Seraphs

by Faith Hunter

  I see him. His wings are iridescent green, softening to a paler green, like new leaves, on the underside and down. Silver hair curls around his high brow, gray eyes flecked with silver, and a narrow jaw with pointed chin. Barak. Baraqyal. The seraph.

  His nevus pulses with fear and desire. Demon-iron shackles him to the wall of a chamber set aside for torture. Laughing daywalkers cut into his wings, hacking with demon-iron blades and with human steel. Severing them.

  Gagging with reaction, with horror, I jerked back out of her mind. But not before I saw through her eyes, across a shadowed corridor. The seraph she desired was there, in a cell, only feet from me. Holding my weapons blade-down, I curled under Eli’s feet, between his legs, letting him fight over me. He held swords, and handled them the way he danced, with effortless ease. “Seraph? Barak?” I shouted.

  “Here, mage!” he belled back, filled with joy. “Here I am! She sent you to me!”

  She. The mage near him? No. Not her. Seraph stones. He meant Lolo. Suddenly, I was sure of it. I had the mage’s vision of him just now. And in a dream, in the vision of Lolo’s past, I had seen within the mind of the priestess a silver-haired seraph with green wings. Barak. Baraqyal. The name of the first seraph to take a mage as lover.

  “Thorn?” Eli called, taking the head of a spawn with a back swing, and another one’s arms with the follow-through. “What’s going on?” When I didn’t answer, he said, “I want you between my legs, but not like this. Get up!”

  My glove-covered knuckles brushed the smooth floor of the passageway. Suddenly I glimpsed a secret truth, saw it fully formed in the way of my people—a mage-truth. Barak, Baraqyal, had been the lover of Daria, the first mage to mate with a seraph, the first mage to produce a litter of kylen. I had questioned it before. Now it was all a horrifying kind of certainty—if Lolo was also Daria. “Yes,” I said. Beside me, a spawn fell, a leg half severed, its mouth working, sharp predator teeth rimed with blood. Almost mechanically, I brought the tanto down, beheading it. The blade jarred twice, on the thing’s spine, and on the stone beneath. A second one fell across the first, burned and smoking.

  If Lolo had known he was here, then had she set all this up? My birth? Thadd’s birth? Machinations and devious, conniving schemes, set in place so we could—what? Rescue her lover? Take his place? Had she allowed so many to die, just so she could free Barak? Could Lolo have done this? And worse, if she had done all that, was I being foolish to assign only one motive to the wily old woman? Either way, could I leave him here, being tortured?

  “Thorn?” Eli shouted.

  Mage-fast, I spun from between his legs to my feet. “This way!”

  Blades blurring, my flesh shining with speed and battle-lust, I ducked into a constricted cleft and out the other side. Raced along a narrow corridor. The tunnel was empty. No guards, no spawn. Holding swords low for defense, I looked into a cell.

  Behind me, I heard a cry of pain and the grinding sound that flesh makes against rock. Eli squeezed into the tunnel and raced to me. “The others are too big to make it through. They’re holding the pass. What are we—Holy moly. It’s a seraph,” he said.

  An exceptionally notorious seraph. “Meet Barak, also known as Baraqyal, the father of the kylen,” I said, hearing my bitter tone. “A Watcher. One of the Fallen Allied.”

  “Dang, woman,” Eli breathed, leaning in toward the bars. Even shorn of his wings, the seraph was utterly beautiful.

  Silver hair slid over his perfect body, a veil that glistened. He glamoured a kilt to cover himself to his knees, and the kilt shone like his hair, like kyanite stone. “You are not in heat,” Barak said. “You have engaged in battle dire, then, to reach me here.”

  “Yeah. We did.” Two Flames buzzed into the corridor, lighting it with a brilliance that blistered my vision into a white glare. They soared through the demon-iron bars and danced along Baraqyal’s body, singing a piccolo of notes, high-pitched and pure, a beautiful song. He laughed and held out his hands; they lit on his palms and he crooned to them, sounds like bells, in a language no mortal could speak.

  As if Barak had given them orders, they darted to the bars and sliced through them like plasma torches. Red-hot demon-iron fell to the corridor chiming minor tones, ugly sounds, off-key and dull, leaving the cell open. Lips parted with wonder, Baraqyal stepped into the hall and threw out his chest as if unfurling his wings, breathing the foul air as if it were clean. The movement cracked open the wounds on his back and the Flames darted to him, droning urgently. They did something to his back and he laughed. It was a beautiful sound.

