Lost in Prophecy: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Ascension Series) (Volume 5) (32 page)

“Is he going to die?” she asked James.

“I have no way to be sure.”

“Alert me through the bond if he wakes up. And work on finding a way to block his premonitions while you’re at it, because it’s the only way we’ll be able to keep him sane once he’s conscious.”

First she wanted a way to heal Lincoln. Now she wanted a way to heal Benjamin. It should have irritated James to have her make such demands as if his time and knowledge were infinite, but it didn’t. If anything, he found it exhilarating.

“I’ll see what I can do.” He hesitated. “Elise…about what we were discussing earlier…” He couldn’t bring himself to say “feeding” in regards to their relationship. “I spoke more harshly than I intended. There must be some kind of compromise. Something we can both tolerate.” She pressed a hand to her forehead. He could feel her growing headache through the bond. “I just don’t want you to give up yet.”

“James,” she sighed.

“What?”

“Is that what you’re worrying about right now? Of all the things?” All her other worries cascaded between them: New Eden, approaching war, Lincoln’s imminent death, the boy in the bed.

“Elise, there will always be something else. There always has been.” He traced the backs of his knuckles down her side, gently brushing the edge of her wound. “None of it matters nearly as much to me.”

She caught his hand. Pressed it against her side, where her shirt was sticky with blood. She was watching his face for a reaction. “I don’t have the time or desire to negotiate with you.” The words were harsh, but her voice was soft. “I don’t think there’s a compromise. If you decide you want to be with me, you know what you have to agree to.”

“We don’t have to hurt each other,” James whispered.

“There are worse things than pain.” She pulled a new jacket on over her bloodied shirt and zipped it up tight. “Watch Benjamin for me.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m taking Ace for a walk.”

“But you’re still injured.”

“I’ll take care of it. You’ve got bigger problems to fix.” She took a last, lingering look at Benjamin, then vanished into smoke.

James would never get used to that. He wished she wouldn’t do it where he could see. It was a constant reminder that Elise had changed in a very permanent way that even he couldn’t heal.

He spent the next several minutes spinning spells, weaving them together, and allowing his magic to settle into Benjamin.

The physical repairs were relatively minor. The boy was low on blood. Bolstering its production was a complicated spell, but fortunately, James already had it under his left glove. The minor head trauma was much easier. But once he fixed those things, he didn’t know what else to do. Benjamin Flynn was still unconscious.

James grabbed a notebook from Elise’s desk and started drawing. He’d need a new spell to block premonitions. Something no witch had ever done before, as far as he knew.

“James,” Benjamin croaked.

He almost dropped the notebook. James ripped his reading glasses off to look at the boy, whose eyes were just barely open. “How do you know my name?” James asked, before realizing what a stupid question that was.

When he wakes up, he’ll be able to answer any question
.

Elise would want to know. She would phase to them instantly so that she could question him.

But surely she wouldn’t allow James to ask a question first.

“Before you ask,” Benjamin said, his voice barely any louder than a whisper, “the Cubbies will never win the World Series. They always want to know that. It’s not happening.”

James hardly cared for baseball. Maybe Benjamin wasn’t that prescient after all, if he didn’t realize that. “You’re in the Palace of Dis, Benjamin,” James said, even though he hadn’t asked. “Elise Kavanagh rescued you from New Eden. You’re safe here.”

“I know,” Benjamin said.

“Yes, I imagine you do.”

His head lolled on the pillow, eyes sliding shut again. Benjamin was slipping quickly. The boy was going to be gone soon, and James didn’t know when he’d be able to revive him.

If he wanted to ask a question, he needed to do it now.

The problem was that James had so many questions for him. Not just questions about the future, but the past. How and when Benjamin had been taken to New Eden. What the angels were doing with him. How he could have possibly been communicating with Elise, even as he was lost in prophecy in another world.

But none of those questions made it past James’s lips.

“Am I somehow a reincarnation of Adam?” he asked. Benjamin struggled to focus on him, eyelids fluttering. “I’ve been having dreams of his memories. The magic of Shamain recognized me as though I were an old friend. And Elise called me…” He swallowed hard. “She called me Adam.”

