Black Heart

by Christina Henry

  “Maybe Titania was going to use them for something and changed her mind?” Beezle asked.

  I put my hands over my ears. “Enough. Enough guessing. We have too few facts to work with here. The Cimice are dead. I’m not. That much is true. I don’t know who was actually responsible for sending me to that place, but I’m not even sure it matters at this point.”

  “It matters if your actions there started knocking down a chain of dominoes and we’re going to feel the effects of it later,” J.B. said.

  “Should I confront Puck directly and demand that he not lie to me? That will be really productive, I’m sure.”

  J.B. took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right. There’s no point in going over and over it right now. You two come back to my place and get some sleep. Maybe Nathaniel or Bendith will have some insight.”

  J.B. pushed out his wings. Beezle landed on my shoulder. I glanced around quickly before I took off.

  “I was keeping an eye out for him,” Beezle said under his breath as I followed J.B. into the sky. He flew a little ahead of us, like he wanted some time to think, and I let him go. “Jack didn’t come after us once you’d threatened him, and he was nowhere nearby when we were talking.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I was so surprised to see J.B. that I forgot where we were—again. We have to stop having important conversations in the middle of the street. A regular human might have called the cops if they heard us discussing murder and mayhem.”

  “Especially since you look weird,” Beezle said.

  “Your tact is overwhelming,” I said.

  “I don’t mean your face is weird or whatever,” Beezle said impatiently. “It’s your wings. You spent so much of your life as an Agent with the ability to tuck them away when you wanted to blend in. You don’t have that now. And I think that you keep forgetting that your wings are visible all the time now.”

  “I do keep forgetting,” I admitted. “I keep forgetting that I’ve changed.”

  I put my hand over my belly. What was going to happen when Titania discovered I was pregnant? Or Amarantha? Even as a ghost she’d displayed an uncanny knack for causing trouble, and she’d worked with my enemies before. There was no hiding the baby now. I wasn’t completely sure how big a normal woman’s belly was at three months, but mine looked bigger than it was supposed to be.

  “Beezle,” I said. “Was my mom’s stomach this big when she was three months pregnant with me?”

  “No way,” Beezle said vehemently. “Either your kid is really big-boned or he’s growing faster than normal.”

  “How much faster, do you think?” I asked in a small voice.

  “I don’t know,” Beezle said. “Why?”

  “I’m not ready to deliver this baby,” I said.

  “Most women feel that way,” Beezle said. “Giving birth is a scary thing.”

  “I’m not scared of the process,” I said. “I’m scared of what’s going to happen after the baby is born. He’s going to be much more vulnerable. How will I keep him safe?”

  Beezle put his little hand on my cheek. “I don’t know how you’ll do it. But I know that you will.”

  I nodded, unable to speak. I would do whatever it took to keep my child safe. Of that, I was sure. But would “whatever it took” be enough? Titania, in particular, would love to take my baby from me and raise it as her own. Faeries are crazy about human babies. You only had to read a few old folktales to know that. And for her to take a baby of Lucifer’s line would be an unprecedented coup.

  Of course, Lucifer would be unable to allow such an insult to pass. And then he would have to go after Titania. There would be a war, and my child could be killed in the cross fire. But Lucifer’s pride would be satisfied.

  I shook my head to try to clear away such thoughts. My baby wasn’t born yet. He hadn’t been stolen away. He was still safe and snug inside me. I just had to make sure that I didn’t get killed.

  That was a tall order these days.

  I was so caught up in my own worries that I didn’t notice where we were until Beezle nudged me in the side of my neck with his elbow.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t you want to go with J.B.?” Beezle asked.

  I saw J.B. descending toward the sidewalk in front of his building in the Loop. He lived in a condo in Printers Row, a short distance from Agency headquarters. It was a nice little area bordered by some slightly sketchy streets. Like a lot of places in Chicago, the haves rubbed right up against the have-nots.

