Seraphs

by Faith Hunter

  Jasper was two years my senior, one of the few Cherokee to stay with the kirk rather than to withdraw his religious practices to the hills. He had dark eyes and black hair worn long and braided in a single thick plait. His hawklike eyes were black and piercing, his nose a commanding beak. At the moment, however, he looked anything but hawklike, his face creased with compassion. “I’m sorry, Thorn. I voted against this—I want you to know that.”

  “But?” Rupert said, black eyes belligerent. He elbowed his way between the elder and me, as if he would protect me with his body. And I knew he would. The thought warmed me. Maybe some in Mineral City hated and feared mages, but not my friends. I raised my head and watched the tableau, seeing through the storefront windows as two crowds gathered in the street, orthodox in one small group, progressives and reformed in another. Split fifty-fifty.

  Jasper was still speaking. “I was able to help some, but Elders Perkins and Culpepper have a lot more clout than I do. They want you charged.” He pulled a sheaf from his Bible, the pages sealed with the red wax of a kirk summons. “I want you to know I’m on your side. I always will be.” He took a deep breath, gripped his Bible across his chest, and said, “Thorn St. Croix, you are officially served.” He handed me the papers. So much for compassion, friendship, and the loyalty of old friends.

  I held the legal summons as Jasper left, icy winter air again blowing across the shop floor, like a mistral of omens. The thick paper felt cold on my chapped skin as I cracked the wax seal, unfolded the pages, and smoothed them across the display glass. Rupert, Jacey, and Audric moved into a half circle behind me to read over my shoulder.

  It was a legal writ, the paper signed by the Council of the Town Fathers—elected officials and kirk-appointed elders—who judged all things spiritual and most things legal in Mineral City. I read it twice before I understood the charges. I had been accused of practicing abominations. Meaning black magic or forbidden sexual practices. Fear raced up the back of my neck. The charge was a federal crime. If found guilty, judgment would be swift and lethal. My heart rate kicked up a notch. Fight or flight. Rupert cursed foully.

  I held up a hand to stop him. There was something peculiar about the summons. Such a charge usually meant immediate arrest—shackles, leg irons, the witch-catcher: a special mask humans had created just for mages, with iron rods that were inserted between the teeth, holding the mouth open wide to keep a mage from chanting a defensive conjure. Maybe Jasper had more clout than he claimed he did. Or maybe I had more support than I feared.

  I wasn’t being summoned to the kirk, but to a meeting in the old Central Baptist Church building—the town hall—at ten today. That was both good and bad. Good, because it meant any judgment rendered would be secular, and would have to be ratified by a unanimous vote of town fathers rather than a few kirk elders in private. And confirmation of a guilty verdict would take time, time I could use to get away. It was bad for two reasons: because the whole town would be present, and because I wasn’t being given time to prepare a legal defense. If the crowd turned to violence, a lynch mob taking the proceedings into its own hands, I’d be toast. Or I’d have to fight. Either outcome was bad.

  As likely scenarios, tactics, plans, and possibilities ran through my mind, I refolded the writ and tucked it into my tunic. My hands, which had shaken so badly only moments before, were suddenly steady, as if my emotions had entered some kind of stasis, and the part of me that had studied as a battle mage in a different life had taken over. I looped the turquoise necklace over Jacey’s neck, thinking while I tidied the rest of the display case.

  “Is Zeddy available?” I asked the quiet room. Jacey nodded, her trembling fingers on my arm; tears glittered in her eyes. I patted her icy hand. “It’s okay,” I said, not certain if I was lying. “It’ll be fine. But just in case, would you have him saddle Homer and gather supplies for a week in the mountains? If it looks like they’re going to decide against me, I’ll run. You guys need to be ready to take off too, or to defend the shop. I’ll set a few wards—”

  “Stop,” Audric interrupted. “There will be no problem with Thorn’s Gems. Concentrate on taking care of yourself.” The big man pushed me between my partners and toward the stairs. “Go, little mage. You don’t have much time to prepare. Jacey, call this number and tell the man who answers what has happened. Then call Zeddy. Have him saddle both the horses and put supplies for two on the mule, enough for ten days. What?” he asked when I looked at him, surprised. “You think they’ll stop with you? If they find you guilty, they’ll come for the rest of us. We’ve been planning for this. Now go change.” Turning his back on me, Audric continued instructing Rupert in the defense of the shop. Jacey, taking a steadying breath, picked up the telephone and dialed the number Audric had written.

