Caged in Bone (The Ascension Series) (18 page)

“We’re going to Colorado,” Elise said. “Belphegor’s assassins were trying to push us in that direction. I want to find out why.”

“Wait, Belphegor’s in Colorado? But we’re not looking for Belphegor, we’re—”

“James is probably in Colorado too,” Elise interrupted. “That’s where his original coven came from. The locator spells guiding us west corroborate that.”

Rylie paled. “You don’t think that James is working with Belphegor, do you?”

The thought had crossed Elise’s mind. It wouldn’t be the first time that James had made unsavory alliances to get what he wanted. “We’ll find out in Boulder.”

When she moved to step down the stairs, Rylie stopped her with a hand on her elbow. Her golden eyes were filled with worry. “What’s wrong, Elise? You don’t look good, and I don’t just mean the blood.”

Her concern was so genuine. It suffused her neurons and the muscles of her face and her posture. Elise felt her intestines coil in on themselves when Rylie looked like that. She owed this werewolf and her family a deep debt—the kind of debt that should have left a grudge, made Rylie hate her. Yet she didn’t. She only cared that Elise was looking weak.

“I think it’s the hunger,” Elise said, surprising herself with her honesty. “Something’s wrong with me, and I can’t seem to feed enough to make myself stop starving.”

“Do you need to go home?”

They were still days behind James and Abel, and Rylie was offering to delay the search. “I don’t think that would help,” Elise said, “but thank you.” And she meant it.

Rylie gave her a tremulous smile. “Well, then let’s go to Boulder.”

Sophie Pinkett was
almost done building a gateway to Heaven, and she felt pretty good about it.

She stood back with her hands on her hips to study the product of her hard labor. It was a beautiful piece of stonework. It had two columns of equal height and width approximately eight feet apart and twelve feet tall; connecting them was an archway of stone that was still braced by wooden scaffolding until she placed the capstone that would complete it.

All those puzzles she had put together with her five-year-old granddaughter had finally turned into a useful skill. But this was a thousand times more interesting than a twelve-piece picture of Dora.

The gate stood in an empty clearing surrounded by trees, looking kind of like a weird Christmas decoration among all the snow. Like Sophie should have built a manger out of the remaining scrap wood next, propped up some figures of the Magi, dragged in a few sheep. Considering that it would soon open to Heaven, she suspected that the decorations would be received as slightly tacky.

“Where’s the capstone?” Jorge asked, coming up to stand beside her. He was layered in a sweater and jacket and thermal underwear. Not a cold weather guy.

“Here.” Sophie pulled the capstone out of her pocket. It looked awfully mundane, considering its importance. It was the size of her clenched fist and came to a gradual point at the bottom. Sort of a pizza-shaped wedge of stone.

There was a symbol carved faintly into one of the flat sides, barely a millimeter deep. Jorge rubbed his thumb over it as he took it from her.

“Can we put it in now?” he asked.

“Not until James gets back.” She made herself speak with confidence so that Jorge wouldn’t hear the doubt she felt. It was “when” James came back, not “if” he came back. Even though he hadn’t been seen since the Breaking, she had to believe that he had survived.

“But it’s otherwise done, right?”

“It’s done,” Sophie confirmed.

Another man spoke. “Excellent work, Sophie.”

James Faulkner had appeared in the clearing, as if summoned by Sophie’s doubts. There were no footsteps leading up to where he stood, but that didn’t mean anything—he had a way of appearing and disappearing without disturbing his surroundings. He had a real flair for the theatrical; he knew exactly how much those kinds of strange behaviors added to his mystique.

He wore all white today: white slacks, white cable knit sweater, white scarf. The white was only broken by his black leather gloves and black loafers.

“Thank you, James,” Sophie said. She couldn’t bring herself to call him “sir.” She had babysat for him when she was in high school and still struggling to cast candlelight magic. He might be high priest, but he would never be an authority figure. “Now that you’re here, do you want me to place the capstone…?”

“In a moment.” The edge of his shoulder distorted. Blurred.

The tension in Sophie’s body eased a fraction.

