Host tsc-3

by Faith Hunter

  Carefully, I said, “No. Not better. Some say that because we don’t have souls we aren’t worthy of the judgment of the Most High.” Some say. Not all. In fact, not most. But I kept that to myself.

  He pursed his lips. “So. Like the dogs and cats, chickens and goats, like the other animals, you live.”

  I couldn’t keep the shock from my face and a low rumble of anger started in the old church. The camera was suddenly as big as a house, and I felt the focus tighten on me. “If you were trying to insult me, you succeeded,” I said, abruptly too tired to care about cameras or the motives and intent of my enemies. I’d had enough, and I slowly descended two steps from the dais, speaking as my boots scuffed the worn boards. “But yes, that is what a lot of humans think. That mages are no better than dogs.”

  “Are the seraphs really members of the court of the creator of the universe?” another voice rang out. This one was clearly a member of the EIH.

  I halted midway down. Before I spotted the speaker, another EIH voice called, “Are the things we call evil and good really only combatants in a war from another planet?”

  “Blasphemy!” Elder Perkins bellowed.

  “Tell us the truth! And not kirk lies,” the first EIH man said angrily.

  “This is an outrage!” a woman shouted. “Arrest the EIH!”

  Men in rags stood quickly. All were heavily armed, scattered throughout the meetinghouse. They were positioned so they could cover the crowd without getting caught in a crossfire. Not a good sign. The elders stood as well, and the black-clad orthodox. Voices were raised, and someone cursed. A struggle broke out in the back of the room. Mothers pushed younger children to the floor. It was escalating. Fast.

  Romona Benson moved the camera from person to person in the crowd, filming.

  “Thorn,” a soft voice said, “you have to stop this.” I met Elder Jasper’s stare from three rows back. I noticed that Jasper had washed the blood off his face, then I saw that he was armed to the teeth. Tears of Taharial. A spurt of adrenaline raced through me.

  My champards swiftly ringed around me at the foot of the dais. All three of them. It seemed I had gained a new protector. Eli was armed for bear. Or for fighting his kindred. He leveled a deadly looking matte-black gun at the crowd. Jasper was right. Only I could stop it. If it could be stopped.

  I threw open my cloak to reveal the black dobok beneath, and the amulets of my office. I gripped the visa and drew on it. “Stop!” Amplified by the visa, the word rang in the tall-ceilinged room. Yelling real loud was about the only thing I had learned to do with it. That and ask it for advice in diplomatic situations. Avoiding civil war seemed to have been left out of its library, however, as it was oddly silent. Releasing some of my pent-up anger, I shouted, “Stop!” A window shattered; children covered their ears. But the crowd went still, fearful eyes on me.

  “Sit down,” I snarled; then, softer, “All of you.” The visa throbbed in my hand, insistent, and I added, gently, “Please.” The near-mob slowly settled, all but the EIH, until Eli tilted his head a fraction. It could have been a coincidence that the operatives sat as one, but I doubted it.

  I looked out over the crowd, the tears that had gathered gone, my eyes hot and painful in their aftermath. I had their attention. Now what? I drew on the visa for advice, my hand holding the four-inch-diameter pink tourmaline ring. Family, community, history, it suggested. Well, duh. I had that one figured out already.

  “This town has fought in the war against Darkness for over a century. You have stood together, friends and neighbors, on the battlefield, when many others fled in fear.” I saw some heads nod. People were settling into their seats, their weapons disappeared from sight. I nudged Audric, and he sheathed his sword. The two humans followed his lead. But they didn’t sit down. Good. They could be a shield in front of me and hide my shaking knees from the camera.

  “One hundred years ago, when the Darkness seemed to be defeated, when the rest of the world began to divide into religious factions, when the rest of humanity turned on itself, this town met together instead. In this very building.” I let my voice mellow into a soft rhythm as I spoke. Mage storytelling cant. And if most of what I said was true, so much the better. As some Pre-Ap person had said, spin is everything.

  “Your ancestors—Christian, both Protestant and the one Catholic family, Jewish, and the Cherokee—sat down together and worked out a system of kirk services that was fair to all. They built a new building that had no Pre-Ap religious symbols, and yet had room for all of them.” I looked across the crowd, assessing. “It wasn’t easy. But they did it. And they didn’t fight among themselves. You never have fought against each other, from the very beginning.”