  I turned and went up the stairs, my footsteps hollow on the cold, warped boards.

  He fell, rolling across the nest of feathers to the rock wall on the far side of the cell. Pain and desire lanced through him, setting fire to the bones of his clipped wings, burning in his loins. Agony raced through him, and lust, and need. He groaned. The cell door behind him closed, a ringing finality, the demon-iron scattering frost crystals with the vibration. He heard the shackles hit the ground on the hallway floor outside his cell.

  “See you in twenty-four hours, Watcher,” his captor said.

  He moaned again, turning to lie facedown on the feathers. His feathers. The delicate bones of his severed wings gave beneath his weight. In an hour the new wounds would be clotted over, leaking a bit of thin, clear, serous fluid. Another hour, and that too would be gone; his flesh would heal over, his bones would start to regenerate, the agony would diminish. Shortly after his wounds healed and the bones began to redevelop, the lust would start to fade, unrelieved, unfulfilled.

  In twenty-four hours his tormentors would return, shackle him in demon-iron, and take him back to the torture chamber. There, with human steel, they would again shear the new growth off his wings. Demon-iron would cause more pain, which they liked, but it would cauterize the damaged tissue with ice, and they wanted him bleeding. While he dripped blood and suffered, the pain weakening him, they would bring in a mage, likely one bred when he stimulated her captured mother into heat. He had been here long enough to be working on a second generation. Maybe a third.

  He laughed silently, bitterly. Because of him, the Dark had hundreds of mages born in captivity. He was an aphrodisiac to mages. They were an aphrodisiac to him. Like today, this new offering would go into mage-heat, ovulating, as the species could do only in the presence of a seraph. And once again, he would refuse to mate. Refuse something he wanted almost more than forgiveness itself. Refuse to create kylen that could be used by the Lord of Darkness. When the mage was screaming and mindless with desire, their captors would take her away to breed with the being of their choice, to impregnate her, perhaps to create a new captive with special genetic traits. Half mage, half something Dark. But not half seraph. No.

  Once they dragged her away, he would be tossed back into his cage to partially heal; twenty-four hours of recuperation until they came for him. Again. His laughter sounded half mad. When he sucked in a breath, the air reeked of his own misery and fear. Tears trickled across his flight feathers, mixing with his blood. A rich, iridescent green, the feathers threw back the dim light of the one candle they allowed him.

  How long? How long imprisoned in the wretchedness of this river of time? How many times mutilated? Tortured. Tied to the earth, without flight. That was the worst of it. Was this the humans’ concept of purgatory? The pain started to ease. His tears dried.

  Watcher. Who are you?

  “Go away,” he said aloud, his voice a cracked bell trying to ring, speaking to the voice that no one else heard. It came when his pain was still fresh, but becoming bearable, a new temptation devised by his torturers. “Get thee behind me,” he muttered. “There are no seraphs in the pit of Darkness, none but me. None.”

  Watcher. Who are you? />
  “Blood and feathers,” he cursed. “I am no one. The Most High has so decreed. But if you wish to address me, you may call me Barak.”

  You who were once called Baraqyal? the voice belled, a startled tone. It was a seraphic intonation, the sound like gongs and the soughing of the wind.

  Barak rolled swiftly to his feet. “Who are you?” he shouted.

  Zadkiel. We are trapped. Help me. Help us.

  His wild laughter roared, the sound more than mad, reverberating off the walls of his small cell. “Then we shall die together, O mighty one,” he said. “For by decree of the Most High, I cannot transmogrify. And the Dark One has clipped my wings. I cannot fly.”

  Oh, a softer voice belled. What have they done to us?

