Ascension: Sins of Eden Part 8

If the exorcism didn't yield the wolf spirits that Elise claimed it would, the pack would be crippled.

"What the h.e.l.l, Paetrick?" Levi asked. "And Brandon? Really?"

"It's their choice," Abram said.

The werewolf rounded on him. "Are you telling me that you're encouraging this?"

"Their lives, their choices. Rylie wanted it this way."

Anger flashed over Levi's face. "Rylie's not the Alpha anymore."

"So f.u.c.king what?" Abram asked.

Levi opened his mouth to keep arguing, but nothing ever came out.

Elise had appeared behind him, looming and pale-skinned and dark around the edges, like she was fading into the surrounding night. Her hands glowed orange with magic. "Is there a problem?" she asked. Her tone was mild, considering the way she glared at Levi.

He attempted to stare her down like he wasn't afraid. It was more than Abram would have dared to do. "I thought we decided that we weren't going to exorcise the werewolves. Any of them."

Elise ignored him.

She glided forward to address the members of the pack sitting on benches around the garden, most bundled in furs and scarves, some with blankets from the hotel.

"This is your cure." She held her hands out, uncurled her fingers. Runes slithered over her palms. "If you don't want to have the wolf spirit exorcised from your body, leave right now."

"Elise-" Levi stepped toward her.

She turned her empty black gaze on him. The pupils had grown to consume the entirety of the eyeball. "Yes?"

Abram clapped a hand on Levi's collar. "Let's go."

He dragged him inside the hotel, where it was warmer and Levi was less likely to get killed. From the rear window, they could only see Elise's back, her misted hair, the umbra of her power. Everyone beyond was hazy. They could barely see the werewolves kneeling at her feet.

It looked like Levi was going to have an aneurysm, judging by the way his face purpled and that vein in his forehead bulged. "How can they do this?" he hissed at Abram. "After everything we've done-after all that we suffered?"

"The suffering's why they deserve it," Abram said.

"There are so few of us left now. Why don't they care?"

Abram wrapped his arm around Levi's shoulder. "They care. They're just doing what they have to do for themselves."

The gla.s.s and walls m.u.f.fled Elise's voice, but Abram felt the words inside of him, and the strength of the spellcasting closed around him.

Crux sacra sit mihi lux...

Magic flared so brightly that it seared Abram's retinas. He shaded his eyes, but it didn't help. The power penetrated everything.

Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro, Satana...

Elise's spell built and built. Abram's head felt like it was going to collapse as her magic flowed around the pack. People cried out, falling to their knees, writhing on the ground like they were in the middle of transforming.

Paetrick crumpled, and a moment later, there was something standing on his chest-something with huge paws, bright eyes, and white fur. Elise's magic curved around it. Paetrick's mouth opened in a scream. His back arched.

The wolf ripped free.

He slumped on the dirt, still human.

Elise's magic surged again. A second wave crashed into the pack, illuminating the night with orange fire. Her voice kept echoing.

Ipse venena bibas...

The floorboards creaked behind them. Abram released Levi just in time to see Abel rounding the corner. He didn't seem to have seen them holding each other-he was staring out the window at Elise, his golden eyes very bright, expression inscrutable.

And then the light cut off.

It took time for Abram's eyes to adjust to the return of darkness. By the time he could see again, people were struggling to stand with trembling legs. n.o.body had died under the crush of Elise's power. That alone seemed like a small miracle.

The garden was so much more crowded than it had been a few minutes earlier. Wolves milled among the humans, greeting each other by licking each others' faces and swishing their tails. They were smaller than werewolves became on the full moon, more like the actual animal. Abram would have believed that they were the real thing if they hadn't been semi-translucent.

Whenever a human b.u.mped against a wolf-or whenever they should have b.u.mped against a wolf-their arms or knees went right through them, like they weren't even there.

The wolves were nothing but spirits. Barely more than ghosts.

Levi's jaw dropped open. "Oh my G.o.d."

Abel stepped outside and Abram followed him. They stood among the garden's shriveled bushes as still as the decorative statues while wolf spirits gamboled around them. Abel watched the wolves playing with a weird expression. Not like he was angry, or upset, but almost...guilty.

"Before I ever got bit, me'n Seth killed over a dozen werewolves," Abel said.

Abram understood. He'd seen werewolves outside of Rylie's control once or twice. They'd always been crazed, vicious-downright mean. It was easy to imagine hunting and slaughtering them.

There was no hint of meanness in these animals.

He stepped aside when one of the wolf spirits rushed between his legs. The wolf chasing it pa.s.sed right through his knee. Their soft huffing noises as they ran echoed through the garden.

Elise approached the men. She looked even more bemused by the exorcised wolves than Abel did. "I didn't expect that."

"What did you expect?" Abram asked.

"I thought they would have been more violent, like werewolves on a full moon." She sidestepped in time for another wolf to run past her. "Angels and demons have committed a lot of sins. What happened to werewolves might have been the biggest of them. I think this is what they should have been like all along."

Happy G.o.dd.a.m.n puppies? Summer would have loved it. Abram was tempted to go upstairs and grab her just so that she could see.

