Torn by Fury

by S. M. Reine

  Abel fractionally relaxed. The fur at his shoulders smoothed.

  He nodded.

  The pack turned as one, responding to a silent command. Hank was incredibly gentle when he picked up Rylie again, as though he could have damaged her body, as if it would make any difference if he did. His hands were shaking.

  Abel gave a last, long look at James. His eyes weren’t angry anymore. There was nothing in him but pain.

  “Up the Tree, over the wall, straight to Earth,” James said hoarsely.

  The pack broke into a run.

  He waited until the werewolves disappeared over the trunk of the severed Tree, feet braced against the growing winds. The machine’s parts churned so quickly that they blurred. Dark energy pulsed up the tendrils connecting it to the gate.

  New Eden was still on the other side, but not for long. The whole world was bowing around that point—straining until it looked like everything was going to snap.

  He couldn’t stop the machine. He wasn’t even going to try.

  Instead, James rebuilt the edge of the circle. He drew on the failing energy in the universe, pushing it all into the spell, aiming it toward the falchion. The oil anointing his forehead felt like it caught fire.

  Flowers blossomed around the circle and new life flooded Araboth where there had been none for years, drawing on the cables of energy and turning it into fields of grass.

  The universe’s energy seemed to recognize James now. It rubbed against him like a cat in greeting. Is it time for more miracles? it asked, and James thought that the voice sounded a lot like Nathaniel now.

  “Yes,” James said, bracing himself against what he had to do to save Elise. “It’s time.”

  Abram had never seen so much death before. The sight of it twisted deep inside of him in a place where no knife could reach.

  The streets of New Eden were awash with blood. The eerily beautiful city he’d marched through just hours—or was it days?—earlier was draped in shredded flesh and broken wings.

  A trail of destruction led down the hill of the cemetery and disappeared into the mist. He couldn’t tear his eyes from it, standing near the cross gravestone where Azrael had attempted to bind him.

  Yet none of the bodies looked quite as horrible as the one he held in his arms.

  The seemingly all-powerful demon named Elise Kavanagh looked like a lump of ground beef gone bad. Her clothes were rotting off of her body. Her skin was mottled and discolored, her face gaunt, her stomach split open as though she had been gutted with a particularly dull blade.

  He wouldn’t have believed she was clinging to life if he hadn’t felt her heart fluttering weakly under his hands. He wondered if it might not be more merciful to end her. There was no way she could survive this anyway.

  But if she wasn’t dead with her intestines half-spilled down her lap, then how was Abram supposed to finish the job?

  An angel swooped toward him, and he jumped away with a shout, reaching for a gun he wasn’t carrying. He didn’t need to worry. Trevin and Crystal were still in their wolf forms—just two among more than thirty escaped pack members—and they were doing a fine job clearing a path for the rest of the survivors to escape.

  Trevin dragged the angel down to the grass, tearing the wings off with his teeth. Abram jerked at the sight of it as though he were the one who had been bitten.

  So much death.

  A hand crept over his shoulder—Levi offering silent comfort. “I didn’t plan for this,” he said. It was probably the closest thing to an apology he’d ever make for surrendering the pack to angels.

  “I know,” Abram said, which was the closest thing to forgiveness he planned on giving.

  Paetrick and Deepali wrestled another angel to the ground, but Crystal was the one to kill it. She shredded into it with passion. She’d never been murderous before. This wasn’t Crystal—this was the captivity, the dreams that they’d barely survived, the fear.

  A war turning good people into murderers.

  The hill lurched under Abram’s feet, and it was all he could do to keep holding onto Elise. She almost slipped right from his ichor-slicked fingers. A creaking sound echoed over New Eden’s trees. The skyscrapers of bone were swaying in the earthquake.

  The sky began to grow darker.

  “We have to run,” Summer said, grabbing Abram’s arm. She offered a brief smile to Levi. Even now, she was smiling. Abram had no idea how she could do it. “I think Leliel’s closing the last door.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Levi said. “I want the fuck out of paradise. Let’s go.” He broke into a sprint.

