Black Howl

by Christina Henry

  The moon hung low over the trees. I had no idea how much time might have passed while we were inside the castle. I flew around the castle to the front door, where I hoped I’d see the others waiting for me. There was nothing except the abandoned cars and bodies that had been there when we arrived, which meant that I had to go back inside the castle to find them.

  “We need some kind of magical IM-ing,” I said. I could probably text Gabriel, except that if he was fighting for his life, he doubtless would not be checking his cell phone.

  The open door yawned before me, the empty foyer black and menacing. The last thing I wanted to do was go back inside, but I would never leave my husband and my friends behind. I pulled the sword from its sheath and held it before me like a talisman.

  I crossed the threshold, my boots unnaturally loud in the silence. Far away inside the castle I heard the howl of a wolf.

  I ran across the entryway, trying to figure out what direction the noise was coming from. And that was when I was hit from behind.

  A heavy body crashed into me, sent me face-first to the ground. Fangs pierced the back of my neck and I screamed in pain. I elbowed Violet with all the strength I could muster—not much, considering how tired I was, but it was enough to make her weight shift.

  I wriggled out from beneath her and rolled onto my back as she dove at me again. I slashed out with the sword and felt the blade slice through bone. Violet screeched and fell away from me, clutching her left arm with a clawed hand. The arm hung by a few ragged strands of muscle. She glared at me in hatred.

  I struggled to my feet, dizzy and bleary-eyed.

  “Poison,” I gasped.

  Someone trilled a laugh to my left, and I swung the sword awkwardly in the direction of this new threat.

  “Yes, of course there’s poison in her fangs,” Amarantha purred. “And there is no thrall here to heal you.”

  I wiped dripping sweat out of my eyes. Amarantha was just a blurry shadow in the hall. I could feel my heartstone throbbing in my chest as the poison careened through my bloodstream.

  Violet lunged for me again and I swung the sword at her, both of my sweaty hands gripping the hilt so that I wouldn’t lose it. She danced backward away from the blade. I kept my eyes on her. Violet seemed more inclined to do me physical harm than Amarantha. The Queen liked to keep her hands clean.

  “What will you do now, Lucifer’s child?” Amarantha taunted. “The poison will kill you long before your friends get here—if they get here. I’ve left a few obstacles in their way.”

  “You really are a gigantic bitch, aren’t you?” I said. My tongue felt thick and heavy in my mouth. “That’s your son up there. Don’t you care if he lives or dies?”

  Amarantha was silent for a moment. I didn’t want to steal a glance at her since all of my attention needed to be on Violet.

  “Once, I would have cared,” Amarantha said finally. “But he chose his loyalty long ago.”

  “Because he fulfilled his duty?” I asked. This was an argument I’d had with Azazel several times. “Because he chose not to abandon the dead to dance at your heel?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He is no son of mine.”

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” I said, and I turned and threw the sword at her.

  She didn’t expect it, and neither did Violet. There was a moment when time seemed to slow down. The blade flew through the air and passed through her chest, throwing her backward to the floor. I saw blood pooling beneath her.

  Violet howled and ran at me. I had no magic, no sword, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stand. So I didn’t. I threw myself to one side and cleverly dodged her attack by falling to the ground. Then I kicked out with both legs as hard as I could, aiming for her knee. I’m not as strong as Samiel, but I am significantly stronger than the average person. There was a satisfying crack and she tumbled forward.

  I scrambled backward just enough so that she couldn’t grab at me, but Violet was no longer interested in fighting. She was dragging herself on her one good arm and leg to her Queen’s side.

  The snake on my palm wriggled in warning. The sword was still embedded in Amarantha’s body. Violet wasn’t trying to hear the Queen’s last words—she was trying to get the sword so she could chop my head off with it.

  “Damn it all,” I said, trying to stand and falling again as my head swam.

  I army-crawled toward Amarantha’s body as fast as I could, but I wasn’t going to make it.

