by Faith Hunter
The golden and ruby aura coalesced and formed a vaguely human shape, female. She looked at me. Lolo…. She smiled at me and tears filled my eyes. “No,” I said. “Please.” She extended a ruby hand and placed it on the sigil.
Barak’s body burst into flame. I sprang back, slipping in the Watcher’s blood, wrenching my leg. I went down, right into the aqua cloud, which had grown while my attention was diverted. Outside, the snake of wheel-mist raised its head, hood flaring, fangs white and glistening. The fire cremating Barak’s body rose up, blistering hot, absorbing Lolo’s shape into itself. Smokeless flames so bright they roasted my skin.
I pulled my cloak over my face for protection and tried to stand. Aqua smog swirled up my thighs to my waist, filling the dome of the shield in a shallow pool. My feet wouldn’t move. Through a crack in the protective leather, I saw the purple serpent slither high just beyond the dome, a huge amethyst snake with deep-as-night eyes, all filled with alarm. Its tongue tasted the air and it reared back, its hood flaring wide, fangs unhinging, white as the sun.
The cloud trapped in the dome with me undulated, shadowy aqua where Barak burned, diaphanous around me. It rose as I struggled to stand. Where the black-light motes touched me, they brightened, like small explosions. I went numb below the waist as the mist covered my chest. Seraph stones. It’s trying to possess me! My heart slammed in my chest. I tried to reach for the amulet to deactivate the shield. My arms were heavy, fingers clumsy.
I glimpsed the snake as it reared back, preparing to strike. Which would make the shield and me go blooey. No matter what happened, I was so toast. The mist covered my head.
I went cold. And I fell into the cloud of Darkness.
Chapter 18
I woke staring into the cloud-cast night sky, my face scorched. I lifted a hand to see the tanto, the blade bright with power. I forced open my fingers, which were frozen into a tight grip around the hilt, and laid the shortsword on my chest. I pulled off a glove and touched my face. My eyebrows were burned off. Again. But I was alive, and alone inside my own body. Which surprised me. I rolled to my side and looked around me.
The shield was gone, and with it the serpent and the aqua cloud. Dragon? An aqua Darkness? I wasn’t sure what it had been. I sat up, pulling the battle glove back on to protect my hand from the icy cold. In mage-sight I could see that the battle was still taking place, the human combatants in tight groups surrounded by spawn. The numbers didn’t favor the humans.
Eli, wearing night-vision goggles, backed toward me, facing the street so he could see both east and west. I could see his mouth move and knew he was speaking.
My ears were ringing with the effect of the explosion and my hands and feet felt tingly. Maybe the result of being tossed on my backside and banging my head multiple times already today. I jerked on Eli’s pants leg and he looked down at me. I touched my ear and shook my head. His mouth moved again and I was pretty sure he said, “Only you, woman.” He was still talking as he walked around me, guns drawn, guarding me until I could get myself together.
Certain that I wasn’t in imminent peril, I crawled to my knees and took stock of my surroundings. The flight feather was gone. Near me was a charred spot, the ice melted away, the asphalt beneath blistered and scorched. Centered in the spot was a pile of ash and blackened bones. Angel bones. The truth behind the curse words.
At the heart of the pile was a curved thing like a talon. I brushed away angel ashes to reveal the amulet spur. The wounded place on my side gave a twinge of pain. Though the amulet no longer looked as it had, I knew it was the spur of my binding. It had been remade.
I lifted the spur and angled it to the light of a nearby window. In human sight it had once looked like horn, but now it was darker, almost black, its surface like the crackled finish of very old furniture. In mage-sight, it had once glowed with unhealthy pallor, but now it sparkled with black-light motes of power. My fingers, still feeling thick and numb, tingled where I touched it.
I knew better than to keep it. It would only fall into the hands of Darkness once again. But I had no idea how to destroy it. The spur had survived being smashed to smithereens by Audric. Had survived the near-death flames of a seraph-being as it was drained. Had survived the explosion that resulted from the convergence of the power of a cherub’s wheels, the energy of a shield that was driven and supported by a seraph’s sigil, and the mist of a—a Darkness?
