Brimstone Bride

by Barbara J. Hancock

  He’d tried to give Michael the sun too.

  She always chuckled whenever Grim fully materialized in the Huck Finn atmosphere of the bedroom. Other children worried about the monster under the bed. Michael had a monster as a faithful companion and he never seemed to worry about anything.

  If occasionally she worried for him, it was a mother’s prerogative. Never mind that her worries were a little bit darker than most.

  She strolled down the path with her notebook tucked under her arm. The roses were blooming again. Adam was already planning the first crush. It was hard to believe more than a year had passed since they’d defeated Malachi. She came around a curve in the pathway and walked through the arbor tunnel she’d first strolled through with Adam months ago. Sunlight penetrated the thick climbing roses only in sporadic places. She walked through sunlight, then shadow, then sunlight again until she reached the other side. The first song she’d recorded had been about finding light in the darkness.

  When she stepped into the cottage clearing, she noted that the sod had taken root and was growing well. The workmen had repaired all the damage they’d done with their equipment as they’d converted the cottage into a recording studio. Tangled Vine was the name of her label. They’d left the exterior untouched. It still looked as if the entire building was made of climbing roses. But inside was a technical marvel with everything she needed to record her new songs.

  She walked to the stoop where dried cherry blossoms had once terrified her on a dark night and opened the unlocked door. The skeleton keys now hung in Esther’s kitchen where the firebird tea service was kept in a cabinet and brought out on special occasions.

  Elena Turov’s sitting room was no longer a shrine.

  The Russian fairy tale book was on a shelf in Michael’s room along with many other titles, some vintage, some new.

  She always felt a tingle of excitement when she entered the studio to work, but this time she found the daemon king on a tall stool near her soundboard. She was out of practice. The tingle was a reaction to Ezekiel’s Brimstone blood. He had it tempered and shielded, but her affinity detected a hint as their proximity increased.

  “You have been busy,” Ezekiel said.

  It was the first time she’d seen him in casual clothes. His effect wasn’t diminished. A black T-shirt and lean denim jeans paired with narrow, square-toed black oxfords didn’t disguise his hardness or the age that shone from his eyes. They were very dark blue. So dark that his irises blended into his pupils at times when he turned his head from the light.

  “He’s only three. It’s not time,” Victoria said.

  “Although our agreement says ‘every summer.’ I’m not here to claim him. He’s doing well with you. Your affinity is helping him through his Burn. I don’t want to disrupt that,” Ezekiel said.

  Victoria forced herself to step into the cottage and close the door. If any daemon screamed disruption it was Ezekiel. She’d seen him glow with Brimstone as he “disrupted” as much as he could. Granted, she’d also seen him save Adam’s life with the Brimstone from his very own veins.

  “He is doing well,” she said as she placed her notebook on the soundboard. She’d managed to approach him as if he was a normal stepfather come to call.

  The daemon king rose and moved away from her. For the first time, she realized with shock that he wasn’t wearing Lucifer’s wings. He wasn’t diminished. He was still powerful and regal, but she did wonder at the absence of his mantle.

  “I’m sorry. The wings were not without residual power. They shielded me somewhat. Your affinity is painful to me now. A reminder that your mother is gone,” Ezekiel explained. He took another chair across the room. As soon as he settled into it, it resembled a throne in spite of its actual form.

  “Why did you come here without them?” Victoria asked. She didn’t want to know. She wanted him to leave. She wanted to lose herself in song for a few hours before dinner and then she wanted to play with Michael until bedtime.

  “I bargained with heaven to save Adam Turov. It was a strategic mistake. Of course they asked for Lucifer’s wings. He defied them. He’s gone. They see his wings as a tribute they deserve. I saw it as a high price I was willing to pay...for you, for Michael, for an honorable servant,” Ezekiel said. “Adam Turov saved me long ago. In exchange, I held his soul as I helped him defeat the Order of Samuel. But even though that bargain was complete, I found I could not watch him die while you wept.”

  “You are a king without a crown,” Victoria said.

  “One day, Michael will retrieve Lucifer’s wings. Until then, I’ll hold what we have wrenched from the Rogues with my own two hands, no wings required,” Ezekiel said.

  He raised two clenched fists and his conviction sizzled the air. Victoria had settled onto the stool he’d vacated, but she rose in response to his emotion. The potential for scorch in his company always made her nervous on top of his designs on her child.

  “He has a choice,” Victoria said. “He’ll always have a choice.”

  “This I have promised to you, but I have no control over heaven and what they might require,” Ezekiel warned.

  He stood and moved toward the door. She was always surprised when he didn’t vanish in a puff of smoke or go up in flames and disappear. Instead, he opened her cottage door and stepped into the sun.

