Fire Kissed (33 page)
The fire burned steady in her hand, but she was the one locked up. The Little Match Girl never had much of a chance. She died huddled alone in the cold, peering into visions of home and comfort.
Not going to happen again.
The Match Girl was starved and weary, but Kaye had Shadow in abundance at her fingertips, a significant difference.
... burn burn burn ...
She could burn Grey’s house down around her. She’d burned one down before; she could again. Fire wouldn’t kill her; her father had survived it, and so would she.
But the lure would keep her from harming Grey, which meant she couldn’t set fire to his house. She was good and angry and stuck.
Bastian. Years?
Dark figures moved in the layers of light cast by her fire. The fae.
The irony of the situation was that while angels would be weakened by this much Shadow, Kaye could feel herself growing stronger. The night of her trial against the wraiths she’d almost burned herself out, and Custo had brought her back by filling her bedroom in the town house with the dark stuff. Ferro had trapped her in his cellar, close to his wards. She had all the Shadow she could ever want but couldn’t use it against him.
Ferro would figure it out eventually. He’d keep her captive, shut away, use her Shadow and eventually her body, exactly the situation she’d have been in when she was fifteen.
Years. The world would be dark before (if?) she ever saw it again.
Bastian.
His name made the flame burn brighter. The cellar turned gold with the heat. The outlines of the onlooking fae took on three dimensions, rounded parts of their features illuminated—a cheek, the set of a queer eye—but the rest of their faces absent in darkness. The rat-thing darted through the wall.
The fae were that close, all the time. She’d known it on some level, but witnessing how permeable the boundary was firsthand made her buzz with awe and apprehension. The world had no idea what was coming. If magekind was capricious and cruel, the fae would be wilder still.
Bastian.
Her Shadowfire leaped. The stone walls turned semi-transparent, infinite darkness beyond. The fae beckoned, phasing in and out of visibility. A silvered outline of great trees, magic trees, glimmered in the distance.
... come come come ...
Could she?
She pushed the blaze higher, hotter, brighter, so that she no longer needed to hold it in her hand. She was the fire. She was on fire.
This was her vision, the one she’d been afraid of all her life. Maybe deep down she’d always known that fire would save her. And if Khan and Custo could cross Twilight and reenter the world elsewhere, then maybe she could too. Khan had been cryptic about what she could do. Maybe this was it. Magic was everywhere.
Bastian.
She opened herself, as if unfolding great wings, and burned. The trees of Twilight, old with magic, exploded into impossible color all around her. The jewel-toned hues made her eyes tear. Their scent was dark and sensuous, tangling with emotion. A wind moved through the trees, rustling across her and filling her ear with an old song in a language she seemed to have forgotten.
A beat of small, rapid footsteps.
She cocked her head and peered at a human-faced animal. In the reflection of its narrowing black pupils, she saw the strange, fairy-tale shape of a firebird.
Jack vaulted over the perimeter fence to Grey House. A wraith met him halfway across the expansive lawn, but Jack put a little angel force into bringing it down. Broke its neck. Another charged as he reached the entrance portico. Jack impaled it on a pointy iron post, a decorative element that now had function.
Jack made it to the door. They all had to know he was there by now, but they didn’t know he could get inside.
He drew the skeleton key from his pocket, the Shadow-laced bone. A thin hand of darkness emerged and reached toward the door. The fingers moved like spider legs. The front door swung open. If Kaye was right, the wards were passable now too.
Ferrol Grey himself was descending the staircase, a leg poised midstep.
“Where is Kaye?” Jack asked from the threshold.
Ferro smirked at him, then came the rest of the way down to the landing. “This is very sweet, but really, a mage has no business with a human.”
Jack stepped through the wards and let his angel light roar to the surface so that Grey could see that he did not contend with a human. Again, he said, “I want Kaye.”
As Ferro watched the angel cross the threshold of his house, he trembled at the revelation. Kaye had never really lied to him. She had not allied with any other House or human. Always ambitious, to get what she wanted she’d done the unthinkable: allied herself with Order.
Mr. Bastian’s penetrating gaze lasered his way, but Grey wasn’t scared. He’d fed off angels for years. Shadow brought them so easily to their knees. But because this one came for Fire, that’s exactly what he would get.
Ferro raised his arm and searched for the Brand within him, found it sparkling like fairy dust. He moved his umbra to coax the spark into fire and pushed for a Kaye-like bloom on his palm.
A high, woman’s scream ripped from his throat as his arm and hand blackened to char. A spindly finger broke and the iron ring fell to the floor.
“That’s what you get when you steal another’s Shadow,” Mr. Bastian said fiercely.
