Exalted

by Ella James

  Shifting in such a tight circle turned them both sideways, and made Julia dizzy, which made her feel panicked. What if they couldn't get to the peak? What if the Authorities didn't want to help them get in touch with The Alpha?

  “We're coming in behind them,” Cayne said, yelling into her ear.

  The wispy clouds that ringed the peak cleared just a little, and Julia's stomach clenched as she saw Jacquie and her clan, a bunch of dark ants on a massive sheet of white. She was trying to count them, and she'd gotten to sixteen when Cayne shifted her onto his back. She locked her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and she tried to ignore the tickling strokes of his wings, flapping on either side of her ribcage.

  This was it, she thought as he angled his torso downward. The ground rose up, the ants becoming larger and larger, until finally they were people-sized. The ground was wobbling. It stayed unsteady even as they came closer, because Cayne wasn't touching down completely.

  Julia held her breath as the whole group turned to face them. She gritted her teeth, anticipating blue fire and Authority arrows.

  Neither came, but two of the larger figures in the crowd jumped into the air; huge wings—one pair black, the other brown—sprang from their backs. The Authorities soared into the sky, crisscrossing above them.

  Cayne's wings were still out, and Julia sensed his gaze had followed the Authorities into the sky. She could feel his muscles coil. What were they doing up there—blocking her and Cayne's escape?

  Jacquie separated from the crowd, and Julia stopped breathing when she saw the woman's face. It was shiny and pinkish, most of the lower half covered with fresh scar tissue. Scar tissue Julia had given her.

  Her long leather jacket swished around her boots as she took confident step after confident step. Maybe she thought the two Authorities behind her offered some protection.

  “Julia,” she called over the falling snow. “Cayne.”

  A few more crunches of boots in snow, and Julia could see the stretching quality to her scarred, pink skin. She could even smell her perfume—lavender.

  "Put me down," Julia said softly to Cayne, and she was glad he did. She stood beside him, arms crossed, and Jacquie held out her hand. Julia didn't take it.

  “You see now the reason for my actions.”

  “You mean I see now why you tried to kill me?” Jacquie's eyes widened, but Julia rolled hers. She felt her mouth twist into a sneer when she said, “You know what...not so much. Nope. Not at all.” Her eyes rested on the Authority behind Jacquie's left shoulder. With his soft blond hair and radiant light green eyes, he was still as beautiful as they ever were, but not at all terrifying. She'd see much worse.

  “I'll never 'see' why you tried to kill me.”

  Jacquie's eyes blazed, and Julia thought she had the look of a furious school-teacher who'd lost control of her student. Which made Julia think the bitch had a lot of nerve.

  Jacquie took a deep breath. “The Adversary has control of the net now—”

  "I'm not going to feel bad for being alive, so stop wasting our time. And I already know about The Adversary."

  Jacquie's face hardened. "Why are you here?"

  Julia glared back. "Why are you here?"

  The older woman waved behind her, at the Authorities. “The Authorities cannot return to the Alpha's realm through normal means." Jacquie glared at Julia as she said that. “Thank The Alpha, the few portals like this do still appear to be functioning. That means The Adversary doesn't have complete control over the net.”

  “What does The Alpha have to say about all this?” Cayne's low voice rumbled by Julia's ear.

  "We don't know," Jacquie said. "There are four gateways, and demons are guarding each one of them."

  Chapter Thirty

  Liar.

  She knew Jacquie to be a liar, and this time, she hoped the woman was lying. She was so busy thinking about that, that she didn't notice Cayne had pulled her into his arms until they were already lifting off the ground.

  “Cayne!”

  “I thought we should see for ourselves,” he shouted.

  It only took a moment to soar over the rock. Only a moment until the clouds shifted out of the way, and the wind changed the direction of the falling snow. Only a moment until they saw.

  Julia wasn't sure at first that they were Demons—from the little she could see, the group of them looked like a male model troupe; none had their wings out—but then she felt Cayne's shoulders tense. His disappointment was in the sharp twist of his body as he angled them the other way, flying against the biting snowflakes. Julia turned her head, looking back and down, trying to get a head count, but all she could think was that's a lot.

