Host

by Faith Hunter

  “Fine. I need all the help I can get.” A bright light burned the night in front of me. Reflexively, I ducked my head and stepped to the side. Then I realized. Flames. The Flames were back. Several of them, dancing in the air, a complicated Celtic knot of motion. Tears washed my eyes, and my breath stuttered with laughter.

  The snake tsked an admonishment. It whipped out its tongue and touched one of the Flames, humming. They all hummed back at it, a minor-key chorus that made me think of violins tuning up. I counted seven Flames. Eight heavenly helpers counting the snake. The Host as a whole wasn’t agreeable to helping me. But these members of the Host were. Seven Flames and a conscious, self-aware fragment of a cherub’s wheels. While six seraphs in judgment watched from overhead. Habbiel’s pearly, scabrous, stinking toes…!

  Was I fomenting rebellion in the heavens? Was I about to be killed for overstepping the amorphous boundaries of an omega mage? The thoughts started an itch between my shoulder blades. I wasn’t commanding anything or anyone, only asking. Could the watching seraphs tell the difference? Was there a difference for an omega mage?

  Two Flames zipped up to hover at my shoulders. My two, for real, or only my hopeful interpretation of a flight maneuver? I figured I would never know. I took a deep breath. I was about to summon a Dragon. And fight it. Alone. Locked in an inverted shield of protection so it couldn’t get out. Ducky. And dumber than dirt. Well, at least I wouldn’t die alone.

  I took another calming breath. Again, I found the carved carnelian scarab and touched it, getting ready. In the other hand, I took up the cross. The gold cross with Mole Man’s blood in it. And the Dragon’s. A cold wind shot down the street, whipping my hair from its braid.

  In mage-sight, the cross’s blood glowed with hostile shades, the pure blue of Mole Man’s sacrifice and the orange glow of Darkness. Not aqua. Was the aqua cloud Azazel? Was Azazel the Dragon? Was I making a big mistake? Oh, yeah. I was pretty sure I was.

  I put my finger on a dried spatter of blood and said, “Come. Darkness, I command you. Dragon, I demand of you. Come.”

  The tanto blazed brightly. Overhead, the clouds grew lighter. I could almost feel the seraphs descending. Drawing their swords to skewer me. And then kill the whole town.

  I gathered my focus and stared at the crusted blood on the gold cross. “Come!” I shouted into the growing wind. My battle cloak blew out around me like black wings. It was so cold my teeth ached. I took a chance and shouted, “Azazel, come! Come! Leader of the battle, come.”

  Nothing happened. I looked up and back into Ciana’s eyes. She was crying. My heart wrenched and I started toward her, knowing she needed my comfort.

  A blinding light shattered the night. Something hard slammed me across the chest with the force of a bomb going off. Breathless, my whole body contracting, I landed on the icy street and skidded into the depression left by Barak’s passing. My battle glove–covered knuckles and the cross skittered on the asphalt. I forced a breath, the pain wrenching through my ribs and lungs. I thumbed on the conjure stored in the scarab. The inverted shield snapped into place. I caught my balance. Drew my weapons.

  I looked up into the eyes of the most stunning seraph I had ever seen. He lifted his wings, their plumage the shades of the rising sun, peach and fuchsia and the color of ripe melons. Persimmon flight feathers, deepening to almost black at the tips, fluttered, while beneath his arm the nevus was a delicate aqua. His eyes were a deeper tint, the color of rich amazonite, but full of opaline fire. His flesh was reddish, like a Native American’s, contrasting with sea green hair, worn loose and flowing, falling over his shoulders.

  Leader of the battle, I’d said. Crap. I’d called the wrong side. I’d called a seraph.

  I stepped back. The tanto buzzed hard, the scars that covered my entire hand blazing so bright they pierced through the seams of the battle glove. A warning. Yeah, I got it. I was in trouble. This wasn’t the Dragon, wasn’t Azazel in his big bad ugly self, but a great seraph. A Prince of Light. Bigger and more powerful than Zadkiel. I had used my omega mage gift by accident. Seraph stones. They’d kill me. And a death at seraphic hands would be far worse than anything I could imagine.

