Tangled Webs bj-6

by Anne Bishop

  Lucivar stared at him as if half his brains had just fallen out of his ears.

  “Even someone as strong as you can get caught by webs like this,” Jaenelle said. “Have you forgotten when we got caught in the Jhinka attack a few years ago? Those weren’t the same kind of webs, but close enough.”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten,” Lucivar replied. “I’ve learned a few things since then.” He looked at Daemon. “That’s why I know you can’t go into that house—and I can.”

  “What makes you think—?” Daemon began.

  Lucivar swung his arm out, shoulder high, his hand in a tight fist.

  Daemon felt the punch of Ebon-gray power as it hit the tangled webs that surrounded the house.

  The house shook. It felt like a violent gust of wind—or a fist—had slammed into the house, trying to knock it off its foundation.

  “Hell’s fire,” Rainier said. “What was that?”

  Daemon had been able to feel the webs around the spooky house. Now he saw them. Lucivar’s power lit them up—and revealed some of the things they hid. Just for a moment. Just long enough.

  “No wonder the house didn’t look balanced on the land,” Jaenelle said. “There’s actually three attached houses here, and two of them were sight shielded.”

  Lucivar nodded. “Spells wrapped around places of transition—like a staircase or door—can be used to move people without their being aware of it. The illusion spell preys on their sense of where they are and how long they’ve been doing something simple. They think they’re going up a regular flight of stairs or going through a door, but they’re really being herded down a corridor that leads somewhere else. Surreal and Rainier are probably in the second or third house by now.”

  “I’ve never heard of illusion spells that could do this,” Daemon said, glancing at Jaenelle. “Have you?”

  “No,” she replied, sounding as puzzled and intrigued as he felt.

  Lucivar looked at both of them and shrugged. “I guess it’s not part of the Hourglass’s standard training.”

  “So where did you learn about this?” Daemon asked.

  “From Tersa.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I learned about trap spells and transition illusions from Tersa.”

  “Tersa walks in the Twisted Kingdom,” Jaenelle said. “You know that.”

  Lucivar shrugged again. “Most people think in straight lines; Tersa thinks in squiggles. Just means it takes a little longer to get an answer when you ask her a question.”

  Daemon rubbed his forehead, trying to dispel the headache that was brewing. “You talk to Tersa?”

  “I visit her a couple times a month. I’ve done that for a few years now. We sit in the kitchen and drink ale and eat nutcakes.”

  He saw Jaenelle shudder at that combination of tastes. The combination didn’t appeal to him either, but it brought up other questions. “Why don’t you have to drink milk in order to get nutcakes?”

  Lucivar grinned. “I told her ale was Eyrien milk.”

  You prick, Daemon thought, feeling resentful because he’d never thought of something like that. “You visit my mother.”

  “Yes,” Lucivar replied.

  “You never mentioned that.”

  “It’s none of your business.”

  He rocked back on his heels, not sure how to respond. It wasn’t any of his business as long as Tersa wasn’t harmed by it.

  “I don’t know what you’re fussing about,” Lucivar said. “I drop in, ask a question, and just listen while I have a glass of ale. A lot of what Tersa says has nothing to do with the question, and some of it makes no sense to me at all, but she picks up all the scattered pieces of information as she wanders the paths within her mind. It’s up to the listener to recognize what he needs and put the pieces together.”

  He could picture them in the kitchen of Tersa’s cottage, with Allista hovering nearby. And it occurred to him that it might be a relief to Tersa to have the company of someone who could recognize her gifts of knowledge and experience without asking her to think in straight lines.

  That was something he needed to consider more carefully at another time.

  “You’ve been learning the Hourglass’s Craft from Tersa?” Jaenelle asked.

