Black City (A BLACK WINGS NOVEL)

by Christina Henry

  “And can you do that now?” Nathaniel said.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I realized a few things about Azazel’s formula that can work to our advantage.”

  “Which are?”

  “First, Azazel used the blood of Agents. Lucifer and Puck both told me, ‘Once an Agent, always an Agent.’ I realize now that they were both trying to help me in their usual backhanded way. I am an Agent still, even if I’ve chosen not to be affiliated with them. They can’t take that away from me. The power was always there inside me. I just didn’t realize it.”

  “And how will this help you to draw the vampires to you?”

  “I have an affinity with the Agents’ blood that’s in the formula. In addition, I was the daughter of the maker of that formula. I’m pretty sure that Azazel put a little of himself inside that serum, too. Remember how the vampires behaved when we found them at Azazel’s mansion?”

  Realization dawned on Nathaniel’s face. “Like zombies. Like they were under some kind of compulsion.”

  I nodded. “How much do you want to bet that Azazel made sure there was some kind of fail-safe in the serum? If Therion tried defying Azazel, then dear old Dad would be able to bring all of the vamps that had taken the formula under his control.”

  “If you exert your will, the vampires that have taken the serum will not be able to resist you, just as they would not have been able to resist Azazel,” Nathaniel said.

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” I said.

  I pointed to the giant bowl that protruded from the top of Soldier Field. “What do you think? Can we fit all of the vampires in there?”

  “Even if they cannot all fit inside the building, they will gather near it if your ability to call them to you works,” Nathaniel said. “But I think it will be sufficient.”

  “I hope it will,” I said, and we flew toward the Chicago Bears home field.

  If there were more vampires than could fit inside a giant football stadium, then our troubles were bigger than I thought. Despite my newfound power and my expressed confidence to Nathaniel, I wasn’t as certain as I seemed. When we’d flown over the city as the invasion started, it seemed that there were millions of vampires, but that couldn’t be. There was nowhere for all of them to hide. Except…

  “Nathaniel, where did all those vampires come from in the first place?” I said. “I can’t believe we never thought about this before.”

  Nathaniel frowned. “I presumed that Therion and Azazel gathered vampires from other regions to them. The courts in Chicago were certainly not that big.”

  “But where was Therion keeping them all?” I asked, remembering the vampires that had poured into Daley Plaza. “They had to have somewhere to gather.”

  “They seemed to be coming from the underground,” Nathaniel said.

  I nodded. “There could be thousands more down there, in the pedways and the freight tunnels.”

  “If any of them have taken the serum, then you should still be able to call them to you,” Nathaniel said.

  “What if not all of them have taken it?” I asked.

  “As you say, let us worry about it at another time,” he said. “The majority of the vampires that we saw were strolling under the sun, and you know that you can reach them. Once we have wiped out the majority, then we can deal with the stragglers of this infestation.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying not to worry. “Okay.”

  We approached the museum campus and Soldier Field from the north, almost perfectly retracing the path we had walked just a few days before. The surface of Lake Michigan was covered in Alerian’s fog for as far as the eye could see. Beneath the fog there were dark shadows moving.

  “No one is ever going to come back to this city,” I said, my heart breaking a little. “And if anyone does, they’ll never truly feel safe here again.”

  Nathaniel followed my gaze, saw the shadows shifting. “You do not know that Alerian intends harm to the people of the city,” he said, but he didn’t sound very certain.

  “He doesn’t have to intend harm in order for people to get caught in the cross fire,” I said.

  We flew over the top of the large bowl that perched on top of the original structure of Soldier Field. I lowered down to the center of the field, right on the fifty-yard line.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen when I try to do this,” I warned Nathaniel. “You might want to be ready to run.”

  He looked insulted. “I would not leave you any more than you would leave me. Shall I help you? I can boost your power, as we did before.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said. We’d end up naked and rolling in the grass instead of wiping out the vampires. “Just make sure nothing attacks me while I try to draw the vamps here, okay?”

  Nathaniel nodded. “Very well.”

  I closed my eyes and drew deep within myself, searching for the spark of magic that came from Azazel. It was buried deep. I hadn’t acknowledged my relationship with Azazel for some time, but blood didn’t lie. He was inside me, whether I wanted him to be there or not.

  When I found the source of Azazel’s power I drew it forth so that it was at the forefront of my magic. Underneath that stream I layered my Agent’s strength. Finally, I took both abilities, wound them together, and used the power of the Morningstar to push the call forth. The call of blood. It poured out of me, seeking blood that had the same qualities as mine.

  My magic quested all over the city, long tentacles brushing up against living things in search of what it wanted. I felt the presence of other creatures, other things that lay in wait should the vampires fail. Some of those creatures felt me, too, and the wise ones fled.

  I would take care of the stupid ones later.

  My power touched the humans that remained in Chicago, whether imprisoned by Therion or hiding in their own warrens, little rabbits trembling with fear as they felt me pass by.

  The Agents hunched over their desks or collecting souls paused. They felt something, but they couldn’t figure out what. The call of the Agent’s blood had tugged on them for a moment, but since they didn’t also possess the blood of Azazel, it passed them by.

