The Darkest Gate (31 page)

She turned the corner and skidded to a halt.

The base of the gate wasn’t on ground level. Its two columns straddled a movie theater and a parking garage, leaving the space beneath it all the way to the street rippling.

The angels that came with Alain unspooled ribbons in a circle around the pillar. Even at a distance, she recognized the black icons inscribed on them. Those were the ribbons she had seen in the penthouse.

The witch stood between four crystals on the corner beside an inoperative stop light, muttering to himself as he spread salt. He was casting a circle of power—probably to activate the ribbons. “Alain!” she yelled.

He turned. From behind, she hadn’t noticed that he was pale and hunched over his stab wound. He had pressed a poultice of herbs against it. Most witches didn’t have the healing powers James did, and Alain was no exception, but he was doing his best to repair himself and finish the ritual.

His eyes darkened when he saw her. He reached into his jacket.

Elise threw herself behind the corner of the building. An instant later, the cement shattered with a gunshot inches from her head.

She shut her eyes to think back on what her father had taught her about guns years before. Pistols like that had twelve bullets in a magazine—thirteen, if he’d loaded one into the chamber before. One shot for Betty. One shot for Anthony’s leg.

Three down. Maybe ten to go. Not good.

She took a deep breath and sprinted across the street.

Alain fired another two shots. One pinged off the cobblestone. Then she felt a bee sting on her shin and fell with a shout, tumbling behind an elevator into the parking garage.

“Come out!” he called in French.

Elise hissed as she inspected the wound. The bullet had grazed her leg, leaving a red stripe on her leg that trickled blood. It felt like getting snapped by a whip.

Why had he aimed so low? He had to know to shoot for the center mass.

She peeked around the wall. Alain staggered toward her, barely able to hold the gun straight. Elise drew her sword again and listened for his footfalls.

Just before he turned the corner, she threw herself around the other side and into his legs.

Elise knocked him to the ground. The gun fired as he fell.

She knelt over him, grabbing his arm and slamming the back of his hand into the street. He tried to twist it to aim at her. She gritted her teeth and struck his hand again.

It took three hits before his fingers loosed enough to release it. Elise threw the gun into the open door of an empty shop.

Alain shoved her off of him. She stepped between him and the door. Fury flashed through his eyes, but he didn’t try to fight her again.

Instead, he ran for the elevators, trailing blood in his wake.

Elise was torn. Follow Alain, or stop the angels? The mental image of the exit wound at the back of Betty’s skull was enough to make the decision for her.

She slammed into the elevator doors too late, unable to force her foot in the way. Elise cursed and launched herself up the stairs, taking them three at a time to beat him to the top of the garage.

The energy flowing from the gate was so thick that it was hard to run through it. It felt like she was swimming. The angels glanced at her when she rushed toward them, but didn’t stop spreading the ribbons across the cement in long lines. The symbols glowed like the ones on her sword. Her hands bled anew as she forced herself through the thickened air to the lift.

She managed to reach the elevator just as it chimed. The doors slid open. Alain lurched out. Elise grabbed his jacket in both hands and smashed him against a window. He groaned and gripped his side.

“Help me!” he yelled, throwing a hand toward the angels.

They continued to unspool the ribbon, ignoring his cries.

Elise punched the elevator button. The doors opened again, and she shoved him inside.

“You’re going to tell me what Mr. Black is planning,” she said. “And you’re going to tell me how I can deactivate the ribbons.”

He snorted and spit a wad of bloody phlegm on her face.

She punched him in the stab wound. He cried out, but didn’t fall.

When the doors opened on the bottom level again, he jumped at her. It was a pathetic escape attempt. He was so slow that he didn’t get far. Elise caught up to him in three long strides and slammed the back of his head into the restaurant’s wall.

“You’re going to pay,” she spat, tightening her hand on his esophagus. He gurgled. She pulled him toward her and slammed him back again for good measure, and was rewarded with a flash of pain in his eyes.

“The angels—” he squeezed out.

“You’re on your own.”

