“Pull around and back into that spot over there,” Max said. It wasn’t really a space. The back bumper of a yellow Hummer hung well into it. Akemi would have to shove her truck into the bramble. Which meant that anyone attacking her would likely come from the front or over the Hummer. It also gave her a straight run at the entrance or thorny back exit.
The bramble gave way grudgingly, scraping the side of the truck viciously. Akemi gunned the engine, her knobby off-road tires gripping the ground hard. The truck lunged backward until the bed was overhung with brambles and the hood was half-covered.
Akemi glanced in the rearview mirror at Max. “You owe me a paint job.”
“I’m good for it,” Max said, her mouth stretching in a pirate’s grin.
She crawled over to the other door and let herself out and walked to the front of the truck. The other Shadowblades continued to watch the newcomers. Max recognized one or two and nodded at them. Her scalp prickled. All around her swelled the scent of magic. It was almost smothering in its intensity.
“I thought there would be someone guarding the entrance,” Akemi said in a quiet voice.
“There is,” Giselle said. “Just hope you don’t ever see them. It will be the last thing you do. You won’t get out the entrance until the Conclave releases and I come back for you. If something happens, try going over the bramble wall. You might have a chance, then.”
“Nothing like that guarded the place last time,” Max said.
“Last time the Guardians didn’t call us here. The Sagrado belongs to no witch. It lies inside Selange’s territory, but it belongs to the Guardians. They have rules and they send minions to enforce them. Tonight’who knows what creatures stand watch. Be warned. Whatever they are, they will offer no mercy if you attempt to leave before the Conclave ends. It is the law.”
Akemi had gone pale at the the word Guardians. She swallowed and nodded.
“We’re going to be late. Max, let’s go.” Giselle strode toward the entrance. Max overtook her and walked in front of her.
“There’s no danger here,” Giselle said. “The Guardians won’t permit it.”
“What if they can’t stop it?” Max muttered, and prowled ahead.
“They are the reason we are here tonight. They will not permit any of us to come to harm.”
Max stopped, pivoting to stare into Giselle’s green eyes. “And what if they want to hurt you?”
Giselle’s brow pinched. “Why would they?”
“Hell if I know. You know more about them than I do. But given what’s happened in the past couple of days, I don’t trust anybody tonight.”
“Very well,” Giselle said.
As if Max needed her permission.
They walked back out of the parking area. The feeling of the magic swelled, sliding over Max’s skin like razor-edged gossamer. She heard breathing’deep, slow, rasping sounds like the grinding of rocks beneath a glacier. In the grass beside the blackberry-bramble wall was a matted spot the size of Akemi’s truck. There was a snorting sound and the grass fluttered on an invisible wind. Something was sitting there.
Above there was a flapping sound. Max’s head jerked up. She saw nothing but the stirring of wind across the leaves. A smell like rotting vegetation and carrion drifted sluggishly through the air. A sudden sweep of motion burst past Max’s head, lifting her hair. There was a low, laughing sound, feminine and hungry.
Max swung around, tracing the invisible flight of the creature through its smell and the curling of the air behind it.
“Forget it. They aren’t going to bother us. We need to get up to the Conclave,” Giselle said.
Though Max wasn’t convinced, there was little point picking a fight with invisible monsters. Instead she turned back up the mossy path and broke into a slow jog. Behind her, Giselle followed suit. The trail wound back and forth in wide switchbacks, climbing steeply up the butte through the thick trees and underbrush. Max let her instincts take over. Her senses reached out like floodwaters, pushing into every nook and crevice and tracing every edge of the night. Her ears snared every sound, her nose sifted myriad scents, and her skin logged every shifting caress of the air. She sank down into the sensations, her body coiled to strike.
Halfway up the butte she stopped short. Giselle came up to stand beside her. Max turned her head to the side, her eyes closed. She’d never smelled magic quite like it. It smelled of glacier ice and mountain rain with an acid quality that warned of fire, stone, and steel. It crossed the path and circled to the left and the right around the shoulders of the slope.
“What is it?” Giselle asked.
“Magic’but not Uncanny or Divine. It’s a boundary and very powerful. It wasn’t here before.”
“It’s one of the Conclave spell circles. There are three. As the last witch crosses, each will close and keep anybody else out.”
“And everybody in,” Max murmured. Would her lock-spell be strong enough to get her out if necessary?
Giselle took Max’s hand. The witch’s fingers were warm and strong and fine-boned. She stepped forward, pulling Max with her. The two passed through a paper-thin thickening of the air. It was frigid cold. The chill flashed through Max, crystallizing in her throat. Then they were through. She drew a breath of the warm night air, shaking off Giselle’s hand.
Movement caught her attention. She spun. White vines of mist rose out of the ground and twisted into the air, curling and coiling together in a ghostly filigree filled with demonic faces. As they watched, the weaving grew into a dense barrier. It sounded dry, like the rubbing of a snake’s body against itself. The wall marched toward them, swallowing the downhill ground.
