by Faith Hunter
The feather was part of Barak’s power and gave me the right to draw on the Watcher’s personal energy. Using it in a fight against him was dirty pool. But the Watcher raised his head, tendons in his cut neck visible in the gushing blood, arms and wings outspread, feathered tips nearly touching the shield to either side. He dropped his weapons to the ice.
“Hurry,” he whispered, spitting blood with the word. “I cannot hold it back.” As he spoke, his neck began to reknit as if sewn with aqua light, a seam of energy, making him whole.
Why aqua threads, not black? Something was wrong. With a silent prayer for forgiveness, one I knew would never be heard, I said aloud, “Mutuol. Seraph of the Most High God, cleanse this Watcher. Transform him. Bind the Darkness by the power of the Most High.”
With the words, and a last look for absolution, I stepped back and set my feet for the scissors. In the space of a heartbeat, I lifted the blades and spread my arms wide. Time slowed. Solidified. In a single move, I stepped forward on the ball of my right foot, focused on Barak’s offered neck. And brought the swords together in a killing V of steel.
Both blades caught the teal light of the shield. And cut into the healing flesh of the Watcher’s neck. Pain shot up my arms, numbing, paralyzing. But the swords flew true. The blades thunk ed into Barak’s spine and lodged there, hung in the cervical bones. Blood fountained over me, crimson overlaid with black lightning. Barak’s eyes still sealed to mine, he smiled, a single word formed on his lips. “Daria.”
In mage-sight, Barak’s energy patterns changed, growing denser, thicker, brighter, as if mage energies flowed over his own, a golden shimmer tinged with ruby. I wavered an instant and Barak lifted a hand, caressing the aura. “Daria,” he mouthed again. “My love.”
Seraph stones. What am I doing? Who am I killing? Lolo? But it was too late to change course now. With another grunt, I forced the tanto over, severing Barak’s spine just above his shoulders. His head toppled. Blood erupted from the stump, gushing, spattering up to the shield, where it hissed. The green flight feather swished through the spraying blood. Barak crumpled toward the stained snow. I danced back, wiping blood from my eyes.
Barak had just bet his remaining time before the final judgment, that his blood, given in willing sacrifice, had power over evil. Even over a Major Darkness.
Time snapped into fast-forward. All I could think was, now what?
Aqua mist gushed out with Barak’s blood, swirling together across the snow, draining him, bringing him close to the state that left seraphs empty until the final judgment. The golden and ruby aura of mage energies reshaped into an arrowhead of power. And it pierced the aqua mist, driving into the spreading pool of Barak’s blood.
A flash of heat drove me back. The blood boiled. Fire and Light simmered. The aqua fog covered the corpse of the Watcher, which twitched in a horrible spasm. The mage energies of a conjure I had never heard of, never dreamed of, spread out and formed spikes, like the roof of a cavern, stalactites sharpened into daggers. It dropped onto the mist. Where it touched, the aqua fog withdrew, jerking away as if in pain.
Barak’s eyes opened and found mine. Shock shot through me. His lips formed silent commands. “Sigil. Take it. Touch it to me.”
Lying in his own blood was the green leaf circlet that Barak had worn on a chain around his neck. I had to get really close to the twitching body and the battling energies to do it. Ah, man. Stepping through the gore, I speared Barak’s sigil with the Flame-blessed tanto.
The blade sizzled as it came into contact with the Watcher’s blood. I flipped the sigil on its chain from around the stump of Barak’s neck, up into the air, and caught it. The green leaves were shaped in a ring, curling as if fresh picked, the veins of the leaves lit with inner fire, glittering as if stars danced through them. The sigil was alive. I was almost sure of it.
I held the bloody sigil in the fingers of my right hand, but I hesitated. I understood what Barak wanted, but I had no idea what this would do.
Against the outside edge of the shield, not touching the overlapping energy patterns, a purple mist winked into existence and formed a coil, a coil that was full of eyes, millions of eyes, all staring at me with love, the wheels in their snake form. It began to grow, pulling energy from its source. The snake had once pulled itself through a charmed circle. Horror filled me. Surely it wouldn’t…Its tongue darted out and tasted the shield. Light exploded at it and the snake withdrew in a long sinuous slither. Good. Be smart. Keep away, I thought at it.