Ferro spotted Raiden Terrell behind the angel, his eyes going black.
“You have some of her fire, but your body wasn’t born to wield it,” Bastian continued. He moved forward to finish the job, but a cyclone of Shadow lifted him off his feet and crashed him into the staircase.
Raiden, saving his liege lord.
Mr. Bastian fell in a heap.
Ferro gripped his burned arm at the elbow, blinking with pain, unable to move with the shock of it. “Angels aren’t so unbeatable, really.” He looked at the ruin of his limb. “Magekind are the ones to fear.”
Raiden went to check the body.
“If he’s alive, we need to bind him,” Ferro gasped. It appeared his angel replacement had come to him. “If I can draw light, I can heal.” He might just get out of this alive.
Raiden crouched, felt for a pulse, then shouted when Mr. Bastian grabbed his arm. The wind circled hard again, but this time both were lifted, whipped, and flung. Their bodies cracked the front wall and busted the front door, revealing daylight.
Raiden fell to the ground, blood oozing from his ears and nose, coating his mouth.
“You’re not ready to fight The Order,” Mr. Bastian said disdainfully to Grey. “The ancients at least knew what they were doing. This one knocked himself out.”
“We will learn,” Ferro promised. He shook with pain and went down on his knees. “We’re learning right now. There’s no way you can beat us. Eventually we will reign.”
“Tell me where Kaye is,” Mr. Bastian said over him. “And I’ll let you live.”
“I, for one, will never help Order.”
Jack stalked across the office to where the secretary, Camilla, hid behind Grey’s desk.
“Where?” he demanded. He’d searched these back rooms, finding nothing.
A moment later he ripped the cellar door off its hinges. He could smell Kaye now; she’d been there recently. He took the narrow steps—dark, claustrophobic—in two stretches. This had to be where Ava had suffered too. He pushed the heavy Shadow back only to find more Shadow.
Where was she?
Jack whipped around to illuminate the rest of the space. Only then did he notice a heap of Shadow that didn’t move.
He’d been looking for color—for her red hair, her perfect skin—but what he found was a whisper-fragile likeness of Kaye, so real, so rich in expression, that he knelt before her expecting her to see him. Expecting her to move. And she did, each grain sliding together, into a pile of ash.
Ferro couldn’t believe his reprieve. The angels were weak in so many ways. Saved by sentimentality. How had they ever beat Shadow?
He pushed himself up and the room spun around him as sweat dampened his face. He leaned for support on what was left of the banister, panting for breath and straining to stay conscious.
Somehow he’d been granted this extra chance. Wasting it meant he would have to face the angel again, and after Mr. Bastian saw Kaye’s condition, his soft feelings might harden to rage.
Run. Get as far away as possible. Hide, then return later
.
.
He looked toward the hole made of his front door.
A line of angels stood on the front lawn, their breastplates a shining wall of gold. All of them had vengeance in their eyes, but the wards kept them out.
Fine. He’d hide inside the house until Mr. Bastian left with Kaye.
... Kaye Kaye Kaye ...
He spotted the smoky bone on the floor and crushed it with the heel of his shoe. No more in and out of
his
house. His arm was cauterized. He had no choice but to wait until it was safe, and then seek medical attention. Upstairs. His dark room. He’d shroud himself with the illusion of Maya House. No one would be able to find him. Only Camilla knew to look for him there. In spite of his injury, there was hope for survival.
his
house. His arm was cauterized. He had no choice but to wait until it was safe, and then seek medical attention. Upstairs. His dark room. He’d shroud himself with the illusion of Maya House. No one would be able to find him. Only Camilla knew to look for him there. In spite of his injury, there was hope for survival.
He panted as he sought within again. This power was silky, not hot. It swept over him like cool water and made him invisible. Now, to hide.
He turned to find Arman behind him.
Ferro stopped breathing so that he could pass the other mage without him noticing that he was there.
But Arman smiled directly at him, and Grey understood that Arman couldn’t be fooled by his own Shadow.
Arman drew a black blade. “If not for Kaye Brand, I would have lost Shana. You draw too deep.”
“Never again,” Ferro said. “I swear it. Maya will be great.”
“Never again,” Arman echoed, nodding agreement, and he planted the blade in Ferro’s belly. As he died, the illusion faltered and he was once again exposed.
The angels outside looked on.
A commotion battered Jack’s mind.
Power’s failing through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York
. With Grey dead, the wards were down and the angels gathered reported what transpired. All their efforts for nothing. Grey was gone, but as Kaye had warned, others were happy to step into his place and strike during the turmoil. Before too long, there would be kingdoms of Shadow everywhere.