“Keep moving. You don’t want to let it touch you,” Giselle warned, her shoulder rubbing against Max’s as she glanced over her shoulder.
The moon had broken free of the clouds and hung shining and brilliant in the sky when they crested the top of the butte. The dapples of moonlight blistered Max’s exposed skin, which healed and blistered again as she passed in and out of the shadows. She suppressed the urge to scratch the maddening healing itch. The path curved around to the right and coiled completely around the flat hilltop before straightening to cross a flat greensward of emerald grass. Here the path changed to flat amethyst tiles.
Max strode unflinchingly from the protection of the trees. Her vision clouded as her eyes bubbled. She could hear a faint sizzling sound as her skin cooked. The pain rippled over her and wrapped her in a pulsing cocoon. She shook herself, embracing the hurt. It was hers. It was good.
The greensward swept away on either side of the path, surrounding a great stone hulk of a building that looked like an old mission. The front was cornered by a domed tower on the left and a shorter bell-tower on the right. Max guessed Spanish monks had built it’or witches masquerading as monks.
Flowering jasmine hung on a leafy curtain over the rough-hewn stone, and creeping masses of rosemary humped around the foot of the ancient church, the pungent stems sprinkled with tiny blue flowers. There were no doors or glass in the arched openings that ran down the length of the building. Instead they were filled with the flickering glow of candlelight. The strong odors of herbs and oils drifted through the empty windows, mixing with the heavy scent of the flowers, smog, and swirling magic. The miasma was so strong that Max could hardly detect the odors of the people within. She knew a crowd was inside’easily three or four hundred people.
Max stopped suddenly, her back stiffening. She swiveled her head. They were being watched.
6
ALEXANDER HAD BEGUN TO WONDER IF MAX AND her witch were coming to the Conclave after all. Maybe they thought they could run from Selange. He did not know whether to be glad of it or not. He was more than a little intrigued by Max. She had saved the Hag and forged a blood bond with the Divine creature. It bordered on insane, or criminally stupid. So did leaving him alive. He did not think she was either. So why?
The questions itched. He knew he would get his answers eventually. O
nce he won the night’s challenge, Selange would pry the answers out of Max. His jaw hardened. It did not matter if she gave the information freely. Selange would never believe any of it without torture. His witch trusted it better than other means of questioning. After, Max might be useless. Or dead.
He remembered that long hypnotic moment staring into her eyes. He could almost feel himself facing her again and that sensation of falling into an abyss. Heat filled him and, just as swiftly, died beneath a chill that stabbed through him like a spear. He wiped a hard hand over his mouth. He was attracted to her. He could not argue that. She was beautiful, smart, capable, and powerful’everything that made him hungry for a woman. He wanted her and it had been a long time since he had wanted anyone. But the pull was deeper than that’like a riptide dragging him under. It was as if he recognized her’or something in her. Whatever it was spoke to him down deep in his gut. Sort of like getting kicked. The idea of Selange torturing her to death set his teeth on edge, but there was nothing he could do.
Thus when Max and her witch appeared on the amethyst path and the mist rose in a white wall behind them, his feelings were mixed. He watched Max prowl ahead, her head turning from side to side, her stride boldly confident. He watched a moment, then went to inform Selange of their arrival.
He found her in the nave. She stood talking to two witches from Arizona, both with crow-black hair shining blue in the candlelight. Selange tapped her red-tipped nails against her thigh, glancing about impatiently. Alexander slid through the crowd of witches and stopped at Selange’s elbow.
“They have arrived.”
Her crimson mouth tightened and then curved. “Finally. Go wait with the others. The challenge must wait until the Conclave business is over.”
Dismissed, Alexander retreated through a small door at the east end of the Sagrado’it was the Spanish word for “sacred,” given to the Conclave site on its founding. Most did not remember that, or care. Alexander liked to know the history of things.
Outside was an outbuilding so overgrown with jasmine that only small red patches of its terra-cotta roof tiles showed through. A fountain made from a single scepter of smoky quartz rose from a mosaic stone circle in a grassy courtyard between the buildings. The quartz glowed from within as water gurgled from the top and splashed down its sides.
Alexander glanced up at the moon and pushed his glasses more firmly up his nose. The reflected sun heated his skin and soon he’d start to blister. He considered the jasmine-covered building. Shadowblades milled inside, some talking and laughing, some playing cards or dice, and more than a few getting belligerent. Alexander didn’t hesitate as he passed by the fountain and went to lean in the shadows of one of the basalt monoliths circling the fountain like sentries. It did nothing to hide him from Shadowblade eyes, but it kept the moonlight off him. He touched the reddened skin of his cheek, feeling his healing smoothing away the heat. He crossed his arms, watching the Sagrado ...waiting for Max.