  “Veil your wings,” J.B. called.

  “Right,” I said, and did so.

  J.B. aimed for a shadowy spot on the street, away from foot traffic, which was fairly sparse this time of night.

  “I could eat a horse,” Beezle said as we touched the sidewalk.

  “You just ate,” I said. “You haven’t even given your body a chance to digest that pizza yet.”

  “Yeah, but Hackney’s is right over there,” Beezle said, pointing toward the next street. “I can smell the burgers.”

  J.B. punched a key code in at the front door of his building and held the door open for us. He automatically checked his mailbox on the way in, collecting a couple of envelopes and throwing the catalogs into a small wastebasket underneath the boxes.

  He started up the stairs to the fourth floor.

  “Stairs?” Beezle said. “No elevator?”

  “I don’t know why you’re complaining,” I said. “You’ve never walked up a set of stairs in your life. You’ve always been carried.”

  “It’s psychological pain,” Beezle said. “It’s hard for me to watch you expend that much energy.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  J.B. paused when he reached the door. “I wonder if I should send you outside, and then send him out.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I don’t know how he’s going to react, and I would hate for my condo to be destroyed.”

  It was kind of weird standing there with J.B. like this, with him more or less acknowledging that Nathaniel was my boyfriend. Which he was, and he wasn’t. And it was even weirder that the two romantic rivals had been sharing the same living quarters for the last few months.

  I started to speak, to tell J.B. that maybe it was best if Nathaniel and I went outside anyway, as I wasn’t particularly interested in an audience for our reunion. But the front door flew open, and Nathaniel stood there.

  I remembered the first time I met Nathaniel, standing in the doorway of my father’s ballroom. He was golden and arrogant and perfect, and I’d hated him on sight.

  Now he was silhouetted in another doorway, his hair dark instead of gold, his eyes no longer icy blue but the same jewel-bright shade as Puck’s. Instead of looking polished and tailored, he wore a flannel shirt and jeans that looked like they were falling off his frame.

  I didn’t hate him anymore. I wasn’t sure what I felt for Nathaniel. That had been the problem we’d had before I left, before he thought I died. But I was happy to see him. That, I couldn’t deny.

  He was thinner, a lot thinner, and he looked tired. But he saw me, and his eyes blazed.

  Beezle flew off my shoulder to J.B.’s. “Umm, we’ll just . . . get out of your way.”

  Nathaniel stepped into the hallway. His feet were bare, but he never hesitated, his eyes never leaving my face. J.B. and Beezle slipped into the apartment behind Nathaniel and quietly closed the door.

  I stood still, and I waited. My insides were all jumbled up, in need and confusion. This was what he did to me.

  He put his hands on my face, like a blind man, feeling my cheeks, my nose, my eyebrows.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  I nodded. I wanted to crack a joke to lighten the tension, but I couldn’t be flippant in the face of his emotion. He’d thought I died, and it was just sinking in now that I hadn’t, that the last few months of grief need never have been.

  “You’re alive,” he rep
eated.

  And then his mouth was on mine, devouring, almost punishing. It was like he was trying to crawl inside me, trying to breathe the same air I was breathing. He was marking me, claiming me as his.

  I was breathless, and he was relentless, and I welcomed it. And then I remembered Gabriel. My lust turned to confusion. Gabriel was dead. I was alive.

  But he was watching me. He’d said so.

  “Nathaniel,” I tried to say, but it came out a jumble of syllables.

  He kept kissing me, like he couldn’t stop, like an addict reunited with his drug of choice.

  I pushed at his shoulders, and he finally got the message. He pulled away from my mouth, leaned his forehead against mine, looking into my eyes.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said. “Sokolov told J.B. you were dead.”

  “I know,” I said soothingly, taking his hands in mine. This wasn’t the time for a heart-to-heart about Gabriel, or the future of my relationship with Nathaniel.

  But I was going to have to make some kind of decision soon. Would I continue to live in the past, with the memory of Gabriel? Or would I let Nathaniel in?

