B7 Ascension

by Sins of Eden

  “Nathaniel,” she said, and her voice was very real, very gentle. “Here I am.”

  At the same time, Nathaniel’s lips moved. Nathaniel. Here I am.

  He was a puppeteer. She was only a memory.

  “I just have to put them together,” Nathaniel said with new determination. “That thing in this thing.” He pointed to the animated memory of Hannah and the lifeless body in front of him. He was starting to sweat. “I can do anything.”

  The hillside bowed around them. Dizziness swept over James as the ground twisted underneath his feet, the trees shriveling, the sky receding to a distant patch of clouds on the other end of a pinhole.

  James looked down at his hands and saw them stretching away from him, too. He was distorting. Losing breath. The oxygen was being pulled away into the sky as his feet descended into darkness with the Earth as it dwindled into a point.

  Nathaniel was trying to remake his mother, and he was warping the whole universe to do it.

  The body on the ground began screaming again. The memory of Hannah did, too.

  They sounded so distant.

  And then Elise moved.

  Whether Nathaniel had been too distracted to hold her, or if Elise had simply broken free, James couldn’t tell. But she was walking now, and she dragged Nathaniel away from Hannah’s screaming body.

  As soon as she yanked him to her chest, Hannah collapsed. The corpse shriveled. Her skin wrinkled, sucked in on itself, skull hollowing.

  The world snapped back into place. Ground below, sky above, James’s body in a single piece.

  “No!” Nathaniel cried.

  Elise forced him to face her. “You can’t do that,” she said, biting out every word.

  He began trembling. “But I just want my mom back.”

  “You can’t have her. You can only resurrect someone within hours of their death.”

  Tears shimmered in Nathaniel’s eyes. “Why?”

  “Because the souls get reused immediately. When people die, they return to this big pool of souls waiting to be reborn. It’s like tearing a city down to its bricks and making a hundred new buildings from it. None of the original structures survive. Just pieces. I performed necromancy once—I saw it myself. “

  “No,” Nathaniel said. “I mean, why?”

  “Because that’s how it’s meant to be. We only get one life, kid. It’s better that way.” A single tear streaked down her cheek. “I swear, it really is supposed to be better that way.”

  “But I can do anything.”

  Her eyes burned with grim anger. “You can make something that looks like her, sounds like her, acts like her, but her soul is gone and you’ll never be able to bring her back.”

  Nathaniel sank to his knees in the mud, and Elise dropped with him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He bowed his head to her shoulder. Though he looked like he was almost an adult now, though he had become a god, he seemed so small beside her. As though he had shrunk down to fit inside the protective circle of her embrace.

  James hesitated, and then kneeled beside them.

  “She can’t come back,” Nathaniel echoed, like the truth was finally, painfully sinking in. His face was screwed up as though he might begin sobbing, but he only kept shaking.

  Elise looked troubled. James didn’t need to be bonded with her to know she wasn’t thinking of Hannah, but of Rylie and Neuma. “No. She can’t. There are limits to everything, and you’ve found one of yours.”

  “What am I going to do?” Nathaniel asked.

  James settled his hand on his son’s shoulder. “We don’t know, but we can help you figure it out.”

  The boy didn’t respond, and for a few blissful seconds, James sat with them feeling like there might be a chance to change everything after all. James had cured the incurable with gaean magic; he had made himself human and burned the anathema powder from Elise’s veins. Given enough time, they might find a way to help Nathaniel, too.

  But when Elise spoke, his hopes shattered.

  “Belphegor.”

  There was power in her voice.

  Nathaniel reared back. “What? No!”

  A man appeared at his back. James found himself staring up at the pallid figure of Belphegor, clad in a slim black suit with the pin of a steward of Dis on his collar.

  James cried out as Belphegor seized Nathaniel by the neck, jerking him away from Elise.

  “There you are,” Belphegor said coolly. He sounded less like an angry demon god and more like a mildly irritated parent. “I told you not to leave Eden in this condition.”

