Faith Hunter - Seraphs

Far below, I met the Mistress’ eyes. “Help him,” she commanded. If I’d had breath, I might have laughed. Instead I managed to turn my face.

Zadkiel was locked in mortal combat with Forcas, now a lion-headed beast bulging with muscle and radiating Darkness, its body strong, scaled, and crested with horns. Winged dragonets were wrapped around the seraph’s leg. Forcas reared back and drove its lion fangs into Zadkiel’s throat, the bloody chain on its neck clinking.

Tears of Taharial. All this for nothing. I was dying, and no help had come for my sacrifice. But then, I was soulless. What more could I expect? With my last breath, I smelled Lucas’ blood, blood that had been used in the creation of the beasts, the cell, and the chain Forcas wore. My vision telescoped into tiny holes.

The scarlet, spherical cage beneath me undulated, as if hit by a great force. A foot stepped near my head, sinking into the red adhesive. Strands leaped up and wrapped around the crimson battle boots. “I hear, little mage,” Raziel’s voice called, ringing like bronze bells. “I am here, as I promised, in life and battle and love.” His hand rested for a moment on my spine, fingers hot against my chilling skin. At his touch, strength flowed into me. My body shuddered hard. My lungs found a breath and vision expanded. I could see. His hand lifted, and I heard the crash of fighting over my body, swords clashing. Raziel screamed his battle cry. Hot, acidic blood splattered over my body, burning through my cloak and dobok. I smelled sulfur and brimstone, and chocolate and blood. Lust and battle-lust twined and rose up in me.

“Now,” the Mistress belled, “now.” Her lavender eyes caressed me, the soft purple eyes of the cobra that had come to me; that had drowned me. “Use the otherness . Use it as you used my wheels. As you did once before.”

There wasn’t time to tell her I didn’t know how. I opened mage-sight and a mind-skim, the blended scan. The world took on strange hues and scents and textures. The otherness was there as well. Hooking a metaphysical finger in it, I slid sideways, outside of my body, my world moving with a whoosh of sensation. I rose to my knees and inspected my physical remains, which still hurt on a distant level, but the pain was growing more remote. I looked at my elbow in this not-here body. It wasn’t cut, but my feet were still trapped in the red ooze. Interesting. I felt my heart beat, then nothing for a long moment. Even with Raziel’s touch, I was dying. Blood loss. The spur.

A beat. If I cut myself free of the glue, would I fall off of the sphere or restick?

I was dead anyway, I reminded myself. Which really sucked big-time. But at the same time, I was still alive. Sorta. Since I didn’t have a soul, I figured that meant I had about a minute to help Zadkiel and Raziel before my consciousness vanished, yet I had a feeling that nothing was the same in this odd reality, not even time. My otherness body still held two swords. Using the shortsword, blinking to reconcile the two divergent worldviews, I cut through the strands that held my feet, and then through the strands imprisoning Raziel. He saw me in both places and blinked once, as if startled.

Screaming his battle cry, he spun away. With a scent of ozone, lightning bolts flashed from his hands and thundered into the foul trap. The rank smell of Darkness burning and the smell of singed seraph flesh filled my nostrils. Below me, my body lay prone in the mire. Still dying. I had a moment to feel sorry for myself; I hadn’t wanted to end this way.

Swords swinging, I raced to the seraphs. Raziel fought dragonets: one with its fangs buried in his hip, its legs clawing in my seraph’s thigh and calf; another with its fangs in the juncture of his shoulder and neck. Seraph blood ran in rivers, and the dragonets absorbed each drop. Zadkiel fought Forcas, taking sword blows to his forearms, still secured by dragonets and the red trap. With three slashes, I cut through a beast on Zadkiel’s leg; clean swipes that missed seraph flesh yet cleaved the Darkness in quarters. Instantly, it repaired itself.

“Use blood,” the Mistress murmured. “The sacrifice of blood and life defeats evil.”

“I’m soulless. What good is the blood of a mage?” When she didn’t answer, I flipped the shortsword and repierced the wound that wasn’t there over my left elbow. On the surface below my feet, my heart beat . In the otherness, blood that was more than blood spurted from my arm into the air. I directed it over my blade, flipped it, and cut through the Darkness in a long arc, the crimson blade glowing with mage-life. I whirled the sword and cut again, slicing through the dragonet. Screaming, it fell away. I took the others as quickly, their bodies flopping on the red web.

Startled, Zadkiel looked at me. His face was burned, wings leathery and crusted over with scabs, leaking from the nevus, drained nearly powerless. But his eyes still glowed with holy light. Forcas embraced him, fangs in Zadkiel’s spine, its body huge, dwarfing the seraph. With my bloody blade, I stabbed the beast’s calf. Forcas reared back, pulling its fangs free. Its mane of horns fluttered in an unseen breeze. I twisted my blade from it. Blood spurted over me and through me.

I aimed my bleeding arm up between the fangs, into its white maw. On the surface of the trap, my heart beat, a thump of life and power. My lifeblood pulsed into Forcas’ pale, bloodless maw, a gush of sacrifice. Raziel screamed my name. The Darkness pulled the chain from its neck and swiped it through Zadkiel’s blood.

Zadkiel hit Forcas’ mouth closed with his elbow. I flicked the tanto into his palm, and he drove the blade up from its jaw through the top of its head. In a single liquid motion, Zadkiel bent and retrieved the sword and shield at his feet, seraph-steel swinging. Wrist sure and strong, he cleaved Forcas in two. In the place of otherness, the pieces fell, thrashing like snakes.

The sword cut through it again. Screams echoed in the cavern. The beast looped and spiraled, a writhing coil, trying to reknit. Trying to heal. One snakelike segment flipped high, red chain links catching the light as it landed on Raziel and slithered down his body.

With a flip of his wrist, Zadkiel sent its other parts spiraling away into the dark in different directions. He whirled, seeing the sphere, the Mistress chained within, and me. When I looked for the section of Forcas that wore the linked chain, it was gone.

That was bad. I knew that. But more dragonets were coming, a swarm of the snaky, insectoid beasts. Raziel was wrapped with dragonets, a dozen or more latched to his body, his flesh burned and scored, smoking. Zadkiel hacked at others.

My sight was dimming again, growing tighter, spear points of images. “Raziel,” I whispered, and held out my arm to him. “Blood of sacrifice.” For a fractured moment, his eyes met mine, filled with fear and battle-lust and a strange kind of tenderness. He extended his blade and I dribbled blood on it. With the death-blessed blade, he attacked the dragonets, killing one, then another, calling his battle cry.

I turned to the Mistress. “Dying sucks, you know that?” I thought at her. My heart beat a final thump, a soft, rubbing sound, tissue against tissue, nearly bloodless. Slowly, I fell back toward my body, seeing the otherness world in slow motion, with crystal clarity. Seeing the river of lava flowing below the otherness, scintillating with lights. In both realities, Forcas was gone. In one reality, two dragonets still attacked.

Sword hacking, Zadkiel tossed the attackers away and tore through the red adhesive bars of the cage. “Amethyst,” he crooned. A long arm scooped her up, the other slicing through the chains binding her. They dropped with a clang of cold demon-iron. “Amethyst, my cherub,” he breathed, cradling her. As she touched him, his flesh reknit, flowing across his bones with a patina of blue and lavender light. Feathers that had been burned away budded and spiraled out, the white feathers of a kylen child. The deeply scored chain marks across her body radiated gently, healing. I caught myself on my arms, balancing over my physical body. In both realities—the otherness, as well as in the human world—Forcas was still gone. Dead? Had we truly defeated him? If so, maybe my death was worth it.