Faith Hunter - Seraphs

“My mate,” the cherub whispered. “My flame.” Her wings unfurled, several sets of them aligned along her body, each smaller than the seraph’s. Her many eyes stared at Zadkiel. “The Dragon comes. We must away.”

The Dragon…. Ahh. I remembered the links of chain smeared with the blood of two seraphs. Three including Barak. Does a Watcher count? Vibrations thrummed through the crimson net like footsteps. Like a heartbeat.

Zadkiel spread his wings. They were covered with pale down, white at the root, soft violet at the tips. Though only partially healed, he was beautiful. The two together would be my last sight—only pinpoints of vision left. My elbows began to give way. “Bring her,” the Mistress said, turning several eyes to me.

“No time . She gave herself for you,” Zadkiel said. “She will be remembered.”

The red threads beneath me thrummed faster. My sight was dimming. Numbing cold spread through me and I settled into my body. I was cold. So cold. In some small part of my faltering mind, I thought, This is a bad way to die.

“Save her!” Raziel screamed, his beautiful voice raw.

“Quickly, my love. Bring her,” Amethyst agreed. “ Time is enough.”

Zadkiel shouted with frustration, scooped me up in his other arm, and threw me over his shoulder. A tendril of… something… grabbed my ankle and whipped away, smeared with my dying blood. If I hadn’t been dead, I’d have laughed.

I came to on the surface, surrounded by the smell of blood. I was lying on ice, cradled in my filthy, bloody cloak, shivering. On the night wind I smelled seraphs, mage-blood, decaying devil-spawn, daywalker blood, and the overriding reek of the blood of a Major Darkness. And, oh, yes, seraphs . Heat wisped through me. I stuttered a laugh and dragged air into my lungs. They made an awful sucking sound, like wet rubber being pulled apart. I was alive. I was pretty sure of it. Hurt too bad to be dead. I coughed hard, the sound like leather ripping, causing a shocking pain through my ribs.

“She laughs. I like her laughter,” Amethyst tinkled.

The moon winked over the shoulder of a seraph. Zadkiel lifted his head from my stomach. His lips had been touching me. Healing me. Mage-heat strengthened, delicate fire in my veins. He placed my amulets on my bare stomach, and the heat dimmed. “Can you control it?” he asked.

I considered his question, but before I could answer, another did, his voice like baritone bells. “Yes. I believe so.”

Zadkiel laughed, heat burning in his eyes. “I hope so, Raziel. I have no time to satisfy the cravings of a mage in heat.”

The unexpected laugh and the odd emphasis on the word time resonated in my mind for a moment before sliding away in exhaustion. Zadkiel’s face filled my vision. “Be safe, little mage. I thank you for the return of my mate, the Mistress, Holy Amethyst. Complete her healing, Raziel, and take her to her home. Wait there for us. We will come soon. The Dragon is striking. Battle has commenced as he seeks freedom.”

“Mate?” I croaked, the first thing I ask after being brought back to life. Weird.

“Not as you think of mates,” the cherub said, her voice like tiny bells in a night breeze off the Gulf, amusement in the thought. “But purposes met and satisfied, even when one of us is away from the Most High, alone in the river of time, on earth.”

I remembered the river of lava in the otherness. That river?

Zadkiel placed a warm stone on my stomach where his lips had been. “For your prayer, your incantations, your blood, and your sacrifice; for all these, I thank you. And for your willingness to gift us your life, though it was not needed in the end. I thank you.”

I didn’t think it politic to mention that he had been willing to leave me to die in the pit while some big papa Dragon came looking for supper.

“Thanks be to the wisdom and compassion of Amethyst. You are healed,” he finished. “Be blessed. Be at peace.” He swiveled his head to his mate and said, “Call your wheels.” Amethyst looked to the heavens with all her eyes and sang one perfect note of calling, a tone so beautiful nothing could resist it. I tried to rise from the ground where I lay to reach her. Pain arched through me, paralyzing. This was healed?

With Amethyst cradled against his chest, Zadkiel, the Right Hand of the ArchSeraph Michael, spread his patchily feathered, burned wings and gave a single mighty thrust. Wind like a tornado, scented with mint and pepper, swirled around me. And they were gone. I was left, cold and drained, on the frozen and cracked ice at the lip of the pit of the hellhole. Blackness closed in around me.

Pain woke me. Two balls of flame, plasma-bright, zipped from my stomach with a sizzle of energy and danced in the air, blinding me. I closed my eyes against the glare.

Warmth trickled into my bones from the stone on my torso. I’d been touched by two seraphs in the same night. Three if one counted Barak. Did one count a Watcher? Yet I still felt no mage-heat. A green flight feather poked my thigh. I had forgotten about the gift. At my waist, my amulets glowed, giving me strength. On my belly was a seraph stone. I’ll never be able to swear that way again, not without a chuckle.

Slowly I sat up, stiff muscles creaking. My injured arm was healed, another ugly scar marking my skin. The wound in my side was no longer bleeding, but the pain when I moved was electric, stealing my breath. The scent of battle clung to me, incubating in the warmth of my body. The stenches of smoke, old blood, and death roiled out of my clothing, nauseating me. I reeked. I found a bottle of water in my cloak pocket and finished it, before attaching the seraph stone to my necklace. I thought it might be a black agate, and it felt hot against my fingers.

Overhead, a sickle-shaped moon rested its lower point on a distant mountain. The sun was a golden glow in the east. Morning. I had survived the night, underground.

“Hours have passed as you healed,” Raziel said. “There is great battle in the heavens.”

In mage-sight I found him, a faint glow perched in the limbs of a tall spruce, green branches framing his scarlet radiance. His crimson wings were tightly furled, wrist tips high over his head. His cloak hung loose, moving in the slight breeze. He was a bright ruby hue of energy, eyes like gems. I felt his gaze all the way to my toes. “Amethyst is wounded. She is failing. You must relinquish her wheels.” He tilted his head, a half smile hovering on his lips and I could have sworn he was curious. Seraphs are never curious. Never.

“I don’t have her wheels to give up.” I shifted on the frozen ground. In a single heartbeat, everything changed.

A roar shivered the air. Forcas crashed from the mouth of the pit. The beast had been in pieces last time I saw it. What did it take to kill a Major Darkness?

Forcas was carrying Eli in one clawed hand, Durbarge in the other, and Malashe-el was hooked over its shoulder, impaled on a horn. Neither man looked so good. The daywalker looked dead.

Light blazed. Raziel opened his wings and stepped off the limb, hands throwing. Lightning hit the ground in a brilliant blast. Thunder boomed, eardrum-cracking, deafening. Raziel rocketed toward the Darkness, wings outspread, gathering the lightning. Thunderheads built overhead. The wind roared, buffeting me where I lay.

Light illuminated the cleared area, shining from Raziel’s battle armor. Armor and sword hadn’t been there only a moment before. Electricity crackled along the red-gold plate. His face was set in stern lines, his eyes glowing with battle-lust. Instinctively, I rolled under the overhang of a boulder. Too weak to rise, I curled tight, making myself small.