  “No, I’ve been learning about the Hourglass’s Craft and how to defend against some kinds of spells,” Lucivar replied. “You can punch your way out of a trap spell, but you have to do it fast and you have to do it before you use Craft enough times for the spell to hook into you and start feeding off your own strength. Of course, part of the point of a trap spell is to drain the prey’s power, so there’s a backlash spell attached to the trap. The first time you try to punch out, you’ll get hit with a blast of power. It will hurt like a wicked bitch, even if you’re shielded. And you might have to take a second hit. After that, it’s strength against strength. The trap spell will keep trying to close up, so you just keep breaking through and moving forward until you’re out.”

  “Mother Night,” Daemon muttered as he stared at the house.

  “One of them would have tried to break through the spells,” Jaenelle said.

  Lucivar nodded. “And took a hard enough hit to discourage them from trying again. So they’re playing the game—and moving deeper into the trap. And that means whoever goes in to find them has to deal with whatever is in that house without using Craft. Which is why I can go in and neither of you can.”

  Lucivar unbuckled his everyday belt and vanished it. Then he called in the double-buckle fighting belt that Eyriens wore in battle. The hunting knife Eyrien males wore as standard dress was replaced by a hunting knife that was a little bigger, a little heavier, and a lot meaner. A palm-sized knife was slipped into a sheath between the belt buckles. Two more knives went into the sheaths in Lucivar’s boots. Then…

  “Wait wait wait,” Jaenelle said. “What is that ?”

  Daemon felt the shield that formed around Lucivar like a second skin. He knew what it was. He’d just never expected to feel it again.

  Lucivar frowned at her as he closed the leather gauntlets over his wrists and forearms. “It’s an Ebony shield.” Using Craft, he put chain mail over the light leather vest he was wearing in place of a shirt. “You may not wear Ebony Jewels anymore, Cat, but the power you put into the Rings of Honor is still there and the shields you built into those Rings still work.”

  Jaenelle stared at him. So did Daemon.

  In Kaeleer, a Ring of Honor was given to every male who served in a court’s First Circle. Worn around the cock, it was a symbol of the Queen’s control over every aspect of a male’s life. It also allowed her to monitor the emotions of her males, and the Rings were usually set to raise an alarm if anger, pain, or fear indicated the male was in trouble and needed help.

  Lucivar attached a small bag of healing supplies to the belt. “The Ebony shield is the best protective shield a man can have going into a fight. Nothing can get through it.”

  “I didn’t realize…” Jaenelle shifted from one foot to the other. “You still wear that Ring?”

  Lucivar snorted. “We all do.”

  «You do?» Daemon asked.

  Lucivar just looked at him.

  “The Rings still work?” Jaenelle asked.

  “In that the shields you put in them work and the males in the First Circle can sense if one of us needs help, yes.”

  «But you can’t read Jaenelle?» Daemon asked, guessing at the reason for his Lady’s dismay at learning the Rings hadn’t been tossed into the backs of dresser drawers. Through a quirk in the way she had made the Rings for her court, the males in her First Circle had been able to read her emotions as easily as she could read theirs.

  «Not like we used to,» Lucivar replied, sounding a little too evasive for a man who was usually blunt when answering a question.

  Daemon decided not to ask anything else about the Rings until he retrieved his own from the velvet-lined box he’d had made for it and discovered for himself
just how much connection the Rings of Honor still had to the former Queen of Ebon Askavi.

  In quick succession, Lucivar layered an Ebon-gray shield, a Red shield, and another Ebon-gray shield over the Ebony. All of them followed his body rather than being a bubble around him.

  He’s preparing for a killing field, Daemon realized. “Lucivar.”

  Then he blinked as power coated Lucivar’s hands. His brother could do enough damage just with muscle and temper. Boosted by the Ebon-gray, Lucivar could probably drive his fist through stone.

  “You see, that’s the thing,” Lucivar said as he called in his Eyrien war blade and began coating the lethally honed steel with layers of Ebon-gray power. “This game depends on the Blood using Craft once they’re inside the house, which works to the advantage of the spells woven in and around the place. Those spells can’t do a damn thing to any Craft that’s done before entering the house. So Surreal and Rainier should be safe from physical attack.” He paused. His eyes narrowed. “If they didn’t shield before they walked through that gate, I am going to beat the shit out of both of them.”

