Dark Heir

by Faith Hunter

  My weapons are outside the circle. And the blood diamond was getting way too hot. How many of them were drawing on the power stored there?

  His head rotating on his neck in that creepy, typically vamp, reptilian manner, Joseph looked back and forth between us all, taking our measure, as if seeing more than normal beings could. His eyes settled on Molly, and he lifted the wrist wearing the bracelet, angling it at her. Then he crouched and pressed the bracelet against the icy dirt beneath him. “Sanguinem ad mortem,” he said. Molly made a small sound, like a child in sleep, and blood gushed from her nose. Beast snarled deep inside me, her pelt rubbing against the underside of my skin, itching, tingling, her claws making my fingertips ache. Molly bent forward, her eyes wide, circled in white, murmuring, “Hedge of thorns.”

  I jumped back as another small ward appeared inside the outer circle, this one the red-tinged energies of Molly’s strongest working, the warding created by the Everhart witch sisters. This one completely encircled her, a sphere of power around her, deep into the earth. Her bleeding slowed and Molly coughed, spitting blood, and wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. She was quivering; her other arm encircled her waist as she bent forward in pain. “I’m sorry, Sabina,” she whispered. “I can’t. I’m hurt.”

  Beast-energies and mine flowed together like streams merging, her soul and mine joining. Mother of kits, she thought at me. Predator harms mother of kits. I showed Santana my blunt human teeth in a snarl, but he ignored me, angling his bracelet toward the priestess. The gobag at my side was flaring hot, and smoke curled up around me.

  Sabina vamped out, her eyes going black and bloody, her jaw changing shape to allow three-inch fangs to click down from her upper jawbone. They looked enormous, hanging down below her chin. “It is not of my choosing,” she said, the words spoken with the precision of a verdict. She stood, her body also moving oddly, as if her joints worked backward. Her right hand rose over her head, her fingers bent and twisted like broken bird feet, her talons black and knifelike. Inside the outer protective circle, power gathered in dark motes, like a swarm of black, metallic bees, potent enough for me to feel on the air like the buzz of a power saw. Sabina held the black velvet bag in her other hand, the sliver of ancient wood exposed.

  Joseph ignored her energies collecting, as if her power was unimportant, his eyes alighting instead on the sliver of the Blood Cross. He opened his mouth, a ghastly sight as his jaw unhinged and his mandibles separated, the lower dropping down. His fangs, the uppers five inches long, were massive, clicking into place, dwarfing hers. He looked like the spawn of a lizard and a fighting insect, joints taut and sharp, his frame altering shape, his shoulders rising, neck stretching. His talons extended, and even through the cage of energies I could see the cutting edges, like razors. He hunched, incongruous in the tux, no longer remotely human. “Sssabina,” he said, the word soft and sibilant. “It has been long. I see you still possess that which is mine to give.”

  Sabina took a step toward the inner circle, her white skirts blacked at the hem by the grass fire. Another step brought her halfway across the small space. Smoke rose from the velvet bag holding the vamp’s greatest weapon as she neared the snare of thorns. “Too long, Le Créateur des morts. And never long enough.” She rotated her hand and said, “Contego.” A sheath of energies spread out from her right hand, a shield of protection curling around her, created from air and moonlight and the shadows cast by a bright moon.

  Joseph stared at the shield and he chuckled, though the sound was nothing like a human might make, broken and raspy and cawing. “You have drunk of my blood. You joined those who used me while I hung in the darkness. A prisoner.”

  “No,” Sabina said, her brow creased in concentration. “My sister priestess lost much from your blood. Seeing dark memories.” As she spoke, her magics strengthened, coalescing around her. Sabina was buying time as she gathered herself. The gobag at my side flamed, and I dropped it at my feet, gripping an ash-wood stake with my good hand.

  “I watched as she fell deeper into the madness of your mind, a loss of self. Instability followed, for long years after.

