Bitter Night

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  They entered into a palatial bedroom the size of a basketball court. It was carpeted with a patchwork of deep-piled rugs and smelled thickly of ritual oils and incense. Max wrinkled her nose, the cocktail stench thick in her mouth and throat. It was both caustic and sweet, irritating her raw throat. She could detect frankincense, ambergris, and apricot oil as well as benzoin and wood aloe. She wasn’t sure what Selange was up to, except that she’d begun to ready herself to conduct powerful magic. A pall of smoke from the incense and from the angelfires burning to the south filled the room. Skylights showed strips of the black sky above, but Max felt the night slipping away. Dawn was maybe two or three hours off.

  Alexander crept silently over the thick carpets, his gun held ready, his head swiveling back and forth. He peered into the next room, then moved past the doorway. He was heading for an archway cut into the rock wall on the west side of the room. Max followed.

  On the other side of the arch was a workroom. The walls were lined with shelves and cabinets, and bundles of herbs hung from overhead racks above the workbench running around three-quarters of the room. The circle, star, pentagram, and triangle’the anneau’was cut into the stone floor, and at the center of it was a roughly carved altar, about six feet long and three feet wide. On it sat an opaque white box. Every square inch of it was inscribed with symbols. It shimmered as if Max were looking at it through a haze of heat. A circle of something that looked like dirty crumbles of ice surrounded it in a six-inch moat.

  “I was afraid of this,” Alexander said, lowering the nose of his gun.

  “What?”

  “The box comes from Babylonia. It destroys anyone who tries to open it without using the proper invocation.”

  Max glared at the box. “So it’s got a lock and I am a walking key. No problem.” If her locking spell worked; if it was strong enough. New pain creeped up through her feet and wrapped her bones. Her compulsion spells didn’t like her risking herself. They thought Giselle needed her alive. She gasped as pain threaded through to the marrow of her bones. In a few minutes, it would force her to her knees. She started forward.

  Alexander’s hand on her arm stopped her. She looked down at it and then up, twitching out from beneath his grasp.

  “Can you safely open it?”

  “I’m about to find out.”

  His eyes flattened. He was clearly unimpressed with her attitude. “It may kill you.”

  “It might. But then it might not. I want my hailstone back.” Max looked away. He didn’t need to know how badly she wanted it.

  “Why? What harm if Selange keeps it?”

  “Well, if it’s any of your business ...First, it belongs to me, and she doesn’t get to torture me and keep my stuff. Second, you sound a whole lot like a guy who still serves her.”

  “Is it worth your life? I have seen that box kill, and it is an ugly death.”

  “Yeah? Well, shit happens.” The pain was getting worse. If she didn’t get going, she wasn’t going to be able to. “Keep an eye on the door. We don’t need interruptions.”

  He didn’t move a moment, then stepped jerkily back. “Your call, my Prime. But for the record’I do not serve Selange anymore. I just have no interest in watching you kill yourself.”

  Max grinned cheekily. “Then don’t look.”

  The anneau wasn’t invoked and nothing stopped Max from approaching the altar. Her legs were stiff with increasing pain and tremors shook her body. Damn Giselle and damn Selange both! She gripped the edge of the altar to steady herself and studied the circle around the box. It was a mix of salt, herbs, iron shavings, and who knew what else. It was an all-purpose natural ward against the Uncanny and Divine.

  She pulled the knife from her back pocket, and hesitated. If it was just a locking ward, she’d be able to break it without a lot of trouble. But if it was mixed up with something like the one on her jail cell’one designed to hurt and deter anyone from even trying’it could really harm her. She licked her lips. She needed that hailstone. Magpie’s prophecy played through her mind, and Max knew the only chance she had of saving Horngate from an attack by Guardians was the hailstone, and even that was slim.

  Suddenly Alexander was standing next to her. “Let me,” he said, putting out his hand for her knife. “You should tackle the box with as much strength as you can.” When she hesitated, he stiffened, his lip curling. “You do not have a choice.”

  He was right. But at least he didn’t tell her she was going to die again. “Do it.” She handed him the knife and stepped back.

  His arm rose and he slashed downward through the circle. With a flash of orange light, the magic exploded. The force picked Max up and threw her backward. She collided with the stone wall, her breath blasting from her chest. She dropped to the floor in a heap. Her mouth gaped as she sought to pull air back into her lungs. She coughed and her stomach backflipped, making her vomit. At last she sucked a breath and then another. She lunged to her feet, swinging around to look for Alexander.

  Holy shit. He was still on his feet. The gray had returned to his skin, and blossoms of red decorated the whites of his eyes where blood vessels had popped. He was breathing raggedly and looked like he didn’t know up from down, but he was still standing. Max wiped a hand over her lips. Her hand came away with blood on it. Note to self’don’t ever underestimate him or it might be the last thing you do.

  And so might opening the damned box.

