Sacrificed in Shadow (35 page)

“Where did humans come from?” James asked.

She barked a mirthless laugh. “Is this the time to talk chicken and egg?”

“Answer the question.”

“Lilith sculpted humanity from clay, modeled to be like Adam’s mortal body,” Elise said.

“But not all humans came from Lilith,” James said. “Adam produced children naturally, too. His blood line has continued unbroken for centuries. It lives in one family—
one family
, which has been watched by a cult known as the Apple. There were three brothers with the blood. One named Cain, who died…”

She sucked in a hard breath. “And Seth and Abel.”

James’s fingers started twitching again. He took one of the gloves out of his pocket and tugged it on, concealing the runes. Only when he was covered did his hand relax. “Seth and Abel’s blood will open Eden.”

“But it didn’t work,” Elise said.

James looked grim. “It did work. There are seven doors, and that was the first. Once they’re all open, I’ll be able to enter Eden.”

Elise stared at him, unable to comprehend. “But there’s nothing left in Eden.”

“Nothing, except the Origin,” James said.

Elise had heard that word before:
the Origin
. She knew it because Eve knew it from some of her oldest memories. It was the beginning of all things, the source of life, and it was what had turned Adam into God.

But when Elise tried to bring Eve’s memory of Adam entering the origin to mind, she couldn’t. She had all of Eve’s thoughts and dreams except that one. Eve had been too afraid to remember.

“What do you want with the Origin?” Elise asked.

“It doesn’t matter. That power will let me do anything I want. Anything at all.” James stepped toward her, and she backed away, holding her sword between them. He looked past the blade to pin her with his gaze. “It could make you human again.”

The words were like a dagger to her heart.

Elise had never given much thought to reverting to her former body—mostly because she didn’t think it was possible. She wasn’t even sure if it was something she wanted. She was insanely powerful now, nearly a god.

But if she was human, then she could walk in daylight again.

“Is that why you unleashed a murderous cult on Northgate?” Elise asked. “To save me?”

“No. There’s more to this than that. But once I possess the power of the Origin, I
will
fix you.” He said it with such fierce confidence.

Did he really think that was how he would earn her forgiveness? Like he hadn’t done enough manipulation, scheming, and power-grabs already. He thought that he needed to get
more
Machiavellian to make her like him again.

“It would take more than omnipotence to make me stop hating you,” Elise said.

A look of pity flashed over James’s face. “I suppose I didn’t expect you to help.” He lifted a fistful of glowing runes in his remaining bare hand. They slid over his knuckles and tangled between his fingers. “That’s why I need you to stay away until I find the other six doors.”

Elise glimpsed a symbol she recognized among the runes: the sigil of St. Benedict, the patron saint of exorcisms.

“No,” she whispered, taking a quick step back.

James flung his hand toward her.

Light consumed her. Elise felt an instant of brilliant, blazing pain—and then nothing.

NORTHGATE BURNED INTO the early morning. Seth evacuated Stephanie to the mountain slopes overlooking the town, waiting just off the road into the sanctuary to watch the smoke climb into the sky. She had been all but catatonic since the confrontation downtown; she hadn’t spoken once, nor had she struggled against Seth’s attempts to move her. She sat on a pile of rocks, unmoving and pale and motionless for hours.

Her silence suited Seth fine. He was still numbed by shock and exhaustion himself.

Seth kept replaying that one moment in his mind over and over—the sharp bite of pain, turning to see James bleeding him, the slap of shock.

And then the door opening.

Seth was a simple guy. He liked a motorcycle ride on clear nights, sharing a beer with his brother, shooting cans off of fences to keep his aim sharp. He’d gone to college in a big city and decided that he liked rural life better. As far as he was concerned, he’d be happy to hide in the mountains with the pack for the rest of his life, never seeing anyone outside the same group, swimming in that lake and taking hikes.

But he had glimpsed a bigger world, a bigger conflict. For some reason, it made him think of his mother.
Failure
, she had called him. Eleanor always said that Seth had failed to meet his destiny.

