Damnation Marked (The Descent Series)

by Reine, SM

  Yes, but how is such a weapon wielded? Consider it. The figure of a child stepped out from behind the chair. Lucinde was still wearing her Sunday best, but there was still no mistaking her red lips and hungry eyes for anything but Yatai’s. Do you think you were meant to return from the abyss of the garden? You are a sacrificial lamb. A life for a life. You may be able to kill me, but surely not without surrendering yourself.

  Yatai strolled toward her, slinking with a sway to her hips that was unnatural for such a small child. She circled Elise, trailing an icy hand over her back.

  Your life is your weapon, and it can only be wielded once. The question is… how badly do you want me to die?

  Elise thought of Nukha’il, and Itra’il, and the casino sinking into the earth.

  “Very badly.”

  But not badly enough. You have no resolve, Godslayer—you aren’t prepared to die.

  “You should ask Yatam what I’m willing to give to kill you,” Elise said. “Both of you.”

  Uncertainty flickered over Lucinde’s innocent features. He is enamored with what you represent.

  “I know.”

  He doesn’t love you. He only loves his death.

  Elise had to laugh at that. “I’m not worried about love. Trust me.”

  Yatai faced her, and the darkness in the room grew until Elise couldn’t see beyond the length of her arm. Anthony and James vanished, sinking into fog. Only the girl remained visible—a ghostly figure in the void.

  Her hands smoothed over her blue skirt. She looked… nervous.

  “Yesterday, I fed your brother my blood and my flesh. And when I drew my knife across his chest, he didn’t heal. Do you know what that means?” Elise asked. The demon didn’t respond. “I can kill you. You just have to abandon the gates and let the city go—you have to let Anthony go.”

  The girl’s mouth drew down into a frown. My brother lives. I feel him. I think you’re lying to me.

  “I’m not.”

  You are prepared to die to bring death upon us both.

  Elise opened her mouth to say, “Yes.”

  But she hesitated for a heartbeat. Just a heartbeat.

  It was enough.

  The room reappeared around Elise. Yatai stepped back. Your love of this life is still too great. You will not die for us.

  “Wait—”

  If you change your mind, come and find me. I will lay my life at your merciful feet, spare your city, and surrender this man to you for the low cost of your blood and soul. Otherwise…

  She disappeared, taking the shadows with her.

  Anthony arched in the chair. He roared, throwing his head back and kicking out both feet.

  The thrashing was so sudden that the chair tipped. It cracked against the floor. He screamed and strained his arms against the wrists, beating his feet against the legs.

  Elise dropped by Anthony’s side, but the seizure wracked his entire body, and he didn’t respond to her touch.

  James hovered by the door, eyes wide circles.

  How much had he seen?

  She felt him probe her mind, and Elise shoved the warding ring onto her thumb before he could see anything.

  “Get Malcolm or a doctor or—something,” Elise said, grabbing one of Anthony’s hands. He was ripping his wrists apart trying to get free. James didn’t immediately move, and she shot a glare at him. “Go!”

  He flung the door open and ran.

  A Union doctor with a syringe full of morphine wasn’t enough to sedate Anthony. It took an entire unit of kopides to strap him to a bed and wheel him to the infirmary, where they had more drugs and more staff to hold him down.

  Elise paced the empty hallway outside the ward, arms folded tightly across her chest. James hung by the railing overlooking the warehouse. He hadn’t looked at her once since they had left the containment cell. He watched the teams move on the floor below as though his gaze could set them on fire.

  Malcolm emerged from the infirmary. “Well?” Elise asked.

  “He’s finally unconscious. He bit a witch’s hand, though, and we’re not sure if he’s spreading the ichor yet. Might have to amputate.”

  Her back hit the wall, and she slid down to sit on the floor. “Damn it.”

  “We’ve got an exorcist on staff who can fix him. Don’t worry about it.”

