Bitter Night: A Horngate Witches Book

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  He remembered that long hypnotic moment staring into her eyes. He could almost feel himself facing her again and that sensation of falling into an abyss. Heat filled him and, just as swiftly, died beneath a chill that stabbed through him like a spear. He wiped a hard hand over his mouth. He was attracted to her. He could not argue that. She was beautiful, smart, capable, and powerful’everything that made him hungry for a woman. He wanted her and it had been a long time since he had wanted anyone. But the pull was deeper than that’like a riptide dragging him under. It was as if he recognized her’or something in her. Whatever it was spoke to him down deep in his gut. Sort of like getting kicked. The idea of Selange torturing her to death set his teeth on edge, but there was nothing he could do.

  Thus when Max and her witch appeared on the amethyst path and the mist rose in a white wall behind them, his feelings were mixed. He watched Max prowl ahead, her head turning from side to side, her stride boldly confident. He watched a moment, then went to inform Selange of their arrival.

  He found her in the nave. She stood talking to two witches from Arizona, both with crow-black hair shining blue in the candlelight. Selange tapped her red-tipped nails against her thigh, glancing about impatiently. Alexander slid through the crowd of witches and stopped at Selange’s elbow.

  “They have arrived.”

  Her crimson mouth tightened and then curved. “Finally. Go wait with the others. The challenge must wait until the Conclave business is over.”

  Dismissed, Alexander retreated through a small door at the east end of the Sagrado’it was the Spanish word for “sacred,” given to the Conclave site on its founding. Most did not remember that, or care. Alexander liked to know the history of things.

  Outside was an outbuilding so overgrown with jasmine that only small red patches of its terra-cotta roof tiles showed through. A fountain made from a single scepter of smoky quartz rose from a mosaic stone circle in a grassy courtyard between the buildings. The quartz glowed from within as water gurgled from the top and splashed down its sides.

  Alexander glanced up at the moon and pushed his glasses more firmly up his nose. The reflected sun heated his skin and soon he’d start to blister. He considered the jasmine-covered building. Shadowblades milled inside, some talking and laughing, some playing cards or dice, and more than a few getting belligerent. Alexander didn’t hesitate as he passed by the fountain and went to lean in the shadows of one of the basalt monoliths circling the fountain like sentries. It did nothing to hide him from Shadowblade eyes, but it kept the moonlight off him. He touched the reddened skin of his cheek, feeling his healing smoothing away the heat. He crossed his arms, watching the Sagrado ...waiting for Max.

  Nearly twenty minutes had gone by before the door finally opened. She shut it behind her, but did not leave the shelter of the small alcove. Instead she stood a moment, then dropped lazily into a watchful crouch, her elbows propped on her leather-clad knees.

  Mosquitoes buzzed and night birds chirped. There was a crackle of a seedpod popping open, and a rustle of a frog through the rosemary. Finally, when it was clear she would wait out the Conclave where she crouched, Alexander pushed himself away from the watch stone.

  Her attention riveted on him the moment he stirred. Her expression was impassive, and Alexander did not doubt that she had seen him standing there from the moment she emerged through the door.

  He stopped at the bottom of the steps so they were nearly eye to eye. She did not speak. Once again he felt unsettled by her dark-eyed regard. Anger uncurled slowly inside him. At last he was compelled to break the silence.

  “You know Selange will challenge your witch because you were in Julian?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Her indifference stirred the flames of his annoyance. He wanted to break her cool mask and see within. “It will not be combat to the death. Selange wants you alive. She wants ...you.”

  Her brows flicked up in momentary surprise, then her face smoothed. “Does she now?” Max drawled. She tipped her head. “I noticed she didn’t know my name. Why didn’t you tell her?”

  “Maybe it was self-preservation,” he suggested.

  She nodded with a dark understanding, and something bleak and violent shifted in her eyes. For a moment her face seemed made of ice and steel.

