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  Fifty years ago, when the orthodox had been at the peak of their power, holding both houses of Congress, ruling with the consent of the High Host, the music had been prohibited. As the old-timers died off and their edicts were challenged in the Supreme Court, many were being stricken from the records. No one knew whether seraphs hated rock and roll or the religious Right did, but the loosening of restrictions was a result of the recent seraphic disinterest in the affairs of humans. Regardless of who had once hated him, Elvis now crooned overhead.

  When a dozen stones were ready for the grinding wheel, I took a break and peeled out of my jumpsuit, which was crusted over with stone dust. From the icebox in the unheated back hallway, I got us each a juice and sat at my workbench watching my partners on the tasks that had made our designs a success.

  Rupert set down metal snips and a sheet of stiff copper he was cutting to the contours of a necklace I had designed. With tongs, he took a copper oval from the brazier and doused it in a heated pickle solution before twisting the top off his drink and taking a long swallow. He wiped the icy bottle over his sweating forehead, nodded to me, and returned to work. Jacey, her granny dress tucked under a thick leather apron, swiveled the welder's mask up off her face and rolled her shoulders before drinking. No one spoke. I stretched, flexing numb muscles that tended to paralyze in position when I worked stone. I was tired, as much from the energy-sapping snow accumulating beyond the walls as from the long trip and stonecutting.

  I was restless. Taking my bottle, I rambled in front to check the weather, which was still horrid, and back into the workshop, down the hallway, past some deliveries that made the passage even more narrow, and into the stockroom. Stacked haphazardly, blocking easy entrance, were shipping crates showing rope scoring, the singular evidence of mule train transport. Heavier stock came by the intermittent freight train and was never secured with rope.

  I set my juice bottle at the door. While we hadn't assigned jobs when we formed the partnership, we had each taken on certain tasks, the chores that went beyond the purely creative and sales parts of Thorn's Gems. My jobs were the art of working stone, design, and stock, which needed serious attention. With hammer and chisel, I opened the crates blocking the door and updated the inventory folder, which had been misplaced. When I left town, the stockroom always got cluttered, and when I was gone an extended time, I returned to chaos.

  Thorn's Gems had been my dream, started with the money left me when my foster father, Lemuel Hastings, died just after my eighteenth birthday. Uncle Lem had been a rough, taciturn, coldhearted, rock hound who had loved only one thing in his life until I came into it—stone. Thinking me wholly human and orphaned, he had opened his home to me, and eventually his heart, teaching me that humans were pretty okay, and to love rocks.

  Setting aside the tools, I put away Jacey's quarterly scrap metal order for salvaged gold findings, melted jewelry dead-mined from war zones, and old, broken glass. One box held rusted parts from Pre-Ap cars and trucks for her sculpture.

  I stored the stock in bins and stacked empty crates in back for recycling. Two boxes were mine, filled with rough I had bought sight unseen online, in a rare moment when the computer worked without crashing. We needed a new one, but they were costly. Parts were getting harder to find, though there was a thriving cottage industry for computer repair, and the Internet was still the best place to get neat stuff.

  An SNN reporter had claimed there were new companies on the northwest coast creating new PC parts and producing new units, which required high-quality quartz. Mineral City's main exports were guns, feldspar, and quartz crystal. We had seen an upsurge in quartz exports, so it was possible. There had been such claims in the past, however, and nothing came of them. I'd believe it when I saw a new computer.

  Opening crates, I shelved some online stock and stacked the rest in a bin identified with big question marks. There had been a photo in the Internet ads, but if I didn't get to handle rough, I had no idea how fragile or frangible it was, so I'd have to study it later.

  I cleared space, making the room accessible again, but even with my layers of clothing, it was cold in the unheated room. I thought I could empty a few more cartons before the temperature forced me out. Stepping into the hallway, I considered metal shipping containers that constricted the traffic pattern. It was rare for deliveries to arrive boxed in anything except wood and paper, as salvaged metal had become more valuable to the exploding human population. Usually, metal was used for more important purposes than transport, especially this much metal. The boxes were approximately fifteen inches deep, eighteen long, and nine high, with handles on top and sides. Metal strips looked as if they had been added later, crisscrossing back to front, secured with brass padlocks. It was a lot of metal.

