Seraphs

  Audric and Rupert stepped into the shop. I could almost feel them maneuvering to my left and right, out of the way of my blades. “What’s this scum doing here?” Rupert asked.

  “Chatting. Leaving,” the man said, hands still out, placating. “Name’s Joseph Barefoot. You want to talk, leave a white rag hanging at your back window. I’ll be notified. Think about what I said.” He eased away, backed down the small hallway, and disappeared from view. I heard him exit the shop by the back door.

  Not looking at my friends, I sheathed my sword. Battle rage drained out in a rush. My legs and arms were heavy, tired, and I hadn’t even drawn blood. I rested a hand on a display, head hanging down. “What now?” I asked.

  “Now we lock up the shop and mount a watch in case one of the more fervent zealots decides to break windows, toss firebombs, or paint slogans on the walls. Jacey’s sending Zeddy over to spend the night here, and her next two largest will keep watch in the barn.”

  Humans. Putting themselves and their families at risk. For me. I wanted to be sick. “Fine.” I managed a smile at the picture they made, tall and muscular, swords at their hips. Audric’s cloak was the basic black leather worn by the second-unforeseen when they went to war, though no one at my trial had commented on it. Unless the reporter had noted the dobok and delved into his past, his secrets were still safe. Rupert’s new blue velvet had a trendy swath of lace at the throat. “You made great champards,” I said. “Very flashy. But—”

  “If you think you’re taking off to keep us safe, don’t bother,” Rupert said, untying the cape and brandishing his new sword in its scabbard. “All for one and one for all, dearie.”

  I had been about to say just that. Unexpected tears sprang into my eyes and I hiccupped, half sob, half laughter.

  “Go lie down,” Audric said. “You’re dead on your feet. Oh—and the tense was incorrect.” When I looked my question at him he said, “We make great champards.”

  A tear rolled down; I caught it on my wrist. As I turned back, I saw Eli Walker across the street. He was leaning against the wall outside Shamus Waldroup’s bakery, one knee bent, foot flat against the building, rifle cradled in his arms. He tipped his hat when he caught my eye. Eli worked as a tracker, sometimes for the kirk, sometimes for the Administration of the ArchSeraph. Neither liked me much. I wondered who he was working for today.

  Thadd walked by Eli, talking to Jacey, the cop animated, his body language angry, Jacey calm, her red clothes a beacon in the gray light. Eli’s gaze followed them, speculative. I remembered that neither Thaddeus Bartholomew nor the assey Durbarge had been in the meeting house. I’d have smelled Thadd. Durbarge, as an Administration of the ArchSeraph Investigator, would have been forced to stand beside me on the dais, his eye patch drawing frightened looks. I was a legally licensed mage, accused in a court of law. Part of an assey’s job description was protecting mages in the human population, and he hadn’t been there. Because he had been kept away as part of the ploy by Culpepper’s brigade and the orthodox? Or because he was colluding with them?

  Farther down the street, the reporter who had been at the trial was doing interviews, currently talking to a member of the orthodox, an elderly man with a full beard and a deer-hide hat that came down over his ears. She was getting an earful, and I imagined most of it was mage hate. The reporter had perfect tanned skin, chin-length blond hair that curled at the tips, and clothes that came out of designer shops in Atlanta. As if she felt me watching her, she looked up and met my eyes. Immediately, she ditched the man and raced toward the shop.

  Not wanting to listen to her pitch, I turned and climbed the steps, my booted feet heavy and cold. Behind me, I heard the bells over the door jingle and Rupert intercept her. Romona’s tone wasn’t happy, and I caught the words, “the Trine,” and “ice cap,” and “Darkness.” It wasn’t good, if the press had put that much together, but I still didn’t go back down.

  At the top of the stairs I stopped. The EIH provocateur had entered the shop, and was watching my home and me. It’s because you’re genetically closer to seraphs than to humans. It was an obvious deduction, yet one I had never made. So far as I knew, no one had made it. And I had no idea what it might mean. Speculating, I went in.

