by Faith Hunter
Just as I was about to step in, I heard something hit the back stained-glass window in the original hayloft door. Or rather, hit the ward over it. If the stone had hit the glass it would have made a simple tap. Instead it was a sizzle followed by a sharp snap, as the stone shattered. A bright light shocked through the windows. “Crap in a bucket!” someone cursed.
I chuckled and wrapped the worn robe around me before pushing open the functioning window beside the stained-glass one. I rested an elbow on the ledge and looked down at Eli. He stood hipshot on the crusty snow, feet spread, pointy-toed boots at angles, and a cowboy hat on his head. I was a slut. I had to be. Because he looked really good. But I had no desire to invite him up—well, not much of one—so maybe I was only half a slut.
“Shop’s closed.”
“Is he gone for the night?” he asked.
“Yeah, he’s gone.”
“Want company?”
“I had company. I ran company off.”
“Well that’s good to know. Why would you want a slut-puppy like him anyway? I mean, when you could have me?” He spread his arms in display. “I’m clean, loyal, dependable, charming, and sweet.”
“You sound like a pet. Mages don’t do well with pets.” Something about all the energies surrounding a mage made them die young. Or go feral. Come to think of it, a high percentage of humans did the latter.
“I’m also great in bed. Or so I’ve been told.”
I laughed outright. Eli had offered to shake my world, in a variety of innovative and athletic ways, and he was a pretty thing. Amber-colored eyes had always been a favorite of mine. I cupped my chin and went with the flow of the conversation. “Why would I want a man who’s prettier than I am?”
“Why would I want a woman faster and more powerful than I? Speaking of which, did you ward the whole building?”
“Looks like.”
“Dang, woman. That’s impressive.”
Yes. It was. I liked him even better that he would know that. And that he could tell me so. I studied him in the snow as the cold air cleared my head. He was indeed attractive. And charming. And I was lonely. If mage-heat were a factor, I’d invite him up in a heartbeat. But with me as just me, I wasn’t ready, I decided. Not ready for any man.
Realizing that made me feel better. “Good night, Eli,” I said, closing the window.
“Wait!” he called. When I paused, the sash in hand, he said, “The EIH wants to talk. They think they can help you.”
“Do I need help?” I asked.
“You will. And when you do, remember the signal.”
A white cloth in the window. Or was it red? “Good night, Eli,” I said firmly, pulling on the glass.
“Good night, mage of my dreams.”
The window closed. I pulled the tapestry over it, and slid the robe off my shoulders and my body into the hot water. Heaven. Pure heaven. And suddenly my life looked okay. Weird how a little honest attention from a pretty man could make the difference between a totally terrible life and a much better one.
Chapter 23
I put three blades and the amulet necklace on the bedside table near the ward’s on-off marble sphere, and fell into the covers, pulling them up around my ears. I slept hard, dreaming of seraphs. One had teal eyes, a chiseled jaw, and pale down beneath teal wings, and one had ruby irises and scarlet plumage. The Angel of Punishment wooed me, standing in a jewelry store; the winged-warrior in red battle armor played at rescue duty.
I came awake to the sound of slow, steady dripping in the tub, sharp plinks. Outside, wind whistled as it whipped through the buildings. The old livery creaked, settling. There was nothing in the sounds to warrant the sudden chills that ran down my arms beneath the coverlet and across my scalp. Nothing at all, yet I was suddenly hyper-alert, skin tingling, breath fast, hands clenched as if to draw blades. Fear prickled along my flesh, lifting the tiny hairs on my body. Outside, just below the sound of the wind, I heard the distant cry of the lynx. That blasted portent. Drat.
Without giving away that I was awake, I slowly swiveled my head and took in the loft. A gray tinge rested in the eastern windows, the night stars dimmed by the promise of dawn. The apartment was still and silent. But the ward was gone, the walls unprotected. I hadn’t done it. Ciana? Someone using her seraph pin?
I breathed in slowly, and caught a scent, the smell that had woken me, cloying and sweet, like flowers and rotting corpses. Incubus. Tears of Taharial.
