Alchemist's Kiss (9 page)

“I would never let anyone hurt you, Icarus.”

He laughed, a small chuckle and I felt his breath against my lips. Cinnamon and the sugar of his tea. “I feel sorry for any beast or man who threatens those you love, Cora Jenkins.”

As if the words had slipped out unbidden Icarus' eyes went wide. He opened his mouth but before he could speak again the carriage rocked, making us stumble as it ground to a halt.

He held me steady and looked me over, making sure I was unharmed. I waved him off and lifted my hands, using my own magic to raise the lights in the carriage.

“What the devil happened?” I asked. I looked about for the mage, but his seat at the end of the car was empty. The non-magicals were up, milling about and their fear created a stink in the air. “Where's the mage?”

Icarus grabbed my hand and pushed through the people, muttering about fools and science as he went. He stopped when the mage came into view. He lay, bloody and apparently unconscious behind the last row of seats. I knelt and felt for his pulse, sighing in relief to find it steady.

“He's alive, but someone hit him quite hard.” I pressed my kerchief to the gash on his forehead.

Icarus crouched beside me and pushed against the man's hand. “He was warded against attack.” He pulled back the man's sleeve to show me the runes written on his hands in ash and soot.

“The only way they managed to get close to him was to drain his magic.” I raised my eyes to Icarus. “The Dielectric.”

“We never felt it.”

“They were close to him, and kept the beam narrowed.” I looked around at the crowd of non-magicals at the front of the car. “Whoever it is, they're still here.”

“Why stop the car here?” Icarus looked out the window of the carriage at the pressed metal of the tunnel walls. “What's to be gained from this?”

“Icarus.” I looked past his shoulder to the carriage doors as they began to slide back on their hinges with a squeal. “Do you feel that?”

“I do.” He stood, pushing aside the milling throngs as he made his way to the doors. I hurried behind him, trying to keep the heavily booted feet off my long skirts in the crowd. I caught up to him as the doors came fully open and the stale air of the tunnels rushed in to meet us. “Stay back.”

Icarus' pupils were tiny dots, the twin spots of flushed anger the only color on an otherwise colorless face. I reached for him, my own fear doubling to know that he was afraid. He shook his head and waved me back.

“For the love of God, Cora. Please stay back.”

The non-magicals in the carriage were frozen by magic as a tall man in a black coat stepped up into the car. I could feel him using his will to keep the others in stasis.. He was slim and distinguished, his blonde hair pulled tightly back from his narrow face. He moved with exaggerated grace, walking with his hands behind his back.

Icarus did not back away as the man approached him.

“Icarus, my son.”

My heart stuttered. This was Victor Kane. I wrapped my fingers around the talisman, comforted little by its magical pulse. The weight of this man's magic was astonishing, and I could feel it pushing down on my skin like a shroud.

“Victor.” Icarus' voice was flat. No emotion colored to word.

My mouth was dry with fear. This was the man who had so easily taken Archimedes, whose personal protective wards were the strongest I'd ever encountered. The man even Icarus feared.

“I chose to contact you here because I did not wish to engage you, son.”

“How very noble of you.” Icarus did not look my way. I remained as still as possible, breathing only enough to remain upright. “What terrible sin have I committed to earn a visit from the devil?”

Victor did not laugh. His face betrayed no emotion as he looked at his only son. “I've come with a warning. Do not cross me.”

“You come to my city and wage war on the Grand Coven and expect me to stand idly by?” Icarus kept his voice low, but I could hear the rage simmering. “London is mine by right of bid. Nine of the grand houses signed my pact in blood.”

“I care nothing for your city or your bid. Let me take what I have come for, and I will leave your city in peace.”

“And what is it you want, Victor?”

Navy eyes swung to me. Violence smoldered on the air.

“No.” Icarus whipped off his glove, holding his left hand in the air. It glowed white in the dim light of the carriage.

“Me?” I breathed deep. The Hand burned hot in my palm.

Victor took a step in my direction and Icarus moved between us. “I said no.”

“I don't want your apprentice, boy. I want her trinket.”

“No.” I shook my head and backed away a step. “You can’t'.”

“I can.” Victor narrowed his eyes at me. The weight of his gaze was making my head spin as the scent of roses and rot swirled through the carriage. “This is the key to our failure in Longmoore, boy.” 

“Leave, Victor. Leave before I cannot control myself any longer.” Icarus' voice shook at his father's words.

The dark mage slowed at Icarus' warning. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“The Hand will come to me, girl. As it was always meant to do. Give it up now, or lose that pretty head.”

I screamed as a white-hot lance pierced my hand and the talisman burned the flesh on my palm. Victor held out his hand, and I could feel The Hand straining to go to him even as it warred with itself to cling to me. I closed my eyes and fought it, holding on despite the searing heat.

“Do you know how that talisman was created, girl? A thousand years ago a Druid witch sacrificed her own child for the power it holds. It will always seek out the strongest mage. It was never a tool of the white.”

I doubled over, holding the talisman close to my heart. It pulsed, a fire that burned hotter than any I'd ever felt. I opened my eyes when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Icarus, and he wrapped his arm around me as he held out his fist toward his father.

“Would you really seek to destroy your own father, boy?” Victor's lips twisted, and I could feel the pulsing of his dark magic against Icarus' light.

“Go.” Icarus opened his palm and the energy from it burned a long line across Victor's cheek. The dark mage's eyes widened at the injury, and he backed away a step.

“I've learned a few things since we last spoke.” Icarus kept me close to his side as he backed away. “This is your last warning.”

