Black City (A BLACK WINGS NOVEL)

by Christina Henry

  I tried pushing the healing spell into him, but my magic flickered and sputtered instead of pouring forth in a steady stream.

  “Do not waste your energy on me,” Nathaniel said. “You must go. You must protect your child.”

  “I won’t leave you,” I repeated.

  “Madeline, you do not love me. I know this. I felt it inside you when our powers merged.”

  “I don’t have to love you to know that it’s wrong to leave you,” I said fiercely. “I only have a little power left, and so do you. But we can put what we have together. Maybe we won’t be able to heal your wing, but we can at least repair your back so that you can walk.”

  “Why will you not leave me?” Nathaniel said.

  “I can’t,” I said. Everything I’d ever felt for Nathaniel—the hate and the anger, the sometimes friendship, and, yes, the lust I’d barely admitted to myself—roiled inside me. It would be easier to leave him, to let him fulfill the destiny that he thought Lucifer had written for him. But I couldn’t. Nathaniel had saved my life more than once. And I didn’t know yet just what he was to me.

  “Madeline,” he began again, but I stopped his mouth with a kiss.

  This wasn’t the kiss of before, full of passion and power. This was a connection born of desperation, of a need that I did not fully understand. Into that place where our bodies joined, I poured the remnants of my magic. My power touched Nathaniel’s, and his light was so depleted, so fluttery and small. For the first time, I felt really afraid. I could feel him slipping away.

  “Stay with me,” I said against his lips. “Stay with me.”

  Tears were slipping down my cheeks, falling on his face, and it wasn’t just Nathaniel’s face but Gabriel’s, Gabriel’s frozen body in the snow. Nathaniel’s life wavered, a candle flame flickering in the draft.

  “Stay with me,” I said again, and summoned all the strength, all the will, that I had remaining. I pushed that will inside Nathaniel, let my power twine around his.

  The guttering flame grew brighter. It wasn’t the blazing heart that it had been before, but I knew at that moment I wouldn’t lose him.

  Our magic flowed together through his body, found the broken vertebrae and reknit them—slowly, laboriously. There would be nothing left to mend his broken wing, but he would be able to walk and—I hoped—run.

  After a long while I lifted my head and opened my eyes. Nathaniel studied me in silence.

  “What?” I asked.

  He looked contemplative. “I think I begin to understand you.”

  “It doesn’t appear that understanding me has brought you any joy,” I said, pushing away from him and standing up. I offered my hand. “Do you think you can stand?”

  Nathaniel ignored my hand. He sat up slowly before coming to his feet. His face was white as chalk.

  Once he stood I could see the damage to his wing more clearly. It was sickening.

  It appeared that Bryson had deliberately shot several times into the place where the root of the wing grew into Nathaniel’s back. Muscle and cartilage lay exposed, and the wing looked like it might snap off at any moment.

  I reached toward his wing with my left hand, and that was when I noticed it.

  “Nathaniel,” I said, and my voice was barely a whisper.

  “What is it? They approach. We must move…” He trailed off as I held up my left hand and wiggled my fingers. All five of my fingers.

  He grabbed my hand, inspecting it, then looked up at me in wonder. “How?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “This morning the last two were missing, just like they have been since Samiel cut them off. Now they’re back. There’s been so much other stuff going on I didn’t have time to notice the spontaneous regeneration of my digits.”

  “Perhaps when we combined our powers the first time,” Nathaniel said speculatively. “The force was significantly greater than I expected. Perhaps this regrowth is a side effect.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe the fingers just grew back the way Lucifer always said they would.”

  Nathaniel cocked his head to the side like a dog, like he was listening hard. “Unfortunately, we do not have time to contemplate this miracle. The vampires approach quickly.”

  “You can’t run far with your wing like that. We’ve got to find some way to tape it up before we move any further.” I pointed at the glass doors of the convention center. “Let’s see if there’s a first aid kit somewhere in there.”

