The Descent Series Complete Collection

by S. M. Reine

  He pushed her arm off. She let him go without fighting, and circled around so that he could see her.

  “Look,” she said, flashing her left arm at him. The skin between the inside joint of her elbow and wrist was marked with a white line. “And look!” She flashed her opposite palm, which had the mark he had feared for years. It was the same hand that had the ring he had given her. There was no mistaking the rings for any other—the enchantments on the band were powerful and impossible to mimic.

  His fists dropped, but the tension didn’t leave his shoulders.

  When a long moment passed in silence, she closed her fist on the symbol again.

  “It’s me,” she said. “I am Elise, and I did die. But I came back. I’m just…different.”

  “You’re a demon,” James said.

  Hurt flashed across her face. “Yeah. I’m a demon.”

  The door opened, and a new creature entered. The top of his head barely reached James’s chest. His head was oblong, and he leaned on a cane with every step.

  “Hyzakis,” Elise said, turning from James. Their struggle had loosened her headscarf, and a few locks of black hair dangled on the back of her neck. The texture looked soft, but not glossy. Demon hair.

  “You’re up and about,” Hyzakis said to James, but not like he cared all that much. “Fine. You can help us plan our next move.”

  “Our next move?” Elise echoed.

  Hyzakis hobbled up to her and jabbed her in the chest with a knuckle. “I take you from the desert. I clothe you. I transport you to the city, and let you into my home when you find the kind of trouble that would kill anyone else. I didn’t do any of that from the kindness of my heart.”

  She pushed his hand away. “I didn’t ask you to do any of that. You volunteered. I don’t owe you shit.”

  James forced himself to focus on Hyzakis. “What do you want?” he asked, backing into the corner by the bed. “Who are you?”

  The demon grinned. “I’m known here as Hyzakis, the leader of the loyalists. And that’s all the information the rebels need. But…” He pushed up his sleeve to bare his arm to the elbow. His skin was marked with a dozen tattoos. James had seen them before—it was what the Palace of Dis used instead of keys. That many marks meant that he must have once had a lot of access to the Palace.

  “My mother has two of those.” Elise pointed near his elbow. “Those two.”

  “Your mother is only the Inquisitor’s wife, so she doesn’t need access to many areas. She should only have one tattoo, where Isaac has three. I know, because I supervised the day they arrived and were tattooed.” Hyzakis dropped his sleeve. “It’s the pleasure of the presiding judge to issue access to new employees.”

  “The presiding judge is Abraxas,” James said.

  Hyzakis scowled. “The man you know as the ‘presiding judge’ is a fraud. He’s taken my job. My quarters. My house.” He saw Elise’s hard glare and lifted his chin. “That’s right. I’m Abraxas.”

  It was too hard to keep standing. As much as James didn’t want to let down his guard, he had to sit on the bed again. “Impossible. Abraxas was at my trial. He’s a tall man with a deep voice.”

  “Metaraon is a tall man with a deep voice,” Hyzakis said. “And he’s taken my life so that he can dismantle every single safeguard that protects the souls on Heaven, Hell, and Earth from interdimensional war.”

  He curled his hands over the top of his cane, and seemed to relish the responding shock and silence.

  James rubbed a hand over his jaw, staring at Elise without seeing her. The light from the oil lamp cast shifting yellow shadows on her clothes, but not her skin. That remained a pale, translucent shade of white, a few shades lighter than the tan she should have had.

  If Metaraon was in Hell, that violated laws that had been in place for centuries. But why would Metaraon have arrested James?

  “You see why you need to help me.” Hyzakis—Abraxas—lifted his cane and nudged Elise’s shoulder with the end. “You have the blood, and Hell will recognize you as one of its own. You are the only one capable of getting full access to the Palace of Dis. With the right preparation, no ward will be able to block you. No door can stop you. No prison can hold you. You can get in to kill Metaraon, and I can do everything in my power to restore the Treaty of Dis before the world as we know it is destroyed.”

  The rebels’ communal area in the Nether Palace was on a ledge overlooking the depths of a fiery pit in the desert. Some kind of magic protected it from the billowing smoke, which left the air hot, dry, and clear, so that it was safe for every member of the rebellion to pass through.

  But the enchantments didn’t block the screaming. The cries of damned souls drifted through the air, like a song that resonated deep inside of Elise’s body. It was almost pleasant.

  None of her human companions seemed to agree.

  “This is creepy,” Nathaniel said, hands pressed over his ears as he sat on a stone bench near the ledge. He didn’t like the Nether Palace. Of course he didn’t like it. He hadn’t liked a single thing since they’d left Earth.

  But Elise smoothed a hand over his hair. She couldn’t resist the urge. “We won’t be here much longer.”

  She realized that Hannah was watching her with the same calculating stare that her son got when he was evaluating something, and Elise dropped her hand.

  James joined them. It had taken Abraxas a while to find clothing that fit him among the fruits of their last raid, but they had done a good job dressing him—he wore a long-sleeved shirt of harpy wool that would protect his arms from Dis’s dry air, and black leather slacks that looked much more likely to have come from some flavor of demon than a human slave. He had also found a razor and shaved his face.

