Blood Rites

Chapter Thirty-five

"Let's start simple," I said. "How do you know Kincaid?"

He blew out a breath, cheeks puffing out. "He's in the trade."

"The trade?"

"Yes." Ebenezar sat down on the other end of the couch. The puppy got up on wobbling legs and snuffled over to examine him. His tail started wagging. Ebenezar gave the little dog a brief smile and scratched his ears. "Most of the major supernatural powers have someone for that kind of work. Ortega was the Red Court's, for example. Kincaid and I are contemporaries, of a sort."

"You're assassins," I said.

He didn't deny it.

"Didn't look like you liked him much," I said.

"There are proprieties between us," Ebenezar said. "A measure of professional courtesy and respect. Boundaries. Kincaid crossed them about a century ago in Istanbul."

"He's not human?"

Ebenezar shook his head.

"Then what is he?"

"There are people walking around who carry the blood of the Nevernever in them," Ebenezar said. "Changelings, for one, those who are half-Sidhe. The faeries aren't the only ones who can breed with humanity, though, and the scions of such unions can have a lot of power. Their offspring are usually malformed. Freakish. Often insane. But sometimes the child looks human."

"Like Kincaid."

Ebenezar nodded. "He's older than I am. When I met him, I still had hair and he had been serving the creature for centuries."

"What creature?" I asked.

"The creature," Ebenezar said. "Another half mortal like Kincaid. Vlad Drakul."

I blinked. "Vlad Tepesh? Dracula?"

Ebenezar shook his head. "Dracula was the son of Drakul, and pretty pale and skinny by comparison. Went to the Black Court as a kind of teenage rebellion. The original creature is... well. Formidable. Dangerous. Cruel. And Kincaid was his right arm for centuries. He was known as the Hound of Hell. Or just the Hellhound."

"And he's afraid of you," I said, my voice bitter. "Blackstaff McCoy. I guess that's your working name."

"Something like that. The name... is a long story."

"Get started, then," I said.

He nodded, absently rubbing the puppy behind the ears. "Ever since the founding of the White Council, ever since the first wizards gathered to lay down the Laws of Magic, there has been someone interested in tearing it apart," he said. "The vampires, for one. The faeries have all been at odds with us at one time or another. And there have always been wizards who thought the world would be a nicer place without the Council in it."

"Gee," I said. "I just can't figure why any wizard would think that."

Ebenezar's voice lashed out, harsh and cold. "You don't know what you're talking about, boy. You don't know what you're saying. Within my own lifetime, there have been times and places where even speaking those words could have been worth your life."

"Gosh, I'd hate to for my life to be in jeopardy. Why did he call you Blackstaff?" I asked, my voice hardening. An intuition hit me. "It's not a nickname," I said. "Is it. It's a title."

"A title," he said. "A solution. At times, the White Council found itself bound by its own laws while its enemies had no such constraints. So an office was created. A position within the Council. A mark of status. One wizard, and only one, was given the freedom to choose when the Laws had been perverted, and turned as weapons against us."

I stared at him for a moment and then said, "After all that you taught me about magic. That it came from life. That it was a force that came from the deepest desires of the heart. That we have a responsibility to use it wisely-hell, to be wise, and kind, and honorable, to make sure that the power gets used wisely. You taught me all of that. And now you're telling me that it doesn't mean anything. That the whole time you were standing there with a license to kill."

The lines in the old man's face looked hard and bitter. He nodded. "To kill. To enthrall. To invade the thoughts of another mortal. To seek knowledge and power from beyond the Outer Gates. To transform others. To reach beyond the borders of life. To swim against the currents of time."

"You're the White Council's wetworks man," I said. "For all their prattle about the just and wise use of magic, when the wisdom and justice of the Laws of Magic get inconvenient, they have an assassin. You do that for them."

He said nothing.

"You kill people."

"Yes." Ebenezar's face looked like something carved in stone, and his voice was quietly harsh. "When there is no choice. When lives are at stake. When the lack of action would mean-" He cut himself off, jaw working. "I didn't want it. I still don't. But when I have to, I act."

"Like at Casaverde," I said. "You hit Ortega's stronghold when he escaped our duel."

"Yes," he said, still remote. "Ortega killed more of the White Council than any enemy in our history during the attack at Archangel." His voice faltered for a moment. "He killed Simon. My friend. Then he came here and tried to kill you, Hoss. And he was coming back here to finish the job as soon as he recovered. So I hit Casaverde. Killed him and almost two hundred of his personal retainers. And I killed nearly a hundred people there in the house with them. Servants. Followers. Food."

I felt sick. "You told me it would be on the news. I thought maybe it was the Council. Or that you'd done it without killing anyone but vampires. I had time to think about it later, but... I wanted to believe you'd done what was right."

"There's what's right," the old man said, "and then there's what's necessary. They ain't always the same."

