by Faith Hunter
Forcas laughed and grabbed me about the waist with one hand, as it had once before. No. Twice before. It held the spur before me and raised me to its face. Holding me close, it rammed the spur into my side. Pain, exquisite and elegant as a shaft of poetry, lanced through me. “Time, time, and a third time I have held you thus. Time, time, and a third time has your flesh been pierced with the conjure of binding. The full flower is now mine,” he said.
Tied to my stomach, the visa flashed with ruby light, and I knew I couldn’t let it say the line three times. The vial of my blood felt warm even through the battle glove. “The full flower is now mine,” it said a second time.
Pain froze my muscles, paralyzing me, the blood arrested in my veins. I heard myself gurgle as the conjure in the spur stopped my breath. I crushed the vial in my palm and slid the tanto’s edge in the blood-soaked glove. With a single thrust, I took the beast through the throat. His grip eased and I inhaled, chanting, “Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire.”
Forcas dropped me and I landed on Malashe-el, even as I ripped the spur amulet from my side, tucked it into my boot, and drew my sword. Smoke billowed up around me. Over my head, Forcas roared, a lion’s roar. I rolled across the tunnel, leaving splatters of blood from the wound in my side, pulling the walker into a crevice with me as I called mage in dire again. Still nothing happened. “Like being held in the grip of a Major Darkness isn’t dire enough?” I croaked to the heavens. I looked at my side, but that wound wasn’t sacrifice; it was battle. I picked a scar that looked like it might open easily.
“Inadequate,” a familiar voice belled, closer now, audible. I blinked away the smoke, turned, and saw the Mistress far below me in a cavern, her seraph trapped above her, on top of the scarlet cage that imprisoned her. Zadkiel, only feet below me, was burned to the bone, his legs wrapped in chains, dragonets attached at his waist, sucking and engorged. The seraph held neither sword nor shield, a thing I had never heard of. When in battle, the weapons were said to be part of them, as much an appendage as a leg or hand. Amethyst’s seraph face was turned to me. “To reach us you must offer much blood. Much blood.”
“So I’m the sucker after all,” I said. When it came to the High Host, other supernats always had been. Behind me, Forcas stepped closer, its footsteps vibrating the rocky ground. I dropped the daywalker and darted along a ledge above the Mistress’ cell, holding my elbow against the wound in my side. I checked the map in the hilt and saw that while there were numerous channels leading to the deepest prison, this doorway was the only way in. I had no way out. I won’t live through this anyway.
Lifting my left wrist, I sliced the sleeve of the dobok. With a deeper slash, I opened the artery at my elbow. Mage-blood gushed, drenching Zadkiel. One dragonet lifted its teeth away and spit at me, a snake hiss through bloody fangs.
I jumped toward the trap, falling to my knees in the sticky red adhesive that buried the seraph’s feet. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress,” I said. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress.” I had lost blood from the wound in my side and my throat injury, and my blood pressure dropped fast. I fell forward, my face sticking in the red snare. The trap smelled of old blood. Like Mole Man’s blood. Like Lucas. The huge clawed feet of another beast landed beside me. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress,” I murmured, my lips touching the trap made of blood. “Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire,” I whispered. “Mage in dire. Raziel. . . .”
Far below, I met the Mistress’ eyes. “Help him,” she commanded. If I’d had breath, I might have laughed. Instead I managed to turn my face.
Zadkiel was locked in mortal combat with Forcas, now a lion-headed beast bulging with muscle and radiating Darkness, its body strong, scaled, and crested with horns. Winged dragonets were wrapped around the seraph’s leg. Forcas reared back and drove its lion fangs into Zadkiel’s throat, the bloody chain on its neck clinking.
Tears of Taharial. All this for nothing. I was dying, and no help had come for my sacrifice. But then, I was soulless. What more could I expect? With my last breath, I smelled Lucas’ blood, blood that had been used in the creation of the beasts, the cell, and the chain Forcas wore. My vision telescoped into tiny holes.