  Nathaniel looked doubtful. “If we are trapped in there, we will be rats in a maze.”

  “I’ve already survived a maze,” I said. “And we don’t really have a choice. If your wing breaks off, I doubt that it can be fixed. Do you want to be grounded for the rest of your life?”

  I could tell that he wanted to argue further but the thought of being flightless halted him.

  “Very well,” he said. “Let us move quickly. If we are fortunate, the vampires will be unable to distinguish our scent from that of other humans so recently near.”

  As we hurried toward the doors something occurred to me. “But we don’t smell like humans.”

  “I know,” Nathaniel said, and grabbed the handle of one of the doors. It opened easily. Whoever had left the building last hadn’t bothered to lock up.

  I remembered the vampire I’d met in an alley the previous November, whose eyes had flared at the prospect of taking my blood because I was a descendant of Lucifer. I wondered how easy it would be for the vampires to find us.

  We entered the cavernous hall. Stairs and escalators were before us. To our right was an auditorium and signs for bathrooms at the bottom of a short flight of steps. Advertisements for upcoming events open to the public were piled on a ledge directly to our right.

  “There has to be an aid station here,” I said. “We just need to find a map and get there so we can tape you up.”

  “And then return outside as quickly as possible. I do not like the idea of being closed in this building with vampires.”

  After some searching we found a map of the building and located the aid station. McCormick Place is a sprawling complex that comprises several buildings. We were in the South building. The first aid center was on level 2.5, next to a FedEx office.

  “Level 2.5?” I said as we hurried up the long flight of stairs to the upper floor. It was slower going than our usual hurry. Nathaniel really struggled. Even though we’d healed some of his wounds, the blood loss and exertion were taking their toll on him.

  He paused on the stairs, panting. “You ask the question in a way that expects an answer from me. I have no possible explanation for any of the strange things that humans do.”

  “If Beezle were here, he would have something snappy to say,” I said, putting my arm around him to help him to the top of the stairs.

  “If Beezle were here, he would have stopped at the nearest pastry shop for a snack during the attack by the Agents,” Nathaniel said.

  “That was pretty good,” I said. “A little more practice and you’ll be up to sparring with my gargoyle in no time.”

  “I cannot wait.”

  His face was so serious as he said this that I burst out laughing. He smiled at me, a little half smile of satisfaction, and it almost stopped my breath. Nathaniel never smiled. He scowled; he frowned; he contemplated life in great seriousness. But he didn’t smile, and I don’t think I’d ever heard him laugh. Seeing him smile was like looking on the face of a different person.

  We limped along until we found the mid-level concourse that housed the aid station. A large orange first aid sign hung above a glass door. I yanked on the handle and found it locked.

  “Wait here for a second,” I said, letting Nathaniel go.

  He leaned against the wall, his pale eyes rimmed by circles of black, his blond hair sweaty and hanging in his face.

  I put my hand on the door and spoke the words. “I am the Hound of the Hunt, and no walls shall hide my quarry.”

  The wall became fluid beneath my
touch, and I slipped through it. I had a moment to wonder when Lucifer was going to make me pay for this ability. So far it had been pretty useful to me but he hadn’t called upon me to use it.

  I unlocked the door and Nathaniel stumbled inside. I indicated that he should sit on the handy cot while I rummaged around for the necessary supplies. I returned to him with an armload of tape, gauze, disinfectant and painkiller.

  “Take off your shirt and coat,” I said.

  “I have always wished you would say that, but I was hoping it would be under different circumstances,” he muttered.

  “Wow, two jokes in one day,” I said. “Someone call Guinness.”

  “Why would you call a beer company to tell them that I had said something humorous?” He looked genuinely puzzled.

  I laughed. “I guess angels don’t worry too much about world records.”

  “The only records that matter for the fallen are Lord Lucifer’s,” Nathaniel said.

  I touched the lapel of his coat. “I’ve got to see how bad the damage is.”