  “I did not drink of you, only of others. But after a time, the poisons that tainted you were there, in the collective blood, shared among us all, though weakened, so that we did not all succumb. But I tasted of the venom, and I perceived how to remove the poisons that had infected you, that came from you, and how to absorb only the strength of your holy blood. Then”—she smiled, a grisly expression, and her power swept around her, dark and intense—“then I gained much. I gained all that you were and more.”

  She extended her left hand toward the inner circle/trap/cage. “Foramen clavis,” she said, and she touched the sliver of wood to the cage. The energies parted as the point of the wood passed through. The ground beneath my feet shuddered and tilted. I bent my knees to catch my balance, my hands out to the sides. The ground moved again and I saw the tips of Sabina’s fingers touch the scarlet energies. Flames shot out. Oh crap.

  The fire whipped across her shield and shot beyond it, to cover the walls that held Joseph Santana prisoner. From his hand ice emerged and coated the cage. The two went immobile as the flame and a coating of ice met and smoky-toned energies sparked out. I lifted a shoulder to protect myself from the heat and flames, watching the contest of wills and powers. It didn’t look as though it was going anywhere fast. Still crouched, I crab-crawled the inches toward Molly, who was staring at the confrontation, slack jawed, drying blood on her face. Behind me, the gobag was in flames.

  As I neared her, Molly’s head tilted toward me, and her skin paled. Her eyes widened. Slowly, she focused, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the flaming gobag. Molly held out her hand, palm up. “I can make this stop,” she said, her voice toneless. “I can make him go to sleep so you can take his heart. I can pull the life out of him. I can take his power and make it mine. And save us all. Give.”

  “Molly? What—”

  “Give me the amulet.”

  I stopped moving. The gobag flared, golden flames licking upward as the stench of cotton and plastic rose on the air. The hedge of thorns protecting Molly glowed brighter; she was drawing on the diamond. Crap. Her death magics were extracting power from the diamond, even though she wasn’t physically touching it. And the energies were changing Molly into something that wasn’t the Molly I knew.

  Beneath my skin Beast screamed, Predator!

  She meant Molly. “Give,” Molly said. The dark power was changing her right before my eyes. Reaching down, she started to swipe away the hedge of thorns she was hiding behind.

  The gray place of the change, the Gray Between, erupted from inside me, gray and silver clouds of energy, dancing with blue and silver motes of pure power. Beast shoved through, her claws piercing the skin at the tips of my fingers. Pelt sprouted along my arms and the backs of my hands. Pain scraped across me like a knife flaying flesh from my bones. My spine bowed with the pain, then arched back. I threw back my head and screamed with my Beast. My paws burst through my boots, my claws shredding the leather. My body bent back and slammed forward, somehow ending up with me on all fours, close to the outer circle ward, but facing both Molly and the inner circle. I snarled at what I saw.

  Molly dropped the hedge of thorns, keeping the circle open, ready to reactivate the instant she got the diamond. She laughed and crawled forward, toward the gobag. Predator, Beast screamed. Strike now.

  I fisted a huge knuckled hand and drew back. I hit her jaw, full on, at about a third of my usual strength. Molly’s head whipped back and her body fell, unconscious. Physical strength and sneak attack against magical energies? No contest.

  To my side, the outclan priestess was leaning against the fiery wall of the snare of thorns, the sliver of the Blood Cross pressing the inverted ward inward, the energies bending and giving. Inside, Santana was growling, a hulking nightmare creature, any pretense of humanity ripped away.

  Softly, Sabina said again, “Forame
n clavis.” The energies of the snare gave way and her arm disappeared inside the trap. In the same millisecond, Sabina caught on fire.

  The creature inside the trap, the thing that used to be human, so long ago, the thing that—by his own volition and his foolish and selfish actions—had created all the fangheads, reached around the sliver. He grabbed Sabina’s flaming wrist with his clawed fist. He jerked her toward him.

  I knew, between one heartbeat and the next, that this was the end. The Son of Darkness was breaking free. There was no way I could control him. And if he bested me, he would have the blood diamond. Around me, my energies—Beast’s energies—took over.

  Time altered, decelerating as if someone had put on the brakes, as if they had gelled every movement, every thought but my own. All I had time to think was, This is gonna be bad. Beast didn’t disagree.