  “There’s no one else I would have chosen to parent my heir than you and Adam Turov. I look forward to Michael’s visits,” Ezekiel said before slowly closing the door.

  * * *

  She forced herself to work for a few hours, but then she headed to the main house for much-needed company and rest. The daemon king’s visit was only a reminder that there were always shadows, even when she walked in the light. Michael had come in from the vineyards where he had finished his game of catch to ride with Adam on an inspection tour. He loved the ATVs and they’d purchased a special booster seat and helmet so he could ride them safely.

  He bubbled with news about what he’d seen while she ran his bath and placed him in a sudsy tub. Grim stood nearby as transparent as smoke. He would supervise the bath while she freshened up in her room just down the hall.

  “I’ll be back. Wash between your toes,” she ordered.

  Michael giggled when she squiggled a soapy finger between his toes just before she left. She was pretty sure Grim rolled his eyes.

  She walked into the master bedroom to find a large white box on the bed. It was tied with a crimson satin ribbon.

  “I thought this would never arrive and then I thought you’d never finish in the studio to come and find it,” Adam said. He rose from a chair in the corner and came to take her in his arms. She leaned into his embrace with more gusto than he was expecting. “What happened?” he asked, always on alert. She was glad to have the warrior to lean on.

  “Ezekiel came to call,” she said against his chest. His whole body stiffened in response. “He’s gone now,” she reassured him. “He only came to...well... I think he’s lonely.”

  “Does this mean we’ve joined the sandwich generation?” Adam said.

  He tried to cheer her and it succeeded. She laughed and pulled back from his arms.

  “Yes. I think it does,” she replied. “Early and in the darkest way imaginable. We’ll be busy taking care of Michael and his unusual stepgrandfather. Avoiding the latter as much as possible!”

  “We’ll have to deal with him eventually,” Adam warned.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. We’ve dealt with him enough already. Daemon deals can’t be trusted. I know that. But I keep having to make them. I’m afraid Michael will too,” she said.

  “Well, considering he is half daemon, I’d say he’s going to make his fair share of deals in his lifetime. Our job will be to raise him to make honest ones,” Adam said.

  He tugged her back toward him and low
ered his face to kiss her lips. The gentle connection instantly flared to something hotter than he’d intended. Their tongues danced and Victoria forgot all about the daemon king.

  It was Adam who broke the kiss and pushed her toward the bed.

  “I’ve been waiting too long for this to be distracted. Open it,” he ordered.

  Victoria reached for the satin ribbon and pulled it free. She lifted the lid of the box and placed it to the side on the bed. Inside the box mounds of golden paper shimmered. She carefully parted the folds of gilded tissue until she came to the treasure that nestled beneath them.

  She’d once gone to a ball with Adam in a dress that resembled the firebird from his Russian fairy tale. But the dress she pulled from the box was as different from the firebird as night and day. The skirt was made up of white, jagged layers of silk edged with gray satin slashes that upon close inspection turned out to be in a feather design. The bodice was also gray silk with soft tufts of downy white feathers as sleeves.

  Adam had disappeared while she gasped and sighed over the gift. By the time he came back into the room, she had shed her clothes and pulled the silk dress onto her naked body. She wasn’t at all surprised that it fit her like a glove. The design was all Sybil. Her creations were always a fantasy sewed with a love that had been touched by shadows. And they always fit perfectly. Adam had ordered the nightingale dress, but it had to have been Sybil who had sewed it. No one else could have captured the power and the vulnerability of Victoria’s new music with thread and shimmering fabric. The dress was a nightingale at night, but it was also Victoria’s song. She’d sent the daemon seamstress her first recording. It had to have inspired the dress.

  She turned to see another surprise. Adam had come back into the room in a tuxedo. The perfectly tailored suit was black with a slim modern cut, but his vest was brocade and Slavic in color and pattern. She could see the firebird illustration worked into the colorful design. Another Sybil creation. Dark and light and gorgeous. The firebird brooch glittered on his simple black ascot.

  Elena Turov had worried that her son would someday be alone. Victoria’s eyes burned, touched by a mother’s eternal love. She had the same hopes for Michael. That one day he’d find someone who could handle his unique heritage of fire and song. He was different, but if there was one thing she’d learned about daemons it was that their love burned fiercer and hotter than a mortal man’s.

  One day her son would love and the world would burn.

  Adam spoke and her full attention was brought back to the handsome man at her side. Not quite mortal. He’d lived too long for that designation and his love was fueled by a spark the Brimstone had left in his veins.

  “I thought at this year’s gala I would be the firebird and you would be the nightingale,” Adam explained.

  She had rediscovered her song. He was burning brightly and free. She’d never heard a more perfect idea.

