Authors: SM Reine
“Are you impressed?” Belphegor asked.
Slightly
. “No,” Elise said.
“Would you like to join me?”
She stopped walking. “What?”
Belphegor faced her. Another flicker, and he wore his armor. The crimson cape flapped around his ankles in a breeze that Elise couldn’t feel. His fleshless jaw was exposed by his helm in a skeletal grin. “There are always three in any given genesis,” Belphegor said. “The angel, the demon, the gaean. Nathaniel’s the angel. I am the demon.”
“I’m a demon, too.”
“You were once a kopis, a gaean breed. You are all three in a single package. Your blood is primal ethereal, your origin mortal, your power infernal.” He reached a gauntlet toward her. Its spiked fingertips brushed her jaw, and she didn’t step back. “You are a wildcard, Godslayer, and you can fulfill any of the three positions. Imagine a pantheon occupied by two demons. Imagine what we would do to the universe.”
She could imagine it much too easily because it would all look like the desert where they stood: endless hellfire.
It was a tempting thought. Elise would be able to go anywhere and do anything in an environment like that. Electricity? She could will it out of existence. Sunlight? Irrelevant. They would only need the fires smoldering in the pits.
She’d be unstoppable.
Elise would have also made the world uninhabitable for everyone that she cared about.
“I chose you from the kennels for reasons I didn’t understand at the time,” Belphegor said. “You were alluring. Instinctively, I understood what you would represent to the universe, and to me. Lilith made you for me, perhaps out of some belated sense of contrition.”
Revulsion curled through her stomach. “Yatam made me out of his blood.”
“At Lilith’s desire.”
“I was made to kill gods,” Elise said. “Not become one.”
“And? You’ve already fulfilled the destiny forced upon you by angels and man. Is that the end of your legacy?” Fire sparked within the dark depths of Belphegor’s helm, momentarily making his eyes glow crimson. “You can be more than that.”
“I’ve seen what happens to people who enter the Origin.”
“Adam became insane because he was greedy and entered the Origin twice. Hardly an inevitability.” His lipless mouth seemed to smile. “Also, we will have each other. Previous pantheons have done best when they formed strong bonds with each other.”
The only kind of bond Elise could imagine forming with Belphegor was the bond between her sword’s blade in his chest and her hand on the hilt.
“How do you know about previous pantheons?” Elise asked.
“This wasn’t my first genesis. I’m the last of the ancients. I have done all of this before. I have seen gods rise and fall, and I know what it will take to make the next one last.”
“Genesis. You keep saying that.”
“With every new group of gods comes an entirely new universe,” Belphegor said. He waved a hand at the desert. “I flex my godly muscles with this destruction merely as entertainment. Once I have you as the third, we’ll be able to make everything from the beginning. Again.”
Belphegor continued walking. Elise picked up her pace to walk alongside him.
The desert melted away. They walked through a mountain range filled with crystalline temples and waterfalls.
She’d seen engravings of Zebul, the Heavenly dimension where angels used to craft all of their finest work. It was no longer the idyllic utopia that she had read about. The waterfalls ran with fire. The trees burned. The sky was filled with glimpses of Earth.
The plumes of smoke didn’t move, just as the river of magma hadn’t moved. Time continued to hold still.
Belphegor walked on the long bridge between two temples. It was just wide enough that she could fit at his side. Elise wasn’t exactly short, but her chin was only level with his elbow.
“So you want me to enter the Origin,” Elise said slowly. “In the garden.”
“Ideally.”
In order to do that, he would have to let her inside the garden where his real body waited. She could kill him and prevent anyone else from entering the Origin. She could prevent this genesis thing.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
The instant she said it, his amusement grew. He wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d just changed her mind. “You’ll have to take care of something first.”
“Name it.”
“Find Nathaniel. He’s become a problem. He’ll need to be contained.”
“You want me to kill him,” Elise said.
“No, having a useless angel in Eden suits me. His weakness will render those ethereal fools impotent. I said that we’ll contain him, and we will. However, I will only contain him if you cooperate. Surrender him to me and I will let you into Eden.”
