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

by Elena Lawson

  A cold laugh rises up my throat, and I let my body sag against the table. Would it be a fool’s hope to pray that whatever ability I tapped into in my sleep would manifest itself a second time?

  My jaw is pried open and something small and round is dropped into my throat. Carver holds his hand to my mouth and pinches my nose until I inhale whatever it is he’s stuffed into my mouth. I choke and splutter, but it’s beyond regurgitating.

  The haze sets in almost straight away, and I feel my eyelids begin to close. My pulse steadies. Carver’s hideous face distorts, the world tips sideways, and I remember something Ford used to say: There might not be a tomorrow for you, girl. Be grateful I’ve given you today.

  I wish he would have made good on that threat. Then I wouldn’t be here. Then I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of knowing that Kincaid might soon be sentenced to an eternity in the black void where his brothers waste away. Leaving Artemis alone and undefended. Who would take care of him when we were both gone? Who would get Lady Devereaux home and stop Tori from going after Tristane with a butter knife and pure rage?

  What is it they say? Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

  Yeah. I can’t say I agree.

  Love, I think, is the worst emotion of all.

  25

  Carver hasn’t returned, and it’s been hours since I woke. I’ve tried to force myself back asleep—to try to reach Kincaid again without whatever Carver gave me last night blocking my attempts. But it turns out when you know you have only hours to live, sleep isn’t really a viable option.

  I try to conserve energy instead. As useless as it might be to try, this is my last chance to do something, anything, to escape. I must have been out cold for at least a full day, unless my healing time has gotten much quicker. There is a puckered pink line of flesh down my middle from where Carver put me back together after his little autopsy, but that’s it.

  Everything feels like it’s where it belongs, and though I’m sore, the pain is manageable and only a mild nausea plagues my stomach. The pangs of starvation long since passed.

  I lick my parched lips and twist as best I can to get a good view of the room and anything within reach. There’s nothing, of course. If there had been, I’d have tried something already.

  Even though I know it’s of no use, I inspect the metal clamps around my wrists, pulling gently, but firmly to see if there is any flex at all.

  There is none.

  I try to dig my fingers into the practically petrified wood table, remembering how I almost ripped out a chunk of the banister at Kincaid’s mansion. I am stronger now. I should be able to break the wood apart with my bare hands, but I can’t.

  Either Carver has given me something to subdue my strength, which would explain the ever-present heaviness in my limbs and fog in my mind, or the thick stone walls surrounding this room also somehow block my strength just as much as they block spirit energy.

  I’m guessing the former, but in this strange place, you never know.

  I groan. Mentally kicking myself. There has to be a way out.

  This can’t be it.

  What if it isn’t?

  I’m Diablim. I’ll go to Hell, won’t I?

  A vision of the swirling column of fire carrying naked souls down into the pit crosses my mind and my stomach turns. But Kincaid would find me there, wouldn’t he?

  He could save me from eternal damnation. He could spirit me away to HighTower and we could live there. Hot tears burn in my eyes and scape my throat raw. It’s a beautiful hope, but I have no idea if it’s possible. If he can save me. If I’ll even be corporeal on that plane.

  …how long he’ll survive before Lucifer takes him, too.

  At least there was a possibility of my being able to warn him. If he could find my spirit in the underworld.

  Footsteps outside in the hall spur my heartbeat into a sprint and despite the futility of it, I pull at my binds again, creating new lacerations on my wrists and ankles.

  The coded door beeps before swinging open, and I arch myself to see Carver enter, carrying an armful of new tools and devices.

  Before the door swings shut, something plucks at my core. The tiniest of spiritual tugs. I think maybe I’ve imagined it, but it comes again, just once before the door shuts completely and the tugging halts.

  There’s someone out there.

  A person or some kind of spirit. Maybe someone with enough spirit energy that I can draw on it.

  Carver hums to himself as he places several tools atop his rolling cart, being even more precise than usual. A dark gray smock is tied around his middle and his sagging neck. He adds a hammer to the cart last and then wheels it over.

