by S. A. Ravel
“Then why do it at all?”
Ronin lowered his hand over the lump of tissue and whispered an incantation. Sanaa had no idea what the words meant, but when he pulled his hands away only a smoldering pile of ashes remained. “Because this kind of powyr is never wrong.”
He scooped the ash into his hands and sprinkled it over a map beside him. The black particles gathered in one spot, a street in Albuquerque.
One hour and a phone call to enlist Kane for babysitting duty later, Sanaa and Ronin stood in front of a stone building downtown. Steel letters against the facade labeled the building as the Channing Memorial Library. Ronin paused at the front steps, his eyes gliding over the stones and narrowing as if he noticed something she didn’t. It wasn’t until they were in the front lobby that the dragon shared what he noticed outside.
The Dragon slipped his keys to her, sliding them into the pocket of her jeans. "If something happens, get in the car and drive back. Don't wait for me."
Sanaa rolled her eyes. The white knight routine was getting old. “I can take care of myself.”
“It’s not about that,” he said. “There’s a ward on the building. I saw it on the way in. You should be feeling it now.”
She paused and closed her eyes, trying to get a sense of something unusual in her body. Sure enough, there was a difference she hadn’t noticed before, a weakness in her muscles, a mild disorientation. The feeling reminded her of the guppy demon’s poison.
“There are spells that do that?”
Ronin nodded. “No powyr, no shifting. It puts us at a hell of a disadvantage.”
"You must be out of your damn mind if you think I'm leaving you here to fight her by yourself," Sanaa said.
"Fight? And here I thought you were just paying your poor, old mother a visit," Niabe said.
Sanaa turned to find her mother standing behind her. The bitter smile on her blood-red lips reminded Sanaa of a cat waiting to devour a wounded bird.
Niabe turned her eyes to Ronin, and the smirk widened to a sneer. "I suppose congratulations are in order now that you've decided to make an honest woman of my daughter."
“Mock me again, bitch, and those will be the last words you ever speak."
Niabe wrinkled her nose but the delighted malice never left her eyes. "Is that any way to talk to your new mother-in-law?"
"I suppose not, but it's a perfect way to talk to the bitch who's trying to kill my daughter.
"Don't take that tone with me, boy. I was serving powyr greater than you could possibly grasp long before you decided to slum it in our mountains. Why those old fools have put up with your residence for so long—”
"Oh, for fuck's sake! Fight later," Sanaa said through gritted teeth. "Mother, it doesn't have to be this way."
Niabe turned, and, for second, Sanaa thought she saw tenderness in her eyes– the tenderness a mother might have for her daughter in crisis. But as quickly as the emotion appeared, it vanished leaving behind only the cold dark walker her mother had become.
“You weren’t much bigger than her when your father died, you know. And I wasn't much older than you. Times were harder then. There was no rich, handsome dragon living in the mountains to come and save me.”
"Is that why you've always hated me? Is that why you're trying to kill my baby?" It sounded a little melodramatic even to Sanaa, but what did she have other than the evidence of her own eyes? The reality was her own mother had tried to kill her three times in as many days. They both knew Sanaa was running out of extra lives to make up the difference.
Niabe clicked her tongue softly and shook her head “A true mother's love is always the hardest to understand. Maybe you'll learn that one day."
"Lady, you have got a fucked up idea of a mother's love," Ronin said.
"The Dragon in the Mountain doubts my devotion to my daughter? Then let me prove it." Niabe turned and took Sanaa by the shoulders.
The tender gesture between mother and daughter might have played out hundreds of times between them if things had been different. But life hadn't been different, not for either of them. In another life, she might have been a loving daughter introducing her new boyfriend to her mother. Instead, Sanaa was bringing the father of her baby like death to her mother's door.
"If you love him, fight with him. But if you love her…run." Niabe leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Sanaa’s cheek. She turned to Ronin and smiled. "Nice meeting you again. Mind the heat. We wouldn't want you going mad and seeing your dead wives again."
