by Faith Hunter
The man behind me cried out, staggered beneath the heavy stone, and followed, limping, out the alley mouth into brighter day.
"He set a mark upon Cain," I said, pulling in the wild energies dancing on and within the stone at my sides and below the snow. "He shall be a fugitive and vagabond in the earth. Up, follow after the man, to mark the place where he shall lie."
My might swept after them, stealing the energy that formed the shield, draining me to power the conjure—a flaming fireball of purpose. Through the air. Idiot! Demon horns! The attackers rounded the corner, out of sight. Gone.
With a near-silent pop, the conjure fell apart and splashed down. The power of the seeker chant ruptured, falling back to the earth, into the walls at my sides. Into stone. The snow all around me and down the length of the alley melted in a rush. I dropped to my knees, sucking air. The power I had called dwindled into nothing, a dissipating fog.
"Thorn?" The voice was muffled.
Gasping, I wiped the last of the attacker's foul blood onto the gray cloth covering Rupert. With a metal-on-leather grating, I sheathed the blade, knelt, and unwrapped my friend. His face was bloodied, a purple-red bruise beside his right eye. "What happened?" he asked, his words slurred.
"I don't know," I said. And then I caught the faint after-stink. The black aura smelled, leaving a trace of its origins. A hint of Powers and Principalities. "Glory and infamy," I whispered and then wished I hadn't cursed. They had used neomage moves, which meant a rogue mage had been training them. A mage had gone over to Darkness.
Chapter 10
Footsteps crashed at the mouth of the alley. I whipped halfway to my feet. Audric stood there, bare chested, framed in the opening like a black godling staring down the mouth of hell. A katana longsword and a wakazashi shortsword were crossed at groin level. A fighting stance. In an instant, I drew on my drained amulets to blank my skin, damped my mage-sight, and dropped back to the alley. Melted snow soaked into my pants. My indoor shoes were dripping. Shivers gripped hard in the aftermath of adrenaline loss. I was freezing, skin aching, teeth chattering.
Knees flexed, Audric advanced at an angle, allowing him a partial view of the street behind, repositioning the longsword to cover the entrance as he moved. He inspected the length of the alley, the wet cobblestones even now freezing over, the rock wall exploded out, revealing the webbing of ancient wood slaths. He looked at me.
I gathered up the gray cloth that had been tossed over Rupert. It carried the reek of Darkness in the smear of blood, and my hands ached when I touched it, but I balled it up and tucked it beneath my tunic as I helped Rupert to sit. He was groggy, confused, and the bruise at his temple was a rising lump.
A screech of wood echoed in the alley and voices sounded from above. Audric lifted the katana as if to ward off attack, before instantly lowering both weapons and hiding them along the lengths of his legs. Over our heads, two mostly bald octogenarians started speaking at once. "You folks okay?"
"That wall jist fell right on out."
"Dang, woman, I see it."
"I tolt you that wall needed attention. The mortar was rotten. Now them people are hurt. You folks need a medic?"
"Yeah, you tolt me. You always telling me something or other."
"Rupert?" When he shook his head, I said, "We're fine. No one's hurt. But your wall needs repair." Actually, it now needed to be replaced, but I didn't point that out.
"Fine, then. Glad you're all okay. And we got us a son what's a stonemason. You change your mind, you need help, you bang on the shop door at front." The couple, still bickering about the mortar, lowered the window with a second screech. Only after the window closed did I recognize the proprietors of the bakery. It was the bakery's wall I had destroyed. I scented yeast and fresh bread on the morning air.
Audric relaxed his stance and rested his weapons as he advanced the rest of the way to us. His skin was puckered with cold, steam radiating off his chest. "Rupert? Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Woozy." He braced his arms and looked down his body. "I'm all wet. What happened to the snow?"
"Thorn happened."
The blood in my veins froze. What had Audric seen? He hadn't been here—
"The wall can be rationalized, but we need to get you two away from this spot before anyone notices the melt. Can you walk?"
"Sure. Help me up." Rupert raised his hand.
Audric slid the wakazashi into his belt and lifted Rupert. I stood up alone. "Audric—"
"Not now."
