Witch of the Midnight Blade

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  Nax gurgled.

  He’d die. “Please don’t die,” I whispered. Please let this work, I thought.

  I unhooked the closest bungie.

  Cad immediately unhooked his other arm. “I need the suit, not the armor,” he said to Mrs. K as he unhooked his feet.

  Mrs. K held up the garment. “Save the Emperor, young man.”

  Cad semi-wrapped the sleeping bag around his waist and took the suit. “Odds are I’m a lot older than you.” He grinned and patted her hand. “I’ll do my best.”

  I moved out of his way as he yanked one of the sleeves up his arm and then the attached glove over his hand.

  The fabric shimmered and a lighter-colored spot appeared on his forearm. He slapped his other hand down onto it. “Sunlight Morocco Sweet Baby Jesus,” he said.

  A pulse of light moved up the sleeve and into the rest of the suit, and out to the other arm and the legs.

  Cad jiggled the suit and hitched it higher onto his shoulder.

  “Emperor Pertinax,” he said. “I am going to administer short-acting blockers designed to calm a Burner.” Cad slapped his gloved hand against Nax’s neck. “They’re generalized blockers and will operate until the venom burns them out of your system.”

  Nax coughed. The shaking stopped.

  Cad checked the information scrolling by on his sleeve. “We still haven’t figured out how to fully neutralize venom.”

  I moved into the seat behind them and reached to check Nax’s forehead again. “He’s still burning up.”

  Cad placed his hand on Nax’s forehead. “One hundred three.” He flipped over his arm and looked down at the inside of the sleeve.

  Numbers appeared on the fabric, along with a graph. He leaned forward, pulled open Nax’s eye, and peered at his pupil.

  Cad held his gloved hand about an inch over Nax’s eye. A pulse of light burst off his palm, and he quickly pulled his hand away.

  The numbers shifted, and the graph on the inside of his forearm changed. “His Shifter ability is still interacting with the venom.”

  “Your suit can tell?” I asked.

  He pressed on the graph and swished it around the way anyone moved info on a touchscreen. “Yes.”

  “How?” I touched Nax’s forehead again. “Give him another dose of the Burner blockers.” He had to do something to bring down the fever.

  “Hold on.” Cad tapped at the graph. “I gave him temp-blockers meant for enthrallers when I dosed him for the venom.”

  “What?” I almost pushed Cad away. “Why?”

  He sighed but didn’t look up at me. “Calm down.”

  The asshole actually pulled a full Calm down, you hysterical female on me. “Fuck you,” I responded. “You blocked his power.”

  Cad sniffed as if I was the one causing all our problems and placed his hand on Nax’s forehead again. “Which was interacting with the venom. He has a variant ability and the enthraller blockers may not work on him anyway.” He checked the graph.

  “You blocked his ability so he can’t sneak up on you,” I said.

  “No one sneaks up on me.” Cad tapped at his forearm. “The fever is coming down.” He rearranged the sleeping bag over his naked midsection. “I’m going to put on my clothes now.”

  “Why?” Mrs. K said. “You add a nice touch of lovely to this winter’s day.”

  Cad threw her a What the fuck, old lady? look. Then he shook his head. “Glad I brighten your day, Mrs. …?

  She extended her hand. “Irena Karanova. I’m a Romanov.”

  I made a She’s not really a Romanov face before I realized what I was doing.

  “Ah,” Cad said. He kissed her fingers. “Tsar Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov and the Russian Military saved countless lives on the European and Chinese fronts.”

  Nax groaned.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  Cad tugged the sleeve off his arm, but held onto the fabric. “I dated the Tsar’s daughter for a while.”

  Of course he’d dated a Tsar’s daughter. I moved back into the aisle. “Give me the suit.” I pointed at the seats where he’d been tied up. “Go back there.”

  Cad frowned. “No.”

  “Either do what I say, or I dump your naked ass out into the cold.” Not that I could overpower a Seraphim, naked or not.

  But he hadn’t tried for Stab, who was still in her scabbard on my back. He hadn’t tried to grab me, and he did help Nax.

  Cad sighed. “I’m cold.”