"Casaverde wasn't the only necessary thing you did," I said. "Was it."

"Casaverde," Ebenezar said, his voice shaking. "Tunguska. New Madrid. Krakatoa. A dozen more. God help me, a dozen more at least."

I stared at him for a long moment. Then I said, "You told me the Council assigned me to live with you because they wanted to annoy you. But that wasn't it. Because you don't send a potentially dangerous criminal element to live with your hatchet man if you want to rehabilitate him."

He nodded. "My orders were to observe you. And kill you if you showed the least bit of rebelliousness."

"Kill me." I rubbed at my eyes. The pounding in my hand grew worse. "As I remember, I got rebellious with you more than once."

"You did," he said.

"Then why didn't you kill me?"

"Jehoshaphat, boy. What's the point of having a license to ignore the will of the Council if you aren't going to use it?" He shook his head, a tired smile briefly appearing on his mouth. "It wasn't your fault you got raised by that son of a bitch DuMorne. You were a dumb kid, you were angry, and afraid, and your magic was strong as hell. But that didn't mean you needed killing. They gave the judgment to me. I used it. They aren't happy with how I used it, but I did."

I stared at him. "There's something else you aren't telling me."

He was silent for a minute. Then two. And a while later he said, "The Council knew that you were the son of Margaret LeFay. They knew that she was one of the wizards who had turned the Council's own laws against it. She was guilty of violating the First Law, among others, and she had... unsavory associations with various entities of dubious reputation. The Wardens were under orders to arrest her on sight. She'd have been tried and executed in moments when she was brought before the Council."

"I was told she died in childbirth," I said.

"She did," Ebenezar confirmed. "I don't know why, but for some reason she turned away from her previous associates-including Justin DuMorne. After that, nowhere was safe for her. She ran from her former allies and from the Wardens for perhaps two years. And she ran from me. I had my orders regarding her as well."

I stared at him in pained fascination. "What happened?"

"She met your father. A man. A mortal, without powers, without influence, without resources. But a man with a good soul, like few I have ever seen. I believe that she fell in love with him. But on the night you were born, one of her former allies found her and exacted his vengeance for her desertion." He looked up at me directly and said, "He used an entropy curse. A ritual entropy curse."

Shock paralyzed me for a moment. Then I said, "Lord Raith."

"Yes."

"He killed my mother."

"He did," Ebenezar confirmed.

"God. You're... you're sure?"

"He's a snake," Ebenezar said. "But I'm as sure as I can be."

The pounding spread up my arm, and the room pulsed brighter and dimmer in time with it. "My mother. He was standing three feet from me. He killed my mother." A child's pain-the emptiness in my life the shape of my unknown mother, my unfortunate father-swelled and screamed in rage. The source of that pain, or part of it, had finally been revealed to me. And in that moment, had I known where to strike, I would have eagerly embraced murder. Nothing mattered but exacting retribution. Nothing mattered but taking righteous vengeance for the death of a child's mother. My mother. I started shaking, and I knew that my sanity was buckling under the pressure.

"Hoss," Ebenezar said. "Easy, boy."

"Kill him," I whispered. "I'll kill him."

"No," Ebenezar said. "You've got to breathe, boy. Think."

I started gathering power. "Kill him. Kill him. Everything. All of it. Nothing left."

"Harry," Ebenezar snapped. "Harry, let go. You can't handle that kind of power. You'll kill yourself if you try."

I didn't care about that, either. The power felt too good-too strong. I wanted it. I wanted Raith to pay. I wanted him to suffer, screaming, and then die for what he had done to me. And I was strong enough to make it happen. I had the power and the resolve to bring such a tide of magic against him that he would be utterly destroyed. I would lay him low and make him howl for mercy before I tore him apart. He deserved nothing less.

And then fire blossomed in my hand again, so sudden and sharp that my back convulsed into an agonized arch, and I fell to the floor. I couldn't scream. The pain washed my fury away like dandelions before a flash flood. I looked around wildly and saw the old man's broad, calloused hand clamped down over my burned, lightly bandaged flesh with bruising strength. When he saw my eyes he released my hand, his expression sickened.

I curled up for a minute while my pounding heart telegraphed consecutive tidal waves of agony through me. It was several minutes before I could master the pain and sit slowly up again.

"I'm sorry," Ebenezar whispered. "Harry, I can't let you indulge your rage. You'll kill yourself."

"I'll take him with me," I got out between gritted teeth.

Ebenezar let out a bitter laugh. "No, you won't, Hoss."

"How do you know?"

"I've tried," he said. "Three times. And I didn't even get close. And you think your mother went without spending her death curse on her murderer? The creature who had enslaved her? Might as well ask if a fish remembered to swim."

I blinked at him. "What do you mean?"

"He's protected," he said quietly. "Magic just slides off him."

