Exalted

by Ella James

  Between his neck and shoulder on each side poked the bleeding stubs of wings. Dark, leathery Demon wings.

  The Demon turned, and the wing-stubs vanished.

  Edan was a Demon, Nathan thought dizzily. A Demon who’d angered The Adversary and gotten his wings clipped.

  A Demon in the pyramid…

  But that wasn’t the worst thing. The Demon was wrapped in a cloth Nathan thought was scarlet. Then he saw bits of white, clean of the blood that he could see pooling at the demon’s feet.

  Its handsome face contorted in pain, and Nathan…

  Nathan couldn’t stand to…

  “No,” he muttered, staggering backward. He couldn’t stand to see another being, even a Demon, suffering like that.

  Until that moment, it was the worst thing he’d ever seen or heard.

  Then he heard someone else screaming.

  Chapter Nine

  Julia awoke gasping, her nightmare forgotten in the panic of not being able to see anything. When she remembered what the utter darkness all around her meant, her dread quickly mounted. She wrestled with her breathing, trying to make it slow enough and soft enough that her straining ears would be able to tell her what her eyes could not.

  She counted to sixty in her head five times before she felt reasonably sure she was alone. She took a deep, loud breath, and a shiver rippled through her, a full-body flinch. She scuttled back against the cool, damp wall, terrified that she still couldn’t see. The absolute dark was the earth pressing around her. No one was coming to save her. Cayne had disappeared, and her friends weren’t nearly strong enough. Julia was completely at Methuselah’s mercy.

  She felt crushed anew when she thought about her mother. Had she seen this, too? Or did she just not want Julia, the way her aunt hadn’t.

  Hurt was replaced by a wave of mortification. She’d been so scared she’d peed. The memory heightened her fear.

  Frantically, her hands skittered over her body, finding it clad in something warm and soft, no remnant of her earlier horror. But when had that happened?

  Julia gritted her teeth, shoving her humiliation aside, and a whimper slid from her lips. She wanted Cayne, would have been embarrassed to admit how much she wanted to be held by him.

  I need to get out of here. I have to get out of here and find him.

  But the terror of Methuselah, the memory of the feeling he'd transferred to her when she touched him—the knowledge that he was a Celestial and she was insignificant—made it hard to move.

  You have to! Think of Cayne!

  She stood shakily, running her hands up and down the wall behind her, making sure it was all the same packed dirt. It felt that way, so she stepped to the other wall, running her hands all the way to the bottom of the wall and then as high as she could, needing to map her prison cell. She only allowed herself to take baby steps, to make sure she covered every inch.

  She had only taken a few when she heard a rumbling near her ear. That’s not going to work. She shrieked, tripping on something, falling and landing on her palms. She came up shaking and whimpering. The voice had been right beside her.

  Suddenly there were two torches burning. She shielded her eyes from the light, then looked across the room. Despite its never-ending feel, it couldn’t have been more than thirty feet at its widest. The ceiling was low and made of the same packed earth as the walls and the floor. The wall was shorter near a stone door, and Julia gasped when she saw a dark shape rocking near the threshold.

  Her stomach heaved and her throat constricted. She couldn’t breathe, and yet her mouth made little aaaha, aaaha noises.

  “Do you know why you are called The One?”

  When she only breathed, his voice boomed inside her head. “ANSWER. ME.”

  “I don’t,” she whispered. The dark spot didn’t move, and Julia swore it seemed to be sucking the light from the torches. Just looking at it made her feel like dying. She recognized it as that familiar dementors-in-the-building sensation from being around Edan—but this was magnified so much she wondered if her soul really was being sucked.

  She heard a soft, dark laugh before she felt the rumbling of that voice inside her head.

  “I was so called, once. After I was trapped in this forsaken realm, The Alpha decreed that none of his servants could speak my name. By my followers I was called The Exalted One, but over time it was shortened to The One. My mutinous cohort, my fellow banished, became defined by me. The Adversary. As my adversary, he tried to gain control of the Earth, but I banished him to the depths.

