The Descent Series, Books 1-3: Death's Hand, The Darkest Gate, and Dark Union (The Descent Series, Volume 1) (18 page)

“Make sure the wound is clean and well-wrapped. Two hours. Less if I rush.”

“Then rush.”

Elise hung up and sat back. She hoped she was right in trusting Stephanie. But…who would have known that Elise and James would exorcise Lucinde and get the “Sorrows” message?

The people in the coven might. They were the only ones who knew James was connected with an exorcist. But if Elise couldn’t trust the other witches, she could be in even worse trouble than she suspected.

Elise studied James’s room. What if Ann or Morrighan had left some kind of trap? She scanned the dark walls, watching closely for a telltale glimmer of eyes staring back.

James’s bedroom was too small for anyone to hide in it. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and not an inch of space was wasted. His bed rested atop several archivist boxes, each lovingly packed with texts that were too valuable to see the light of day. His headboard was stacked with shelving, too. The only free space was in front of the window where his altar stood. A statuette of the Goddess leaned against the right side of the window frame, mirrored by the Horned God to the left.

Elise sank into the worn chair at his desk and swiveled around so she could see James. A yawn caught in her throat.

Ignoring her body’s demands for sleep, she withdrew the short stone staff from her jacket pocket. It felt heavier than it should have been at only twelve inches long, as though it was lead instead of rock. Elise rubbed her thumb on the surface, scrubbing away some of the dirt to reveal demonic runes.

The stone was cool under her hand, sucking her body heat deep into its core. The staff felt unmistakably alive.

And evil.

Elise cleared off space on James’s desk, which was covered in notebooks with his precise handwriting and illustrations of sigils. Some of it was for the annual almanac his coven published, but some of it looked like fresh spellwork. Several were weighted down with crystals, collecting their energy for later use. She set the stone staff somewhere it didn’t touch anything else.

James made a small noise again. His skin shone with sweat, and pain twisted his face into a grimace.

“Are you awake?” she whispered, sitting beside him.

He didn’t move.

She let out a long, slow breath, letting her hand fall to his chest above the bandage. Sweat soaked through the material, and dots of blood were seeping through as well.

His eyes fluttered open. “Elise,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

“You’re the one that got carved up by a big bad witch. Don’t waste your strength worrying about me.” He moved like he was going to sit up, but she held him down. It wasn’t as much of a struggle as it should have been. “I’m here. Nothing will get you.” He mumbled softly. “Nothing will get you,” Elise said again, mostly as an affirmation to herself.

She sunk down lower on the bed beside him, rested her cheek against his upper arm, and laid her hand over his heart. The beat was slow. He sounded so…weak.

Elise could hear her own heart in her chest, beating strong. She wanted his heart to beat like hers. She wished so hard for a moment she almost convinced herself she could keep him alive on willpower alone.

He stroked her hair weakly. “It’s okay,” he said, and it was such a lie that she had to smile.

“You’re right,” she said. “It’s okay.”

His hand slipped over hers when she sat up. “Stay.”

“James…”

“Stay, Elise,” he repeated, more strongly this time.

She didn’t want to argue with him. The weight of her fatigue was too convincing. Whether or not Elise had time to take a nap, she was failing her battle against sleep. And why not? Stephanie was still two hours away.

Elise kicked her shoes off the side of the bed and rested beside James.

The air was heavy and still, but she didn’t dare open a window to let it cool. His heart thumped its steady pace under her hand, and his shallow breaths marked out a rhythm like water rushing up the sand before sucking into the ocean again.

Or like wind blowing in the trees, sweeping through the branches.

Her muscles were leaden. Her eyes couldn’t open.

The walls of the room collapsed slowly inward. Moss spread beneath her cheek as vines of ivy slithered up James’s bookshelves. Leaves spread between the pages of the books.

Thunder rolled. Papers dripped onto the desk one by one and drizzled onto the floor.

Ivory fingers reached out to turn off the lamp, leaving the only light an occasional flash of lightning in the bellies of the red clouds. Rain began to tumble down the walls like a sticky-sweet waterfall.

