Page 1 of Hexbound
Prologue
"Life asked Death, why do people like me, but hate you?
Death responded, because you are a beautiful lie, and I am a painful truth."
-Anonymous
London, 1894
ADRIAN BISHOP WOKE quietly, his eyelids fluttering open and his skin tingling as if every sense was suddenly on fire. He held his breath, listening intently to the cold, dark silence of his house. Nothing moved. Not a whisper, not a creak, not even a mouse.
Except....
Someone stepped through one of the invisible wards he'd set throughout the mansion. It clung like spider silk to their body, giving him an instant beacon of awareness: the intruder was in the second guest bedroom with the revolving fireplace that hid a secret room. Whoever it was, they moved with deliberate purpose, as if they knew exactly where they were going and most likely what they were looking for.
Sicarii, then? Like himself?
Highly trained, the Sicarii were the lethal edge of the sorcerous Order of the Dawn Star, and only the ruling Prime knew all of their identities. Their purpose was absolute; protect the Order, serve the Prime, remove all threats. It was lonely, bloody work, but he'd known nothing else all of his life.
Bishop eased back the covers, slipping naked from his bed. He dragged on a pair of the loose black trousers he wore for training purposes, and opened himself up to his sorcery. Energy slipped and slid into his skin, the temperature of the room plunging abruptly to freezing as he prepared himself, drawing power from the world around him. Heated breath spilled in a fine mist around his mouth as he glided silently past the windows.
Another ward tripped just as the downstairs clock began to chime midnight.BONG. BONG. BONG. There. He closed his eyes, head tilting upwards as the clock droned on. His thief had found the fireplace, which meant he had no time to spare. Forging a knife of raw matter, he cut his hand and pressed his bloody palm against the walls of the house.
"Hecarah as di mentos,"he whispered, breathing a spill of Power into the words. The words meant nothing; ritual was the key in training his mind to accept simple codes, and he had chosen his words wisely so many years ago.
Nothing happened but he could sense the house coming alive, awakening to his touch and anticipating his commands. It, too, held its breath.
Above him the thief paused, just for a second.
And that was when he realized that he was facing a master adversary. The house wards were inverted. Nobody should have felt it waking, but from the sudden fierce patter of footsteps the thief had given up all pretense of stealth and was opting for speed.
Done then. Bishop moved like a wraith. The tracking ward jerked forward, almost as if it were leaping from place to place, but he was swiftly gaining as he thundered up the staircase. The thief might be heading directly toward the object of their desire, but they were moving in a straight line and certain obstacles, walls for example, kept interfering.
His blood was up, the fierce hunting edge keening through him. Death rode him hard, hungering for a taste of blood, and Bishop forced it back upon its leash. Some sorcerers found increased energy through blood or sex, but only a kill gave him that edge, that sweet ride of power, like an aurora awakening in his veins. He could tear London apart with but a thought following the hot gush of blood, but such power came with a weakness: the hunger for the kill grew every time he took a life. One day he would be a dangerous force to be reckoned with, the sweet addiction stronger than his will, and then another of the Sicarii would be sent to remove him.
But he was not there yet.
Racing silently up the hidden staircase behind the fireplace, Bishop saw the faint bobbing glow of a mage sphere through the partly opened panel that led to his secret room. A single creak betrayed him.
Bishop threw himself into the room in a roll, beneath a hastily flung wave of force that would have smashed him back through at least three walls, and came to his feet just in time to face a masked adversary.
No time to think. The rosy mage globe the thief wielded for light spun into twelve that circled their head, and began to spin faster and faster. One shot directly toward him and he flung both arms up, crossing them at the wrists as a single protective ward formed around him. The globe the thief had flung burst into heated, liquid light that bathed the thin, shimmering ward then dripped to the floor. Molten sparks burned straight through the floorboards.
"Well," said the thief, in a faintly amused, very feminine voice, "I see the rumors of your skills were not exaggerated."
His first shock of the evening–the Chalice that he'd sworn to protect with his life was already hanging from her belt. It gleamed silvery against her all-black men's attire, along with a dozen small devices of unknown origin.
It should have taken her nearly ten minutes to crack through the safeguards on his safe. A safe that hung open on the wall, its heavy steel-lined door hanging limply from its grooves.
"I don't believe we've had the pleasure," Bishop replied, straightening and letting the silvery gleam of the ward disintegrate with a static crackle. It would take only a thought to re-form it.
A faint smile curled over the woman's lips. Her chin and mouth were all that he could see, apart from the gleam of pale eyes behind her black lace mask. The battle globes spun lazily around her head, warming her creamy skin as she slowly circled him. Though she wore a black shirt, it had been cinched in with some sort of outer corset that thrust her breasts high. The entire effect was... provocative.
"And here I thought you a stranger to pleasure?" she purred. "Or so they all say."
Bishop didn't move. The only way out was through the doorway directly behind him. His smile was cold. "I'd be careful about listening to rumors. Sometimes I start them myself."
"Oh, I know," she whispered as she sauntered slowly around the room, crossing one foot over another. "Let's just say I've spent the last month learning everything there is to know about you. I've watched you paint these walls with your blood and your wards, trying to protect against thieves. And I've watched you move quietly through the house each night, restless, unable to sleep. All alone at night in this dark house. Why do you send your servants away? Do you not want them seeing the mess of your body that you hide beneath your clothes? Or perhaps you're afraid they'll hear your nightmares? It's the one mystery I haven't been able to crack yet."
