by Faith Hunter
“I am the mother of those you killed.” When I didn’t react, it lifted its chin. It licked its lips, tongue tar black and mucoid. “I am the mother of many larvae,” it bragged. “Of thousands of eggs. My children will begin to hatch at dawn, and this batch will be even more powerful than I. My children will destroy your world and I will sit beside my master in a Realm of the Dark.” Yep. Teenaged hubris. Just my luck.
But, even still, that sounded bad. Seraphs lived at Realms of Light. Sounded as if this Darkness’ daddy had visions of grandeur. “What sins have you committed?”
“Sins are for humans and their children. We do what we will.”
Okay. Big help there. How could I use this accidental bonding without being used by whatever sent it? More importantly, how could I survive an encounter with a beast that was a whole lot more powerful and a whole lot less mature than anticipated? Duct tape. Could I be any more stupid? I watched as it sat there, waiting. And then I realized that I hadn’t asked a specific question. It couldn’t lie to a direct question, but if it could find a way to misdirect, it would. So sue me. I had never cross-examined a big bad evil before. I was flying by the seat of my pants again. Which was not smart, no way. “What have you willed?”
It smiled at me, settling deeper into the chair. The motion was slow and languorous. Had it still been in human form, it would have been a sensual flex. “Much. I have seduced humans, including the female whose likeness I chose. And I ate them. They were tasty.”
“I thought succubi were only interested in males.” How could I use this? How? I had a strip of cloth marked with the blood of the daywalker. In the jar beside it was the blood of another being, a spelled human warrior for Darkness. Could I use them?
“The females were interesting. I liked the form of one of them. Men liked her form. It was pleasurable and necessary.”
“Can you transmogrify?” I asked, surprised. Only seraphs should be able to do that, to actually alter shape and appearance at will. But this was a queen. She, not it.
“One form only,” she said sullenly, her moods whip-fast. “The rest is illusion. But through my children we will regain our lost gifts.”
That didn’t sound good. “What have you willed in regards to me?”
Her eyes narrowed and I knew she didn’t want to answer. The cross in her cheek quivered as she tried to contract the cheek muscle away from it. A long moment passed and I said nothing, waiting. If she were truly bound to me, she had to answer. But a better question might hurry things along. “What did your master tell you to do about me?”
Her lips peeled back, exposing teeth designed for tearing meat. “To search for you, as once we searched for the wheels. They were close. My master could smell them but not see them, sense them, but not touch them. Now they are gone, and you reek of their scent. When your scent came on the wind, he set traps for you.”
When your scent came on the wind. When I broke the prime? Was that the first time the evil on the Trine had sensed me? “You have other mages. Why do you want me?”
She rolled her shoulders, pulling at the duct tape. The chair legs rattled on the floor. “You are different,” she said, the words unwilling.
That didn’t help. I didn’t know what questions to ask, yet I had to find a way to encourage her to talk. Pride had worked once. “Better?” I asked, raising my head, exposing my throat and the amulets that hung there. “Do you mean that I am better than you?”
“No female is better than I,” she said, a line of spittle sliding down her jaw.
Major yucks. This thing had been created to seduce, then eat its prey, but without its glamour or a body to inhabit, it would scare a man to death long before the first bite. “I’m better,” I said. “Much better than you.”
It spat at me, a sizzling spatter, saying, “My master will take you. You will call the wheels. He will mate with me, and then nothing in heaven or earth shall be denied us.”
Ahhh. I socked the succubus with the ceremonial hilt. Really hard. Her head rocked back. So I hit her again. Several times. When she was lolling with pain, I rebound her mouth with the gag, taping it in place. With the tape, I wrapped the chair legs and pressed them to the floor, taping her toes to the tile too. By the time I was finished, I was breathing hard and had worked up a sweat. I was nauseated. The stink of sulfur, acid, and dead flowers was really vile. Sitting on the floor at Jane’s feet, I pulled on the duct tape. It held. No wonder the Pre-Aps liked it so much. This stuff could do anything.
I had put both clean and used salt in the circle with me. With the clean salt, I made a third ring inside the first two, stepped outside the circle, and closed it. I thumbed the amulet that held a charmed circle and one flared into being, a smaller dome, created just for the succubus. She raised her head and tried to focus on me, snarling. I had hoped she would be out longer than that. If she figured out how to get the chair or her feet loose and break the circle, that would be dangerous. Deadly dangerous.
