by Faith Hunter
Cheran appeared beside me. “We need to work on your aim.” My champards flinched, weapons ready. Cheran held out six blades, wordlessly asking permission to touch the tanto.
“You try it with broken ribs,” I said, breathless. I waved off the champards and offered the Flame blade. He touched them to my weapon, making sparks each time. Faster than I could see, he threw them. All six struck the queen, five penetrating joints, one piercing over her heart. If the beast had a heart. Her screams rose in pitch, tinny through the broken shield. Black smoke came from her wounds. Her flesh began to darken. In her rage, she kicked Rose hard, in the ribs. My twin twitched on the floor, retching. My vision darkened in rage, but there was nothing I could do. The pain in my own side stabbed hard, stealing my breath.
“What’s the plan?” Cheran asked, patting his pockets, pulling more blades.
“Last time there was a fight, you ran away,” I said, sounding puny and hating it. I offered the tanto again, and he touched three small, palm-sized blades to the Flame.
“That was last time. Let’s just say I had some bad advice,” Cheran said, face tight. He slapped a metal amulet into my pocket. My pain level dropped dramatically. “That should help with the broken ribs. You breathing okay?”
“No,” I said, trying unsuccessfully for a clean, deep breath. “I’m not.” His conjure was a lot more powerful than mine. Maybe I should have let him teach me. Then again, thinking about his poisons, maybe not.
“Cough? Hemo or pneumo-thorax?”
I was pretty sure he was asking me if I had blood or air in my lungs. “Fighting it, and maybe.” I didn’t know if Cheran was regretting not fighting before or rebelling against orders not to fight now, but it didn’t matter. I gestured with the tanto to the descending seraphs. “Soon as the last one lands, I figure the conjure containing the scents will be disrupted and the succubi will drive the seraphs insane. Rupert had a prediction, a partially prophetic dream about this. It didn’t end well,” I said.
“Partially?”
“Yeah. I gave away the sword that was part of the dream.” I looked again at Rose. She was on her side, facing away from me. I hoped she was unconscious.
“Dang, woman,” Eli said from the side, checking his flamethrower and handguns, shadows making arcs on the stone wall behind him. “You’re tellin’ an awful lot to a chicken-ass stranger.” Cheran ignored him and Eli shook his head. “Not much fuel left. Only a couple extra clips of our special ammo. I can’t use a sword worth spit. And even over the conjure that’s keeping down the stink, I smell spawn.”
Twice, I too had scented devil-spawn. I looked at the Ravens. The winged warriors had spread out, moving bent-kneed in widening arcs, sniffing the air. Something was getting through to them. “Think you can pierce that shield?” I asked Cheran, offering the tanto for blessing again. He tried, but the throwing knife bounced away and spun into the night. Cheran shrugged.
The seraphs overhead were still descending, but their flight was measured. They seemed to be moving through a veil of black-light sparkles, in slow motion. The Dragon was slowing them. That was probably another of the things it wasn’t supposed to be able to do, like transmogrify and take a bath in the river of time. If Azazel could manipulate seraphs in flight, then he could do almost anything. We were so toast.
We could be here a month, a day, or an hour. Maybe our air would hold out beneath the conjures. Maybe we would all die of suffocation. Maybe we could roast a couple of succubus snails for dinner. Chuckling at my own morbid whimsy, I pulled a bottle of water from a low pocket on my cloak and drank while I had the chance. Beside me, Eli did the same.
I figured Azazel was off somewhere, sometime, healing his wounds, so he could fight his little war healthy. It looked like the Dark Prince had planned for all contingencies, even his own wounding. I screwed the top back on and tucked the bottle into my cloak.
“Cheran, can you still kill spawn at a distance, burning them the way you did before?”
“Oh yeah. Of course I could do it better if you gave me back my anklet.”
“Not gonna happen, mage boy,” Eli said for me.
“I figured.” The mage flipped two knives, blades flashing in the light of the illumination amulets. He caught them deftly, a cocky grin reshaping his face. “We need weapons, Consulate General.”
“No shit,” Eli said.
