Bloodring

by Faith Hunter

  The thoughts of covering my tracks I pushed aside, and centered myself again, reaching out to the gathered, scenting and searching. I caught a bit of magery not my own. It was earth magery, the gift of life and all things growing. It smelled warm and green, like sunlight on spring leaves. I turned my head, placing the scent, and saw a brightness at the front, on the pew where many of those who had signed up to be speakers sat. I narrowed my concentration, focusing down on the left, on the man on the aisle seat. In a yellow pocket, Derek Culpepper carried a freshly charmed object. His fingers caressed it as I watched, his bones glowing with the power it pulsed into him.

  The ache in my head expanded, as if I had stared too long at the sun, and I pulled my eyes away from Culpepper, knowing I should stop, but needing to scan the rest of the room.

  I moved my senses to the other speakers, finding nothing of interest. Scanning the seats behind the developer, I stopped, surprised. It wasn't a Darkness—not exactly—more like a phantom of a shadow overlaying an aura. The shadow shifted lazily back and forth, as if searching to gain entrance through the aura into the body and soul beneath, but not in a hurry to do so. It danced over the woman in a slow waltz of menace. I blinked, recognizing Jane Hilton. She was scowling, her eyes fixed on Derek Culpepper. I held my scan on her a long moment, considering. Was she under threat by a Darkness? Flirting with a Power, hoping for some gain? Had she been involved in Lucas' kidnapping? Bargained with a Darkness, hoping to save him?

  A stab of pain pulled me back from the scan. With the last moments of power, feeling the drain on the bear amulet, I raced my eyes over the remaining crowd. A second shadow hovered over the pew to my right, near the tiny old woman who spoke while she walked, but to her side. I bent forward and craned my neck.

  The scan snapped off with a blinding flash and a spear of agony right in the center of my head. I gasped and crumpled, and Audric pushed me into my seat before I fell into the aisle and had to claim womanly vapors or some such excuse.

  I lay my head against the pew and Audric released my wrist to slide his massive arm around my shoulders, cradling me. Tears sprang to my eyes with the pain and with the knowledge of what I had seen just as the scan failed. Maria. Sitting beside Elder Culpepper. Maria, polluted with Darkness.

  It was no big surprise that Maria was helping the people who wanted to move the town when her ex-husband wanted to keep it where it was. Maria Stanhope would do anything, bond with any faction, if it meant she could stick a blade into Lucas. Anything to damage the man who had hurt her, and continued to hurt her, by no longer loving her. But moving the town? Losing the money that moving would mean? Bonding with a Power?

  And then I realized. If Lucas died, Maria would have control of lots of money, in the form of Lucas' estate. Money that was intended to provide a good future for Ciana. For her, Lucas' disappearance and possible death created a win-win situation. That was the dark I was seeing—the dark of avarice and cruelty. Her enemy dead, and his money at her disposal. Now wouldn't that be just ducky.

  Chapter 12

  Between the pain of the headache and the worry over Maria, I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the meeting, stirring myself for only three speakers: Fergus Yardley, Randall Prentice, and Jason Stanhope. Yardley and Prentice sided with Culpepper about moving the town, citing the instability of the ice caps and the resultant flooding should the caps be melted by mages or seraphs. A flash flood in the Toe River running through the middle of town could result in damage equal to that caused by the ice cap sliding and burying us. Of course, because Yardley and Prentice were on the Culpepper payroll, their testimony was suspect at best.

  Though I could have sworn he hadn't been in the crowd when I ran the scan, Lucas and Rupert's brother took the stage. I was recovered enough to pay attention. Jason appeared to be mostly sober for once, shaved and dressed in a business suit that had fit him before he crawled into a bottle and forgot to eat. According to Rupert, Jason had been handsome once upon a time, dynamic and charismatic, but it had been years since he was completely sober. I wondered who had dried him out, cleaned him up, and dressed him for the meeting. Not Culpepper, as Jason's suit was gray and business dull. I didn't expect much from the recently drunk man, but this was a Jason I had never seen before.

  "Lucas was my brother."

  His first words made me sit up and lean forward to hear better. Was? Past tense, as in dead? Did he know that Lucas was dead?How could he know?

