Her feet hadn’t yet reached the ground before Milo scooped her up in a fierce embrace. She returned it and then pressed kisses upon his neck and cheek until she found his mouth. Her lips, warm and soft, sent a current through him as their bodies pressed and formed together.
“Well, that was refreshing if a bit primal.” Rihyani smiled as she drew back from the kiss, Milo’s blood on her dark lips.
“Magic can get messy,” Milo said with a wink and kissed the vitae from her lips.
Not satisfied with that, she gripped the back of his head and pressed him for a deeper kiss. Milo felt his unsteady hold on his composure tighten into a fearsome grip.
He was Milo the Magus, De Zauber-Schwartz, and he had a job to do.
Reluctantly but firmly, Milo broke the kiss and turned so he could see both Ambrose and Percy. He still wasn’t ready to acknowledge the giggling horror behind him, but all things in good time.
“Looks like I’ve got another suicide mission for you,” Milo said grimly, nodding at Ambrose before looking at Percy. “And if you’re here, you might as well help out.”
Ambrose nodded grimly while Percy fiddled with the cuffs of his coat.
“You know my answer, Magus,” the big man said, then cocked his head to one side. “But we need to get clear of this spot before a patrol comes sniffing around. Follow me.”
With that, they all loped off into the cold darkness of the ruined city.
* * *
“What exactly is required for this suicide mission?” Percy asked as they huddled in a gutted home.
They were in another residential area across one of the branches of the Neva from where they’d reunited. Ambrose had taken up watch in the fractured second story of the home, while not-Ezekiel and the Qareen waited in the backyard. Milo, Rihyani, and Percy stood in what might have been a living room that was one wall short, creating an open path to the back of the house.
“Besides the prerequisite acceptance of certain death, of course,” the American added with a sniff.
Milo smiled and then winced as he felt fresh blood pool in his mouth. In the moment, he hadn’t hesitated to do what was necessary, but now he was wondering if next time there wasn’t a better way to tap into the essence of his blood.
“You and that thing,” Milo began as he raised a hand to his mouth and jerked his head in the direction of not-Ezekiel. “Gather as much as you can from anything that looks like a home.”
Percy opened his mouth to say something, then stopped and frowned at Milo
“I’m sorry,” he said with a fair attempt at a jovial chuckle. “What are we gathering? Ash?”
Milo nodded as he swiped at his mouth with his furry sleeve again. He hated to waste so much of his precious fluid, but he didn’t seem to have an option at the moment.
“Especially if it might have come from around a fireplace,” he said, trying not to choke on the blood. “But we’ll take anything that’s burnt to powder. Quantity has a quality all its own, after all.”
Percy Astor raised his eyebrows and then bowed his head, clearly at a loss.
“Very well.” He shrugged and turned to go.
“And get that thing off my horse,” Milo said, punctuating the command by spitting a gobbet of blood at the American’s feet.
Mr. Astor went off to see an un-man about an undead horse while Milo turned back to his love, shaking his head.
“How did they even get their hands on that thing?” he growled under his breath, blood flecking his lips. “And how did they get it to work?”
He raised his eyes to see Rihyani smiling and hold out her hands.
“I might have had something to do with that,” she said, and with a flick of her wrists, there appeared Imrah’s cane and his hardened satchel in one hand and his long coat in the other.
“What?” Milo gawked, and with almost childish haste, shuffled out of his soiled furs and into his ensorcelled coat. “How?”
Rihyani laughed as she handed over the cane and satchel.
“I spoke very tenderly to a lock.” She smiled, showing her gleaming teeth. “And then I whispered sweet nothings to a safe. I hope you aren’t jealous.”
I’m sure you understand it was far more complicated than that, Imrah’s icy voice droned in Milo’s head. But not nearly as complicated as using that tainted fool Astor to awaken your Qareen.
Milo’s heart leaped into his throat, and his grip on the cane tightened until his fingers popped as he turned the bird skull to face him.
