Bloodring (32 page)

On the screen, fuzzy video depicted two forms rising into the clouds as the cameraman zoomed in and refocused. They could have been out-of-focus birds, except for a blast of light accompanying their departure.

“As soon as we know more about the mission and destination of these two most senior seraphs, SNN will bring you the latest. Stay with us.” Tom smiled, his ten-thousand-dollar orthodontics a searing white. The picture broke back into the weather discussion. But after that, who cared about temperatures?

I remembered the horrible feeling from the early morning. The chill that convinced me that something was coming. I walked from the display case to the front window and placed my hand on the glass as I watched the street. Kids seemed so lighthearted, the adults so blithe. Most wore spring clothes, sweaters over T-shirts, jeans, summer boots. The orthodox women still wore the pale gray dresses of spring.

The seraphs who had departed at dawn were coming south, possibly along the seaboard. If their flight plan deviated to the west, they might fly past Mineral City. Even with the mended prime amulet, I'd know they were near. I'd go into heat so intense I'd attack any male in sight. Even Rupert. The thought of his horrified expression made me smile, though my reflection in the shop window appeared wan.

And if the seraphs came too close, they would pinpoint my exact location. Running could save me from humans, but nothing could hide me or save me from seraphs if they came close enough. Nothing. Feeling itchy, with a fight-or-flight urge trying to take over, I went back to work, keeping half an eye on the TV.

Midmorning, a customer knocked on the door. He wasn't a local, but with the weather warming, the train had made two runs, bringing strangers to town. Strangers who could afford to travel in winter always made great customers, so Audric let him in.

This particular guy was in his midtwenties, dressed for the changing weather in a wool business suit, gloves, hat, and periwinkle blue scarf, but no overcoat. He had beautiful eyes, blue-green, like sunlight on water, like labradorite, eyes that seemed familiar. With a businessman's smile, he went straight for Rupert.

“I'm Malcolm Stone,” he said, “and I need a gift for my wife. Do you have any mage-stone or mage-silver rings?”

My entire body clenched at the question. Jewelry created by mages and shipped out of Enclave by human traders was fantastically expensive, and Thorn's Gems seldom had access to any. Except all those created by me, but I couldn't quite admit that. I knew I looked guilty, but fortunately neither man looked my way.

“Nothing in stock right now,” Rupert said, turning on his salesman's charm, “but we do have some imported stone from Pre-Ap Africa, and some locally mined emeralds. The miner claims that they came from the far face of the Trine, the site of one of the last battles.”

I turned away from the men, desperately worried about being discovered. Would my friends suffer for my presence? Would they receive the same fate as I if I was caught? Did I have the right to keep what I was from them?

Malcolm ended up purchasing a ring Rupert had designed, which held a stone I had charmed to provide a sense of calm to the wearer. It was an unusual tumbled amazonite in a lovely mint green shade, set on a sterling band with a wavelike design, and he had the ring gift boxed and wrapped in silver paper.

After he left, the itchy feeling returned, this time with a vengeance. I hadn't noticed that the feeling was at bay, but now it was a burning sensation down my back, on both sides of my spine. Something was coming. Something big. I could have sworn I heard a cat scream.

Near noon, as I was eating a solitary lunch on my back porch, overlooking the stables and the Trine, a shadow crossed the sun. I looked up and saw wings. Huge wings.

Mage-heat slammed into me, a beating, pulsing, sultry lust that drove me off my chair to the porch floor. I moaned, curled into a tight fetal ball on the rough planking, and fought to catch my breath. The heat washed over me in wave after wave of desire and pleasure.

They were here. The seraphs had come to Mineral City.

One's feathers were white and purple, and the nervure, the veins visible through the soft down of the underwing, was a purple so dark, it looked black. The other was pure scarlet, a deeper hue than a cardinal, its nervure a bright teal fading to crimson. Beautiful. Exquisite. I wanted both of them.

Icy water hit me like a frozen fist. Desire morphed into rage. Mage-fast, I came up off the planking and launched myself at Audric. I hit him square in the chest, sending the water bucket he carried flying. Before it could land, I was on him, ripping the staves from beneath his arms and striking a tattoo of blows across his body. I heard a bone in his hand crack and snarled when he jumped back.

