Torn by Fury

by S. M. Reine

Abel suddenly looked serious. “I’d die for you, too.” His smile looked like it was only meant to comfort her, not that he actually felt it. “Compared to that, going back to Northgate’s nothing.”

  But it would be selfish to ask him to do it. Wasn’t she entitled to be selfish, though? She’d already given up Seth to this stupid war.

  “I’m not going to tell you to leave,” she began, choosing her words carefully.

  She didn’t get a chance to finish.

  “Good,” Abel said. He cupped the back of her head, holding her in place as he kissed her hard. “We’re heading out to take a factory back that’s been taken by three of these assholes. Want to come?”

  She should tell him what she meant to tell him. She couldn’t let him just keep running headfirst into danger. “No. I don’t.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He gave her a hand off the table, and she was still too numb to argue with him. But then they were walking toward the exit to the tent, and if she didn’t say something now, he was going to be gone—he was going to go fight. Yeah, they were strong against angels, but not invulnerable. Especially not in Hell. She needed him so much more than this army did.

  Rylie bit her bottom lip. “Abel…”

  Gerard stuck his head into the tent. “Ready to go, or do you need another minute?”

  “I’m ready,” Abel said.

  He kissed Rylie again, just as hard as before, but slower, like he was memorizing her taste. For a moment, everything was okay—there was no room in her mind or heart for Seth.

  Then Abel left with Gerard, and Rylie was left hollow.

  The water in the bath was clear enough that Elise could see her reflection wavering in the surface, kneeling on the edge. Loose hair framed a pale face. Her nose looked a little too straight, her eyes too sultry, her features too symmetrical.

  Some large part of Elise expected to see a crooked-nosed woman with thick eyebrows and curly auburn hair in that reflection, even though she hadn’t been that woman for years.

  It was Benjamin Flynn’s fault. He had done something strange to her, and now she was going crazy.

  Another face moved to join hers in the reflection, this one entirely inhuman. Ace jammed his wet nose in her ear and snuffled loudly. He was confused by Elise sitting on the floor. She usually only got down like that when she was brushing the dust out of his fur, and now she wasn’t paying him adequate attention.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He responded by licking a long line up the side of her cheek. His breath smelled like fiend meat.

  She shut her eyes and rested her forehead against Ace’s, looping her fingers in his spiked collar. They had come a long way together, Elise and this pit bull. He didn’t flinch when she reached for him anymore. He hadn’t attempted to bite her in over a month. And she was happier to see him alive than she had any right to be.

  “I got rid of Lincoln for you,” she said. “I think I made a good choice.”

  Ace’s tail swung back and forth so hard that it made the air whistle.

  The door opened. Elise sat back on her heels as Ace’s head swiveled around, hackles lifting.

  “Whoa there, boy,” Neuma said as she swayed in on six-inch heels. She wasn’t the reason Ace was growling deep in his throat. It was the woman who entered behind her, gaunt and greasy. “You better give it to him, baby.”

  Neuma’s nightmare girlfriend, Jerica, offered him a sliver of meat still attached to a juicy bone. Ace snapped it out of her fingers and took it to the corner for a good chewing.

  “We’ve got a treat for you too, doll,” Neuma said with a suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. She wiggled a coffee mug in her hand. Whatever was inside sloshed.

  Elise got up to take the cup. It wasn’t coffee. It was thick, dark blood, rapidly cooling to room temperature. Her lip curled in disgust. “It smells bad.”

  “It just came out of the volunteer two minutes ago. Literally. It’s good.”

  “Volunteer? Who?”

  “Doesn’t matter. There are lots of friendly humans in the Palace who are happy to donate.” Neuma crossed her heart. “No mortals were killed in the making of this delicious lunch.”

  Delicious was subjective. Elise took a sniff of the mug’s rim and her stomach flipped. Blood was great straight from the vein. This was little better than drinking from a cadaver. Maybe even worse.

  “Benjamin?” Elise asked.

  “No sign of him in the Palace. We can head out into the city to keep searching.”

