Seraphs

by Faith Hunter

  “Watcher?”

  His cries stopped, breath ragged.

  “Watcher?” It was the bell-like voice he had heard before while in pain.

  He laughed, the sound ugly, defeated; raw with the torture he had endured. “What? What do you want now? I did what you suggested. I fought. I killed them with my fists.” He remembered the sound of bones breaking; the heated spatter of blood. “But they had locked the cell door behind them. I was still trapped. And more came.” He dashed tears from his face. Across his back, dried blood cracked with the motion. “They clipped my wings to the shoulder. I am ruined.”

  “You are not ruined. A mage is near. You can call her. She will come.”

  “I don’t need another mage,” he said, his tone heavy with loathing. “They took my essence today. And they gave it to a mage. She will deliver a litter of first-generation kylen to the Dark. The Most High will condemn and drain me utterly. I will have no more chance of penance until the end of time and the human judgment.”

  “There is hope,” one voice trilled in his head. “Help is at hand.”

  “A mage has freed my wheels,” another voice belled, higher-pitched, softer. “She will rescue us.”

  “The Most High will not drain you unto death, Watcher. When we are freed, we will carry your claim to Him. We will trust you, and you will trust us.”

  Slowly he sat up, severed nerves flooding exquisite agony through him. His unhealed flesh split, blood running in rivulets. “You say we. Yet I have heard only the name of Zadkiel.”

  “I stand above my mate’s prison, a place the Dark One created to trap her.”

  “Your mate? A cherub?” he whispered, startled. Except for the Watchers who had allied with the High Host, no Darkness had ever successfully trapped a winged-warrior. And he had never even considered that one of the cherubim could be imprisoned.

  “Yes. She feared for me,” he crooned. “She left the Most High in the Last Battle Glorious, the battle where I was nearly destroyed. Her prison and the snare that holds me are new constructs. New things such as I have never seen.”

  “There are no new things,” Barak said, his mind racing with possibility.

  “So we had thought. ‘No seraph, Holy or Fallen, has imagined or created any new thing,’ ” he quoted from the Book of the Light, “ ‘except for sin. Except for sin. Selah. Only the Most High can create a new thing, only God the Victorious and his humans, who breathe with his breath, may dream, devising that which they have not seen, humans with their stories, songs, and poems, humans with their machines which they imagine and build. So it has always been,’ ” he finished the quote, his tone dropping low with disquiet. “Until now.”

  He wrapped his knees with his arms to stop their trembling. “And now?”

  “Beasts, dragonets, have entwined themselves upon me. They smell of Mole Man, and the scent slows my defense. Though I still have my wings, I am unable to fly, unable to transmogrify, trapped in a substance that secures me. My mate is chained and imprisoned within my sight. All this is new. Selah,” he whispered, seraphic for, “Think of that.”

  “Humans built it? Humans working with Darkness?”

  “Humans and mages. But a mage has seen us, possibly one of the foretold ones.” His tone rang with awe. “The essence of this mage, this daughter of man, was similarly trapped, yet she escaped. She is still near. She can save us. You can summon her.”

  “How? I have no token of hers.”

  “You have access to the daywalker, the boy. She claims him. She takes his blood,” Zadkiel said.

  “The boy is mine,” Amethyst belled softly. “Mine.” Barak wasn’t sure what they meant, but if they offered freedom, he would agree to anything. “If your words are faithful and your bargain fair, call me by my true name.” It was a test and a barter. No seraph called a Fallen One by his true name, that given by the Most High at creation, the name forfeited at his abandonment of the Light. Watchers were Fallen, even those like him, who hoped for redemption, who allied with and fought beside the High Host in the ongoing war. No Watcher was sanctified. No Watcher was holy.

  “Baraqyal,” the two voices belled together. “Baraqyal.” And the seraph said, “Gird thyself, and bind on thy sandals.” It was a warning to prepare for battle.

