“Your gratitude is overwhelming,” I said, picking myself up from the muck and looking around.
We seemed to have landed in a swamp. I stood ankle deep in rushes and lily pads, and enormous mossy trees dangled their branches over the water. The air was gray and misty and filled with a sulfurous odor. After a few moments my eyes began to water.
“And what did you bring him for?” Beezle said, jerking his thumb toward Nathaniel.
I looked in the direction that Beezle had pointed and realized that Nathaniel had flown out of the portal. He hung just above the water, angelic white wings outspread, not a speck of mud on him.
“I hate you,” I said, and the bastard had the audacity to smirk.
I began to slog toward the shore and the little cage in which Beezle was trapped. Nathaniel fluttered ahead of me and landed next to Beezle’s cage, examining it carefully.
“So where’s the big reveal? How come you were so all fired up that I shouldn’t come and get you?” I said.
Beezle sighed, closed his eyes for a moment, and pointed behind me. “Because of that.”
As he said it, I became aware of fine earthquake tremors in the ground, and the water lapping against the backs of my legs. The scent of sulfur grew stronger, and Nathaniel stood up, eyes hard and watchful.
I huffed out a deep breath. “It’s something huge, isn’t it?”
Beezle nodded. “Yup.”
There was a sound of several limbs splashing in the water. “Is it all squishy and tentacly?”
“Yup.”
“I hate my life,” I said, and as I turned I conjured a ball of nightfire and threw it.
I had a sense of something massive, an enormous twostory shadow that trembled and pulsed and oozed, and then the ball of nightfire hit it and it opened its enormous maw and howled in rage.
Its howl created a gale force wind that tossed me back several feet. I landed on the hillock beside Beezle’s cage. He seemed nonplussed.
“I think that just made it madder,” he said.
I pushed up to my elbows as the creature came forward, sniffing for me with a long, elephantine nose. It had several small eyes but the orbs were covered in a milky white film—the creature was blind. The nightfire did not seem to have damaged it in any way.
“Do you think you could manage to defeat this thing quickly so we can get home?” Beezle said. “I never did get my doughnut.”
“Only you would think of doughnuts at a time like this.” I came unsteadily to my feet and pushed out my wings. “Where’s Nathaniel?”
“Got tossed that way when the monster started yelling,” Beezle said, pointing behind him. “Not such a smartypants with those wings now, is he?”
There was no sign of the angel. Behind the hillock was a tangle of trees and darkness, surrounded by mist.
“How come your cage didn’t get tossed, too?” I asked.
“It’s attached to the ground. Um, maybe you want to direct your attention to the giant monster squishing toward us? It seems to have caught your scent.”
“Yup, right on that,” I said.
I tried to get a good look at the creature as I readied my magic. The shifting clouds of mist made it difficult to get a clear view. There was zero sense in trying to overpower it—the creature was the size of a building and had about twenty tentacles with which to grab and crush me. I couldn’t blind it, because the monster was already blind.
“Any idea what this thing’s weakness is?” I asked Beezle.
He put a claw on his lower lip like he was thinking. “I’m not sure, but I think most monsters dislike fire.”
“Fire. Right. I don’t know how to make regular fire.”
Beezle snorted. “Are you sure about that? You do have a heartstone now.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Umm, heartstone? Power of the sun inside you? Did you get denser while I was away?”
The monster squished closer. I tried not to gag at its scent. If I still had the abilities that I’d had when Evangeline possessed me, I’d be able to take down this creature without blinking.
I knew that I had a heartstone, but I didn’t see how that would help me. I didn’t know half of what I was capable of doing. If Gabriel were with me, he could help me. But Gabriel was gone, and Nathaniel had disappeared, and the only being around to help me was a snorting little gargoyle who seemed to think that I was acting dumb by not using a power that I didn’t even know I had.
Beezle huffed. “Whatever you’re going to do, I’d advise you to do it now.”