"Yeah. Later." Much later. Like never, maybe? The swords disappeared into the folds of Audric's pants leg for the short walk. No one looked out a window to see two wet and wretched people and one nearly naked man. It was as if we moved beneath a cloak of invisibility or as if the light of the rising sun bent around us and vanished.
Heat blasted us as we entered Thorn's Gems. I shuddered hard, slipping off my shoes. My feet were so cold even the floor felt heated.
"Get dry and warm," Audric ordered. I ran upstairs and locked myself in. What had he seen? What had Audric meant when he said, Thorn happened? I unsheathed my blade, recoiling at the stink on the steel. Wiping it hadn't removed the microscopic traces of blood.
Mage-fast, hoping to generate body heat, I pulled a bag of salt to me, one that had been used often, mostly to close circles of power, and plunged the mage-made steel into the bag. Brimstone burned my nose as the blood was cleansed. When I pulled the blade free, salt clung to the cutting edge. I held it beneath springwater in the sink as the final traces of blood were neutralized. I quickly opened a bottle of lightweight oil and wiped down the blade. It needed more attention, but the oil would hold it temporarily. To remove traces of spelled blood from the sheath, I poured salt inside and touched a little-used amulet at my neck. There was barely enough strength left in the stone to clean the inside of the walking stick. When I banged the sheath, pouring the salt down the sink, it had grayed, losing its savor.
The smell of evil was still in the cloth the attackers left behind. I could use it to track them. I could use it to scry. And so could they to me. It wasn't safe to keep or use.
I knelt and turned the fireplace flames up high. With my ceremonial knife, I cut the fabric, removing the bloodiest sections, and tossed the contaminated cloth on the flames. The stink would rise and be swept away by winter winds. Let them try and track it to me. It wouldn't be possible unless they had planned well in advance. The stink of evil wafted up the chimney.
The rest of the cloth, still tainted but less powerful, wasn't something that could be tracked easily, though I smelled brimstone and knew it contained traces of blood. I stuffed it into a stone jar, sealed the top, and wedged it into the bag of salt. It was effectively insulated until I needed it. No one could track it, not through the salt. I marked the bag with a black X.
Only then did I strip out of the wet clothes, hanging them in front of the fireplace to dry, re-dressing in warm underleggings and slacks. I wore navy this time, which wouldn't clash too badly with the teal tunic and ocean-toned scarf. My hair was mussed and I braided it hastily. I was shaking. A pale glow seeped from my skin.
My amulets were almost barren. I had panicked and drawn on them, all of them, wasting their power. I was shaking with after-battle fatigue, cold, even after moving with heat-generating speed. I was too drained to restore both the amulets and myself. Audric had seen me glow.
Because tainted salt wouldn't affect every incantation, I picked up the salt marked TRUTH/LUST and formed a small circle on the kitchen floor, not bothering to move the table, but sitting half under it in my exhaustion. I didn't have the resources to call on the power of the deeps, or to fight the temptation to steal power and force for my own if I did. So I settled on recharging the amulets I needed most.
Neomage amulets can be set up as empty vessels waiting for any incantation one might need, as if formatting a hard crystal disc for information storage. Or they can be adapted with a permanent matrix, as if an incantation or computer program
is permanently etched in the crystal matrix of the stone or shell or whatever is used to hold the conjure. Such amulets are preprogrammed for only one purpose and can be refilled after each use. The latter version of amulet making is time-consuming, requiring several days, sometimes even several mages, to make one, but they hold an incantation and the power needed to fuel it much better.
Most of my amulets are the latter sort. I live alone. I require greater protection than a neomage living in Enclave, and when blizzards blow in, isolating us for days at a time, I have the freedom to make them. In Enclave, a mage might have hundreds of lesser amulets, each charged for a different use. To keep my secret, I made do with a few major ones. I dropped my necklace of amulets at my ashen blue toes with a clatter. My feet were an agony, but I could immerse them in warm water later.
With an effort of will, I called up mage-sight and added the last of the salt, closing the circle with a soft pop. The loft glowed, but dimly, as my own depleted forces dulled my perception of other energies. Too tired to think, I tried to pull energy from beneath my feet. Instead, a seductive lavender heat throbbed at me, pulsing power that soothed and enchanted. The amethyst in the storeroom.
