Host (13 page)

“You found her,” the woman said. She had a beautifully modulated voice, mellow and serene. “And I know who you are. Speak.”

“Forgive me. I searched for Lolo, the priestess of the New Orleans Enclave,” I clarified, running over in my mind the words I had used in the calling. I hadn't mentioned Lolo's name, and I hadn't specified the New Orleans Enclave. I had screwed up again, calling for any priestess who liked music and lived by the sea.

The woman's voice grew hard as petrified wood. “You have found her,” she said distinctly. “Speak.”

Shock made my breathing speed up and my heart trip unevenly. “Lolo?” I whispered.

“The former priestess is in retirement.” There was an edge of satisfaction in the words. I had no idea how to react to that but it seemed politic to ask after Lolo's health. When I did, the mage on the lounge flicked her manicured fingers as if tossing away something useless and said, “The old priestess is unwell. She suffered an apparent stroke during an unanticipated mage-heat rut.” She turned her leaf-green eyes to mine, stroking honey-blond hair back behind her ears. She was about my age, maybe a bit younger, early twenties.

Unanticipated?
Ruts were scheduled and planned, to prevent chaos and to keep bloodlines pure. An idea flickered in the back of my mind, but I didn't know how to ask my questions without getting burned. This mage was all sharp edges, like saw grass in a marsh, cutting and brittle. I said, “The date of this rut? Was it within the last three weeks?”

The priestess's pale brows lifted. “It was.”

I took a deep breath, stabilizing my oxygen intake. “Was it caused by an unscheduled visitation by Barak, the Watcher, to Lolo?”

She reacted by the merest tightening of her lids. And I knew. I had freed Barak from his captivity and he had gone directly to Enclave, against all edicts of the Seraphic High Host, the ruling council of seraphs. Seraphs caused mages to go into heat. Mages had the same effect on seraphs. It could get ugly if it happened without proper precautions in place.

After an unnerving pause, she said, “Yes.”

That was short and sweet. I tried another question. “Forgive my ignorance. I ask a point of clarification. Is Lolo also the one called Daria, the first mage to lie with a seraph and produce a litter of kylen?”

The priestess, who hadn't bothered to tell me her name, tilted her head, a small smile on her wide, coral-tinted mouth. “Old history. Barak has been chastised for his presence here. The Watcher claimed to have been prisoner of a Power of the Dark for many decades, and to be unaware of the edict against seraphs in Enclave.” She lifted a negligent shoulder. “All know a Watcher has no need or coercion to speak the truth of the Most High. But the Watcher left willingly, when he saw the havoc he was creating, including Lolo's seizure.”

Seizure? A coldness settled in my chest. Across the loft, my eye was caught by a faint green glow. Barak's flight feather, a talisman of great power, freely given, was shining with lustrous energies, reacting to something, but I didn't know what. The scrying? The conversation? His name? The presence of a charmed circle? I took it as a warning, though I didn't really need one. “He left willingly?” I asked. “So the seraphic council didn't imprison Barak for his visitation?”

“They did not. But they asked many questions when they scried us. They have uncovered a conspiracy by the former priestess,” she said, a barely contained glee in her words, “one that jeopardized all Enclaves. It is believed that you are in the center of this intrigue.”

Careful,
the visa throbbed at me.
No kidding,
I thought back. This mage didn't like me. And she was Lolo's enemy.
Meekness,
the visa suggested. I could do meek. Unless I got riled; then my mouth tended to run away from me. “Me?” I asked. “How can I be involved in any Enclave plot? I am the least of my kind.” This was true from several viewpoints, formal mage training uppermost, pecking order in any Enclave next, and consular assignments last, though I hated to sound so pathetic. Yet, the visa was right. Humility, even false humility, would help me most here, if I could keep my temper long enough to feign my way through it.

“True,” she said. “You are from an abnormally small litter. Only twins. And all know that small litters often result in weak and unworthy offspring.”

