Host (Rogue Mage #3)

D rawing on the energies that filled me through the puncture marks, I raced at Azazel. The anticonjures hit him, both striking his chest midcenter. They exploded, throwing the seraph back, hard. He landed deep in the river of time. Golden water gushed up around him.

He vanished underwater. I stopped, staring at the river, my boot toes in the lapping stream. I wasn't wet. The river wasn't really composed of water. I knew that, but it was disconcerting. It's weird, the things you think about when you've just refused to make a deal with the devil. When you've just killed your twin. Sorrow welled up in me. I shoved my grief deep inside, holding on only to the rage.

Misery a solid knot in my chest, I watched for Azazel. Time passed. My heart beat in the slow pace I associated with the passage of time on Earth. Had the anticonjures thrown Azazel back to Earth? My arms drooped, weapon points falling toward the ground.

The snake slid closer, hissing. When I glanced down, my hand and the bone caught my attention. The stream of purple energy that filled me with power was stronger, heavier, but it had divided, a small part flowing along my gauntleted fingers to encircle Barak's femur.

The snake licked the bone, its tongue a flash of movement. "I honor my Mistressss's promissse," the snake hissed. "I will not allow her to ssssin."

I remembered the words the purple wheels had spoken to me, mind to mind, when I was on the deck. "I will honor the promises of my Mistress," the words had whispered into my mind. "Her promises and her obligations. I will not let her sin by forgetting you. By forgetting her Watcher." Holy Amethyst owed favors to more than just me, and wasn't of a mind to fulfill them. The lavender mist seeped into the surface of the bone and vanished. Did she owe promises to Barak?

The Dragon burst from the surface. I raced a half dozen steps back from the river in shock and lifted my blades. Throwing water in a huge spray, the beast leaped at an angle into the sky, leathern wings unfurling, to fly. The angle of flight brought it directly over me, one arm curled protectively against its chest, talons closed in pain.

Time did one of those strange shifts, where it seems to slow, and where every eyeblink takes long moments, and every sensation is intense and crisp.

I flipped the blade, bent my legs, and jumped with all my might, straight up, shouting from the book of Judges, "And he found a new jawbone of an ass...and slew a thousand men therewith!"

As I leaped, the Dragon swerved, bringing its healthy arm down. Razor talons reached for me. I scored a long cut across the top of its healthy forearm and brought the femur down, my aim filled with the growing fury of Rose's loss. Barak's sacrificial leg bone impacted the beast's wounded right hand with a solid thwack. Tears thick in my throat, I shouted, quoting Samson, "With the jawbone of an ass...have I slain..."

The Dragon howled and tucked its wings, tumbling away from me, its right hand tight against its chest. The claws of its good hand scraped along my cuirass as I twisted in the air.

I landed with a jar, rolling, hearing a second and third splash. I caught myself against a boulder and rocked to my feet.

Out of the river flew Raziel and Zadkiel, their scents filling the air with honey, chocolate, mint, and pepper. Golden river water rained down from their bodies and wings, their plumage catching the light in a dazzling rainbow burst. They shouted battle cries, notes of true sound, gongs of challenge in a language I couldn't understand.

Raziel's ruby irises were alight with the joy of battle. He checked his flight, crimson wings twisting and pulling in to stall his momentum. With two massive sweeps, he hovered, the wind of his flight buffeting me. "You did not join him?"

"No," I said, the question a barbed pain, rage for my twin filling me. "Why?" I shouted. "Why does it matter?"

He shook his head as if I were a curiosity. According to traditional wisdom, seraphs are curious about nothing, yet I had seen them surprised, puzzled, and even inquisitive. Bastards.

Raziel held out his hand to me; he spotted the snake. His face underwent a series of changes, too fast, too complex for me to follow, ending with shock. The snake uncoiled from its mound, slithered up my leg and around my waist as if protecting me. Or claiming me. Or maybe it was hungry and had decided I was dinner. It spat at Raziel.

The seraph swept his wings down hard and returned to the chase. "There will be a reckoning," he shouted back. "I have chosen you."

"Mine," the snake hissed. "My mage."

Ducky. I was a point of contention between a seraph and the wheels belonging to another seraph's mate, a cherub who hated me. The snake undulated and fell away from my body. It looked up, recoiling fast.

