Raven Cursed: A Jane Yellowrock Novel Page 39

  Everything happened fastfastfast.

  The girl took a half dozen steps away from Wrassler, pulling a handgun. Derek leaped in front of Leo. I screamed to the twins. Wrassler pulled his gun and jumped at the girl with a bellow. I raced in, Beast-fast. Draw. Un-safety. No time to aim. Seeing the room as a slow-moving video. Hearing the first shot. From the side. My hand and gun were one unit. Firing. One. Two. Three. Chest shots, midcenter on the girl. Racing in. Seeing Derek fall, blood on his throat. She was still standing. Wearing a Kevlar vest. I squeezed off a single shot, midcenter forehead. Carefully placed. No collateral damage. The girl went down.

  More shots sounded. The three burst rat-a-tat of a submachine gun. Leo diving. Grégoire diving. Something stinging my arm.

  I whirled, seeing the others. Two. Male. Dressed in bellboy uniforms. Each with small, ugly, compact weapons held with professional ease. Firing. The scent of human and vamp blood on the air. No one was behind the bellboys. I emptied my weapon into them, even as one turned toward me. They didn’t go down. Vests. They all were wearing bullet-freaking-resistant vests!

  I dropped the Walther. Bullets wouldn’t stop them.

  Claws. Jane throwing claws.

  I dodged hard right. The first blade left my hand. Flashing in the overhead lights. Imbedded itself in the gunman’s throat. I’d aimed lower but I wasn’t complaining.

  My second blade hit the second gunman under his left arm. But the kill shot was Wrassler’s two-tap to the forehead. I landed hard. On my wounded arm. And it was over except for the blood and the screaming and the cops.

  I directed the emergency medical personnel to the wounded humans, including Derek, who had taken two nonlethal rounds to the flesh of one shoulder and thigh, and two hotel guests, who had been caught in the crossfire. I sent the cops to the twins who answered the legal questions. And I sat, alone, on a hotel sofa, watching it all with a goofy smile on my face. This was my life. Vamps and guns and getting shot at. My life was crap. And I loved it, now that Beast was back. She wasn’t talking yet, beyond her orders in the fight, but I could feel her claws scrape across my mind, hear her breath panting. She was back, fully and completely, even if she was pouting.

  Of course, I’d killed more humans. I’d have to deal with my own responsibility at some point, though these humans had been trying to kill me and the people I was sworn to protect. That helped. Maybe enough to disperse any possible guilt that might later attack. I was getting better at dealing with guilt all the time. But maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Time would tell.

  At some point, the EMTs realized I was bleeding and they treated me, bandaging and haranguing me about needing to be seen at the hospital. A round had grazed the inside of my upper arm, taking a groove of flesh with it on the way past. Ruining my lightweight riding jacket. And my shirt. But not my mood. With Beast back, that was doing great.

  Later, I saw Leo and Grégoire into their car and out of the parking lot. And I was done. The job was a success. Except for the lingering question—­which blood-master had just declared war on the MOC of New Orleans and the greater Southwestern USA?

  Love Jane Yellowrock? Then meet Thorn St. Croix.

  Read on for the opening chapter of Bloodring,

  the first novel in Faith Hunter’s Rogue Mage series.

  Available from Roc.

  No one thought the apocalypse would be like this. The world didn’t end. And the appearance of seraphs heralded three plagues and a devastating war between the forces of good and evil. Over a hundred years later, the earth has plunged into an ice age, and seraphs and demons fight a never-ending battle while religious strife rages among the surviving humans.

  Thorn St. Croix is no ordinary neomage. All the others of her kind, mages who can twist leftover creation energy to their will, were gathered together into Enclaves long ago; and there they live in luxurious confinement, isolated from other humans and exploited for their magic. When her powers nearly drive her insane, she escapes—and now she lives as a fugitive, disguised as a human, channeling her gifts of stone-magery into jewelry making. But when Thaddeus Bartholomew, a dangerously attractive policeman, shows up on her doorstep and accuses her of kidnapping her ex-husband, she retrieves her weapons and risks revealing her identity to find him. And for Thorn, the punishment for revelation is death. . . .

  stared into the hills as my mount clomped below me, his massive hooves digging into snow and ice. Above us a fighter jet streaked across the sky, leaving a trail that glowed bright against the fiery sunset. A faint sense of alarm raced across my skin, and I gathered up the reins, tightening my knees against Homer’s sides, pressing my walking stick against the huge horse.

