Ascension: Sins of Eden Part 23

"Dance lessons are sure to be a priority after the apocalypse."

James amended that to, "I could teach magic. Those who can't do, you know."

Elise rolled onto her back, tucking her arms underneath her head. The sheets had slipped back down to her ribcage. He shamelessly enjoyed the sight of her exposed body. "I could help you."

"Could you, now?"

"Nathaniel will also need somewhere to live," she said. "He'll need to relearn being human. Or how to control himself. I can help with that, too."

"You're suggesting we all live together? You and me and my son?"

She painted a threateningly domestic picture. If Elise had slipped away from visions of a future that weren't drenched in violence, then she simply wasn't being serious.

James went back to his notebook. He was almost ready to draw the actual circle for the spell to cure Nathaniel of G.o.dhood.

"I mean it." Elise rested her fingertips on his wrist. "Really."

A sad smile crept over his lips. "I like the idea of it." But both of them knew that's all it would remain: an idea. The chance that they would actually both survive Belphegor, much less save Nathaniel and leave the world in some livable condition, seemed increasingly small.

Sobering, he grabbed another book from the Library. "It's strange," James said. "I don't find this as exciting as I sued to. Any of it. It doesn't feel good to read these books, even though I should be virtually euphoric."

"That's because you're not ethereal Gray anymore. You cut off the angel parts of your heritage along with the magic, and that means you don't get a high off learning."

"I always enjoyed learning. Even before I entered the garden and was changed."

"You had the blood. You had the need. Now you don't."

"Powerful magic," James said softly. Hopefully, it would be powerful enough to save Nathaniel, too.

"Rylie described it as an addiction, the way that angels feed off of knowledge," Elise said. "You're just not addicted anymore."

He kept his gaze fixed to the book in front of him. "I suppose not."

"Wait. Where did you get this one?" She pulled the book away from him. The small, leather-bound text had loose papers clipped to the covers and notes scrawled in the margins.

James hadn't looked at it that closely before, but now he recognized Elise's handwriting on those pages.

"I got it out of the Library, like the other books," James said. "I must have. I couldn't have gotten it anywhere else."

"But this is mine. I mean, one of the librarians gave it to me." Elise frowned as she pulled one of the papers out and unfolded it. James leaned over her shoulder to look. It was a map of Dis, although it was either poorly drawn or outdated. The districts were arranged incorrectly.

"This here," he said, pointing at a crease in the page. "Does this indicate...water? In Dis?"

Her hands tightened on the page. "I don't remember where I left this, but I know it wasn't in the library."

"So one of the librarians reclaimed it. Is that so strange?"

"Reclaiming it? No. The fact that they reclaimed it and then you picked it up at random? Yeah, that's really f.u.c.king weird."

"A coincidence," James said.

"I don't believe in coincidences."

Neither did he, now that she mentioned it. He looked over the map again with new eyes.

An ancient map. Water in Dis. Strange, unreadable markings.

"It could be fabricated," he suggested.

"I don't know. An old shapeshifter told me that the world was different before the Treaty of Dis. She said that there were a lot more gaean species, for one. Shapeshifters other than wolves. More sidhe. That kind of thing. What if the world was different in other ways?"

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm wondering where this spring would be now," Elise said. "And what I might find there if I looked." She took a final, long look at the map, folded it, and set it aside.

James flipped through the journal. The language looked familiar, but he couldn't read it. "This resembles the ancient ethereal language. I wonder if this would have been legible before I cast that spell to heal you."

"Do you regret it? Giving up all of your magic and abilities?"

"Yes," James said. He didn't even have to think about the question.

She sat up, letting the blankets fall around her waist and leaving a cold gap under the sheets. "I see."

He hooked his arm around her waist and dragged her back. "But I would make the exact same choice again. I'd do it again a thousand times for you." She allowed him to push her flat against the mattress, rolling his weight on top of hers. Elise looked slightly mollified. "Only you, though."

"I've hated you for years." She shoved a book out from underneath her head. "That's a big sacrifice for someone who hates you. Almost makes me think that you did it because you want something in return."

"If you think that I saved you because I wanted you to owe a debt to me," he said, "then you're delusional. I saved you because I love you. I never stopped loving you." James propped himself on one elbow, catching a lock of Elise's hair between two fingers, letting the silken strands fall to the bed in a shimmering wave.

"That's pathetic."

"You're such a romantic."

Elise shrugged, but she didn't look annoyed anymore. "I don't hate you right now."

"Is that your way of saying that you love me, too?"

"No." The corners of her lips drew down in a frown. "Everyone I love dies."

James brushed a kiss over her chin, right where the edge of her mouth wrinkled slightly from her sadness. "I'm not dead yet."

"Did you miss the part where I said I don't love you?"

"You're lying." He didn't manage much conviction when he said it. He'd a.s.sumed Elise loved him from the first time that she tried to kiss him, and the fact she'd let him live despite his numerous betrayals seemed to confirm that. But she didn't look particularly loving at that moment. She'd definitely never said the words.

Elise shrugged again and left it at that. Instead, she let her hands do the talking, roaming up the muscles of his chest, sc.r.a.ping the white stubble that was beginning to grow on his neck.

Her knee slipped up his side, parting her thighs to make it easier for him to slide against her.