Power’s failing through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York
. With Grey dead, the wards were down and the angels gathered reported what transpired. All their efforts for nothing. Grey was gone, but as Kaye had warned, others were happy to step into his place and strike during the turmoil. Before too long, there would be kingdoms of Shadow everywhere.
“Jack,” Laurence said from the stairs behind him. “We haven’t the time to grieve now, friend. We have to stop them while we can.”
Jack hovered a hand over the ash, not wanting to disturb. Love, beauty, hope. A numbness stole throughout his limbs, freezing his bones with its cruelty, trapping a scream inside, warmth forever gone from his soul. Every day henceforth, blood, until Shadow swallowed him.
A mage war, all over again. And they’d already lost.
Chapter 18
Kaye ran through the trees, and when her feet wouldn’t carry her fast enough, she flew, because in Twilight anything was possible. She was still ablaze, but now it seemed her natural skin, like she was always meant to burn. That she could, for once, be serene and alive with passion simultaneously.
“There you are,” a man shrouded in Shadow said to the sky. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
She circled. Peered into his dark face, which was almost familiar, but not quite.
Moving felt better. Up was exquisite.
“Do you know who I am?” he called. The words meant something, but she was slow to find their meaning and to shape the answer.
She circled again. “No.” Strange, closed little word.
The man lifted a brow, quizzical. “Has Shadow confused a mage’s mind?”
Mage sounded familiar too. Did she care?
“There’s an angel named Jack Bastian—”
She shuddered with pain and loss, though the dark one kept talking.
“—thinks you’re dead,” he said. “He’s a different man now.”
Jack... “Bastian?” The trees wailed with her.
“He’s alive and commands the host that moves against the Council of Mages.”
Her memory finally stirred. “I came into Shadow to find a way back. Can you take me back?”
“I won’t take a phoenix into the mortal world.”
She keened, and the colors of forever blurred around her. She felt mean. She would tear him apart. “I’m stronger than you.”
“Yes, as is resurrection to death. If you want to go back so badly,” he said, “you know how.”
Kaye was a quivering nerve, zapping with lightning pain. The one shock became two, which burst into a hundred, and a thousand, until her mind was full of agony and light. She stretched, unwilling, beaten by blood and bone and gripped by corded strands of muscle that tied her into a body. When she cried out her suffering, the fae answered.
... fly fly fly ...
Taunting her because she was lashed to Earth.
... fly fly fly ...
Or urging her to hurry.
Bastian.
She struggled to her feet, found herself naked. Didn’t care. She ran, unsteady, up the stairs and into the room where she’d been cast out from magekind. Beyond that, the offices were trashed, and the front hall was a scene of destruction, the curving staircase blasted in half. And when she turned, she found that part of the front wall of the house had been destroyed as well.
Bastian had been there. And now where? Khan had said the Council of Mages.
“It’s all right, honey,” a man’s voice came from above. “You’re safe now.”
Arman Maya and his daughter, Shana, started down what was left of the stairs. The girl looked much better but was staggering in his grip. Kaye forgot her nakedness and ran up to help him, afraid they’d fall on the fractured staircase.
Arman seized with alarm. “Who are you?”
“Kaye Brand,” she said, trying to take one of Shana’s arms. “You’re the illusionist here, remember?”
“Where are your scars?” he demanded, keeping his daughter back.
Kaye put a hand to her cheek and felt smooth flesh and a pang of disappointment. “I guess they didn’t come back when I was reborn.”
He looked at her a long while, considering. “I’ve got her,” he finally said. “You get some clothes on. The Council is meeting, and we’d better be there to say our piece.”
“We? I was declared stray.”
“The grounds were erroneous, and you know it,” he said, descending. “You have vassals and supporters aplenty, and ward stones to keep your House strong.”
“You played both sides,” Kaye said.
“No,” he said. “That was part of my illusion. I am loyal to one side. When the angels come, your fire will be more useful.”
We do not strike first.
Jack instructed a host of angels a hundred strong on the rules of engagement.
We deliver our demands, and then we leave them to their Council. Don’t be tricked into a false attack.
Jack instructed a host of angels a hundred strong on the rules of engagement.
We deliver our demands, and then we leave them to their Council. Don’t be tricked into a false attack.
But be vigilant,
Laurence added.
We’ve never left a parley without bloodshed.
Laurence added.
We’ve never left a parley without bloodshed.
Look for decoys.