  Only two looked up and knew it was me, and they stood facing each other across a desk.

  “Maddy?” J.B. said, looking into thin air.

  “Black,” Sokolov growled.

  I kept going until I found a vampire that had been infected by the serum. I lit the fire of compulsion inside it, and then I found that I did not have to draw each vampire to me individually. Azazel had made the formula so that when one was compelled, all would have to follow. I pulled them toward me, made it impossible for them to resist.

  I could feel them in my head, all of them, thousands upon thousands of vampires. They emerged from buildings and sewers. They abandoned their posts at the human encampment, released victims they had been in the midst of torturing. They surged toward me, like a great, black wave.

  There was one I searched for among the many, one that I did not feel.

  Therion. He was smart enough to have realized that any gift from a fallen angel came with a price. He hadn’t taken the serum.

  A moment later, I did feel his presence. But not the way I thought I would.

  Therion’s power snaked along the mindless rows of marching vampires, making them pause, making them turn back to their master.

  “No,” I said, and drew them toward me again, pushing more power into my spell.

  Therion tugged back, trying to re-exert his influence over the horde. I sensed some of them waking up from my compulsion, turning back to him.

  “No,” I snarled, and this time I really put some force into it. I sent a pulse of magic through the original spell, and shot it inside Therion’s.

  The vampire king faltered, choking on my magic. I sensed him drawing away. His minions continued on toward me.

  I smiled as the vampires marched as one body, without mind, toward me, toward their doom.

  16
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br />   I OPENED MY EYES AS THE FIRST OF THE VAMPIRES came within reach of Soldier Field. I used my power to open all of the gates. The vampires spilled inside, moving inexorably toward me.

  They entered the stadium and filed into the seats in an orderly fashion, first filling up the bottom rows and gradually moving toward the top.

  “Are you making them do that?” Nathaniel asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t have a long conversation at the moment. It was taking a lot of effort to hold on to so many vampires.

  “I cannot believe you have such a fine measure of control over them,” Nathaniel said. “You could make them do anything you wanted. You could make them your own army.”

  I didn’t care for the speculative tone in his voice, which sounded a little too much like the old Nathaniel for my liking.

  “I don’t want my own army,” I said. “And it’s not easy to do this, you know. It would be exhausting to keep them all under this kind of control forever.”

  “Mmm,” he said.

  I didn’t know whether to interpret his “mmm” as an “I understand, just a thought” kind of noise or an “I still think having a vampire army is a good idea and we’ll revisit this later” kind of noise. No matter what it meant, I wasn’t going to change my mind. Nothing on this earth would let me allow these vampires to live after what they had done to my city.

  I don’t know how long we stood there. The tide of vampires swelled, then trickled, and finally stopped.

  All of the vampires sat or stood inside Soldier Field. They had crowded into the aisles and spilled over onto the field. They had pushed within ten yards of where Nathaniel and I stood. Now they all waited, standing eerily still and watching me without blinking.

  It should have been noisy in my head, with so many minds connected to mine, but it wasn’t. In this state the vampires had no thoughts of their own. It was like being bound to thousands of empty balloons.

  “Let’s go up,” I said to Nathaniel.

  We rose above the field, and as we did the sun broke through the storm clouds for a moment. My wings were illuminated by the sun. All of the vampires followed me with their eyes, their heads tilting back in perfect unison.

  “Therion,” I called, feeling along the line of energy between us for the remnants of his magic.

  I gathered all my power to me. It felt endless, a vast reservoir that had always been there without my being able to access it. Until now.

  I sensed Therion turning toward me, his cautious attention.

  “You’d better run,” I said.

  I let the light of every sun in the universe shine through me. No serum of Azazel’s could withstand that kind of power.

  The vampires didn’t even throw up their arms to protect themselves. They just stood there, thousands and thousands of monsters of the night, entranced by the blaze of light that poured from me. Then they were gone. Just gone. No flaking bodies, no ash, not even a smudge of black where they had stood.

  They were gone. Forever. And Therion was afraid.

  “I’m coming for you next, rat,” I said.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said urgently.

  “What?” I said, lowering the blaze.

  I looked at the spot where Nathaniel was pointing. Several news helicopters hung in the air just past the Field Museum, far enough away to avoid getting blasted but close enough to have gotten quite the eyeful. I hadn’t even heard the sound of the rotors. I’d been so focused on maintaining control of the vampires that I hadn’t seen or heard anything except them.

  For a second, a very brief second, I considered just blasting the helicopters out of the air. That would take care of that problem.

  Then I remembered that I was not Lucifer or Puck or Therion. I did not swipe at humans just because they annoyed me. And it was very likely that the newscast had been a live feed anyway. So blowing up the helicopters wouldn’t solve anything. The video of me destroying the vampires would be all over the place anyway, no matter how much I would have preferred anonymity.

  And I wasn’t a monster. I wasn’t.

  “What do you think?” I said to Nathaniel. “Should we just make a run for it, or should I fly up and ask if they want an interview?”

