by Faith Hunter
A form moved from the shadows of the bakery across the street. Bareheaded in the night, his long coat unbuttoned, Thadd stared up at me, the angle allowing him to see me from the waist up. Though it was dark, I knew he saw me standing there, blade raised, naked but for my amulets. I could sense his heat, his need, desire stronger even than the seraph’s in my dream. My body responded to the fire in his eyes, nipples tightening.
He was refusing the kylen transformation, fighting it. So what was Thadd becoming? What would happen if I, if we, gave in to the attraction between us and fell on the bed, as the seraph and I had fallen together in my dream?
Thadd’s hand lifted. Asking what? To come inside?
The scent thickened. It wasn’t the aroma of Thaddeus Bartholomew, kylen and cop, nor was it the smell of seraph. I broke our gaze and turned to my loft. Opening mage-sight, I swept the open space, seeking. I had done just that only a day past and had seen nothing out of the ordinary. Now, near the back door that led out onto the small back porch, I saw a spark of reddish brown swirling with black. My nostrils flared, and beneath the smell of flowers and mold and rotting vegetation, I caught the stink of brimstone.
I moved through the dark apartment with ease, the overhead fans blowing icy air over my bare skin. At the back door, behind a privacy screen, was a woven reed basket of folded sheets. The glow came from within it.
I lifted the sheets. On the bottom of the basket was an egg-sized piece of wood, river-carved and smoothed. An earth amulet. Its foul stink roiled out.
In mage-sight, the Dark conjure caught in the cells of the wood appeared as an intricate web of shadow and orange light. I didn’t touch it, but I recognized an incantation spelled to stimulate heat. Someone had put it in my loft. Someone had climbed the loft stairs from the shop or crept along the back of the building and up the stairs to the porch. I checked the door. It was locked. How did he, or she, get in?
I turned on a light and placed the blades on the foot of the bed. I had several stone jars filled with used salt, and I took one. Opening the top of the jar with a glove, I shoved the driftwood amulet inside, deep into the salt, and closed the lid.
Only then did I put on a robe and return to the front windows. Thadd was gone but the stink remained. Had Thadd put the amulet here? One of the townsfolk? I knew the scent of the conjure that had trapped me in the dream memory. It reeked of incubus.
Chapter 15
Before I climbed back into the now-cold bed, I had to ward my home or I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Pulling on a robe, I carted my silver bowl from window to window, gathering the stones that protected me. Stones that had not been enough security against whatever or whoever had entered my loft. When the bowl was uncomfortably heavy, I carried it to the kitchen and shoved the table to the side with my hip. I placed the stone spheres and eggs—agates, quartz, marble in shades of pink, white, brown, and green—on the floor and sat beside them, clicking a circle around me. I was so exhausted that, if I tried to pour a salt ring and conjure a proper circle, I might incinerate myself, but even using a stored circle, I could do a quick-and-dirty protection that would get me through the night. I hoped.
Filling stones with power was the work of hours, unless I used a shortcut. It might not be a terribly safe shortcut—throwing around creation energies when tired, cold, and horny as a burning bunny was never wise—but it was what I had.
Mages in Enclave didn’t have to worry about their protection, and if they needed a lot of power, they could call on one another for assistance, or they could draw quickly from the power sink stored deep in the earth below them. I had discovered that distance made it harder for me to utilize that source. Living on my own, I had learned to bend the rules.
But this is different, a warning voice whispered inside my head.
I closed my eyes, blew out a tension-filled breath, and drew in a calming one. Serenity fluttered just out of reach, distanced by exhaustion, and by a niggling doubt as to the wisdom of this. I had been thinking about this kind of conjure, but I hadn’t tried it before. And using a portable circle meant that I located and used power in different, less controlled ways. But I was so tired. And I knew I could do this. I knew I could. I breathed out my tension.
Crossing my legs, I let my back slump. The floor was icy beneath my bottom, chilling my thighs. I hadn’t bothered with candles. This would be nothing but power and stone.