With a quick finger, I broke the privacy shield and the outer charmed circle with a soft pop. The candle flames flared and went out with the energy surge. Audric was on the couch, blades at his feet, watching me with pursed lips. “What is that thing?” he asked.
I told him what she had said and that I had accidentally bound her to me. Audric snorted as if that was funny. “Invasion of the body snatchers,” he said. Which made no sense at all. He shook his head, looking down at his hands.
“Yeah. Okay. Whatever. Will you watch her? I don’t have time to, now.” The next words shocked me, coming from my mouth even as the thought formed. “I have to go to the Trine.” Feathers and fire. Saints’ balls. My breathing sped up. I was going to the Trine?
He stared at the succubus rather than at me. “The Trine. Alone. Again.”
Though I was sweating from the confrontation with the succubus, I shivered at his words. I had promised, never again. Never underground. No. Never, never, never. But did I have a choice? Fear and sorrow twisted together in my guts. I didn’t want to do this.
“The town can gather troops. Or you and this unworthy champard can kill that thing and go together.” His face was blank, and I knew I had hurt him. I was going to war. And I was leaving my champard behind. And he wasn’t unworthy, which he knew when his feelings weren’t all hurt.
Again, words fell fully formed from my mouth, as if I had thought it all out. As if I had an answer. As if I wasn’t terrified. “They’ll dither around for days before deciding to war, even after the attack on the town. A fast incursion by a small group, or one person working alone, has a better chance. But if we kill this thing, its master might know it and be waiting for us. I need my champard to guard Jane. Or are you going to talk me to death?”
“Guard,” he said. “Got nothing better to do.”
As if I stood outside myself, I watched as I tucked the stone jar and strip of cloth with the daywalker’s blood into a canvas bag. Piled in a selection of stones, a tiny silver serving tray, my ceremonial knife, a candle, and slung the bag over my shoulder. “If Thadd comes by, you can tell him what happened. And you can use this if that thing gets loose.” I poured clean salt into the silver bowl and placed it by Audric, the water inside sloshing gently.
“Salt water? What good will that do?”
I dropped in a tiny shard of the amethyst. It was even more drained than before, scarcely glowing as it tinked to the bottom and rested on the layer of slowly dissolving salt. “When she gets out, she’ll want to restore the illusion of her beauty, and for that she needs meat. A lot of meat. Throw the salt water on her. Wet her down good. I think it’ll send her screaming away without eating you or the rest of the town for lunch.”
“That would be nice. I’d like to live long enough for the holy war that’s about to break out here,” he said, softly scornful, and clearly still mad at me. “That would give me a chance to watch all the humans I love die while I’m tied to the side of a winged-warrior.”
The words dripped with sarcasm, self-pi
ty, and quiet horror. The sarcasm brought me back to myself. I was going up the Trine. I really was. “Yes,” he finished, “that sounds like a fine plan. Your champard is awed.”
“Master of understatement,” I said, my heart hurting for him. But I wouldn’t offer sympathy. I collected bottles of springwater and raisins. Trail food. “I like that in a man.”
“I’m not a man.”
“Nope. Not a human. Not a mage. Have you decided what you will be yet?”
Audric tilted his head, jaw tight. “I’m not interested in being psychoanalyzed.”
“Tough. I’m not interested in being a shrink to a pissed-off, whiny mule, either.”
His eyes blazed, fingers twitching as if reaching for his weapons.
I laughed, knowing it was cruel, but needing to say this. Maybe say it before I died. “Your life has changed. Okay. Got that. Big deal. You wanted to bind yourself to a free mage; instead you got bound to a battle-seraph, one of the most powerful winged-warriors, a relationship that most of your kind drool over. So you get to draw blood and kick Darkness’ ass. Blood, guts and glory, huzzah. You get to stand at the side of the High Host. You didn’t want it, but that’s what you got. It’s what your kind do. Deal with it.” I thought he might jump up and pound me to a pulp. I was almost disappointed when he didn’t. I picked up the walking stick and twirled it once, hearing the whistle of the motion.
