She spoke the last by rote’quoting witch law. Alexander expected that she had studied the language today.
“So mote it be,” Giselle answered without any uneasiness at all.
“These are the terms. Our Primes will stand champion for each of us. They will be bound inside the circle. It will be a test of each of our skill and power in the making and breaking of them. Any attack is permissible, short of killing blows. Whichever of them falls unconscious first will forfeit the challenge. The winning witch shall claim the fallen Shadowblade as her prize, to do with as she chooses. Additionally, the winning witch shall claim a tithe from the other in the form of a treaty that shall include the right of free passage through the other’s territory for the span of seven years. Do you agree?”
“I shall look forward to possessing your Prime,” Giselle said with a slow look that traced Alexander from head to toe and set his teeth on edge. “Passage into your territory will be quite valuable to me.”
Selange’s lips thinned. “Do not claim your prizes yet. I may prove more formidable an opponent than you expect.”
“You might,” Giselle agreed, sounding unconvinced. “Shall we begin? The sun will rise soon. There is not much time.”
“This will not take long,” Selange said. “Step into the circle.”
Alexander stripped off his silk shirt and dropped it on the floor with his sunglasses on top before entering the circle. He took a deep breath, the muscles of his stomach tightening. No matter how short the duration, this was going to be very difficult. Beside him, Max brushed against his arm. He looked at her, oddly wanting to reassure her. But she needed none. Her body was loose and relaxed, her face almost serene. She faced forward, but Alexander wondered if she saw anything at all. Her eyes were shuttered as if she had left her body altogether. Alexander frowned. Was that possible? If so, he could not defeat her. It would be like competing with a corpse.
“Light the circle,” Selange said. The gathered witches sifted into a line along the outside of the ring of candles. They stood palm to palm in a chain and began a high-pitched chant. It was a rusty scrape of ice and steel from the base of Alexander’s skull to his tailbone.
As the volume increased, magic sluiced into the hall. These were the most powerful witches in western America. Each had built his or her own covenstead and held the reins of a stable of lesser witches. So it was no wonder that the magic they summoned here was powerful enough to make the containment spells of the Sagrado shudder and the chandeliers sway. Alexander felt the magic ripple through his flesh. It pressed against his ears and sinuses and tugged at his lungs, running through the marrow of his bones like acid.
Suddenly the half-melted candles surrounding the stone circle flickered and flared. Alexander had already closed his eyes so that he would not be blinded. The heat from the flames wafted like a midsummer’s breeze. The radiance on the other side of his eyelids dimmed and he slitted them open. The candles had melted into sweet-smelling puddles on the floor, and their flames had sunk down into the circle, lighting the brilliantly colored gemstones like the shattered fragments of a rainbow.
The unearthly voices of the witches rose in a discordant crescendo before abruptly cutting off. The silence resonated with anticipation. Above on the balcony, Alexander could hear the shifting of the watching Shadowblades as they pressed forward to see the show.
“The terms are set,” Selange said into the silence. “Do you have any last words before the challenge begins?” She looked at Max.
Max snorted, glancing at her. “Shut up and let’s get on with this, bitch.”
Alexander recoiled.
Selange’s face contorted. “You will pay for that when you are mine,” she said softly.
Max’s teeth bared in a snarl or a bitter smile’Alexander couldn’t tell. “Fuck off.”
Selange’s mouth snapped shut and she jerked as if slapped. Alexander’s first thought was fury. He stepped protectively in front of Selange, turning to face Max. Even as he did, a second, unexpected thought crept through’did she not know that angering Selange would only make this ordeal worse for her?
“Shut your mouth,” he said, his voice low. “Or I will shut it for you.”
Her lips quirked, her eyes cobra-flat. “You could try. Wanna play?”
There was no emotion in her voice. Was she that good? Or was this suicidal recklessness? She hated serving Giselle’she’d made that clear. Somehow the thought made Alexander feel slightly ill. “Those aren’t the rules,” he said.
“Fuck the rules. I didn’t make them.”
