Black City bw-5

by Christina Henry

“Hear this, Bryson,” I said, and my voice was different. There was a power and a promise in it. “If you attempt to take, threaten or harm me or my friends again, then I will destroy you so utterly that the world will not even recall that you ever existed.”

  I could crush him like a bug. His gun was a toy, a meaningless thing that he used to feel powerful. I blasted his hand with nightfire and the weapon clattered to the ground. I stalked toward him, and Bryson, super-soldier of the Agency, backed away from me.

  “You have been broken by one of my kind before,” I said. “But obviously not enough. The pain you felt then will be nothing compared to what horrors you will suffer at my hands.”

  I could do it. I knew I could. I could make him hurt. The power was in me. There was a dark shadow in my heart, and it urged me onward.

  “Madeline!” Nathaniel said behind me, and his hand roughly pulled me back. “Madeline! You are not yourself. Think.”

  He gave me a little shake, and I nearly blasted him before his urgent tone got through to me. The darkness receded as suddenly as it had emerged.

  “What…what was that about?” I gasped. I looked to my left. Bryson had fled. Which was good. I didn’t think I could live with myself if I’d done all the horrible things I’d been contemplating.

  “You must be careful,” Nathaniel said. “As more of Lucifer’s power is revealed in you, so, too, is his darkness.”

  I had felt hints of this before, a sinister undertone to the magic that was emerging slowly inside me. But I’d always thought I was in control of it, that my own personality would overcome any darker impulses. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I tipped my head forward to Nathaniel’s shoulder for a moment, weary beyond belief. Now that the burst of power had receded, my whole being just wanted to lie down and rest. But I wouldn’t be able to rest until we were home.

  “Let’s go,” I said, lifting my head. Nathaniel nodded.

  It took us most of the night. My weariness was extreme, and while the vampires avoided the path along the lake, there were plenty of other things that did not—demons, mostly, roaming for stragglers.

  We avoided the creatures if we could, always mindful of the fact that neither of us could fly. When we could not avoid conflict Nathaniel’s newfound strength and speed tended to keep the encounters short. As we got farther away from the Loop, we felt safer cutting west and then north again on the city streets. As the day approached, we were on Clark, the distinctive curve of Wrigley Field’s façade before us.

  The streets were so quiet. Many people had obviously fled, and any who had stayed behind were safely tucked inside their apartments and condos, cowering behind furniture stacked against doors.

  In their hands would be Mace and hair spray and fire extinguishers and guns, for those who believed in that sort of thing. Others would be on their knees, hands folded and eyes shut tight, calling the name of their chosen savior.

  All around us was the debris of a fallen world—a smashed cell phone, a Starbucks cup, a dropped scarf, a suitcase that had broken open and spilled its contents all over the street.

  Inside the case were the things its owner had considered important—a wedding photo in a silver frame, the glass shattered; wool socks rolled in multicolored balls; lacy underwear; designer jeans; a stack of Fiber One bars; a jewelry roll that had already been stripped of anything valuable; a deck of cards.

  Farther down the street was a stuffed dinosaur, trampled in some mad stampede. The sight of it made me painfully sad. The child who’d dropped that stuffed toy would be crying, confused and scared, and now lacked even the simple, basic comfort of their favorite friend. Wherever that child was, the night would be a little darker, a little colder, without their dinosaur. Everyone knows dinosaurs keep the monsters away.

  The bars on Clark Street advertised drink specials, live bands, half-priced hamburgers. The flags above the storefronts fluttered pathetically in the wind, the logos of the Cubs and the Blackhawks, the Bulls and the Bears. The red stars of the Chicago city flag looked like bloodstained hands lined up in a row.

  Yesterday all of these things had seemed desperately important—whether or not the Hawks beat the Wings, or your friend was late to the bar. Today everyone was just trying to hold on, to not have to witness their family being devoured by vampires.