I said, “And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.” Bending, I touched the prime stone of my walking stick and the sigil to Barak’s forehead. A shock of power slammed up my arm and into my heart, which stuttered painfully. The light left Barak’s eyes in a rush, leaving them empty. His pupils flashed once with red light. The sigil grew warm. The leaves curled, browning.
The golden and ruby aura coalesced and formed a vaguely human shape, female. She looked at me. Lolo…. She smiled at me and tears filled my eyes. “No,” I said. “Please.” She extended a ruby hand and placed it on the sigil.
Barak’s body burst into flame. I sprang back, slipping in the Watcher’s blood, wrenching my leg. I went down, right into the aqua cloud, which had grown while my attention was diverted. Outside, the snake of wheel-mist raised its head, hood flaring, fangs white and glistening. The fire cremating Barak’s body rose up, blistering hot, absorbing Lolo’s shape into itself. Smokeless flames so bright they roasted my skin.
I pulled my cloak over my face for protection and tried to stand. Aqua smog swirled up my thighs to my waist, filling the dome of the shield in a shallow pool. My feet wouldn’t move. Through a crack in the protective leather, I saw the purple serpent slither high just beyond the dome, a huge amethyst snake with deep-as-night eyes, all filled with alarm. Its tongue tasted the air and it reared back, its hood flaring wide, fangs unhinging, white as the sun.
The cloud trapped in the dome with me undulated, shadowy aqua where Barak burned, diaphanous around me. It rose as I struggled to stand. Where the black-light motes touched me, they brightened, like small explosions. I went numb below the waist as the mist covered my chest. Seraph stones. It’s trying to possess me! My heart slammed in my chest. I tried to reach for the amulet to deactivate the shield. My arms were heavy, fingers clumsy.
I glimpsed the snake as it reared back, preparing to strike. Which would make the shield and me go blooey. No matter what happened, I was so toast. The mist covered my head.
I went cold. And I fell into the cloud of Darkness.
Chapter 18
I woke staring into the cloud-cast night sky, my face scorched. I lifted a hand to see the tanto, the blade bright with power. I forced open my fingers, which were frozen into a tight grip around the hilt, and laid the shortsword on my chest. I pulled off a glove and touched my face. My eyebrows were burned off. Again. But I was alive, and alone inside my own body. Which surprised me. I rolled to my side and looked around me.
The shield was gone, and with it the serpent and the aqua cloud. Dragon? An aqua Darkness? I wasn’t sure what it had been. I sat up, pulling the battle glove back on to protect my hand from the icy cold. In mage-sight I could see that the battle was still taking place, the human combatants in tight groups surrounded by spawn. The numbers didn’t favor the humans.
Eli, wearing night-vision goggles, backed toward me, facing the street so he could see both east and west. I could see his mouth move and knew he was speaking.
My ears were ringing with the effect of the explosion and my hands and feet felt tingly. Maybe the result of being tossed on my backside and banging my head multiple times already today. I jerked on Eli’s pants leg and he looked down at me. I touched my ear and shook my head. His mouth moved again and I was pretty sure he said, “Only you, woman.” He was still talking as he walked around me, guns draw
n, guarding me until I could get myself together.
Certain that I wasn’t in imminent peril, I crawled to my knees and took stock of my surroundings. The flight feather was gone. Near me was a charred spot, the ice melted away, the asphalt beneath blistered and scorched. Centered in the spot was a pile of ash and blackened bones. Angel bones. The truth behind the curse words.
At the heart of the pile was a curved thing like a talon. I brushed away angel ashes to reveal the amulet spur. The wounded place on my side gave a twinge of pain. Though the amulet no longer looked as it had, I knew it was the spur of my binding. It had been remade.
I lifted the spur and angled it to the light of a nearby window. In human sight it had once looked like horn, but now it was darker, almost black, its surface like the crackled finish of very old furniture. In mage-sight, it had once glowed with unhealthy pallor, but now it sparkled with black-light motes of power. My fingers, still feeling thick and numb, tingled where I touched it.