The scarlet, spherical cage beneath me undulated, as if hit by a great force. A foot stepped near my head, sinking into the red adhesive. Strands leaped up and wrapped around the crimson battle boots. “I hear, little mage,” Raziel’s voice called, ringing like bronze bells. “I am here, as I promised, in life and battle and love.” His hand rested for a moment on my spine, fingers hot against my chilling skin. At his touch, strength flowed into me. My body shuddered hard. My lungs found a breath and vision expanded. I could see. His hand lifted, and I heard the crash of fighting over my body, swords clashing. Raziel screamed his battle cry. Hot, acidic blood splattered over my body, burning through my cloak and dobok. I smelled sulfur and brimstone, and chocolate and blood. Lust and battle-lust twined and rose up in me.
“Now,” the Mistress belled, “now.” Her lavender eyes caressed me, the soft purple eyes of the cobra that had come to me; that had drowned me. “Use the otherness. Use it as you used my wheels. As you did once before.”
There wasn’t time to tell her I didn’t know how. I opened mage-sight and a mind-skim, the blended scan. The world took on strange hues and scents and textures. The otherness was there as well. Hooking a metaphysical finger in it, I slid sideways, outside of my body, my world moving with a whoosh of sensation. I rose to my knees and inspected my physical remains, which still hurt on a distant level, but the pain was growing more remote. I looked at my elbow in this not-here body. It wasn’t cut, but my feet were still trapped in the red ooze. Interesting. I felt my heart beat, then nothing for a long moment. Even with Raziel’s touch, I was dying. Blood loss. The spur.
A beat. If I cut myself free of the glue, would I fall off of the sphere or restick?
I was dead anyway, I reminded myself. Which really sucked big-time. But at the same time, I was still alive. Sorta. Since I didn’t have a soul, I figured that meant I had about a minute to help Zadkiel and Raziel before my consciousness vanished, yet I had a feeling that nothing was the same in this odd reality, not even time. My otherness body still held two swords. Using the shortsword, blinking to reconcile the two divergent worldviews, I cut through the strands that held my feet, and then through the strands imprisoning Raziel. He saw me in both places and blinked once, as if startled.
Screaming his battle cry, he spun away. With a scent of ozone, lightning bolts flashed from his hands and thundered into the foul trap. The rank smell of Darkness burning and the smell of singed seraph flesh filled my nostrils. Below me, my body lay prone in the mire. Still dying. I had a moment to feel sorry for myself; I hadn’t wanted to end this way.
Swords swinging, I raced to the seraphs. Raziel fought dragonets: one with its fangs buried in his hip, its legs clawing in my seraph’s thigh and calf; another with its fangs in the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Seraph blood ran in rivers, and the dragonets absorbed each drop. Zadkiel fought Forcas, taking sword blows to his forearms, still secured by dragonets and the red trap. With three slashes, I cut through a beast on Zadkiel’s leg; clean swipes that missed seraph flesh yet cleaved the Darkness in quarters. Instantly, it repaired itself.
“Use blood,” the Mistress murmured. “The sacrifice of blood and life defeats evil.”
“I’m soulless. What good is the blood of a mage?” When she didn’t answer, I flipped the shortsword and repierced the wound that wasn’t there over my left elbow. On the surface below my feet, my heart beat. In the otherness, blood that was more than blood spurted from my arm into the air. I directed it over my blade, flipped it, and cut through the Darkness in a long arc, the crimson blade glowing with mage-life. I whirled the sword and cut again, slicing through the dragonet. Screaming, it fell away. I took the others as quickly, their bodies flopping on the red web.
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br /> Startled, Zadkiel looked at me. His face was burned, wings leathery and crusted over with scabs, leaking from the nevus, drained nearly powerless. But his eyes still glowed with holy light. Forcas embraced him, fangs in Zadkiel’s spine, its body huge, dwarfing the seraph. With my bloody blade, I stabbed the beast’s calf. Forcas reared back, pulling its fangs free. Its mane of horns fluttered in an unseen breeze. I twisted my blade from it. Blood spurted over me and through me.
I aimed my bleeding arm up between the fangs, into its white maw. On the surface of the trap, my heart beat, a thump of life and power. My lifeblood pulsed into Forcas’ pale, bloodless maw, a gush of sacrifice. Raziel screamed my name. The Darkness pulled the chain from its neck and swiped it through Zadkiel’s blood.