“You taught him magic?” he demanded, his former confidence threatening to topple like a house of cards.
I couldn’t if I wanted to, Imrah replied with a psychic impression of a disgruntled huff. You’re still the only human magus, so stop your fretting.
“Then how did you do it?’ Milo demanded, scowling suspiciously at the faintly glowing sockets of the skull.
I channeled some of my power through him, almost like a shade possessing a dead body, the ghul explained. It was difficult, short-lived, and extremely painful for Astor, but we managed all the same.
Milo wasn’t sure how he felt about the disclosure that Imrah could at least temporarily take over a human body, but even more, he couldn’t understand why she would go to all that trouble. The Qareen was useful in a pinch as accelerated transportation, especially when wind-riding wasn’t an option, but it wasn’t necessary for the rescue. Theatrical certainly, but not worth the difficulties they seemed to have gone through.
Milo expressed his confusion, but before either Rihyani or Imrah could answer, Percy returned with the Qareen’s black sack in his hand.
“Because someone had to get word to your forces in Sergio-Ivanoskye to come north,” the American said, holding the sack out to Milo, bones clicking softly inside. “And your fairy lover seemed unwilling to make the journey.”
Milo looked at Rihyani, who squared her shoulders and raised her chin.
“I wasn’t about to leave you unguarded with that lecherous brute,” she replied archly, giving Percy an acidic sidelong glance.
“So, Lokkemand is coming here?” Milo asked, trying desperately to not get his hopes up as his gaze swiveled between the two of them. “How long before he arrives?”
Rihyani’s gaze sharpened on Percy, who glared back defiantly.
“It’s not my fault,” he protested, crossing his arms. “If you were so worried about it going well, you might have gone yourself instead of fretting over your darling here.”
The fey bared leonine fangs and leaned toward Percy, but Milo held up a hand, and they stilled.
“So, Lokkemand isn’t coming?” he demanded.
Rihyani’s fangs vanished as she shrugged.
“We don’t know,” she said, looking at Milo. “He said he would ‘see what he could do’ and then sent this fool on his way.”
“He threatened to shoot me if I didn’t get out of his sight,” Percy announced with his chin in the air. “Hardly the behavior of an officer.”
“Welcome to the German Army,” Milo remarked dryly, then leveled a scowl at the American. “Didn’t you and your pet abomination have a job to do?”
Percy turned on his heel and began to walk back outside, muttering as he went.
“Typical. Ingrates. That’s what I get for taking another operation on this damned continent.”
Milo watched him go as Imrah’s frosty whisper rose in his mind.
Don’t mistake that one for a dandy or a fool, she warned. I’ve touched his soul, and besides the corruption, I know none of this was an accident. He’s too clever to just happen to be here.
“But what does he want?” Milo muttered.
The ghul did not answer.
“What’s this plan, then?” Rihyani asked, drawing his attention to the immediate concern.
“Our enemy has an army of stolen slaves,” Milo said, feeling his skin prickle into gooseflesh even as he spoke. “And we’re going to steal them back.”
19
These Sacri
fices
From above, the city of Petrograd seethed like a disturbed ant nest, roused in the dark of night to defend the colony. Entire companies of soldiers were marshaled, and with electric torches, lanterns, and even armed trucks with spotlights, they swept over the city. The sounds of battle on the wind had alerted sentries that the nest was under attack, but the violence had been too brief to guarantee the location of the assailants. So the barracks, the palace, and even the square within the scrap-metal walls were all emptied.
In places where the buildings were fairly intact, they formed rivers of probing light, flowing down streets as individual lights groped aimlessly at whatever they passed. Occasionally, tributaries and eddies were formed in the blind streams as they found breaks, ruptures, or preexisting pockets in the city's winding streets.
