by Faith Hunter
More scripture. Was that a good thing? I bowed my head.
A kirk elder, the hem of his brown robes splashed with gore, stepped close. Others clad in black moved and fell to their knees near him. When he spoke, I recognized Culpepper’s voice, quoting, bouncing around in Psalms, “Hear, O Jehovah, and have mercy upon me. Mercy and truth are met together.”
The others near him began to pray. I heard the words in an overlay of litany. “O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me.” “Give thy strength unto thy servant.” “Save the son of thy handmaid.” Culpepper knelt in the snow beside me, unexpectedly close. In my peripheral vision, I saw more townspeople falling to their knees. Beyond them, bodies dropped in the street, lifeless.
“Please. You can’t kill them.” Ciana’s voice jolted through me. I raised my head. Cheriour whipped his sword down. It sought her chin, the point touching the tender flesh of her throat. I froze, one hand lifted.
“You reek of Mole Man’s blood,” Cheriour murmured, his tone a minor chord of uncertainty. “As did the beasts.”
“They stole the blood of Mole Man’s progeny,” Lucas’ voice called from the shadows, growing clearer as he neared. “They held me prisoner. Raziel, second to Michael the Archangel, the revealer of the rock, he rescued me. But not before they took my blood. Not before they used it to make new dragonets that smell like Mole Man’s blood, and that heal from mortal wounds.”
“Is this possible? That the Darkness has made a new thing?” Cheriour whispered, his words the rustling of hollow reeds in a summer wind. “Darkness has made no new thing since it created sin.”
“The evil smells like both Mole Man’s blood and Darkness. The creatures you fought in the sky are old things conjured with my blood and with the blood of Darkness and with the blood of seraphs. Ciana, come here.”
Ciana stepped back from the seraph’s sword, blue eyes staring in her pale face. Raziel’s pin blazed like a torch on her chest, casting light to the snow.
“The human speaks truth,” Audric said. “I am bound to Raziel—”
“Audric, don’t!” Rupert shouted from the darkness.
“I have to. For the town. I am his for beck and call,” Audric said, voice so low it scarcely breathed into the air, “my blood and bone and sinew.” The ancient words of binding a half-breed to a seraph. Cheriour hesitated, the point of his sword arcing down to point at the ground.
Culpepper stared at Audric, his eyes cunning. My heart clenched tightly. Audric had given himself away.
“For Mole Man,” Ciana said, staring up into the seraph’s face.
Lucas said, “Show mercy to the town he died for.”
The seraph looked out over the growing crowd, their shuffling feet and labored breath loud in the night. “You wish this, little human child, progeny of Mole Man?”
“Yes. Please.” She folded her hands together, her dark hair loose and curling around her waist. If her dress hadn’t been saturated with Zeddy’s blood, and if blood hadn’t dried in the ridges of her hands, the pose would have made a lovely picture. But her eyes and face no longer held the innocence of a child. They carried the weight and knowledge of war and death in them. She had seen too much in the past hour.
Cheriour looked from Ciana to me to Audric. Lastly, his gaze fell on Elder Culpepper. The older man raised his hands and clasped them together in a sign of piety and entreaty. A cold wind blew along the street, whistling through the buildings, a high-pitched paean over the whispered scripture. I shivered hard, clamping my teeth together to stop their chattering. Cheriour breathed the wind deeply into his lungs. The snow beneath his feet melted in a sudden rush, leaving him standing on ancient, cracked asphalt in a shin-deep puddle. A teal-colored mist seeped from the surface of his skin, glowing with a faint light. He inhaled again. The water at his feet steamed.
As if he had forgotten us, the seraph stepped up onto the snow and walked down the street, snow melting with each footfall. His sword dropped, as if forgotten. Thadd looked at me, a question in his eyes. “I don’t know,” I said.
Cheriour stopped at the body of a man and a succubus, their blood mingled in a frozen crimson pool. With the point of his sword, he nudged the Darkness. Her full breasts were bared, and moved with languid enticement. Standing alone, he bent over them, breathing deeply. He was sniffing the succubus. Snow melted beneath him.
