Sins of the Damned (Fallen Cities: Elisium Book 2)

by Elena Lawson

  “Where did you live before? Are your parents—”

  “Dead,” he supplies without preamble. “Zak killed them before he took me.”

  The way he says it, so matter-of-factly, makes my blood boil. I kind of want to meet Zak so I can rip his black heart from his chest and then eat his soul for lunch. I’m a necromancer, maybe that’s something I can do. I make a mental note to ask Kincaid.

  My heart sputters as the car Kincaid stole from a parking garage rolls to a stop and I reach forward, gripping the back of the driver’s seat tightly. “Something’s wrong,” I breathe. “The door’s open.”

  The door is never open.

  I swallow air as Kincaid steps out, scanning the desolate front lawn and the skies above us.

  Ford is dead.

  I have to actively remind myself as I shoulder open my own door, shivering despite the humid afternoon air. He’s dead. It’s probably just squatters.

  But regardless of what I try to tell myself, I’m already picturing him. Picturing his shadowed brown eyes snapping open on that metal table. Picturing his bloated green-hued body reanimating as he lurches his way back to the house, waiting for me to return.

  Ford is dead.

  “There’s no one here, Na’vazēm.”

  I heave air into my lungs and shake out the sting in my fingertips as Artemis and I follow Kincaid inside. It’s impossible not to remember the last time I stood at this door. When the officers told me Ford was dead.

  The taste of freedom was fresh on my lips; I’d been eager to take a bite.

  I’d been a fool.

  Kincaid pushes the door the rest of the way open and steps into the entry, taking in the long hall and the panel in the wall. Littered over the floor are mottled leaves and small patches of dirt. There’s enough light inside from the shatterproof windows that there’s no need to turn on the lights. Good thing, too, because the hum of electricity is entirely absent in the house.

  It’s clearly been shut off.

  Kincaid’s demon form creeps up his forearms in front of us where he’s paused near Ford’s bedroom door. It, too, is open.

  It’s strange, but seeing it that way. Ajar, with light from the windows inside painting a rectangular patch of light onto the hall floor, solidifies the fact he’s dead.

  That door only opened for him to pass through. Once in the morning. Once in the evening. I’ve never seen more than a glimpse of what lies within.

  Artemis turns back to me as he passes to join Kincaid, “You coming?”

  I’m not sure I can speak so I only nod, my face warming, though I’m not entirely sure why.

  Artemis’s mouth falls open when he peers into the room, and between Kincaid and him, I worry I don’t want to see inside at all. Contemplate why in the world I ever did.

  There is very likely all manner of awful things inside. I imagine a collection of cattle prods. Detailed blueprints of how to inflict the most pain on a human being—or rather—a Diablim.

  So when my feet finally find purchase on the gritty floor, propelling me forward, I’m shocked to find nothing of the sort beyond the door.

  It’s a room just like any other. Or it would have been, before whatever came through it tore the entire space apart. A mattress and soot gray bedding lie at an odd angle atop a metal frame. Nightstand drawers jut open, their bowels spilled over the floor.

  Likewise, a tall dresser has been ransacked. Clothes spill from three of the remaining drawers while the others lie on the carpet, upturned or empty.

  The whole place smells faintly of him, and with the taste of vomit still in my throat, I’m shocked I don’t cough up whatever remains in my stomach. The glint of sunlight on glass catches my eye as I waver in place, a bout of vertigo threatening to take me.

  It’s a photograph. It lies faceup on the carpet near the edge of the shifted mattress. A crack in the glass. I clench my fists and enter the room, unwilling to allow myself to be frightened of a dead man’s room.

  The dead man himself, well, that’s another story. But I don’t feel his presence here. His voice isn’t among the others humming at the edges of my consciousness.

  I pick the broken glass from the worn wooden frame and toss it to the floor, squinting at the image. A woman with long dark hair and pretty green eyes stares back up at me. She has skin the color of clouded honey and a smile that beckons.

  I trace the line of her jaw, and my throat thickens.

  It’s my mother.

