Dark Bringer: Chapter One
The old man drew on his cigarette and squinted through the haze.
“Strange noises,” he said, tobacco-stained fingers gesturing to the house across the street. “Over there.”
Cathrynne Rowan gave an encouraging nod. “That’s what you said in the call, sir. Can you be more specific?”
He shrugged. “Sure, yes. Like thump. Very strange noises. All time of day and night.” His Sundland accent was thick as butter. Verra string nozzes.
Her partner, Mercy Blackthorn, shot Cathrynne a skeptical look and mouthed the words “feuding cats.”
Mercy was a strapping woman with a frizzy ginger mane and a dozen visible scars. Cathrynne was shorter and slightly built, with fair, chin-length hair and pale, creamy skin that gave her a fragile look. Men, in particular, tended to underestimate her.
Not that Cathrynne thought Josua Micarran was wasting their time on purpose. He seemed like a kind gentleman, and had dressed up for them in a checkered suit that was probably the height of fashion forty years ago. A crumpled pack of Scholars poked out of the breast pocket. He had no shoes on, just black socks.
“Who lives over there?” Mercy asked.
Micarran exhaled plumes of smoke through his nose. “Mother, father. One boy. Six years.”
“Surname?”
“Nilsson.”
“Have you seen them recently?”
“Not for three days.” He looked the cyphers up and down, taking in the whips coiled at their belts, the ravens tattooed on their hands. “You help them. You are witches, yes?”
“Hmmm, more or less,” Mercy replied. “Thank you for reporting it, sir. We’ll go have a look.”
Lark Hill was a mellow neighborhood near Faraday College, mostly young families and student lodgers. Lately, it had seen an influx of migrants from Sundland. Cathrynne and Mercy seldom came out this way. Trouble was far more likely to arise in the rowdy student bars of Arioch’s Old Quarter.
They crossed the street and paused at the curb to study the house. It was a mirror image of Micarran’s. Yellow and white trim, well kept. The grass was shaggy and still damp from the morning rain.
“If anyone hurt that child,” Cathrynne said, “they might run into a wall or two before I manage to arrest them.”
Mercy shot her a sidelong glance. “You don’t need another complaint in your file. They already take up a whole drawer.”
Cathrynne snorted. “Felony won’t care.”
The head of the cyphers, Felicity Birch, tended to look the other way if someone deserved rough treatment. The cyphers called her Sister Felony, though never to her face.
“One day you’ll go too far,” Mercy remarked placidly.
“I meant by accident. If they trip over a rug or something.”
Mercy’s blue-gray eyes gleamed. “Yeah, that’d be a shame.”
It was no secret how Cathrynne Rowan felt about men who hit their wives and parents who beat their children. About a third of the calls involved some variety of those crimes. The rest were drunks and thieves, occasionally murderers. Cathrynne didn’t like them either, but they didn’t get under her skin in the same way.
“Maybe the family went on a trip,” Mercy said as they headed up the flagstone walk.
All the curtains were drawn tight. No movement. No string nozzes. Yet Cathrynne felt a twist of unease.
“Maybe,” she said, her gaze catching on a carved wooden angel lying in the grass. Its wings were painted sky blue that shone with flecks of silver in the fading afternoon light. She picked it up.
“I’ve seen ones like this in the window of that fancy toy shop on Carlyle Street,” she said. The paint had been rubbed away around the middle, right where a small fist might have clutched it. “The boy treasured it. So why was it left out in the rain?”
Mercy’s face turned grim. She banged on the front door with the side of her fist. “Cyphers! Open up and let’s talk!”
No one did.
Cathrynne circled around to the backyard. Wet grass dampened her boots as she backed up for a better view. There was a light burning on the second floor. A faint glow through the curtains. She returned to Mercy. “Looks like someone’s at home,” she said. “Since a minor child is involved, I say we have enough to go in.”
Mercy nodded. “You take the front.”
The door was locked, but it felt flimsy when Cathrynne jiggled the knob. No need to waste a projective gemstone. One solid kick and the door crashed inward just as Mercy battered down the back.
Cathrynne stepped into a mud room with coats on pegs and a line of boots and shoes. Most were large, a few boy-sized. She moved into the living area as Mercy’s heavy footsteps clomped down a darkened hall. They met in the middle and looked around.