It flowed up my body like a lover finally allowed an intimacy, heating my chilled limbs, even my frozen feet, my aching hands. Too fatigued to refuse the easy lure of such readily available power, I let it touch me, a sultry warmth. I didn't have to pull in the energy; it simply flowed in, like my own blood returned to me, my own strength, power, and life force. It quickly restored my strength, heated my cold body, then passed into the amulets at my pinkening toes. As I watched, my mage-sight swirling lavender and gold with tints of fuchsia, the stone in the stockroom recharged my amulets: the fish that held my shield, the elephant carrying the basic charmed circle, the black-and-green-jade bear that was keyed to mute my physical neomage attributes, the larger bear I called on when I needed power from the deeps for some crisis, the cougar carved from red brecciated jasper that offered the glamour I had hidden beneath at the Salvage and Mineral Swap Meet, others. Usually I required a whole day of intense recharging to achieve such restoration, and another two days to fill the amulets. Drawing on the amethyst, I was renewed in minutes, the amulets only a few minutes later. And still the power flowed, as if begging me to take it, so tempting.
I should stop. There was something wrong with all this power so easily given. But I was empty, empty to a bone-cold depth. So I yielded and filled all the empty amulets in the loft. All the stones that protected and served me. I drew in enough excess energy to recharge the bloodstone hilt of my walking stick. And then a bit more. Just a bit, to warm me, feeling myself expand to contain it.
Immediately I was unsteady, mentally inebriated, physically nauseous. It was more than a psychic reaction. A lot more. My skin, muscles, torso, felt heated, engorged. I swallowed heavily and put out a hand to stabilize myself. I had pulled in too much, yet the amethyst energies still demanded to be used, an external pressure. A faint headache started, my blood beating with an irregular cadence of pain. When I looked around, my loft was a bower of blissful might, pulsing with color as if I could see the energies of every atom.
A knock sounded. I groaned. It had to be Rupert and Audric. With a sick moan I shut down my receptors and broke the protective ring, kicking aside the salt. Wavering as if drunk, I blanked my skin, tied the amulets beneath my tunic, called out that I was coming, and swept up the salt, dumping it into its bag. Movement made me want to throw up. Yeah, I was drunk, as drunk as a skunk, power drunk. I heard myself giggle and stifled it.
Taking up the walking stick, I felt power flowing through the bloodstone hilt, deep within the stone's crystal matrix. The handle was a prime amulet, one of two Lolo charged to my genetic code the week after I was born. After I damaged the other one, the bloodstone handle was my best defense. Barefoot, warm, I walked to the door and opened it.
Audric was alone, dressed in a loose and flowing black martial uniform, a scarlet belt of status tied, just so, at his waist, his blades at rest, hilts toward the floor. Though many humans practiced the art form and fighting techniques, I hadn't known he was a practitioner of savage-chi and savage-blade until I saw him in the alley only minutes ago. Now it seemed he not only wanted me to know, he wanted to grind my face in the fact that he was a master. His dark eyes met mine from his great height, and when he spoke, his tone was formal. "Are you well?"
His words held a hidden meaning. Thorn happened. He had seen my flesh in the alley, had to know I was a supernat. But did he know what kind? I sighed. "You want to talk here or downstairs? " My way of asking who knew besides him.
"Here. Rupert is cleaning up. Jacey has an early customer."
I stood aside and he entered, his bulk dwarfing me. Audric was bigger than the kylen. A lot bigger. "Who were they?" he asked.
"I never saw them before. They were waiting in the alley." As I talked, I moved to my armoire and pulled on a pair of socks, planning my story. "When Rupert reached the mouth of the alley, they rushed him. Threw a cloth over him and he was gone before I could blink. I grabbed my walking stick—because it was the only thing resembling a weapon—and ran after them. I bumped one into the wall and hit the other with the stick several times. They dropped Rupert and the wall fell. Probably because its mortar was rotten and the guy hitting it dislodged enough to …" At the expression on his face, I let my words fall silent.