  "I loved him. But Lucas was shortsighted. Foolish. And Lucas trusted people way too much. Let me tell you how." Jason leaned forward and braced himself on the podium I hadn't even noticed until now. His blue eyes roamed the crowd, touching a face here and there, smiling slightly at several, cocking a finger at someone. "First, he wanted us to use our hard-earned money to melt the ice caps on the Trine and the surrounding peaks, which sounds great on the surface. But we haven't had a thaw in nearly seventy-five years."

  I saw several people nod.

  "The cap is hundreds of feet thick. It will create a flood endangering every single person and town between here and the ocean. It will put a strain on small dams that our brothers and sisters downstream have built to create electric power, to build pools for capturing water for drinking, fishing, watering crops in the dry month of summer." Jason leaned closer to the audience, dropping his voice. The crowd automatically leaned in.

  "And then next winter, the ice cap will start to rebuild." More heads nodded, thoughtful. A stillness settled on the crowd. Even the old woman, Esmerelda Boyles, seemed to pause. She pursed her lips, sucking on a front tooth as if it pained her.

  "The second thing my brother was wrong about was the ice cap. Lucas claimed it wouldn't rebuild for fifty years. But unless the weather warms, by the estimates of a geologist and a climatologist I consulted, the ice cap will be back to a dangerous thickness in under twenty years." The crowd stirred.

  "The loan to the mages for this melting won't even be paid off by then. Mages …" His tone dripped with scorn and something like dread. A collective flutter of fear swept the crowd. Audric retook my wrist and tightened his grip as if afraid I might stand up and speak against the humans' fear. I scowled and shook him off.

  Jason propped on one elbow. "And if the temperatures continue to cool, it will happen faster. We'll be destitute and still in danger. We'll still have to move, and our children will be stuck with that financial burden. And we will yet owe mages money."

  The crowd moved uneasily.

  "Yes. Have you thought what it might mean to be beholden to mages'? That's the third error in Lucas' plan. Mages would come here bringing their unnatural acts, their orgies and their heat, their easy use of energy and power, their profligate lifestyle and the wealth they have amassed by the sweat of our brows, selling us trinkets and amulets and things we think we can't live without." Jason adjusted his jacket.

  "So it's up to you. Are you willing to have your children's future held in the grip of mages, who might require even more of them than mere money?" He looked over the crowd, giving them time to imagine such requirements. He nodded, speaking slowly. "Perhaps mages will demand the use of their bodies in the orgies we all hear so much about. Or perhaps they'll turn their magic and spells against us, as at the battle of the Mage War." The crowd murmured, totally with Jason now.

  Beside me, Rupert shuffled his boots. Audric again gripped my wrist hard, bruising. I pulled on it and he released me as if he hadn't realized what he was doing.

  "You decide. It's up to you."

  "Oh, please, brother, dear," Rupert drawled. "Orgies? Wild sex in the streets? Wine, women, and song? You'd loooove that." The crowd relaxed and several chuckled. Rupert stood and tossed his coat away, resplendent in dark blue robes and tunic, the newest style among the hip crowd. He turned and addressed the town fathers. "Permission to be added to the list of speakers."

  "This is highly irregular," an older woman said before anyone could reply, "but I move to accept the speaker. You will rebut the co
mments, I assume?"

  "I am a fantastic rebutter," Rupert said, all glam and batting eyelashes. The innuendo generated more chuckles and a frown or two. "Yes. I am refuting my brother's statements."

  Shamus banged his gavel, acknowledging Rupert's right to speak. Head back, shoulders broad from savage-chi practice with Audric, Rupert moved down the aisle between the pews and onto the dais. There was no sound except his boots, slick on the old floors, and the crowd settling again for what appeared to be the start of a good show.

  Jason moved away from the lectern, his blue eyes shooting fury and loathing, but he didn't leave the stage. Rupert took the podium and turned his back on his brother. He made an impressive figure, robes picking up the dim light of dusk coming through the windows, long hair thrown back behind his collar, brushing his shoulders, the purple bruise hidden in his hair.

