by Faith Hunter
“Throw off your amulets,” the wheels cajoled.
I looked at myself in the otherness. Every bone ached. Every muscle, every sinew, every half-healed wound. Even my blood ached, what there was of it. The wound in my side was a swarm of writhing worms and my life force flowed out through it to Forcas.
“We can try,” Raziel said. Floating in the river of time, he gripped an amulet, one that looked much like a prime, and tore it from a thong around his neck. I ripped my prime amulet off, flipped it around, and pressed it into his palm.
Both worlds fell away. Light, sound, smells, textures blasted at me, smothered me, flailed me like barbed chains, rolled me like water, and trapped me there, dying.
I fell. And fell. A thought flashed in my awareness. What had Forcas said when he held me in his claw? Something about the whole flower. Rose? My twin?
The otherness crashed around me. Raziel pulled me beneath his wing, against his side. Surprised, he murmured into my ear, “A third place, but not a place. A here-not here.”
I had no idea what he meant. I was too tired to care.
Raziel was a crimson flame in the lava of everything and nothing. Standing, he drew his sword, shouting a battle cry, a note of true sound, a gong of challenge in a language I couldn’t understand. I saw the tones as they left his throat, floated a moment, and entered the river. Turning my head, I saw Forcas in the real world. It bent its body in a violent arc, and buried its fangs in Raziel’s neck, clinging to him. In this third reality, a netting of conjure emanated from Forcas through the air to me, like the web of a spider. A vein of the web traveled up to the Mistress, holding the ship and cherub in a conjured snare. I understood what the new sight was revealing. I had called them all to me. I was killing them all.
In the otherness, flowing down the river toward me, came another Darkness. A monstrous thing, so huge it blotted out a third of the nothingness-sky. Around its neck was a glowing chain and, where the links touched, blue light flared, but instead of harming the beast, it gave the Darkness power, pulling power from Raziel, from Amethyst, from Zadkiel. From Barak. It drew power from me. The chain smelled of Lucas, of the blood of Mole Man. It smelled of Uncle Lem, my foster father, of Gramma, and of three seraphs.
Raziel hissed a breath and we understood together, mind-to-mind, knowing, what was happening. The Dragon wore the chain Forcas had forged, the chain made with the blood of Mole Man’s progeny and smeared with all of our blood. Forcas had given it to his Master, the antichain to the one that had bound the Dragon in Mole Man’s battle. With this weapon the Dragon was freeing itself.
From somewhere, I heard Eli whisper, “Oh, crap, crap, crap.”
The wild mage-stones on my chest vibrated, humming with the flowing energies. Before me, from the surface of the river, a finger of lavender energy rose from the water-lava-energy flow. A long, sinuous snake of power with purple eyes, many eyes, hundreds of them. A snake body composed of eyes. I understood. It was a vision of the life force of the wheels. Amethyst’s wheels. They were alive. Sentient. Separate from the cherub. “Yes. Your wheels,” it sang. “Yours. Call us.”
Around the wheels Flames whirled, flashing. Seraphs came toward us, moving fast through the river. Zadkiel and Cheriour. One—Barak?—was silver. Another was emerald green, one was golden, another was black as jet. Inside the wheels, Amethyst lay covered with her wings, her eyes all closed. Malashe-el lay on her chest, crying, his fists clenched in her feathers. In the place-no place of the otherness, I touched the snake with my sword and pointed at the mouth of the hellhole. From it a bright orange light issued, light filled with shadows and Dark things that writhed. “Seal it up,” I said.
“This beast has great power,” the wheels sang to me. “I cannot do this thing alone.” The seraphs all watched me, waiting.
“Seal it up,” I said to them, not really sure what I was asking.
As one, they all drew swords and flew into the hellhole.
“Breathe, Thorn,” I heard Eli say. “Saints’ balls. The seraph is dying too.”