  He nodded, and we carefully pulled the coat down his arm on the uninjured side. Nathaniel paused, his face contorted in pain.

  “Perhaps you should cut it off,” he said.

  “But we have nothing else to cover you. And it’s January out there,” I said. “We’re not going to be able to take the El home, you know?”

  “I only need to wear clothing as a concession to humans. The cold does not bother me,” he said.

  “If you say so,” I said doubtfully.

  “I would prefer to endure the cold than the excruciating pain of attempting to carefully remove the coat.”

  “Okay,” I said, sitting on the cot beside him. “Turn toward the wall.”

  Nathaniel turned so his back faced me. The torn right wing was gruesome. I delicately cut from the hem of his coat up the middle of his back, through the space between his wings, and then pulled the two flaps of cloth away.

  His white dress shirt was stuck to the middle of his back. He’d bled profusely, and then the blood had dried. In some places there were scabs that would be torn open as soon as I removed the shirt.

  “Nathaniel,” I said.

  “I know. Do it quickly.”

  I made the cut with the scissors from the tail of the shirt through the collar. I grabbed the two pieces of the shirt at the top, bit my lip, and pulled.

  Nathaniel only grunted as his skin was torn away. He drew the sleeves over his arms and off his wrists, dropping the remains of his shirt on the floor.

  I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, took a deep breath and opened the bottle of disinfectant. “This isn’t going to get any better.”

  “Do not weep for me,” he said quietly, then hissed as I poured the solution into his wounds. “After all the pain I have caused, I deserve whatever harm may befall me.”

  I paused. “What happened to, ‘I was under orders, I didn’t have a choice, and I didn’t mean any of it anyway’?”

  “I kissed you,” he said simply. “When our magic entwined, I saw your heart. And I finally understood how you saw me, and why you held me in such contempt.”

  I applied gauze to the worst of the open wounds. There were several bullet holes in addition to the broken wing. “That’s probably the first time a kiss from me has ever had such a transformative effect,” I muttered. “And I never held you in contempt.”

  “You did,” Nathaniel said. “Your feelings for me were stronger than dislike from the beginning.”

  I thought back to the first moment I’d seen Nathaniel in my father’s court, golden and glorious and full of disdain.

  “You looked like an arrogant jerk. And it doesn’t make a woman think well of you when you say, ‘Hello, we just met, we’re getting married.’”

  “I was doing as—”

  “Azazel told you, I know. Nathaniel, what happened to the bullets? Are they inside you? I don’t want to patch up these holes now only to have to cut the bullets out later.”

  “My body rejected the bullets as part of the healing process,” he said.

  “Like Wolverine,” I said, cleaning and covering the bullet holes.

  “Whom?”

  “I could explain, but you probably still wouldn’t get it,” I said. “Nathaniel, just what exactly did you do for my father?”

  There was a long pause, and I wondered whether he would answer. I finished bandaging the bullet wounds and then contemplated my final task. I had thus far avoided looking too much at the mess that was his wing. I’d have to find some way to immobilize it until we could get him healed the angelic way.

  “I am not certain that my status will improve with you if you know precisely what I did for Azazel,” Nathaniel said carefully.

  “I know that you didn’t do anything good,” I said.

  I carefully touched the top part of the wing root, the part that had torn away. “I’ve got to move this closer to your back. I’m going to put it more or less in its proper place and tape it there.”

  I cut several long strips of tape to have at the ready.

  Nathaniel nodded. I shifted the wing toward his spine. The exposed muscle and arteries squelched. I turned my head away, gagging.

  “This is not a task for a pregnant woman,” Nathaniel said.

  His body had stiffened as I moved the wing into place, and his fists were clenched so hard that the veins in his arms bulged.

  “The only person available is a pregnant woman,” I said, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth until the nausea passed. “If you want to talk about things a pregnant woman should or should not be doing—I probably shouldn’t be fighting demons or killing vampires, either. But there’s no choice. There’s no one in this city besides me who both cares enough and has the ability to fight.”

