraon stepped back, and Ariane remembered that nothing was restraining her. She crawled to her husband’s side to check his throat for a pulse. Her fingers slid against the slick skin, but she found the place where his carotid should have been. No motion. She held her damp fingers over his mouth and nose, and the air didn’t move, either.
Metaraon stepped around her and slammed his foot into Isaac’s face.
There was a crack . Another splat . Ariane covered her mouth with her hands to muffle her shriek.
Isaac’s presence vanished from her mind. Her left arm burned. The void of his absence filled her, consumed her with darkness, and she knew that he was gone.
He was dead.
“You didn’t have to do that for me,” she said, and she couldn’t seem to manage to raise her voice above a whisper. The dead weight of her heart was choking her.
Metaraon wiped his hands clean on Isaac’s shirt. “I didn’t do it for you.”
Yet he was gentle as he helped Ariane stand. She flinched at his touch, but for once, the archangel wasn’t trying to cause her pain. He cupped her face in his hands to tilt her head gently from side to side and inspect her injuries. Whatever he thought of them didn’t show on his face.
“I’m fine,” Ariane said. Her voice broke on the second word, so she sucked in a breath and tried again. “I’m not hurt. I’m fine.”
Oh God, Isaac was dead.
“Your husband entered the judge’s quarters. He found my secrets. It was time for his death.” A flash of darkness crossed Metaraon’s eyes, but only a flash. “But he’s deserved death for years.” He said the last sentence with a note of finality in his voice. End of conversation.
Ariane tried to lean into his chest, seeking comfort that she knew he had no interest in giving. She wasn’t surprised when he dropped his hands and stepped away.
Isaac had stopped bleeding. The puddle of crimson inched across the black stone, creeping over tiles and filling the slender grout. She felt light-headed, like she was the one who had had her skull cracked open and spilled across the walkway.
“What am I supposed to do?” Ariane asked, and even she didn’t know if she was asking about cleaning up the body or the path her life would take now that she was alone.
Metaraon turned from her. “Clean yourself up. Leave his body. And then join me in the courtroom, because the trial is about to begin.”
He disappeared into the tower.
Ariane tried to follow him. She made it two steps before she hit the ground on both hands. She didn’t cry—there were no tears inside of her, not in the dry air of Dis. And not after so many years of enduring marriage to Isaac, and everything that followed that.
But never again. Never again.
13
Whisk, whisk, whisk…
Elise was sharpening her sword again.
James didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to see how his dreams were going to torment him this time.
Would she be in Saudi Arabia? On that goddamn frozen beach in Denmark? Or maybe his subconscious would be crueler than usual and place him back in Reno, the city that they had chosen as their home.
He could already imagine that Elise would be in one of the dresses she had worn while they rehearsed at Motion and Dance, or perhaps ready to jog in her sweat pants and sneakers, or wearing her favorite Black Death concert tee. He didn’t want to see it. Any of it. Goddammit, he never wanted to see Elise again.
Whisk, whisk, whisk…
But there was something strange about this dream. He felt like he was prone, and covered in something scratchy—a woolen blanket, maybe. He felt heavy. His mouth was dry. The sensations were all too real for him to be sleeping.
James peeled his eyelids open.
There was no ocean, no beach, no sun. The roof had exposed steel beams. The walls were plain concrete. There were several oil lamps in the room, but only one was illuminated—the one in the corner where Elise was sitting.
She was on the floor with her back against the wall. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf, which James thought might have belonged to Stephanie. He didn’t recognize the rest of her outfit—a snug leather corset, black leggings, boots with silver buckles. She had one falchion propped against her leg as she ran a stone across the sharp end of the blade, and the symbols carved into the metal glinted dully in the light.
His eyes fell on the other falchion. James’s heart skipped a beat.
The blade was obsidian. In his dreams, Elise never had the obsidian sword.
Memory flitted through his mind—finding Hannah at the House of Abraxas, the invasion of the shadow, and Elise’s face bending over his as he fell into unconsciousness.
He hadn’t imagined seeing her. Elise was alive.
James sat up, and the motion attracted her attention. A smile spread across her face—the kind of genuine smile that Elise reserved for James, and James alone, which he had thought he would never see again. “You’re awake,” she said, setting the falchion aside.
He tried to get up. “You’re alive! The Union said—”
“The Union was confused. Stop moving. You haven’t eaten in a while, and you’ll probably fall over.” She planted a hand in his chest, pushed him back into the bed, and sat on the corner of the mattress. “I’d hate for you to crack your skull open after Nathaniel put all of that effort into healing you.”
His head spun. “Nathaniel?”
“Yeah. You begat a pretty powerful kid, James,” Elise said. “It took maybe five minutes for him to fix all of your wounds. What did you do to your arm?”
James lifted his arm, but the bandages that had been wrapped around his destroyed limb were gone, and the skin was unmarked. “I carved a spell into my skin.”
She looked impressed. “And that worked?”
Elise had come back from the dead, and she wanted to know how his experimental magic had performed?
“Well enough,” he said slowly. “Where are we? Are we still in Dis?”
“This is the Nether Palace, where the rebellion lives. It’s a stronghold out in the desert.” She glanced around the room, and her pale shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Not much to look at.”
He barely heard her. “I didn’t think I was going to see you again,” James said. “When I heard that you had died…”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
He took her hand. She was wearing the ring that he had given her, which sparked and flashed with gold magic.
But she wasn’t wearing a glove.
“Jesus, Elise, your hands—”
Her smile vanished. She clenched her fist, but not before
he saw that her palm was bare. No mark.
It wasn’t Elise.
Even though he was horizontal, he felt dizzy again, like he was going to fall. The brief, brilliant moment of hope was gone, and he felt like an idiot for having been so relieved.
James shoved her away from him and got out of bed. His legs were unsteady beneath him, like it had been weeks since he had last attempted to walk. Someone had dressed him in a pair of loose pants while he was sleeping, but he was barefoot, and he could feel warmth radiating through the concrete floor.
He tried to pick out the subtle errors in her face. Her nose wasn’t crooked. Her eyes were too dark—he had thought it was the dim lighting in the room, but the irises were definitely black. No freckles.
Why hadn’t he seen it immediately?
“James,” she said, a note of warning in her voice. “Let me explain.”
“Who are you? Did Isaac send you to question me? Is this the Council’s idea of torture?”
She backed away, holding her hands up in front of her. “Sit down. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
James ripped a book off of the table beside him and hurled it at her. She didn’t dodge it—she didn’t even move. But the book hit the wall behind her and fell to the floor. Somehow, she was a good six inches to the right of where she had been standing before.
He had only ever seen Yatam do that.
But her shift had cleared a path to the exit. He bolted for the door.
She was standing in front of him before he could take three steps, and he bounced off of her outstretched hands. James twisted away. He balled his hand into a fist and swung.
The demon ducked under his arm and stepped around him. He remembered that Elise usually won fights against bigger men with agility, and by choking them, but it was a few seconds too late—she leapt onto his back before he could react. She weighed nothing. He didn’t even stagger.
An arm snaked around his neck and applied pressure. “Nice try, James, but dead or alive, I’ll always be able to kick your ass,” she said in his ear.
It was Elise’s dry sense of humor, and her familiar voice. But the contact of her skin against his was nothing like when he touched his kopis. The back of his neck erupted with prickles, like when he came into contact with any other demon. His skin crawled. And he noticed, with no small amount of embarrassment, that his body reacted in other ways, too—the same way that he had been unable to resist becoming aroused around Neuma or Yatam, even when he wasn’t attracted to them.