“You were possessed by God for a few minutes. The most powerful entity in the universe, at the time. It leaves a mark. But no. You’re not Adam. Adam is dead, and has always been dead.”

Relief mingled with confusion. “How has he always been dead?”

“He was severed from the universe,” Benjamin said. “His thread was worn out, and now it’s gone. Permanently. He won’t be back.” His eyes fell closed. “You have to tell Elise something. Please. It’s important. She needs to know this.” He was so quiet now that James could barely hear him.

James leaned in close. “What? What do I need to tell her?”

“Marion’s in New Eden,” Benjamin whispered.

The name meant nothing to him. James frowned. “Who’s Marion?”

The precognitive didn’t reply. He was gone.

Rylie had
been
through so many homecomings now that she could sense people approaching the fissure. The wind became hotter, the smoke thicker. It was like the entire world held its breath in anticipation of people crossing between dimensions.

She was waiting in the wreckage of Poppy’s Diner when she felt it coming. Rylie used to like having lunch there, before the Breaking, before Elise entered her life. It was dark and filled with ash now, but it still relaxed her to curl up in one of the red leather booths with her diary. But when she smelled the shifting atmosphere, she picked up her journal, tucked it under her arm, and headed outside.

Abel had sensed the change, too. He was already waiting by the statue of Bain Marshall. She clasped his hand in hers tightly, trying to control her trembling.

They didn’t have to wait for very long. The air rippled, and a fresh plume of smoke billowed out of the fissure.

There was a shape moving inside.

Rylie sniffed the air. She could tell even before the ash settled that it was Elise—her scent was unmistakable, especially since she had brought Ace with her. But there was no preparing for how haggard Elise looked. She didn’t walk with any of her usual confidence. She was caked in amber blood and limping. Rylie’s breath caught in her throat. That could only mean bad news.

Then Elise stepped aside, and a man emerged from the smoke behind her.

Abram.

Rylie burst into tears and flung her arms around him, hugging her son tightly. “Oh, thank
God
.”

He hugged her back just as hard. It was a lot like being engulfed in a bear’s embrace. Even though he was bigger than Seth had ever been, it reminded Rylie very much of hugging him, too. There was just something about Abram that felt warm in that same way. It melted her heart and made her soul fill with joy.

But the joy was short-lived. Abram’s scent told an overwhelming story—a tale of worlds Rylie had never seen, and places far more dangerous than Dis. He smelled like sulfur and leather. He also smelled like buttered popcorn, apples, and freshly-mowed grass. He was drenched in the odors of Heaven and Hell. Rylie could almost picture New Eden just from inhaling his scent.

“Thank you, Elise,” Rylie said, trying to wipe her cheeks dry.

Elise looked stiff. Uncomfortable. Ace was leaning hard against her calf, sensing her mood. “Don’t thank me.”

Rylie looked around her son’s arm. Elise and Abram had been unaccompanied on their journey up the bridge.

“Shit,” Abel said. He’d already reached the same conclusion that Rylie had.

“But…the Scions,” she said. “The pack.”

Abram’s expression said it all.

The pack wasn’t coming home.

It was the
night of a full moon, and Rylie was lonely. She wandered the streets of the sanctuary feeling like her chest had been packed with shards of glass. She hadn’t expected to ever return to this place after Levi ousted her, and now that she had, she almost wished that Levi was still there.
 

There were only three werewolves in a sanctuary built for fifty, and it felt hollow.

Elise lingered underneath the trees with Ace, separate from Rylie, Abel, and Summer as they prepared to become wolves. None of them needed to shift, but Abel had never been as good at skipping moons as Rylie, and it would be a deeply unpleasant night for him if he clung to his human skin.

“You ready to go?” Abel asked, shedding his shirt.

“I can’t,” Rylie said, hugging herself tightly. “I just…I can’t.”

Summer glanced at Elise. “I understand. We’ll see you in the morning?”

Rylie nodded.

Abel surrendered to his animal form, shifting into the wolf with popping bones and a low growl.

Ace’s ears flattened to his skull. He whined.

