Damnation Marked (9 page)

“Good,” Elise said. “Right.”

James came around the shipping container. “Oh, great, it’s you. Just who I hoped we would run into never again.”

Malcolm took a few big steps back. “Ah, the guard. Don’t worry; I’m here for the same thing you are. Pig demon. Cloven hooves. Eats its kindred, then moves to the human babies, and then leaves.”

“It’s not a demon,” Elise said.

James inched around Malcolm to her side. His face was still very pale, and he wouldn’t look at the babies. “What makes you think that?”

Because it smelled like an angel.

She didn’t say that out loud. Maybe if Malcolm hadn’t been there, she would have shared her suspicion with James, but she didn’t trust the other kopis. It was impossible to trust someone who smiled and winked that much.

“I just know.” She sheathed her sword. It was going to need to be sharpened before she used it again anyway. “Check for tracks, James.”

The witch hesitated, glancing at Malcolm. “Very well.”

He headed down the docks, and Elise searched for a tarp. She found one covering a crate of fruit. Slicing the ropes free with her boot knife, she pulled the sheet over the three small bodies.

“How long has it been, Elise?” Malcolm asked, leaning his elbow on the fence. “A year? You certainly have… filled out.”

She faced him and crossed her arms tightly. “What are you doing?”

“What?” His eyes were wide and innocent.

“I’ve found three dead babies. I’m trying to figure out what killed them so I can stop it. What are
you
doing?”

“Well,” he said, sidling up to her, “this week, I’ve been hunting. Last night, I was searching. And right now, I’m hitting on you. I believe you still owe me a drink, miss.”

Elise glanced at James, who was walking up and down the docks in search of footprints. His pea coat fluttered around his knees like a cape.

“Maybe some other time,” she said.

A
fter that discovery,
James brooded in their apartment for hours. Elise took the time to sharpen the tiny dent the rebar had left in her falchion’s blade, smoothing it into a perfect arc once more.

A pig farm was attacked near Valenciennes the next day.

“We missed it,” James said dully, setting down the newspaper. “More children are going to die tonight.” She kneeled on the floor by the couch and touched his arm. He covered her fingers with his hand. “Why infants?” His voice was ragged.

Why pigs?

That was the real question. She was sure of it.

Elise leaned her head into his shoulder. “You should sleep.”

“We can’t lose any more time.”

“We won’t.” He glanced at her, and Elise gave him an innocent look. “Malcolm has already moved north.”

“And you trust him to take care of it?”

“I trust that he’ll move faster than we can, and that you need to get some sleep.”

Finally, reluctantly, James nodded.

As soon as he was unconscious and didn’t respond to his name, Elise wrapped her falchions in her jacket and took the train to Valenciennes.

She watched the country blur past her, mulling over infants and pigs and the slow move north. The smell of brimstone—not quite demonic—and the cloven hooves had set alarms ringing in her skull.

By the time she reached the city, night was falling again.

She didn’t go to investigate the farm where the pigs had died. She didn’t need to. Instead, she looked up.

Elise wandered the city all evening, searching for the sky and tracing the shapes of the buildings against the clouds with her eyes. Rain began to beat upon her, cold and harsh, but she didn’t don her coat.

She ducked under the awning of a shop for shelter while she considered her surroundings. The buildings around her were all low and old, sitting on the curves of wide streets. The train station was tall, but not tall enough. The city hall was impressive, too—but even though she had to crane her neck to see the top of the clock tower, it wasn’t tall enough, either.

A postcard in the shop’s window caught her attention. She ducked inside.

The photo was of a building with a tall spire with four tiers and grimacing grotesques. She flipped it over. Saint Cordon Church was not far, and it was apparently the tallest building in Valenciennes.

Of course.

Elise held the swords and jacket over her head as she ran the five blocks to Saint Cordon Church. It loomed out of the darkness at the end of the street like a towering scion protecting the city.

The basilica was in poor condition—the grotesques were green and the stone was crumbling. The sign said it was closed, but the door was unlocked.

