Faith Hunter - Host

A concussive force threw us across the rubble. I rolled over Rosie, protecting her with my body, tucking her into a crevice of debris. Shaken, I spun on a knee to see that the seraphs had touched down. The conjures holding back time had blasted away. Azazel stood in the midst of the stunned seraphs. He was glowing with might, with intense seraphic power, shining with aqua-and peach-toned energies, a small sun of power. His sunrise-tinted wings half lifted, taut for battle, his eyes bright with aqua light and black sparks of might. He was dressed in battle armor—overlapping discs of aqua light, fine as scales. So much for any wound I had given him.

The six seraphs, dull by comparison to the sparkling Dark, attacked. Instantly Azazel threw lightning, blasting against the seraph shields and the walls of the church. The sound of battle was so loud it beat against my eardrums, a physical sensation.

Rose quivered, delight and horror on her face. “Seraphs. They’re fighting each other. The EIH were right all along?” she asked, confusion growing.

I gripped her chin and jerked her gaze to me. “I don’t know. But the beautiful one? That’s a Dragon. A Darkness. Not a seraph.”

“Forcas’ Lord,” she whispered, understanding. Helpless tears pooled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks, washing clean trails through the accumulated filth. I pushed her behind a pile of rubble, burned pews and stained glass from the church windows, and stone from the walls. Stone I could use. Wood Rose could use. I placed a spar in her hand, turning her face to me, away from the battle. “Rose,” I shouted over the screams and the sound of thunder, “you can fight. You’re a gifted and well-trained mage. You can fight.”

Her fingers clamped down on the wood, her eyes raking the pile of rubble. In an achingly familiar gesture, she dashed away the tears with a wrist. She took a calming breath, and I could hear her mind settle with the childhood chant, “Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail. Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail.”

My mind cleared with hers and, remembering the Apache Tear, I pressed it close. I loved my sister, but it was hard to think with her in my thoughts.

“Yes, it is,” she said. And I chuckled again.

The elders were chanting, “Yea, he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.” From the elders emanated strange energies, the power of spiritual warfare. Not human, mage, or seraph. Something else entirely. The men were kneeling, facing a large shadow at the front of the church. The inner walls had burned away, revealing that a cross had once hung there. Now it was a cross-shaped scar on the stone.

Rose sat up and began to inspect the wood pile, her gaze intent, her skeletal fingers touching this piece of wood then that, pulling some to her, simply noting the positions of others. I stood and drew my ax, standing between her and Azazel, searching out my friends.

T wo champards were hacking at the succubus. The beast was on the floor of the old church, bleeding into a pool. Rupert was using his bastard sword to behead it. The others had raced for cover when the seraphs attacked, and I found them safe behind rubble, in a semicircle between me and the fight taking place.

Over us, Amethyst stared down at the fight, hate for me on her feline face. Swords flashing, the seraphs hemmed Azazel, lightning bursting from their hands, the energies shattering long before they harmed him. Their own shields took the brunt of dark lightning, bolts of black-light flashing into the air to strike at them. One Raven took a hit and fell, screaming, burning, to the church floor.

In mage-sight, I saw a conjure take shape. The flames on the burning Raven went out. Cheran ducked from cover to pull the seraph to safety. Nifty use for the fire-snuffing incantation I hadn’t bothered to learn. A second Raven fell. And so did Zadkiel, in a gout of flame that lit the church, rising in the night with his screams. Amethyst shrieked with him, a howl of grief.

In silhouette, I saw my champards shield their faces. The elders fell to the ground and scrambled for cover. The flames snuffed quickly, but I could see that the Raven and Zadkiel, the right hand of Michael the ArchSeraph, were badly wounded. Battle-lust shot through me in a burst of adrenaline and fear. We had to drain the Dragon. I needed the wheels.

Lights appeared in the wheels’ eyes at the front bow, near the golden navcone. Amethyst had fired up her weapons. She was going to help us! Triumph filled me and I stood, ax and tanto held in the air, my eyes full of tears. A single laserlike beam fired, a pencil-thin lavender light. It struck the beast. Azazel cringed, his fingers shifting as if to strengthen a shield. “Yes!” I shouted.

Amethyst stared down at me, raging, “No! The wheels are mine! You have no right!”

I lowered my weapons. She thought I had done that? “Not me,” I shouted back. Guessing, I yelled, “The wheels themselves! Do they act alone?”

Her human face turned to me in shock and disbelief. She brought down a fist on the side of the wheels, anger so strong the ship jolted. The weapon stopped firing. The wheels’ eyes closed. The gyroscopic rotors slowed. She had powered down her ship.

“Ask them!” I screamed. Amethyst glared at me, her demi-wings fluttering.

Desperate, I turned back to the fight. Azazel had a featherless score along one wing where the beam had hit, but no other sign of injury.

It looked bad, now three to one. Raziel had been burned by a glancing bolt of black energies. His battle armor on one side and one wing were scorched, the smell of burned feathers foul on the air. The third Raven knelt in a pool of blood. Cheriour was bleeding, one arm gone, amputated at the elbow, his teal plumage splattered with his own gore. The Dragon looked just dandy. We were going to lose this fight unless we could do something.

“Audric?” I shouted, spotting him kicking something, sending it flying. Jane’s head.

He whirled to me and screamed, “To war!” Bloodlust sparked through me like lightning.

My champards raced in, firing weapons and cutting at Azazel. I followed at the seraph’s side, weapons raised, the war ax whirling slowly. The Dragon laughed and took a single sweep with one wing. An arc of black energy sent us all flying. I caught the backlash and hit the floor, skidding, bowling into a pile of debris. Something jabbed me hard, slicing through my new dobok, and I pulled out a long sliver of wood tipped with my blood.

My ribs grated as I sat up, trying to find my breath through the pain. I smelled human blood, fresh and deadly. Dread filled me. They would die. All of them. Because of me.

I crawled across the heap of broken pews to Rose. “Do you have your prime or your visa?” I asked her.

“No. But I have this.” She held a cross she had formed from a bit of wire and two long splinters of ancient wood. We had been raised Christian. Rose had never wandered from the faith as I had. For her, the cross was an icon of great power. “I just have to fill it.”

The seraphs dashed in, wings sweeping. Thunder rocked the floor beneath my feet. Champards followed, moving as a team, holy oil, smoke, and ozone adding to the sensory miasma. But they were two short. Dread filled me. I swept the church with my eyes, spotting them in a shadow just as Audric shouted, “Thorn! Rupert’s hurt.”

“Rupert,” I whispered. His dream. His damn dream.

“Take me to Thorn,” Rupert said, his voice barely heard over the fighting.

Audric shouldered him, carrying him around the back wall of the church, as far from the battle as he could get, weaving through the detritus. I smelled bowel and blood. A lot of it.