  Their auras were funky, like Edan's, and as a few of them turned to face she and Cayne, she saw a few pairs of crimson wings pop out. She noted, as they completed a circle of the rock, that they seemed to surround it.

  “Go back down!” Julia shouted when she realized Cayne was ascending, headed over the top of a mountain she recognized, back to the cave.

  “Back down!” she yelled, and he frowned down at her.

  “I want to talk to Jacquie!”

  His brows squeezed together and his lips twisted, but after a moment, he turned back. Snowflakes slapped Julia's cheeks, and every breath was a thick puff of white fog. Her throat stung, and her lungs felt torn inside. She wondered how cold it was. Then they were coming down fast, same spot as before.

  This time, they landed a little farther from the herd, and Cayne said, “If I feel like it's needed, we're flying, so keep your hold on me.”

  Julia nodded. “Yes sir.”

  Unlike before, Jacquie approached by herself. Her nose and cheeks were fiery red now, but the tight, pink skin looked the same as before. She shielded her face from the frigid wind and came close enough to Cayne so she could touch him. In a surprisingly gentlemanly move, Cayne shifted so his huge wings blocked most of the wind.

  Jacquie nodded her thanks. “So you saw them?” she asked, sounding resigned.

  “How long have they been there?” Julia asked.

  “We're not sure. They were here when we arrived. Since the net is now covering Heaven, placed deliberately over the main gates, the only chance the Authorities have of returning home is via these specific entryways. And all are guarded. The Adversary was prepared.”

  Julia felt Cayne tense, and she could tell what he was thinking by his aura. If only he hadn't been fooled. But he had been. There was nothing they could do about it now.

  “I want to talk to the Authorities,” Cayne said, surprising Julia and Jacquie.

  “We need a plan,” Julia put in. She didn't know if that was the reason Cayne had wanted to talk to the Authorities, but it was what she wanted. Cayne nodded.

  Before Jacquie could turn around, two Authorities were coming toward her, one with ebony skin, and another with blond hair and green eyes.

  The dark-skinned angel extended his hand toward Cayne. Cayne shook it, and Julia did the same.

  “Noelle. I've spent most of my life on Earth. Guardian,” he said, and Julia gaped.

  Did he mean guardian angel?

  He smiled tightly, and she nearly imploded.

  “The Adversary is in Las Vegas,” the green-eyed one said.

  “Las Vegas?” Julia asked, sure she'd misheard.

  He nodded. “Leaving a trail of havoc.”

  “What kind of havoc?”

  “The Adversary and his minions are not in true form. They have elected not to be. In fact, they cannot even be seen by human eyes while they are in transit. But when they arrived at the Wynn in Las Vegas, the casino soon burned to the ground. They have now taken up residence at another location: the MGM Mirage. Murders, sexual assaults, and crime have all increased dramatically among the native population. The closer one is to The Adversary, the greater the chaos, but his malice is far-reaching. Several countries with historical conflicts are moving toward war.”

  “I could tell they w
ere headed west,” Cayne muttered.

  Noelle regarded him sharply. “How?”

  “Do you know about everything that happened in Alexandria?”

  Jacquie nodded. “We do. Lille—” she pointed behind her, to her crowd of supporters— “he can See.”

  “I can feel The Adversary," Cayne said. "Something of the link he created is still there. I can sense where he's moving relative to my location.”

  “That's really going to hamper the element of surprise,” Julia muttered. She frowned, irritated he hadn't told her before.

  “I don't think it works the other way," Cayne said. "He put his essence is in me. It never went the other way."

  “I hope that's true.”

  “Lille tells me you're planning to go up against him,” Jacquie said. Her eyes held Julia's, and Julia nodded. “I am.” Couldn't hurt to state the obvious.

  “He also said you retained some of Methuselah's power." Julia nodded, thinking kiss it. Jacquie said, “That's lucky.”