Every stick of furniture had been pushed against the walls. A green velvet settee lay tipped on its side. Chairs were stacked haphazardly. Lamps had been shoved under an end table, along with an assortment of toys. The carpet was rolled up, revealing four black scorch marks on the wood floor, each about six inches long.
Mercy sank to her heels and examined the floor as Cathrynne wandered to the rolled-up carpet, poking it with her cudgel. A faint charred smell hung in the air, like someone had burned supper. Her gaze flicked to the stairs. No irate homeowners appeared to investigate the intrusion.
“Let’s take a look,” she said.
They climbed the stairs. The upper story had two bedrooms, one big, one small. Beds unmade but no sign of a struggle. A lamp in the boy’s room was left burning — the glow Cathrynne had seen from the yard. He had a cute sleigh bed with angel-print sheets. The kid had a thing for angels. There was also a dresser and a toy box and a miniature table and chairs. A stuffed bear sat in one of them, its black button eyes shining in the pool of lamplight.
They found nothing unusual in the bathroom or den. The rugs and furniture all seemed to be in their proper places. Downstairs, the kitchen sink was full of dirty dishes. Some were old and crusty. Others looked more recently used.
Cathrynne and Mercy returned to the living room and pondered this mystery.
“They could be getting ready to move,” Mercy said. “Or they’re staying somewhere else while they get the floor refinished.” She sounded relieved. “That would make sense.”
“Yeah. But then why didn’t Micarran see the tradesmen coming in and out?” Cathrynne wondered.
“It’s odd, I’ll admit. But this was done deliberately.” Mercy chewed her lip. “Separation, maybe? They have a fight. One of them takes the son — probably the mother. He drops the angel on the way out and they’re in a hurry so she won’t let him go back for it.” She glanced at the front door. “Meanwhile, the father’s at a bar drowning his sorrows with a bottle of cheap and nasty.”
Without warning, the hair on Cathrynne’s arms bristled. A prickling, crawly sensation tightened her scalp. Three symbols appeared, hovering over Mercy’s head: a golden key, a sailing ship, and a coffin.
Her foretellings came rarely. Not even Mercy, her closest friend for twenty years and partner for ten, had a clue that Cathrynne was a seer. It was her deepest, most terrifying secret. A power that would end with her bricked up in the kloster for the rest of her days if anyone discovered it.
But when the visions did come, she’d learned to pay attention. Cathrynne blinked, reading the symbols before they faded. The Key meant a door. The Ship meant travel. The Coffin meant death. Those were the broad meanings. But together, in that particular order, they meant something else, the way words formed a sentence.
Her gaze swept across the bare floor, the heaped-up furniture. It wasn’t a domestic spat or a family packing to move house. Nothing was organized, just shoved out of the way to clear the space…
If not for the vision, she wouldn’t have fit the pieces together — not fast enough. But she did now. Her mouth went dry.
This room was being used to force.
There was a field behind the chapter house for the same purpose, but it was much larger, fenced off, and guarded day and night so no one would accidentally wander inside. Forcing was how the strongest witches traveled, bending natural law to vanish from one place and reappear in another. But they needed a designated area — always open ground — or they risked materializing inside solid objects.
And if a person happened to be standing there when the witches arrived…
The air thickened. Cathrynne felt it in her teeth, a rising vibration.
“What’s up?” Mercy’s hand dropped to her cudgel.
She didn’t know. Why would she? Neither of them had ever forced, it wasn’t a power taught to lowly cyphers. They weren’t even supposed to go near the field at the chapter house. But Cathrynne had snuck over there a few times when she was younger, just to see what the magic looked like, and she had the same feeling now, her ears popping as the pressure changed.
A box was forming in the middle of the Nilssons’ living room. It resembled a giant shimmering bubble but square instead of round. There was no time for words. Cathrynne took four quick strides to the center of the room, to the scorch marks left by previous forcings. She grabbed her partner and dragged them both backwards.
An instant later, a clap of silent thunder shook the house. Cathrynne felt it through the soles of her boots. Two figures appeared where Mercy had just been standing — a man and a woman, both with the silver eyes of witches.
