The Darkest Gate (19 page)

It had been years since Elise was so close to an angel outside of combat. They pulsed with energy so thick it was tangible, like trying to push through a steel curtain. Ants marched from her spine to her hairline. Her palms itched. Her mouth filled with the iron taste of blood.

Once she passed the first line, the second moved, and the third, and then she was at the back of the room.

The angels continued to face the door as she sank to a crouch behind them. Her muscles wouldn’t support her for a moment longer.

The angel that was closest to her turned. It was a female-looking creature with thick brown hair, brown skin, and expressive lips. Her nose was almost flat to her face. “If you see Nukha’il, tell him that Itra’il lives. Please.” She was so beautiful, but the idea of helping her made Elise’s skin feel like it was trying to crawl off her bones.

Mr. Black’s voice rose outside the door.

“Someone’s been here.”

Itra’il faced forward again. Elise’s hand tightened on her dagger.

The men spoke in quieter voices that faded away. No words, no footsteps, no motion.

Then the door opened.

Through the legs of the angels, she could see gray slacks, leather loafers, and the base of a jeweled cane. The hand that gripped it wore a silver cuff bracelet that glimmered with magic similar to that of the angels’ shackles. But this was far more powerful.

Mr. Black.

“Has someone been here?” he asked. His voice was so much harsher than Elise remembered. “You. Speak.”

A feminine voice rose from the front of the room. “No.”

“Then who touched my papers?” No response. “None of you are supposed to leave this room. You understand that, don’t you?”

When they remained silent, he dropped his cane.

A cry rose from the front of the room. Elise saw one of them hit the floor, and a fist swung into view. The angel didn’t make a noise when the blow landed on its jaw.

“Talk to me, you useless piece of shit. My journal didn’t disappear on its own!”

“Mercy,” whispered the angel.

Mr. Black fisted a clump of long blond hair and dragged it out of the bedroom. The other angels moved to the doorway, leaving Elise feeling exposed in her corner.

“Tell me where it is!”

She couldn’t see what was happening, but even without a single noise of pain from the angel, she recognized the sounds of someone being beaten. The angels fanned out around Mr. Black to form a loose circle.

Alain was there, too. She could just see the top of his head. His back faced her. “Let me shoot this one. Perhaps that will help the others speak.”

An angel glanced at her, then the door. A path to the exit was open.

“We can’t kill any of them,” Mr. Black said. “I need them all—for now.”

Elise crept toward the door, keeping an eye on the kopis and aspis, but they didn’t seem to notice her. They were too focused on beating the angel. It wasn’t fighting back—she didn’t think it could, with those shackles on—and the others weren’t moving to help.

She held her breath as she opened the door a crack and crawled into the hall.

When she shut the door, the angel finally screamed.

XII

W
hen Elise returned
to the studio, Betty greeted Elise with a shovel and a smudge of dirt on the bridge of her nose. “Mission successful?”

It took Elise a moment to realize she was being spoken to. “Yeah,” she said, bumping the car door closed with a hip. She was carrying her dagger and Mr. Black’s journal, which Betty eyeballed with way too much interest. “Are you finished?”

“I think so. Morrighan’s taking a last look to make sure. Want to help?”

“It’s probably fine. I’ll take you back to Stephanie’s house once you’re done.”

Betty frowned. “You’re kind of pale.”

“I’m fine. Check the wards.”

Elise sat in the shade under the Motion and Dance sign as Morrighan and Betty made a last lap around the studio. She turned Mr. Black’s journal over in her hands, considering the smooth leather and gold foil pages. It shouldn’t have bothered her to see him beating his slaves; they were hardly her problem, and far from allies. But she couldn’t seem to shake the sound of him punching the shit out of an angel on his carpet.

She shook her head and opened the journal. Much of it was handwritten, but he had inserted a few loose pages from the typewriter. Every entry was signed with the letter “P.” She wondered what that name was supposed to indicate. A quick flip through the pages didn’t give her any answers.

The first two entries were dull. He had written a short description of his initial deals with Portia, and outlined plans to assemble his gate in one of her warehouses.

The third entry was much more interesting.

