Stone Cold Lover

by Christine Warren

  Fil would not make this easy. She would show the Hierophant and all his fucked-up sidekicks that not everyone stood helpless in the face of Darkness.

  Some of them had the Light on their side.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Spar fought the need to roar his impatience with the delay. Every fiber of his being shook with the need to act, to spring into the sky and soar straight to the island Wynn had pinpointed as the sacrificial site. She’d resorted to throwing a cast-iron skillet at his head to get his attention.

  “It would be the height of macho stupidity to fly in there alone like some tragic hero,” the witch had told him. “You’d intend to save her, but there’s no way. Do you really think the Hierophant is acting alone? You know as well as I do that when it comes to working magic this big, they’ll be using an entire inner cell. That’s a minimum of seven of the most skilled black mages they have, one of whom we think is the leader of the entire Order. Plus, quite possibly, the Defiler itself. You know taking that on alone would be a suicide mission. If you want to kill yourself, fine, but at least give Fil a fighting chance.”

  Spar had laughed. “And you think that if I bring you along, sprained ankle limiting your movements, your assistance would turn the tide? Do not be ridiculous. You might be a witch, but you are not a Warden and are completely unprepared for this kind of battle. You would only serve to distract me and get us both killed.”

  “That’s ‘an amazingly powerful witch’ to you, buddy,” she snapped, her eyes narrowed, “but no, that isn’t what I think. What I think is that the only chance we have of saving Fil, let alone stopping the Hierophant, is to marshal all of our resources. Every last one of them. That means we need the other Guardian here, and the Warden-in-training. That’s our only shot at making this work.”

  “Kees and Ella are in Vancouver, all the way on the other side of the bloody continent. Shall we send the Hierophant a polite note and ask that he please postpone killing my mate until we have had time to put together a plan to attack him most effectively?”

  “Once again, Mr. Tall, Grumpy, and Sarcastic, no, I’m not saying anything of the kind. You said Ella had been studying Warden magic? Well, I have, too, when I could get my hands on it without raising suspicions. Neither of us may be full-fledged members of the Guild, but I think that if we work together, even long-distance, we can put together a portal spell and open a bridge between Vancouver and Montreal. We could have another Guardian and a magic user who has already proven herself in battle here within the hour. Don’t you think that sounds better than running off half-cocked into the face of certain failure?”

  “Do you think we have an hour?”

  “I think we have more than one. It’s barely ten thirty. If they want to do this right, they’ll time the sacrifice to the Demon’s Hour at three. That will let them raise the most concentrated burst of power.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  Her jaw clenched. “If I’m wrong, then we’re already too late.”

  Spar had relented. Reluctantly. He knew he stood a better chance in any battle with one of his brothers at his side, especially when outnumbered and facing one of the Seven, no matter how weak it might be. Still, every minute that passed with Felicity in the hands of his enemy sliced at his soul like a razor. He felt himself going mad, and handed the responsibility for the call to Wynn, along with Felicity’s cell phone. It already had Ella’s number programmed in.

  He couldn’t concentrate on the words Wynn and Ella exchanged. He merely knew that the fifteen-minute conversation lasted fifteen minutes too long. He heard the discussion of magic circles, incenses, herbs, amulets, and candles and tried to resist the urge to tear Wynn’s building apart brick by brick with his bare hands. He ground his teeth together until his fangs threatened to snap off at the roots, and his wings quivered with the need to spread and catch the currents of the crisp night air.

  He took to pacing through the small apartment, ritual room to bedroom to living room to kitchen to dining room and back again, until his circling drove Wynn as crazy as Felicity’s had driven him. Shouting his name, she dragged him back to her ritual room and pointed to a spot against the wall.

  “Sit there and for the Goddess’s sake, keep quiet. It’s showtime, and since this is a first for both me and Ella, I’m going to need to concentrate.” She frowned and rolled her shoulders as if loosening up before a workout. “Of course, feel free to cross your fingers. I figure it can’t hurt.”

