Faith Hunter - Host

A fourth knife thunked into the base of its spine, hilt quivering. I whipped my head, scanning the night. Like me, the attacker was circling the succubus, but even with mage-sight open, I wasn’t seeing him. Cheran was shielding himself.

To my left and right, the Steins appeared out of the night, automatic weapons at the ready. Unlike the rest of us, the town’s only Jewish family was dressed for war, in padded clothes, coats, gloves, and boots. At the sight, pure agony arched through my feet. The man to the left wore a yarmulke instead of a battle helmet, as if battling Darkness was a holy act. Maybe it was. The woman to my right had knotted her hair into a tight fighting queue, her face rigid with resolve, fear nowhere to be seen.

Her confidence restored my own. All minor Darkness could be destroyed. The succubus could be killed. The Steins’ people had been battling Darkness for six thousand years. I took a breath, settling myself.

Lucas stepped close, buttoning a flannel shirt against the freezing night, black hair loose in the breeze. He accepted a shotgun from the woman.

“It’s loaded with Dead Sea salt ammo,” she said. Which meant the pellets in each shell were encased in a capsule of salt mined from the Dead Sea and shipped over at dreadful cost. It was worth more than gold or diamonds, but it was one thing that would kill Darkness as well as a blade. She acknowledged me, a sharp nod. I remembered her name. Gloria. Gloria Stein. She had two kids and a husband, the man locked in fighting stance beside her.

“Thanks,” Lucas said. “Can you get Cissy free?” he asked me, placing his feet carefully to either side of a rut in the snow. “If you can, maybe I can disable it with this.”

“And we can finish it off,” the woman said, her weapon making a smooth ratcheting sound, metal on metal.

I took a second breath to answer yes. “Smoke,” I said instead.

Audric looked around and up. “The roofs. Spawn.”

“Jesus,” Lucas prayed.

Reddish creatures scampered across the roof of my loft. They carried brands glowing with fire. Farther down the street, flames shot from the roof of the library. Seraph stones. They were burning the town.

Ciana mumbled. It sounded like, “I can do this. I can.”

“Ciana, no!” I shouted. Whatever it was, it would be dangerous. Stanhopes always found self-destructive, sacrificial methods to help others. Lucas looked from his daughter to the beast, started to speak, and closed his mouth on the words, his face going cold and expressionless as he studied the queen. I had never seen that look before.

“Thorn?” Jacey said again.

“Shut off the torch,” I said to her, turning from my ex-husband. “Fire can’t hurt that thing.” At her stricken reaction, I said, “We’ll rescue Cissy. I promise.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never promise the life of another. But I had. The determination on Gloria’s and Lucas’ faces convinced me we could.

Ciana held the shining seraph pin straight-armed over her other palm, as she leaned perilously out over the street. She stabbed down. The smell of Stanhope blood filled the night and the succubus whipped up its head, searching for the source. Ciana extended her wounded hand, bloody palm down. In some small part of my mind, I was startled. I had expected Ciana to place the pin in her bloody palm, which I figured would have called Raziel to protect her.

Her voice floated down. “Y’hee…” With each syllable, a drop of her blood hit the snow, landing in a rectangle of light from a window. Stanhope blood. The permutations and consequences of what she was doing were beyond me. I was only a half-trained mage. “…ore. Y’hee ore. Ore.”

“Hebrew,” the woman beside me said, tilting her head toward the porch and Ciana. “She’s speaking Hebrew. Genesis one. Let there be light.”

Saints’ balls. Time snapped, a dizzying, fast-forward dislocation. Audric raced in and stabbed the beast, cutting across its abdomen, down, and across in a Zorro, to disembowel it. Ichor ruptured into the street and the half-breed wrenched away from the putrid mess.

“The kid speaks Hebrew?” Eli asked, his voice tight.

“No,” I said. “She doesn’t.”

The beast hit the ground with a meaty fist. “Stones and blood,” Cheran swore from the shadows, foolishly, stupidly, giving power to the Dark. The succubus raised its head and roared in victory at the might of the blasphemy. I heard the mage hiss as he realized what he’d done. Cheran had clearly never been to war.

Lucas stood flatfooted, his face etched with sorrow, looking from the beast to his only child. I didn’t know why he grieved, but my breath caught in my throat as the lynx howled again. “God in heaven,” he said softly, in the echo of the roar. “What are we?”

What are who? Stanhopes? There wasn’t time to consider that question. The succubus dangled Cissy by the neck like a broken doll, her face ashen, her tongue swollen and protruding. She was unconscious. Close to death. I opened my mouth to call mage in dire, permitted when a child or another innocent was near death at the hands of Darkness. Shots rang out, echoing down the street. The succubus roared, shaking the child.

In the same instant, fire shot from the roof of Shamus Waldroup’s bakery across the street. Four knives landed in the Darkness, centered between its ribs, a small compensation for the control Cheran had given it.

“Y’hee ore.” On the ice below Ciana, her blood began to brighten, seven crimson drops lightening to a ruby glow. As if ignited by the energies of her blood, a circular grid below the snow and ice of the street began to brighten. A sigil had been placed there, perhaps below the asphalt, by a seraph. It had lain, inert, invisible to all but me, or so I thought. Now I realized that Ciana had to have seen it, somehow, with her human eyes. Impossible. Yet, the sigil was being called to life. The sigil of the seraph Cheriour, an Angel of Punishment and Judgment.

In the street, humans jumped aside, to the left or the right of the spreading, glowing lines. The succubus roared, shouting my name as it stepped away, as if the lines beneath its feet burned. A human raced in brandishing an ax, and buried it in the beast’s thigh. It swatted him away, leaving a bloody trail. Other humans raced in to fight; blades landed in the tough flesh and shots rang out. Warriors screamed and I smelled blood, but I didn’t watch the combat. I watched the child of my heart. I watched Ciana as she closed her fist against the flow of blood. I didn’t know what she had done, but the call of mage in dire died in my throat.

Below Ciana, the golden streaks moved together, finishing the sigil’s outline. When they met, the sigil was complete. Seven spots of ruby light shot up from the snow, one spot for each drop of sacrificed blood. Within each beam of light, fingers of flame rose, tickling the night air, changing from ruby to purple to deepest blue, bluer than a burning torch. Fire swayed in the breeze a moment before popping free of the ground and forming round globes of Flame.

Ciana laughed delightedly, blue eyes sparkling. My breath stopped. Ciana had called for help from the High Host. She had called Minor Flames. No human should be able to summon them, especially not an eight-year-old girl. Even I didn’t know how.

Two of the Flames danced close to me and away, almost in greeting. I wondered fleetingly if they were the two Flames I had rescued after a battle. They had been wounded, drained of power. And I had kept them safe, mixing them in with my amulets. Later, following another battle, I had discovered that the Flames were gone. Were these two the same? Either way, I knew what to do with them.

The faint sense of paralysis sluiced from me like water across a boulder. Time, elastic and supple, snapped back and settled. Always a liquid construct in battle, time made seconds seem like hours or hours seconds. I took a breath of the frigid air. “Thorn?” Jacey asked, her voice desperate.