Black Heart

by Christina Henry

  I don’t know whether it was my intense exhaustion or the artificial boost I was getting from my acknowledgment of the totality of my power, but I just couldn’t get that worked up about the arrival of the Retrievers. Which was strange. They had been the bogeymen under the bed for as long as I’d been an Agent, and I’d fled through a portal to another world just so I wouldn’t have to tangle with them.

  But now I couldn’t care less. “Let them come,” I said to Bryson.

  “Agent Black,” one of the other Agents said.

  I looked at him. He was young, muscular, and looked like the type who was dedicated to his job. His eyes were worried.

  “I’m not an Agent anymore,” I said to him.

  “But . . . shouldn’t you be running? Or fighting? Or something?” he said. “The Retrievers are pretty bad.”

  “I know,” I said softly. “I’ve seen them before.”

  “You have?” the third Agent said.

  I nodded. “And a whole lot of other stuff that no one should ever have to see.”

  A street strewn with bodies after Ramuell had destroyed it. A cave full of imprisoned nephilim, calling for my blood. My own body missing its heart, my soul floating high above my broken shell.

  A maze comprised of my darkest fears and deepest secrets. A room full of children tied to machines that took away their memories.

  Gabriel falling, his blood pooling in the snow.

  A plaza piled high with bodies, and vampires pouring from the dark underground into the sunlight.

  More demons and monsters than I could count dying beneath my sword.

  Antares. Ramuell. Baraqiel. Amarantha. Therion. Azazel. Titania.

  Alerian rising from the ocean. Puck’s eyes flashing with mischief. Lucifer smiling.

  Yes, I had seen a whole lot of stuff no one should ever have to see.

  “But, Agent Black—” the first Agent said again.

  “She’s not an Agent,” Bryson spat. “She is a rogue, and should be treated as such. Stop trying to help her or you’ll be cited for insubordination.”

  I looked at the first Agent and shrugged. “Don’t worry about me, kid.”

  The Agent’s face hardened. “It’s not right, sir. She’s pregnant.”

  “Pregnant with a monster,” Bryson said. “Her child will be a plague upon the world.”

  I shook my head. “Seriously, Agent . . .”

  “Hill,” the first guy said.

  “Hill, don’t get yourself into trouble with the Agency,” I said. “It’s not worth the aggravation.”

  Hill tilted his head to one side. “You’re really not worried about the Retrievers.”

  “Nope,” I said.

  I put my hands in my pockets and turned south. That was the direction they were coming from. I could feel them now that they had entered our dimension. I didn’t know where they were kept normally, but it wasn’t on our plane of existence.

  Hill and the other Agent backed away a little from me. Bryson watched me avidly, practically salivating.

  I started to whistle.

  The Retrievers approached, their pace quickening. I sensed their anticipation. They longed for a soul to take, for a purpose. They had spent so long inside their prison.

  “The Retrievers are your prisoners?” I asked Bryson.

  “If we did not imprison them, they would run rampant over the world, devouring souls,” Bryson said dismissively. “We allowed them their lives. Now they can fulfill their desires in the service of the Agency.”

  “You need to stop hiding behind the Agency like it’s some kind of untouchable institution,” I said. “You guys have made plenty of mistakes. And one of them was trying to chain creatures that should never have been chained.”

  “You sound like you feel sorry for the Retrievers, Agent Black,” Hill said.

  “I do,” I said softly.

  As they got closer and closer I could feel their pain, the centuries they had suffered in the Agency’s prison. Even now, when they were allowed to run free, chains bound them so that they would be forced to return to the place they hated.

  Darkness appeared in the distance. The Retrievers would be here at any moment.

  When I saw the Retriever at my house, just before I’d leapt into the portal, I’d had a sense of something huge and horrible, something impossible for the human mind to understand. They sped toward us as giant, inky black shadows, contorting in monstrous shapes.

  I pulled my hands from my pockets, and held them out in front of me in supplication as the Retrievers drew near. The creatures howled as they approached, their maws open, ready to devour me.

  And then they stopped.

  The dark magic inside me poured from my hands, reached out to the Retrievers. The creatures seemed confused. They were supposed to attack me. I poured my compassion into the darkness, and settled it over them like a balm. One of them whimpered, and the three creatures seemed to shrink in confusion. Now the Retrievers looked like nothing more than miserable, confused dogs. They looked like oversized mastiffs, blacker than the night before the dawn.

  In this form it was easy to see the silver cuffs that each Retriever had around two legs. The cuffs were held there by the magic and power of the Agency. These were the bindings that forced them to return to their prison after they did the Agency’s bidding.

  I studied the spell for a moment, and then waved my hand at the Retrievers. The cuffs disappeared into smoke.

  The Retrievers approached me cautiously, wound around my ankles, sought affection from my petting hands. The new magic inside me let me know what they were feeling. They had not been free for eons, and I had given them this gift. They would serve me willingly. They would destroy every member of the Agency if I asked them to.

  I have to admit that I was tempted, just for a moment, to set them on Bryson. As soon as I had this thought, they turned on the Agency’s captain, growling. Bryson backed up several feet, shock and terror on his face.

