Black City bw-5

by Christina Henry

  “Chill,” I said, coming up behind her, panting. “Keep the lid on the crazy for a second, will you?”

  “I swear by all the gods, granddaughter, if you have made me suffer for no reason…”

  “You’ll what?” I said. “Talk me to death? You have no power, Evangeline. Here you are nothing more than a spirit, and you cannot pass through that portal without me. And without paying the price.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I thought I just paid the price.”

  “You thought a walk through the desert was the price?” I asked. “No way. You’re asking to be restored to the living. The only way you pay is in blood.”

  Evangeline covered her belly protectively. “You will not take my child from me.”

  “I am not taking anything,” I said impatiently, although it was a possibility I had already considered. The universe might let Evangeline through that portal—if she gave her baby’s life in return. “It’s not up to me.”

  I held out my hand to her. She gazed at it fearfully, as if I were a snake about to strike.

  “If you want to return, you have to come with me. And you have to agree to the price that is asked of you,” I said. “Otherwise, you stay.”

  After a long pause, she took my hand. Her fingers were cold, and I was seized by the sudden impulse to comfort her.

  Then I remembered that she had laughed like a maniac when Ramuell had torn my heart out, and the impulse passed.

  We approached the portal, which looked like a long silver mirror hanging without wall or wire above the sand. I stretched my other hand toward it, and I passed through. Evangeline flowed in behind me.

  Unlike every other portal I’d experienced, this one did not immediately suck us into a vacuum and send us hurtling through space and time. Instead we were floating in a kind of misty netherworld, surrounded by streams of white smoke.

  One of the puffs of smoke curled into a face and gazed at me with empty eyes. I realized that what I thought was smoke were ghosts, the ghosts of all those who had tried to pass through here and been unable or unwilling to pay the price.

  The ghosts wound around us. They seemed fairly harmless to me, like kittens. But Evangeline started to struggle, to try to shake them off her.

  “Quit it,” I said. “If you keep that up, I’ll lose you.”

  “Make them leave,” she said, her voice trembling. “They want my baby.”

  I frowned at her. “I don’t think so. They’re just curious.”

  “They want me to pay,” she said. “Can’t you hear them whispering?”

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t.”

  “They are in my head,” she said, her green eyes wide with terror. “They are telling me of all the sins I have done.”

  It was like Evangeline was trapped in her own personal Maze while I was drifting along in a stream of cotton candy. There was nothing I could do now. I had fulfilled Lucifer’s charge to me, and fetched Evangeline from the dead. Now it was up to her whether she would pass into the land of the living again.

  She began to thrash, and it was harder for me to hold on to her. I knew if I released her now, she would end up in the netherworld forever. That wasn’t really a problem for me, but Lucifer might think I’d left her there on purpose.

  I grabbed onto her other shoulder with my left hand while keeping a good grip on her fingers with my right. She couldn’t even see me now. Her gaze was somewhere else, far inward.

  Then she nodded. And then she screamed, and we were falling, rushing through the air like we’d been dropped from the top of the tallest building in the world. There was no chance for me to slow us down. Her shoulder slipped out of my grasp, and there was something wet and sticky on my fingers. I white-knuckled her hand, and hoped that we would make it. There wasn’t much else I could do.

  The ground appeared out of nowhere, and all the breath left my body. Evangeline’s hand was still in mine, and it was colder than death. I sat up slowly, realizing I was in my own backyard, and that it was night. I don’t know how long I had been gone, but all of the snow had melted.

  “Thanks, universe,” I muttered. I didn’t really want to have to stash Evangeline until Lucifer felt like coming to pick her up.

  I looked over at Evangeline. Her eyes were closed. Now I knew why I’d lost my grip on her shoulder, and why my fingers were all sticky.

  Evangeline’s right arm was gone, cut as cleanly as if by an ax, and she was bleeding to death on my lawn.

  “Gods above and below,” I swore.

  The back door slammed open. Nathaniel stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  “Madeline,” he said, his voice full of relief. “You have been gone for three days. I thought you would never return.”