I started to pivot and was hit. Hard. My body slung forward, then was caught around the waist, limbs jackknifing. I was pulled underwater. A current buffeted me. A large fist clamped down on my waist when I struggled. I looked up into the eyes of the Dragon, goat-slitted aqua eyes, in a featherless snake face. It opened its mouth and hissed at me, fangs flashing.

Shock made me inhale, and my lungs filled with the golden river water. I gagged, alarmed at the fluid in my lungs more than the touch of the Dragon. But I didn't drown. I coughed and again inhaled.

I twisted around to find Raziel and Zadkiel swimming - flying?  -  after me, wings pushing them through the water at great speed. They were gaining. The Dragon looked back.

I tightened my fist on Barak's femur and lifted it high. Once again I brought the bone down hard on the beast's wounded hand. With the tanto, I stabbed underhanded into its chest. No finesse, no delicacy of form, just a hard thrust with the Flame-blessed blade. It struck the Dragon's side, burning, scorching, cauterizing even as it sliced deep. I shoved it in, the thin crossguard bumping against the beast, its blood pulsing out to cover my gauntlet and spew up my armor, coating me with crimson and the smell of seraph.

The Dragon crushed me to its body, squeezing the breath of river water from my lungs. A rib cracked, the pain like a stab into my chest. I was sure that I was injured here in the river of the otherness and on Earth as well. Nausea filled my mouth, a taste of bile. I twisted the tanto and forced it up at a sharp angle, cutting the beast in a swath of destruction. Azazel roared with pain, the sound like broken bells rung under the ocean, long peals of off-key notes.

My sense of vertigo worsened. The Dragon's skin was hotter than a human's or mage's, smooth on its sides, but formed into scales like a reptile's over its joints, tiny scales that caught the pellucid light of the river. Wrenching the tanto out of the beast's side, I shoved the femur bone into the wound, shouting underwater, "With the jawbone of an ass...have I slain..."

The Dragon howled and shook me, my spine cracking and joints bowing in directions nature never intended. I caught myself on the chin with my own knee and white lights whirled through my vision. The nausea was back, but felt different now. Concussion, maybe. I took another breath of the river water. I heard my heart beat on Earth. I exhaled, feeling sick, wanting to throw up. I shoved the bone in deeper.

We broke out of the river of time, flying through the black of night, clouds overhead, not the strange sky of the otherness, but the winter temps of home. The world spun and my stomach emptied in a violent rush, water gushing from my mouth. I coughed hard, cleansing my lungs. Seraph stones. I was no longer in the otherness. I had made a physical transition from a spiritual place. I had flown through the river of time, clutched in the fist of a Dragon.

Looking down, I affirmed that we were in the Appalachian Mountains. Tiny lights and fires glinted below, showing me the shape of Mineral City, the Toe River gorge a black stripe through the middle and the black form of the Trine to the north. My battle cloak flapped around my calves, my dobok was black leather. My clothes and hair were dry. My boots were the new boots gifted me by the Enclave of my birth, but the slice in the boot toe was gone, the leather smooth. My rib was still broken, the femur bone was still buried in the Dragon's side, and its blood poured over my hand, slicking the leather of my gloves. How weird is that?

Azazel folded his wings and dropped dizzyingly fast toward Upper Street, to touch down with an ungainly lurch. The shop was still protected by the shield, but Ciana was no longer centered in the darkened display window. New snow lay heavy on the earth. Smoke, rancid and thick, filled frozen air. I glimpsed shops down the street, windows blackened, walls crumbled, brick smoke-stained. Bodies were snow-crusted humps. The big-ass gun was a blasted hulk.

Shock tightened my chest, sending a spiral of pain through me. I had flown through the river of time. How long had I been away?

Above us in the night sky, flying in close formation, were three seraphs, their bodies bright with the energies of the High Host. Their wings, hair, and armor were black, and they carried glittering black swords. Ravens. I didn't know if they were here to kill me, help me, or study me. I had never heard of Ravens, or whatever they were really called, but they looked liked winged warriors - troops, not princes or battle leaders. They altered their angle, diving for us, pulling swords. I was about to become collateral damage.