  Screams and clashing steel sounded through the cleft to the outer hallway. Gunshots echoed and cordite overrode the smell of brimstone, followed by the scent of human blood and excrement. Human death. From a doorway down the hall, Durbarge crashed, trailed by Joseph, carrying Tomas. They had found another way in. The EIH operative was badly injured, an avulsion on his thigh gouting blood. The thigh muscles had been sliced away from the bone and hung forward. The Flames darted into the wound, instantly sealing torn vessels. The seraph followed their motions, his eyes wide. I could have sworn that Barak had never seen them heal.

  “The succubi nest,” Durbarge said to Barak. “Where is it?”

  “Ahh,” Barak said, turning from the healing Flames as Tomas took a weak breath. “Succubi. That is the scent that caused me—” He stopped and looked into my eyes. His were silver and guileless, and I distrusted such forthright-ness. It was too easy to see his beauty and forget that seraphs couldn’t be trusted to speak the complete truth, only the parts the Most High deemed important. Worse, the Most High no longer spoke to Watchers. Did they have to speak truth at all? “You are too late,” he said. “The eggs have hatched. The larvae were moved through the tunnels and away, south.”

  Too late? The thought shattered through my defenses. “Moved?” I asked.

  “Their scent grew stronger for hours. At its apex, there was great movement in the tunnels to the south, movement that was both Darkness and Light, human and mage. Then all the scents were gone.” He breathed deeply, testing the air. “But for the pitiful creature across the passageway and a few spawn, most are no longer here.”

  “What about Zadkiel and Amethyst?” I asked. Barak’s eyes flickered the slightest bit. If I hadn’t still been seeing with mage-sight, I would never have noted it.

  “They are far below. I am wounded, without weapons, unable to transmogrify, unable to fight Darkness.” Quick translation, “I’m not going down with you.” Big shock there.

  “I won’t ask you to go down with me. But give me a boon.” When he didn’t turn away, I said, “Give me a seraph feather.” The words were as much a surprise to me as to him. His eyes narrowed, and this time he didn’t try to control the reaction. Seraph feathers, freely given, were strong weapons in the hands of a battle-mage, powering her other gifts. I might be only a half-trained stone mage, but I knew the power of a seraph feather.

  Barak hesitated. “Though I am not among those Powers and Principalities who rebelled and fought against the High Host in the Battle of Heaven, as a fallen Watcher I have long been away from the Most High. I have been trapped here, in the lair of the beast, for decades. The gift might be weak. Or . . . polluted.” When I stared at him, silent, he bent to the feathers on the cell floor and reluctantly lifted one. The wing moved with a lifelike shudder as he plucked and said, “Stone and fire, water and air, defense and flight prevail. Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and shelter prevail.”

  A sudden spike of instruction came from my amulet necklace, from the visa, and I bowed deeply, saying, “Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail. Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail.” The compulsion from the visa ceased. What the heck did I just do? I accepted the feather and bowed again over the gift.

  Almost three feet long, it was a primary flight feather, lighter than air, and power trembled through it. A current of air lifted it. Barak could have chosen a small, ins
ignificant feather. Instead he had given me his best. It was a lustrous, deep green that threw back the plasma light of the Flames in burgundy and silver and ocean blue. I was ashamed of my earlier distrust, and touched the feather to my forehead once before sliding it through my dobok belt. I met his beautiful eyes and said simply, “Thank you.”

  A surprised look crossed his face. “Much welcome, neomage. Fight true.”

  I walked to a clear place and dug in the bag over my shoulder, pulling out a stone jar of clean salt, never used. The supply was limited, and so the circle I made was small, barely large enough to hold me, sitting yogi-style. Prepared to draw on the stone beneath me for power, I placed an amulet in front of me, outside the circle, settled myself, and closed the salt ring, shivering with the energy that quivered up my spine.

  I looked at Eli and Durbarge. “Don’t kill the daywalker.” At Durbarge’s fierce glance, I added, “I, uh, I sorta bound one of those to me too.” He reached for his sigil, before his fingers grudgingly clenched. I figured he wanted to arrest me, but thought he had better wait for a more propitious occasion. Like, if we survived the night in a hellhole.

