Bitter Night (4 page)

Max didn’t wait any longer. She slashed downward through the lavender witchlight and into the salt circle. Power walloped her, throwing her backward. She landed hard, her head snapping against the ground, the air exploding from her lungs. Instantly she flung herself up onto her feet, gasping for breath. Her hand was scorched red and her arm ached fiercely. She didn’t know where her knife was. She shook her hand as if that would cool it and returned to the edge of the circle.

The witchlight was gone. On the ground was a ring of gray ash. Max scuffed a gap in it with her foot and went to kneel beside the Hag.

“Mother of winter, we must move you.”

The Hag opened her eyes. They were pale blue and cold, like glacier ice. Her lips peeled back from her stalactite teeth and she spat something in a language Max didn’t know.

“I don’t understand you. They’re coming back for you. Can you walk?”

Max offered the Hag her hand. The Hag twitched, her mouth twisting as she tried to move. She slumped, her eyes drifting closed, her breath rattling in her throat. Cold radiated from her. Max’s breath plumed in the air.

“What can I do?” Asking was risky. It implied a promise. Much could be made of that.

The eyes lifted slowly. “Feed.”

Max jerked back, then caught herself. What the hell am I doing? She should just kill the Hag and put her out of her misery. Cutting her heart out would do it. Max’s stomach churned. No. Not tonight. There had been enough deaths here. It wasn’t often that she could save lives. And she could spare the blood.

She didn’t let herself think about the stupidity of creating a blood bond with the Hag. She slid her other knife out of its sheath and slashed her wrist in one sharp motion. She cut deeply. Her healing spells would kick in too quickly otherwise.

She held her arm out and let the blood run into the Hag’s lipless mouth. Her blue tongue, pointed like a lizard’s tail, swept out and licked the drops from the air. The change was almost instantaneous. Her eyes burned neon and her body spasmed. She clutched at Max’s arm with her knotted fingers, pulling it down to her mouth with iron strength. The black, pointed nails drilled into Max’s skin.

Instinctively Max yanked back, but the Hag was too strong. Her mouth fastened on the wound as she licked Max’s flesh. Cold followed. It crept up Max’s arm with searing intensity, numbing her skin and turning it white. Max groped for her knife, knowing the Hag could drain her in a matter of minutes.

Instead of the knife, her fingers found the shotgun. She scrabbled for it even as the Hag let go. Max clutched her arm against her stomach, shivering. With her other hand she hefted the shotgun. The Hag sat up. With her long tongue, she licked the trickles of blood from her chin and cheeks.

“Can you move?” Max asked through stiff lips. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

The Hag twisted her head, tilting it as she examined Max. Her eyes still glowed brilliantly, and Max recoiled from the power swelling in them.

“What do you want?” the Hag whispered in a voice that sounded like gravel in a blender.

“To get out of here alive. Which we won’t do if we don’t get a move on.”

“No. What do you want?”

Max struggled to her feet, swaying. “Come on. They’ll be coming soon.” How long had it been? Eight minutes? Ten? She could hear the rumble of diesel engines and a faint crunch of gravel. The trucks were on the long, shaded drive.

The Hag stood jerkily, like she’d been pulled up with strings. She was almost a foot taller than Max, maybe six and a half feet. Her skeletal hands hung at her sides, the fingertips curled loosely.

Max stepped back, firming her grip on the shotgun. “I want to get going. Understand?”

The Hag shook her head, the long, ropy strands of her white hair moving as if alive. “You burn,” she said. A bony finger prodded the air near Max’s belly button. “Rage.” She drew the word out as if savoring it. “What do you want?”

“Don’t move.”

Max whirled around, swinging up her shotgun. For a split second, she met Alexander’s piercing gaze as he sighted down his .45. Then with a motion too fast to comprehend, a flash of blue struck Alexander, wrapping him in a cocoon of blue witchlight.

“Stillness,” said the Hag.

It was, Max realized, a command. Alexander didn’t move, didn’t even blink. He was frozen. Slowly she lowered the nose of her shotgun and glanced sidelong at the Hag, who held a staff in her skeletal hand. It was made of black wood sheathed in ice. Spiky holly leaves twined around its length, and the top was carved in the shape of a crow.