She eased inside. The stained glass windows were dim, but the cross on the altar was illuminated by a single light, a point of ghostly gold among the shadows.

Darting into the loft, she took the stairs two at a time and ascended into the tower. The sound of dripping rain echoed throughout the stairs.

Elise reached the first landing before she felt the presence.

Its energy was like walking face-first into a wall. It burned over skin, twisted her stomach, and tasted like sulfur on the back of her tongue.

She had found him.

“I’m here,” she said to the empty room.

A shuffling noise responded from the level above.

She unwrapped the swords from her jacket and climbed higher.

It wasn’t until she had reached the top of the bell tower, with its open walls and weather-slicked floors, that she finally saw him. A dark shape crouched in the corner behind the bell. It made a huffing, wheezing noise that snorted through thin nostrils, and she realized it was crying.

A breeze sprayed her with rain as she stepped around the bell. “It’s me,” she said, holding out her hands to show that they were empty. “Don’t be afraid.”

It was too dim to make out the face as she approached, but she could see its curves silhouetted against the wall—the jagged beak, the patchy feathers, the goat-like legs. Through the darkness, she could see that the hooves were cloven.

The figure wheezed again. “
Elise
?”

All it took was the name, and the reverence with which he said it, for Elise to know who was speaking.

She had suspected it would be an angel. She never would have dreamed that it could be Samael.

He inched forward so that she could see him in the dimming light of evening. Samael was no longer the beautiful, elegant angel that had freed Elise from His garden. His body was distorted. Wrinkled red flesh hung beneath his chin like a rooster’s wattle. His eyes sagged in their sockets. The bony stubs of what had once been marvelous wings twitched at his shoulders.

“Help me,” he whispered in a barely-human voice.

She dropped to her knees. “Samael… what
happened
?”

He shuddered. Pain wracked his features. “I fell.” The rain drummed against the tower, and the wind echoed softly within the bell. He snorted and huffed before speaking again. “It’s my punishment for helping you. For speaking to you. For rallying the cherubim…” Elise said nothing, but she felt like her feet had been kicked out from underneath her. “What year is it?”

She tried to speak, but her throat wouldn’t work. Elise swallowed hard. “Two thousand.”

“How long has it been?”

“Two… two years.”

He closed his eyes, and a line of red trickled down his cheek. “I’ve been killing them, Elise.” His lips, hardened into the shape of a beak, clacked when he spoke.

“No, you wouldn’t—”

“But I have!” He reached his hands for her, but hesitated. “I can’t stop. I try to eat animals… try to satisfy my urges with inhuman flesh, but…” His eyes opened again, and the irises were red. “
I’m so hungry
.”

“Infants, Samael?”

A ragged sob tore from his throat. “It’s my punishment,” he repeated. “The cravings. I think of nothing but children. No matter how hard I fight, no matter how fast I run, I always succumb. I am
damned
, Elise.” Even now, he spoke her name reverently. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“I know.” She hesitated. “The others?”

“Dead. I’m the only one who survived the massacre to fall into hell. I just… I
can’t
…” He reached for her again, stretching his pale fingers toward her arm. “Mercy, Elise.
Please
. Can you heal me?”

She considered his plea, resting her fingers on her knife. Wouldn’t the greatest mercy be to kill him?

He hadn’t killed her when she asked for mercy in the garden.

Elise peeled one of her gloves off with her teeth. Samael flinched to see the mark on her palm. “I don’t know if I can heal you, but I can try.”

The gratitude etched upon his twisted features was sickening. He took her hands. Elise opened her mind to him.

And then she was gone.

FEBRUARY 2000

E
lise reached consciousness
slowly, painfully. It was like trying to climb out of a muddy grave. Each time she thought she had gained traction, she slipped again, pulled back under the crushing weight of the drugs.

A rhythmic beep pulsed. Hisses and sighs surrounded her—wind rustling through leaves.

Fear clenched low in her gut. Was she back in the garden? Had Samael somehow surrendered her?

