Black City bw-5

by Christina Henry

  “So now we’ve got the faerie queen’s son,” I said. “And that means we have something to trade.”

  “Bendith for J.B.?” Nathaniel said. “Are we going to return to the castle with a knife to his neck and demand Titania reveal J.B.’s location?”

  “We could, if we had to,” I said. “Or we could make Bendith tell us where J.B. is.”

  “If he knows,” Beezle said.

  “Well, we’d better wake him up and find out,” I said.

  “Shall I heal him?” Nathaniel asked.

  “No,” I said. “He tried to kill me. He’s not getting courtesy from me.”

  “Dark side,” Beezle murmured.

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I don’t want him healed. If we have to kill him, then that’s a lot of energy wasted.”

  “Are you really going to kill Titania’s son in cold blood?” Beezle asked. “I’m not sure I’m on board with this.”

  “Me, neither,” said Chloe, who was eyeing me like she’d never seen me before. Even Samiel looked uncertain. It was hard to tell what Jude was thinking, as he was in wolf form. Nathaniel appeared unfazed. Nathaniel still thought like a member of the fallen, and that meant that whatever means were necessary were okay with him.

  “Either I am in charge or I’m not,” I said through my teeth. “If none of you like it, you can find your own way home.”

  There was an awkward silence that followed this.

  “Wake him up,” I repeated.

  Samiel shook Bendith roughly. Titania’s son groaned and opened his eyes.

  “What…Where…?” He sat up abruptly as he realized he was on the ground, surrounded by enemies.

  “You missed,” I said.

  Bendith narrowed his eyes at me. “I will not miss again when next the opportunity arises.”

  “You’re not getting any more opportunities,” I said. “Get up. You can save me a lot of time and energy by taking me to J.B.”

  “And why should I assist my enemy?” Bendith sneered.

  “Because if you don’t, I will make you hurt like you never have before,” I said.

  “If you torture him, you’re no better than Titania,” Beezle said.

  “She’s the one who changed the rules,” I said. “He doesn’t have to suffer as long as I get what I want.”

  “No, I cannot allow this,” Bendith said. “You must pay for what you have done to Father.”

  He pushed himself from the ground in a suicide strike, his hands outstretched, ready to strangle me. He moved faster than I thought he could have, given his injuries. My magic flared. But Nathaniel was already there.

  Nathaniel grabbed Bendith’s wrists, and then something strange happened.

  Electricity arced between them, and they were surrounded by a blaze of white light. The light faded as quickly as it appeared. The two stared at each other, identical stunned expressions on their faces.

  “Your eyes,” Bendith said, and there was wonder in his voice. “Your eyes are like mine.”

  I shifted so I could see Nathaniel’s face. It was true. The frozen blue had been replaced by the same sapphire as Bendith’s—and Puck’s.

  I grabbed one of Nathaniel’s hands and pulled. He released Bendith, but Titania’s son took Nathaniel’s other arm so that the angel stood between us like a tug-of-war rope.

  “Wait,” Bendith said, his eyes searching. “Who are you to me?”

  I really didn’t want to have this conversation. I had enough family drama of my own. But maybe I could get Bendith to help us if he knew the truth.

  “He’s your brother,” I said. I half hoped Titania was watching us with her magic. I hoped she was gnashing her teeth as I revealed the truth to her son.

  “My…brother?” He looked bewildered, his eyes like a lost puppy’s.

  Beezle shifted around on my shoulder so that he faced Nathaniel.

  “I guess we know who you are now,” he said to Nathaniel in a low voice. “Should I start calling you faerie child?”

  “Nathaniel’s a faerie now?” Chloe asked. She looked almost as confused as Bendith.

  “Puck is no faerie,” Nathaniel said. “You should know this, gargoyle. You can see the true nature of things.”

  Beezle muttered something so quietly that I could barely hear him, and he was perched right next to my ear.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “I said, I can’t get a clear reading on Puck.” Beezle sounded disgruntled. “He’s too changeable.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said.

