Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight

by L. J. Smith

  “Delos!” She shook him. “Delos, what are you doing?”

  He came awake with a start.

  “Nothing.”

  But she knew. She remembered those words—she’d heard them before she had actually met Delos on the mountain.

  “It was my dream. You were…going back in time somehow, weren’t you? And giving me that dream I had, warning me to get away from this valley.” She frowned. “But how can you? I thought you couldn’t use your powers.”

  “I don’t think this took vampire powers,” he said, sounding almost guilty. “It was more—I think it was just the bond between us. The soulmate thing. I don’t even know how I did it. I just—went to sleep and started dreaming about the you of the past. It was as if I was searching for you—and then I found you. I made the connection. I don’t know if it’s ever been done before, that kind of time travel.”

  Maggie shook her head. “But you already know it didn’t work. The dream didn’t change anything. I didn’t leave as soon as I woke up in the cart, because I’m here. And if I had left, I would never have met you, and then you wouldn’t have sent the dream….”

  “I know,” he said, and his voice was tired and a bit forlorn. He sounded very young, just then. “But it was worth a try.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “The hunt of your lives,” Hunter Redfern said. He was standing handsome and erect, smiling easily. The nobles were gathered around him, and Maggie even saw some familiar faces in the crowd.

  That rough man from Delos’s memories—the one who grabbed his arm, she thought dreamily. And the woman who put the first binding spell on him.

  They were crowded in the courtyard, their faces eager. The first pale light was just touching the sky—not that the sun was visible, of course. But it was enough to turn the clouds pearly and cast an eerie, almost greenish luminescence over the scene below.

  “Two humans, a witch, and a renegade prince,” Hunter proclaimed. He was enjoying himself hugely, Maggie could tell. “You’ll never have another chance at prey like this.”

  Maggie gripped Delos’s hand tightly.

  She was frightened but at the same time strangely proud. If the nobles around Hunter were expecting their prey to cower or beg, they were going to be disappointed.

  They were alone, the four of them, in a little empty space in the square. Maggie and Aradia and Jeanne in their slave clothes, Delos in his leggings and shirtsleeves. A little wind blew and stirred Maggie’s hair, but otherwise they were perfectly still.

  Aradia, of course, was always dignified. Just now her face was grave and sad, but there was no sign of anger or fear in it. She stood at her full height, her huge clear eyes turned toward the crowd, as if they were all welcome guests that she had invited.

  Jeanne was more rumpled. Her red hair was disheveled and her tunic was wrinkled, but there was a grim smile on her angular face and a wild battle light in her green eyes. She was one prey that was going to fight, Maggie knew.

  Maggie herself was doing her best to live up to the others. She stood as tall as she could, knowing she would never be as impressive as Aradia, or as devil-may-care as Jeanne, but trying at least to look as if dying came easy to her.

  Delos was magnificent.

  In his shirtsleeves, he was more of a prince than Hunter Redfern would ever be. He looked at the crowd of nobles who had all promised to be loyal to him and were now thirsting for his blood—and he didn’t get mad.

  He tried to talk to them.

  “Watch what happens here,” he said, his voice carrying easily across the square. “And don’t forget it. Are you really going to follow a man who can do this to his own great-grandson? How long is it going to be before he turns on you? Before you find yourselves in front of a pack of hunting animals?”

  “Shut him up,” Hunter said. He tried to say it jovially, but Maggie could hear the fury underneath.

  And the command didn’t seem to make much sense. Maggie could see the nobles looking at each other—who was supposed to shut him up, and how?

  “There are some things that have to be stopped,” Delos said. “And this man is one of them. I admit it, I was willing to go along with him—but that was because I was blind and stupid. I know better now—and I knew better before he turned against me. You all know me. Would I be standing here, willing to give up my life for no reason?”

  There was the tiniest stirring among the nobles.

  Maggie looked at them hopefully—and then her heart sank.

  They simply weren’t used to thinking for themselves, or maybe they were used to thinking only of themselves. But she could tell there wasn’t material for a rebellion here.