  “Thanks for the heads-up. I suppose the challenge will be endurance?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded again, scanning the night. “Sorry, then.”

  “For what?”

  She gave him a sideways look, then the corner of her mouth quirked in a half smile. It was cynical and lasted but a moment. “Giselle is a good torturer.” She looked back out into the night. “And I am a very good victim.”

  The last caught Alexander up short. What did she mean? Much as he did not want to, he could not avoid the obvious conclusion. It made his stomach clench. Selange had plenty of faults, some that made his stomach turn, but she did not routinely torture her own people. What sort of witch was Giselle?

  Max smiled again, this time in a bleak, distant way. Alexander had a feeling she was looking inward and wasn’t pleased with what she found. He searched for something to say, but words failed him. Strained silence pooled between them. In the end, it was Max who broke it.

  “I hope whatever you were up to out there in Julian was worth what we’re about to go through.”

  Alexander replied automatically, unthinkingly, “I would suffer anything for Selange and be glad of it.” But it was not true. Long ago he’d drawn a line he would not willingly cross again. But the words were gone and the damage done.

  Max’s head slowly turned. “Is that what you really believe?”

  No. Not anymore. Not for a long time. But loyalty and years of habit would not let him say it. She was his enemy, tonight at least. And he would show her no weakness, no doubt. “Of course.”

  Her lip curled as if she would like to spit at him. Instead she turned away. Transparent shadows hollowed her cheeks and eyes so that for a moment she looked cadaverous. “You are a waste of skin,” she said slowly.

  Alexander recoiled from the flat hate in her voice, even as answering anger flowed through him, heating his voice. “I am a Shadowblade and I serve my witch with all my heart and soul,” he said. “It is what I am and I make no apologies for it.”

  “Honor,” she scoffed. “And what has she done to deserve your heart and soul? Not to mention your pain and suffering?”

  “She has given me a life I could only have dreamed of. She gave me gifts beyond measure.”

  Max rolled her eyes. “We’ll see if you still think so when Giselle has her way with you.” Max shook her head. “Like I said, waste of skin. Why don’t you go hide in your doghouse until your mistress whistles for you?”

  “And do you think yourself better than me?” he lashed back. “I hear you whine like a spoiled child and I see you risk yourself stupidly for a Hag and let yourself be caught on top of that. If any of my Shadowblades behaved like you, I would give them a lesson they would not soon forget.”

  “So why don’t you teach me,” Max said, her brows rising, daring him.

  “The Conclave rules forbid it. But if you want to die, have the balls to walk into the sun so others do not have to suffer because of you.”

  She smiled wide. “I just might, once I take care of a couple of things.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask what, but he bit back the question before it could escape. “You call me a waste of skin, but you are no better. I would hate to have to depend on you for anything.”

  With that he spun around and walked away. He strode around the Sagrado and out along the perimeter path. Mist roiled outside the edge like an army of mad ghosts. Max’s words wormed inside him. His body clenched against the invasion, but there was no stopping it. Waste of skin.

  He paced. Resentment and anger spurred him hard. It was unlike him. He was always the calm at the center of the storm. But tonight he could not seem to find balance. It
was not just Max setting him on edge. It was Selange. She was scared. When she was cornered, she would do anything to survive’to win. All day he had imagined what she would do with the Hag’s staff if she found it. She could stir San Diego into bloody riots and drink the magic of the violence and the death. His teeth ground together. She would not hesitate, and the slaughter would be biblical. It would cross the line he had promised he would never cross again. But so what? Would he walk into the sun as he had threatened? He could not fight her; he could not stop her. But suicide was gutless.

  A sound that was more a ripple in the air jerked him around. The candles in the Sagrado windows blurred as white mist flowed upward, sealing the Conclave from the inside. Abruptly the murmer of voices within muted. At the same time, the roiling mist beyond the path rose in a murky dome overhead, swallowing the top of the butte entirely.

