The Darkest Gate (11 page)

“Be fast,” Portia whispered. “Please. For everyone’s sake.”

Elise stepped back. Thom opened the door.

“Enjoy your party,” he said.

Portia didn’t follow them onto the balcony overlooking the lethe party. As soon as the door swung shut, Elise turned on him. “What was the point of that? You didn’t need me to help collect information. She’s scared shitless. You could have—”

“Silence. Tell me what you see.”

She frowned. “Rich people on drugs.”

“And?”

Elise gave the room a second look. It was hard to make anything out through the haze of tobacco and lethe beside the occasional flash of a glowing cube, like the flare of a firework. Then a glint of metal caught her eye, and she realized one of the men on the arm of a wealthy socialite was wearing a shackle. It was a bewitched shackle, with no visible chains, but a shackle nonetheless. There was a glimmer in the corner of her eye, a tugging at the back of her neck.

“Magic,” she murmured. “That’s magic, isn’t it?”

Thom leaned over her shoulder, cheek brushing hers. His body was warm at her back. “Why would a kopis sense magic?”

She didn’t think he expected an answer, so she didn’t try to give one. Once Elise saw the magic around the shackle, she saw it elsewhere, too—twinkling on a woman’s earring, haloed around the head of a gray-haired man, on several other wrists. They weren’t all in the form of bracelets. Some were necklaces. One was an anklet.

The bound ones weren’t smiling, as the others were. All of them had pale blue eyes that were almost silver. And the resemblance didn’t end there. Though none had hair or skin of quite the same shade, they all looked similar to the degree that cousins looked similar. Smooth-faced, androgynous, ageless.

None of them were human.

Elise gripped the railing. “Angels,” she said, her voice so soft she thought Thom wouldn’t hear.

Fingers grazed the back of her neck. “Look closer.”

It was like a fog lifted from her mind. She could suddenly sense them the same way she sensed demons, and what was more, she could
see
them. Ghostly stubs glowed at their scapulas. Their wings had been severed, and someone was hiding it. They were enslaved.

“Now you know why I brought you to this party. You had to see—and be seen. Mr. Black will know the sword has come into play.”

Adrenaline thrilled through her. “He’s not the only one who will know. Damn it, Thom, you never should have brought me here.”

Even though she whispered, her voice caught the attention of an angel. Recognition sparked between them.

One by one, the slaves fell silent, and a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on her.

Their lips moved in unison to mouth a single word with three syllables. She didn’t hear them, but she knew what word it was, and what it meant.

“This was a mistake,” Elise said.

“A calculated risk.” His hand curled around her wrist. “And now we must run.”

Her eyes lifted to the opposite balcony. A gaunt man with shaggy brown hair stood on the other side, and hatred carved furrows into his sagging face.

The years hadn’t been kind to Alain Daladier. He looked like hell.

Elise retreated into the shadows, but it was too late to hide. He reached into his jacket.

Thom flashed down the stairs, and she ran after him.

A gunshot rang out above them. A bullet smacked into the railing. Wood shattered.

The angels didn’t react, but the humans did. Bleary eyes stared around for the source of the gunshot. Someone cried out in surprise as Elise shoved through the room. Her knee bumped a table and sent the hookah crashing to the ground. A man tumbled off his pillow, and she jumped over him.

Still, the angels didn’t move. Their eyes tracked her across the room.

Another gunshot cracked like thunder. It shattered a wall sconce as Elise passed it, raining glass into her hair.

Thom ran like the wind blew, shoving open the front door and disappearing into the night. Elise flung herself around the side of the door, drew her knife, and dropped into a crouch instead of following him.

Her heart wasn’t even beating hard. She felt calm, focused, like she was floating apart from her own body.

People screamed inside. She waited.

Footsteps pounded through the entryway. Her fist tightened on the dagger.

Alain took two steps out the door, and Elise jumped on his back, bringing her arm around his throat. His skeletal body buckled under hers. He gave a strangled grunt as they fell down the steps and hit the driveway face-first, tossing her off his back.

She rolled. Got to her feet. Pressed the knife to his belly.