  Abram shifted his grip on Elise—briefly contemplated dropping her—and then he ran after Levi and Summer.

  The entire pack followed.

  Nash was at the bottom of the hill, locked in a sword fight with another angel. He wasn’t quite healed, wasn’t quite strong enough, but he had anger in his eyes that the other angel didn’t.

  He had been Adam’s best warrior, after all, and he showed it in the way he wielded a stolen saber. He moved like a cracked whip. Explosions of graceful movement.

  Abram glanced at Summer. She didn’t watch as her fiancé killed one of his brethren.

  The city shook harder, bucking underneath Abram’s pounding feet. The trees showered leaves as their branches jerked. Abram followed Levi’s back through the mist, focusing on his shoulders, the honey-gold hair he hadn’t been sure he’d ever see again. If he watched the windows on the buildings starting to shatter, he was going to be overwhelmed by panic.

  He almost tripped over a body. He didn’t look at that, either. He just kept running.

  It almost felt like normal life again, running with the pack like this. Abram had never appreciated it before. Never treated the pack like they were family, even though they had accepted him like he was one of theirs.

  He had gone back to New Eden for Levi. But now he was strangely happy to see all of them—including pricks like Paetrick.

  He’d be even happier if they escaped alive.

  Abram, Summer, and Levi found the door first, over several canals and around a couple of corners. It was easy to find. All they had to do was find the trail of blood.

  A sense of familiarity struck Abram when he saw what was waiting on the other side of the door. It was that tree again. The one that he’d seen when he’d been held captive by the angels. The same tree that had made him realize that he had Adam’s blood in him.

  That was their escape? He felt sickened at the sight of it.

  But maybe it was because the door looked sick. It was crawling with black energy, shivering so hard that it blurred around the edges. Fingers of darkness crawled into the sky, sucking away the dawn. The earthquakes were stronger here, too—this door was making the city fall apart.

  And Leliel stood in front of it all.

  “Stop right there,” she said. A male angel stepped up beside her. His wings were charred, and bright blue runes raced over his arms.

  Summer bared her teeth. “I’d like to see you make us!”

  Summoned by her voice, Crystal and Trevin ran up to bristle at Summer’s side, hackles lifted.

  “I saw all the bodies in the road. How many angels do you have left?” Abram asked. “How many do you think you need to take our whole pack?”

  “All I need is Makael,” Leliel said, gesturing to the angel at her side. “Now that we can reclaim ethereal magic—now that New Eden will be severed—we will be able to recover from all of this. We’ll be stronger than ever before!”

  The doorway groaned as it shook harder. Abram felt himself sucked toward it. He was off-balance with the woman in his arms; Levi grabbed him to keep him in place.

  “Have you become so deluded, Leliel?” Nash asked. “Don’t you see what’s happening here? This isn’t strength—this is self-destruction!”

  Leliel’s face twisted at the sight of her ex-husband. “The city’s unstable because you’ve ripped its heart away. Once we return the wer
ewolves to the pool—”

  “We will never go back,” Levi snapped.

  His final word was drowned out by the bridge over the canal shattering in half. Its pieces fell into the water.

  “Turn the machine off, Leliel!” Nash shouted, raising his voice to be heard over the blasting wind. “You’re not just tearing New Eden away from Araboth—you’re tearing the city apart! It might not be too late to save—”

  “It will stabilize!” Makael interrupted. “Don’t listen to them. This is our moment of glory!”

  “Glory? Glory?” Nash thrust his finger toward the bodies Elise had left in her wake. “Your city is going to die and take our whole species with it!”

  Summer slipped away from Crystal and Trevin, moving alongside Abram. “We’re going to have to run,” she whispered. “Look at that door. Can we go through that?”

  If they could, they wouldn’t be able to for long. While the angels were arguing, the doorway was only getting darker. It was becoming harder and harder to see the tree on the other side.

