Seraphs

Chapter 27

Opening mage-sight to its fullest, I sighted Malashe-el's heel as he rounded a corner and took a downward ramp. I raced after. Smoke billowed up, and the ramp turned again, deeper into the thick fumes. I could scarcely breathe. I thumbed open the map in the bloodstone hilt and followed the daywalker down, and down, spotting our route on the three-dimensional interpretation in my mind. We were descending much faster than I had thought possible.
"Save us," the remembered voice belled in my mind. "Save us!"
"Yeah," I said, my breath harsh in the contaminated air as my hearing returned. "I'm working at it." I rounded the next hallway and stopped short.
Forcas stood in my path, a tall being, over six feet in physical form. In mage-sight it bulked twelve feet tall, powerful in this place and beautiful as a seraph of Light. In one hand it clutched Malashe-el by the throat. The walker's feet thrashed; its face was mottled, its tongue protruding through swollen lips. Without thought, I dropped and rolled across the cold stone floor, sheathing the longsword, drawing the blades along my calves and throwing. As they spun, I shouted, "Jehovah sabaoth!" The knives slammed into Forcas' chest to either side of the walker. The Darkness released its hold and Malashe-el fell in a boneless heap. Its hand opened, revealing a small vial that glowed in my sight like gathered diamond dust. The walker had done it. It had my blood. Blood that can be used against me. Or blood I can sacrifice. Blood I can use as a weapon.
I scuttled across the intervening space, directly under the feet of the Darkness, and grabbed the vial. Elation pulsed through me. Almost in slow motion Forcas withdrew my blades, tossed them, and reached for me. Its seraph face, the beautiful face that once was, rippled and changed as a glamour fell away. A cat head, puma or lion, its flesh leathery and burned, took shape in its stead, all that was left of its once holy mien. This was much more formidable than a Watcher allied with Darkness. This was a true Fallen, one of the Powers who rebelled against the Most High and was swept out of heaven in the war that was only hinted at in holy scriptures. A crimson metal chain, the color of fresh blood, was around its neck. The spur amulet was in its hand.
Forcas laughed and grabbed me about the waist with one hand, as it had once before. No. Twice before. It held the spur before me and raised me to its face. Holding me close, it rammed the spur into my side. Pain, exquisite and elegant as a shaft of poetry, lanced through me. "Time, time, and a third time I have held you thus. Time, time, and a third time has your flesh been pierced with the conjure of binding. The full flower is now mine," he said.
Tied to my stomach, the visa flashed with ruby light, and I knew I couldn't let it say the line three times. The vial of my blood felt warm even through the battle glove. "The full flower is now mine," it said a second time.
Pain froze my muscles, paralyzing me, the blood arrested in my veins. I heard myself gurgle as the conjure in the spur stopped my breath. I crushed the vial in my palm and slid the tanto's edge in the blood-soaked glove. With a single thrust, I took the beast through the throat. His grip eased and I inhaled, chanting, "Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire."
Forcas dropped me and I landed on Malashe-el, even as I ripped the spur amulet from my side, tucked it into my boot, and drew my sword. Smoke billowed up around me. Over my head, Forcas roared, a lion's roar. I rolled across the tunnel, leaving splatters of blood from the wound in my side, pulling the walker into a crevice with me as I called mage in dire again. Still nothing happened. "Like being held in the grip of a Major Darkness isn't dire enough?" I croaked to the heavens. I looked at my side, but that wound wasn't sacrifice; it was battle. I picked a scar that looked like it might open easily.
"Inadequate," a familiar voice belled, closer now, audible. I blinked away the smoke, turned, and saw the Mistress far below me in a cavern, her seraph trapped above her, on top of the scarlet cage that imprisoned her. Zadkiel, only feet below me, was burned to the bone, his legs wrapped in chains, dragonets attached at his waist, sucking and engorged. The seraph held neither sword nor shield, a thing I had never heard of. When in battle, the weapons were said to be part of them, as much an appendage as a leg or hand. Amethyst's seraph face was turned to me. "To reach us you must offer much blood. Much blood."
"So I'm the sucker after all," I said. When it came to the High Host, other supernats always had been. Behind me, Forcas stepped closer, its footsteps vibrating the rocky ground. I dropped the daywalker and darted along a ledge above the Mistress' cell, holding my elbow against the wound in my side. I checked the map in the hilt and saw that while there were numerous channels leading to the deepest prison, this doorway was the only way in. I had no way out. I won't live through this anyway.
Lifting my left wrist, I sliced the sleeve of the dobok. With a deeper slash, I opened the artery at my elbow. Mage-blood gushed, drenching Zadkiel. One dragonet lifted its teeth away and spit at me, a snake hiss through bloody fangs.
I jumped toward the trap, falling to my knees in the sticky red adhesive that buried the seraph's feet. "I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress," I said. "I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress." I had lost blood from the wound in my side and my throat injury, and my blood pressure dropped fast. I fell forward, my face sticking in the red snare. The trap smelled of old blood. Like Mole Man's blood. Like Lucas. The huge clawed feet of another beast landed beside me. "I sacrifice myself for Zadkiel and the Mistress," I murmured, my lips touching the trap made of blood. "Mage in battle, mage in dire, seraphs, come with holy fire," I whispered. "Mage in dire. Raziel...."
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.
"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.