For a heartbeat, everyone froze. Mercy was staring at her cudgel. It must have been at the edge of the forcing zone because the stout wood was severed in half, the end cauterized.
“Stay right where you are,” Cathrynne warned. “Do not move!”
The female witch was older and heavyset with a blotchy pink neck. Her gaze flicked to their hands. When she saw the raven tattoos, she looked relieved. “Just cyphers,” she muttered.
A new spell began to coalesce. It involved receptive magic that Cathrynne didn’t understand, but she felt sure it was nasty.
Mercy was faster, igniting a lump of topaz. Like all projective stones, topaz was ruled by fire and had quite a kick. The female witch was flung backwards, crashing into the stacked furniture. Mercy dove after her, leaving Cathrynne with the other witch. He had a long dour face and frosty eyes.
Mercy was now behind him. Cathrynne didn’t want to hit her with the backwash of a spell, so she went for her whip instead, flicking it at his neck. If he’d been human, it would have coiled around him like a noose, at which point she would have yanked his face into her knee, breaking his nose and maybe a few teeth. But he was a witch, so the lash bounced off an invisible shield.
“Too slow,” he said.
A wave of force rippled across the room. It lifted her up bodily and sent her sailing down the hallway. A hot ride. That’s what Mercy called going airborne. Cathrynne landed hard on her ass and skidded several cubits. The witch advanced, his lips curved in a mocking smile.
“Show me some of that infamous blood! Is it really violet? I’ve always wondered.”
She scrambled back as the hall plunged into darkness. The kind of pitch black that feels like drowning. Her pulse rammed into overdrive. She couldn’t see. Couldn’t breathe.
It wasn’t real. She knew that. But knowing didn’t stop the rising panic. She’d been claustrophobic since childhood, terrified of darkness and confined spaces. She threw her arms out and they banged into the walls. The narrow hallway felt like a coffin.
Cathrynne made a grab for her gem pouch as the witch threw another projective blast down the hall. It was like being caught in the bristles of a giant broom. She tumbled end over end until she hit something hard enough to see stars.
“They don’t teach you anything useful, do they?” the witch taunted, his voice drawing closer. “You can’t penetrate illusions. You can’t shield yourself. The High Council doesn’t trust you with fuck-all. You’re just muscle for hauling away human garbage.”
Laughter echoed through the darkness. That he was right didn’t make it any better. She shook off the dizziness, trying to orient herself. Off to the left, she heard furniture breaking. Mercy and her witch were going at it hammer and tongs.
Cathrynne had an image of Josua Micarran standing on his front porch, smoking a Scholar and muttering about string nozzes.
“At least I have a job,” she rasped into the blackness. “I’m not a criminal. And when I arrest you, you won’t be coming back anytime soon. I hear the Iskatar prison camp is so hot, your piss evaporates before it hits the ground.”
The witch chuckled. He was dragging something along the wall, pausing now and then to tap it on the wainscoting. It sounded like the cudgel she’d lost when he threw her across the room.
“How’d you find us?” he asked. “I bet it was that nosy geezer across the street.” The scraping stopped for a moment. “He’s supposed to be dead. I’ll correct that oversight once I’m done with you.” He drew a meditative breath, like he was mulling his options. She could feel his eyes crawling over her.
“Where are the Nilssons?” she asked.
Another chuckle. “If you’re good, maybe I’ll show you.”
The footsteps stopped directly in front of her. She could smell him, sweat and a metallic tang.
“You’re wrong,” she said, “by the way.”
“About what?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“I do know some magic.”
“Well, go on, cypher,” the witch said, amused. “Make your move.”
Cathrynne bit her lip. Then she blindly groped for her gem pouch. It had gotten twisted up around her side. The cudgel came down, whistling as it cut the air. White-hot pain radiated up her left arm. She screamed, tears springing to her eyes.
“Oops,” he said. “Did that hurt?”
Every cypher had a raven tattooed on the back of her dominant hand. It identified her if she ran away (which seldom happened), and it exposed her weak point. Disable her dominant hand and she couldn’t cast a projective spell.
Cathrynne expected him to break her fingers. Unfortunately for him, she was among the one percent who were ambidextrous.