  All of the edifices of humanity—the roads and the cars, the fast-food joints and the parking meters, the smartphones and the bicycles, lazy days at the ballpark, afternoons grilling while the kids scoot up and down the sidewalk, boutiques and thrift stores, Italian ice and Italian beef, cheering for a touchdown in a bar with a mouthful of nachos and beer sloshing over the table, complaining about the traffic, complaining about the taxes, complaining about the mayor and the garbage pickup and the noisy college kids having a party, library books and comic books, kissing in the kitchen or on the front porch or in the shadow of a tower—all of these things had been swept away. Maybe someday there would be a new normal. But for now everything that had made Chicago was gone.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said. His hand was at my elbow. “Madeline, we are nearly home.”

  I realized I stood in the middle of Clark Street with the dinosaur clutched to my chest.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said again, and put his arm around my shoulder, made me move my feet.

  “How can anything be the same again?” I said.

  “This is what happens during war,” Nathaniel said, and his voice was gentle, so like Gabriel’s that my heart ached.

  “The war is here because of me. These people suffered because of me, because Azazel hated me so much that he needed to send the monster to my doorstep.”

  “If it was not Chicago, it would have been some other city, some other innocents. And you would have felt just as responsible, because Azazel is your father.”

  I squeezed the stuffed dinosaur in my hands. “You’re right. I would have. But that knowledge doesn’t make this any easier. He destroyed my home, the city I loved.”

  I’m not sure how we got home. The last mile or so was a blur. I remember ringing the doorbell—my keys had gone missing somewhere in the night—and Samiel opening the door, his face white and drawn with worry. I fell into his arms, and then everything was black.

  When I opened my eyes again I was in my own bed. The sun streamed through the windows, and Beezle sat on the pillow next to me, watching me sleep.

  “Do you know that your hair has grown about four inches while you slept?”

  I sat up and rubbed my eyes, and the stuffed dinosaur rolled onto my lap.

  “You were clutching that filthy thing for two days,” Beezle said. “No one could pry it out of your hands. I wiped it down with antibacterial gel as best I could so that you wouldn’t get botulism all over your sheets.”

  “I was asleep for two days?” I asked.

  “Yes. And have I mentioned your unusual hair growth, and the fact that Nathaniel’s essence is different from what it was when he left?”

  I went still. I hoped Beezle hadn’t blabbed about the change in Nathaniel.

  “You mentioned my hair. Twice. So it grew back. What’s the big deal?”

  Beezle narrowed his eyes at me. “What happened between you two while you were out there?”

  “I’m sure Nathaniel told you all about it,” I said with studied nonchalance.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed that Nathaniel is somewhat taciturn,” Beezle said. “He’s not what you’d call a gripping storyteller.”

  “What’s to tell? We put a veil over the hospital to protect the people inside. We were chased by Bryson and a bunch of his goons. They shot us out of the sky and we had to walk home, dodging monsters along the way.”

  “And nothing else happened?”

  I gave Beezle my best big brown eyes and tried not to blink too much. I’d read somewhere that blinking was a sign of lying. “Nope. Nothing else.”

  The door opened and Nathaniel came in. It was like all the air had just been squeezed from the
room.

  Beezle turned his head slowly from me to Nathaniel and back again. Then he addressed me. “You are a crappy liar. Don’t think you’ll be able to hide…whatever this is…from the others.”

  And he flew out of the room, grumbling under his breath.

  Nathaniel closed the door behind him. He looked clean and rested, and he was dressed more casually than I’d ever seen him in a gray sweater and blue jeans.

  It was hard for me to look at him now that the crisis was over. What had happened between us seemed like a moment out of time, a thing that had happened once but couldn’t happen again. I could only imagine what Samiel would think if Nathaniel and I became involved. I’d just buried Samiel’s brother, and I was carrying his brother’s child.

  Even as I thought all of this, Nathaniel sat down on the bed beside me. He took my hand in his, and the space between us crackled with electricity. I had serious doubts about my self-restraint. Something was compelling me toward Nathaniel, despite all reason, despite our history, despite the fact that a part of me sensed it was dangerous for both of us to go any further. Was I turning into a woman who wanted the wrong man for all the wrong reasons? Would my baser instincts really prevail?