  Max returned to the altar. Her compulsion spells coiled through her muscles like barbed wire. She let the pain fill her, drawing strength from it with a grim smile. The box was made of some sort of white stone, and the lines of it continued to waver and shift like a desert mirage. There was no sign of a latch or lock. Taking a breath, she reached out with both hands to lift the lid. Her fingers sank through. Magic grabbed her.

  Max could not hear; she could not see. Her entire world was white. She could not feel her body. She tried to struggle, but it was like she was bouncing off the inside of a white room made of mist and magic. She tried to scream, but she had no mouth.

  Something whispered across her mind. It was like the sound below sound of a plucked harp string. Where it trailed, acid burned. Max struggled. There was no escape. She was trapped in the box.

  She floated in the agony. It screwed itself through her. It went deep into places that even Giselle had never touched. Max writhed and screamed’pain did that. It made you lose your mind. She let it go. It was what her body needed’if she still had one. She didn’t know. The battle was in her mind, in the white, misty room. She felt sanity rub against her like a paper wall. She was pressing against it. If she ripped through, she’d never come back. She clung to the boundary like a rock in a terrible ocean. Far away she could feel something moving. It was a whisper of sound’a barbed breeze through her brain. She should think of something. She should remember ΓǪ

  A lock. A key. She was the key.

  I want ΓǪ

  What did she want?

  Thoughts fragmented and drifted wide apart. Shards collided and shattered to dust. And still that razor tickle.

  I want ΓǪ

  She no longer knew who she was, and that knowledge frightened her. It also relieved her.

  Somewhere in the white she could feel something taunting her. A knowing, a watching, an enjoying. Coward.

  Fury roused her. She did not know her name; she did not know why she was here in this place. She gathered the dust of her memories, sifting and searching. She found names she did not recognize, places she did not remember seeing, faces that made her heart hurt and made her stomach clench. If she had a stomach or a heart or a body.

  She kept searching. She needed to remember something. It was important. She brushed aside the pain, annoyed. If she had no body, how could she feel? And if she had a body, then she could fight. Yes. Fight.

  What weapons did she have? What could hurt the one laughing in the milky white?

  Then she found a face she remembered. A face and a name, an
d with the name, answers.

  I am Max. I. Want. To. Unlock. The. Box.

  With a sudden wrenching sensation, the white was gone. Max stood again beside the altar, the lid of the box clutched in her hands. She sagged against the stone, tears running down her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  Alexander. He grabbed her around her waist to steady her, his arm like warm iron. She let herself lean on him. How long had she been in the mist? Her body throbbed as the pain receded. Her muscles were clenched tight as rocks.

  “Fine,” she said, and wondered if it was true.

  She hesitated before putting one hand in the box. Inside was her medicine pouch, the hailstone a cold, hard knot inside. She pulled it out and put it in her pocket, then replaced the lid.

  “C’mon,” she said as she pulled away from Alexander. “There isn’t much darkness left.”

  He handed her back her knife, and they returned to the iron-bound doorway. Max paused at the foot of Selange’s bed. She could rig it to blow. Her fingers ran over the knobby edges of the grenades in her bandolier. She looked at Alexander. He waited, the door open, saying nothing. There was no time. She rolled her shoulders to loosen them and followed. They went back down the spiral stairs and through his quarters. In two minutes they were at the outer door. It was closed but not locked.

  “Expecting trouble?” she asked Alexander softly. He was jumpy, scouring the corridor up and back, his Uzi held ready. His hands were shaking as if he were close to the edge of collapse.

  “Maybe. Something was following me on the way in.”

  “Something?” Her brows rose.

  He only nodded, scowling.

  “I take it this wouldn’t be one of Selange’s usual guard dogs,” she said.

  “I am Selange’s usual guard dog,” he said. “The rest are out hunting children.”

  Max’s stomach twisted. She’d forgotten. Her lip curled in a snarl and she started to turn back. “I need to kill that bitch.”

  Alexander grabbed her arm. “No. You are good, but not that good, and you are not a hundred percent right now. She is a witch and she has the strength of her covenstead around her. We can come back and do it later.”

  He spoke as if he was still Prime and she one of his Shadowblades. Max bristled even though he was right. “Do you think you can stop me?”

  “I will if have to.”

  “You do remember you’re not Prime anymore, don’t you?”

  “Are you saying that your other Shadowblades would treat you differently?”

  Two days ago she’d have said yes. But then they’d dragged her back from the edge of death, and now they had ideas about watching out for her. She repressed a groan. Alexander saw her surrender and a faint smile touched his lips. She wanted to slug him. “My other Shadowblades? I’m not all that certain you’re one of mine,” she retorted.

  That wiped the smile off his face. He dropped his hand and stood back stiffly, his expression austere. “Shall we go?” He pointed at the door, his body blocking the passage. He wasn’t going to let her go back for Selange.

