Ruled by Steel (The Ascension Series #3) (19 page)

“
Anthony
?” James spluttered.

Anthony’s eyelids flashed open.

He lunged, and James didn’t have enough time to react. Anthony kicked James onto his back and punched him hard. Pain erupted across James’s cheekbone, blurring his vision, making his mouth fill with the taste of blood.

Anthony seized James’s wrist and wrapped cloth around it. He knotted it so tightly that it pinched, restricting the blood flow.

The runes had been blocked from the air.

James couldn’t cast magic.

He blocked the next punch with his forearm by instinct, unable to see the blows that Anthony was raining down upon him. He sat up hard and smashed the ridge of his forehead into Anthony’s nose. He couldn’t see if he hit his target—only that pain blew through his skull again, down his spine.

Anthony’s weight vanished from him.

“What are you doing?” James grunted, scrambling to his hands and knees. He blinked the blood and sweat out of his eyes.

Anthony didn’t reply. He rushed at James, grabbing his shirt in both fists. Even though Anthony was much shorter, he was strong enough to all but lift James off of his feet.

He shoved James back. James stumbled, feet sliding on the slick deck.

The shock of meeting Anthony on the ship—being
attacked
by him—was enough that James couldn’t think. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight back. He shoved his arms between Anthony’s, breaking his grip, and swung a punch that connected. Anthony’s head snapped to the side. Blood spurted from his bottom lip.

As soon as James moved to strip the cloth off of his rune-covered hand, Anthony hit him again. He knew about James’s spells. He wasn’t going to let the witch expose them, wouldn’t let him defend himself with magic.

Anthony jabbed an elbow into James’s gut, faked a left hook, and then punched him hard enough in the side of the head to make his ears ring.

“No, stop—” James tried to say.

Anthony shoved him again. James’s back slammed into a metal railing. Anthony shoved harder, and James’s center of balance tipped over the side. His head hung over the water. He could see the waves churning all too clearly underneath him, a couple hundred feet below. The wind sucked the oxygen from his lungs.

He gripped Anthony’s shirt, trying to keep from falling.

Anthony leaned over James. For a moment, his weight against James’s legs was the only thing keeping him from slipping.

It was so strange to see that young man, who James remembered as being barely more than an obnoxious boy-child, with all of the muscles of adulthood and the anger that went with a hell of a grudge. It was Elise’s anger, Elise’s fighting moves, and Elise’s retribution. But his growl was entirely Anthony.

“This is for every fucked up thing you’ve done, asshole,” he said. “I don’t think I need to get more specific than that.”

Anthony pushed.

James slipped off the railing.

The water rose up to meet him, and he struck.

Ten

Neuma tripped over
her steel shoes when she saw Elise stalking down the hall of the House of Abraxas.

“Holy shit on a biscuit,” Neuma said.

Elise shot her a look—the kind of look that said
don’t even think about asking
. She was acutely aware of her human appearance. She kept catching her reflection in the polished stone tables, the crystalline windows, and the mirrors in the hallways. Elise was torn between fury at the sight of her auburn curls and the urge to stare at herself for days.

“Where’s Jerica?” she asked.

“Out front.
Jesus
, Elise.” Neuma didn’t take hints well. She recovered her balance and followed Elise down the stairs toward the foyer. Her heels rang out sharply on every step. “When you said you were going to disguise yourself, I thought you’d put on extra robes, or rub mud in your hair, or…I don’t know, give yourself a Dirty Sanchez.”

Elise didn’t respond. She crossed the foyer and flung the front doors open.

Even if Elise
looked
human for the moment, she still
felt
like a demon. The blast of dry air was sinfully good. It was exactly what she needed after spending all that time floating in the middle of a vast ocean with its soggy air that made her feel like she was slimy. She allowed herself to revel in it for a moment, shutting her eyes to inhale a lungful of the wind.

But when her eyes were closed, she glimpsed waves again. James was staring at the water.

She blocked him out.