I wanted to slap the woman for the insult, but I kept my face immobile. If she was testing me, I needed to show restraint. If she was really this stupid, I could learn more by curbing my temper than by giving in to it. And if she had reached the position of priestess at such a young age, she wasn't stupid. But I felt my back molars grind.

“However, though from an atypical litter, you
were
created by Lolo, who locked your parents together during a rut.” She was watching my reaction to see if this was new information. It was, but for reasons I couldn't articulate, I didn't want her to know that. “There is evidence that the mating was against their desire, as both were paired with others at the time, and further evidence that they were brought together by a love incantation in the hopes of more litters.”

I remembered seeing a love potion in the
Book of Workings. Blood and plagues.
What had Lolo done? Such crimes carried ghastly penalties. When I didn't speak, she went on.

“What do you know of her plans for her offspring? If you provide us with answers, you may be spared punishment when you return, after your visa runs out next year.”

Return? I had no plans to—
Her offspring?
I thought back over the conversation. Had my parents been of Lolo's lineage? Daria had born both kylen and pure mage children. Were Rose and I of Daria's mage lineage? Yeah, that's what the smug little priestess was insinuating, and that opened up an entirely new strategy for this conversation. Because if I was of Lolo's line, I was genetically superior to the little twit baiting me from afar.

I let the idea settle into me. I had never looked up my genetic ancestry, though all mage family trees are carefully cataloged. Mage heat could cause mating too closely in a direct family line, so most mages have a thorough knowledge of their lineage, down to the human, Pre-Ap ancestors. I never expected to experience a rut so I hadn't bothered to learn my own. And even had I looked myself up, I hadn't known that Lolo and Daria were the same person, making it impossible to comprehend the connections.

The mage was still speaking and I dragged my awareness back to her. “…with a small cadre of seraphs to affect the course of developing mage powers and gifts. If you tell me all you know, I would be willing to stand for you before the mage council when you present your defense for leaving Enclave without authorization.”

I had missed something, but I recognized the carrot and stick. I was being herded and I didn't like it. I put aside my qualms about speaking out of turn and said, “Priestess, what is your official title?”

The woman blinked. She had been rude and officious, and now the ugly, scarred, and provincial mage was calling her on it. A mage who had to outrank her. Had to.
So that's why she's all prickly.
The priestess sat up slowly in her chaise and stared at me through the surface of the mirrored water, trying to intimidate me with her influence and position.

I had been stared at by a Major Darkness. There wasn't much that a less powerful being could do to me. And that had to tick her off too. I raised my brows and allowed a bit of my own power to shine through the scrying. Her shoulders went back, and the pearly flesh beneath her silk lace blouse glistened. “Thorn of the twins, of the line of Daria, I am Élan, of the litter of seven, of the line of Eugene.” She put peculiar emphasis on the name, as if he held some special importance. I had some research to do. “I am an earth mage and acting priestess of the New Orleans Enclave,” she said, adding the last line almost unwillingly.

Acting priestess?
I smiled at her. I didn't need a mirror to know it wasn't a pretty smile. Her face hardened like old wood, polished and smoothed. The gloves had just come off. Whatever this woman had against me, her antipathy had surfaced and multiplied. Lucky me. And so much for humility.

Lolo's line is preeminent,
the visa confirmed, a tiny pulse of information.

Feeling myself on surer footing, I said, “Priestess Élan, I didn't leave Enclave without the consent of the council, I was drugged and smuggled out, banished by the former priestess when I was still a child. If there is sin, it wasn't mine, as all children are innocent.” I was parroting mage law. Audric had prepared me for this accusation, knowing it would come once I was found out. “I am properly licensed,” I continued, though there was a time when I hadn't been, which made it a sticky situation, “and my visa and GPS locator device were provided by the Angel of Punishment Cheriour himself”—which she well knew, as it had been reported on SNN. “They are both in working order and were presented when requested by the town fathers of Mineral City. There will be no trial,” I said.