  “You are well?” Nathaniel asked. “Your powers are restored?”

  I did a quick internal check and found that everything was as it should be. My baby fluttered its wings reassuringly.

  “Yes. And you?” I said. “Is your wing healed?”

  Nathaniel turned so that I could see that his wing had been restored. “Samiel helped me repair it.”

  “That’s good,” I said, then decided I might as well forge right ahead before I lost my nerve. “Nathaniel, what happened between the two of us…”

  He put his hand on my lips. “What I said to you still stands. I want you to choose me. I do not wish to be a dirty secret.”

  “I understand,” I said, although part of me wanted to keep him as just that, if only so I could satisfy the unreasoning lust that had appeared when I’d kissed him the first time. “I just want you to know that I’m not ready to make that choice.”

  Nathaniel rubbed his thumb over my mouth. “Then I will have to convince you,” he said, and replaced his hand with his lips.

  As soon as he kissed me it was like I was falling again, falling into a mad abyss where I didn’t care about anything except Nathaniel, Nathaniel’s touch, Nathaniel’s heat. I could sense the same madness on him, as his mouth became more insistent, more demanding. His hands moved over me, and it seemed I moved inevitably toward him, that there was only one way this could end.

  He pulled away, rested his forehead against mine. “Madeline. I cannot control myself around you.”

  “I know,” I said, moving reluctantly away and rising from the bed. “Whatever this is, it seems to get stronger the more we…do stuff.”

  The corners of his mouth quirked upward at my phrasing, but he sobered quickly. “I cannot tell if this is the normal course of intense attraction, or if there is another factor at work here.”

  “Do you think someone put us under a love spell?” I was pretty much grasping at straws here.

  “To what end? Who would benefit from our joining?”

  “Maybe someone who wants me to be distracted.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “It does not have the sense of a love spell. Everything goes back to the moment when our powers combined. It was as if your magic unlocked something inside me. Since that moment I have felt stronger, more powerful. I have abilities I did not have before. And I sense something more, something untapped beneath the surface.”

  He was coming into the legacy of his bloodline. I understood how he felt. I’d gone through this when Lucifer’s powers had manifested inside me, and I think the full magnitude of that magic still had not fully presented itself.

  “Maybe we should quit the touching and the kissing for a while until we figure out what’s going on,” I said, and I felt a pang of loss. My words were sensible, but my body craved him. It was a little frightening.

  “That seems wise,” Nathaniel agreed. “But it will be difficult.”

  “We have to try,” I said.

  “When I slept, I dreamed of you,” Nathaniel said. “I dreamed that you rose above the city on silver wings, and all below you fell to their knees in wonder and awe. The power of the universe burned within you, and as that power flowed, you shone brighter and brighter. As the light of your sun touched the faces of the vampires below, they were destroyed utterly. Even the ash of their remains was vaporized by your light.”

  He’d said all of this as if he were in a trance. As he spoke a chill washed over me. I felt the cold hand of destiny draw a finger down my spine.

  “Do you think it was a prophecy?” I asked quietly. I didn’t like prophecies. Most of my life had been ruled by prophecies, the deaths foreseen at the Agency. I liked to feel as though I was the mistress of my own fate.

  “I believe you have the ability within you to end this war. That is what my dream revealed to me.”

  “I don’t have powers like that,” I said. “I don’t even have wings anymore.”

  “The potential is inside you. It just needs to be revealed.”

  I rubbed my forehead tiredly. “I don’t know how to reveal it. Maybe Lucifer would know if he’d answer my damned phone calls.”

  I gave the snake tattoo on my right palm an angry glare. It lay quiescent and unmoving, the way it did when Lucifer was out of touch.

  There was a brief knock at the bedroom door and Jude came in. I took a moment to be grateful that the wolf hadn’t walked in while Nathaniel and I were embracing. Jude did not trust Nathaniel at all.

