The Descent Series, Books 1-3: Death's Hand, The Darkest Gate, and Dark Union (The Descent Series, Volume 1) (32 page)

“Oh, James,” Elise said, her voice cracking. She rubbed at the blood on his cheeks, wiping it away with her gloves, and then gave up, throwing her arms around his neck.

Her relief was so strong that she couldn’t hold it inside. A laugh bubbled from her throat. James stared at her as though she had gone crazy, his hands clenched over his wound.

He would have questions later, and so would others. His resurrection would be a beacon that called to demons and angels for thousands of miles around them through a thousand dimensions. There would be repercussions.

But for the moment, Elise didn’t care—not one bit.

He was alive, and nothing else mattered.

XXI

T
he hospital released
James the next morning. They were too busy to keep anyone longer than a couple of hours—the citywide coma had inflected tens of thousands of injuries, from car accidents to cigarette fires and people falling down stairs, and the hospital was swamped.

There was no accounting for the missing hours, but the news claimed that all the damage and dead were caused by an earthquake. It was a stupid excuse. Elise couldn’t imagine anyone falling for it, even though the story was discussed worldwide as fact. She flicked through the channels on the hospital TV and saw it on every major news network.

“Can you believe this?” Elise asked, shutting off the television and dropping the remote onto James’s bed. He was dressing behind a curtain while the nurses prepared his bed for the next patient. “Who comes up with this stuff?”

“Lord only knows,” he muttered.

Stephanie stopped by to drop off a few forms and brush a kiss over his lips. “I’ll visit you as soon as I can,” she whispered, lingering in the door. “Maybe I should take you home.”

“He already has a ride,” Elise said.

“You’re both on enough hydrocodone that I think—”

“It’s fine, Stephanie,” he said. “Thank you.”

But it was true that Elise and James were both unsteady on their feet as they carefully made their way to the parking garage. Normally, Elise wouldn’t have taken any of the painkillers they prescribed to her, but the injury on her shoulder was bad enough that she caved in. She was still better than James. He could barely walk.

He sighed as she settled him into the front seat of the car, shutting his eyes.

“Do you need help with the seat belt?”

“I was stabbed, not paralyzed,” he said, but he couldn’t work up the energy to sound annoyed.

He fell asleep again before Elise reached the street. Being possessed by a major demon, exorcised, killed, and brought back to life seemed to be pretty exhausting. James hadn’t been awake longer than fifteen minutes since his resurrection.

Elise was hardly any better. She situated James in bed and passed out on his couch, waking up ten hours later to find he was still asleep, too. She staggered back to her car and slipped into the duplex without waking Betty.

Before the sun rose, she was awake and gone.

She stayed at the office over the next week while her injuries quickly knit themselves, avoiding Betty and Anthony and the long conversations they would need to have. Brushing her teeth in the sink and sleeping stretched out on her floor, Elise took her solitary time to mend—and seek out new clients online to replace David Nicholas and Craven’s.

But Elise couldn’t stay in her office forever. James called her phone at least three times a day, and although he never left a message, she was sure he must have been getting irate. Betty was—and she texted about a hundred times to make sure Elise knew it.

By the time the next weekend rolled around, her face and body completely healed other than her shoulder, and she finally gave in to the calls.

Elise found the Motion and Dance parking lot full. The main dance hall was occupied by a dance fitness class, so she found James in the back room supervising a “creative ballet” class for preschoolers, which wasn’t a dance class as much as a play group filled with girls in tutus. He looked healthy but pale, slumped in a chair in the corner to watch the kids bounce around in pink leotards with a long-suffering expression.

She took a few minutes to observe him silently. She had missed him over the week, even as she hid out in solitude. There was a little color in his cheeks and a hint of beard growth at his jaw. He looked like he had on any other day. Normal.

Something tense inside of her eased. She hadn’t
really
thought she would come to find him a revenant—or something worse—but he didn’t look like he had been hurt by her little act of necromancy at all. Elise stood behind his chair and cleared her throat.

“Isn’t this Candace’s class?” Elise asked, standing over his shoulder.

James looked up, and his eyes widened. “Elise!” He tried to stand too quickly and winced, gripping his chest. She grabbed his arm.

“Hey,” she said. “Relax. Sit down.”

“Where have you been? I haven’t seen you all week.”

“I’ve been healing.” She pointed at the last of the yellow bruises around her eye. Showing him her shoulder would have been a lot more impressive, but he didn’t need to know he had eaten her flesh.

James eased back into the chair, studying her face. “It must have been terrible if
you’re
not healed yet.”

She ignored the implied question. “Where’s Candace?”

“Her husband dropped a pot of boiling water on himself during the, uh, earthquake,” he said. “First degree burns. She’s taking care of him. Excuse me, just a moment.” James clapped his hands and raised his voice. “You! Penny! I told you no running!”

Elise had to hide a smile behind her hand. James liked children about as much as he liked food poisoning.

“I can finish out the class,” she suggested.

He sagged with relief. “Thank you. I’ll be in the lobby.”

Elise supervised the last twenty minutes of creative ballet. She didn’t like kids any more than James did, but she had “taught” the class herself while she was still in college, so she didn’t mind doing it one more time. Trying to convince a dozen four year olds to
plié
was a great exercise in patience.

When the class ended, James and Elise sat together in the lobby as the parents took their kids away. His friendly smile looked authentic until the door swung shut, and then he grimaced.