Staves materialized in the half-breed's hands, blocking six strikes, eight, fourteen. I backed him around the small porch, hearing soft yips and low growling. The sound, deep and menacing, heated my blood with battle lust. It came from my throat. I wanted blood. I wanted to see the half-breed dead.

Audric laughed. “Fight me, little mage. Fight. Already your heat is waning. Fight!” He advanced on me, sweeping long strikes, moves I had seen as a child on the practice floor but had never tried, let alone mastered. I blocked most. The rest landed, leaving bruises on top of bruises. Pain slowly cleared my head.

“Audric,” I gasped, blocking the opening moves of the walking horse.

“Are you back in your own mind, little mage?” he asked, transforming the horse move into the dolphin midstrike. The bamboo staves slapped my thighs, searing pain that brought tears to my eyes. Had they been weighted sword-staves, my femurs would have broken.

I retaliated by sweeping a stave up between his legs. He blocked it at the last moment. I risked a look at his face. “Yes. My heat is gone,” I admitted. “Will it stay gone?”

“An hour. If we are lucky.”

“An hour.” I laughed, the sound wretched. I blocked a swipe that would have dislocated my jaw.

“You fight better when you fight by instinct rather than with your mind. Two levels better. Do we run, or do we tell Rupert what we are?”

“We tell,” I said. I broke through the master's stance and touched him hard over the heart with the tip of my stave. Audric jumped back, crossing his staves in an “enough” gesture. I stepped back as well and crossed my staves, accepting the end of the match.

“Rupert and Jacey, both,” Audric said.

“Yeah.” And if they hated us for it, we could run. But if they wanted us to stay, it would at least be with full knowledge of the consequences. “I like the staves. Well balanced. Small enough for my hands.”

“They were mine as a child. I'm glad you approve.” He looked down at his broken finger. “Nicely done, mage. I don't suppose you know any healing incantations?”

I shook icy water from my hair and picked up the bowl that had once held my lunch. The bowl had survived being knocked to the floor. The food hadn't been so lucky. Applesauce and cottage cheese were all over the place, ground into the boards by our feet. “A couple of healing chants are in my repertory. You clean up the porch. I'll heal your hand.”

“Done,” he said. “And after that, we tell our friends what we are. Then we'll go up on the mountain to find the rest of the amethyst. And we will take along your Hand of the Law. What?” he said when I flinched slightly. “I have no doubt you can control your peculiar reaction to the stone and your attraction to the kylen. We need to find the motherstone. It may help us. So may he.”

 
By two—bandaged to keep the mended bones from re-breaking, in Audric's case, and with ribs taped, in my case—we were in the shop with Jacey and Rupert. I had a rune of forgetting ready just in case they decided to turn us in, but I hoped I wouldn't have to use it.

While Audric poured and served tea in the shop's tiny salvaged porcelain teacups, I started the confession. “I have something you guys need to know. Something I haven't told you. Something that would put you in danger if it was discovered.” Not able to stay seated, I stood and paced in front of Jacey and Rupert. Jacey was working on a bracelet of green and brown yarn and tumbled amber nuggets, her eyes on her work. Rupert sat back in his chair, legs outstretched, and watched me as I paced, speculation on his face. “If you want me to leave when you hear it, if it's too dangerous for me to be here, knowing what I'm about to say, I'll sign over my share of the shop to you and take off. I'll be gone by nightfall.”

“You're a mage?” Jacey said.

I stopped so fast I nearly tripped over my feet. “What?”

“Rupert and I think you're a mage. Probably a stone mage.”

Audric laughed, the sound of his chuckles low and astonished. I looked from Rupert to Jacey. She raised her head at last and stared at me. “We talked about what we'd do if it was true. What we'd do if you were caught and us with you. Rupert saw your scars. No human would have survived the venom and viruses from a spawn-attack that severe. You had to be either a neomage or a mule.” Jacey placidly returned her eyes to her work as she spoke. “It's not like we're orthodox.”

