Darkest Knight. Karen Duvall

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       The ugly black horn, no bigger than the width of my hand, was chipped and blackened with age. I’d never seen one used, but I knew it to be an object of magic the Vikings kept with them as part of their battle armor. It enabled them to breathe through smoke as they pillaged the villages they burned.

       I didn’t know much about this charm and was hesitant to place the horn between Rusty’s blue lips. There was always a price to pay for using dark magic. If it gave her breath back, what would it demand in return?

       “Chalice?” Natalie gulped a breath between sobs. “What are you doing?”

       “What Rusty should have done when she had the chance.” I slipped the horn’s tip into Rusty’s mouth.

       I waited a full minute. Nothing happened.

       I started to withdraw the horn when a wisp of smoke trailed out the charm’s cone-shaped end.

       “I think it’s working,” I whispered.

       Rusty’s chest began rising slowly, as if being pumped with air. Now I was afraid she’d burst from a breath too big for her lungs. Instead, color pinked her cheeks and her eyelids squeezed so tight it looked like she was in pain, and I hoped she was. That would mean she was alive.

       Rusty coughed and the ox horn flew from her mouth and landed in the snow outside. She sat up, gasping, clutching her chest and heaving in gulps of air.

       Natalie lunged at her and wrapped her in a hug so tight I thought she’d squeeze the breath out of her again. They cried in each other’s arms. As much as I wanted to join in, I hung back and tried not to feel left out. I was a knight too, and that knowledge would have to be enough for now.

       “You scared me to death,” Natalie told her.

       Rusty looked confused for a second, then shot me a glance. “Was I dead?”

       “Pretty much, yeah,” I said.

       She touched her lips. “Was that thing in my mouth? That cursed horn?”

       I pulled back my shoulders and straightened my spine. “Yes. It gave you back your life.”

       “If not for Chalice you’d still be dead,” Natalie said. “She saved you.”

       Rusty frowned, not appearing one bit thankful. Then her frown deepened. “Something took my breath away.”

       Natalie nodded. “The smoke. You suffocated.”

       Shaking her head, Rusty said, “No, smoke has no effect on me. It was something else.”

       “Like what?” I asked.

       “It felt so…strange.” She still clutched her chest, her eyes growing distant as if trying to remember. “Like being inside a vacuum. There was no smoke, no air, no nothing. As if something sucked my breath right out of me.”

       Natalie and I exchanged looks. She said, “That’s impossible, Rusty. It’s only happened to knights that are asleep.”

       “Maybe whatever it was is now desperate enough to prey on us when we’re awake,” I said. “Rusty, what was the last thing you saw before passing out?”

       “Fire.”

       “You didn’t see anyone near you?” I asked.

       “Of course there were people near me.” Rusty bit off each word. “We were fighting a fire. Four fighters stood beside me, each wearing a protective suit and mask.”

       “So you couldn’t see their faces,” Natalie said.

       “No, I couldn’t.”

       “I bet one of them did it,” I said. “The Hatchet murderer disguised himself to get close to you.”

       “Hatchet murderer?” Rusty chuckled. “You make it sound like a villain from a bad horror movie.”

       I glared at her. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

       “Don’t worry, you weren’t,” Rusty said, but the corners of her mouth pulled up in a smile. “Thanks for saving my life even if you did use that…thing.”

       I looked down at the snow where the horn had fallen. It lay there looking dull and ordinary, its power spent. I vaguely wondered if it could be recharged and if so, who could recharge it. Cursed or not, it was a handy gadget to have around, especially for a fire master like Rusty. I hopped down from the ambulance and snatched it up to shove into my coat pocket.

       I gazed out at the sky, wondering if Aydin still watched. He was more of a guardian angel than Rafe, who spent too much time being stubborn about accepting Aydin for the good man he was. He wouldn’t stop criticizing him for becoming a gargoyle, which wasn’t even his fault. Come to think of it, none of our guardian angels had come to the rescue.

       “I’m new at all this knight stuff,” I told my sisters. “Can I ask you both a question?”

       They had guarded looks on their faces, their eyes shifting attention from me to each other and back again. “Sure,” Rusty said. “Shoot.”

       “Where was your guardian angel when you were suffocating to death?” I asked.

       The corner of Rusty’s mouth slid up in a smug grin. “That’s not how it works. It’s not like they’re on autopilot.”

       Granted, I still had a lot to learn, but I was confused. “Guardians don’t guard?”

       “They’re more like guides,” Natalie said. “Once we’re old enough to be knights, our guardians shift roles from protector to partner. They come to our aid only when summoned.”

       Okay, I could buy that, but I had to admit the partner thing made me squeamish. I was about to say so when the two EMTs came back to the ambulance with the boy on a backboard. They stood statute-still and stared at Rusty, their mouths gaping like howler monkeys.

       “Oh!” Rusty scrambled to her feet and wobbled, but Natalie caught her before she could fall. “The boy! Is he okay?”

       “Chalice saved him, too.” Natalie sounded like a proud sister. It gave me a warm feeling.

       Rusty blinked. “Cool,” she said as Natalie helped her down from the ambulance.

       The EMTs were sputtering something about Rusty being dead, her heart having stopped, blah-blah-blah. I’d been around the supernatural long enough to know death wasn’t always a permanent condition, but these guys had no clue.

       I infused my voice with amazement when I told them, “It was so strange. Rusty suddenly sat straight up. We about jumped right out of our skins, didn’t we, Natalie?”

       Natalie trilled a nervous giggle that sounded about as real as a sitcom laugh track. She patted her chest. “Oh, yes. Quite a shock.”

       The men shook their heads and went on with their work, securing the boy to a gurney. One of them said, “Miss, you need to come with us to the hospital and get checked out. You СКАЧАТЬ