A jolt of shock ran through Sanaa. It didn't upset her to learn that Ronin had been married before, but it surprised her that he had never mentioned it. She glanced at Ronin to gauge the truthfulness of her mother's words by his reaction.
A cold smile came to his lips, fury in his eyes as he spoke. "I keep my promises, dark walker. I'm going to rip the flesh from your skull before this is all over."
Niabe laughed, a high, tinkling sound that bounced off the stone walls of the library. "Oh, I don't doubt you will try."
9
Ronin glared at Niabe’s retreating back. Every muscle in his body tensed in desperation to follow her. She had mocked the memory of his lost mate and disrespected his new one, but all that paled in comparison to her ultimate sin, threatening his daughter. Every second Niabe continued to draw breath was one second too many. Yet he forced himself to remain in place, pressing his boots against the stone tiles until his toes went numb.
With the fury of the Heat quenched, Ronin's thoughts were clearer than they had been in days. Attack was impossible. Retreat was their only option.
Sanaa, however, moved to follow Niabe into the back of the library. He caught her by the arm and held her back.
"We can't let her walk away," Sanaa insisted.
He moved forward, pressing her body against his as he pulled her toward the door. "This isn't up for debate. We can't fight her here."
Sanaa wrenched her arm from his grasp just as they crossed the threshold of the door. She turned and tried to brush her way past him, but Ronin was bigger and taller. He blocked her, wrapping his arms around her waist again and dragging her down the block toward his truck. A few passers-by glanced in their direction, stopping to gawk at the domestic squabble.
The last thing they needed was a would-be Good Samaritan calling the cops. Ronin took Sanaa by the shoulders and turned her body to face him. "There's a dampening ward, remember? You go back in there, and the only thing you'll do is get yourself arrested. How long do you think you'll last against her locked in a cage?"
The harsh words left a bitter taste in his mouth, especially now, when he could already feel the mating bonds taking hold. He could feel Sanaa's heartbeat, her fear, her anger as intensely as if they belonged to him.
She relaxed as his words sunk in, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "We can't just go back to the house and wait for the next attack."
"I don't plan to." He slid a hand into her pocket, caressing her thigh for a moment as he plucked his keys from the denim folds. "She's got to come out of her hole sometime, and when she does we'll take the fight to her."
They moved the car further down the block, out of sight of the entrance and waited. Ronin had written half a dozen stakeout scenes in his career. Two people trapped in a car provided an ideal setting, inescapable. The impending encounter with the villain provided tension, the perfect catalyst to emotional revelations. Add two people who have too much to say to one another and too many reasons to leave it all unsaid and there was no surer way to guarantee a deep revelation.
Unless, of course, both people had nothing left to share. The last vestiges of secrets between them were almost gone. Ronin could already see the slight difference in his reactions to her. The way he always found little ways to touch her, brushing his fingers against her soft skin as she climbed in and out of the truck after trips to find a restroom or fetch food. By nightfall, he has nearly memorized every detail of Sanaa's face, every shift of her expression.
She ha
dn't accepted the mating bond, yet. Not fully. He could see it, although he couldn't explain even to himself exactly how he knew. Why should she have accepted it? However he explained the Heat, it was only words to her.
"Kane said they moved to the village for the night," Sanaa said as she ended her call. "The Elders were anxious about him being in the mountains alone."
"Those old fools are smarter than they look.”
She rolled her eyes. “Are we really going to fight about that again? I figured you'd be sick of it by now."
“Actually, I always thought arguments are part of the fun of relationships. The way a person forms a counterpoint tells a lot about the sort of person they are."
Sanaa quirked an eyebrow and leaned back in her seat. "I'll bite. What kind of person am I?"
Ronin turned to look at her, leisurely studying her face, though he had already memorized her features. Everything had changed for him, but nothing had for her. “You are a doubter. You believe half of what you see and less than a quarter of what you're told. Especially when you hear good news. You figure the other shoe is going to drop because it always does. And if you’re expecting it, then it can’t hurt you as badly. “
She flinched and looked away, letting him know that he was closer to the mark than she thought he would be. “It works more often than it doesn’t.”
