Bloodring (20 page)

I considered the blended scan and realized I had just pulled in a new combination. New for me anyway. I'd have probably learned how to do it years ago if I had stayed at Enclave. Okay. So combining senses was possible, if disorienting. I'd take it slow this time.

I opened my eyes and skimmed slowly. Gradually, I reopened my mage-sight, drawing on the bear to keep me hidden, and using its stored strength to help balance my gifts, like opening a dam through a sluice gate instead of dropping the dam walls all at once and getting inundated. Audric tightened his grip on my wrist to steady me.

Carefully, I sniffed around the room, seeing the life beat of each being, blood flowing in blood vessels, a collective breath stirring the soft mist. Heat and life writhed and glowed, matter vibrating with intensity. Audric was no longer glamoured to my sight. He glowed with a warmth of purity and purpose, as steady as a boulder, a tested strength. He smelled of strength too, a familiar mage-strength. That seemed important for an instant, but the thought skittered away, overpowered by the brighter images of the crowd.

I smelled deeper scents as I breathed: mold in a far corner, bat droppings from the attic, peppers, onions, and moonshine on the humans. The water at my feet was snowmelt, not from a well, not from the earth, purified by stone and pressure, but water that had passed through the air and was useless to me. And then I caught it. The fainter-than-a-shadow-at-night hint of sulfur. I swiveled my head. The smell was coming from the doorway, carried on wind wisping under the front door. It was moving. I followed it with my mind as it shifted from the door to a window along the side wall. It had to be nearly night outside.
Spawn!

My hands clenched, reaching for my blades. Audric's grip tightened, stopping the motion. I turned my gaze to him and his mouth moved in a silent
No
. I shuddered with the need to fight, to draw spawn blood. I broke out in a hot sweat. My heart rate doubled. I forced myself to relax under the pressure of Audric's fingers. Against the compulsion to battle, I turned my scan to the crowd. I could do this. I could. But a dull ache in my temples foretold a killer of a headache. The stink of evil faded.

Pushing the fatigue and pain away, I reached into the crowd and instantly felt several
somethings
. I identified some as stone I had worked, each filled with an incantation for a specific need. One was for freedom from mild pain, another was for peace, a third was for protection, and there were others as I counted. Seven amulets altogether, most of them well drained, but still leaking a bit of comfort. Amulets I could sense with the blended scan. Could other mages and seraphs sense them as well, proof that a witchy-woman was nearby, operating without a license? Not good. I'd been stupid. But I hadn't thought about leaving tracks of my gift in and on the townspeople. I'd have to consider how to hide myself better.

The thoughts of covering my tracks I pushed aside, and centered myself again, reaching out to the gathered, scenting and searching. I caught a bit of magery not my own. It was earth magery, the gift of life and all things growing. It smelled warm and green, like sunlight on spring leaves. I turned my head, placing the scent, and saw a brightness at the front, on the pew where many of those who had signed up to be speakers sat. I narrowed my concentration, focusing down on the left, on the man on the aisle seat. In a yellow pocket, Derek Culpepper carried a freshly charmed object. His fingers caressed it as I watched, his bones glowing with the power it pulsed into him.

The ache in my head expanded, as if I had stared too long at the sun, and I pulled my eyes away from Culpepper, knowing I should stop, but needing to scan the rest of the room.

I moved my senses to the other speakers, finding nothing of interest. Scanning the seats behind the developer, I stopped, surprised. It wasn't a Darkness—not exactly—more like a phantom of a shadow overlaying an aura. The shadow shifted lazily back and forth, as if searching to gain entrance through the aura into the body and soul beneath, but not in a hurry to do so. It danced over the woman in a slow waltz of menace. I blinked, recognizing Jane Hilton. She was scowling, her eyes fixed on Derek Culpepper. I held my scan on her a long moment, considering. Was she under threat by a Darkness? Flirting with a Power, hoping for some gain? Had she been involved in Lucas' kidnapping? Bargained with a Darkness, hoping to save him?