  Mrs. K muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “You’re hot.”

  “Mrs. K!” I said.

  She blinked, all innocent. “What, dear?”

  Nax sat up. He rubbed his face and stared at Cad in a way that made me think he would have taken a swing if the other man hadn’t just saved his life. “Thank you,” he said.

  Cad adjusted the sleeping bag again. “Odds are the blockers will limit your enthralling for about an hour.”

  Nax sniffed.

  “It’s the best I could do.”

  Nax and Cad stared at each other like two silverbacks assessing whether a fight was worth their time.

  “No hooting or flinging poo, boys,” I said.

  Cad continued to frown. “The best thing for all of you would be for me to take you in.”

  “What does ‘take us in’ mean?” I asked. “The FBI? One of the military bases?”

  Cad shook his head. “We go to the main Praesagio Industries campus in Portland, Oregon,” he said. “Or more likely, we let Praesagio know you want to come in, and they send a plane.”

  “Just like that?” I said. “We say ‘okay’ and the next thing we know we’re all in some creepy, bright-white cleanroom deep in the basement of Praesagio Industries?”

  He maneuvered the sleeping bag again. “They’re going to show up sooner or later anyway. The longer you put it off, the higher the chances one of their snipers takes out your little bus from three miles away.”

  He was lying. Not about their snipers—at this point I believed every single word about Praesagio Industries being the real world power—but about them taking us out.

  Because the other timeline’s Praesagio never took Stab off Alt-me, and if our Praesagio could, they would have before Vivicus, Cad, and the rest of their special club walked through the mini-Incursion.

  Cad must have guessed what I was thinking because he rolled his eyes. “You sure think highly of yourself, Philadelphia. They’ve been busy.”

  Nax gave Cad a shove toward the seats across the aisle. “Take your poster boy ass over there.”

  Cad clutched the arm of his suit, but turned to move toward the seat next to Mrs. K—and his armor.

  I moved to block his access to the front of the bus. I extended my hand. “Give me the suit.”

  He yanked the suit to his chest. “Vivicus is going to be pissed when he finds you. He gets that way when someone gets the jump on him.” He adjusted the sleeping bag again. “He will find you. We came from a world with twenty-three years of wartime technology that this timeline lacks. He can literally smell your DNA on the wind, Philadelphia Parrish.”

  Nax stood up faster than he should have, but somehow, he managed. He reached his big hand out toward the suit Cad held, but the other man countered. The sleeping bag fell to the bus’s floor.

  Cad the Seraphim had his free hand in Nax’s beard.

  Nax did not falter. This time, his big hand wrapped around Cad’s neck. “We are at an impasse,” Nax said.

  Cad’s grin carried more comprehension of his situation than it did anger. “As we should be, Emperor Pertinax.”

  Nax swung his other fist at Cad’s temple, but Cad reacted as if he expected the hit. He couldn’t move, not with Nax strong-arming him by the neck, but he countered anyway.

  The suit fell from his fingers. His hand rose so fast I barely saw it move, and he caught Nax’s punch less than six inches from his head.

  “I am Dracae, Emperor. My reflexes are faster than you
rs.”

  Nax blinked. Mrs. K’s mouth opened. And Cad the naked god of Seraphim douchebro-ness looked much too pleased with himself, as if “Dracae” meant something really, really important.

  I snatched the suit off the floor, then pointed at the door. “Get the fuck off my bus!” I yelled.

  “Give me my suit—”

  “No!” I yelled. He was fast, he was strong, but I was smart. I pulled up-out-up on Stab’s hilt and draped the suit over her blade. “She can cut anything,” I said.

  Cad let go of Nax’s neck. Nax let go of Cad’s, and pushed him toward the front of the bus.

  “He needs a coat,” Nax said.

  Cad pushed back. “At least give me my armor. It’ll only function for a few minutes without the suit, but it will keep me alive.”

  “If you’re as Dracae as you say you are, you can handle a little Colorado cold until your buddy Vivicus finds you, Cadmus.” Nax pushed him again.