  Taking a calming breath, I opened the stone jar holding the scrap of cloth saturated with the walker’s dried blood. I began to chant, “Malashe-el. Malashe-el. Attend to me. Malashe-el, attend and obey.” Long minutes passed. Demon-fast, the walker appeared before me. The rune of forgetting blazed on its chest and it carried a sword of demon-iron. It swept the blade back with a swish of sound; I held up the cloth. “Hold,” I said, praying the word would stay the blade. I hadn’t opened a shield of protection. Demon-iron held power of its own and would surely disrupt the energies I had drawn around me.

  The blade stopped at the apex of its arc, quivering slightly. “Drop the blade,” I said. The walker’s arms trembled with resistance until I repeated the command. Its fingers slowly opened. The sword dropped to the floor with a clang.

  This was not a boy. Now it looked like a man, fully grown, in its late twenties, perhaps. Deep black hair was still long and braided, but a stubble of beard marked its chin. It wore black, a short-waisted jacket of silk velvet over a black charmeuse shirt with lace cuffs and nubby silk pants. Its eyes were red and labradorite in equal measure.

  Untouched by sunlight, tainted by the dark energies in the place, my mage-sight saw it as it really was. A mesh of power the reddish-black shade of old blood passed through its body, as though the webbing of a spider wrapped it. The mesh twisted along the walker’s legs, into its intestines, through its loins. The other threads were interlocking rings of blue Light, a conjure that swathed it, plunging into its body, entwining its heart and lungs.

  I understood immediately that any exorcism I had done on the surface was useless here, close to the power sink of the resident evil. But I wasn’t powerless. I could try to bolster the power of Light that held it. From my place on the floor I looked into its face and said, “By the power of your Mistress, see the Light.” I had clearly said the correct words because the red in its eyes vanished like a mist dissipating over a sea at dawn, leaving its labradorite eyes clear and sparkling with relief, a blue-gray-green. “Bring me my blood.”

  “By the power of my Mistress,” it whispered, and tears glistened in its eyes.

  I pointed to the amulet. “Take that. When you have my blood, bring it to me.”

  Faster than my eyes could follow, the walker snatched up the small peridot nugget and was gone. That was easy, I thought. Too easy? Settling myself again, I tried to follow the amulet’s progress through the tunnels. It led deep, demon-fast, to a place I had seen before.

  I closed my eyes, envisioning the cell trapping Mistress Amethyst. I had linked the trails of the warren into a map and stored it in a stone. I gripped it now and compared the map to the walker’s position. Its path led into the foulest parts of the lair, a pall of unbreathable smoke occluding many of the tunnels. Or the smoke could be a Dark trap. In a quick mind-skim, I sniffed; it was the stench of burning spawn flesh, not conjures. Suddenly, I lost the walker’s trail. Seraph stones. All in one motion, I broke the circle and stood.

  Suddenly Malashe-el was standing right in front of me, its lovely eyes blazing with Light and filled with tears. “My Mistress says this to you. My master has your blood. He is approaching the Mistress’ prison. He goes to drain unto emptiness the Holy Ones he trapped, and he carries a chain coated with Mole Man’s blood.”

  “Crap,” Eli said, understanding. Silently, I echoed the miner’s mild obscenity.

  We were three levels down in a pit, and the primary mission was compromised. Well, defunct actually, because the larvae were gone. But I wasn’t leaving without my blood. That meant I had to battle a Major Darkness and free the Mistress and her consort while I was down here. Careful not to speak Forcas’ name, I said, “The Power of the Trine trapped a seraph and his cherub about a thousand feet deeper.”

  Durbarge touched the patch over his eye. Clearly, he remembered that one seraph had never reappeared after our last encounter on the Trine. “A cherub?” he asked. I hadn’t told him about Amethyst. I hadn’t told much of anyone. He dropped his hand and a look of wonder crossed his face. “They’re real? As the scriptures claim?”

  “Yeah. They’re real,” I said. “That ship that exploded out of the Trine and mowed down Darkness not long ago? That also just happened to vaporize the ice cap? That was the cherub’s wheels. I’m going down to battle the Darkness. And to see if I can free the seraph and the cherub.” Fear and horror clotted my throat, but battle-lust allowed me to push through it. I looked at Malashe-el. “Show me the way.” His mouth set in a thin, unhappy line.

  “Count me in,” Eli said.

  Durbarge and Joseph glanced at one another and then at me. “Us too.”