He wasn’t really there—he was just projecting his image in the clearing. Jorge had jokingly called it “lazy witch telecommuting.” James had been doing it constantly, to the point where Sophie never knew whether to expect him to make a real appearance or one that was remote.

James could have been anywhere at the moment. He could have been in Tijuana, for all Sophie knew. But judging by the fact he was in winter wear, she thought he must have been close. Watching, waiting, but hidden.

“We’re thinking of having a bonfire tonight,” Jorge said. “You know, to celebrate the upcoming solstice. It’s a little preemptive, but since we don’t know where we’ll be for Yule this year… Could be fun, right? You want to come, sir?”

The corners of James’s eyes crinkled. “We’ll see. That sounds fun. My parents’ house has a fully stocked liquor cabinet; you should take advantage of it.”

“Don’t have to twist my arm,” Jorge said.

Sophie bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to ask when they could put the capstone in. When the gate would be done. When the trap would be prepared. Not whether James had any interest in dancing around a fire with them.

James drifted toward the gate, running his hand through the air near its leg. He shivered at the near-contact.

“Vivienne already volunteered to sit out of the fun and guard the clearing tonight,” Jorge said helpfully.

“Considerate of her.”

The high priest pushed his hand through the gate’s west-facing column. Magic crackled. The whiteness of the stone brightened against the snow, washing everything around it out to a shade of gray.

It was bright enough to make Sophie’s brain ache. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Place the capstone,” James said. White energy was sparking between his wrist and shoulder. How could he sound so calm? “Do it now.”

He wanted her to walk up to that thing when it was glowing?
Oh, for the love of Adam.

“I can do it,” Jorge offered.

Sophie squared her shoulders. This was her puzzle. Her pride. “Thank you, but I’ll take care of it.”

The air grew thick as she approached the gate, footsteps crunching in the hard-packed snow. The capstone was suddenly heavy. She cupped it in both hands and trudged toward the light.

She set the capstone on the first level of the scaffold before climbing up after it.

Looking down at James, she could see how he was barely there. His arm had disappeared below the elbow, though the energy was still dancing between him and the gate. He gazed up at her with white eyes.

Sophie took a few embarrassingly long minutes of struggle to reach the top of the gate. Her old bones groaned at the effort.

“I’m doing it now,” she called down.

James nodded as if to encourage her.

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and jammed the capstone into place. It wasn’t difficult. It fit perfectly.

She didn’t dare move. She was frozen, gripping the scaffold in both hands now that they were empty, wondering if the wood was suddenly swaying under her feet. She feared that the complete gate would push her over somehow.

Or suck her in.

“Sophie?” Jorge said.

She opened one eye. The gate wasn’t glowing anymore.

James was gone and Jorge was standing at the bottom of the scaffold, hands uplifted to help her down. Sophie was grateful for the help. He caught her around the waist as she dropped, lowering her gently to the snow.

Then they stepped back to look at what they had done.

It was a gate to Heaven—months of effort finally come to fruition. Somehow it looked much more intimidating now that it was complete, even though all of the energy had disappeared. It was, as far as she could tell, sleeping.

Sophie eyed the spot where James had been standing. There were no fresh footprints there. “I wish he wouldn’t do that.”

“I’ll take the scaffold down,” Jorge said, jerking his chin at the pile of scrap wood and cans of spray paint. “I bet you’re cold. You should go home.”

She rubbed her hands together. “You’re right. I think I will. You don’t mind handling the teardown?”

“Not at all. Go on.” He nudged her.

Sophie glanced over her shoulder at the gate one more time before walking away. Everything was so
white
. The snow, the stone.

She wondered if Eden was so pale.

As she walked away, Sophie pushed down the neck of her jacket, scratched at the fresh tattoo on her shoulder. The skin surrounding it was red and rashy. She wasn’t taking the red ink well at all—or maybe it was the magic within the drawing that chafed.

The sound of Jorge disassembling the scaffolding followed her up the trail toward the coven’s houses. She waited until those noises faded away before drawing her phone.

She speed-dialed the first number.

Nobody answered the call. It just stopped ringing and went silent.