  And the slaves weren’t going to be of any help, either. The guards had weapons, they didn’t. They were frightened, they were unhappy, but this kind of hunt was something they’d seen before. They knew that it couldn’t be stopped.

  “This girl came to us peacefully, trying to keep the alliance between witches and vampire,” Delos was saying, his hand on Aradia’s shoulder. “And in return we tried to kill her. I’m telling you right now, that by spilling her innocent blood, you’re all committing a crime that will come back to haunt you.”

  Another little stirring—among women, Maggie thought. Witches, maybe?

  “Shut him up,” Hunter said, almost bellowing it.

  And this time he seemed to be saying it to a specific person. Maggie followed his gaze and saw Sylvia near them.

  “Some beasts have to be muzzled before they can be hunted,” Hunter said, looking straight at Sylvia. “So take care of it now. The hunt is about to begin.”

  Sylvia stepped closer to Delos, a little uneasily. He stared back at her levelly, as if daring her to wonder what he’d do when she got nearer.

  “Guards!” Hunter Redfern said, sounding tired.

  The guards moved in. They had two different kinds of lances, a distant part of Maggie’s mind noted. One tipped with metal—that must be for humans and witches—and one tipped with wood.

  For vampires, she thought. If Delos wasn’t careful, he might get skewered in the heart before the hunt even began.

  “Now shut his lying mouth,” Hunter Redfern said.

  Sylvia took her basket off her arm.

  “In the new order after the millennium, we’ll have hunts like this every day,” Hunter Redfern was saying, trying to undo the damage that his great-grandson had done. “Each of us will have a city of humans to hunt. A city of throats to cut, a city of flesh to eat.”

  Sylvia was fishing in her basket, not afraid to stand close to the vampire prince since he was surrounded by a forest of lances.

  “Sylvia,” Aradia said quietly.

  Sylvia looked up, startled. Maggie saw her eyes, the color of violets.

  “Each of us will be a prince—” Hunter Redfern was saying.

  “Sylvia Weald,” Aradia said.

  Sylvia looked down. “Don’t talk to me,” she whispered. “You’re not—I’m not one of you anymore.”

  “All you have to do is follow me,” Hunter was saying.

  “Sylvia Weald,” Aradia said. “You were born a witch. Your name means the greenwood, the sacred grove. You are a daughter of Hellewise, and you will be until you die. You are my sister.”

  “I am not,” Sylvia spat.

  “You can’t help it. Nothing can break the bond. In your deepest heart you know that. And as Maiden of all the witches, and in the name of Hellewise Hearth-Woman, I adjure you: remove your spell from this boy.”

  It was the strangest thing—but it didn’t seem to be Aradia who said it. Oh, it was Aradia’s voice, all right, Maggie thought, and it was Aradia standing there. But at that moment she seemed to be fused with another form—a sort of shining aura all around her. Someone who was part of her, but more than she was.

  It looked, Maggie thought dizzily, like a tall woman with hair as pale as Sylvia’s and large brown eyes.

  Sylvia gasped out, “Hellewise…” Her own violet eyes were huge and
frightened.

  Then she just stood frozen.

  Hunter was ranting on. Maggie could hear him vaguely, but all she could see was Sylvia, the shudders that ran through Sylvia’s frame, the heaving of Sylvia’s chest.

  Appeal to their true hearts, Maggie thought.

  “Sylvia,” she said. “I believe in you.”

  The violet eyes turned toward her, amazed.

  “I don’t care what you did to Miles,” Maggie said. “I know you’re confused—I know you were unhappy. But now you have a chance to make up for it. You can do something—something important here. Something that will change the world.”

  “Rivers of blood,” Hunter was raving. “And no one to stop us. We won’t stop with enslaving the humans. The witches are our enemies now. Think of the power you’ll feel when you drink their lives!”

  “If you let this Wild Power be killed, you’ll be responsible for the darkness coming,” Maggie said. “Only you. Because you’re the only one who can stop it right now.”