  “My name is Leif Ladonson.” Cad stood his ground. “My family died fighting the invaders. Vivicus, Antonius, and I are all that is left of our Legion. We’re all our world had left. We had a plan.”

  He pointed at me. “Then you fucked it up.”

  “Get off my bus!” I screamed. I wasn’t Alt-me. I wasn’t that woman. I wouldn’t destroy the world.

  Again, he stood his ground. “We do not kill Earth life, but this one time, Vivicus will kill you if it means saving everyone else.”

  “The Vivicus of this world terrorized your family,” Nax said.

  Cad snorted. “Vivicus may be a magnificent asshole, but he is a First. And as a First, he was Dragons’ Legion.”

  Mrs. K watched him with wide eyes, and when he swung his body around to grab for the rest of his suit, she caught his arm.

  He looked down at her as she ran her fingers over the welt on the inside of his forearm. “Wearing mine loose interferes with the suit,” he said.

  She nodded and returned her hands to her lap. “He is Legion,” she said with great authority.

  “Does this Legion of yours have anything to do with all the Roman bullshit? The swords and the names and the festering ocean of testosterone I can’t seem to find a way out of?” I waved my free hand at his naked torso.

  Nax and Cad looked at each other. Something passed between them I recognized—these two men might be enemies, but they had a common foundation. They shared centuries. They shared a deep understanding of what it meant to have superpowers. And they shared a reverence for this Legion that they kept bringing up.

  I’d just disrespected something sacred. I did it out of anger and fear and ignorance, but I’d just stepped over a line for both of them. I’d cut a little too deeply.

  I wasn’t sure if, right now, I cared.

  “Get off my bus,” I said.

  Mrs. K picked up Reginald. She twisted slightly in her seat, in such a way to make sure Cad could see her, and gently picked fake lint off the gnome’s painted-on hat.

  “I am hungry,” she said. She peered at Reginald’s smiling gnome face and picked more imaginary lint off his beard.

  Cad shook his head and made another of his What the fuck, old lady? faces. Then he sighed and balled up his fists. “I need my suit.”

  At Paradise Homes, we had a handful of residents who had fought in “the war.” They were never specific about which war, I suspect because some of them had fought in wars too far in the past to be remembered in modern terms. But they’d fought, and they’d come back scarred.

  The twitching. The long stares. The yelling and the bad behavior to keep the staff at arm’s length. Hell, even Nax and Mrs. K exhibited some of the same tendencies.

  And right now, a man who came from a world where The Incursion had made two full passes around the globe, who had lost his friends and family, was frothing at the mouth and bordering on frantic because he’d lost the one thing that gave him control in this world—his suit.

  Nax shook his head and moved to the back of the bus. He dug a pair of jeans and an extra coat out of the camping gear. “There is no version of you here,” he said.

  Cad refused to take the clothes. “My family? Did they survive The Incursion?”

  Nax shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “My cousins?”

  Nax thrust the clothes at him again. “The Dracae have no children.”

  Cad, still physically naked, still shimmering slightly from the active tattoos on his wrists, ankles, and neck, suddenly became truly stripped. He had no family here. No friends. He’d been separated from his pack and skinned of his high-tech fur.

  All his physical beauty and power made no difference. All his speed, reflexes, and healing capacity. His remarkably soulful violet eyes. His wavy black hair and his smooth, sexy baritone.

  He was just a man.

  “I can stand between you and the Emperor.” He pointed at me. “Between you and Vivicus. He’ll kill you. He will see not taking you when he had a chance at your home as his greatest failing.”

  “Put on the pants, young man,” Nax said.

  Cad grabbed the jeans and pulled them on. They were my dad’s, and too big around his waist. “This isn’t going to work,” he said.

  Nax tossed him the jacket. “Get off the bus.”

  “Can I at least have my boots?”

  Nax dropped into his seat. He didn’t answer, just leaned his head against the back of the seat.

  “Cad,” I said. “Your boots are under the seat up here.” I pointed to the seat across from Mrs. K.

  “My name is Leif,” he said.

  “We met an Erik Erikson,” Mrs. K said. “He was Legion, too.” She looked Cad up and down. “I think you should call him Leif, my dear. He looks more like a Leif than a Cad.”

