by Faith Hunter
Kneeling to see through an opening in the leaves, I got a good view of the witch circle. The crosses were bright, shining on the trees, but the vamps seemed impervious to them. Not in any pain at all despite the close proximity. They all wore dark mirrored sunglasses, and I smelled sunscreen on their skin in addition to a protection spell. They had devised a spell to keep them safe from the crosses. If sunlight and crosses didn’t stop them anymore, how long before they came up with a way to magically fend off other vamp weapons: wood to the heart, silver shot? My job was gonna get a lot harder if we didn’t get these guys stopped.
The vamps weren’t all witches and none of them appeared particularly powerful, but they all smelled like wit—
I dropped my hand to my favorite knife, gripping the hilt hard. I suddenly understood the presence of Bliss. All the vamps had fed from her, so they carried her witch blood. They might not all be able to work magic, but they could be used in spell-working, just as low-power witches could be used to rout power in a major working.
I couldn’t discount the presence of Adrianna and Rafael, however, as powerless. They were mind-joined. They might have more power than I could estimate. So it all came down to the fifth guy, the nameless Damour brother, the vamp in the paintings from the Damours’ lair. I’d never seen him in person. He was smooth shaven now, and lithe, a warrior. He had been bearded in five of the paintings. Without the beard, and shaved bald, I never would have recognized him. This one would be dangerous as a rabid cat to fight.
He was dressed all in black, and took his position on the north point of the pentagram. He carried an athame with a steel handle and an obsidian blade that caught the light in faceted glints. I was pretty sure that meant he was taking the point of power.
He unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it from his shoulders. He was wearing the amulet from the paintings, the pinkish stone on the heavy gold chain.
“Gather,” he said, “with the moon as power and witness. Gather and join, share power and minds. Gather and become one.”
Renee bent over her children and peeled off the tape that sealed their mouths. Instantly they began to moan and squeal. The vamps and witch/vamps took their places at the points of the pentagram, Tristan with his back to me, his wife to his left, and Adrianne and Rafael to either side of Baldy. I eased two vamp-killers from their sheaths and turned them point back, along my forearms. This would be down and dirty.
Baldy removed the necklace and held the gem in his palm, the gold chain hanging, swinging back and forth. Holding out the athame, he pierced his thumb with the glass blade, hissing with pain. Three drops of his blood fell on the faceted gem and the smell filled the air, acrid and acidic. He passed the necklace to his left, or widdershins, and I was pretty sure major workings always worked sun-wise, or clockwise. Was a widdershins working meant for evil?
The gem and athame left his hands and a glamour fell, showing me what was beneath. And I had been so wrong. Baldy was a powerful witch. He glowed with witch energies, so bright that the humans with me might be able to tell what he was. The composition of his circle changed everything. I was facing big magic by three witches against knives and bullets. I needed Molly, Evan, and Evangelina to deal with the magic attack. And I had told them to stay away. I was batting zero tonight. And my failures might kill everyone who was depending on me.
Thirty feet from the witch circle, I stood and adjusted my weapons, my breath coming short through my nose, working to keep my breathing silent. I tucked a hand into a pocket and felt for the velvet bag. I had no idea how to use the sliver of wood. But I had it if I needed it.
Adrianna took the gem and athame from Baldy. She added her own three drops of blood to the gem and passed it to Tristan. I got a good look at the gem and it had changed color, the tint deepening, as if the blood stuck to it. Or somehow was being sucked inside it. It now had a mist of magics around it, a dark light of oily color and black sparks. When Tristan passed the gem to his wife, it was bloodred, glowing like a ruby, the light swirling around it blackly.
With a long downward stroke, Renee sliced the pad of her thumb and rested the gem in the open wound, bathing it in the pooling blood. Power shot from the gem like a small tornado. The white shells of the pentagram and the circle began to glow, a sickly white light that brightened the trees and leaves.
Baldy removed his mirrored sunglasses and stared down into the center of the circle. His eyes glowed with blackness, his pupils fully vamped out, unaffected by the glowing crosses. His fangs snapped down with a sharp click. He bent forward and unfolded a square of dark cloth I hadn’t noted before. From it, he lifted a new athame, this one solid silver, gleaming coldly in the white light. He looked at Little Evan.