  He hadn’t been in Elise’s bed when she returned from Earth. He had been unconscious for days and showed no sign of waking up, yet had still gone from comatose to missing person in a matter of hours.

  It was getting harder to remember speaking to him. She couldn’t visualize his face anymore, nor could she quite recall where or when she had spoken to him, though she knew it must have been before Lincoln’s healing.

  “Don’t bother looking for him.” Elise was already certain that they wouldn’t find him anywhere.

  “All right. It’d be tough to find anyone in the city right about now anyway, what with all the partying,” Neuma said.

  “Partying?”

  “The fissure. It’s gone. You finally did it.”

  She hadn’t done a damn thing. It was just another worrying demonstration of James’s still-growing power. But she said, “Yes. I did.” Better to take credit for it than point fingers at James. Her staff already feared him enough.

  “The celebrations are totally nuts. Everyone who’s been hiding since the sky broke open has come out into the streets for the first time in months. Dis is like one big party!”

  Fearful demons were much easier to control than happy demons. Now there was nothing to keep them out of her army’s path. “Great,” Elise said. “Wonderful.” She lifted the mug of blood to her lips, trying not to smell it. She failed. She lowered it without managing to take a sip.

  Jerica looked pitying. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s horrible, but it should hold you over for at least a few hours.”

  A few hours was better than nothing. Elise took a sip. Her gut lurched. She spluttered, gripped the mug in both hands, and forced herself to keep swallowing. One horrible mouthful at a time, the cold blood slid down her throat to settle in her stomach.

  Elise almost dropped the mug when it was empty, but Neuma was fast enough to catch it before it shattered on the tile.

  “There you go,” the half-succubus cooed, rubbing circles on Elise’s back.

  She gagged, hand clasped over her mouth. Elise shut her watering eyes. Swallowed hard.

  Somehow, it stayed down.

  “Feeding off of substandard sources gets easier with time,” Jerica said. “But it never gets fun. Here. Take this.” She offered a piece of bubblegum to Elise. “It’ll help with the flavor.”

  Elise took it but didn’t chew. “Thanks.” She took a long look at the nightmare that she had dragged from the pit of Malebolge. She hadn’t seen Jerica in days, and those few days had made a huge difference. Jerica still looked terrible, but nightmares usually did. Her skin was totally opaque. Her hair had grown back. She had even inserted new facial piercings. “How do you feel, Jerica?”

  “I feel good,” she said.

  “Good enough to phase between dimensions?”

  “Maybe not that good.”

  “Then I need you to find every nightmare in Dis—and any other demon that can phase to Earth—and bring them to the Palace. I want them to help me phase as much of the army as possible to Florida.”

  Jerica grimaced. “That won’t be easy. Nightmares don’t like you very much.”

  “The Aquiel thing,” Neuma said, as if Elise could have possibly forgotten killing the Prince of Nightmares.

  “Everyone you can get,” Elise said firmly. “I want to move three-quarters of the legion to Earth, and we’ll need to make the move simultaneous if we hope to keep the angels from catching on.”

  “You’re crazy. You k
now that, right?” Jerica asked. She turned to her girlfriend. “She’s crazy.”

  “Will you do it?” Elise asked.

  Jerica blew a breath out of her lips. “Yeah. I mean, of course I’ll do it for you. That doesn’t mean it isn’t crazy.”

  “Crazy is the only option we have remaining.” She popped the gum into her mouth and left the room.

  James was in the antechamber with Isaiah, now the second most powerful witch in Dis since “Orpheus” was in residence. They turned at the sound of the door opening.

  “Elise,” Isaiah said, sounding relieved. Then he glanced at James and revised it to, “Ma’am. I know this is going to be the last thing you want to hear right now, but we’ve got a problem.”

  He was right. She gave him a wary look. “Does it need my immediate attention?”

  “Not necessarily. Orpheus has said that he will take care of it.”

