FOR MOST WARRIORS, LOYALTY IS A VIRTUE. FOR MAX, IT’S A CURSE.
From the moment she was bound by magic and transformed into a deadly warrior, Max dreamed of escape. Instead, she went to war. She saved the coven she was enslaved to defend from unearthly destruction, but only at the cost of her own freedom.
Now Max has been taken captive and forced to become the champion of a demigod in a deadly game where the losers die—or worse. Alone and unarmed in a strange, magical city, Max must battle bizarre creatures with unpredictable powers. If she wins, she just might get a chance to go home to her friends, her family, and to Alexander, the Shadowblade warrior whose fate is entwined with hers.
But Horngate’s own future is far from certain. The covenstead is threatened by a Fury—a creature that, once it escapes its fragile bonds, will wreak untold destruction. Will Alexander and the other Shadowblades be able to protect Horngate without Max? Or will Max discover that she doesn’t have a home to return to?
“Darkly twisted . . . a series to remember.”
—Fresh Fiction on Crimson Wind
“Unusual and terrific.”
— #1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs on Bitter Night
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“Maximum supernatural ass kicking, maximum attitude, maximum action. Who can deliver all that and more? Max to the max, that’s who.”
—Rob Thurman, New York Times bestselling author of Deathwish and Trick of the Light
Praise for Diana Pharaoh Francis and her Horngate Witches novels featuring Max, “one of the top urban fantasy heroines.” (Bitten by Books)
CRIMSON WIND
“[A] complex heroine, darkly twisted setting, and high sexual tension make this a series to remember.”
—Fresh Fiction
“A fast paced thrill ride. . . . The novel [goes] from zero to sixty in a matter of pages. . . . Phenomenal world building, entrancing characters, and a thrilling plot make this a must read for urban fantasy and paranormal romance lovers alike!”
—Black Lagoon Reviews
“Max is back and lucky for readers, her life hasn’t gotten any less complicated. Francis’ magically enslaved heroine is a riveting mixture of guts, compassion, and furious anger as she struggles with a world coming apart at the seams. Readers should hang on tight, for this second Horngate Witches novel is filled with massive danger and gritty struggles for survival. You won’t be able to put this one down!”
—RT Book Reviews (4 ½ stars)
“An exciting thriller. . . . With an incredible ending to an action-packed tale, readers will clamor for the third book in Francis’s excellent epic saga.”
—Alernative-worlds.com
“Once again, Max proves to be one of the top urban fantasy heroines. She’s tough, actually cares about people, and is big enough to admit when she’s made a mistake. I loved watching her grow in Crimson Wind, both as a leader and a woman.”
—Bitten by Books
“Reading a Horngate Witches book is a bit like watching a big summer movie. Action! Explosions! Impossibly tough characters doing awesome things! It’s a heck of a ride.”
—FantasyLiterature.com
BITTER NIGHT
“This lush urban fantasy populated with witches, angels, Sunspears, and Shadowblades contains all the decadent delight of dark chocolate. One taste, and you’ll devour this book.”
—Ann Aguirre, national bestselling author of Blue Diablo
“High-energy, gritty . . . the tough, feel-good supernatural fights . . . will keep action fans coming back for book after book.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Ms. Francis sends urban fantasy on its head in this fast-paced, dynamic story. Loved it, could not put it down. Unusual and terrific.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Briggs
“Strongly crafted world-building, with exciting nonstop action and main and supporting characters that are vivid and varied.”
—Sci Fi Guy
“A dark, unique, and electrifying world in the urban fantasy genre. . . . Max is a Shadowblade warrior to die for.”
—Faith Hunter, author of Skinwalker
“Max is a volcano of seething anger and hatred. . . . Readers are sucked into this chilling world. Awesome!”
—RT Book Reviews
“A great start to a new series . . . blasts out of the gate and never stops running. Max is . . . bitter, proud, and lethal all rolled up into one stunning heroine.”
—Fresh Fiction
All of the Horngate Witches novels are also available as eBooks
Also by Diana Pharaoh Francis from Pocket Books
Bitter Night
Crimson Wind
Pocket Books
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Diana Pharaoh Francis
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Pocket Books paperback edition January 2012
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Cover illustration by Shane Rebenschied
ISBN 978-1-4516-1385-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-1387-2 (ebook)
For Tony, Syd, and Q-ball, who make everything possible.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 01
Chapter 02
Chapter 03
Chapter 04
Chapter 05
Chapter 06
Chapter 07
Chapter 08
Chapter 09
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Acknowledgments
THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING, JEN HEDDLE. I WILL MISS you. You’ve made my work so much better. Thanks also to Lucienne Diver, Christy Keyes, Melissa Sawmiller, Wendy Keebler, and Julia Fincher. Thanks also to all the people at Pocket who have worked behind the scenes to turn this into a book. There are no doubt others I should be thanking who helped me in the course of this book, and though I may have neglected to mention you here, know that you are very much appreciated.