  As if it had heard my thought, the snake surged in front of me, coiling and lifting its head, hissing. Its hood was open, chest high to me, undulating, the motion mesmeric. I stepped around the snake, toward the seraph, and the snake slithered protectively in front of me.

  Unlike winged warriors, the seraph wore flowing clothes instead of armor, his under-tunic white, over-robe aqua, arms bare. He wore a silver chain about his neck threaded through an oval metal sigil. He carried no sword, his beautiful hands and long delicate fingers empty.

  I took a sniff, pulling in the air and the ambient energies in a mind-skim. It smelled of charcoal and the earth. A reborn earth, moist and newly turned, planted for spring. There was no mage-heat; my bloodstream was too full of endorphins and adrenaline.

  “Little mage,” the seraph said, his voice like a harp and bells and the soughing of the wind. “Omega mage. You have called one of the Host. What do you wish of me?”

  “I expected a Dragon,” I blurted out. And I felt myself flush.

  He smiled, his face gentle. “Evil? Horns and scales? A forked tail? A Darkness with burned, leathery wings and cloven hooves? A Lord of the Dark as humans have so foolishly depicted?” His smile widened, revealing blunt teeth that looked almost human. His eyes were full of laughter and compassion.

  Foolishly?

  The seraph’s smile grew more gentle, if that were possible. “You have heard of me in the old tales.” I shook my head and he said, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth…When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

  I couldn’t place the scriptural reference, but I knew the passage. I breathed the words, “Morning Star.” The snake hissed, wrapping itself about my right leg and up to my waist, holding me in place, batting my shoulder with its head.

  Scripture was mostly mute on the Stars of the Morning. There weren’t many, and they had stood to the sides of the throne of God the Victorious, singing during creation.

  The visa whispered explanation. Two Stars of the Morning did battle in the heavens. One was the victor and was set upon a throne. One was defeated and cast out. The defeated took many of the stars of heaven with him.

  I kept my eyes on the seraph in front of me as my visa dredged up bits and pieces from the Revelation of John and apocryphal works. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan…he was cast out into the earth, and his angels…with him…Woe to the inhabiters of the earth…for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he…hath but a short time…

  I had called one of the primary combatants of the war in the heavens. Seraph stones.

  Chapter 19

  As if he could hear the voice of the visa, the seraph’s eyes bore down, raking me from head to boot tips. Black motes flashed in his irises, and every pore on my body tightened. The seraph said, “It has been said among men: History is written by the victor. As above, so below. As below, so above. They are a reflection of one another.”

  Tears of Taharial. Is this a victor or one of the losers? And which one would be more dangerous? The seraph’s eyes flashed again, dark with amusement. Hearing my thoughts? I drew on the visa. What I got back was, Caution. Big help there. The snake tasted the air beside my face, its forked tongue quivering. Its body tightened painfully on my thigh and my waist.

  The seraph’s wings lifted slightly, flight feathers ruffling as if finding a breeze. Outside, a fierce wind was blowing, catching up snow that struck the sides of the dome of shielding and sizzled. A broken branch hit with a thud and a spit of energy. Where had the wind come from? No time for distraction. The visa prompted, this time forcefully, and I said, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.”

  I could have sworn I saw something glisten at his lip but he s
miled again. “I have power over all the earth,” the seraph said, opening his fists, showing me his palms, the universal gesture of peace that even the seraphs utilized. His wings settled with a snap. “Without me, nothing was made that was made. Nothing.”

  Something odd about his phrasing made my heart race. Flight or fight. It wasn’t a perfect quote but it was close to the King James words, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

  The visa whispered to me, Close but no potatoes, which made a hysterical titter quiver in the back of my throat.

  “You have nothing to fear from me, little mage,” the seraph said. “I have long worked to bring the prophecy to pass.”

  “Prophecy?” The one hanging over my door? A Rose by any Other Name will still draw Blood? That prophecy? Or the one Jasper had uttered—“The children of men are gathered. The dragon breaks free. All the old things have passed away.” No, not a new prophecy. The seraph’s words indicated that this one had been around a while.

  So, maybe it was the one in my dreams about a certain mage, one the seraphs foretold. “A mage, one of the foretold ones…. She is near.” Foretold mages. No such thing. Except in my dreams.

