Brimstone Angels (11 page)

“Well met,” she said with a nice smile. She pointed at the whiskey bottle with her chin. “Do you want some help finishing that?”

F
ARIDEH LISTENED TO HER BREATH, TOO FAST AND TOO SHALLOW
. There was only a moment to consider leaping out after Havilar—to consider if she even
wanted
to leap out after Havilar—before Lorcan appeared. The portal made no noise, but the air stirred as he took up space that was once empty, and it brushed hot against the back of her neck.

Whatever else was true of Farideh, she knew Mehen was right: Lorcan was dangerous. She should have rejected his advances. She should have told him where to go when he showed up at their camp in the middle of winter. She should have turned him away every time he came after that. Lorcan was a bastard and a devil, and devils were nothing but trouble. She knew that.

But even though she knew enough to dread Lorcan’s arrival, at the same time an unmistakable gladness went through her when the portal opened—a gladness she knew better than to tell a soul about. Especially Lorcan.

“Come now, my darling,” Lorcan said from behind her. “Am I so much more frightening than the night and a caravansary full of strangers?”

Farideh kept staring out the window at the torchlights along the courtyard. “Who said I was frightened?”

“Then you just want your sister to join us?” She turned and saw him smirking down at her. “Sorry, darling, you’ll have to break it to her gently; you’re the only one for me.”

Farideh felt her cheeks burn. “You shouldn’t be here. What if Mehen comes back?”

“Well,” Lorcan said, still entirely too close, “at some point you’re going to have to stop worrying about what your lizard thinks.” She didn’t move as he paced around her. “Maybe tonight’s the night. We can all agree I was right about your little scuffle before.” His voice was suddenly much closer to her ear. “You were magnificent … despite Mehen’s best efforts.”

“Would you have said the same if that priest had caught me?”

“I won’t let anyone catch you, darling. Be as bold as you like.”

She watched the door as if her gaze was the only thing keeping it shut. “Mehen thinks you sent the orcs.”

Lorcan chuckled. “And what on all the planes would I be doing with
orcs
? He does know you’re only a tenday’s ride from their kingdom of Many-Arrows?”

“Why are you here?”

“I thought,” he said, reaching an arm around her, “you might like a new spell.” He opened his right hand, and she felt the rush of Hellish powers through him, through her. His palm flickered with a dull yellow light. “You certainly proved you can handle what you have against those orcs.”

Farideh stared at the dancing light. It was dangerous. Too dangerous. Every one of these spells was a step farther down the path that surely doomed her.

“What does it do?”

In answer, Lorcan took her left hand in his and the dull light coalesced in her own palm. A thread of power wound its way through her arm. He aimed her fingers toward a piece of firewood sitting beside the hearth. “
Assulam.
”

“
Assulam,
” Farideh repeated.

The light flashed and in the same moment, the wood exploded. Lorcan’s wing cut across her vision to shield her, and when he drew it away, she saw a fine scattering of splinters littered the floor. There was nothing else left of the firewood.

“Don’t try it on anything too large,” Lorcan said. “Or living. It’s not that sort of spell.”

Farideh watched the last fleeting motes of the spell crackling across her palm. “What do I use it for?”

“You’ll think of something,” he said, drawing a finger down her wrist. “You’re clever.” He slipped around her and she stepped back.

Farideh glanced at the door again. Havilar had to be back any moment. Mehen wouldn’t be long. Anyone who heard the crash of the spell.

Lorcan’s eyes flicked in the same direction, following her glance no doubt, and he raised an eyebrow. “Expecting someone?” He shifted toward her and this time, she held her ground and tried not to notice the way he smirked as she did. Sometimes it felt as if he were herding her, driving her this way and that like she were a frightened sheep.

“No. Only Havilar. And Mehen. And I do care,” she added, “what he thinks.” Lorcan’s eyes narrowed. “You promised,” she said.

“ ‘Never in front of Mehen,’ ” he said. “And I keep my word.” He moved away from her so swiftly she was momentarily afraid he was going to walk out the door and through the taproom.

But instead he threw the bolt.

“There. Problem solved.”

She swallowed, her tail flicking nervously back and forth. “Mehen
will
be back—”

“And you’ll tell him you locked it for safety: the night, the strangers, and such.” He closed on her, and Farideh was all too aware of the feeling of seams coming loose inside her. “You’re not as lamb-brained as he likes to pretend you are.”

“Mehen doesn’t think I’m stupid,” she said.

“Just that you can’t make your own decisions.” Lorcan didn’t stop, and she took a step back. She came up against the windowsill. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re always right,” Farideh said, a little sharply.

You want him to notice you
, Havilar had said, and looking into those black eyes again, Farideh had a hard time insisting she was wrong. She knew better—she did—than to trust him. But she kept on trusting him anyway, and he kept giving her reasons to.

Watching her, he seemed to be enjoying the fact that she couldn’t move with him standing so close. The fact that she was staring at his mouth again.

You want him to notice you. You don’t even know him
.

Farideh wet her lips. “How … how old are you?”

Lorcan drew back, startled. “What?”

“How old are you?” Farideh asked. “Havilar and I were talking and … I realized I don’t know. You never told me.”

He stared at her a moment more. “Of course I didn’t. It’s irrelevant. I don’t keep track of that sort of thing.”

“You don’t
know
how old you are?”

“No,” he said tetchily. “And I don’t see why you care.”

“It was just a question. How is it you—”

The sound of the portal reopening startled Lorcan far more than Farideh. He stepped between her and the portal, one wing half-curled around her. Farideh peered over his shoulder.

