“They are,” Giselle confirmed, her gaze narrowing hard on Max, who pretended not to know what she was thinking. Which was, what sort of payback for Max’s trespassing was Selange going to demand tonight at the Conclave?
“Then our fearless invaders took a big chance. But why would anyone want the Hag? If the redcaps hadn’t been stopped, they’d have killed her.”
“Most likely they didn’t care about her; they just wanted her staff. It has a great deal of power and anyone can use it. Legend is that it controls the destiny of humans’at least any humans near enough to get caught up in its spell. Which means either it’s a powerful weapon for killing, or it can be used to control the population. Think about it. A flesh witch gets ahold of that and suddenly has an unlimited source of power. All she has to do is stir up the local humans and magic pours into her.” Giselle paused. “Selange is a flesh mage. Now that she knows the Hag is there, she won’t be able to resist that staff.”
Flesh mages siphoned their magic from ordinary humans, who vented it like steam off a sauna. It came from their passions, their hatreds, their battles, and their burned-out hopes. Every emotion and interaction a human experienced created magic, and a flesh witch collected it like a big vacuum cleaner. And if that wasn’t enough, or if they needed a really big spike of magic, they turned to sex rites and blood sacrifice. Thank whatever beings looked out over the universe that Giselle was not a flesh mage. Max couldn’t draw a lot of lines as a Shadowblade, but she didn’t hunt down helpless people and turn them into sacrifices so that some witch-bitch could generate a few more watts of magic.
She thought of Alexander. Did he?
“Go eat,” Giselle said. “Stock up. Selange is going to issue a challenge’she likes unarmed combat to the death. Are you ready?”
Max shrugged, her grin pure malice. “If I win, I win; if I don’t, I’m dead and you lose your favorite chew toy. Either way, I can’t lose.”
Giselle’s mouth tightened and Max couldn’t tell if she was biting back a smile or grimace. “Some might say dying is a loss. Your uniform for tonight is in your bunk. We leave as soon as it’s dark enough.”
MAX WANTED A SHOWER, BUT FOOD WAS MORE IMPORtant. The spells that made her a Shadowblade would start feeding on her body if she wasn’t careful. The powerbars in the Tahoe had helped to replace what the Hag had taken from her, but she needed to calorie load and quick.
The Garbage Pit was putting off a mouthwatering mosh of smells. Max went around to the back of the semi where a set of stairs led up into the interior of the trailer. At the cab end was the kitchen, and lining the walls on either side were stainless-steel tables bolted to the walls and chairs bolted to the tables. The floor was matching stainless steel, as was most of the kitchen. Low, haunting music played through the speakers. Except for Magpie, the cook, no one else was there.
Magpie glanced up, her eyes a shade or two darker than Max’s, with two streaks of pearly white interrupting the blue-black ponytail that fell to the middle of her back. She was a witch of the outer circle, which meant she had some power, but not a lot, and not nearly enough to hold her own coven. She was also a damned good cook, and that’s all Max needed to know.
“Sit,” Magpie ordered, walking over to her with a jug of milk and an empty glass. “What are you hungry for?”
“Whatever you’ve got. You know what I like.”
Magpie nodded and gave a half smile. Her teeth were white against her tanned skin. “I’ve got a couple of pans of enchiladas on the warmer. You can start with those.”
“Sounds good.” Max’s stomach growled and she laughed. “Better hurry.”
Magpie patted her shoulder and hurried back into the kitchen. Max drank a couple of glasses of milk in quick succession, then turned the glass between her fingers broodingly. She wanted to touch the hailstone, but didn’t want to call attention to it.
Footsteps on the stairs made her twist around. The first person into the Garbage Pit was Oz. He stood about six foot three with sandy brown hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders that looked like they could hold up a tank, and about a dozen dimples. He didn’t look like a Sunspear Prime, but just as with Alexander, power surrounded him like a cloud of hot lightning, and hiding behind those smiling eyes was an unrelenting violence. He was scary. When he walked into a room, anyone with sense started thinking about finding the exits.
Behind him came Niko, Max’s second-in-command. He was about the same height as Max and looked to be as broad as he was tall’all of it was muscle. His eyes, like his fists, were stone. He always wore the latest New York fashion, which made him the object of much teasing among his fellow Shadowblades, all of which he took with good-natured humor. Still, Max knew she could count on him to have her back, no matter how bad things got. He didn’t know how to back down or back off, and he could inflict more damage than a platoon of marines.
After him trailed Akemi. She was Chinese, with a broad forehead and rounded chin. She was the only Shadowblade in Max’s crew who was actually shorter than her. More than a few idiots had mistaken her size for weakness. She’d set them straight’and dead. No one handled knives better than she did. She was also clearheaded, smart, and careful. Max had never seen her lose her cool. She smiled fleetingly as she entered, her eyes dropping. Dangerous as she was, she was also ridiculously shy. She was exactly what Max would expect the daughter of a geisha and a terminator to be.
Oz slid into the seat opposite Max. “Want company?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He smiled broadly, taking a drink from the milk jug. “Nope.”
“What happened to you last night?” Niko asked. He sat at the table across the aisle, kicking his feet out and slouching down, tapping his fingers on the table in a drumbeat.
Akemi sat across from him, her hands folding together on the table, her back straight. She watched Max from beneath lowered lids.
“Trouble, of course,” Max said, rubbing her forehead.
This was the hardest part of the role she played for Giselle. She liked Oz. She liked Niko and Akemi, though Akemi continually treated Max as some sort of half-god. The problem was that she did like them and she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to care. She didn’t want Giselle to have any hostages against her good behavior. But she’d lost the knack for keeping them at arm’s length. It had been easier in that first fifteen years. She had spent so much time running or laid out on Giselle’s altar that she hadn’t had a chance to get to know the other Shadowblades or Sunspears before they got killed in the line of witchy duty. Once she’d stopped running, she’d learned all she could about combat, strategy, tactics, and most especially about the world of magic’she had a mission. She wasn’t going to die doing Giselle’s dirty work until she could kill the witch-bitch herself.