In front of me, Minor Flames danced. I watched them from the aspect of death, lying on the stone of the Trine. Behind me, Forcas was dying, and he was taking Mistress Amethyst, Raziel, and me with him. I recognized the trap as a version of the one that had imprisoned the cherub for a century. I figured I had one chance in a thousand that it could be broken by Minor Flames. Maybe one in a million. Or the anticonjure might kill us. Or I could die before I got done. Or hell would freeze over and I’d do it right by chance.
“Can you see the conjure that binds the cherub, the wheels, the seraph, and me to Forcas?” I asked the Flames.
They bobbed up and down. “Yesss,” they hissed, the clean, pure hiss of fire.
“Can you . . .” I envisioned a saw composed of blue flames, diamond-bladed, cutting the threads of the Dark conjure. “Can you do this?”
“Yoursss to command,” they said together.
“Do it,” I said. The Flames divided into three batches of five—surely not an auspicious number—and attacked the incantation.
On Earth, Eli cradled me against his chest. Nearby, Durbarge rolled slowly to his knees, his face ashen with blood loss. I had meant to kill him, I remembered, to save Thaddeus Bartholomew. Too late. We were all dead anyway. He stumbled across the broken ground to the rocket launcher that Rickie had dropped what seemed eons ago.
To Joseph Barefoot the assey said, “If we can fire these shoulder-mounted rockets into the hellhole, the nuclear warheads might seal it up.”
“Nukes?” Joseph said. “Mighta been nice to know we were carrying some real firepower.”
“Yeah,” Durbarge said, his voice so tired it whistled on his breath. “Yeah. Well. Last-ditch weapons to stop that thing from getting free.”
Joseph wiped a hand across his face and it came away bloody. “The Indian always gets it in the end. Just don’t expect me to yell Geronimo.”
“No,” I tried to say. My lips moved, papery against one another.
Durbarge looked at Eli. “Stay down. Get Thorn back down the mountain in one piece. I don’t know exactly what she is, but she’s something important. Call the person on this card.” He handed the miner a business card. “She’ll be taken care of.”
Overhead, the wheels lurched drunkenly and pulled back from the earth. On the ground, Forcas released Raziel and the seraph dragged himself away. The wheels began firing into the body of the Darkness. I saw Eli turn from the light show and take Durbarge’s card, tucking it into a pocket. The assey and Joseph Barefoot, the leader of the EIH, turned and headed toward the lair. From within it, light flashed, and rumbles echoed through the heart of the Trine.
The scents of seraphs filled the air with all things alive and good. I sobbed, the sound smothered by the concussions belowground. My last sight was Durbarge and Joseph, silhouetted by blinding light as they entered the mouth of hell.
Epilogue
I woke in my bed, my entire body aching. This was getting to be a bad habit, waking in bed after nearly dying in battle. But I was pretty sure I was alive.
Audric was stretched beside me, my head on his shoulder. Cradling me, Rupert snored softly, one arm thrown over my waist. A pale sun lighted the loft as dawn brightened the sky. I stretched slowly, trying not to wake them. Rupert rolled over, his back against my thigh. Audric simply opened his eyes and studied me. There were fresh scars across his shoulder and along his neck, scars that matched the claws on the hands of the succubus queen.
“We survived,” I said, my voice wispy. “How long was I out this time?”
He gave me the ghost of a smile. “Good thing you got yourself some decent champards. We’ve guarded you for two days.”
Over his damaged shoulder, my seraph appeared. Raziel was in human guise, his face emotionless. But his scent flowed across me like a bakery and flowers. Like a sleeping cat, mage-heat stirred within me. His ruby eyes studied me, considering. “You charged Minor Flames to do your bidding. You commanded ser
aphs and the wheels of the cherub. You broke the binding of a Major Darkness, saving the cherub Holy Amethyst. Omega Mage,” he said formally, the words spoken in caps, like a title. “You are in great danger.”
“Of course I am,” I said tiredly, rising up on my elbows. “What else.”
