by Faith Hunter
"Noticed that, did you?"
"With the stone is a letter claiming Lucas found it while cleaning out his grampa's belongings, but the original discoverer is unknown, and it is possible we may never find out who discovered it."
"The old man was a notorious money-grubber. His own grandson can't see him not exploiting an opportunity to mine it himself." I set aside my weapon, reached into a basket at my feet and pulled out a pad and pen, flipped past several jewelry designs to a blank page and sketched a globular outline of the relationships and events so far.
"A previously unknown Stanhope cousin is in the mountains," Audric continued, "and is sent here just at this time, by the matriarch."
"Coincidence?"
"Is there such a beast?" Without waiting for an answer, he continued. "The blood spilled in the alley where Lucas was attacked was removed, indicating devil-spawn were present, or close enough to be drawn by the scent. In the hills of nearby counties, spawn are drinking blood. In Linville, where Gramma lives, where the stone was stored, a family was drained. I asked a few questions when I heard of it. They were Stanhopes, distant relations."
I didn't like the direction this was taking, but it was making an awful kind of sense. "They were looking for the stone?"
"Or for Stanhopes. A daywalker has spoken to Ciana, also a Stanhope," he said, worry lines growing at his eyes. "Now a second-unforeseen has attacked a Stanhope. Because he was spelled with Darkness, we may consider the possibility that a Power, seeking that bloodline, was involved with Lucas' kidnapping. Lucas' letter stated that Stanhopes are in danger, and though we don't yet know why, it must be related to Benaiah Stanhope. I had thought the focal point of this conundrum was the amethyst, but it could be Stanhope blood." He thought a moment more. "I will escort Ciana to school each day and back here or home. She and Rupert must be protected."
Relief flooded through me. "Thank you."
"And now we have to go to the cops," he said, dropping the formality.
I looked away from him but saw the smile he smothered.
"I'm not particularly fond of them myself. No unforeseen is. But the Stanhopes need the police to be involved. If we don't go to them and Ciana or Rupert is taken or killed, we couldn't live with it. Up, mage. And dress appropriately for the weather this time."
"At least I wasn't half naked."
"I am a specimen of great beauty. You are privileged to have looked upon me."
I snorted, and Audric laughed. I was no longer alone.
At the LE, Officer Litton listened to our story as sleet fell in the streets and alleys. It took an hour to fill out all his papers and another until his superior could meet with us. Captain Durbarge met us in the Law Enforcement Center's cafeteria, and as he entered, I felt Audric disguise a flinch in a small yawn, and stretch as if he had been sitting too long, the denim of his shirt and jeans too tight. As he moved, he touched his necklace, the amulet hiding his neomage genetic heritage. That meant Audric sensed something about the cop.
I sent out the faintest skim and withdrew instantly. Sweet seraph! An Administration of the ArchSeraph Investigator! I drew on my bear amulet to double-damp my skin as the small man sat across from us, and then realized that wasn't smart. AASIs, called asseys by the disrespectful, sometimes recognized the use of power. The investigator had hooded, droopy eyes, giving him a deceptively somnolent look. He wore an old-fashioned, black wool suit with a starched white shirt and a fringed black scarf looped around his neck. Durbarge opened a black leather case, revealing an AAS ID sigil, wings and halo, the clear crystal glittering with archseraph energies. I was careful to keep my neomage paws away. It was said such sigils would sometimes glow in the presense of a mage. "I'm Captain Durbarge with the AAS. What can you tell me about the attack you just reported?"
"We are honored to have the Administration of the Arch-Seraph show an interest in the case," Audric said, cutting off my response. "Are you in Mineral City because of the disappearance of Lucas Stanhope and the violence shown on SNN?"
The cop held Audric's gaze. "That and a related matter. What can you—"
"So the violent attacks on Lucas and Rupert are part of something larger."
"It's possible. The matter today? Please?" He still looked sleepy, but Audric's questions had snared his interest.
Audric glanced at me. My turn. I described what I had seen and done. Well, the sanitized version Audric and I had concocted before we came to the station. Durbarge laced his hands together on the table in front of him. When I finished, he asked, "And you raised your hand against another?"