Nearly twenty minutes had gone by before the door finally opened. She shut it behind her, but did not leave the shelter of the small alcove. Instead she stood a moment, then dropped lazily into a watchful crouch, her elbows propped on her leather-clad knees.
Mosquitoes buzzed and night birds chirped. There was a crackle of a seedpod popping open, and a rustle of a frog through the rosemary. Finally, when it was clear she would wait out the Conclave where she crouched, Alexander pushed himself away from the watch stone.
Her attention riveted on him the moment he stirred. Her expression was impassive, and Alexander did not doubt that she had seen him standing there from the moment she emerged through the door.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps so they were nearly eye to eye. She did not speak. Once again he felt unsettled by her dark-eyed regard. Anger uncurled slowly inside him. At last he was compelled to break the silence.
“You know Selange will challenge your witch because you were in Julian?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
Her indifference stirred the flames of his annoyance. He wanted to break her cool mask and see within. “It will not be combat to the death. Selange wants you alive. She wants ...you.”
Her brows flicked up in momentary surprise, then her face smoothed. “Does she now?” Max drawled. She tipped her head. “I noticed she didn’t know my name. Why didn’t you tell her?”
“Maybe it was self-preservation,” he suggested.
She nodded with a dark understanding, and something bleak and violent shifted in her eyes. For a moment her face seemed made of ice and steel.
“Thanks for the heads-up. I suppose the challenge will be endurance?”
“Yes.”
She nodded again, scanning the night. “Sorry, then.”
“For what?”
She gave him a sideways look, then the corner of her mouth quirked in a half smile. It was cynical and lasted but a moment. “Giselle is a good torturer.” She looked back out into the night. “And I am a very good victim.”
The last caught Alexander up short. What did she mean? Much as he did not want to, he could not avoid the obvious conclusion. It made his stomach clench. Selange had plenty of faults, some that made his stomach turn, but she did not routinely torture her own people. What sort of witch was Giselle?
Max smiled again, this time in a bleak, distant way. Alexander had a feeling she was looking inward and wasn’t pleased with what she found. He searched for something to say, but words failed him. Strained silence pooled between them. In the end, it was Max who broke it.
“I hope whatever you were up to out there in Julian was worth what we’re about to go through.”
Alexander replied automatically, unthinkingly, “I would suffer anything for Selange and be glad of it.” But it was not true. Long ago he’d drawn a line he would not willingly cross again. But the words were gone and the damage done.
Max’s head slowly turned. “Is that what you really believe?”
No. Not anymore. Not for a long time. But loyalty and years of habit would not let him say it. She was his enemy, tonight at least. And he would show her no weakness, no doubt. “Of course.”
Her lip curled as if she would like to spit at him. Instead she turned away. Transparent shadows hollowed her cheeks and eyes so that for a moment she looked cadaverous. “You are a waste of skin,” she said slowly.
Alexander recoiled from the flat hate in her voice, even as answering anger flowed through him, heating his voice. “I am a Shadowblade and I serve my witch with all my heart and soul,” he said. “It is what I am and I make no apologies for it.”
“Honor,” she scoffed. “And what has she done to deserve your heart and soul? Not to mention your pain and suffering?”
“She has given me a life I could only have dreamed of. She gave me gifts beyond measure.”
Max rolled her eyes. “We’ll see if you still think so when Giselle has her way with you.” Max shook her head. “Like I said, waste of skin. Why don’t you go hide in your doghouse until your mistress whistles for you?”
“And do you think yourself better than me?” he lashed back. “I hear you whine like a spoiled child and I see you risk yourself stupidly for a Hag and let yourself be caught on top of that. If any of my Shadowblades behaved like you, I would give them a lesson they would not soon forget.”
“So why don’t you teach me,” Max said, her brows rising, daring him.
“The Conclave rules forbid it. But if you want to die, have the balls to walk into the sun so others do not have to suffer because of you.”
She smiled wide. “I just might, once I take care of a couple of things.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what, but he bit back the question before it could escape. “You call me a waste of skin, but you are no better. I would hate to have to depend on you for anything.”
With that he spun around and walked away. He strode around the Sagrado and out along the perimeter path. Mist roiled outside the edge like an army of mad ghosts. Ma
x’s words wormed inside him. His body clenched against the invasion, but there was no stopping it. Waste of skin.
He paced. Resentment and anger spurred him hard. It was unlike him. He was always the calm at the center of the storm. But tonight he could not seem to find balance. It was not just Max setting him on edge. It was Selange. She was scared. When she was cornered, she would do anything to survive’to win. All day he had imagined what she would do with the Hag’s staff if she found it. She could stir San Diego into bloody riots and drink the magic of the violence and the death. His teeth ground together. She would not hesitate, and the slaughter would be biblical. It would cross the line he had promised he would never cross again. But so what? Would he walk into the sun as he had threatened? He could not fight her; he could not stop her. But suicide was gutless.
Bitter Night Page 10