“Those people would do better with a daycare than a dance class,” he muttered.

“They pay the bills. Your children’s ballet classes are about half your income.”

“I suppose. Would you like to explain why I’ve seen Betty more this last week than I’ve seen you? As you can tell, I really could have used your help around the studio. And not just with classes.”

“I thought you would have Stephanie nursing you back to health.”

“She’s visited when she has time,” he admitted, “but there’s very little of that. Betty said you haven’t been coming home while she’s awake.”

Elise shrugged, and then winced. Her bra strap rubbed against the bandages on her shoulder. “I have a lot of work to catch up on. I’m busy.”

“Your work ethic couldn’t have anything to do you’re your roommate’s incessant questions, could it?”

“That might have been a factor.”

“She’s been here every day. In fact, you missed her by a half hour,” James said. “I’ve never realized anyone could be so damn inquisitive about demons. If you wanted to tell her the truth, you could have also had the decency to make yourself available for questioning.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for my next earth-shattering revelation,” she said.

Something in her voice made him give her a sad smile. “What happened that night?”

“Didn’t Betty tell you?”

“She didn’t have all the details. I don’t remember anything after our investigation at the cemetery myself, except bits and pieces of trying to sleep that evening.”

That was a lot of empty ground to cover. Elise sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder. “It was Ann. She was working for Death’s Hand. She tried to fight me, and they both lost. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Betty told me as much, but that doesn’t explain why I’m healing from several major injuries. Or what happened to almost two hours of everybody’s life.”

“Your wounds aren’t that major. The doctors said they missed your major organs.” Of course, Elise was confident that she had actually punctured one very significant organ, but resurrecting him had healed almost everything. “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Ann said that you hadn’t told me the truth yet. That there was something about you that would…” She trailed off, gazing at the smooth line of his nose and the curve of his chin.
Ann said I would want you to die
. “She said you hadn’t told me something.”

“Demons are liars,” James said.

“She wasn’t a demon. I’m not sure she was evil at all. I think she was…confused.”

“Then she must have been confused on this point as well. I have no idea what she’s talking about.” He spoke forcefully, and his hand tightened on hers. “You know you can trust me, Elise. I would never lie to you.”

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

They sat together in silence, watching the cars empty out of the parking lot. It would be at least an hour until the belly dance class, which was taught by an instructor named Kendall. They didn’t need to wait. But Elise didn’t feel like moving, and she doubted James did, either.

“I’m glad you came back, but you didn’t need to avoid me. You can tell me everything when you’re ready.”

“I wouldn’t stay away for long.” She took a deep breath. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Do we…” Elise picked at her thumbnail, avoiding James’s gaze. She swallowed. “Are we going to have to run again? Should we go into hiding?”

She could feel him watching her. He gave a heavy sigh. “Do you
want
to run?”

It was a question that had been prying at her all week, no matter how hard she fought to distract herself.

Running would be the smart thing to do. Performing a huge exorcism—and having a city filled with the walking dead—ruined any chances they might have had of hiding.

But Elise had her job, and so did James. More importantly, it surprised her to find that avoiding Betty and Anthony all week made her a little lonely. Elise didn’t want to leave them. For the first time in her life, she had friends. Real friends. People willing to go to battle with her. People she would die for, if she needed to.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to go.”

The corner of James’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Good, because neither do I.”

She thought that response would make her feel better. Instead, Elise felt they had just agreed to do something very unpleasant—something potentially deadly.

“Then we’ll stay,” she said with a tone of finality.

They sat together in silence, hands clasped, until the next class came in and life resumed its normal routine.

S
omewhere very far
away—somewhere very dark—someone else listened to that conversation.

It had been a long time since He had seen Elise, or heard her speak. He had dwelled in darkness for some years, and although he could not tell if it had been ten or ten thousand, he longed for the succor of light—however momentary.

And then it came in a single burning, brilliant moment. He felt her power and saw her eyes blazing with fury. He saw her fist clutching the sword as she plunged it into the heart of a demon. From another time, another place, He saw her anguish.

He had found her.

He saw it was very good, and He smiled.

P
ART
O
NE

An Oddity

MAY 1999

H
istory won’t remember
one of the most important meetings to ever occur. It was organized over secure phone lines by a third party, who selected a time and public location at random, and gave each attendant a day’s notice to travel there—little enough time to ensure they could not prepare surprises in advance.

Nevertheless, James Faulkner was seated at the Pledger Bistro fifteen minutes early. He declined the offer of wine so the waiter wouldn’t disturb him, then tipped his head back because holding it up was too much effort. Even though he had washed and shaved in a train station bathroom, there was no hiding his gaunt cheeks and trembling hands.

The man who approached the table at three o’clock had the slim, dangerous appearance of a concealed pistol. He studied James from beyond arm’s reach.

“My name is Alain Daladier. I’ve come to meet the greatest kopis.”

James sat up. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m James Faulkner.” The collar of his shirt was loosened to expose a white scar on his chest, and the sleeves were rolled back to show fresh pink skin at his wrist where he had been bitten.

Alain observed these details without changing expression. “Show me the sword.”

“Would I have brought it to a restaurant?”

“Yes.”

He flicked back the collar of his shirt. Once Alain leaned forward to glimpse the leather-wrapped handle of a falchion strapped to his back, James concealed it again. “Satisfied?”