An aqua Darkness. Yeah. Which bothered me. I poked the bones. Near death. Sure looks like dead to me. The spur sparkled brighter for a moment before dulling down again. Proximity to the bones? I didn’t know. Why was there always so much I didn’t freaking know?
I sniffed the air. While in the dome, I hadn’t smelled the scent of spawn, of brimstone and sulfur and acid that burned my nasal passages. I had smelled the spring flowers of Barak’s scent, overlaid with…something. Something clean-smelling and subtle that I couldn’t place now. Mixed seraph scent, no reek of the Dark. And I was mightily confused.
I tucked the spur into my dobok, under the waistband where the cloth folded over several times to create a secure, hidden pouch. As an afterthought, I gathered up the bones and wrapped them into my cloak. It had stopped snowing and sleeting, but a cold wind was blowing, and the air scudded past, carrying the reek of spawn and burning things and the clean smell of promised snow. Lots of snow. Blizzard coming.
I stood, looking around. Where do you hide the bones of a fallen Watcher seraph who had looked for absolution? They would be a powerful talisman. Bones any mage would be tempted to conjure with, though it was strictly proscribed. Bones that would give a Dark Mage untold power. And I had a lot of them. Two femurs complete with hip plates. Parts of both humeri. His skull, which looked at me through huge blackened orbits, and grinned as if at a great joke. And there was one nevus bone, the mass of bone where wing and shoulder met to create an underarm. I gathered up the charred bits I couldn’t identify.
Not having anything better, I stepped away from Cheriour’s sigil and dumped all but one of the bones under a porch, where I’d once had a terrific make-out session with a kylen. Over them, I opened a tiny shield. If the Darkness saw them, it could eventually get them, but removing the shield might sting.
If the Dragon had been the aqua mist that had inhabited Barak, had the color been a glamour? That sounded possible. Not very likely, but possible. And—what now?
Eli tapped me on the shoulder. This time when he spoke I could hear most of it. “If you’re finished trying to blow up the entire town and yourself with it, how about you tell me what we’re doing next?”
While I thought, I slung the battle cloak back around me and checked my amulets. They hadn’t suffered much in the short fight with Barak. In fact they looked fully charged, which made me wonder what I had drawn on. The wheels? The Trine? Cheriour’s sigil?
“Thorn?”
“I’m thinking,” I said. I walked along the edges of the sigil, still glowing faintly through the snow. Eli followed. When I was across from Thorn’s Gems I looked up and into Ciana’s eyes. She was still standing as I had last seen her, hand splayed open on the glass. Her face was intent, eyes wide. She was scared. For me. I had a feeling that she knew what I was planning. Ciana nodded slowly.
I sighed. Angel bones. A curse. And a weapon of great power. Barak had sacrificed himself, had been drained unto near death to give me this. I rotated the femur, studying it. The head of the femur looked like a club. I swung the long bone for balance and heft. I stared at the street, up and down, and at the sigil. On a hunch, I unsheathed the tanto and spoke to it. “O Flame,” I said formally, addressing a member of the High Host, “can you call others of your ilk?”
“Ilk?” Eli said. “Ilk? Crap, woman. We got spawn bearing down on us. Just ask it what you want.”
The Flame on the blade hummed against my hand, a sizzling, ringing tone oddly like laughter. If bells could be rung by lightning, they might sound like this.
Two Flames appeared in the air, ho
vering over the blade, trailing twin blue plasma tails that burned my retinas. I closed my eyes and reopened them, looking far to the side. Making sure my feet were properly placed and I was perfectly balanced, I opened a mind-skim and blended the two senses. Nausea rose in a frightening wave, tasting of burned metal. I swallowed hard, forcing it back down, not looking at the otherness that beckoned just out of reach. “Once, I cared for two Flames when they were injured by Forcas,” I said. “Are you those two?”
They dipped and swirled. “I’m taking that as a yes. Your brothers, the seraphs, watch overhead. They will not assist in a battle against a Dragon. Will you? Will other Flames?”
The Flames zipped away, straight up into the cloud cover. And they vanished. A long moment went by. Then another. I dropped the skim and the sight, and nearly fell. A hand caught me, steadying me on my feet.
