Dire Blood (The Descent Series, Book 5) Read online

  THE DESCENT SERIES

  SUGGESTED READING ORDER

  Death’s Hand

  The Darkest Gate

  Dark Union

  Damnation Marked

  Dire Blood

  Paradise Damned

  SERIES BY SM REINE

  The Descent Series

  Seasons of the Moon

  Cain Chronicles

  CONTENTS

  Glossary

  Part One: Four Adepts

  Part Two: High Trial

  Part Three: Secrets and Mistakes

  Part Four: Disestablishment

  A Note from the Author

  GLOSSARY

  kopis: A person with improved strength and healing that polices relations between Heaven, Hell, and Earth—often violently. The word is Greek for “sword.”

  aspis: A witch that has sworn a magical oath to protect a kopis. The word is Greek for “shield.”

  PART ONE

  Four Adepts

  AUGUST 1979

  The three witches standing in front of Pamela Faulkner were young, nervous, and possessed zero self-control. Their energies fluctuated wildly even as they stood, frozen, in front of her desk. She wouldn’t have entrusted a single one of them with a spell that lit candles, much less allowed them to join her in a circle of power.

  Pamela drummed her pen on the desk, studying each girl in turn.

  The first was Ariane Garin, a petite girl from the south of France with masses of curly brown hair. She was supposedly a healer, although her violently lashing aura was a shade of gold more commonly associated with protection magic. She gnawed on a fingernail and clung to the side of the second adept, Hannah Pritchard, who had a frosty complexion and a glare to match. Pamela felt nothing from her.

  The third girl, Christine—well, of course she was powerful. She was Pamela’s niece. Their relationship didn’t seem to make her any less nervous to be in her aunt’s workspace, which was usually off-limits to visitors. It was filled with valuable books, crystals gathering the moonlight’s energy, and a hundred delicate spells in progress.

  Yet Pamela was going to have to let these three hormonal, completely untried, preadolescent witches in her office five days a week for the next year.

  What fun.

  Pamela’s mouth twisted. “Well, Landon certainly has a sense of humor.” She returned her attention to drawing a line in blue ink. “It’s my responsibility to teach you how to control your abilities as witches. If you don’t learn control in the next twelve months, you’ll likely find yourselves dead in the twelve months after that.”

  Hannah stiffened. “Dead? Are you threatening us?”

  “I don’t need to.” Pamela drew a whorl. “If your capacity for magic wasn’t potentially deadly, you wouldn’t have been given to me. An akashic witch who fails to learn control always dies young, typically because of accidental suicide. It’s a statistical fact.”

  “I already have control,” Hannah said.

  Pamela shot a look at the adept over her spectacles. The girl’s responding stare could have turned a bonfire into an ice sculpture. “I have two spare bedrooms. The three of you can work out sleeping arrangements among yourselves.”

  “This house has four bedrooms in addition to this study,” Hannah said, gesturing toward the cracked door, which was framed by drying herbs. The hinges gave a faint creak, as if stirred by a draft.

  “You can count. Congratulations.”

  “Then why are any of us sharing?”

  “Two of the rooms are occupied,” Christine said, fidgeting with a bejeweled hairclip that shimmered with hints of pink magic. The idiot was already trying to enchant objects? A year was probably too optimistic. Pamela gave her niece a month before she killed herself.

  “I already have one adept, and he keeps me very busy,” Pamela said. “He’s already much more powerful than any of you will be as adults—combined—and requires an isolated room to practice his art. He’ll join you for the occasional lesson. Otherwise, none of you are to disturb his studies.”

  The French girl spoke up. “Why is he so special?”

  “I don’t think I invited you to ask questions, did I?” Pamela finished drawing the rune in glistening ink. She waved the page in the air to dry it. “Consider this your first lesson. Magic is the practice of manipulating the energy intrinsic to everything on Earth. It requires meditation, ritual, and focus.”

  Pamela lifted the page she had drawn so her adepts could see the intricate pattern that she had designed. Christine took a step back.

  “You three are fortunate. In addition to serving as your coven’s high priestess, I am regarded as the most powerful witch alive, and I have developed ways to channel ritual into an offensive weapon. If you prove yourselves to be more useful than you appear, I may teach you to use this ability.

  “In the meantime, you are not permitted to cast magic—or possess enchanted objects—until I’ve given you explicit permission to do so. That is the number one rule of my house. Do you all understand?” The girls nodded, though they seemed somewhat less than enthusiastic about it. “Excellent.”

  The priestess spoke a word of power. It fell silently from her lips and resonated off the page.

  The room flooded with light, which washed over the girls and then faded. Only pinpricks of starlight remained. They hovered over the crown of each girl and chased away the shadows in the empty hall. Ariane exclaimed and tried to swat the lights out of her hair, but there was nothing to touch.

  Hannah’s eyes blazed. “What was that?”

  “That was a test of my new detection spell,” Pamela said. “It says that there are five witches here.” She raised her voice. “James, please join us.” After a pause, a slender young boy stepped around the corner. He had brown eyes, black hair, and a bashful expression. “You were listening in, weren’t you?”