“Enough.” This time it was Giselle.
Max’s attention slid slowly from Alexander back to her witch.
“Remember why you are here.”
There was something more behind Giselle’s slow, precise words than Alexander could understand. But Max did. She went still, then drew herself up. She gave a regal nod. Slowly the heat in her eyes cooled, and once again she withdrew deep inside herself. Her eyes turned almost vacant as she shut the doors on her mental fortress.
“And you, Alexander. Do you have something more ...eloquent?” Selange prompted.
He turned and bowed and was surprised to hear Max’s muttered, “thought it was damned eloquent, myself.”
Selange did not hear, though she scowled, seeing Max’s lips move. Alexander spoke quickly. “I live only to serve you, my witch. It is my pride and honor to stand here as your champion.”
She smiled at him. “I know you will not fail me,” she purred.
But the warm promise in her eyes left him cold. He kept his expression bland.
“Let us begin,” Selange said to Giselle.
Selange wasted no time. Her scarlet-tipped fingers flicked. A crimson line opened at Max’s breastbone, her skin unzippering as the wound traveled down below her belt. Blood ran from the wound, trickling down her legs to drip onto the floor. Only her tightly laced vest kept her intestines from spilling out of her body. But she made no sound, only wrapping her arms around herself and pushing the wound together to help her body heal.
Then Alexander was struck with such pain that his mind scattered before it like ash. He fell to the floor, writhing and moaning, unable to stop himself.
There was something crawling around inside him.
He screamed, the horror of the realization making him vomit. He felt the creatures wiggling and squirming and ...chewing.
Agony rippled through him. He bucked against the floor. Pain burned in his back and abdomen and he felt digging and tearing as the things sought a way out. They pushed and nuzzled, gnawed and clawed. He screamed again, his head cracking against the floor. He looked down at himself. His stomach lumped and then his skin split. A bloody, whiskered snout protruded through. A blood-slicked head followed.
It was a sewer rat.
Another squabbled with the first. They fought and pushed through, stretching and tearing open the rent in Alexander’s skin. Then another hole opened and another. His stomach and chest felt full of them. They hooked their claws in his flesh and scrabbled for freedom in a frenzy of panic. He felt one crawling up to gnaw and dig at his throat. Another burrowed through his back, sending spasms down his legs.
The agony was awful. But the horror of it was more than he could bear. He screamed and thrashed, rolling and snatching at the rats and yanking them from his flesh. He threw them and they returned, crawling over him, biting him. He dug his fingers into the wounds, trying to drag out more of the creatures. All rationality fled. He began to strike himself, trying to kill the rats within.
He vomited convulsively, choking on bile and screams.
A rat squirmed up his throat into his mouth. It was too much.
His body bowed backward with only his head and heels on the floor. Every muscle knotted and strained, and the rat crawled out of the rictus of his mouth. Then blessed darkness swept a protective hand over him and he knew nothing else.
7
ALEXANDER DID NOT KNOW HOW LONG HE HAD been u
nconscious, but it could not have been long. Adrenaline still raced through his body, and his heart pounded rapid-fire. He still lay inside the circle.
The rats were gone.
Relief as profound as anything he had ever felt filled him. Tears burned in his eyes. He blinked them away, clamping his mouth shut. The memory of the rodents wriggling and clawing through him sent his mind spinning with horror. Blood ran from his nose and mouth, and more leaked from the wounds in his chest and back, and his ears rang oddly.
Over his head and from a distance that seemed very far away, Alexander heard Selange speak.
“You have won the challenge.” The cold rage in her voice could have shattered diamonds. “Open the circle.”
He had lost. That meant something’something terrible. But his mind was too scattered to allow him to understand. Instead it flittered away, twisting up with the chants of the witches. A flare of light blinded him and he squeezed his eyes together. He heard the quiet sound of Selange’s feet as she approached. He struggled to sit up, but pain pulsed down his body like dull-hitting sledgehammers. His muscles felt wasted. He collapsed. Selange set her hand on the crown of his head. Her perfume washed over him, cloying and smothering. He blinked, clearing the blurriness of his vision. Her jaw was shaking.