  My loft was one huge open area, once the hayloft of the two-hundred-plus-year-old former livery that housed Thorn’s Gems. The walls were three feet thick, four in some places, made of old brick, some of which I had plastered and painted rich greens and blues. Complementary window hangings were teal and sea green tapestries, to match colors from my childhood and the stained-glass window at the back of the loft where hay bales once were inserted. Wood floors were covered with rugs except in the kitchen and bath areas, where I had laid teal tiles. The furniture was dun and tan and soft, soothing colors, clustered around the freestanding natural gas fireplaces. There were no closets, and the armoires still hung open, clothes hanging out. The place looked like it was owned by a slob.

  I tossed my cloak over the coatrack near the door and untied my boots, leaving them piled near the door so the ice that had crusted on the soles could melt and drain. I put away the cuffs, earrings, and rings. Hanging up the mageskirt, I thumped a bell for a last little jingle. The shirt was harder to get off than it had been to put on, but I finally got it unlaced and hung on a hanger. For some reason I didn’t want to look at too closely, I didn’t put them back out of sight, hooking the hangers over an armoire door instead. The clothes looked exotic and foreign in the human apartment. Cold, I pulled on leggings, slippers, and a fuzzy turtlenecked sweater, and turned up the fire to warm the apartment, my necklace around my neck.

  In a sudden need to restore order to my life, I made the bed with ruby red silk sheets, fluffed the teal comforter smooth, and arranged lavender, ruby, and turquoise pillows. The emerald bed skirt and an inch of ruby sheets were contrasting jewel tones. When the bed was made, I dusted, swept, vacuumed, and cleaned the bath, working up a sweat. As I worked, lazily turning fans overhead pushed heated air back to the floor from the rafters.

  I checked my blades to see if they needed attention. Constant wet was a prelude to rust, but I had been careful to keep them oiled and so far I’d been lucky. In mountainous areas, sword blades needed oil once every three months, and I was weeks away from that timeline, but two blades looked dull, so I wiped away the old oil with a soft rag and sprinkled the blades with talcum powder to remove the excess oil. Lastly, I wiped each clean and applied a coating of light oil before laying them aside.

  I was standing in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator at my sparse lunch offerings when I heard footsteps and smelled the food. Though it had been months, I recognized both the stride and the menu. Roast duck for him. Roast vegetables for me: potatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms sliced and marinated in herbed oil. Fresh onion bread, still hot out of Shamus Waldroup’s oven. A salad with more of the herbed dressing would be in a sealed container to complete the meal. I couldn’t smell it—but he wouldn’t have forgotten the salad.

  They were my favorite foods, and had once been part of a well-planned seduction that ended with my being stretched out on my mattress, losing my virginity with eager abandon and getting engaged to the man of my dreams. Who then cheated on me and broke my heart. Right. Remember that, I told myself, even as I closed the fridge door and went to greet him.

  “Peace offering,” he said when I opened the door, craning his head around a bag of food. I just looked at him, so he added, “I have wine and beer.”

  “I have food,” I lied. “And wine and beer,” I said, more truthfully.

  “I have a foot rub.” His blue eyes gleamed with mischief. I felt my toes curl up.

  He shifted the bag. “And a shoulder rub, if you want. I remember how your shoulders ache when you drill stones all day.” When I still said nothing, his brows went up and his voice dropped into a low register that sounded like pure sex. “And three kinds of hot peppers and cheesecake and red grapes and divinity candy imported from Louisiana.” r />
  My belly did a funny little dip and curl, leaving me breathless. I couldn’t help it. I said, “You are an evil, wicked man, here to tempt me with fat, protein, and alcohol.”

  “Don’t forget the hot peppers, fresh fruit, and candy,” he said. Something in his voice reminded me of a vision I’d had of him not long ago, emaciated, in a dungeon, his neck scarred by fangs. I crossed my arms over my chest but my foot pushed the door wide. It was an ambiguous invitation at best, but he didn’t wait for better. Lucas Stanhope walked back into my loft and my life with an unrepentant grin and the scent of really great food.

