Bloodring

by Faith Hunter

  A kirk elder climbed on top of a table and cupped his hands around his mouth. He shouted, "Thaw rest and sunday is over. Remember and find solace." Traditional words that meant a return to the real world, a return to school and kirk and work. Except the sun still shone and water still dripped, the resonance of spring.

  That night, exhausted but far more relaxed than in days, I sat in a basic charmed circle, the Book of Workings at my feet. Beyond the first section, the part I had completed when my gift fell upon me and forced me out of Enclave, I had never thoroughly studied the reference used by all neomages. It was divided into thirds. The first third, titled "Common Things," dealt with incantations for everyday life, heating water, incantations for fire, storing a charmed circle, creating a shield of protection, storing strength. The second portion, "Workings Together," was for midlevel mages, those who had mastered basic incantations, could use their gifts without endangering themselves or others, and could work in concert with other mages, empowering—or even creating—new incantations for specific purposes. Midlevel mages used part two to steer a hurricane to someplace where rain was needed, or to put out a forest fire. Higher-level, individual workings were also here, like the instructions for creating a prime amulet, one tied to one person's DNA, and the guide for creating a glamour, and the incantation for healing a seraph with minor battle damage and burns. The final section of the Book of Workings was titled "Warfare." For the most part, it was bloody stuff.

  Over the years, I had tried a few incantations from each of the last two sections, enough to be conversant with the more mundane conjures, like the glamour I wore at the swap meet, a few minor painkilling and healing incantations, and the tag I had attempted on the men who attacked Rupert. But I had never bothered with the book as a whole. In my cursory searches through it, I had never seen instructions for an incantation regarding mage-heat.

  Deep in the second section, I discovered a page of love potions. Love potions for mages. Who knew? In with the love potions were pages listed simply as "Heat," distinct conjures that seemed to be for very different problems. Unfortunately, there wasn't an asterisk, or a note, or a big flashing arrow beside them to indicate which was for mage-heat. Because I hadn't been taught how to use the book, it was a guessing game. Well, whoopee.

  The incantation that called for a glowing coal seemed to be used to generate warmth in winter, a handy-dandy portable furnace. The one that asked for hay, seeds, and a dead fish could possibly be used to keep the ground warm in early spring to protect crops. The one that called for three ewes to be placed inside the charmed circle may have been intended for use in animal husbandry. At least I hoped so. It called for a randy male sheep to get the ewes in the mood, and three drops of blood acquired from his … well… Yuck.

  The most promising conjure mentioned down, lust, and feathers in the template incantation itself, indicating a direct response to mage-heat, though as usual, the book was maddeningly insufficient in its direct application. It requested that a single drop of dried blood be diluted with the water from a melting icicle. There was no demand that the blood be mage-blood, and no proscription against using animal blood. On a cloth on my knee was a dried smear of Homer's blood, acquired when I treated a hot spot on his shoulders in October.

  I didn't need to bleed the Friesian, though I could with a quick prick of a ceremonial knife. I felt terribly guilty bleeding him, but Homer never noticed, always too engrossed in his dinner. Still, I was glad I had saved the bloody cloth.

  The incantation didn't require a specific number of mage participants, so I could conceivably do it alone. The icicle only had to melt onto the blood, not be brought to boiling. It might work. In fact, it seemed way too simple to be in the second portion of the book, but the subject matter may have been considered sensitive by mage teachers.

  All incantations are pretty general, guides only, because an earth mage would use certain items during an invocation that a stone mage couldn't draw upon, like leaves or roots, or maybe an ear of corn. A sea mage would use shells, or pearls, or kelp. A metal mage would use an iron cross, a silver brooch. Regrettably, no one knew what items would work best for a specific mage until after the conjure was tried the first time. Because I didn't know which stones would be best for this one, in the charmed circle with me was my silver bowl, filled with stones from the storeroom.

