Faith Hunter - Host

In an instinct as old as the cave, I raised both swords. Every sphincter in my body tightened as thousands of scarlet eyes focused on me. The wind began to howl. I saw the champards adjust weapons, putting some away and checking others. Eli turned a gauge on his handheld flamethrower and slung it around to ride his back. With both hands, he drew handguns and checked the ammo. After holstering them, he pulled a rifle around and sighted along the barrel. I heard him mumbling, something that sounded like, “Come to mama, you big bad ugly.”

Audric put away his wakizashi and swung two katanas, the longswords whispering as they cut the air. Rupert tested the heft of his bastard sword, both hands on the hilt for strength. He looked at Audric and the men held the glance a long moment. A goodbye in their eyes. Which gave me the willies.

Thadd lifted his wings, the feathers ruffling in the wind. His eyes were on the seraph ring on a thong about his neck. It glowed with a faint blue light and the etched and shaped seraph wings seemed to move as if flying, but that was surely just my imagination. He hefted a cutlass and an old Pre-Ap army knife. I hadn’t seen him fight with blades, but he handled them as if he knew them well. Two guns were holstered at his waist.

Lucas turned to me. “Take care of Ciana. And remember that I love you.” Without waiting for a reply, he ratcheted a shotgun and strode in front of me, a human shield.

Tears sprang to my eyes and I couldn’t force words through my tight throat. Guns. No seraphic help. This was bad. This was very bad. I wiped my face, the tears freezing on my cheeks and cracking away. I had to do something. I could not let them die. I would not. I looked into the sky, seeing a faint blush through the clouds, six spots of pale light—the seraphs, standing watch, far enough away that their own heat wouldn’t spike. Cowards. I drew a breath and forced panic down.

The seraphs wouldn’t help. Not yet, and maybe not ever, no matter what happened. It wouldn’t be the first time that holy messengers watched and did nothing as humans died. But maybe…maybe the Watchers would help. Or maybe I could force one to.

I sheathed the swords and pulled off a glove. I didn’t have time to draw a circle of protection or pour a salt ring. But in a pinch I figured the seraph sigil in the street might work. If it didn’t blow me up first. Quickly telling Audric what I planned, I fingered the necklace and located the carved, carnelian scarab amulet with numb fingers, my flesh feeling colder than it had any right to, short of a blizzard. Audric shouted instructions to the men and the champards raced to the far side of the glowing sigil. I placed a thumb on the conjure stored in the scarab, ready to open an inverted shield of protection. A mage cage to hold a seraph prisoner.

Power hummed through my boots as I stood and drew Barak’s feather. Its deep green iridescence caught the night and threw it back like a dark rainbow, the downy points ruffling in the rising wind. Improvising conjures wasn’t the smartest thing in the world, but I was between the hard place of that stupidity and ten thousand or so rocks with teeth and claws. And a battle plan. And a commander still in hiding. I prepared myself for a sudden flush of mage-heat. Taking refuge in verse, I shouted to the night, over the roar of the tornado that was poised overhead.

“A feather for flight and a silver sword, exchanged in battle dire. Gift for gift and life for life, blood for blood and freedom freely given. I call Barak, Barak, once the winged warrior Baraqyal. I call you by your true name. Baraqyal, come!”

For a long moment, nothing happened, and then I was thrown hard, hitting the ground and skidding into a snarl of my cloak. Mage-fast, I flung the cloak open and swiveled to one knee, the feather in one hand, tanto in the other.

Barak stood before me, wings out, half-spread, his flight feathers held taut and predatory, his silver hair in a long braid down his back, and his green leaf sigil on a chain around his neck, resting on his breast. He was dressed in pitted and scorched emerald steel battle armor, his shield dented and scarred. But the silver shortsword I had given him was bright, its steel blade now nearly four feet in length and glowing like seraph steel, the wicked-sharp edges bright. It wasn’t the gift as it had been, and yet it was the same, hilt tipped with garnets I had mounted.

Barak held the sword backhanded, turned away from me. I started to smile in welcome but he flipped the sword and cut at me. Seraph fast. Faster than I could parry. I leaped back, the blade tip passing through the down of the gifted flight feather. Barak screamed in agony and wrenched back, the sword blackened along the edge where it passed through the feather.

I thumbed on the inverted shield. The sigil flashed like lightning, powering the dome of protection over us. Electricity shocked through me, the release of energy battering. With the extra energy of the sigil in the street to draw from, the dome was visible even to human vision, appearing as overlapping feathers, glittering with energy. It had once been purple feathered, visible only in mage-sight, the construct the color of the amethyst in the storeroom. Now, powered by the sigil, it was the teal of Cheriour’s plumage. I had drawn on seraph energies. Was this the first step on the road to damnation for an omega mage? I pushed aside the thought.

Overhead, the snow-devil tornado weakened, swirled once, and fell apart. Outside the shield, the spawn swarmed, breaking ranks, and fighting free of the control that held them. My champards screamed with battle glee and attacked. Gunfire erupted, almost obscuring the dull thunk of swords biting into flesh.

I regained my balance and met Barak’s eyes. Aqua rings with a slit black pupil stared at me from across the shield. Not Barak’s silver eyes, not Barak who gazed back. And the battle outside had changed totally when I imprisoned it—whatever it was—in here. Cold slithered up my spine. The Fallen Watcher had been possessed by a Major Darkness, the commander of the spawn. The Dragon? Crap. The Dragon. And I had it trapped in the shield with me.

I was toast. Nothing was going according to plan.

I attacked, pulling the longsword at the same instant, moving into the lion resting, rising, and rampant, the Watcher’s flight feather waving beside the long blade in distraction. I saw what it did to the Watcher’s sword—a seraph gift freely given, damaging a mage gift, freely given.

Barak—the Dragon—didn’t dare parry or block the feather with the sword. The Dark in Barak danced back, drawing a shortsword of demon-iron, the steel black and icy, lethal if it cut me deeply. As a possessed Watcher, I figured the Beast could use demon-iron, mage-steel, and seraph-steel, could call on Dark energies and use the Light. It was the perfect fighting combo. I was so toast. Barak found its footing after its unanticipated transportation. A wing shot out and brushed by me as I jumped back. Thank heavens there wasn’t room in the shield for it to fly.

Beyond the teal dome, my champards fought mindless spawn. Blood splattered, sizzling against the shield. All my amulets blazed with light, and I moved into the crab, the flight feather and longsword swiping against Barak’s thighs, cutting and burning as I backed the beast against the dome wall. It was bleeding. My swords flashed, meeting the blade of demon-iron, clanging odd notes when the holy Flame blade met the cold iron. A strange scent wisped from Barak’s wounds, thin dissipating clouds that caught the reflection of the shield overhead and glowed with aqua light. The stench of burned meat and the smell of Barak’s blood—spring flowers overlaid with some other, new scent—filled the shield, dissipating through the air-permeable dome.