  I glanced at one address label and stopped, surprised, then looked at the address on another box. The metal ones were from Linville, Carolina, to Rupert at Thorn's Gems. There were no names on the returns, but the street address belonged to his gramma.

  Well, that was just dandy. No telling what the old bat had sent, except that it would be a chore or a problem or a demand. And no matter what it was, Rupert would be ticked off. I slipped my fingers under the handle.

  Stone… The cold in my flesh was replaced with a frisson of heat, a whisper of power, the touch of mage-perception. Slick sweat broke out on my arms and tingled down my spine. There is stone here. Stone imbued with power. Straining, I lifted the metal box to the floor. Uncertain, I touched the second box. It too contained stone. And behind it was another box, similar to the first two. I studied the boxes in the dim hallway light. They were an ugly green, painted with pale white pigments, words hidden under the crisscrossed security strips. A number 6 was clearly visible on one, the number 3 in a different place on another. I recognized Pre-Ap U.S. military ammunition boxes. Had the Stanhope matriarch sent these? And why to Rupert, her least favorite grandchild, rather than to her best beloved Lucas, or even to Jason, their older brother? And why stone delivered in metal ammo boxes?

  I sent a skim into the box under my fingertips. The stone inside seemed to elongate, like a cat arching under a caress—then it swirled around me in an eddy, testing, toying. I sent a tendril of thought deeper into the box.

  Something touched my mind, recoiled a bare instant before it wrapped around me, seized me, and pulled me in. My mind fell into the rock inside.

  Shattering, fracturing, sundering might. Such power. It beat into me, demanding. I moaned, breathing in limitless, boundless energies. My head whipped back, my spine arched.

  A small, lucid, prudent part of me wrenched away from the might, the mage-torque of stone. I watched as it wrapped barriers around itself, sealing itself off from the stone, the force thrumming against my brain. That small, safe part of me vanished from my own sight.

  The desire to rip open the boxes heated my blood. I gasped as I pulled at the lock. It didn't give. Securing the hammer and chisel under my arm, I hefted one of the ammo boxes by its thin, rounded handles. The mage-torque from within burned my palms, singing, calling to me. Unsteady, I walked into the workroom.

  Audric watched as I entered, his eyes alarmed as if sensing something wrong. He nudged Rupert, who looked up, irritated. Jacey raised her head, shoved up her welding hood, took us in, and turned off her torch, the blue-flame cone vanishing with a soft pop.

  "What is it?" Rupert demanded.

  "A lot of stock came while I was gone? " My voice sounded strange.

  "Yeah," Jacey said, laying aside her hood, stripping off padded gloves, and untying her heavy apron. "A lot, all week. Why? Hey, I'm sorry, I know I should have stopped and put some of it away. I'm a lazy slob."

  I swiveled to Rupert, who moved closer to Audric as if seeking comfort from an expected blow. "Your gramma sent you some presents. They're in metal ammunition boxes in the hallway, each nearly identical to this one. There's stone in them." I realized that sounded strange, so I added, "Maybe."

  He glanced at Audric and rolle
d his eyes, shoulders relaxing. "It's no big deal," he said, crossing the room, steel tongs at his side. "It's just stuff from Grampa's desk. I've been expecting it. Gramma's been cleaning out the papers for probate and sending on anything that needs legal attention. And Lucas was going through Grampa's storage house, sorting estate things and sending on—"

  "It's stone," I interrupted, striding past him. There was a resonance in my blood that only mineral could produce, that low, slow hum of something near craving, a hunger close to passion, that only stone recently mined from deep in the ground could demand of me. Ordinary stone, stone that had been exposed to the elements, scoured by water and wind, contained little usable power until after I recharged it with creation energy. But this stone was different, a beating heart of might. This stone was charged with something… strange.

  I hefted the box and dropped it onto Rupert's worktable. It landed with a weighty thump that rocked the sturdy bench. The stone inside the carton was charged with something I had never felt before, something that was almost—but not quite—creation power. And it fed its hunger into me, hunger that translated into euphoria. I don't know what he saw in my eyes, but Rupert stepped back. "This box is not holding papers," I said.