  Bloodstone might work for me. I had an affinity for the mineral, and blood was part of the rite. Blood. Heat. Bloodstone. It all seemed to fit. In the bowl was a shard of white quartz for innocence and purity, moss agates for growth, a few nuggets of dark green aventurine, and malachite. Cool, earthy, restful colors and stones. On a china plate was an icicle from the eave. Ice and minerals to cool heat, ardor, and lust. I hoped.

  I sighed, easing into the proper state of mind for a rite, sitting beside the bowl of stones with the Book of Workings at my side. I calmed immediately, the energy employed in the dance having left me tranquil and spent, and I settled into meditation, regulating my breathing, my heart rate slowing. Never before had the proper state of mind been so easy to achieve. I took it as a sign this was going to work.

  I opened my mage-sight, seeing the energies of my apartment. I relaxed, my body in a full lotus.

  I drew on the bear amulet that stored strength, and placed the cloth with the dried smear of blood on a clean plate. Lifting the icicle with my left hand, I held it over the plate and placed my right hand into the silver bowl of stones. Instantly I felt one warm to my hand, and set it in my left palm, in contact with the icicle. It was the sliver of white quartz. I began the incantation. "Heat and lust and desire too warm. Crown and down and cock o'erfill. Flesh and thigh and breast and wing. End the draw of empty nest."

  The first drop of melted icicle fell onto the blood, then another. The quartz heated, growing warm. A second drop of water ran across my hand onto the cloth. The blood in the center softened and ran into the fibers, a rich pinkish red as I continued the incantation, finishing with, "End of need deep in the night, rising need, one day of lust, then be gone."

  It was a small icicle, no larger than my pinkie, and it melted fast from the heat of my hand and the quartz, the blood diluting into a faint tint. I repeated the first verse again and waited. The quartz cooled, my hand dried, but nothing else happened. Absolutely nothing.

  I pushed the plate away and dropped the quartz into the bowl. Maybe it took all night to actually work, or maybe it would only work after twenty-four hours, as the line "one day of lust" seemed to indicate. Or maybe I'd try it again in the morning. Maybe it needed sunlight, or the moonlight was warping the conjure.

  Tired, I blew out the candles, opened the charmed circle, and cleaned up the salt. I crawled into bed and dropped off instantly. I had no dreams, steered into a deep, calm sleep by the sound of dripping, melting snow outside my windows.

  * * * * *

  Before dawn, the sky a dark gray, stars still shining and the moon still up, I was awake and standing by my front windows. It was the noise that woke me, the incessant crowing and calling of roosters. Up and down the street roosters flew, attacking one another, claiming and challenging territory—fence posts, columns, the eaves of storefronts—fighting and posing, wings spread, dancing for attention. Some were bleeding, feathers missing; one limped, a bloody path trailing after. With the roosters were chickens, gathered in small groups, or running about from rooster to rooster, mating where they stood or fighting off the amorous attention of multiple suitors, making a horrid racket. Angry, noisy, horny chickens.

  Other sounds of crowing and frenzied clucking came from the alleys and side streets and from the wooded areas of the surrounding hills. They echoed in the predawn air. Hundreds of chickens, all in heat.

  I remembered the words of the incantation. Heat and lust and desire too warm. Crown and down and cock o 'erfill. Resh and thigh and breast and wing. End the draw of empty nest. An incantation to bring chickens into heat for twenty-four hours. Oops.

  Like most of the rest of
the town, I dressed and went into the streets, unable to tear my eyes from the spectacle. Half dressed, half asleep, poultry owners were running up and down the streets corralling hens that had escaped from their coops. Ignoring the skirmishing roosters and their wildly slashing claws, the humans were sliding in the slush, falling into puddles, scraping elbows and knees, getting clawed by lady hens intent on other matters. Still more chickens were back in the coops, some trapped in the fencing, some mating with roosters that managed to find a way inside, some dead from trying to get free to join the roosters, impaled on sharp chicken wire.

  When I screw up, I screw up big.

  I needed to do something to help alleviate the mess I had caused and couldn't admit to or apologize for, and so I helped Esmeralda Boyles track down her guineas, gray fowl I would never have placed in the chicken category.