  “We don’t have a choice,” Abram said. He looked down at Elise. He couldn’t feel her heartbeat anymore. It might have been too late for her, but the rest of the pack needed the chance. “Spread the word. We push past them.”

  Summer slipped away again.

  Levi gripped Abram’s shoulder hard. It looked like he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what—he couldn’t seem to get the words out. “You didn’t have to come for me,” he said finally.

  “I did,” Abram said.

  He kissed Levi as hard as he could with Elise’s bloodied body between them. He’d missed the bastard. He really had.

  Maybe it was just Rylie’s penchant for helpless love coming out in Abram, but even if he was about to die, he thought he’d redo it all again for those few extra minutes with Levi.

  And he’d teased Summer for being fucking stupid where her boyfriend was concerned.

  A crack echoed over the square. Abram caught sight of a building falling from the corner of his eye—a building that looked like it was going to fall right on that doorway. “Let’s go!” he shouted over Nash and Leliel’s argument.

  Howling, the pack pushed forward. Makael and Leliel didn’t stand a chance at stopping them.

  Abram shoved his shoulder into Leliel, knocking her aside.

  He tightened his grip on Elise Kavanagh and jumped through the doorway, out of New Eden, and into the unknown.

  It was done. The spell had been cast, and Elise’s cure was ready.

  James held the steel-bladed falchion in both hands the way that he had held the orb flush with Lincoln’s energy. The sight of it was breathtaking. He could see the way that the power hooked into himself and the entire universe, and it felt right.

  This was far more power than Lincoln had created, and the sword held it perfectly.

  The universe cried out, vibrating painfully. The cables shifted, distorted, bent around the gateway. Darkness flared.

  A body hurtled from New Eden.

  Abram Gresham landed on the other side, his arms wrapped gingerly around a woman. James was shocked to see that it was Elise—not Eve. But it wasn’t the Elise that he had last seen, flush with his blood and prepared for a battle. The poison had overcome her. She looked…dead.

  James jammed the falchion in his belt and helped Abram up.

  “What happened?” James asked, pushing the hair out of Elise’s face. That vast aura he had glimpsed in Northgate was gone now.

  “She killed half the city,” Abram said.

  “And how did you end up there?”

  “Long story. Doesn’t matter. The pack’s coming.”

  A heartbeat later, two more people came through—and then three more. James couldn’t summon their names from memory, but he recognized the pack. They were alive. They were free.

  Summer followed moments later. “What are you doing just standing here?” she asked breathlessly, patting down her hair, her dress, her knees, like she was making certain that everything was still intact. “Everything’s falling apart! How do we get out of here?”

  “There’s a door beyond the wall that leads to Russia,” James said. He held his arms out. “I’ll take Elise.”

  Abram passed her over. James took her gingerly, suddenly understanding why Hank had been so gentle with Rylie’s body. He didn’t feel life in Elise. She was cold. Maybe already dead. But he cradled her, trying not to inflict pain he was certain she could no longer feel.

  It’s not too late, the sword whispered at his belt.

  A few more members of the pack appeared, slipping through the inky blackness growing denser within the doorway. And then Nash appeared. “There are no more,” he said curtly.

  “But the others?” Summer asked.

  “No more,” Nash said. Her eyes widened. The blood drained from her face.

  There were no more than two dozen survivors here—a tiny fraction of the people trapped in New Eden.

  None of them were Marion.

  But it was too late to go back. The doorway was cracking, and Araboth’s sky was almost black now. The scorched earth and dead plants had gone from yellowy-gray to the same colorless nothingness as Limbo.

  James shifted Elise to one arm and drew the falchion.

  “Follow me,” he said. “Our exit is just up here.”

  He led them up the path that Abel had taken earlier, scaling the roots of the Tree. The trunk was burned out on the inside. The pulp had all rotted away.