  “Never mind that,” I said urgently. “I need you to help me with Evangeline. She’s bleeding to death.”

  I have to give Nathaniel credit. He didn’t stand around asking about the whys and wherefores. He rushed to my side, and seemed to know what I wanted immediately.

  His fingers twined around mine, and we each put our other hand over the gaping hole where Evangeline’s arm used to be.

  Our magic, Nathaniel’s and mine, lit up the night like a searchlight. It took a long time to close the wound. There was a lot of damage.

  After a while it was done. Evangeline was still breathing, although it didn’t sound like she was restful. I lifted her right eyelid to check her pupils and gasped.

  “What?” Nathaniel said.

  “Look,” I said.

  There was no eye underneath, just a black hole where the orb used to be. Nathaniel checked the other socket. I watched expectantly.

  “Empty,” he said.

  I put my hand over Evangeline’s belly, wondering whether her child had survived the passage. Beneath my hand there was movement, but it wasn’t natural. It felt like she was carrying a litter of snakes. I yanked my palm away, rubbing it on my pants leg.

  “Both her eyes and her arm,” I said.

  “It seems a small price to pay for returning from the dead,” Nathaniel said.

  “And still, I wonder how happy she’ll be about paying it once she wakes up and realizes she can’t see,” I said.

  Nathaniel lay down in the grass. He pulled me to him so I could rest my head on his chest.

  “It’s done,” I said. Evangeline’s happiness with her choice was not of any concern to me. My eyes closed. I felt an almost overwhelming urge to sleep right there. “Lucifer, she’s here.”

  I drifted into a doze, woke when I felt him beside her, kneeling in the grass, lifting her away. His voice was nothing but a whisper on the wind—Thank you, granddaughter.

  Nathaniel and I both slept right there in the yard. When I opened my eyes again all that remained of Evangeline was a bloodstain in the grass. It was still very dark out, not even close to the dawn yet.

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and stretched. I was stiff all over. I wanted a proper sleep in a proper bed after a very hot shower with lots of soap. There was sand in my eyes, sand in my clothes, sand in my socks. I still had Evangeline’s blood on my hands.

  Nathaniel opened his eyes. They glittered in the starlight, the deep blue of the sapphires. He was beautiful to me in that moment, a creature of another world, black-haired and white-winged, bathed in the night.

  I lowered my head to kiss him, drawn by a force I could not resist.

  He smiled, and I realized at the last second that it was not his smile. Something was wrong.

  His hands latched on my neck and he pushed me to the ground, his weight on top of me, suffocating me.

  I tried to say his name, to pry his hands from my neck. I put my hands over his, fought for consciousness, pushed power through the connection between us.

  I didn’t find Nathaniel’s magic welcoming me as I had before. There was someone else inside him, someone else at the controls.

  My life was fading fast. My baby beat its wings against my belly. I found the spark of the Morningstar inside me, and g
ave one tremendous heave, pushing all of that power into Nathaniel. The source of his power, that gift from Puck, rose up to meet me. Together we chased the thing that was inside Nathaniel out.

  There was an audible pop, and then Nathaniel released my neck. I coughed, breathing great lungfuls of air. Nathaniel looked horrified.

  “Madeline, I am so—”

  “Don’t apologize,” I said, and jerked my thumb at the silvery apparition floating in the air. “It was her fault. You’re some piece of work—you know that?”

  Amarantha smirked at me. “I may have failed in this instance, but you will never know when I will strike again.”

  I stood up, rubbing my throat. “Whose magic did you steal to be able to do that?”

  “I stole nothing,” Amarantha said, miffed. “Your useless brother left his cupboard of toys behind when he was beheaded. There are many useful things in there.”

  Greenwitch’s magic. She’d been an exceptional witch, and since Antares had no magic of his own she had bequeathed him a collection of magical objects to help him. I’d noticed the cupboard in the cave in the Forbidden Lands where I’d killed Antares, but once the mountain came down on the cavern I’d assumed nothing could survive.

