Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) (17 page)

“Go!” he said.

I went. Just before disappearing inside the cabin, I glanced back at Ari, Rafe, Fara, and Virtus. A tiny dot of fear, more like apprehension, pricked my stomach. It felt like I’d swallowed a pin. What I was feeling now was just the beginning. That one sharp stab that lets you know something’s wrong.

I couldn’t help remembering Fortuna’s prophecy for me:
When traveling into the unknown, sometimes the biggest danger is the one you bring with you . . .

*   *   *

A
round 4:00 p.m., everything was finally loaded and stashed away, battened down and ready for our voyage. So far, the only crew member I’d met (and I didn’t even know his name yet) was the young boy who’d initially greeted us. The cook had been buried in the kitchen (preparing some elaborate first meal, or so I was told, which was a little disconcerting because, weren’t elaborate meals usually reserved for
last
meals?) The captain was nearly nocturnal (or so I was told). He let his mate, the young boy, work the ship during the day while he prowled the decks at night. Not having met Delgato yet, I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.

The dahabiya pushed off from dock twenty-three
E
with a roar of her engines. I nearly leapt for joy upon hearing them. Thank Luck we wouldn’t be under sail the entire time. I’d been afraid the trip would push us into next semester. I watched our departure alone from the rails. The mate was steering, and Ari, Fara, and Rafe were below, probably scalding themselves with hot showers and donning warm clothes, as I had an hour or so ago. It may have been the month of Ghrun but today’s weather had made it feel like early Rign.

I’d been pleasantly surprised to find out that, despite the dreariness of our intended destination, the boat we’d be traveling in was comfortable, almost lavishly plush. Everyone had their own cabin. They were tiny, but each one had its own bathroom, wardrobe closet, and bedroll. The bedrolls were on frames, but they were covered with soft linens and plump pillows. Accommodations at the Joshua School were more spacious, but Ari and I would feel right at home with the amount of space allotted to us here. In fact, I was used to sharing the same amount of space with Ivy, so my cabin here already felt opulent by comparison.

There was a formal salon and dining area, much nicer than Marduk’s, although rougher looking than our dining room back home. But then, I’d grown up on one of the richest estates in Etincelle; our dining room was three stories high and could comfortably seat thirty people; one could hardly expect that on a boat. Besides being a place to eat, the dining room seemed to serve but one other purpose: underscoring the river’s dangers. A handful of original oil paintings were scattered throughout the room, mostly on the walls, but some on small easels or sideboards. These paintings featured an astonishing variety of assorted and horrific water demons, performing unspeakable (but not unpaintable) acts of depredation, defilement, and despoilment. The subject matter of the artwork was no doubt risqué, but there was no denying that the scenes themselves were savagely beautiful.

The lounge doubled as the library. I couldn’t help wondering what Delgato’s arrangement was with the various Maegester and Angel schools in New Babylon. The boat had clearly been designed with students in mind. The lounge/library was the biggest enclosed area, and the most charming (of course, compared to the atrocities displayed in the dining room, an accidental drowning would appear charming). The windows in the lounge were stained glass depictions of various Haljan myths. Cynicism, unfortunately, comes naturally to me and I couldn’t help thinking that, though the windows were exquisite, they’d likely been designed to keep attentions directed at the contents of the room, scholarly books and academic treatises. The library’s stained glass windows completely blocked the view of the passing landscape outside.

Lastly (though it had, in truth, been the first thing I’d noticed), were the dahabiya’s demon defenses. All the windows were equipped with heavy metal shutters, the kind that shut and lock with one pull. The upper uncovered sundeck was surrounded by cannons—contemporary ones that used explosive demon shot and the ammunition we’d brought aboard.

In short, the dahabiya’s posh appearance couldn’t conceal what it really was—a battleship.

*   *   *

A
nd so it was, in the twilight of Saturday, the sixth day of the sixth month that year, that we set off for the Shallows in eastern Halja, a destination we would hopefully reach, if all went well, in a little over a month.

That night, after the sun went down, our group met in the dining room for the elaborate first meal and formal introduction to the captain. In some respects, that first meal
was
our last. At least our last meal together for a while. After that, one of us would always be on watch. But that first night out, the four of us got to break bread together without much fear of being attacked. As our dahabiya motored through the strong, wide waters of the Lethe, a full moon rose over Halja, icing the tips of each passing, lapping wave in silver. Farther off, the moon’s gentle light soothed quietly rustling fields of phlox, larkspur, and goldenrod, sending the unruly wildflowers’ riotous reds, violent violets, and shining saffrons into a slumberous mix of dove, sandalwood, and fawn. In short, the staging for our dinner was magical . . . Magical in the way performances are that start with a barker calling: “Want to watch a woman get sawed in half?”

*   *   *

W
e collectively decided to dress for dinner. Each of us had brought one formal outfit. Ari showed up in a black cloak, pants, and a bone-colored collared shirt. Fara wore a skintight, stark white satin gown trimmed with black feathers. I was beginning to get a feel for her look. She loved grandstanding. She’d left her hair unbound and it fell past her shoulders in long, lush, lightly twisted, honey-colored curls. Her eyes were bright emerald specked with gold and her lips were candy-apple red. Her beauty was so over-the-top even I might have been pea green with envy had I not known the whole thing was a highly impressive glamour. This was Fara’s idea of making a good first impression.

I snorted. None of us had yet seen what the “real” Fara looked like. I supposed she’d keep us in the dark forever.

