“You’re warded?” Max asked.
“I am, though if he’s come for war, he’ll be prepared and my personal wards won’t stand.”
“Then I’m about to be as obvious as a sword up his ass,” Max said. “If he’s innocent, then he’ll just have to suck it up and get over it. Don’t come out until I say so.”
With that she exited the RV. Niko and Akemi were waiting outside.
“Alton’s coming in with his Sunspear Prime,” Max told them. “He says Old Home’s gone silent and he wants help. It might be a trap. Roust the Blades. I want four snipers trained on the two of them from the moment they enter. You two join Oz in guarding them, and everybody else will shield Giselle. Questions?”
The two shook their heads and hurried away. Max went to her Tahoe and flipped up the cargo box beneath the backseat. She once again pulled out her shotgun. Flash-bombs would blind her Shadowblades and do nothing against Alton’s Sunspear Prime. Grenades were too indiscriminate. Instead she loaded her .45 with shot shells. The steel pellets inside spread on penetration, and most of the steel remained inside the flesh. Both Uncanny and Divine beings were susceptible to the power of cold iron’which is what steel was mostly made out of. Hollowpoints would blow apart their heads or pulp their insides and tear a hole the size of a bowling ball on the way out, but at short range, the shot shells had enough stopping power to drop both Alton and his Spear Prime and still leave them alive to answer questions.
She frowned. Alton was a mediocre territory witch, relying on Giselle’s strength to protect his covenstead. His coven was small, with only himself and six other witches. But he was as ambitious as any witch and tended to brag loudly and strut around to hide the fact that he didn’t have a lot hanging between his legs. He was, in a word, a weasel. Max didn’t like him. She snorted. She didn’t like witches. But Alton was barely one of those. His Sunspears and Shadowblades were equally unimpressive. She could break Dorian, his Sun-spear Prime, in half with one hand.
Ten minutes later Oz returned with Alton and Dorian in tow. Niko and Akemi waited just inside the small side door as it opened. They stood well out of the way of the wedge of sunlight that fell inside, then closed ranks on either side of the witch and his Sunspear Prime as the door swung shut. Oz and the two Blades held their guns ready, though politely aimed at their visitors’ feet rather than at their chests.
Max stood in front of Giselle with six of her Shadow-blades ranged in a circle around the witch, all of them armed to the teeth. Alton and Dorian both got the message.
“What is this, Giselle?” Alton demanded as he stopped. “Is this the way you greet your friends?”
He was a slender man dressed in tailored clothing that no doubt cost more than Max’s Tahoe. He wore a ruby stud in one ear and a silver cuff bracelet on his left arm. His eyes were ringed in dark makeup, which, combined with his heavy brow and lantern jaw, gave him a look of brooding anger’sort of like a pissy housecat, Max thought. He also looked twitchy and worried. But what caught Max’s attention was that he looked younger than the last time she’d seen him four months ago. The lines around his eyes and mouth had smoothed, and he walked more vigorously, his eyes bright with energy. Her shoulders tensed. Only magic could make a witch younger, and plenty of it. More than Alton had, or why would he have let himself age in the first place?
“Keep him there,” she barked, and Niko, Oz, and Akemi leaped back and spun around to face the witch and his Sunspear Prime, their guns rising to heart height.
“Max?” Giselle said softly.
“He’s lost a good ten years,” Max said softly. “You can talk to him from here.”
“I demand an apology,” Alton called out, his voice rising. “I am here to call on our friendship and alliance and you point guns at me? This is intolerable!”
“All the same, Alton, the precautions are necessary. You are looking very well,” Giselle said. “I’ve never seen you look so young.”
He stiffened, his chin jutting stubbornly. “I would speak with you in private.”
“Say what you have to say or get out,” Max said, her words hard as bullets.
“Put a leash on your dog, Giselle. She’s crossed the line.”
“I would, Alton, but Max is protecting me. Even if I order her away, she will not go. Her compulsion spells won’t let her. Tell me about Old Home.”
His face twisted, though with frustration or fear, Max couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both.
“I have not been able to reach them since last night. The phones are down and no one responds to my computer messages.”
“Did you scry?”
He dragged in a harsh breath, the muscles in his jaws knotting as he clenched his teeth. Red seeped into his cheeks like war paint. Max watched his hands. If he made even the slightest twitch like he was going to fling a hex, she’d drop him like a rabid dog.
“I could not settle myself enough. I have come to ask you to scry for me. You see far better than I do, anyway.”
“Of course I will help. But it must wait until after the Conclave is over,” Giselle said.
“No! That is too late. What if they need me?” he said hoarsely.
“There is nothing you can do from here. A few hours will make no difference.”
He swayed forward. “Please! I left Caro there.”
Max bit down hard on her lower lip. Caro was Alton’s fourteen-year-old daughter. Behind her she heard Giselle draw a sharp breath. But her response was adamant.
“I’m sorry, Alton. I can’t spend that much energy before the Conclave.”
“You promised me help when I need it!”