  I’m not sure how I know. Maybe it’s the likeness of the shape of her face. Or the rounded tip of her slight nose. The curve of her long neck. They are all features I’ve seen in the mirror. She can’t be more than twenty-five in this picture, and I am almost the spit of her.

  “She was human,” I find myself whispering, trying to convince myself. I never had reason to doubt it until recently, but this has to be proof, right? The woman in this photograph can’t be Diablim.

  “Who did this?” Artemis asks in a soft whisper, lifting the edge of a blanket to see what’s underneath.

  “Angels,” Kincaid growls. “Their scent is on everything. They haven’t been gone long.”

  Angels?

  “Damn,” Kincaid hisses, throwing out an arm and sending the remains of the dresser smashing into the opposite wall. Wooden splinters explode onto the carpet, and I have to side-step to avoid getting hit.

  “Is this bad? Why are the angels searching Ford’s house?”

  “The same reason we are,” Kincaid replies, the words whistling through his clenched teeth. He runs a hand through his tousled black hair, muttering to himself. “I thought we had more time.”

  “They might have missed something,” Artemis says, ever the optimist. He begins searching the closet near the splintered dresser and his fervor is contagious. Kincaid begins to search as well, going through the discarded things on the floor and ripping the backings from the bland artwork on the walls.

  I gently wiggle the photo from the frame and fold it, tucking it into my back pocket, beginning to doubt as I watch Kincaid sift through Ford’s things. When he isn’t in his demon form, Kincaid could look almost mortal save for his eyes. Not just the strange ochre color of them, but the depth. The boundlessness of a millennium of life is captured in the flecks and waving lines of his irises. Like the rings hidden in a tree’s trunk.

  One look into his eyes and even a fool would know he’s anything but human.

  My mother could have been a demon. Or maybe Nephilim, I consider, lifting my gaze to the determined face of Artemis. Nephilim seems more likely, but that’s a biased opinion based solely on her genuine smile in the photo.

  “There’s nothing in here,” Kincaid grouses, stalking back to the door. “I’m going to search the rest of the house.”

  “Just a second,” I call after him, glancing uneasily between him and Artemis. The entire car ride here my thoughts were preoccupied with how to ask Kincaid to release Artemis in just the right way that he would have to say yes. But now that I’ve finally gotten the gall to actually do it, all of the words I carefully planned out and laced together vanish from my mind as though they were never there at all.

  Kincaid studies me, waiting with an impatient tick in his brow.

  Off to a great start already.

  “I was thinking,” I start. “You really don’t need two wards to worry about back in Elisium.”

  Artemis pales.

  “Maybe…I mean maybe we could leave Artemis here. Where he belongs?”

  Kincaid’s nostrils flare.

  “I’d be willing to barter for his freedom if that’s what it takes.”

  I have no idea what I can offer him that he doesn’t already have a right to. But an idea strikes a moment later, and I jump at it even though every nerve ending in my body is screaming at me not to do it.

  “I’ll hold the Spirit Scepter again,” I blurt. “I can try to communicate with your brothers.”

  He was going to make me do it anyway, I was sure, but th
is way he would know that I wouldn’t fight him on it.

  Kincaid’s lips pressed into a tight line. “No, Na’vazēm. I’ll not barter for a thing I already own the right to.”

  I want to slap him in his stupid face.

  But then he says, “The boy may leave if he wishes. I shall not stop him.”

  Riotous feelings of shock and delight twirl in my belly, but when I look at Artemis, the joy falls from my face and a leaden weight settles in my stomach.

  Artemis kicks at something on the carpet and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his torn jeans. “I don’t belong here anymore,” he mutters.

  “What do you mean? This is your home.”

  When he looks at me, I can see the sincerity in his eyes, but he doesn’t reply to me, instead turning his attention to Kincaid.

  “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Kincaid, I think I’d like to go back with you and Paige.”

  Kincaid considers Artemis for a moment and then nods, leaving the room without another word.

