Faith Hunter - Host

I’d had washerwoman’s hands for the entire year it took my friends and me to renovate the building. It was mine, in every sense of the word. Going back to Enclave would mean leaving…home. The bath was suddenly less than restful and I stood, splashing water as I stepped from the antique, claw-footed tub to the turquoise tile and threw a robe on. I had laid the tile myself. Rupert had restored the tub for me. It had been a birthday present. There was no way I could take it with me….

The soft velvet reminded me of Cheran’s cloak. And reminded me that he wasn’t the only hedonistic mage in the area. The robe was new, a gift left at the shop’s front door, folded in a brown bag. There hadn’t been a tag, but the scent of seraph had proven it a gift from Raziel. The smell of chocolate still clung to the iridescent teal fabric, and it added conflict to the emotions sparring in my heart. I stroked the velvet. Mage-heat quivered low in my belly each time I wore it. I wondered if the seraph had thought about the fabric against my naked skin when he picked it out. Unholy thoughts. Wicked feelings. Ideas and hopes I would surely never have a chance to work through—or possibly experience—if I returned to Enclave, to my people. I would never see the seraph again.

Eyes closed, I breathed in the scent and sighed as the pleasure increased. And more than merely pleasure. Thoughts of naked carousing with one of the angelic Host were never far from the surface of my mind these days, though most times I could control the images. Most times. Well, when I wanted to. Which wasn’t often enough.

I set the amulets over my head. Though thoughts were relatively safe, acting on them could get me into trouble, like being dragged before the town fathers or the seraphic high council—and death by various means, all of them protracted and painful. But they could only kill me once, as I had grown fond of reminding myself.

Of course, unlike humans, neomages had no souls, so perhaps I had more to lose than most folk. For us, death was permanent, no hope of resurrection, paradise, and better things to come. However, such wonderful scents as my robe reminded me that the adverse was also true. There was no hell or damnation for us either.

Religion and politics, sex and death. “Lovely bedtime thoughts,” I murmured as I looked around the teal and cream bower I had made for myself. I had chosen the antique kitchen table, had handpicked each of the old wooden chairs that surrounded it. Had sanded the floors and refinished them. Had hung each of the tapestries. And I loved my sofa and the carved, upholstered rocker.

Unsettled, I lifted the marble sphere by my bed and set the ward on the loft and shop, drawing stored power from the energy sink at the spring out back. Like magic. But neomages don’t use magic as humans understand it. We use the leftover energies of creation, the particles Einstein postulated about in his famous equations. Which meant that mages are bound in many ways to the laws of physics.

Even back before neomages, humans knew that mass and energy are inseparably linked to each other, both having the luxon impulse as the base of their definition. They knew that each “matter with rest mass” consists of particles with light velocity. That means: every particle of matter and every particle of energy consists of luxons. Matter and energy are one thing in different stages. Humans used this knowledge to create weapons, atomic bombs whose explosions blast atoms apart. Mages draw upon luxons to create safety, health, and beauty. Most of the time. Not always. But the luxons that made up the incantation protecting my home were a good thing. A very good thing.

I drank a glass of spring water, turned down the gas flames on the fireplaces, put on warm pajamas with pink hearts on them, turned out the lights, and went to bed early.

Deep in the night, the lynx screamed, drawing me back from a dream of dying at seraph hands. I woke, shattering the images of death and destruction as the cry echoed, rocking across the hills, a deep vibrato of warning. I lay in the dark, breathing fast, mage-sight on, searching out the cause of the alarm. My ward was still on, the loft was safe, walls glowing with protective power. I didn’t smell smoke, or hear people screaming, or scent blood.

The predator cat had entered my life only weeks ago, but had instantly become an omen, a portent, issuing a warning whenever trouble was headed my way. I closed down my sight and opened a mind-skim, drawing air and sensation into my lungs. Still nothing. Maybe the blasted cat was wrong this time. Or maybe it was finally reacting to whatever mage properties made animals go seriously wacko when in the vicinity of neomages for too long.

I eased the amulet necklace over my head and gripped my tanto—a long-bladed knife with a simple hilt and crossguard. I was small enough that it worked as a shortsword. Skin prickling, I stole from the bed on sock-covered feet and padded through the loft, checking each window and door, staring out the window where the moon had shone. The sky was now deep black, full of stars, the hills below a murky, smudged shadow.

Behind me, the door sprang open, banging hard. I whirled and rushed it, tanto swinging up. I recognized the shadow in the last instant and whipped aside the blade before I stabbed Rupert. He stood in the opening, chest naked, black hair standing up on one side. He was wild-eyed, his skin sheet-creased. “Thorn,” he said, his tone peculiar.

“I nearly killed you!”

“In the street,” he said, his words sleep-slurred. “It’s Gramma.”

Mage-fast, I pivoted and raced through the loft, shutting off the protective ward, grabbing my longsword, and leaving the walking-stick sheath behind as I sprinted to the front of the apartment and out onto the frozen porch over the sidewalk. The sickle moon rode high in the sky, throwing cold light on the old woman in the ice-slick street. Dressed in a summer frock, lilacs on white, wattles of flesh hanging from her bare arms. One clenched a child tight against her, and she held a blade at the girl’s throat.

“Cissy,” I whispered. It was Jacey’s nine-year-old daughter, hair loose on her shoulders, nightgown fluttering in the cold breeze. In the dark of the night, Gramma’s crazed eyes met mine. Mage-sight slammed on, and I saw a flash of dull orange flecked with shards of glowing black in her irises, like coals banked beneath ashes. The blade she held was demon-iron, and it wasn’t burning her hand. Bloody plagues.

“Gramma,” Rupert said softly at my back, the word slurred.

“It’s not her,” I said. I hoped he knew it, because I was about to have to kill the old witch. “It’s a glamour,” I said, one that looked like the Stanhope matriarch.

“Gramma,” he whispered, joining me at the rail, his flesh tight with goose bumps.

“No!” I insisted. Leaving him on the porch, I sped down the stairs and unlocked the door. I ran into the street. Silently, Audric appeared at my side and followed me into the still night. The cold bit into my feet, my socks sticking and ripping from the ice with each step. Stupid, stupid, stupid to not stop for shoes.

I drew on my two prime amulets, the bloodstone hilt and the seven-layered stone prime ring, to warm my feet. To fight the cold, I allowed my mage attributes to blaze on, my flesh glowing a pearly roseate hue. It was easier for the beast to see me, but it would also help keep me warm. Taking my lead, Audric’s less-vibrant glow brightened the night.

The smell of decaying leaves, rotting roses, and stagnant water filled the air, sour and cloying. I knew that scent. It was a succubus, a sexual demon that appeared in the form of a woman, enticed human males, had sex with them, and then ate them. From the privates up. And I knew this scent. It was specific to the succubus queen, the mother of all unholy sexual desires. It enticed by conjure.