Faith Hunter - Host

“Thorn?” Eli asked.

“Yeah.”

“Hot damn,” he said, fervently. “Where are you? You sound like crap. Are you hurt?” Limping, holding my side, I rounded the rubble and saw them in the scan, their bodies bright in the night, smoldering energies that had texture and smell. Joy danced at the edges of the scan, a synesthesia similar to mage-heat that I hadn’t noticed before.

Eli and Lucas stood near Thadd, who held one wing close to his body, the other half-furled. The two Waldroup brothers, Jasper, Rupert, and Audric were in a loose circle, weapons drawn. Five of my six champards, three elders of the kirk. They all looked worn to the bone, faces smeared with grime, body odors rank. They were beat. I could smell exhaustion on them, and old blood, and the reek of death.

I stopped as another spear of agony stabbed me. I touched my side where the spur had pierced. The worst of the broken ribs were just above it, and the pain of the two wounds seemed to mingle and consolidate, becoming more than the sum of the two. I was really hurt.

“Thorn? What’s wrong?” There was worry in Eli’s voice, and it warmed me.

I pulled off a healing amulet and two pain-relieving ones, thumbing them on and sliding them into a dobok pocket over the wounds. “Broken ribs.”

“How bad—”

“Later,” I interrupted. “Did you smell a reek when you landed? Something awful?” Eli nodded. “That smell is succubus larvae, and the queen is here.”

I saw their auras spark with sharp colors, and heard the steel-on-steel scritch of more blades being drawn. Afraid they would kill one another by accident, I pulled three illumination amulets, thumbed them on, and tossed them in a circle around the men. I should have done it sooner, but I was wasn’t thinking clearly. And the Flames had burned out my human vision, which was only now returning. The level of pain in my chest subsided marginally as the amulets went to work, and I managed a single breath. I handed another healing amulet to Thadd, who held it against his wing as Audric fashioned a crude splint.

“That’s what those things are on the walls,” I continued. “There are overlapping conjures here. I have no idea how many or what kind. But as long as the smell is contained, and no seraphs land, we should be okay.” A tickle started in the back of my throat, a dangerous cough that would hurt. I breathed shallowly, hoping to stifle it. “How long was I gone?” I asked.

“Too damn long,” Eli said, touching my shoulder as if to reassure himself I was alive.

“Forty-eight hours,” Audric said over his shoulder, reporting as he bound Thadd’s wing. “The seraphs watched as the town was attacked. We defended ourselves, but we lost many. The Special Forces were decimated in the first twelve hours, as if the spawn knew the greatest threat and targeted them specially. But the children and elderly are still safe behind your shield.”

Lucas stepped close, smelling of blood, crusted and old, but his sweat was sweet with the scent of manna. He reached out and touched my face, stroking my scars, wordless. I felt his relief. He had thought I was dead. I touched a crusted place on his hand. He shrugged my concern away.

Thadd sat down on a pile of rubble, rocking, holding his wing. One hand turned the seraph ring he wore on a chain around his neck. His plumage was caked with dried blood. It wasn’t his. A human had died in his arms.

To the side, I saw a shift of movement in the scan. Cheran was glamoured and hiding. I was surprised, as he was supposed to be in jail. I didn’t believe in luck or coincidence anymore; ergo, several things: someone important wanted him free, his liberator didn’t have to be one of the guys on my side, and Cheran wanted to remain hidden. He didn’t know about the blended scan, didn’t know I could see him. I decided to keep his presence quiet, but the scan wasn’t helping my light-headedness, so I dropped the skim and felt marginally better.

The Flames again blinked into sight overhead and spiraled back down. They passed through the shield with spits of energy, to circle behind me, saving my vision but holding back. Which I didn’t like at all.

A light illuminated the old church and the Ravens touched down in a back-to-back triangle, swords drawn. Their mouths opened and it was clear they were shouting, though there was no sound. And they didn’t see us. Interesting.

“Speak of the devil,” Eli muttered, hate in his tone.

Up close, I could tell these were crack troops, holy beings who lived to fight. They furled their wings tight, as if they intended to stay. The Ravens searched the night with glowing eyes.

Seraphs with swords. A succubus queen. Larvae. Not good at all. We were one heartbeat from judgment and death, a second heartbeat away from forcing the seraphs into heat. I had seen that happen when a seraph came upon a succubus. It hadn’t been pretty.

I shouted to the Ravens. They didn’t look my way. I stepped toward them and smacked into the shield, a barrier that brought me up short, a hot electric charge sizzling up my arm. This shield was a lot stronger than the one the queen was behind.

Azazel was luring seraphs here. The wheels had brought my champards—Amethyst in a rage, helping the Dragon, or the wheels bringing me assistance? And it sent them through the shield. I had a feeling that was unusual, even for a wheel. Whatever forces were working, it was Rupert’s dream. I needed my longsword, its prime amulet, and the femur bone.

Overhead, I caught sight of three more seraphs spiraling down, Zadkiel, Raziel, and Cheriour. But the wheels were nowhere in sight. Glamoured? Gone?

My threatening cough was growing more insistent, my breath harder to catch. I feared I had punctured a lung and it was filling with blood. But I had a battle to fight. I could die later.

To the Flames, I composed a formal request, saying, “Omega mage, I have been called. Omega mage, so be it. Yet, I ask, not demand. I beg, not command. Will you help this battle?”

“Yourssss to command,” they said, the words like the explosion of gases, the hum of electricity, and the ringing of heavy brass.

“The queen is protected by a conjure. Kill it,” I said. “Protect the other mage.”

“We cannot break the ssshhhield,” one said.

Despair filled me as they spun slowly away in a snaking line to hover over the queen’s shield. I followed them. The queen was crouched beside a pile of broken stones and brick on the cracked, burned floor. Rose was stretched out at her feet. I was in no condition to fight the succubus one-on-one. I wasn’t in condition to fight off a preschooler armed with a toy club. I reached out and touched the shield. It shocked me to my toes and I eased back.

On impulse, I stabbed into the shield with the Flame-blessed tanto. The blade slid in with a grinding sound like metal on stones. Deep purple-black embers sparkled around the insertion point. I shoved down on the blade, but it didn’t give. And now the tanto was stuck. Seraph stones. I couldn’t do anything right. I braced a foot on the shield, ignoring the electric shocks through my boot and the agony of my chest, and pulled. Slowly, with a sound like rocks in a tumbler, the blade slid free, leaving a thin slice. The stink of succubus wafted out.

I considered the small hole, and touched a throwing knife blade to the tanto. The touch created a tiny spark, like a minuscule sun, startling me, bringing a smile to my face. With a flick of my wrist, I threw the knife at the queen. So fast I couldn’t follow, the knife pierced the shield with a spit of sound, fine cracks shattering through the protective conjure at the impact point, centered around an elongated hole, like glass hit by a bullet. “Yes,” I yelled, exultant.

Beyond, the blade quivered in the succubus’s lower abdomen. Its scream filtered through the two holes. Eli threw a fist in the air. “You did it!” Sometimes flying by the seat of my pants paid off.