A second cambion—a woman with her head shaved bald and silvery lines tattooed over her scalp and around the delicately pointed horns protruding from her forehead—stood in the fading light of the portal, her hands on her hips. Her eyes were golden, like Havilar’s, but they glowed with an otherworldly light, and the lashes that fringed them were silver and sharp as needles. The twist of her pretty mouth and the arch of her eyebrows were decidedly mocking.

“Sairché?” Lorcan said, sounding more surprised than Farideh had ever heard him. Unbidden, jealousy twisted Farideh’s stomach, and her tail started to flick back and forth.

“So, this is where you’ve been running off to,” the cambion said.

“What are you doing here?” Lorcan asked.

She smiled. “Finding out why Mother’s artifact is activated. Does she know you’re playing with the Needle of the Crossroads to conduct your little trysts?” She glanced around the room. “You’re going to get mites in a place like this.”

Farideh blushed to her temples. “No, it’s not—”

Lorcan grabbed her wrist hard and she shut her mouth.

“It’s not your business,” he said slowly. “And it’s not Mother’s either.”

A mother. He’d mentioned her before: Invadiah, the fiercest erinyes, he’d said. But for some reason putting the word “mother” to Lorcan seemed absurd and wrong. Farideh held perfectly still, not wanting to pull against Lorcan’s crushing grip and make things worse.

Sairché shook her head, as if poor Lorcan really had no idea what trouble he was in. “That’s between you and her. Of course.” Her
golden eyes lit on Farideh. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little paramour?”

Lorcan squeezed Farideh’s wrist harder. “Not now.”

“Right,” the cambion drawled. “Come find me when you’re finished.” To Farideh she added, “He’s nobody, you know? Don’t let him sell you some line about ‘inciting fiendish passions.’ ” When Farideh blushed harder, Sairché chuckled. She lifted the chain she wore around her neck—one strung with a dozen rings—and slipped the small green one on her finger. Soft as an eye blink, she vanished.

Lorcan had gone as tense as a man holding a hornet’s nest. He watched the spot where Sairché had stood for taut moments, still gripping Farideh’s wrist tightly enough to make her hand throb.

“Lorcan,” Farideh said. “Who was that?”

He spun on her, jerking her a step closer. His eyes blazed and the air between them grew scorching hot, as if Lorcan were about to burst into flame and burn her to ashes with him.

No, she thought, narrowing her eyes. It would take a lot more for either of us to burn up.

Lorcan sneered and released her, all but throwing her arm aside, and the threat of fire dampened. He turned back to glare at the spot where the other cambion—his lover? His rival? His other warlock?—had stood.

She’d said
mother
, Farideh thought Not
your mother
.

“She’s your sister,” Farideh said, and it was as odd a word as
mother
to put to Lorcan.

“One of far too many,” Lorcan said.

“You weren’t expecting her.”

“Of course I wasn’t,” he snapped, still staring at the spot. “She shouldn’t have followed me.” He turned back to Farideh, still agitated. “Has anyone else bothered you? Has anyone been asking about me?”

“Not a soul.”

“Or a devil?”

“No one. What’s going on?”

Lorcan ignored her. “Has anyone asked you about your powers?”

“No,” Farideh said. If anyone had, she wouldn’t have explained them. Lorcan might not care who knew—or he hadn’t, she thought,
until Sairché appeared—but aside from Havilar and Mehen, she’d never wanted to tell anyone. It was too risky.

He frowned at the missing portal. “She shouldn’t bother you again,” he said after a moment. He sounded more like he was convincing himself.

“Why did you let her think we were …?” Farideh trailed off, too embarrassed to finish.

Lorcan’s smirk returned, and whatever was troubling him was gone, hidden away again. “Everyone needs a hobby. Sairché’s is secrets.” Lorcan brushed her hair back and whispered in her ear, “She especially likes knowing things before other people do.”

Quick as an adder, Lorcan twisted the green ring he always wore. Another faint rush of air and he slid between the planes and out of Farideh’s reach. She kept her fists balled anyway, until the portal shut.

Farideh would never once, not in a million years, admit to Lorcan the effect he had on her—though it probably didn’t matter. He undoubtedly knew. He didn’t say what he said or do what he did because he wanted her affection.

She especially likes knowing things before other people do
—he didn’t mean a thing by that. He didn’t mean he meant to.… She blushed again. Havilar was right; she thought too much.

She wondered if she’d enjoy it …

Gods, she thought. She sat back down, and pressed her hands to her face as if she could hide from that thought. She knew better than to fall into Lorcan’s pretty words. Some other tiefling might be foolish enough to think that because he touched her face and called her darling it meant anything at all. Lorcan was a bastard and a devil, and devils didn’t love.

And yet, she’d been jealous of Sairché. Only for a moment, but still. Jealous that she knew Lorcan as intimately as she did, jealous that Lorcan didn’t want her to know about Farideh and didn’t care if Farideh knew about her, jealous that Sairché looked so confident and powerful—there was no changing that she’d felt it. But gods, Farideh could slap herself, she was so annoyed that she’d been jealous. She was being silly to think for even a moment about Lorcan as if he were any other boy, any other man—but the idea that she could stop him in his tracks the way Sairché had … that was harder to feel silly about.

A grunt and the frenzied sound of hands scrabbling at roof tiles made her look up. One pale hand clutched at the sill.

“Fari!” Havilar hissed from beyond. “Come help before someone hears!”

“Gods,” Farideh muttered, but she went to the window.

The boy from the caravan clung to the window frame, looking up at her as if seriously reconsidering whatever her sister had said to convince him to scramble halfway up the slippery shakes of the roof, braced only by Havilar, who in turn braced herself against the gutter by one heel.

“What happened to ‘no one will see me’?” Farideh hissed, taking hold of the boy’s arm and hauling him in. Havilar scrambled up after him and grabbed ahold of her sister’s hand.