“Better to try than to be eaten, I guess.”
Lucky for me the monster moved at the pace of a slug. I gathered up my magic, and then I did something that I had only done once before. I thought about my heartstone, about the pulse of sunlight that burned in the core of me, and I drew on that power. As I did, I felt heat burn inside, a beam of sun that traveled through my blood and veins and muscles and penetrated the source of magic inside me.
My magic burst open like a flower blooming at its touch. I knew what to do, knew as easily as if the knowledge had always been inside me and was simply waiting to be awakened—as maybe it was.
The monster crept closer. Its tentacles lashed out, seeking me. It opened its horrible mouth, a mouth filled with rows of tiny serrated teeth that shifted back and forth like the blades of a power saw.
I held out my hand in front of me, pushed the power down my arm and through my fingers. An arrow of flame shot from the tips of my fingers into the creature’s mouth and disappeared into its throat.
“Bull’s-eye,” I said, satisfied.
“Nothing appears to be happening,” Beezle said.
“Wait for it,” I replied.
The monster had stopped, and if a horrible, squishy, tentacly thing with a dozen blind eyes could look confused, then that was the look on its face. Its arms waved about listlessly.
“Still waiting,” Beezle said.
I looked at him. “Have a little faith.”
And just as I said that, the monster emitted an enormous sulfurous belch, and then burst into flames.
It screamed in rage and pain, and the smell of its burning flesh was horrible. A flaming tentacle lashed out, and I was forced to run backward toward the trees in order to avoid it.
“Oh, sure, just leave me here!” Beezle shouted after me.
“You’re safe enough,” I shouted back, but as I retreated a little ways into the cover of the trees, I wasn’t sure about that. I was hoping that the cage would provide some protection should one of the monster’s burning arms smash into it, but maybe the force of the tentacle would knock Beezle’s cage off its mooring and into the swamp.
I turned back, trying to see if I could free Beezle from a distance. The thick, greasy smoke pouring off the nowdead monster made it impossible to see. I inhaled shallowly but I still coughed and choked as the smoke filled my lungs. A heavy, oily residue filled my mouth and nose.
“Why can’t anything ever be easy?” I muttered.
I dropped to the ground and tried not to think about what I was crawling through. My fingers clawed in moss and mud, and I could feel my knees sinking in the muck as I pushed forward. Sweat and smoke stung my eyes and made them water.
“Beezle, shout out, would you?” I called. “I can’t find you in this mess.”
“To your right,” a growly voice said in a long-suffering tone, and it was not three inches from my ear.
I turned my head to see Beezle watching me frog-crawl through the mud.
“That look really works for you,” he said.
“Why is it that I wanted you back again?” I said.
I came to my knees, inspecting the cage. There didn’t appear to be any kind of door or lock.
“How does this open?” I asked.
“Antares sealed it with one of his momma’s spells,” Beezle said.
“Antares took you?” I asked. “Did he throw the bomb through the window, too?”
“Yup,” Beezle said. “He came up on the house under a cloak of invisibility and then manifested in front of me. Before I had a chance to warn you he had me magically bound and was tossing the bomb.”
“Then he came back and took you to the portal in the alley,” I finished. “Do you know if he was the one who put the portal there?”
“I don’t think that he did,” Beezle said thoughtfully.
“It seemed like, from the many evil-villain mutterings that I could catch, he was using someone else’s portal for his own device. He seemed to think he was being pretty clever.”
“He usually does,” I said. “But why would he send me that note when he clearly wants me to get blown up? What’s the point?”
Beezle frowned inside the cage. “What note?”
“The one that said, ‘I know where they are keeping him,’” I replied, running my hand around the seam of the cage. I could sense the spell that Antares had used to seal the cage shut. It was imperfect, and when I prodded it gently with my own power I could feel the spaces in the magic where it would give way. The only thing that I was afraid of was a booby trap. “Do you know if Antares wove anything dangerous in with this seal?”
