Faith Hunter - Host

Instead of driving the spawn back, instead of granting a respite, my move triggered an unexpected response: the usually mindless creatures regrouped and darted in, their symmetry and organization distinctly unspawnlike. One took a bite out of my calf, ripping my pajamas, bloody gouges from razor-sharp teeth and three-fingered, clawed hands. I felt a conjure sizzle over my skin and the spawn dropped away, lifeless on the snow. Cheran, I knew. I was losing blood but at least I was no longer cold or paralyzed with uncertainty. I dashed in, striking, wishing I was stronger, taller, a lot taller.

The queen was thrashing, roaring, head back, a man held in its left fist, his limbs whipping bonelessly. Its right hand made a sweeping motion, as if drawing in threads of yarn. The spawn followed in its wake, attacking a grouping of humans at its feet.

“It’s directing spawn,” Eli said of the queen. He pulled me beneath the porch of Rupert’s loft for a moment, our backs to a brick wall. Breath heaving, I lowered the tanto with its blue-light blade. My muscles protested the sudden stillness, my back tight, threatening to spasm. My left side ached, the old injury that had never quite healed. My feet were numb. I ignored them all.

The queen gestured. Too far away to help, we watched as a group of spawn attacked with military precision, taking down three humans who were erecting a barricade. The attack was quick and brutal, and they began to feed on flesh while it still quivered with life. The beast devoured the man it had been holding, energy for healing. “It’s in charge,” Eli said, knocking over a stack of firewood, creating a makeshift fence between us and the fight in the street.

“Looks like,” Audric replied, ducking into our temporary haven. He was slicked with sweat, which was freezing in the cold wind, a white, rimming crust on his dark skin, which glowed with the mage energies of his half-breed heritage. He was smeared with black and red blood. His skin was scorched and blistered from the acid, but he seemed not to notice. “Shield,” he instructed me. With a single thought I activated a shield I had devised. It allowed in beings of Light, people I liked, and necessities like air, but kept out bad guys and bullets. Or had, once.

“What do they want?” I asked, winded. “Besides Stanhope blood?”

“That’s not enough?” Eli asked, breathing harder. He handed me my longsword and bent over, trying to catch his breath.

“Their strategy is structured, which is unheard of,” Audric said, sinking into teacher mode, the tone he used when training me in savage-chi. “Watch them. With this kind of organization, they could have taken a Stanhope with no fight at all.”

“They couldn’t find them,” I said. “Rupert and Ciana were behind the ward until I turned it off, and Lucas ate something when he was a prisoner on the Trine. I think it changed the way he smells.” And Thadd smells like kylen, but I didn’t say that and no one asked.

“It could have taken a Stanhope since. So what else do they want?” Audric asked.

“Chaos and—” Eli cut himself off as a new thought formed. He stood and leaned over the pile of wood, so close to the shield he was nearly touching it, watching the bedlam as a score of humans circled the succubus, firing shotguns up at it, the sound of four-aught buck incredible. Bodies littered the snow. “This is the third time they’ve attacked the town itself,” he mused, his voice growing steady, his breath evening out. “Each attack has utilized different methodology, tactics, and combatants. And this time they’re firing the roofs, so this time, maybe they came prepared to finish us off, to take out the town after they get their blood donor. A two-fer.”

“More aims than those, perhaps,” Audric said.

“Collect Stanhope blood, wipe out the town or damage it substantially, kill or capture our mage,” Eli said, twisting his back and delts in a series of stretches. “And it could have sensed the presence of a second mage.”

Audric nodded and finished the thought. “And felt the time was propitious for taking both.” Propitious. I wanted to laugh, but didn’t have the energy. Only a second unforeseen, a half-breed, a master of savage-chi, would use a ten-dollar word during a prolonged battle.

“Or maybe it’s been training troops just for tonight,” Eli said, repositioning his weapons and the night-vision goggles hanging on his chest. “Maybe the previous assaults were sorties to train and get the layout of the place.” Audric lit up as the thought found a home in his mind. The men shared one of those chest-beating manly looks that always excluded women. Ugh. Big trouble. Protect the women and children. Blood, guts, and glory. Ugh.

I was too drained to comment. All I wanted to do was fall to the snow and sleep. Unlike Eli, I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

“Time for the big guns,” Eli said. This time when he spoke into the ear wire, it was sotto voce, but mages have a broad audible range, and I heard what he said. “Deploy the W-T-seven, asap.” He looked at Audric, a wide grin splitting his face. “A big-ass gun. Big enough to take out Godzilla.”

I hoped the W-T-seven was all he claimed, as the succubus had drawn in a thunderhead of energy. In mage-sight its aura was flashing with black lightning, a big, ugly monster. Like the ugly paintings in ancient Pre-Ap cathedrals and museums.

Rupert, dressed now in flannel, jeans, and a jacket and carrying an armful of clothing and weapons, dashed from the doorway. To avoid an energy backlash, I flicked the shield off as he entered the shelter. He tossed me the green marble sphere that set the ward over the shop and loft. I fumbled the catch, which thankfully no one saw or I’d have been the victim of ribbing. Mages were supposed to be so much faster than humans. Gesturing the men away from the wall at our backs, I thumbed on the ward, protecting Ciana, Cissy, and Jacey. A weight seemed to lift off me. Careful to keep the differing energy patterns separate, I opened the shield again.

“Cissy’s alive,” he said when I focused on him. I closed my eyes in gratitude. Maybe it was true that God the Victorious didn’t listen to mages, but he had heard somebody’s prayer. “Put these on.” Rupert dropped my battle boots in the snow and draped my battle cloak around my shoulders. The warmth trapped in the lining was like a furnace to my skin. I realized how cold I was. I had gotten dangerously hypothermic. Stupid, stupid, stupid. My champard had noted my condition and acted to correct it, but that didn’t negate my stupidity.

I smiled my thanks at him as I thumbed on an amulet for heating water and dropped it at my feet. Immediately the snow and ice melted, the puddle warming to steam. My feet felt like they were in boiling water, but the conjure was for bathwater, a maximum of one hundred four degrees. The water tinged red as blood softened and melted. Muscles and tendons ached, and my soles felt as if I had sliced them with knives and walked through salt.

I dropped in a healing amulet and dipped my hands in, sliding the ripped socks off and tossing them away as I massaged my toes and scrubbed my feet. Snowmelt wasn’t beneficial water for stone mages, but any port in a storm. My ring-shaped prime amulet and the hilt-prime flared brighter, offering me protection from the snowmelt, the loss of power that came from contact with unpurified water, as they had from frostbite. Blood flowed freely, but I could deal with that later. My neomage attributes brightened, my skin closer to its normal pearly hue, and I realized how stupid—and lucky—I had been. On my necklace, various amulets were emitting a sort of hum as they responded to the state of my stressed body.

In the street, two snow-el-mobiles whizzed up, slinging snow and ice from the runners. Half a dozen ragged men jumped from them and spread into formation, joining the attackers from the front and sides. I looked away long enough to pull the boots on over my wet and bleeding feet. When I looked back up, a third snow-el-mobile scattered the combatants and hissed to a halt. Mounted on the back was a four-foot-long black metal pipe attached to a black box about eighteen inches on a side. A magazine coiled from a spindle on one side. The WT7. Eli was right. It was a big-ass gun.