James pressed a hand to her hip to still her movements. "I hate to disappoint, but you've worn me out. My humanity comes with more than a lack of magic. It comes with a highly mortal, highly disappointing refractory period. It's miraculous you didn't kill me after the first three times."

Elise lifted an eyebrow. "Now you sound as old as you look."

"I am old," James said, nuzzling her jawline.

"Not that old." She trailed her fingernails down his back, sketching invisible lines along his spine. "I was taught how to use succubus powers by Neuma. I have tricks."

"You should probably save all your demon tricks for Belphegor."

"That's repulsive, James."

"I didn't mean those ones. I'd prefer to keep those to myself, thank you." It was becoming increasingly difficult to think again as she pushed him onto his back, moving her lips over his collarbone and down his chest. "You'll need your strength."

There was something a little bit mischievous to the glint in her eye as she licked a line down his body. Mischievous, and almost affectionate. "It's not my strength you should be worried about, human."

Elise was right about one thing. Neuma had taught her tricks. Several of them, in fact. And she didn't seem to be in any kind of hurry to cast that gaean magic.

James could have stayed in bed with Elise for eternity, given the choice.

But they didn't have the choice.

At some point, as though she had been waiting for a specific time, Elise finally got up to leave, suddenly serious again. She dressed in old clothing without looking at him. Her last kiss was brief and distracted.

It felt very much like a goodbye.

Anthony had found cigarettes for Elise somewhere. She didn't care where they had come from-only that there was a pack waiting for her when she finally got dressed and left James working in the bedroom.

"Thank f.u.c.king G.o.d," she muttered, knowing that there were no G.o.ds worth thanking in Eden.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the cigarettes off of the box Anthony had left them sitting on-a box that was just a few feet away from Rylie's shrouded body-and went outside.

Elise didn't have a light, but she didn't need it. There was still a fire rune on her hand. It was probably overkill to use it on one little cigarette, but she needed the smoke.

She stood atop the creva.s.se, looking down at Brianna and Anthony's work, as she took a deep inhale of the cigarette.

The circle was almost done.

Elise couldn't find any satisfaction in that, or the smoke filling her lungs.

Belphegor would be watching her, even now. He'd want to see how close Elise was to snapping. Maybe hoping she had already snapped. The fact that he wasn't attacking only meant that he was waiting.

It didn't matter how quickly they prepared to open that gate. They weren't racing against Belphegor.

He was allowing them to do it.

Elise's cigarette tasted a little worse after that thought.

A soft noise drew her around the building to a set of stone steps, where a child was sitting in a bundle of furs. Dana McIntyre was alone. She must have escaped Summer's smothering comfort, since Elise highly doubted that the shapeshifter would have allowed the child outside on her own.

Elise didn't want to talk to Dana, but she felt words trapped in her throat and knew she needed to say something.

She sat down beside the girl and stubbed her cigarette out in the snow. The McIntyres had never let Elise smoke anywhere near their kids. They couldn't yell at her for it now, and Dana's chances of surviving long enough to develop lung cancer didn't look great, but she still couldn't bring herself to finish the cigarette.

"Everyone's going to die," Dana said. "Aren't they?" She was looking up at the sky. Heaven was on the other side of those clouds-or something very much like it, perverted by Belphegor's grasp.

"I'm trying to stop that," Elise said.

Dana had a good grasp of what Elise, Anthony, and McIntyre had always done together. She'd also spent her entire life getting the "what happens once your dad dies" talk-same talk that Elise's kopis father had given her in lieu of bedtime stories.

It was sad to see a mind drenched in such grief without a single tear on her cheek. The kid had already moved past crying.

"Mom," Dana said. And then, "Deb."

Elise swallowed hard. "Yeah."

She didn't know what else to say to help Dana. Elise hadn't gotten a sibling until she was an adult, and she wasn't sure that she would have ever been heartbroken over Ariane's death. She was incapable of sympathizing.

But she thought of holding James back in that room. The way that her touch had slowed the racing of his heart, soothed the stress in his mind.

There were some things gestures could communicate that words never could.

She wrapped her arm around Dana's shoulders. Elise had never tolerated the girls' attempts to cuddle with her, but even though they had never really hugged before, Dana wasn't all that much bigger than Marion. It didn't feel all that strange to embrace her.

The strangest part was that holding her made Elise feel fractionally better, too.

Dana didn't move until Nash approached them.

"I'm told the ritual is ready," he said.

Elise released Dana. "Go inside," she told the girl. "It's warmer." Not safer, but warmer. Nowhere was safe anymore.

Dana got to her feet, gathering the furs around her, and marched obediently through the snow.

Elise waited to speak again until she was gone. "You know what we need to do next."

"Is Ariane ready?" Nash asked.

"Probably. She's had enough time to do the two in h.e.l.l, and she should be about done with the third."

Abram stepped up beside Nash and Elise, swathed in so many scarves that only his silver eyes were visible. "I'm ready," he said, voice m.u.f.fled.

"Good," Elise said. "You know how to get there?"

"Get where?" That came from Abel. He stood just outside the resort, panting and steaming. The spirit wolves were just barely visible around him as shadows. They must have been running for a long time for Abel to seem so exhausted.

Elise didn't respond. n.o.body did.

"You're getting ready to bleed him, aren't you?" Abel asked. "So Belphegor's going to try to kill him again."