Goddamn bitch
, it said, as well as,
She stole my collection
. He could barely put together a complete sentence, and his anger turned into a rambling diatribe about legacy, failure, and dying.
What makes a kopis great? Or the greatest? What is my legacy? Nothing left behind… can’t die…

She skimmed the long, unbroken paragraphs of ranting until she reached something more coherent.

I have the artifacts. I have the angels to operate them. Why don’t I have the power to summon Him?

“Looks good!” Betty chirped from across the yard. “Thanks so much, Morr!”

“No problem. I’ll see you at the next esbat,” said the other witch. She raised her voice. “Bye, Elise!”

She didn’t look up from the journal. Elise turned to the very last entry, where a folded paper had been inserted between pages. She opened it. A single word was typed across the top in all caps:
GODSLAYER
.

A hot breeze ruffled the page. She smoothed it down with a shaking hand.

If I can’t have the gate, I’ll use the hag’s. And I’ll use that Godslayer bitch as God-bait. Maybe then it will work
.

A shadow fell across the entry. “Why the sour puss?” Betty asked, flopping to the grass. When Elise didn’t immediately respond, she lost her grin. “Okay, you can’t fool me. What’s wrong? What are you reading?”

Elise snapped the journal shut.

“Nothing. Are you ready to leave?”

Betty sighed. “Yeah. Sure.”

Elise took her chain of charms and twin falchions from the safe before leaving. She didn’t trust Morrighan’s new wards to protect them.

Betty was smart enough not to ask any questions as they drove out to Stephanie’s suburb. Elise brooded in silence, knuckles white on the steering wheel.

While waiting at a stoplight on Vista Boulevard, the brand on her shoulder flared with white-hot pain, startling her from her reverie.

An instant later, her cell phone rang. She answered it.

“Get to Eloquent Blood,” David Nicholas said.

“Why the fuck should I? You still haven’t paid me.”

“Night Hag said it’s my job to handle your payment. Yeah? You want money, you get down here now.”

He hung up before she could ask anything else.

“Who was that?” Betty asked.

Elise set the cell phone on the dash of her car. “Nobody important.”

Stephanie’s house was exactly what Elise expected. She lived in an unfinished development bordered by golf courses, where the water traps doubled as duck ponds and biking trails wove in and out of each carefully-manicured garden.

James enjoyed the cooling air of sunset from the front step of a house at the end of a cul-de-sac, which had perfect green grass and a white picket fence. Elise felt something unpleasant clench in her throat, like being choked from the inside. It looked like the kind of place people raised kids. Big yard. Quiet street. And James fit in perfectly.

He stood when they pulled into the driveway, brow pinched with concern.

“Don’t leave here until I get back. You hear me?” Elise told Betty. She didn’t bother turning off the car. There was no way in hell she would go inside that house.

Betty climbed out. “Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

She shifted into reverse, but James stepped into the drive before she could leave. He had a book tucked under one arm. The Book of Shadows didn’t fit his cozy domestic image. “Are you making another move against Mr. Black?”

“No.”

He leaned on her door. “I should come with you.” There was a faint hint of scarring near his hairline. Where did he get that one? Elise couldn’t remember. They had gotten too many scars together to distinguish them.

She snagged the journal out of the backseat. “Take this.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. Anyway, I’m just running an errand. I’ll call you later.” She waited, and he didn’t move. “Let go of my door.”

He stepped back. Elise turned the car around and gunned it.

She couldn’t get out of suburbia fast enough.

Downtown Reno was dirty and cramped, as though every casino rejected by Las Vegas had banded together to struggle for survival on the banks of the Truckee River. Even at night, when the neon overwhelmed the stained faces of aging buildings, it didn’t look like somewhere that fun things could happen. But whether it was the sticky heat or Elise’s black mood, it looked even bleaker than usual.

She parked in a half-empty garage and walked down to Craven’s. Elise left her swords in the car, but wore her charms like a necklace. They jingled as she passed through a casino and down the alley to Eloquent Blood.

Blood’s layout had been changed that night. Not only had the dance floor been cleared out and replaced with a huge iron cage, there were none of the usual humans hanging around seeking a quick thrill with an incubus. The patronage was distinctly infernal. The demons that hid in the Warrens had come out for a night of fun—the ones that looked like mutated sheep, the amorphous black masses of flesh, and even a Fury so tall that its head would have hit the top of the cage.