  He would have crossed his eyes if she told him to; anything to move this faster and get him closer to feeling his mate safe in his arms once more.

  Seeing magic take shape was nothing new to Spar, but he noticed that Wynn’s magic had a different feel to it than he remembered from the Wardens in his past. Instead of opening a channel to the magic, like raising the floodgates of a dam, the witch seemed just to remain as she was and let the magic soak into her like a sponge. By the time she cast a circle using the inscribed pentagram on the floor as a guide, she almost glowed with a soft-green light the color of spring leaves. He’d seen the sick and bruised purplish green of the Dark magic at the dump site, and this light seemed to wash the other from his memory, leaving behind the taste of cool water and delicate herbs.

  He saw her bless and consecrate the circle with the traditional trappings of witchcraft—salt, water, fire, and air—and heard her invite the powers of the elements and the gods into her sacred space. She did so deliberately, respectfully, but quickly, and Spar knew she hurried for his sake, and for Felicity’s. Gratitude filled him, joined by excitement when she moved on to the work of the circle and began to chant the spell to open the portal.

  The words meant nothing to him. He couldn’t focus on them when he had his gaze fixed so intently on the air in the western side of the circle. He realized that the longer Wynn chanted, the more the air became visible, beginning to shimmer and glow with magical energy.

  Wynn fed more power into her voice, the volume increasing, the intensity building. She directed the palms of her hands toward the mass of waving air and began to draw them outward, as if stretching the diameter of the disturbance. The portal took on a recognizable shape, like an oval doorway, and inside the air went thick and gray and opaque, like a foggy horizon. The witch’s chant rose again, and her voice turned from a supplication into an audible command. With a final shout, she stomped her uninjured foot against the wood of the floor. The sound seemed to echo through the portal.

  An instant later Spar gave a hoarse gasp of welcome as Kees stepped out of the mist and into the circle. Immediately he edged to the side to allow a petite human female to follow him through.

  “Wow,” Ella said, wearing a grin bigger than the Cheshire cat. “That beats commercial air travel any day! We should go into business, Wynn. You know, after we finish saving the world.”

  * * *

  Fil kicked and bit and clawed like an angry badger. No way was she going to cower and sob and play the helpless damsel while some psycho fucker strapped her to a great big rock and sliced her into demon sashimi. Hell no. Felicity Shaltis had been raised to fight her own battles, and fight them she would, down to her final breath.

  Not that she’d turn down some help if it arrived, of course. She was stubborn, not stupid.

  She knew down to her pinkie toes that Spar was coming for her. She felt it. Not only was the Guardian incapable of deserting a human under his care, but the big hunk of granite cared for her; she knew he did. Even if he would have to leave her when this was all over, he would never leave her in the middle, so she knew he was on his way. If he could just hurry, though, that would be good.

  To be honest, Fil didn’t know how much fight she had left, physically, anyway. Every time she struggled, her head throbbed even harder, and she’d noticed over the last little while that keeping her balance had begun to pose unanticipated challenges. When anything jarred her head, the edges of her vision began to go gray and blurry, and she was starting to get scared that she mig
ht end up passing out and missing her own execution. Wouldn’t that be a bummer?

  She gagged when the Hierophant released her ponytail with a shove, sending her sprawling to the ground at the feet of another nocturnis. At least this time, she was able to catch herself with her hands, so when she predictably retched once again, she didn’t land face-first in the ick. Of course, the only thing left in her stomach at this point was bile, so it wasn’t that big a mess. Was that the kind of small mercy she should start being thankful for?

  “Resecure her,” the leader ordered, his lips curving in a smile of anticipation. “And bring forward the reporter.”

  Once again, Fil found herself being roughly tied in more of the scratchy hemp rope. This time, her hands were secured in front of her, but the coils bit more tightly into her raw and bleeding flesh, and the cultist tied her ankles as well. She supposed they figured since she was right under their noses, they would be able to see if she wormed her way free again. The sad part was, they were probably right.