Opening mage-sight, I scanned the room again; the furnishings, walls, ceiling and floor were lit with their usual soft blue, green, and pinkish tints. The stones at windows and doors were fully charged. There was no hint of Darkness, but the scent continued to grow, as if it sat on the foot of my bed. Beneath that scent I caught a whiff of something else, equally vile, yet subtly different. Fresh roses and dead leaves, standing water, mold, and mildew. There are two of them. Incubus and succubus.
Stealthily, panic crouched tight in my throat, I slid my hands out of the covers to grasp the walking stick and amulet necklace. The amulets clinked softly. In mage-sight, they glowed weakly, wrongly; even the bloodstone handle of the walking stick wasn’t quite right, as if amulets could catch the plague or falter. Shock fluttered through me. Something had affected them. But they were all I had. I pulled the necklace over my head, then eased the blade from its sheath. Every noise I made seemed louder than the next, yet nothing happened, no hidden threat jumped onto the bed and gored me with its claws.
Somewhere on the Trine, the lynx growled. On the Trine, but close. Fine, cat. I got it. Trouble. Danger. Now go away.
In a single rush I threw back the covers, grabbed up an extra blade, and raced to the kitchen. Slammed my back against the wall. Three feet of stone and brick offered some protection, and the only window here was up high, long and narrow, the transom sealed shut with layers of paint.
Nothing moved; nothing attacked. My harsh breathing and the dripping tub were the only sounds. The scents began to dissipate, to slip away. The apartment grew brighter to my sight as the smells gathered into one spot and faded. I followed them with a mind-skim, my nose seeking their scents, to the front of the loft where they formed a cloud at the French door onto the porch. They weren’t attacking me. They were trying to get away. Fury blazed through me, driving out the fear. I bellowed a battle cry. The mist of Darkness rushed beneath the cracks and out onto the porch where it re-formed into a loose column of black ink, almost indistinguishable from the night.
I drew on my prime amulets, the walking stick hilt and the ring, but they wavered weakly in response, and I surely drained them as strength trickled into me, an irregular stutter of energy. I sprinted to the door, slashing through the cloud. The smell broke over me, drenching my feet. I ripped open the door and cut through the dark mist as it tried to re-form. Below me, I heard a gurgle. Bare feet on the frozen boards, I sliced through the Darkness again and again as I dashed to the railing and looked down. Below me, standing in the street, were two dark beings. One was a succubus, Jane Hilton, her head thrown back, throat exposed. This one looked more real than the ones from the battle. Her breasts were normal-sized, not the overripe melons of the succubi. She fell to her knees on the cracked pavement as if I had cut her body along with the mist.
The thing beside her was Malashe-el, the daywalker, its eyes labradorite blue flecked with scarlet. From the bloodstone hilt, images flooded through my mind. Stored images of the beast overruled the rune of forgetting Malashe-el still carried.
The daywalker’s rune sat high on its chest, a silver tracing of wire supporting a huge, white quartz crystal. I stared at it with mage-sight. A mage-rune, but different from one I might create. This one was shaped, not to destroy memory, but to blur memory away. The memories of this Darkness hadn’t been stolen from me so much as clouded over, hazed into the mundane, their importance eradicated. I cut the mist again, but my pause had been too long. Stupid! It separated and slid off the porch, dropping to the street. I crossed the blades lo
w over my body, breath heaving, heart racing, a cold sweat drenching me.
The succubus was fragrant with evil, but with an overlay of human scent. The thing had possessed Jane’s body, an evil sprite hoping to capture men in a spell of lust. Lucas had slept with this thing. Jane clawed her throat. A single trace of black mist wriggled across the porch and I sliced it through, again and again. Jane gurgled in anguish, her body rippling. I was surprised at the alteration. For a moment, before she flowed back to her youthful appearance, she looked like Gramma Stanhope, bent and worn, full of old angers.
The daywalker stood beside her, watching as she writhed in agony. Finally, it looked up at me and spoke, directly into my mind. “Come. My mistress calls you. There is not much time.”