“Accusations have been made that you were in the human world for some time before the appearance of the angel, living without diplomatic sanction,” she said, her tone laced with satisfaction. Yeah. She wasn't stupid. “Additional charges have been laid that you went to war against a Major Darkness without Enclave permission.”

I needed permission to fight evil? “My champard will answer all charges when I am brought before the entire council,” I said, with emphasis on the word “entire.” Her lids flickered again. I refused to be judged by a small cadre of neomages. As a mage in the human world, it was my right to ask for a full ruling, and she knew it.

If Lolo's line was preeminent, then maybe that offered me another opening in the little battle of wills and knowledge. But it meant taking a chance. I raised my chin slightly and let my mouth soften. “I was not notified that Lolo was ill and that her duties had fallen to another. You are kind to take such onerous responsibility from my shoulders until I return.”

Her eyes tightened and lips thinned.
Bingo!
Now I knew why she was so bitchy. That knowledge gave me more options and confidence. I wasn't powerless in this battle of wills and words. And it helped that she was a lot less beautiful when she was being backed into a corner.

“Should I decide to give up my place in succession to the position of priestess,” I said, “I shall consider all your service at this difficult time.”
Carrot and stick right back at you, you little witch.
They couldn't pay me enough to take that job, but she didn't have to know that.

While I had her off balance, I could take the chance and confirm my conclusions about who and what I was. I said, “It has been brought to my attention that Rose and I, while only lowly twins, were bred to be the first battle mages who could join mentally with seraphs, without physical mating, in the fight against evil. We would become a new weapon in the war against the Dark, a weapon that would provide new war strategies to the High Host. Surely the current council concurs with the historical record.” Assuming there was one.

Reluctantly, Élan nodded, and I said, “Bred to fight, under the aegis of the previous council, I did not require the permission of the current council to fight Darkness. Especially when seraphs fought with me under mage-in-dire regulations.”

For an instant, the priestess's expression blanched. And then she smiled, sweetly, cruelly, and I knew I was about to be sucker punched. “You are better versed in your history and purpose than we had supposed. But you are an orphan.” The blow went home with breath-stealing force.
I am alone.
“You have no littermates, no parents, no litter of your own. No mage but our emissary with whom to mate, none but filthy humans with whom to breed powerless
mules
. You are unworthy to be priestess. You have no family to draw upon, no power base to support a claim on my position of command. You are
nothing
. And you are far away from Enclave.”

Bruised at the truths she threw, I felt anger rise in me. Without thought to the consequences, I said, “All true. But I have bested a Major Darkness in mortal combat. I have fought shoulder to shoulder with seraphs. There are no reports of mages,
except for me
, fighting the Dark in more than a lifetime. You, like all the mages in captivity, are soft and weak and beautiful, but utterly useless at anything but being a pawn of seraphs or stronger mages.” Her mouth opened in shock and I felt a brutal joy at her reaction. “I carry a seraph stone, freely given by Zadkiel, battle companion of the ArchSeraph Michael, and a flight feather gifted to me by the Watcher Barak.” I leaned in while I had her off balance and said, very softly, very distinctly, “And I am linked to the wheels of one of the cherubim. If I want your pitiful little job, witch, it is mine.”
And my sister is alive, curse you. A seraph said so.
But I didn't say it. I had that much self-control left to me.

Outside my conjuring circle, outside my loft, far up the Trine in the ice and snow, the lynx howled. The omen of danger. I flinched. What had I said? What had I just done?
Plagues and blood,
I thought. I had just declared political war against the acting priestess of the New Orleans Enclave.
Me and my big mouth.

“You are rude and untutored and coarse,” she spat at me, her beautiful face twisted with malice. “A barbarian, ugly and scarred. I will challenge you to personal combat for this position should you ever be foolish enough to contest my right to it. And you will lose, no matter what seraph power you have in the human world.” With cruel delight she said, “Seraph energies are barred from this place.”

I tightened my hands in my lap. I had forgotten about that.
Stupid, stupid,
stupid.