  “They thought they were going into the spooky house Marian and I made,” Jaenelle protested.

  “I don’t care what they thought,” Lucivar said. “They were entering an unknown building. If they didn’t shield, they will regret it.”

  “What about you?” Daemon asked. “What are you going to do?”

  “Based on those rules, this place was made to hobble the Blood from using Craft in order to fight whatever is in the house, so everything will be designed to push the Blood into using Craft. But it doesn’t take into account what happens to the game when you throw a trained warrior into the mix. This place was designed to hamstring your way of fighting, not mine.”

  “Wait here,” Jaenelle said. She ran back to the Coach.

  “She’s getting stronger,” Lucivar said quietly as they both watched her enter the Coach. “Moving better. You must be letting her ride you half the time. Gives her leg muscles a good workout.”

  Daemon choked back a laugh. Then the humor faded. “What are you going to do?”

  Lucivar tipped his head, as if he was conversing with someone. Then he looked at the house. “You said this place was built to kill us—you and me—so no matter what Surreal and Rainier have done to protect themselves and the people with them, not everyone has survived through the night. Anyone who was Blood probably made the transition to demon-dead and is now an enemy, and there must have been predators in the house in the first place. Surreal and Rainier are going to be moving, trying to find the way out. Whoever is alive is with them. So I’m going through the door, and I’m going to find Surreal—and I’m going to kill everything in between.”

  Daemon looked at his brother, armed for the killing field. “Are you sure you can avoid those ensnaring spells?”

  “Don’t worry, Bastard. I won’t leave you to raise the little beast,” Lucivar replied with a grin.

  “I don’t care about that,” Daemon snapped. “I care about losing my brother.”

  The grin changed to a warm smile. “You won’t lose me.”

  Jaenelle hurried back to them. She handed Lucivar a pack. “There’s water, a couple of sandwiches, some fruit and cheese. Just in case it takes you a while to find them.”

  Daemon felt his gut clench when he saw the ball of clay she held out next. The last time he’d seen one of those, Jaenelle had prepared the balls of clay for the game he had played in Hayll to buy her the three days she needed to make a full descent into the abyss while keeping Marian, Daemonar, Lucivar, and Saetan from being killed by Dorothea and Hekatah. “What is that?”

  “I asked Jaenelle to make a rough version of an air slide,” Lucivar said.

  Daemon looked at Jaenelle and raised an eyebrow in question.

  “The coven and I used to use Craft to shape air into a slide,” she said. “We’d add color so the formation would be easy to see, and we had spirals and loops and all kinds of things. This one is a straight slide that’s already primed. Once it’s triggered, people sit at the top, push off, and slide to the end.”

  “And the end will be on the other side of the fence,” Lucivar said as he used Craft to set the pack on air before he slipped the ball of clay into the pouch attached to his belt. “I’m not going to look for one of the exits; I’m going to make one. Side wall of the third house is closest to the fence. I’ll blow out the wall on the second floor and open the spell for the slide. You two will take care of whoever has survived once they’re over the fence. Is that clear?”

  Jaenelle stepped back. No embrace. No distraction. Not when a Warlord Prince was about to walk into a fight. “We’ll be waiting for you, Prince.”

  Lucivar waited until she walked back to the Coach. «If I’m not out by sundown, you destroy this place completely. Take it down, Daemon. Don’t leave one stone standing on another. Is that clear?»

  «If I have to make that choice, I will find whatever is left of you and haul your sorry ass up to the Keep because you’re going to have to explain this to our father.»

  A quick grin was Lucivar’s only answer.

  Daemon pushed the gate open. Lucivar grabbed the pack in his left hand. With his right hand, he raised the war blade in a salute.

  “Take care, Prick,” Daemon said softly.

  “My kind of fight, Bastard. I’ll get Surreal and Rainier out of that house. You find Jenkell and take care of the debt on behalf of the family. You make sure the little son of a whoring bitch pays every drop of blood that is owed.”

