Host tsc-3

by Faith Hunter

  According to police sources, someone—or something—had crashed through Rose’s door and attacked her. Neighbors had called the police when they heard screams. All that had been left of my twin had been a trashed room and a large pool of blood. Because the blood hadn’t been sucked from the floor, and because Rose had been living under the largest mage-dome outside of an Enclave, the cops had ruled out an attack of Darkness. At first. But when no body turned up, when none of the other mages stationed in Atlanta had been able to scry her, they had reluctantly admitted that Darkness might have been involved. I had always believed that. Now I knew it for truth. Darkness had stolen my sister and kept her drugged—

  My thought cut off. No Darkness would keep her aboveground, where daylight might free her. Aboveground. Because that was where she had to be. That was what I had seen in the vision through her eyes, morning light. And because it had been dawn light, not nighttime, that meant she was somewhere on the eastern seaboard. Rose was close by. Waking from whatever had been done to her. Waking alone, to danger.

  If it was Rose. Once I had seen into the mind of my twin with perfect clarity. The glimpse just now had been too brief, too clouded and confused, for me to be certain. But it had felt familiar. It had.

  Thoughtful, worried, so excited my stomach ached and my heart rate wouldn’t settle, I turned off the light and locked the door to keep out other inquisitive children or snooping adults. Limping, I made my way through Thorn’s Gems, my mind in a snarl, grateful that my ankle could support my weight, wanting to whap Malashe-el, wondering why the daywalker had thrown me over the side, giddy with success at possibly finding my sister. Worried that she was in danger I couldn’t fight. Especially if I couldn’t find her, get to her.

  The shop was empty now, the nighttime visitors gone. The place felt different this morning, more alive than before. Warmer, from all the body heat and the logs that had blazed all night long. Different. Better. And that surprised me. I had expected to feel invaded, violated by the presence of so many humans. Instead, even the room felt happier.

  I had to be nuts. Rooms didn’t feel happier; people and mages did. And I was not happy because I had housed a horde of humans under my roof, under the protection of my gift, all night. No way. My feet echoing on the bare board of the stairwell, I climbed to the second floor.

  In the loft, Audric and Rupert were eating breakfast at my table. They went silent, watching me as I limped in. I kept my eyes down, thinking over the discoveries of the morning as I dished up a bowl of hot oatmeal, added a bit of my costly, hoarded sugar, and poured cold milk over it. Sugar and cacao, unlike coffee and tea, were best grown in warm weather, and so were hard to come by in a mini ice age. Sweets and chocolate had become an indulgence of the wealthy, but every now and then I treated myself. I figured that visiting a Realm of Light, stealing a ride on a cherub’s wheel, and nearly getting killed were good enough reasons for full-scale pampering.

  I made an ice bag before I joined my champards at the table, still not meeting their eyes. Propping my foot on a chair, draping the ankle with the bag, I ate, ignoring the way their eyes met, before they applied themselves to their own breakfasts.

  When I could no longer stand their speculative silence, I told them what I had discovered. Most of it. But not all. I kept the part about Rose to myself, hugging it to me like a treasure.

  After breakfast, Audric went downstairs to saddle his Clydesdale and try to get my errand done. Rupert washed dishes, standing at my sink, his back to me. Once again I smelled blood, and spotted a smudged, fresh mark on his shirt. “You’re bleeding again, aren’t you?” I said.

  He stilled a moment, his hands in the water. When he shrugged, his shoulders moved stiffly, and when he spoke, his voice was carefully emotionless. “The wound keeps opening up. Ciana tried twice to close it. Wore herself out using that pin of hers.” He rinsed the last bowl and washed the mugs, the only sound in the loft the splash of water, oddly silent after a night marked by the myriad sounds of motley humans. When he had dried the last dish, he stood unmoving, back to me, as if waiting for something.

  Not knowing what to say, I asked, “What will it take to heal you?”

  “I don’t know.” When he didn’t go on, I stood and went to the sink to stand beside him. Rupert was a little taller than the average human male, a little over six feet, so that meant that the top of my head didn’t reach his shoulder. I leaned against his deltoid, wrapping my arms around his, sliding my hand through his damp fingers. He seemed to take comfort from the touch and he said, “I had a dream.”