His wings shifted, the feathers rustling. Slowly, they rose, long flight feathers brushing the street. The pale down beneath was caught in the glow of an amulet, one of the ones I had thrown early in the battle. The nevus, the major vessels feeding the wing structure, were glowing. As I watched, they brightened, the blood superheated as if for flight, his pulse rapid and uneven.
At his groin, the flesh brightened between the seams of his battle armor, pulsing in time with his heart. His scent filled the street, carried on the cold air. The first time we met, when he judged me. Battle-lust and his sigil had protected us from mage-heat. Even now, he hadn’t gone into heat at the presence of a mage, the golden disc of his sigil protecting him from me.
But he was going into heat at the presence of a succubus.
The light on his face, his neck, beneath his wings, glowing from the joints in his armor, blasted out. I turned away. But not before I saw the expression on his face. Lust. Hot and demanding. Cruel.
At the sight, my own lust rose, a throb of need low in my belly and high in my breasts. I covered my face, hunger beating in time with my blood. Cheriour turned to me.
“The next great war begins. A mage is in place,” he said, his voice like low brass bells and wind instruments, again playing in minor chords, mournful and stricken. “A harbinger she is, and a guardian.” He strode to me, the packed ice melting in his path and running across the snow, water mixed with blood. His wings closed and opened, his scent caught in the wind they made—the smell of sex. My knees went weak.
“The beast came for Thorn,” Lucas said from beside me, his voice rigid with anger and fear. “It said, ‘I have you again, body, blood, and spirit.’ Did Forcas have her once?”
I took Lucas’ arm to keep me upright, desire purling through me. His question rode above the need, and I said, “I was taken by a Darkness when I was a child—”
The seraph raised his sword, point down, and slid it into the sheath. Seraph-steel rasped like the dying breath of an army as it slid home, echoing up and down the street, cutting off my words.
His wings lifted and swept down, and he leaped, his body shooting for the sky. The downdraft threw me to the ground, wrenching my grip from Lucas. And he was gone, questions unanswered. The mage-heat that had been building fell away like a wave splashing on the beach, sliding back out to sea, leaving only a trace of want in its wake.
Snowflakes drifted down, a silent dance of lacy ice. They settled on my exposed skin and melted, pinpricks of pain. A hush settled on the town. No one moved for a long moment, every face turned to the clouds. Ciana slipped her small hand into mine and I gripped it hard, feeling awe and wonder at the presence of a seraph.
“That’s really cool,” Ciana said, and I agreed.
“Take her,” Culpepper said, his tone commanding.
Before I could react, a crowd of men surged in. With a soft click, a shield opened over us, Ciana and me in the center. I hadn’t opened it. I hadn’t even reacted. I looked down at my stepdaughter. “How—?” Her hand was on the seraph pin gifted to her by Raziel. Obviously, a seraphic shield of protection was contained in the pin. Somehow, Ciana knew how to open the conjure, when even mages couldn’t use seraph energies.
Beyond the shield, a group of elders stood. Ringing them were blood-soaked townspeople, all dressed in black; the orthodox, watching us. My shields were created to hide me from sight. Not so with this one. The dense crowd surged together, several deep, only yards away. Weapons that had recently been buried in the dying bodies of spawn were lifted in tight fists. The power of the shield burned into the snow, showing a clear line where its protection began. The
throng circled around us.
“You cannot hide, mage,” Culpepper called. “You brought the Darkness here.” The crowd murmured agreement, faces hostile and bitter, fists clenched. “You called the Darkness to you with your wanton ways,” Culpepper said. “The evil of sexual sin came at your behest and now good men are dead because of your siren’s call.”
Between the shield wall and the black-clad townspeople, raced a narrow ring of my supporters, weapons drawn. Thadd, Lucas, Eli, and Audric. Rupert and Jacey, her young daughter Cissy, three of her sons, and Big Zed, Jacey’s husband. Sliding around the shield wall from behind came old Miz Essie, Sennabel, and Polly. The elder’s wife walked with a limp, her dress stained with blood. Her face was flushed and sweaty from the spawn poison coursing through her body. I gripped Ciana’s hand and blinked back tears at the unanticipated presence of friends.
“Get away,” Culpepper demanded, his fists clenched. “You cannot defend a whore.”