  A sonic boom exploded across the peaks, shaking through snow­-laden trees. Ice and snow pitched down in heavy sheets and lumps. A dog yelped. The Friesian set his hooves, dropped his head, and kicked. “Stones and blood,” I hissed as I rammed into the saddle horn. The boom echoed like rifle shot. Homer’s back arched. If he bucked, I was a goner.

  I concentrated on the bloodstone handle of my walking stick and pulled the horse to me, reins firm as I whispered soothing, seemingly nonsense words no one would interpret as a chant. The bloodstone pulsed as it projected a sense of calm into him, a use of stored power that didn’t affect my own drained resources. The sonic boom came back from the nearby mountains, a ricochet of man­-made thunder.

  The mule in front of us hee­-hawed and kicked out, white rimming his eyes, lips wide, and teeth showing as the boom reverberated through the farther peaks. Down the length of the mule train, other animals reacted as the fear spread, some bucking in a frenzy, throwing packs into drifts, squealing as lead ropes tangled, trumpeting fear.

  Homer relaxed his back, sidestepped, and danced like a young colt before planting his hooves again. He blew out a rib-racking sigh and shook himself, ears twitching as he settled. Deftly, I repositioned the supplies and packs he’d dislodged, rubbing a bruised thigh that had taken a wallop from a twenty­-pound pack of stone.

  Hoop Marks and his assistant guides swung down from their own mounts and steadied the more fractious stock. All along the short train, the startled horses and mules settled as riders worked to control them. Homer looked on, ears twitching.

  Behind me, a big Clydesdale relaxed, shuddering with a ripple of muscle and thick winter coat, his rider following the wave of motion with practiced ease. Audric was a salvage miner, and he knew his horses. I nodded to my old friend, and he tipped his hat to me before repositioning his stock on Clyde’s back.

  A final echo rumbled from the mountains. Almost as one, we turned to the peaks above us, listening fearfully for the telltale roar of an avalanche.

  Sonic booms were rare in the Appalachians these days, and I wondered what had caused the military overflight. I slid the walking stick into its leather loop. It was useful for balance while taking a stroll in snow, but its real purpose was as a weapon. Its concealed blade was deadly, as was its talisman hilt, hiding in plain sight. However, the bloodstone handle­-hilt was now almost drained of power, and when we stopped for the night, I’d have to find a safe, secluded place to draw power for it and for the amulets I carried, or my neomage attributes would begin to display themselves.

  I’m a neomage, a witchy­-woman. Though contrary rumors persist, claiming mages still roam the world free, I’m the only one of my kind not a prisoner, the only one in the entire world of humans who is unregulated, unlicensed. The only one uncontrolled.

  All the others of my race are restricted to Enclaves, protected in enforced captivity. Enclaves are gilded cages, prisons of privilege and power, but cages nonetheless. Neomages are allowed out only with seraph permission, and then we have to wear a sigil of office and bracelets with satellite GPS locator chips in them. We’re followed by the humans, watched, and sent back fast when our services are no longer needed or when our visas expire. As if we’re contagious. Or dangerous.

  Enclave was both prison and haven for mages, keeping us safe from
the politically powerful, conservative, religious orthodox humans who hated us, and giving us a place to live as our natures and gifts demanded. It was a great place for a mage-child to grow up, but when my gift blossomed at age fourteen, my mind opened in a unique way. The thoughts of all twelve hundred mages captive in the New Orleans Enclave opened to me at once. I nearly went mad. If I went back, I’d go quietly—or loudly screaming—­insane.

  In the woods around us, shadows lengthened and darkened. Mule handlers looked around, jittery. I sent out a quick mind­-skim. There were no supernats present, no demons, no mages, no seraphs, no others. Well, except for me. But I couldn’t exactly tell them that. I chuckled under my breath as Homer snorted and slapped me with his tail. That would be dandy. Survive for a decade in the human world only to be exposed by something so simple as a sonic boom and a case of trail exhaustion. I’d be tortured, slowly, over a period of days, tarred and feathered, chopped into pieces, and dumped in the snow to rot.

