The Darkest Gate (18 page)

Elise flipped through the pad of paper. Each page was labeled in Betty’s looping, girly handwriting with a single word, like “candlelight” or “wind.” The rest of each page was covered in huge black marks.

Paper magic. It was James’s specialty, and he had never taught anyone how to do it.

“How did you make this?”

“I’ve been peeking at James’s private Books of Shadows. They don’t all work. I haven’t figured out how to activate everything. But think about it! Imagine going into a fight with two witches who do battle magic!”

Elise’s fist clenched on the notebook. “Betty…”

“I can make fires,” she said, yanking the paper back. “See this one? It makes a big noise—sounds dumb, but I can think of some clever uses for it, and—”

“James can handle this magic because he’s unusually powerful. It could kill you.”

“I could be powerful. I just need practice. Maybe someday I could even bind to a kopis as aspis. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

Elise touched her friend’s arm. “Promise me you won’t use these. Not without James’s guidance.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Promise. Or I’ll take this from you right now.”

Betty groaned. “Fine. I promise. Unless someone tries to burn me to death or smother me again—then all bets are off. I’m not going to be defenseless. Okay?”

“Fine.”

She grinned. “Fabulous.”

Elise didn’t like the enthusiasm in her voice. Betty had always been too excited by life-and-death situations, but she thought if anything would put a damper on that enthusiasm, it would be assassination attempts. “Can I say anything to convince you to throw out that notebook?”

“Nope. You could tell me how amazing I am for healing myself, though.”

“That is difficult magic,” she conceded.

“Hell yeah it is. Say I’m amazing.”

Elise shook her head and sighed. “You’re amazing.”

“That’s what I thought.” Betty leaped up to join Morrighan again, swaying on her feet as she ran over to help dig a hole for one of James’s old sweaters.

“Damn it,” Elise muttered.

There was a dark form beyond the witches. Someone stood under the trees near the fence. His back was turned, but something about the slant of the shoulders told Elise it was no stranger.

By the time she reached the trees, the man had climbed into the lowest branches with his feet dangling off the side. He lounged against the trunk, comfortable and casual as a cat. Thom was dressed in all black and a thick shirt that was almost woolen. He wasn’t even sweating.

He plucked a petite apple from a branch and turned it in his fingers. “These will make a good pie soon,” he remarked.

Elise didn’t bake, and she definitely wasn’t interested in casual conversation. “What do you want? You’re supposed to be watching James.”

“There are others watching him.” He dropped the apple. “I have something for you.” Thom swung his legs over the side of the branch and slipped to the ground in front of her. He held up what appeared to be a credit card.

“What is that?”

“This is a key to a penthouse in a downtown casino.” Thom flicked it against his fingers. “A very fine penthouse. The kind of place where very rich men stay. You must have a key card to operate the elevator and reach that floor.”

“Mr. Black is staying at a casino?”

The witch shrugged. “If you’re not interested in getting the key…” Elise held out her hand. Thom didn’t immediately give it to her. “The Night Hag does not know I am going to give this to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “How did you get it?”

“You would be amazed at what I can do.” He waved it through the air to taunt her. “The Night Hag doesn’t want you to confront Mr. Black directly. There is sense in that.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t give me access to his penthouse.”

“Hmm. Maybe.” He held out the key. After a moment, Elise took it. The room number was written on the logo in permanent marker. “There’s beauty in the spontaneity of chaos. Too few people appreciate it.”

She stuck it in her back pocket. “Thanks.”

“You were right when you told your friend she should leave, you know, but she is not the only one. You and all your friends would be wise to escape.”

“And break my pact with the Night Hag? That would go over great.”

Thom rested his hand on her shoulder. It was heavy, and her brand ached. The pain radiated through her arm, her chest, hot and cold all at once. It wasn’t threatening, like when David Nicholas had done it. It was almost… possessive.

His eyes bored into Elise. “Leave now and you may prolong your fleeting days on this Earth.”

“Is that a threat?” she asked in a low voice.