Jerica was outside, training with Gerard. They had found spears somewhere. They danced awkwardly with the weapons, side-stepping to try to thrust the dull ends of their spears at one another, only to beat them away with shields.

They were an awkward-looking pair. Jerica had stripped away her body armor and replaced it with the fashion of the day in Hell, which was rather trashy-looking Earth fashion. In this case, she was wearing an off-the-shoulder shirt belted under her breasts, a pair of leggings that had holes picked into them, and flat-soled sneakers.

In contrast, Gerard looked like he was ready for a fight. He had replaced the straps on a set of plated armor obviously meant to be worn by a short, stocky fiend. The breastplate covered his skinny chest well enough, but there was a lot of space between leg and arm pieces, and he wasn’t wearing bracers at all.

It looked ridiculous on him—definitely worse than the average Renaissance Faire costume. If Elise hadn’t been pissed off at James, she might have laughed.

“You need to stop coming at me so directly,” Jerica explained to Gerard. “I’ve got my shield between us. It’s too easy for me to block if you move like that. But if you come like this…” She made a quick leap to the side and thrust the butt of her spear at his ribs. “You’ve got a better chance of hitting me.”

“We’re too close for this kind of combat anyway,” he said. “Spears aren’t right for close-range fighting. They’re ranged weapons.”

“You’re not going to have any range if you end up in the thick of a fight with fiends.”

“Then I’ll have a sword with me,” Gerard said.

Elise rolled her eyes. What did some homeless guy know about swords? “I’m ready,” she said, speaking up over the sound of Jerica banging her spear against his shield again.

They hadn’t noticed her approaching. When Jerica’s eyes fell on Elise, it took a moment for recognition to hit her. She had known Elise as a human very briefly. She knew what the auburn curls and freckles meant.

“Whoa,” Jerica said.

“You came out of the kennels,” Gerard said, lowering his shield. He sounded pleased. He thought that she was one of the slaves that hadn’t emerged yet—he thought that she was really human.

Elise ignored him. “Are you ready or not?”

“I’m ready,” Jerica said. She lifted the tail of her shirt to show that she had strapped the scabbards of her cleavers to her waistband, cleverly hiding them underneath the voluminous tunic shirt. It wouldn’t be as quick a draw as wearing them on top, but it would have to be good enough.

Realization filled Gerard’s eyes. His mouth dropped open, and he gave Elise a second look, and then a third, as if he didn’t quite believe what he saw.

She supposed that was a good sign—that someone who had only seen her as a demon wouldn’t be able to connect her human appearance to what she looked like now. Hopefully, the nightmares in the alley wouldn’t know who was coming until she hit them.

Elise headed for the gates. “Let’s go, Jerica.”

Vassago’s house had
been cleaned up since his death. Elise stood in the street outside of it and found that she couldn’t even peer in the windows anymore—they had been boarded up.

She had read all of Vassago’s papers before coming out and had been disappointed with what they contained. All that had remained in his destroyed office were basic news reports. Personal logs of what had happened around the city, observations, almost like a personal journal. There had been nothing about the House of Abraxas in it, or any of the other Houses. There hadn’t even been anything about the Palace. There also weren’t any clues about what was missing.

Elise had hoped that returning to his home might help somehow—maybe there was something she hadn’t seen the last time she was there, something that she hadn’t known to look for. Anything could help. Something that connected him to the nightmares that had jumped her after the auction, or to Belphegor, or…

She didn’t know. She was grasping at wisps of meaningless intuition.

And none of it mattered because Vassago’s property had already been claimed by someone else.

“Who is J?” she asked his front gates. As if responding to the sound of her voice, the hands growing in his garden wriggled.

“Come on,” Jerica said. “We don’t have time to dawdle.”

Elise nodded and followed the nightmare down the street, heading toward the main gates of the Palace of Dis.

She had been to the Palace just once before. She hadn’t entered through the main gates. They had a special entrance for people going on trial, which led them through a gate that allowed prisoners to appreciate the full splendor of the Palace’s jagged spires, the torture room suspended above the courtyard, and the flesh gardens. It was meant to inspire as much fear as respect and awe.