A stab of pain pulled me back from the scan. With the last moments of power, feeling the drain on the bear amulet, I raced my eyes over the remaining crowd. A second shadow hovered over the pew to my right, near the tiny old woman who spoke while she walked, but to her side. I bent forward and craned my neck.

The scan snapped off with a blinding flash and a spear of agony right in the center of my head. I gasped and crumpled, and Audric pushed me into my seat before I fell into the aisle and had to claim womanly vapors or some such excuse.

I lay my head against the pew and Audric released my wrist to slide his massive arm around my shoulders, cradling me. Tears sprang to my eyes with the pain and with the knowledge of what I had seen just as the scan failed. Marla. Sitting beside Elder Culpepper. Marla, polluted with Darkness.

It was no big surprise that Marla was helping the people who wanted to move the town when her ex-husband wanted to keep it where it was. Marla Stanhope would do anything, bond with any faction, if it meant she could stick a blade into Lucas. Anything to damage the man who had hurt her, and continued to hurt her, by no longer loving her. But moving the town? Losing the money that moving would mean? Bonding with a Power?

And then I realized. If Lucas died, Marla would have control of lots of money, in the form of Lucas' estate. Money that was intended to provide a good future for Ciana. For her, Lucas' disappearance and possible death created a win-win situation. That was the dark I was seeing—the dark of avarice and cruelty. Her enemy dead, and his money at her disposal. Now wouldn't that be just ducky.

B
etween the pain of the headache and the worry over Marla, I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the meeting, stirring myself for only three speakers: Fergus Yardley, Randall Prentice, and Jason Stanhope. Yardley and Prentice sided with Culpepper about moving the town, citing the instability of the ice caps and the resultant flooding should the caps be melted by mages or seraphs. A flash flood in the Toe River running through the middle of town could result in damage equal to that caused by the ice cap sliding and burying us. Of course, because Yardley and Prentice were on the Culpepper payroll, their testimony was suspect at best.

Though I could have sworn he hadn't been in the crowd when I ran the scan, Lucas' and Rupert's brother took the stage. I was recovered enough to pay attention. Jason appeared to be mostly sober for once, shaved and dressed in a business suit that had fit him before he crawled into a bottle and forgot to eat. According to Rupert, Jason had been handsome once upon a time, dynamic and charismatic, but it had been years since he was completely sober. I wondered who had dried him out, cleaned him up, and dressed him for the meeting. Not Culpepper, as Jason's suit was gray and business dull. I didn't expect much from the recently drunk man, but this was a Jason I had never seen before.

“Lucas was my brother.”

His first words made me sit up and lean forward to hear better.
Was? Past tense, as in dead? Did he
know
that Lucas was dead? How could he know?

“I loved him. But Lucas was shortsighted. Foolish. And Lucas trusted people way too much. Let me tell you how.” Jason leaned forward and braced himself on the podium I hadn't even noticed until now. His blue eyes roamed the crowd, touching a face here and there, smiling slightly at several, cocking a finger at someone. “First, he wanted us to use our hard-earned money to melt the ice caps on the Trine and the surrounding peaks, which sounds great on the surface. But we haven't had a thaw in nearly seventy-five years.”

I saw several people nod.

“The cap is hundreds of feet thick. It will create a flood endangering every single person and town between here and the ocean. It will put a strain on small dams that our brothers and sisters downstream have built to create electric power, to build pools for capturing water for drinking, fishing, watering crops in the dry month of summer.” Jason leaned closer to the audience, dropping his voice. The crowd automatically leaned in.

“And then next winter, the ice cap will start to rebuild.” More heads nodded, thoughtful. A stillness settled on the crowd. Even the old woman, Esmerelda Boyles, seemed to pause. She pursed her lips, sucking on a front tooth as if it pained her.

“The second thing my brother was wrong about was the ice cap. Lucas claimed it wouldn't rebuild for fifty years. But unless the weather warms, by the estimates of a geologist and a climatologist I consulted, the ice cap will be back to a dangerous thickness in
under twenty years
.” The crowd stirred.