So Belphegor would only let Elise into Eden if she gave him a hostage first.
She missed when her enemies were stupid.
They crossed the bridge to the next temple in Zebul. The instant their feet crossed the threshold, the ethereal dimension melted into New York.
The American northeast had been largely untouched by the Breaking, but now the city was suffering like the rest of the world. People fled buildings frozen in mid-collapse. Fire scaled the walls of skyscrapers.
Elise glanced down a set of stairs leading to the subway and found the tunnel flooded with Belphegor’s magma.
His fist was clenching around the entire Earth.
And the sky was worst of all. The Palace of Dis hung inverted above the clouds, taunting her with the sight of where she had left behind Neuma, Jerica, and her loyal dog, Ace.
“What if I agreed to cooperate with you without hostages?” Elise asked. “What if I gave up now?”
“No. No, I don’t think that will do.” Belphegor slipped between two people trying to climb over a car that had been crushed by rubble. The woman’s mouth was open in a silent scream. Tears tracked her cheeks. “It’s not about hostages. It’s about your spirit, Godslayer. You’re too spirited to obey me. For now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Bring Nathaniel to me. Let that be your primary concern.”
“How?” she asked. “He’s a god now. I can’t control him.”
Belphegor’s chuckle was low and unpleasant. “You’re the Godslayer. Get creative.”
Elise took another step, and she was back in Russia.
None of the buildings were burning now. The hotel was safe, along with everyone inside.
Belphegor was gone from sight, but she understood now that he hadn’t really left. He was omnipotent. He was God.
There would be no escaping Belphegor anymore.
Elise watched through
the window as Nash began arranging to relocate the pack. He was pulling together a ragtag collection of vehicles: some flatbeds from the seventies, a few trucks that looked like they might optimistically have come from the year Elise was born, and several vans with company logos on the side.
“Any resistance?” she called.
Nash settled his wings as he approached the open window to answer. The red burns covering his face and neck still looked painful. Even though Elise had been the one to inflict the injuries, he hadn’t tried to confront her about it, remaining coolly professional.
“No troubles from the natives,” Nash said. “They’ve almost entirely left. However, most took their vehicles, and I believe this is now all that remains.”
She did a quick count. Thirteen. It would be enough to transport everyone. “Fuel?”
“I’m working on it.” He took flight again, dragging a little on one side. His wings were still damaged, too.
Elise closed the window, blocking out the cold air. Nearby, Anthony was bundled in a fur-lined jacket stolen from a hotel room. Thick gloves made him clumsy as he took a sip of a cup of tea. When Elise returned to his side, he offered it to her.
She accepted it with a nod of gratitude and took a long sip. Tea wasn’t as good as coffee, but “good enough” would be fine.
“The nearest gate to Eden is in the Himalayas,” James said, spreading a map over the table in the hotel lobby. Nobody had been able to focus with Rylie’s body on display, so she’d been moved upstairs, leaving plenty of room to plan. “It’s going to be a week of driving to reach it, depending on conditions.”
“Conditions like holes to other universes getting in the way,” Anthony said, taking the cup of tea back from Elise when she finished drinking.
The look that James gave him was distinctly unfriendly. “Yes, conditions like that.”
Elise paced by the wall, arms folded tightly. She would have given anything for a bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigarettes.
“We’d be able to move faster with fewer people,” Anthony said. Elise realized that he was addressing her, and she forced herself to stop pacing. “Maybe just you, me, Brianna…”
“What about us?” Levi asked. He was standing next to Abram, who lurked in the corner of the room to avoid the cold leaking through the windows and the conversation at large.
Brianna grinned at the werewolf, wedged onto the couch between Anthony and the padded arm. It was a crazy expression that made her look like she wasn’t quite all there. “What about you?”
“You can’t tell me that you just want to ditch the werewolf pack in some shitty Russian border town.”
“No, the werewolves have to come,” Elise said distractedly. She would need the pack if she was taking Abram. They were his family; they would be most invested in his protection. They would make sure that his heart remained beating long enough to unlock Eden.