Fear plunged into me like a spike. I almost bowed my head, taking refuge in humility and repentance. Instead, the fear did a somersault in my chest and came out as anger. I met his eyes. "In defense of another life. I took no joy in my actions."
The assey cocked his head as if he found me a curiosity. Not what I wanted.
I reined in the irritation seething beneath my skin. "Before the next Jubilee I will confess my sin of violence at kirk and ask God the Victorious for mercy."
"A chaste and humble reply."
His tone made me want to kick him. Chaste and humble my neomage backside. He didn't believe me. He didn't believe Audric. Somehow, we had slipped and generated his special attention.
"What can you tell me about Jason?"
That was unexpected. "Lucas' brother?" I asked. The assey didn't reply. He simply stared at me, waiting. I resisted the urge to draw on my amulets. "Not much. I met him at my wedding and again at my divorce."
"Have you done business with the man?"
"He's never been in the shop."
"I see. And your impression of him?"
"It isn't kind."
Durbarge quirked his lips into a small smile. I had a feeling that for him it was the equivalent of howling laughter. "Humor me. You can confess this small sin today too."
Cheeky. "Jason wants money. He doesn't care about family or children, or anyone except himself. He isn't capable of committing to a long-term relationship, much like Lucas, but with Jason, there's an element of cruelty in his flitting from woman to woman. With Lucas, it's more that he can't seem to help himself."
Again that small smile. "Weakness in one brother, cruelty in another, and a catamite in the third." Smooth words, like a sharp blade one doesn't feel until the blood starts to fall. I was stunned into silence.
"The Most High is merciful," Audric said, his face as still as stone, eyes flinty.
Durbarge nodded once. "So he is. And just. His vengeance will not be hindered."
"There are those who depend on his mercy more than others."
"And those who look with joy for his justice and retribution."
"And all are part of his body," Audric said quickly. The two had now established that they were well trained in opposing schools of study on the nature of the Most High, Durbarge a practicing orthodox, and therefore a mage-hater, and Audric a student of the reformation. Wasn't that just dandy? I wondered what other secrets Audric was hiding.
Each nodded once, signaling his recognition of the other's theological position. I wanted to slap them upside their thick skulls and shout, Focus! Rupert is injured and Lucas is missing! But I kept my expression serene and seethed inside where they couldn't see it. I hoped.
"You are Audric Cooper, dead-miner, man with a salvage claim for the entire city of Sugar Grove," the assey said. "Tell me what you saw today."
Without reacting to proof that his background had been researched, Audric told of the dustup in the alley, our version. The assey listened, motionless, taking in each small gesture, each shift of expression, depositing them in his brain with information we didn't have, and correlating them into an interactive vision only he saw.
When Audric stopped speaking, Durbarge sat silent, fingers laced. A clock ticked somewhere close, a door opened and closed, the smell of scorched coffee filtered into the room. We waited. "I don't usually tell interested parties about an investigation, but I'm making an exceptio
n." He looked directly at me as if I were an insect and he a collector. "A Power has been operating in nearby counties. We believe citizens are working with the Darkness. Jason is associating with those we suspect. He's being investigated."
I remembered the stink of spelled blood, the proficient savage-chi moves. I wanted to ask about neomage involvement but settled for a question that might not get me carved up. "How does that relate to the violence against the Stanhopes?"
"It relates quite well if there is a blood-demon involved."
I looked at the small man, horror seeping through my veins. A blood-demon was a Dark spirit, incorporeal, incapable of physical manifestation but able to use the bodies of humans. They traveled from human to human through bloodlines. Some speculated they had the capability of recognizing similar genetic properties and traveling through families by accessing genes themselves. Ciana and Rupert were in mortal danger. Devil-spawn roamed the hills. A blood-demon was in the mix, and a Power. A daywalker was loose. I opened my mouth to tell the assey about the beast when Audric placed his foot over mine beneath the table in warning. Instead, I said, "Thank you for telling us. We appreciate that the Administration of the Arch-Seraph is on guard to protect the Stanhopes."