  “Sokolov told us you were dead,” Nathaniel repeated.

  The air around him seemed to change, to crackle with electricity. His hands dropped away from mine and curled into fists.

  “I will tear him to pieces,” Nathaniel said, and when he spoke he didn’t sound like Nathaniel anymore.

  He sounded like Lucifer when he was in Prince of Darkness mode. He sounded like something not of this earth, something not human at all—which he wasn’t. He was the son of Puck and an angel of the host, and there wasn’t a drop of humanity inside to temper his rage.

  “Nathaniel, don’t,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. His fury was a palpable thing, heat pouring from his body. “Don’t make it worse than it already is. If you kill Sokolov, the Agency will not be able to ignore you anymore. They’ll come for you.”

  “Let them come,” Nathaniel said. “I will destroy them all.”

  “Nathaniel,” I said, my hands on his face, trying to draw him back to me. “Don’t bring grief upon yourself for my sake. I’m here. I’m alive.”

  “I would do anything for your sake, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. His jewel-blue eyes burned. “I would slaughter a thousand enemies for you. I would tear the sun from the sky for you. I would defy the laws of the universe, reorder the galaxies, stand against Lucifer and his brothers in defiance, if that was what it took to keep you safe. I will not lose you again. I will not.”

  “You won’t,” I said. “You won’t.”

  “You cannot make such a guarantee,” Nathaniel said.

  “Neither can you,” I said softly. “Death comes for us all.”

  I kept my hands on his face, my eyes on his eyes. “Nathaniel. For me. Do not do this, because I am asking you not to.”

  “Madeline,” he said, and his voice broke. The heat of his anger receded a little. “Do not ask me to lay aside my vengeance. They deserve to suffer. They hounded you and harried you and sent the Retrievers to take you.”

  “But you saved me,” I said, and kissed him very gently. “You sent me away. You saved me.”

  “I thought I had killed you,” he said, and one single tear fell. “I wanted only to keep you safe, and I thought I had sent you to your doom.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “I survived. I always do.”

  “And you truly do not wish me to take vengeance upon Sokolov for your suffering? He is responsible. He should pay.”

  His eyes searched mine. I knew he wanted me to let him loose upon the Agency, but I couldn’t do it.

  “Someday someone might have to take care of Sokolov,” I acknowledged. “But not today.”

  “I would feel better if you would let me smite him,” Nathaniel said sulkily.

  I laughed. He looked like a toddler who’d just been denied a trip to the candy store. “I know it would be satisfying to break him into little pieces, but no.”

  “I will respect your wishes, Madeline,” Nathaniel said. “For now. But know this—Sokolov will receive no more chances from me.”

  I understood what Nathaniel was saying. The next time Sokolov tried anything, Nathaniel would grind him up and spit him out.

  And no amount of affection for me would stop Nathaniel again.

  13

  I HAD TO MAKE PEACE WITH THIS. IT WASN’T THAT I necessarily objected to removing Sokolov. He had tortured J.B. He had sent Bryson after me and Nathaniel, and we’d been shot out of the sky and nearly killed. He’d sicced the Retrievers on me and caused me a lot of grief generally.

  And I wasn’t that bothered by one more death. Maybe that was a dark-side thought, but it was true. Especially the death of someone who had worked very hard to make himself my enemy.

  I didn’t want Nathaniel to incur the wrath of the Agency. I didn’t want him to be hunted as I was.

  But I also couldn’t ask him to sit by over and over and watch the woman he cared about suffer at Sokolov’s hands.

  So I had to make peace with this. Nathaniel would not be leashed by me again, and I couldn’t ask him to be.

  He watched me expectantly, waiting for my answer.

  “I understand,” I said finally.

  “Good,” he said, and kissed me again. It was a warmer kiss, full of promise, and when it was over he took my hand. “Now you can come inside and tell me what has happened to you.”

