Faith Hunter - Host

“Give me the link,” he said, his voice like silver bells and the sound of distant violins. “Give it to me, and I will spare your sister.”

The words were a cold spear driven into my heart.

“Fear not, little mage. She is safe. My queen guards her. But the succubus hungers. She will not wait long to feast on mage-flesh.” He smiled compassionately. Spreading his wings, Azazel shook golden water from his plumage. The vision of him flickered on—featherless leather wings flourished, the tint of cooked shrimp. They would make a great coat and boots. At the thought I grinned, showing teeth. Bloodlust simmered beneath my skin, making me itchy. “Liar. Father of lies.”

“Not I. But I am the father of many things. War, which you love. Riotous sex that humans, in their foolishness, call sin.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “I will offer you a gift in good faith, to show my generosity.” He gestured with his uninjured arm.

The world tilted, vertigo hitting me with the force of an avalanche. Retching, I stumbled and caught myself on the body of the purple snake, my hands on its scaled skin. Where I touched, the scales separated and eyes looked up at me.

“Thorn?”

I had an image of the night sky. Lashes blinked over the vision.

Hope and shock cleared my head. I knew this mind. “Rose,” I breathed.

A foul smell filled my head with my next breath, but it was Rose’s sensation, Rose’s breath, Rose’s lungs that expanded her chest. The smell was stagnant water and dead lilies. And the stench of spawn. A face bent over her. The succubus queen, teeth razor sharp. Rose cried out. The vision dimmed. She was gone.

I caught a glimpse of my earthly self, dressed in dobok and cloak. And then the knightly me returned, overlaying the earthly. What had just happened?

“Rose is safe. She has always been safe. If I rule the heavens, she will be safe forever.”

Temptation. Ruling the world had no appeal for me. But getting Rose back…

Over my head, the Flames slowed again, appearing as long, overlapping trails of light. They dropped down, humming in a minor key. “Ssssacrifissse,” they buzzed.

“Yeah,” I said, hope dying and grief resting heavy on my heart. “Gotcha.” Azazel offered me a way to save Rose, but the others I loved would die. Tears stung my eyes, my decision made long before this day. Moving slowly, so Azazel would follow the misdirection and wouldn’t realize what I was doing, I wiped my eyes with my glowing left hand, tanto bright. The longsword making me clumsy, I released two anticonjure amulets and thumbed them on with a whispered word. I tossed them at the Dragon.

Faster than they could fly through the air, I flipped the tanto and sheathed the longsword. Took up Barak’s femur bone. And I attacked.

D rawing on the energies that filled me through the puncture marks, I raced at Azazel. The anticonjures hit him, both striking his chest midcenter. They exploded, throwing the seraph back, hard. He landed deep in the river of time. Golden water gushed up around him.

He vanished underwater. I stopped, staring at the river, my boot toes in the lapping stream. I wasn’t wet. The river wasn’t really composed of water. I knew that, but it was disconcerting. It’s weird, the things you think about when you’ve just refused to make a deal with the devil. When you’ve just killed your twin. Sorrow welled up in me. I shoved my grief deep inside, holding on only to the rage.

Misery a solid knot in my chest, I watched for Azazel. Time passed. My heart beat in the slow pace I associated with the passage of time on Earth. Had the anticonjures thrown Azazel back to Earth? My arms drooped, weapon points falling toward the ground.

The snake slid closer, hissing. When I glanced down, my hand and the bone caught my attention. The stream of purple energy that filled me with power was stronger, heavier, but it had divided, a small part flowing along my gauntleted fingers to encircle Barak’s femur.

The snake licked the bone, its tongue a flash of movement. “I honor my Mistressss’s promissse,” the snake hissed. “I will not allow her to ssssin.”

I remembered the words the purple wheels had spoken to me, mind to mind, when I was on the deck. “I will honor the promises of my Mistress,” the words had whispered into my mind. “Her promises and her obligations. I will not let her sin by forgetting you. By forgetting her Watcher.” Holy Amethyst owed favors to more than just me, and wasn’t of a mind to fulfill them. The lavender mist seeped into the surface of the bone and vanished. Did she owe promises to Barak?

The Dragon burst from the surface. I raced a half dozen steps back from the river in shock and lifted my blades. Throwing water in a huge spray, the beast leaped at an angle into the sky, leathern wings unfurling, to fly. The angle of flight brought it directly over me, one arm curled protectively against its chest, talons closed in pain.

Time did one of those strange shifts, where it seems to slow, and where every eyeblink takes long moments, and every sensation is intense and crisp.

I flipped the blade, bent my legs, and jumped with all my might, straight up, shouting from the book of Judges, “And he found a new jawbone of an ass…and slew a thousand men therewith!”

As I leaped, the Dragon swerved, bringing its healthy arm down. Razor talons reached for me. I scored a long cut across the top of its healthy forearm and brought the femur down, my aim filled with the growing fury of Rose’s loss. Barak’s sacrificial leg bone impacted the beast’s wounded right hand with a solid thwack. Tears thick in my throat, I shouted, quoting Samson, “With the jawbone of an ass…have I slain…”

The Dragon howled and tucked its wings, tumbling away from me, its right hand tight against its chest. The claws of its good hand scraped along my cuirass as I twisted in the air.

I landed with a jar, rolling, hearing a second and third splash. I caught myself against a boulder and rocked to my feet.

Out of the river flew Raziel and Zadkiel, their scents filling the air with honey, chocolate, mint, and pepper. Golden river water rained down from their bodies and wings, their plumage catching the light in a dazzling rainbow burst. They shouted battle cries, notes of true sound, gongs of challenge in a language I couldn’t understand.

Raziel’s ruby irises were alight with the joy of battle. He checked his flight, crimson wings twisting and pulling in to stall his momentum. With two massive sweeps, he hovered, the wind of his flight buffeting me. “You did not join him?”

“No,” I said, the question a barbed pain, rage for my twin filling me. “Why?” I shouted. “Why does it matter?”

He shook his head as if I were a curiosity. According to traditional wisdom, seraphs are curious about nothing, yet I had seen them surprised, puzzled, and even inquisitive. Bastards.

Raziel held out his hand to me; he spotted the snake. His face underwent a series of changes, too fast, too complex for me to follow, ending with shock. The snake uncoiled from its mound, slithered up my leg and around my waist as if protecting me. Or claiming me. Or maybe it was hungry and had decided I was dinner. It spat at Raziel.

The seraph swept his wings down hard and returned to the chase. “There will be a reckoning,” he shouted back. “I have chosen you.”

“Mine,” the snake hissed. “My mage.”

Ducky. I was a point of contention between a seraph and the wheels belonging to another seraph’s mate, a cherub who hated me. The snake undulated and fell away from my body. It looked up, recoiling fast.

I started to pivot and was hit. Hard. My body slung forward, then was caught around the waist, limbs jackknifing. I was pulled underwater. A current buffeted me. A large fist clamped down on my waist when I struggled. I looked up into the eyes of the Dragon, goat-slitted aqua eyes, in a featherless snake face. It opened its mouth and hissed at me, fangs flashing.