Elise’s parents stood beside the desk, waiting for her arrival as the second hands on the clock rushed toward twelve. She was running late. Somehow, she had gotten caught in the storm and lost her way.

She twisted and turned in search of a path. They were waiting. She couldn’t keep them waiting.

A cool hand smoothed over her cheek, light as the kiss of the breeze. Forgiving. Her parents smiled down at her, calm but unseeing. Her mother’s left eye socket was empty, and it rained within her skull.

The sky poured down, and Elise sat, her pale skin bared to the elements.

“
Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux…
”

“Let the holy cross be my light, let the serpent not lead me astray.”

“
Vade retro, Satana…
”

“Step back, Satan.”

What do you think that means, Elise?
A gentle smile. But who smiled? Where were the eyes belonging to those lips?

“Nunquam suade mihi vana…
”

“What you offer me is evil…”

But what is evil?

The question wasn’t part of the exorcism ritual. And neither was the second part—
what is goodness?
She had no answers for either. “
Sunt mala quae libas…
”

Such a sweet smile.

“
Ipse venena bibas…
”

“Drink the poison yourself…”

Fluid dripped from the corner of that mouth. There were hands, but they didn’t wipe the poison away. It was dark burgundy, the crimson of wine…or blood.

One more time, Elise. From the top.

“
Crux sacra sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana, nunquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas.
”

Very good. Again.

The branches scraped her vulnerable body.

“
Crux sacra sit mihi lux…
”

The ground disappeared. Elise fell, and fell…

The yawning blackness devoured her whole.

And fell…

Drink the poison yourself…

“I am the cold kiss of Death,” the goddess whispered into her ear, “and you can never defeat me.”

Elise’s arms were bound to the stone wall behind her. Her face was bloody but set in a determined glare. Mud packed the open wound on her hip. A red cloak she didn’t remember wearing pooled around her body. The death goddess—had she any other name?—stood high above her, swathed in shadow and holding a staff of sharpened human bone.

“Alive or dead, I will come back for you,” the goddess murmured.

“You can’t think this will do any good,” Elise spat. The sky outside, visible through a small window near the ceiling, was black, blue, purple, and scarlet. Blood and pus bubbled from her wound. “You can’t kill me yet. Not without screwing up your apocalyptic plans.”

She laughed. Deep, throaty, bubbling like Elise’s blood. “Who says I plan to use you?”

In her other hand, she clutched a stone dagger that sang with power. It was covered in symbols, some more familiar than others.

Her blood bulged in her veins.
Ipse venena bibas…

The witch had clutched a stone, too.

James.

The sky faded to orange and back to red.

He ran through the jungle searching for Elise. The branches scraped at him, though the trees never moved, but still he searched. She watched him from her prison with the goddess, and she almost wished he wouldn’t find her as much as she longed for him to save her.

The death goddess drew intricate designs in Elise’s skin with vivid crimson ink.

Her breast rose and fell with breath. Her heartbeat fluttered.

The witch. The stone staff. Death.

Who says I plan to use you?

Her eyes flew open, and she
saw
.

Sleep ripped away from Elise. Consciousness slammed into her body. She gasped, flinching against the blow that never came—and then realized she heard the familiar sound of cars rushing by on the street outside.

Elise sat up. Nothing inside the room made noise but James’s erratic breathing. He had pushed the sheets off to bare his body to the waist even though the room was only sixty degrees. She pressed her hand to his back. His temperature almost scorched her palm.

He made a small noise and moved into her touch, rolling over without waking up. His eyelids were dark, almost bruised.

“James,” she said softly.

She searched for her cell phone in the darkness. Only an hour and a half had passed.

Elise slipped out of bed to search the closet for spare clothes. She located clean jeans and a shirt by touch, identifying it as her Black Death concert top by the hole near the hem.

