The Brush of Black Wings (12 page)

So focused on tracking his wife through
incantation and so relieved at finding her, he barely registered
the structure at his back, incongruous as it squatted on the
featureless landscape beneath the ever-changing sky. The cottage
door hung open, and he tensed at the sight of a hazy shape hovering
just inside the doorway. It stepped onto the threshold, revealing a
wide-eyed woman of regal bearing, garbed in fine
clothing.

“
Who the hell are you?” he
practically snarled at her and smirked when she jumped and
retreated into the cottage.

“
Peace, Acseh. He’s a friend,”
Martise called to her in Glimming. Silhara scowled at her.
“
My
friend,” she corrected. “There’s no need to
hide.”

He refused to second that notion. Nothing and
no one here was safe from him except the wife he’d cracked open a
demon’s cage to retrieve. He watched, narrow-eyed, as the woman
Martise called Acseh ventured out of the cottage, keeping a wide
distance between herself and him as she came to stand to one side
of Martise.

“
Why is there a house in the
middle of a demon’s world?” he asked in the language he and Martise
shared in their world.

She answered him in the same tongue with a
faint smile. “That’s a story in itself and one we don’t have time
for now. Acseh is human, a prisoner here. From Megiddo’s age I
think.” Her voice softened so only he could hear. “He calls her
Damkiana. It’s Makkadian for ‘mistress of earth and heaven.’ It’s
the name of a Makkadian goddess, sacred to witches.”

Silhara’s eyebrows rose as he stared at Acseh
who stared back for a moment before her gaze slid away from his.
“Is that so?” Martise’s nod and intent expression revealed her
thoughts matched his. Demons using affectionate terms—this place
grew stranger every second.

Martise continued. “She doesn’t know the
meaning of the name. The king won’t tell her, and neither have I as
of yet.”

Silhara scrutinized Acseh before crooking a
finger at her. “Come closer.” He rolled his eyes when she shook her
head and took two steps back. “Fine,” he said. “I can do this as
easily with you standing there.”

Both women gasped when he hurled a
walnut-sized ball of red light at Acseh. She tried to leap away but
was held fast by Silhara’s sorcery. The small light swelled to
enclose her in a crimson cocoon that pulsed and hummed.

Acseh’s eyes were the size of saucers, and she
swatted at the light, arms flailing as she sought to brush it off
her skirts.

He half expected a protest from Martise, but
she stood quietly next to him. Sympathy clouded her expression, but
she said nothing, allowing the spell that sought out demonic
possession do its work.

The light faded and disappeared, leaving Acseh
shaking and teary-eyed. Martise didn’t approach her, but she
offered an apology in Glimming. “I’m sorry, Acseh,” she said. “I
want to believe you are as much an unlucky human as I am, but I
don’t know you. That spell verifies you’re no demon or host to
one.”

“
It doesn’t mean you can trust
her,” Silhara said. He wasn’t in the least apologetic for using the
spell on an unwilling target.

Martise sighed. “I know.” She glanced down,
and it was her turn to startle. “The books were right. You found
the sword.” She stretched out a hand, not quite touching the
scabbard where it rested at Silhara hip, partially hidden by his
cloak. “It feels...”

“
Foul,” he finished for her. He’d
grown more used to the skin-crawling sensation that danced up and
down his leg, but if he didn’t need the blade to control the demon
while they lingered here, he’d gladly unhook it from his belt, snap
the thing in half and toss the pieces in the dirt.

Martise didn’t withdraw her hand, and her brow
furrowed. “It is foul, but something else as well.”

He shrugged. “Whatever it is, it’s bought us a
little time. Not much though. Are you ready?”

She nodded. “Since I got here. What’s your
tether to our world? What’s mine?”

“
I splattered enough blood on the
temple steps to harness a team of horses.” He traced the deepening
lines in her forehead with his fingertip. “You know the price of
difficult rituals, apprentice.”

Her frown became a full scowl. “I don’t have
to like it. You’ve shed so much of your own blood for your magic,
it’s a wonder you aren’t bled dry by now.”