“I’d take that as a no,” Eli said, breathing hard, night-vision goggles hanging around his neck. At his feet lay five crispy spawn, their scorched meat stink heavy on the air. He had killed them with his flamethrower while I wasted time parlaying with members of the High Host.
Still thinking, I beheaded the spawn, finishing them off so they wouldn’t heal and rejoin the battle. Down the street, near the old Central Baptist Church/town hall, Audric and Rupert stood back-to-back, fighting a dragonet flying overhead. Further on, the Elders Waldroup were kneeling, praying aloud, quoting from Psalms. The Steins were firing into a line of spawn, chanting in Hebrew, while only feet away, other spawn broke free of the battle lines and swarmed inside one of the barricades. I heard screams and knew that what they ate was still alive. Bodies lay unmoving on the street, well chewed.
I didn’t know what to do. I was fresh out of ideas and I—From overhead came the telltale whump, whump, whump sound of a helicopter. Eli let out a screech of triumph. “The Special Forces are here!” he shouted into his mouthpiece.
The Steins raised their fists into the air. Ragged cheers went up, echoing through the town. Three EIH soldiers raced toward us, their makeshift shoes sliding on the ice. They carried torches. “Set up the LZ at the intersection of Upper and Crystal Streets,” Eli said. I looked at him blankly. “Landing zone,” he explained.
“Ah,” I said, looking up into the clouds. The Flames didn’t return. The Host wouldn’t help. Fine. So be it. The Special Forces could and would fight spawn. But when the Dragon returned, I’d be on my own. And it would be back. As soon as it got itself together.
Even as the thought formed, a purple snake slithered around the corner of the shop. In mage-sight, it was nearly twenty feet long and at least two feet in circumference at its widest point. Eli whirled with his flamethrower, but I caught the dancer’s arm. “She’s with me.”
“That thing’s a she?”
“I think so.”
Eli jerked his arm free. “It caused the explosion in the street. I saw it bite the shield.”
“Yeah. I think it—she—did it to save my life. To get rid of a cloud of Darkness that was trying to kill me.” Possess me? I’d rather be dead.
“If you say so. We’re getting our asses beat. What say we go give a hand?”
“You go,” I said. “I’m going to call the Dragon into the circle again.”
Eli ran a hand through his hair, chuckling softly. “Crap.” I wondered what he’d done with his hat. He looked up and down the street and then overhead, where a helicopter transport was dropping through the clouds. “You got a death wish, woman? Or are you just plain nuts?”
“All appearances to the contrary, no.”
Eli slung his odd-shaped weapon to his back and grabbed me around the waist with his free arm. His mouth landed on mine, lips cold and hard, his arm firm on my back. For an instant I stiffened, resisting, but I could feel him laughing into my mouth. Laughing. I felt my lips curl into a real smile against his. The tanto blazed up bright as I wrapped my arms about him and kissed him with abandon.
The cross of Mole Man, secured in my belt, blazed between us, the energies nipping my flesh through my clothes. Eli jumped back, laughing aloud, as the sizzle caught him too.
“That happened once before, in another battle,” he said, meeting my eyes, “crosses gathering power. Funny how that happens when we’re together, huh? Maybe we should talk about that sometime. Over tea and crumpets. Or better yet, beer and pretzels.”
“Consider it a date,” I said.
“Remember the saddle. Don’t spoil my plans and get yourself killed.” Eli whirled and raced to the far side of the sigil.
The snake glided to my feet and coiled itself into a snake-heap, raising its head up even with mine, its tongue tasting the air, its eyes so dark they were black in the night. “Your mistress will be royally ticked off if she figures out what you’re doing,” I warned.
“Yoursss,” the snake hissed, spreading its hood, cobralike. “Bound to you.”
“Fine. I need all the help I can get.” A bright light burned the night in front of me. Reflexively, I ducked my head and stepped to the side. Then I realized. Flames. The Flames were back. Several of them, dancing in the air, a complicated Celtic knot of motion. Tears washed my eyes, and my breath stuttered with laughter.