  Lucky me. Lots of foretellings, no explanations. The snake spread its hood, its mouth open to reveal a black tongue and white fangs that snapped down from the roof of its mouth, the action so much like the daywalker’s that it shot a singular spark of fear through me.

  “The prophecy among the Host,” the seraph said, “that a mage, a child of man, the result of seraphic purpose, would someday be born.” He tilted his head, his hair moving like a spray of aqua silk over his shoulder, resting on his wing. “History is written by the victors,” he repeated, holding out his hand in entreaty. “Join with me.”

  I stared at the hand, skimming hard. It didn’t smell like the Dark. This was a member of the Host. Beautiful, lovely, his hands shaped to create. Shaped to pray. To help. Not a Dragon. Hadn’t Eli questioned me about why the big bad uglies appeared as they did? Hadn’t he suggested that an incantation or curse might have deprived them of their beauty?

  The snake was warning me. Opening both senses together, I blended the skim and the sight into the new sense I as yet had no name for. Vertigo rocked me. Nausea rose again in the back of my throat, sour and acidic. I braced my knees, trying desperately not to fall or throw up. I breathed him in, the wonderful scent of seraph.

  “Join,” he said, his voice a mournful bell. “Together we will retake what was mine and was lost. Together we will rule. The Most High will never share his throne with another. Even the Bright and Morning Star sits to his side. I offer you the throne itself, to rule with me. Beside me. Together we will heal the earth and restore the heavens. We will make right what was ruined by war and hatred and selfishness.”

  As he spoke I parsed the fragrance into its disparate components. I caught first his own unique seraph scent—charcoal and spring earth—and recognized them as the odors I had detected beneath Barak’s own sweet flower aroma. But beneath his seraph scent were fragments of others, like pepper and mint, like honey and chocolate, like sweets and sex and spring flowers.

  “I will free the mages,” he said, “that they no longer live in gilded cages, free them to rule the earth; over the humans who fear them, who have killed them. And I will give them the souls they crave, that they may attain immortality.”

  Souls. To banish forever the fear and permanence of death. To have what humans had. But what had I seen when Barak died? Lolo’s soul? The Flames spun around me, seven Flames, plasma trails bluing the light. They weren’t attacking, as they had any Darkness that came near. They were hanging back. This wasn’t a glamour. This was a seraph.

  In the blended scan, the seraph’s face was utterly beautiful, glowing with the light of heaven, energies like a halo around him, an aura of holiness. On the silver chain around his neck, his sigil glowed with the sunset colors of burned persimmon, shrimp, and fuchsia. Motes of black-light sparkled through it, like the light of a million black holes in space.

  I stepped toward the seraph. The Star of the Morning. The angel. I took another breath, hearing my heart beat, a slow resonance as the otherness took me up. My mind continued to isolate the odors. Mint, pepper, honey, chocolate, spring flowers.

  The scents in the blended scan were like…Zadkiel. Raziel. Barak. Yes. Barak smelled of spring flowers. I blinked, stopped, and looked down. My glove rested on the ice at my feet. My hand was bare, scars whiter than burning linen, palm outstretched. In it was the prime ring I wore on my chest. A bit of black chain mail dangled from it. I had pulled the prime free.

  Overhead, light broke through the clouds, a half dozen seraphs intoning, “Omega mage!” Their voices were slowed, tolling like the bells of war. “Destroy her!”

  Smells. Raziel and Zadkiel and Barak. All seraphs who had been at war in the Trine with me. All who had given their blood in battle against evil. Fear and the beginning of comprehension spidered up my spine. The hair on the back of my neck rose. The wheels/snake reared back, bulking in height, tightening on my leg and waist, stealing my breath.

  With a snap, the seraph snapped free the oval ring around his neck and extended it toward me. It was metallic, pulsing with lavalike energies, a sigil of great power. “Join with me,” he said, the tone gentle but with a hint of steel in it. “We shall rule.”

  I understood. I had gotten what I asked for when I called it to me. The ring was the link made of Mole Man’s blood. The link that freed the Dragon, Azazel. He could take it off, but he couldn’t get rid of it. Unless someone else helped. Accepted its curse? And the Dragon had me, the only living omega mage, in a shield of protection. Offering my prime amulet to him.