Again I breathed. Calm slid closer. The silence of the loft settled about me, only the black-pig clock ticking over my shoulder, soothing, a part of the stillness. Calm finally rested on me, heavy, enticing me toward sleep. My breath smoothed. Peace entered me with each inhalation and wrapped itself around me, warm, thawing the cold tiles beneath me.
My heart beat a slow, methodical rhythm. Behind my closed lids, I saw the gentle radiance of my own flesh, the brighter glow of my childhood scars like a horrible map of old pain down my legs and arms. I opened my eyes, seeing with mage-sight.
The loft pulsed with power: bath, bed, fireplaces, every window, the floor; all glowed, charged with pale energy. To enter here would cause Darkness terrible pain. Except for near the back door. There I saw a dull black stain, where something had conjured an opening. It hadn’t come fully inside, but had knelt and touched the laundry basket. It had made contact with the door in three places. Scuffed traces of its fingers were on the basket. The mark of Darkness was already fading, but my breathing sped at the sight.
My skin burned brighter than the apartment, a pearl sheen with the hotter radiance of scars. The amulet necklace I wore was a bright constellation of power, resting on my chest.
Sight open, I focused on the structure of Thorn’s Gems, and my home above it. The building was over two hundred years old, constructed and rebuilt over time with whatever was handy. The outer walls were several feet thick, built with a mishmash of materials: brick, mortar, and stone gathered or quarried nearby. Because brick and mortar were composed of minerals, I could use them in the conjure too, but it was the rocks, some weighing hundreds of pounds, on which I concentrated. In the radiance of the other materials, they smoldered with raw power. I fixed each in my mind and reached down, toward the center of the earth.
Power seized me. Power from the beginning of time, heard as much as felt, it swept up through the earth and caught me, a humming, singing echo of the first Word of Creation. I could see the thrum of strength, the force, the raw, raging power deep in the earth. It burned, a molten mantle seeking outlet. Finding me, rising within me.
But the amulet necklace already around my neck tempered my reaction. The might of the earth writhed inside me, melding me to it. Instantly I was refreshed, my aches and pains, the dregs of the cold that settled into my bones, eased, along with the ache of the spur amulet that had pierced my side. Strength flowed into me.
Seeing the outlines of the hidden construction of my home, I directed the energies into the walls. They rose like a wave of lava, replacing the air pockets in the mortar, filling the cracks and sealing the building. Like magma, it pooled in the foundation and walls, swirling into and through them. The walls blazed.
I filled the bowlful of stones, and all my amulets, and directed energies around the lintels and jambs of the doors and windows. Nothing of the Dark could enter now. And still the power rose, a solid force of might that stopped where the walls stopped. I had no power over the wood roof supports or the metal roof, but the walls and foundation sizzled with energy. As an afterthought, I included Rupert’s loft, Audric’s storefront, and the foundation of the stable in the conjure. The fortification glowed, a sharp, multitoned energy that glistened with massed power, making my home into a weapon. I paused. Calling the power of leftover creation had never been so easy. I hadn’t known I could store power like this, in a building. I studied the protection I had made. I wasn’t certain that anything or anyone could pass through it anywhere at the moment, not even me, except maybe through the roof. I’d need to turn it off by day and on by night. And I didn’t know if I could.<
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Well, that’s just ducky, I thought. I had created a prison for myself.
With a touch, I ended the conjure, feeling the backlash of energies as the circle opened. I stood and walked around my loft. This was not good. At the back, I looked out into the night, seeing the spring, its ring of rocks, and the trap I had reset. Some of the boulders were much larger than they appeared, their bases spreading below the ground beneath, sitting on bedrock.
If I channeled some of the power over a bridge into the rocks at the spring . . . No, that wouldn’t work. Stone-power would dissipate into the air. But a tunnel of energy below the ground, like an underground stream of lava flowing beneath its cooled crust, that would work. Returning to my place on the kitchen floor, I opened a new circle and envisioned an underground lava flow. With a mental push, I opened a conduit.