"Even a death curse?"

"Useless," he said bitterly. "Raith is protected by something big. Maybe a big damned demon. Maybe even some old god. He can't be touched with magic."

"Is that even possible?" I asked.

"Aye," the old man said. "I don't know how. But it is. Does a lot to explain how he got to become the White King."

"I don't believe it," I said quietly. "She'd been close to him. She must have known he was protected. She was strong enough to make the White Council afraid of her. She wouldn't have spent her curse for nothing."

"She threw it. She wasted it."

"So now my mother is incompetent as well as evil," I said.

"I never said that-"

"What do you know about her?" I said. I had my right hand clamped around my left wrist, hoping to distract myself from the pain. "How would you know? Did she tell you? Were you there with her?"

He looked down at the floor, his face pale. "No."

"Then how the hell do you know?" I demanded.

His words came out in a harsh croak. "Because I knew her, Hoss. I knew her almost better than she knew herself."

The fire crackled.

"How?" I whispered.

He drew his hand back from the puppy. "She was my apprentice. I was her teacher. Her mentor. She was my responsibility."

"You taught her?"

"I failed her." He chewed on his lip. "Harry... when Maggie was coming into her power, I made her life a living hell. She was barely more than a child, but I rode herd on her night and day. I pushed her to learn. To excel. But I was too close. Too involved. And she resented it. She ran off as soon as she could get away with it. Started taking up with bad sorts out of sheer rebellion. She made a couple of bad decisions, and... and then it was too late for her to go back."

He sighed. "You're so much like her. I knew it when they sent you to me. I knew it the minute I saw you. I didn't want to repeat my mistakes with you. I wanted you to have breathing space. To make up your own mind about what kind of person you would be." He shook his head. "The hardest lesson a wizard has to learn is that even with so much power, there are some things you can't control. No matter how much you want to."

I just stared at him. "You're an assassin. A murderer. You knew about what happened to my mother. You knew her and you never told me. Good God, Ebenezar. How could you do that to me? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I'm only human, Hoss. I did what I thought was best for you at the time."

"I trusted you," I said. "Do you know how much that means to me?"

"Yes," he said. "I never did it with the intention of hurting you. But it's done. And I wouldn't choose to do it any differently if it happened again."

He moved, got the sack, and hunkered down by me so that he could rest my forearm over one knee and examine the burned hand. Then he reached into the bag and drew out a long strand of string hung with some kind of white stone. "Let's see to your hand. I think I can get the circulation restored, at least a little. Maybe enough to save the hand. And I can stop the pain for a day or two. You'll still have to get to a doctor, but this should tide you over if you're expecting trouble tonight."

It didn't take him long, and I tried to sort through my thoughts. They were buried under a storm of raw emotions, all of them ugly. I lost track of time again for a minute. When I looked up, my hand didn't hurt and it seemed a little less withered beneath the white bandages. A string of white stones had been tied around my wrist. Even as I watched, one of them yellowed and began to slowly darken.

"The stones will absorb the pain for a while. They'll crumble one at a time, so you'll know when they stop working." He looked up to my face. "Do you want my help tonight?"

An hour ago it wouldn't even have been a question. I'd have been more than glad to have Ebenezar next to me in a fight. But the old man had been right. The truth hurt. The truth burned. My thoughts and feelings boiled in a blistering, dangerous tumult in my chest. I didn't want to admit what was at the core of that turmoil, but denying it wouldn't make it any less true.

Ebenezar had lied to me. From day one.

And if he'd been lying to me, what else had he lied about?

I'd built my whole stupid life on a few simple beliefs. That I had a responsibility to use my power to help people. That it was worth risking my own life and safety to defend others. Beliefs I'd taken as my own primarily because of the old man's influence.

But he hadn't been what I thought he was. Ebenezar wasn't a paragon of wizardly virtue. If anything he was a precautionary tale. He had seemed to talk a good game, but underneath that surface, he'd been as cold and as vicious as any of the cowardly bastards in the Council whom I despised.

Maybe he'd never claimed to be a shining example. Maybe I'd just needed someone to admire. To believe in. Maybe I'd been the stupid one, putting my faith in the wrong place.

But none of that changed the fact that Ebenezar had hidden things from me. That he'd lied.

That made it simple.

"No," I whispered. "I don't want you there. I don't know you. I never did."

"But you'd fight beside someone like the Hellhound."

"Kincaid's a killer for hire. He never pretended he was anything else."

The old man exhaled slowly and said, "I reckon that ain't unfair."

"Thank you for your help. But I've got things to do. You should go."

He rose, picked up the paper bag, and said, "I'm still there for you, Hoss, if you change your-"

I felt my teeth clench. "I said get out."

He blinked his eyes a few times and whispered, "A hard lesson. The hardest."

Then he left.

I refused to watch him go.