I had pulled the longsword when I landed against the wall, and Azazel had thrown the femur. I checked the position of the succubus, arms flailing at the Flames, the form of Jane shrieking like a fishwife. My sister lay nearby on the church’s burned, scarred floor, still breathing, but drugged or unconscious. Blood coated Rose’s neck where the queen had fed.
I couldn’t tell if my twin still had her amulets. Rose was an earth mage, like the new acting priestess of Enclave. She needed something alive, or once alive, to cast a conjure. Or an amulet made of something that lived or once lived. I had a few thoughts about that, but anything I could figure out had to be a last-ditch effort to destroy the Dragon because they were drastic measures and we were all going to go blooey. A bloody messy way to die.
I walked, mostly upright, to the spot where I had first landed. A dim glow showed me my longsword, deep under the muck of slime. “Ducky,” I said, and plunged my hand into the glop. I pulled the sword free and, wishing for wash water, cleaned it off on my cloak.
“You might think that slime would be acidic,” Cheran said conversationally.
Eli, who had moved with us, said, “You’d think.”
“Eli, are you guarding me?” I asked.
“Just followin’ orders, ma’am.” He rested his hands, fingers hanging loosely, on his gun butts. “Your head champard suggested it might be wise.”
“Mmmm.” It wasn’t much of a response but it was all I had. “Cheran, you want to help? Open up your mage-sight and look around. You see a big bone? A femur bone of a seraph.”
“You mean like this one?” He toed the tip of the bone with his foot. He had been standing on it, and no way did I think he hadn’t known. Best bet, he had spotted it in mage-sight and was planning on claiming it for himself, though his face looked bland and innocent.
I pushed him away and fished Barak’s bone from between two rocks. It still retained a lavender glow from the snake-wheels. I now had my swords, one Flame-blessed, one with my bloodstone prime amulet, and a seraph bone given in sacrifice; I still had the Dragon’s link; and my pain was receding. With a flash of thought, I felt around in my dobok for the cross, not finding it. Beneath a particularly deep glop of muck, I spotted it. I cleaned the cross in the wan light. “Yeah,” I said softly. “Okay.” I was ready to get my sister back from a succubus bitch.
“Audric,” I called, now able to shout. When the big man looked up I said, “Remember that errand I sent you on? Do you still have them with you?”
“Yes, mistrend. I do.”
Ignoring the formal word, I said, “I’d like them now, please.”
Audric came forward and knelt at my feet. Shock flashed through me. I was about to order him to get up when I realized he was on the ground so he could open a canvas satchel.
I swallowed back the command. Seraph stones. Can I be any more stupid? Audric knelt at my feet to swear fealty, not as a matter of habit. He might kneel for me if he screwed up and drew my blood while practicing. Or not. Audric flipped back the top of the satchel.
Inside were stones that looked like black opals to my human sight, but when viewed with mage-sight, appeared as Dark and Light in one conjure. Thin, blue, wirelike strands of Light overlaid and enwrapped the Dark amulet-bombs.
Audric said, “Things are going to get interesting shortly.” Eli snorted at Audric’s word choice, but the big half-breed went on. “Throw these, or use them as land mines?”
I considered the playing field and the number of the opals. Someone could lose a hand throwing them. “Set them up as mines.” Audric nodded his approval.
I experimented with a deep breath.
My lungs ached and creaked like rubber folded over and rubbing against itself. The rib bones were sharp and grinding, but Cheran’s handy-dandy amulet was working. I swung my blades, the motion painful but not debilitating. I checked the position of my weapons and tucked the femur into my belt, the cross looped through beside it.
The Waldroup brothers shuffled closer, exhaustion clear in their postures. Ernest touched the shield separating us from the Ravens and jerked back when it shocked him. “One question,” Shamus said, blinking into the night, steadying his brother when the old man wavered on his feet. “Why didn’t the Dragon attack us in small groups? Why do all this?”
“I think it wants the flying wonders to mate with the succubus queen,” Eli said in disgust. “I think it set this up so seraphs will sin, so they’ll be forced to join the Dark against the Host. That Final Battle humans fought a hundred years ago? It ain’t over. That’s what I think.”