  He went straight to the kitchen, where he began to unload the bags of edible treasures and set the table. I hadn’t rearranged the dishes after he’d moved out. His hands went straight to the plates, the wineglasses, the salad bowls. Taking the bottle of wine and a six-pack of Dancing Bear Brew, he walked through the apartment as if he belonged there, and out onto the back deck, where I watched him brushing snow off my beer cache. He deposited the new six-pack and the wine in the snow, bringing four cold bottles back inside. He twisted one open and held it out as he passed. I had no intention of taking it but my arms unfolded and my hand reached out on its own. My fingers wrapped around the bottle. As he passed by, I found I was watching his butt. Drat. This was not good. A woman in town claimed they were married. Jane Hilton, a breathtakingly beautiful blond with vivid eyes and a sculpted face. Lucas was married. Married. Maybe.

  I needed to tell him to leave. Now. Instead, I said, “Thanks,” and took a swig.

  I told myself it was the smell of roast veggies and the way the little potatoes glistened in oil and the sight of the salad greens all crisp and curled that shut me up. But it was the dried cranberries that did it. That and the almonds. They were a sure sign that this wasn’t a spontaneous gesture on Lucas’ part.

  The other food could be obtained in Mineral City from greenhouse farmers or a trader who made regular runs on the mule train. But not almonds and dried cranberries; they had to be imported all the way from Atlanta. At fabulous expense. I was the only person I knew who craved slivered almonds and cranberries. None of the locals even knew what they were.

  My mouth watered when Lucas set a small china plate mounded with pieces of fluffy white divinity candy studded with pecans in the center of the table. He dribbled raspberry sauce over the cheesecake. The china was the set we had used when married, the pattern an ancient Pre-Ap one, the plates and dishes from Audric’s claim at Sugar Grove. They had been one of many engagement gifts from my fiancé.

  Lucas lit candles and set out cloth napkins I hadn’t used since he left. He looked up at me. His blue eyes were the exact shade of the Gulf of Mexico at sunset, the far-off water touching the darkening horizon. He was wearing a black button-down corduroy shirt over a cotton T, black jeans, and pointed-toe boots made of tooled leather. I had given him the boots.

  “Get out,” I said. Only it came out as, “I don’t have any coffee.” To go with the cheesecake. He smiled that smile that had blown me away when I first met him and pulled out my chair. The chair I’d sat in when we were married. I didn’t tell him I’d taken to using his chair when he left. I just walked over and sat. And I bowed my head when he prayed a blessing. He’d never prayed a blessing when we were married. Never.

  He raised his head. As if reading my surprise, he leaned over and kissed my cheek before placing my napkin over my lap. “Eat.”

  The bastard. If he’d tried to kiss my mouth I’d have cold-cocked him. Instead, I met his eyes. And was lost. I picked up my fork and took a bite of salad.

  Chapter 9

  While we ate, we talked of innocuous subjects like the weather, the kirk and the political situation in Mineral City, food, beer, and the ice cap that had mysteriously disappeared from the top of the Trine, followed by a six-foot snowfall to the east. I had caused the snowmelt, but almost no one knew that and I wasn’t telling. Mysterious woman of secrets, that was me. Over dessert—which was coffee Lucas brought, tea for me, divinity, and cheesecake—we talked about the latest seraph updates. The presence of an SNN news crew in town. Ciana. Nothing more personal. Until he said, “I almost died down there.”

  I put down the teacup with a rattle. His lips were tight, the expression bleak, ashamed. In my vision I’d seen the underground cell where he’d been kept in the pit on the Trine. Seen the strange, radiant food they had fed him. I’d seen what a Darkness did to him while Lucas was drugged—a daywalker with his fangs in Lucas’ throat, sucking his blood, stroking Lucas possessively. A daywalker whose eyes changed from a lucid blue-green by day to a glowing red by night, a walker who called himself Malashe-el, who gave me his true name and therefore gave me power over him. A daywalker who attacked me, tried to kill me, and apologized for it. Strange and stranger. I still didn’t know what it all meant.

  “I stayed alive for three things,” Lucas said, drawing me back to the present. He took my fingertips, holding them lightly. “One was Ciana. She needs me. Marla isn’t evil, but she can’t give a child what she needs to feel secure and loved.” I nodded, watching our hands, my tongue thick in my mouth. “Two was to tell someone what they’re doing down there.”

  I sat up, mage-sight opening. The room brightened as the energies became visible and I could see Lucas’ life force, his aura. It was a wondrous, shimmering blue-and-gold halo that followed the contours of his head and shoulders, and spilled across the table as if reaching for me. In two places a shadow swirled, small spots near his jaw.

