Fiery Edge of Steel (A NOON ONYX NOVEL) Read online

  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.

  * * *

  And 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?”

  * * *

  We 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.

  Chapter 11

  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 r
eaction 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.

  Delgato, meanwhile, studied each of us with his eerie, iridescent cat eyes. He finally settled his gaze on Rafe. “If you’re the hornpipe for this group, get on with it, then. Burr’s dinner is only getting colder and Russ has been on deck since sunup. He’s looking forward to me—and one of you—relieving him.”

  Most Angels couldn’t resist a bit of showmanship and Rafe was no exception. As he introduced us, he infused each of our names with just the slightest ping of magic.

  “Raphael Sinclair,” he said, gesturing to himself and bowing. “Son of Roderick and Valda Sinclair nee Gotzon of Etincelle.”

  “Fara Vanderlin,” Rafe said, gesturing to Fara. “Daughter of Friedrich Vanderlin, Archangel of the Fifth District and Guardian of the current executive of the Demon Council, Karanos Onyx, and Mary Gamboge of Etincelle.” Fara also bowed, and then couldn’t resist adding her own bit, from the Book, of course: “‘And thus it was said at the End and in the Beginning, friends are now enemies and enemies are now friends. The demons were, are, and ever will be Legion. Welcome, demon. Welcome, friend.’ Joshua, one, one.”

  Delgato appeared unimpressed by this recitation but he nodded politely and turned toward Ari, who was next.

  “Aristos Carmine,” Rafe said. “Adopted son of Steve and Joy Carmine of Bradbury. Former demon executioner for Executive Onyx.”

  “Bradbury, Mr. Carmine?” said Delgato. “A strange place for a member of the Host to grow up, eh?”

  Ari gave an almost imperceptible shrug. I’d been horrified upon hearing that Joy had found him as an infant, floating in a basket on the Lethe. I’d asked him several times since whether he was at all curious about his birth parents, who had apparently sent a child out on the Lethe to drown. But every time, Ari always said that as far as he was concerned, he was born in that basket.

  “Nouiomo Onyx of Etincelle, daughter of Karanos Onyx, the current executive, and Aurelia Onyx nee Ferrum of the Hawthorn Tribe.”

  I nodded to Delgato. I’d learned that Host didn’t bow to demons, at least not to lesser ones like Delgato. Historically, they’d served us. He eyed the alembic around my neck and then his gaze dropped to my demon mark.

  “So you’re Rochester’s Primoris,” he said, creeping toward me. “A woman with waning magic? I’m not sure I believe it.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What else would I be?”

  Delgato smiled and I could see that, though he’d taken human form, he’d retained some of his beastly attributes. He still had four razor-sharp canines. “A demoness? Halja is full of them.”

  I snorted. “I’ve never shifted in my life.”

  “So you say,” Delgato growled, but it was really more of a low grumble.

  “And this is Ferenc Delgato,” Rafe said, finishing up the formal introductions. “Captain of the dahabiya Cnawlece and Patron Demon of Shadows, Stealth, and Hiding.”

  Delgato gave me a low bow and said, “I adore and abhor secrets.”

  Ah, so Delgato was a patron and not just a captain. I suppose it made sense for the demon of hiding not to be listed in the Demon Register.

  Virtus, who had hidden beneath the table when Delgato first appeared in the doorway (some demon fighter he’d make!), chose that moment to come out. Tail up, ears forward, he trotted over to Delgato and sat right in front of him. How remarkably similar they look, I thought. Pointy ears, furry paws, sharp teeth, and those glimmering cat eyes, each pair staring at the other.

  Delgato bent to scratch the tiny tiger behind the ears. “And who is this?”

  “Virtus,” Fara said proudly.

  Delgato laughed then, a deep rumbling sound. The cub looked positively blissful under Delgato’s ministrations. “Who’s a pretty kitty?” Delgato crooned. Then he turned around and yelled into the kitchen:

  “Burr, bring in the fish!”