The Dragon leaped again into the sky. I was ready for the shift this time and braced myself for increased g's. But Azazel crushed down on me and I heard more of my ribs break. My breath was a painful catch and I was able to inhale only in a quick, shallow draft. It could have crushed me dead - mages have brittle bones - but it didn't kill me. It wanted me for something. Which scared me silly.

I shoved the femur deep in the Dragon's side, releasing it to pull my longsword. At such close quarters it was handy only for slaughter work. I slid the point into the wound beside the femur and shoved the blade in. I heard the beast grunt with pain, its breath stuttering. I pulled the sword out halfway and altered the angle, stabbing deep, grazing the femur bone in passing. A sizzle of electric energy quivered up my arm. The Dragon gasped and dove.

I sawed into it again and again. Blood spattered over me.

I caught a hint of succubus and spawn. The bones of a half-destroyed building resolved out of the night, its outer walls standing, roof gone, fire shooting up in places within, and smoke curling in lazy streaks. A shield sparkled over it, a shield unlike any I had ever seen, the energies a cascade of aqua and black-light motes, like Azazel's eyes. The beast said a word in a language I didn't understand, like the ringing of bells, shivering the air. The shield snapped off, revealing a desecrated church. Orange and sickly yellow energies emanated from it, rising on the air in spirals, reaching for us. Layered conjures were contained in the walls.

I recognized the building, though it was vastly changed. The Central Baptist Church, Mineral City's town hall, had been destroyed. Stones and blood. What had happened to the town? How long had Azazel kept me away from the fight?

Fear warred with pain and anger inside me. Fury won out, numbing the pain for a moment. "How long did you keep me away, you bastard?" With the blade, I ripped deep into the Dragon, twirling the sword and cutting, cutting, cutting, speaking scripture in spiritual warfare, not able to shout for the pain in my chest, my words rasping, "With the jawbone of an ass...have I slain...With the jawbone of an ass have I slain." I felt the sword nick something inside, the density of an organ slowing the blade.

Azazel roared. Blood covered me and I withdrew the longsword to dash it from my face, the motion grinding broken ribs. Its blood didn't stink or burn. The blood of Darkness was always foul and acidic. Doubt filled me, but it was way too late to rethink my choices. I redoubled my attack on its side. "With the jawbone of an ass have I slain."

The conjures snapped off below us. With a swoop and a shift of its wings that jarred my bones and nearly pulled my shoulders from their sockets, Azazel braked and dropped through the rafters of the church. It - he - landed with a thump that made us both hiss. I had a feeling its landings were usually a lot more graceful. I had hurt it. Good. Because it had hurt me. Blackness hovered in my vision as I took small breaths, agony tripping through me.

I smelled succubus. Still held in the beast's grip, I looked around at the walls, vastly changed. Days had passed. Surely days. The walls were glowing with strange, spiky energy patterns, the colors jaundiced and sickly. Silvery trails wound up and over everything, coating walls and floor and piles of rubbish with a shimmery substance. Snail tails. Huge, immense mama snail trails, a foot wide.

Crawling through the slime were things, four feet long and bulbous. I had never seen them before but I knew what they were. The smell alone told me. Succubus larvae. Lots of them. I regripped the bloodied weapons, ready for another attack, but the white-bodied pupae with strange, jointed bodies and blunt, black snouts didn't attack.

The Dragon threw me. I crashed against a wall, cracking my elbow, grinding my ribs. I lost my blade. The femur bone cracked the wall beside me, thrown by the beast. I slithered through gunk collected at the base of the wall. It was a long moment before the haze of pain thinned and I was able to breathe.

I looked around, trying to orient myself. I was at the front entry of the destroyed church; with mage-sight, the sanctuary was alive with Darkness, larvae everywhere, but no Azazel.

Fear crawled around in my chest on its little spider legs, a feeling I was coming to hate. Above me, the shields snapped back in place, overlapping bubbles of power. The awful smells vanished. Poof. I remembered the overlapping conjures I had seen from the air, looking down on the church. Reality had changed while I was in the river of time. I had been gone longer than I thought. How long? And where was the beast?

In mage-sight, I spotted the glowing energies of the tanto and retrieved the blade, wiping slippery gunk off it and off my hands, gooing up the edge of my cloak. Having the blade made me feel immeasurably better. I sheathed the tanto and gripped my side gently, supporting the loose and grinding ribs.