  "It's customary that a missing person not be presumed dead unless we've seen a body." Rupert glanced back at Jason, who looked away, realizing he'd made a mistake. "My brother is only missing." Rupert tilted his head, focusing on those assembled below. He gripped the narrow stand and said, "Lucas and I had decided to loan our inheritance to the town for mage-help to melt the ice caps." The crowd drew in a collective breath.

  Jason's face darkened and he looked into the group, as if searching out one person.

  "You was gonna use your own money? At what percentage rate?" Esmerelda Boyles called out.

  "That was negotiable based on how long the town fathers wanted the loan to run. But according to probate, the money has to be invested in bulk, all the brothers investing jointly. Between the three of us, it was two to one in favor of the loan."

  "Now it's one to one," Jason shouted, balling his fists, "and I'm not signing over my inheritance. Not for something as useless and impossible as mage-help to save this town. Mineral City is going to die." He was sweating profusely, breath heaving. I attempted to open my mage-sight, but a lance of pain stabbed through my head. "Die! And there's nothing we can do to stop it. The best we can hope for is to buy a reprieve, not a salvation. And we'd be selling our souls to deal with mages."

  "Mage-help is fully sanctioned by the seraphs," Rupert shouted back, whirling to face his brother. "I won't abandon this town based on unsubstantiated rumors circulated by narrow-minded zealots—especially ones who would profit by abandonment."

  Jason drew back his arm, hands fisted. Rupert raised his chin and opened his arms, daring him.

  "Order. Order, you two," Shamus Waldroup said, banging a gavel. "This ain't a free-for-all, boys. You done had a chance to talk, Jason, so sit down and get yourself in hand. We ain't having no violence. Go on," he ordered when Jason paused, his body rigid. "Go ahead, Rupert. Talk. I want to know if you got any proof that you and Lucas was planning a loan. 'Cause if there is, then we might have us a way to salvage the loan even though Lucas is gone. Missing, I mean."

  Jason hadn't moved. "Jason Stanhope, you sit down or I'll have you sat down," the bald baker said. Two robe-clad elders stood and stepped forward, staring hard at Jason. His hands trembled; his face was beet red, sweat pouring in steady trickles, soaking his collar. He turned on his heel, walked down the steps to the aisle, and flung himself into the first pew.

  "I have the documents where we sketched out a plan," Rupert said. "It's all handwritten, pencil on paper, Lucas' and my handwriting. Of course, if it's proven that my brother really is dead"—he paused, as if surprised to hear the words on his lips—"then his estate goes for the care of his child. It'll be up to Maria Stanhope to decide if the loan goes through. I'll be happy to show the paperwork to the elders and elected officials. Just give me a time and place, and I'll be there."

  "So will I." Maria stood, smiling. "But I'm not inclined to loan away my baby's money and future unless it's financially beneficial. For her," she added quickly.

  "Fine." Shamus banged the gavel again. "Any more speakers? No? Meeting's adjourned. Let's get home before full night." As he spoke, the shadows lengthened and the room fell dark, as if night had been waiting to fall until the last word was spoken.

  After the meeting, I lingered, waiting on Rupert. Audric and I walked slowly from the old church while my business partner talked to passers-by. The delay allowed the entire crowd to walk by me, and I was able to perform a mind-skim on each person. While an aborted attempt convinced me not to try mage-sight, I was still able to do the most basic exam, skimming for use of mage-power and for unglamoured supernats. Audric moved patiently at my side, one hand on my elbow. I didn't get anything I hadn't picked up before, and my head hurt worse, but the skim made me feel better on a purely safety-first level, and the spawn, if that was what I'd sensed from inside the church, was gone, leaving only a faint residue.

  Except for Rupert chatting to Shamus Waldroup, the walk home from the meeting was accomplished in silence, small groups sticking close together for protection. The last streetlight had burned out before I was born, so Upper Street was lit only by the moon and by light spilling from shuttered windows onto the street.

  "Did you get anything?" Audric murmured.

  "Not much. I got a whiff of sulfur blowing in under the doors at the start of the meeting. Maria's hatred has blackened her aura. And I caught power leaking from a hidden amulet on Culpepper the younger."

  "What did you try?"

  I grimaced. "A mind-skim and mage-sight all at the same time, a sort of a blended scan, or something." In the dark I couldn't tell, but I thought he looked at me strangely.