  Nathaniel turned betrayed eyes on Elise as he struggled helplessly against Belphegor’s grip. “How could you?”

  Elise straightened, stony-faced aside from the fresh tear that tracked down her cheek. “I’m just doing what I have to do, Nathaniel. Belphegor said he’d let me into Eden if I surrendered you.”

  So Nathaniel had been right.

  James’s heart felt like it was going to wrench from his chest. He had to do something—anything—but he didn’t have a single weapon on his body, and certainly nothing that could influence any party in this calm, horrible conversation.

  If only he’d still had magic. If he’d had the time and ability to cast another gaean spell…

  Belphegor’s chuckle was ice. “You’d only enter the garden to kill me.”

  “That’s the deal,” Elise said. “I give you Nathaniel, you let me into the garden.”

  “The deal has changed,” Belphegor said. The sky distorted, clouds twisting into a thick spiral above them. Lightning flashed. The peace of the forest had been shattered. Hell loomed above them, red and smoky.

  “No honor among demons,” Elise said.

  “None,” Belphegor agreed. “I will let you into Eden, Godslayer. You’ll be with us.” He shook Nathaniel at that, and not gently. The boy tried to attack him, kicking at his shins, elbowing wildly, but Belphegor didn’t even blink. “Unfortunately, there’s still too much spirit in you.”

  “What do I have to do to be ready?”

  Belphegor leaned down until his nose was mere centimeters from hers. “You have to despair.” When he whispered those words, their lips brushed.

  Nathaniel cried out. His knees buckled under Belphegor’s touch, as if the demon were crushing his shoulder.

  “I’m despairing,” Elise said grimly.

  “Not enough,” Belphegor said. “You still have other friends, people who keep your heart whole. I’m already moving in to kill them all. You will watch them suffer, and you will break.” He brushed his thumb along her jawline. “Furthermore, Nathaniel isn’t the only angel-child that I have in Eden. Thoughtful of Nathaniel’s avatar to bring her into Eden for safekeeping, where it would be easiest for me to reach her.”

  Elise stiffened. “Marion?”

  Belphegor grinned the way a skeleton grins.

  “I look forward to meeting you at the end,” he said. “And I look forward to watching you despair.”

  He vanished, taking Nathaniel with him.

  Ten

  Elise had never seen James so angry before.

  He seemed unaware that she had jerked him all the way from Colorado to the pack’s camp on the other side of the world. As soon as he caught his breath from being phased, he was on his feet, storming toward her with all those angry hormones dumping into the air.

  “How could you do that?”

  She folded her arms and tapped her foot, waiting for his sense of reason to return. “Think about it.”

  “Think about it? That was my son!”

  “Yes,” Elise said. “And he was about to kill both of us.”

  James gaped at her. Through some kind of elaborate process of naïve denial, he just couldn’t imagine Nathaniel killing them.

  But Elise could imagine it too easily. She had felt the way that time and space had been fluctuating around him. She had felt his anger, his hatred.

  Nathaniel hadn’t forgiven them for anything, and they had been a f
ew breaths from oblivion. Maybe he would have regretted it later, but in the meantime, Elise and James still would have been dead.

  “So you surrendered him to Belphegor?” James’s hands clenched into fists. “That was the only alternative that you could think of?”

  “Against a fucking god? Yes. Until we find a way to make him human, Belphegor’s the only one who can contain Nathaniel.”

  “He will never trust you again,” James said. The way he said those words, it almost sounded like “I will never trust you again.”

  Anthony had heard the shouting and emerged from a nearby pickup. All of the mismatched vehicles had stopped in a tiny village—nothing more than a collection of modest farms and shacks—to allow everyone to rest, and Anthony in particular looked like he needed the break. He was scruffy and unshaven, his eyes bruised with exhaustion.

  “What’s going on?” Anthony asked. Ace jumped out of the pickup to sniff at Elise’s calves, tail whipping from side to side in puppyish greeting.