  He almost looked normal, except for the fact that he was avoiding Elise’s eyes.

  “Dinner,” he said, setting the tray he carried on another bench. “I made sure that all of it is safe for us to eat. This was taken from a Palace transport—all imports from Earth.”

  James removed bottles of water, bags of chips, wrapped sandwiches. Nathaniel guzzled an entire bottle of water before falling on the chips like a beast. Hannah acted only slightly less ravenous. She actually took a sandwich to another bench before taking huge bites of it.

  A hand appeared in Elise’s vision holding one of the sandwiches. She followed the arm up to James’s shoulder, and then his shaved throat, where his pulse was beating

  Okay, so maybe she did have a little bit of an appetite.

  When she didn’t reach for the sandwich, he moved away without speaking to her. She paced across the ledge, trying to distance herself from the sound of James’s blood rushing through his veins, and the almost irresistible beat of his heart.

  He hadn’t spoken to her since Abraxas had told them what they needed to do. Not once. It wasn’t exactly the reunion Elise had been planning on having.

  She watched the three of them eat from a safe position against the back wall. Hannah and Nathaniel were side by side, and James took the bench opposite them. The boy kept gazing between his parents, and even at that distance, his thoughts were loud and clear: he was very happy. And hopeful. And thinking of weddings, younger siblings, and holidays with two parents.

  Elise felt something fracture inside of her.

  “So how are we getting back?” Hannah asked. Her voice was soft, but it still carried over the screaming from within the chasm.

  “I can jump us between dimensions,” Nathaniel said. “I just need some supplies and a few hours to cast the spell.” He sounded so restrained, like he was struggling not to show off in front of James.

  “You can cross dimensions?” James asked.

  Nathaniel radiated pride. “I’ve been doing it since I was seven.”

  “Not intentionally,” Hannah said sharply.

  “But I can do it on purpose.” He shoved another fistful of chips into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. “Elise can help me get what I need. She’s fast.”
r />   Hannah glanced over her shoulder, and Elise pretended she wasn’t listening. “You’ve never carried four people before,” Hannah said doubtfully. “You’re strong, Nate, but you’re still learning. I just don’t know if—”

  “It won’t be four people,” James said softly.

  His words were quiet, but it killed the conversation instantly. Screaming, soft and melodic, drifted on a breeze.

  Hannah was the first to speak again. “You’re not coming.”

  “There’s a problem at the Palace. It’s desperate. Elise and I…” James hesitated. Sighed. “Someone has to get control of the Council. I’ll follow you two as soon as I can.”

  “But how will you get back without me?” Nathaniel asked. All of the hope and pride had vanished from his voice.

  “There’s a portal inside the Palace. As soon as we’ve gotten control again, we can pass through.”

  Nathaniel sat up straighter. “I can help.”

  “You can help,” James said. “You can get your mother to safety.”

  The conversation may have continued, but Elise didn’t hear it. Abraxas appeared in the archway and crooked a finger at her. “Daughter,” he called.

  She bit back an angry response and appeared in front of him. “What?”

  He was holding a book under one arm and leaning on his cane with the other. “I’ve prepared the tools and space for your tattooing,” he told Elise, handing her the book. She flipped through it. Every page had a different mark on it, and there were hundreds of pages.

  “Which ones do I need?” she asked.

  “If you want to be able to get inside the most secure areas where the Council works? All of them.”

  James rose to meet them, watching over Elise’s shoulder as she went through the pages again, more slowly than before. The marks were elaborate. There was no way that she could fit all of them—even tattooed as small as they were on Abraxas’s arm—on a single limb. She was going to have to be covered in the arcane alphabet of Hell.

  “Fine,” she said, although it was about as far from “fine” as she could imagine.

  Abraxas reached for the book. “Come with me. We can get started immediately.”

  She didn’t move. “I want James to do it.”

  Her aspis reacted with shock—and he all but buzzed with reluctance. But despite the violence of his internal response, his voice was calm. “Okay. I’ll take care of the tattoos.”

  Abraxas’s forehead wrinkled. “Suit yourself. The first chapter has instructions on activating the keys once they’re marked. But get moving. The high trial is scheduled for Friday in Earth time, and today is already Tuesday.”

  He hobbled away on the cane.

  James took the book. It was impossible to read his mind the way that she had figured out how to read Nathaniel’s mind. The boy was uncomplicated, but James was in constant tumult—like his thoughts were tangled in knots.

  “I’ll get ready,” he said, and followed Abraxas down the hall.

  14

  It didn’t take Elise long to collect the supplies Nathaniel would need to perform his spell. She soared through Hell’s black skies, darted into the nearest market, and returned to dump a box of crystals and herbs into his lap a few minutes later. “That should be everything,” she said.

  Nathaniel was already drawing his circle of power in a private room overlooking the pit. It was sheltered by the same magic as the communal area, and supervised by a trio of nightmares at the doors. Hannah stood between the demons and her son like another guard.

  “Thanks.” Nathaniel took the box and poked through it, examining the ingredients.