  She didn’t feel like explaining that there was no time for that. Exhaustion weighed heavily on her. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Malcolm glanced at James. “Just so you two know, the helicopter is making its last trip out of here in an hour—we’ll be making our final assault after that, and we can’t promise the safety of anyone who doesn’t evacuate. I hope you’ll both be on it.”

  James nodded silently, and the commander left.

  Elise hugged her legs to her chest and bowed her head to her knees.

  The doors to the ward swung open, and then shut again. A stretcher rolled past, escorted by two nurses. Another followed a few minutes later. The helicopter wasn’t the only transport leaving soon; another convoy was about to depart, and they were taking as many civilians as they could.

  “Is it true?” James finally asked, staring out at the activity in the Union warehouse. “That you would have to die to kill something like Yatai?”

  Elise let her head fall back against the wall with a soft thud.

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  He was quiet for a long time, rubbing his left forearm with a knuckle. Beyond him, the team was mobilized for the assault. Vehicles emptied from the garage in a long train. Survivors began boarding long black buses.

  “What do you plan to do?” James asked.

  “If I can’t kill Yatai, then everyone in the territory dies,” Elise said. “Including Anthony. Including me. If it’s my life against everyone else’s… well, it’s not like there’s a question.”

  He came to kneel at her side. “There’s another option.”

  She let her head fall to the side so she could see him. James looked thinner and younger than ever before, but the gray at his temples had begun spreading to the back of his head, and the stubble around his jaw was turning silver, too.

  His bright eyes locked on hers. “Leave with me. We’ll evacuate on the helicopter. Together.”

  “And the city? Anthony?”

  “Let the Union take care of it all.”

  Elise barked a bitter laugh. “Like they protected everything downtown?”

  His hand fell on hers, and he rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “Better than choosing to die. That’s no choice at all.”

  “The Union can’t slay a god.”

  “Yatam and Yatai aren’t gods. You can’t listen to them making those claims. They’re demons, nothing more—and it doesn’t require a sacrifice to destroy them.”

  She stared at his hand on hers, shoulders tight and stomach churning.

  Her blood flowed through Yatam’s system. It had been enough to destroy his regenerative abilities. Maybe he was weak enough to be killed without having to empty her veins completely—though she doubted it.

  What would it take to kill Yatai?

  Was Elise really willing to die for it?

  James rested his chin on her hair. “Most people have been evacuated now, and you’ve already given everything for this city. It’s not worth sacrificing yourself for whatever remains.” His hand stilled, fingers tightening. “Not even for Anthony.”

  “But if the Union can’t take care of Yatai—if I trust them to do this, and they fail—we’ll lose him.”

  He pulled back, cupping her cheek in a hand. The lines deepened between his furrowed eyebrows. “And if I lose you… that would kill me, Elise.”

  She buried her face in his shoulder. James smelled familiar and warm, like home should have. But what was home anymore? Every place where she had ever known that illusion of comfort and security was gone.

  Her city was going to go next. She could save it, or fall with it.

  Or she could run.

  “Fine
,” she mumbled into his arm.

  “Fine?”

  “You’re right. It’s not worth it.” The words had weight as they fell from her lips. Each syllable made her heart sink lower. “I’ll leave with you.”

  XVII

  The helicopter’s landing pad was on a hill overlooking the freeway. From the top, Elise could see everything—the sprawling Union warehouse, the glimmering line of buses evacuating the area, and what remained of Reno. It was cold and dark, and she wasn’t sure if it was day or night anymore.

  Snow was falling on Reno, but it wasn’t white; it formed a sludgy mess of brown and yellow with splatters of crimson on the ground, and she didn’t want to know where the colors came from.

  The Union bustled around them. A steady stream of injured civilians headed into the facility, and a steady stream of trucks exited. Maybe by the end of the night, Reno would be evacuated. Nothing would be left behind but a ghost town, the Warrens, and the rotting remains of an ethereal city.

  Even from that distance, she could hear the occasional, distant pop of gunfire as Union men slaughtered demons who had spread into Sparks. The vehicles that returned were splattered with ichor.