  Sylvia put a trembling hand to her cheek. She looked as if she were about to faint

  “Do you really want to go down in history as the one who destroyed the world?” Maggie said.

  “As Maiden of all the witches…” Aradia said.

  And another, deeper voice seemed to follow on hers like an echo, As Mother of all the witches…

  “And in the name of Hellewise…”

  And in the name of my children…

  “As you are a Hearth-Woman…”

  As you are my own daughter, a true Hearth-Woman…

  “I adjure you!” Aradia said, and her voice rang out in double tones so clearly that it actually stopped Hunter in mid-tirade.

  It stopped everyone. For an instant there was absolutely no sound in the courtyard. Everyone was looking around to see where the voice had come from.

  Sylvia was simply staring at Aradia.

  Then the violet eyes shut and her entire body shivered in a sigh.

  When she spoke it was on the barest whisper of breath, and only someone as close as Maggie was could have heard her.

  “As a daughter of Hellewise, I obey.”

  And then she was reaching for Delos’s arm, and Delos was reaching toward her. And Hunter was shouting wildly, but Maggie couldn’t make out the words. She couldn’t make out Sylvia’s words, either, but she saw her lips move, and she saw the slender pale fingers clasp Delos’s wrist.

  And saw the lance coming just before it pierced Sylvia’s heart.

  Then, as if everything came into focus at once, she realized what Hunter had been shouting in a voice so distorted it was barely recognizable.

  “Kill her! Kill her!”

  And that’s just what they’d done, Maggie thought, her mind oddly clear, even as a wave of horror and pity seemed to engulf her body. The lance went right through Sylvia. It knocked her backward, away from Delos, and blood spurted all over the front of Sylvia’s beautiful green dress.

  And Sylvia looked toward Hunter Redfern and smiled. This time Maggie could read the words on her lips.

  “Too late.”

  Delos turned. There was red blood on his white shirt—his own, Maggie realized. He’d tried to get in the way of the guard’s killing Sylvia. But now he had eyes only for his great-grandfather.

  “It stops here!”

  She had seen the blue fire before, but never like this. The blast was like a nuclear explosion. It struck where Hunter Redfern was standing with his most loyal nobles around him, and then it shot up into the sky in a pillar of electric blue. And it went on and on, from sky to earth and back again, as if the sun were falling in front of the castle.

  CHAPTER 20

  Maggie held Sylvia gently. Or at least, she knelt by her and tried to hold her as best she could without disturbing the piece of broken spear that was still lodged in Sylvia’s body.

  It was all over. Where Hunter Redfern and his most trusted nobles had been, there was a large scorched crater in the earth. Maggie vaguely recalled seeing a few people running for the hills—Gavin the slave trader had been among them. But Hunter hadn’t been one of them. He had been at ground zero when the blue fire struck, and now there wasn’t even a wisp of red hair to show that he had existed.

  Except for Delos, there weren’t any Night People left in the courtyard at all.

  The slaves were just barely peeking out again from their huts.

  “It’s all right,” Jeanne was yelling. “Yeah, you heard me—it’s all right! Delos isn’t dangerous. Not to us, anyway. Come on, you, get out of there—what are you doing hiding behind that pig?”

  “She’s good at this,” a grim voice murmured.

  Maggie looked up and saw a tall, gaunt figure, with a very small girl clasped to her side.

  “Laundress!” she said. “Oh, and P.J.—I’m so glad you’re all right. But, Laundress, please…”

  The healing woman knelt. But even as she did, a look passed between her and Sylvia. Sylvia’s face was a strange, chalky color, with shadows that looked like bruises under her eyes. There was a little blood at the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s no good,” she said thickly.

  “She’s right,” Laundress said bluntly. “There’s nothing you can do to help this one, Deliverer, and nothing I can do, either.”

  “I’m not anybody’s Deliverer,” Maggie said. Tears prickled behind her eyes.

  “You could have fooled me,” Laundress said, and got up again. “I see you sitting here, and I see all the slaves over there, free. You came and it happened—the prophecies were fulfilled. If you didn’t do it, it’s a strange coincidence.”