  He stared at her intensely with the same appreciation he’d showed the first night she’d arrived at Nightingale Vineyards, but it was enhanced by all they’d shared together since then. They’d braved Malachi’s darkness. They’d defied the fires of hell. She suddenly knew that nothing they faced in the future would be too much for them to handle if they were together.

  His arms were ready when she stepped back into his embrace. He held her close against his chest. She could hear the steady beat of his heart. But even better than that, she could feel the warmth of his reclaimed soul.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from TWILIGHT CROSSING by Susan Krinard.

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  Twilight Crossing

  by Susan Krinard

  During the fifty years following the post-War Armistice between the Opiri and humanity, the world slowly began to heal. As ruins crumbled and wilderness took the place of old towns and cities, both humans and vampires had to make difficult adaptations and hard choices.

  In the earlier days of the “cold war,” human Enclaves, usually built out of cities that survived the War, paid tribute to the Opiri in the form of “blood-serfs,” criminals sent to the Opir Citadels in return for the cessation of blood raids on human communities. Citadels and Enclaves continued to spy on one another via half-blood agents—the Opiri’s “Darketans” and the Enclave’s dhampires—operating in the neutral Zone between cities, and skirmishes continued to break out between them, challenging the uneasy truce.

  Over time, two significant trends put an increasing strain on the Armistice: the gradual reduction and eventual end to the practice of blood tribute, and the formation of new “mixed” colonies, in which Opiri and humans lived together in relative peace and cooperation.

  This cooperation, however, was largely confined to these smaller communities, and communication between Enclaves and Citadels remained erratic until the rise of the Riders, a brotherhood of half-blood horseman whose work it was to carry messages and escort travelers across the western half of the former United States of America. Known for their skill in wilderness survival and fending off rogue Freeblood packs as well as human raiders, the Riders gained a reputation for trustworthiness and complete neutrality. Facilitation of contact and travel among human and Opir cities led to new alliances and discussions of a permanent peace, one in which the “mixed” colonies would provide an example of coexistence across the entire western region.

  Thus, the original Conclave was born: a meeting of delegations from every major Citadel, Enclave and mixed colony in the West. The Conclave was to be held in the neutral area of the former city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was to be the first such meeting since the signing of the Armistice, and the Riders were to take the role of peacekeepers and upholders of the Conclave’s laws.

  Though hope ran high for the success of the Conclave, there were many who resisted the idea of an ultimate peace and the cultural changes that would become necessary to sustain it.

  —Alice J. Armstrong

  Introduction to A Matter of Blood: A History of the First Conclave

  Chapter 1

  “Can you see who they are?”

  Jamie McCullough squinted against the bright April sky, her eyes following Councilor Amos Parks’s pointing finger. “They’re on horseback,” she said to her godfather. “They must be—”

  “The Riders,” Senator Greg Cahill said, talking over her. “It’s about time they showed up here.”

  Here, Jamie thought. Far from the sout
hern border of the San Francisco Enclave, even beyond the Zone that marked the no-man’s-land between Opir Citadel and human territories.

  But people did live in this land, where wild cattle grazed among the pre-War ruins, alongside deer and pronghorn antelope. Small colonies, well-fortified, with mixed human and Opir residents; pure human settlements, always ready to defend themselves against raiders both human and nonhuman. And human and Opiri who stayed on the move, hostile like the Freeblood raiders or unaligned like the Wanderers.

  Then there were the Riders. Skilled fighters, neutral in their loyalties, always half-bloods and always male. They were the men who rode fearlessly across the West in their tight-knit bands, carrying messages and escorting travelers and colonists through the dangers of the wilderness, facing down rogues, raiders and wild tribesmen. Both humans and Opiri hired them, sometimes even to communicate with one another.

  Today they were coming to escort the San Francisco Enclave delegation to the grand Conclave in the old state of New Mexico, a journey of a thousand miles. With the wagons and frequent stops, it would take about two months of hard travel to reach their goal.

  But without the Riders’ protection...

  “They’re coming fast,” Greg said, his hand moving to the gun at his hip.

  Too fast, Jamie thought. The thundering of hooves was shaking the ground under her boots. By now they should be slowing down, prepared to identify themselves. As they came closer, Jamie noticed that they were wearing hoods.

  Riders weren’t full-blood Opiri, who had to protect themselves from the sun. Most of them would subsist on blood and were faster and stronger than ordinary men, but in other ways they were very human.

  These horsemen covered their entire bodies under heavy coats and cowls and gloves.

  “Raiders,” she said, her voice catching on the word.

  “Freebloods,” Amos said, speaking of the wild troops of masterless rogue Opiri. He signaled for the others in the party to retreat to the wagons, while the four armed soldier escorts, led by Sergeant Cho, moved forward to position themselves between the horsemen and the rest of the delegation.