  Audric didn’t wake me Friday morning by sneaking in for my daily beating; my eyes opened on their own. My head was resting on my arms, neck cricked into the pillow. The black-pig wall clock chimed. I’d slept two hours. Roosters sounded, their calls demanding. The charcoal sky held a silver wedge of clouds in the east. Beneath my cheek was a page of notes and a finished incantation. Groggy, I sat up and reread the paraphrased text taken from the Old Testament. It would have helped if I knew Forcas’ true name because then I could have used it in the binding, but even so, it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all.

  Stretching to ease my petrified muscles, I went to the back door and out onto the deck. The scent of coffee reached me. Audric toasted me with a cup in the dim light. He was wrapped in blankets, sitting before a secluded fire. Rupert was a bump beside him, unmoving. I held both fists out to Audric and flashed my fingers open three times. He toasted me again and nudged Rupert, who rolled over.

  I ate and pulled through the primary moves of savage-chi, stretching protesting muscles. Dressed in two sets of underleggings and tees, extra socks, and my dobok, I made sure the seams were straight, the blades easy to pull, and that the amulet necklace was secure around my waist. Then I phoned Jacey, told her what I needed, gathered up supplies and my pages, the result of my wakeful night, and went into the cold, my breath misting in small puffs.

  The sky was patchy blue through the clouds with a red frosting of sunrise on the eastern mountain tops, the temperature a cold twenty-one degrees. At the edge of the shield, I set down my supplies, all but one of the pages I had worked on in the night, and studied the being in the trap. The legendary daywalker. It looked human, sitting on a rounded boulder shaped like an egg with the pointed end buried in the dirt. One knee was bent, its arms around it. Like so many of the locals, like Rupert and Lucas, like the Cherokee, its skin had a pale olive cast in certain light, and it wore its black hair in braids. The walker wasn’t dressed for the cold, but wasn’t shivering, and it stared at me, its eyes still red, but now flecked with blue.

  I gripped the handle of the walking stick, the bloodstone hilt warming my hand. If I’d carried it last night, I would have remembered more about the walker. The prime amulet had many uses, including being a repository for memory. My memories of the daywalker were contained in it, along with the incantation of the rune of forgetting it carried.

  Holding it, I studied the walker, comparing it against the first time I saw it. Then, it had worn cornflower blue pants and shirt, its eyes like fine labradorite, a pellucid blue and green. Today it wore brown pants and a dull green shirt, both crusted with splatters of dried blood. Its eyes glowed the red of the pit, but blue flecks grew wider as the sun rose.

  Suddenly it appeared right in front of me. I stepped back fast. Fangs unhinged, it laughed, tossing the tanto in a glittering arc, catching the hilt one-handed. I steadied myself. The beast was contained in the shield incantation. It couldn’t get away until I released it. It spat at me, and this time I didn’t move, the spittle splatting and sizzling on the shield.

  Satisfied, I turned to Audric. “How was it?”

  “Lovely. Nice breeze, two owls keeping me company, Rupert snoring. Good fire. Coffee. Could have used a book, but the walker kept me occupied with constant chatter.” He had let the air out of the mattress and rolled it up, and put out the fire. He looked invigorated and steady, not like he had spent the night exposed to the ice-age weather.

  I looked far less refreshed. I had seen my dull, unglamoured skin and the circles beneath my eyes in the mirror when I brushed my teeth. “You learn anything from it?”

  “It seemed surprised that I knew its master had your blood. It has an entire litany of things it wants to do to you and with
you. Nothing new or inventive, but all entertaining. It offered to share you with me.”

  I grinned. “Stupid of it.”

  “Very. What’s your plan?”

  I indicated Zeddy and Jacey, who rounded the building, coming from the alley. They each carried shovels and Bibles. “It’s complicated.”

  “Humor me,” he said dryly.

