Bloodring

by Faith Hunter

  On the screen, shadows resolved into humans. They attacked. Bludgeoned Lucas. His body was dragged away. The feed began again, a continuous loop. Lucas walked down the alley. Looked up. Shadows moved.

  "How can you be so …" I swallowed, unable to finish, and clasped my knees. This is his brother. I rocked slowly on the cold planking.

  "I've been looking at it all morning." The words hid whatever Rupert was feeling, but his body was stiff as he stared at the screen.

  After a long moment and three more replays of the attack, Rupert fluffed his sleeves and said, "Oh, for pity's sake. You can't just sit on the floor. "He bent over and lifted me with a grunt into the soft, cushioned chair I favored. Adding cream to his coffee, he stirred in honey-sugar with soft tinks of silver on china, then poured heated water into my cup. He added a silver strainer filled with tea leaves and set the cup in my chilled hands. "Don't make me hover. That's so declasse for a gay man."

  "Turn it up," I said, ignoring both his worry and his attempt to make me smile.

  As Rupert turned the volume up again, a reporter's voice rose slowly, his face centered on the long screen reserved for live feed. "Again, Satellite News Network has obtained special permission from the Federal Satellite Broadcast Administration to air the video of human-on-human violence you see rolling in the left corners of your screen. This is Oliver Winston, live on the scene in Mineral City, Carolina, with Jane Hilton, the victim's new wife."

  I jerked with the word, sloshing my tea. Wife? "No …"Rupert stood at my back, a hand on my shoulder as the woman lifted her head. She was breathtaking, with blond hair and vivid eyes, a sculpted, anguished face.

  "I just want him back," she whispered. "That's all. Please bring him back. Please. I love him." She dropped her head into her hands and wept a moment before lifting her face again to the reporter. Her eyes hardened, frightened but determined.

  "Seraphs," Jane said, "I call on you to help." Her voice caught, as if she were strangling, and when she spoke again, she had to force the words out. "Help my Lucas. I'm begging you! Surely there is a winged warrior, a seraph somewhere, who would help against this evil. Please. Heed my call!"

  "Very dramatic." Rupert fell into the plush chair beside mine, his hand still on my shoulder in comfort. "She didn't even smear her mascara."

  "Hush," I said, my attention on the scene and the warmly dressed reporter.

  Winston, the microphone held at his mouth, was still speaking. "Will a seraph answer her? In the last twenty years, humans have seldom seen the seraphim," he said, using the formal political designation rather than the casual "seraphs." "Since the last great battle, few have been seen outside of war videos, only in rare sightings as they depart and enter Realms of Light. The last significant seraph update was over seven years ago, outside the Realm that was once Manhattan Island. And no non-seraph, except for the kylen, half-breed seraphs themselves, have ever entered a Realm. Will that change? Will the Seraphic High Host help this distraught woman find her husband?

  "This is Oliver Winston, SNN reporter at large, live in Mineral City, Carolina, with the latest on the attack of local citizen Lucas Stanhope. Updates and residents' responses to this most unusual crime as they happen. This is SNN. Glory to the Victorious."

  Winston's face was replaced with the face of a familiar anchorwoman. She was recapping the event as Rupert again turned down the sound.

  "Don't worry. The police will find Lucas. Drink your tea." When I didn't comply, my eyes on the scene in the upper corner of the screen, Rupert lifted my hands with his, carrying the cup to my lips. "Drink." This time it was a command, and I sipped, the taste of rose hips and blackberry in a strong black tea sweet on my tongue.

  On the screen, below the replay, was a different scene, the stoning of a woman taken in the act of black magic the night before. As she fell, she cursed the attackers and exposed her breasts. There was no sound as the rocks fell. And again, blood. Human blood. Human violence. Public access stations airing footage.

  When had it begun, this sudden relaxing of the standards and rules imposed on the media so long ago by the High Host of Seraphim? Surely the president or Congress would demand a halt. If they didn't, I wondered how long it would continue before the High Host intervened and wholesale slaughter brought the human population back under control. The High Host didn't ask for things to be done. They didn't confer. They just punished humans when they didn't follow the rules.

