Bitter Night (19 page)

Max cocked her head and sniffed, closing her eyes. She sorted through the scents her sensitive nose picked up, searching. Diesel, garlic, sweat, asphalt ...she sifted deeper. A taste of the ocean, a hint of eucalyptus ...There. Smoke. Not just smoke. Something else with it’no, intertwined with it. Divine.

Her eyes opened. Alexander met her gaze broodingly like he knew something about it. A chill rose up her back. She could not trust him. “Something you need to tell me?”

“We’ve had a dry summer and fire isn’t unusual this time of year. But the other’” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She stared a long moment. Was he lying? She was sure he was’about something. The question was’what? Did this have something to do with Selange? There was no telling. But it was too coincidental not to wonder.

“It’s a fire. Unless you’re going to go put it out, sit and eat before the food gets cold,” Magpie ordered in a surly voice from behind.

“You’re a nag,” Max said, returning to her seat. She watched the deft movements of the cook for a long moment. Magpie’s warning still prodded at her. But the fire was far to the south. Neither they nor Horngate were in danger from it. Though Max trusted her instincts that screamed it was a threat, she could do nothing about it at the moment. “Kamikani and Derek need some food, by the way,” she told Magpie at last. “Better take Giselle something, too. She looked like she wanted to bite something.”

“Or someone?” Alexander asked shrewdly. “You maybe?”

“You could have said so when Tyler was here,” Magpie said, snatching up a tray and beginning to pile it with food.

“We’ll help,” Max said, standing up again. She really didn’t want to upset Magpie, who was known to get payback by tampering with the food. Nothing like burned lasagna or supersalty meat loaf to bring about a quick apology.

When they returned, Max dug into a bowl of fettuccine Alfredo.

“What are you planning to do with me?” Alexander asked suddenly. He’d sat down opposite her again and was watching her eat.

“I don’t know. What should I do with you?”

“You cannot trust me.”

The corners of Max’s mouth quirked as she wound noodles around her fork. “Can’t I? Gee golly willikers, Homer. That never would have occurred to me. Thanks for the heads-up.”

He smiled, a lean, wide expression that made Max swallow hard. So fine, she told herself sternly. He’s very pretty. Admire him all you want. Drool all you want. But he’s as dangerous as a bouncing betty land mine and more likely to tear you to bits. You. Will. Not. Touch.

“I merely wanted to point out that I realize it would be stupid for you to trust me.”

“And everybody knows I couldn’t possibly be stupid,” Max said sardonically. Then, “Do you have to talk that way? Like you’re wearing a tux and tails and have a stick up your ass?”

He looked faintly affronted. “I was not aware.”

“There you go again.” She waved her hand. “Never mind. Look, I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Slick. You did protect me and you didn’t have to. You could have tried to win your way back into Selange’s good graces by giving me up. I owe you for that.”

“You do not owe me. You carried me out of the Conclave and defied your witch doing it. You nearly got killed for your trouble. Besides, I doubt Selange would have taken me back,” he added softly.

“You don’t play poker, do you? You’re not supposed to give everything away. Besides, you were her Prime. She wouldn’t want to lose you.”

“Maybe,” he said, looking down. “But you heard what she said. I failed her. There is no greater crime.” He hesitated, his hands clenching on the table. “Those rats ...They were’It was’” He broke off, his face turning pale, his breathing ragged.

“I know,” Max said sympathetically. Alexander hadn’t been the first time Giselle had tried that particular attack, and Max remembered the horror of it all too well. “You break faster when they go after your mind rather than just your body. That’s how Giselle got to you. Next time try not to care.”

His glance was sharp, delving. Damn. She did play poker. She changed the subject. “Anyway, Giselle will decide what she wants to do with you. It’s not up to me. You don’t have to kiss my ass.”

He shook his head. “I think she will listen to you. And I would like the chance to earn your trust,” he said. And then, “Kissing your ass would only be a bonus.”

Max’s brows shot up in surprise. “Are you flirting with me?” Please no. Because if he started that, she might not be able to resist, and she didn’t need that kind of trouble. Plus she had rules. She did not mess in her own backyard, which meant’the kiss with Oz notwithstanding’she did not screw the men of her covenstead, no matter how much she might want to.