  Julia wanted to slap the woman. “I wouldn't call it luck, but yes.” And again, she found herself bluffing. “We're planning to take him down. Any ex-Chosen interested, or any Authorities for that matter... We can have a messenger keep in touch.”

  “When you want to communicate, call for 'Lille'. He knows when he is needed, often even if no one calls.”

  “So none of the Authorities can contact The Alpha at the moment, in any way you know of?” Julia quizzed; she intentionally failed to acknowledge Jacquie's instructions about 'Lille'.

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Meaning you don't have any insights.”

  “Do you?” Jacquie challenged.

  “We have a few,” Julia said on impulse. “We may choose to share them later, after we meet with our group in Egypt.”

  Unfortunately, she thought as they said goodbyes and Cayne thrust them back into the air, she was bluffing again.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  By the time they reached the dry, warm skies over Alexandria, Julia was working on a bad mood.

  At their perch in St. Moritz, at a pit-stop in rural France, and again in Tripoli, where a barge caught fire while they sat talking in a waterfront cafe, she and Cayne had discussed their plan. Or tried to.

  Neither of them had any real idea of The Adversary's weakness. He was unpredictable, violent, and according to Cayne's Spidey Sense, moving west, possibly toward California, which gave Julia déjà vu in a Samyaza kind of way.

  At the cafe in Tripoli, Cayne had done his old Cayne trick, encouraging a handsome man with salt and pepper hair to fork over his smart phone. Cayne thrust it into Julia's hands, asking her to find a newspaper.

  “Why?”

  He'd shrugged. “An American one. I just want to hear the headlines.”

  So Julia had found them—and felt a fresh new wave of terror.

  The top one said: American stocks plunge; Europe profits from war fears

  A quick skim revealed that violence had arisen in several European countries over 'the debt crisis', which meant a few key manufacturing companies had made a lot of money on security and war supplies. Apparently, the profiting companies were partially owned by a large American conglomerate. Which the FBI claimed was the motivation for two terrorist attacks—one a chemical attack on the water supply of a major metropolitan area on the east coast of the U.S., which had caused several thousand deaths; the other a bomb in a west coast mall, taking out, among other things, a kids' clothes store.

  By the time Julia finished the article, as well as a side-bar about one of the children, who apparently had already been fighting cancer, she didn't have the heart to click on the links about a pestilence in Chinese rice fields, the drug war in Mexico, or a rapidly melting glacier. As she tried to close the stupid news app, a photo of a made-over woman popped up; Julia blinked when she recognized Jess Stanton. Apparently she'd overdosed.

  Her stomach felt full of rocks when she shoved the phone to Cayne. “Do something with this.”

  “All bad?” he asked.

  Julia nodded.

  Cayne took one look at the article and shut the paper. “Sounds right,” he muttered. Then he sat the phone down on the table, and they left.

  Since then, Julia had felt riddled with anxiety. She thought of the kids in the clothing store—innocent children, riding in strollers and those little wrap thingies that moms wore—and it dawned on her for the first time that The Adversary wouldn't be here, inciting people to violence with his presence, if Jacquie had killed her when she'd tried.

  That made her feel horrible.

  Then she remembered Meredith. Good God, had she actually forgotten about Meredith? For a second, she had. She squeezed her eyes shut, but she was so miserable, she couldn't even manage to cry properly.

  What were they going to do?

  When they'd been flying over desert for a long time, Julia tapped Cayne's shoulder and yelled, “STOP SOMETIME!”

  He nodded, and despite her misery, Julia leaned in and kissed his nape. This time, her eyes did fill with tears—tears over all the things she knew she'd never have, like a house and a college degree and a future with Cayne. A few more tears slipped out when she berated herself for even caring about those things.

  By the time Cayne finally landed, just beyond a small town where a factory had been burning, putting off an acrid reddish cloud, she'd had time to have a small cry over the shit-tastic-ness of the world in general, and she was feeling slightly calmer.

  She held on tightly as Cayne dropped lower to the desert floor, his great, winged shadow dark against the blazing orange and red tones of sunset on sand.