Jack belted the breastplate in place. It was polished to a silver-gold shine but would not remain so for long. The sword was too familiar, an extension of his arm. At least he’d be able to cut down wraiths in a single strike; the blade had been honed by Heaven. It went into a scabbard at his side.
The Council members will be protected by their vassals. Don’t be so intent on the mage before you that you don’t see the one attacking from behind.
Jack belted the breastplate in place. It was polished to a silver-gold shine but would not remain so for long. The sword was too familiar, an extension of his arm. At least he’d be able to cut down wraiths in a single strike; the blade had been honed by Heaven. It went into a scabbard at his side.
The Council members will be protected by their vassals. Don’t be so intent on the mage before you that you don’t see the one attacking from behind.
This was always what he’d been sent back to do. First, an attempt at negotiation, a futile gesture considering the human and angelic lives already lost at the hands of the mages, as well as the coordinated attacks on major cities by earthquake and loss of power. Second, in the likely event the first measure didn’t work, more bloodshed. He’d fight Shadow, but he didn’t think he had it left in him to survive.
We have one chance here,
Jack said,
to get some of the heads of the Houses. They aren’t aware that we know where the Council meets.
That was the one piece of information that had actually been valuable, it seemed.
So they won’t know we’re coming.
Jack said,
to get some of the heads of the Houses. They aren’t aware that we know where the Council meets.
That was the one piece of information that had actually been valuable, it seemed.
So they won’t know we’re coming.
If they have created drones out of humans,
Laurence continued,
cut them and their mage puppeteers down. All wraiths are considered hostile.
Laurence continued,
cut them and their mage puppeteers down. All wraiths are considered hostile.
Jack gripped the burn on his arm to take what little strength he could from it, but it just hurt. He leaned into Laurence, “Did Adam say whether or not Khan was going to assist us?”
Laurence shook his head. “He said Khan thinks he’s helped enough.”
Jack wasn’t surprised. Everything had fallen apart. All goodwill and alliances, gone.
If any one of the mages appears weak or begs for mercy
—he’d have to be satisfied with some mage-learned ruthlessness—
know it for a lie, and cut them from the world anyway.
—he’d have to be satisfied with some mage-learned ruthlessness—
know it for a lie, and cut them from the world anyway.
Kaye clamped down on her revulsion as she walked from Arman’s car through the small army of wraiths amassed outside the Council building. She’d dressed in the smartest clothes she’d left behind at Grey’s house. She and Arman flanked Shana, who was shaking with fear. A woman was on her knees on the ground chanting. Kaye’s umbra responded: It was a call for Shadow to shroud the land. To lend them cover for secrecy. To darken the minds of humanity.
Shadow answered and smoked on the ground. The overcast sky dimmed and the air quieted.
Kaye didn’t have the heart to tell them that she’d already informed The Order where they met. She couldn’t tell them that she’d be the instrument of their destruction. She couldn’t bring herself to warn them that the angels were coming, and to run while they could.
Because she hoped that Bastian would be among them. That he’d be cool reason when her guts had gone weak and her heart was failing.
The wide hallway was empty, though she heard raised voices from inside the Council chamber. And she fancied she saw the strange, insubstantial form of a fae with its ear to the door. Arman didn’t seem to notice. His hand passed right through it to grasp the handle.
They entered into the midst of an argument. The room was full of power. Webb, Hall, and Martin spit harsh words at Wright, Heist, and Terre. A few mages stood solitary, wrapped in their thoughts, while others sneaked near the walls to watch and listen. There was Mason. And on the far side, Gail, whom Kaye would not embrace. She looked around and spotted her father too. And Shadow moved like a snake among them all.
The table at the far end of the room was occupied, two seats vacant, the one she’d taken from Arman with Grey’s help, and Grey’s High Seat.
The gathering parted to allow them through, surprise at her appearance hushing the group to breathy whispers.
Bastian was coming. Any moment now. Bastian would be there, and if the mages were moved to violence, then no one would survive.
“Brand,” Martin addressed her from the Council table. “Do you foresee an imminent attack by Order?”
Kaye stopped before the table, while Arman went ahead and took her hard-won seat. Son of a bitch. His daughter sat on the floor at his knee.
“I do,” Kaye answered. “They’re moving now, but I hope not to attack.”
The crowd was murmuring around her, and the fae were weighing in too, in their own rippling words.
“And how do you have this information?”
“The pureblood told me.” Not quite a lie. Khan
had
told her.
had
told her.
“When?” Martin demanded. “Where? We understood you’d burned to death in Grey’s house.”
“I had actually crossed into Twilight,” Kaye explained. “Khan and I conversed there.”