That slow smile came again like he knew the effect he was having on her deprived libido. Max’s stomach tightened. Holy crap. “Is that against the rules?”

“You bet your ass it is,” she snapped, pushing aside her empty bowl. “So what difference does it make if I trust you?”

He frowned. “You are my Prime now. You said so yourself. I am useless if you cannot trust me.”

“True. Except you’re not bound to Giselle yet. You could just ...leave.”

His mouth fell open, then closed in a firm line. “Just leave?”

She shrugged. “Why not?”

“And do what? What witch would have me?”

“Why would you want one? You could be free.”

He was quiet for more than a minute. “I told you. I am Shadowblade. I am made to serve. I neither know nor want anything else.”

“One doesn’t make the other necessary,” she argued. “Not if you’re unbound.”

Alexander was looking at her oddly, his gaze searing. Max flushed and ducked her head. She’d said too much, and freedom wasn’t his dream.

“That is why,” he blurted. “That is why you helped the Hag. I could not figure it out. It seemed so’”

“Stupid?” Max filled in helpfully.

He only nodded.

She shrugged. “You’re right. It was. I could have died. As it was, you caught me. But then, I’d call serving a witch stupid if you didn’t have to, so it’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

He winced and she remembered what she’d called him. Waste of skin. He remembered, too. She could see it on his face. She’d apologized for it once. She didn’t do it again.

Impatience suddenly swept over her. Her expression hardened and so did her voice. “All right. Here’s the way it is. If you do anything to risk or hurt my people, I’ll slit your throat. Clear enough? As for what I’ll do with you’that really does depend entirely on Giselle.”

“She ordered you to leave me behind,” he pointed out, untroubled by her threat. “You did not. You defied her and she let you. I think a lot more depends on you than you are willing to say.”

“Giselle can make me do anything she wants,” Max said. “If she cares to take the trouble. Where do you think she learned that rat trick? Don’t think I can’or will’save you. It’s a fool’s bet.”

“You have already said I am a fool.”

“I hope to hell you’re smarter than that.”

He leaned forward, speaking earnestly. “You are my Prime. You take the job very seriously. I have seen the way your Blades are with you. They would follow you into the bowels of hell if you asked, and even if you did not. If Giselle ordered them to kill you, I think she would have a revolt on her hands. There is a reason for that. You would give your life for them’you would give a lot more than that. I think,” he said slowly, sitting back in his chair, his fingers tapping slowly on the table, “you are a decent bet.”

She shook her head. “That’s the thing about gambling. The house always wins. Don’t be a sucker. Get the hell out of here while you can.”

10

MAX STUFFED HERSELF UNTIL HER STOMACH felt like it would explode and then she ate more. She didn’t know if it was in preparation to answer the foreboding that collected like the smoke from the distant fires, or if it was to try to smother her conflicted feelings’for her Shadowblades, for Alexander, for Giselle. Worst of all Giselle. Now that she knew what the witch was up to with Horngate, fighting her seemed selfish. More than that’it seemed wrong. And yet agreeing to permanent slavery seemed wrong, too.

She finished eating and bused her table and thanked Magpie. “We’ll be rolling as soon as we can,” she said. The other woman nodded shortly, but made no comment as she continued to knead a mass of dough. Her silence was welcome. Max found herself falling into a dangerous, angry mood, and the slightest spark would set her off. Even Alexander seemed to know it. Like Magpie, he said nothing to her as she motioned him to follow her out of the Garbage Pit.

Outside Max felt claustrophobic. She needed open air, trees, and tall mountains. That made her pause. When had that happened? When had Giselle’s mountains become more of a home to her than the grass prairies and cornfields of her birth? She’d grown up in the sticky humidity of the Midwest, where the land rippled beneath a sea of grass, corn, and soybeans, all fading into nothingness, unbounded by any impertinent mountains. There the rivers ran brown over mud beds, and seeds sprang to vigorous life wherever they happened to drop. It was a verdant place, a welcoming place, a refuge. Montana, on the other hand, was austere and unforgiving. Its mountains were sharp and forbidding, its forests full of teeth and claws. Winters were bleak and frigid, and life did not easily take hold there. Still, she longed to be back, climbing the sheer sides of the peaks, losing herself in the rich silence of the trees and the cutting winds and the brilliant skies. Perhaps it was that the place better matched what she’d become. Hers was a life of blood, battle, and death.