For my part, I’d taken a risk with my dress. I rarely ever bare my demon mark. For one thing, I’d spent a lifetime hiding it. For years I pretended to be a regular Hyrke. I’d gone to a Hyrke high school and a Hyrke college. I had Hyrke friends and went to Hyrke hangouts. I’d never wanted anyone to know I had waning magic. Waning magic users were men. They were destructive. They started fires and killed things. Their touch harmed growing things. Without the aid of dramatic and powerful spells, I’d never have a garden, eat fresh fruit, or . . . have a child. Even a powerful spell couldn’t fix that last one. So, for most of my life, I’d viewed myself as this sterile, unnatural aberration. That is, until Ari came along.

It’s a whole other story, but Ari basically put me on the map of femininity. I still don’t always feel good about my magic, but I’m getting better. Which brings me to the second reason I’m cautious about baring my demon mark: when Ari touches it, it burns. And the burning feels . . . good. Which means, should anyone witness an unintentional brushing, well—they’d certainly know how I felt about him. His mark worked the same way, but men’s clothing designs being what they were, there weren’t a whole lot of reciprocal ways I could accidentally show the world my effect on him.

So my dress tonight was risky because it was an asymmetrical one-shoulder black silk gown. The bare shoulder was my left one, the one with the café-au-lait-colored splotchy demon mark. It almost appeared as if the dress was made to show off the mark, which, while not true exactly, was part of the reason I’d bought it. It established my authority immediately.

In the dahabiya’s dining room, I nervously fiddled with my drink, an applejack cocktail, my nod to our new partners, the Angels—although I felt like exchanging it for simple grape wine. My own Guardian was late! And we could hardly start without him since he was the one who was supposed to introduce everyone. Thankfully, the captain wasn’t here either so I hadn’t been put in the awkward position of postponing an introduction I should have made hours ago. I set my now near-to-boiling cocktail down on a sideboard next to a painting of Estes ravishing a young woman in the reedy waters of the Lethe just as Rafe showed up. His “formal” outfit turned out to be a clean pair of pants and a rough-looking jacket. He held a deck of cards in one hand.

“I came prepared to work for my wine,” he announced, walking over to where Ari and I stood. On the way he leaned down to give Virtus a scratch (Virtus hissed at him) and whispered something in Fara’s ear. She shrugged and followed him. Virtus trailed after her. When we were all gathered in front of
Slaking His Thirst
, the title of the painting of Estes having his way with the voluptuous woman in the water, Rafe fanned out the deck of cards and said:

“Pick a card.”

I frowned. I wasn’t in the mood for kids’ card tricks.

“Working for your wine means acting like a Guardian, not one of the seraphim,” I snapped. “Where’s the captain?”

Rafe’s attention, which had been lightly bouncing among the three of us, now zeroed in on me with sharpened intensity. His gaze started high, took in the straight sweep of my ribbon-bound hair lying across my right shoulder, traveled down the length of my clingy silk gown, and then came slowly back up to rest, briefly, on my mark.

“Now
that’s
a black robe Justica would be proud of,” he said, whistling softly and broadening his smile to include everyone. I narrowed my eyes at him. There was one skill in which Rafe would always rank first: provocation.

Ari refused to be baited. He reached for a card with a bland expression on his face, his signature as battened down as the food crates on deck. He looked at his card, took a sip of his drink, and gave it back.

Fara took a card, leaned down to show it to Virtus, scratched the cub behind his ears, and slipped it back into the deck. I took mine. It was the nine of claws. I handed it back to Rafe.

“Y’all know real magic when you see it, right?” Rafe said in an affected drawl. “It’s not an extraordinary promise, like the Guardian’s oath.” He looked directly at me. “‘I shall do whatever is necessary to preserve and protect the life of my ward,’ Nouiomo Onyx.”

“The Book of Joshua, twelve, seven,” Fara murmured. I stifled a groan.

“And it’s not an ordinary act, like protecting you from harm,” he said, still addressing only me. “In our story, that will actually come later.” He glanced at Fara and then Ari, clearly including them in his next remark. “Real magic happens when I perform an extraordinary act—like revealing a manticore in our midst. So, without further ado”—Rafe’s voice rose then as if he were addressing a crowd of three hundred instead of three—“I’d like to introduce our captain, Ferenc Delgato.”

And then Rafe did something I’d never seen another Angel do. He motioned quickly with his hands, making a series of complicated signs in the air. He ended with a dramatic flourish and pointed toward the door. A hideous beast materialized there. It was at least eight feet tall with huge, powerful, bulging muscles, a red lion’s mane, a slavering jaw full of deadly sharp teeth, and a long scorpion’s tail with a barbed tip that looked like a gigantic hornet stinger. The beast’s signature felt sharp and prickly, as if the beast was brushing my bare skin with barbed wire. The sensation of it made me feel slightly woozy and in that instant, I realized that, though we traveled upon the surface of the water, we were in deep, deep trouble.

Delgato was a demon.

I
stumbled forward and grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself. Suddenly, it felt like someone had flayed me, doused me with gasoline, and then set me on fire. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to blast Delgato with a warning shot.
Stay away!
I wanted to scream. My reaction was irrational, I told myself as sweat broke out along my upper lip. This was only a physical and magical reaction.
This
was what happened when Host children were raised as Hyrkes. My instant “fight or flight” reaction wasn’t normal. It was simply the result of inexperience and fear. Fear of what the demon might do to me. Fear of what I might do to it.

Rafe gestured toward Delgato again and suddenly he was just a man. Well, a man with a signature, but at least the beast was gone. And his signature felt a little less excruciating. Delgato was obviously a very powerful demon. Odd that I didn’t remember reading about him in the Demon Register. But then, no demon I’d studied would willingly have traded the title of lord or patron for mere captain, so maybe he was listed under another name. A few deep breaths later I had my magic under control.