  He smiled wryly. “It’s your lucky day, Thorn St. Croix Stanhope.” Before I could correct him on the name, he said, “You’re the one I’m supposed to tell.” Fear flushed through me. With my free hand, I clutched for the walking stick hilt, but I’d left the sword by the door. “The Darkness’ name is Forcas. It was once a Minor Darkness, but when its boss was captured with a chain and Mole Man’s bloody sacrifice, it got promoted. Now, it’s conjuring with Stanhope blood. Mole Man’s blood. My blood.”

  I put it together with the history of Mineral City. Mole Man was the Cherokee name given to local war hero Benaiah Stanhope, Lucas and Rupert’s several-greats grandfather, after a not-so-small mopping-up operation at the end of the Last War. He went with a group of winged-warriors into the hills, underground, tracking a Major Power, its human helpers, and half-human offspring. The battle lasted three days, during which the mountain, now called the Trine, cracked open. Light and Darkness spilled out over the land in battle dire—the spiritual warfare between Light and Dark. The townspeople prayed. Benaiah gave his life to save a high-ranking seraph, using his blood sacrifice to coat the chains that bound the Major Darkness. The seraphs came back out. Benaiah died underground; his body was never recovered. Hence the name Mole Man.

  “I think it’s making a chain—an antichain, maybe,” Lucas clarified, “to free the Dragon that the seraphs captured and bound using Mole Man’s blood.”

  An antichain. Like an antidote. Now that would suck Habbiel’s pearly, scabrous toes. When I found my voice, I asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

  Lucas stroked my hand. “You’re a licensed mage. Your visa links you to a Realm of Light. You can call on seraphs. And this town is about to need some. Pretty badly.”

  I almost told him I didn’t know how to use it, but I kept my mouth shut. There was a lot I didn’t know about the visa and GPS band, just as there was a lot I didn’t know about being a mage. I’d left Enclave in my fourteenth year, when my mage-gift came upon me all at once. At puberty mages were supposed to find their gifts, their source and method of using the energies of creation. They weren’t supposed to have their minds ripped open and the thoughts, hopes, and emotions of all twelve hundred mages in Enclave dumped in. Mages weren’t supposed to go insane. I was different and that difference nearly killed me.

  It resulted in my being drugged, carted out of Enclave, and shipped here. I was only half trained. I had no idea how to use the visa I’d been granted. And I had never shared my
story with him. I almost told him all this. Almost.

  Before I could speak, he stood and began clearing off the table. I sat and wrestled with his words and what he might want from me. Sipping my tea and watching him move. Lucas wasn’t liquid grace. He wasn’t sex in motion like Eli Walker on a dance floor. He didn’t smell like a brothel/candy store like Thadd, or set my body to quivering, throbbing, mating heat. But when he moved, my eyes were inexorably drawn to his butt, flexing in tight jeans. Lucas had a wonderful butt. I remembered the feel of it flexing under my palms—

  “You didn’t ask my final reason for staying alive,” he said.

  My eyes whipped to his and my face flamed. Seraph stones. I looked around. The table was clear, dishes washed and put away. A lot of time had passed while I remembered all the good things—the very, very good things—about being married to Lucas Stanhope. “What?” I asked. Not in answer to his question, but to find my place in the entire conversation. “What did you say?”

  “The third reason I came back was to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Thorn. I hate that I hurt you. I hate that I cheated on you. Marrying you was the best, smartest thing I ever did. Breaking up was the worst and dumbest.” Lucas held up his hand. He was wearing the wedding ring I’d made for him, beaten gold and a series of ruby chips, similar to mine. How had I missed seeing it on his hand? I stared at it, appalled.

  Though Rupert had shown me how to work the gold and answered questions while I fashioned it from a nugget found in a creek three mountains over, I’d made the wedding ring totally without help, for the man I thought I’d spend my life with. My best friend had watched as I heated and hammered and shaped, watched as I set the stones, not once telling me the marriage was a mistake, though his disapproval had been clear even then. Rupert had known his brother was a cheat.

  “I love you,” Lucas said. “I want you back.” When I didn’t answer, he walked to the door, carrying the now-empty food bag, the top folded over and rolled down.