  Chapter 4

  I checked the clock over the door. I had half an hour before opening. It might be enough time. "I have to go back upstairs." I was running, taking the stairs to my loft with renewed energy dancing through me. From below I heard Rupert call a muffled "But Thorn, we—" as I slammed the door and clicked the latch. I fell against the door, taking in the apartment.

  My pulse was thrumming, a basso tone in my ears. This was dumb. I didn't even know whether I could actually do it. I might hurt myself. I might expose myself, but I had to try, didn't I? If I could find and rescue Lucas, then no seraph would have to come to Mineral City and intervene. And find me.

  I shoved my body from the door and flew to the tub, grabbing candles and the bag of coarse salt. Not sea salt, but salt mined from the ground. Salt of the earth, of power I could draw upon. I dropped them at the edge of the dark turquoise tile floor in the kitchen area, added stones from the bath, the bed, the windows, and the tables, piling them in a pyramid of pink marble, white quartz crystal, agate, others. From pebbles to fist-sized rocks, rounded smooth with my grindstone, not by river water and nature.

  I added some jewelry imbued with wisdom and sacrifice: a jade netsuke on a silver chain, three antique crucifixes, two hung with the Christ in agony, a free-form fire opal wrapped in silver wire, and my own half-drained, blackened-steel-mail amulet necklace, which I removed from around my waist. On the necklace were stones keyed to my central nervous system.

  I dumped artificial greenery from a heavy silver bowl; flowers and leaves scrolled around the rim. The bowl was Pre-Ap, sent to me by Lolo ten years ago but never used for neomage purposes. Lastly, I took up my damaged wedding ring, symbol of commitment and betrayal, its stones the tint of blood and living things, rubies and emeralds.

  I shoved the kitchen table against the cabinets, exposing the floor. The tiles were poured stoneware from clay collected in Mexico, near a battlefield where seraphs, humans, and demons had once fought an earth-rending war. The glaze was composed of mineral pigments Lolo had charged to my protection before shipping to me on a summer train. Taking up the bag of unused salt, I poured a heavy ring in a circle six feet in diameter, leaving a foot of space open for me to enter.

  I positioned candles around the outside of the ring, dithering about the number until I settled on just three. There was both power and risk in numbers. If a nearby seraph found me, then he found me. I filled the bowl at the sink and set it in the exact center of the salt ring, springwater sloshing gently. I set my ceremonial knife, hidden in plain view in the cutting block, to the side of the stones. Lastly, I pulled the Book of Workings from the shelf beside my bed, finding the incantation I needed in the index and placing the open book on the floor by the bowl. Three empty stones went into the bowl, bringing the water lapping to its top.

  I sat within the circle, at the open space in the salt ring, crossed my legs yogi fashion, and closed my eyes. Spine erect, I blew out a tension-filled breath and drew in a calming one.

  Again. And again. Serenity fluttered just out of reach, distanced by fear. I didn't know what I was doing.

  I'd been removed from Enclave for my health and sanity long before I would have learned how to do this. I knew the theory. I knew how it was supposed to be done. But I'd never practiced a skill I thought I'd never need.

  I breathed, calm just beyond my reach. The silence of the loft settled about me. A brittle tranquility finally rested on my shoulders. My breath smoothed. My heart beat slowly, methodically. All glamour fell from me. Behind my closed lids, my own flesh was a g
entle radiance, the brighter glow of my old scars tracing down my legs and arms. I opened my eyes, seeing now with mage-sight.

  The loft pulsed with power, a place of neomage safety I had created in the humans' world. Stones were everywhere, at bath and bed and gas fireplaces, every window and doorway, the floor. From them, every aspect of my home glowed with pale energy, subtle harmonious shades of lavender, green, rose, red, yellow. The great human scientist, Einstein, had once reasoned that mass and energy must somehow be different manifestations of the same thing. Mage-sight saw that energy in everything.

  As I closed the circle with two handfuls of salt, power seized me. Power from the beginning of time, heard as much as felt. It hummed through me, a drone, an echo of the first Word ever spoken. The first Word of Creation. The reverberation was captured in the core of the earth for me to draw upon, a constant, unvarying power of stone and mineral, the destructive potency of liquid rock and heat. I trembled as vibrations rolled through my bones and pulsed into my flesh. I could see the thrum of strength, the force, the raw, raging might of the earth, a molten mantle seeking outlet. Finding me. I was a crucible for incandescent energy, mine to use.