“While I’m being catty I’ll ask you a couple of questions. Maybe you’re man enough to answer, maybe not.” Audric gripped the hilt of his sword until the knuckles showed beneath his dark skin. I adjusted three throwing knives in the proper loops of my dobok while he struggled with my impertinence. When it looked like he had mastered his reaction and wouldn’t cut me to ribbons, I said, “How long did it take you to find Sugar Grove?”
Whatever he had expected me to ask, it hadn’t been that. “Four summers.”
“What brought you the most glory, finding the town or dead-mining it?”
“Finding it,” he said, half unwillingly.
“And how many towns are left to be discovered?”
He looked away when he answered. “According to my Pre-Ap maps, dozens were left empty by the plagues, and are now lost beneath the ice caps. A few others were destroyed by war and buried by landslides.”
“And how many dead-miners have ever discovered more than one town?”
Audric’s eyes pierced me, his mouth turned down. “None. It has never been done.”
“You would be the first.” Audric stared. I double-checked the placement of three vials of baptismal water, tugging to make sure they would stay in place, yet pop off easily as needed, not that I was convinced they would work against Darkness. I had yet to see proof. “A dead-miner with two towns to his credit. Glory, a name for yourself that would survive until the end finally comes. You can’t, however, discover a second town if you’re excavating a hole in the ice. But if you sold your claim you could research all winter and spend the summer months looking. And you would only have to leave Mineral City for three months a year. You could have a home. A real one. It’s just a thought.”
I walked to the back window and hung a white cloth where it could be seen from outside. “Someone from the EIH will be coming. Maybe Eli. You can tell them where I’ll be. Maybe they’ll feel like helping.”
My heart in my throat, I said, “If I survive, I’ll be back before dark tomorrow.” With those words, I grabbed up my insulated leather cloak, food, a small bag I had packed for emergencies, and swung out the door and down the stairs to the stockroom for the real supplies. Minutes later, I had Homer saddled and bridled and was leading him out of the stable and up the Trine, my cloak and the bags filled with necessities tied to the saddle skirt.
My breath came tight in my chest. My body was rigid with cold and fear, my hands too firm on Homer’s reins. Picking up my agitation, he tossed his head and rolled an eye back at me. “Sorry,” I said, patting his big shoulder and easing the pressure on the reins. I was going up the Trine again. I was going into the pit of Darkness. A hellhole. Tears blurred my vision. I didn’t want to do this. I really, really, really didn’t want to do this. Stupid, stupid, stupid, my brain shouted at me.
I looked up into the sky and sighed. I had lived in the mountains long enough to read weather signs, and what I saw was Murphy’s Law in action. To the south, warm weather currents had gathered and slid north with the trade winds. From the north, a cold front had moved through the highest reaches of the stratosphere. A blizzard had begun to form. “Just ducky,” I said.
Chapter 25
The day was well advanced when I reached the site where Amethyst’s wheels had lain buried for a century or more. It was the first time I had come back since the amethyst ship had risen from the ground, reattached itself to the navcone—the ship’s navigation nose cone—killed a whole army of Darkness, melted the ice cap avalanche that was roaring down the Trine, then vaporized the deluge. The ship had taken off into the heavens.
In the way of the battle-mages, it was my moment of glory. But no one saw it but the few humans who had been there and Amethyst, who had seen what was happening from her prison underground. I had sort of thought the cherub had been a figment of my imagination, and figments don’t talk about moments of glory. And the men who had fought with me, well, they probably had big ideas about what had happened, but they didn’t really know. As moments of glory went, it was pretty great. But pretty secret.
Signs of the battle were buried beneath several snowfalls, leaving the site looking pristine and white, not blood-splattered, heaped with the bodies of the dead, burned, charred, and gory. The clearing had once held a manmade cairn of boulders and stones, now crushed and scattered, covered by snow, and the huge oval mound hiding the wheels was now a deep depression. The snow made the hole look smooth, neatly scraped and shaped, as if God the Victorious had taken an ice-cream scoop to the mountain.
I’m really here. I’m really doing this. How stupid can I get? Fear whispered through my bloodstream.