  Violet used one of the columns to pull up to her feet and yanked the sword from Amarantha’s body. She stood unsteadily on the dislocated knee, but her expression was full of triumph and malice. I heard the last rattle of breath from the Queen, and the misty ectoplasmic form of her soul emerged. The soul looked as Amarantha used to, a vision of otherworldly beauty, not like the twisted demonic body Lucifer had given her.

  “Kill her,” Amarantha said.

  I pushed to my knees as Violet ran toward me with the sword raised. As she did, the castle began to tremble alarmingly, as if an earthquake had struck. Pieces of the ceiling rained to the ground. The magical spell that bound the castle together must have broken completely with Amarantha’s death.

  I heard voices coming closer, J.B. and Gabriel, and Wade’s barking. Violet tumbled to the ground as the castle shook, the sword flying free of her hand. I crawled toward it, sickness rising in my throat, my body on fire. The poison was going to kill me before Violet had a chance.

  My fingers closed around the sword. Stars filled my eyes and I rolled onto my back, coughing blood. The poison was in my lungs. It was burning me alive.

  Violet closed her good hand around my wrist, tried to wrench the sword from me. We must have looked pathetic, two mauled and half-dead creatures wrestling over a sword as the building came down around our ears.

  “Kill her!” Amarantha’s soul screamed.

  “Shut…up,” I slurred. “I killed you so I wouldn’t have to listen to you anymore.”

  Violet slashed at my face with her claws and my cheek split open. I punched her where Samiel had broken her jaw and she rolled away from me, thrashing in pain. A chunk of the ceiling landed on my stomach and all the breath whooshed out of my body.

  I rolled over, knocking the rock to the floor, and tried to fly since I couldn’t walk. But I was too tired to hold myself up and I managed to flutter only a few feet before collapsing again. I didn’t know where Violet was.

  The floor cracked underneath me. I could barely see now, between the salt burning my eyes and the pain that turned them black. Even the rumbling of the castle seemed a distant thing.

  “There, there, you idiot!”

  Beezle. That was Beezle.

  Hands underneath me, a cold wet nose pressed against my face, my body lifted and slung over a broad shoulder. I smelled apple pie baking, and heard Gabriel murmuring.

  Then I felt cold air on my face, and went out.

  14

  I WOKE IN THE COURTYARD, SORE ALL OVER, GABRIEL’S lips on mine. I opened my eyes and felt everything whole again, although angelic healing doesn’t do anything for dirt and encrusted blood and spider goop all over you.

  “I can’t believe you’re kissing me in this state,” I said.

  “You have looked worse,” Gabriel said, smiling.

  “I find that difficult to believe,” I said.

  There was a crack of thunder behind me and I twisted to look at the castle. Or rather, what remained of the castle. It was nothing more than a jumble of stone and mortar now, the broken spell spewing arcs of light into the night sky.

  Beezle landed on my chest and examined my face. “How did you manage to make the whole castle fall down, huh, Maddy?”

  “She killed my mother,” J.B. said from behind Gabriel.

  I sat up more fully, nudged Gabriel aside so I could look at J.B. He had his hands in his pockets and was staring broodily at the remains of his family court.

  “I did,” I said steadily. I wouldn’t off
er any excuses.

  “I knew that you would,” he said. “She wouldn’t stop trying to kill you.”

  “I’m sorry that I’m unreasonable about that,” I said, a tad defensive. “But people keep trying to make it a question of them or me.”

  “I’m not blaming you,” he said. There was no sorrow in his voice, and his eyes were dry. “I just knew that it would happen, sooner or later.”

  “Well, the upside of Destructo-Girl’s actions is that the room full of spiders is destroyed, so we can cross that off our to-do list,” Beezle said.

  “And we got Wade back,” I said.

  “For which I am heartily grateful, Madeline Black,” said Wade.

  He stood next to Samiel, wrapped in Gabriel’s overcoat. He looked a lot thinner than the last time I’d seen him. Exhaustion had etched his face in new lines, and his salt-and-pepper beard was ragged.