  The look in her dark eyes, although as unsentimental as ever, made Maggie’s cheeks burn suddenly. She looked back down at Sylvia.

  “But she’s the one who saved us,” she said, hardly aware that she was speaking out loud. “She deserves some kind of dignity….”

  “She’s not the only one who saved us,” a voice said quietly, and Maggie looked up gratefully at Delos.

  “No, you did, too.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, and knelt where Laundress had. One of his hands touched Maggie’s shoulder lightly, but the other one went to Sylvia’s.

  “There’s only one thing I can do to help you,” he said. “Do you want it?”

  “To become a vampire?” Sylvia’s head moved slightly in a negative. “No. And since there’s wood next to my heart right now, I don’t think it would work anyway.”

  Maggie gulped and looked at the spear, which had cracked in the confusion when the guards ran. “We could take it out—”

  “I wouldn’t live through it. Give up for once, will you?” Sylvia’s head moved slightly again in disgust. Maggie had to admire her; even dying, she still had the strength to be nasty. Witches were tough.

  “Listen,” Sylvia said, staring at her. “There’s something I want to tell you.” She drew a painful breath. “About your brother.”

  Maggie swallowed, braced to hear the terrible details. “Yes.”

  “It really bugged me, you know? I would put on my nicest clothes, do my hair, we would go out…and then he’d talk about you.”

  Maggie blinked, utterly nonplussed. This wasn’t at all what she had expected. “He would?”

  “About his sister. How brave she was. How smart she was. How stubborn she was.”

  Maggie kept blinking. She’d heard Miles accuse her of lots of things, but never of being smart. She felt her eyelids prickle again and her throat swell painfully.

  “He couldn’t stand to hear a bad word about you,” Sylvia was saying. Her purple-shadowed eyes narrowed suddenly, the color of bittersweet nightshade. “And I hated you for that. But him…I liked him.”

  Her voice was getting much weaker. Aradia knelt on her other side and touched the shimmering silvery hair.

  “You don’t have long,” she said quietly, as if giving a warning.

  Sylvia’s eyes blinked once, as if to say she understood. Then she
turned her eyes on Maggie.

  “I told Delos I killed him,” she whispered. “But…I lied.”

  Maggie felt her eyes fly open. Then all at once her heart was beating so hard that it shook her entire body.

  “You didn’t kill him? He’s alive?”

  “I wanted to punish him…but I wanted him near me, too….”

  A wave of dizziness broke over Maggie. She bent over Sylvia, trying not to clutch at the slender shoulders. All she could see was Sylvia’s pale face.

  “Please tell me what you did,” she whispered with passionate intensity. “Please tell me.”

  “I had him…changed.” The musical voice was only a distant murmur now. “Made him a shapeshifter…and added a spell. So he wouldn’t be human again until I wanted…”

  “What kind of spell?” Aradia prompted quietly.

  Sylvia made a sound like the most faraway of sighs. “Not anything that you need to deal with, Maiden…. Just take the leather band off his leg. He’ll always be a shapeshifter…but he won’t be lost to you….”

  Suddenly her voice swelled up a little stronger, and Maggie realized that the bruised eyes were looking at her with something like Sylvia’s old malice.

  “You’re so smart…I’m sure you can figure out which animal…”

  After that a strange sound came out of her throat, one that Maggie had never heard before. Somehow she knew without being told that it meant Sylvia was dying—right then.

  The body in the green dress arched up once and went still. Sylvia’s head fell back. Her eyes, the color of tear-drenched violets, were open, staring up at the sky, but they seemed oddly flat.

  Aradia put a slender dark hand on the pale forehead.

  “Goddess of Life, receive this daughter of Hellewise,” she said in her soft, ageless voice. “Guide her to the other world.” She added, in a whisper, “She takes with her the blessing of all the witches.”

  Maggie looked up almost fearfully to see if the shining figure who had surrounded Aradia like an aura would come back. But all she saw was Aradia’s beautiful face, with its smooth skin the color of coffee with cream and its compassionate blind gaze.