“They been taking a breather for a hundred years?” Shamus asked me, incredulous.
I looked up, shrugging. The seraphs had tilted and tucked their wings to land. The Ravens seemed to see them for the first time, their motions slowing to match the diminished speed of the descending three, as if caught in the time change. “I agree with Eli,” I said.
“And your twin?”
“I’m going after her. Forcas and the Dragon took her and kept her alive for some reason. We get her back and we mess up some part of the plan.”
“We need to be fighting before the seraphs land,” Cheran said. At Eli’s blank look he said, “Mage-heat. I’m already feeling it, thanks to our winged friend here. It’s going to get worse when the conjure that’s keeping the smells down is canceled and the seraphs and you humans smell the succubus and larvae. It’s going to be a mating orgy in the middle of a bloodbath. If we’re fighting, Thorn and I won’t be affected and we can stop it.” After a slight pause he added, “Maybe.”
I didn’t trust Cheran any more than I could throw him, uphill, over my shoulder. But he was right. Pulling three amulets off of my necklace, I said, “We need to get through the queen’s shield. I have anticonjure amulets, which may work now that it’s damaged, but they kind of explode.” I was just glad they hadn’t gone off when I pressed them into the shield. How stupid could I get?
Eli laughed. “More than just kinda explode. They’ll rock your world.” He raised his voice. “Down, everybody. Thorn’s going inside.”
Chapter 22
My champards ringed me. Audric said, “Land mines are in place around the dais and the outer perimeter. I marked a pathway if we need to regroup. Champards, to arms.”
I hadn’t thought about a place to regroup but it was a dandy idea. I squatted behind a low pile of roof rubble, and steadied myself with a hand. Beneath my palm, beneath a layer of ash, I felt thin slate slabs, roof tiles, burned and fallen in. I turned one over, looking at it in mage-sight.
I couldn’t use stone for conjuring if it had been open to the elements, and had unconsciously disregarded the stone of the old church, whose inside and outside walls were exposed and damaged by the Dark. But the church had been burned, then protected from the elements under a conjure. The rocks in this pile had gotten so hot, they’d burned free of wind and rain contaminants, and the shields had kept them that way. They were slime free. I looked around, reconsidering. There was plenty of stone and some of it glowed with pure creation energies. I bet Azazel hadn’t thought about that. And when it dropped its conjures from the church, all the stone was going to be available to me.
I also once used the contaminated Trine. I banished the thought. No. Not again.
Feeling a bit more secure, I aimed at the damaged shield, tossed an anticonjure, and covered my head. The concussion threw me to my hip, and I rolled, catching myself on closed fists. I pushed up in the same instant, pulled swords, and raced toward the succubus, toward Jane Hilton. I opened with the dolphin, nicking its thighs and forcing it away from Rose, who rolled her head groggily. I cut Jane deeply. Screaming, she—no, it—began to bleed.
A conjure sparkled over and she raised her arms defensively, begging, “Stop! Stop!”
Human blood gushed and splattered. Human blood drenched Jane’s pink dress. Pink! Shock roiled through me and I moved back, lowering my blades. This wasn’t the succubus! I was killing a human. Seraph stones. I had attacked a human….
The scent of succubus rose all around and I heard Thadd groan with want. Thadd who had the seraph stone, but who couldn’t fight because of his wing. If he was having mage-heat difficulty, the seraphs were in deep trouble. Audric urged him to fight, to stimulate battle-lust.
Eli danced up beside me and hit Jane with a blast of the holy oil he used in his gun. The scent of eucalyptus and conifers filled the air, mixing with succubus scent and her pitiful screams. When she was drenched, oil and blood mixing, he reset his weapon and said, “Throw one-a them exploding things at her. Let’s see what she’s got under that skin.”
I started to argue, but he fired again. This time a flame shot out, hitting Lucas’ lady love in her bleeding chest. The scream that followed was nothing like human; it cleared the conjure from my head. I tossed another anticonjure into the midst of the inferno. Jane exploded.
Or rather, the glamour of Jane exploded away and the queen rose up from the center of her, burning and raging, all claws and teeth. “There she is,” Eli sang out, laughing, flamethrower to the side. “Miss America!”