The Hag looked at Max again. She tilted her head, pointing with her staff. “There will be war. It stands already on the threshold. Many, many will die. The world will be remade. Soon you will stand at a crossroads. You can choose fire”’the staff prodded Max in the stomach’”or you can choose blood.” The staff touched her wrist where the slash had already closed. “Be warned, either path will have a cost. Lives will be saved and lives will be lost.”

The Hag bent close so that her nose nearly touched Max’s. Max fought to stand still, though every instinct told her to run like hell.

“You gave blood. There is a debt owed. I give you this.” The Hag reached into a tattered pocket and withdrew a silvery white lump. She set it in Max’s hand. It burned with cold, but did not melt. A hailstone. “When the time is right, swallow it. Know what you want. You will have it.”

With that, the Hag skimmed over the grass to the pool in the grotto. In her wake, frost glittered on the grass and cold wind gusted, despite the August heat. She did not turn as she stepped into the water. In a blink she sank and was gone. The wind died.

Max pocketed the hailstone without looking at it again. Her mind reeled; she didn’t know what to think, and she didn’t have time to sort it out. She faced Alexander. The blue light that held him was dimming. A few more seconds, a half a minute maybe, and he’d be free. It didn’t matter if she got away before that. He’d seen her. They both would be at tomorrow night’s Conclave’every witch was required to bring her Shadowblade Prime. Now or then, there would be a showdown.

She raised the nose of the shotgun, pointing it at him as she thumbed the hammer back. At this range, the blast would take his head off. No one else would know she’d ever been here. She stared at him, her eyes locking with his, her finger hovering over the trigger. Her compulsion spells raked steel thorns through her, pushing her to kill him. She still hesitated. There was something about the way he looked at her’as if he recognized her. Maybe not who she was, but what she was. She felt like he could see all the way inside her, and the feeling was both deeply unsettling and strangely welcome. No one got close to her. After Giselle had turned her, she’d wrapped herself in emotional Kevlar, and that was the way she wanted it. When her body felt the need to be touched, she found strangers in bars and enjoyed a roll in the hay and then was on her way’no ties. She held everyone at arm’s length, even her Shadowblades, whom she’d come to care for despite herself. But Alexander’s gaze cut through to the core of her. Without even speaking a word to each other, she knew that he already understood her better than anybody else in her life. It was a gift she hadn’t known she wanted, and she couldn’t just blow it away.

Abruptly she lifted the gun and rested the barrel on her shoulder, easing the hammer back down.

“My name is Max,” she said, not sure he could actually hear her. “I’ll see you at the Conclave.”

With that, she ran past him, heading for her Tahoe. Tomorrow night was soon enough for them to try to kill each other.

2

THE HAG’S MAGIC HELD ALEXANDER HELPLESS. He could not move, not even to breathe. Even his heart stopped. He was frozen like a mosquito in amber. All he could do was watch and listen and wish to hell he understood what was happening. Nothing tonight made any sense. Redcaps didn’t hunt Hags, and what were they doing in Southern California? Both belonged to the Scottish highlands, and as far as he knew, traveling across continents was not something they made a habit of. And if that wasn’t enough, now another witch was involved.

The strange Shadowblade woman was clearly a Prime. There was no mistaking that aura of volcanic power and authority. Even shaking with blood loss, she moved with the total confidence of a predator who knew her capabilities and was willing to take them to their limits. Alexander could feel her strength’a heady blend of molten iron and bottled lightning. He had not encountered the likes of her in many years’maybe not ever. Which made her a riddle. Any Prime as powerful as she was had to be bound to an extraordinary witch, someone the equal of Selange. That worried him. He did not know any who would fit the bill. Such a witch would be old and established with a large coven and he would have heard of her. Or him.

His compulsion spells woke, sliding over him like razor wire. There was danger for Selange here and he was helpless against it.

He watched the Hag give the Prime something, then the Hag sped out of sight and the Prime turned to look at Alexander. She wore a black hat pulled low over her eyes. A fringe of blond hair escaped from beneath it. Her face was angular, beautiful in the relentless, bold way that eagles are beautiful. Or cobras. She was shorter than him by four or five inches, but that made her no less dangerous. She raised her eyes and the nose of her shotgun at the same time. Everything in Alexander seized as electric fire seared his muscles. He was hypnotized by her gaze. Even if he could have, he would not have looked away. All thoughts of Selange faded, and he was sliding deep into something he did not know how to resist. He was not sure he wanted to.