  I wondered how Puck was able to disguise himself so thoroughly. He had managed to live under Titania’s nose for hundreds of years without her detection. And I still had yet to figure out why. He was playing a very long and deep game in the faerie court, and I hadn’t yet determined how it benefited Puck to pretend to be Titania’s subordinate.

  “Are you saying that Puck is my father, and yours?” Bendith searched Nathaniel’s face.

  “You know the truth of this in your heart,” Nathaniel said gently. “You have only chosen to believe otherwise.”

  Bendith closed his eyes, those orbs of brilliant blue that were exactly like Puck’s. When he opened them, his face was relaxed.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have always known this to be true.”

  “Does that mean that you’ll stop trying to kill me for diminishing Oberon?” I asked.

  Bendith hardly seemed to notice me. He had eyes only for Nathaniel, starving eyes, the eyes of a child who has finally been given some longed-for desire. “I have always wished for a brother.”

  “Wish granted,” Beezle said. “Now, can we get on with the quest so we can get out of here? I don’t want to spend any more time in this forest than I have to.”

  “Would you aid us, Bendith?” Nathaniel asked.

  He seemed so gentle in that moment. I was reminded of Gabriel and Samiel’s first meeting, when they had discovered they were siblings. From the look on Samiel’s face he was remembering, too. I turned my head to one side, taking a few deep breaths so that I would not weep. Sometimes it was hard for me to remember that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost something when Gabriel had died.

  “I will help you, but not because I am interested in your quest, or your quarrel with my mother,” Bendith said. “I will help my brother. Because my mother betrayed the man I thought was my father, the father I have loved my whole life.”

  “Thank you,” Nathaniel said.

  Bendith nodded. “Follow me.”

  Nathaniel fell in beside him. I don’t know whether Nathaniel wanted to spend some time with his brother or he wanted to be close enough to punch him if Bendith was tricking us, which was still a possibility.

  He turned us off the main path through the woods. The foliage was thicker here, and it was harder to walk. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other and not tripping over anything.

  Everyone was silent, lost in their own thoughts, except for Bendith and Nathaniel. The two of them spoke quietly, a conversation for their ears alone. I think Chloe, especially, had been disturbed by the prospect of torturing Bendith. She kept glancing warily at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.

  I was finding that I didn’t much care about Chloe’s opinion, or Beezle’s, or Samiel’s. I didn’t see why our enemies got to do whatever they wanted but we had to follow some nebulous set of rules designed to appease human ideas of morality. As everyone was constantly reminding me, the creatures we dealt with were not human.

  We walked for quite a while, long enough that I was starting to question whether or not Bendith was leading us into a trap. Then we emerged into another clearing, and J.B. was there.

  He was lying upon a wide, flat stone, his eyes closed. I started toward him, but Nathaniel put his hand on my shoulder to hold me back.

  “Is there a spell around the stone?” Nathaniel asked Bendith.

  Titania’s son shook his head. “No. It is safe for you to approach.”

  I p
ushed past Nathaniel so I could go to J.B., kneeling at his side. My merry band of misfits crowded around us.

  “Gods above and below,” I said.

  J.B.’s face was covered in blood. His right cheekbone looked like it was broken. His chest was bare and covered in fist-sized bruises. His eyes were closed and his breathing shallow.

  “J.B.?” I whispered. “J.B., can you hear me?”

  “He’s in too much pain to wake,” Nathaniel said. “I can heal him.”

  He exchanged a look with Jude, and Jude nodded. The wolf took up the place at my back, and I realized they were worried about Bendith striking when I wasn’t paying attention. Apparently Nathaniel didn’t trust his brother completely.

  It was a good thing I had them looking out for me, because Bendith could have stabbed me at that moment and I’d never have noticed. All I cared about was J.B., and that he had suffered this because of me.

  Nathaniel gripped J.B.’s shoulders and closed his eyes. The air filled with magic, and I felt that pulsing awareness of Nathaniel again, like his power was seeking mine. I put my hands over Nathaniel’s, and pushed through him and into J.B.