  Watching helplessly, she saw one of the nocturnis guide Ricky toward the altar stone with no more than a hand on his shoulder. Her old friend didn’t even protest as he was ordered to stretch out on his back and ropes were draped across him, binding his shoulders, arms, waist, hips, knees, and ankles to the cold stone.

  “Wonderfully obedient, isn’t he?”

  Fil nearly jumped out of her skin as the Hierophant’s words came to her from just inches away. She’d been deposited in a heap at the base of a withered pine tree, and the man crouched beside her, his gaze fixed on the preparations at the altar.

  “Of course, he has no idea what he’s doing, just as he had no idea when I had him call and ask to meet you at your apartment,” he continued, sounding casually pleased with himself. “It’s amazing how easily controlled some minds are. It barely took any effort to strip away his reason and put blind obedience in its place.”

  Fil swallowed another mouthful of bile. “Is that how you found me? You used Ricky to lead you to my home?”

  “Of course not.” He chuckled. “I knew exactly where you lived before I contacted Mr. Racleaux. You weren’t all that hard to find, you know. Not while you wear the Master’s brand.”

  The Hierophant reached out and used the tip of a glinting silver knife to pry open the fingers of her left hand. He scratched the blade over the lines of the mark still visible on her palm and smiled a truly nasty smile.

  “I’m sure you thought you were safe once the witch cast her little spell, didn’t you? Well, it was inconvenient not to be able to just bring you to me with the tie to the Master, but even with that severed, I could still find you. This glows like a beacon, if you know the correct way to look. It just took me a bit longer this way to realize the Hierophant’s plans.”

  Fil’s head reeled, this time with shock instead of concussion symptoms. “The Hierophant? I thought you were the Hierophant,” she choked out.

  The man beside her laughed. “Oh, dear me, no, Felicity, my love. How could I be the Hierophant? Our leader is one with the Master, a position I would not presume to take myself. He guides us from the right hand of the Defiler, much the way the pope leads his merry band of deluded fools he calls the church. No, consider me more in the way of a cardinal. An adviser to the Hierophant, but no more, I’m afraid. Yes, it’s quite a fitting analogy, and I do look so very fine in red.”

  With that, he dug the knife into her palm until blood welled to the surface. Laughing, he dragged a finger through the crimson fluid then raised it to his face and painted it across his cheekbones in wide stripes of carnage. Felicity curled her lips and spat right in his eye.

  The backhand caught her by surprise, toppling her to her side and turning the world briefly black. She didn’t completely lose consciousness, because she could hear the nocturnis moving about, hear the Hieroph—no, the cardinal—hear him barking orders to his fellow sociopaths. She retained the ability to hear and to smell and to touch, but she couldn’t see until the darkness lifted. She found herself on her side facing the trees, trying desperately to summon the strength to pull herself back up into a sitting position.

  And damn it, if even that felt like the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest on her knees, how the hell was she supposed to get herself out of this mess?

  For the first time, Fil felt the urge to give in to fear, not just for her own sake, but for Ricky’s. Even if the man was still under some kind of spell, he didn’t deserve what the Order had in store for him. He didn’t deserve to suffer and die so that some group of sick fucks could pretend they’d have a place reigning in hell after the Darkness consumed the world.

  Biting back a sob, Fil stared into the woods and willed Spar to come to her.

  “It’s nearly two, sir,” she heard a man say. Barf boy, maybe? “We should begin if we hope to wake the Master and have him prepared to receive the sacrifice at the proper hour.”

  “Yes, by all means, let’s get started,” the cardinal said, his tone jovial, even excited. Clearly this was a man who enjoyed his work. “Time waits for no one, does it?” He snapped his fingers. “Wakey, wakey, Mr. Racleaux. It’s time for you to rejoin us.”