  I squeezed his hand, staring at the blank wall over the sink with him, wordlessly encouraging him to continue.

  “There was this crowd of people in a stone building. You, me, Ciana, Lucas, Audric, Thadd, some others from town. And a bunch of seraphs were all around us, hovering in the air, beating the air with their wings. I knew three of them, Raziel, Zadkiel, and Cheriour. Three with black wings and black tunics.”

  I tightened my grip. Rupert was describing my own dream.

  “And there was this green feathered one with silver hair,” he said.

  “Barak.”

  He shrugged. “They all looked different, like things do in dreams, sometimes, you know? The seraphs all had wings, swords, shields, but they looked angry. Evil. The green one had that thing Audric busted up in the street fight, that spur you were carrying in your pocket.”

  My breathing hitched a moment. Everything kept coming back to the spur.

  “The walls were crawling with these huge snails, and it stank.” He snorted softly, laughing through his nose. “I never knew you could smell in a dream, but these things reeked.”

  I tightened my hand on his, so tight my fingers ached. Rupert was right—dreams seldom contained odors. But visions? Visions were often fully sensual, with all five senses in play. And in his, Barak had the spur, which was different from my own dreams. I remembered the moment of mage-heat earlier, a heat that hit me like a huge fist, brought me to my knees and then vanished. If Barak had the spur, did that give him power over me? But I had his flight feather. Was control mutual? Did we each have a weapon over the other? I struggled to maintain calm, to keep my breathing steady and rhythmic. “Rupert—”

  “It’s storming outside,” he said, without letting me comment, though I noted the tense change. “Rain is blowing in through the window openings. Most are broken out and the walls are dripping with slime.

  “Anyway, this green seraph, he’s yelling, ‘Do it. Do it now. Do it or she’ll die.’ And you pull that green feather out. And you give it to me. And then you pull your sword, but it’s not like your sword, you know?” he said. “This one has a pink quartz nugget on the pommel. And you stab me with it.”

  I flinched and closed my eyes. Rupert’s flesh was warm against my hands, which were growing colder than snowmelt.

  “I fall to my knees,” he said, “and you pull out the sword. And you point at Barak—yeah, his name is Barak. I hear you say that. You point at him with the sword that’s dripping with my blood. And he gives you the spur. You give him his feather. And I’m calling to you, begging you. But you don’t hear. And I can’t wake up.”

  My throat was so tight breathing was painful. I pressed the side of my face to his arm, as if assuring myself Rupert was real and alive.

  “I see this girl, she’s lying on an old oak table, and you help her sit up. She looks like you, but she’s skinny and dirty, covered with scabs and old wounds, like she’s been sick or held prisoner or something. You give her to Eli. And Thadd picks me up and puts me on the table. I’m dying,” he said. “And it hurts. It hurts so bad that you killed me.”

  A single tear scalded a slow path down my cheek. I wouldn’t. I would not give up Rupert for Rose. I wouldn’t. This wasn’t prophecy. This was a dream. Only a dream.

  “All these women who look like you walk in. They make the seraphs go crazy, ripping off their clothes. Their wings disappear and they look like human men. Or like b
easts with human faces. They start to have sex with the women.

  “Barak laughs. And he says, ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’ And then Barak and Raziel start to fight. And blood goes everywhere. And I wake up.” Rupert looked down at me. “Curiosity killed the cat. Isn’t that a weird thing for him to say, Thorn? Some dumb old saying, when it should have been scripture. Not that it’s any weirder than the rest of the dream.”

  Rupert pulled his arm away and tilted my face up to his. With a thumb, he wiped away my tears. “Don’t cry, Thorn. It’s only a dream.”

  I caught his hand, holding it away from my face. I didn’t want comfort from him, refused to accept comfort from my best friend, who had just predicted the unbelievable. Who had just foretold that I’d kill him, murder him, to get my sister back. Unthinkable. Unbearable.

  The thought flitted in the back of my mind, quickly banished. Was his prediction a dream future, one possibility among many? Or was it true prophecy, the immutable future, set in stone, unchangeable and inflexible? No. No way. Not true prophecy. Only a dream. A prediction. I wouldn’t consider anything else.