  That part wasn’t the complete truth about the town history, but at least no one had died while the discussions took place, so it wasn’t a total lie either. “In the kirk, you all meet, at different times and days, to worship in the forms you adhere to, all in one building, the kirk, the symbol of peace, just as the seraphs instituted in the rest of the world. What the seraphs had to impose on others, you figured out for yourselves.” More heads bobbed as the history of Mineral City and their ancestors took place of pride.

  “You had only just settled the matter of kirk when the battle of the Trine took place. I don’t have to tell you about that struggle. You teach it in grade school. Your children learn of the heroism of their ancestors and the sacrifice of Benaiah Stanhope, the Mole Man. You know your own history, your own bravery and self-reliance. That conflict, fighting alongside the seraphs, a battle fought without army troops, without air support, without high-tech weapons, but fought with faith and sacrifice, was the turning point of the war on the North American coast. Your ancestors were peaceful people who did what had to be done.

  “Now the orthodox are trying to convert the progressives and the reformed. The progressives and reformed are trying to shut out the orthodox. The three Christian groups are at odds because of styles of dress, because of the foods you eat and the clothes you wear. You’re dividing over the inconsequential.” Heads were nodding throughout the old church building now, a few looked abashed, some were defiant. I noted who they were, and wasn’t surprised to find them mostly orthodox, the religious group who had stood up against me in the past. Tears of Taharial. What do I have to do for them to like me? Die? Not a happy thought.

  “Neighbors have begun to turn away, to refuse to speak when they pass on the street.” They refused to speak to me too, but I didn’t add that. I was learning to keep my mouth shut. “The Cherokee have withdrawn to the nearby hills to practice their religion, and that saddens me, because they too have a place to worship in kirk.”

  Because I was getting ready to tread on quicksand, theologically speaking, I took hold of an amulet that contained a shield big enough to protect my champards and me. It seemed every time I came in here I was prepared for fighting. I centered myself, ready for an outburst at best, violence at worst. “Are seraphs and the High Host really the spiritual beings, the angels, depicted in the ancient scriptures? Is the Darkness really the devils who fought against them in the heavens? Were they really defeated on a spiritual plane and cast to Earth? Or are they invaders?” Dozens of shocked exclamations sounded as I said aloud what the EIH believed. The heresy. But I had timed it right. “I really don’t know. None of us does.” No one screamed or jumped up and down or started civil war. No one shot at me. That was the best part.

  I let a smidgen of my neomage attributes shine through my skin. Mage showmanship. “My stepdaughter assures me that I have to have faith. Mages who have no souls. Have faith,” I said, making a small sad joke. A ripple of amusement followed. And pity. Good. Pity me rather than fear me. It might keep me alive a day or two longer.

  “The Most High offers us no power, no help in times of trouble, save the use of his leftover creation power, which is there for the taking. Only seraphs, upon occasion, provide us power to draw upon, just as the seraph Mutuol allows us to call on him for exorci
sm of demons from the innocent.”

  I considered the assembled. “Maybe the seraphs are ready to allow humans to question where they come from. We’ve seen some evidence of change this winter. Maybe they’re ready to be asked when the Most High will show his face. They’ve allowed other changes over the last hundred years. TV. Pre-Ap music.” I smiled. “Rock and roll.” The crowd laughed softly.

  “But history tells us one thing absolutely. No matter who the seraphs are, they will not allow violence”—I paused—“between us. Between humans and mages. Nor between humans and humans in the name of religion.” I set my face in stern lines. “They. Will. Not.” I let my skin glow a bit, a roseate hue. My scars shone, the one at my throat bright as the face of the moon.

  Slowly, I drew my longsword from its walking-stick scabbard. In my other hand, I drew my tanto, its blade the blue glow of a Minor Flame. I held it up so the entire town could see the blue glow of the High Host. “During the fight last night, seven Minor Flames came to help us. I didn’t call them,” I said before the question could be asked. I didn’t volunteer who did. “But they came. They fought beside us. With us. And one, of its own free will, joined to this blade and helped to kill dragonets.