"Thanks," Abel said stiffly.

Elise pulled her gloves back on. When she spoke, her voice was strained. "It's for her."

A shudder rippled through Abel's shoulders. "Yeah."

"Take them. They're yours now," she said. When he started to move away, though, she grabbed his elbow. "Use them to protect Abram."

It was a dangerously stern order. Abel had never taken orders well, not when they had come from his mate and definitely not coming from a demon. Abram braced himself for a fight.

But Abel just said, "Yeah."

His agreement seemed to relax Elise, and she released him.

When Abel stepped into the middle of the garden, the wolves all stopped moving.

Luminous silver eyes turned to focus on him.

Abel didn't speak to them. But one by one, they sank onto their forelegs, displaying submission.

The corner of Elise's mouth lifted in a smirk. She headed toward the back door, leaving her strange and surreal work behind her.

Abram followed. Several of the wolves broke away, winding around his legs. He could almost feel their furry flanks brushing against his knees. "Why do you want the wolves to protect me?" he asked Elise's back.

"You know why," she said without looking back.

So she knew what the attack from the hybrids had meant. His heart sank. "What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to use your blood," Elise said. His hand twitched for his gun. "Don't bother drawing that. I won't kill you, and you can do whatever you want once I've opened the gates to Eden."

"You really think you can kill Belphegor?"

"If I can't, n.o.body can." It wasn't exactly a motivational speech.

"Hope you've got a better plan than that."

A ghost of a smile moved over her lips. "I hope so, too. The wolves are the beginning of it." She opened the hotel's rear door. "If we survive this, remind me. You're a kopis. I can teach you to perform exorcisms, too."

He was startled. "Why?"

"Why not?" she asked, standing aside to let him into Gora Hotel. "We might need more of this in the future."

Abram didn't understand what she was talking about yet, but she did seem to have a plan for the future. The fact that she even thought there might be a future-any future at all, much less one that needed another exorcist-was weirdly comforting.

For the first time since leaving New Eden, ever since the sky had broken and the world began to burn, he felt a touch of hope.

Elise held her composure all the way down the hall and up the stairs, while she felt Abram's eyes on her. It wasn't until she was alone on the second floor that she stopped to stare at her hands.

Twenty-two exorcisms. All successful.

It had barely tapped into the wellspring of her power.

She sensed James approaching and turned. He hung back several steps. Worry knitted his eyebrows together. "Are you all right?"

Was she? Elise didn't feel overwhelmingly hungry. The light from the candles throughout the hallway didn't make her skin ache. She could leave her mind open to the sense of James's beating heart, tasting the slosh of its pulse on her tongue, and didn't feel the urge to attack him.

She was definitely all right. More than all right. She'd cast magic with ethereal influences, and it hadn't hurt her at all.

"I'm fine," Elise said, and she couldn't keep the note of wonder out of the words.

She stepped into James's room. Belphegor had restored the wall that Nathaniel had destroyed, but the furniture was singed, and many of the papers on the desk were ash.

James hung back in the doorway. "Anthony's reported that we're ready to leave for the gate, but we need to talk about this. What makes you think we'll even be able to reach Belphegor at this Eden gate?"

Elise briefly considered telling him the truth-that she had everything she needed to unlock Eden and brute force her way in.

She immediately dismissed it. He might not have had his magic anymore, but she didn't want to dangle the possibility of entering the garden in front of him. It would be like expecting a heroin addict to ignore the bottle of Vicodin in the medicine cabinet.

"Belphegor will come out as soon as he realizes I've brought an army to his doorstep." The lie came out smoothly.

"How can you be certain?" James pressed.

She gave him a level look. "I know Belphegor better than anyone else."

He raked a hand through his hair, shook his head. He still wasn't returning her gaze. "Lord, Elise. I hope you know what you're doing. Provoking a G.o.d..."

"Not the first time." She gathered the least burned of the papers. Almost all of the runes were damaged, but she'd be able to reconstruct them.

"This will be the first time that G.o.d will have been sane enough to destroy you. Destroy everything. I don't think you understand exactly how much he can hurt us if you make him angry enough."

"I understand what he can do." She'd seen what Nathaniel could do, and Belphegor was far more malicious. "That's why we're going to have to see if we can unmake Belphegor's G.o.dhood."

"It's not possible."

"It has to be possible. I'm not going to accept any alternatives."

James hesitated then stooped to pull something out from under the bed. The steel falchion. It still hummed with the memory of James's magic.

He offered it to her.

Elise forced herself to take it, even though knowing that it was the vessel that had rendered James mortal made her feel ill. She sheathed the sword quickly. "Thanks." She extended a hand toward him. "Want to come with me?"

"Where?"

"My library in the Palace. Paimon knew about geneses. He might know more-maybe how we can kill Belphegor."

"The library in Dis," James said, as though reminding himself. He squared his shoulders. "I'll come with you."

Elise curled her fingers around his. James's hand was just a hand, bones and muscle and blood encased in mortal flesh, which was growing loose with age.

He stiffened at the contact. "Elise-"

She didn't let him finish. Together, they phased into Dis.