Durbarge's brows rose in amusement and he stood with a scrape of chair legs. "We aren't here to protect your family, Thorn Stanhope. We're here to investigate a major Power and its minions. Then to summon warriors to subdue it and bring to justice its cadre of slaves and followers. Whoever they may be."
Officious little snot. We stood as well, and the big man took my arm. Another warning. Or he noted my rising color and knew what I was about to say. "We thank you," he said to the little man, who definitely didn't like having to look up into Audric's eyes.
Audric pulled me out of the LEC. Cold clamped down, trying to freeze the anger simmering inside me. I shoved my hands into my pockets. "You should have let me sock him," I said as Audric guided me into the sleet. He chuckled deep in his chest and led the way past the new city hall and Waldroup's Fine Furniture, owned by the baker's brother. The Waldroups were a large, prosperous clan.
"Which would have given him the right to search you. He would have found your amulets and you would have been taken off in handcuffs to the AAS, interrogated most painfully, then turned over to the nearest Enclave. Or he might have kept you, used you, and given you to the elders," he said, his tone pleasant. "I would have been arrested and sentenced to the winter. Death by freezing and starvation is quite painful, I imagine, but nothing compared to cold steel and human wrath."
"You're getting a kick out of all this, aren't you?"
Audric grinned happily. The half-breeds were warriors who trained for, and loved, a good battle. Most were bound to the High Host, participating in the mopping up of the remaining Powers and Principalities of Darkness. Heavy fighting. Mighty battle. Blood, guts, and glory, huzzah! Nothing one could have in peaceful Mineral City, in the middle of nowhere, a city where no Darkness activity had been seen in generations—until now. Coincidence piled on coincidence. Or something planned by an unseen hand. Audric hadn't said why he first came to Mineral City. And he hadn't asked why I was here. Don't ask, don't tell. Was I lucky or what?
We came even with the Blue Snail Cafe and Diner. I turned from the window, then quickly back again. Sitting in a booth was Jane Hilton, Lucas' new wife, having lunch with three men, including Derek Culpepper. I risked a second glance, nudged Audric to look, and we moved on.
"Distraught, isn't she?" I asked.
"Well, well, well," Audric chuckled again.
The Culpepper family had big bucks and was politically powerful, and the family patriarch was a kirk elder. Jane looked beautiful, delicate, weakly feminine, and positively beseeching, blond hair loose across her shoulders, green eyes huge. It was revolting. I couldn't see the other men, whose faces were turned away from the window. There was red meat on the plates, burgers cooked rare, oozing with thin blood. Colas and french fries. An expensive, fancy Pre-Ap meal. "Now, what could Lucas' new wife want with the likes of him?" Audric asked. I had no answer.
Chapter 11
"Derek wants us all to abandon the town because of the ice caps," Rupert said, holding an ice pack to his temple. "Privately, a few months back, he approached Lucas, Jason, and me about supporting the decision to move. He promised he could get the seraphs to resettle us elsewhere, which would mean we would be slightly better off financially than refugees, though not much."
"And where was I during all this?" I asked.
"You were going through a divorce, not speaking to Lucas, and have never been interested in politics. Remember?"
"Oh. Well, I'm interested now."
"He didn't say why, but purchase of the Trine was part of the deal, though no one said anything about mineral rights. When we turned him down, he left with no hard feelings."
Audric smoothed the lightning-bolt pendant at his neck, thinking. We were in Rupert's apartment across from mine, my injured friend lying on an ancient and worn leather sofa Audric had dead-mined from his salvaged city. Audric and I were sitting across from him in wingback chairs. A small gas fire danced merrily in the fireplace, casting warmth over peach-painted walls and windows hung with heavy tapestries.
"Jason saw dollar signs out of the deal and was ready to sell. He was pretty unhappy when Lucas and I turned him down." Rupert stretched his left arm as if it ached. It was the side he'd been dropped on when I rammed his attacker.