  “You need to come out here,” Jude said. “There’s something on the television that you need to see.”

  I followed Jude into the hallway and Nathaniel fell in behind me. Chloe, Samiel and Beezle waited in the living room. Beezle sat on the coffee table holding the remote. Samiel sat on the couch with Chloe in his lap. Beezle followed the direction of my gaze.

  “Sickening, aren’t they?” he said. “Ever since she got out of the hospital they can’t keep their hands off each other.”

  “Jealous, little gargoyle?” Chloe asked, resting her head on Samiel’s shoulder. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she didn’t look completely recovered from her ordeal in Azazel’s mansion. Her vivid purple hair was pushed away from her face with a headband that had little skulls printed all over it.

  Beezle scrunched up his face. “Absolutely not. I just think there’s a little too much PDA going on around here. Human procreation is so gross.”

  I’m not human, Samiel signed.

  “Close enough,” Beezle said.

  “How do gargoyles procreate?” Chloe asked.

  “Nope, I’m drawing the line there,” I said before Beezle could respond. “I do not want to hear how you make baby gargoyles.”

  “It’s quite a fascinating process, actually,” Beezle said.

  I stuck my fingers in my ears. “Nope, not listening, la-la-la-la-la.”

  “I thought you wanted her to see something on television,” Jude growled.

  “I do,” Beezle said. “But there’s a commercial on. It will come up in a minute. The news anchor said the footage would be up after the break.”

  “Footage of what?” I asked, a pit forming in my stomach. This couldn’t be anything good, and I’d had enough of bad news.

  “Just wait,” Beezle said. “Although you wouldn’t have to wait if you’d gotten that DVR like I said you should.”

  “You mean the DVR we can’t afford? You’re lucky we have cable.”

  “If we had a DVR, I could have paused the program until you got your butt out of bed.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I spent a day and a night running for my life while pregnant. For some strange reason I was exhausted.”

  “Not exhausted enough,” Beezle muttered, and I understood from his tone that he was referring to the changes in me and Nathani
el.

  Luckily, the news program came back on before we could pursue that line of conversation in the presence of an audience. Of course, a reckoning in front of my gang of misfits was probably as inevitable as what would happen between Nathaniel and me. Even now I was aware of him in a low-level way, a presence in the back of my mind.

  The anchor—one of those plastic newscasters who look like they’ve been pressed in an attractive-but-not-in-a-threatening-way mold—was recapping the events of two days ago, even showing the same clip of the vampires in Daley Plaza that had sent us down there in such a hurry.

  “Why did I get out of bed for this?” I asked.

  “Just wait,” Beezle said.

  My stomach rumbled audibly. Samiel patted Chloe’s shoulder and she slid off his lap onto the couch.

  I’ll make you some breakfast. I’ve already seen it.

  “I’m feeling a little peckish myself,” Beezle said.

  “You already ate enough waffles to sink the Titanic,” Jude said.

  “That was a long time ago,” Beezle whined.

  “It was a half an hour ago,” Jude said through his teeth.

  “Quiet,” Chloe said. “It’s coming on.”

  I missed the anchor’s lead-in to the clip, but I didn’t need it. The meaning was clear enough.

  A dark-haired, green-eyed vampire sat at the head of a long wooden table. Behind him was a wall of gray stone with no identifying characteristics. The vampire looked young, but that didn’t mean anything. He could have been turned hundreds of years before. The camera stayed close to the vampire so that the viewer could not see the rest of the room.

  “Greetings, citizens of Chicago,” the vampire said, and there was a smugness in his silky voice that made me want to punch him in the face. “I am Therion, lord of the Fifth Court of the United States, headquartered here in your fair city. You may have noted the presence of my brethren.”

  He smiled when he said this, and showed his fangs. “We have always lived among you, keeping to the shadows. However, recent advances in medical science, shall we say, have allowed us to now walk with you under the sun.”

  “Medical advances, my ass. The blood of Agents,” Chloe said angrily. “That piece of garbage Azazel practically drained us dry in the name of his experiments.”