Death's Avatar (The Descent Series) Read online

  Death's Avatar (The Descent Series)

  Title Page

  Part 1: The Clock

  One

  Two

  Part 2: Falconer

  Part 3: Pillars of Flame

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Part 4: Stone Blade

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Part 5: Sunrise

  About the Author

  Excerpt from DEATH’S HAND

  Excerpt from DREAMS OF GRAY

  Glossary

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEATH’S AVATAR

  Copyright © SM Reine, 2011

  Published by Red Iris Books

  Smashwords Edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1-937733-17-9

  ISBN-10: 1-937733-17-3

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portions thereof, in any form.

  SM Reine

  Website: http://smreine.com/

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @smreine

  Red Iris Books

  Website: http://www.redirisbooks.com/

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @redirisbooks

  Interior and cover design by Red Iris Books.

  BOOKS BY SM REINE

  THE DESCENT SERIES

  Death’s Hand

  The Darkest Gate (Spring 2012)

  Damnation Marked (Summer 2012)

  SEASONS OF THE MOON

  Six Moon Summer

  All Hallows’ Moon

  Long Night Moon (Spring 2012)

  Gray Moon Rising (Summer 2012)

  Death’s Avatar

  For five years, Elise Kavanagh and James Faulkner have policed relations between Heaven, Hell, and Earth with blood and blade. They're notorious as heroes and killers—the greatest demon hunting team in history. But they're getting tired of fighting.

  Now a Goddess of Death is driving the world toward destruction. When her doomsday clock reaches twelve, the barriers between Hell and Earth will be ripped away and bring humanity to extinction.

  The clock just struck nine. The world is running out of time.

  Part One: The Clock

  I

  April 2004

  There is a hidden temple deep beneath the earth in Guatemala. It used to be the glory of a cult that ate intestines and worshipped apocalypse, but once they committed mass suicide, it was forgotten in time—mostly.

  The main chamber was designed around a single, towering clock. Although twelve symbols were marked around its face, they were not digits, and it had six hands instead of the usual three. Two tracked hours and minutes. One jittered at random. The others rotated counterclockwise at varying speeds.

  In the five hundred years since its abandonment, the clock passed each hour mark daily without chiming.

  And then the chamber was opened.

  The clock struck nine, and its tolls were felt throughout the dimensions, from the infernal undercities to the heavenly gates. Most humans went on with their lives, blissfully unaware, but two heard it as clearly as though the clock was beside them.

  When the ninth and final bell chimed, Elise Kavanagh jerked her sword free from the breastbone of a strigoi. It collapsed, gripping its chest with brittle fingers, and immediately dried into a husk. Dead before the last bell.

  "Did you hear that?" she asked.

  James Faulkner tucked his Book of Shadows under one arm and tilted his head to listen to the lingering echoes of the bell. "That was… unusual." Which was similar to saying a nuclear blast was breezy.

  Elise scanned her surroundings. There was nothing but a barren, rocky slope to the north, offset by cliffs to the south. The nearest village was two hours away. A feeling of dread settled over her. She had spent too much time hunting demons to pass off strange sounds as innocent.

  She wiped one sword clean on her sleeve, took its twin from James's outstretched hand, and sheathed both on her back. The strigoi's empty eyes gazed at the sky as she lifted it. It was lighter than it looked, like a good breeze might have flung it into the air.

  She set it down at the edge of the cliff and stuffed rocks into its pockets. "What made that noise?"

  "Something distant and most likely evil,” James said, crouching at her side. The wind buffeted the jacket around his ankles, further tattering the hem. He had already patched the elbows twice. “Isn’t it always?”

  Maybe not always, but all too often. Elise tossed the frail body of the strigoi over the cliff and watched to make sure it vanished into the ocean. It looked human enough that the discovery of its body would have attracted awkward questions—not that they were planning to stick around for any investigations.

  White froth consumed the body. Elise dusted her gloves off on her jeans.

  James’s eyes were distant. “It's still echoing.” He gave her a small smile. “Would you like to take bets on how soon this will turn into running, screaming, and general terror?"

  The right corner of her mouth twitched. "I'd rather keep my money."

  They walked back to their hotel, and by the time they locked James's Book of Shadows in its metal case, wedged a chair against the door, and packed their backpacks, they had already decided on their next destination.

  For the record, the screaming and terror took about two months to follow.