“And I will give it. After the Conclave. Maybe you should go back to Old Home. You will almost be there by the time I can scry.”
“I can’t,” he said, his teeth clamped together. “I must attend the Conclave.”
Witches did not meet often, and usually people died when they did. Only at Conclaves was there a mutual peace, and this was the first in almost nine years. Max didn’t know the purpose of this one, but only territory witches were invited, and to miss was to put up a neon sign saying you were too weak to sit at the grown-up table. Alton’s cotton-glove ego couldn’t handle that. He’d rather see Old Home swallowed by hell first.
A sly, menacing look slid over his expression. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? I go home and don’t attend the Conclave.” He paused a moment, his mind tumbling with the possibility. Suddenly he shouted. “Bitch! What have you done to Old Home?”
Silence echoed in response. Then Giselle said coldly, “Get him out of here.”
Max heard her turn and step up into the RV. The door shut firmly. For a moment no one moved. Alton’s mouth hung open in shock, and Dorian’s brows furrowed as his gaze ran back and forth, figuring out just how deep was the shit he was standing in.
“You heard her. Time to go,” Max said, striding forward.
“I refuse. Put your hands on me and I will fry you,” Alton told Oz, who had begun to reach for him.
Dorian stepped in front of Oz, bristling. He was smaller than Oz by a couple of inches, and not as muscular. His weapons had been stripped before entering the warehouse, and now he held his fists like a boxer. Dumbshit. Oz had a gun and he didn’t have any stupid ideas about playing fair. He’d put a hole in Dorian’s head without batting an eyelash.
Suddenly Dorian turned and hoisted Alton over his shoulder in one smooth movement before jogging for the door. Maybe he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“Put me down, Dorian, damn you! Giselle! This is the end for us! Our alliance is over! I will make you regret this!” Alton was still shrieking as Dorian carried him out into the sunlight. Oz followed.
As the warehouse door shut, Giselle’s RV door opened. “Max, come inside.”
Max did as ordered, setting her shotgun on the kitchen counter as she entered. Giselle was standing in the little hallway leading to her bedroom. She had her hands pressed flat against the wall on either side of her and she w
as shaking. Her face was gray-white.
“I’m sending Oz to Old Home. He’ll take a mix of Sunspears and Shadowblades,” she said abruptly.
Max shook her head. “That leaves you too vulnerable. We should wait until we get back to Horngate and then send out a team.”
“No. This is an order, not a request. I want them on the road within the hour.” Giselle started to turn away.
“Why? You generally aren’t stupid, and this ranks right up there with canned cheese and clothes for cats. Better make a good case for it or Oz’s compulsion spells will keep him right here where he belongs.” Max couldn’t help her smirk. Giselle’s spells forced her Sunspears and Shadowblades to protect her at all costs. If it came down to a choice between obeying her orders and keeping her alive, the spells won every time. At Giselle’s wince of annoyance, Max’s smile widened into a grin. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”
Her smile vanished as magic enveloped the witch in a crackling nimbus. Giselle crossed the kitchen in two strides and slapped Max across the face. The blow itself was nothing, but the magic was another thing entirely. It crashed over Max in a wave of black energy. It was like standing inside a nuclear reactor. Liquid heat filled her, cutting channels through her flesh and bones. Swords with electric blades stabbed her over and over. Max sank to her knees, gasping. She didn’t fight, not that she could. She breathed, counting to four with each inhalation and exhalation. Her vision swam. She clung to consciousness, her fingers gouging streaks in the linoleum floor. Her body convulsed and her legs and arms twitched uncontrollably. The magic swelled until it felt like her skin would split.
Minutes passed as Max struggled in silence. She would not let her moans of pain escape. Her bladder clenched and her face screwed tight as she clamped down on the urge to pee. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d ended up at Giselle’s feet in a pool of her own piss, but she had no intention of doing it today. Finally the magic began to subside. Max felt certain spells inside her coming alive and beginning to gather it up to use for food. Brilliantly, Giselle had made Max’s punishment as strengthening as it had been debilitating. Slowly Max pushed herself up, holding onto the counter as she swayed, her head spinning.
Giselle sat stiffly in her chair, her hair pushed back behind her ears, her hands clamped together. Her face was expressionless as she watched Max recover.
“Well, that cleared the sinuses,” Max said in a raspy voice. Fueled by the residual magic, her healing spells were writhing inside her like a giant ball of spiders, fixing whatever Giselle had broken. “Feel better?”
“You need to take this seriously,” Giselle said, her lips a gash across the lower half of her face.
Max frowned, studying her. Giselle looked haunted and worn. Her makeup barely disguised the shadows around her eyes and did nothing to cover the hollowness of her cheeks. Max straightened, her head ducking slightly, her knees flexing, as the predator in her took over from what was left of the human girl. “I’m listening. Tell me a bedtime story.” She yawned and patted her mouth, unable to resist needling the witch.