  As he watched Lucivar walk up the path and open the front door, he felt Jaenelle come up beside him and slip her arm through his.

  “Do you know the most annoying thing about him at times like this?” Daemon asked.

  “That he doesn’t gloat when he’s right?”

  He sighed. “Yeah. That’s it exactly.”

  NINETEEN

  Thunder rolled through the house, a messenger of fury. It shook pictures and mirrors off the walls, rattled windows, even knocked over curio tables filled with insipid porcelain figurines.

  Surreal looked at Rainier and knew that he, too, recognized the dark-Jeweled power that had come to play.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “It’s Lucivar.”

  Lucivar? Had the uneducated Eyrien finally found someone to read the invitation to him? Or—and this was an even better thought—had he come to try to rescue the Surreal bitch and her companion?

  Oh, this was excellent. Excellent! They were so unnerved by Lucivar being in the house! Maybe he would finally get some decent material to use for his book. Surreal and the limp Warlord Prince had made hardly any effort to find the exits. But the Eyrien was a warrior—and a real member of the SaDiablo family.

  He had to hurry. Yes, he did. He didn’t want to miss a moment of Lucivar trying to pit himself against the surprises in the house.

  Lucivar set the pack down next to the wall. He’d issued the challenge. Now he’d wait a few minutes to see if anyone accepted the invitation.

  Odd that he hadn’t risen to the killing edge when he entered the house. He danced a heartbeat away from it, but he didn’t have the cold purity he usually had when he stepped onto a killing field.

  Which meant this place didn’t offer a true killing field. It was a battleground, certainly, but it wasn’t the kind of field Warlord Princes were born to stand on.

  He wasn’t sensing enough danger here. There wasn’t enough threat to sustain that state of mind. At least, not for someone like him.

  Which meant just being pissed off about someone setting a trap for his family would keep his temper sharp enough. At least for now.

  He took another step into the front hallway.

  Doorway on his left, with the door halfway open. Closed door on his right. A coat-tree next to the stairs leading to the second floor. A mirror on the wall opposite the stairs.

  He took another step.

  Why have a mirror there? To fix a collar or
smooth a lock of hair after removing a coat? Or was there another reason for a mirror to reflect the side of the staircase?

  The stealthy sound came from behind him, on his left. Then there was the rush of a body coming toward him, along with the putrid psychic scent of a malevolent mind.

  He spun around, his right arm straightening as he became a pivot for the death he held in his hand. He looked the Black Widow in the eyes as his Eyrien war blade sang through muscle and humbled bone.

  The top half of her body fell in one direction, the lower half in another. Guts spilled out on the hallway floor, but not much blood. That meant the demon-dead witch hadn’t been drinking blood or yarbarah and had become too starved to be cautious.

  She screamed at him as she pushed herself across the floor, too furious to remember she could use Craft to float her body on air. Intent on reaching her prey, she followed him as he circled toward the room where she had hidden.

  His inner barriers were locked tight, and he should be safe enough from any games a lighter-Jeweled Black Widow might try to play. But a man who got careless and underestimated an enemy was a man who usually died.

  Switching his war blade to his left hand, he grabbed the Black Widow by the hair, flung her into the room, and closed the door. Then he walked across the hallway and kicked open the other door.

  Nothing sprang out at him, so he grabbed one ankle and threw the lower half of the Black Widow into the sitting room.

  It went against his training and his temper to leave an enemy at his back. Since she was already demon-dead, the Black Widow was still a potential enemy. But he would need power to burn out what was left of her power in order to finish the kill. That would feed into the spells woven around the house. So he would leave her, and deal with her again if he had to.

  Then he stopped and stared at the hallway as a thought curled around his heart.

  Three Black Widows had made the spells for this spooky house. It stood to reason that the little prick who had devised this game wouldn’t want to leave any loose ends that could connect him to this place. Lucivar had no doubt at all that he’d just met one of the Black Widows—and he had no doubt he would cross paths with the second. But the third…