Faith Hunter: Seraphs

Jasper was still speaking. “I was able to help some, but Elders Perkins and Culpepper have a lot more clout than I do. They want you charged.” He pulled a sheaf from his Bible, the pages sealed with the red wax of a kirk summons. “I want you to know I’m on your side. I always will be.” He took a deep breath, gripped his Bible across his chest, and said, “Thorn St. Croix, you are officially served.” He handed me the papers. So much for compassion, friendship, and the loyalty of old friends.

I held the legal summons as Jasper left, icy winter air again blowing across the shop floor, like a mistral of omens. The thick paper felt cold on my chapped skin as I cracked the wax seal, unfolded the pages, and smoothed them across the display glass. Rupert, Jacey, and Audric moved into a half circle behind me to read over my shoulder.

It was a legal writ, the paper signed by the Council of the Town Fathers—elected officials and kirk-appointed elders—who judged all things spiritual and most things legal in Mineral City. I read it twice before I understood the charges. I had been accused of practicing abominations. Meaning black magic or forbidden sexual practices. Fear raced up the back of my neck. The charge was a federal crime. If found guilty, judgment would be swift and lethal. My heart rate kicked up a notch. Fight or flight. Rupert cursed foully.

I held up a hand to stop him. There was something peculiar about the summons. Such a charge usually meant immediate arrest—shackles, leg irons, the witch-catcher: a special mask humans had created just for mages, with iron rods that were inserted between the teeth, holding the mouth open wide to keep a mage from chanting a defensive conjure. Maybe Jasper had more clout than he claimed he did. Or maybe I had more support than I feared.

I wasn’t being summoned to the kirk, but to a meeting in the old Central Baptist Church building—the town hall—at ten today. That was both good and bad. Good, because it meant any judgment rendered would be secular, and would have to be ratified by a unanimous vote of town fathers rather than a few kirk elders in private. And confirmation of a guilty verdict would take time, time I could use to get away. It was bad for two reasons: because the whole town would be present, and because I wasn’t being given time to prepare a legal defense. If the crowd turned to violence, a lynch mob taking the proceedings into its own hands, I’d be toast. Or I’d have to fight. Either outcome was bad.

As likely scenarios, tactics, plans, and possibilities ran through my mind, I refolded the writ and tucked it into my tunic. My hands, which had shaken so badly only moments before, were suddenly steady, as if my emotions had entered some kind of stasis, and the part of me that had studied as a battle mage in a different life had taken over. I looped the turquoise necklace over Jacey’s neck, thinking while I tidied the rest of the display case.

“Is Zeddy available?” I asked the quiet room. Jacey nodded, her trembling fingers on my arm; tears glittered in her eyes. I patted her icy hand. “It’s okay,” I said, not certain if I was lying. “It’ll be fine. But just in case, would you have him saddle Homer and gather supplies for a week in the mountains? If it looks like they’re going to decide against me, I’ll run. You guys need to be ready to take off too, or to defend the shop. I’ll set a few wards—”

“Stop,” Audric interrupted. “There will be no problem with Thorn’s Gems. Concentrate on taking care of yourself.” The big man pushed me between my partners and toward the stairs. “Go, little mage. You don’t have much time to prepare. Jacey, call this number and tell the man who answers what has happened. Then call Zeddy. Have him saddle both the horses and put supplies for two on the mule, enough for ten days. What?” he asked when I looked at him, surprised. “You think they’ll stop with you? If they find you guilty, they’ll come for the rest of us. We’ve been planning for this. Now go change.” Turning his back on me, Audric continued instructing Rupert in the defense of the shop. Jacey, taking a steadying breath, picked up the telephone and dialed the number Audric had written.

I turned and went up the stairs, my footsteps hollow on the cold, warped boards.

He fell, rolling across the nest of feathers to the rock wall on the far side of the cell. Pain and desire lanced through him, setting fire to the bones of his clipped wings, burning in his loins. Agony raced through him, and lust, and need. He groaned. The cell door behind him closed, a ringing finality, the demon-iron scattering frost crystals with the vibration. He heard the shackles hit the ground on the hallway floor outside his cell.

“See you in twenty-four hours, Watcher,” his captor said.

He moaned again, turning to lie facedown on the feathers. His feathers. The delicate bones of his severed wings gave beneath his weight. In an hour the new wounds would be clotted over, leaking a bit of thin, clear, serous fluid. Another hour, and that too would be gone; his flesh would heal over, his bones would start to regenerate, the agony would diminish. Shortly after his wounds healed and the bones began to redevelop, the lust would start to fade, unrelieved, unfulfilled.

In twenty-four hours his tormentors would return, shackle him in demon-iron, and take him back to the torture chamber. There, with human steel, they would again shear the new growth off his wings. Demon-iron would cause more pain, which they liked, but it would cauterize the damaged tissue with ice, and they wanted him bleeding. While he dripped blood and suffered, the pain weakening him, they would bring in a mage, likely one bred when he stimulated her captured mother into heat. He had been here long enough to be working on a second generation. Maybe a third.

He laughed silently, bitterly. Because of him, the Dark had hundreds of mages born in captivity. He was an aphrodisiac to mages. They were an aphrodisiac to him. Like today, this new offering would go into mage-heat, ovulating, as the species could do only in the presence of a seraph. And once again, he would refuse to mate. Refuse something he wanted almost more than forgiveness itself. Refuse to create kylen that could be used by the Lord of Darkness. When the mage was screaming and mindless with desire, their captors would take her away to breed with the being of their choice, to impregnate her, perhaps to create a new captive with special genetic traits. Half mage, half something Dark. But not half seraph. No.

Once they dragged her away, he would be tossed back into his cage to partially heal; twenty-four hours of recuperation until they came for him. Again. His laughter sounded half mad. When he sucked in a breath, the air reeked of his own misery and fear. Tears trickled across his flight feathers, mixing with his blood. A rich, iridescent green, the feathers threw back the dim light of the one candle they allowed him.

How long? How long imprisoned in the wretchedness of this river of time? How many times mutilated? Tortured. Tied to the earth, without flight. That was the worst of it. Was this the humans’ concept of purgatory? The pain started to ease. His tears dried.

Watcher. Who are you?

“Go away,” he said aloud, his voice a cracked bell trying to ring, speaking to the voice that no one else heard. It came when his pain was still fresh, but becoming bearable, a new temptation devised by his torturers. “Get thee behind me,” he muttered. “There are no seraphs in the pit of Darkness, none but me. None.”

Watcher. Who are you?

“Blood and feathers,” he cursed. “I am no one. The Most High has so decreed. But if you wish to address me, you may call me Barak.”

You who were once called Baraqyal? the voice belled, a startled tone. It was a seraphic intonation, the sound like gongs and the soughing of the wind.