  I packed gauze around the wings as best I could and then started tacking on tape to hold it in place. Once I’d managed to fix the wing into the position I wanted it, I took a roll of tape and wound it diagonally from Nathaniel’s shoulder, over his back, under his rib and back up his chest to his shoulder again so that the tape looked like a sling. I repeated the action a few times until I was pretty sure the wing would stay in place.

  “Done,” I said finally.

  Nathaniel tried to stand, trembled, and sat down on the cot again. “Now that you have mended me, you must get home. I am too weak to travel at this moment.”

  “Do we have to have this discussion again?” I said. “I’m not going.”

  “Madeline, I must sleep,” he said. “My power can be restored if I can simply rest. But it is too risky for you to stay. If the vampires discover us here, we are, as you might say, sitting ducks.”

  “And what will you be if you’re found here alone and sleeping? We’ve been here for a while and haven’t been discovered. If the vampires were approaching as quickly as you thought they were, then surely they would have passed by the place where we landed already.”

  “It seems very unsafe to make such an assumption,” Nathaniel said, or rather, mumbled. He was so tired that his words slurred together. His eyelids were almost closed, and all I could see was a slit of pale blue rimmed by white.

  “Go to sleep,” I said, pushing him down. “I’ll keep watch.”

  He was too exhausted to argue any further. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply a moment later.

  5

  I WATCHED NATHANIEL FOR A MOMENT, MY THOUGHTS troubled.

  I’d never expected what had happened when we put the veil over the hospital. I’d never considered the possibility that I’d be kissing Nathaniel at all, much less kissing him like I wanted that kiss to go somewhere.

  That might have been the aspect of the situation that bothered me the most. In that moment I had wanted Nathaniel so much I had forgotten about Gabriel entirely. I put my hand to my stomach, to the place where Gabriel’s child fluttered safe and sound inside me.

  Gabriel had been mine for such a brief time that it seemed like a d
ream, the dream of another woman in another life. Every day I woke up to a new reality, a new threat, a new enemy. It had not been long since Gabriel died, but it felt like eons had passed.

  I brushed Nathaniel’s sweaty hair out of his face. He was so deeply asleep that he didn’t even shift. I pulled my hand away, almost as disturbed by this newfound tenderness toward Nathaniel as I was by the lust I’d felt.

  I moved away from him and noticed a phone hanging on the wall. I eagerly picked up the handset, thinking to call in the cavalry, and found the line dead. Beezle had probably worn out his little thumbs trying to text my cell phone. I just prayed to the Morningstar that he hadn’t called J.B. My former boss tended to lose his mind when I was incommunicado.

  Thinking of J.B. made me feel almost as guilty as thinking about Gabriel. J.B. had offered to marry me, to make Gabriel’s son his own. J.B. had told me that he loved me, and I’d told him I would always love Gabriel.

  Which I would. But then I’d kissed Nathaniel, and everything had gotten mixed up in my head. Things were further complicated by the fact that whenever Nathaniel was kind to me, I saw Gabriel. Were my feelings for Nathaniel real, or was I projecting Gabriel on him?

  My baby moved around in my belly, and then my stomach growled. As usual, I was in the middle of a crisis with nothing to eat.

  Nathaniel slept soundly and the concourse was silent outside. I hunted around the aid station until I found a couple of energy bars that someone had stashed on a shelf. They had the approximate taste and consistency of chalk but I was too hungry to care.

  After I’d eaten I drew my sword and stood by the door. I passed the time by making a mental list of all the things I was going to eat when the vampire apocalypse was over and the restaurants reopened.

  A hamburger with blue cheese and mushrooms and a giant pile of waffle fries. Ann Sather cinnamon rolls. Pizza with peppers and mushrooms and onions and hot wings on the side. Toasted ravioli. Onion rings. Beezle would be in hog heaven. If I ate any kind of junk food, he interpreted that as default permission to gorge himself silly.