He shoved her arms off of him, but didn’t make another break for it. Instead, he groaned and slid to the ground. He parted his jacket. The wound was bleeding worse.

Elise drew a sword.

“Wait!” Alain said, lifting his hands over his head. “Kopides protect humanity. I am human.”

“Yeah? Well, your kopis is doing a good job of that.”

“You can be better than him.”

Elise raised the sword a fraction. Her skin was flushed and hot. It was hard to draw in a full breath of air with the pain stabbing in her chest.

She should kill him. She should do it.

The aspis’s hands spread wide in a gesture of contrition, and his fingers were sticky with his own blood. There was no color in his face. “What would James want you to do?” he asked. He flashed red-stained teeth when he spoke.

Do it. Just do it.

“Fuck you,” Elise said, but the falchion drooped. She was light-headed and queasy. He was right—James would probably spare Alain. She might not have been better than Mr. Black, but he was.

Would it be better to kill him now, or make him bleed out on the street?

He opened his mouth to speak again, but his eyes focused on something over her shoulder and the words died on his tongue.

Before she could turn around, an explosion blasted behind Elise. Her ears rang.

Alain’s face was blown off his skull. His body bounced against the wall with a spray of blood. She whirled to see Anthony just behind her, shotgun braced on his shoulder. His knuckles were white on the metal. Hatred filled his eyes as he pumped and shot again.

“Anthony,” she said, voice muffled in her ears. He didn’t acknowledge her except to shove her aside and stand directly over Alain’s body.

Another pump. Another shot. Skull fragmented and brain splattered. The empty hull dropped to his feet.

He tried to fire again, but there was no ammunition left. The shotgun just clicked.

“You killed her,” he said. “You fucking killed her!”

She grabbed his arm. He spun to aim at her, but Elise grabbed the muzzle and yanked it out of his hands. The metal scorched her fingers. She flung it aside.

Anthony swung a fist, and she ducked under it to sock him hard in the gut. He grunted. Doubled over.

“He killed her!”

“And now he’s dead,” Elise snapped, gripping his shoulders in her hands. “Look, Anthony!”

She forced him to face Alain’s body. The witch wasn’t recognizable anymore. Strands of hair stuck to the wall and the cavity that used to be his face. As they watched, the body slipped to the side inch by inch, and then landed on its shoulder. Fluid dribbled out of the neck.

The anger slowly drained from Anthony’s face.

“Oh my God, Elise. She’s…”

“Dead,” she finished for him. It hurt to say it. “I know.”

He dropped to his knees, and a scream ripped from his throat. Fury, grief, pain—it echoed off the high pillars and the reflection of the city below. His hands shook as they covered his face. His skin was flushed and red as tears coursed down his cheeks.

Elise stepped back. She thought there was probably something she was supposed to do. Comfort him? Hold him? Tell him it would be okay? “Hey,” she said, crouching in front of him when he didn’t stop screaming. “Anthony. Anthony!”

He didn’t acknowledge her. She hauled back and punched him again. His head snapped to the side, and it cut off his cries like a string snapping on a guitar.

He glared at her. Blood trickled from a split on his lip. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asked, voice ragged. “He killed Betty! How can you be so goddamn calm?”

“He’s dead. You’ve got your justice. But we have a job to finish.”

“Betty—”

“We can’t do anything for her now.” Elise swallowed hard. “Come on. We have to find Mr. Black.”

T
he first thing
James realized when he regained consciousness was that he was very cold and laying just a few feet away from the Night Hag’s doorway—which was open. Light radiated from it in colors he had never seen before. It would have transfixed him if he had been alone.

But the second thing he realized was that Mr. Black was standing over him.

He groaned, trying to push himself away on instinct. But hands clapped down on his shoulders and hauled him to his feet before he could go anywhere.

The cool hands burned against his skin. He tried to pull away, but the angel was too strong for him to break free. Even if he could have, there were more angels waiting to stop him. James made a quick head count. Six of them. Where ethereal beings were concerned, it was virtually an army.