  "I didn't know that was possible."

  "I nearly fell on the floor. Nearly hurled on the old biddy in front of us. Nearly made a spectacle of myself."

  "Too bad you found such self-control," he chuckled. "Headache?"

  "Oh, yeah. It's better now. But I won't try blending scans anytime soon. The world is a little too intense that way."

  "I'll bet. You see the two just ahead? Fergus Yardley and Randall Prentice, Culpepper's underlings? Did you get anything special on them?"

  "No. Just plain old run-of-the-mill humans. Nothing special about them."

  "Lucky them," Audric said. He cleared his throat, his tone toughening. "Fergus is a geologist, in town trying to get the remaining feldspar strip mines and surface mines opened up and producing again. Randall is the moneyman behind the plans. Handles investments. Some say he even has a seraph or two as clients."

  "You think?"

  "No. I don't. There's no evidence that seraphs understand or care about money. I think he lets it be said because it makes him sound more trustworthy and respectable."

  I thought about the necklace worn by Chamuel, the necklace that had rocketed Thorn's Gems into stardom, had made us a household name. If seraphs didn't handle money, how had Chamuel purchased the necklace? And when? Or had it been bought as a gift? They were questions I had asked myself often over the last few months; I had never found satisfactory answers. The records of the sale showed the purchase had been made by a traveler, a male, for cash. If Chamuel had come in human guise, then clearly I had been out of the shop, or we would have been pawing each other on the floor, my first heat stimulated in an instant. But none of my partners remembered the sale, the man who purchased it, or even much about the day in question. Weird. And where my safety was involved, weird wasn't good.

  At that thought I looked into Audric's face, a half-seen dark sheen in the night. "I didn't see any cops tonight. Not even Thadd. Wouldn't you think they'd be there?"

  "It crossed my mind. Several times." Another weird event. They were starting to pile up.

  Chapter 13

  I could feel the warmth through the covers and reached across the sheets, moaning as dawn waked me from an amazing dream. I was trying to hang on to its remnants. And then my eyes popped open. Either the streetlights had all been replaced or the sun was shining. I tossed the covers and raced to a window, throwing back the heavy tapestry covering the glass. Friday morning had dawned bright and warm, the sky blue with lacy clouds, the air clear. We
had an early thaw!

  I raced through a shower, layered on a purple T-shirt over a dark teal one, with turquoise boots and jeans, clothes I could wear indoors or out, added my amulets and a primitive-looking necklace of tribal beads and citrine, grabbed a corduroy jacket, and flew downstairs. At the bottom, I ran headlong into Rupert, bounced off his chest and hit the wall before rebounding into his arms. He set me upright, talking fast. "Early thaw! It's sunlight!"

  "I see it! Come on!" I grabbed his hand, pulling him through the shop and out the door into the day. We turned left and stopped in the walkway, blinded by the brightness of the rising sun. Eyes closed, I inhaled, pulling in the scent of sun on snow. I concentrated, feeling the warmth on my face, gentle, like my mother's hands, tender and warm. A sun reminiscent of Louisiana, not the pallid, clouded-over sun of winter mountains at high altitudes, but warm like my childhood, my last memories of complete safety and joy. The sun of spring, so fresh it didn't leech away my strength.

  For an aching, heart-wrenching moment, I mourned Enclave, the heat, the humidity, the soft susurration of the Gulf, the night roars of gators and the cries of birds, the scents of salt, fish, rotting vegetation. Mourned the wonderful sense of belonging. Of being loved. Tears gathered and spilled down my cheeks.

  "Heaven," Rupert said. "Pure heaven. Someday I'm moving south, where there's a real summer and heat and rain, and winter is a few months of tepid cold instead of a frozen misery."

  I moaned, the sound close to a sob, eyes still closed, face turned to the sun. "Mosquitoes, gnats, roaches, wild pigs big enough to wreck an El-car," I said, trying to remember that the South had had its drawbacks for me, the worst of which was a slow death by insanity. "Birds that start screaming before daylight, gators with teeth like razors, snakes—big poisonous snakes with huge fangs—panthers, skunks—You think mountain skunks stink? You have no idea how bad a skunk stinks until it lies dead under a hot sun for a day or two."