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My own lust was again s ould happen to e-heat free had been an effective deterrent Flappingto be mounted was not my idea of a fun ht ten, while the townsfolk were leaving for work or the continued early-ed clothes I hadn&039;t wornto practice as I should, hours a day, dressed for war There was no one to de sessions No one to care how I dressed when practicing savage-chi alone I never troubled to wear either the loose practice dobok or the tighter battle dobok, never strapped all the blades in place But the unifor on the tight ars for securing blades on ar the spine fros for saltwater bombs, Dead Sea water, seraph feathers, an ax, nunchucks - even places for holstered guns, not that I had any weapons but blades
The battle dobok still fit, though I hadn&039;t worn it in more than ten years In the mirror over the vanity table, I watchedcertain all the sea blades into the straps properly, so they slid free easily I had a moment of uncertainty about which wrist blade went on which arht and left shin blades, but I finally got them all in place A blade was strapped into the collar of the dobok, the hilt hidden in my braided hair The po beheaded or chewed on froed, and I stood over the da the harm I had done it in a fit of temper At one tih to keep e attributes blanked without continuous effort Noas barely alive, only a weak energy pulsing in its heart I had tried once to charge it anyway, and the power slid right through it into another a the them with the Velcro straps I was ready Gabriel&039;s tears, this was stupid But I was going anyway I bent one last tis, fro the the extra time to load them into a stone I studied the notations I had made, then closed and shelved the book
I drank a liter of springwater, hooked a second liter to ed with extra strength fro stick and opened the stained-glassat the back of the loft, the hugethat once was used to swing in hay bales and feed It faced the woods north of town and the Trine I grabbed the plue pipe and shimmied down to the old alleyway I checked the time I had less than two hours to see as in the woods and still get to work before opening At a slow jog, I passed the stables and trotted into the trees
As soon as I left behind areas where huainst a tree trunk for balance, and openedit open, I blended a se, but this time I was prepared, and they didn&039;t overpower me The nausea I experienced the first tiestion than like the need-to-hurl nausea in the church
The hillside north of toas a glowing fairyland of colors and scents The snow and sunlight were a sickly yellow The trees were dark with ht blues, pinks and gold, bright with creation energy The air s, with the scents of sap and leaves The ht wind The scent of sulfur overlaid it all like sround I wasn&039;t surprised that the sulfur see me
Old brick and stone stabbed up froular depressions of basements half filled with detritus and soil,still Abandoning hu twenty feet uphill, sweeping ht over the landscape I was alone, but others had been here The stones atwere fully exposed, the snow, running ater that trickled like tiny bells, but the ground wasn&039;t completely bare except for where I stood There were hundreds of footprints, the reek of aer scent of sulfur, and the harsh s to the denizens of the deeps The reek of the netherworld, re the ancient fears deep inside, I searched for the things that were hunting me
Circlinglaterally across the base of the Trine, I counted three trails into the hills, two that led vaguely east and one that led west, all rid up the mountain, I followed each trail for several hundred yards, co upon the half-buried, burned remains of an old fire truck, its hose in a pile Far above, the grade changed froe thinned, and shattered rock rose toward the sky, the raw, blasted peak the result of Mole Man&039;s battle
The sun clih the tangled branches overhead The snaps and spits that signaled snowwater were the only sounds I bent over tracks, several different sets, overlaying one another As I expected, the tracks were not froories: one that wore boots like a hue as my spread hand, and the others froely, all the spawn tracks seele beast I knelt in the slushy snow and exaht footpad Both the spawn prints and boot prints reeked of Darkness
The spawn had spent its ti, its footprints winding behind trees, behind boulders, in depressions of old foundations When I triangulated its positions, its focus was clearly on the spring, not on the business and loft It atching the boot wearer as that creature had watched me At no point did the spawn shift into a position where it could see ry spawn ignore the scent of ry
I studied the boot prints, thinking about the spelled beings who had attacked Rupert Second-unforeseen? Huht had been wide open Had they been as well glamoured as Audric? Their boots had tracked as human Was this one such as they, or was this the track of a daywalker?