That door that James had opened—that was destiny. He could feel the certainty of it lodged like a hard rock in his gut.

He felt Rylie coming. Her Alpha energy was impossible to ignore.

Rylie approached him, arms hugged around her ribs, looking so small and young and vulnerable. She must have stolen clothes out of the consignment shop, since she wore an ill-fitting sweater and ballet flats. Her bare skin was streaked with ash. She had spent all morning searching the burning buildings for survivors.

“Is it true?” Rylie asked.

He frowned. “Is what true?”

She gave him a piece of paper. “I found this near the Bain Marshall statue.”

He unfolded it. The letter was addressed to him and his brother, and it looked like it had been produced on a manual typewriter. Several letters were out of alignment.

He skimmed the letter quickly. It was from James.

James Faulkner had been a friend to the pack when they needed it. He had protected Rylie during her pregnancy and given them a safe harbor for her children. Strange as James seemed, Seth had trusted him enough that they had invited him back to cast the wards for the sanctuary. The risk of letting the witch know where they lived seemed worth the possible reward.

Yet James had been different when he returned to the pack early that autumn. Not only had he used magic to disguise his appearance, he had seemed a little too shocked to find that the pack hadn’t gone to the Haven, and that Rylie’s children were wandering free. He had asked a lot of invasive questions about Nash, about Summer and Abram. But he had left without causing problems, and the wards he cast were fantastic. Rylie and Seth agreed that letting him in had been worth it.

But now this.

James had cut Seth. Taken his blood. Used it to cast a spell.

And his blood had done…something.

Seth read the letter again, stomach churning.

Seth and Abel,

If you’ve found this letter, I was forced to leave Northgate unexpectedly. By now, you may have realized that your family is different than normal, but you likely do not realize that you are the last members of the bloodline of Adam, the first man. I’m sorry I won’t be able to explain this to you in person. Instead, I’ve left a book for you under this altar that will explain everything.

I have helped your family many times. Now I require something in return.

I’ll return soon.

It was simply signed “James.”

“What book did he leave?” Seth asked.

Rylie was gnawing on her bottom lip as she stared out at the burning town. The fire reflected in her eyes, making the gold dance with flashes of orange and crimson. “It’s not a book. It’s a diary.”

“A diary?”

“It’s your mother’s,” Rylie said.

Seth crushed the letter in his fist. “I read my mom’s diaries. There was nothing about Adam in them.” He flung the letter into the bushes. “He’s playing some game.”

“Seth…”

“I don’t have special blood. I’m just some guy.” There was a note of desperation to his voice, even though he struggled hard to suppress it.

Rylie reached out, then touched a hesitating hand to his shoulder. Seth shut his eyes. Even though they hadn’t been together for months, a stroke of her hand filled his chest with fiery warmth. “You’ve never been just anyone,” Rylie said softly. “I always knew that you were special.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Seth said. His voice came out ragged.

“You saw what James did with your blood.”

He had. Seth had seen everything from the feet of the Bain Marshall statue: the opening door, the vast garden, the blue daylight skies. He had even smelled the fruit on the air and felt an unseasonably warm breeze. Somehow, his blood had done that. It had changed a door from Hell into a door from Heaven.

But it couldn’t be true.

“He’s going to try to collect payment from us,” Rylie said. “From you and Abel.”

Stephanie finally looked up from the pile of rocks. Her eyes were shadowed, cheeks hollow. “The pack owes James nothing. Everything he did was a favor to me. The debt is between the two of us, not you.” Her mouth stretched into a pained grimace. “I’m sorry.”

Seth was too overwhelmed to consider her apology. He paced along the side of the road, hands balled into fists, thinking about destiny and his mother and crimson streaks of blood.

“Seth…” Rylie said.

“I’m not going to help him,” Seth said. “Whatever he wants, I’m not going to get involved.”

Rylie touched his back. He almost jerked away from her. It felt too good for him to touch him—too much like she still loved him. Instead, he went rigid.

She wrapped her arms around him, pressing her cheek to the middle of his back. “I won’t let them hurt you,” Rylie said. “Not James or Elise or anyone else.”

