Black Heart

by Christina Henry

  Even worse, I could still feel Lucifer’s approval.

  I definitely was not interested in doing anything of which Lucifer would approve.

  “Well, it looks like you managed to take care of the Cimice problem,” Beezle said. “In a typically overboard fashion, that is.”

  I glanced around the room. You could hardly tell that there had been a network of slimy, dripping eggs a few moments before. All that remained was a few blackened, shriveled fragments. Most of the eggs had disappeared completely, nothing remaining except some flakes of ash on the floor.

  J.B. released Nathaniel’s arms. “I’ll go out the back and up to the window of the condo and get your clothes. Stay here.”

  He disappeared into the darkness as he passed out of the glow of Nathaniel’s nightfire, which still floated above us.

  Beezle floated in the air between Nathaniel and me, a disapproving look on his face.

  “Don’t say anything,” I warned.

  “I could just dump the rest of this water over your head, since you deserve it,” Beezle said.

  “Why didn’t you go with J.B.?” I asked.

  “Because I think the two of you need monitoring,” Beezle said.

  “It was me that was the problem, not Nathaniel,” I said. “I lost control of my power.”

  “I don’t think so,” Beezle said. “I think you knew exactly what you were doing. And you were enjoying it.”

  “I didn’t expect it to be like that,” I whispered. “Nathaniel, I’m sorry you got hurt because of me.”

  “He was enjoying it, too,” Beezle said.

  “Do not presume to know my feelings, gargoyle,” Nathaniel said.

  “You may have marginally improved as a person, but deep down you’re still a guy who loves power. That was why you wanted Maddy in the first place, way back when Azazel arranged a marriage between you. Don’t lie to me and tell me that you didn’t feel the call when she looked at you,” Beezle said. “I could see it happen.”

  “Madeline may tolerate your interference in her business, but I do not have to,” Nathaniel said.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Beezle said, smirking.

  I approached Nathaniel, a little embarrassed. “I should heal you.”

  He put his hand on my chin, lifting my eyes to his. “Do not hide from me. You did not mean me harm.”

  “But I did it anyway,” I said. Everything inside me was a tangle. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “I know who you are,” he said softly. “You are Madeline Black, as you have always been.”

  I placed my hands on his neck, his lips, making the blackened, blistered flesh disappear.

  I heard the sound of pounding feet, and we turned to see J.B. running down the hall between the storage spaces.

  He stopped in front of us and dumped an armload of clothing on the floor. My sword clattered to the ground.

  “Get dressed,” he said. “Bendith’s gone.”

  15

  NATHANIEL SWORE. “WHOEVER SET THE CHARGE ON the building must have known he was inside.”

  He yanked a shirt and jeans from the jumble of clothes and pulled off his pajama pants. He wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath but he didn’t seem self-conscious in the least.

  Beezle turned away, covering his eyes with his hands. “For the love of the Morningstar, don’t do that without warning me. I’ve seen enough naked humans for one day.”

  J.B. had collected my jeans and shoes, but my underwear and shirt had burned up in the heart-of-darkness incident. I put on the jeans while he scooped a plaid flannel shirt out of the pile.

  “I brought you one of mine,” he said, trying to look everywhere except my chest.

  “Thanks,” I said, pulling it over my head, as it was already buttoned. I felt better once I was covered by the shirt. J.B. was a lot taller than me, so the tail hung to the middle of my thighs. “Was there any sign of a struggle outside?”

  J.B. shook his head. “No. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.”

  Nathaniel finished dressing, pulling on a pair of well-worn black leather boots. “It could not have been the assassins, then. They would not have bothered to take him away.”

  J.B. nodded grimly. “They would have killed him and left him there so we could see that we’d failed.”

  “Somebody took him,” I said as I put on my own boots. “I don’t think he would have left of his own accord, do you?”

  Nathaniel paused. “I suppose it’s possible he ran off in a fit of pique.”

  “I noticed that he wasn’t too happy about my arrival,” I said.

  Nathaniel directed the nightfire back toward the stairs and we all trooped in that direction. Beezle took up his usual position on my shoulder.

  “No, he was not,” Nathaniel admitted. “However, I still need to find him. If Bendith is out on his own, then he is vulnerable.”

  “Doesn’t he have magic of his own?” I asked. “He can’t be totally helpless. He’s Puck and Titania’s kid, after all.”

  “He does have abilities,” Nathaniel said. “But they are woefully underdeveloped. It seems that Titania deliberately prevented him from nurturing his power.”

  “She was afraid he might realize he was related to Puck and not Oberon if he used his magic too much,” I guessed.

  “Precisely,” Nathaniel said. “I have attempted to help him access more of his magic, but it is difficult to overcome centuries of neglect.”

  We spilled out into the alley, all of us braced for the possibility of attack. There was no one there. It seemed unusually silent, especially after the excitement of the explosion. I’d half expected the place to be crawling with assorted emergency personnel. But there was no one around. The scent of smoke pervaded the air, and the sky appeared to be lightening.

  “Better get under a veil,” I said. “We don’t want to attract attention.”