  II

  May 2004

  At a restaurant in Mexico, two demons were discussing the end of the world over crispy fish tacos. They sat in a shady corner of the patio to conceal their strange faces, and spoke Latin to prevent humans from overhearing. Their conversation went like this:

  "Hernandez says someone's taken over the pyramid in the undercity." The first speaker looked like a man whose eyes had been wrongly attached at the temples. His name was Vustaillo. He was a nana-huatzin, and he made his living trafficking slaves for the drug cartels.

  "Who cares? Let them have it." The second speaker was a woman named Izel with the kind of curves that usually require implants. Sharp teeth filled her mouth in rows like a shark. "Nobody wants that dump of a den anyway."

  "But they said she's a goddess."

  Izel dug into her fish and let the grease dribble down her chin. "Such a goddess must not have godly brains if she wants anything in the undercity. She's an idiot and a fool. May she enjoy her blessed ignorance."

  Those kinds of insults made her companion uncomfortable. He toyed with his beer. “You heard the tolls,” he whispered. “The clock's been wound again.”

  “More suicidal humans fascinated with death. They won’t achieve anything.”

  A shadow fell across their table. The demons cut off. “Good morning. I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.”

  A dark-haired man with a friendly smile took a chair from an adjacent table and sat. He wore a white button up shirt and slacks, like a tourist on vacation, but he had a bandage on his cheekbone and not an ounce of body fat. Vustaillo could smell the magic pouring off him.

  And he was speaking Latin fluently.

  Izel’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Who are you?”

  “My name is James. Forgive me for intruding, but I heard you mentioning the clock, and I hoped you could tell me where it's located."

  “Bistak,” she spat.

  James arched an eyebrow. “And you too.”

  What kind of human understood insults in the demo
n tongue and spoke Latin with such ease? Not the kind of human Vustaillo wanted at his table. Definitely not the type that should be anywhere near the clock, either. “You should move on,” Vustaillo said.

  “Come, now. I’ll buy your drinks.”

  Her hand lashed out, latching onto his forearm. Pinpricks of red sprung up where her nails dug into his skin. Even though she hadn’t touched him, Vustaillo flinched. Izel’s touch was murder. Sometimes literally.

  “I said you should—”

  Izel froze. A figure had appeared behind her and pressed a knife against her throat. A thin line of blood dripped down the blade.

  The woman at her back wasn’t smiling or friendly, like James had been until that moment. Her body was made of hard angles, from her aquiline nose to the jut of her wrist. In the sunshine, her hair was like flame, and she looked furious.

  “Get this blade off me,” Izel whispered, barely daring to move her lips.

  The woman spoke. “Let go of my aspis.”

  The color vanished from Izel’s face, and Vustaillo felt dizzy. Women did not have aspes. Only a kopis could have an aspis—a demon hunter descended from legend, born to mediate the balance of power among humans, demons, and angels. To bind a witch as their partner and protector, a kopis had to be powerful, and a man—there were no female kopes.

  Except one. And she was known as the greatest.

  Demons whispered about her. They said she had no name and that she was as tall as a gibborim. She had become the “greatest” by slaying angels, which was something most mortals would not dare to do, even if they could. Obviously, the first two things were not true, but if the third was, then Vustaillo feared he and Izel did not have long.

  “I don’t want to die,” Vustaillo said, and he wasn’t ashamed to be on the verge of tears.

  It was James who replied. “Then you might want to tell your friend to let go of me.”

  Vustaillo begged for her to comply with his eyes. One at a time, Izel’s fingers uncurled. She slid her hand back across the table. The kopis’s blade did not budge. “Release me,” Izel said.

  “Elise.” A single word from James.

  She sheathed the knife and took position at his back. He lifted his arm to show it to her. The demon’s hand had left a red imprint burned on his skin, but he was not seriously injured.

  Vustaillo pushed his plate away. The sight of food made him want to retch. "I'm sorry. For both of us. We didn't know."

  "The clock," James said, voice mild.

  “It’s in the undercity—south of here, very far south. In Guatemala. The entrance is hidden. You would never find it.”

  “You might be surprised,” he said, pushing aside the plates to clear space. He spread a map over the table. “Where should we go?”

  The eyes of the demons met over the map. What would be more profitable—a truth or a lie?

  Elise unfolded her arms and folded them again. Her biceps made Vustaillo suspect she could pop off his head with a pinky finger.

  He pointed at the map. “There. I can’t be more specific. I haven’t seen the entrance myself.”

  “How close do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know.” Vustaillo fidgeted under Elise’s stare. She hadn’t moved since almost slitting Izel’s throat. “Within five miles.”

  “And how certain are you about that?” James asked.

  “I said I’ve never been there, didn’t I?”