  A bare crunch of gravel and a slither of movement made him tense. Max emerged from around the Sagrado and strode toward him. She was graceful in a martial way, her body more angles than curves, though the outfit she wore was dramatically sexy. She stopped in front of him, her jaw sharp and jutting.

  “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Probably?” He was surprised that he was glad for her company. It was better than his own thoughts.

  She rolled her eyes. “I sometimes forget how to shut my mouth. It’s genetic. Nothing I can do about it.”

  “But you still meant it.”

  She grimaced, one shoulder lifting in a shrug as she folded her arms, her legs bracing wide. She sighed, looking down at her feet, her toes curling. “I didn’t choose this life and I sure as hell don’t want it. As far as I’m concerned, the only good witch is a dead witch. But that doesn’t give me any right to judge you. Maybe your witch is okay.” She said it with a look like she had a mouthful of hot peppers.

  Alexander ran a hand over his mouth and jaw, not entirely sure how to reply. To say she’d surprised him’again’was an understatement. “Tell me the truth’are you insane?”

  She gave him a sideways look as if wondering if he was serious, then pressed a dramatic hand to her forehead, tilting her head back. “Oh, dear’you’ve guessed my secret.” She said it in a bad Scarlett O’Hara accent.

  “What secret? You bounce off the walls like a blind crow trapped in a carnival fun house. A mannequin could see you are insane. How the hell did you end up Shadowblade Prime?”

  “Because I’m clearly such a bad risk?” She asked with a fleeting self-derogatory smile. “The nutshell version is’bad taste in friends. You?”

  “I have not regretted it,” Alexander said defensively, and wondered who he was trying to convince.

  “That wasn’t the question.”

  “Sure it was.”

  She grinned. “Fair enough. So does that mean we have a truce?”

  “All right. Now what?” He watched her with no clue as to what she might do or say next.

  She glanced around, a smile playing around her lips. “Hmmm. I guess coffee’s out. No clubbing either. What does one do at a Conclave for fun?”

  Alexander found himself smiling back. “We could walk and talk,” he said, gesturing toward the path. “We can discuss ...food.” He raised his brows in a question.

  “Seems safe enough.”

  She began to walk and Alexander fell in beside her. But even as he began to tell her about one of his favorite hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurants, his mind wandered back. Waste of skin. The words would not leave him alone. He thought of Selange with the staff and his stomach churned.

  DAWN WAS JUST TWO HOURS AWAY WHEN A WAVE OF magic rippled outward from the Sagrado as the Conclave ended. It shimmered through the air like a heat mirage, and the mist walls peeled away from the butte, sinking into the ground as they went.

  Alexander looked sharply at Max. They had spent the last hours talking about little of any consequence. He had discovered she was mercurial in her moods, that she longed to see the rest of the world, and that she had a dream of going to Machu Picchu and another of learning to skin-dive. He had also pieced together from a few unguarded remarks that her hate for her witch was as real and fierce as her devotion to her coven. He had not decided if she was truly suicidal, but did know she was reckless, and that was just as bad. Maybe worse. And he had discovered he enjoyed her company. She was honest and unexpectedly playful. She liked to laugh, though he thought she probably did not do so often. But with the breaking of the Sagrado wards, that woman disappeared and the Shadowblade Prime returned. He felt the savage violence swallow her as completely as if she had sloughed her thin skin of humanity and let the brutal animal inside emerge. The transformation happened in the space of a heartbeat and was utterly complete. His warm, funny companion of the last hours vanished as if she had never existed, and in her place was a cold, iron-willed predator.

  “Time to go face the music,” she said through marble lips.

  She did not wait for a reply. Alexander followed as she walked away, his own body tensing for battle. At least he would not have to hurt her. He did not want to be responsible for that.

  Just before she reached the sweeping, moss-covered front steps, the moon slid from behind the clouds where it had been hiding much of the night. The glare made Alexander glad for his sunglasses. Max hesitated, one foot resting on the bottom step. She glanced up.