  Nathaniel dropped a veil over all of us, but somehow managed to manipulate it so we could still see one another. His power was noticeably stronger than before, and the darkness that lingered beneath my skin quickened in anticipation.

  No, I thought, pushing it back. I wasn’t a time bomb waiting to go off. I was Madeline Black, just as Nathaniel had said, and I controlled my power. It would not control me.

  But Beezle was a little bit right when he said that you weren’t totally out of control before, wasn’t he? You liked it. You liked feeling all-powerful.

  I pushed the thought away. My heart was still my own. I did not belong to Lucifer. I would not.

  “Now what?” Beezle said.

  “I can trace Bendith,” Nathaniel said. “We have a blood connection, so it is a simple thing for me to follow him.”

  Nathaniel closed his eyes. I could feel the pulse of his magic spreading outward, searching for a trace for Bendith. J.B. raised his eyebrows at me, and I knew that he could feel it, too.

  And I was as strong as Nathaniel, maybe stronger. It was a terrifying, seductive thought.

  Nathaniel’s magic pulsed again, and there was something different about it, almost as if he were frustrated.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I cannot feel him,” Nathaniel said, and I could hear the strain in his voice. “I have been able to sense his presence since we met in Titania’s forest.”

  “Since your eyes changed and you both realized that Puck was your father,” I said.

  “Yes. I am always aware of him,” Nathaniel said. “However, now that I realize it, I lost him when you were, ah . . .”

  “. . . on fire and kissing you like she wanted to devour you?” Beezle said innocently.

  “I am going to make sure you never eat hot wings again if you keep this up,” I said.

  Beezle mimed zipping his mouth shut.

  “In any case, he must have disappeared then,” Nathaniel said. “But I did not realize it because I was distracted.”

  “So there are two options,” I said. “He left this world for another
, or someone is deliberately hiding him from you as you were hiding him from everyone else.”

  “The list of suspects strong enough to do that is pretty short,” J.B. said. “I’m looking at two of them.”

  “And obviously you can eliminate the two of us from your suspect roster,” I said.

  “So that leaves Lucifer, Puck, Alerian, Daharan, Titania and maybe a few of the fallen,” Beezle said.

  “I don’t think we want to go around quizzing any of them to see if they have alibis,” I said.

  “What happened to Daharan, anyway?” Beezle asked. “I thought he was going to smack Sokolov around and then come back to you.”

  “He didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.

  “Maddy—” J.B. began.

  “No, I know he didn’t,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain it to you. I’m not more closely related to him than I am to Alerian or Puck, but I feel more connected to him. I know that he didn’t take Bendith.”

  J.B. looked skeptical, but Nathaniel looked thoughtful. “I wonder why the two of you have bonded so strongly.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know why. I just felt it as soon as I looked into his eyes. It’s like he’s my guardian angel.”

  Saying it made it seem true, and right. Daharan was my guardian. He was supposed to watch over me.

  “I can tell you this,” I continued. “Puck got really, really angry about it.”

  “That makes sense,” J.B. said. “Puck has been trying to maneuver you into his corner, away from Lucifer. He can’t be happy that this other sibling has popped up out of nowhere and staked a claim on you.”

  “This is all very well,” Beezle said. “But what are we going to do about Bendith if Nathaniel can’t track him?”

  “Let’s think about this logically,” I said. “Who has the most motivation to take Bendith away from you and hide him?”

  “Titania,” J.B. and Nathaniel said together.

  I nodded. “That’s what I think, too. So it looks like we’re making yet another unscheduled trip to Titania’s court.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Beezle asked. “You’ve, um, wrecked a lot of her stuff.”

  I’d burned down a lot of her forest, killed off several of her magical guardians, and diminished her husband to his original fairy form. Yeah, you could say I’d wrecked a lot of her stuff.

  Of course, she’d tried to kill me several times, so I considered us even.

  “Would it even be productive?” J.B. asked. “I don’t think Titania would hurt Bendith. She just wants her son back. And if we went to her court, something bad and irrevocable is likely to happen.”

  “That happens a lot around Maddy,” Beezle said.

  “You’re probably right,” I said reluctantly. “But if Bendith doesn’t want to be there, I don’t think we should leave him there against his will.”

  “We are also assuming that Titania will not harm him,” Nathaniel said.

  “I don’t think she would kill her own son,” J.B. said.

  “I agree,” Nathaniel said. “But that doesn’t mean she will not harm him.”

  “Yeah, and Titania is a very creative torturer,” J.B. said.

  A shadow passed over J.B.’s face, and I knew he was remembering when Titania had captured and punished him for not making me fall in line.

  The thought of a mother harming her own son made me sick. I put my hand over my belly, felt my child safe and secure inside me. I could never hurt my kid. I really did not understand immortals at all.

  I rubbed my face. “Let’s think. Obviously it would be dumb to go charging into Titania’s court. She’s got the advantage there. But it’s also the most likely place where she would hold Bendith, isn’t it?”

  J.B. looked thoughtful. “Not necessarily. She has bolt-holes scattered all over the place. She even has some in Chicago. I’ve met with her here a time or two, back when my mother was alive.”