  “Can I,” I stammer, blurting the words. “Can I have a drink? Some whiskey or something.”

  He cocks his head at me, beady eyes narrowing.

  “As a last request,” I add, hoping to appeal to any shred of human decency the monster may still possess. “Please.”

  I need him to open that door.

  He studies me for a moment before going back to the task at hand, lifting a thick leather strap with silver eyelet holes on either side and laying it over my forehead. I shake my head and it falls off, making him snarl at me.

  “Remain still.”

  “No. I just want a fucking drink.”

  “And you’ll not get one. I will not have my specimen clouded by any substance.”

  That was why he was using a strap, I realized, cold dread pooling in my belly. He wasn’t going to drug me. Not this time. He couldn’t if he wanted an untainted view inside my head.

  “I won’t risk your fine bones not taking to my carving, little flower. Now hold still. It’ll be over very soon.”

  I thrash my head about, not letting him get the strap into place. It slides over the sweat-slicked pane of my forehead again and again each time he tries.

  With a hiss, he slaps the leather strap down on the wood and snaps his fingers. Two of his scalpels whizz over as though they’ve sprouted invisible wings. They settle into place next to my ears, one gets a little too close, nicking the surface and making a droplet of warm blood fill the cavity.

  I flinch and only manage to cut open my other ear.

  I can’t move.

  If I do, I’ll wind up driving one of these scalpels into my head.

  I guess now I knew what sent Isolde flying into the piece of rebar in the tunnel beneath the old church. Carver did. With his telekinetic ability. As if the fucker needed any more reasons to be creepy, he’s also a living, breathing demonic poltergeist.

  “You fucking bastard,” I spit through gritted teeth as he lays the strap over my forehead triumphantly and sets the first nail in the eyelet, pounding it in with the hammer until I think I might go deaf.

  He resumes humming to himself as though I’m not practically frothing at the mouth with rage. My muscles are tense and hot and my chest aches from the pounding of my heart.

  When he finishes with the first nail in the left side, he chooses another and moves to the right, pulling the strap as tight as it will go. For a second, I wonder if I’d rather impale myself on his hovering scalpels then let him carve me up. I think I would.

  I brace myself, ready to jerk my head to the side and hope the scalpel is able to get as far in as it needs in order to make sure I don’t survive. If a bit of whiskey could mess with Carver’s plans, then I was willing to bet my original theory was correct. If I died before he could carve me up, then he wouldn’t be able to do what he wanted with my bones.

  I’m sorry, Kincaid.

  Carver lifts the hammer over the head of the nail, ready to swing. I have to be faster. I hesitate and a strangled cry lifts from my lips. He stops short and I peel one eyelid back to find him with a confused scowl on his face, head tilted to the side, listening for something.

  I strain to hear over the blood rushing in my ears, but after a second, I think I can hear it, too. Scratching. An odd tinny noise like…

&nb
sp; Like tiny claws scratching at a metal door.

  Carver sets down the hammer and discards the nail. I hold my breath.

  Please.

  I reach out with my mental feelers, shaking all over.

  Please.

  Carver presses four buttons on the keypad. It chirps and the door opens.

  A startled grunt sounds and the scalpels drop, clattering to the table beside my temples. I tip my head, knocking the leather band askew to see. A flash of white darts through Carver’s legs and jumps onto the table.

  Casper climbs atop my chest, sitting squarely at the center of my breastbone. His green eyes lock on mine as his tail swishes back and forth over my naked belly.

  “Damnable creature!” Carver shouts, and I realize there isn’t time for shock and surprise.

  When Casper lays a paw on my chest and leans in, I realize what he’s doing. What he’s offering me—his power. All I have to do is accept. All I have to do is give up a part of my soul to get it.

  “I agree,” I say in a breath and then cry out as a fire ignites inside of me. Casper digs his claws in, holding tight while my body convulses until it is done. Until the burning ceases and Casper’s eyes glow like twin pools of uranium.

  Until my blood buzzes with the vibration of a power so great I fear it might tear me apart from the inside if I do not unleash it.