The fear staying my hand, the fear of killing a human, was stripped away with the sight of the queen as her Big Bad Ugly self. Walking-stick blade held to the side, perpendicular to the ground, tanto low, at my thigh, I attacked. I cut, letting the weight of the longsword do the work. Flames zipped through the wounds, burning, leaving hideous gaping holes. The reek of succubus gagged me and I forced down the sour taste. I cut and cut, splattered by acidic blood, not human blood. Foul Darkness. My champards fought at my side, even Thadd, hounded into action by Audric.
To my right, I heard the prayers of the elders begin, “I will love thee, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower….”
Shocked, I danced back. They were quoting the Eighteenth Psalm, one I had particular fondness for, as it claimed victory over Darkness and called the Most High a rock. It was a psalm for stone mages, a specific and distinct sign of approval and support. I saluted them with the tanto and returned to the attack in the ugly forms of the crab. The sounds of battle were bright in the night. Battle-lust began to rise in me, my heart pounding, wounds forgotten.
An icy wind blew, circling through the broken walls and through the arched windows. The winter air was frigid, freezing the slime and blood pooled on the broken, burned floor into a slushy mess. Footing was precarious. Nearby, the seraphs were inches from the church floor.
I swung backhanded with the longsword and caught the blade in the queen’s shoulder joint, jarring me to the spine, ripping me from battle-lust. I yanked to free it. The succubus clawed me, catching my chest and ripping aside the battle cloak, scoring my skin beneath in its claws. Three knives landed with hard thunks in the beast, distracting it from me.
I wished the champards had saved the big-ass gun. We could use it about now. I gave a final hard wrench. I felt a snap and I fell back, taking the hilt with me.
Beyond it, there was a three-inch length of steel and a cleanly broken blade. Shock and alarm shuddered through me, trailed by the pain of loss. I loved that sword.
I tucked the amuleted hilt into my dobok and pulled the kris, now holding only short blades. This wouldn’t do. I resheathed it and lifted out the war ax, sliding my hand through the loop at the base before gripping the handle. Its head was smaller than a human’s war ax, but with a wider flange at the cutting edge. I swung, finding its balance. I didn’t like it. Not at all. Like I had a choice.
Tanto in one hand, ax in the other, I leaped bac
k to the fighting. Rupert moved in on one side of me, watching me with tight eyes, fighting with his named blade. He knew where we were. He had recognized his death dream. “I won’t,” I said to him. “No matter what. I refuse.”
The elders were chanting verse six: “…and my cry came before him, even into his ears. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.”
The earth beneath our feet began to tremble. “Crap,” Eli said, appearing at my elbow. “The big bad mojo is back.”
“Thorn?” Rose said. Beneath the conjure of the Apache Tear, her mind touched mine, static-filled visions of horror, things she had seen. Things that had been done to her. I faltered.
Rupert, as if he knew what had happened, shouldered me back. “We’ve got it here. Take care of the girl.”
I sheathed my blade and secured the ax, kneeling at Rose’s side. I gathered her up, easing her from the cold church floor to a slab of blackened wood in the corner, under a patch of the roof that was protected from the wind. She was cold, shivering, and I pulled off my battle cloak, wrapping it around her. Rose was little more than skin and bones. Azazel and his minions may have kept her alive, but they hadn’t fed her much. She was filthy, her hair in loose clumps, bald scalp beneath, her clothes rotted.
“You can be near me?” Rose whispered. “Without going crazy?”
“Yes.” I tapped the Apache Tear hanging around my neck. “A conjure to keep my mind separate.”
Rose’s fingers brushed the Tear, and her touch overrode the conjure. I glimpsed a dark place, a cave, and a seraph face close above hers, a face I had seen before—Forcas, in his glamoured state. Too close. Too intimate. She shivered again and forced the vision away as she focused on me. We hadn’t been together in ten years, since I was spirited away from Enclave for my own sanity’s sake. We shared a moment of gladness, a burst of joy and relief that I—we—felt to our toes. Rose laughed softly and the laughter brought on a coughing spell.