  I took the name Methuselah among humans. I fathered children. And when The Alpha erected his barrier, I developed a plan. For two thousand years I’ve been guiding that plan through the bloodlines of my descendants.”

  The dark shape moved, taking the horribly perfect form of Methuselah as he stepped toward her. “I am The One. You are my creation. Why do you think I would share the honor of my name with you?”

  Julia shook her head, feeling warm tears trickle down her cheeks.

  “Because in the end, you will be me. I will pour my power into you. I will carve you out to carry my essence. You will become Celestial for a time, you will destroy The Alpha’s barrier, and I will be returned to my exalted state.”

  Julia shuddered as she felt what could only have been Methuselah’s dark touch in her mind. She found herself longing for his plan to succeed..

  “Shall we begin?” He stood before her now, stunning in his power. He raised his hands to cup her face, and Julia felt her skin warm where his fingers touched her.

  It felt...good. Such pure power. Blinding. Hot. She felt her mind crack open, felt a molten strand of white light seep inside. It made her feel—

  No.

  She felt the gentle push of energy as fingers pressed her forehead. The dizziness was good. If she shut her eyes, she couldn't even remember her own name. But there was another name…

  Her eyelids trembled as her knees weakened; boneless, brainless, she sank down to the dirt, and he moved with her.

  Cayne.

  What about Cayne?

  Methuselah’s hot fingers felt like they were sinking into her skull, and she slammed shut the door to her mind. She raised her clammy hands and grabbed his wrists. With all her effort she pushed his hands away.

  “You refuse?” Methuselah asked quietly. When she said nothing, he slapped her hard across the cheek. “Your only significance in this world is the role I bred you to serve,” he seethed. “You will submit!”

  Julia raised her hands to her stinging cheek. It burned above her skin, and below, where Methuselah’s power raged, poisoning her. He was talking, but she pushed his voice away. Shut her eyes. Rose over the pain.

  She thought of the night she’d gone to help the twins with their math homework. How she’d come around the little copse of pine trees in her backyard and before her mind had even comprehended the blinding flames, she’d seen two auras blip. Two little flares, then nothing.

  Suzanne and Harry were gone, and Julia was devastated.

  As people started running into the yard, she’d heard one of the neighbors say something horrible.

  “There’ll be nothing left of them.”

  Nothing left.

  It had horrified her then and it haunted her now. Nothing. Wasn’t that what she’d always been afraid of? Being nothing. And that’s what Methuselah wanted to make her.

  Not if I don’t let him.

  Methuselah's voice rose, like Nathan's when he gave a command, and Julia lifted her head from the floor.

  Through bleary eyes she saw Edan staggering through the doorway, a ghastly sight wrapped in a bloody cloth.

  Julia looked away from his awful, glowing eyes, noticing as she did that Edan now clutched Methuselah's whip. She rose into a crouching position, holding her arms out, pushing past the shock she felt at seeing Edan—beautiful, carefree, wicked Edan—in such a battered state.

  Then it hit her: If Edan was here, was Cayne here too?

/>   “Do you now see your Demon friend for what he is?” Methuselah asked.

  Julia turned to find Edan standing right beside her, staring out with no expression.

  “Demon?” she said, gaping.

  “The Demon assigned to watch The Adversary’s son. Although he did a terrible job. He didn't deliver his charge to Hell for many years.” Methuselah smiled. “That’s why he belongs to me now. The Adversary respects my talent for punishment.”

  The Adversary’s son? Cayne was The Adversary's freakin' SON?

  Methuselah was grinning ear to ear as he stared at her.

  “You’re lying.” Methuselah and Edan backed her into a corner, but all she could think about was Cayne. “He’s a Nephilim!”

  Methuselah laughed. “Nephilim indeed. Tell her, Edan. Tell her about her boyfriend.”

  “He’s the Adversary’s son,” Edan said, flat as a machine. “The Adversary will pour his power into him. When he kills you—”

  “That’s enough!” Methuselah snapped, and Edan fell silent.

  Julia shook her head. “I don’t believe you,” she cried.

  Methuselah considered for a second, then instructed Edan to turn around, so his back was to her. “Show her your wings.”