His fingers flexed. The pain traveled through her body, heating her skin, quickening her pulse. Thom’s face suddenly didn’t make sense, as though it wasn’t a human face—he was alien, unnatural, his eyes too large and his skin nearly transparent.

“I am not your enemy, Elise Kavanagh.”

“You’re not my ally.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. A smile. Thom was actually smiling. His lips were a shade pinker than the rest of his skin, and Elise had the strange urge to reach up and touch them. “The world is permeable. Every day, it changes.” His hand slid from her shoulder to her collarbone, brushing up to her throat. “I am not your ally today.”

A shudder rolled down Elise’s spine. She took a quick step back.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Yes,” he said. Thom hooked his thumbs in the waist of his pants, dragging them down an inch. Only an inch, baring a pale strip of skin and the lines of his hips. A fine brush of black hair disappeared behind his belt. “I suppose it is too late for you to leave. You will need help soon. When you do, you may summon me.”

“Summon you? I thought you weren’t my ally.”

“Not today.”

Elise glanced over at Betty and Morrighan. They were still working on the hole they had been digging minutes before. “Look, I’m not in the mood for—”

But when she turned back to face Thom, he was gone.

She turned in a circle, searching for him on the street, but there was nothing. Not even a hint of swaying grass to indicate a person’s passage. Somehow, Elise wasn’t surprised.

“Great,” she muttered at nothing.

Betty was leaning on her shovel again when Elise returned. Her shirt was plastered to her chest and back by sweat. Morrighan wasn’t much better, even though she hadn’t been doing any of the physical labor herself.

“Do I even want to know what that guy wanted?” Betty asked, and Elise shook her head.

“No. You don’t.” She took the shovel from her friend. “Come on. I’ll finish digging.”

A
n hour later
, the wards were almost done. Elise told Betty that she was going to run an errand, gave her strict instructions not to leave, and went to the penthouse.

She watched the hotel elevators from a bank of penny slot machines, where nobody would bother her as long as she continued feeding what little cash she still had into the slot. She lost five times as often as she won, but the free drinks helped make up for it.

There was no sign of Mr. Black as Elise emptied the change out of her wallet. But an hour and two Long Island Iced Teas later, Alain emerged from the elevator.

He wore sunglasses and a tan suit, and didn’t look in her direction as he breezed toward the lobby. People gave him a wide berth even though he wasn’t especially imposing. It must have been all the burn scars.

Elise stood once his back faced her and contemplated attacking. She had worn the red sundress again, since she had a habit of tripping over James’s jeans, and there was no way to conceal her swords in it. She wasn’t sure the daggers would be enough to take Alain down.

So she let him pass. He spoke on his cell phone in French with no mind for his volume—most likely confident that nobody else would understand him. But Elise did.

“I have a map of the mine shafts,” he said. “I’ll bring the car to you.”

He disappeared into the lobby. She set her half-empty glass on top of the slots and ducked into an elevator.

There was no button for the top floors. Where the numbers for the five highest levels should have been, a card reader had been installed. It was obviously much newer than the rest of the sixties-era building. She swiped the penthouse key, the light flashed green, and the elevator doors closed.

Each of the walls was mirrored, so she could see her back and sides as she made a slow ascent. Even with her hair down, the Night Hag’s brand was conspicuous on her back. Dim yellow light washed out her skin and made her curls the same color as the dress.

She double-checked the position of her knife.

The doors chimed and slid open.

A short hall terminated in the penthouse door, from which a “Do Not Disturb” sign hung. She pressed her ear to it. No sound.

She unlocked it and slid inside.

Mr. Black’s penthouse was fashionable and impersonal. A spacious entryway filled with a cubist’s idea of furniture led into another sitting room. There were two bedrooms with sliding doors and a kitchenette. The tinted windows had a perfect view of the mountains and the city that stretched between them.

The air hummed. Elise didn’t see anything to cause it and assumed it was the air conditioning.

With her ears perked, she moved to the papers stacked on the desk. Mr. Black had an old Royal Deluxe typewriter under a plastic cover and stacks of pages that he had annotated in red ink. She shuffled through them.