  I’m not sure what to say, and Artemis busies himself with re-checking a small table he already looked over, so I know he doesn’t want to talk about it. Perhaps I should feel guilty about it, but I’m overwhelmingly glad he’s going to stay, and I just want to hug him, but I know he’d only be grossed out by the sentiment. Teenage boys…

  “Don’t bother with the room to the right,” I call after Kincaid, hearing his footfalls down the hall. “It’s mine. There won’t be anything useful inside.”

  Though, I’ve told Kincaid not to bother, my room is exactly where I head next, eager to leave Ford’s. It’s almost unrecognizable though. Much like Ford’s, it’s been entirely torn apart. My books lie in a sea of cracked spines and torn pages over the carpet, and I think that may be the worst part.

  Each one is a memory of a life I wished I could have been living instead of my own. Hell, even the characters in dystopias had lives that seemed preferable to my own.

  Aside from the books, the only other thing I have any care in the world for is my blanket. I take my time folding the heavy fabric, grinning as I hear the beads inside shifting this way and that.

  Ford bought it by accident for himself. Before, I’d been using a threadbare quilt. I think he thought an awkward, heavy blanket would be a form of punishment.

  At first, I thought it was, too. But after the first week or so I got used to it. After a month had passed, I couldn’t sleep without it.

  “What’s that?” Artemis asks, wandering into the room. “This your room?”

  “Was my room,” I correct him. “And it’s weighted. It helps me sleep.”

  My tone is defensive, and I think Art picks up on it because he raises his brows. “I wasn’t implying anything.”

  “Didn’t say you were.”

  “Okay,” he says, drawing out the word as he pushes his fingers to the industrial locking mechanism on my door. It’s broken now, but it’s clear to see that it isn’t the normal sort of thing you’d find on a little girl’s bedroom door. The coded keypad is on the outside. Meant to lock the person in rather than to lock intruders out. “Guess I’ll go see if Kincaid needs help downstairs.”

  “Downstairs?” I choke out, my heart racing as I shoulder past him into the hall.

  Kincaid hovers at the top of the stairs, and I hold out my hand as though I’m about to physically stop him, but I can’t make my feet move more than another inch in their direction.

  “Don’t,” I say in a breath. “You won’t find anything down there. It’s empty.”

  White-hot shame rises to my face, and Kincaid must sense my panic because he pauses. “What is it?”

  “I just…I know there’s nothing down there.”

  It’s a lie, and I think he can sense it. There’s a filing cabinet. A locked one in the room with the chair. Ford used to absently finger through pages of yellowing paper while the dead things and the chair did his work of terrifying and hurting me.

  “I’ll only be a moment,” he replies before being swallowed up by the shadows down the stairs.

  “Are you okay?”

  “What?” I ask, trying to piece together whatever Artemis just asked me. I can’t stop staring at the darkness below. I half expect it to grow arms and grab me. Swallow me whole.

  “I-I need to go outside,” I stammer, bunching up the heavy weighted blanket in my arms as I rush from the house, only able to properly fill my lungs once I’m outside.

  “Don’t touch me!” I hiss when Artemis places a hand on my back, and then. “I’m sorry, it’s just…I just…”

  “All good. You don’t have to explain.”

  I’ve only just managed to catch my breath, counting to three in my head when a loud bang inside snatches away my composure once more.

  A feral roar from below precedes Kincaid’s exit from the house. His footfalls on the stairs are like an approaching Godzilla, and I know before I see him that he’s in his demon form. He storms from the house, yellow eyes blazing in a face that’s devoid of all color, even under the light of the sun.

  Heat radiates out from his pores, shimmering in the air around him.

  “Let’s go,” he bellows, nearly ripping the door off the sedan parked in the driveway as he folds his large form into the driver’s seat. “Now!”

  6

  Kincaid barely leaves his room for days. He exits only for liquor or to speak to his henchmen, who come to the door with news or seeking commands almost three times a day now. I can hear him in the night, too, pacing in the halls.

  At first, I thought he was absently wandering the house, simply unable to sleep. But he only walks the hallway leading past my bedroom, and his footfalls slow noticeably as he passes.