He didn’t argue her point. He’d bled plenty
during invocations and considered the price worth it. He was
blessed with an extraordinarily powerful Gift and the skills to use
it to his maximum benefit. If it meant spilling some of his own
blood to exercise that power, so be it.

He was much more reluctant to spill Martise’s.
“Your spirit necklace is hidden beneath a pile of stones near the
temple. If that and my magic don’t anchor you to our world, nothing
will.”

“
Please. Don’t leave me
here.”

Silhara and Martise both turned at Acseh’s
plea. His brows snapped together. “You speak our language?” His
question, in Glimming, was a whip’s kiss, and Acseh
flinched.

She shook her head. “I don’t need to. You talk
with your faces and bodies as well. It’s easy enough to know of
what you speak.”

Martise tugged on his sleeve. “We can’t, in
good conscience, abandon her to this fate.”

“
Yes we can.” He took a breath to
argue more when a blot of darkness appeared before him. Hands with
an iron grip lifted him off his feet and hurled him backwards
through the cottage doorway. His spine shuddered, and black stars
exploded across his vision as he slammed back against a wall of
rock. Martise’s screams were distant in his ears as he fell and
rolled.

He barely regained his feet before he was
thrown once more, punched sideways into a trestle table that tipped
and fell half on him, pinning him between it and the opposite wall.
A sharp pain throbbed in his left side, and his sight blurred. He
clawed for the sheathed sword trapped beneath him.

“
Touch it, and I’ll snap her
neck.”

Silhara froze at Megiddo’s command. The demon
stood a few steps away, pale and black and malevolent. Martise
stood in front of him, her eyes wide and nostrils flared. Megiddo’s
hand curved under her chin toward the side of her jaw. His other
arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close. His faint smile
might have frosted windows from the inside were he in the living
world.

“
Speak or reach for the sword, and
there will be no saving her, even if you manage to return to your
home. Broken and disfigured here. Dead there. How much are you
willing to sacrifice, sorcerer, so that I may act your
puppet?”

Silhara wanted nothing more than to spit his
adversary on the demon blade and roast him over an open fire, but
he held his tongue. He stared into Martise’s eyes, trying with only
a gaze to reassure her. Her terror was palpable in the room—to him,
to Megiddo and to Acseh who stood near the door, ashen and
still.

Megiddo gestured to him with a thrust of his
chin. “Take off your belt and toss it toward me.”

That was easier said than done with him half
pinned by the overturned table. Silhara did as instructed, careful
to always keep his hands in sight. After much squirming and
sweating, he managed to free the belt from the twisted fabric of
his cloak and threw the sheathed sword over the table where it
landed closer to Acseh than to Megiddo.

The Wraith King shook his head. “Difficult to
the last.” The tone of his voice shifted, softened, and he
addressed Acseh without taking his eyes off Silhara. “Damkiana,
kick the sword to me. Don’t touch it with your hands.”

Acseh hesitated for a moment, gaze darting
back and forth between Megiddo and Silhara before she did as the
king commanded and pushed the glowing scabbard across the floor
with her foot. It spun until he stopped its spin with the toe of
his boot.

Heedless of the fact she was embraced by a
demon and enrobed by cursed shadows and damned souls, Martise did
her best to climb up her captor and away from the sword where it
lay near her feet.

Her struggles didn’t faze him. Megiddo neatly
flipped the scabbard into the air with his foot and caught it with
the hand previously resting at Martise’s waist. The hand at her
vulnerable neck never moved.

Lightning slithered up his forearm and
disappeared into the shadow robes. Silhara watched, puzzled, as the
faces swirling in its mist faded. Even more unsettling was the
minute change that overtook the king. Had he any doubt about
Megiddo’s corporeality, being physically thrown into a wall had
squelched that notion. But the Wraith King
looked
more
solid, more...complete, as if the connection with the sword added
layers to him that weren’t there before.

The king is the sword; the sword
is the king.