  “What of the cubs?” Wade asked. “Did you find them as well?”

  “Yes,” I said, and explained what had happened. “But we still don’t know how to…fix them.”

  I looked at J.B., who turned away from the castle to face Wade. “We’re trying to find a way to heal them, but it’s difficult. We’ve only just determined that it’s their memories that have been taken from them.”

  “Yes,” Wade said grimly. “That, I knew.”

  “Why didn’t they take yours as well?” I asked.

  “Amarantha and Focalor had some other intention for me. They would not reveal it. But they did force me to watch as they tore the first memories from our cubs.”

  “What are they doing with the memories?” I asked.

  “They’re selling them,” Wade said. “To vampires.”

  “Selling them?” I said blankly. “Why?”

  “Human sensation is like a drug to these creatures. They feed off it. When a vampire kills a human he experiences all the moments of that human’s life before death. Many vampires become addicted to the thrill of memory. But it is impractical to kill humans all the time.”

  “It attracts too much attention,” I said.

  “And depletes your food supply,” added Beezle.

  “So Amarantha and Focalor decided to get together and sell memories to vampires? How did they come up with the technology for extracting the memories in the first place?” I asked.

  Wade shook his head. “This I do not know. There is a third party in this game. Whoever that is presented the technology to Amarantha.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “There’s an unknown factor running around.”

  “Madeline,” Gabriel murmured. “I know that it is important to find the source of these problems, but do you not think we should return Wade to his pack? They have been grieving for their alpha.”

  I rubbed my face, tired beyond comprehension. “Right. Return Wade to pack.”

  “Jude is going to grind his teeth to dust when you bring Wade back,” Beezle predicted. “He didn’t believe you.”

  “Believe what?” Wade asked.

  “Maddy promised to bring you back,” Beezle said, landing on my shoulder as I got to my feet.

  Wade grinned. “That is why I told Jude to go to her if I went missing. Madeline’s loyalty is her finest quality.”

  My cheeks reddened as everyone looked at me. “Don’t we have somewhere to be?”

  Gabriel touched my cheek. “You should not be embarrassed. Everyone here knows that you would fight to the death for them. It is why we put our own lives in peril when you ask. It is why the Grigori fear you, why Lucifer wants so badly to collect you.”

  “Because she’s stubborn?” Beezle said. “I never really considered that a positive quality.”

  That’s because when you want a doughnut and she says no, you know you’ll never get it, Samiel signed.

  “I’m more stubborn that she is,” Beezle said. “If it’s one thing gargoyles know how to do, it’s outlast.”

  “Ooookay,” I said, very uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. I didn’t want any more discussions of my qualities while I could hear them. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  I turned away in the direction of the portal, but not before I saw them all smile at one another, like they knew something I did not.

  I crashed into bed when we finally got home. It was midday, but the sky looked like it was threatening snow so my bedroom was pleasantly dark. Gabriel kissed my cheek and then I conked out.

  When I woke up I was painfully aware of the fact that I had slept unwashed and in my clothes. I rolled to my feet and wandered over to the window. Snow had fallen while I slept—a great deal of it. The rain barrel in my backyard was covered to about half its height, and the snow was still coming down. It looked like we were having a genuine Chicago blizzard.

  I stripped out of my clothes and went for the bathroom, wondering vaguely where everyone was. The bathroom door opened just as I finished shampooing all the gunk out of my hair.

  “Gabriel?” I called.

  “Yes,” he said, and pulled aside the shower curtain.

  He stepped inside, and I looked up at him. His eyes were burning.

  “I’ve never taken a shower with anyone before,” I said, smoothing my hands over his shoulders.

  “Neither have I,” he replied, and he kissed me. “But I think we can figure out what to do.”

  “I think we need to burn those sheets,” I said as we got dressed in the bedroom a little while later. “We’ll never be able to get the spider goop out of them.”

  Gabriel gave the sheets a critical look. “You may be correct. The spider ichor seems to be very…persistent.”