The snake tsked an admonishment. It whipped out its tongue and touched one of the Flames, humming. They all hummed back at it, a minor-key chorus that made me think of violins tuning up. I counted seven Flames. Eight heavenly helpers counting the snake. The Host as a whole wasn’t agreeable to helping me. But these members of the Host were. Seven Flames and a conscious, self-aware fragment of a cherub’s wheels. While six seraphs in judgment watched from overhead. Habbiel’s pearly, scabrous, stinking toes…!
Was I fomenting rebellion in the heavens? Was I about to be killed for overstepping the amorphous boundaries of an omega mage? The thoughts started an itch between my shoulder blades. I wasn’t commanding anything or anyone, only asking. Could the watching seraphs tell the difference? Was there a difference for an omega mage?
Two Flames zipped up to hover at my shoulders. My two, for real, or only my hopeful interpretation of a flight maneuver? I figured I would never know. I took a deep breath. I was about to summon a Dragon. And fight it. Alone. Locked in an inverted shield of protection so it couldn’t get out. Ducky. And dumber than dirt. Well, at least I wouldn’t die alone.
I took another calming breath. Again, I found the carved carnelian scarab and touched it, getting ready. In the other hand, I took up the cross. The gold cross with Mole Man’s blood in it. And the Dragon’s. A cold wind shot down the street, whipping my hair from its braid.
In mage-sight, the cross’s blood glowed with hostile shades, the pure blue of Mole Man’s sacrifice and the orange glow of Darkness. Not aqua. Was the aqua cloud Azazel? Was Azazel the Dragon? Was I making a big mistake? Oh, yeah. I was pretty sure I was.
I put my finger on a dried spatter of blood and said, “Come. Darkness, I command you. Dragon, I demand of you. Come.”
The tanto blazed brightly. Overhead, the clouds grew lighter. I could almost feel the seraphs descending. Drawing their swords to skewer me. And then kill the whole town.
I gathered my focus and stared at the crusted blood on the gold cross. “Come!” I shouted into the growing wind. My battle cloak blew out around me like black wings. It was so cold my teeth ached. I took a chance and shouted, “Azazel, come! Come! Leader of the battle, come.”
Nothing happened. I looked up and back into Ciana’s eyes. She was crying. My heart wrenched and I started toward her, knowing she needed my comfort.
A blinding light shattered the night. Something hard slammed me across the chest with the force of a bomb going off. Breathless, my whole body contracting, I landed on the icy street and skidded into the depression left by Barak’s passing. My battle glove—covered knuckles and the cross skittered on the asphalt. I forced a breath, the pain wrenching through my ribs and lungs. I thumbed on the conjure stored in the scarab. The inverted shield snapped into place. I caught my balance. Dre
w my weapons.
I looked up into the eyes of the most stunning seraph I had ever seen. He lifted his wings, their plumage the shades of the rising sun, peach and fuchsia and the color of ripe melons. Persimmon flight feathers, deepening to almost black at the tips, fluttered, while beneath his arm the nevus was a delicate aqua. His eyes were a deeper tint, the color of rich amazonite, but full of opaline fire. His flesh was reddish, like a Native American’s, contrasting with sea green hair, worn loose and flowing, falling over his shoulders.
Leader of the battle, I’d said. Crap. I’d called the wrong side. I’d called a seraph.
I stepped back. The tanto buzzed hard, the scars that covered my entire hand blazing so bright they pierced through the seams of the battle glove. A warning. Yeah, I got it. I was in trouble. This wasn’t the Dragon, wasn’t Azazel in his big bad ugly self, but a great seraph. A Prince of Light. Bigger and more powerful than Zadkiel. I had used my omega mage gift by accident. Seraph stones. They’d kill me. And a death at seraphic hands would be far worse than anything I could imagine.
As if it had heard my thought, the snake surged in front of me, coiling and lifting its head, hissing. Its hood was open, chest high to me, undulating, the motion mesmeric. I stepped around the snake, toward the seraph, and the snake slithered protectively in front of me.
Unlike winged warriors, the seraph wore flowing clothes instead of armor, his under-tunic white, over-robe aqua, arms bare. He wore a silver chain about his neck threaded through an oval metal sigil. He carried no sword, his beautiful hands and long delicate fingers empty.