“
I’m
supposed to protect
you
,” Seth said.

“We’ll protect each other.”

He turned, and Rylie looked so fiercely determined that it made his heart feel like it might shatter. Seth knew what Rylie was capable of better than anyone else. But this fight was beyond her. It was beyond all of them.

Seth wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She hugged him again, even tighter than before. Almost so tight that it hurt.

That night, he would be able to go home and start repairing the havoc that Lincoln Marshall had wreaked upon the sanctuary. In a few weeks, everything would return to normal. There would be no sign of what had happened after Elise Kavanagh came to town. The pack would bounce back—they always did.

But this was only the beginning. That door wouldn’t be the end of it, and James would be back to take payment from Seth’s veins, willingly or otherwise.

No matter what Rylie said, she couldn’t protect Seth from destiny.

Being exorcised and
out of control was a new kind of Hell. Elise careened through a lightless void, out of body, out of time. She had no fists or feet or a mouth to breathe through.

Without a body, without distraction, all she had to pass the time was her hatred for James Faulkner.

She replayed their last conversation in her mind until she thought she might go insane. She dwelled on missing so many obvious clues, losing Lincoln, and Seth’s significance—how had she not realized?

Her every mistake swelled inside her until she had room for nothing else. That was the exorcism: dropping a demon to her basest level and forcing her to stew in a primordial ooze of misery.

Elise almost felt sorry for every demon ass she had ever kicked.

When she had a body again, she was in a tree. It smelled earthy and dry, so it definitely wasn’t a tree in Hell. Their flora only came with the odor of rot. Its flaky bark itched at her bare stomach, and a cool gust of wind sent shivers rolling down her flesh.

Her forehead stung. Elise flinched and swiped at it.

Another sting.

Was someone throwing pebbles at her?

She peeled her eyes open. Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them away. Her skin felt soggy from the too-humid air of Earth. Her hair was greasy. She salivated, drooled.

Why couldn’t she have reappeared in the City of Dis? At least she could have recovered from her humiliating foray out of body somewhere comfortably hot.

A third pebble struck her, missing her face to land on her shoulder. She leaned over the branch and blinked rapidly to focus.

Anthony stood a few feet below her, handful of rocks at the ready. He’d shaved the moronic pencil mustache. His brown skin gleamed with a layer of sweat, and he wore a ratty pair of gray sweat pants, so he must have been jogging.

“You’ve been out of contact so long, I was starting to think you were dead,” he said. He didn’t sound all that worried about it. “Now it looks like you got piss-drunk and forgot yourself.”

Elise pushed herself up on the branch to study herself. She was sprawled over a sturdy branch in a Joshua tree, sagebrush below and black sky above. Naked, of course. One last “fuck you” from James Faulkner’s exorcism. And whether by James’s design or the decision of Elise’s subconscious, she had reappeared in the desert north of Las Vegas.

She unstuck her tongue from the roof of her mouth. Wiped drool off her chin. Nevada was close to Hell, but not close enough. She felt like a soggy, exhausted sponge.

“Sorry to disappoint,” she said, sitting back against the trunk of the Joshua tree. It was a big one. Must have been centuries old.

Anthony dropped the rocks, lifted a pile of cloth. “I found your stuff.”

“Where?” Elise asked.

“They were scattered that way.” He gestured toward the mountains. “I followed the trail to you. You’re lucky I went jogging late; it’s almost midnight. Been hanging up there long?”

She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t remember anything clear before Anthony started pelting her with rocks. Her memories of her time drifting through exorcised nothingness were quickly fading, and the harder that she tried to remember them, the faster they slipped away.

Elise swung her legs over the branch and dropped to the earth. Anthony watched as she dressed, thumbs hooked in the waist of his sweat pants. “You look whole,” he remarked. “Where have you been?”

She shot a look at him. Admitting that James had exorcised her to Hell, or something like it, sounded wholly unpalatable.

“I’ve been…around.”

He accepted that explanation with a nod.

Once she was clothed, Anthony handed her sheath and falchion to her, and then her charms.