  When Carver lurches toward us, I find his soul. A shriveled, dark thing. Brighter than Kincaid’s, but not by much. It’s almost slippery as I try to get a hold on it, to grip it in my phantom fist and bend it to my will.

  But I’m no master Necromancer. Not yet. And all I manage to do is halt him for an instant while Casper jumps from my chest. I think he’s going to attack Carver, but he scurries away like the useless fleabag he is, right to the slow-closing door.

  Where a hulking black shape kicks it back open, snapping the hard metal hinges to leave it hanging at an angle.

  “Asmodeus,” Carver croaks, shucking off my spiritual grip to whir on him, a hand ready at his side. If he snaps those fingers and does anything to hurt Kincaid, I’ll cut them off one at a time.

  Tori appears behind Kincaid, her violet eyes wide at the sight of me. Her skin stony ashen gray.

  “Get her free,” Kincaid bellows, rushing in toward Carver.

  Tori’s hard cold fingers try to work the clamps on my wrists while Kincaid stalks Carver around the table.

  “Wait!” I call to Kincaid. There could be more Carver knows, we should take him alive.

  “Kincaid!” I shout again, but he’s beyond hearing me. He’s rage personified. All hard black edges and sharp cat-eyes.

  He lunges for Carver, but the demon dodges him, lifting his hands to send a barrage of sharp objects flying at Kincaid. My demon howls as one hits its mark, embedding in his chest, just several inches above his heart. He falls to a knee, hissing.

  I struggle to focus, trying to sift through all the energy in the room to get a hold of Carver’s soul again. If I can just incapacitate him for one second that might be all Kincaid needs.

  “I can’t get them off,” Tori calls, and I don’t know if she’s telling me or Kincaid as she heaves on the iron bonds, moving to try the ones at my ankles.

  Carver’s bulging eyes slide over me just as I’m on the verge of taking hold of his soul. His eyes widen, and he lunges at me, hands outstretched like he means to rip my head from my shoulders.

  He almost makes it when the sickening sound of bones crunching draws his attention. A monster tears his arm from its socket. A monster with familiar green eyes and a wide mouth set into a noseless face with tall horns jutting up out of its skull.

  The monster shoves the dismembered arm down its throat in one gulp before changing form back to a cat. A white cat with the smear of Carver’s black blood on the fur around its lips.

  Carver stares in muted horror at the grotesquerie of his arm socket. I gag at the sight too, but that isn’t what ultimately draws the bile up my throat. It’s the smell.

  Kincaid rises, hot air shimmering around his horns as he closes in on Carver.

  I take hold of his soul. Rooting the bastard in place. It’s easier this time; he’s too much in shock at the loss of his arm to stop me.

  Tori grunts, still putting everything she has into trying to pry me free from the table. It’s no use. We need the key. “Kincaid,” I call in a softer voice, fighting to keep focus on my hold on Carver. “We need to take him alive.”

  Kincaid’s yellow eyes slide my way, fixing on my face for a second before trailing lower to my bare torso. To the slow-healing scar running just beneath my clavicle and all the way down to my belly button. His face twists at the sight, breaths coming fast and heavy as he turns back to Carver, still twitching and spluttering from my hold on him.

  “No,” Kincaid growls before he snaps. I turn my head sharply away as Kincaid descends upon Carver. I lose my hold on his soul a moment later but Kincaid doesn’t need my help.

  Warm blood splatters the side of my face and mostly naked body, turning quickly cold as it drips down my skin. The squelching, guttural sounds of Kincaid unleashing the full wrath of his beast on Carver fill the room, burrowing into my ears.

  When I dare part my eyelids, I see Tori at the end of the table, her hands frozen on my binds. Her eyes wide and her skin a sickly shade of green as she watches Kincaid rip Carver to pieces. For the first time, Tori seems genuinely afraid of Kincaid and with good reason.

  I’m more than a little shocked he didn’t kill her for letting me go. But I am immeasurably grateful that he didn’t. Now, she’s forced to bear witness to what he could’ve done to her. What he still might unless I am able to talk him down.