  “It’s unlikely that she came here herself to collect Bendith,” Beezle said. “She would have sent some flunkies to take care of the problem.”

  “Especially because this is considered Lucifer’s realm,” Nathaniel said. “The old ones are very careful not to cross into one another’s territory without permission.”

  “So Bendith might be here,” I said. “Then again, he might not.”

  “Let’s work the problem,” J.B. said. “We’ll eliminate her known addresses here, and if we can’t find Bendith that way, then we’ll do it your way.”

  “My way?” I asked.

  “Yeah, we’ll illegally cross into Titania’s territory, tear up some monsters, burn down a few buildings, threaten the queen, and grab Bendith and leave,” Beezle said.

  I really wished I could argue with him, but that was probably the way it would work out.

  “Where is the most likely place Titania would take Bendith?” Nathaniel asked.

  “She keeps a condo in Water Tower Place,” J.B. said.

  I shook my head. “Too visible. There are shoppers and tourists all over that area. If Bendith tried to make a break for it, he could easily disappear into the crowd. We’re probably looking for something more out of the way.”

  “Hmm,” J.B. said. “I think there’s a place on Damen, down near that Kinzie Industrial Corridor.”

  I knew the place J.B. was talking about. There was a whole lot of nothing that way. There were some condos built by hopeful developers who wanted the area to turn into a happening neighborhood and some large warehouse buildings. Foot traffic was light, and most people drove through that part of the city without stopping.

  “If she wanted to stash him for now and move him later, that would be the place,” I agreed.

  “And we’re all sure that Titania is the one who took him?” Beezle said. “We could be heading out on a wild-goose chase.”

  “We have to start somewhere,” I said impatiently.

  Beezle held up his hands in surrender.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  We took to the sky, heading west toward the industrial corridor. The city below looked more or less normal. Maybe there were fewer cars on the streets than before. Maybe the pedestrians walking on the sidewalk were a little more alert, a little less involved in their smartphones. But all in all, it seemed like Chicago had snapped back pretty well after the vampire attacks. The resilience of the human mind is an amazing thing.

  None of us spoke as we flew. My own brain was too busy working to talk.

  We had all been so preoccupied by my momentary descent into darkness that we’d forgotten three important facts. Someone had put the Cimice in J.B.’s building. Someone had set an explosive in the building. And someone had put layers of protection in the structure.

  Given the number of enemies that I had, it was by no means a sure thing that the same person had set the explosion and planted the Cimice. Since Titania already had an association with the insects, then she was the obvious suspect regarding the eggs. But she wasn’t the only suspect.

  My own darling uncle Puck could have put the Cimice in J.B.’s building for some twisted reason of his own. Or he could have been working at Titania’s behest.

  The explosives were a different story. There was something very unsubtle, very un-fae, about an explosion. It felt more like something a demon would do.

  And that opened up the probability that Focalor was out and about trying to cause trouble. He was still pissed at me for humiliating him in front of Amarantha’s court. I’d also killed Azazel, his partner in rebellion, and caused him to completely lose status in Lucifer’s court by exposing his treachery.

  Yeah, Focalor was a good bet for planting the explosives. But how had he known I was in the condo? Or was he trying to get at me by hurting J.B., and the plan backfired because of the protective spells on the building?

  And who had set the protective spells in the first place?

  Too many questions, not enough answers.

  Nothing big was happening, as it had be
en when Azazel was massing his troops or when the vampires attacked. There was no obvious problem for me to attend—as Beezle had said, I was a soldier without a war. But all these little things added up made me uneasy. And I still wanted to know why Puck had wanted me away from the city for a few months, killing Cimice on a foreign world. He had plans of his own, and I hated to think that I had inadvertently helped him fulfill those plans.

  I felt the kind of anxiety that you feel when you know a storm is coming, and you can’t do anything about it.

  We seemed to be on the leading edge of something huge. All the players were moving into position, but I didn’t know yet what part I was to play in the game, or where the other players were going to move next. I was never good at predicting what immortals might be up to at the best of times, but I felt more blind than usual.

  There were too many factions with their own agendas. My agenda was just to make sure that I survived and kept my baby safe. Oh, and to make sure no “normals” got caught in the cross fire.

  J.B. and Nathaniel had gotten a little ahead of me while I was ruminating. Beezle had fallen asleep on my shoulder and was snoring softly.

  J.B. paused in midair, looking down. “I can’t remember exactly where it is. But it’s in this area.”

  He pointed toward a two- or three-block radius.

  I shook my head. “We can’t go around knocking on doors. Can’t you remember anything about the place?”

  “I didn’t want to be there at all, because it was an official function. So I wasn’t paying close attention. And all the buildings kind of look the same,” J.B. said.

  I had to agree with him. All the structures looked like brick boxes cut out of a mold, especially from up here.

  “I can scan the buildings for signs of the fae, as I did when I checked your residence,” Nathaniel said.

  “Seems almost as inefficient as knocking on doors,” Beezle said.

  “What if,” I said slowly, thinking it through as I spoke, “instead of scanning for signs of the fae, you scan for dead space?”

  Nathaniel looked at me, recognition dawning as he figured it out. “I understand.”