"Thorn?"

A distinct mind opened to me, clinging, thoughts that smelled of roses in spring and the salt smell of the sea. "Rose?" I whispered, holding my side.

"Help. Help me!" she called, her mental voice a weak echo full of static and dark energies, as if she were far away. Her mind was a well of panic, fear like a storm blowing through it, lightning spiking. I couldn't place her direction. I ripped at my amulets and held the Apache Tear away from me. I found the remembered mind. Close by. Very close. "Thorn!"

She was alive. "Rose!" I screamed, the sound croaking as agony speared me.

I turned, searching for her. Though I couldn't smell it, I spotted the succubus queen. It was sitting on a pile of rock and brick, staring down at me, protected from me, separated from me by black motes of energy in a small circle of power, hiding behind a shield. The queen was once again in its human form, not Gramma, but the form of Jane Hilton, Lucas' lady love, blond and green-eyed, so utterly beautiful she - no, it - should have been a seraph. It stared at me, hunger in its eyes, its hands on a body supine beside it.

"Thorn..." My thoughts were sucked beneath a wave of Rose's pain. Unthinking, I dropped the Tear. Rose's mind closed to me.

Blood coated the queen's perfect jaw. Mage-blood. Rose's blood. Jane licked its lips and bowed its head, its tongue flicking. It was drinking her blood.

Rage roared up. I pulled a throwing blade and stabbed the shield. Black sparks flew, but it was like hitting a diamond. My blade slid off. I couldn't get in. I couldn't get to Rose. I sobbed, my broken ribs grinding. Throwing back my head, I screamed in rage, the shattered edges of my ribs stabbing together in torment, the agony slicing. Pain brought me back and dropped me breathless to my knees in the slime. Some still-sane part of me found and pressed the Apache Tear against my neck. Calm settled on me, and I took two shallow breaths, fumbling with the amulets in my necklace, searching for a weapon to get me through the shield.

I shoved an anticonjure amulet against the shield-wall, holding it against the energies. The scorched smell of burned leather rose from my gloves. The scent cleared the last of Rose's panic from me. Resting in the icy slime, I pressed the Tear close as shame threaded through me.

Rose's head rotated to me and her eyes met mine. Horror and panic were mirrored there, and her body quivered in minute waves of terror. Tears flowed through the grime on my twin's face. "Thorn," she mouthed at me, her words silenced behind the shield that was more than protection, stopping air flow and sound as well. I was a coward, but I couldn't put away the Apache Tear again. I couldn't bear Rose's fear inside me. The succubus had her mouth at my twin's neck, sucking. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Flames blinked into sight over me, dropping over my head, spinning in a fiery circle, stealing my night vision. They hissed words as they raced around me, plasma trails in the night. "Omega maggge," they said. "Foretold one. Omega maggge."

I crawled to my feet and stepped away from them, focusing on Rose. "If I'm so great a mage, then why can't I conjure me some help?" I whispered, my feet slick on the snail trails.

A brilliant light snapped into space overhead, bathing the church in a dazzling radiance. The concussive movement of air from its arrival slammed against the shield and should have thrown me to my knees, but the Dark energies protected me. There was only one thing I knew that displaced that much air on arrival. A wheels. No way had there been time for it to answer my plea. Someone else had brought it here. Not good.

The Flames swirled in a climbing spiral, toward the wheels overhead. A shaft of light pierced the shield above me and the Flames swept through. The lights went out, the world going black, though there was no massive boom. I waited a beat, but the Flames didn't return.

Feeling unaccountably betrayed, I drew the kris and the tanto, holding them ready. Stepping in a circle, I placed my feet carefully in the slime, trying to isolate various noises: my footsteps, rustling, a soughing that might be a distant wind. To compensate for my ruined night vision, I opened both mage-sight and a mind-skim. When I caught my balance and the resulting nausea settled, I looked around. The church glowed weirdly in the blended scan.

Out of the night, a voice groaned, saying, "Crap. That hurts."

I closed my eyes as joy blossomed in me. I inhaled to call him and pain thrust deep, broken ribs stealing my breath, but I didn't care. I wasn't alone. Eli was just beyond a pile of rubble.