Faith Hunter - Seraphs

At my words, the Flames whirled and darted behind the Watcher. Barak hissed and fell to his knees, exposing his back. The Minor Flames blazed with abandon, racing up and down the allied seraph’s spine. From his torn flesh, nubs and ripples appeared, hillocks that quickly grew to fist-sized prominences. The humeri ripped through his flesh. Wings began to form. The Watcher screamed. Reaching up, he took the hilt of the blade from my hand. He curled his body around the sword, cradling it. He screamed again, body wrenching. Barak blazed like a small sun, driving us out of the room, covering our faces.

“That went well,” Eli said. “Have you noticed that you live an interesting life?”

“Pre-Ap Chinese blessing interesting? Yeah. I noticed.” I pulled my blades and thumbed the amulet with the map of the Trine, copying it to the bloodstone hilt of my longsword. Looking at Malashe-el, I said, “By your Mistress’ power, take me to your master.”

From the cleftlike opening in the tunnel wall, a chitinous clacking and snapping sounded. A dragonet skittered into the passageway, bouncing up and down on segmented legs. Its exoskeleton was scarlet and orange stripes, its carapace humped and spiked with black barbs. Another dragonet followed. And another.

Demon-fast, Malashe-el took off in the opposite direction. More dragonets poured through the opening. As one, they attacked. Eli blasted one batch with flames, and Joseph tossed a hand grenade. We all ducked. The explosion rocked the cavern. Dust and debris, some of it slimy, rained down on us.

“No!” Eli shouted over the ringing in my ears. “Grenades’ll bring the roof down!”

I offered the original amulet for the map and the one for the moving shield to Durbarge. “You can use these?” I asked, not really hearing my voice. He hesitated only an instant before taking the stones. I thought he mouthed the words, “Go with God the Victorious,” but I wasn’t sure.

As fast as I could, I followed Malashe-el down, into the Dark.

Opening mage-sight to its fullest, I sighted Malashe-el’s heel as he rounded a corner and took a downward ramp. I raced after. Smoke billowed up, and the ramp turned again, deeper into the thick fumes. I could scarcely breathe. I thumbed open the map in the bloodstone hilt and followed the daywalker down, and down, spotting our route on the three-dimensional interpretation in my mind. We were descending much faster than I had thought possible.

“Save us,” the remembered voice belled in my mind. “Save us!”

“Yeah,” I said, my breath harsh in the contaminated air as my hearing returned. “I’m working at it.” I rounded the next hallway and stopped short.

Forcas stood in my path, a tall being, over six feet in physical form. In mage-sight it bulked twelve feet tall, powerful in this place and beautiful as a seraph of Light. In one hand it clutched Malashe-el by the throat. The walker’s feet thrashed; its face was mottled, its tongue protruding through swollen lips. Without thought, I dropped and rolled across the cold stone floor, sheathing the longsword, drawing the blades along my calves and throwing. As they spun, I shouted, “Jehovah sabaoth!” The knives slammed into Forcas’ chest to either side of the walker. The Darkness released its hold and Malashe-el fell in a boneless heap. Its hand opened, revealing a small vial that glowed in my sight like gathered diamond dust. The walker had done it. It had my blood. Blood that can be used against me. Or blood I can sacrifice. Blood I can use as a weapon.

I scuttled across the intervening space, directly under the feet of the Darkness, and grabbed the vial. Elation pulsed through me. Almost in slow motion Forcas withdrew my blades, tossed them, and reached for me. Its seraph face, the beautiful face that once was, rippled and changed as a glamour fell away. A cat head, puma or lion, its flesh leathery and burned, took shape in its stead, all that was left of its once holy mien. This was much more formidable than a Watcher allied with Darkness. This was a true Fallen, one of the Powers who rebelled against the Most High and was swept out of heaven in the war that was only hinted at in holy scriptures. A crimson metal chain, the color of fresh blood, was around its neck. The spur amulet was in its hand.

Forcas laughed and grabbed me about the waist with one hand, as it had once before. No. Twice before. It held the spur before me and raised me to its face. Holding me close, it rammed the spur into my side. Pain, exquisite and elegant as a shaft of poetry, lanced through me. “Time, time, and a third time I have held you thus. Time, time, and a third time has your flesh been pierced with the conjure of binding. The full flower is now mine,” he said.

Tied to my stomach, the visa flashed with ruby light, and I knew I couldn’t let it say the line three times. The vial of my blood felt warm even through the battle glove. “The full flower is now mine,” it said a second time.

Pain froze my muscles, paralyzing me, the blood arrested in my veins. I heard myself gurgle as the conjure in the spur stopped my breath. I crushed the vial in my palm and slid the tanto’s edge in the blood-soaked glove. With a single thrust, I took the beast through the throat. His grip eased and I inhaled, chanting, “Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire.”

Forcas dropped me and I landed on Malashe-el, even as I ripped the spur amulet from my side, tucked it into my boot, and drew my sword. Smoke billowed up around me. Over my head, Forcas roared, a lion’s roar. I rolled across the tunnel, leaving splatters of blood from the wound in my side, pulling the walker into a crevice with me as I called mage in dire again. Still nothing happened. “Like being held in the grip of a Major Darkness isn’t dire enough?” I croaked to the heavens. I looked at my side, but that wound wasn’t sacrifice; it was battle. I picked a scar that looked like it might open easily.

“Inadequate,” a familiar voice belled, closer now, audible. I blinked away the smoke, turned, and saw the Mistress far below me in a cavern, her seraph trapped above her, on top of the scarlet cage that imprisoned her. Zadkiel, only feet below me, was burned to the bone, his legs wrapped in chains, dragonets attached at his waist, sucking and engorged. The seraph held neither sword nor shield, a thing I had never heard of. When in battle, the weapons were said to be part of them, as much an appendage as a leg or hand. Amethyst’s seraph face was turned to me. “To reach us you must offer much blood. Much blood.”

“So I’m the sucker after all,” I said. When it came to the High Host, other supernats always had been. Behind me, Forcas stepped closer, its footsteps vibrating the rocky ground. I dropped the daywalker and darted along a ledge above the Mistress’ cell, holding my elbow against the wound in my side. I checked the map in the hilt and saw that while there were numerous channels leading to the deepest prison, this doorway was the only way in. I had no way out. I won’t live through this anyway.

Lifting my left wrist, I sliced the sleeve of the dobok. With a deeper slash, I opened the artery at my elbow. Mage-blood gushed, drenching Zadkiel. One dragonet lifted its teeth away and spit at me, a snake hiss through bloody fangs.

I jumped toward the trap, falling to my knees in the sticky red adhesive that buried the seraph’s feet. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress,” I said. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress.” I had lost blood from the wound in my side and my throat injury, and my blood pressure dropped fast. I fell forward, my face sticking in the red snare. The trap smelled of old blood. Like Mole Man’s blood. Like Lucas. The huge clawed feet of another beast landed beside me. “I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress,” I murmured, my lips touching the trap made of blood. “Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire,” I whispered. “Mage in dire. Raziel….”