She gritted her teeth. The wave of agony receded a little. “Gods yes,” she gasped. “Does this?”
Her right hand sprang open, revealing the ruby she’d palmed while he was busy laughing at her. The witch drew a sharp breath as she unleashed the projective fire inside the stone. Scarlet light shattered the darkness. His eyes bulged as the force hit him in the chest. One moment he was standing over her, the next he’d gone through the living room window in a spray of glass.
Cathrynne held her mangled fingers to her chest. They were throbbing like live coals, but the suffocating darkness was gone. She limped back to the living room. Mercy was kneeling on the unconscious female witch.
“Now that was a hot ride,” Mercy said with admiration. “He made it all the way to the lawn.”
She started stripping her prisoner of every gemstone and piece of metal. Rings, bracelets, hairpins, buttons — anything the witch could use to cast ley when she woke up.
“She got in a few good licks,” Mercy said. “But I clocked her and she went down. I don’t think she’s used to getting punched in the face.”
Cathrynne glanced through the broken window. The male witch had cleared the porch and lay on his back in the front yard, twitching weakly. She wondered why they had chosen this house. What they needed it for. And where the Nilssons were.
“Hey,” Mercy said, “you’re bleeding.”
Cathrynne touched her face. Felt sticky wetness.
Show me some of that infamous blood. Is it really violet?
Yes, it was. The high ley content of angel blood gave it a blue tint. Witch blood — like humans — was red. Mingle them and you got violet. Now she had a nosebleed, a sign of the visions that she tried to hide whenever it happened.
“It’s nothing,” Cathrynne said, swiping a sleeve across her face. “Caught an elbow.”
She turned away before Mercy could ask any more questions and headed outside. All along the street, neighbors were emerging from their houses, drawn by the spectacle. Josua Micarran watched from his own porch. Cathrynne waved and he lifted his cigarette in salute.
The witch groaned as she came near. He had dozens of small cuts from the glass, but none appeared life-threatening. A group of boys stopped their bikes at the edge of the yard. One nudged his friend, looking down the block. “It’s the Jennies,” he whispered with a note of awe.
An automobile slid up to the curb, all gleaming copper and sleek lines. The model was a Jentzen Mirage, hence the nickname. Two witches got out, wearing long white coats and sour expressions. The White Foxes had arrived.
Cathrynne yanked the gem pouch from the downed witch’s belt before straightening to face them. There were orders of the White Foxes in every province, but George Claymond and Audrey Hayes headed the Arioch division. They hunted down rogue witches and viewed cyphers as disposable attack dogs.
George was burly and soft around the edges, with rings stacked on every finger. Audrey was famine-thin and favored dark maroon lipstick. Mercy called them Lump and Crump. It was funny, except that they were both very strong in lithomancy and utterly ruthless. Rumor had it that between them they’d killed a dozen rogues.
“Give me that, Rowan,” Crump said in a peremptory tone, extending her hand.
Cathrynne turned over the gem pouch. “There’s one more witch inside. They were using the Nilssons’ house as a forcing zone.”
Crump studied her, expressionless. “Do you know why?”
“We’re not sure yet—”
Cathrynne cut off as a second car arrived, disgorging four more White Foxes. They fanned across the lawn and surrounded the male witch. Receptive gems ignited as they cast shields around him.
“Oh, that looks nasty.” Lump eyed Cathrynne’s hand with false sympathy. “Maybe you should sit this out.”
Crump shot him a vexed look. “It’s a little late for that, George.” She stepped closer. “Why didn’t you notify us? This sort of thing is well beyond your jurisdiction.”
Lump clucked his tongue. “You could have been killed. Pure dumb luck you weren’t.”
Cathrynne tried to leash her temper. “We were investigating a noise complaint. We had no idea there were witches involved until they…” She was about to say “forced straight into us” but that might provoke questions about how they’d avoided dying. “Came back,” she finished lamely.
Crump pursed her lips. “We’ll need a full report, Cypher Rowan. Every detail.”
“Sure,” Cathrynne said. “As soon as I’m done.”
“What?”
“The family. I need to find them.” She studied Micarran’s house, then tipped her head back and gazed upward. The houses were identical. Both had small attics. She turned and walked inside.