When I was sure that no Darkness was on the hill, I walked along the treeless length of an abandoned road, back tofor clues to ht still open, I tried a deeper blended scan and this time nearly fell over The kaleidoscopic ihts, ss Over it all rode a taste of evil
At the iht the overload as a cold sweat broke out on my body I tied to parse my reactions into fact, intuition, and fancy I scented, felt, tasted, the spaholly evil, whollyto eat, to rend, to destroy But the Darkness that had lain in wait behind the trees had been watching the other, the shod being, the daywalker, following hi on the walker
The daywalker, however With my senses totally open, the daywalker didn&039;t smell like the spawn Instead of the scent of pure Darkness, the walker was aelse I pulled in the scan, concentrating on that one odd note of reality, and openedthat was fa I had only recently smelled for the first ti to the tree, I drew the aro that while I used my senses like this, I was totally exposed and vulnerable If I hadin my search, I was open to attack I was dinner and a mate,out rising fear, I sought to identify the trace scent Suddenly I knew It was the scent of hu else was seraph The scent of the High Host The smell of holiness Thaddeus Bartholo ies aroundthe air I fell on the wet, bare soil at the base of the tree, landing hard onstick and a root
The world swirled arounde taste, not the taste of Darkness or of kylen
When h to allowstick out fro the top off the liter of water, I swished so until I could drink and keep it down
When I could stand, I braced against a large white oak, branches wide and bare, a tree e friends from childhood would have loved It e I brushed the detritus off h to h and butt It was snowh sky and air I could feel it drainingwater, charged from deep inside the stone mountain, I watched ain I wasn&039;t watching where I placed , I crouched on a slab of ed the fountainhead, and settled the walking stick across hs as I cupped water overlike a brand but instantly stopped the leaching of power froht reach fifty today, but on the hillside, under the cover of the trees, it was cold When I stood fro, I rested my hand on a boulder for balance
From the stone, Darkness reached out and touched ently downpuddles and violent sprays of old blood, of death and terror, and the cleansing scent of sage snared me Words, words like music - as if the demented in hell had broken their chains and for Bizarre words Meant for"I seek you"
Its hands slid up , wanton Heat blossomed in my belly
"I seek and I desire you, only you Seraphs will not touch you Will not love you In their orderly, mannerly, obedient way, they will never offer themselves to you Never"
Unable toprickles of desire I looked for the thing that touched me, but I was alone, naked in the woods, on the hillside A wared stone, ed with an incantation shaped and forhts of passion," it said,me shiver ant "I can show you the true power of the Book of Workings I can give you control over your gift without the needless Enclave instruction and practice and ti study" The hillside and the mountain above it burst forth with power, the power that was hidden there, waiting forbeside y, blue and scarlet power from the center of the earth Below it roared a volcano of power, the sound rocking th, the force, the raw, raging ht, deep in the earth belowan outlet I was nearly overcome Nearly reached out to it Nearly took what could be , an ocean of proe of ht developed an imperfection, asnow brushed er to move The shackles of the incantation loosened Around me, the vision continued
The incubus&039;s hands andth and delights of the flesh than you can iine Come to me I desire you, you above all others I desire you Come to me Come," its breath murmured on my bare throat "I invite you; I desire you I am here for you For you alone"
As it spoke, I eased my hand away from the stone Reached under my tunic, the tunic I could feel only with e stone bear Its back was a hus, solidly planted and strong I placed it over the pocket holding the rough shards of stone and drew strength from them all I drained the bear and the stones in an instant, paltry power coes Yet it was enough to drawstick&039;s sheath fell tosound of last year&039;s wet leaves, and I whirled, liftinga blade withto beto be huround I swept into the cat stance, ready for attack It atchingbetween its knees It tilted its head to the side, dele heartbeat Ti heartbeat, I focused narrowly on it It had long black hair braided into a single plait, stones interwoven in the strands Loose hair drifted slowly in the cold breeze It earing dark blue, the color of periwinkles, tight pants that hs and buttocks Its shirt was a lighter shade of the saht to its body, but with loose sleeves, the collar open halfway down its chest, fine hairs visible in the deep V Its eyes were a liquid blue and threw back light like polished labradorite in the sunlight
My heart beat thrice; ti, but it looked human, in its twenties, its face unlined And still it watched as if curious, un itself safe
The heat of battle fla in the winter sun Its lips tilted up and I stopped, stunned by the beauty of that so to hi?"
"Never," I said I pulled the last of the bear&039;s strength and transferred it to the bloodstone of the walking-stick hilt in ht palm
"She didn&039;t think so She will be pleased" The smile faded "You understand that I have no choice"
"All beings have choice"
"Not us We never did" It stood in a single, fluid e could ever hope to move "I&039;m sorry," it said "She said I should say that if I had to hurt you" And it charged
I slaht Twelve feet froround, one knee dragging a long trench through the top-soil and old leaves
Left-handed, I hurled the throwing blade at its heart, drew the kris in the same instant and raced toward the daywalker Surprise scored its face Fear It opened its mouth It shifted My thrown blade whistled past My sword blade descended
But the beast was gone Whirling, blades high, I searched, feet planted firmly in the wet earth The daywalker with the beautiful face and shining eyes was gone I strode quickly in a widening circle, blades at the ready Thirty feet beyond where we had stood wasthe kris, I scooped up the knife, the wicked point angling back behind hting skills hadn&039;t been enough to kill it The daywalker had , faster than my eyes could trace Faster than I could react I wanted its blood I had let it get away
I drew on the walking-stick hilt, the power of bloodstone fillingthe incantation Little was left Yet the conjure that had crafted the enticement was crisp and neat, and I breathed it into nize the pattern of the teain It was a powerful, intricate web
I had no salt but would use as handy With the heel of one boot, I traced an irregular ring in the soil, a big circle around the spring, the cistern, and the rocks that enco the jade elephant that stored a basic char closed, feeling the power of the circle snapping into place Without of the ground, a little burble of underwater listened, a crackling blue of purity I ran ht across the rocks, the branches, the soil beneath my feet Only the rounded rock had been polluted I sheathed my short blade and scooped up a handful of water
Withoutto think about them, the words were there, the words I had taken fros and refined for ed one of the incantations and added it as a prologue line to another one I knew the incantation was right Knew it deep inside where er I said, "Cleanse and purify stone from Darkness"