“The loan to the mages for this melting won't even be paid off by then.
Mages . . .
” His tone dripped with scorn and something like dread. A collective flutter of fear swept the crowd. Audric retook my wrist and tightened his grip as if afraid I might stand up and speak against the humans' fear. I scowled and shook him off.

Jason propped on one elbow. “And if the temperatures continue to cool, it will happen faster. We'll be destitute and still in danger. We'll still have to move, and our children will be stuck with that financial burden. And we will yet owe
mages
money.”

The crowd moved uneasily.

“Yes. Have you thought what it might mean to be beholden to
mages
? That's the third error in Lucas' plan. Mages would come here bringing their unnatural acts, their orgies and their
heat
, their easy use of energy and power, their profligate lifestyle and the wealth they have amassed by the sweat of
our
brows, selling us trinkets and amulets and things we think we can't live without.” Jason adjusted his jacket.

“So it's up to you. Are you willing to have your children's future held in the grip of mages, who might require even more of them than mere money?” He looked over the crowd, giving them time to imagine such requirements. He nodded, speaking slowly. “Perhaps mages will demand the use of their bodies in the orgies we all hear so much about. Or perhaps they'll turn their magic and spells against us, as at the battle of the Mage War.” The crowd murmured, totally with Jason now.

Beside me, Rupert shuffled his boots. Audric again gripped my wrist hard, bruising. I pulled on it and he released me as if he hadn't realized what he was doing.

“You decide. It's up to you.”

“Oh, please, brother, dear,” Rupert drawled. “Orgies? Wild sex in the streets? Wine, women, and song? You'd
loooove
that.” The crowd relaxed and several chuckled. Rupert stood and tossed his coat away, resplendent in dark blue robes and tunic, the newest style among the hip crowd. He turned and addressed the town fathers. “Permission to be added to the list of speakers.”

“This is highly irregular,” an older woman said before anyone could reply, “but I move to accept the speaker. You will rebut the comments, I assume?”

“I am a fantastic
rebutter,
” Rupert said, all glam and batting eyelashes. The innuendo generated more chuckles and a frown or two. “Yes. I am refuting my brother's statements.”

Shamus banged his gavel, acknowledging Rupert's right to speak. Head back, shoulders broad from savage-chi practice with Audric, Rupert moved down the aisle between the pews and onto the dais. There was no sound except his boots, slick on the old floors, and the crowd settling again for what appeared to be the start of a good show.

Jason moved away from the lectern, his blue eyes shooting fury and loathing, but he didn't leave the stage. Rupert took the podium and turned his back on his brother. He made an impressive figure, robes picking up the dim light of dusk coming through the windows, long hair thrown back behind his collar, brushing his shoulders, the purple bruise hidden in his hair.

“It's customary that a missing person not be presumed dead unless we've seen a body.” Rupert glanced back at Jason, who looked away, realizing he'd made a mistake. “My brother is only
missing
.” Rupert tilted his head, focusing on those assembled below. He gripped the narrow stand and said, “Lucas and I had decided to loan our inheritance to the town for mage-help to melt the ice caps.” The crowd drew in a collective breath.

Jason's face darkened and he looked into the group, as if searching out one person.

“You was gonna use your own money? At what percentage rate?” Esmerelda Boyles called out.

“That was negotiable based on how long the town fathers wanted the loan to run. But according to probate, the money has to be invested in bulk, all the brothers investing jointly. Between the three of us, it was two to one in favor of the loan.”

“Now it's one to one,” Jason shouted, balling his fists, “and I'm not signing over my inheritance. Not for something as useless and impossible as mage-help to save this town. Mineral City is going to die.” He was sweating profusely, breath heaving. I attempted to open my mage-sight, but a lance of pain stabbed through my head. “Die! And there's nothing we can do to stop it. The best we can hope for is to buy a reprieve, not a salvation. And we'd be selling our souls to deal with
mages
.”

“Mage-help is fully sanctioned by the seraphs,” Rupert shouted back, whirling to face his brother. “I won't abandon this town based on unsubstantiated rumors circulated by narrow-minded zealots—especially ones who would profit by abandonment.”