  Without asking, I pushed him around and pulled up his tunic, lifting the cloth with cold, clumsy fingers, gathering up his T-shirt. As if to help me, he bent forward slightly and braced on the sink edge. Holding up the shirts, I exposed his back, his pale skin untouched by the sun. Beside his spine, taped to his skin, was an eight-inch-wide, ten-inch-long pad with fresh scar tissue showing at each end. The bandage was crusted around the edges with dried blood and was crimson-wet in the center.

  Breath uneven, I peeled back the tape and raised one side of the bandage, not lifting the centermost section. I knew enough about battlefield wound dressings to know that platelets were collecting there, clotting the blood. The area I didn’t inspect, the unhealed area, was about three inches long. Around the edge of the deepest wound was a raised ring, blackened, puffy, hot to the touch. I pressed my icy fingers against the flesh there, and it gave under my fingers. Rupert hissed softly with reaction.

  I should have stopped, but I didn’t and pressed harder, feeling the tissue beneath the toxic perimeter. “Thorn!” he said, cringing, his back arching. I stepped away, hands still holding the shirts high, staring at the wound. It was like mine, hard and ridged beneath. It was shaped in an oval, like a link. Seraph stones. We had both been marked. What in the name of the Most High did that mean? What had been done to us?

  Rupert wasn’t human. Neither was I. I had figured out that we were both part of some crazy conspiracy, but new bits of the puzzle kept appearing, skewing my interpretation, elements kept falling out of place, out of joint. I dropped his shirts.

  I went to the bath area and dug out a box of bandages, a new addition since my life had become a constant battle. From my bowl of stones by the window I chose three healing amulets, two small, drilled nuggets and one slab of white marble about the size of my open hand. All were newly filled with power that wasn’t mine to use. Might stolen from the wheels of the cherub Holy Amethyst.

  In the way of longtime friends, Rupert watched me gather supplies, standing silent, not asking questions, but patiently waiting. When I returned to him, he faced away again and braced himself, unmoving against the sink. After rolling his shirt and tunic high on his back and pulling off the bloody outer bandage, I added a new layer of gauze over the center pad. On top of the clean wedge of outer dressing I pressed the slab, the two nuggets, and three shards from Amethyst’s wheels, and taped it all in place. To secure the extra weight, I rolled some gauze wrappings around his torso. As I worked, I felt some of the tension go out of him as his pain lessened. His breathing evened out and he exhaled with relief. “Feel better?” I asked.

  “Much. Thorn?”

  “Don’t say it,” I said, stopping him, not knowing what he might say, but not able to hear it. Not just now. I wiped away a new, unexpected tear and placed my tear-damp hand over his wound, bowing my head. In my other hand, I gathered the seraph stone and my visa.

  “I know you can’t hear me,” I said. “I know you don’t care about mages, that we’re less than nothing in your holy sight.” Rupert stiffened under my hand when he realized I was praying. “But just in case they’re wrong, I promise you this. In the name of the Most High, in the name of the unsayable God, I will give my own life in exchange for Rose’s. I’ll give my own life in exchange for Rupert’s. I’ll die by my own hand rather than kill one of those I guard. If I had a soul, I’d swear by it. Instead, I claim it by your unspeakable name. By your name, I do so vow.”

  I shuddered hard with the power of the hallowed words. Exhausted by the effort of speaking them, I rested against the body of my friend, the heat of my champard like a furnace against me. My forehead lay against Rupert’s bare back, and a single tear ran down his skin, into the waistband of his jeans.

  Mages didn’t make vows easily or lightly. The one I had just made, calling on the unsayable God, was one of the most sacred among us. God the Victorious never heard the prayers of neomages, but if he ever bothered to hear us, it would be because of the passion of such an oath. Perhaps he would understand the weight of our words. Perhaps he would know that with such vows, we revered him. Perhaps he wouldn’t judge us too harshly.

  For a long moment we stood, unmoving, my head against his back beside the wound, my tears twin runnels on his skin, marking him. I could feel his breathing, feel the movement of his heart as it pulsed his blood. Blood that was no longer human.