Audric's voice was almost dreamy when he said, "Culpepper could be involved with the people who took Lucas, I suppose. He has ties to town and kirk government through his father. He has money. If he wants the land, then that gives him motive."
"He's smarmy enough to get involved with a Dark Power," Rupert said. "And so is that woman. Maybe they're in it together. Just a thought." He grinned at me slyly. "So go to your policeman and tell him they were talking. Let Bartholomew figure it out."
"He's not my policeman."
"Whatever. Pass me the aspirin?"
"I think that would be a precipitous action," Audric said carefully, as he passed the bottle. "The meeting between Culpepper and Hilton may have been innocent. She may have thought such a powerful and wealthy man could call seraphs."
"The woman, like all the women my brother attracts, is a harpy."
"Thank you so very much," I said.
He waved away the insult, downing two aspirin with water. "Except for you. I never did figure out what Lucas saw in you. You have a brain; you have morals; you're built like a ballet dancer rather than a cow." I looked down at my chest. Small boobs. Right.
"There's a meeting after Jubilee," Audric said. "If Culpepper is involved, if he took Lucas, knows about the amethyst, and wants the land, he'll attend. And he'll eventually contact the remaining Stanhopes. So we'll go too. See how the wind blows."
"Questions," I said to Rupert. "Now that you know what we think, and what the AAS thinks, what if Jason is involved with a Darkness in the hills? What if he intends to kill off all his family for reasons we haven't uncovered? What if there is a blood-demon?"
"Jason's blood is so saturated with liquor that nothing could use it to track us."
Audric made a clawing motion at Rupert and hissed, but he was laughing. It wasn't an answer. Perhaps there wasn't one.
* * * * *
He rolled over in the dark, the stink of sulfur waking him again, burning the delicate membranes of his sinuses. He reached out and touched the walls of his prison. Coarse rock, brittle and broken. The faint stench of old urine and rot reached him. He knew he had gangrene on the frostbitten dead flesh of his exposed wrists, fingers, mouth, and ears. The smell would soon bring the spawn to him, hungry, eyes gleaming and impatient. He could only hope Malashe-el showed up again to protect him.
He almost laughed, but the single deep breath brought on a spell of coughing that racked his chest. His life wasn't worth devil spit if he was dependent on a Darkness for survival.
The fai
nt red glow in the opening to his prison was brighter now. He could see the rocks that made up the boundaries of his small cell and the corroded iron bars that blocked off the only entrance. Could see the pale white of his living skin against the black of dying flesh where he'd touched the iron bars. Could see the stone jar that held the measure of water allowed him each day.
Air moved through the cavern like the breath of many beings, a soft soughing sound. The things they were bringing to life with his blood would soon wake, and the Stanhopes would die, every last one. Followed quickly thereafter by the remaining inhabitants of Mineral City.
"You're awake!" The voice was delighted, the breaking tone of an adolescent human boy, the same voice that had identified itself as Malashe-el.
Lucas knew it was important that he had been told the name. There was something about Powers' true names, but he couldn't remember what. His brain was mush. He turned his head, the stone beneath his cheek tearing his skin. The boy sniffed at the fresh blood, then ducked his head, abashed. "Sorry. Mama tells me that's really rude."
Lucas chuckled. "You could say that. Humans don't like to be thought of as food."
"But you are food."
His amusement faded and he shuddered at the statement of fact, the only reality to the Darkness. Such simple logic. It meant death—and soon.
"I brought you a blanket. And some fresh bread."
Lucas rose on one elbow and regarded the boy at the opening, his gangly body silhouetted by reddish light. "Why?"
"Mama said I had to."
"Why?"
"She doesn't want you to die just yet."
Lucas chuckled again, the sound rasping and bloated with despair. "That would be my hope too, but it isn't very likely. Just who is your mother?"
"She said you knew her." The boy sat on the cavern floor, his movements demon-fast, his tone puzzled. He handed Lucas a blanket and a loaf of bread. The blanket was silk, soft and warmer than seraph wings. Lucas wrapped the length of it around him, luxuriating in the heat, a near-human warmth he had never thought to feel again.
