Free Of Masques and Martyrs by Christopher Golden Page B

magick.
    For a millennium, at least in the way time is reckoned in such places, Peter had lived in Hell itself. During that time, he had learned a great deal about magick, a great deal of sorcery better forgotten. It made him powerful, there was no question about that. But what else had it done to him?
    Ages ago, and for centuries thereafter, the church had called his kind “Defiant Ones.” Eventually, Peter had learned the origin of the name. Vatican sorcerors had been able to call to heel a great many demons from other dimensions, from Hell or elsewhere. But the shadows could not be controlled by their magick, because each shadow had a human soul.
    Now those same demons, and so many other magickal forces, were Peter’s to command if he so desired. The magick repulsed him and fascinated him simultaneously. The more he used it, the more he wanted to experiment. Yet each time, he felt a little bit less the warrior he’d once been, and even less the man he’d tried to become.
    Still, he had spent time cultivating the spells and enchantments that had nothing to do with demons. Peter had long since had his fill of other dimensions and their denizens.
    Somehow, he was determined to master the magick at his disposal and retain the respect for humanity that drove him on. And he would do it. He had to.
    A short time later, Peter stopped at a green-painted wrought-iron bench at the center of the winding path and sat. He ran a hand across his goateed chin and scratched his head. When he leaned back, finally, to simply appreciate the garden, he found to his great surprise that there was a smile on his face. For many days, only Nikki Wydra’s music and raspy voice had been able to give him that gift.
    A pair of enormous lilac bushes grew wild just across the path from the bench. The wind shifted suddenly, and the breeze blew the smell of lilacs in a wave across him. Peter inhaled deeply. It was a beautiful smell, but after a moment the breeze subsided, and it was gone.
    Peter was restless. He knew that, despite all else that had happened, including Tsumi’s coming to New Orleans, there was one major reason for his anxiety. Rolf.
    Despite the fact that Cody was on his way to New York—might, in fact, have arrived there already—to investigate Rolf’s disappearance, Peter’s heart was heavy, filled with a terrible foreboding that he could not shake. If it weren’t for Tsumi’s sudden arrival in New Orleans with more of Hannibal’s followers in tow, he would have gone off to New York himself.
    For a moment he watched the last light as it drained from the sky, the tint of dusk long since disappeared. Then, in the same idle fashion in which he’d scratched his head and run his fingers across the stubbly texture of his beard, Peter began to do magick. The garden itself seemed to take notice, its rustling subsiding as the wind began to pass around the bench where Peter sat. Nature did not appreciate the intrusion of sorcery, which was, by definition, unnatural.
    In his right hand, where it lay palm up on his thigh, a green flame began to burn. It flickered up, blazing higher. Peter turned his hand, cupping it, lifting his index finger and swirling the arcane light. It grew and spread, and soon a torrent, a seeming whirlpool of magick shimmered above his hand as if it were some sort of verdant halo. Idle no longer, Peter focused his mind on Tsumi, on their time together, and their brief but visceral struggle the night before.
    And he saw her. As if in a mirror, he watched Tsumi’s reflection in the scrying pool he’d created out of air and light. She lay atop a stone slab, inside a crypt of some sort. As Peter watched, she began to stir. He tried to concentrate, to pull from the image, from her mind, her precise location.
    The image of Tsumi in the scrying pool changed suddenly. The green glow shimmered, and Tsumi tensed. In a rage, she spun and glared into the shadows of her chamber. Somehow she had sensed him, but assumed that