  Her hometown was a stranger to her.

  And she was abandoning it.

  James was a warm, looming presence at her side. He held her hand, even though her fingers remained slack, and she would have preferred not to be touched at all. She watched the city, and he watched her.

  The whirring of a helicopter approached. Half-melted puddles rippled. A wind kicked up around Elise, and she stepped backwards into a slushy mess of mud and snow. It soaked through her shoe and made her toes cold.

  The helicopter landed, and the door slid open.

  “Get in,” shouted Malcolm.

  James moved forward. Elise didn’t have a choice but to follow; he hadn’t let go of her hand. He climbed inside, and she took the seat by the door.

  A few other kopides got in with them. Elise didn’t recognize any of them. She focused on her knees.

  Malcolm stepped onto the skid.

  “This is goodbye,” he said, his grin weaker than it had ever been before. “You two kids take care of each other, all right?”

  Elise rolled her eyes, but James said, “Thank you.” It almost sounded like he meant it.

  Malcolm started to step down, but paused. “Hey, did one of you drop this?”

  He handed a piece of paper to Elise. It was the wedding photo of Betty, eternally smiling, forever happy. It must have fallen out of her pocket.

  Anthony looked more like the Mexican side of his family than Betty’s, but they had the same smile. Maybe it was the innocent eyes. Maybe it was the abandon with which she smiled, the “you only live once” attitude, the easy way she let herself be happy.

  Betty trusted Elise to make the hard decisions. The heroic ones. She had trusted Elise enough to follow her into a deadly battle, and not return.

  And so had Anthony.

  Spotlights slammed on, illuminating the opposite side of the landing pad. It drew Elise’s attention over Malcolm’s shoulder.

  Someone screamed. “Let me go! I didn’t do anything!”

  It was Jerica. The young nightmare was only wearing a tank top and underwear, which revealed bony knees, sharp elbows, and bruises mottling her colorless skin.

  They were dragging her out of a van. Jerica was putting up a pretty good fight, but not good enough. There was only so much she could do with that much light on her.

  “Let me go!”

  A powerful sense of wrongness struck Elise. Her hand tightened on the wedding photo as the commander stepped off the skid and waved to the helicopter pilot. “Put on your harness,” James said. “We’re going to lift off.”

  He was holding one of the straps out to her. Elise stuffed the photo in her pocket.

  “Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t take the strap.

  Elise used James’s hand to pull his head down, and she kissed him fiercely. He tried to draw away. She grabbed the back of his head and held him in place. The rushing in her ears could have been nerves, or the rotor, or the wind. The folded corner of Betty’s photo jabbed her in the hip.

  When she released him, James looked stunned. “Still?”

  She suppressed a swell of sadness. “Always.” Elise rose from her seat and grabbed the strap over the door. She only managed half of a smile. “Bye, James.”

  “Wait!”

  Elise stepped onto the skid, took a deep breath, and jumped to the pavement.

  The helicopter hadn’t risen far, but an eight-foot drop was still painful with all of Elise’s injuries. She grunted and rolled to her knees.

  “What are you doing?” Malcolm asked, stepping back so she wouldn’t hit him. “You agreed to leave.”

  She shielded her eyes to glance up at the ascending helicopter. “Change of plans.”

  James was leaning out the helicopter door, but his features faded as he quickly ascended. She was glad for that. She didn’t want to see the confusion and anger.

  Malcolm put a finger to his ear.

  “Commander to pilot—”

  She grabbed his wrist. “Don’t call them back.”

  “You have to leave, Elise.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. Except this.”

  She strode across the landing platform to Jerica. A kopis restrained her by the back of her shirt. The nightmare had lost her footing, and he dragged her through the spotlights to the side of the hill.

  Elise grabbed Jerica’s arm. Her fingers sank into the girl’s sallow flesh as she pulled her away from the other kopis. “Don’t you know anything about nightmares? She’s young. This much light could kill her.”