  He said nothing.

  Pamela went on. “These girls are your fellow adepts. You’ll treat them with courtesy and stay out of their rooms.”

  James still said nothing. It was Hannah who spoke up. “That’s your other adept? He’s the one that needs his own room? He’s a boy! He can’t be any older than…what, seven?”

  She discarded the detection spell, folded her hands, and addressed the new witches again. “Go unpack. Dinner is in an hour.”

  They filed out, leaving the high priestess alone with James.

  “I’m nine years old,” he said the instant the door closed.

  The formal exterior that Pamela used to intimidate her adepts melted away at the sight of James’s pout. She patted her leg, and he came to stand beside her chair. She squeezed his arm. “We’ll whip them into shape yet, sweetheart. Landon tells me that he has big plans for these girls. What do you think of them?”

  “They’re weak and uncontrolled. None of them are strong enough to be in the coven,” he said. “Especially Christine.”

  “Is that what you think, or are you being mean because she’s your sister?”

  His mouth took on a stubborn slant. “I mean it.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Pamela said. “I really hope you are.”

  NOVEMBER 1979

  James was trying to teach the other adepts how to invoke watchtower guardians for a powerful circle of magic, but nobody was listening to him. He had laid out four bowls of ingredients, but they had been pushed aside to make room for Ariane, who was painting Christine’s toenails.

  “The guardian of the east likes sea salt,” James said, reaching around her to grab one of the bowls. “Your offering should be made in a glass vessel.”

  “I think we should go snow-shoeing once my nails dry. I found some in the shed the other day,
” Christine replied, blowing on her spread fingers. Her feet, with painted toenails, were propped up on a floor cushion intended to make lengthy rituals more comfortable.

  The boy blinked. “Would that help you learn?”

  Nobody responded. The girls seated in his makeshift circle of power were thoroughly ignoring him. Even Hannah, who sat at the window, was gazing dreamily at the gray sky instead of listening. It was snowing, and the forest outside Pamela’s house was a wonderland of flocked trees and icicles.

  “This color doesn’t suit you, Christine,” Ariane said. “Let me do the other hand in pink.”

  “Aunt Pamela wants us to study,” James protested.

  Christine and Ariane exchanged looks—the kind that clearly meant “stupid little boy” without having to say it out loud.

  “She’s back,” Hannah said suddenly. “There are two guys with her. They’re heading this way.”

  Ariane gasped and almost dropped the bottle of nail polish. “Quick!”

  The girls hurried to clean up the living room. By the time Pamela came through the front door, all three of them were sitting in front of James as though they had been listening all along, and he was pouting again.

  Pamela was followed by Landon and a man that James had never seen before. The newcomer was willowy, with a hooked nose, cold blue eyes, and brown hair. He wore a plain t-shirt and jeans that fit as though they had been tailored, but no jacket. His impassive stare made James’s blood run cold.

  “We were just studying,” Ariane said, even though nobody had asked her.

  The adults ignored her.

  “Which one?” Landon asked.

  The other man scanned the four adepts. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “James is the strongest,” Pamela said, peeling off her scarf and jacket and hanging them on the hook. “He’s young, but his potential is remarkable.”

  “No. A boy won’t do.” The man glared at James. “Especially that boy. It must be a female.”

  “What is this?” Hannah asked, getting to her feet.

  Landon addressed the newcomer. “You’ll have to decide, Metaraon. I don’t know what you need.”

  “Tell me their names, ages, and what types of magic they cast,” said Metaraon.

  The high priestess moved through the room, pointing at each girl in turn. “Hannah turned twelve last month. She has no specialty yet.” Pamela pushed Hannah’s shoulder, forcing her to sit on a cushion again. “Ariane and Christine are thirteen. Ariane, the one with the curls—she shows signs of being a versatile defensive witch. Christine is my niece. She does best with enchantments, despite my best efforts to stop her.”

  “They’re all very young,” Metaraon said. “Isaac is eighteen.”

  “Young as they are, Christine and Ariane are the best that our coven has to offer. Or, at least, they will be, as long as they mind me in their studies. Given a few years to mature, few witches will match their knowledge and skill,” Pamela said.

  Ariane beamed at the rare praise. Christine elbowed her.

  The man called Metaraon studied them for a long time in silence. Finally, he nodded to Ariane. “That one will have to do.” He kneeled in front of her, resting his elbows on his bony knees. As he passed James, the summery smell of grass and sunshine wafted through the room. “Tell me what you know of kopides, girl.”

  At Pamela’s encouraging nod, she said, “A kopis is a…” Ariane searched for the words in English. “A hunter. A policeman. A diplomat. He is responsible for controlling the balance between humans, angels, and—”

  Metaraon cut Ariane off by taking her wrist. “Fine. Come with me.”

  She got to her feet and followed him to the door with a stunned expression. Landon patted her on the shoulder. “Good lass.”

  “Wait,” Christine said. “Where are you going?”

  Ariane put on her jacket. Pamela and Metaraon led her outside.

  As soon as the door shut behind them, Landon sank to the couch, covered his face with his hands, and shuddered.