  When he let her down under a weird-looking desert tree, Julia slumped against its trunk and Cayne stood a few feet away from her, arms folded, face grim. Behind him, the sky blazed.

  She let her breath out slowly, thumbing the dirty laces of her All-Stars. “So...what should I tell the other Chosen?”

  Cayne sank down in front of her, putting one hand over hers. He looked at her with so much caring in his eyes, Julia thought she just might cry again. “You know this is not your fault, don't you?”

  She pressed her lips together, allowing herself, just for a second, to experience the comfort of Cayne's kind green eyes. “It's not mine either,” he admitted. “This is his nature, Julia. Even in a realm that isn't his, he stirs the pot. All bad things orbit him. He's like a magnet.”

  Julia rubbed a hand over her eyes, and he squeezed her foot. “Cheer up, buttercup.”

  Hearing that—from him: priceless. Julia actually giggled, and Cayne gave her an almost-believable smile.

  “I've been thinking about that,” he said. “About what our plan should be.”

  She scrunched her face up. “Any ideas?”

  "I wonder...” He pressed his lips together, shaking his dark head slowly.

  “You wonder what.” She slapped his shoe. “Don't keep me in suspense!”

  “The link is still there, so maybe I could pull his power back into myself if I did it right. That way you wouldn't have to be involved.”

  “You can't take him on all by yourself," Julia snapped. She rushed to say, "Sorry," and added, "I just don't want you rushing to be heroic again. Not because of what happened. I just want to know you'll stick with me."

  He nodded, somber. "Of course."

  Julia relaxed a bit. "Don't forget, I've got Methuselah's power now. Some of it, anyway."

  "A lot, I think," he said, unhappily.

  “I can use it if I need to.”

  Cayne rubbed her eyes and looked down at the sand. "We'll figure this out when we get back to the others. We can talk to the group before you address the entire Chosen population."

  She nodded. "And Cayne, I meant what I said. Don't even think about any lone rider stuff again. I can't handle it.”

  He stood up, holding his hand out for her, and after tucking her shoe-lace back in, Julia reluctantly took it. The sun, sinking behind the flat horizon, was bli
nding, so she cupped a hand over her eyes, barely able to see Cayne's tight smile.

  "We'll do it together—somehow. Right?"

  ***

  It was another twenty minutes before they reached the pyramid. Twenty minutes for Julia to think about what he'd said, about how much power she might have. Twenty minutes for her to freak out over exactly how she would—how she could—pitch a plan she didn't have yet to a bunch of Chosen who'd already been through a Demon stampede.

  Her mind was a racing mess.

  And then they saw the pyramid, or rather what was left of it.

  Her first instinct was to cry. Her body went ahead and got things ready: stinging eyes, constricting throat, flushing cheeks. All its typical pre-crying stuff, except as Julia's blurry gaze swept from the charred, smoking remains of the pyramid to the handful of gray tents in the dirt, she locked her jaw and she refused.

  Crying over Meredith, over Suzanne and Harry, over kids killed in a terrorist attack—that was one thing. Crying because she was scared was quite another.

  The Julia that reacted, that cowered in the face of horror, the Julia that pulled her hair out because she couldn't make a decision, the Julia who'd wanted to hide at the resort in St. Moritz forever and ever... That Julia was no more.

  This Julia was furious.

  She locked her arms around Cayne's neck and squeezed, telling him with her body that she was angry. He glanced down at her, and there was love in his eyes. Love and encouragement.

  She bit her lip as Cayne circled the perimeter, counting the tents.

  Two-dozen. Oh, God, she only counted twenty-four tents, and for a very intense second, she wanted Cayne to fly away. She didn't want to know about Drew and Carlin and the rest. She couldn't take it.

  No, she argued. She could. She could and she would. And if this was The Adversary's doing, so help her...

  With one last shrewd-eyed glance at her, Cayne landed fast, and Julia was dashing for the nearest tent, which was larger than it had seemed from the air. She flew through the fabric door, realizing as she came to a stop in front of about thirty Chosen that she should try to look less rattled. More in control.