“My uncle on my mother's side,” Rupert said. “The one who was elected to Congress? If we ever need to run, I can call him and request sanctuary in an Enclave somewhere. We can move, lock, stock, and barrel, and take everything in the storeroom, of course. Thorn's Gems as an Enclave business would increase our value a hundredfold. If we could advertise that all our stock has mage-stones, we would be rich in five years and could live anywhere we wanted. Jacey already talked to Big Zed, and he agreed. So. Are you a mage?”

Big Zed was Zedikiah Senior, Jacey's husband. Which meant he now had an idea what I was too. And because I hadn't been flayed or tortured this morning, it appeared that he hadn't turned me in to the AAS. “Yes,” I said, the word a breath without tone. Tears sprang to my eyes. “Really? You really don't want me to leave?”

“Really,” Rupert said. He stood and set down his empty cup, crossed the room, and gathered me in his arms. “We're family. When my brothers and parents discovered I wasn't straight, they dumped me—for years. So did my friends, all except you. Even though you weren't a mountain native and hadn't lived here long, you accepted me.”

“And when I got pregnant and wasn't married to Big Zed, you and your foster father took me in, gave me a place to live. Helped me get the paperwork done to get married, even though I was showing and Big Zed was a widower with kids and the elders didn't want to approve it.” She smiled softly. “And you got me that dress. That beautiful white dress.”

I sobbed once into Rupert's shoulder.

“Because of you, I got married wearing a real wedding dress, with an elder to officiate, even if he was a minor elder and shaking in his boots. In spite of their feelings toward me, my parents came, and I know you had something to do with that. We're family, you and me.” Her grin widened, lighting her gamin face. “You're pure flame.” It was the highest compliment Jacey could give. She turned to Audric. “And you?”

Audric went still, his eyes on Rupert. “I'm a half-breed. Humans call us mules. We call ourselves the second-unforeseen.”

“That explains a lot,” Rupert said, his words heavy with meaning. Half-breeds were seldom physically whole, most missing internal and external genitalia.

“Our time together isn't as . . . complete, as what you would experience with a human,” Audric said. “You may not choose me for partner now that you know what I am, and now that you know my disfigurement can't be reversed by surgery, as you once suggested.”

“Sex isn't everything,” Rupert said, his hands massaging my back. I wasn't certain he knew what he was doing, but it felt good on my bruises, so I leaned into him, putting my ear over his heart. It beat with a strong sound, a steady double thump of love. “I don't consider you disfigured,” he said to Audric. “Never have. Stay. As long as you want. Forever. As a half-breed, you'll outlive me by twenty or thirty years. Plenty enough time to do something else with your life after I'm gone.”

Audric's body loosened as tension eased out of him. “Seraphs are in town. Thorn went into heat, though it's in abeyance at the moment. We may be discovered. You still want us to stay?”

“Yep,” Jacey said. “We do.”

I pushed Rupert away and bent over Jacey, hugging her. She hugged back one-handed, holding her work in the other, patting me as she might one of her children.

As I stood, my eyes were drawn to a figure standing in the front window. It was a businessman in suit, hat, and periwinkle blue scarf. He had beautiful eyes like labradorite, clear and blue-green, like the gulf. He bowed slightly when he saw me and walked away. He looked familiar somehow, but I couldn't place him.

 
Long before dark, Rupert, Audric, Thaddeus Bartholomew, Ciana, and I headed up the mountain. We made a motley crew, as if we had been put together from different fashion magazines. Thadd, having traded in his jumpy gray horse for a calm, barrel-chested bay with a black blaze and four black stockings, was dressed as before in jeans and several shirts. A tan cowboy hat hid his reddish hair, and the layered shirts hid his now-deformed back.

He glanced at me beneath the rim of his hat, and I hated it that he looked so good in jeans, sitting on a horse. I hated it almost as much that he seemed to have come to some sort of acceptance of me and our bizarre situation. He tipped his hat, eyes rueful. I had presumed he'd stay angry, blaming me for the incipient wings, but it seemed he recognized it wasn't my fault that his mama slept with a kylen, hid the resulting pregnancy, and then lied to him for his whole life. I didn't want to like him, but I was beginning to.