  If the seraphs located me first, I’d be sent back to Enclave and I’d still die. I’m allergic to others of my kind—­really allergic—fatally so. The Enclave death would be a little slower, a little less bloody than the human version. Humans kill with steel, a public beheading, but only after I was disemboweled, eviscerated, and flayed alive. And all that after I entertained the guards for a few days. As ways to go, the execution of an unlicensed witchy­-woman rates up there with the top ten gruesome methods of capital punishment. With my energies nearly gone, a conjure to calm the horses could give me away.

  “Light’s goin,’ ” Hoop called out. “We’ll stop here for the night. Everyone takes care of his own mount before anything else. Then circle and gather deadwood. Last, we cook. Anyone who don’t work, don’t eat.”

  Behind me, a man grumbled beneath his breath about the unfairness of paying good money for a spot on the mule train and then having to work. I grinned at him and he shrugged when he realized he’d been heard. “Can’t blame a man for griping. Besides, I haven’t ridden a horse since I was a kid. I have blisters on my blisters.”

  I eased my right leg over Homer’s back and slid the long distance to the ground. My knees protested, aching after the day in the saddle. “I have a few blisters this trip myself. Good boy,” I said to the big horse, and dropped the reins, running a hand along his side. He stomped his satisfaction and I felt his deep sense of comfort at the end of the day’s travel.

  We could have stopped sooner, but Hoop had hoped to make the campsite where the trail rejoined the old Blue Ridge Parkway. Now we were forced to camp in a ring of trees instead of the easily fortified site ahead. If the denizens of Darkness came out to hunt, we’d be sitting ducks.

  Unstrapping the heavy pack containing my most valuable finds from the Salvage and Mineral Swap Meet in Boone, I dropped it to the earth and covered it with the saddle. My luggage and pack went to the side. I removed all the tools I needed to groom the horse and clean his feet, and added the bag of oats and grain. A pale dusk closed in around us before I got the horse brushed down and draped in a blanket, a pile of food and a half bale of hay at his feet.

  The professional guides were faster and had taken care of their own mounts and the pack animals and dug a firepit in the time it took the paying customers to get our mounts groomed. The equines were edgy, picking up anxiety from their humans, making the job slower for us amateurs. Hoop’s dogs trotted back and forth among us, tails tight to their bodies, ruffs raised, sniffing for danger. As we worked, both clients and handlers glanced fearfully into the night. Demons and their spawn often hid in the dark, watching humans like predators watched tasty herd animals. So far as my weakened senses could detect, there was nothing out there. But there was a lot I couldn’t say and still keep my head.

  “Gather wood!” I didn’t notice who called the command, but we all moved into the forest, me using my walking stick for balance. There was no talking. The sense of trepidation was palpable, though the night was friendly, the moon rising, no snow or ice in the forecast. Above, early stars twinkled, cold and bright at this altitude. I moved away from the others, deep into the tall trees: oak, hickory, fir, cedar. At a distance, I found a huge boulder rounded up from the snow.

  Checking to see that I was alone, I lay flat on the boulder, my cheek against frozen granite, the walking stick between my torso and the rock. And I called up power. Not a raging roar of mage­-might, but a slow, steady trickle. Without words, without a chant that might give me away, I channeled energy into the bloodstone handle between my breasts, into the amulets hidden beneath my clothes, and pulled a measure into my own flesh, needing the succor. It took long minutes, and I sighed with relief as my body soaked up strength.

  Satisfied, as refreshed as if I had taken a nap, I stood, stretched, bent, and picked up deadwood, traipsing through the trees and boulders for firewood—wood that was a lot more abundant this far away from the trail. My night vision is better than most humans’, and though I’m small for an adult and was the only female on the train, I gathered an armload in record time. Working far off the beaten path has its rewards.

  I smelled it when the wind changed. Old blood. A lot of old blood. I dropped the firewood, drew the blade from the walking­-stick sheath, and opened my mage­-sight to survey the surrounding territory. The world of snow and ice glimmered with a sour­-lemon glow, as if it were ailing, sickly.