  There was a lot of damage. Broken bones, torn muscles, and, most terrifyingly, I sensed a blood clot forming from the trauma. I carefully picked the clot apart cell by cell while Nathaniel healed J.B.’s other injuries.

  After a while we had done all we could do, and I released Nathaniel’s hands. He let go of J.B. and we looked at each other. J.B. still had not opened his eyes.

  “He will likely need to rest for some time,” Nathaniel said. “But he will be well now.”

  I touched J.B.’s cheek. “Where are his glasses?” I asked.

  “I suspect they were broken,” Nathaniel said.

  “How will he see without his glasses?” I said. I felt tears forming in my throat and I swallowed them ruthlessly. It was a stupid thing to worry about, really. At least he was alive. I just hoped his brain was still intact when he woke up, that he was still J.B.

  “Samiel?” I asked.

  Samiel reached for J.B. and slung him over one shoulder.

  “Now we have to get out of here,” I said. “Bendith, you’d better get back to the castle before Titania finds out what you’ve been up to.”

  “I would like to stay with you,” Bendith said to Nathaniel.

  “No,” I said, before Nathaniel could agree. “I’m grateful to you for your help, but you need to go home. I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s life.”

  “If I go home, when will I see you again?” Bendith asked Nathaniel.

  “We will meet again,” Nathaniel said.

  “How are we going to get back home without Puck?” Chloe said.

  “We need to get outside the borders of the kingdom. That’s where we landed the last time we arrived here. Once we get there I’ll try to contact Lucifer,” I said.

  “And what if Lucifer decides to leave us stranded here?” Chloe said. “Or you can’t reach him?”

  “One problem at a time,” I said.

  “If you return to the path through the woods, you will find what you seek,” Bendith said. He seemed reluctant to leave.

  “Until we meet again, brother,” Nathaniel said.

  “Until we meet again,” Bendith repeated.

  We started toward the path, leaving Bendith by the stone looking lost. I determinedly faced forward. I would not worry about what would happen to Bendith now that he knew the truth. Titania had made her own bed and now she could lie in it.

  “There’s going to be a reckoning for that,” Beezle said, and I knew he was referring to the revelation of Bendith’s parentage.

  “Isn’t there always?” I said sourly.

  We walked until we came to the edge of the forest. Chloe sat down on a nearby log, dislodging several small insects as she did so. Ahead of us was an open field of grass, and beyond it, green foothills that led up to sharp mountains. The sky was blue; the sun was bright. Everywhere except…

  “Hey, look there,” I said, pointing to the topmost peak of the mountains ahead of us. At the very tip of the snowcapped mountain the bright blue sky was smudged with a patch of gray.

  Chloe squinted. “What am I supposed to be looking at here?”

  “The way out,” Beezle said, clapping me on the shoulder with his little hand. “Not bad.”

  “How do you know that little dirty smudge is the way out and not another illusion?” she asked.

  “Because when we arrived here the first time with Lucifer, we were in a kind of no-man’s-land, a place that was cold and gray,” I said.

  “But how do you know it’s not an illusion?” Chloe persisted.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I have to believe that it’s not.”

  “I’m really amazed that you’ve survived as long as you have, with logic like that at work,” she said.

  “Everyone underestimates me,” I replied. “I’m not offended.”

  “And besides,” Beezle said. “I can tell that’s not an illusion with my special gargoyle powers.”

  “I know you are tired,” Nathaniel said, “but—”

  “We should keep moving, I know,” I said. I looked at J.B., sleeping on a tree root. “We’re not going to be able to fly as long as J.B.’s knocked out. It would be hard for Samiel to carry Jude and J.B.”

  “I told you, you can’t fly anyway,” Beezle said.

  “Won’t it be safe to fly once we get away from the forest?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Absolutely not. They don’t like anything in their territory. I was just lucky that I saw the nest before I got too high.”

  “What nest?” Chloe asked. “What’s up there?”