  Elise felt her eyebrows climb. She glanced at James’s hand. He wasn’t wearing his warding ring, so she twisted hers off and thought, You’ll take care of it, will you?

  You don’t need this distraction, he said.

  I’ll make that decision myself. Thanks.

  Isaiah was still speaking. “Aniruddha and I haven’t made any progress on the dimensional mapping. I don’t know if we lack the resources or the ability, but we just can’t seem to figure out where Earth intersects with all of the Heavens and Hells. So we can’t find another route to New Eden. But—and this is an incredibly questionable ‘but’—we think we’ve found someone who can do it.”

  Not me, James added silently. Although given as many days as these clumsy morons have been given, I probably could do far better than any of these so-called witches you have in your—

  Elise cut him off, throwing up her walls so she wouldn’t have to listen to him.

  “While we were trying to trace routes, and failing, we butted up against other witches trying to do the same thing,” Isaiah said. “One of the magical trackers we sent out had a collision. Instead of tracking through the dimensions on its own, it followed this other spell back to the caster.” He handed Elise a notebook with the notes Aniruddha had been taking. “There are other witches trying to find a way to New Eden.”

  She skimmed the paper. It documented several failed attempts to find a route to New Eden, and then a final spell tracking back to a location on Earth. To be more precise, a place in Ireland.

  “This is where the witches are?” Elise asked. Isaiah nodded. “Who in Ireland would be attempting to find New Eden?”

  There’s a coven near Dublin that I used to work with, James began silently, sliding through her walls.

  “Use your voice,” she interrupted.

  Isaiah blinked. “What?”

  “There’s a coven near Dublin,” James said without missing a beat. “It’s possibly the same people, but the last time we met, they had been facing the threat of dissolution by the Union.”

  “So you think it could be the Union,” Elise said. Great. They hadn’t had to deal with the Union in months—not since the Breaking. She didn’t want to have to worry about them now.

  James was thinking the same thing. Maybe it had been his thought in the first place. “It’s a possibility. If there are other witches searching for New Eden, though, I’m most qualified to address it.”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Isaiah, thanks for telling me about this. Some privacy?”

  “No problem. Let me know if I can do anything to help.” He was eyeballing James with obvious suspicion. Isaiah wasn’t one of Elise’s more loyal staff members, but he was a strong enough witch to recognize someone dangerous in the Palace.

  He left, and Elise grabbed James’s arm.

  “Let’s walk,” she said. Neuma and Jerica were still in the bathroom and much too nosy for their own good.

  She led him out into the halls, down a few floors, and onto one of the open-air bridges between towers. It was the only place aside from the throne room where she was confident they wouldn’t be overheard.

  The city was burning around them, making the air smokier than usual. Without water, there wasn’t much to be done about the angel-ignited fires other than wait for the fuel to run out. James coughed into his arm, squinting against the harsh wind.

  “You know what’s going on in Ireland,” Elise said.

  “I have suspicions and nothing more.” He grimaced. “Is this really the only place we can talk?”

  “Yes. James, you can’t go back to Earth. You can’t even leave the Palace. The angels will be looking for you now.”

  “If the angels I banished returned to New Eden, then you’re right—they’ll find me wherever I am, and that includes the Palace.” He gazed at the burning city. “How many made it into Dis before I closed the fissure? How many do you think it will take to eventually shatter the Palace’s wards with a concerted effort?”

  Even one might be enough. Infernal power had never been able to stand up against ethereal power. “It’s still the safest place for you.”

  “The safest place is on the move,” James said. “They can’t capture me if they can’t find me. I’ll go to Ireland long enough to see if the other witches have traced a route to New Eden, and then we’ll reconvene.”

  “We don’t need another route. We know about Shamain.”

  “A route given to us by Stephanie,” he said. “Do you trust it?”

  “No, but that’s why Rylie and I are going to scout it out before we move the army through the Jacksonville gate.”

  “You and Rylie?” He turned from the wind, hunching over, hands braced against the bridge’s railing. “She’s someone who should stay in the Palace.”