  “No, no,” I said to my new pets. “Stay.”

  Hill stared at me in amazement touched with fear. The third Agent had fled some time after the Retrievers arrived.

  “Go back to the Agency,” I said to Bryson. “And tell Sokolov that if he comes after me again, I’ll deliver the same punishment to him that he would have given to me. The Retrievers are mine now.”

  “Your heart is as black as Lucifer Morningstar’s,” Bryson said. “One day, someone will bring you to heel.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But it won’t be today. And it won’t be you.”

  Bryson and Hill took off in the direction of the Agency. Hill looked back once over his shoulder at me, floating in midair, surrounded by the Retrievers that were supposed to destroy me.

  “Now, what am I supposed to do with the three of you?” I murmured. “I hope you don’t like pizza, because I don’t think Beezle will share.”

  I continued flying north again, toward the place where my house used to be. The Retrievers loped along in the air beside me. It seemed that the more doglike I thought of them, the more doglike they became. Their ears and heads grew more defined, and they all let their tongues loll out as they ran.

  I flew over my street, unsure what I was doing there. I just wasn’t sure what else to do with myself. After I defeated the big bad monster, I always went home. This was where my home was, even if the house was gone.

  Except that the house was there.

  I landed on the sidewalk in front of the building. It looked just like the house I’d grown up in. The porch was painted red, and the paint was peeling. The bricks over the second-floor window were crumbling. Beezle’s nest of sticks and blankets was perched on the roof over the porch. Lights were burning inside on the second floor.

  I walked forward as if in a dream, wondering whether this was a glamour, a trick. But the steps felt solid beneath my feet. The front door opened when I turned the knob.

  I climbed the stairs to the second floor. The carpet was worn in the same places
. I reached the top landing, and heard someone moving around inside my apartment. The Retrievers had silently followed me inside, and crowded around me, nudging my legs with their wet noses.

  I opened the front door.

  Daharan was setting the dining room table. There was an amazing array of food set up there—a roast chicken, mashed potatoes, grilled asparagus. He turned and smiled when he saw me standing in the doorway, but his smile was touched by sadness.

  “How?” I said.

  “Magic does not only destroy,” he said. “I thought that this was the least service I could do for you, especially since . . .”

  He trailed off, shaking his head. “Not now. First, you must eat.”

  I let him lead me to the table. I wasn’t aware until I sat down that I was still wet from my dunking in Lake Michigan, and that the water that drenched my clothes didn’t smell all that great.

  “Um, maybe I should change,” I said.

  Daharan nodded. “The meal will stay warm for you. I have contacted your gargoyle, and told him that you are well.”

  “Is he coming home?” I asked.

  “Soon,” Daharan said.

  I went into the hallway to the bathroom, where my shampoo and soap waited for me, just as if the house had never burned down. The same towel was thrown over the rack, just as if I’d hastily left it there the day before.

  The Retrievers had trailed me to the bathroom door, and I pointed them back to the dining room. “Wait for me there,” I said.

  The three gigantic dogs reluctantly returned to the other room. I was going to have to come up with some names for them. I wondered what Beezle would think of the new additions to our household.

  I wondered what he would think when he saw the way the darkness had spread inside me.

  I showered, dressed in clothes that had magically returned to my closet, and tied my hair in a braid. My belly protruded slightly above my jeans, exposed by a too-short T-shirt. I was going to have to buy maternity wear soon.

  Beezle would probably have some choice words about maternity shopping, too.

  When I returned to the dining room, I found that Daharan had set my plate with heaping servings of food. The Retrievers were flopped on the furniture in the living room, resting but watchful. All three perked up their ears when I entered the room. Daharan was drinking a glass of red wine, and appeared to be brooding.

  “I note you have gained some new companions,” he said, glancing at the Retrievers.

  “Yes. I’m not really sure what to do with them yet. They seem to want to keep me,” I said.

  “They will be powerful allies for you,” Daharan said. “They will protect your child.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Any advantage I might gain in keeping my baby safe was a good thing. I gave the three giant dogs an appreciative glance.

  “They seem to be getting more doggy by the minute,” I said, putting a forkful of chicken in my mouth. It was delicious, perfectly roasted and crisp outside and juicy inside. Beezle would die of happiness if he could get some of this.

  “They were born of the same stuff that created the universe,” Daharan said. “And they never found a perfect form. Thus they have been malleable, prone to the whims of those who rule them.”

  “Were they never free?” I asked, glancing at the three dogs.

  “Once they might have been. But Michael tamed them long ago, and they were put to the Agency’s service.”

  “Michael?” I asked. “The archangel who was friends with Lucifer?”

  “If anyone can truly be friends with Lucifer, then Michael was,” Daharan said. “The Retrievers terrorized humans, killing them and eating their souls.”

  “But Michael showed them mercy?” I asked.

  “If you could call what he did ‘mercy,’” Daharan said. “He entrapped them, forced them to serve the Agency. The creatures were only acting upon their natures. It is not fair to shoot a tiger simply because it behaves like one.”