  * * *

  As Luck would have it, the fish dish that night was charred red snapper. Unbelievable. What were the odds? Did Burr the Cook know Alba the Third? I stared at the blackened, nasty-looking thing with its bulging eye and reached for my filleting knife. I might hate filleting, but there was no way I was going to ask Ari to do it for me. So I spent the better part of the first half of dinner hacking off the fish’s head, ripping out its bones, slicing its skin off, and generally being glad my dress was black so no one would see the fish goo I was splattering all over myself. Luckily, the fish meat turned out to be delicious. I was so hungry, I ate every bite. A fact that pleased both Delgato and Burr immensely.

  After dinner, Burr—a short, stocky man with a ready smile and big, thick, white scars on his hands that may have been the result of galley burns . . . or something else—brought in coffee and sautéed sweet plantains. They were savory, but my eyelids were beginning to droop. That is, until Delgato suggested an offering to Estes.

  Now, in and of itself, the suggestion shouldn’t have caused much alarm. First off, it was just plain good manners. We probably should have made an offering to Estes long before now, probably when we’d first pulled away from the dock. But with the storm and the loading up, it had slipped my mind—and obviously everyone else’s. Second, Estes was one of the most popular patron demons in all of Halja. Offerings were made to him all the time, even by nonsailors. Sailors, dockworkers, and fishermen all made offerings, as well as commuters, travelers, shoppers, vendors, and even restaurant owners like Alba. But there was something in Delgato’s tone of voice that sounded a warning. And there was a slight uptick in his signature that portended trouble.

  Virtus had curled up on Fara’s lap sometime during the dessert. She sat absently stroking him, only half paying attention to the conversation. (Her focus was likely off somewhere between Joshua 1:20 and Joshua 27:11.) Rafe looked bored—no surprise there. Ari, however, appeared as attentive as I. What I couldn’t tell, however, was whether Ari’s attention was due to the change I’d sensed in Delgato or because Ari also felt that we should make an offering to Estes posthaste.

  Estes was the hearth demon for every single family in Bradbury. The Hyrkes who hailed from Bradbury were all blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth types who built ships, fished, and worked the docks. With my own eyes, I’d seen them burn their most cherished possessions in offering to Estes—because they had faith that Estes would return those offerings three times over.

  Ari, the magical and mysterious boy Joy had pulled from the river, had been raised as a hero among his people. Coming from Etincelle, where magic is almost mundane, I hadn’t understood. Until Ari’s neighbors had asked me to participate in one of their offerings. Only after seeing their rapture . . . their renewed belief . . . their need for faith in magic and the satisfaction thereof, did I understand.

  “I’ll make the offering,” I said, getting up. “I have something that would be perfect.” The fish dish and thoughts of Alba had made me think of it. “I’ll be right back.”

  It took mere seconds to exit the dining room and walk to my cabin. Quickly, I found what I was looking for: Alba’s black onion. I stared at it in my palm. I had to admit, it didn’t look like much, just a small, black, irregular lump, which was starting to flake and peel. But inside it was an answer. An answer to a question anyone on this boat might
ask. Any question. Any answer.

  I ran back to the dining room, slightly out of breath. I slowed to a walk and approached Delgato. As Alba had done with me, I slowly scooted my hand across the table toward him, palm down, until I was only a few inches away. Then I opened my hand, dropped the onion, and backed away.

  Delgato stared at it.

  He looked up at me, perplexed. “A rotted vegetable? That’s your offering?”

  “No,” I said quickly, now suddenly wanting to make sure Delgato understood. The last thing I’d ever want to do is offend Estes. I’d given my blood as an offering to the mighty patron demon. I’d burned things in his name. The last thing I would want anyone thinking is that this gift didn’t matter.

  “It’s a black onion. A real one.”

  Everyone in the room (save Virtus) stared intently at it. Delgato picked it up between his thumb and forefinger, peering at it as if it were a gem. I could almost read his mind: If only he had a jeweler’s loupe, maybe he could see the answers to his questions right through the onion skin. He might never have to peel it. Then he could ask, and receive answers, over and over and over again.

  “And you’re willing to just throw this into the river?” Delgato asked me. I paused and then nodded. Delgato stared queerly at me. Almost reluctantly, he put the onion back down on the table and shook his head.