  James opened his mouth to keep yelling at Elise, but she lifted a hand to belay his rampage. “Have you seen anyone from my army?” she asked Anthony.

  “No sign of them.”

  “Or an opposing army?”

  Anthony looked stricken. “An opposing army. Fuck. Really?”

  She took that to mean that he hadn’t seen any of them, either. “The break is over. We’re out of time, Anthony. We need to get to the gate now.”

  His mind churned as he considered their options. “That’s a problem. We’re still days away, and you can only transport a few people at a time.”

  “Then get all these cars back on the road,” Elise said. “The sooner we move, the better.”

  “What if we get to the gate and this ‘opposing army’ meets us there?”

  She had considered that possibility, but it was too ugly to give serious thought. Without her legions, there wasn’t much that any of them could do against even one or two centuriae of demons—even if they did have a werewolf pack. “Let me worry about the other army. Get back on the road.”

  Anthony jogged back to the cars. Brianna was sitting on the tailgate of a pickup, sipping from a water bottle as she spoke with Summer Gresham. Anthony addressed them briefly, and then the women were on their feet too, heading to the other trucks to spread the word. Ace trotted after them.

  There would be no sleep that night. Not if anyone wanted to survive.

  Discussion of opposing armies hadn’t made James forget his anger. He pushed Elise behind one of the trees, cutting off her view of the trucks.

  “He’s just a child,” he hissed.

  “I know,” Elise said. “You can be angry at me all you want, and Nathaniel can hate me too, but that’s what I had to do to survive. We can’t help him if we’re dead. Do you understand? As long as we survive, we can still get to Eden and…”

  His anger finally cracked. “Marion.”

  “Marion.” She pushed her fingers through her hair, cradling her forehead in both palms. “I have to tell my mom. No. She doesn’t need to know. Not until… Fuck.” On the other side of the trees, the engines began to grumble to life again. “The cure that you used to make yourself human again. Will it work on a god?”

  “You mean Nathaniel?” James asked. She nodded, and he rubbed a hand over his jaw. His stubble was growing in just as white as the rest of the hair on his head. “I don’t know. Even if it worked, I’m not sure that the casting witch would be able to survive the amount of power generated by the spell.”

  “We have to attempt it. Get everything I need ready to cure Nathaniel,” she said.

  “Elise, I don’t—”

  “You heard me. Find your books, pick a truck, and hop in. Ride with the pack to the gate and don’t stop until you get there.”

  Shouts broke through the air.

  Elise leaned around the tree. The pack poured from the pickups as silver lights blazed from the clouds like falling stars.

  Angels.

  They struck within seconds, landing in the middle of the farming village. Each of them was brighter than the sun—bright enough that Elise, in her healed body, felt scalded just by looking at them.

  The angels must have come expecting to fight her. She wouldn’t be able to approach.

  But she wasn’t the one they needed to fear.

  Snarls and growls erupted. The wolf spirits seemed to appear from nowhere, erupting across the earth as though shot from a cannon. Abel roared with them, surging forward in his animal form, ready to slaughter the creatures that had killed his mate.

  Elise couldn’t watch the fight. It hurt her eyes too much. She stepped within the safety of the tree’s shadow again.

  James watched instead. With the way that the light shined on him, his irises almost looked like they reflected the ethereal blue that they used to be—almost.

  He wanted to jump out and join the fight. Elise could see it in the leap of his adrenaline, the flood of hormones. He was battle ready.

  But he held himself back.

  “We have to help.” James swallowed hard. “You have to help.”

  “The werewolves will be fine for a moment,” Elise said, yanking a small notebook out of her back pocket and uncapping a pen with her teeth. Gunshots cracked over the village. “And they have Anthony.”

  “Anthony? Versus angels?”

  “He did fine against you.” Elise began to scribble out a quick warding rune—something that would protect her from the light enough that she could join the fight.

  She didn’t get very far.

  “We’ve got a problem,” James said.

  She glanced over his shoulder. The fight had suddenly stopped—angels on one side, werewolves on the other, and a lot of blood in the middle where the two had met.