  When I saw her, Miz Essie had two large pillowcases in one hand, one empty, the other wriggling with desperate pullets. She was bent over chasing chickens when I joined her, her dress bunched at her waist exposing sturdy calves. I emulated her technique of squatting close to the ground and running up to a guinea, grabbing it so the wings were clamped to its body, head and neck in one hand, then dropping it into a pillowcase.

  "Thanks, sweetie-pie," she shouted at me over the raucous clamor as I caught my first pullet. "I'm the only one what raises guineas, so any you see are mine." She pointed at a bird perching atop a fence post down the street. "See him? He's my rooster. We'll get him last. And then he's for the stewpot. Horny old bird. Never gave me a speck o' trouble till now. I'll fix up a pot of soup and bring it around for your trouble."

  My heart clenched. "I'm a vegetarian, Miz Essie," I said weakly, dropping a second struggling bird into the pillowcase. I didn't want a rooster to lose its life because of me and my ineptness and stupidity. Why hadn't I studied the book better? Or called Lolo about the incantation? Idiot not to have learned.

  "So I'll make you a pillow out of its down. Either way, that shameless rooster is for the pot. Open the bag; I got another one."

  I took the pillowcase from her and opened it just enough to allow her to drop in a hen without letting the others free. It screamed and the others fought to get out; one distraught bird made eye contact with me, as if she knew I was responsible for her plight, and clawed across my wrist. "Why not wait a day?" I pleaded as blood welled and I secured the birds. "It might regain its head by tomorrow and come home all humiliated and ready to repent." Can birds repent? Feathers and fire. Could I sound any more stupid?

  But Miz Essie grunted as if she might reconsider the death sentence if the rooster came home. She concentrated on the task at hand and pointed down Crystal Street. "I see one o' mine down there. You got better legs than me, sweetie-pie. You get her. You married?"

  "No, Miz Essie," I said. "Not anymore."

  "I got me a son by my first marriage what's prettier than a spring bouquet. I'll send him by you next time he's in town. Now, go get my hen. Hurry afore she gets with that rooster."

  Another man in my life. Just what I needed. But I didn't say it. Crystal Street was downhill, running with snowmelt, a slippery, flooded mess. Near the old Crystal Place, a four-story stone building leftover from Pre-Ap times, a gray hen was dancing around beside an old rusted Canary. On its roof was a pair of brightly feathered birds, mating in the predawn light. The guinea wasn't happy about having to wait her turn for cross-species rooftop procreation, but her concentration would make catching her easier.

  I slid down the street and grabbed her. As I stuffed her in the pillowcase, I saw another hen down the side alley. She was making a nest atop a storage drum, and she seemed quite pleased with herself. Farther up the alley was a rooster who looked a mite worn out. He was being courted by a lady hen but wasn't returning her overtures. He was sitting, head tucked under a wing, body language claiming he wasn't up to the task. How many times in a half hour could a rooster mate before killing himself? What had I done?

  For two hours, as my shoes soaked through with water, as the sun rose and the day warmed, I scoured town streets and alleys, and once into the edge of the woods, for guinea fowl. The search did little to assuage my guilty conscience, but it was all I had.

  Most of the chickens were caught by eight. The ones that were the least wily were home in repaired coops by breakfast time. The clever ones were still loose at noon, copulating in back alleys or roosting in the low branches of trees in the woods. The roosters that had followed their mates back home were spared the shotguns the mayor ordered out after an angry rooster clawed a toddler who was trying to help recapture his pet. But the mating frenzy of the town's fowl was only a minor matter. Even the death of the licentious roosters was a minor matter. Because while I was at the edge of the woods, I spotted tracks that were distinctly nonhuman, and I scented fresh sulfur and brimstone.

  I'd been putting off doing a thorough search of the woods behind the shop and along the base of the Trine. Hundreds of tracks. I couldn't put it off any longer.

  Chapter 14

  My own lust was again smothered, banked beneath coals of chicken hunting. Watching what would happen to me if I let mage-heat free had been an effective deterrent. Flapping my arms, chasing after Thaddeus, and begging to be mounted was not my idea of a fun memory to carry around after the heat wore off.