  Power. The need for it, the lust for it, rose in me. Waves of lava bowed my spine, clawed my hands into weapons. I can take what I want. I was the strength of the earth, the might of the core, the power of its creation. A scream built deep in my chest.

  Dis de moment of absolute choice, Lolo's voice rang within my memory, of ultimate danger. What you do with all dis might?

  With a single motion, I slid the necklace of amulets over my head. The scream withered unreleased.

  I pulled in a breath burning with freedom from the power crave. A breath that refreshed and satiated, yet ached deep in my lungs. I could breathe; I could think. I returned to myself.

  The loft was unchanged. There was still a pulsing glow to the room, but now the power appeared distilled and clarified to my mage-eye. A sharper vision to remind me that I had stepped close to the abyss, stared into its depths, and conquered myself.

  The Book of Workings was constructed of blackberry ink on handmade paper. Unlike the rest of the room, the book and its pages contained little luminescence. The book itself wasn't a thing of power. At the top of the page was written in ancient calligraphy, "Scrying for a Human." Not a spell, not really an incantation, nothing so mundane; only a guide, a map of sorts, showing me the way to use my gifts. Strangely, the directions were in the final third of the book, the section dedicated to warfare, and required mage-blood and three candles.

  I studied the recipe and my arrangement for the invocation. Lucas was taken with violence and blood. Those facts led the way. I hung the crucifixes around my neck, in contact with my amulets, and took the fire opal pendant in my left hand with the netsuke, the two stones connecting with each other. A soft resonance of energy gathered each time stone met stone, as crystalline matrix touched matrix.

  I swiveled on my backside and faced the bowl, took up the knife in my right hand and slipped the wedding ring onto my left little finger. I stared into the water and improvised.

  Dangerous. The muted warning slipped through me, unheeded memory. From the Old Testament, I paraphrased lines suggested in my book for finding a human.

  "And the revenger of blood find him," I chanted. "And the revenger of blood find him. And the revenger of blood find him." With the point of the knife, I sliced my finger. The sting shocked through me.

  "We send, and they shall search out the land and bring us word again …" A trail of blood slid down my finger and collected in my palm, a growing crimson pool.

  "Then shalt inquire, and make search and ask diligently." I dropped the netsuke and amulets into the blood, smearing both before dangling them on their chains from my wrist. "And behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such an abomination is wrought among you"—this was the dangerous part, the creative words I tossed into the mix—"that evil has been done to this man, in the spilling of his blood. That ye seek Lucas Stanhope to save him." Setting down the knife, I pulled the ring from my finger and placed the gold circle into my blood. My shivers became a hard shudder, a quake of energy that roared through me in a heavy wave. "Find me such a one as Lucas."

  I dropped the gold band into the water. Three drops of blood followed, soft, distinct splats. Three candles, three stones, three drops of blood. Three and three and three. My blood swirled into the charged water. "Show me Lucas." Blood diluted, spreading, as it spun lower. "Show me Lucas." My blood touched the stones in the bottom. The water stilled, darkened. Power rose from the earth. My blood thrummed in my ears. The stones on the bottom of the bowl wrenched energy from the depths of the land. They heated. A thin mist of steam rose.

  As he slipped a ring onto my finger, I saw Lucas, his face, full of love and tenderness. The vision dissipated in a surge of mist.

  In its swirling whiteness a form took shape. Lucas, naked, on our bed. He was laughing, his beautiful blue eyes blazing with passion. Lips swollen with kisses, his body full with his need. He held out his arms, the wedding ring I made for him on his finger. A woman came to him, draped by a diaphanous gown, a floating gauzy thing that slipped from her shoulders.

  Pain slithered through me. How could he… ?

  Lucas moved up her body in a sensual glide, his face between her breasts. Her head fell back and Jane Hilton laughed low, the sound lost beneath the resonance of energy humming in my mind.

  The power of truth steamed up from the water. The certainty of history.

  A tear slid down my cheek. He had given himself to me. And then he had slept with that woman. Slept with Jane Hilton while married to me.