I knew better than to keep it. It would only fall into the hands of Darkness once again. But I had no idea how to destroy it. The spur had survived being smashed to smithereens by Audric. Had survived the near-death flames of a seraph-being as it was drained. Had survived the explosion that resulted from the convergence of the power of a cherub’s wheels, the energy of a shield that was driven and supported by a seraph’s sigil, and the mist of a—a Darkness?
An aqua Darkness. Yeah. Which bothered me. I poked the bones. Near death. Sure looks like dead to me. The spur sparkled brighter for a moment before dulling down again. Proximity to the bones? I didn’t know. Why was there always so much I didn’t freaking know?
I sniffed the air. While in the dome, I hadn’t smelled the scent of spawn, of brimstone and sulfur and acid that burned my nasal passages. I had smelled the spring flowers of Barak’s scent, overlaid with…something. Something clean-smelling and subtle that I couldn’t place now. Mixed seraph scent, no reek of the Dark. And I was mightily confused.
I tucked the spur into my dobok, under the waistband where the cloth folded over several times to create a secure, hidden pouch. As an afterthought, I gathered up the bones and wrapped them into my cloak. It had stopped snowing and sleeting, but a cold wind was blowing, and the air scudded past, carrying the reek of spawn and burning things and the clean smell of promised snow. Lots of snow. Blizzard coming.
I stood, looking around. Where do you hide the bones of a fallen Watcher seraph who had looked for absolution? They would be a powerful talisman. Bones any mage would be tempted to conjure with, though it was strictly proscribed. Bones that would give a Dark Mage untold power. And I had a lot of them. Two femurs complete with hip plates. Parts of both humeri. His skull, which looked at me through huge blackened orbits, and grinned as if at a great joke. And there was one nevus bone, the mass of bone where wing and shoulder met to create an underarm. I gathered up the charred bits I couldn’t identify.
Not having anything better, I stepped away from Cheriour’s sigil and dumped all but one of the bones under a porch, where I’d once had a terrific make-out session with a kylen. Over them, I opened a tiny shield. If the Darkness saw them, it could eventually get them, but removing the shield might sting.
If the Dragon had been the aqua mist that had inhabited Barak, had the color been a glamour? That sounded possible. Not very likely, but possible. And—what now?
Eli tapped me on the shoulder. This time when he spoke I could hear most of it. “If you’re finished trying to blow up the entire town and yourself with it, how about you tell me what we’re doing next?”
While I thought, I slung the battle cloak back around me and checked my amulets. They hadn’t suffered much in the short fight with Barak. In fact they looked fully charged, which made me wonder what I had drawn on. The wheels? The Trine? Cheriour’s sigil?
“Thorn?”
“I’m thinking,” I said. I walked along the edges of the sigil, still glowing faintly through the snow. Eli followed. When I was across from Thorn’s Gems I looked up and into Ciana’s eyes. She was still standing as I had last seen her, hand splayed open on the glass. Her face was intent, eyes wide. She was scared. For me. I had a feeling that she knew what I was planning. Ciana nodded slowly.
I sighed. Angel bones. A curse. And a weapon of great power. Barak had sacrificed himself, had been drained unto near death to give me this. I rotated the femur, studying it. The head of the femur looked like a club. I swung the long bone for balance and heft. I stared at the street, up and down, and at the sigil. On a hunch, I unsheathed the tanto and spoke to it. “O Flame,” I said formally, addressing a member of the High Host, “can you call others of your ilk?”
“Ilk?” Eli said. “Ilk? Crap, woman. We got spawn bearing down on us. Just ask it what you want.”
The Flame on the blade hummed against my hand, a sizzling, ringing tone oddly like laughter. If bells could be rung by lightning, they might sound like this.
Two Flames appeared in the air, hovering over the blade, trailing twin blue plasma tails that burned my retinas. I closed my eyes and reopened them, looking far to the side. Making sure my feet were properly placed and I was perfectly balanced, I opened a mind-skim and blended the two senses. Nausea rose in a frightening wave, tasting of burned metal. I swallowed hard, forcing it back down, not looking at the otherness that beckoned just out of reach. “Once, I cared for two Flames when they were injured by Forcas,” I said. “Are you those two?”