“The seraph didn’t call her a whore. He called her a harbinger and a guardian. A guardian of this town,” Miz Essie said, her old voice crackling.
“I reckon that’s so. Heard it with my own ears,” Shamus Waldroup said, edging along the front of the shield, followed by his wife Do’rise. Polly’s husband, Elder Jasper, stepped through the crowd, pushing aside the orthodox, and took his wife’s hand, feet planted in a runnel of bloody water.
“Look at her, stealing a child away from its mother, kidnapping her beneath the vile shelter of mage-power,” a woman shouted.
I didn’t answer. Marla didn’t come forward to add her complaints to the elder’s. I had no idea where Ciana’s mother was, but it was likely under the sheets with her latest fancy. And the fact that the town thought the shield was one I had made was protection Ciana might need. So far, no one had ever noticed the pin Raziel had given her, and that was a very good thing.
“Whore,” another woman shouted from the edge of the mob. She lobbed a stone; it hit the shield and bounced away with a spark of light the humans could see.
“Why do you defend a mage-slut? Would you fools die for the likes of her?” a man near the front called out.
“Would you murder your friends to get her?” Elder Jasper asked. The man he rebuked frowned and looked at the bloody weapon in his hand. He hefted it and dropped it into his palm as if considering his answer.
Three men in rags, their feet swaddled in strips of leather and old tires, brands on their cheeks, moved next to the elder. Members of the EIH. They carried bloody weapons, clearly part of the town’s defense. Tears of the seraph, what were they doing? Another elder, his face set in hard lines, slid in, trailed by two black-clad women, Mrs. Abernathy and Florence Watkins. They had been among those who judged me before my trial and found me wanting. They stood with me now, facing their neighbors, the other orthodox. My tears fell in earnest, trickling slowly through the dried blood and gore on my cheeks, burning the injured skin.
A phalanx of miners carrying bloodied picks and shovels, guns at their waists a clear threat, entered from the west. I recognized several of them as men we had bought from over the years. Another group of miners looped around from the east. All were dressed in jeans, plaid shirts, jackets in browns and yellows, colors often worn by members of the reformed movement. At their head was Ken Schmidt, the miner who had a crush on me.
A Jewish family joined my supporters, grown sons carrying bulky automatic weapons in both hands, heads topped by black yarmulkes. The women wore olive green, and handled similar weapons with a surprising confidence. Pushing their way through the crowd, ten men in braids and jeans, carrying both traditional stone axes and hunting rifles, joined the supporters. They moved close to the shield wall, standing equidistant from one another, facing out. Cherokee.
The numbers standing for me were growing, but so was the opposition. Rumbling and name-calling began, calls of slut-lover and mage-lover used interchangeably. Someone in the back cried out that I should be burned at the stake. Some of my supporters racked their weapons at that one. Another quoted scripture, calling for my death.
We were facing civil war, the orthodox against the rest of the town’s religious groups. Fighting among humans in the name of the Most High was a sure means to draw an angry seraph back, especially an Angel of Punishment. I didn’t know what to do. At my side, I could hear Ciana whispering. It sounded like prayer, and her pin burned brighter.
A small man shoved his way between the two groups, limping. He was bathed in blood, and his skin, showing through cracked and drying ooze, was blistered and burned. One foot was mutilated, boot half torn off, exposing mangled toes. Beside him was a television camera, perched on the shoulder of a woman. Durbarge, his face below the eye patch pale and drawn in pain, glanced at me, his eye full of angry promise, meeting mine between the shoulders of my supporters. He turned to the crowd before I could interpret his expression, his arms raised. The camera scanned the mob, panning until it focused on Durbarge.
“Townspeople of Mineral City,” Durbarge shouted. “You know me. I’m an investigator with the Administration of the ArchSeraph, entrusted to protect sentient beings and to prevent religious violence. This mage is legally licensed, free to live among humans with the permission of the AAS and the High Host of the Seraphim. Any violence against her will be construed as violence against the seraphs of the Most High. There will be no more blood spilled. Go home. Prepare to bury your dead.”
At that, the camera swiveled smoothly until it captured my face. I must have reacted, because Ciana squeezed my hand reassuringly. It was the reporter who had tried to get an interview with me, her coat splashed with blood, her shoes sticky with it.