  Mage­-sight is more than human sight in that it sees energy as well as matter. The retinas of human eyes pick up little energy, seeing light only after it’s absorbed or reflected. But mages see the world of matter with an overlay of energy, picked up by the extra lenses that surround our retinas. We see power and life, the leftover workings of creation. When we use the sight, the energies are sometimes real, sometimes representational, experience teaching us to identify and translate the visions, sort of like picking out images from a three­-dimensional pattern.

  I’m a stone mage, a worker of rocks and gems, and the energy of creation; hence, only stone looks powerful and healthy to me when I’m using mage­-sight. Rain, ice, sleet or snow, each of which is water that has passed through air, always looks unhealthy, as does moonlight, sunlight, the movement of the wind, or currents of surface water—anything except stone. This high in the mountains, snow lay thick and crusted everywhere, weak, pale, a part of nature that leached power from me—except for a dull gray area to the east, beyond the stone where I had recharged my energies.

  Moving with the speed of my race, sword in one hand, walking­-stick sheath, a weapon in itself, in the other, I rushed toward the site.

  I tripped over a boot. It was sticking from the snow, bootlaces crusted with blood and ice. Human blood had been spilled here, a lot of it, and the snow was saturated. The earth reeked of fear and pain and horror, and to my mage­-sight, it glowed with the blackened energy of death. I caught a whiff of Darkness.

  Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I stepped into the cat stance, blade and walking stick held low as I circled the site. Bones poked up from the ice, and I identified a femur, the fragile bones of a hand, tendons still holding fingers together. A jawbone thrust toward the sky. Placing my feet carefully, I eased in. Teeth marks, long and deep, scored an arm bone. Predator teeth, unlike any beast known to nature. Supernat teeth. The teeth of Darkness.

  Devil­-spawn travel in packs, drink blood and eat human flesh. While it’s still alive. A really bad way to go. And spawn would know what I was in an instant if they were downwind of me. As a mage, I’d be worth more to a spawn than a fresh meal. I’d be prime breeding material for their masters.

  I’d rather be eaten.

  A skull stared at me from an outcropping of rock. A tree close by had been raked with talons, or with desperate human fingers trying to get away, trying to climb. As my sight adjusted to the falling light, a rock shelf protruding from the earth took on a glow displaying pick marks. A strip mine. Now that I knew what to look for, I saw a pick, the blackened metal pitted by ichor, a lantern, bags of supp
lies hanging from trees, other gear stacked near the rock with their ore. One tent pole still stood. On it was what I assumed to be a hat, until my eyes adjusted and it resolved into a second skull. Old death. Weeks, perhaps months, old.

  A stench of sulfur reached me. Dropping the sight, I skimmed until I found the source: a tiny hole in the earth near the rock they had been working. I understood what had happened. The miners had been working a claim on the surface—because no one in his right mind went underground, not anymore—and they had accidentally broken through to a cavern or an old, abandoned underground mine. Darkness had scented them. Supper…

  I moved to the hole in the earth. It was leaking only a hint of sulfur and brimstone, and the soil around was smooth, trackless. Spawn hadn’t used this entrance in a long time. I glanced up at the sky. Still bright enough that the nocturnal devil­-spawn were sleeping. If I could cover the entrance, they wouldn’t smell us. Probably. Maybe.

  Sheathing the blade, I went to the cases the miners had piled against the rocks, and pulled a likely one off the top. It hit the ground with a whump but was light enough for me to drag it over the snow, leaving a trail through the carnage. The bag fit over the entrance, and the reek of Darkness was instantly choked off. My life had been too peaceful. I’d gotten lazy. I should have smelled it the moment I entered the woods. Now it was gone.

  Satisfied I had done all I could, I tramped to my pile of deadwood and back to camp, glad of the nearness of so many humans, horses, and dogs that trotted about. I dumped the wood beside the fire pit at the center of the small clearing. Hoop Marks and his second in command, Hoop Jr., tossed in broken limbs and lit the fire with a small can of kerosene and a pack of matches. Flames roared and danced, sending shadows capering into the surrounding forest. The presence of fire sent a welcome feeling of safety through the group, though only earthly predators would fear the flame. No supernat of Darkness would care about a little fire if it was hungry. Fire made them feel right at home.