I had wanted to see the opening steps to the ceremony, and now I knew. The gem was the key. But the intensity of the ward was growing fast. The circle was setting, and it was going to be powerful. We had to stop this now.
Beast lunged into my eyes and brain. Power shot into my blood. Saying softly, into the mike, “Go, go, go, go, go,” I rushed forward. Time broke into sharp-edged segments, distinct yet interconnected. Movement from the semicircle of human fighters, each face forming a rictus of screaming purpose. Weapons up. Firing high over the hostages. The concussions thrummed against my eardrums.
I dove through the trees Beast-fast, flowing around trunks. As I moved I found Angelina’s eyes open, and on me. She’s awake.
Baldy raised his eyes in surprise and dawning anger. Two bright splotches of red appeared on his chest. Renee turned, nearly dropping the gem. Handed it safely to Rafael. Rafe glanced at his anamchara. Both of them looked to Baldy, who lifted his arms.
A branch tore my face, just missing my eye, across my cheek. Noted but unfelt.
A white light burst from the circle of white shells, rising like a mist. Red sparks danced in the mist, buzzing. Alive . . .
My legs pumped. Beast-fast. Covering the distance in a heartbeat. The weapon fire was hitting the vamps. They were vamped out and bleeding but not dropping, even with silvershot.
Angelina’s hands lifted. They were free. The little girl moved her fingers.
Hicklin burst from the dark. Screaming. Fell across the circle, through the white light. The red motes zipped, faster than thought, and fell onto him. His scream changed from rage to agony as he toppled. Into the pentagram. Baldy bent in a single smooth motion. And sliced Hicklin’s throat. Blood spurted. Gushed over the silver blade. Angelina’s eyes were on me. Holding me. Baldy whirled, faster than I could follow.
In an overlapped sequence, he cut downward to Little Evan.
Derek burst through the white light. Mouth open in a scream.
Caught the downward blade on his own.
Sparks flew. A belated clang rang out, metal to metal.
Angie’s fingers moved, her eyes on mine. Something black gathered in her hands. Living darkness. Roiling and coiling.
I fell across the white light. Brilliant white flashed into the sky at my passage. The red motes raced to me, stung against my skin, hot, burning. Then darted away. Erupting into the night. The silver crosses on the trees blazed with furious light. More shots erupted, staccato and arrhythmic.
The vamps screamed in agony, shrill and piercing, the sound a death keen, nothing a human throat can make. My ears rang with the pain.
The vamps I passed reached for me. Slow as congealed blood. I whirled. Blocked one. Sliced diagonally upward at the other. Cut into his eyes. Blinding Tristan. The block sent the blow from Rafael to the side without damage. My leg stamped behind his knee. His own speed knocked him sideways. I blinded him too with a quick slashing strike. Beast-fast.
They raised their heads, adding their death keens to the piercing wail. Their blood fell slowly. Onto the pentagram. White light shot into the sky.
Baldy shouted, “No!” his face to the heavens. There were gunshot wounds on his bare chest and his slacks.
Derek whirled, arms out to either side. Took out Adrianna with a punching motion
. A stake to the heart. Another marine staked Rafael. He fell, lifeless, as a third marine took off his head.
A heartbeat later, two more marines staked Adrianna. But I saw her face first. Lifeless. The mind-joined, ripped apart by death.
I pivoted on one toe. To Baldy. Somehow he had the bloody gem in his hand. He was leaning in. He touched it to me. Into the cut made by the branch. Into my blood. The gem was icy on my cheek. Colder than the deeps of space. Colder than a night in hell. It ripped all my warmth from me. As if I could see it happen, the warmth that was life moved to the gem in a single heartbeat.
The pain it left seared every nerve. Spasmed every muscle. I grunted. Stumbled. Baldy stood over me. And he shouted a word of power. A spell wrapped into a single syllable of might. A wyrd.
As I fell, the marines screamed. Heinous screams, as if tortured. Instantly, they started beating their own flesh. Cutting away at their limbs. Cutting at the dancing red motes of power that spiraled down and burrowed into them. Each man assailed by the motes. More flew up from the ground. Down from the sky. Stinging. Burrowing. Attacking.