“It’s done,” Sophie said. Her mouth felt so dry. She swallowed hard. “The trap is done. What do I do now?”

A woman replied, “Let them spring it.”

Now that she
knew where they were going, Rylie refused to stop for the day. “It doesn’t matter if I travel alone, does it?” she argued as Elise repositioned the saddlebags on the motorcycle. They had stopped again a few hundred miles west of the Crane Hotel. It was getting colder as they passed the plains and approached the first mountain ranges. “You can just disappear somewhere dark for the day and reappear wherever I am at nightfall. You have tracking spells. You can find me.”

“You can drive the motorcycle alone?” Elise asked skeptically, flipping the saddlebag closed.

“No,” Rylie admitted, “but I don’t need it. You can phase with it. I’ll run the normal way.” She wiggled her hands to indicate paws.

Elise drummed her fingers on the seat. They couldn’t argue about this for long. They had been driving too long, and sunrise was pressing against her senses. She needed shelter as soon as possible. “There are demons out there. Demons that don’t have a problem with sunlight.”

“I can be sneaky.” Rylie shucked off her sweater. She was wearing a white knee-length dress underneath with spaghetti straps and lace around the chest.

“I won’t be able to save you if you get into trouble.”

She rolled her eyes. “I think I can handle myself for a few hours without you, thanks.”

Rylie had a point. She was an Alpha, after all.

“Eat anything that looks at you sideways,” Elise said.

“Or, you know, run away.”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of Elise’s mouth. “Suit yourself. Want anything out of the bags before I take them away?”

“No, I’m good.” But Rylie did strip quickly and stuff her clothing into the bags. She stood, skinny and shivering, on the side of the road. She looked ridiculously vulnerable like that.

Fortunately, she wouldn’t be human for long.

Elise couldn’t wait around to make sure that Rylie changed safely. They were out of time. “See you tonight.”

She wrapped herself around the motorcycle and phased into darkness—but not into Hell. She had spotted an abandoned motel a few miles back, and it only took a moment’s thought to return herself there. She appeared in one of its rooms, motorcycle and all, and rushed to throw sheets over the windows and block the cracks in the door with pillows.

By the time she was done, overcast sunlight was beating against the walls of the motel. Elise could feel it like a brand against the back of her eyelids.

She dragged herself into the closet, shut the door, and rested.

The day passed so much more slowly when she needed to hold on to her skin the entire time. Elise hadn’t been able to return to Hell the day before—she had simply lost those hours, as if they had completely vanished. And the gnawing hunger that had consumed her since eating the basandere was only getting worse.

If Elise let herself drift away, she was worried she might never come back.

Slow as the hours passed in that miserable little closet, they
did
pass, second by second and minute by minute. Elise cleaned blood out from underneath her black fingernails with a knife. She scraped dirt off of the treads of her boots. After a few hours of boredom, she gathered her hair in her fist and sawed at it with the knife until it swung at shoulder length. The hairs she severed vanished before hitting the floor.

Elise felt the sun creep across the sky as she entertained herself with idle tasks. She spent the worst hours at midday with her eyes shut and her arms over her head, heart pounding, sweat drenching her shoulders. But that faded too.

Her afternoon was spent poring over the spells remaining in James’s notebook and covering her limbs with runes waiting to be unleashed. She wondered how many of them might be able to kill James. She also wondered briefly about how his blood might feel flooding her mouth, and then decided that wasn’t an entertaining thought at all.

Once she started down that train of thought, she couldn’t stop. Elise was going to have to decide what to do about James sooner or later—probably sooner, now that they were approaching Boulder.

Elise was angry with him. That hadn’t faded with time. Nor had her sense of betrayal.

But she had never planned on killing him.

Not when she learned that he had inadvertently caused the deaths of so many people in Northgate, not when he had exorcised her to Hell, and not even when he had gone behind her back to cut a deal with Abraxas. He was selfish and wrong-headed, but he was
James
, for fuck’s sake. Her aspis. The man who had held her hand through painful doctors’ appointments, sat beside her through long nights healing deadly wounds, and taught her how to dance.