  Elise scanned the circle of power. It was much more complicated than the kinds of circles James typically drew, and Nathaniel wasn’t even finished yet. “Will this take long?”

  “A couple of hours.”

  “Good. James and I have to take care of something, but I think I’ll return before you finish your spell.” She hesitated, and then reached over the line of salt to tweak Nathaniel’s chin. “Don’t leave without saying goodbye.”

  Elise was rewarded with a big smile.

  Abraxas had put his tattooing materials in his study, which was a level below Nathaniel’s temporary ritual space. James was seated at the desk to examine the needles when she entered.

  “What should I do?” Elise asked.

  “These tattoos will be permanent, so we should put them somewhere discreet. Your back, maybe. Find somewhere to stretch out in Abraxas’s bedroom. Get comfortable. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  She nodded and headed into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  Abraxas’s rooms were at the bottom of the Nether Palace, and it was hotter than the levels above. Flames licked his windows. She thought that she could see shadowy figures among the fire beyond—figures with reaching hands and stricken faces. But the screams of the damned were muffled by enchantments. Elise heard nothing but her own heartbeat as she removed her bustier and the bra she wore underneath and set both on the side table.

  She had forgotten that Zettel had given Nathaniel that “note” until it fell out of her bustier. Elise scooped it off the floor, peeled it open, and considered the mark again.

  An interdimensional wedge. It couldn’t open a portal, but it could change the direction in which a preexisting one was aimed and force it to remain open. Calling it a “wedge” was a misnomer—Elise saw it for what it really was: a weapon.

  She folded the page and carefully placed it inside of her clothing so that she wouldn’t lose it.

  Something was rumbling deep in the earth below her, and Elise could feel that the demons of the Nether Palace were restless. Unhappy. It was like every fiber of Hell knew that it had been violated, invaded by angels and the Union and its Treaty violated, and it was rejecting the presence of the invaders.

  But Elise wasn’t restless. She was strangely comfortable as she stretched out on his bed and rested her chin on her folded arms. The sheets were warm. Everything in Hell was so warm.

  She felt lethargic. Cozy. Like she was wrapped in a down comforter on a cold morning, with nowhere to go and a pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen. The air smelled as familiar and comforting as it did when she smelled James cooking breakfast on Sunday mornings. And when she heard the door open and shut and felt her aspis enter, her languor only grew.

  It felt right, being in Hell with him. Like they belonged among the bones and blood.

  James didn’t look at her as he sat down. The bowl of pigment went on the bed beside her face, and she wondered what he had ground together to get such a fine powder, some of it black, some of it a darker red than blood. After what she had seen on sale in the markets of Dis, she imagined that it probably used to be alive. And it was going into her skin—inside her body.

  “I have no way to keep this from hurting you,” James said, sitting on the edge of the bed. She twisted around so that she could watch him prepare the needle. It was long, sharp, and polished white. Probably made from the bone of some hellborn creature.

  Elise pulled her hair over her shoulder and smoothed it down her arm. “That’s fine. I think I’ll heal it pretty fast.”

  “Not this,” he said. “I’ll have to curse the ink to imprint a permanent tattoo on the skin of a…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but Elise heard the unspoken word at the end of the sentence: demon .

  His gaze was intent upon the task at hand as he separated out a portion of the powder and mixed it with some kind of fluid in another bowl. But his heart was beating quickly.

  She frowned. Was he afraid?

  James propped Abraxas’s book open next to her, and the stirring stick clacked against the bowl as he turned the pigment into ink. “I’m going to begin,” he said. “Tell me if it gets too uncomfortable.”

  Elise sighed and shifted on the hard mattress. “Go ahead.”

  The bone needle pressed into her shoulder blade, and sharp pain flared as he used it to tap the ink into her skin.
r />   James moved quickly, but the distances were so minor that it felt like it took hours for him to inch down her flesh. He was silent as he worked. Occasionally, he stopped to dab at the fresh brands with a cloth and wick away blood. A line trickled down her side before he could clean it up.

  “How does it look?” she asked, resting her cheek on the backs of her folded hands.

  James sighed. “You look like you’ve been branded.”

  “Does this mean that you’re my master?”

  “I am not a demon. We are not forming a hierarchy, and you are not bound to my will.” She had been joking, but his response was sharper than the tattooing needle. “You can relax for a moment. I need to mix more ink.”

  He moved back, and Elise rolled onto her side, keeping her arms folded across her breasts. The movement pulled the skin on her back and stung, and fresh blood dribbled down to her back. It felt like being stroked with cool fingers.

  Elise got a good look at James for the first time since he’d reentered the room. He was cloaked in robes, like the kind she had glimpsed the Palace officials wearing. They hung open over his chest, revealing his black shirt and slacks. The robes suited him. They made him look like an actual sorcerer.

  “I think you could start a new fashion trend on Earth,” she said, reaching out to snag the hem of the robe.

  “Roll over. I’ll do a few more marks.”

  She did as he asked, relaxing into the warmth of the bed again as he worked. Elise lost herself in the repetitive sensations of the tap, the sting, the spread of heat. She sighed. He hesitated.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  James continued to work without replying.