“It didn’t seem that way, unless there’s a trap already inside the spell. He was in kind of a hurry.”
“Trying to avoid the big monster that lives in the swamp, I bet. Well, there’s nothing for it but to try.”
“Says the woman who’s probably not going to get splattered into a million pieces if you’re wrong.”
“Do you really think I’d let you get splattered into a million pieces?” I said, and tried to keep the uncertainty that I felt out of my voice. I wasn’t going to let Beezle get blown up if I could help it.
I carefully found a weak spot in the spell and pushed my power through it as gently as I could. The top of the cage flew off with a surprising amount of force and clocked me in the chin.
Beezle snorted a laugh as he flew out of the cage.
I rubbed my chin. “And I say it again: why was it that I wanted you back?”
He shrugged as he hovered in front of me. “Because you’ll never survive without me?”
I pushed wearily to my feet. “I may not survive with you at this rate. Now, what the hell happened to my useless fiancé?”
Beezle pointed into the woods. “Like I said, he went that way.”
“I wonder if he got knocked out,” I said as I squelched my way through the mud toward the trees. “Nathaniel!”
He didn’t answer. The heavy mist and the shadows of moss cascading from the branches made everything look eerie. I kept thinking that I saw a person in the mist, but when I looked closer I would see that it was nothing but the twisted claw of a tree or a shifting bit of moss.
After a few minutes I stopped. Beezle, who fluttered just next to me, took the opportunity to rest on my shoulder.
“Why are we stopping in this creepy place?” he asked.
“Because I don’t think I should go any farther and get myself hopelessly lost. As it is, I’m not sure that I could retrace my steps back to the swamp.”
“Just follow your nose,” Beezle said. “I’m sure the stink of burning monster carcass will lead the way.”
“Nathaniel!” I called again.
We waited in the silence, and as we did I realized something. There was no noise in this place. No buzzing of insects, no chirping of birds, no slosh of toads as they leapt from lily pad to pond.
I stepped back, all of my self-preservation instincts coming to the fore. If you walk in the woods and you hear no noise, it’s usually because something big and scary is on its way. “I’m not sure that we should stay here any longer.”
“What about Nathaniel? Azazel won’t like it if we leave him here.”
“He’s an angel. I think he can take care of himself,” I said, and turned on my heel. And stopped.
Standing in front of me were three people aiming bows and arrows at us. They were all male, tall and thin and dark haired, and the tips of their ears were just slightly pointed. They were dressed like refugees from Peter’s Lost Boys—animal-skin pants and leaves woven into shirts.
“Faeries,” Beezle mumbled.
“Got that much figured out, thanks,” I said.
The faerie in the middle, a middle-aged male, spoke. “Who are you that dares to breach the realm of the most glorious Queen Amarantha without permission?”
“Amarantha,” I repeated in a monotone.
Of course. Antares had led me right into the kingdom of the woman I was supposed to negotiate with as Lucifer’s ambassador. I really should give Antares more credit. Looks like my half brother knew what he was doing after all.
8
“DO YOU THINK YOU’LL GET YOUR HEAD CHOPPED OFF in front of the whole court, like Lucifer’s last ambassador?” Beezle asked quietly.
“Can we not talk about separation of my extremities? It gives me the queasies,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.
“Answer me, intruder, or you will be executed here and now for your crime,” the middle faerie said, and he tightened his grip on the bowstring to show me he meant business.
I held my hands up. “Peace. I am Madeline Black, Agent and daughter of Azazel. I came here unwittingly through a portal looking for my gargoyle.”
I jerked a thumb at Beezle, who was still perched on my shoulder. He gave the three faeries a little finger wave.
The faerie frowned. “Daughter of Azazel? You are Lucifer’s ambassador?”
“Yes,” I said warily. “And who are you?”
“I am called Ivin. If you are the ambassador, then why are you here instead of at court?”