“You failed,” she snarled, her red lips twisting. “I always knew you’d break when I needed you most. Good riddance.”
It was not until that moment that he understood what she was doing. Her hand tightened on his scalp as if she clutched a handful of loose yarn. Her nails dug furrows in his forehead. She twisted and yanked as she stood erect. For a split second it seemed as if nothing had happened. Then Alexander felt it. It was like she had pulled a thread to unbind his soul, and it continued to unravel his entire being. He felt himself coming apart, his mind splintering, his skin flaking away. Then fire erupted, scorching him from within. He convulsed, his body bucking and flopping. A cascade of violent seizures racked him. He bit his tongue and lips and cheeks. His head and hands beat wildly against the blond wood floor as he screamed.
It went on for minutes or perhaps hours. Finally his body settled, his fingers and legs twitching. He gasped, tasting blood.
Above him Selange waited. She watched him with angry triumph’he had failed her and she had taken her revenge. Clutched in her hand was a tentacled thing. It looked like a jellyfish made of neon blue witchlight. Its quivering tentacles hung unevenly, some worming along the ground beside his head as if searching for him. Alexander went still as death. He could not tear his eyes from it. It was a spell’the one that bound him to Selange. Or had.
Horror crashed into him. He could not breathe. It was like watching the display of his own severed leg or arm. Except this wound would not heal. He opened his mouth’to beg, to scream’he did not know. Nothing came out. He tried to breathe, struggling against the sudden ice filling his chest. No! No! Selange was his life! He was nothing without her!
She walked away, her heels clicking sharply. She did not look back.
He closed his eyes, slumping, his mouth opening in a silent howl. Loss was too small a word for what he felt. A hungry, black maw of unspeakable grief sucked at him. He wanted to let go and disappear inside. Only the mind-blinding aches of his body kept him anchored to reality.
Hands gripped him under the shoulders and lifted him.
“C’mon. We have to get out of here before we can’t anymore.”
Max’s voice was hoarse. She got him on his feet and pulled his arm over her shoulders, while bracing him around the waist. He sagged, his head lolling forward. He felt blood still seeping from the open holes in his side. His healing spells were sluggish, made more so by Selange removing her binding.
Alexander heard himself moan softly and clamped his mouth shut, trying to pull away from Max. Her arm did not loosen. He staggered and swore softly and let her pull him along. Her breathing was labored and he could smell a stench of burnt hair and flesh. He tried to raise his head, but it was too heavy. Murky darkness filled his head, and the remembered horror of the rats crawling through him made him vomit again.
“Easy,” someone else said in a tight voice. It took him a moment to sort out who it was. Giselle. Max’s witch’his witch now, too, though that would not last long. Shadowblades did not change covens. They could not be trusted. She would pry out of him everything he had to tell about Selange and then she would kill him.
Again that vast black emptiness opened up and he felt himself starting to slide in. But no. He would not take the easy way out. He had failed. There was a price to pay. He made a furious sound, trying to pull himself back from the precipice.
He lost track of everything but his battle, coming back to himself outside on the amethyst path. He was slumped heavily against Max. She had both arms around him. His cheek was pressed against her collarbone. He could feel her ribs bellowing noisily as she panted.
“Get out of here. Go to Akemi,” Max ordered, her voice thin and weary. It sounded like she spoke through clenched teeth.
“Like hell,” was Giselle’s angry response.
“If you don’t, you’ll get us all killed,” Max ground out. “My compulsion spells are eating me alive and I’m already half-dead. As soon as she can get to the veil to pass her Shadowblades through, Selange will send them after him. She can’t afford to let you have him. If you’re safe, I might be able to get him out alive. But the longer you stand here being a target for any witch who wants a piece of you, the worse my compulsions get. In a minute I’m going to pass out.”
“Then leave him. Keeping him alive isn’t worth risking you.”