  Checking to see that I’m still in the house?

  I’m not sure.

  If he wanted to speak to me, he would. Kincaid doesn’t strike me as the type to not speak his mind on any subject, so I don’t know why he hesitates if that is the case.

  He was clearly disgusted by what he saw down there. The angels will have already taken what they wanted from the filing cabinet so there would only have been the remnant of animal corpses scattered around an electric chair. A pressurized hose in the cement room with the rusted drain in the floor. Bits of my skin caught in the uneven surfaces. Ford’s torture instruments. His coffee machine.

  He thinks me weak. Pathetic.

  I could see it in the set of his eyes when he came out of Ford’s house. They blazed with a loathing so potent that I couldn’t get the image out of my head. Not even in sleep.

  A part of me wants to explain to him that I tried. I tried to escape. Many times. And each of those times I was punished. The few times I got far enough to beg someone for help, Ford had the documentation to prove my insanity.

  People would smile and nod, looking on with pity as he dragged me back to his truck, kicking and screaming. They would do nothing as I beat my fists bloody against the bulletproof glass windows, tears streaming down my face.

  It was an ugly truth, what he did to me. People would rather believe a beautifully constructed lie.

  But would he understand?

  I’m not that girl anymore. Well, part of her still clings to my bones and hides in the corners of my mind, but she’s fading. I’m being something…other. Different.

  Stronger, I hope.

  “Are you even going to try?” Artemis asks, and I tuck my crossed legs in tighter, giving my head a little shake.

  Art and I have constructed a schedule of sorts since our silent return to the mansion. In the morning, I make breakfast and we eat together in the dining room. In the afternoon, I read from the book on Necromancy—well, the pages in the common tongue that I can understand. And then after lunch we work on whatever it is I learned from reading earlier in the day.

  I made the mistake of slacking on my learning once and almost paid the price by not being prepared when a spirit tried to get a foothold in my head. I’m not about to let that happen again, not when there
’s something I can do to prepare myself against it.

  Besides, it provides a welcome distraction from the demon smashing things up in his bedroom down the hall.

  I wonder if he’ll let me go now? If he’s realized just how useless I’ll be to him, even once I’ve learned to wield this demonic power in my blood.

  “Yeah, hang on. Just give me a minute.”

  Practicing on Artemis is easy because his soul is so bright and vivid with life, but I doubt accomplishing the same feats on a Diablim soul will have the same effect.

  I can now feel the edges of his soul. The difference between it and his body—where bone and sinew end and soul begins. This is step one to removing a soul from the keeper’s body, but I’m not yet brave enough to experiment with step two. If I fuck something up, Artemis’ soul could fully detach, and I risk not being able to re-deposit it in time to save him from bodily decay.

  “I’ve got it,” I whisper, trying not to break focus. It’s warm and soft, like Casper’s fur whispering against my cheeks.

  Speak of the devil…

  A plaintive meow sounds on the other side of my door followed by the scratching of claws. My focus is broken, and I release Art’s hands, falling back on my own for a rest.

  “Should I let him in?”

  “I vote no, but we both know you don’t listen to anything I say, so…”

  I roll my eyes at him.

  He’s been beseeching me to go talk to Kincaid, but I don’t know what I’d say, and I’m not sure I want to face him just yet. Better to let him get his raging revulsion out of his system first. Then, I’m sure, he’ll come to me.

  Huffing, I rise and open the door, letting Casper scamper inside. He stretches up on his hind legs, pulling at the woven denim in my jeans with his claws until a few strands come loose and I give in, lifting him from the floor.

  “I don’t know why Kincaid is so angry that I named you,” I coo, nuzzling the top of his horned head with my chin. “It’s just a name.”

  “I’m sure there’s a reason,” Artemis says in a low voice to himself, knowing full well that I can hear him. I tried to distance myself from the demon housecat when we first arrived back, but it proved ever more difficult since he didn’t seem to want to leave me alone. And truly, I didn’t feel right keeping him separate.