  He marked it with a pen, folded the map, and put it back in his pocket. “Are you going to eat that?”

  Vustaillo couldn’t think of a response. James ate the tacos, and he seemed to enjoy them despite the uncomfortable silence around the table. Music played at a restaurant down the road, the wind breezed through the trees, and the witch chewed loudly. He offered chips to Elise, and she shook her head.

  “What else do you want?” Izel spat, fists clenched atop the table. She was trembling. “Our money? Our lives? You think you can threaten us without recourse because… what? You’re famous?”

  “If you’re offering, we could use a guide to the undercity.”

  Izel barked out a laugh, but Vustaillo perked up a little. “For how much?”

  James stood, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and dropped it on the empty plate. He was a full head and shoulders taller than Elise. Definitely not bigger than a gibborim. “From what we’ve head, everyone dies if this clock strikes twelve. Humans. Demons. Anyone on Earth when Hell crashes into us. It’s in your best interests to help.”

  “For how much?” Vustaillo pressed.

  Elise turned to leave. The message was clear: They would not pay. He may not have been a demon of much prestige, but he didn’t work for free. Even the cartels wouldn’t be so insulting.

  With a roar, Izel shoved the table. It exploded in front of Vustaillo. He flung himself to the ground and screamed as margarita glasses shattered around him.

  Izel leaped over the table, lunging for James’s throat with clawed hands.

  She stopped short with a gasp.

  Something crimson spattered on the back of Vustaillo's hand. He looked up to see a silver blade jutting from Izel's back. The exchange had taken a half moment—no more. The only sound had been Izel’s shout. Vustaillo’s heart shattered when she sagged against the kopis. Elise lowered her to the ground.

  Nobody sitting outside the restaurant reacted. They continued eating and chatting, completely oblivious, as was normal for humans. Vustaillo had picked the most discrete table, after all. Izel’s body cooled next to him.

  Elise stepped back and sheathed her dagger again. James put the table back in its place, picked up the plates they had spilled, and glanced uneasily at a waiter watching from the doorway.

  “Get your friend out of here,” James said. Disgust curled his upper lip. And then they were gone again, as silently as they arrived.

  There is no currency more valuable than information. When it pertains to the location of the greatest kopis and aspis, such information is priceless—and dangerous.

  News of Izel’s death reached the overlord of Cancun by nightfall, then passed to the overlord of Chetumal. Whispers traveled on shadows, crossed continents with the ocean breeze, and found waiting ears before dawn.

  Vustaillo had been murdered by first light.

  The tenth bell chimed two weeks later.

  Part Two: Falconer

  James used to spend his evenings at a cabin in Boulder, deep in the study of ancient magic. He lost himself at his desk for days and weeks, emerging long enough to share his findings with the coven before submerging again.

  His fiancé, Hannah, was a witch of insignificant power compared to him. She had snow-white hair and a personality that made icicles shiver. He liked her that way. He liked the feeling that he could thaw her. Their fights were passionate, their love was tumultuous, and he could have been happy going to bed angry with her every day for the rest of his life. Hannah was many things, but she was not boring—never boring.

  But things changed. Something went wrong. A member of his coven disappeared, and her daughter was lost. Of all the people they could have summoned—Grant, who loved the hunt, or Beatrice, who had no family—James was the one called to find her.

  Thereafter, his evenings were spent in pursuit, and being pursued. James had to bring Elise Kavanagh, daughter of the coven, home to her family.

  But by the time he found her, there was no family left. They had gone into hiding and left her behind.

  It was too late for him to disentangle himself from Elise. Her enemies became his. James’s life with Hannah was sacrificed on the altar of loyalty to the coven, leaving him no choice but to run.

  And the worst part was that Elise was nothing like her mother, an affectionate eccentric. Instead, she took after her father—a brutal man that James was thankful to have never known well. Elise showed gratitude for being rescued with slanted eyes, stony silence, and the sneer of someone who barely tolerated his presence.

  He thought he migh
t have hated Elise a little. Certainly, he resented her. But there were advantages to life on the run.

  He still immersed himself in magic, but it was practical rather than theoretical. James invented spells as he needed them, with varying results. One might be meant to s an exorcism, and succeed; another might be intended to numb the pain of his twisted ankle and snap the bone instead. It was a new kind of study, wild and unpredictable. He learned things that could not be taught in any book.

  Elise usually treated him like a scab that wouldn’t heal, but they killed together better than they did apart. At some point—he wasn’t sure when—they started to tolerate each other. Then they became friends.