“Are you all right?”

Max started and twisted her head to look at Alexander. “Not you, too. Do I look broken?” Immediately she wished she hadn’t asked. She wasn’t sure she’d like the answer.

“No. But you do not seem yourself.”

“What the fuck do you know about me?” she snapped back and then spun and walked away. It was time to get on the road.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked the screen on the front. Oz. Finally. She flipped it open.

“What’s going on? Where are you?”

“In Dubois, about to head up over Monida Pass. Wanted to check in with you. Word is we nearly lost you.”

There was a warm edge to his voice that reminded her of her Midwest home. She felt herself recoil. “I’m fine, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said, more coldly than she meant to.

Silence. “Glad to hear it. What about Giselle?”

“She’s tired.”

“When are you getting on the road?”

“Soon as I finish with you.” Max scraped her foot against the pavement, impatient for the call to be over.

“All right. I’ll let you know what we find at Old Home.” Oz stopped, as if trying to figure out how best to proceed through a battle zone. A short sigh. “Keep yourself safe.”

“Yeah. You, too,” she said, then snapped her phone shut and shoved it in her pocket.

She glanced at Alexander, who remained silent. It annoyed her that he was in Oz’s clothing. She felt like both men were hovering over her like vultures, waiting for something. What it was, she did not know.

A sudden disturbance rippled through the air. Max stopped dead, then whirled and sprinted for Giselle’s RV. Alexander raced after her.

A flash of witchlight lit the night. It was brilliant white, fading to yellow, then orange. The ground rumbled and the parked semis shuddered and groaned as a thundering force wave blew by like a hurricane wind. Blinded, Max stuttered and slowed. Alexander shouldered into her. She shoved him away, her head up as she smelled the night. Uncanny and Divine magic uncurled like tentacles in the air. She tasted salt brine and char and smelled seaweed and burnt feathers. She raced forward.

Giselle’s RV looked like it was encased in gray shadow. Its protective wards were gone, accounting for the explosive flash. Max could hardly believe her eyes. Beside it stood an angel. He was nearly seven feet tall with ebon wings rimmed in fire and eyes as red as garnets. He wore ratty jeans and his sculpted chest was bare. She barreled forward, spinning with her back to the RV, facing the intruder.

She didn’t bother to make conversation. She hitched forward, sweeping her leg at the angel’s knees. The sudden force of it shattered one of his knees with an audible crunch. He should have dropped. Instead he swept a wing between them like a shield. Flames flared bright along the feathers. Max had a blade in her hand and crouched, ready to attack. Giselle stopped her.

“Max, wait.”

Max stopped. Stillness settled around them, like the quiet just before a nuclear explosion. Max could hear the soft crackle of the flames burning along the angel’s black feathers and smell the stench of burning tar as the flames scorched the asphalt. He stared at her with his red eyes, his expression eerily blank. Max smiled, silently daring him to try something.

“What do you want?” Giselle demanded.

“My mistress sends a message for you” came the angel’s baritone voice.

“Does she? Is she declaring war?”

“No.”

“Then why do you attack?”

“A mere accident, witch. You have my apologies.”

He didn’t sound remotely apologetic.

“Who is your mistress?” Giselle demanded, not sounding like she believed him any more than Max did.

“This scroll shall explain.”

The bleached-blond angel was holding out a rolled-up parchment. Bone knobs wrapped in red and purple threads protruded from the ends. The knobs were carved in the concentric shapes of the circle, star, and triangle, with a single point in the middle, like an anneau floor. The threads wrapped the scroll in a complex weaving. Before Giselle could even think of taking it, Max leaped in front of her.

“Hands to yourself, asshole,” Max said, her knife raised between them.

A noose of Giselle’s remaining Sunspears and Shadowblades closed around them, and the angel’s wings flared warningly, sparks drifting down to ignite tiny fires on the pavement.

“I should warn you about my fire. One does not usually survive its touch.” He spoke to Max, still holding out the scroll.

“Try to touch my witch and I’ll rip your damned wings off,” she answered.