Nathaniel and I were several feet behind them. I was getting a good boost from terror and adrenaline, but I was starting to flag.
“Why can’t we fly?” I panted to Beezle.
“There are things sleeping in the trees,” Beezle said. “It’s better if we don’t wake them up.”
“What could be worse than what’s on the ground?” I asked.
The monster behind us roared. It sounded terrifyingly close. I didn’t want to turn around and see what it was. It was enough to know that it was big, it was angry and it was chasing us.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nathaniel glance over his shoulder. His face paled.
“Beezle, what’s following us?” I asked.
“A spriggan,” he said. “Usually they’re small, but this one has either eaten a lot of human children or it’s swollen.”
“Do I want to know what it will do to us if it catches us?” I asked, finding a whole new running gear as the spriggan’s footsteps pounded closer.
“Do I need to paint you a picture?” Beezle said. “It’s not going to offer you tea and biscuits; I’ll tell you that much for free.”
My lungs burned. My legs were slowing in spite of my desire to live. Even when faced with the possibility of death, I couldn’t keep to an all-out sprint indefinitely.
Nathaniel grabbed my hand, pulling me along. “You must run.”
“I know,” I said.
“I can carry you.”
“You can’t carry me and fight at the same time,” I said. “And I think we’re going to have to fight.”
“You’re not fighting that spriggan,” Beezle said. “They’re barrow guards. Believe me, it’s seen anything you can throw at it.”
“I can’t run much longer,” I said.
Beezle looked behind us. “You have to. But I think it’s slowing down.”
The spriggan roared again, and it did sound like it was slightly farther away. Nathaniel gripped my hand hard, and I felt a little push of magical energy pass from him to me.
His magic burned through me, gave me the boost that I needed. My legs turned over faster and faster. Nathaniel kept pace with me, and after a minute or two we were right on Samiel’s heels.
It seemed like the trees were thinning out, the underbrush growing sparser. The sounds of the spriggan’s pursuit ceased abruptly. I risked a glance over my shoulder.
The spriggan was gone.
“Hold up,” I shouted, coming to a halt.
I bent over, my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. Beezle flew off my shoulder, hovering beside me in the air. Sweat dripped over my face and onto the ground. My fancy new leather pants stuck to my legs, and the sweater was sopping wet.
Jude and Samiel stopped and turned. When Samiel saw that we were no longer being pursued, he put Chloe back on her feet. She looked seasick. She sat on the ground, cross-legged, and breathed in through her nose.
“When I stop feeling like I’m going to puke, I’m going to punch you in the mouth,” she said to Samiel.
Samiel shrugged. I could have let that monster eat you.
“I can run, you know,” Chloe said.
Not fast enough.
“Don’t argue with her, Samiel,” I said. “She just wants to pick a fight because she knows you’re right.”
“How do you know that?” Chloe demanded.
“I live with Beezle,” I said. “I recognize the symptoms.”
I straightened up, wiping the sweat from my face with my sleeve. I looked at Nathaniel. “What do you think happened to the spriggan?”
“Either it was called off by Titania, or we got far enough away from its barrow that it decided we were no longer a threat to its treasure,” he said. “But there will be more creatures like it in these lands.”
“I know,” I said. “We’ve got to figure out where we are in relation to everything else. And we need a more effective way of tracking J.B. than sniffing around for him. Sorry, Jude.”
Jude barked once in acknowledgment.
“Weren’t you here before?” Chloe asked.
“Yes, but the portion of the kingdom that we walked through was an illusion,” I said. “I have no idea where we are in relation to the place where Lucifer brought us. And we might be walking through another illusion now. Faeries do like to maintain appearances.”
“What was underneath the last illusion?” Chloe asked.
Nathaniel, Beezle and I looked at one another. “Umm, it was a kind of game board,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed. “A game board.”
“Yeah, and Oberon and Titania were watching us on the board…Never mind,” I said, because Chloe looked like she might lose her temper. “Nathaniel, could we do a tracking spell to find J.B.?”
Nathaniel considered. “The tracking spell is usually used to find traces of magic. If J.B. has not used magic in this place, it would be very difficult to find him that way.”
“We can’t just walk around the forest banging into things and hoping we’ll stumble onto him.”
The next moment, Nathaniel shoved me to the ground. I hit the dirt hard and rolled over, ready to tell him off. But he stood where I had stood a moment before, an arrow in his hand. If he hadn’t pushed me out of the way, I’d have that arrow in my heart. I don’t know whether he could have caught it before his legacy from Puck had been revealed, and I took a moment to be thankful before standing again. Nathaniel pushed me behind him.
Jude tore into the woods, nothing but a furry blur. We heard someone cry out. Jude snarled and yelped, and Samiel ran into the trees after him. There was a flash of light, and the distinctive sulfur smell of nightfire.
Samiel came out of the woods lugging Bendith, Titania’s son, under one arm. Jude trotted out behind him. The faerie queen’s progeny was out cold, a nightfire burn on his shoulder. Jude had taken a good-sized chunk out of Bendith’s leg, too. Samiel tossed him to the ground, a look of disgust on his face.
“Who is this guy?” Chloe asked, nudging Bendith’s still form with her shoe.
“Titania’s son,” I said. “He doesn’t like me.”
“Do you think Titania sent him?” Beezle asked.
I shook my head, remembering the look on Bendith’s face when last I was in Titania’s court, when I had diminished Oberon in front of everyone. “He came on his own.”
I’d neglected to consider the possibility of a son’s desire for vengeance for his father. Well, Bendith thought Oberon was his father, and I was not going to be the one to disabuse him of that notion. Even though I couldn’t believe that he didn’t see the proof every time he looked in the mirror. His eyes were exactly like Puck’s. I stared at Bendith, possibilities turning over in my mind.
“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 pushed 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.
Black City (A BLACK WINGS NOVEL) Page 14