  “Harpies,” Beezle said.

  Nathaniel looked sharply upward. “Harpies. Are you sure?”

  Beezle nodded. “I am definitely sure.”

  “How many?”

  “I saw eggs,” Beezle said.

  “Then they’re breeding,” Nathaniel said. “There could be hundreds of them up there, and it would only take one or two to cause us considerable distress.”

  “Harpies are myths from the Greeks,” Chloe said. “What are they doing in a faerie forest?”

  “Titania must have made a deal with them,” Nathaniel said. “And if the gargoyle is correct, then we most certainly cannot fly. If even one of the harpies sees or senses us in the air, then they will consider us fair game.”

  “Yay, harpies,” Chloe said, standing up. “Let’s walk now.”

  Samiel bent to pick up J.B. I went to his side for a moment, put my hand on J.B.’s head. He was cool to the touch.

  “No fever,” I said. “There’s that, at least.”

  Nathaniel came up beside me, touched my shoulder. “His body simply needs time to recover.”

  I nodded, but I knew I wouldn’t feel better until J.B. opened his eyes. Jude trotted silently ahead, and we all fell back into our positions.

  The thing about mountains is that it’s hard to tell how far away they are. I don’t know how far or how long we walked with the sun beating down on us and no food or water. All I know is that after a while I started to feel woozy. And then a while after that everything went black.

  I woke up with my head in Nathaniel’s lap and a mouth full of dirt. I turned to one side and tried to spit, but my mouth was too dry, and I gagged. Beezle sat on my chest with a worried expression on his face. Jude sat beside my arm, still in wolf form, his tongue hanging out in deference to the heat. Samiel and Chloe were standing, leaning on each other for support. J.B. was on the ground beside me.

  “This is taking too long,” Beezle said. “You’re not going to make it to those mountains.”

  “I can do it,” I said through bone-dry lips.

  “Yeah, and I’m an Australian supermodel,” Beezle said. “Look, we’re on a deadline with Therion as it is. Remember the vampire invasion of your hometown? We can’t spend the whole three days messing around in the faerie kingdom. We have to get
out of here so that you can get home and kick some vampire butt so that takeout can be restored.”

  He was right. I knew he was right. We just couldn’t walk fast enough. Samiel was strong, but he couldn’t carry J.B. indefinitely. Chloe was weakened from her ordeal in Azazel’s mansion, and I was pregnant. Jude and Nathaniel could probably make it, but the rest of us wouldn’t.

  “What do you suggest we do, then?” I said.

  Beezle looked grim.

  “We’re going to have to fly.”

  12

  “WHAT ABOUT THE HARPIES?” I ASKED. “AND JUDE AND J.B.?”

  “I can carry you and the wolf,” Nathaniel said.

  I shook my head. “That’s silly. We’ll need you to be able to fight if the harpies come after us.”

  “When the harpies come after us, you mean,” Chloe said. “But I can carry Jude, anyway.”

  Samiel shook his head. No, you can’t. You aren’t nearly strong enough.

  Chloe flexed her biceps. “I lift weights, you know.”

  “You can’t carry a two-hundred-twenty-pound wolf through the air no matter how much you can bench-press,” I said. “I can’t, either, and I’m less human than you are.”

  “What if we wake up J.B.?” Beezle said.

  “He’s traumatized. And healing,” I said, sitting up slowly and trying to wipe the dirt out of my mouth. “How are we supposed to do that?”

  “Well, we are in faerie land,” Beezle said. “How are sleeping princes usually woken?”

  I didn’t have to see Nathaniel to know he was scowling. I stood up to put more distance between us.

  “Look,” I said, my face heating. “In stories it’s the princess that’s woken by love’s first kiss. J.B. and I don’t love each other.”

  “Yes, you do,” Beezle said seriously. “Oh, there’s a whole lot of human stupidity and some other stuff in the way, but at the core of it you love each other. If you didn’t love him, you would have left him here and dealt with the vampires first.”