  Later, James would learn that it was the first time he had met an archangel.

  JULY 1980

  It had been almost a year since Pamela had begun working with her three young adepts, and they were all graduating from her program. They stood under the tangled boughs of oak trees to accept their ceremonial athames, encircled by their peers in the coven. James stood among the adult witches, though he was too young to be a member.

  The ritual was not a true initiation—they couldn’t join until they were at least sixteen. But it was an open invitation to apply once they came of age.

  If they survived that long.

  “Do you swear to honor the Mother Goddess and Horned God, and to be ever mindful of the Rule of Three?” Landon asked Hannah, his hand resting atop hers. She was awfully beautiful with a crown of flowers perched atop her ears.

  “I do.”

  “And harm you none, do what you will.” He brushed a line of oil across her forehead. A blossom fluttering from the tree above caught in her hair. “So mote it be. Walk with grace, adept.”

  She stepped back to join the circle. Christine took her place. Instead of wearing flowers, she had woven her headband out of supple twigs. Landon repeated the same words and gestures with her.

  James wasn’t listening. He was distracted by two men entering the forest clearing. They hung back from the circle to watch the ceremony. One of them was Metaraon—who James had not seen in months—and the other was a young man with red hair, broad shoulders, and an angry scowl. Neither of them wore the robes of witches.

  “Walk with grace, adept,” Landon told Christine, and she joined the circle.

  Ariane was the last of them. She wore no crown.

  The high priest handed an athame to her, but he did not speak. She made no oath. He only gazed at her for a long, grave moment, let out a sigh, and drew the line of oil across her forehead.

  “Walk with grace, Ariane Garin,” Landon whispered.

  A few minutes later, they broke the circle. The coven lounged throughout the field, grounding their energies and drinking wine to celebrate. Pamela even let Christine have a sip of her wine.

  Sidling up to his sister, James asked, “Who is that with Metaraon?”

  “Mind your business and don’t ask so many questions, twerp.” She left to talk with Ariane.

  James sat alone on the stump of a fallen tree. He plucked bits of grass from the earth, one by one, and watched the magic fade from the blades.

  He was surprised to hear someone speak behind him.

  “His name is Isaac,” Hannah said, sitting next to him. “He’s Ariane’s boyfriend.”

  “Ariane has a boyfriend?” James found it hard to believe that she could have gotten into a relationship while living with Pamela. None of them were ever allowed out for fun.

  “That’s what she said—not that she’d tell me anything other than that. I’m still not cool enough to hang out with Ariane and Christine. But I heard them talking.” Hannah lowered her voice. “Ariane is even having sex.”

  As a sheltered ten-year-old who knew much more about magic than the female species, James still wasn’t certain how the mechanics of sex worked, or why anyone would want to do it. But he didn’t want to seem uneducated on the subject, so James only remarked, “Isaac is kind of old.”

  “Eighteen. And he’s a kopis, too, which means he kills things for fun. Pretty bad, huh?” She wrinkled her delicate nose. “Don’t ask me what he’s doing with that other guy. Metaraon creeps me out, so I’m staying away. Far away.”

  “Do you think they’re going to bind?” James asked. Pamela had refused to teach him how to perform the ritual that bound a witch to a kopis, but he had sneaked into her office to read the book on it once or twice, just for fun.

  Hannah dropped her voice to a whisper. “They already have. Don’t tell anyone.”

  Ariane left with Isaac and Metaraon that day.

  She didn’t show up at the next esbat. Or the next
one, either, even though Hannah and Christine were there. And when James finally worked up the courage to ask Pamela what had happened, all his aunt would say was, “Mind your business.”

  It was two years before Ariane came back.

  James and Hannah returned to Boulder a few weeks after graduation, leaving Christine behind to enjoy Pamela’s loving care.

  Hannah was two years older than him and he was homeschooled, so he only ever got to see her on the occasional sabbat and esbat. That meant a glimpse of the beautiful blond girl once every month or so—if he was lucky.

  One day, driving home from the grocery store with his father, he glimpsed Hannah on the sidewalk outside a dance studio. She was wearing a unitard and leggings. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant knot, and she was laughing at something her parents had said. Pointe shoes dangled from one hand.

  She glanced at the passing Faulkner car, and James noticed that she had very perfect teeth.

  “I want to take ballet classes,” he told his parents that night.

  His mother dried her hands on a dishtowel. “Is that so? Why would you want to do that?”

  “I like music.” That wasn’t a lie. James had been taking piano lessons ever since he could be trusted not to break the baby grand in the foyer, and he always received standing ovations when he performed.

  “I think you already have enough activities to fill your day,” said his father. “Ballet. I mean, really.”

  His mother sighed. “Richard. Please.”

  He held up his hands defensively. “Think about it, James. You spend your mornings in music lessons. Your afternoons are general education, and you spend every evening studying magic until you pass out from exhaustion. I just can’t see how you would have time for something else. I have no problem with ballet as a concept.” And if he did, he was smart enough not to say it in hearing range of his wife.

  James folded his arms, ducked his head, and gave his mother The Look. “I want to take ballet.”

  So he took ballet.