Inside, a succubus stripped to the waist took blows from a half-snake demon. It was an ugly, mundane fight. Knuckles connected with face. Blood spattered. They grunted, ducked, dodged, and struck again. Fist against flesh made a sound like pounding into a hunk of meat.

The snake flung the succubus against the bars. The cage rattled, and the crowd roared.

Moving through the crowd, which occupied every floor of Blood, Elise watched money exchange hands with envy. A nightmare threw a wad of cash at his companion when the succubus dropped to the floor with watery blood pouring from her nose. Waitresses hurried around to take formal bets. So much cash in one place.

For once, there was nobody at the bar except Neuma, who wore liquid latex smeared across her breasts. She hurried to fill drinks and drop them on the trays of passing waitresses. Her eyes lit up when she saw Elise.

“Hey, hot stuff! I have something for you! Jump on over.”

Elise climbed to the other side of the bar. “What’s going on?”

“It’s our monthly cage fight night,” Neuma said, blasting beer into a stein and passing it to one of her waitresses.

“How did I not know about this?”

“You’re a human. No humans allowed.” She pinched Elise’s shoulder gently. “Now you’ve got the Night Hag’s mark, it’s an all-access pass to our events. Fun, huh? Here, pour a few drinks and I’ll grab your paycheck.”

Neuma passed a bottle of tequila to her, leaving Elise to quickly fill a few shots. She could see the edge of the stage from her position back against the wall, and another scream from the crowd cued her to look down and see David Nicholas throw the unconscious succubus over his shoulder. She was completely limp and bleeding freely from the face. Half-demon Gray were fragile creatures with virtually no ability to heal. That broken nose was probably a mortal wound.

The bartender bounced back with an envelope a minute later and stuffed it down Elise’s waistband. “Here you go. Gimme that back.”

Elise handed her the alcohol, fished the envelope out of her shorts, and broke the seal.

The check was written out in David Nicholas’s distinctively hideous handwriting. There was a cigarette burn on the corner. And the amount was for two hundred dollars—barely enough to fill Elise’s car with gas all month.

David Nicholas strutted on stage with a microphone. “That useless cunt is down for the count!” he announced to renewed shouts as the snake demon pumped her fists in the air. “Anyone want to take the lamia? Can you beat this bitch?” A scuffle broke out on the bottom floor. Someone shoved a red-fleshed aatxegorri to the front of the line, and he scaled the steps to the cage with a cackle.

David Nicholas thumbed through a roll of cash before flinging it on the crowd. It showered like confetti.

“I’m going to kill him,” Elise said.

Neuma’s eyes widened. “What? No—no! Don’t go down there!”

She ignored the bartender and vaulted over the bar, shoving her way downstairs as David Nicholas returned to his perch in the DJ booth.

He stepped in Elise’s path. “The fuck are you doing in my club? You got your money. Get out of here.”

“Where’s the rest?”

“What you see is what you get. Not happy? Then you should have negotiated terms. No agreement about pay, you get what I give you.”

Elise shoved her face into his. “I deserve more than this, and you know it.”

David Nicholas gripped her shoulder, digging a bony finger into the brand. It felt like having a knife driven into the bone. “Challenging me? Again?”

She hauled back and knocked him across the booth with her fist.

He sprawled atop the sound board. David Nicholas scowled without getting up. “I’ll tell the Night Hag,” he hissed, upper lip curling to bare teeth yellowed by time and tobacco.

“Tell her what? That you’re skimping out on my pay?”

“I’ll tell her that you’re violating the contract. The part that says you and me aren’t allowed to kill each other.”

“I got you those ruins, I made an appearance at that party, and if you don’t pay me—”

He sneered. “Nobody ever said how much money you get. You deal with it, or you don’t get paid at all. No complaints from me if you want to call this truce off. I’ll kill your aspis myself.”

She grabbed his shirt in both fists and dragged him to his feet, then slammed his back against the panel. Elise shoved her face close to his. “Say that again.”