The entrance that guests took was something else entirely. The main gate was accessed through Damnation Square. A large statue depicting one of Dis’s earliest residents, Ba’al, stood in the center of the cobblestone spiral, spewing molten fire from all three of his mouths into a basin. Elise could feel the heat on her skin as Jerica led her around the edge of the square. It was surprising to see how many demons were still lingering in Damnation Square when the rest of the streets were so empty; there were even a few vendors selling kebabs and handcrafted jewelry. There used to be more when tourism between Earth and Dis had been more frequent, but the fact that any still existed shocked Elise.

Nobody stopped them as they mounted the grand stairs to the main entrance. It was standing open, just as Jerica had said that it would be during visiting hours.

The open gate led to a short tunnel cutting through the thick walls. Elise could see the grounds on the other side. But between her and the grounds were about fifty—no, maybe a hundred corporeal nightmares. They were lined up along the drawbridge and the walls, milling around a checkpoint, looking bored but dauntingly numerous.

Elise and her new Taser could have taken down a handful of nightmares. Maybe a full dozen if she surprised them and it was a good day. But a hundred?

The moment she saw them, her hopes of finding an opportunity to take the Palace alone shriveled.

She gave a questioning look to Jerica, who said, “I heard that they put a century of them here. It’s not a big deal. They’re just meant to deter obvious threats.”

“Threats like us?” Elise muttered as they crossed the drawbridge.

Jerica grinned, flashing her molars. She had found bubble gum in Abraxas’s warehouse of interdimensional artifacts. Elise could see the wad trapped between her teeth. “
Obvious
threats. You don’t look threatening to me. I’ll get us registered.”

She strolled toward the checkpoint without giving off the slightest hint of anxiety. There was nothing as good at regulating—or creating—fear as a nightmare.

Elise had to wait on the stairs while Jerica talked to the nightmare guards stationed at the mouth of the tunnel. They were also corporeal nightmares, although they glowed with less energy than Jerica; they must have been dredged from the pits of Malebolge very recently. Jerica looked like she was enjoying the conversation. She laughed, mouth spreading wide to reveal the red ribbing of her throat behind her tongue. Elise didn’t listen to the conversation. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans and tried to look like any nervous human that might have made her way into Hell.

She watched the demons milling around Damnation Square. It didn’t look like a casual collection of civilians. There was organization to the way they stood in clusters and lines. They were mingling, socializing, plotting, doing what the politicians of Hell always did.

Jerica caught Elise’s attention by touching her elbow. “We’re good,” Jerica said, handing Elise a corded bracelet with a single stone pendant dangling from it. “That’s our pass into the library.”

The library?
Elise frowned, but didn’t dare ask.

She inspected the pendant closely as Jerica led her through the gate. There was a rune stamped on its face that Elise recognized. Anyone who lived or worked in the Palace had similar runes tattooed on their wrists. They were magical marks that allowed them to open doors, much like keys. Elise had rows of those keys tattooed down her back, faded with time but still clear. She hoped that they still worked. She planned on getting a lot deeper into the Palace than the library.

Some of the guards snickered as they passed, but Jerica just gave them a beatific smile and walked on without dropping Elise’s arm.

She watched their long, narrow faces for signs of recognition. All nightmares vaguely resembled each other in the way that cousins did. They didn’t look
quite
the same, but there were obviously shared features. Most of them were too busy looking at Jerica with great interest to take a very close look at Elise herself. They didn’t realize she was glamored.

“What did you tell them?” Elise asked. She was tense passing down the long lines of milling guards, each of which wore a pair of shining cleavers at their hips. Every other one seemed to be carrying a Taser, too. Someone had warned them to look out for Elise.

“I just told them the truth,” Jerica said. She laughed. “We’re here for a marriage license.”

Elise arched her eyebrows. “They issue marriage licenses in the Palace?”

“In the library. It’s the only place you can be registered as married in Hell. It’s part of what made it turn into an actual city while the other levels are barely more than garbage dumps.”