I landed. Facing Angie. Frozen. Unable to breathe. The spell had frozen my will and my autonomic nervous system.
She smiled. Her mouth moved, but my ears were buzzing with the concussion of gunfire, vamp screams, and white noise and her words were lost. She reached toward Baldy, her fingers throwing, the blackness in her hands set free. I could see it move out, through the air. A shaped, pointed spear of power. Before it hit him, Baldy repeated the wyrd.
My heart . . . stopped. The world began to dim at the edges of my vision. I couldn’t move. Beast couldn’t move. The might of our twined souls was stilled. My hands opened. Dropped my knives. The black light hit Baldy.
Angie reached for me. Touched the river stone rune of power on my neck. I felt the ward rise around us. Around the marines and the blinded and dead vampires. But the red motes still attacked. Not me. Not the children. Not the vamps. Only the humans. I was thankful I couldn’t hear the screaming, my ears deafened by the carnage.
Kits, Beast cried out, fighting the binding. Fighting the death that claimed me. Kits!
Angelina moved her hands again. This time to touch my face. The dark power that was hers to call shot into me. Like black lightning. Like dark life. My body shuddered. An epileptic spasm clenched down on me. Shattered through my brain. My heart beat, a single, hard, painful compression. And then another. I sucked in a breath. Dark power flowed through me. My eyes opened and I saw Angie Baby.
She giggled. “Go, Aunt Jane.”
I took in the tableau of death even as I reached for the velvet bag and the sliver of the Blood Cross. The vamp children had been freed. Had fallen on the soldiers. Drinking hard and frenziedly. Only Derek was still upright, a knife in each hand, one cutting at Tristan, the other slicing at the throat of Renee, cutting off their heads. But Derek was dying. Bleeding from too many sites to count. The red motes were embedded in his skin. Eating at his life.
The velvet bag opened. Fell to the ground. I held the sliver of wood. It was hot in my hand. Burning hot. But I held on.
Baldy stood outside Angie’s ward, legs braced wide at the north point of the pentagram. His arms out and up at the heavens, his mouth open as he spoke another wyrd. The silver and obsidian athames were in his hands pointing high.
The bloody gem was around his neck. Resting, canted, over his heart. I rolled to my feet in a single kip. Screaming my rage. From the arc of the kip, I lunged through the ward. Right hand out. Small silver of wood pointed forward. I saw the thin splinter pierce his skin. Just above the gem. In the V of the gold chain. It slid between his ribs. Pricking deep.
“A sliver of the Blood Cross,” I whispered. “For your sins.”
His eyes widened. Mouth opened. Horror slithered across his face and nested in his eyes. His blood gushed out of the wound. Over the gem. His blood linking the sliver of the Blood Cross and the gem and my hand over his heart.
Red light blasted out. Over me. Over the clearing. It crashed through me like a tsunami and I staggered. Ripped through the light of the circle ward. Smashed against the power of the pentagram and rolled over Angie’s ward, mating with it. The white light swayed, almost an audible sensation as it absorbed the red. Both seemed to grow, as if they were greater than the sum of their own energies. It was a tide. A river. An ocean. It bathed everything in bloody, brilliant light. It rolled over my head. Cleansing. It was like going to water, if water were made of blinding crimson light. It tore through me.
I pulled the sliver of the vamp’s greatest weapon from his flesh. An instant later, a bloody flame licked up from the wound. Spread over his torso in a flash. My skin went hot and I smelled my own hair burning. I rolled back fast. Smoke curled up from my hand, and I knew my fingers were burned. But I couldn’t feel the pain. Not yet.
The maker of the young rogues flamed. The heat was enormous inside the circle of red power.
I reared back and kicked out. My foot landed in the middle of Baldy’s chest. Flame kissed my boot. I kipped to my feet again and rammed Baldy with Beast-strength. The burning witch/vamp fell back, through the red light. Onto the forest floor. I whirled. There were no more vamps standing. They all were down. The heat of the burning vamp was intense, and I covered my eyes against the glare.
The soldiers were all down too, screaming and moaning. Cutting their own flesh. Even Derek, who was grunting with the motion of his knife as it flayed a length of his skin away, the muscles of his arm exposed and bleeding onto the earth. His fingers raked into the exposed muscle, fingernails digging at a mote of red light. He was chewing the tissue of his mouth, his bloody teeth working at a mote buried in his lower lip.