Cold metal pressed into her temple before she could stab.

Alain bared his teeth in a vicious growl as he held the gun to her skull. “
Va te faire foutre
,” he spat, and she felt his arm tense as he squeezed the trigger.

Elise dropped.

The gunshot blasted over her head and shattered her hearing into a thousand shards of glass. The ringing almost muted Alain’s shout.

Thom had appeared, shoving the wrist holding the gun so it aimed skyward. Another shot flashed and filled the air with the metallic tang of gunpowder. Thom twisted Alain’s arm around, smashed it into his knee, and forced him to drop the gun.

Even while grappling, Thom looked peaceful. Almost amused.

He shoved Alain to the ground and planted a foot in his chest. Elise grabbed the gun and dropped the magazine.

Mr. Black’s aspis looked so much older than he had ten years before. There were burn scars on his neck, purple spots on the backs of his hands, and scruffy white stubble on his jaw. But some things didn’t change. His mouth twisted when Elise came to stand over him.

“You burned my office,” she said, barely able to hear her own voice over the ringing in her skull. “You stole all my money!”

His mouth moved with a response. She was sure it would have been scathing if she could have heard it.

And then there was suddenly a second gun in his hand.

This time, Elise moved faster than Thom. She threw herself out of the way, instinctively shielding her face with her arms—though there was little she could do about a bullet aimed at her skull.

The bullet hit Thom. He fell to the lawn.

Alain scrambled to his feet and vanished into the trees.

Elise was a heartbeat behind him. She crashed into the edge of the forest.

His back darted between the tree trunks. Branches scraped against Elise’s bare legs. Her strappy sandals caught on a bush, wrenched her ankle to the side, and sent her stumbling.

“Shit!”

Her knees smashed against rocks. Pine needles stabbed into her gloves.

She righted herself, staggering around a tree to pick up the knife she dropped. By the time she found it, it was too late—the night was dark and complete, and Alain Daladier had vanished.

Elise swore as she ripped the shoes from her feet and flung them into the night.

S
he limped back
to the lawn after a few more minutes of searching, working her jaw around to clear her ringing skull. Kopides had improved healing in comparison to other humans, but the whine in her ears didn’t make her optimistic about her ability to hear that pitch ever again.

Thom met her at the end of the driveway. His hair was still in a neat ponytail. There wasn’t so much as a single grass stain or a drop of blood on his tidy clothes. “You’re alive,” Elise said, a little disappointed. “Where did he hit you?”

“You must be confused. I wasn’t shot.”

She frowned. “But you fell.”

“Perhaps I was surprised,” Thom said. He kept one eye on the house as though waiting for another attack. “Come. We must hurry to use our brief advantage. If Mr. Black and Alain realize what we’ve learned, their plans will surely change.”

He set a swift pace to the SUV, which was parked with other cars at the side of the house. Elise lengthened her stride to keep up with him even though it made her ankle twinge. “The Night Hag should send someone to protect Portia. When Mr. Black finds out—”

“She’s not your concern.”

The fluttering of curtains caught her attention, and Elise faltered mid-step.

Angels watched through the windows. They had lined up along the bottom floor shoulder-to-shoulder, silent and calm, and every one of those pale blue eyes was fixed on her. Or, to be more specific, her gloved hands.

Waiting. Expectant.

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Fuck you guys, too.”

VIII

B
etty dozed in
a drugged haze. Pain kept her on the edge of consciousness. The saline drip was cool where they had taped it against the inside of her arm. The bed hissed and swelled as the mattress inflated, and then sighed as it deflated again. The machines by her head occasionally beeped.

She drifted through dreams of fire and smoke. Occasionally, a nurse would wake her up, but she never opened her eyes. It was too hard. It felt like all the moisture had been sucked from her eyeballs.

A dry cough made her chest hitch. Her fingers twitched for the nurse call button.

Morphine. Her bag had run empty, and she could feel it wearing off.

Metal rattled, and a sliver of light fell on her face. Betty finally peeled open her eyelids. Someone was moving around the foot of her bed, but she couldn’t tell who had come to torment her with more diagnostics in the middle of night.