  “And very smelly,” Beezle said as he flew into the bedroom and landed on the dresser.

  I pulled my sweater over my head and glared at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of privacy?”

  “That is a concept with which I am unfamiliar,” Beezle said.

  “Newlyweds usually enjoy being alone,” I said pointedly.

  “Gargoyles usually enjoy being fed in a timely manner,” he replied.

  “Go bother Samiel,” I said.

  “I’ve been bothering him all morning. It’s your turn,” Beezle said.

  “Your cell phone is ringing,” Gabriel said, cutting in.

  I kicked around in the pile of filthy clothes on the floor until I found my peacoat. The phone was in the inside pocket, and I had to very carefully unfold the jacket to get at it without getting dirty again.

  I glanced at the caller ID. “What’s up, J.B.?”

  “You need to get downtown as soon as you can,” he said, and there was suppressed excitement in his voice. “I think Chloe’s figured out a way to cure the victims, but I need your help first.”

  “We’ll be there soon,” I promised, and clicked off.

  I told the other two what J.B. said.

  “We can go as soon as I get fed,” Beezle said.

  “Why are you coming?”

  “Because I was there when you found the cubs, and I want to see them fixed,” Beezle said.

  Sometimes I don’t think I give Beezle enough credit.

  A couple of hours later the four of us—me, Samiel, Gabriel and Beezle—had passed through security and were on our way to the basement room where Chloe worked on the machines. When we arrived we found Wade and Jude were already there with J.B.

  “En Taro Adun, Madeline Black!” Wade said.

  Jude grunted at me. He had been thrilled to see that Wade was alive, but he had been less pleased that I had been the author of Wade’s escape from Amarantha. Jude still had trouble comprehending that I was not Lucifer.

  We all crowded into the small room. Chloe looked less than pleased to have so many people in her space—that was, until she saw Samiel.

  “Well, helllllo,” she said, giving him the up-and-down.

  Samiel looked slightly panicked.

  “Quit messing around, Chloe,” J.B. said. “Show them.”

  Chloe lifted one of the machines from the pile on the t
able. “So, it’s been pretty well established that what’s being stored in these machines are memories. What I couldn’t figure out was how the memories were being extracted and then manipulated. It was clear after a while that the solution was part mechanical and part magical.”

  “There is a spell embedded in the machine?” Gabriel asked.

  “Exactly,” Chloe said, and winked at him. I got the feeling that she enjoyed flirting and that she wasn’t particularly discriminatory.

  “The spell uses the eye scanner on each machine to extract the memories. Once they are removed the memories are embedded in this chip,” she said, pointing to a tiny computer chip. “It seems, from what Wade told us, that the chips are then taken out of the machines and put in some kind of virtual reality headset that is probably also enspelled. It would actually help us to have one of those headsets so I can see how the spell operates, which is why you’re here.”

  I looked at J.B. “How are we supposed to track down one of the headsets?”

  “We’ve got a line on the location of a vampire nest,” J.B. said.

  “Didn’t we do something incredibly stupid yesterday?” Beezle complained.

  “I think I may have broken down the components of the spell enough that we can rebuild it to work in reverse if I can get this final piece. But it’s going to take time—a lot of it. First we have to match the correct camera to the correct person. We’ll have to remove the magic embedded in each machine, carefully rebuild the spell, and then…”

  “The only way to test if it will work is to try a machine on a person,” J.B. said, and looked at me. “At least you had the unbelievable foresight to collect all the cameras. With those we can actually restore the right memories to the right person.”

  I did not like the sound of trying out this sketchy process on a person without some other kind of testing first.

  “What if we kill the victims when we’re trying to restore their memories?” I asked.

  “Could it really be worse than they are now?” J.B. asked. “They don’t know where they are. They don’t know anything except that they’ve been taken from the machine. Most of them have screamed themselves hoarse. We had to pad the walls so that they don’t kill themselves walking into solid objects.”