  “Rylie’s one of the only people I trust. She won’t want to hide, and I’m not going to force it on her.”

  His pale eyes seemed strangely bright in the darkness of Hell. “I do find it incredibly interesting that you’ve come to trust the girl enough to discuss Betty with her.”

  She frowned. Elise hadn’t talked with Rylie about Betty. In fact, she hadn’t discussed Betty with anyone in years—not even Anthony. The subject of her former roommate was far too sensitive, the memories too painful. “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s barely legal to drink, yet you’re treating her like a replacement best friend. Why? Because she’s a werewolf? All the more reason to keep her at a distance.”

  “Unlike you, James, I don’t feel the urge to push away everyone I care about,” Elise said. “Not anymore. That’s a habit I learned from you, and I’ve gotten much smarter since.” She leaned on the railing beside him. “You might be happy being alone in this world, but I’m not.”

  His hand was only an inch from hers on the railing. He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’m not trying to drive everyone away. I don’t want to drive you away.” She pulled back from him, and his back stiffened. “Leave Rylie in the Palace—for her safety. I can investigate Shamain with you after I track down these witches.”

  “I’m not going to wait for you. You’re not my only backup anymore.”

  “I’m still your most powerful ally,” James said.

  “If that’s the word you want to use for our relationship, fine. But when it comes to confronting angels, I’d much rather have an Alpha werewolf than a guy the angels are going to be actively searching for.” Elise sighed, pushing her hair out of her face. The wind immediately whipped it back into place. “You’re right about one thing: you’re best suited to deal with the witches in Ireland. I still want you to take a centuria with you.”

  “For my protection, or my supervision?”

  “Does it matter?” Elise asked.

  “Not really. You don’t have the resources to move a hundred demons for something like this.”

  He was right, damn it. “Don’t let the angels catch you. Got it? They can’t know what you know.” She fixed him with a hard look. “It’s not just ethereal magic anymore. You healed Lincoln and closed the fissure. That kin
d of magic could be weaponized against us, and we wouldn’t stand a single fucking chance at survival.”

  “I understand,” James said, taking a couple steps back too. There was only two feet of space between them, but it might as well have been a chasm. “I’ll prepare the spell to take me to Ireland.”

  Before he could leave, she caught his wrist. “Be careful.”

  A millimeter smile crept over his lips. It didn’t quite touch his eyes. “That’s my plan.” The wind shifted direction, blowing straight into his face, but he still didn’t pull away. “You mentioned Benjamin Flynn in the basement. What happened?”

  Had she mentioned Benjamin? Elise tried to push her mind back to earlier in the day, but her usually crystal-clear memory seemed to have fogged. She remembered panicking and dragging James and Lincoln to Earth, but she wasn’t exactly sure why now.

  “I’ll see you when you get back from Ireland,” Elise said.

  Ten

  SHAMAIN DIDN’T FEEL dead when Rylie arrived on its empty, shattered streets. It felt like it was humming. And it smelled like a movie theater filled with stale buttered popcorn, which could only mean one thing.

  There were angels in the area. Lots of them.

  “At least it’s not glowing anymore,” Elise muttered, yanking off the veils that she had been wearing to protect her face. It was eerily gloomy in Shamain. Without lights to illuminate their branches, the shapes of the trees looked a lot like the iron ones in Dis.

  “What are we looking for, exactly?” Rylie asked. Elise had phased them near the center of the city—right across from the bridal statue of Adam and Eve—and there was no visual indication of the ethereal occupation that she smelled.

  “Some kind of doorway. This statue is positioned above the original transit routes, so we’ll start here.” Elise tucked the veils into her belt. “But this is just a scouting trip. Understand? We can’t go into New Eden alone. We have to wait for the army.”

  “You were planning to go into New Eden alone earlier,” Rylie protested. “Between the two of us—”

  “I was planning to go in with a squad of my best men to open a door to Earth. Now that we have another route, we don’t need to do anything that risky.” Elise gave her a hard look. “We’re just scouting.”