Summer didn’t immediately follow Abel’s example. She chewed on her thumbnail, watching him shift. Then she asked, “Did you see Nash?” She was speaking to Elise. “When you were in New Eden—was he there? I haven’t heard from him since he left, and I just thought…”

Elise only stared at her, expression unreadable.

“Please,” Summer said softly.

“Ask your brother,” Elise said.

“I don’t know where he is right now. He went off on his own. I think he’s still trying to figure out how to cope.”

Her response was curt. “Ask him when he comes back.”

Finally, Summer nodded. She seemed to step into her wolf form rather than going through the painful, violent shift that other werewolves did—a side effect of being born to werewolves, rather than bitten.

As soon as she had changed, Abel nipped at her neck, showing her the affection as a beast that he couldn’t bring himself to show as a human. She nipped back.

Abel and Summer chased each other into the forest, vanishing among the mist with a flash of their tails.

“What would you do if you were in my place?” Elise asked as soon as they were gone.

Startled, Rylie turned. She hadn’t expected Elise to ask her opinion. She had hoped she wouldn’t, in fact—she didn’t want to have to choose between her daughter’s request and what she thought Elise needed to do. “What do you mean?” she asked carefully.

“If you had an entire army of demons that you couldn’t trust, without enough supplies to feed them all while on the move…would you go to war?” She wasn’t even looking at Rylie. She was gazing up at the sky. “I don’t know if I could save the survivors in New Eden even if I wanted to.”

How could she say that? The pack wasn’t dead. Abram had said they were just trapped in some kind of stasis, probably serving as angel food. If there was any chance they could be saved, they had to try.

Maybe Elise had been struck by conscience for once. There were a lot of costs to war—costs that Rylie couldn’t even begin to imagine.

But however bad it was, it couldn’t be worse than letting every one of her friends die.

Rylie bit her bottom lip. “Whatever you decide to do…” She struggled against the words inside of herself. She didn’t want to say it. She didn’t want to make this kind of promise. But the offer was straining inside of her, with all of the Alpha wolf’s fury and despair, and she couldn’t swallow it down. “We’ll be supporting you. Whatever you need us to do, we’ll do it.”

Elise looked startled. Startled, and pleased. But she said, “I won’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking. I’m offering.”

“A lot of people will die if we fight.”

“And my whole pack will definitely die if we don’t,” Rylie said. Her words caught in her throat. She clapped a hand to her mouth, but there was no stopping the hot tears that tracked down her cheeks.

Wolves howled in the trees. They sounded mournful. Like they were crying along with Rylie.

She startled when she felt skin brush against hers. She looked down to see that Elise had rested a hand on her shoulder. Silently reassuring, but making no promises.

“Thank you,” Rylie said, resting her hand on Elise’s.

But the hand was gone.

Elise and Ace had returned to Hell.

Elise sat on
the throne of thorns deep underneath the Palace, alone with Ace and the fluttering banners bearing her mark. The crossed swords normally gave her an equal sense of pride and annoyance. It was a symbol that demons worshipping the Father had designed, but it had become more than that. That mark indicated her territory. Her victories. It was painted on the walls of alleys in Dis and etched on the breasts of her guards’ armor.

Now she had to decide whether to paint it on the walls of New Eden in the silvery blood of angels.

What they had done was unforgivable. Horrifying. Yet the damage was done. So many of those humans had already been lost. And Elise was still trying to free all the humans in Hell. How could it be worse for the survivors in New Eden to be trapped in happy dreams than the mortals enslaved in the Houses of Dis?

But they were
angels
. Her children.

They were killing Lilith and Adam’s offspring to feed themselves. The greatest of all sins.

Ace’s nails clicked and his chain slithered against the tile. He rested his heavy head on her thigh, gazing up at her with wide puppy eyes. He was usually less skittish after being thoroughly exercised, and she had given him a brisk walk around the battlements after returning from Earth, but her dog was still restless. He needed more room to run around. And she needed a solution that a few minutes of exercise couldn’t give her.

He whined.

“What would you do?” she asked, scratching behind his floppy ears with her fingernails. His whiplike tail thumped against the floor. “You would eat them all, wouldn’t you?”