A long moment passed and he was aware that the Hag’s magic was weakening. He could tell she saw it, too. Any moment she would pull the trigger. But then shockingly she lifted the shotgun away, resting the barrel on her shoulder. Her brows rose in a challenge, her jaw jutting with defiance. “My name is Max. I’ll see you at the Conclave.”

Then she disappeared, running past him. He caught a whiff of her’a sharp tang of citrus, a hint of something earthy, a zest of sweet venom overlaid by the thick taste of greasy hamburgers.

He could not let her get away. He did not want to. He struggled against his bonds. Ten seconds. Twenty. He broke free and sprinted after her, crashing into Thor as he came around the corner.

“What the hell?” Thor demanded, shoving him away.

Alexander caught himself on a garden bench, spinning to scan the treeline. “We had company.” He shook his head. “She will have a car somewhere. We will not catch her now.”

He scowled, turning back to Thor. The big blond looked like a street thug from Cow Town, USA. He wore a short-sleeved, black T-shirt with BRMC scrawled across the front in white block letters, worn black jeans that had long since faded to gray, and battered cowboy boots. Blood smeared his hands, forearms, and cheek. He wore a straw cowboy hat cocked back on his head, a bowie knife on his left hip, and his .44 revolver on his right, strapped down and slung low like he was about to step onto the set of a spaghetti western. His eyes were as cold as the ocean depths as he waited for orders.

“Is the house wired?” Alexander asked.

Thor nodded.

“Then go find Brynna. See if she is still alive. Have the others collect the redcaps. I want to be on the road within the next five minutes.”

Thor loped away without another word, leaving Alexander alone on the lawn. He jogged up the berm past a tractor and stopped under the eaves of the orchard. Deep footprints trailed away in the soft loam, spread widely apart. Max had been running full tilt. As he expected, she was beyond reach. But not for long. Selange was hosting a Midsummer Conclave tomorrow night. Every witch who held a covenstead west of the Rockies would be there, and every one would be bringing his or her Prime. His fingers flexed on the hilt of his gun, and he slowly slid it back into its holster on his hip.

He rubbed a hand over his goatee as he looked into the trees. This was not over. He would see her at the Conclave, and it would be ugly. Selange did not tolerate trespassers in her territory, and she would want to know what interest Max’s witch had in the Hag and the redcaps. He grimaced. By any accounting, Max should have killed him. It was stupid not to. She could have escaped with no one knowing she had ever been here. What had stopped her?

But he remembered the devouring pull of her eyes and knew why she had not, just as he knew that when they met at the Conclave, there would be no room for mercy or any of the silent things that swam between them. They would be at war.

“TELL ME AGAIN WHAT THE HAG SAID. LEAVE NOTHING out,” Selange ordered, the words curling with a faint French accent. She had been in America for more than a hundred years and still the accent clung to her like the sultry perfume that she wore. She sat primly behind her delicate desk, her silky legs crossed demurely together. She was small, only five feet tall and not quite a hundred pounds. She was also one of the most powerful witches in North America. She did not ask him to sit or offer him refreshment. A reprimand’for so many things.

Alexander examined her with slow deliberation. Her hair was cut in a sleek black cap that curled under at the shoulders, her bangs a straight line across her forehead. Her face was rounded, her eyes brown and lined with thick, dark liner, her mouth a red slash across her pale face. She wore a high-necked, sleeveless mandarin sheath in dark blue. On her feet were four-inch stiletto heels. She was sitting with her hands together, staring intently at Alexander.

He was surprised at just how little he felt for her. For many years he had adored her with single-minded devotion, captivated by her beauty, power, and exotic charm. There was nothing he would not have done for her. She had wrapped him in spells that made him strong, fast, and deadly’he had been a god among men. She taught him how to read and write, how to speak and dress, and then she had given him the world. There had been nothing he did not want to try and nowhere he did not want to go. He had been like a child ransacking the proverbial candy store. His new life had been as glorious as touching the sun, and he had no words for his gratitude’then or now’for the gift she had given him. The price was worth it. He had embraced becoming one of Selange’s Shadowblades and never once looked back.