“The werewolves are fast, but they’ll still slow us down,” Anthony argued. “Their metabolism is ridiculous, so you have to feed them constantly, and all they eat is raw meat. It’ll take ages to get anywhere with them.”
“How do you know that?” Elise asked.
“Captivity with an Irish coven is boring. I was reading books.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. “
You
were reading.”
“What? I dropped out of college. I have been known to read for fun and education.”
“We need the wolves,” Elise said again. “I also need you and Brianna. It’s not up for debate.” There were several requirements to open a gate to Eden, one of which was a bound kopis and aspis pair. Elise and James no longer fit that requirement. “But I don’t think the werewolves will slow us down as much as you think, Anthony. We’re about to cut their numbers down.”
Levi scoffed. “What, are you going to leave part of the pack behind?”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Before she was murdered, Rylie asked me to exorcise the pack,” Elise said. “She intended it as an act of mercy, but I think it’s a better suggestion than she may have realized.”
“Exorcise werewolves?” Levi’s tone made it sound like she’d suggested giving each other piggyback rides to the Eden gate.
“I’ve done it before.”
“No way,” he said.
She wished that the werewolves had picked someone—anyone—other than Levi to represent the pack at their meeting while Abel was in mourning. Someone who was slightly less of an idiot. “Werewolves are the guardians of humanity, and their form should be purer while exorcised. They’ll be assets in the last battle.”
“We’ve only seen one exorcised wolf before, and it was fucked up,” Anthony said. “How do you know these ones will be any better?”
“I don’t, but angels and demons colluded to wipe shapeshifters off the face of the Earth for a reason.” Elise clenched her fists. “And Rylie would have wanted it like that. Any protests?”
“Yeah,” Levi said.
She turned to the others. “Any
other
protests?” That was mostly directed toward Abram.
He just shrugged.
“I’m going to bring my army from Dis to escort us to the gateway in the Himalayas,” Elise said. “Belphegor wants Earth to be like Hell? Great. My legions will be right at home. I’ll find the nearest sinkhole and meet you all on the way.”
“A thousand demons,” Anthony said.
“More than that.”
He smiled mirthlessly. “So you want a wolf-spirit army on top of your demon army, all to kill this one guy. Nobody does overkill like you do.”
“‘One guy’ who also happens to be a god,” James said. “There’s no such thing as overkill. If anything, it’s a waste of time and resources to attempt to move an entire army when Belphegor can wipe them out of existence with a thought. And this is assuming that we’ll even be able to confront him by going to the gate.”
“He’s not that powerful,” Elise said. “I don’t think he’ll reach his full abilities until the genesis. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a difficult fight, though. Belphegor still has the Fates and hybrids infected with my blood. We’ll need to be able to take them down.”
“Dangerous guesswork,” James said. “Too many assumptions.”
Elise wasn’t making assumptions, but she kept her mouth shut instead of correcting him. Nobody else knew everything she knew—that Abram’s blood could unlock the gates, that Belphegor wanted her to join him in Eden, that she was hunting for Nathaniel.
If she could get the army to the gate, she could break into Eden and kill Belphegor before he reached his full power, and before he had his hostages.
It was their only chance.
Elise headed for the stairs, signaling that she was done with the conversation. “Let the wolves know that they’ve got an exit from this ride if they want it. I’m going upstairs to prepare for the exorcism. Have the volunteers waiting for me when I get back.”
“Elise,” Levi said. When she didn’t turn around, he called again, “Hey! Elise! I’m still talking to you!”
Anthony’s response was quiet as she walked up the stairs. “And she’s obviously done with you, so shut your stupid face.”
She strode toward James’s room, leaving the others behind.
Someone waited for her in the hall.
He loomed behind a set of decorative medieval armor. He was such a big man that he never would have fit into it, but he didn’t look like he needed the protection anyway; the jacket and jeans he wore looked like they were about to rip just from the force of his muscles.
Abel had heard her talking downstairs. He must have—his hearing, as a werewolf, was incredibly acute.
He just glared at her without saying anything at all.
Would he take the chance to be changed into a human again, now that his mate was gone?