In places where the city was so devastated that a rubble-strewn street was indistinguishable from a collapsed building, the soldiers moved in waves. They lapped over the urban wasteland, slowly but inexorably washing over vast stretches of the city.
For all this incredible, unrelenting effort, none seemed to think it worthwhile to look above the broken crowns of fire-gnawed buildings. If any had bothered to let their lights stray above those jagged tusks of timber and stone, they might have caught a flash of silver twisting in a ripple of black.
Rihyani rode the cold, howling wind, hardly aware of the smell of sooty snow in the air. Her dark eyes darted across the city, trying to guess the number of soldiers the roving lights suggested. Each time she thought she had the troubling figure, more lights emerged to scour another corner of Petrograd.
There were so many. Too many.
None yet had worked their way to the edge of the city where Milo and Ambrose had hunkered down in an abandoned building, but it was only a matter of time before the tide reached them. As inevitable as the ocean, they would come.
Rihyani checked their rate of advance and swallowed a despairing cry, then cut across the wailing air currents. She came within sight of the leaning, cross-topped building at the city’s edge as gray snow began to fall.
* * *
“It occurs to me only now,” Ambrose grunted as he heaved a pair of trunks commandeered from the ruins, “that this plan involves magic that has a better than fair chance of killing you.”
Milo looked up from his preparations, his face paler than usual; his skin looked like the translucent belly of a fish. Given the bowl of churning blood and the perpendicular slashes on his wrists, it would be natural to assume blood loss was responsible for his condition, but that was the least of it. Milo’s vital fluid might be roiling about in the bowl, but it was the subsequent essence he’d drawn with the blood that rendered him so corpselike. The red liquid was only the token of what he was sacrificing to the formula, and not only that, but until the time was right, he had to keep the essence active, or it might diffuse and become useless. If that happened, his plan was shot; he knew a second attempt would kill him before he’d gotten halfway through the preparations.
Despite all this, he still managed to smile at the big man over the bowl of his swirling blood.
“With Imrah’s help, I’m much more likely to succeed,” he said, doing his best to keep his focus even as he tried to encourage Ambrose. The distraction wasn’t welcome, but the bodyguard doing something foolish to thwart him at this stage would be disastrous.
You are being disgustingly optimistic, Imrah grumbled in his mind.
No one asked you, Milo shot back without letting his smile flicker.
“Success is not as important as your survival,” Ambrose growled as he laid the trunks down in front of Milo’s impromptu workstation. “I mean, besides me not wanting you to die, have you thought about what will happen if you die pulling this off?”
Milo had, several times, but saying that didn’t seem likely to shorten this conversation or reassure Ambrose.
“I appreciate the concern, all of it,” he said, not having any attention to waste on being irritated. “But this is our only hope for stopping Zlydzen, the Hiisi, and that device he’s made.”
Ambrose’s brows knit together in consternation as he bent and unclasped the trunks. With a frustrated flick, he flipped them open to reveal ash that filled them to the brim.
“Well, these have all been sifted,” Ambrose rumbled, crossing his arms. “I’ve got the American and his pet sifting the rest of what we could gather, but it’s not going to amount to much more than half of one of these.”
Ambrose scowled down at the trunks, chewing his lip beneath his mustache before raising his gaze to give Milo a pained look.
“Is this going to be enough?”
Milo looked at the two trunks, guessed their dimensions, and tried to do the calculation of how much ash was there, but quickly abandoned the attempt. Even if his attention hadn’t been so divided, it wouldn’t have done him much good. This was magic, and magic was as much art as science. He had a lot of ash, and he had to believe it would be enough because that belief would be more valuable than more cubic centimeters of material.
“Absolutely,” he said, realizing his voice sounded very tired.
This is no way to start the struggle to save all of Europe, he thought idly.
It certainly doesn’t bode well for this scheme, Imrah replied to the wayward thought.
You were the one who told me we could pull it off, Milo shot back.
There was silence for a moment, then an icy whisper prickled at his thoughts.