When she finished changing, she returned to James. She checked his temperature with a hand to his forehead, and he was even hotter than he had been before. Sleep had done neither of them any good. James hadn’t improved, and Elise had lost time.

Someone knocked at the door. She looked out the window to confirm that Stephanie’s car was in the lot before meeting her at the door. The doctor’s normally neat coif was frazzled.

“Thanks for coming,” Elise said as Stephanie pushed past her into the house.

“Is he in bed?”

Elise nodded, and the doctor blew into his bedroom.

She sat beside him on the mattress and opened her bag. Elise waited in the doorway while Stephanie gave James a short and clinical examination. After a few minutes, the doctor took off her gloves.

“Can you take care of him here?” Elise asked.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Stephanie said. “He doesn’t seem to have lost enough blood to be struggling, and there hasn’t been enough time for infection to set in.” The doctor leveled a stern look at Elise. “He needs to be taken to a hospital.”

“Will he die if he remains untreated for a few hours?”

“I can’t be sure.”

“I need you to stay and monitor him,” Elise said. “I have to find the person that did this. Once they’re out of the picture, you can send him to any hospital you want.”

“Don’t you think you should call the police?” Stephanie asked, following Elise out of the room. “Whoever attacked him is deranged.”

“The police won’t be able to help. You have to stay.”

She folded her arms. “It goes against every good practice I know.”

“Great,” Elise said. “Now listen close. I’m going to lock all the doors and windows before I leave. Don’t open any of them until I come back. James has set up wards around the apartment, so he’ll be safe as long as they’re shut. Don’t let anyone in, don’t call an ambulance, don’t call the police. If you want James to make it to the hospital at all, you have to keep quiet.”

Stephanie nodded reluctantly. “I’ll take care of him.”

“Thanks,” Elise said. “Don’t let him die.”

She disappeared into the night.

T
he casino was
full at three in the morning. Tricks of light and shadow made the room an endless plane of slot machines, where the drunk and down-on-their-luck hunched before digital screens. Listless, addicted gamblers fidgeted nearby as they watched for the next game to make them lucky.

Day, night. Neither mattered. Neither existed.

Money passed from player to casino attendant and became chips, and the chips went from hand to table, then to the dealer, and back to the attendants. The artificial clattering, jingling, singing sounds of slots and video poker paying out or begging to be played filled the air with discordant chorus.

The air was thick, and not with cigarette smoke. What it masked was impossible to ignore—an eternal depression, a feeling of being trapped. The feel of people imprisoning themselves in a place where the odds were low and wishing for a row of lucky sevens to change their ruined lives.

Elise moved quickly across the floor, watching each table as she passed. Cards whispered across the velvet—ten of spades, three of hearts, suicide king—and were taken into hands with nails yellow from tobacco.

She didn’t enjoy the casinos here. She had been to Vegas and little back-alley stands in Eastern Europe where the dice were all hand-carved, and either was better. At least there was fun and good company to be had elsewhere.

It didn’t take long for Elise to spot who she was looking for. David Nicholas never slept, and seldom worked, so he made up for decades of spare time with a platinum gambling card at every casino and a reserved spot at the Texas Hold-’Em table. He was a ghost beside two swarthy tourists with purple rings under their eyes. He cupped a stack of dwindling chips in one hand.

“Check,” he said, tapping his cards on the table. He glanced up as Elise approached, his hand half-raised as though he expected a cocktail waitress. Then he realized who it actually was, and his face fell. “Shit.”

Elise hauled him out of his chair and dragged him to the back door, flinging him into the alley behind the casino. The nightmare splashed into a puddle of rainwater and trash. He stared up at her with an expression like that of a rabbit spotting a hawk.

Jerking him up by the collar, she slammed him into the wall. “Tell me what you know,” she snarled, pushing her dagger against the nightmare’s stomach.

“Hang on, wait, whoa,” David Nicholas said, holding his hands up. “All I know is I was winning a hand of hold-’em and you interrupted my streak. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ve been inspired to take a break from accounting. If you cooperate, I can cut my vacation short. Understand?”

“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”