  “They will probably try to knock you out of the sky with one of the helicopters if you approach them,” Nathaniel said.

  “Veil up, then,” I said, and winked out of sight.

  Nathaniel followed suit. Interestingly, I could now see a faint outline of him when he was under the veil. Handy. It meant that I wouldn’t lose him, even when we were both invisible. However, to the humans in the news copters it would seem as if we had disappeared in midair.

  He tilted his head to the side. “I can see you.”

  “Like a ghost, right? Sort of see-through?” I said. “I can see you, too.”

  “What is next on your checklist?” Nathaniel said as we glided over Columbus Drive and then continued north.

  “Therion,” I said. “I want to know who is working with him now.”

  I sent out a thread of power, looking for Therion’s signature. I noticed several creatures fleeing through the streets of Chicago as we flew over. Word got out fast when there was a bigger player in town.

  “Those are demons, right?” I said to Nathaniel.

  Nathaniel looked down. “Yes.”

  “Is there any such thing as a good demon?” I asked.

  “I have never met one,” Nathaniel said. “Why?”

  “I’ve got a lot of excess rage to get rid of,” I said, blasting one of the demons. It went up in flames in the middle of Michigan Avenue, right in front of the Art Institute. “It was a little anticlimactic, scorching all of the vampires in one shot.”

  The other demons tried scuttling out of sight, but they were too slow. A moment later they were ablaze.

  “Madeline,” Nathaniel said, grabbing my wrist before I set anything else on fire. “Stop. This is not like you. You do not burn ants with a magnifying glass.”

  “Why not?” I said. “I have the powers of a god, and nothing good has ever come from a demon. You said so yourself. I’m just saving myself the trouble of having to hunt them down at a later date.”

  “They were leaving Chicago,” Nathaniel said.

  “So that they can go and harm someone else in some other city,” I said fiercely, yanking my hand away. “When does it end, Nathaniel? When is it okay for us to take the fight to them? Why do we always have to be on the defensive, waiting for them to kill somebody, or hundreds of somebodies, first before we’ll do something about it?”

  “Do not start crossing those lines unless you want to live in Lucifer’s kingdom,” Nathaniel said.

  I heard Gabriel’s voice in my ear, from long ago and far away, saying, Lord Lucifer has a way of making choices seem gray.

  And I heard Beezle, too, saying, Dark side.

  Was I crossing the line by taking out a few demons just because they’d never done anything to me directly? Or was I just ridding the world of some vermin?

  “I thought you wanted to find Therion,” Nathaniel said.

  “I do,” I said.

  “The longer you spend toying with these creatures, the more likely it is that he will escape, and then you will never discover the identity of his cohort,” Nathaniel said.

  “Fine,” I said. I felt like a chastised child, and I sulked as we flew along. I was still tracing the signature of Therion’s power through the city.

  As we passed over Daley Plaza I felt the tug of my trace pulling me downward. I should have known he would be here, where it had all started.

  I landed in front of the Picasso statue. The plaza looked like the war zone it had been a few days earlier. Everywhere I turned there were coffee cups, sandwich wrappers, coiled scarves and lost mittens, open briefcases. Blood. Lots and lots of blood.

  I stood still for a moment, sending my senses outward, looking for the source of the signature I had traced.

  “There,” I said, pointing
toward the Washington Blue Line stop. “He’s underground, and moving fast. He’s using the subway tunnels.”

  Nathaniel looked at my shiny new wings. “Those won’t be of much used to us belowground. And fire in a close space is a dangerous prospect.”

  “I know,” I said, drawing my sword. “Don’t worry. I know how to behead a vampire.”

  We approached the stairs that led into the station. I sent out a little pulse to make sure that nothing waited for us at the bottom of the steps.

  There was nothing there. I stepped onto the first stair. Nathaniel tried to object, as usual.

  “Madeline, let me…”

  “I just barbecued a stadium full of vampires and you’re still trying to make me walk behind you? What’s next, foot binding?” I said, and jogged down the stairs before he could do anything about it.

  I heard him muttering something about chivalry and modern women but I didn’t ask for clarification.

  We entered the station. The vending box for fare cards had been knocked to the floor, and two of the turnstiles had been torn out.

  The splattered brains of the former attendant had dried on the window of the CTA personnel’s box.

  I moved cautiously through the station to the stairs that led down to the platform. I sent another pulse of power out, and this time I didn’t detect Therion at all.

  “He’s cloaking himself,” I murmured. “Even a vampire couldn’t have gotten out of range so quickly.”

  Nathaniel held his hand up so he could listen.

  “There are several creatures moving in the tunnel below,” he said.

  “They could be rats,” I said. “The regular Chicago kind.”

  “The ‘Chicago kind’ are far from regular,” Nathaniel said. “I have seen the size of those rodents, and there is nothing ordinary about them. However, I can tell the difference between a rat and a vampire.”

  “Can you tell how far away they are?” I asked.

  Nathaniel listened again. “Not precisely. The tunnel makes strange echoes.”

  “Yeah, it does,” I said, thinking of the way that the El sometimes sounded like it was coming from the south when it was actually coming from the north. “Let’s go down.”