  “And you can tell me what’s happened to you,” I said. “You look like you haven’t eaten a thing since I left.”

  “You are also thinner,” Nathaniel said.

  “But I was on an alien planet and I didn’t know what food was edible,” I said.

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Eating was not a priority.”

  “It was for me,” I said. “But I thought I was only gone for a few days, not three months.”

  Nathaniel pushed open the front door. Bendith, J.B. and Beezle were seated around a coffee table, arguing over something. I realized in that moment that I had never been inside J.B.’s condo. He had been in my house a ton of times, but I’d never seen his living space.

  It was more or less what I would have expected of J.B. Color was pretty much nonexistent—everything was gray or black. Wall-to-wall carpeting was gray. A galley kitchen opened into a wide living/dining area, with a hallway leading off behind the living room, presumably toward bedrooms. The kitchen was pristine, and looked like it had never been used.

  Tall windows on the opposite side of the front door were covered by dark gray shades that completely blocked out any ambient light from the street. There were tall lamps set at intervals around the room. The dining room had a square table made of something shiny and black, surrounded by four chairs.

  The living area was arranged in a perfect rectangle, with a sofa on one side, two chairs divided by an end table on the other and the coffee table in the center.

  There were no photographs, throw blankets, flowers, books, or anything personal of any kind. It looked like a show floor at Crate and Barrel, except with less warmth.

  It was kind of shocking to think that three men had been living in the space. I would have expected a spare sock on the floor or a dirty cereal bowl in the sink, at least. There was nothing. Just a perfectly perfect, almost inhuman space.

  Bendith and J.B. sat on the couch a few feet apart, and Beezle was perched on the coffee table, which looked like it was made of the same stuff as the shiny laptops in the window at the Apple store. I realized that Beezle was standing in front of a stack of take-out menus, and that the argument was about whether or not to order food.

  “Maddy said you just ate,” J.B. said. “You’re not going to get me in trouble.”

  Bendith had looked up when we walked in. I saw his eyes lock on Nathaniel, like a child who was waiting for his parent to come home. He glanced at our joined hands uncertainly.

  I knew that Bendith was very attached to Nathaniel. Bendith and I had not had positive inter
actions in the past. He, like so many people I knew, had tried to kill me. He had to be wondering about his welcome now that I’d returned. But I wasn’t going to bring it up unless he did. I had enough uncomfortable personal conversations looming on my horizon.

  Nathaniel shut the door quietly behind us. I dropped his hand and crossed my arms, glaring at Beezle.

  “I told you that you don’t need any more food. You just had pizza. We are not getting takeout.”

  “Other people might be hungry,” Beezle said. “Bendith said he would eat if we ordered Chinese.”

  I looked at Bendith, who shrugged. “Fae have large appetites.”

  “If Bendith wants food, he can have some,” I said to Beezle. “But you’re not getting any.”

  I rubbed my forehead, abruptly tired. I’d been through the wringer today. “Look, J.B., is there somewhere I can lie down?”

  He got to his feet, immediately solicitous. “I’ll put you in the spare bedroom. Just give me a second to change the sheets.”

  Nathaniel led me to one of the empty chairs. “Have you overexerted yourself again today?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said.

  But I had been reunited with my dead husband, and then taken away from him again. And then I’d returned home to find out three months had passed and my house was gone.

  All in all, it had been an emotionally stressful day, if not a physical one.

  “Where shall we sleep if Madeline is going in the spare bedroom?” Bendith asked.

  Nathaniel looked surprised that Bendith would show such poor manners by asking the question in front of me. He frowned at his brother.

  “I am certain that appropriate arrangements will be made for everyone,” Nathaniel said with a finality that indicated the subject was closed.

  Bendith muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear, but Nathaniel could. He’d gotten super hearing when he had come into his legacy from Puck.

  His disapproving frown changed to thunderous anger in an instant. “Apologize to Madeline.”