That’s when the rest of the Shadowblades and even a lot of the Sunspears started looking up to her, asking her for help, for advice. For years Max had been Prime in name only and finally had to take on the role for real or watch her friends die from sheer ignorance and inexperience. But the job came with confessions of fear and misdeeds, longings and hopes, grudges and frustrations. It brought them closer to her. Every day it grew worse. Attachments of the heart, drilled in with titanium screws she didn’t know how to dislodge. Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore. Beneath the table, her fingers brushed across her pocket, feeling the cold of the hailstone. Maybe she didn’t have to. Maybe there was a way out without destroying everything she’d come to care about. There had to be a way.
She gave them the bare bones of her night’s activities. As she finished, Magpie delivered a plate of enchiladas and Max dug in.
“This could get ugly. Selange isn’t going to take this sitting down.” Oz pointed out the obvious while stealing one of the folded tortillas on the edge of Max’s plate.
Max pointed her fork at him. “Touch my food again and I’ll eat your hand.”
He smirked. “Might be worth it. I always wanted to know what it would be like to
have your mouth on me.”
Akemi made a squeaking sound of disbelief and Niko snorted.
Max set her fork down carefully, pressing her hands flat on either side of her plate. She stared at her plate for a moment. Then she looked up at Oz. He looked wary, knowing he’d tested a line. Another day she’d have tossed back a razor remark or broken his jaw for him. But today ...today she’d been given the first real hope for freedom.
A daring she hadn’t felt for years swelled in her chest. It was heady. Oz flinched as Max pushed herself upright. She leaned over the table, stopping mere centimeters from him.
“All right then,” she said, then closed the distance, pressing her lips to his.
Oz went rigid, then kissed her back. Their tongues touched tentatively, and Max tipped her head. He reached up, holding her face with his fingertips as if afraid she’d break, or maybe he was afraid she’d bite him. He tasted of milk and mints, and his tongue was deft and light. A sense of dizzy wonder rushed through Max. Like she was back in college with a future full of possibilities.
She pulled away slowly. Her brows rose. “Satisfied?”
Oz touched his fingers to his lips. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed. He shook his head. “Hardly.”
She shrugged and sat back down, returning to her food. “I was afraid of that. I’m a bad kisser.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he protested.
“But you weren’t satisfied. How disappointing for you.”
Niko chortled. Akemi was simply staring, her mouth open.
“You’re just screwing with me now,” Oz said.
Max shook her head. “And risk being judged unsatisfactory again? Oh, no. My ego isn’t that strong. I’ll leave screwing you to others.”
His hand flashed out and grasped hers. He pulled it to his lips, waiting until she met his gaze. “One day, you’re going to take me seriously.”
She smiled, tugging her hand back. “I always take you seriously, Oz.”
Magpie brought out more food, and the rest of the meal passed in pleasant ribbing. Max was more comfortable than she had ever been, and Akemi even loosened up enough to tease Niko about his love of designer clothing.
“It’s a little silly in our line of work, don’t you think?” she said softly, cutting her steak into precise cubes.
Niko smoothed a hand over his dark blue polo shirt. “What else am I going to spend my money on? And don’t I look great in Dolce and Gabbana? It’s made of bamboo. Looks like silk, washes like cotton. Blood comes right out of it. Women love me in it.”
Akemi rolled her eyes and Max chuckled. “You’re the most fashionable man in Montana. The grizzlies and elk have never been so impressed. Besides, wouldn’t you rather women love you out of it?”
Before he could answer, Max’s phone chirped its high-pitched ring. Oz’s followed in quick succession. His played the Miss Gulch theme from The Wizard of Oz. Max grinned at him, flipping open her phone. It was a text message.
Trouble. Come now.
Before she could think about what kind of trouble, Max had leaped over the table and down the stairs to the floor of the warehouse, Oz hot on her heels. Max flung open the door of Giselle’s RV and climbed the stairs in two lunging steps.
Giselle flung her phone against the wall as they entered. She turned, her expression taut. “Alton is on his way.”
“You told him where we are?” Oz asked in a flat voice that did little to hide his fury. Away from the covenstead their wards were not nearly as strong, making them far more vulnerable. Secrecy protected them from attacks, and Giselle had thrown it away.
“He’s Horngate’s oldest ally,” she said. “And he can’t reach Old Home. There’s not been a word since last night.”
Old Home was Alton’s covenstead, a postage-stamp-size territory in the lush old-growth forests of northern Idaho.
“Did he scry?” Max asked with a frown. There should be no good reason a covenstead didn’t answer.
Giselle shook her head. “He’s too worked up. He’s asking for our help.” She looked at Oz. “Go guide him in. He can bring in his Spear Prime, but no one else. He also removes his personal wards.”
Oz nodded. “I’ll have my Spears close the perimeter. No one else will come through after him.”
“Good. Go now.”
He departed and Max eyed Giselle. With a mental twist, she forced aside her antipathy for the witch, focusing instead on the threat. “You really think this is an attack? You and Alton have been allies for a decade.”
The witch shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. But something is wrong. I can feel it. I can’t treat him like an enemy’what if Old Home is in trouble? But we’re vulnerable here, and he’s the only one I might tell where we are, and only for something as dire as this. If he or somebody wanted to attack me, there would be no better way and no better time. I can’t ignore the possibility. All the same, Max, he is an ally. Be as careful as you can without being too obvious.”
“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.
Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book Page 6