  I told him. When he stared at me, I shrugged, found a stick, and traced a dotted outline of a ring around the outside of the shield holding the daywalker. Using a shovel borrowed from Jacey, I set the blade against the frozen ground and started digging. It wasn’t easy. I looked up to see Zeddy digging too, starting across from me. Luckily—or maybe he knew more about incantations than I gave him credit for—he was digging clockwise. Audric and Jacey were speaking in low tones, their backs to us. Just as well. Audric hadn’t had to share his opinion of my plan. His expression said it sucked Habbiel’s pearly toes.

  When a four-inch-deep, four-inch-wide, miniditch ringed the spring and stones, I stopped digging, breathless, body wet with sweat. I had left a foot-wide space, not yet dug. Zeddy, who had finished his arc before I did and looked much more refreshed than I, even after a night of burning spawn, would have dug it as well, but I waved him away. “The rest I have to do,” I said. “You should get ready to help me. Like I said when I called.”

  “Sure, Miss Thorn,” he said. Shouldering the shovel, he walked to a tree, sat down on the roots, and picked up his Bible. “Which book?”

  “Genesis 14:20. ‘And blessed be the Most High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand.’ But keep a finger in Psalms. If I have problems with him, recite those verses on the list there”—I pointed to the page I had put by my supplies—“in the order given.” The page was covered with verses in Psalms that referred to defeating enemies.

  I positioned my candles and the stones I had brought from the loft, looked again at the incantation, and shoved the paper into my dobok. I had never created such a complicated conjuring circle. I had no idea if it would work or if I could control the energies I was calling up. A walking circle was a dangerous construct, the conjure not as stable as one where the energies were called and then cut off when they reached the critical zenith. The energies in a conjuring circle were stabilized with salt. This circle was stabilized through the body of the mage herself. If not utilized, the energies would just keep rising.

  Walking beside the path of the circle, I lit candles, placing each in the lee of a rock, protected from the wind. Satisfied, I positioned a bag of goodies I might need and drew my walking stick blade. I was prepared to fight, should the new circle break down the inner shield I was trying to encompass, and free the walker. I put both feet into the trough we had dug, one in front of the other. “Okay,” I said. “Start the chant.”

  “And blessed be the Most High God,” three voices said in unison, Jacey, Rupert, and Zeddy. They had positioned themselves equidistant around the circle, each just beyond a candle. I hadn’t told them where to stand, and wondered if Audric had positioned them or if they had known it themselves. Or maybe it was just luck.

  Balancing with one foot in front of the other in the shallow trench, I set the shovel into the earth and completed the furrow, closing the ring. With a crackle I felt in my bones, power rose, ascending slowly through the soil beneath my feet. A pale blue light, darkening to indigo at the ground, it gathered within the ring and lifted, like a wide river at high tide. My breathing sped up and my heart rate increased in reaction. I started walking the ring.

  Inexorably, the building energies climbed slowly over my feet, calves, and thighs. It was uncomfortable, at the edge of pain, like salt in a wound or a buildup of static electricity, like the energies the cobra had forced onto me and which I still didn’t understand. I wanted to jump from the trough but knew I couldn’t. My friends continued their chant, voices measured and clear in the chill morning air.

  According to the Book of Workings, because I was walking along the path of the conjure and was already wearing the amulet necklace, the energies should rise, power the circle, and fall off to a trickle I could use for other things. Theoretically, I should be able to see and monitor the levels of power within the circle, using them or siphoning them off before the whole thing exploded. Theoretically, as long as I walked, it should maintain and remain stable. The energies rose over my chest, a horrid pressure that made breathing difficult. The urge to jump away was almost too strong to disregard. I gasped. The walker growled; it sounded like hunger. Not a good thing.

  The power reached my shoulders, which meant I could start using it now. The inner shield had held, so I sheathed the walking stick and passed it through a loop in my belt. From the bag of stones I took an egg-sized sphere of pink marble. Letting all glamour fall from me, I set the stone into the trough. As it touched the ground, I said, “Mutuol, O winged one. Mutuol the bright star, I call on your power.”