Zadkiel hit Forcas’ mouth closed with his elbow. I flicked the tanto into his palm, and he drove the blade up from its jaw through the top of its head. In a single liquid motion, Zadkiel bent and retrieved the sword and shield at his feet, seraph-steel swinging. Wrist sure and strong, he cleaved Forcas in two. In the place of otherness, the pieces fell, thrashing like snakes.
The sword cut through it again. Screams echoed in the cavern. The beast looped and spiraled, a writhing coil, trying to reknit. Trying to heal. One snakelike segment flipped high, red chain links catching the light as it landed on Raziel and slithered down his body.
With a flip of his wrist, Zadkiel sent its other parts spiraling away into the dark in different directions. He whirled, seeing the sphere, the Mistress chained within, and me. When I looked for the section of Forcas that wore the linked chain, it was gone.
That was bad. I knew that. But more dragonets were coming, a swarm of the snaky, insectoid beasts. Raziel was wrapped with dragonets, a dozen or more latched to his body, his flesh burned and scored, smoking. Zadkiel hacked at others.
My sight was dimming again, growing tighter, spear points of images. “Raziel,” I whispered, and held out my arm to him. “Blood of sacrifice.” For a fractured moment, his eyes met mine, filled with fear and battle-lust and a strange kind of tenderness. He extended his blade and I dribbled blood on it. With the death-blessed blade, he attacked the dragonets, killing one, then another, calling his battle cry.
I turned to the Mistress. “Dying sucks, you know that?” I thought at her. My heart beat a final thump, a soft, rubbing sound, tissue against tissue, nearly bloodless. Slowly, I fell back toward my body, seeing the otherness world in slow motion, with crystal clarity. Seeing the river of lava flowing below the otherness, scintillating with lights. In both realities, Forcas was gone. In one reality, two dragonets still attacked.
Sword hacking, Zadkiel tossed the attackers away and tore through the red adhesive bars of the cage. “Amethyst,” he crooned. A long arm scooped her up, the other slicing through the chains binding her. They dropped with a clang of cold demon-iron. “Amethyst, my cherub,” he breathed, cradling her. As she touched him, his flesh reknit, flowing across his bones with a patina of blue and lavender light. Feathers that had been burned away budded and spiraled out, the white feathers of a kylen child. The deeply scored chain marks across her body radiated gently, healing. I caught myself on my arms, balancing over my physical body. In both realities—the otherness, as well as in the human world—Forcas was still gone. Dead? Had we truly defeated him? If so, maybe my death was worth it.
“My mate,” the cherub whispered. “My flame.” Her wings unfurled, several sets of them aligned along her body, each smaller than the seraph’s. Her many eyes stared at Zadkiel. “The Dragon comes. We must away.”
The Dragon. . . . Ahh. I remembered the links of chain smeared with the blood of two seraphs. Three including Barak. Does a Watcher count? Vibrations thrummed through the crimson net like footsteps. Like a heartbeat.
Zadkiel spread his wings. They were covered with pale down, white at the root, soft violet at the tips. Though only partially healed, he was beautiful. The two together would be my last sight—only pinpoints of vision left. My elbows began to give way. “Bring her,” the Mistress said, turning several eyes to me.
“No time. She gave herself for you,” Zadkiel said. “She will be remembered.”
The red threads beneath me thrummed faster. My sight was dimming. Numbing cold spread through me and I settled into my body. I was cold. So cold. In some small part of my faltering mind, I thought, This is a bad way to die.
“Save her!” Raziel screamed, his beautiful voice raw.
“Quickly, my love. Bring her,” Amethyst agreed. “Time is enough.”
Zadkiel shouted with frustration, scooped me up in his other arm, and threw me over his shoulder. A tendril of . . . something . . . grabbed my ankle and whipped away, smeared with my dying blood. If I hadn’t been dead, I’d have laughed.
Chapter 28
I came to on the surface, surrounded by the smell of blood. I was lying on ice, cradled in my filthy, bloody cloak, shivering. On the night wind I smelled seraphs, mage-blood, decaying devil-spawn, daywalker blood, and the overriding reek of the blood of a Major Darkness. And, oh, yes, seraphs. Heat wisped through me. I stuttered a laugh and dragged air into my lungs. They made an awful sucking sound, like wet rubber being pulled apart. I was alive. I was pretty sure of it. Hurt too bad to be dead. I coughed hard, the sound like leather ripping, causing a shocking pain through my ribs.