  “Tori,” I mutter, spitting a bit of rancid black ichor from my mouth. “The keys. Carver has the keys.”

  Her gaze slides to me, and it takes her a moment to understand what I’ve just said, still in shock as the awful sounds to my right finally cease.

  “I-I can’t find them,” Tori says a few seconds later, and bracing myself, I turn, thinking I may be able to spot them.

  Kincaid’s hands shake as he comes back to himself, the remnants of Carver all around him as though he shoved a hand grenade down the demon’s throat.

  Tori is toeing pieces of Carver around on the black-streaked floor, using her forearm to shield her nose from the stench.

  “Kincaid?”

  He has a distant look in his eyes, like he’s a million miles away.

  “Kincaid?”

  His jaw twitches as he flinches away from the name, but he finally comes back to himself, his face breaking at the sight of me.

  In two quick strides he’s at my side. His blackened fingers take hold of the celestial bind on my right wrist and with brutal force, he breaks it apart. Then leans over and does the same on the other side. The iron cuts into his hands, bright beads of crimson joining the stains of ichor on his palms.

  “Got them!” Tori says, rushing to my ankles to undo the binds there while I pull my arms in to my chest, rubbing at the soreness in my wrists and grimacing at the tightness in all of my muscles from being forced to remain still for so long.

  Kincaid carefully curves a hand around the back of my neck, slowly lifting me until I’m seated, and he presses his forehead to mine, a shuddering breath leaving his lips. A tightness in my chest draws a sob from my lungs and when my legs come free I bend them, wanting to clutch them to my chest.

  Instead, Kincaid guides them to either side of his waist and draws me in until I am flush against the hard plane of his chest. His face burrows into my neck, and his warm breath across my collarbone makes me shiver, remembering how cold I am.

  How cold I have been for days.

  But that doesn’t matter right now. I pull away only enough to see his face. “You’re okay.”

  I didn’t realize how terrified I’d been that he might not be. That even if I did manage to escape these four stone walls, I’d be re-entering a world where he may no longer exist. I ins
pect the wound on his chest, nudging a tattered bit of cloth out of the way. It’s already healing, but he’s lost a fair amount of blood.

  Kincaid’s eyes tighten, and his hold on me goes rigid. An entirely different sort of tears prick at my eyes as a line forms between his brows and his demon form retreats, the color returning to his face.

  He looks like he might be sick.

  “Na’vazēm…” he says on a breath, with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. He lifts me from the table, maybe thinking better of whatever he’d been about to say, setting me gently down on my feet.

  My knees buckle and I grip the edge of the table to steady myself as Tori rushes over to help steady me even though Kincaid is already there. He cuts her a scathing glare, and she staggers back, hands raised.

  “Don’t,” I tell him. “She’s my friend.”

  His lips press into a hard thin line and even though I want to say more, now isn’t the time. I let him sweep me up into his arms even though doing so clearly causes him pain.

  Tori shucks off her jacket, and Kincaid pauses to let her drape it over my bare torso.

  Thank you, she mouths.

  “Rest now,” Kincaid murmurs softly, lowering his face to press a kiss on my forehead. His power over my emotion surges into me, bringing a deep sense of luxurious calm that muddies my senses and brings a fog to my mind.

  “No,” I try to argue, remembering all at once the things I need to tell him. Everything I learned in Carver’s dungeon. About Lucifer. About what’s happening to the lords. About…me.

  “I need to…” My words are slurred and my eyelids droop heavily, obstructing my vision as a tingling begins in my fingers and toes.

  “Tell…you…”

  “Rest, Mea Na’vazēm. Tell me when you wake.”

  26

  “What you’re talking about is suicide,” Tori’s voice floats into my semi-conscious thoughts as I wake. My hand is on my still-naked belly, and I finger the smooth flesh running up my middle. The puckered line of scar tissue is gone, but my eyes haven’t yet adjusted enough to see if any mark remains.