“Get back here, Rowan!” Crump shouted.
Cathrynne ignored her. Let the White Foxes take credit for arresting the witches. She didn’t care about that. But the Nilssons were a human family, which was her jurisdiction. She darted around the Jennies who were interrogating a scowling Mercy and headed for the stairs. Cathrynne paused on the second-floor landing, woozy from the pain in her left hand. Minerva, please let them be alive. Especially the kid.
She didn’t expect the witch goddess to answer. Minerva hadn’t been seen in centuries. But Cathrynne still prayed to her on a regular basis, and now seemed like a good time.
There had to be a way up to the attic, something she and Mercy had missed the first time. It wouldn’t be inside the bedrooms. But maybe the linen closet? She opened the door and started running her good hand over the shelves. On one side, it went straight through. She felt a dusty draft on her face. Illusion.
She stepped through the false shelving to find a dark, narrow staircase. “Hello?” Dread pooled in her stomach at the silence that followed. But then she heard a muffled thump. It could be another witch, so she readied a projective garnet. But when she reached the top, she found the Nilssons tied up on the floor, rags stuffed into their mouths.
“It’s all right,” Cathrynne said, moving quickly. “You’re safe now.”
The terror in their eyes changed to desperate hope. She struggled with the knots one-handed, freeing the father first so he could help the others. Soon they were crying and hugging each other.
“They dragged us from our beds three nights ago,” the mother sobbed. “Said they’d kill Jakob if we called out or tried to escape.”
The boy stared at Cathrynne with glassy eyes. His lips were chapped, and she wondered if the Nilssons had been given anything to eat or drink.
Then she remembered the wooden angel in her pocket. She gave it to the boy, who clutched it tight. “I threw him out my bedroom window,” he whispered. “So he would fly for help.”
She smiled. “That was good thinking.”
“They kept coming and going,” his father added hoarsely. “Once, we heard them talking about the port. Timetables and deliveries.”
That’s when Cathrynne noticed a pile of new-looking crates against the wall. She hadn’t paid much attention because the light was dim and she’d been focused on the Nilssons. But now she felt a strong resonance in her blood. She moved to the nearest crate and pried up the lid. It was filled with raw gems, hot with ley.
“Well, well.” George Claymond’s voice boomed from behind. “Quite a haul.”
She turned to find Lump standing in the doorway. He eyed the trunks with triumph but little surprise. “We’ll take over from here,” he said with a crocodilian smile. “You should go get that hand looked at.”
“I will, thanks,” Cathrynne said.
She nodded at the family and turned to leave. It would have changed a great number of things if she had. But then he said something unfortunate.
“There’s a good girl,” Lump remarked.
Cathrynne stopped. She turned around. “I was just thinking about something, George. How did you get here so fast?”
The smile vanished. “What are you implying?”
“Oh, I’m not implying anything. I’m saying it straight. Maybe you knew that the witches who’ve been hitting the gem vaults at the port were hiding out in this house. But they’re dangerous, and they’ve been forcing, so you waited for us to go first, just in case.”
Lump turned red. “That’s an outrageous accusation,” he spluttered. “I won’t dignify it with a response.” His small eyes grew hard. “But nor will I stand for such an insult from the likes of you. I’ll give you one chance to retract it, Rowan.” He brandished a finger. “One!”
She shook her head and helped the Nilssons down the stairs. The mother gave Cathrynne a sympathetic look. Medics had arrived, and they took charge of the family.
Mercy stood on the lawn, watching the prisoners get loaded for transport. The chapter house had brick and wood cells that didn’t use any metal, not a single nail. The woman was still out cold, but the male witch shot Cathrynne a filthy look.
Crump must have gone inside because Cathrynne didn’t see her. But two other White Foxes stepped into her path. “We were told to hold you for questioning,” one said sternly.
Cathrynne held up her purple, swollen fingers. The Jennies winced. “Can’t you just give us a ride to the chapter house? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know on the way.” She cupped her nose, which was still trickling. “I think I might be going into shock.”
They glanced at each other, then nodded. Not all Foxes were heartless.
Once in the back seat, Cathrynne grinned at Mercy. Then she crossed her legs, sat back, and proceeded to bleed all over the white leather upholstery.