“She laughs. I like her laughter,” Amethyst tinkled.
The moon winked over the shoulder of a seraph. Zadkiel lifted his head from my stomach. His lips had been touching me. Healing me. Mage-heat strengthened, delicate fire in my veins. He placed my amulets on my bare stomach, and the heat dimmed. “Can you control it?” he asked.
I considered his question, but before I could answer, another did, his voice like baritone bells. “Yes. I believe so.”
Zadkiel laughed, heat burning in his eyes. “I hope so, Raziel. I have no time to satisfy the cravings of a mage in heat.”
The unexpected laugh and the odd emphasis on the word time resonated in my mind for a moment before sliding away in exhaustion. Zadkiel’s face filled my vision. “Be safe, little mage. I thank you for the return of my mate, the Mistress, Holy Amethyst. Complete her healing, Raziel, and take her to her home. Wait there for us. We will come soon. The Dragon is striking. Battle has commenced as he seeks freedom.”
“Mate?” I croaked, the first thing I ask after being brought back to life. Weird.
“Not as you think of mates,” the cherub said, her voice like tiny bells in a night breeze off the Gulf, amusement in the thought. “But purposes met and satisfied, even when one of us is away from the Most High, alone in the river of time, on earth.”
I remembered the river of lava in the otherness. That river?
Zadkiel placed a warm stone on my stomach where his lips had been. “For your prayer, your incantations, your blood, and your sacrifice; for all these, I thank you. And for your willingness to gift us your life, though it was not needed in the end. I thank you.”
I didn’t think it politic to mention that he had been willing to leave me to die in the pit while some big papa Dragon came looking for supper.
“Thanks be to the wisdom and compassion of Amethyst. You are healed,” he finished. “Be blessed. Be at peace.” He swiveled his head to his mate and said, “Call your wheels.” Amethyst looked to the heavens with all her eyes and sang one perfect note of calling, a tone so beautiful nothing could resist it. I tried to rise from the ground where I lay to reach her. Pain arched through me, paralyzing. This was healed?
With Amethyst cradled against his chest, Zadkiel, the Right Hand of the ArchSeraph Michael, spread his patchily feathered, burned wings and gave a single mighty thrust. Wind like a tornado, scented with mint and pepper, swirled around me. And they were gone. I was left, cold and drained, on the frozen and cracked ice at the lip of the pit of the hellhole. Blackness closed in around me.
Pain woke me. Two balls of flame, plasma-bright, zipped from my stomach with a sizzle of energy and danced in t
he air, blinding me. I closed my eyes against the glare.
Warmth trickled into my bones from the stone on my torso. I’d been touched by two seraphs in the same night. Three if one counted Barak. Did one count a Watcher? Yet I still felt no mage-heat. A green flight feather poked my thigh. I had forgotten about the gift. At my waist, my amulets glowed, giving me strength. On my belly was a seraph stone. I’ll never be able to swear that way again, not without a chuckle.
Slowly I sat up, stiff muscles creaking. My injured arm was healed, another ugly scar marking my skin. The wound in my side was no longer bleeding, but the pain when I moved was electric, stealing my breath. The scent of battle clung to me, incubating in the warmth of my body. The stenches of smoke, old blood, and death roiled out of my clothing, nauseating me. I reeked. I found a bottle of water in my cloak pocket and finished it, before attaching the seraph stone to my necklace. I thought it might be a black agate, and it felt hot against my fingers.
Overhead, a sickle-shaped moon rested its lower point on a distant mountain. The sun was a golden glow in the east. Morning. I had survived the night, underground.
“Hours have passed as you healed,” Raziel said. “There is great battle in the heavens.”
In mage-sight I found him, a faint glow perched in the limbs of a tall spruce, green branches framing his scarlet radiance. His crimson wings were tightly furled, wrist tips high over his head. His cloak hung loose, moving in the slight breeze. He was a bright ruby hue of energy, eyes like gems. I felt his gaze all the way to my toes. “Amethyst is wounded. She is failing. You must relinquish her wheels.” He tilted his head, a half smile hovering on his lips and I could have sworn he was curious. Seraphs are never curious. Never.