  "Touchy, touchy," Rupert murmured. But he set down his tongs and turned off the torch and brazier. Everything that caused fumes was off, so Audric flipped off the ventilation fan, silencing the low rumble just beneath the level of normal hearing, and ejected the CDS. Instantly, quiet pressed in, marred only by the tick and ping of cooling metal.

  "Did she send a key to this?"

  Rupert's face went blank as he took in the padlock. "Uh. No. Jacey?"

  "Yeah, maybe. Hang on." She ran to the front, smoothing her dress, its fabric crushed into long wrinkles by the apron and the heat of her body. In a moment that seemed like an eon, she was back, carrying a manila shipping envelope. "I forgot. This came in the post on Saturday. I didn't know what it was for." From the envelope, she shook a small brass key.

  Rupert inserted it, and the padlock clicked. Blood raced through my body, a beat of tribal drums. Open it, I wanted to shout. Rupert set the key aside and removed the metal strips, one by one, creating soft twangs that hung on the air, dull notes of off-key sound.

  But when he tried to lift the lid, it didn't budge. "It's been soldered shut," Audric said. Rupert pressed his fingernail into a thin line of metal in the seam. The lead solder gave under the faint pressure.

  'You want I should open it?" I indicated the box with the chisel and hammer, the need to demolish it nearly making me shake. At his acquiescence, I stabbed the narrow chisel into the seam between side and lid and whapped the blunt end with the hammer three times, three ringing chimes of steel, and beneath them, the dull notes of lesser metals yielding. Working the rod out, I inserted it a few inches to the side and struck again, three solid blows. Audric spun the ammo box and I repeated the steps on the other side, hearing the quiet groan as lead released from the tight seal. A crack formed in the solder. From within the box, something reached out to me, enveloping my mind.

  Muscles bulging, Audric pulled the hinged lid and it opened with a shrill squeal as he stepped back, allowing Rupert access to the box. Though I was breathing too heavily for the amount of exertion, the aggression I was fighting had abated with the attack on the crate, and I put down the tools, watching as Rupert pulled out wads of newsprint, exposing sawdust. The pounding in my blood called for him to hurry, to get inside, get inside fast.

  Chapter 6

  He woke to a pounding head and a sharp pain in his wrist. The pounding was more than blood moving through his rattled brain, it was the sound of a steel maul pounding a steel spike into the stone beside his head. Chips of rock shattered and flew, and he covered his head with his free arm, jerking it from the other thing in the dark. Teeth ripped his flesh as he pulled free. A roar sounded, a blow landed, and something screamed close by. Sulfur burned his breathing passages with each breath; cold and pain traveled through his body with each heartbeat. Terror wound around him, the smothering coils of a serpent. He was underground. Gabriel's tears. He was underground.

  Something rattled like metal and pulled unmercifully at his torn flesh. Unable to help it, he groaned. The thing near him stopped at the sound. It lifted his hand and he heard it sniff as it scented his blood. A moment later something cold and wet slithered around his wrist, burning. He heard a sigh, as of pleasure. And then his hand was dropped. It landed with a boneless flop, but the pain was, seemingly, less. The thing dragged itself away, the sound of its movement growing indistinct.

  A moment later, he felt something else touch his hand, and he flinched.

  "It's all right. I brought water," it whispered. Lucas felt something heavy hit the stone floor by his head. Iron, a shaped instrument, as cold as death, was placed in his open palm. With his other hand he discovered its shape. A dipper attached by a rope to a stoneware jug. By feel, Lucas dropped the dipper into the jug and brought the cup to his lips. Half expecting something horrible, he touched it to his mouth and tasted water. Sulfur tainted, but water. Desperately thirsty, he drained the dipper and then another.

  "I'll bring more tomorrow," it whispered.

  "Wait. What are you?"

  The pause was fraught with indecision. Then it answered. "I call myself Malashe-el." And it was gone.