Megiddo’s slight smile returned. “You are
indeed powerful, mage. No barrier ward I ever heard of withstood
this blade’s effects. We could have used a necromancer like you in
the beginning.”

Silhara bit back a scathing remark, bound to
silence by Megiddo’s threat against Martise. Beginning of what? The
annihilation of a world by demon hordes? Even if he were a
necromancer and lived then, he’d be quick to tell the Wraith Kings
and their ilk exactly what they could do with their demand for his
help. Besides, those who dealt with the dead rarely consorted with
the damned. Far too unpredictable and savage.

Megiddo uttered something in a guttural
language that made the hairs on Silhara’s arms rise and plummeted
the temperature in the cottage. The blade slid out of the scabbard
by itself and hovered mid air at Megiddo’s forearm. The sharp
lightning blue radiance crackling down the steel cast Martise’s
drawn features in high relief. The king dropped the scabbard and
grasped the sword hilt.

For a split second, his gaze flickered away
from Silhara to the sword, and his hand relaxed against Martise’s
jaw. It was the opportunity Silhara had waited for. The command not
to speak had little bearing on a man whose voice had long ago been
ruined by a strangulation attempt. Spells worked in any language,
even those of hands as well as the mouth.

He sketched a quick symbol, and Acseh screamed
as an invisible force slung her at Megiddo and the sword’s lethal
edge. The demon’s eyes widened. He was fast, inhumanly so, just as
Silhara hoped. Megiddo shoved Martise from him and spun so that he
caught Acseh with his free hand and yanked the blade away before it
sliced into her.

Silhara fired off another spell. The table
holding him down shot across the room, a moving barricade that
slammed the demon against the wall behind him. The mage rolled to
his feet and grabbed Martise’s hand, using the precious moments in
which Megiddo was busy juggling a sword, a woman and a crushing
table, to dart out the cottage door.

He shoved Martise through first and nearly
choked on his own cloak when something grabbed hold and wrenched
him back into the cottage.

Rage cast a red haze over his vision. Gods
damn it! He’d had more than enough of this bastard!

He fired spell after spell against the demon
king, turning the cottage’s interior into a shambles of shattered
furniture and cracked walls. The sagging roof groaned and
threatened to cave in on them. Silhara sought the one weak spot
besides the sword, but Megiddo shielded Acseh, absorbing every
shockwave of battle magic Silhara threw at him until his coiling
hair literally smoked, his robes screamed in agony and his face
bore the black grooves of scorch marks in the marble
skin.

Silhara advanced on him, casually hurling
spells. He heard bones crack and saw Megiddo flinch, but the demon
remained standing, sword held at his side, Acseh crouched behind
him, arms covering her head.

“
You can throw spells into
eternity, mage, but you will not leave here until you open the gate
for me,” Megiddo said.

“
Then you and I will dance this
dance forever, demon spawn.” Silhara lowered his stance and lunged
for Acseh.

The tell-tale crackle of the sword hummed by
his ear. He jerked back, caught Megiddo’s wrist and crushed the
tendons on the underside. Megiddo’s palm opened and the sword,
still bound by the barrier wards, fell into Silhara’s
hand.

Too easy, he thought. Far too easy. But his
suspicions didn’t stop him. He turned the sword and drove it into
Megiddo’s chest, just below the breastbone. The blade sank deep,
through clothing, skin, muscle and organs and out Megiddo’s back.
He staggered, stumbled over a wailing Acseh and fell against the
wall. The sword tip raked down the plaster, sending snow drifts of
powder over the demon’s robes.

He gasped a few short breaths, and his icy
hand closed over Silhara’s where he still gripped the hilt. Silhara
twisted the blade and was rewarded with another gasp. “Stings,
doesn’t it, demon?”

Acseh crawled away from them until she climbed
to her feet and flew out the door. Megiddo watched her escape
before turning his metallic gaze to Silhara with a gleam of
satisfaction. He grinned, a death’s head smile of clenched teeth
and black amusement. “I am no demon,” he said in a wheezing
voice.