My family has always been amazingly supportive and I could not do this without them. Thanks also to my friends online who keep me encouraged and cheer me on. You are the best.
; Finally, thanks to my readers. You make everything worthwhile.
ALEXANDER CROUCHED ON THE RIDGELINE. HIS head swiveled as he sniffed the crisp, still air. Uncanny and Divine magic washed across his tongue: bitter and sweet, caustic and cloying. His eyes narrowed as he tried to sort the scents of what belonged from what did not.
It was impossible. There was simply too much magic in the air. But at least one thing was clearly out of place. On a small flattish spot on the slope below him was a fairy circle made of deep-pocketed morel mushrooms. It was about seven feet in diameter, and the edges of the ring were thick and deep. There had to be at least a few hundred mushrooms. But that was not what caught Alexander’s attention.
Inside the circle was a pile of skinned bodies. Alexander could see two wolves, five rabbits, three raccoons, a pair of ducks, three deer, and a small bear.
He reached for a rock. He found one the size of a hubcap and weighing a good fifty pounds. He tossed it one-handed. It thumped down heavily inside the circle. The ground heaved and funneled downward. The bodies and the rock plunged into the sudden maw. A second later, the grass rippled back into place. Alexander pursed his lips in a silent whistle. Something down there was hungry.
He frowned. A flicker of motion caught his attention, and he tilted a glance upward. An angel glided across the night sky, silent and deadly. Alexander’s teeth bared as he watched Tutresiel circle. Suddenly, the angel’s silver wings folded with a metallic hiss, and he dropped to the ground only a few feet from the fairy ring.
He landed in a crouch before straightening with tiger-like grace. He stared at Alexander with scarlet eyes. His face was pale marble, his body hard with muscle. His black hair hung to his shoulders in sharp contrast with his white skin. He wore black jeans, heavy biker boots, and a scarred leather vest laced loosely around the roots of his wings.
Alexander’s nostrils flared, and his body went taut. He rose to his feet but held himself tightly leashed, despite the nearly uncontrollable urge to pummel Tutresiel’s face into a pulp. Not that he could. But something about the angel triggered a primitive reaction in Alexander that had nothing to do with logic and reason and everything to do with animal instinct.
“What do you want?”
“Niko sent me to find you.”
Alexander’s lips flattened. “What for?” But he knew what for. Niko wanted him to become the Prime of Horngate’s Shadowblades. He’d been after him about it since Scooter had taken Max. It was the last thing Max herself had asked for before she had been taken.
Fury, frustration, and unspeakable pain churned molten in his gut. It had been weeks, and there’d been no word, no sign. The beast inside him howled with loss, and he doubled over, bracing his hands on his knees as he fought to breathe. She will return, he told himself. If she does not, I will go find her.
He straightened, meeting Tutresiel’s gaze, expecting mockery. But the angel only offered a short nod of understanding. Except he could not possibly understand. He was cold-blooded as hell and cared nothing for anyone. As his next words proved.
“When are you going to pull up your big girl panties and get over it?” he asked, folding his arms and cocking his head to the side. “If Max could see you now, she’d be puking up her guts with disgust. She needs a man, not a weakling child.”
Alexander’s anger hardened. His Prime bristled, and he went iron-cold as the beast took over. “What would you know about Max?” he asked softly as reason fled. He was going to kill the angel. Somehow. “You tried to destroy Horngate. The only reason you joined the covenstead was to get out of the Guardians’ shackles. You are a coward.”
A smile flickered over Tutresiel’s lips and was gone. “Am I? Some would call me smart. Or lucky, even. You, on the other hand, they’d call stupid and suicidal, if you decide to attack me like you want to.” His wings flared, each feather a shining blade, sharp and deadly. “I would flay you into hamburger before you put a hand on me. But maybe that’s what you want. Better to lie down and die than act like a man, like the warrior you’re supposed to be.” His lip curled in a sneer.
Alexander did not move. Tutresiel’s taunts were meant to drive him into a frenzy so that he would attack stupidly. He was not going to succumb to the tactic. “And what would you have me do, oh great and wise angel?” he asked derisively.