  Inside the shield, the walker laughed, a low rumble. I remembered the voice of the daywalker, and this wasn’t it. This laughter was the Darkness. Three feet further on, I placed another stone, repeating the phrases calling on Mutuol. When I reached my starting point and passed the first stone, I set the empty bag beside the trough and continued walking the ring, calling on the winged-warrior. The walker fell silent. The sky brightened with day. The energies rose to twenty feet in height and tightened at the top, pulling in like a drawstring bag. I could see the sky through the opening, and the shield below it. The walker watched it as well, its face twisted in revulsion.

  Still nothing happened until the top of the conjure was nearly closed, the mouth dinner plate-sized. The walker’s eyes were on me, and they were blue with only a fleck of red. I call myself Malashe-el, it had said, once. Its eyes had been blue then, too. Whip-fast, its body twisted in a serpentine spiral, the darkness remaining in it struggling against the power all around. It snarled, jaw unhinging, moving like a snake.

  A faint throb of power trembled through the tide of energies. From Mutuol? I looked up into the sky, but saw nothing, no flashing wings, no scent of all things living and edible. The energies throbbed again, a heartbeat, steady and true. The construct of the walking circle shimmered with faint blue light, touched with rose, yet the seraph himself didn’t appear.

  I considered the oddity of using seraph power without the presence of the seraph. It was possible that Mutuol had stored energy in a reservoir mages could draw upon, much like energy was stored below each Enclave. But this power was dedicated to one purpose. With each throb of light came information, syncopated surges of data about the walker, more than I could process, more than I could understand.

  The rhythm of the surges matched my heartbeat, which was odd. I looked at the daywalker in surprise, remembering the smell that had come from him once, the sweet scent of seraph. The walker saw the beginning of knowledge in my eyes. With a final snap of its body, demon-fast, it raced to the confining shield and crashed against it, eyes flashing with red fire. Fangs extended, it struck. I flinched, nearly stepping off the path before righting myself.

  Suddenly the flames in its eyes went out, leaving it looking startled, like an abused child rescued by gentle arms. With a strange, dispirited cry, it crumpled to the ground.

  The desire to comfort it throbbed through the seraph light. The yearning and the information I was receiving weren’t coming from Mutuol. Couldn’t be. And it wasn’t coming from the Darkness. Compassion wasn’t an emotion Dark ones felt. Perhaps the Mistress? Though I was uncertain where the knowledge originated, I could use it.

  Carefully, I placed a hand on the wall of the shield. It sizzled where I brushed along it, burning my palm. From the incantation I had written and memorized, I said, “I will bind you fast, but surely will not kill you. By the power of Mutuol, I seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away. Will bind up that which is Fallen, and will strengthen that which was sick.” Looking into its eyes, I spoke its true name. “Malashe-el! Malashe
-el, by the power of your true name and by the power of Mutuol, I command you! Join me! Join the battle on the side of the Light!”

  It took a breath. And, as if it had been waiting for me to say the words, it smiled. As if it wanted me to say them. Eyes gray and blue-green, it retracted its fangs, stood straight, and shook itself, the motion catlike. “I thank you,” it said. With a quick toss, it sent the tanto whirling. I almost jumped from the ring, breaking the conjure, halting myself just as the blade slid along my palm and thumped into the ground at my feet. It hadn’t cut me; I knew that. But I wanted to inspect my palm just the same.

  “My Master is gone,” it said, and touched its chest, looking down as if it could see inside. “Not even a whisper of his thoughts are with me.” It breathed deeply, as if the air tasted better, cleaner.

  I watched it, waiting, walking, sliding my palm along the shield with its sizzling energy. This had been easy. A lot easier than I had expected. Too easy? The chanting continued. I could sense Audric nearby, guarding, his apprehension like a sour smell on the morning wind. He moved into my field of vision, both blades drawn. “Who is your master?” I asked, my palm smoldering on the shield, the pain growing. “Give me its name.”

  “Forcas.” It looked up and heaved another deep breath. “The Master of the Trine. By night I am in thrall to him. By day I am sometimes free, as my Mistress desires, though that becomes more difficult as his power grows.”