“Thorn St. Croix brought succubi into this town,” Culpepper shouted, his face red, a vein throbbing in his temple. “She brought those… things.” He pointed at the dead and mangled body of a dragonet. The reporter moved for a better shot of the townspeople and the angry elder. “Before she came, Mineral City was a peaceful town. She brought us discord. She brought us lust. She brought us evil and death!” he screeched.
Suddenly, fireballs danced above Ciana’s shield, leaving trails of phosphorescent blue and green, their brilliance blinding. They swooped at the crowd, flying into the mass of orthodox, scattering them, then back, to hover directly over me. The support of the Minor Flames was clear. I counted five, and remembered the two who slammed to the earth early in the battle. I hadn’t seen them since they fell.
The reporter’s face was smoothed in professional lines, her mouth unemotional, but her eyes were full of fear. If civil war broke loose and the seraph returned, she would die, along with the combatants. “This is SNN reporter Romona Benson,” she said into the sudden quiet. “We are here in Mineral City, covering the events surrounding the appearance of winged beasts called dragonets, and the seraph who answered a call of mage in dire.”
In front of the shield, Durbarge put a hand out, grasping at air. Slowly, he toppled, hitting the snow, his face whiter than the crust he landed on. Thadd, lurching to catch him, followed him down and placed two fingers on the assey’s throat. Mouth tight, he rolled Durbarge to his back, white face to the sky, and hit the assey hard, one fist slamming to his chest. He checked the pulse again and slid one hand beneath his head, the position opening Durbarge’s mouth. He breathed in and the assey’s chest expanded. I had never seen CPR done in person, but I had seen the method demonstrated on SNN. Durbarge was dead.
Chapter 19
“Drop the shield,” I said to Ciana. Without demur, she touched the pin on her chest. The energies fell to the snow with an unfamiliar crackle of power, a backlash of electricity that stung the skin on my legs. Pushing the reporter aside, ignoring her incessant questions, I knelt at Durbarge’s side as Thadd again breathed into his mouth.
A small voice in the back of my head whispered that my life would be a lot easier if the assey were dead. He had never done a thing to help me. Even his current defense could be construed as self-serving. I lifted a heali
ng amulet from my necklace and snapped it loose, placing the stone, a mottled black and clear agate carved like a frog, on his stomach. Thadd placed his hands on Durbarge’s chest and started pumping.
The Flames, all five of them, whirled around my head, darting in front of me, stealing my vision and leaving plasma burns on my retinas. One landed on Thadd’s hand, and he yelped, knocking the Flame tumbling. It regained its shape and shot toward me, hovering at chin level, blinding, emitting an awful, high-pitched buzz. I closed my eyes against its glare and swatted at it. “If you can’t heal him, get out of the way,” I said.
Instantly, the Flame darted at Durbarge’s torso and disappeared inside. Thadd jumped back, yelping again as if stung. Durbarge’s body lurched on the snow. Lurched again. A second Flame darted to Durbarge’s side, penetrated a three-fingered claw wound, and vanished inside. The other Flames whirled over him, making that shrill vibration that hurt my ears. Thadd didn’t seem affected, but I wanted to slap something. Durbarge jerked a third time. And took a breath.
“Tears of Taharial,” the reporter whispered into her mike, her mouth at my shoulder, the mild blasphemy going out over the SNN airwaves. Thadd risked a shock and touched Durbarge’s carotid.
The two Flames reappeared, plunged once around Thadd’s head, and joined the mad dance over the assey’s body, singing a bright song that was giving me a headache. With a final swoop, the Flames separated and flew in five different directions, each landing on a wounded human or darting inside a body.
“As you’ve just seen, the mage commanded the Minor Flames to heal,” the reporter said to the anchor only she could hear, “and they did. Healing is a talent never demonstrated by these minor seraphic warriors. How did you do that?” She thrust a mike under my jaw, eyes imploring, knowing the danger had been lessened but was still present.
All I could think of was, seraph stones, much more vulgar language than she had used. Someone called my name and I turned away from the reporter. Miz Essie was bending over a teenage boy and I moved to help, pulling another healing amulet and activating it with my thumb.