  “With the seven Flames, we of this town once again slowed and stopped the Major Darkness that was fighting free of its bonds. A Dragon that appeared in the form of a whirlwind. It vanished but it isn’t defeated; it’s just delayed. It will be completely free soon, and then it will come this way, to this town. You know that.” I sheathed the longsword with a scritch of sound and lowered the tanto to my side as the crowd stirred uneasily at my words.

  Obligingly, Audric and Rupert stepped away a bit. Rupert was moving with noticeable stiffness. His back had been partially repaired, but he should be in bed. I hoped he didn’t pass out before we got out of here.

  “We can’t get out of the mountains in time, not without seraphic help or a lot of government helicopters,” I said. “We’re trapped.”

  “Fat chance the government will help us,” a voice shouted from the rear of the room. “The tax base here isn’t big enough for them to bother.” More laughter ensued.

  I said, “A couple of satellite phones and some old Pre-Ap ham radios are the only way we can reach the outside world. I understand that the army has been called, but they can send only one small group of special forces, and none before night falls tomorrow. We’re on our own. We need all of our warriors, the orthodox, the Jews, the reformed, the progressives, the Cherokee, and the EIH. Like your ancestors, we have to put aside matters of dogma and religious doctrine. We have to bury the mounting hatred. We have to pull together, all of us. Or we will fall prey and dinner to that thing on the Trine.” Finally, I saw some speculation on faces, a wisp of what could have been shame. And a growing alarm.

  “Will you prove yourselves to be the equal of your ancestors and fight together? Or will you prove they were an anomaly? Will you fight? Or will you hide?” I stepped between my champards and down to the floor as the human congregation craned around to see. “Whatever you do, do it together. As one. As your ancestors did. Make them proud.”

  A knobby hand reached out to me, veins blue and knotted, skin delicate and bruised. “Will you lead us?” a fragile old woman asked, holding me with watery eyes.

  Shock zinged through me. Blow it out Gabriel’s horn. Me? I managed to keep from giggling hysterically at the thought. “No. I’m not a general.”

  Jasper stood in the crowd and called out, “We have to ask who among us has such training. I believe that we will find such a person here in this room. Today.” He walked to the dais and climbed two steps as I moved down the aisle toward the front doors. “After all,” Jasper continued, raising his voice, “hasn’t time proved that the Most High puts his people where he will, ready for his hand? People of faith have always found what was needed when the attack of Darkness was imminent. And yes, people of faith includes our town mage.”

  Shock rippled through me. Tears gathered again.

  Our town mage. A person of faith. As Ciana might have said, how cool is that?

  As the doors closed behind us, I had a glimpse of Eli, who had stayed behind. He slipped into an aisle seat beside an EIH fighter and an elder who was a leader of the progressives. Interesting. I heard Romona Benson say softly into her mike, “Who is this mage who speaks of faith, who fights alongside humans and seraphs, who carries a blade anointed by a member of the High Host? And when will the Most High show his face to the world? Will we ever see him?”

  Wrath of angels, I thought with a spurt of real fear. Romona was questioning the Most High. The last reporter to do that on air had been struck down with a deadly aneurysm.

  Another quandary came to mind. I was going to be famous. Tears and blood. Royally ticked off about that, I followed my champards into the winter morning. The doors to the old church closed behind us with a resounding thud.

  Midway down the long steps, Rupert stumbled. A mind-skim flashed on as a gust of wind blew in my face and I scented human blood. I reached out. Audric caught Rupert before he tumbled to the street.

  Chapter 7

  I threw my cloak aside and helped Audric settle Rupert on the leather sofa in his loft apartment across from mine. Blood had soaked through the bandages along his spine, through his clothes, and down his legs into his boots. Audric cut through his saturated shirt without ceremony. The half-breed was a competent battlefield medic when needed.

  He pulled Rupert’s pants and boots off, tossing them to the floor in a bloody heap. The bandage, a mound along the right side of Rupert’s spine, was soggy with blood, half-clotted and gummy. He had lost a lot of blood.