  * * * * *

  Audric's biceps bulged. From the sawdust came a cloth-wrapped packet that blazed, blistered, burned, in my mind. It called to me, a siren song of might so extraordinary, I wondered the humans couldn't see it. He placed it on the workbench; the wrapping fell away.

  A lustrous lavender stone pulsed. Cried out. Shock surged through me, a jolt of power from the first creation. But, no, not quite that. Not quite. The thought seemed to disintegrate and fall away. My reasoning clouded. The stone summoned. My flesh ached, my skin, blood, muscles, the beat of my heart, every cell in my body, wanted to join with this stone, mate the beat of my heart to it, and glow with power. Instinctively, that safe part of me, the part set aside only moments earlier, resisted the attraction, drawing on a black-and-green-jade bear amulet beneath my clothes. The bear stored strength, keyed to mute my physical neomage attributes. I could not start to glow. Simply could not. The need to embrace the lavender stone and claim it as my own, the need to bond with it, eased.

  "What is it?" Jacey asked.

  "It's amethyst," I said, my lips slightly numb. "Gem quality, unless I miss my guess." Incomplete answer, but the safe one. Of their own volition, my hands reached out and enfolded the stone. Power smashed through my palms, the force of a mighty engine, the flare of a rocket lifting into outer space. I shuddered.

  "Be careful. It's heavy," Rupert said, misinterpreting my reaction.

  I held the jagged stone to the lights overhead, letting the crystalline center of the rock capture illumination and throw it back. It was dirty on one side, smooth where it had lain for long ages, buried in contact with the ground. But the other sides were crystal spires or cragged and irregular where it had broken from a much larger stone. Along the smooth side, the crystal curved in a strange shape, like the curve of a closed eyelid. A larger stone with this power is out there. And I want it. A shiver of warmth threaded along my nerves below my flesh. Heat like mage-heat, like sex, chocolate, whiskey, and wood smoke.

  "Thorn?"

  I snapped back, aware that I had slipped away from the reality of the shop. I was holding the heavy amethyst over my head, staring into its depths, connecting with it as if the stone had eyes in its heart, eyes that stared back with longing. The weakness caused by snow falling and collecting had vanished. In its place was this incredible… bliss. Desire. Hunger.

  "Bond with me. Choose me," the stone sang. "I am lonely."

  I shook the thoughts away and set the hunk of rough with three other stones on the table. Each had been cleaved from the same mother rock, though the others showed darker, oval shadings on one side. Their power held a fragrance, an incredi
ble flavor, like lilac blooms, nutmeg, hyssop, something I could almost taste. It was like, yet unlike, mage-heat.

  Suddenly Lolo was in my mind, her voice shocking me awake. She hadn't been in my mind since I was fourteen, when all the mages in Enclave had been there as well. "What you got, gurl?" she cried. "I feelin' power. C'est trop. Ca c'est de trop. Dem angels, dey hear! Ge' away from there. Run!" Instead I caressed the double-fist-sized hunks of stone, lifting each for inspection, seeing less with my eyes than with mage-sense.

  "Danger, dis. Run, gurl!" I blocked out Lolo's warning. She wasn't here. She didn't see, didn't feel this ecstasy, this rapture. She wasn't a stone mage. She couldn't understand. Vaguely, I knew I hadn't been able to block voices when I was fourteen. No mage should be able to hear another a thousand miles away. This was new. But that thought too slid away.

  "There are more boxes in the hallway outside the stockroom," I said, my tongue feeling thick and flaccid. "You might want to check them out."

  In what seemed only a second, two more boxes were on the workbench, hammer and chisel ringing as they were opened. Power flowed from them.

  "What's wrong with her?"

  "Looks like she's having an intimate psychic rendezvous with that rock. Seraph struck, angel awed by a boulder."

  I didn't know who had spoken, but the words brought me back from the faraway place the stone had taken me. This was the danger Lolo spoke of, that I could be swept away and consumed. I forced the silly smile off my lips as I fought for a sensible reply. And then that still, small part of me, safe in the back of my mind, unfolded with words, clear and concise, as if planted in my mind by another, but generated by years of familiarity with stone and with running the shop. Logic. Business.