“Pretty lonely way to live. Believe me, I know.”
Sanaa didn’t comment. She jerked her head toward the entrance of the library. Niabe emerged from the glass doors and headed up the block toward her own car.
Ronin turned his engine over and followed Niabe back to the highway and across town. Niabe pulled over at the gates of a massive compound on the outskirts of the city. Ronin parked as she punched a code into the gate and drove through.
Without a word, Sanaa and Ronin climbed out of the truck and approached the gate.
“I don’t suppose you saw the code she typed?” Sanaa asked.
“Didn’t need to.” Ronin extended his hand, drawing and focusing his powyr at the gate. A ball of heated energy burst from his palm, ramming into the gate and knocking it off its hinges.
A sense of dread crept over Ronin as he led the way up the dimly lit driveway. Something wasn’t right. Every move Niabe made was designed to catch them off guard. Her cleverness had almost proved deadly twice.
A clever dark walker would never lead the enemy to her lair.
Ronin froze in mid-stride, holding out a hand to warn Sanaa back. Too late. The floodlights hidden on the poles that lined the drive way kicked on, flooding the path as brightly as sunshine.
Niabe stood at the entrance of an elaborate mansion, hands on her hips and a mischievous smile on her lips. “You should have taken my advice, Sanaa.”
10
Sanaa's heart thundered in her chest as she watched the smile on her mother's face widen. Of course, she laid a trap for them. How had they been so stupid?
Her temper flared, but she did her best to hold it in check. She couldn't afford to be careless until they were safely back in Ronin's home. If they lived through the night.
A man emerged from the shadows behind Niabe. The beams from the floodlights shimmered against his pale skin. His blood-red eyes wandered Sanaa's body without any hint of shame, the way a hungry lion might look at a wounded gazelle. Even Sanaa knew that only blood sorcerers, the most hated of all powyr users, had eyes the color of blood.
"Sanaa, welcome," he said, the accent in his voice barely audible. "Your mother has told me so much about you."
"Really? She hasn't told me a damned thing about you."
A cold smile tugged at the corner of the man's lips. "A tragedy beyond imagining. I am Deckard Channing. Niabe has been in my employ for some years."
Fear and fury mingled in Sanaa's blood. "You mean you're the bastard that destroyed her."
Deckard canted his head to the side. "I don't think that's fair. You should have seen her back then. Tired, grieving, afraid for herself and for you. I gave her purpose. I gave her faith!"
"By stealing her soul?" Ronin asked. He positioned himself between Sanaa and Deckard, his hands open at his sides.
For the first time, Deckard turned his attention to the dragon. Pure contempt filtered into his expression, making him look even more dangerous. "I assure you, I took nothing that Niabe wasn't more than willing to part with."
Sanaa looked at her mother. Niabe was nearly fifty years old, but she had the posture and manner of a woman half her age. She tried to picture her mother as she would have been twenty years in the past, when she first encountered Channing. A good-looking man, with the money to make all her dreams come true. A man who offered her the world when everything and everyone she held dear was lost to her. What woman wouldn't have wanted him? The story hit almost too close to home.
"That was my mother," Sanaa said. "I'm not her."
Deckard shrugged. "Aren't you? Here you are at my door with something I want. Although, I admit, you've also brought things I could do without."
"Careful, blood worker," Ronin spat. "Don't think I can't feel the stink of it on you from here."
If the blood sorcerer took any offense to Ronin's words, he didn't let on. "You wield the powyr your way, dragon, and I will wield it mine."
As if to cement his point, Channing extended a hand out toward Niabe. A cloud of fine red particles formed in the air over her, gathering until a thin sheet of blood hovered over her arm.
"Ultimately, it's only a matter of skill, isn't it?" Channing asked the question with the disinterest a normal person might use to describe the weather. "The powyr and wyrd are in our blood, after all. Does it really matter so much if I prefer to take it from the source?"