  Chapter 3

  As I climbed, the dregs of my fear began to evolve into something leaner, sharper, and a lot more angry. The orthodox wanted me to be afraid. The toadies of two senior elders wanted to see me panicked, crawling and quaking in my silly little human boots, wanted me to cry and beg, to be submissive and weak, so they could protect the town from the evil magic-worker, a sexually promiscuous, wicked, licensed witchy-woman.

  I stopped on the landing at the top of the unheated stairs, one hand on the knob. Yeah. They want me afraid. I pulled out the summons, fingering it in the dim light, tracing the broken seal. My skin tightened into tiny peaks of chill bumps. “Blow it out Gabriel’s horn,” I swore, and pushed open my door on the echo.

  Inside, I ripped off the tunic, boots, and leggings and tossed them to the floor. Standing in my underleggings and long-sleeved, low-necked, silk tee, I opened my armoires and rummaged in their backs, between the clothes and linens. In the back of the third armoire, behind the dolls that smelled of my foster father, Uncle Lem, and my early years in Mineral City, I found what I wanted and tossed bags packed for a fast getaway on the stripped bed, abruptly fighting angry tears. A sob, a wretched sound like linen tearing, caught me by surprise and I stopped, shocked, as anger and grief welled up. I hadn’t known tears were so close to the surface, and I was fiercely glad no one was here to see me cry.

  For a long moment I gave myself over to misery, one hand on the armoire door, one holding a baby doll, its body soft, its porcelain face angelic. I had named her Asia, for her tilted eyes and blue-black hair. Tucking her under my chin, I stroked her hair, soft as seraph down. Her lace dress wavered in my tears.

  When my breath came easier, I wiped my face and smoothed Asia’s dress. Holding the doll close, I breathed in her scent. If I had to run, I wouldn’t be able to take the dolls, and they were all I had left of Uncle Lem. They still carried his scent: old pipe smoke, stone dust, and after-shave. I put Asia on the shelf, straightening all the dolls, giving myself a moment of respite, a moment to grieve.

  When I was forced to leave Enclave at age fourteen, I was brought to Uncle Lem, a human man who had no idea what he was harboring. Though he had wanted a son, he opened his home to an orphan, thinking me wholly human. For years, the taciturn, gruff old rock hound had given me beautiful dolls, which I adored, and he shared with me his love of stones, taking me into the hills looking for mineral specimens. I had grown to love him, and he me, until he died unexpectedly in my eighteenth year, leaving me totally alone.

  Suddenly, I missed Uncle Lem with an ache that felt brand-new. Of the two loves, dolls and rocks, only the love of rocks had lasted. But I still kept the dolls. And now I might have to leave them all behind. Stroking Asia’s hair, I closed her up with her friends.

  More settled now that tears had come and gone, I held up the battle uniform I had worn in defense of the town, and the formal mage-clothes I hadn’t put on in over ten years. I hung both sets of garments over the armoire doors and walked around them in my sock feet, studying. Dobok or formal attire? Acid-burned and talon-scored black mage-leather, or silk and lace? Battle dress or sex in silk?

  I added items to the luggage as I considered what I might do and the impression I might make. The dobok would treble any guilt the orthodoxy felt about my fighting Darkness on the Trine only a few weeks past. It would remind them that I was a warrior, and that I could kill six of them before they even noticed. The fact that I fought for the Light wouldn’t occur to them.

  The silks would have an entirely different effect. They’d probably swallow their tongues. Not that I would be any less deadly in the formal attire. Which reaction did I want? Could I do this? I fingered the material of each outfit. Yeah. I could.

  Satisfied that I had the guts to follow through with the role, I opened the stained-glass window at the back of the loft and dropped the packed bags to the ground. At the thump, Jacey’s big, strapping stepson, Zeddy, stuck his head out the barn door and waved up at me. “Morning to you, Miss Thorn,” he called. “Hope you live through it.”

  I waved back with sour amusement, shutting the window and cutting out the cold. “Me too, kiddo,” I said to the apartment. Then I let down my hair, set my amulets aside, and laid out my weapons.