  A sense of deep dread overcame her, and Fil rolled herself over to face the altar once again. She wasn’t close enough and didn’t have the correct angle to catch a glimpse of Ricky’s face, but she could see the way he suddenly lurched against his bonds.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she heard her friend shout. “Where the hell am I? Who are you people?”

  “We’re your liberators, Mr. Racleaux,” the cardinal purred. “We’re going to liberate your soul and make a much better use of it than you’ve done so far. Shall we get started?”

  He raised his arm and Fil caught the way the blade of his knife reflected the firelight for a moment before he brought it swinging down in a violent arc. Then she heard the echo of a scream, and she couldn’t tell if it was torn from Ricky’s throat, or from hers.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Spar flapped his powerful wings as he flew high above the city of Montreal and coasted out over the river that bordered it. Wynn clung to his neck and waist, muttering something about crashing and dying and about 206 broken bones. He tried to ignore her. She felt wrong in his arms, but she had insisted on joining the coming battle, sprained ankle or no. When Ella had begun arguing on her side, he had given up and agreed to carry her to the ritual site.

  Beside him, Kees flew with a similar armful, but he seemed more than content to have his mate wrapped around him as they soared toward the small, unnamed island Wynn had identified. Ella appeared to fit against the other Guardian as if she had been made just for him, and Spar felt the stab of envy straight into his heart. He knew what it felt like to hold his mate that way, and he only hoped he would be fortunate enough to feel that again.

  “Look!” Kees shouted to gain his brother’s attention, pointing down to the glow of fire visible from the air though a break in the island’s thick tree cover. “I think we’ve found our nocturnis, brother.”

  A growl was Spar’s only reply. He began to spiral his flight path in toward the clearing, grunting when the witch in his arms leaned forward and sank her teeth in his shoulder.

  “What in the name of the Light was that for?” he demanded.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to let go of you long enough to smack you upside the head,” Wynn shot back. “You can’t just fly in there and give them a clean shot at you, for the Goddess’s sake. Haven’t you ever heard of the element of surprise? We have to sneak up on them.”

  “Let Kees and Ella sneak up on them. I think they will be sufficiently surprised when I land on their heads and crush their puny human bodies into jelly.”

  “Fine, but if one of them uses a lightning bolt to blow your head off, don’t say I didn’t warn y—Aaaaaaahhhhhh!”

  Her words trailed off into a shriek of terror as Spar inverted his body and began a tight death spiral toward the light that glowed from inside the tigh
t ring of trees.

  * * *

  At first, Fil thought she heard the sound of an eagle screaming as it swooped down on its prey. Then she thought it might be Ricky, screaming again as the cardinal inflicted yet another wound to join the dozen or more he’d already given to the helpless reporter. Almost as quickly she realized Ricky’s cries had turned into pleading sobs that begged for mercy his captors didn’t possess, and eagles didn’t normally hunt at night. Something else had to have made that noise, and it sounded like a woman.

  “Someone is coming!” barf boy shouted, looking around nervously.

  “Who?” one of the others demanded, sounding less than impressed. “The Guardian? Even if he saw through our little impersonation, so what if he comes? There are seven of us here, and once the boss finishes off the reporter, the Master will be wide awake and ready to hear our call. One Guardian against all of us?” He snorted. “I like our chances.”

  Fil didn’t, not when a bolt of blue-white light rained down from the sky, swallowing up the braggart and barf boy in a giant magical bubble. Finally, the cavalry had arrived.

  The clearing erupted in a mass of confusion, shouting, and general chaos. Into the thick of it sailed not one, but two battle-ready Guardians, each looking like a participant in an Emote the Rage contest. With his spear in hand and feathered wings spread wide, Spar looked like one of God’s avenging angels on the warpath. The figure she assumed had to be Kees appeared more like a demon, but knowing he was on her side made her take his bat-like wings, fangs, and heavy curving horns in stride. Better with her than against her, she figured.