  Abel crouched on top of one of the angels, silvery blood dripping from his muzzle. The man below him—Makael—had jammed his saber into Abel’s mouth, an inch from ripping through his skull. Leliel stood behind Abel, holding a second saber to his throat. And Nash had stolen a sword to press it to Leliel’s back.

  Standoff.

  “I came to speak to the Godslayer,” Leliel said tightly, without moving a fraction of an inch.

  Abel’s responding growl threatened the complete annihilation of Makael, even if it meant getting his head chopped off. Which, judging by the scrape of teeth on blade, was about two seconds away from happening.

  Elise tossed the notebook to James.

  “Stay put,” she told him.

  She stepped out from behind the tree. James hissed at her, but she ignored him. “Elise. Elise.”

  “Back down, everyone,” Elise called as she approached. “I’m here.”

  Some dark emotion fluttered over Leliel’s face at the sight of Elise, but she was soon composed. She removed her sword from Abel’s throat. Nash stepped back, too.

  But Abel didn’t let Makael go.

  Elise grabbed him by the scruff. He twisted, snapping, and his teeth closed on her forearm. A bite from a werewolf was like getting crushed between boulders—he almost jerked her arm right off. Amber blood splattered to the ground.

  She phased out of his mouth, reappearing a few feet away.

  The taste of her blood seemed to have broken Abel of his temporary rage. His tongue slid over his muzzle.

  He sat back on his haunches and began to shift.

  “Fuck,” Elise muttered, shaking her arm out. She hadn’t been bitten by one of the wolves since getting on Rylie’s bad side, and she’d forgotten exactly how much it burned. She forced herself to focus on the angels instead. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “We’ve freed all the humans in New Eden,” Leliel said, helping Makael off of the ground. “The majority awakened with no incident, and our city stands empty of human souls. We transported all of the survivors to a location on Earth that isn’t yet on fire. It’s the best that we could do.”

  Elise’s eyes narrowed. “But?”

  “Almost all of Earth is o
n fire,” the angel said. “It’s only a temporary solution.”

  “And Heaven too,” Elise said. “Convenient how much you care about Earth’s condition once you have nowhere else to run.” She was only vaguely aware of Anthony and Abel—now human—moving up to flank her. The wolf spirits bristled between them.

  Leliel looked at the wolf spirits like she had found their spoor smeared on her bare foot. She lifted her sword, its blade igniting with flames.

  Elise drew a falchion. One of the wolves growled. No, not a wolf—Ace. Apparently he had decided that he was one of the pack and stood among the spirits. His weight leaned heavily against her calf.

  “I’m going to take care of Earth,” Elise said.

  “Why should we trust you?” Leliel asked. As the wolves had moved up to surround Elise, so had Makael moved to stand at Leliel’s side. Electric blue runes slithered up his arms. A silent reminder that angels had found their magic again and might pose an actual threat to Elise.

  She didn’t need the reminder. Her skin still ached from the vibrancy of their glowing wings.

  “I don’t care if you trust me or not,” Elise said. “I definitely don’t trust you. I am, however, going to fix all of this.”

  “By becoming a god?”

  “By killing him,” Elise said. Her wounded arm throbbed as she spoke, which dented her confidence only slightly.

  “If you kill Belphegor, you’ll have to rebuild the pantheon from the beginning,” Leliel said. “Which angel would you station as the ethereal deity? Will it be Nashriel?”

  The guy’s ego was big enough without adding godhood to the mix. “There’s already an angel in the pantheon,” Elise said.

  “Is there?” Leliel frowned. “Who?”

  “You don’t know him,” Elise said. “He’s not one of yours.”

  “They’re all mine.”

  What few of them remained. Elise’s gaze skimmed the angels surrounding Leliel, taking a quick mental inventory. At least three of them had been bitten by the wolf spirits in the scuffle. Even though they stood straight and tall, forming a united front, Elise could smell the blood and see the wounds reddening.