  The Gray Between was my greatest weapon, when it gave me the ability to shift shapes—and my greatest danger, when I used it to bubble or fold time. Something about using the gift, about folding time, caused me to bleed internally. And when I shifted back, I didn’t heal like I should. But it was too late to halt the process now.

  Around me the world had almost stopped, the dance of my own silver motes of power slo-mo-ing, seeming to vibrate in place. At my feet—my paws and ruined boots, rather—Molly lay on the ground, her hedge of thorns gone. She had fallen across the remains of her protective circle, and she was vulnerable to anything inside the circle with us.

  Within the inner snare of thorns, Sabina was being yanked into a physical battle with the big-bad-ugly. Her clothes were burning, her skin was burning, her lips were snarled back, her left hand leaning forward, aiming at her prey. Her other hand was behind her at her belted robe, reaching for a silver stake partially visible there. If she had time, if silver hurt a vamp as old as Santana, Sabina might have a chance. But her best weapon, the sliver of the very wood that had made Santana’s father, was being twisted back against her. Santana versus Sabina was going to be a no contest in the wrestling arena. And what would silver do to the energies massed between them? Would we all go bang?

  According to all the legends, if the sliver of wood touched a vamp, the fanghead would explode in flames. I had seen it happen, though never to a vamp as old and powerful as Sabina or Joseph Santana. This was why Beast had taken over and forced the time-shift onto us. In about five seconds real time, Molly would be dead. So would I. I had resisted Sabina once and lost. Santana was stronger than she was. We were all dead . . .

  My gut started the now-familiar gripping, a twisting, tearing, grinding agony. I ignored it. If my body worked this time as it had the last time I/we had folded time, I had a few more real-time moments before I was incapacitated. I walked to the outer circle. I could reach just outside the circle and grab my weapons. I could. It would destroy the wavering protective ward instantly, but that was a real-time instantly. I could take up a blade and be ready when the snare of thorns fell, and try to cut out the Son of Darkness’ heart. Decisions, decisions . . . I reached through a gap in the wavering energies and drew out a vamp-killer, lifting it through the energy gap and across the circle. Instantly I felt a snap of pain and knew I’d destroyed the ward.

  Trying to breathe through the gathering pain, I stepped to the priestess’ side and eyed the terrain, the stability of the inner and outer circles. They were both dropping. The snare of thorns wall was falling, spaces opened between the flames, as if the energies were burning away. There was no place to hide. I reached one arm inside the cage, angling my arm through the flames, careful to not touch the stressed energies, hoping to ease the vamp-killer through another opening and cut out the heart of the Son of Darkness. But when my jacket brushed the edges of the energies, fire leaped through my arm and along my nerves. It felt like my flesh had ripped from my arm in one long, exquisite pain. Hissing, I lifted myself away from the contact and smelled burned flesh. Crap. I’d cauterized a wound, like a brand. Gasping, I stepped back and reconsidered.

  Okay. Plan B. There was always a Plan B, right?

  Delicately, I eased one arm back through an opening and took the tip of the wooden weapon, the sliver of the Blood Cross, in my fingers. I pulled the splinter of wood away from Sabina. The velvet bag around it was soot and ashes, and a flake was falling in real time, hanging an inch away. I eased my arm back through the trap wall and snagged the wood through my collar to hold it in place. The back of my upper arm twinged and pulled and I felt wetness gathering inside my leather sleeve. Best not to let my blood touch the energies of the snare again, I thought.

  The abdominal pain hit like a colossal fist, doubling me over. I gagged, the retching deep and ripping. My guts snarled and twisted. My breath stopped. I retched again and I tasted blood on the back of my tongue, salty and vile, mixed with burning stomach acids. “Not yet,” I whispered. Not yet. I measured the distance from the falling outer circle to Sabina with my eyes as I walked back to her and snagged the silver stake from the back of her robes. With no other planning, I forced myself upright, reached in, and, one by one, I broke Santana’s fingers to force him to release her. The bones broke with deep, cracking sounds, like a bass drum hit four times. It took muscle to accomplish anything when time was folded, but I managed to separate Santana’s hand from Sabina’s wrist.