“So glad you could join us,” Mr. Black said, drumming his fingers against a notebook tucked under one arm. The Book of Shadows. Fantastic. “I thought I’d have to throw you over my shoulder to jump through.”

James tried to remember how he had ended up in the cavern and what happened. When had the gate opened? Why was there a dead spider the size of a small house on the other side? And where was Elise?

Then he looked down at where he had been laying. Someone was on the ground not far from him.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

Betty had been laid out with her hands folded on her stomach and a shirt tucked under her head. She might have been sleeping, if not for the bullet wound.

He clapped a hand over his mouth and turned away. It seemed somehow obscene to gaze upon the body of Elise’s best friend. Maybe if he didn’t see her, it wouldn’t be true. Maybe she would sit up and be fine again.

“Look at her,” Mr. Black said. “Look.”

James didn’t want to obey, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the wound on her forehead and the bloody line running down her nose. He thought of all the times he had snapped at her for doing something absurd at the esbats, and her musical giggle, and he felt like he was going to vomit.

He turned on Mr. Black. “You’re sick,” he said, voice trembling with fury.

“Actually, that would be the mark of my friend Alain. Isn’t he a good shot?” Mr. Black stepped close to James. The old kopis was three inches shorter than him. “I’ll admit I was a tad offended when you burned my home and destroyed the gate. In fact, I’ve thought about very little else in the years that have passed.”

“We didn’t kill anyone.”

“No, but you sure as God tried. Now, I hope you spend the rest of your life thinking about this…” He swept a hand toward Betty. “Like I’ve thought about you. However short that ‘rest of your life’ might be.”

He tossed the Book of Shadows aside. It disappeared into the darkness, and James watched it go with longing.

“Elise is going to—”

“Shut up. I’ll consider myself threatened and save you the effort.” Mr. Black took out a pocket watch to study it. “Alain should have everything ready now.” He pointed at the gate with his cane. A silver cuff glimmered at his wrist. “You first, Mr. Faulkner.”

Elise would have argued. She probably would have fought him, and seen how many angels she could take out before they brought her down. But James was not nearly so brave. He couldn’t stop staring at the neat little hole in Betty’s skull.

“You’ve made a big mistake,” he said.

He prodded James in the knee with his cane. “Walk faster, please. We’re on limited time.”

There were only three wide steps to reach the dais on which the gate had been built, so there was little time to examine where he was going. James knew quite a bit about angels and their ruins, and this was not a gate to an ethereal dimension—that much he could tell. He suspected it would take him to the mysterious angelic city rumored to be under Reno. It was enough to get his academic heart racing.

He tilted his head back to gaze at all the shifting colors and shapes within the gate. He stretched a hand out and felt the vibrations in the air. He had never felt it like that before. Something had changed.

Mr. Black cleared his throat. When James didn’t immediately move, he prodded him again.

Bracing himself, he stepped through the gateway.

When he reappeared a few seconds later, he was on all fours on a street corner. His glasses fell off the bridge of his nose. They cracked when they struck the cement sidewalk.

“Damn it,” he muttered. His stomach wanted to reject everything he had eaten that day. He took shallow breaths and focused on holding it down.

He studied his surroundings through his bangs. The angels had appeared around him on their feet. They were as calm and composed as though stepping through interdimensional gateways was an ordinary part of their day. For all he knew, it might have been.

Then he looked straight up.

He lost his battle against his own heaving stomach and vomited.

When he was done, he didn’t dare look up again. One glance had been more than enough. The mirrored cities were too much for any mortal mind to process.

James trembled as he sat back, wiping his mouth clean. The angels watched him, showing no signs of concern. They looked so different to him now. His body reacted to them—a clenching of his gut, a tickle in his skull. It was like a whole new sense had opened for James.

And then he realized what had changed.

He could
feel
Elise.

To an extent, that was nothing new. He could always sense her. She was like his phantom limb, and sometimes he felt a little twitch that said Elise was thinking about him. But this was something new. He could hear her voice, like tuning into a fuzzy radio station.

Anthony shot him… going to regret that… damn it, Betty…