The energies gyrated, spinning down the walls, coalescing into a thick cable belowground. As if passing through a cylinder, they shifted under the barn, undulating along the vaguely streamlike contour. They hit the stones at the spring, rolling like a molten wave over and through them, filling each, but not dissipating. I had created a power sink.
“Now that is just too cool,” I said softly. I lifted a sphere of green marble from the bowl of stones and set a trigger into it. A simple on-off switch. On, the power flowed from the spring and into the walls, forming a stronger protected fortress than any devised by castle builders. My loft, the shop downstairs, and Rupert’s loft next door were all warded. Off meant the power flowed away underground, into the spring and the rocks banding it.
I drew the ward back into the building and clicked the circle open. I was exhilarated from handling so much power. I was also slightly drunk from it.
Carefully, I set the marble globe beside the bed and crawled back under the covers, my head denting the down pillow with a soft whoosh. I curled in the fetal position and pulled the covers over me, creating a warm nest. An hour had passed, though it seemed a lot longer. Time was uncertain during a conjure. Curled tight, I evaluated the walls around me, feeling a deep satisfaction in the sight. “Not bad for a half-trained mage,” I said.
I snuggled down to sleep. Under the pillow was my walking stick, the blade unsheathed. Beside me were two tantos and a half-dozen stone spheres, good for throwing or braining an assailant as much as for the power they carried. I might have a way to fast-charge future conjures. But, even with my new handy-dandy ward in place I would go heavily armed from now on. I was taking no chances.
Saturday morning dawned clear but icy, the temps conveying the promise of the blizzardlike change forecast by SNN. Audric didn’t wake me, giving me a rare and unanticipated respite. I lazed around until nearly eight, and would have stayed in bed even longer than that had the door not slammed open, crashing back on its hinges.
I remembered the conjure. Battle-lust surged through me. Mage-sight flashed open. I levered myself up on one palm, reaching for my weapons, gripping the hilt of a tanto. I glimpsed a flying figure with long dark plaits barreling across the loft at a dead run. I slid the tanto from the covers. Battle-lust surged.
At the last instant, I saw a down-filled coat, knitted scarf, and hat. Ciana. Or a Dark being glamoured to look like her. Yet the conjure was still in place in the walls. Not possible.
Knees landed on me. My breath was expelled with a whoof. “Morning, sleepyhead,” she shouted.
Adrenaline pumping, I rolled with her momentum, pinning Ciana beneath me. She was giggling as I trapped her wrists beneath my knees. “How did you get in here?” I demanded, shouting, the tanto raised over her. “How?”
Her face fell, chin quivering. Tears pooled as her eyes sought first the blade, then my face. My heart clenched.
Seraph stones. It was really her. “I’m sorry,” I said, releasing her, shifting my weight away. “I’m not mad. I’m not,” I insisted as tears ran from her eyes across her cheeks. I dropped the blade and sprang up, pulling her with me as she started to sob. “I thought you were a Darkness. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and hugging tight. “But you scared me. I set a conjure. And you walked right through it.”
“Really?” Her tears stopped as if I’d turned off a faucet. She struggled against me, pushing me away, and unbuttoned her coat.
Fear at my own reactions and shame at causing her fear brawled within me. I pushed the blade out of sight. I might have skewered her.
“Maybe it’s my seraph pin,” she said. The pin, which was shaped like a seraph wing, was given to her by the seraph Raziel. My seraph. It was shining like a beacon. “Cool,” she said, touching it with a finger.
No, it wasn’t. This was not cool. I reached for the marble sphere and touched off the ward, sending the energies into the trap at the spring to wait for my need. If the pin was a way for her to call Raziel, and she had activated it, and he got here and nothing had happened that required his presence, well, seraphs were notoriously volatile. And a ticked-off seraph was not good to have around.
Ciana was caressing the pin like she’d stroke a cat, the movement of her finger slow and gentle. She cocked her head and closed her eyes, a half smile on her face. I didn’t like the look there. It was too mature, too ripe . . . too something. I touched the pin. It went dark. I jerked back my hand.