  As Audric worked, I turned up the gas fireplaces to heat the room. In the linen chest, I found old sheets and raced back to find Audric on his knees beside Rupert. My friend’s breathing was fast and shallow, his skin tinged a pale ash. That couldn’t be good. How had I stood at his back and talked for so long and not smelled it? I touched the visa hanging on my necklace and wondered at the way it steered my mind into channels of its own choosing. It seemed to have a lot of authority over me and I didn’t like that at all. It gave me the willies.

  “Do you have any healing amulets left?” Audric asked.

  “No. I’ll go fill some. Fast as I can.” I raced for the door, but stopped at his next words.

  “No time. Wake Ciana.”

  My mage attributes flared up and mage-sight snapped on, battle-ready at his tone, grim and spare as death. Ciana, Rupert’s niece, had worked through the night putting injured humans under seraphic healing domes, using the pin gifted by her Raziel. She had fallen asleep at dawn, so exhausted she hadn’t waked when I carried her up the stairs, undressed her, and put her to bed in the nook where she slept when she visited her uncle.

  I turned on my heel and raced across the room, pulled back the purple-flowered drape that provided the girl with privacy. I stopped fast, rocking on my toes, barking my knee on the bed frame, taking in the scene in a single heartbeat of time.

  Cissy lay spooned against Ciana, both girls curled under a down comforter and lavender flannel sheets. They were bathed in sparkles of soft pink light, sparkles that shifted and moved as if with currents of their own, centering in two places: Cissy’s throat, where purple bruises and a single healing laceration were all that remained of the succubus’ damage, and Ciana’s chest, on the pin shaped like seraph wings.

  There were additional sparkles on the Pre-Ap ring Ciana wore on her thumb. Marla had found the Stanhope ring in her jewelry box—imagine that—and Rupert had sized it down to fit his niece. The chunky bloodstone in its plain setting didn’t look like an amulet, but it appeared to be involved in whatever the seraph pin was doing to heal Cissy. No. Not just the pin. Ciana was drawing on seraph power herself, directing the pin’s energies into the wounded child in her arms. Not even a mage had that ability. And certainly not while asleep.

  I remembered Lucas’ words in the heat of battle. What are we? H
e had known in that moment what I fully understood now, looking at the little girl, frozen in shock for two more heartbeats. Whatever the Stanhopes were, they weren’t fully human. I touched the edge of the sparkly glow and it glimmered against my fingertips, a painless twinkle.

  “Thorn?” Audric said, his tension grating like a buzz saw.

  But I couldn’t hurry. Rupert might need this…whatever Ciana was doing in her sleep. In her sleep! I closed off the sight and extended my mind in a skim, breathing in, smelling-sensing-reading her. In a mind-skim, seraphs smell like living things and really good food and sex. Darkness smells of dying plants, mold, brimstone, and sulfur. Humans smell like their perfumes, the dyes in their clothes, with the underlying musky odor of males and the ripe scent or fresh-yeast bread fragrance of females. Half-breeds have their own odor and mages smell like, well, like mages. Ciana smelled like sunshine on spring grass—nothing like a human child. I pressed my hand through the sparkles and I stroked her hair. “Ciana? Baby? Wake up, darlin’.” She blinked once, focusing up at me.

  She smiled as if she knew what I was sensing. I wanted to go deeper, perform a concentrated search on her, but Rupert groaned and I kneeled at the bedside instead, stuffing my worry into a convenient niche in my mind. “Ciana, Rupert was injured in the fight. I know you’re tired, but is there—”

  “He’s bleeding, isn’t he?” she said, sitting up. “I smell it. Kinda salty and rank, like the venison steaks Daddy cooked last week. He soaked them in milk.” She made a face and her blue eyes met mine, innocent and curious.

  Contrary to mystery books and television, most humans can’t smell blood unless it’s decaying. There’s no coppery scent, no salty scent, there’s zilch to the typical human nose. I struggled to keep my reaction off my face and my voice calm. “Yes. He’s hurt. I used a healing amulet on him and it was able to repair most of the nerve and muscle damage, but I ran out before we could close the wound. Zeddy stitched it up, but it reopened and he didn’t tell us. He’s in bad shape.”