Audric's gaze was deep, grave, with the Zen-like silence of his training. And something more. Prickles traced up my spine, helping dispel the sense of drunkenness. Thorn happened. I gave up the pretense and dropped onto my cushy couch, pulling up my feet and wrapping my arms around my knees, a defenseless pose, but with my walking stick secured between knees and chest, blade loosed. And I still had the kris strapped to my forearm. "Okay. Let's talk."
Audric settled onto the couch, but he didn't look relaxed. He lay his blades across his lap, prepared for battle. "You are neo-mage, out of Enclave, hiding. I assume you ran following an infraction. Or banishment. This I have suspected for some time."
I should have attacked. Audric tensed as the thought crossed my mind. Not good. I had telegraphed my intent; no human should have been able to pick up on neomage battle reactions. I had become sloppy. I had been away from my people for too long.
Against my training and instincts, I loosened the autonomic muscles that had given me away. Audric mirrored my slight relaxation. I should have thrown everything I had at him, magepower and blade, hurt him badly, then run. That was what Lolo had prepared me to do if my origins were exposed and I was accused. But Audric hadn't accused me. I hesitated. A conundrum. I had no prearranged plan for this situation. And I didn't want to run, start over somewhere else, as someone else. I had roots here. I had Rupert. Jacey. Ciana.
How had Audric known? I opened my mage-sight and examined him. He appeared human, smelled human, moved human slow. As I looked, he touched the lightning-bolt pendant at his throat and relaxed from warrior readiness. Something indefinable slipped aside, as if he dropped shields, as if he had been glamoured, as if a strong conjure had been countered. A glow seeped from Audric, soft coral, like me. Or almost. "Seraph stones," I breathed. "You're a crossbreed."
"The common term is mule, I believe." Audric sat relaxed, peaceful, waiting.
I closed off mage-sight and looked at him, astonished. He wasn't in my thoughts, driving me insane. I hadn't been tested against half-breeds before I was sent away, and clearly I should have been. Lolo would have sent one or more with me into hiding. Surely.
Joy budded in the depths of my heart, tremulous, half disbelieving. I'm not alone. When I spoke, my voice was breathless, scratchy, and I had to stop and clear it. "Not even a human would find you common, Audric. And the term is insulting."
"Indeed," he said, his tone and words still formal. "We call ourselves the second-unforeseen. Or—for the neomage-human crossbreeds who desired to sire children or enjoy the full physical delights of mating—the cursed."
He canted his head. "I too am in hiding, for an incident which I will not discuss."
"Are you a seraph-bound warrior or mage-bound?"
"Neither," he said simply.
I looked at him in surprise. A free half-breed was a rare being, almost unknown. When he didn't elaborate, I asked, "What will we do now? Who else knows?"
"Your scars have been noted at times over the years, while you were working in back. They are"—he paused carefully—"distinctive."
Unconsciously, I smoothed my sleeves along my arms, aware of the spawn-claw shapes, uniform, three fingered and deep.
"Rupert and Jacey have speculated that you are half-breed. Neither have guessed about me. But if Rupert remembers the melted snow in the alley or your unglamoured skin, he will realize, as I did, that you are fully neomage." Rumors had always abounded about neomages hiding in the human population, though to my knowledge, none had ever been substantiated. Until now. It suddenly occurred to me that I was proof the rumors were true. I considered carefully, knowing my power-drunk judgment was suspect.
"The two in the window saw the broken alley wall. It affected them personally, so it was likely all they saw. The wall was old; its falling made sense. The clouds outside hold frozen rain, which could easily create the frozen mess there now. I think Rupert was knocked loopy. And the melt will have refrozen by now, partially hiding my error," I said, watching his serene eyes. "May I suggest we do nothing? Keep each other's secret from the humans?"
Audric relaxed even more and a hint of amusement crossed his face. "A neomage and a crossbreed living in the same town? One of us divorced, the other living with a human man? What would they say?"
"If the humans knew? Too much. But Rupert has to know. If you've been"—I searched for a polite term and felt my face burn—" intimate."
"We're not all totally without physical characteristics. He believes my differences are the result of an accident when I was a child."