  “Priceless,” she muttered, and trotted up the curve of steps through the empty arch at the top.

  Even as she did, Alexander saw the sweep of hot red that washed her exposed skin, followed by a bubbling of white blisters. He stared. The light of the full moon gave him a slight burn, but nothing like that. She reached the shadows beneath the arch and turned to look at him. The blisters filming her eyes cleared and her skin smoothed back to ice white.

  “Coming?”

  Alexander joined her at the top of the stairs. “I’ve never seen a Shadowblade burn like that.”

  She shrugged. “That’s me, one of a kind.”

  She started to turn away and he caught her arm, pulling her around to face him. Though she tensed, she did not jerk away as he expected. “What are you?” he demanded.

  “I’m a Blade, same as you.”

  “Not the same. Even I do not burn that way.”

  “Even you, huh? Wow. I must be a super-duper special snowflake, then.”

  His fingers tightened. “Who is your witch? Where did you come from?”

  She grabbed his hand and twisted it away. He let her. “None of your business, Slick. Now they are waiting for us to entertain them. Let’s get on with it.”

  They entered a shadowy foyer. Its stone floor was strewn with fresh herbs and flower petals. The scent of them was pungent and cleansing. On the opposite wall was another opening leading into the rectangular nave. Inside, the air was humid with too many bodies. The room swam thick with antagonism.

  Alexander and Max strode through the wide door shoulder to shoulder. Inside, the throng of witches waited, standing outside the anneau floor made up of the encompassing circle surrounding a five-pointed star, which embraced the triangle, and at the center of it, the eye. The last was a ruby-colored, oval stone set flat into the blond wood.

  Half-melted butter-colored candles traced the brilliant hues of the circle, star, and triangle, each shape inlaid into the floor in glimmering precious and semi-precious stones. The walls were swathed in jewel-bright painted silk tapestries. They depicted scenes of erotic couplings and pastoral scenes of Uncanny and Divine creatures juxtaposed with violent images of human battle and depravity. Sinuous wood carvings in shapes of arcane power interspersed the wall hangings and windows. Six-candle chandeliers, made of heavy, black iron, dangled from the high, beamed ceiling.

  Above the tall windows was a narrow balcony that ran down both sides of the long walls and across the rear of the Sagrado. Narrow stairs slotted down in the corners. They were filled with a moving line of men and women dressed as scantily as Alexander and Max, many more so. They crou
ched and stood, predators poised for attack, spectators for the show.

  Alexander assessed the gathered witches. They comprised both men and women, some surprisingly old, with silvered hair and lined faces. Some wore dramatic clothing off the pages of a Shakespeare play or a King Arthur tale, while others were dressed in chic high fashion, while still others looked like they were off to do a Cirque du Soleil performance. Each had bare feet and bare heads, as required by the laws of Conclave, and each had that hard, arrogant, unrelenting look that Alexander always associated with territory witches. These were leaders’kings and queens of magical countries, their borders constantly under attack.

  His gaze came at last to rest on Selange and Giselle. They stood together. Selange’s cheeks were spotted with red, her mouth quivering. She was furious. By contrast, Giselle looked ethereal and calm, as if she already knew the outcome of this challenge and did not fear it. Her glance flicked between Alexander and Max, one brow rising in a silent question to her Prime.

  “Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends,” Max murmured.

  “What is that?”

  “It’s from a song. Pretty much covers the story of my life. But we should get this over with. There’s not much night left.”

  With that she strode forward. Alexander followed. They went around the circle, coming to a halt in front of the two witches.

  Selange glanced at Giselle, then raised her voice to the assembly. “I claim the right of challenge. The witch Giselle has invaded my territory. I demand atonement.”

  “I deny your accusations,” Giselle said in ritual answer. “I claim the right of challenge to demonstrate my innocence.”

  “Then we shall proceed,” Selange said smugly. “As the offense is against me, I claim also the terms. If you are innocent, the Guardians will not let you fail.”