  “We have containment procedures!” Malcolm ran to her side. “We’re not going to injure it.”

  “Screw your procedures. Get out of here, Jerica. Run!”

  The nightmare took three steps to escape the circle of light. The kopis raised his rifle, and Elise shoved the muzzle down.

  “Thanks,” Jerica said. “Seriously.”

  She phased into shadow and disappeared.

  “Give me a car. I’m going into Reno again,” Elise said.

  Malcolm sighed and ran a hand over his stubble. “This is crossing a line. Sorry, Elise.” He gestured to the rifleman. “Arrest her.”

  She didn’t wait for the kopis to attempt it. She slammed her foot into his face, wrenched the rifle from his hands, and aimed it at Malcolm.

  Instantly, a dozen other guns were aimed at her.

  She backed toward the edge of the landing platform without dropping her aim. Elise glanced over the side. The ground was twenty feet down, but there was sagebrush at the bottom. She lowered her voice so only Malcolm could hear her. “I’m going to kill Yatai before she opens the gates. You can help me, or I can do it alone. I don’t care.”

  “I’m under orders not to let you return. Don’t make me take you out.”

  She barked a laugh. “You’re welcome to try.”

  Elise threw the rifle at him and jumped off the platform.

  Bushes rushed at her. She missed them.

  Her side connected with the dirt, and she rolled into a bush. The hard branches stabbed at her face and hair. She staggered to her feet, using her momentum to carry her down the hill.

  It was too dark to navigate gracefully. Her foot caught something—a rock or a root, it was impossible to tell—and she tripped, falling head-over-feet to slide down the slope. Grit and ice scraped up her side, her arm, her cheek.

  People were shouting. Gunshots thundered overhead.

  Elise slid to a stop where the hill leveled off, entrenched in mud and sludgy snow. Her body burned with friction, but she didn’t stop to nurse the wounds.

  She could just make out a trail winding toward the highway. Scrambling through the sagebrush, she broke onto the clear path.

  Her breath tore through her throat as she fled, pumping her fists and dodging the muddiest puddles. The hill steepe
ned again, and she slid a few more feet. Ran another handful of yards. Slid some more.

  Spotlights began scanning a few yards uphill. She dug a hand into her pocket and found the ruby choker. “Yatam. I need you.”

  The answering pause was long enough that she thought he might not show up at all. But then he flashed into life at her side.

  He wavered on his feet, clutched his stomach, and fell to his knees in the mud. Then he threw up. Ichor splashed onto the dirt.

  Elise pushed his hair over his shoulder, but touching him didn’t fill her with a sense of overwhelming power. In fact, she felt nothing from him at all—no more than she did when touching Neuma.

  Yatam gave a low moan. “This… I had forgotten this.”

  His head lifted, and Elise felt a shock as a light swept over them, briefly illuminating his face. His eyes were brown. Not black. Crow’s feet marked his eyes, and the slightest lines framed either side of his mouth.

  The light vanished again, and she was grateful for it. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Yatam, but you’re looking very… human. My blood did this to you?”

  “I said it was delicious, didn’t I?” His brow furrowed. “Feel this.”

  He took her hand and pressed it to his chest.

  Elise’s eyes widened. There was a heart beating underneath.

  “I am failing.” His eyes gleamed. It was the same look he had given her while his head was between her legs. Even with his aging face, it made her ache with remembered heat. “A heart beats a finite number of times before death.”

  She didn’t have time to fully absorb the implications of it. There were spotlights tracing the sagebrush at the top of the hill—the Union was approaching.

  “Can you phase us into the city?” Elise asked.

  He took her hands. Closed his eyes.

  Nothing happened.

  “No,” Yatam said. “I started losing the ability after the first touch of your blood. Now, it seems to be gone entirely.”

  An SUV crested the hill. Light splashed over them.

  “Great time to lose it,” she said. “Fantastic. Okay. We’ve got to run. Can you move?”

  He got to his feet. “Yes.”