“What time is it?” she rasped.

Footsteps tracked past the sink. Cabinets opened and closed.

She let her eyelids slide shut again.

“Stephanie—Dr. Whyte—said no more tests until morning. I’m resting ‘under sedation.’ Supposedly,” Betty said. Her irritated throat tickled. Another cough. She stretched a hand toward a glass of water, but couldn’t reach. “I’m leaving in a few hours. All I want is sleep and more painkillers and no more shots in my ass.”

Plastic crinkled, and then the door to the hallway closed, leaving the room in darkness.

Betty sighed in relief. It burned all the way down her chest.

But the visitor hadn’t left. The curtain closed around her, and someone stepped up with a spare pillow from the wardrobe by the window.

Her fingers fell on the remote. She clicked on the overhead light.

The person at her bedside wasn’t any of the nurses who paraded through in the last day, though she wore scrubs patterned with red geometric shapes. She was silken-haired with windblown features and delicate hands, which were wrapped around the pillow. Her pupils didn’t dilate at the sudden light.

She was sober enough that the strange gaze struck a chord. “You’re not here with morphine… are you?”

The nurse lifted her arms.

Betty realized what was about to happen an instant before the pillow mashed against her face and cut off her air supply. Her chest hitched as her lungs struggled to expand, but there was nothing to fill them.

She tried to scream. It came out as a muffled squeal.

The nurse pressed harder. Betty fumbled for the nurse call button and knocked the remote off the bed. Even though she had a full breath of air, sudden adrenaline killed all rationality.

She beat against the arms pinning her down. They felt doughy, boneless, but somehow as immobile as steel. Her hazy head grew thicker. Her pulse pounded in her temples. White noise roared through her ears.

The mattress inflated around her and deflated again.

Betty felt oblivion creeping up on her as her oxygen ran out. If it took her, she didn’t think she would ever wake again.

She tried harder to fight, but her arms were heavy and weak. Betty’s blood grew sluggish. Her limbs went limp. She screamed and screamed on the inside, but it didn’t make any difference—and soon, even that grew faint.

This never would have happened to Elise
.

“Hey—
hey
! What are you doing?”

And all that weight was suddenly gone.

Betty shoved the pillow off her face. Color rushed into her vision with a huge gasp of air. She gripped her chest in both hands, making the IV twist in her vein.
Oh God, that hurt
.

Black stars cleared from her vision. The nurse had plastered her back on the wall between two cabinets, and Betty realized with a jolt that her feet weren’t on the ground. She was halfway to the ceiling like a bug on a window.

Anthony lunged for her. The nurse scrambled higher on the wall with jerky motions, then leaped and landed behind him.

He spun, swinging a hard right hook. His fist connected with the nurse’s jaw.

Her head snapped off.

Betty shrieked, hands flying to her mouth. The nurse’s body collapsed like an empty skin suit, and Anthony hollered as he jumped back. “What the
fuck
?”

The head rolled under the cabinet. Empty eyes glimmered at them.

A bulge shifted inside the body, like a balloon inflating inside what used to be the belly, and Anthony grabbed the chair from the bedside. He lifted it over his head and brought it crashing down on the pile of scrubs.

Something squealed and popped. Black fluid gushed out the neck hole.

“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!”

He smashed the chair on it again, and again. And then he slammed his booted foot into it for good measure.

Then he stepped back, shielding Betty with his body, and held the chair in front of him like a lion tamer. But the body didn’t move again.

He dropped the chair and fell into it, face pale.

“Are you okay?” Anthony asked. He was surprisingly calm, considering he had just decapitated an evil assassin nurse.

“Someone just tried to kill me,” gasped Betty. The truth of it sank in, and tremors shuddered through her entire body. “Oh my
God
someone just tried to
kill me
! Why would someone want to kill
me
? I’m just a—I mean—”

“Hey, relax, it’s okay.”

Betty leaned forward to grab his shirt in both hands, dragging his face close to hers. “You don’t get it! Somebody wants to
kill me
!”

“I heard you the first six times. Take a deep breath and lie back before you hurt yourself.”