“Is it so bad, being a Shadowblade?” Giselle asked, then flittered her fingers in the air. Her voice shifted, becoming crisp. “Never mind. You’ve made yourself clear on that often enough. I have some things you need to know. It’s time.” She paused and licked her lips, the corners of her mouth twitching in something like a nervous smile before flattening out again. She watched her fingers as she spoke.
“I have never spoken of this to anyone before. It is far too dangerous. But I have to trust you.” She gave a wry shrug and glanced at Max from beneath her brows as if looking for a reaction.
Max’s mouth fell open. She stared stupidly. “Are you kidding me? I spend most waking moments thinking of ways to kill you.” She was so used to the rake of pain that accompanied her words that it was hardly noticeable. But then Giselle had made certain she had a high tolerance for pain. Practice makes perfect and all that crap.
Giselle snorted. “That’s not exactly a state secret. But what I’m about to tell you might make you reconsider, if only for the sake of Horngate. My mother was a seer. A truly rare ability. One day she had a vision of the future. It was so powerful it nearly killed her. Then it wouldn’t leave her. It came to her again and again. It tormented her. It became all she could see. She became a shadow of herself; her body could hardly handle the sendings.” Giselle’s face twisted and she stared hard at the cabinets above Max’s head. Her voice roughened. “Then she was murdered. The entire coven was butchered. The blood was terrible.” She swallowed and brushed at her eyes. “I was with my father when it happened. When we returned’” She broke off, her fingers pressing against her lips.
“We ran. Every time we thought we were safe, someone found us. They wanted no traces left of my mother’s vision. But eventually we managed to find a haven. And then I started preparing for what is coming.”
“And what’s that?” Max couldn’t help imagining the small, sunny child that Giselle must have been, arriving home to find a bloodbath, and no one left alive. Then being hunted, always hiding, always looking over her shoulder, always fearing what might be waiting around the corner. A grudging sympathy wriggled to life inside her.
Giselle scrubbed her hands across her face, rubbing circles on her temples as she drew a deep breath. Her hands fell to her sides. “My mother’s vision said exactly what the Hag said. There is a war coming. It is already begun. It is going to get very ugly.”
“A war for what? About what?”
“Magic’the very existence of it. Once it was everywhere’like the wind and rain. But then humans came along and started finding ways to kill it. Bit by bit it has disappeared. Many Uncanny and Divine creatures have died off or hidden themselves deep underground or inside magical pocket realms. The way things are going, all magic is going to disappear forever. The Guardians have decided that they will not allow this.”
“The Guardians? As in mythical gods?” Max asked in disbelief. They were like bogeyman stories or Loch Ness monsters’constantly seen but never existed.
“They are not mythical, and no one is all that sure they are gods, either. But they are enormously powerful, and the Uncanny and Divine’every one of us’serve them. Refusal is ...not allowed.”
“What would they do to you?” Then it clicked. “Is that what you think happened to Old Home? Alton refused to serve and they destroyed his coven?”
Giselle’s shoulders shifted in not quite a shrug. “It’s possible. Maybe he just didn’t act quickly enough. The Guardians are impatient. They don’t tolerate disobedience or failure.”
“Sounds like a witch I know.”
“To prevent the destruction of all magic,” Giselle continued, ignoring Max’s barb, “the Guardians will raise armies. They will unleash a maelstrom of magic so that the earth itself strikes against humanity. They mean to slaughter most of the people and let magic return to the world. They have already begun. Hurricanes, fires, volcanoes, floods, droughts, earthquakes’have you noticed how many disasters have been happening recently? These aren’t random or global warming. They are the first feints of battle. They mark the wrenching open of doors to all the places where the creatures of magic have gone to hide from human encroachment. All the creatures of the Uncanny and Divine are being summoned to fight, and the witches will be their generals. They will not allow anyone to sit safe on the sidelines. The devastation will be unimaginable. All we can do is try to stay alive and protect what we can. That’s why I built Horngate. That’s why I made you. I cannot do this alone. I need your help to keep our people safe.”
“Why me?” The question had itched at Max since she’d first awakened on Giselle’s altar. Of everyone to choose from, why her? Why not some other sacrificial lamb?
Giselle smiled, leaning her head back. “I had a vision of you, years before we met. It was only a flash, but you glowed. I can’t explain it, but I knew you were going to be important in this struggle.”
“Lucky me. Did you
ever think to just ask instead of getting me drunk and tricking me?” The sting of Max’s usual venom was dulled. Even to her the words sounded like reflex. Somehow she believed Giselle’s story. The witch had never lied to her. Even in the bar that night, peppering Max with questions, she’d never actually said anything that wasn’t true.
But Max didn’t know if any of it changed anything. Her hate still burned. Hate and betrayal and fury at herself for being so stupid. Could she put aside all the hours and days of torture on Giselle’s altar? Could she forget, even for a while, the endless agony, her mind made half insane by the horror of what was being done to her? And not just once or even twice, but over and over and over. It happened every time Giselle added a new spell. Every time Max’s bonds started to loosen. The few drops of witch blood in her veins lent power to her furious resistance, and those bonds loosened regularly. How could she just let it go like it didn’t matter?
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