  They appeared, like Cayne’s, but they weren’t wings. They were sawed-off nubs, bloody and horrifying.

  “His punishment,” Methuselah explained. Then he smiled. “Just part of it.”

  The whip cracked almost faster than she could see, and Edan cried out in pain. A second lash, and he stumbled.

  “Stop it!” Julia cried.

  Methuselah paused mid-whip. “You actually feel compassion for this being?”

  She pressed her mouth closed and looked away.

  “Have you wondered what happened to Cayne?” He sneered Cayne’s name, but Julia’s heart still stopped. “He’s in Hell. This Demon—well, former Demon—delivered him there.”

  Julia looked at Edan, hoping he’d deny it. But he stood silently.

  “I’m sure he’s not having a fun time either,” Methuselah mused. “Preparing vessels isn’t an easy business.”

  Julia's mind screamed: No! No, no, no!

  Methuselah whipped Edan once, twice, three times; each time Edan cried in pain, stood again, then fell back to his knees. Methuselah would order him up, then whip him again. Julia couldn't stand to see his bloody, torn-up body, or that awful dead look in his eyes.

  “Stop it!”

  “What would your lover think, if he knew you still had compassion for the thing that delivered him to his torture?”

  The thought of Cayne in Hell was so horrible, Julia groaned, and Methuselah fixed his cold eyes on her. He handed the whip to Edan as Julia started to cry.

  “Lash her,” Methuselah told him, and Julia shrank back into the corner.

  She watched Edan’s face flicker, like he was there behind whatever spell Methuselah had placed on him, and maybe, just maybe, he didn’t want to hurt her.

  Then his arm slashed down, and the whip curled around her forearm. Its rough-edged leather cut her skin, and as Edan jerked it back toward him, the ends of it lashed her cheek, making Julia see stars.

  Methuselah was on her, grasping her shoulders. He thrust her forward, and Edan lashed again. “I am The One! I alone am exalted! I am infinitely wise and awesomely powerful! You will bow before me. You will accept me as your god. You will willingly give your life in the service of mine.”

  The whip caught her in the chest, bringing Julia to her knees. Again and again and again, it ripped her skin. Until thoughts were gone and pain was everything.

  “You are dismissed,” Methuselah said from somewhere far away.

  As Julia’s eyes rolled back, she thought she saw Edan’s widen almost imperceptibly before he scurried from the room.

  Chapter Ten

  Edan touched his head. He had a terrible headache, his back was torn like Jesus H., and he was caked in blood: some dried, some drying; but at least the chains that had been around his wrists and ankles were gone now.

  In addition to his body being shredded to shit, he ached with a pain he recognized, one that came with being pulled into something without your will intact. Memories of the last twenty-four hours came rolling back, filling his little mud room, making him even less happy.

  Despite his reputation, Edan wasn’t sadistic. He didn’t enjoy hurting people. He didn’t mind hurting them, either—he didn't have a true “conscience” to prevent him from seeing the utility of violence. What he did mind, very, very much, was when some twisted fuck like Methuselah made him do, well, anything.

  A week ago Methuselah’s control wouldn’t have been possible. But Edan's hourglass had run out of sand, and he'd had to bring The Adversary's son to him. Edan had spent nearly two-hundred years spreading his own wings, and The Adversary hadn’t seemed to mind—time was nothing to him, after all.

  Then something had changed, and The Adversary had demanded his son, becoming increasingly insistent. When Edan had finally delivered, the Big A. had been pissed. He'd clipped Edan's wings, demoting him to pathetic Shade status, and he'd sent Edan back to Methuselah in chains. Meaning Methuselah could make Edan do anything—as long as the old fart continued breathing.

  Edan stepped through the wall, one of the few things a Shade could do, and watched Methuselah heal Julia, inserting more of his power into her as he did. Edan figured it would be painful for her when she woke up. He wondered what Cayne would do if he was here now.

  But he wasn't. Because Edan had taken him to Hell.

  He told himself he’d given Cayne plenty long to live the life he chose on Earth. He told himself he didn’t care what happened to Julia. He was a Demon, wings or not. Yeah, he'd had a stupid fondness for Carlin, but it was probably her ass that had done him in.