“Kill me then, boy.” Victor smiled. “But you won't, will you? Not with all these petty mortals about.” He pushed past a young woman and pursed his lips in disgust. He ducked behind a tall grizzled man in heavy denim work clothes as Icarus tried to focus the beam on him again. Victor reached into the man's pocket and removed the smaller version of the orb we'd destroyed in the alley. He hefted it in his palm and then placed it gently in his coat pocket.

“Cora.” Icarus kept his voice low as he tracked his father with his eyes. “Hold on tight. I'm going to teleport us away.”

I wrapped my free hand in his coat, holding tight. “Are you strong enough? Can you do it?”

He cut his eyes to me. “I think I can manage. My anger has outdone any fear I may once have felt.”

I moved closer, knowing that the blistering heat of the talisman would soon burn its way through my skin. “Do it.”

Icarus closed his palm and held it close to his chest. He pulled me close and looked for his father. “The next time we meet with be the last.” he vowed.

Victor stepped from the crowd of non-magics and cast an appraising eye over us. “I could tear you apart and leave no particle intact, but you're the last of my blood and that has saved you thus far. Do not continue to thwart me, son. I will lose my patience quickly.”

“
Vantul ma misca,”
Icarus intoned. I felt a gust of wind, bringing with it aether eager to do his bidding. It wrapped around us, and as we began to whirl I heard Victor's angry roar. “Good bye, Victor.”

***

Icarus gritted his teeth against the agony of the magic that tore apart his body, casting him about on the wind like grains of sand. The aether held him together, keeping the parts of him from floating away as the wind bore Cora and him away from the Underground and his father. Cora didn't scream, but he felt her pain merging with his own as the magic carried them away. Teleportation was a magic not to be toyed with, but theirs had been an extreme situation. Any wizard who lost his hold on the magic might find himself reassembled in rather unpredictable circumstances. He could feel the power of The Hand buoying his own magic, and it gave him the focus to keep them together on the wind.

They howled down the dimly lit underground corridor, the wind seeking an exit from the stainless steel tombs. Icarus felt the bite of the colder upper atmosphere as they finally came to rest on the surface. He came back to himself in the way of water vapor becoming ice. At first he was billions of pieces of himself, and suddenly he was whole. The air rushed back to his lungs and the pumping of his heart was unbearable. He coughed as the weight of gravity tried to drag him down. He reached for Cora, his hands on her suddenly solid upper arms. She came back more quickly than he, becoming herself in half the time. She was pale and shaking, but she reached for him before worrying about herself. His Cora. Always the nurse. Her hands were icy on his cheeks, pulling his trembling jaw up so that she could look into his eyes.

“Icarus?”

Her voice was hollow, coming from far down a corridor he could not see. He blinked. She pressed her hands hard to his cheeks. He saw her lips move, but the words did not register.

“I should like to kiss those lips again.” he said. He thought his words might be slurred, a result of his sluggish brain, but her face flared with color. The very lips he was fascinated by turned up in a smile.

“And I should like you to.” She leaned closer, until he could feel the brush of them, feather-light, over his. “But we are standing in the middle of Trafalgar Square.”

Icarus recovered his mental faculties as Cora pulled him toward a pair of benches in the shade of a lovely oak. He slumped to the wood with a groan as his battered body ached. She perched next to him and clucked over him like a mother hen.

“While I appreciate your quick thinking, perhaps we should have tried a different means of escape.” She pressed her kerchief to his forehead and touched his neck for a pulse. He pushed her hand away with a grimace.

“I'll recover. We could not let my father take The Hand.”

“Certainly not!” She grimaced as she pulled the talisman from her neckline. “But it surely wanted to go to him. It was glowing as hot as I've ever felt.”

He reached out, but took her hand instead of the talisman. “You've burned yourself.” He rubbed a thumb over the blistered welts already red and painful looking on her pale skin. He closed his eyes and tried to remember as much as he could about healing spells. He felt the magic leave his fingertips and the aether erased the damage to her skin. It left a slight tickle in his thumb when it had finished.

“Thank you, darling.” She closed her palm over his fingers and looked into his eyes when he opened them. “The Hand may have strained for your father's dark magic, but it was fighting the pull, too. I could feel it, Icarus. The Hand
wants
to stay with me.”

“As it should.” He leaned his head back and let the sun beat upon his face. He was knackered. The aether was swirling about, and it caressed his face. He resented the way he'd been brought to magic, but still it excited him. Even now when he was tired to his bones, he felt his heart speed up at the possibilities the aether provided. Light. Power. Teleportation. Healing. Destruction. Construction. Any idea or bit of imagined fancy could come to life with magic.

Fingers played gently through his hair. This was Cora's touch, but every bit as exciting as the caress of the aether.

“I am tired, Cora.”

“I know, darling.”

He frowned at a gentle tug on his hair. He opened his eyes to see Cora's somber gaze fixed steadily on him. She leaned forward,

“But this war is only just begun, Icarus. Your father...” she shivered as she spoke, “...you father is tainted by great evil. These people who depend on us, depend on you, will not survive if we give up now.”

He felt the heat of her palm through his glove where her hand still held his. Her other continued to stroke through his hair, applying gentle pressure to his scalp. “How is it that you are wise beyond your years, Cora dear?”

She didn't smile with her lips, but with her eyes. “An unfortunate consequence of war. I have seen too much of it in my life, Icarus. Too much bloodshed and horror. Brothers against brothers for the idea of freedom. We have to stop this before magic and non-magic are pitted against one another.”

“I fear we are too late to stop the movement of science.” He could not hold back the disgust in his words. “Magic will fade for the mechanical.”

“Nothing is lost. There is a compromise in this, there must be. We are not the ones to discover it, but we are the ones who can hold the line until it is discovered.”

“I will destroy my father, that much is certain. Non-magics will use his dark deeds to pull more to their side, and taint the good that magic has done.”