  The air thinned as they climbed. James struggled to breathe, his muscles heavy. Elise was harder to carry than she used to be. He felt so weak. But he pushed on, racing against exhaustion and the growing darkness from the doorway, the pack at his rear.

  “Holy crap,” Summer said. “What’s happening up there?”

  He followed her gaze to the sky. The blackness was flickering. He could see trees and mountains above them, as though they hung, inverted, over a forest. It faded, pulsed back, disappeared again.

  The air grew thinner still.

  “Consequences,” James whispered.

  The angels had ripped New Eden away from Araboth and Shamain. Now the effects were rippling through everything.

  Hopefully, there would still be an Earth to return to.

  The door to Russia was closer than James remembered—or maybe Araboth was compressing. It waited only a few hundred feet beyond the broken wall of the garden, already open. It didn’t look like it had opened properly. Instead of being filled with light, a ragged gash in the air exposed Oymyakon on the other side.

  “Go,” James said. “Go!”

  The pack jumped through as quickly as they could, shoulder-to-shoulder between the columns of the door. James stood back to watch them go, staring up at the sky.

  The walls between Araboth and Earth were fading again. Pieces of the garden were falling into the air.

  In a few minutes, this world would no longer exist.

  James could have saved it if he wanted to. He still had the falchion humming with power in his hand. He could have done virtually anything—if he wanted to.

  Nash and Summer went through the door last. The angel lingered on the threshold, clasping Summer’s hand. He frowned at James. “Are you coming?”

  “Right behind you,” James said.

  Summer dragged Nash through, and they were gone.

  There was nobody to see him fall to one knee, supporting Elise against his thigh as he drew the sword. Nobody heard him whisper to the falchion, “Work your miracle. Save her.”

  And nobody saw the power explode but him.

  The universe unfolded around him one last time—not just because the walls were peeling apart.

  James could see everything. He saw the anathema powder burning from Elise’s tissues. He saw her beginning to rapidly heal. He saw her heart stutter, then beat with new power. But through her, beyond her, he could see Earth and New Eden and Shamain and Dis and…everything.

  He struggled to his f
eet again, trying to reach the door.

  Then the power of her healing slammed through James and Elise. He lost his footing. His head struck the side of the arch hard enough that his vision went black.

  His shoulder brushed the doorway, and they were both sucked in.

  Elise awoke in a field of flowers.

  The world was so very, very quiet.

  She turned her head and silken petals brushed against her cheek. The blossoms dotted a lush bed of grass. It should have been too cold for such beautiful flowers—the air had the distinctive odor of winter, warmer than Coccytus but colder than Northgate had ever been.

  Spreading her fingers through the petals, she felt them ruffle under her bare palms. She wasn’t wearing her gloves.

  And her warlock runes were gone.

  Elise lifted her hands to stare at them. Adam’s mark remained on one palm, but the scar on her forearm was gone. There was no sign that she had bound to James in the ritual between kopis and aspis.

  Something was missing—something important.

  Elise sat up and looked down at her body. Her shirt hung open, melted away by her sweat. Her bra’s straps had snapped. Cold air tickled the undersides of her breasts and the small of her back.

  Wiping away the blood and ichor on her stomach, she found the flesh underneath unmarked. She was whole.

  She was healed.

  A cold wind blew through the meadow, and Elise hugged her jacket around herself even though it had so many holes that it couldn’t protect her. She squinted up at sun and couldn’t find it. It felt like it should have been daytime, but the roiling sky was dark.

  She was still missing something. She spread her fingers out again and took a second look at her hands, searching for what she might have failed to notice before.

  Her ring. She wasn’t wearing her warding ring.

  But she couldn’t feel James.

  It wasn’t that he had blocked her out. He was completely gone, like her arm had been severed and now she was feeling the air where her limb should have been.

  Elise got to her knees, searching the meadow with her eyes. “James?”

  She wasn’t alone among the flowers. She picked out Summer and Abram with Nash near the trees—a line of very familiar trees, which Elise hadn’t seen in years.