Ciana laughed and opened her eyes, meeting mine. “I think you just told him everything is okay. Can you take me to the library? Mama has her new boyfriend over,” she said, adding a slur of emphasis to the word, “and I got a school project due Monday.”
Relief, barren and stark, flashed through me. “Sure.” To hide my face, I hugged her again, seeing in my memory her eyes swimming with tears, and in them, the reflection of the tanto raised over her head. Seeing the expression in them when she opened her eyes just now. A knowing. But what did she know? Was the pin more than an offer of seraphic protection for a child of Mole Man’s blood? And how did I find out? What had I really seen in her eyes in that fraction of time? “But I have to work today,” I said, taking refuge in the innocuous. “What time does the library open?”
“Nine. If we hurry, we can spend an hour. Uncle Rupert won’t mind getting the stock out of the safe and setting things up.”
“I’m sure he won’t,” I lied, still trying to calm my racing heart.
We ate breakfast, which Marla hadn’t bothered to feed her child before sending her out into the snow for the day, and I dressed in copper-toned leggings and tunic while Ciana played with my dolls. When her attention was focused on changing a doll’s dress, and she was chattering about school, I slipped behind a screen and strapped sheaths to my limbs, inserting blades: one of Audric’s tantos on my right arm, throwing blades on the left and both shins. To hold them steady, I added large silver cuffs on my wrists and wore high boots. It wasn’t as good as a dobok, but I couldn’t dress for battle every day. Satisfied that I had done the best I could, I glamoured my skin and picked up my cloak and walking stick.
Together we knocked on Rupert’s door and told my sleepy neighbor I was otherwise engaged this morning and couldn’t help open the shop. Rupert, who wasn’t his queenly best, needing a shave and coffee, grunted, “Big surprise there,” and shut the door in our faces.
“Grumpy, huh?” Ciana said, pulling me down the steps and into the cold, dim day.
“Yeah.” I smiled, swinging her hand as we walked into the icy morning. “Very.” Lowering clouds promised an early dusk and poor light, and probably snow. Again.
The library was on Upper Street, down from the shop a half block, and filled with stacks of books. A lot more than when I went there as a schoolkid to study and do research. The publishing industry had been mostly inactive for nearly seventy years after the Last War, and had only recently reemerged as a power. Heavily controlled by the Administration of the ArchSeraph, a dozen companies nevertheless produced some twenty thousand books a year.
The latest fiction publications, romances, mysteries, and adventure were on the front shelv
es of the poorly lit room. Reference books were midway back, and Ciana joined a gaggle of kids already there, poring over the big tomes. The older books, Pre-Ap books, were elsewhere. On a Saturday morning, I was the only adult patron.
Fortunately, Sennabel Schwartz was disposed to help me. The plump blond woman behind the counter had run the library for years, since she was a teenager herself, and had helped me look for reference books when I was in school. She had seemed all grown-up then, but with the perspective of time, she couldn’t be more than five or six years older than I was. And although she had been afraid of me when I was first revealed as a mage, she had been civil since.
A public servant, she wore an orthodox gray dress, but with a rebellious, frilly yellow apron over it. Lined across the counter in front of her were framed photographs of her kids, the youngest in a high chair, laughing and looking cute, if messy, eating something red and sticky.
“What can I help you with, dear?” she asked.
“I, uh.” I unclasped my battle-cloak and tossed it over a chair, adding gloves and my scarf. “I need to see a copy of Enoch I.”
Sennabel looked around to see that we were alone. Satisfied, her face lit with anticipation. “Is this mage stuff?” she asked, her voice lower than her usual librarian hush. “Study for fighting the Dark?”
I repressed a grin. “Yeah. Mage stuff.”
“I have an old copy. I can’t let you take it with you, but you can use it here. And I can provide you with a notebook if you need to take notes.”
“That would be very nice,” I said, at my most polite.