  Somehow Amarantha had ferreted out Antares’ goodies. Before, she’d just been an annoying ghost. A closetful of magic suddenly made her a lot more dangerous. That meant I would have to find her stash and destroy it before she could do any more damage to me and mine.

  Amarantha smiled like she knew what I was thinking. “You will never discover it, Agent. You will be forever looking over your shoulder for me.”

  She rose up, her tinkling-bell laugh just as irritating in death as it had been in life. She threw her arms wide. “But first, a gift for you.”

  The vampires came slithering over the fence from the alley, dozens of them. Behind them clambered humans with blank eyes, and I realized that Amarantha had somehow ensnared these humans with other ghosts, just as she had possessed Nathaniel. It was a crafty move, since she knew that I wouldn’t deliberately harm a bunch of innocents. And because it severely limited my brand of blast-and-burn magic.

  “I guess we know who was working with Therion,” I muttered, drawing my sword. Nathaniel and I moved so that we were back-to-back. “Don’t hurt the humans. They’re not responsible for what they do.”

  The vampires surrounded us, snarling. They descended on us, and so commenced the hacking and the slashing.

  The vampires were hopelessly outmatched. I’m not sure why they bothered, really. The hardest part for me was making sure that I didn’t accidentally behead any humans in the close quarters.

  “Why are we bothering to engage them?” Nathaniel said as he sent a blast of nightfire directly into the chest of nearby vamp. “There is no need. We could fly away.”

  “Yeah, but then the vampires would eat the neighbors,” I said. “And I think they just got home after the last vampire crisis.”

  The vampires were dispatched fairly quickly. The humans were another problem. They surrounded us with their blank and staring eyes, their hands outstretched.

  “This is a lot like being in a George Romero movie,” I said. “Except that I don’t have a shotgun.”

  We both lifted off from the ground at the same time, floating above the yard. The possessed humans milled around for a minute, confused.

  “Now, where did that bitch Amarantha go?” I said.

  “Here,” J.B.’s voice said behind me.

  18

  AMARANTHA GLARED AT ME THROUGH J.B.’S EYES. SHE pointed her finger at me and shot a blast of red light at me. I dodged it narrowly and pointed my sword at her.

  “Let him go,” I said. “Hasn’t he suffered enough abuse at your hands?”

  “You won’t hurt this body,” Amarantha said confidently. It was disturbing to hear her speaking with J.B.’s voice. “I can do whatever I like with you and you cannot defend yourself.”

  She blasted at me again. I was lucky her aim was crappy, because otherwise that blast would have hit me square in the chest.

  “We have to get her out of J.B.,” I said to Nathaniel.

  “Yes,” he said. “But we have another problem.”

  He pointed toward the east. A vanguard of Agents was flying toward us, led by Bryson, and carrying weapons. Apparently Bryson just wasn’t scared enough by my little performance on the bridge a few days before.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, exasperated. Amarantha tried knocking me out of the sky again, and I avoided it once more. “Sokolov really has a lot of time on his hands.”

  “I will take care of the Agents,” Nathaniel said.

  “Don’t kill them,” I warned.

  “Bryson would kill you in an instant,” Nathaniel said.

  “Don’t kill them,” I said. “They’re following orders.”

  I turned my attention on Amarantha. I was pretty sure I could get her out of J.B.’s body if I could just get ahold of her. But she was right. I wouldn’t willingly hurt him, so I couldn’t just blast her out.

  I flew toward her, building up speed. Her eyes widened. I don’t think she expected me to charge her.

  But she acted exactly as I hoped she would. She ran. Amarantha had never been one to stand and fight on her own. She hid behind monsters, behind underlings, behind protocol and politics. She had never engaged me in battle, although legend had it that she led an army once. If so, there was nothing left of that woman when I met her. Amarantha was not a warrior.

  J.B.’s wings carried her over the rooftops, away from the sounds of battle and gunfire that were now coming from the air above my yard. I hoped that Nathaniel would be all right. I hoped that he would not have to kill any of the Agents and thus give Sokolov yet another excuse to come for me.