  I grabbed her nonburning arm and threw my body into a judo move, heaving the priestess up and over. For an instant Sabina’s energies merged with mine and I could sense her disconcertment, a nearly spiritual vertigo, but she left my grasp so fast that it didn’t last, and I turned away, leaving her hanging in the air, angling toward the pond nearby, robes flapping out like wings. Oddly, the fire that coated her didn’t feel hot. It was one good moment in an agony of bad ones, and I retched again, this time spitting blood. Not good.

  I went to Molly and hefted her up and over my shoulder, coughing on my own blood. I carried her through the dying energies of the witch circle and away, into the dark. I lay her down in the shadows of the brick building, in the opposite direction from Sabina. Molly didn’t wake. As I stood, something inside me tore and I fell against the side of the building, unable to breathe. I wouldn’t be able to lift the other witches still inside the circle, not now. But I couldn’t stop. I still had to deal with the big-bad-ugly in the trap, a trap that was clearly falling apart, leaving him able to kill us all, because I wasn’t going to be able to stop him. Not like that. I pressed a fist into my middle hard enough to touch my spine, if the knotted muscles hadn’t stopped me.

  The pain only increased, choking me, doubling me over. I hadn’t prayed in a long, long time, and there wasn’t time now to make things right between God and me. I said, “Need a little help here. Just let me get back to the Son of Darkness long enough to stab him.”

  God didn’t answer. I didn’t really expect him to, not with a prayer like that. And the pain wasn’t going to ease up. I pushed myself upright and stumbled back toward the circle, walking like I was on a three-day drunk, and lurched through the crashing energies. Halfway to the inner circle, my guts rippled and twisted. I hit the ground with both knees and gagged, blood in my throat. “No,” I whispered as tears of agony gathered and fell, dripping off the tip of my nose and collecting around my mouth. “Not yet.” The tears tasted salty, and I licked my dry lips as I pushed up with both hands. I got one back paw beneath me before my abdomen wrenched and I threw up. Like the last time I had spent too much time outside of real time, it was pure blood. “Not good,” I whispered as the world reeled around me. I supported myself on splayed toes and fingers to keep from falling.

  My right hand looked reddish in the witch-light and night shadows. Pain started in my fingertips and spread up, joint by joint. Bad, really bad, but not something I could deal with right then.

  From that position I saw something dark on the ground. I remembered the thump I had heard when Santana first appeared in the rift of space. Over the stink of my own sweat and sickness, I smelled a human. Santana’s dinner. I needed to
get him or her an ambulance. Right, I thought. First thing. As soon as I finish dying myself.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a mist in the darkness beyond the outer circle. The mist was moving toward me. No. It was racing toward me. Moving inside the folded space of time. Coming fast.

  It was Brute, the werewolf stuck in wolf form. Brute, who had chased Santana out of vamp HQ. Brute had probably been keeping tabs on me . . . or Santana. I remembered the reports of him racing through New Orleans. The white werewolf stuck in wolf form had bitten Joseph Santana. He could, therefore, probably track the Son of Darkness.

  And Brute had been in the presence of the angel Hayyel . . . along with Beast. And could clearly fold time. Holy crap.

  CHAPTER 17

  Broiled Vamp-Flesh, Still Rare

  The werewolf leaped high and stretched out, passing over and through the breaking energies of the outer circle. He landed with an expelled grunt and gathered himself, his tongue hanging out one side of his mouth. His teeth were enormous, bigger than Beast’s in her big-cat form, though not as large as my/our fangs in half-cat form. Brute turned crystalline eyes to me. In the glowing energies of the various walls of power, his eyes looked bright and clear and blue. He trotted up to me and stopped in front of the bloody vomit on the ground. He bent his nose to it and sniffed. Growled and hacked. He sat, front paws neatly together, and met my eyes, as if waiting for a treat.

  “Sorry, dog,” I managed. “I don’t have a bag of rawhide for you.”