  “Are you saying the Retrievers will be good now that they belong to me?” I asked.

  “That depends,” Daharan said. “Are you good?”

  My cheeks colored. “I think so.”

  “I am not passing judgment upon you. I am asking if you still believe that you are, as you would say, one of the good guys,” Daharan said.

  I thought about smothering Titania within a cocoon of darkness.

  “I try to be,” I said.

  Daharan fell silent at this, and I returned my attention to my dinner.

  “Aren’t you eating?” I asked, shoveling food in my mouth. Everything was amazing, and as usual, I was famished.

  “I have already done so,” he said, but something in the way he said it made me pause.

  “No, you haven’t,” I said. “Why would you lie about that?”

  Daharan looked surprised. “You know when I say a falsehood?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I don’t know if I could before. But I can now. Since I . . .”

  I trailed off. I didn’t know whether Daharan knew about the Titania thing yet. And I was a little afraid that he did know, and that he would disapprove.

  “Since you killed the Faerie Queen,” Daharan said.

  There was no judgment in his tone, only a statement of fact.

  “Yes,” I said, putting my fork down. “She thought I killed Bendith.”

  “Of course she thought you killed her son. Because it was arranged so that she would think that.”

  His voice was still calm, but I could see the anger banked in his eyes. The anger wasn’t for me, though.

  “Do you know who set me up?” I asked. Whoever it was had a lot to answer for.

  Daharan took a large sip of wine, swallowed it, and gazed directly at me. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell me who it is?” I asked.

  “I am sorry I did not return to you as soon as you expected me,” Daharan said. “So much of this could have been avoided.”

  “Where were you, anyway? And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you didn’t answer the question,” I said.

  “I was detained by Alerian,” he said.

  “Alerian?” I asked, alarmed. “Why? What’s he up to?”

  “Nothing that he will reveal to me. He simply wanted to see me, as we have been out of contact for many centuries,” Daharan said. “But our powers are in such direct opposition to one another that it has a dampening effect on our magic when we are together. You may have felt the connection between us break while I was in my brother’s presence.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I thought you left, went to some other universe or something. It was the same feeling that I used to get when Lucifer went to the land of the dead.”

  “It was because of Alerian’s presence that I did not feel the threat to you when the faerie king’s apartment was under attack,” Daharan said. “Else I would have rushed to your aid immediately. And if that had been averted, none of the rest would have followed.”

  “So who was it?” I asked.

  “The same person who has interfered so often in your life lately,” Daharan said.

  “Lucifer,” I swore. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but when I—”

  Daharan shook his head. “Not Lucifer. Puck.”

  18

  “PUCK?” I ASKED. I DON’T KNOW WHY, BUT THAT TOOK me off guard. “Puck did this? But why would he kill his own son?”

  “He has another,” Daharan said.

  “Kids aren’t usually that interchangeable to their parents,” I said.

  “I would not know. I have none,” Daharan said.

  “You don’t?” I said, momentarily distracted. “Lucifer’s got them coming out of his ears.”

  “Lucifer is not as discriminating as I,” Daharan said. “And my true nature makes it difficult to mate with human women.”

  I made a concerted attempt to refocus. “Still, even if he does have Nathaniel, it makes no sense for Puck to kill Bendith.”

  “There is so
mething you do not know about Puck,” Daharan said. “Many millennia ago he was tricked into binding his life to Titania. He has served her ever since.”

  I stared at Daharan. “And let me guess. The binding is only broken with Titania’s death.”

  “Yes,” Daharan said.

  The darkness rose up inside me, swirling as my fury rose. “He set it up to make it look like I murdered his son so Titania would blame me. And he used me to kill Titania and free him from his servitude.”

  “Yes,” Daharan said sadly.

  I stood from the table. The Retrievers came to immediate attention in the living room. I stomped through the hallway and into my bedroom. If Daharan had restored everything else in the house, then the object I was looking for would still be there.

  On my dresser a bright blue jewel winked like Puck’s merry eyes. I grabbed the jewel off the dresser and went back to the living room.

  “Puck!” I shouted.

  Nothing. He was supposed to come when I called, when I used the jewel.

  My power rose up, furious now, and Daharan made no move to calm or stop me. He simply waited. The Retrievers lined up in a row before me and sat on their haunches, as if awaiting my command to attack.

  “PUCK!” I said, and pushed my power into the jewel.

  “There’s no need to shout,” he said from behind me. “I’m right here.”

  I spun around. Puck leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his usual expression of merriment on his face. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a black Neubauten T-shirt, and he wore engineer boots. His hair had been artfully arranged with some kind of hair product. He looked like he was going to a concert at the Metro.

  And while Puck was grooming himself for a night out, I was drawing upon the darkness in my soul to unwittingly kill the Faerie Queen for him.

  “I am going to kill you,” I swore.

  I raised my hand to throw a spell at him, but Puck waggled his finger at me.

  “Uh-uh-uh,” he said. “I think you’ll find you can’t do that.”

  I paused. I was pretty sure that, having taken Titania down, I could definitely put the hurt on Puck, but he seemed very confident.