  She headed toward the lake. The surface of the water churned, mysterious and dark, and I felt the presence of Alerian once more.

  I sped up, grabbing J.B.’s ankle. Amarantha tried to shake me off, to blast me in the face with her magic. I turned J.B.’s body upside down and shook it, and several tokens fell from his pockets to the beach below.

  “No!” she shrieked. I knew then that she couldn’t access J.B.’s own magic inside his body. She needed Greenwitch’s charms to perform a spell. I lowered to the sand, dropping J.B. somewhat unceremoniously.

  I saw the charms a few feet away, scattered on the ground, visible in the light from the streetlamps that lit the lakefront path. Amarantha scrambled for them, but I did what I did best.

  I set them on fire.

  There was a small explosion, a puff of red smoke as the spells dissipated into the air.

  Amarantha fell to her knees, pulling on J.B.’s hair. I walked up behind her, clapped my hands on his face, and sent my power inside him. I chased her screaming through his blood, all the way to his heart.

  She paused there, and squeezed. I could sense her smile.

  J.B. coughed, his hand going to his chest.

  “Enough,” I said, and sent more power inside his body. I needed to be careful. I could blast J.B. apart with the force of my magic, even as I was trying to save him.

  Amarantha was a black shade on his heart, wrapping herself around and around him, smothering him.

  I heard J.B. gasping. Brute force wasn’t working. I couldn’t blast my way out of this one.

  I tried to think. Amarantha was a ghost. What could destroy a ghost?

  Nothing, I thought hopelessly. You cannot, by definition, kill something that is already dead.

  But perhaps I didn’t need to. Once an Agent, always an Agent.

  Instead of blasting Amarantha out of J.B.’s body, I called her name.

  Amarantha.

  I put the force of my will behind it, like I did when I was separating a soul from its body with my Agent’s magic.

  Come to me, I said, and she uncoiled like a reptile, releasing J.B.’s heart. I was the charmer and she the snake. I kept my focus on her, drawing her on, drawing her
out.

  A silver mist rose from J.B.’s skin, and Amarantha emerged, spellbound.

  J.B. fell forward in the sand. I let Amarantha go.

  I came to my knees beside him, turned him over. “J.B.? J.B.?”

  He lay so still.

  “J.B.!” I shouted, shaking him.

  He coughed once, twice, and opened his eyes. “I liked the way you woke me up the last time better.”

  I laughed and wiped my eyes.

  “Are you crying?” he asked, reaching up to stroke my cheek.

  “Nah,” I said. “I got sand in my eyes.”

  I didn’t say that when Amarantha was squeezing his heart, I’d felt my own heart about to burst from grief. I didn’t say that for a moment I thought I’d lost him, too, like I’d lost Gabriel.

  I looked around, realized Amarantha had escaped.

  “Dammit,” I said. “I wanted to follow her and find out where she’s keeping her hidey-hole. She’s been working with Therion. She’s probably the one who enspelled the hospital for the vampires. She found Antares’ stash of magical stuff from his mother.”

  J.B. sat up, rubbing his head. “That explains a lot. She gave me one hell of a headache. Hey, you have wings again. Fancy shiny ones. How did you get those.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. One I would never tell. You do not tell a man who has proposed to you that you got brand-spanking-new powers by being intimate with another man on your dining room floor.

  I helped J.B. to his feet. “Do you remember anything from when she possessed you? Maybe the location of her secret base?”

  He shook his head, wincing. “No. The last thing I remember I was in my office, reading a memo from Sokolov about you…”

  He trailed off, staring at me. “A memo that said you had taken a soul from the other side of the Door and returned it to the living.”

  “Don’t lecture me,” I said. “I didn’t have any choice.”

  “You know, I seem to recall Nathaniel saying something similar about his role in the rebellion. And you were very adamant that there’s always a choice. So I’m sure that you could have made a better one,” J.B. said angrily.