Beside me Rupert sat up. The covers fell away and I saw that I was wearing an unfamiliar long-sleeved silk night-gown. Its scooped neck had small, buttoned straps that secured my amulet necklace in place. I took a moment to wonder where it came from before Rupert said to Audric and the seraph, “Tell her.”
Audric sighed and sat up as well, plumping my pillows behind his back. His dark-skinned chest gleamed in the dull light, crisscrossed with new scars. “Omega Mages have the power to command seraphs in battle. There have been others. None have survived for long.”
“Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely?” I quoted, not liking this at all.
“They were tempted to use the seraphs of the Most High for their own purposes,” Raziel said. “They were destroyed. I can save you from such a fate if you desire it.” He extended an amulet, a wing-shaped ruby the size of my fist. To humans it would have been priceless. I was afraid of what it meant to a seraph. “You accepted merging with me in the river of time to save us. If you accept a binding with me as well, you will be safe. The seraphs you commanded on the Trine will not touch you.” I waited, and he went on. “They will not destroy you, for you will not be allowed to overstep your bounds.”
“You’ll be bound like me,” Audric said. His voice was carefully toneless, but his eyes held a note of warning. “You’ll be a slave to the seraph Raziel. As such, the revealer of the rock will have all the power of an Omega Mage.”
Which would move him up in seraphic hierarchy. Gotcha. “And if I refuse?” I asked.
“You will be watched.”
That didn’t sound so bad. Long as I was a good little mage, Big Brother would leave me alone. I thought about my options as the seraph considered me. “Before I decide, will you answer a question about my sister Rose?”
“Yes,” the seraph said, his ruby irises glowing softly.
“Is she alive?”
Raziel thought a moment, his face pensive. Slowly he dropped the hand holding the amulet to his side. “She is.” He added, “Rose is yet a captive.”
Shock whispered through my system at his words. My eyes locked to his, I said carefully, “I refuse the offer of binding and protection at this time.”
He bowed slightly and said, “I am yours to call, now and always, as I promised, in life and battle and love.” Light flashed and he was gone.
Far south, in the New Orleans Enclave, the priestess Lolo raised her head from her conjuring bowl, eyes alight. With a lifted finger, she broke the circle and stilled the musicians. The drum and flute fell silent. The old, old mage took a breath, filling her lungs with the warm, moist heat of the Louisiana air. “Ahhh,” she breathed out.
From outside her window, massive wings beat the air, creating sultry eddies. Mage-heat drenched her, her heart fluttering painfully with the surge of want. Pressure, heavier than the weight of decades, constricted her chest. Outside, excited voices raced nearer, but they would not enter without her permission.
Gasping, breathless, suddenly too weak to rise, she watched the doorway as shadows shifted. Her left arm too heavy to lift, she raised her right fingers, holding a branch of lilacs.
Silver hair caught the sunrise as the seraph entered the room and knelt at her side. One hand stroking her forehead, his wings draped over her and to either side for privacy. “My love,” he said. “She came. She freed me.”
Lolo’s eyes widened. Her breath caught. “No,” she whispered. She clutched her throat, the lilac falling away.
“Yes,” he said, and stood, his smile revealing small, pointed fangs. As the morning sun came through the window, his eyes glowed red.
About the Author
A native of Louisiana, Faith Hunter spent her early years on the bayou and rivers, learning survival skills and the womanly arts. She liked horses, dogs, fishing and crabbing much better than girly things. She still does.
In grade school, she fell in love with fantasy and science fiction, reading five books a week and wishing she “could write that great stuff.” Faith now shares her life with her Renaissance Man and their dogs in an enclave of their own.
She is currently working on two projects—the Skinwalker series, a current-day, alternate-reality world peopled by vampires, witches, and by Jane Yellowrock, a Cherokee Skinwalker, and the roleplaying game Rogue Mage, based on the world of Thorn St. Croix.
To find out more about Faith, go to www.faithhunter.net.