  “Lead on,” she said dourly. As soon she could, she was going to give her Blades a lesson in who was boss. She glared at Alexander’s back as he drew open the door and peered out. She did not know what to make of him or what he was up to. She shook her head and sighed quietly. She knew Giselle would have cut his throat and been done with him. But if he had done all this to save Max, then she owed him. At the very least he deserved a chance to prove himself.

  She rolled her eyes. She was getting soft. Hopefully it wasn’t a fatal condition.

  14

  THEY STEPPED OUT INTO A RIDICULOUS GARDEN. No jungle should have been possible in the desert of San Diego. Max almost expected to hear the screeches of baboons. Instead it was silent. A smoky fog hung thick, lending them cover. She sniffed the air. The wind blew from the southwest, carrying smoke and ash. It made it impossible to smell anything else. Alexander crouched low and dashed to a nearby fig tree. She followed. He bent close so that his lips brushed her ear.

  “Go southeast to the wall. There is a gate there and outside is a car for you. I will make sure you are not followed.”

  Max twisted her head to look at him. He read the suspicion on her face and jerked like she’d slapped him. “We go together or we don’t go at all.”

  He nodded once. “Yes, boss.”

  He turned and led the way downhill. Max was used to hiking in the thick scrub and forests of Montana and passed like a shadow through the dense jungle foliage. Alexander was louder. She fell back. If their pursuer was tracking them by sound, he’d go after Alexander. When he did, she’d be on him. She drew her knife, holding it ready.

  They’d gone perhaps a quarter of a mile when the hunter struck. He dropped out of the trees, a blur of gray fur. He clung to Alexander’s back, raking him with deadly curved claws. Alexander flung himself against a tree, crushing the creature into the trunk with a sound of snapping bone. Max had begun running the moment the hunter attacked. She leaped on him, yanking his head back. He screeched and howled. She stabbed her knife through his throat and shoved outward, severing his throat, arteries, veins, and tendons in one stroke. Blood gouted from the wound even as she grabbed his head and snapped his neck. She dropped the body, cleaning her knife on his fur. The scent of the Divine rose thickly from the corpse.

  “What is he?” she asked, giving Alexander a hand up.

  He frowned. “I do not know.”

  Then he made a growling noise and pushed Max back. She started to shove back and then looked at the creature again. It was melting. No’it was shifting shape. It blurred into a kind of gray goo, then started to solidify again. Lying at their feet was a beautiful chocolate-skinned man. Flecks of gold danced in the air around him like fireflies, then settled. As she watched, the wound in his throat began zipping itself shut.

  “Bastard,” Alexander said, and she could hear the cold dislike in his voice.

  “What is he?”

  “One of Selange’s familiars. A Tatane faery. Shape-shifter, obviously, and a vicious bastard. He liked killing.” Alexander pulled out his knife and with one blow, drove the blade into the faery’s forehead. “It will not kill him. I do not know what will.” He turned to look at Max and his legs buckled. He dropped slowly to the ground with a look of startled surprise. He looked down at himself. Once again blood soaked his shirt and vest. Max helped him strip them off, using the shirt to sop up the blood running from the claw wounds slicing deeply across his chest and left shoulder. Max could see bone and muscle.

  “Did Selange set him on us?”

  He shook his head, pain cutting grooves into his face. “I doubt it. She is preparing to cast a major spell. Likely he took the opportunity to do a little hunting on his own.”

  “Let’s hope so. We’ve got to go.”

  She picked up his fallen vest and shoved it inside his pack before slinging it over her shoulder. Next she pulled him to his feet and slung an arm around his waist to help him along.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You do realize it would have been simpler for you to let me die?”

  “Really? How so?” Max said acidly. “I’m all for simple.”

  “I might be your enemy. You have no way to know. Everything I have done could be a devious plan to gain your trust and get inside Horngate. It would be risky to take me home. But you are not the kind to leave me behind, not if I am truly one of yours. But how can you know one way or the other? If I was dead, you would not have to decide.”

  Damn, the man was smart. But then he was Prime, or had been. Losing the part in the pageant didn’t mean he’d lost everything else that made him qualify for the role.

  “Shut up,” she said with what she thought was remarkable eloquence.

  They found the gate and the Celica. Max flipped the passenger seat forward and pushed Alexander into the backseat. She found a roll of paper towels in the cargo area and used his shirt to bind a wad of them to his shoulde
r. Then she made a fat pad of the rest. “Press this to your chest. See if you can get it to stop bleeding. There’s a med-kit in Akemi’s truck and some healing salves that Giselle made up. They should help. If you can survive that long.”

  He stared up at her. “Why are you bothering? You do not trust me.”

  Max grimaced. “My guess is it’s because I’m dumber than a box of rocks. Shut up, now. We’ve got to get going.”

  Max backed out and went around to the driver’s side. She connected the wires again and the car started easily. There wasn’t much gas, maybe a quarter of a tank. It would have to be enough. With the heavy smoke cover, they might win a couple more minutes against the dawn. They were going to need every second.