  When, a few seconds later, The Adversary summoned him, he was glad to leave the realm where so many pointless questions plagued him.

  Edan met The Adversary in the room where he'd had his wings sawed off. It was a stone-walled, stone-floored room that looked like it could have been Spanish. As a rule, when he was in Hell, he didn't allow himself to think of anything he considered revealing from Earth, so that meant no thoughts of Carlin. But he hadn't exactly been on his guard when the Adversary was severing his demonhood, so obviously something had slipped through.

  Ivy climbed one wall, and The Adversary stood on the packed dirt floor beside a small iron table and a lit candle resting on it. Edan refused to think about the whys of that; The Adversary probably wasn't even seeing the same thing he was. Hell was like that: uniquely personalized. Unless you were in a group. Then the rules got even weirder.

  The Adversary, clad in dark jeans, a Grumpy Bear Care Bear t-shirt, and a leather bomber jacket, and sporting the same physical form he did when he was on Earth, pulled out a chair, and Edan sat, struggling not to grimace as a breeze played over the stubs where his wings had been.

  Being in this realm without his wings was torturous, but he mustered a smile for The Adversary. A real wicked grin.

  “Edan, my favorite Shade." The devil too the seat across from him. "I hope you gave my warmest regards to Methuselah.” His starkly handsome face broke into an amused smile, and flames sprang up behind him, climbing the stone wall.

  Not that again.

  “You tire of my hellfire?”

  “Fucking tedious,” he growled.

  “No more tedious than a Shade,” The Adversary said. “Can't decide whose side you're on, can you? Typical Shade trait. I wonder what prevents you from truly aligning yourself with Hell. Do you think yourself better than the other Demons?”

  A pretty blonde girl with wide brown eyes and a sad mouth appeared with a tray of donuts and two cups of steaming coffee, and The Adversary waved at her as she arranged the food on the table. “She traded her Alpha-inspired ideals for the ability to haunt the human who molested her. He ended his own life. It was a convenient deal. Wasn't it, Sari?”

  Her eye
s widened as she nodded her head, then poofed away.

  “You settled most of your unfinished business, and you did it in a fashion I admire, so I granted you wings. You were so familiar with the human world, I thought you were a suitable guide for my own son—and what did you do? You betrayed me." The Adversary splayed his hand on the table, fingers twitching like they itched to be around Edan's neck.

  “You allowed him to wander among the so-called half-demons, and all the while you mooched off Methuselah, brewing your coffee, eating your scones and your steak and gravy dinners.” The Adversary grabbed a coffee cup and downed the whole thing. Edan longed for the other mug, and The Adversary downed it, too, chuckling at his petty meanness.

  “You know,” he mused, leaning back in his chair, “one might think you'd be rewarded for your rebelliousness. Keeping my son from me—quite wicked of you.” He held Edan's eyes with his hard, timeless gaze. “But that would be presuming that Hell conforms to any logic. You were punished for doing wrong, which makes not a lick of sense in a realm where wrong is wrong. And so it goes...” He shrugged.

  “I called you here because I have a job for you. If you do it well, you can get your wings back. They will be pale lilac, and they will sparkle, but you will be a Demon once again. What say you, Shade?”

  Without warning, the Big A. grabbed Edan's hand, his Celestial fingers burning Edan's skin in just the way Methuselah's grip did. Edan felt a tugging in his mind, and The Adversary threw his head back, laughing uproariously.

  “He made you whip her, did he? Oh my, but you are a true Shade. Your memories betray your...sympathy.” The Adversary's mouth pinched, like he'd never said the word before. Then he chuckled again. “Edan, my little Demon, sympathetic. So funny.”

  Edan rolled his eyes and folded his arms as The Adversary laughed at him. His extreme amorality made him more frightening than Methuselah the zealot, but at least he had a sense of humor. Edan had been too long in Methuselah's presence.

  His thoughts were too loud; The Adversary grinned knowingly. He leaned forward, over steepled fingers, explaining his task in soft, conspiratorial tones.