His fingers wiggled and danced in the air as he spoke, gathering the blood veil into a ball which he beckoned into his palm. Channing closed his fist, obscuring the ball from view, but Sanaa could swear she saw it leeching into his skin.
"You're a monster," she whispered, though the word didn't feel powerful enough to describe Deckard, the demon with the paper-white skin who’d single-handedly brought her family to ruin.
"That depends on your point of view." Deckard opened his hand again and caressed Niabe's arm with his blood-stained fingers. He smirked with satisfaction at the tremble his touch brought forth. "Your mother might disagree."
Ronin craned his head to exchange a glance with Sanaa, the muscles in his chest tensing and releasing as if to convey his message more thoroughly. She didn't need him to tell her what she already knew, this encounter could only end in bloodshed, but the Dragon wanted to take the lead.
Sanaa blinked to let him know that she understood. Then her eyes moved back to Channing's ashen skin and chilling smirk. "My mother hasn't been in her right mind since she met you."
He scoffed and waved a dismissive hand. "More insults and snide remarks. I expected more from you, Sanaa. But enough pleasantries, my dear. I invited you to hear my offer, not to argue. And so, you understand, this offer will only be made once."
"You can make any offer you want," Sanaa said. "I'm not making any deals with you."
"Not even to spare my granddaughter's life?" Niabe asked.
Sanaa's blood turned to ice in her veins. Something about her mother's voice was wrong. There was too much certainty behind her words. Too much confidence that Sanaa could be brought to heel by mentioning her baby. Every maternal instinct in her body told her to turn and run. Shift into her thunderbird form and race back toward the village. She glanced at the dragon and noted how his balled fists trembled.
"What do you want?" Sanaa whispered.
"Send your daughter to join Niabe in my household. Now, before you interrupt," Channing said of her stunned expression. "Know that I have considerable resources. She will be well looked after and receive the finest education. The entire world will be at her disposal. Here she will be treasured. You can—”
Channing’s eyes widened. He extended a hand, barely deflecting Ronin’s raging ba
ll of fire before it smashed into his face.
“The answer is no,” Ronin spat as he circled away from Sanaa.
The blood worker crouched into a low squat. “My offer wasn’t meant for you, Dragon. You won’t live to see that child grow even one day older.”
Ronin turned his head toward Sanaa, though his eyes remained locked on the blood worker. “Shayla. Her name is Shayla.”
Channing hopped down to the ground, tossing his coat to the side. The two men circled one another, shimmering tendrils of powyr gathering in their hands.
“You should have taken his offer, sweetheart. You would have lived longer,” Niabe said.
“A life as a slave isn’t the one I want Shayla to have.”
“It wasn’t her life you were bargaining for, Sanaa. I wish you knew when to leave well enough alone.” Pain flashed in Niabe’s eyes. As the last words left her lips, Niabe extended her arms.
Sanaa took a step back as her mother’s body morphed, muscles and bones popping and giving way as she shifted into a hideous mass of writhing fury with the scales of a lizard, fangs of a snake, and claws of a tiger.
A chimera.
The fearsome beast that had been Niabe tilted its nostril slits into the air and released a piercing shriek.
Sanaa crouched into a defensive stance and reached for her thunderbird.
"No!" Ronin screamed. "Don't shift!"
"You're joking, right?" Ronin may have had magic, but without her animal form, Sanaa was an ordinary woman. No match for legendary beasts or sorcerers who used blood as their catalyst.
A legion of tiny cries joined the chimera's cries, growing louder as an army of guppy demons swarmed into the courtyard. They circled the wizards, writhing at their feet before deciding they wanted no part of that battle and making a beeline for their mistress.
Sanaa ran back toward the gate, the chimera and its guppy horde right at her heels. Her mind flailed for a way to fight back without changing form. There were no branches on the ground large enough to do damage. She had no lighter, no gun, and no knife. No weapon of any kind except her nails, a paltry substitute for her talons.