I said we might be able to accomplish it, not that it was a good idea.
Milo shook his head and realized that during his internalized conversation, Ambrose had begun to stare at him.
“What?” Milo asked, an edge forming at the cusp of his voice.
“Are you sure you are okay with what this is going to do?” Ambrose said softly, his green eyes searching Milo’s face. “After how you took it in Berlin, I don’t want to win a battle just to lose you, and I’m not talking about dying.”
Milo had thought a good deal about that point since they hoofed it across the city, and he didn’t have a good answer. As they’d run down the streets, he’d had the conversation with himself, his thoughts chasing themselves around his head. He’d settled on the uneasy idea that those he would be offering to the shades were already gone, and they were going to be used to keep a similar fate happening to others. He was certain there was a flaw in the logic, but for the moment, he’d resigned himself to facing whatever regrets and recriminations would come once he wasn’t in the thick of things.
For now, there was nothing to be done except to do it.
The wind keened sharply outside, and no one seemed particularly surprised when Rihyani slid through the front door, a flurry of ashen snowflakes chasing her.
“As you expected, Zlydzen’s turned most of his soldiers loose,” she declared as she moved between the rough benches toward Milo. “I haven’t seen any sign of the Hiisi, but they won’t come from the woods or the river unless the situation is dire.”
Things couldn’t have gone better than if he’d planned it this way from the start, but that only sharpened Milo’s suspicions. He licked his lips and felt an awful thirst clawing his throat.
Focus! Imrah snarled, and Milo realized with a start he’d allowed himself to let the blood slip from the center of his mind.
His gaze whipped to the blood, where the last of the ripples were racing to the edge of the bowl. He hammered down and sent a needle of his intellect to pierce the settling energies, setting the fluid to roiling again.
“What is it?” the fey asked as Ambrose stepped closer, arms out as though to catch him.
Milo didn’t trust himself to speak for half a minute as he stared at the seething blood.
“Lost my focus for a second,” he muttered, then looked at Ambrose. “I’m fine, Simon. It’s okay.”
Ambrose lowered his arms but he kept his place half a stride from Milo. His mustache quivered beneath glistening eyes, but he didn’t say
anything.
“It’s fine,” Milo said, looking from the Nephilim to Rihyani and back again, his smile weaker than ever. “It’s going to be fine.”
You can’t keep this up much longer, Imrah warned.
Milo wanted to argue, but he knew she wasn’t wrong.
“We need to get that bait together,” Milo said to Ambrose, doing his best to sound officerial despite the quaver creeping into his voice. “Please, get Percy and the Ezekiel-thing to help you set that up. This will be enough ash.”
Ambrose met his eyes, and for once, Milo didn’t feel the gathering pressure attempting to force him to look away. The big man stared at Milo, then with a grim nod, headed out. If Milo hadn’t turned to watch him go, he might have missed the look that passed between Rihyani and the big man.
Were they about to try something well-intentioned and foolish to stop him?
Milo found himself grinding his teeth before Ambrose had closed the door behind him.
Rihyani’s golden pupils glittered as her eyes narrowed. Milo felt the temptation to start a preemptive argument, but a hiss from Imrah drew his attention back to the blood. Rihyani used the distraction to advance, coming to stand before the trunks, hands held out to the offering of ash.
“Why are you doing this?” she murmured.
Milo shook his head as though the question were a bothersome insect at his ear.
“The ash and its connection to the hearth act as a beacon to the shades,” he began distractedly, reciting a section of Spectral Ruminations he’d long since committed to memory. “The ash when catalyzed by essence—in this case, my blood—will draw them like moths to the flame. After that—”
“Not what I’m asking,” Rihyani said, cutting him off. “I’m asking you why you are choosing this? Why this desperate attack when you could as easily go back to Berlin and make your report?”
Milo felt cold sweat beading on his brow as he felt his mind might split in half, torn between two fronts.
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