  I drew on the otherness; time slowed to the consistency of honey. The light overhead expanded to noonday brightness. Huge brass bells were ringing, tones angry. The Flames buzzed around me, a slow circlet of lightning. Ozone lifted the hair all over my body in a painful electric charge. Nausea rose in a wave. My hands felt tingly and numb.

  Mage-fast, I pocketed my prime. I pulled the cross from its loop, the cross stained with Mole Man’s blood. And the blood of the beast that Benaiah Stanhope had chained with his sacrifice. The beast that was Leviathan, Azazel, and looked nothing like a Dragon, but surely was one. My hands blurred with speed even as Azazel reacted, fingers closing on the link. Faster than I could see, I speared the end of the gold cross through the link the Dragon held.

  As if coupled to my mind, moving in tandem with my hand, the snake struck. Seraph fast. It buried its fangs in the back of my rebuilt left hand, driving deep into my bones. And through the cross and link, into the hand of the True Fallen seraph beneath it.

  Overhead, the light exploded.

  I never lost consciousness. I never closed my eyes. I never turned off the blended scan and its enhanced awareness. As if I stood outside myself, I saw my body as I flew above an empty plain, arms and legs pinwheeling. I heard my heart beat, assuring me I was in the place of time-no-time, place-no-place.

  As in my last vision of myself, when I stood on the deck of Holy Amethyst’s wheels, I wore scarlet armor over black chain mail and silk, and bloodred boots. I carried a shield on my arm and a sword in each hand. Here, both glittered with the light of Flames.

  I was represented as a battle mage. A battle knight. In my belt I carried a long bone, the femur of Barak. In this reality, it glowed with peculiar light. If a rain cloud could glow, it would look like the femur. In my left hand with the hilt of the tanto I carried the cross-speared Dragon’s sigil. The gold cross sparkled with Light and Dark, the blood of the combatants in Mole Man’s sacrifice. The sigil was cold and a strange aqua mist was rising from it.

  Blinking, I moved my feet under me to land. In that instant, I was back on Earth, falling into a tangle toward the snow. The seraph lifted his head, opened his mouth. He bellowed with fury, raising wings and arms toward the teal shield. And he changed. His skin blazed wi
th aqua light, as if his very atoms softened, separated, and caught fire. He exploded into a fine mist and…transmogrified. A true transmogrification. A reshaping of atoms and luxons into a different form.

  That which is Fallen cannot transmogrify, the visa whispered. If a device could experience shock, I’d have said the visa was stunned. The seraph was no longer the winged beauty, but rather, was becoming something else.

  In the Earth reality I slammed into the snow. Again. Breath was knocked out of me. My head impacted the ice. I lost consciousness. My vision of Earth vanished.

  In the otherness, I landed hard, skidded along the ground on thigh and foot, sliding into the flow of the river of time. Rocks and boulders protruded above the river’s surface and one of the rocks had three humps, like the Trine. Raziel had named them “rocks in the river of time for me.” Whatever that meant. I was in the same place as before, but it was subtly different. I turned, my battle boots shushing through the river-lava, the heat growing uncomfortable but not burning me.

  Off in the distance were small humps I took to be mountains. In the other direction were skyscrapers, like the skyline of New York City, back when humans had lived there, before it was a Realm of Light. Seraph stones. I was near a Realm of Light. Again.

  The city drifted closer, buildings rising up out of the plain, windows shining with Light. A strange buzzing, like the sound of electricity in old wiring, or the sound of a million bees, filled the air. I spotted the grid of streets above me, streets I had seen below me while standing in Amethyst’s wheels. Realities stacked like coins, one atop the other? Off to one side was the remembered bright spot, like the sun but more diffuse, and with a square, flashing, sapphire light beneath it. The sky was getting closer, falling toward me.

  I heard myself groan. Back in the reality of Earth I was about to wake up. I had a feeling that was gonna hurt. Bad.

  The lava-water boiled, a geyser of light that fountained up and rained down, creating a shining mist. In the center of it, a bulge rose from the river straight above the surface. Blood and plagues…