Alexander nearly collapsed at Max’s adamant “No.” He thought he must be hallucinating.
“I command it.”
“Fuck you. He’s yours now. I paid dearly for him and I’ll not waste my pain.” She paused, her teeth grinding. Her body jerked and shook with a palsy. “I’m his Prime and I don’t leave any of mine behind,” she wheezed.
The silence that followed crackled with nuclear fury. Alexander’s astonishment was complete when he heard Giselle’s quiet “Very well. I’ll go. But if you get yourself killed’”
“Then you’re screwed and I win.” Max’s voice twisted and frayed. Her fingers dug hard into Alexander’s flesh as a cascade of shudders ran through her. “Better go or I won’t be able to walk out of here.”
He heard the slap of feet as Giselle dashed away. Max’s chest rose and fell as she drew a deep breath. The tremors eased from her body and her grip firmed.
“C’mon.”
Alexander’s mind whirled. His Prime. She’d defied her witch for him. Waste of skin. It made no sense. But it drove him to draw on the last reserves of his strength’he would not let her die for him. He straightened his spine and forced his legs to move. He still leaned heavily on her, but he no longer slumped like a bag of dirty laundry.
Feeling the change, she pushed him into a staggering jog. When she reached the edge of the perimeter path, she crossed into the undergrowth. Bushes scraped at Alexander’s bare chest and arms, and the rocky ground tore at his feet. Twigs and branches snapped and crackled loudly. No one following could miss their trail.
Max held him up as they scrabbled down the short drop to where the path returned from its circuit around the hill. On smooth ground again, she increased their speed to a slow lope. Alexander kicked his feet, but remained clumsy and awkward, doing more to hinder than help. She paid no attention, neither chastising nor encouraging him.
They had gone about three-quarters of the way back to the parking area when she stopped. “This is where we get off.”
Alexander was panting and could not speak. His body was still trying to deal with his wounds, and his mind quaked beneath the memory of the rats crawling inside him.
She dragged him off through the trees and brush along the swell of the butte. The ground was steep and uneven. She stumbled and grabbed a branch to keep herself from falling. Her breathing sounded loud and harsh. She
did not pause to rest, and Alexander fought with all the strength he had left to keep up.
They came to a sheer-sided ravine that entirely blocked their path. The pines growing up from the bottom filled the cleft in an impenetrable thicket, and a dense screen of scrub bushes shrouded the sides. Max stopped, dropping him awkwardly down on a boulder.
“Wait here.”
He raised his head, getting his first good look at her since the challenge had begun. For a moment all he could do was stare. The leather of her pants up to the middle of her thighs was burned away except where ragged bits clung to the seeping black char of her flesh. A thick hatch of bloody stripes showed through the laced-up gaps of her vest, down her arms, and across her face. He could see white bone through the shredded tops of her feet.
A strange relief slid through him like rusty razors. A part of him had wondered if Selange had taken advantage of the challenge to be rid of him. But seeing the damage to Max, he knew Selange had pulled no punches. Max had simply won.
“I’ll be back,” she said. “Wait here.”
“Where’” He broke off, coughing.
“Just rest.”
He struggled to get to his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
She pushed him back down hard. “I have one rule. Don’t get anybody’even your own idiot self’killed. And that means doing what I say when I say. Stay put.”
With that, she turned, pushing into the bushes. A moment later he heard the scrabble of rocks and a sliding sound as she went over the edge of the ravine and down into the trees. After a moment of silence, Alexander heard the crunch of twigs and leaves. Silence fell again, broken only by the rustling of the wind and the faint sounds of departing witches.
He sat on the boulder, waiting as ordered. He did not have much choice. He could do nothing else. Besides, she was his Prime. For now, anyhow. He looked down at himself. The rat wounds had closed, but a pressure was growing inside. He was bleeding internally. His stomach felt swollen and hot, and his organs felt as if someone were squeezing them. He could not get a deep breath. Cramps radiated around his abdomen and dug burning fingers up into his chest.
Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book Page 11