Without thought, without plan, I reversed the small blade and threw it, overhand, the spinning toss aimed at its heart. Its pupils widened and it darted to the side, but the blade caught it beneath its arm, striking deep, close to the site where I had last struck it. I heard the thump of blade against bone, and smelled lilacs as the mage-steel cut through ribs and muscle and into its lung.
It crumpled to the street. The black mist coalesced around it. The woman who had claimed to love Lucas bent and withdrew the throwing blade. It gave a sucking sound and she threw it to the side, keening, holding her hand as if it burned.
Together, spilling blood in the moonlight, trailing a scent of death and destruction, they ran down the street and vanished into an alley. Not willing to risk a broken leg by a jump, I stood on the porch, staring down into Upper Street, my eyes seeing only ice, cracked pavement, and broken sidewalk. The fight, such as it was, had taken less than a minute.
My side, where the spur had touched me twice, gave a single mighty throb. It hadn’t pained me since Thadd smeared it with his blood, but now it twisted brutally, like a muscle spasm, stealing my breath. I pressed my elbow against the hard knot, and it burned, feverish, like a boil. I glanced down, and was startled to see it pulse once in mage-vision, a wan yellow glow that faded and was gone.
Behind me, my door crashed open. I felt more than saw him whirl through my apartment. I could feel the spin of his blades and smell the faint whiff of sweat. I turned and stared through the window, though I could see only my reflection and the pale gray sky in the glass. After a moment, Audric stepped onto the porch. His blades were both at the ready, the tinge of oil tainting the air.
“They are gone?” he asked. To my mage-sight, Audric glowed a bright coral, blood coursing beneath his skin in tones of crimson.
“Yeah,” I said numbly as I lifted the amulet necklace. Something was wrong with it.
“How did they get in? Did you set the ward?”
“Yes, I set it.” They did something to my amulets. Maybe during the battle? “I need light.” Audric followed me inside and turned on the light over the kitchen table. I removed the necklace and spread it over a clear space on the old wood. In mage-sight, everything looked wrong, dull and off-color; nothing stood out as the one cause, but when I shut off my sight and looked at the amulets with just human vision, I saw one that was nicked.
I would never attempt to use a broken amulet because damaged stone releases energies wrongly. Many can’t be charged with creation energies at all, the power sliding across them and into the nearest whole stone. I lifted the quartz crystal and held it to the light. It was an amulet of illumination, like the ones I had thrown in the street during the battle.
The trinkets were cheap, energy-wise, and easy to make. I seldom searched for and retrieved one if I misplaced it after use. I had lost some on the Trine once. I had lost others in the street. I skimmed it, sniffing with mind and nose, catching my own scent, and the reek of old evil. “I made this. But something else changed it, then reattached it to my necklace.”
“When?” Audric asked.
Lucas? I shook my head and placed the crystal on the table, nudging it with a finger. They had tried with the earth charm planted in my clean laundry. That hadn’t worked, so they tried a more direct approach. Tag me, not the loft. And it had to have been done recently.
“None of us were prepared for the attack. I was in street clothes, the necklace tied to my waist, not in a protected fold in a dobok. There was this succubus dressed in battle garb.” I looked up at him, the half-breed so much taller than I. “One of those who looked like me. She had her weapon at my throat, and she didn’t use it.” Audric didn’t even blink, focusing intently on my words. “My tunic was cut half off. She touched my waist. I remember the heat of her fingers. Then you killed her.” I blinked away the image. I hadn’t realized how much it bothered me, but it had been like watching myself die, cleaved in twain by the sword of my champard. The image was a small shock that lingered still. “Her blood smelled like mine and Darkness fused.”
“She had one assignment. To plant the amulet.”
“It’s empty now,” I said. “Whatever it was supposed to do, is done.”
“Perhaps simply to provide access to your home.”
“Then why wait so long?”
“You were not alone last night,” Audric said, his tone pointed.