They were mostly business letters and invoices. The letters were stamped unevenly across the page, like the mechanisms on the type ball were out of alignment.

“Why a typewriter?” she muttered.

On a hunch, she tried to turn on the plasma TV. It wouldn’t work. Electronics often failed around ethereal energy.

So the hum wasn’t air conditioning.

She found a map that showed the route of the hijacked semi from Los Angeles to Reno. He had drawn a big red line through the segment that led away from the lakebed and circled the downtown area instead—not far from Craven’s.

Elise pushed the map aside to find another one that indicated entrances to abandoned mines. Most of them were crossed out. One had been marked with more arrows than the others.

At the very bottom of the stack, she found a leather-bound journal. Elise opened it. It was new enough that he had only filled the first dozen pages, but she didn’t have time to read it. She tucked it under an arm, put the papers back the way she found them, and went into the bedroom.

The bed was unmade, towels were piled on the floor, and the open walk-in closet was filled with Mr. Black and Alain’s suits. A maid obviously hadn’t been through since they began occupying the penthouse. But why? Elise would have expected it if they were storing fragments of angelic ruin, but there was nothing out of ordinary in the bedroom.

Long loops of ribbon on the bed caught her attention. Elise lifted one to inspect it. Someone—most likely Alain—had been drawing icons on them in black ink. They were similar to the symbols that had been marked around the gate at Mr. Black’s vineyard. Symbols of warding and protection. They sparked silver-gray in the corner of her vision, like the magic around the angels’ shackles.

It looked a lot like paper spells.

A door opened in the other room. Her pulse sped. Someone was home.

Elise drew her knife. Where could she hide? The bathroom? The closet?

Her eyes fell on the balcony.

Elise slid the glass door open and slipped out silently, closing it again behind her. It had high rails and was sheltered from the wind by the building’s angle, but the floor-to-ceiling glass left her little space to hide. Far below, cars crept silently along the road, like bits of flotsam on a paved river. Above, there was nothing but an endless stretch of white-blue sky.

She pressed her back against the opaque wall panel between the bedroom and living room, clutching the journal to her chest. The beating sun made the concrete burn against her shoulder blades. Even in a cotton dress, she sweltered.

No noise made it through the windows. Someone could emerge onto the balcony at any moment and she would have no idea they were coming.

Was it Alain or Mr. Black inside? She could surprise them. Sneak up from behind, drive a dagger into his back, watch him bleed out on the carpet. It would be beautiful justice.

But a powerful urge to not get shot held her back. If it was Alain, he would have a gun. And if it was Mr. Black… even worse.

Elise peered around the corner into the bedroom.

Alain was staring through the window.

She hid again, heart pounding, but he hadn’t seen her. He gazed at the mountains with his cell phone to his ear.

Elise opened the living room door.

Alain spoke loudly in the bedroom, discussing mine shafts and elevators. She crept toward the front door.

The handle turned. Someone else was coming.

Instead, she darted into the spare bedroom, careful not to make a sound. But the second room wasn’t empty.

A dozen pairs of pale eyes stared at her. Angels stood shoulder-to-shoulder in rows and packed every square foot of the floor, from the wall to the bed and to the mirrors. All of them were shackled at the throat or wrist. None of them had wings.

Elise froze, hands raised to her shoulders. She recognized the angel from the desert, but they didn’t attack her. They didn’t move at all.

They just… stared.

Outside, she heard Alain speak again. This time, he was addressing Mr. Black, who responded in his Southern drawl. They were both just outside her door. She couldn’t make out the specifics of their conversation through the wall, but she would have known that baritone anywhere.

A mix of anger and fear twisted in her. He was
right there
. She could kill him and end it all.

But if Elise wasn’t certain she could take one of them with nothing but a knife, she was definitely sure she couldn’t kill both. She stepped toward the angels. “I need to hide,” she whispered.

They stepped apart without a sound.

Elise swallowed down her nausea and moved between them. They shifted their arms aside so she wouldn’t accidentally brush them.