“I didn’t come here with the intention of negotiating today. Like I said, I didn’t even realize this was Amarantha’s kingdom. I was looking for Beezle and kind of ended up here by accident.”
Ivin’s face hardened. “Accident is no excuse. And besides, we are well versed in the duplicity of your kind. How am I to know that you did not come here with the intention of spying and gaining some advantage before the negotiations begin?”
“I give you my word as an Agent that I did not come here to spy,” I said. I was starting to get a little nervous. I knew that whatever happened here would probably make my task as negotiator that much more difficult. But even more than that I was wondering whether I could outdraw three archers with my magic should they decide that the best option all around would be to shoot me then and there.
“The word of an Agent may be worth something, but the word of the fallen is less so,” the faerie said.
“I’ve never fallen from anything,” I said.
“Your father is one of the Grigori, and thus you are one of their kind.”
Just then there was a rustle of leaves in the trees a few feet away, a thump, a cry. It sounded like there was a struggle going on just out of sight.
Ivin, who was obviously the leader, gave a hand signal to the faerie next to him and that man disappeared into the woods. A few minutes later he and a fourth faerie appeared holding Nathaniel between them. My fiancé’s hands were tied in front of him with a thin cord that looked like vine, his hair was rumpled and filled with feathers and his pale blue eyes were icy with fury.
I sighed. I didn’t know if Nathaniel had been trying to sneak around and save me from the faeries or sneak around to the portal and save himself, but either way it was apparent that reconnaissance was not one of his skills. I really, really, really missed Gabriel. In a survival situation, he was significantly more competent than Nathaniel.
“I found this angel attempting to slip past us,” the fourth faerie said to the leader.
“Nathaniel ap Zerachiel?” Ivin said, and his voice was astonished. “You, who have always come to Amarantha in good faith?”
“Ap Zerachiel?” I muttered to Beezle. “What’s that all about?”
“Zerachiel is his father,” Beezle whispered back. “One of the archangels, before the Fall.”
; No wonder Azazel wanted me to marry Nathaniel. Azazel probably wanted me to make some kind of super-angelic baby. Between my mother’s bloodline as a direct descendant of Lucifer, Azazel’s own power and Nathaniel’s heritage, we would probably make a monster. I shuddered involuntarily. Just one more reason to make sure this marriage never, ever happened.
Nathaniel bowed his head curtly. “And I continue to negotiate with your queen in good faith on behalf of my lord. I had been separated from Madeline and was attempting to reconnect with her.”
“But what were you doing here in the first place?” Ivin asked.
“I believe Madeline told you we were here to rescue her gargoyle.”
“So you lurked in the woods to spy on our conversation? If your conscience is clear, why not simply rejoin your party?”
Just as Nathaniel was about to open his mouth and respond, yet another faerie came trotting out of the woods from the direction of the swamp. This one, too, was tall and thin and dark haired. They all pretty much looked the same, like they’d been cloned.
The new arrival stopped in front of Ivin and reported. “The leviathan has been killed. Burned to death.”
Ivin’s eyebrows winged up to the top of his forehead. He turned to look at me accusingly.
“It was going to eat me,” I said. “What did you want me to do?”
His eyes hardened. “I should kill you here and now for this offense, but since you are Azazel’s daughter I will take you to the queen for judgment. Bind her hands.”
I wasn’t willing to jeopardize all of our lives by doing something foolish, and I didn’t think Lucifer would appreciate it if I spoiled his negotiations before they even began by knocking all these idiots out with my magic and running away. But there was no way in hell they were going to bind my hands. I would not be brought before Amarantha like a prisoner. I may have been covered in mud and dressed like a homeless person, but I was still Madeline Black. I had some pride.
One of the faeries came forward with the vine cord. I stepped back and conjured a ball of nightfire, holding it in front of me. The other four faeries made ready to fire their bows.
Black Night Page 10