  I was seeing history. Two histories. One of my marriage and the vow of eternity together. Then this one of Lucas' betrayal. The memory of my wedding ring as I picked it up had been of commitment and betrayal. I hadn't performed a scrying. I had miscalculated. I had performed a truth vision.

  I blew on the steam, blinked away the vision, and wiped my face on the scarf at my shoulder, smearing my makeup. Dangerous indeed, but not as I might have expected.

  Blood was still liquid on my hand. I would try again. Lifting three more stones from the pile, I placed them in the water, which had evaporated in the steamy visions, leaving just enough space. When the water settled, I plunged my hand into it, the netsuke and fire opal tinking on the stones at the bottom.

  "Let me find grace in your eyes," I quoted from Genesis, still trying to banish the memory of truth. I bounced around, paraphrasing the Old Testament, choosing verses that seemed appropriate, my words soft and slightly slurred. "Can we find such a one as this is … ? Thou shalt find Lucas if thou seek him… . Come and I will show you the man you seek," I finished.

  The mist swirled, revealing the back of a man's head. He was bent over a bowl of oatmeal on a table, eating. Reddish hair, shaggy and long, curled over his collar. He sat up, spoon bouncing into the bowl without a clatter. Thaddeus Bartholomew looked around the room, his strange green eyes taking in every patron and server, wary, on alert. But he saw nothing suspicious.

  Heat sparked in the pit of my stomach, coiling, expanding. An image of Thaddeus, naked on my bed, took shape in my mind, separate from the vision, vibrating with a different kind of power. A look of perplexity crossed his face, followed by a deeper kind of shock. His pupils widened. He half stood. The mist faded on the vision, thinned, and was gone.

  The water was glowing to my mage-eye, but no longer hot. My hand rested in the water on top of six stones. An imperfect number giving me an imperfect vision. Or had it? Hadn't I asked to be shown the man I seek? The man who sought Lucas?

  Pulling my hand from the warm water, I dried it on my scarf and looked at the clock. I was late. I broke the salt circle, releasing all the stored power, returning the loft to its mundane appearance, and myself along with it. I dumped out the water and swept up the used salt, pouring it into a separate plastic bag, which I labeled truth/lust. I placed the pile of stones a
t the fireplace where they belonged, heated stones for warming my bed at night. I stowed all my other neomage equipment—bowl, book, and candles—in its place, even sweeping up last night's used salt from the tub, which I had forgotten.

  I bandaged my finger, knowing scar tissue would pucker it slightly, a remembrance of today, before refolding my scarf to hide the makeup smear I could wash out later. I damped my skin from pearly to human, and freshened my makeup, all in three and a half minutes. I was almost out the door, only a bit late, when the phone rang. And I knew it was Lolo.

  With trepidation I picked it up. "Good morning, Lolo."

  "C'est le fol de mon sang?" the Cajun woman raged.

  "Fool of your blood?" I felt my own blood drain to my feet.

  "Oui! Le fol! 0, c'est tous les soirs, moi, je me couche avec des larmes dedans mes yeux—"

  "In English, Lolo," I interrupted. "I can't—"

  "You makin' trouble, gurl! De police, dey trouble. Les seraphs, dey trouble what to come. Trouble in de sky, trouble in de deep. Danger come, and you make blood sacrifice on de full moon, scream you power to heaven. All hear. Fol, fol de mon sang, you."

  My pulse pounded in my ears. The moon was full. I had forgotten. Forgotten that, for a stone mage, Luna in her glory resulted in malformed incantations and attention from on high. I sat slowly, my couch cushions sighing softly.

  During the Last War, the full and new moons were when practitioners of black magic, humans who had joined the Dragon of Darkness, the Big D, had done blood sacrifice of innocents and attacked seraphs, wounding many to the point of death. Even now, seraphs remained on hyperalert during the full and new moons, watching for a resurgence of blood sacrifice and black magic. And I, the only unlicensed neomage living outside of protective Enclave, hiding in plain sight, had just spilled my own blood in the full moon. Glory and infamy. What had I done? Can one even perform black magic by accident? Doesn't intent have to be part of the ritual? Or is spilling blood enough?