  “Did you think I believed the dream?” Rupert asked, his voice rumbling through his chest, soft and full of wonder. He turned and gathered me up in his arms, his mouth against my hair. When he spoke, the words vibrated against my skull like a benediction. “I would sooner believe you were the Dark Lord itself than that. I trust you with my life, with my heart, with my very soul, knowing you will treat them all with the same care as I would.”

  They were formal words, the pledge of a champard, and I recoiled at them, afraid, pulling back. I met his eyes, so wide they looked black in his pale face, seeing his trust. Fearing that trust more than anything. Because even with my claim and pledge to the contrary, I knew the might of a prediction dream. I knew that there was a chance I would break my vow to the Most High and follow the dictates of the divination. Dreams were like that. They showed only the final result, not the ultimate reasons for each action. And I feared it like my own death.

  Chapter 13

  I picked up the phone to call Miz Essie’s boardinghouse. When there was no dial tone, I remembered the phone lines had been cut. Because avalanche or attack of Darkness could leave any town isolated, every mountain town had multiple means of reaching the outside world. There were underground telephone lines and a satellite dish that worked off one of the remaining geosynchronous satellites over the North American continent. And ham radios. Darkness had never before cut phone lines and damaged a town’s dish. No way was it a lucky mistake.

  I put down the useless phone and went out on the porch at the front of the loft. Looking over the street, I saw Jacey’s eldest stepson, Zeddy, and waved to him. When he waved back, I cupped my mouth and shouted, “You know where the new mage is?”

  “Watching the kirk bury the dead,” he shouted back, “taking photographs.” His tone added, like a tourist with a camera, but he didn’t have to say the words.

  “Tell him I need him. Now.”

  “Will do, Miss Thorn.”

  When I shut the door, Rupert asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Making sure the dream stays only a nightmare. No. You stay right here,” I said when he pushed away from the sink. “I want you to see this.”

  Without the real Apache Tear around my neck, I knew when Cheran headed my way and curled my lips into a snarl as I heard/ felt his reaction. It was loathing. I’m not at the beck and call of anyone, and certainly not a brainless rock-head mage without her first heat. And then…She’ll be gone soon, and good riddance. From Cheran, I had a vision of my body stripped and flayed
in the snow, brown robes gathered around. I didn’t know what he had been planning, but I had a good idea who he had been planning it with.

  Then I had a single image of Cheran himself, in a consulate of his own. Grasping his intent, I let my smile widen. Rupert took a fast step back. I’m pretty sure I looked vicious.

  “Go ahead and make any plans you want,” I said softly, aloud. “I’ll outlive you if it’s with my dying breath.” At Rupert’s uncertain alarm, I shook my head and let the expression dwindle away. “I’ve changed my mind. You know those clothes you and Audric wore when you were my champards in the town meeting? You get to wear them again. Go change.” When he stood there, indecisive, I said, “Hurry,” and made it a command.

  Rupert left, shouting to Audric as the door closed. Back on the porch, I propped a hip on the railing and crossed my arms against the cold, putting together the elements of a plan based on the number of cases in Cheran’s room. A bluff. If I was wrong, I’d feel like an idiot. The mage strode up the hill, his velvet cloak swinging, the stupid hat in place, feather bobbing. Zeddy and a small group of teenaged boys followed him, a good ten yards back. In the distance the blasted lynx growled, the sound like a cough and a roar combined, peculiar to its species. Thanks for the warning, I thought, but I don’t need it. For once I know I’m in danger.

  When Cheran was close enough to lock eyes, I called out to him, letting my voice carry through the visa. “I spoke to the priestess of the New Orleans Enclave.” He slowed, mouth parted, a startled curse in his thoughts. Good. I wanted him stunned. “She sent you. She included appropriate gifts to support my consulate.” This was the bluff part.

  Cheran stopped in the street, a speculative look on his face. In his mind was the question, What does she know?

  It wasn’t so much what I knew as what I could read from him and what I could guess. “I believe you have them in your possession,” I said.

  “I do.” He cocked a hip, which opened the cloak, revealing a black suit with green satin lapels and matching cummerbund. I had seen the suit hanging in his closet, and the visa at my neck offered the information, Court dress, appropriate for official sessions or functions.