Skin touched hers—the brush of a hand on her arm, gliding to her wrist. Fingers wrapped around her hand. “Elise…” The voice was a beacon in the shadowy gloom of her mind. Something to focus on, something to grip, something to bring her back to life. “Come on, Elise…”

She ached to respond. Her pulse sped, her skin warmed, and she sucked in a huge breath that hurt her lungs. It was like she had never breathed before.

Elise dragged herself to the surface, following the voice to the world of the living. Her eyelashes were glued together, but they opened after some effort.

She was in a hospital room. The signs on the wall were in French, so she must have still been in France. That was where she had been felled.

More importantly, she was on
Earth.

She struggled to make her mouth move, but found no words. Took a long blink. Almost fell asleep again. It was so hard to keep her eyes open.

“Here,” someone said, and a cup touched her lips. Half of the water spilled over her chin, but she managed to get a few drops to slide over her tongue, bitter and sulfuric. She was so parched that the flavor was welcome.

She worked hard to swallow. Tubing rested on her upper lip. A cannula. It blew cool, dry air into her sinuses.

“Thank you,” she croaked out.

James set the cup down, leaned forward, and took her hand again.

Elise may have felt terrible, but he looked even worse. Dark shadows rimmed his eyes and lines framed his mouth. He was wearing the same clothes he had been when she had last seen him. Was that gray hair at his temple? “I thought you were gone, Elise.”

“The angel,” she said. His hand tightened, preventing her from speaking.

“I know.” His eyes searched her face. “It was my fault. If I had been there, I could have protected you from it.”

Her head shook. A fraction of a movement, but it was enough to drive a spike of pain into her brow. “Samael…”

Surprise registered in his face. “You knew it?”

“Him,” she said. The angel was the only reason she had escaped His grip, and he was not an “it”—even distorted, destroyed, and fallen. “Was he healed?”

“Healed? All I saw was a monster leaving the tower.”

Her heart fell. “I have to help him.”

James’s hand stroked her arm. “He nearly pulverized your mind, Elise. Many of the bodily functions your brain unconsciously controls, like blinking and your heartbeat and—and
breathing
—he turned those off when he attacked you. You’ve been on life support for a week.”

Her eyes rolled as she studied the room. The ward had three other beds, all of them empty. “I was trying to help him.”

“And I could have stopped him if I had been there. It’s my fault.” James’s fingers tightened.

“Not my aspis.”

It was hard to speak, but she didn’t need to elaborate. He understood.

Any witch could work alongside a kopis, but in order to fully protect them from metaphysical assault—especially the kind that an angel inflicted—they had to be bound.

He lifted her knuckles to his mouth and kissed them gently. “I could be.”

Even if Elise could have spoken, that would have stunned her into silence.

He sat back, and she realized that he had spread pages from his Book of Shadows across the side of her bed and the table on which her lamp rested. “I’m going to let you sleep for a few more hours. I have a lot more work to do before you’re well enough to be released, and we can’t afford to be in the hospital much longer. Do you understand?”

She gave another dry swallow before nodding.

“James,” she said as he selected a page from his Book. The spell was filled with looping lines, crisscrossing from one corner of the page to the next.

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

A smile ghosted across his mouth. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said, and then he gently blew on the page. The tip of it smoldered.

Sleep sucked her into its warm embrace.

T
he doctors, amazed
by Elise’s rapid recovery, allowed her to be discharged the next day. They attempted to discuss her prognosis with James, who barely understood three words of French, while a nurse disconnected her from the equipment.

There weren’t any translators on the weekend in their hospital, which meant that communicating with James was mostly done via elaborate hand gestures.

“It’s impossible,” the doctor said with an exasperated sigh when she got tired of waving her arms around. “Three days ago, the girl had a concussion and a cranial hemorrhage. Now she’s in perfect health. How is it possible?”

He gave them his best clueless face, smiled, and nodded.

Elise’s mother had spoken to her in nothing but French when she was a child, so she understood perfectly. Medical terminology had been on the lesson plan because Ariane liked to describe battle injuries. But Elise didn’t reveal her comprehension. When they spoke to her, she did the same as James—she looked confused and nodded.