Icy air moved through the bare branches of trees. Where once the mound had offered protection from the wind, now there was a barren desolation, and the sound was like the plaintive moans of bagpipes. I pulled the battle cloak over my knees and readjusted my feet in the stirrups. Battle boots weren’t made for riding and my knees hurt, locked at an awkward angle.
I rode Homer to the edge of the cavity and looked down, the big horse snorting his dislike of the sharp precipice. It was a long way down. A very long way. The sight made me lonely in ways I didn’t completely understand, but maybe it was just that no one wanted to die alone, and I had a good chance of doing that today. I had come close to dying the last time I went into the pit, and then I had some help from the wheels buried here. I had promised myself I’d never go underground, never again. I guess I lied.
A whistle sounded, echoing and reechoing up and down the mountain, a keening, mournful sound. I kneed Homer in a slow circle, searching for its origin, and finally spotted a row of horses below me, six of them, too far downhill to identify the riders, except for the bay in the lead. It was Thadd’s mount. Joy spiked through me, followed by some emotion I couldn’t name, bittersweet and painful, and I swallowed against a tight throat. Okay, so I wouldn’t die alone. But if I died, I’d likely take them with me. Which was much worse.
“Hope you guys brought lunch and feed,” I said to the cold wind, “because I can’t take care of you all.” Which was more true than it might seem.
I slid from the horse’s back, led him away from the precipice to a flat area on the south side of a large rock, and loosed his girth. A bit of grass peeked through the snow, and Homer sighed happily before pawing at the ground to uncover more. I dumped two handfuls of feed at his feet for lunch and opened a jar of peanut butter and a package of crackers for me. I would need the protein. If I ate meat, now would be the time for a big juicy steak, some fried potatoes, and cake or pie for the sugar burst. I ate quickly and was standing on
a boulder, my cloak tightly wrapped against the cold, watching, when the cavalcade came into view.
A heavily armed Thadd was in the lead, an automatic rifle with an unusual barrel design hung from his saddle. Joseph Barefoot rode behind him on a sure-footed mountain pony. Eli, wearing a fringed leather jacket, buckskin chaps, and cowboy hat, looked like a riding armament with knives in his hatband and belt, bandoliers crossed over his chest, and his flamethrower slung over his back. He rode a flashy Appaloosa, its coat apricot-colored with molasses-colored spots. At their six was Durbarge, the assey, his black eye patch and twisted features malevolent, his remaining, droopy-lidded eye hard. Thadd and Durbarge were wearing long leather dusters, fashioned to ride and to fight, the pockets bulging. Flames had healed Durbarge’s foot, mangled in the street fight, and he rode without pain.
Between the assey and Eli, riding sturdy palomino mules, were two men I didn’t know. Like Barefoot, each had a branded cheek; clearly EIH operatives. The Earth Invasion Heretics were poorly dressed in jeans and ratty leather jackets that stopped at their thighs, but they were well armed, and one had what looked like a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher strapped to his mount’s withers. It was strange to see the EIH and an investigator with the Administration of the ArchSeraph working together. Durbarge’s cheek, below his eye patch, was twitching, though whether because his eye pained him or because of the company I didn’t know.
As they snaked toward the clearing, Eli took off his hat and waved it over his head, calling, “Hey, beautiful! Can you take on all six of us?” Thadd looked back at him, irritated at the innuendo.
I hid a smile, folded back my cloak, and lifted a hand, considering the six men. Together we made seven, an auspicious number, holy. Revelation 1:16 said of a seraph, “And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword…”
I wasn’t a star—nowhere near being a seraph—but I had a two-edged sword. And now there were seven of us. That thought cheered me as the men reached the clearing, dismounted, and began to open supplies. Eli, holding what looked like a ham sub, walked to the boulder and stood below me, munching. He talked between swallows, amber eyes squinting up at me. As he talked, the other men gathered around him. “You know everyone but Tomas and Rickie here.” He indicated the two EIH men with his sandwich. “They saw you fight in the street battle the other day. Thought you looked interesting.” I wasn’t certain what interesting meant, but I didn’t interrupt. “Got enough players to make a good-sized Pre-Ap boy band,” he said. I rolled my eyes at his flippancy, and nodded to the strangers. “If this can wait, we can mobilize a good-sized force by morning,” Eli said.