I felt my lips twitch. It was the nearest thing to a smile I could manage. “No. I wasn’t. I hit one of them with a throwing blade.” I kept my eyes turned away from him. “It was the daywalker. The blade is in the street.”
Audric looked steadily at me. “This is two times you have struck the beast. There is power in numbers. If you strike it yet a third time, you will gain power over it.”
“How much? What kind of power?” I asked, thinking of the spur.
“I don’t know. Power is dependent on many things.”
I thought about my side. What would happen to me should the spur touch me a third time? Forcas had been calling me in dreams, had wounded me, had sent evil into my home.
“I’ll get the blade,” he said. When I put up a hand to stop him he said, “Raziel enjoined me to work with you.” He canted his head in acknowledgment of a truth he was sharing. “Being your champard was a destiny I already desired. A fate painless to follow.”
He disappeared into the stairway and reappeared below, surveying the block, weapons at the ready. At the far end, el-car headlights moved. When Audric stepped into the street and retrieved the throwing blade, placing his bare feet carefully, he was every inch the warrior.
As he lifted it, the moon caught on the blade edge and threw back a golden glow, beauty tainted by the Dark blood on the edge. My birth prophecy, mine and my twin’s, had promised, A Rose by any other Name will still draw Blood. I had drawn the blood of Darkness. Lolo had always hoped I’d be a battle mage, my blood heating with fire at the thought of war. What else had she hoped? How had she planned to use me?
I lifted my mended amulet, studying the old break. Lolo had put me here for her own purposes, but I had caused my own trouble. I wasn’t sure how, but it had all started when I broke my prime amulet, and healing it hadn’t corrected things. Sadness welled up in me like a spring on the mountain, gushing and boiling with white-water force. Tears gathered in my eyes and I blinked them away. The orthodox were right. I had brought harm to the town.
I pushed away old wounds and new. I had no time for them. Darkness was here and it was my fault. Seraphs were here as well. Ditto in a convoluted kinda way. The conditions were ripe for a holy war, which would kill humans by the thousands. I had to fix this. Somehow. If I could figure out why breaking the prime amulet months ago had started the trouble.
Overhead, the moon broke through the clouds, a brutal radiance to stone mages. Yet I was unhurt, not drained by its power. I should have been exhausted by its light, energies drawn away like steel pulled by magnetism. But I wasn’t. The amulets weren’t working well, yet the humidity was causing me no pain. That too was indirectly because of the temper tantrum that led me to break the prime, because without its protection, I had been vulnerable to the wheels. The amethyst had changed me in some fundamental way. Lolo had been upset when she learne
d I broke the layered stone ring. Had she known of the amethyst on the Trine, that it might change me? Is that why I had two primes instead of the usual one?
I carried the charm that had been used against me to the bathroom and stuffed it into a bag of salt that held other contaminated things. I was running out of places to put objects of evil. I closed the bag as Audric climbed the stairs.
Lolo had to have known something, expected something. Constant contact with the amethyst had augmented some natural mage-attributes and decreased others. Had altered the way I could store and use the energy of creation in stone. Had damped my mage-heat to nothingness.
I didn’t know if I was addicted to the stone, or if the stone had become addicted to me. If the latter was true, then the huge crystals boxed in the stockroom were some new thing in the world of mages. A new construct. And though they were nearly drained of their natural energies, the amethyst had still gifted me with more power than I had before.
“Thorn?”
“The daywalker was acting as an incubus,” I said, thinking that didn’t feel quite right.
“Or it had one at its command,” Audric said.
“Yes,” I breathed. That was it. Malashe-el had been directing the incubus, and Jane had been a conduit for the thing that possessed her. The only reason to attack a mage with a succubus and an incubus was to try to stimulate mage-heat. That thought melted away the last of the adrenaline. I turned, scenting the blood of the daywalker in the dim light. “I need to clean the blade,” I said. “And I need Jane Hilton, the woman possessed by the succubus. Can you track her? Bring her to me? Before full dawn and without danger to yourself?”
“I can bring her. Mules are unaffected by such.”
I nearly winced at the term. “I don’t like that word,” I said.