She’d been delirious with magic at the time, but they
had
gone back and forth a bit. Martin looked pensive for a moment. “I do not trust fire—it is too unpredictable—but your worth is undeniable: We’ve learned that you have House wards, with vassals aligning with Brand fortunes. You’ve won the respect of other Houses as well, and in so doing, Grey has fallen. Further, your power is greater than that of the pureblood who used to be Death. And you know more about what’s to come than any of us here.” Martin continued, “Please take your seat and address magekind so that we may prepare.”
had
gone back and forth a bit. Martin looked pensive for a moment. “I do not trust fire—it is too unpredictable—but your worth is undeniable: We’ve learned that you have House wards, with vassals aligning with Brand fortunes. You’ve won the respect of other Houses as well, and in so doing, Grey has fallen. Further, your power is greater than that of the pureblood who used to be Death. And you know more about what’s to come than any of us here.” Martin continued, “Please take your seat and address magekind so that we may prepare.”
Kaye looked over at Arman. He’d told Ferro to his face that the Maya House wards were open to her. She was not going to return the favor by unseating him again, and in front of all these people.
Arman subtly inclined his head toward the center, as if he had a momentary crick in his neck.
Oh. Kaye slicked with sweat while her mouth went dry. She lifted her chin and stalked around the table. She wasn’t dressed for
this,
the only perk that would make this nightmare bearable. She angled her hips just so and lowered herself into the High Seat.
this,
the only perk that would make this nightmare bearable. She angled her hips just so and lowered herself into the High Seat.
She breathed shallowly so she wouldn’t throw up and looked over the assembly. What was an outcast like her doing sitting here?
“The Dark Age is ours,” she said, her voice echoing in the now silent room. “We all know this to be true, and I have it on good authority that The Order knows it too. Our Houses are thick with Shadow, and will grow even more so. I have seen this in many visions, and have witnessed personally just how thin and porous the boundary between this world and Twilight is.”
So far, so good.
“Therefore, the recent attacks on humanity are unnecessary.” A murmur began in the group again. If they didn’t like that, then they were going to hate this. “As is the use of wraiths to protect us and the capture of angels to feed them. These practices must stop.”
The murmur turned to sounds of dissent. This was not going to go well. She caught only a few words—angels, slaughter us—but she got the point.
A wraith shriek cut through the lower noise in the chamber. The mages stirred, pushing toward the perimeter. Another shriek lifted and was cut off midcry. And then came the sound of marching footsteps in the corridor, so regular they could only be those of The Order.
Bastian, please.
Some mages darted behind the Council table; others hid in the Shadow along the walls. Several primed themselves to fight. Kaye stood, fire in her hands. She hoped for Bastian with everything she was, but she wouldn’t let her kind perish at the hands of others either.
The Council door was flung open by two angels and Jack strode inside, his light parting Shadow into two churning waves. He was unconcerned with the shifty-eyed mages he passed. Their cruelty was in plain view at the far end of the room.
Kaye Brand. This was a weapon of the mind, an illusion meant to torment.
He would not let it. She didn’t even look like herself. His Kaye was scarred.
Hold your ground. Do not be swayed.
“I am the voice of The Order,” he told her. “I have specific demands regarding the treatment and preservation of humanity, as well as the capture and murder of angels.”
“I’ll consider them,” the false Kaye said. She was smirking, a very good reproduction of Kaye’s own expression. Someone had paid attention. “Why don’t we arrange a meeting later to discuss the matter in detail? All this pent-up energy in here is just going to get someone hurt today.”
A dodge to let the mages get away and plan mayhem later, when they were safe in their Houses.
Be on your guard.
Kaye’s gaze shot over his shoulder. She snapped her fingers and hollered, “Hey!” to get someone’s attention. “Put down the black blade,” she commanded. “I’m talking here.” Her gaze settled back on Jack. A bright, satisfied smile. “Forgive my irritability. My temper’s not so great on the best of days, and today I was reborn out of my own ashes, which hurt like Hell. And then I got the big chair, and I really think if we don’t wrap this up soon, one of the mages in the back—”
Other books
And Then There Was One by Patricia Gussin
Certainly Sensible by Pamela Woods-Jackson
Sinful's Desire by Jana Leigh, Gracie Meadows
Loretta Chase - The Devil's Delilah by Loretta Chase
His Obsession Next Door (In the Line of Duty) by Fox, Cathryn
Ross & Wilson Anatomy and Physiology in Health and Illness by Anne Waugh, Allison Grant
Fates' Destiny by Bond, BD
Goddess by Morris, Kelee
A Murder on London Bridge by Susanna Gregory
Fly Up into the Night Air by John Houser