They dipped and swirled. “I’m taking that as a yes. Your brothers, the seraphs, watch overhead. They will not assist in a battle against a Dragon. Will you? Will other Flames?”
The Flames zipped away, straight up into the cloud cover. And they vanished. A long moment went by. Then another. I dropped the skim and the sight, and nearly fell. A hand caught me, steadying me on my feet.
“I’d take that as a no,” Eli said, breathing hard, night-vision goggles hanging around his neck. At his feet lay five crispy spawn, their scorched meat stink heavy on the air. He had killed them with his flamethrower while I wasted time parlaying with members of the High Host.
Still thinking, I beheaded the spawn, finishing them off so they wouldn’t heal and rejoin the battle. Down the street, near the old Central Baptist Church/town hall, Audric and Rupert stood back-to-back, fighting a dragonet flying overhead. Further on, the Elders Waldroup were kneeling, praying aloud, quoting from Psalms. The Steins were firing into a line of spawn, chanting in Hebrew, while only feet away, other spawn broke free of the battle lines and swarmed inside one of the barricades. I heard screams and knew that what they ate was still alive. Bodies lay unmoving on the street, well chewed.
I didn’t know what to do. I was fresh out of ideas and I—From overhead came the telltale whump, whump, whump sound of a helicopter. Eli let out a screech of triumph. “The Special Forces are here!” he shouted into his mouthpiece.
The Steins raised their fists into the air. Ragged cheers went up, echoing through the town. Three EIH soldiers raced toward us, their makeshift shoes sliding on the ice. They carried torches. “Set up the LZ at the intersection of Upper and Crystal Streets,” Eli said. I looked at him blankly. “Landing zone,” he explained.
“Ah,” I said, looking up into the clouds. The Flames didn’t return. The Host wouldn’t help. Fine. So be it. The Special Forces could and would fight spawn. But when the Dragon returned, I’d be on my own. And it would be back. As soon as it got itself together.
Even as the thought formed, a purple snake slithered around the corner of the shop. In mage-sight, it was nearly twenty feet long and at least two feet in circumference at its widest point. Eli whirled with his flamethrower, but I caught the dancer’s arm. “She’s with me.”
“That thing’s a she?”
“I think so.”
Eli jerked his arm free. “It caused the explosion in the street. I saw it bite the shield.”
“Yeah. I think it—she—did it to save my life. To get rid of a cloud of Darkne
ss that was trying to kill me.” Possess me? I’d rather be dead.
“If you say so. We’re getting our asses beat. What say we go give a hand?”
“You go,” I said. “I’m going to call the Dragon into the circle again.”
Eli ran a hand through his hair, chuckling softly. “Crap.” I wondered what he’d done with his hat. He looked up and down the street and then overhead, where a helicopter transport was dropping through the clouds. “You got a death wish, woman? Or are you just plain nuts?”
“All appearances to the contrary, no.”
Eli slung his odd-shaped weapon to his back and grabbed me around the waist with his free arm. His mouth landed on mine, lips cold and hard, his arm firm on my back. For an instant I stiffened, resisting, but I could feel him laughing into my mouth. Laughing. I felt my lips curl into a real smile against his. The tanto blazed up bright as I wrapped my arms about him and kissed him with abandon.
The cross of Mole Man, secured in my belt, blazed between us, the energies nipping my flesh through my clothes. Eli jumped back, laughing aloud, as the sizzle caught him too.
“That happened once before, in another battle,” he said, meeting my eyes, “crosses gathering power. Funny how that happens when we’re together, huh? Maybe we should talk about that sometime. Over tea and crumpets. Or better yet, beer and pretzels.”
“Consider it a date,” I said.
“Remember the saddle. Don’t spoil my plans and get yourself killed.” Eli whirled and raced to the far side of the sigil.
The snake glided to my feet and coiled itself into a snake-heap, raising its head up even with mine, its tongue tasting the air, its eyes so dark they were black in the night. “Your mistress will be royally ticked off if she figures out what you’re doing,” I warned.
“Yoursss,” the snake hissed, spreading its hood, cobralike. “Bound to you.”