I looked at the sliver of wood. It was the Blood Cross. The true cross? I didn’t know. But even if it wasn’t part of the true cross, it was a powerful relic. I wiped it clean and pricked Derek. He screamed again, and the red motes burst from his skin and up into the night. Buzzing like bees, they rose in the air. Derek’s spine jerked in a whiplash of agony. He eyes cleared. “Son of a—”
I turned and pricked each of the others, even Hicklin, who had died so quickly. The red motes left their skin, formed small clouds, and rose. Joining into a hive of angry red light in the sky above us. It didn’t look like a safe place to leave them. I held the wooden sliver up at them. Nothing happened.
Angie sat up from the ground, bracing herself with one arm. “Aunt Jane, try the necklace. The one the mean man was using.”
They’d all been pretty mean to my way of thinking, but I stepped to Baldy’s smoking remains. In the center of his scorched rib cage, the bones curled up around it like protective hands, was the necklace, untouched by the heat, still bright red with blood. I wasn’t about to touch it. I pulled a silver-bladed vamp-killer and reached through the ribs with the point. Lifted it from among Baldy’s smoking vertebrae by the gold chain. It was a lot heavier than it looked.
I stood there, surrounded by gasping, bleeding men, all but one still alive, holding a vamp-killer, a powerful amulet draped across its blade. And I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. The motes in the angry cloud above me paused. I could have sworn they could hear my laughter and were responding to it. They formed a long, ropy shape, and spiraled down. Right toward the bloody gem hanging on the knife blade. They coalesced into a cloud around the now-scarlet gem. And melted inside it.
Their passage made the gem swing and pulse as if it were alive. And for all I knew, it was.
In my other hand, the sliver of wood glowed with a white light.
And in Angelina’s hands danced a black light of might.
CHAPTER 24
Hot to trot?
We tramped out of the forest, a short line of blood-soaked humans and I. Angelina riding my back like a horsey ride, her heels kicking my hipbones. Little Evan, still asleep, was nestled in Derek’s arms. Bliss was limp in a fireman’s carry held by one of the soldiers whose name I hadn’t learned yet. Hicklin was carr
ied by the rest of his mates.
Faces unmoved, the soldiers had dispatched the ravening teenaged vamps and beheaded the rest. I hadn’t let Angelina watch, which had made her pout. The vamp heads were in a pile in the center of the pentagram, gathered for the bounty they would bring Derek and his crew, all but Baldy’s, Bettina’s, and Adrianna’s. Baldy was mine, confirmation of my completed contract, and my proof for payment. Bettina was still bound, too hungry to be released without a proper blood supply, preferably several of her own servants. Adrianna still had her head, though stakes pierced in her heart where she lay, faceup to the moon. I hoped that Leo might be able get something from her about the plot. Who knew what resided in a dead brain, that could be retrieved by a master of the city?
The bloody gem and the sliver of the Blood Cross were secreted in my pockets, though it gave me the willies to have the gem anywhere near me. It was still bloody scarlet and glowed, warm to the touch.
“It’s Mama!” Angie screamed in my ear, her whole body quivering.
I flinched slightly, my eardrums still sensitive from the death keens of the vamps and the gunfire. “Yeah. And your daddy and Aunt Evangelina.”
Molly and Evan ran to me, Molly taking Angelina, Big Evan cradling his son. They fell together on the grass, in the dark, and I could see their magics blending into a protective and healing ward. Evangelina took over, directing the soldiers where to drop their burdens. She had them place Bliss in the back of a rental car and gave each of the human men a healing amulet. But her attention was for the witch, her face hard and set, and the power she pumped into the drained girl was visible in the night air.
I stood there, my arms empty, having no idea what to do or how to do it, the relics burning holes in my pockets and my mind.
From up the road, a heavy black Hummer moved toward us, followed by two unmarked cars. Leo was here and he’d brought Jodi and her crew. Maybe Leo had been summoned by Derek. Maybe by the amount of power we’d unleashed. Maybe by the death of so many vamps at one time. Either way, my shoulders tightened. As usual, I wasn’t up to a battle with Leo. Wasn’t sure I ever would be.