  He stared at her, this time with a softer version of his what the fuck, old lady? look. “Thank you,” he said and reached for her hand.

  Except he wasn’t reaching to pat, or to kiss. He reached toward Stab, and his suit.

  Nax leaned forward, but as Cad had said, his reflexes weren’t nearly as good.

  Nor were mine, but I had distance. Cad stepped toward me at the same time, and snatched for the suit.

  I swept Stab away from him, and over the seat directly behind the driver’s. The suit flew toward the windows, and hit with a crackling yet strangely harmonic twinkling.

  He hollered and slammed his fist into the seat next to him. The faux leather split, and the rail deformed.

  He grabbed for Mrs. K’s arm, or her throat, or another part of her he could use to hold her hostage. He’d hurt her, even if he didn’t mean to.

  I wasn’t the only one of us to realize what he was doing. Nax knew, and lunged. I knew, and yelled.

  But we weren’t the ones who sent Cad the Seraphim past me and into the bus’s door handle. No, not either of the two solid humans.

  Maria Romanova tackled the Seraphim.

  Chapter Twelve

  We didn’t see her. We didn’t hear her. But something about Cad’s wrist and ankle bar-code-like tattoos made him touchable from the gray.

  And touch him, she did.

  A huge lightning-like static charge danced over the tattoo on his neck. The stink of ozone filled the bus. Cad gasped, then gagged, and tripped forward into the handle I used when I opened the door.

  “What?” he spat out.

  His eyes glowed. His eyes were glowing with silver light.

  I reached behind him and yanked on the handle. “Out!” I yelled, and pushed him down the steps.

  Cad stumbled barefoot out onto the frozen road. A cloud of silver breath formed around his head. “Leave me alone!” he yelled, and swatted at a ghost he could not touch.

  I swung Stab to get a look. Something—someone—yanked on the force lines around his body. His abilities distorted in the gray.

  “What did you do?” He swatted at the air again.

  Why couldn’t I see her with Stab? I could see everything else.

  “You threatened Mrs. K.�
�� I pointed Stab at his chest. “You’re lucky the ghost didn’t pull your eyes from your skull.”

  Cad danced around on the cold pavement. “Ghost?” He swatted again, but with less vigor. Maria must have backed off.

  “Do you seriously think I’m going to give you specifics?” He’d go groveling to his boss and then the Seraphim would put our genie into a bottle.

  The bright morning sun made me squint and did nothing to warm my hands or face. “How long before your feet freeze, Mr. Mighty Seraphim Warrior?”

  Cad stopped dancing. He stopped swatting, though his no-longer-glowing eyes twitched. “This is why Vivicus is going to kill you. You’re a witch.”

  “And here I was thinking techno-mage was a better description. Witch seems so old-school.” I twirled my wrist and Stab swung in a nice circle. One of these days I’d figure out how to do the full twirl like a stunt guy. Then the idiots would back off.

  Cad watched me swing Stab. “Be careful with that thing. It’s sharp.”

  I gripped Stab’s hilt with both hands and slammed her into the pavement.

  She slid in a good four or five inches. “You think?” I pulled her out.

  “You have no idea what you are dealing with,” he said.

  Could he be more predictable? “I was under the impression that all the magic,” I pointed Stab at his chest, “isn’t actual magical magic. That my blade and the gray and all the supernatural powers everyone but me has are all science magic. You’re a soldier from the fucking future! All this is—what do they say? Indistinguishable-from-magic type magic.” I waved Stab. “I’ve seen the movies. I know what that means.”

  Did I? I had no clue. I’d had a bit of a handle on my new reality. A tiny little handhold, as long as I ignored the wider world and all the death. All the invaders. All the spies and the scientists and Praesagio Industries. Stab’s pinging into the gray as if she was calling someone.

  Maybe she wanted to talk to the voices. Maybe the pinging was a side effect of the lensing. I wasn’t sure understanding the blips made any difference, just like understanding any of the other strange things she did—the lensing, the tossing visions into my head, her super-sharp edges—was all that important, anyway.