  On top of the underclothes I pulled a heavy silk mageblouse that followed the plunging neckline of the undershirt. The points of the long sleeves were navy lace; the neckline was brightly embroidered, and sown with delicate stones to signify my status as a stone mage. I smoothed the teal fabric to my waist and tightened the stays at the front, pulling them out and pushing my small breasts up against the lace and stones, tying the cords under them. The blouse was part come-hither bustier, part defensive weapon, its torso lined with thin, mage-tempered steel laths that shaped me and provided a limber, mail-like corset.

  The silk and lace would offer less protection against sleet and snow than the dobok or even street clothes did. Stone mages react badly to the touch of water that has passed through air, elements that work better for water mages, sea mages, and weather mages. A prime amulet blunts the discomfort, and the fact that I have two primes, one more than most mages, means that I seldom even think about protection from the weather. A dunking, however, is torture, and with the thin clothes, I’d feel the patter of snow or sleet. Not that I would change my plans because of minor pain.

  I settled the copper and gold bracelet of my office over the sleeve, where it couldn’t be missed. The bangle was too small to slide off over my hand, and had been equipped with a GPS locator device. It was inscribed with the words “106 Adonai.” If I cut it off, the seraphs would know. If someone severed my hand to get it, the seraphs would know. If I died, the seraphs would know.

  Presumably, if I needed seraph help, I could call them with it, but no one had bothered to tell me how, other than cutting off my hand, and Lolo, the Enclave priestess, had stopped receiving me when I tried to scry her. Maybe my constant questions had ticked her off. Or maybe she was still dealing with the fallout of a mage in hiding being found, going into battle, and being licensed after the fact by the seraphs. Couldn’t be easy, explaining me away.

  On my forearms I strapped my ceremonial weapon sheaths. I hadn’t worn them in ten years, but they gripped my arms perfectly. I’d stopped growing taller at the age of twelve. I still looked pretty much the same now, slender, short, muscled, little body fat. The sheaths were tooled leather, dyed teal and fuchsia, and I slid long-bladed throwing knives into the casings, checking to see that I could pull them unimpeded. I missed my kris, its wavy blade catching the light as I fought, but I’d broken off the blade in the body of a Minor Darkness and damaged the hilt in the following battle. I figured my life was worth its loss.

  I stepped into a Bohemian-style skirt, see-through silk gauze floating around my calves with the movement of the overhead fans. The fabric was studded with tiny rings and small copper and brass bells that chimed with each step. I shimmied mage-fast, the bells a warning or a paean of joy. It would all look perfect, if the ambient temperature of the meeting hall were warm enough to go without the underleggings and undershirt, but the outfit looked pretty good even with extra layers.

  On one thigh and the opposite calf I strapped standard weapon sheaths ov
er the leggings and slid a knife in each. A show of force was the mage way. Today, if I had a blade, I was wearing it. Setting the worn and tattered battle boots aside, I pulled out my only pair of dress mage-boots. They were constructed of tooled and dyed leather, conjured to resist burning, smoking, melting, or charring from the blood or spittle of Darkness. I tugged them over my feet and stamped hard to find that they still fit. The calf sheath peeked from the top of a boot, the decorative hilt set with rainbow fluorite in teal and ocean blue. There wasn’t time to charge the stones sewn and embedded in the formal attire, but the humans wouldn’t know that.

  I looked at myself in the armoires’ mirrors, turning and considering the effect of the clothes. I touched the prime amulet on the bed and let my mage-attributes shine out in full force, the scars earned in defense of the town blazing white through the soft, roseate sheen of my flesh. My cheek scars looked weird, white light shining in a crosshatch pattern that matched the mesh of the cage that had frozen to my face. Eventually it might heal. The scars still looked dangerous and would serve as reminder that the Administration of the ArchSeraph had kept me prisoner for a while. Only a while.

  As I dressed, my heartbeat settled into a steady, fast rhythm. Grief firmly put away, battle-lust thrummed in my bloodstream, speeding my breathing. A flush lit my cheeks. Where my battle glove had torn, the blood of devil-spawn had left acid burns on my knuckles. The scars of my other hand glowed like a torch. A reminder. A show of force. Oh, yeah.