  At eight ten, while the townsfolk were leaving for work or the continued early-melt celebration on the far side of the Toe, I changed clothes. I hadn't worn my black battle uniform in years, not bothering to practice as I should, hours a day, dressed for war. There was no one to demand long, exhausting sessions. No one to care how I dressed when practicing savage-chi alone. I never troubled to wear either the loose practice dobok or the tighter battle dobok, never strapped all the blades in place. But the uniform had been created for warfare against demons, the padding on the tight arms and legs repelling the scrape of spawn claws, rings for securing blades on arms and shins and along the spine from neck to shoulders. There were rings for saltwater bombs, Dead Sea water, seraph feathers, an ax, nunchucks—even places for holstered guns, not that I had any weapons but blades.

  The battle dobok still fit, though I hadn't worn it in more than ten years. In the mirror over the vanity table, I watched myself dress in the uniform, making certain all the seams were straight, inserting the throwing blades into the straps properly, so they slid free easily. I had a moment of uncertainty about which wrist blade went on which arm, and which were the right and left shin blades, but I finally got them all in place. A blade was strapped into the collar of the dobok, the hilt hidden in my braided hair. The pommel, within easy reach, was protection from being beheaded or chewed on from the rear.

  My amulets were fully charged, and I stood over the damaged prime amulet, for the first time regretting the harm I had done it in a fit of temper. At one time it was my best protection, the amulet powerful enough to keep my neomage attributes blanked without continuous effort. Now it was barely alive, only a weak energy pulsing in its heart. I had tried once to charge it anyway, and the power slid right through it into another amulet.

  I pulled on layered socks and battle boots, lacing them tightly before securing them with the Velcro straps. I was ready. Gabriel's tears, this was stupid. But I was going anyway. I bent one last time over the Book of Workings, from which I had refined two incantations, committing them to memory rather than taking the extra time to load them into a stone. I studied the notations I had made, then closed and shelved the book.

  I drank a liter of springwater, hooked a second liter to my belt, and pocketed a handful of stones that had been charged with extra strength from the amethyst. Satisfied, I took up the walking stick and opened the stained-glass window at the back of the loft, the huge window that once was used to swing in hay bales and feed. It faced the woods north of town and the Trine. I grabbed the plumbing drainage pipe and shimmied down to the old alleyway. I checked the time. I had less than two hours to see what was in the woods and still get to work
before opening. At a slow jog, I passed the stables and trotted into the trees.

  As soon as I left behind areas where humans ventured, I paused, leaned against a tree trunk for balance, and opened my mage-sight. Holding it open, I blended a small—minuscule—skim. The impressions were a barrage, but this time I was prepared, and they didn't overpower me. The nausea I experienced the first time I tried a scan was now more like a case of indigestion than like the need-to-hurl nausea in the church.

  The hillside north of town was a glowing fairyland of colors and scents. The snow and sunlight were a sickly yellow. The trees were dark with melt. The rocks that rose from the snow were bright blues, pinks and gold, bright with creation energy. The air smelled warm, almost like spring, with the scents of sap and leaves. The musk of a predator cat was carried on the light wind. The scent of sulfur overlaid it all like smoke low on the ground. I wasn't surprised that the sulfur seemed strongest near my spring. Something was hunting me.

  Old brick and stone stabbed up from the earth to mark the ruins of Pre-Ap homes. Rectangular depressions of basements half filled with detritus and soil, made a mad dash almost as dangerous as standing still. Abandoning human speed, I shut down all but the mind-skim, rushing twenty feet uphill, sweeping my sight over the landscape. I was alone, but others had been here. The stones at my spring were fully exposed, the snowmelt well advanced. Around it, the forest was dripping, running with water that trickled like tiny bells, but the ground wasn't completely bare except for where I stood. There were hundreds of footprints, the reek of ammonia, the stronger scent of sulfur, and the harsh smell of brimstone, fear, and sweat that clung to the denizens of the deeps. The reek of the netherworld, remembered from nightmares. Cramming the ancient fears deep inside, I searched for the things that were hunting me.