Faith Hunter - Host

Shock made me inhale, and my lungs filled with the golden river water. I gagged, alarmed at the fluid in my lungs more than the touch of the Dragon. But I didn’t drown. I coughed and again inhaled.

I twisted around to find Raziel and Zadkiel swimming—flying? — after me, wings pushing them through the water at great speed. They were gaining. The Dragon looked back.

I tightened my fist on Barak’s femur and lifted it high. Once again I brought the bone down hard on the beast’s wounded hand. With the tanto, I stabbed underhanded into its chest. No finesse, no delicacy of form, just a hard thrust with the Flame-blessed blade. It struck the Dragon’s side, burning, scorching, cauterizing even as it sliced deep. I shoved it in, the thin crossguard bumping against the beast, its blood pulsing out to cover my gauntlet and spew up my armor, coating me with crimson and the smell of seraph.

The Dragon crushed me to its body, squeezing the breath of river water from my lungs. A rib cracked, the pain like a stab into my chest. I was sure that I was injured here in the river of the otherness and on Earth as well. Nausea filled my mouth, a taste of bile. I twisted the tanto and forced it up at a sharp angle, cutting the beast in a swath of destruction. Azazel roared with pain, the sound like broken bells rung under the ocean, long peals of off-key notes.

My sense of vertigo worsened. The Dragon’s skin was hotter than a human’s or mage’s, smooth on its sides, but formed into scales like a reptile’s over its joints, tiny scales that caught the pellucid light of the river. Wrenching the tanto out of the beast’s side, I shoved the femur bone into the wound, shouting underwater, “With the jawbone of an ass…have I slain…”

The Dragon howled and shook me, my spine cracking and joints bowing in directions nature never intended. I caught myself on the chin with my own knee and white lights whirled through my vision. The nausea was back, but felt different now. Concussion, maybe. I took another breath of the river water. I heard my heart beat on Earth. I exhaled, feeling sick, wanting to throw up. I shoved the bone in deeper.

We broke out of the river of time, flying through the black of night, clouds overhead, not the strange sky of the otherness, but the winter temps of home. The world spun and my stomach emptied in a violent rush, water gushing from my mouth. I coughed hard, cleansing my lungs. Seraph stones. I was no longer in the otherness. I had made a physical transition from a spiritual place. I had flown through the river of time, clutched in the fist of a Dragon.

Looking down, I affirmed that we were in the Appalachian Mountains. Tiny lights and fires glinted below, showing me the shape of Mineral City, the Toe River gorge a black stripe through the middle and the black form of the Trine to the north. My battle cloak flapped around my calves, my dobok was black leather. My clothes and hair were dry. My boots were the new boots gifted me by the Enclave of my birth, but the slice in the boot toe was gone, the leather smooth. My rib was still broken, the femur bone was still buried in the Dragon’s side, and its blood poured over my hand, slicking the leather of my gloves. How weird is that?

Azazel folded his wings and dropped dizzyingly fast toward Upper Street, to touch down with an ungainly lurch. The shop was still protected by the shield, but Ciana was no longer centered in the darkened display window. New snow lay heavy on the earth. Smoke, rancid and thick, filled frozen air. I glimpsed shops down the street, windows blackened, walls crumbled, brick smoke-stained. Bodies were snow-crusted humps. The big-ass gun was a blasted hulk.

Shock tightened my chest, sending a spiral of pain through me. I had flown through the river of time. How long had I been away?

Above us in the night sky, flying in close formation, were three seraphs, their bodies bright with the energies of the High Host. Their wings, hair, and armor were black, and they carried glittering black swords. Ravens. I didn’t know if they were here to kill me, help me, or study me. I had never heard of Ravens, or whatever they were really called, but they looked liked winged warriors—troops, not princes or battle leaders. They altered their angle, diving for us, pulling swords. I was about to become collateral damage.

The Dragon leaped again into the sky. I was ready for the shift this time and braced myself for increased g’s. But Azazel crushed down on me and I heard more of my ribs break. My breath was a painful catch and I was able to inhale only in a quick, shallow draft. It could have crushed me dead—mages have brittle bones—but it didn’t kill me. It wanted me for something. Which scared me silly.

I shoved the femur deep in the Dragon’s side, releasing it to pull my longsword. At such close quarters it was handy only for slaughter work. I slid the point into the wound beside the femur and shoved the blade in. I heard the beast grunt with pain, its breath stuttering. I pulled the sword out halfway and altered the angle, stabbing deep, grazing the femur bone in passing. A sizzle of electric energy quivered up my arm. The Dragon gasped and dove.

I sawed into it again and again. Blood spattered over me.

I caught a hint of succubus and spawn. The bones of a half-destroyed building resolved out of the night, its outer walls standing, roof gone, fire shooting up in places within, and smoke curling in lazy streaks. A shield sparkled over it, a shield unlike any I had ever seen, the energies a cascade of aqua and black-light motes, like Azazel’s eyes. The beast said a word in a language I didn’t understand, like the ringing of bells, shivering the air. The shield snapped off, revealing a desecrated church. Orange and sickly yellow energies emanated from it, rising on the air in spirals, reaching for us. Layered conjures were contained in the walls.

I recognized the building, though it was vastly changed. The Central Baptist Church, Mineral City’s town hall, had been destroyed. Stones and blood. What had happened to the town? How long had Azazel kept me away from the fight?

Fear warred with pain and anger inside me. Fury won out, numbing the pain for a moment. “How long did you keep me away, you bastard?” With the blade, I ripped deep into the Dragon, twirling the sword and cutting, cutting, cutting, speaking scripture in spiritual warfare, not able to shout for the pain in my chest, my words rasping, “With the jawbone of an ass…have I slain…With the jawbone of an ass have I slain.” I felt the sword nick something inside, the density of an organ slowing the blade.

Azazel roared. Blood covered me and I withdrew the longsword to dash it from my face, the motion grinding broken ribs. Its blood didn’t stink or burn. The blood of Darkness was always foul and acidic. Doubt filled me, but it was way too late to rethink my choices. I redoubled my attack on its side. “With the jawbone of an ass have I slain.”

The conjures snapped off below us. With a swoop and a shift of its wings that jarred my bones and nearly pulled my shoulders from their sockets, Azazel braked and dropped through the rafters of the church. It—he—landed with a thump that made us both hiss. I had a feeling its landings were usually a lot more graceful. I had hurt it. Good. Because it had hurt me. Blackness hovered in my vision as I took small breaths, agony tripping through me.

I smelled succubus. Still held in the beast’s grip, I looked around at the walls, vastly changed. Days had passed. Surely days. The walls were glowing with strange, spiky energy patterns, the colors jaundiced and sickly. Silvery trails wound up and over everything, coating walls and floor and piles of rubbish with a shimmery substance. Snail tails. Huge, immense mama snail trails, a foot wide.