  Five was not a propitious number and six was even worse, but I didn’t say it. To the Watcher, I said, “What about you?” Before he could reply, I spun the short sword out of my spine sheath and extended it, hilt first. The hilt was heavily plated with silver set with garnets. Taking a chance, I said, “Daria, the priestess, gave this to me when I was a child. I think she sent me to free you.” He looked at the sword and his fingers clenched involuntarily. “I can’t do anything about your wings,” I said, “but you wouldn’t be weaponless.” Prompted by the visa, I said, “Your presence would be a thing of joy.”

  At my words, the Flames whirled and darted behind the Watcher. Barak hissed and fell to his knees, exposing his back. The Minor Flames blazed with abandon, racing up and down the allied seraph’s spine. From his torn flesh, nubs and ripples appeared, hillocks that quickly grew to fist-sized prominences. The humeri ripped through his flesh. Wings began to form. The Watcher screamed. Reaching up, he took the hilt of the blade from my hand. He curled his body around the sword, cradling it. He screamed again, body wrenching. Barak blazed like a small sun, driving us out of the room, covering our faces.

  “That went well,” Eli said. “Have you noticed that you live an interesting life?”

  “Pre-Ap Chinese blessing interesting? Yeah. I noticed.” I pulled my blades and thumbed the amulet with the map of the Trine, copying it to the bloodstone hilt of my longsword. Looking at Malashe-el, I said, “By your Mistress’ power, take me to your master.”

  From the cleftlike opening in the tunnel wall, a chitinous clacking and snapping sounded. A dragonet skittered into the passageway, bouncing up and down on segmented legs. Its exoskeleton was scarlet and orange stripes, its carapace humped and spiked with black barbs. Another dragonet followed. And another.

  Demon-fast, Malashe-el took off in the opposite direction. More dragonets poured through the opening. As one, they attacked. Eli blasted one batch with flames, and Joseph tossed a hand grenade. We all ducked. The explosion rocked the cavern. Dust and debris, some of it slimy, rained down on us.

  “No!” Eli shouted over the ringing in my ears. “Grenades’ll bring the roof down!”

  I offered the original amulet for the map and the
one for the moving shield to Durbarge. “You can use these?” I asked, not really hearing my voice. He hesitated only an instant before taking the stones. I thought he mouthed the words, “Go with God the Victorious,” but I wasn’t sure.

  As fast as I could, I followed Malashe-el down, into the Dark.

  Chapter 27

  Opening mage-sight to its fullest, I sighted Malashe-el’s heel as he rounded a corner and took a downward ramp. I raced after. Smoke billowed up, and the ramp turned again, deeper into the thick fumes. I could scarcely breathe. I thumbed open the map in the bloodstone hilt and followed the daywalker down, and down, spotting our route on the three-dimensional interpretation in my mind. We were descending much faster than I had thought possible.

  “Save us,” the remembered voice belled in my mind. “Save us!”

  “Yeah,” I said, my breath harsh in the contaminated air as my hearing returned. “I’m working at it.” I rounded the next hallway and stopped short.

  Forcas stood in my path, a tall being, over six feet in physical form. In mage-sight it bulked twelve feet tall, powerful in this place and beautiful as a seraph of Light. In one hand it clutched Malashe-el by the throat. The walker’s feet thrashed; its face was mottled, its tongue protruding through swollen lips. Without thought, I dropped and rolled across the cold stone floor, sheathing the longsword, drawing the blades along my calves and throwing. As they spun, I shouted, “Jehovah sabaoth!” The knives slammed into Forcas’ chest to either side of the walker. The Darkness released its hold and Malashe-el fell in a boneless heap. Its hand opened, revealing a small vial that glowed in my sight like gathered diamond dust. The walker had done it. It had my blood. Blood that can be used against me. Or blood I can sacrifice. Blood I can use as a weapon.

  I scuttled across the intervening space, directly under the feet of the Darkness, and grabbed the vial. Elation pulsed through me. Almost in slow motion Forcas withdrew my blades, tossed them, and reached for me. Its seraph face, the beautiful face that once was, rippled and changed as a glamour fell away. A cat head, puma or lion, its flesh leathery and burned, took shape in its stead, all that was left of its once holy mien. This was much more formidable than a Watcher allied with Darkness. This was a true Fallen, one of the Powers who rebelled against the Most High and was swept out of heaven in the war that was only hinted at in holy scriptures. A crimson metal chain, the color of fresh blood, was around its neck. The spur amulet was in its hand.