Death's Avatar (The Descent Series) Read Online Free

the lines of the body, the
arch of the arm, the curve of the leg—these were his expertise.
    But never had he seen a dancer more
beautiful than Elise wielding her twin falchions.
    Demons poured through the streets. Pillars
of flame flashed through the sky with each chime. The bells
reverberated through the earth, and James clung to a tree, barely
staying on his feet.
    Elise slashed and stabbed, as light in her
hiking boots as she could have been in toe shoes. She was locked in
adagio with slavering grotesques. Ballon, aplomb, allongé—James’s
former students would have been envious to see it, if not for the
splattering blood.
    People shrieked and fled. James wanted to
tell them to go inside, to lock themselves where it was safe, but
the sky fire and ravenous horde had driven them to mindless
fear.
    Children fell under the jaws of the demons.
Not ten feet away, a man’s head was bashed against rocks. Elise
danced to her silent andante, slicing through flesh and bone. Her
swords glistened in the rain.
    She climbed on top of a stall. Demons moved
to climb after her, but James flung a page at them. Before the rain
could soak it, he shouted.
    A silent explosion rocked the air, knocking
the demons off their feet as though the hand of God had swatted
them aside. The ones still standing turned on James.
    “ Ayuda !”
    An old man with his face covered in blood
ran down the street. He was followed by two of the grotesques, and
he reached desperately for Elise. She grabbed his forearm and
hauled him onto the stall. Then she leaped down, lashing out with
both feet. Skulls cracked.
    Magic poured from James, swelling and
crashing with the flick of paper. He was a shining light in the
gloom, his Book of Shadows like a brilliant star. He set fires and
brought wind upon the demons.
    There were too many. Dozens. Hundreds. The
jungle seethed.
    He flipped through his Book of Shadows,
searching for a spell that could stop everything, to save the
people ripped open by blunt teeth. But then the earth rocked with
the eleventh bell and he was slammed against a wall. The Book flew
from his arms.
    A demon crashed into him. He saw a flash of
bloody tongue a heartbeat before its heavy foot mashed into the
side of his knee.
    James heard a wet crunch. He hit the ground.
The pain struck him a few seconds later.
    He roared, gripping his leg. The demon fell
on him, pressing more than two hundred pounds of weight upon his
chest like the crush of a boulder. Its breath stank of acid.
    “James!”
    Teeth ripped into his sleeve. He shoved the
demon off of him, but another took its place.
    And then it shrieked, blood sprayed out of
its severed neck, and disappeared. Elise stood over him where its
face had been. He couldn’t draw enough of a breath to thank
her.
    She sheathed one sword before lifting. He
tried to put weight on his leg and cried out. “Lean on me,” she
said, pulling his arm over her shoulder.
    “We can’t go—those people—the Book—”
    “I’ll come back for it. Move!”
    She dragged him from the village. Slowly, so
slowly, they fought their way into the jungle, where the trees grew
thick and the demons could not follow.
    He slid to the ground with a groan. “I think
it’s dislocated. My knee. I can’t walk—can’t feel my foot—"
    Elise knelt by him. His leg looked crooked
through the slacks. She sliced open the pant leg, and her jaw
tensed when she saw the unnatural twist of his kneecap. Seeing it
made the pain worse.
    “I’m going to relocate it,” she said. “Try
to relax.”
    “Maybe we should wait—”
    But she had already put both hands on his
leg and twisted.

V
    There was something immensely cathartic
about cleaning blood off her falchions.
    When the sun rose, Elise sat in the common
area of the village, wiping down her blades with a soft rag. It
used to be someone’s shirt, but they didn’t need it anymore.
    There were more bodies this time than after
the tenth hour. Shopkeepers, farmers, laborers, friends