“Do the job that Max wanted. Keep the covenstead safe until she comes back,” was Tutresiel’s cutting reply.
“I am keeping it safe. I do not have to take on Prime to do so,” Alexander said.
Max was Horngate’s Shadowblade Prime, or leader. Shadowblades were nighttime warriors created by witches. They had super strength, super healing, and many other varied abilities, according to the whims of the witch who created them. If they went into the sunlight, they’d burn up. Their daytime counterparts, the Sunspears, were poisoned by the night. Max was a good Prime. Better than good. The best Alexander had ever seen. But weeks ago, she’d been taken.
No, taken sounded like she had been kidnapped or like she had fought. The truth was, she had been bartered and had gone willingly, Alexander thought bitterly. Giselle, Horngate’s territory witch, had bargained with the powerful creature Max irreverently called Scooter. An otherwise nameless being, he claimed to be the child of Onniont, the horned serpent, and Nihansan, Spider Woman, both of whom were legendary creatures, possibly gods. He had more magic in his elbow than most covens could command.
Giselle had traded Max to Scooter in exchange for a powerful warding spell to protect the coven. No one knew what Scooter wanted with Max, but once he had fulfilled his side of the bargain, he had come demanding his prize.
Now Horngate, already crippled by the attacks that had resulted in Tutresiel and the fire angel Xaphan’s becoming part of the covenstead, and teeming with refugees from the Guardians’ cataclysmic unleashing of wild magic on the world, was without a Shadowblade Prime. They wanted Alexander for the job. But if he took it, it would guarantee that Max would never come back. Not that he was going to tell Tutresiel about the prophecy Magpie had given him. It was none of the angel’s damned business.
“The Shadowblades are sheep without a shepherd. They need you to step up,” Tutresiel told him. He brushed invisible lint from the side seam of his leather pants. “Not that I care, of course. But they are so pathetic, it’s getting hard to watch.”
“No. Max is Prime. She is coming back. I will not steal her place.” The words were hard as bullets.
Tutresiel laughed without humor. “Is that it? You think if you take Prime she won’t come back?” He snorted. “As if anything you do or say could stop her. Count on it. The question is, what will be left when she gets here? You’re not helping, going off to lick your balls while the rest of the covenstead struggles to pull itself together in time for winter. It’s going to be ugly. There’s not enough food, and we both know trouble is coming. Local humans are going to get hungry, and so are the Uncanny and the Divine. Horngate is going to look awfully tasty to a lot of creatures. We’ll be fighting them off, if we can even harvest enough food to feed ourselves.”
At his words, Alexander darted a glance at the fairy ring. Was it his imagination, or was the interior rising and falling as if something beneath was breathing?
The angel didn’t notice. “Then again, maybe we’ll feed you to them first. An appetizer. Getting rid of you and your bottomless Shadowblade hunger will leave more for everyone else.”
“Someone really needs to kill you,” Alexander said, feeling his anger drain as the truth of Tutresiel’s words pulled him from the cauldron of his fury and pain.
“You’ve tried. More than once. Didn’t do a very good job. Of course, I’m immortal.”
Alexander snorted. “So am I. Until someone kills me. The only question is how to go about making you dead.”
The angel smiled. “Good luck with that. There are only two in the world who know how to kill me permanently, and I’m one. I’ll never tell.”
“I guess I will just have to
keep trying. I am bound to stumble on it one day. Just for giggles, want to step sideways into that circle and see what happens?”
The angel glanced down. “What is it?”
“Hungry, from what I can tell. Bet it would not object to an angel snack.”
Tutresiel reached out into the air, and suddenly a sword was in his hand. Its seven-foot blade glowed with brilliant white witch-light. He paced around the outside edge of the ring. “I told you trouble was coming,” he murmured.
“What is it?”
“A mouth.”
“Thank you, Mister Obvious. I figured that out already.”
Tutresiel continued, ignoring Alexander’s comment. “The ring is to imprison it. The question is whether the fairies lured the mouth in to use it or if they’re just pinning it down to protect themselves.”
“I do not think they plan to kill it. It just sucked down more than a dozen animal carcasses. All skinned.”
“Interesting,” was Tutresiel’s noncommittal reply.
“We cannot just leave it. How do you kill it?”
The angel gave an infuriating shrug. “Depends on what’s inside.”
“I thought you knew.”
“Could be a lot of things. Fairies, demons, monsters. Possibly even Muppets.”
Shadow City Page 1
